BEASTS AND SUPER-BEASTS

AUTHOR'S NOTE

"The Open Window, " "The Schartz-Metterklume Method, " and "Clovis onParental Responsibilities, " originally appeared in the _WestminsterGazette_, "The Elk" in the _Bystander_, and the remaining stories in the_Morning Post_. To the Editors of these papers I am indebted for theircourtesy in allowing me to reprint them. 

H. H. M. 

THE SHE-WOLF

Leonard Bilsiter was one of those people who have failed to find thisworld attractive or interesting, and who have sought compensation in an"unseen world" of their own experience or imagination--or invention. Children do that sort of thing successfully, but children are content toconvince themselves, and do not vulgarise their beliefs by trying toconvince other people. Leonard Bilsiter's beliefs were for "the few, "that is to say, anyone who would listen to him. 

His dabblings in the unseen might not have carried him beyond thecustomary platitudes of the drawing-room visionary if accident had notreinforced his stock-in-trade of mystical lore. In company with afriend, who was interested in a Ural mining concern, he had made a tripacross Eastern Europe at a moment when the great Russian railway strikewas developing from a threat to a reality; its outbreak caught him on thereturn journey, somewhere on the further side of Perm, and it was whilewaiting for a couple of days at a wayside station in a state of suspendedlocomotion that he made the acquaintance of a dealer in harness andmetalware, who profitably whiled away the tedium of the long halt byinitiating his English travelling companion in a fragmentary system offolk-lore that he had picked up from Trans-Baikal traders and natives. Leonard returned to his home circle garrulous about his Russian strikeexperiences, but oppressively reticent about certain dark mysteries, which he alluded to under the resounding title of Siberian Magic. Thereticence wore off in a week or two under the influence of an entire lackof general curiosity, and Leonard began to make more detailed allusionsto the enormous powers which this new esoteric force, to use his owndescription of it, conferred on the initiated few who knew how to wieldit. His aunt, Cecilia Hoops, who loved sensation perhaps rather betterthan she loved the truth, gave him as clamorous an advertisement asanyone could wish for by retailing an account of how he had turned avegetable marrow into a wood pigeon before her very eyes. As amanifestation of the possession of supernatural powers, the story wasdiscounted in some quarters by the respect accorded to Mrs. Hoops' powersof imagination. 

However divided opinion might be on the question of Leonard's status as awonderworker or a charlatan, he certainly arrived at Mary Hampton's house-party with a reputation for pre-eminence in one or other of thoseprofessions, and he was not disposed to shun such publicity as might fallto his share. Esoteric forces and unusual powers figured largely inwhatever conversation he or his aunt had a share in, and his ownperformances, past and potential, were the subject of mysterious hintsand dark avowals. 

"I wish you would turn me into a wolf, Mr. Bilsiter, " said his hostess atluncheon the day after his arrival. 

"My dear Mary, " said Colonel Hampton, "I never knew you had a craving inthat direction. "

"A she-wolf, of course, " continued Mrs. Hampton; "it would be tooconfusing to change one's sex as well as one's species at a moment'snotice. "

"I don't think one should jest on these subjects, " said Leonard. 

"I'm not jesting, I'm quite serious, I assure you. Only don't do it to-day; we have only eight available bridge players, and it would break upone of our tables. To-morrow we shall be a larger party. To-morrownight, after dinner--"

"In our present imperfect understanding of these hidden forces I thinkone should approach them with humbleness rather than mockery, " observedLeonard, with such severity that the subject was forthwith dropped. 

Clovis Sangrail had sat unusually silent during the discussion on thepossibilities of Siberian Magic; after lunch he side-tracked Lord Pabhaminto the comparative seclusion of the billiard-room and delivered himselfof a searching question. 

"Have you such a thing as a she-wolf in your collection of wild animals?A she-wolf of moderately good temper?"

Lord Pabham considered. "There is Loiusa, " he said, "a rather finespecimen of the timber-wolf. I got her two years ago in exchange forsome Arctic foxes. Most of my animals get to be fairly tame beforethey've been with me very long; I think I can say Louisa has an angelictemper, as she-wolves go. Why do you ask?"

"I was wondering whether you would lend her to me for to-morrow night, "said Clovis, with the careless solicitude of one who borrows a collarstud or a tennis racquet. 

"To-morrow night?"

"Yes, wolves are nocturnal animals, so the late hours won't hurt her, "said Clovis, with the air of one who has taken everything intoconsideration; "one of your men could bring her over from Pabham Parkafter dusk, and with a little help he ought to be able to smuggle herinto the conservatory at the same moment that Mary Hampton makes anunobtrusive exit. "

Lord Pabham stared at Clovis for a moment in pardonable bewilderment;then his face broke into a wrinkled network of laughter. 

"Oh, that's your game, is it? You are going to do a little SiberianMagic on your own account. And is Mrs. Hampton willing to be a fellow-conspirator?"

"Mary is pledged to see me through with it, if you will guaranteeLouisa's temper. "

"I'll answer for Louisa, " said Lord Pabham. 

By the following day the house-party had swollen to larger proportions, and Bilsiter's instinct for self-advertisement expanded duly under thestimulant of an increased audience. At dinner that evening he held forthat length on the subject of unseen forces and untested powers, and hisflow of impressive eloquence continued unabated while coffee was beingserved in the drawing-room preparatory to a general migration to the card-room. 

His aunt ensured a respectful hearing for his utterances, but hersensation-loving soul hankered after something more dramatic than merevocal demonstration. 

"Won't you do something to _convince_ them of your powers, Leonard?" shepleaded; "change something into another shape. He can, you know, if heonly chooses to, " she informed the company. 

"Oh, do, " said Mavis Pellington earnestly, and her request was echoed bynearly everyone present. Even those who were not open to conviction wereperfectly willing to be entertained by an exhibition of amateurconjuring. 

Leonard felt that something tangible was expected of him. 

"Has anyone present, " he asked, "got a three-penny bit or some smallobject of no particular value--?"

"You're surely not going to make coins disappear, or something primitiveof that sort?" said Clovis contemptuously. 

"I think it very unkind of you not to carry out my suggestion of turningme into a wolf, " said Mary Hampton, as she crossed over to theconservatory to give her macaws their usual tribute from the dessertdishes. 

"I have already warned you of the danger of treating these powers in amocking spirit, " said Leonard solemnly. 

"I don't believe you can do it, " laughed Mary provocatively from theconservatory; "I dare you to do it if you can. I defy you to turn meinto a wolf. "

As she said this she was lost to view behind a clump of azaleas. 

"Mrs. Hampton--" began Leonard with increased solemnity, but he got nofurther. A breath of chill air seemed to rush across the room, and atthe same time the macaws broke forth into ear-splitting screams. 

"What on earth is the matter with those confounded birds, Mary?"exclaimed Colonel Hampton; at the same moment an even more piercingscream from Mavis Pellington stampeded the entire company from theirseats. In various attitudes of helpless horror or instinctive defencethey confronted the evil-looking grey beast that was peering at them fromamid a setting of fern and azalea. 

Mrs. Hoops was the first to recover from the general chaos of fright andbewilderment. 

"Leonard!" she screamed shrilly to her nephew, "turn it back into Mrs. Hampton at once! It may fly at us at any moment. Turn it back!"

"I--I don't know how to, " faltered Leonard, who looked more scared andhorrified than anyone. 

"What!" shouted Colonel Hampton, "you've taken the abominable liberty ofturning my wife into a wolf, and now you stand there calmly and say youcan't turn her back again!"

To do strict justice to Leonard, calmness was not a distinguishingfeature of his attitude at the moment. 

"I assure you I didn't turn Mrs. Hampton into a wolf; nothing was fartherfrom my intentions, " he protested. 

"Then where is she, and how came that animal into the conservatory?"demanded the Colonel. 

"Of course we must accept your assurance that you didn't turn Mrs. Hampton into a wolf, " said Clovis politely, "but you will agree thatappearances are against you. "

"Are we to have all these recriminations with that beast standing thereready to tear us to pieces?" wailed Mavis indignantly. 

"Lord Pabham, you know a good deal about wild beasts--" suggested ColonelHampton. 

"The wild beasts that I have been accustomed to, " said Lord Pabham, "havecome with proper credentials from well-known dealers, or have been bredin my own menagerie. I've never before been confronted with an animalthat walks unconcernedly out of an azalea bush, leaving a charming andpopular hostess unaccounted for. As far as one can judge from _outward_characteristics, " he continued, "it has the appearance of a well-grownfemale of the North American timber-wolf, a variety of the common species_canis lupus_. "

"Oh, never mind its Latin name, " screamed Mavis, as the beast came a stepor two further into the room; "can't you entice it away with food, andshut it up where it can't do any harm?"

"If it is really Mrs. Hampton, who has just had a very good dinner, Idon't suppose food will appeal to it very strongly, " said Clovis. 

"Leonard, " beseeched Mrs. Hoops tearfully, "even if this is none of yourdoing can't you use your great powers to turn this dreadful beast intosomething harmless before it bites us all--a rabbit or something?"

"I don't suppose Colonel Hampton would care to have his wife turned intoa succession of fancy animals as though we were playing a round game withher, " interposed Clovis. 

"I absolutely forbid it, " thundered the Colonel. 

"Most wolves that I've had anything to do with have been inordinatelyfond of sugar, " said Lord Pabham; "if you like I'll try the effect onthis one. "

He took a piece of sugar from the saucer of his coffee cup and flung itto the expectant Louisa, who snapped it in mid-air. There was a sigh ofrelief from the company; a wolf that ate sugar when it might at the leasthave been employed in tearing macaws to pieces had already shed some ofits terrors. The sigh deepened to a gasp of thanks-giving when LordPabham decoyed the animal out of the room by a pretended largesse offurther sugar. There was an instant rush to the vacated conservatory. There was no trace of Mrs. Hampton except the plate containing themacaws' supper. 

"The door is locked on the inside!" exclaimed Clovis, who had deftlyturned the key as he affected to test it. 

Everyone turned towards Bilsiter. 

"If you haven't turned my wife into a wolf, " said Colonel Hampton, "willyou kindly explain where she has disappeared to, since she obviouslycould not have gone through a locked door? I will not press you for anexplanation of how a North American timber-wolf suddenly appeared in theconservatory, but I think I have some right to inquire what has become ofMrs. Hampton. "

Bilsiter's reiterated disclaimer was met with a general murmur ofimpatient disbelief. 

"I refuse to stay another hour under this roof, " declared MavisPellington. 

"If our hostess has really vanished out of human form, " said Mrs. Hoops, "none of the ladies of the party can very well remain. I absolutelydecline to be chaperoned by a wolf!"

"It's a she-wolf, " said Clovis soothingly. 

The correct etiquette to be observed under the unusual circumstancesreceived no further elucidation. The sudden entry of Mary Hamptondeprived the discussion of its immediate interest. 

"Some one has mesmerised me, " she exclaimed crossly; "I found myself inthe game larder, of all places, being fed with sugar by Lord Pabham. Ihate being mesmerised, and the doctor has forbidden me to touch sugar. "

The situation was explained to her, as far as it permitted of anythingthat could be called explanation. 

"Then you _really_ did turn me into a wolf, Mr. Bilsiter?" she exclaimedexcitedly. 

But Leonard had burned the boat in which he might now have embarked on asea of glory. He could only shake his head feebly. 

"It was I who took that liberty, " said Clovis; "you see, I happen to havelived for a couple of years in North-Eastern Russia, and I have more thana tourist's acquaintance with the magic craft of that region. One doesnot care to speak about these strange powers, but once in a way, when onehears a lot of nonsense being talked about them, one is tempted to showwhat Siberian magic can accomplish in the hands of someone who reallyunderstands it. I yielded to that temptation. May I have some brandy?the effort has left me rather faint. "

If Leonard Bilsiter could at that moment have transformed Clovis into acockroach and then have stepped on him he would gladly have performedboth operations. 

LAURA

"You are not really dying, are you?" asked Amanda. 

"I have the doctor's permission to live till Tuesday, " said Laura. 

"But to-day is Saturday; this is serious!" gasped Amanda. 

"I don't know about it being serious; it is certainly Saturday, " saidLaura. 

"Death is always serious, " said Amanda. 

"I never said I was going to die. I am presumably going to leave offbeing Laura, but I shall go on being something. An animal of some kind, I suppose. You see, when one hasn't been very good in the life one hasjust lived, one reincarnates in some lower organism. And I haven't beenvery good, when one comes to think of it. I've been petty and mean andvindictive and all that sort of thing when circumstances have seemed towarrant it. "

"Circumstances never warrant that sort of thing, " said Amanda hastily. 

"If you don't mind my saying so, " observed Laura, "Egbert is acircumstance that would warrant any amount of that sort of thing. You'remarried to him--that's different; you've sworn to love, honour, andendure him: I haven't. "

"I don't see what's wrong with Egbert, " protested Amanda. 

"Oh, I daresay the wrongness has been on my part, " admitted Lauradispassionately; "he has merely been the extenuating circumstance. Hemade a thin, peevish kind of fuss, for instance, when I took the colliepuppies from the farm out for a run the other day. "

"They chased his young broods of speckled Sussex and drove two sittinghens off their nests, besides running all over the flower beds. You knowhow devoted he is to his poultry and garden. "

"Anyhow, he needn't have gone on about it for the entire evening and thenhave said, 'Let's say no more about it' just when I was beginning toenjoy the discussion. That's where one of my petty vindictive revengescame in, " added Laura with an unrepentant chuckle; "I turned the entirefamily of speckled Sussex into his seedling shed the day after the puppyepisode. "

"How could you?" exclaimed Amanda. 

"It came quite easy, " said Laura; "two of the hens pretended to be layingat the time, but I was firm. "

"And we thought it was an accident!"

"You see, " resumed Laura, "I really _have_ some grounds for supposingthat my next incarnation will be in a lower organism. I shall be ananimal of some kind. On the other hand, I haven't been a bad sort in myway, so I think I may count on being a nice animal, something elegant andlively, with a love of fun. An otter, perhaps. "

"I can't imagine you as an otter, " said Amanda. 

"Well, I don't suppose you can imagine me as an angel, if it comes tothat, " said Laura. 

Amanda was silent. She couldn't. 

"Personally I think an otter life would be rather enjoyable, " continuedLaura; "salmon to eat all the year round, and the satisfaction of beingable to fetch the trout in their own homes without having to wait forhours till they condescend to rise to the fly you've been dangling beforethem; and an elegant svelte figure--"

"Think of the otter hounds, " interposed Amanda; "how dreadful to behunted and harried and finally worried to death!"

"Rather fun with half the neighbourhood looking on, and anyhow not worsethan this Saturday-to-Tuesday business of dying by inches; and then Ishould go on into something else. If I had been a moderately good otterI suppose I should get back into human shape of some sort; probablysomething rather primitive--a little brown, unclothed Nubian boy, Ishould think. "

"I wish you would be serious, " sighed Amanda; "you really ought to be ifyou're only going to live till Tuesday. "

As a matter of fact Laura died on Monday. 

"So dreadfully upsetting, " Amanda complained to her uncle-in-law, SirLulworth Quayne. "I've asked quite a lot of people down for golf andfishing, and the rhododendrons are just looking their best. "

"Laura always was inconsiderate, " said Sir Lulworth; "she was born duringGoodwood week, with an Ambassador staying in the house who hated babies. "

"She had the maddest kind of ideas, " said Amanda; "do you know if therewas any insanity in her family?"

"Insanity? No, I never heard of any. Her father lives in WestKensington, but I believe he's sane on all other subjects. "

"She had an idea that she was going to be reincarnated as an otter, " saidAmanda. 

"One meets with those ideas of reincarnation so frequently, even in theWest, " said Sir Lulworth, "that one can hardly set them down as beingmad. And Laura was such an unaccountable person in this life that Ishould not like to lay down definite rules as to what she might be doingin an after state. "

"You think she really might have passed into some animal form?" askedAmanda. She was one of those who shape their opinions rather readilyfrom the standpoint of those around them. 

Just then Egbert entered the breakfast-room, wearing an air ofbereavement that Laura's demise would have been insufficient, in itself, to account for. 

"Four of my speckled Sussex have been killed, " he exclaimed; "the veryfour that were to go to the show on Friday. One of them was dragged awayand eaten right in the middle of that new carnation bed that I've been tosuch trouble and expense over. My best flower bed and my best fowlssingled out for destruction; it almost seems as if the brute that did thedeed had special knowledge how to be as devastating as possible in ashort space of time. "

"Was it a fox, do you think?" asked Amanda. 

"Sounds more like a polecat, " said Sir Lulworth. 

"No, " said Egbert, "there were marks of webbed feet all over the place, and we followed the tracks down to the stream at the bottom of thegarden; evidently an otter. "

Amanda looked quickly and furtively across at Sir Lulworth. 

Egbert was too agitated to eat any breakfast, and went out to superintendthe strengthening of the poultry yard defences. 

"I think she might at least have waited till the funeral was over, " saidAmanda in a scandalised voice. 

"It's her own funeral, you know, " said Sir Lulworth; "it's a nice pointin etiquette how far one ought to show respect to one's own mortalremains. "

Disregard for mortuary convention was carried to further lengths nextday; during the absence of the family at the funeral ceremony theremaining survivors of the speckled Sussex were massacred. Themarauder's line of retreat seemed to have embraced most of the flowerbeds on the lawn, but the strawberry beds in the lower garden had alsosuffered. 

"I shall get the otter hounds to come here at the earliest possiblemoment, " said Egbert savagely. 

"On no account! You can't dream of such a thing!" exclaimed Amanda. "Imean, it wouldn't do, so soon after a funeral in the house. "

"It's a case of necessity, " said Egbert; "once an otter takes to thatsort of thing it won't stop. "

"Perhaps it will go elsewhere now there are no more fowls left, "suggested Amanda. 

"One would think you wanted to shield the beast, " said Egbert. 

"There's been so little water in the stream lately, " objected Amanda; "itseems hardly sporting to hunt an animal when it has so little chance oftaking refuge anywhere. "

"Good gracious!" fumed Egbert, "I'm not thinking about sport. I want tohave the animal killed as soon as possible. "

Even Amanda's opposition weakened when, during church time on thefollowing Sunday, the otter made its way into the house, raided half asalmon from the larder and worried it into scaly fragments on the Persianrug in Egbert's studio. 

"We shall have it hiding under our beds and biting pieces out of our feetbefore long, " said Egbert, and from what Amanda knew of this particularotter she felt that the possibility was not a remote one. 

On the evening preceding the day fixed for the hunt Amanda spent asolitary hour walking by the banks of the stream, making what sheimagined to be hound noises. It was charitably supposed by those whooverheard her performance, that she was practising for farmyardimitations at the forth-coming village entertainment. 

It was her friend and neighbour, Aurora Burret, who brought her news ofthe day's sport. 

"Pity you weren't out; we had quite a good day. We found at once, in thepool just below your garden. "

"Did you--kill?" asked Amanda. 

"Rather. A fine she-otter. Your husband got rather badly bitten intrying to 'tail it. ' Poor beast, I felt quite sorry for it, it had sucha human look in its eyes when it was killed. You'll call me silly, butdo you know who the look reminded me of? My dear woman, what is thematter?"

When Amanda had recovered to a certain extent from her attack of nervousprostration Egbert took her to the Nile Valley to recuperate. Change ofscene speedily brought about the desired recovery of health and mentalbalance. The escapades of an adventurous otter in search of a variationof diet were viewed in their proper light. Amanda's normally placidtemperament reasserted itself. Even a hurricane of shouted curses, coming from her husband's dressing-room, in her husband's voice, buthardly in his usual vocabulary, failed to disturb her serenity as shemade a leisurely toilet one evening in a Cairo hotel. 

"What is the matter? What has happened?" she asked in amused curiosity. 

"The little beast has thrown all my clean shirts into the bath! Waittill I catch you, you little--"

"What little beast?" asked Amanda, suppressing a desire to laugh;Egbert's language was so hopelessly inadequate to express his outragedfeelings. 

"A little beast of a naked brown Nubian boy, " spluttered Egbert. 

And now Amanda is seriously ill. 

THE BOAR-PIG

"There is a back way on to the lawn, " said Mrs. Philidore Stossen to herdaughter, "through a small grass paddock and then through a walled fruitgarden full of gooseberry bushes. I went all over the place last yearwhen the family were away. There is a door that opens from the fruitgarden into a shrubbery, and once we emerge from there we can mingle withthe guests as if we had come in by the ordinary way. It's much saferthan going in by the front entrance and running the risk of coming bangup against the hostess; that would be so awkward when she doesn't happento have invited us. "

"Isn't it a lot of trouble to take for getting admittance to a gardenparty?"

"To a garden party, yes; to _the_ garden party of the season, certainlynot. Every one of any consequence in the county, with the exception ofourselves, has been asked to meet the Princess, and it would be far moretroublesome to invent explanations as to why we weren't there than to getin by a roundabout way. I stopped Mrs. Cuvering in the road yesterdayand talked very pointedly about the Princess. If she didn't choose totake the hint and send me an invitation it's not my fault, is it? Herewe are: we just cut across the grass and through that little gate intothe garden. "

Mrs. Stossen and her daughter, suitably arrayed for a county garden partyfunction with an infusion of Almanack de Gotha, sailed through the narrowgrass paddock and the ensuing gooseberry garden with the air of statebarges making an unofficial progress along a rural trout stream. Therewas a certain amount of furtive haste mingled with the stateliness oftheir advance, as though hostile search-lights might be turned on them atany moment; and, as a matter of fact, they were not unobserved. MatildaCuvering, with the alert eyes of thirteen years old and the addedadvantage of an exalted position in the branches of a medlar tree, hadenjoyed a good view of the Stossen flanking movement and had foreseenexactly where it would break down in execution. 

"They'll find the door locked, and they'll jolly well have to go back theway they came, " she remarked to herself. "Serves them right for notcoming in by the proper entrance. What a pity Tarquin Superbus isn'tloose in the paddock. After all, as every one else is enjoyingthemselves, I don't see why Tarquin shouldn't have an afternoon out. "

Matilda was of an age when thought is action; she slid down from thebranches of the medlar tree, and when she clambered back again Tarquin, the huge white Yorkshire boar-pig, had exchanged the narrow limits of hisstye for the wider range of the grass paddock. The discomfited Stossenexpedition, returning in recriminatory but otherwise orderly retreat fromthe unyielding obstacle of the locked door, came to a sudden halt at thegate dividing the paddock from the gooseberry garden. 

"What a villainous-looking animal, " exclaimed Mrs. Stossen; "it wasn'tthere when we came in. "

"It's there now, anyhow, " said her daughter. "What on earth are we todo? I wish we had never come. "

The boar-pig had drawn nearer to the gate for a closer inspection of thehuman intruders, and stood champing his jaws and blinking his small redeyes in a manner that was doubtless intended to be disconcerting, and, asfar as the Stossens were concerned, thoroughly achieved that result. 

"Shoo! Hish! Hish! Shoo!" cried the ladies in chorus. 

"If they think they're going to drive him away by reciting lists of thekings of Israel and Judah they're laying themselves out fordisappointment, " observed Matilda from her seat in the medlar tree. Asshe made the observation aloud Mrs. Stossen became for the first timeaware of her presence. A moment or two earlier she would have beenanything but pleased at the discovery that the garden was not as desertedas it looked, but now she hailed the fact of the child's presence on thescene with absolute relief. 

"Little girl, can you find some one to drive away--" she began hopefully. 

"_Comment? Comprends pas_, " was the response. 

"Oh, are you French? _Etes vous francaise_?"

"_Pas de tous. 'Suis anglaise_. "

"Then why not talk English? I want to know if--"

"_Permettez-moi expliquer_. You see, I'm rather under a cloud, " saidMatilda. "I'm staying with my aunt, and I was told I must behaveparticularly well to-day, as lots of people were coming for a gardenparty, and I was told to imitate Claude, that's my young cousin, whonever does anything wrong except by accident, and then is alwaysapologetic about it. It seems they thought I ate too much raspberrytrifle at lunch, and they said Claude never eats too much raspberrytrifle. Well, Claude always goes to sleep for half an hour after lunch, because he's told to, and I waited till he was asleep, and tied his handsand started forcible feeding with a whole bucketful of raspberry triflethat they were keeping for the garden-party. Lots of it went on to hissailor-suit and some of it on to the bed, but a good deal went downClaude's throat, and they can't say again that he has never been known toeat too much raspberry trifle. That is why I am not allowed to go to theparty, and as an additional punishment I must speak French all theafternoon. I've had to tell you all this in English, as there were wordslike 'forcible feeding' that I didn't know the French for; of course Icould have invented them, but if I had said _nourriture obligatoire_ youwouldn't have had the least idea what I was talking about. _Maismaintenant, nous parlons francais_. "

"Oh, very well, _tres bien_, " said Mrs. Stossen reluctantly; in momentsof flurry such French as she knew was not under very good control. "_La, a l'autre cote de la porte, est un cochon_--"

"_Un cochon? Ah, le petit charmant_!" exclaimed Matilda with enthusiasm. 

"_Mais non, pas du tout petit, et pas du tout charmant; un bete feroce_--"

"_Une bete_, " corrected Matilda; "a pig is masculine as long as you callit a pig, but if you lose your temper with it and call it a ferociousbeast it becomes one of us at once. French is a dreadfully unsexinglanguage. "

"For goodness' sake let us talk English then, " said Mrs. Stossen. "Isthere any way out of this garden except through the paddock where the pigis?"

"I always go over the wall, by way of the plum tree, " said Matilda. 

"Dressed as we are we could hardly do that, " said Mrs. Stossen; it wasdifficult to imagine her doing it in any costume. 

"Do you think you could go and get some one who would drive the pigaway?" asked Miss Stossen. 

"I promised my aunt I would stay here till five o'clock; it's not fouryet. "

"I am sure, under the circumstances, your aunt would permit--"

"My conscience would not permit, " said Matilda with cold dignity. 

"We can't stay here till five o'clock, " exclaimed Mrs. Stossen withgrowing exasperation. 

"Shall I recite to you to make the time pass quicker?" asked Matildaobligingly. "'Belinda, the little Breadwinner, ' is considered my bestpiece, or, perhaps, it ought to be something in French. Henri Quatre'saddress to his soldiers is the only thing I really know in thatlanguage. "

"If you will go and fetch some one to drive that animal away I will giveyou something to buy yourself a nice present, " said Mrs. Stossen. 

Matilda came several inches lower down the medlar tree. 

"That is the most practical suggestion you have made yet for getting outof the garden, " she remarked cheerfully; "Claude and I are collectingmoney for the Children's Fresh Air Fund, and we are seeing which of uscan collect the biggest sum. "

"I shall be very glad to contribute half a crown, very glad indeed, " saidMrs. Stossen, digging that coin out of the depths of a receptacle whichformed a detached outwork of her toilet. 

"Claude is a long way ahead of me at present, " continued Matilda, takingno notice of the suggested offering; "you see, he's only eleven, and hasgolden hair, and those are enormous advantages when you're on thecollecting job. Only the other day a Russian lady gave him tenshillings. Russians understand the art of giving far better than we do. I expect Claude will net quite twenty-five shillings this afternoon;he'll have the field to himself, and he'll be able to do the pale, fragile, not-long-for-this-world business to perfection after hisraspberry trifle experience. Yes, he'll be _quite_ two pounds ahead ofme by now. "

With much probing and plucking and many regretful murmurs the beleagueredladies managed to produce seven-and-sixpence between them. 

"I am afraid this is all we've got, " said Mrs. Stossen. 

Matilda showed no sign of coming down either to the earth or to theirfigure. 

"I could not do violence to my conscience for anything less than tenshillings, " she announced stiffly. 

Mother and daughter muttered certain remarks under their breath, in whichthe word "beast" was prominent, and probably had no reference to Tarquin. 

"I find I _have_ got another half-crown, " said Mrs. Stossen in a shakingvoice; "here you are. Now please fetch some one quickly. "

Matilda slipped down from the tree, took possession of the donation, andproceeded to pick up a handful of over-ripe medlars from the grass at herfeet. Then she climbed over the gate and addressed herselfaffectionately to the boar-pig. 

"Come, Tarquin, dear old boy; you know you can't resist medlars whenthey're rotten and squashy. "

Tarquin couldn't. By dint of throwing the fruit in front of him atjudicious intervals Matilda decoyed him back to his stye, while thedelivered captives hurried across the paddock. 

"Well, I never! The little minx!" exclaimed Mrs. Stossen when she wassafely on the high road. "The animal wasn't savage at all, and as forthe ten shillings, I don't believe the Fresh Air Fund will see a penny ofit!"

There she was unwarrantably harsh in her judgment. If you examine thebooks of the fund you will find the acknowledgment: "Collected by MissMatilda Cuvering, 2s. 6d. "

THE BROGUE

The hunting season had come to an end, and the Mullets had not succeededin selling the Brogue. There had been a kind of tradition in the familyfor the past three or four years, a sort of fatalistic hope, that theBrogue would find a purchaser before the hunting was over; but seasonscame and went without anything happening to justify such ill-foundedoptimism. The animal had been named Berserker in the earlier stages ofits career; it had been rechristened the Brogue later on, in recognitionof the fact that, once acquired, it was extremely difficult to get ridof. The unkinder wits of the neighbourhood had been known to suggestthat the first letter of its name was superfluous. The Brogue had beenvariously described in sale catalogues as a light-weight hunter, a lady'shack, and, more simply, but still with a touch of imagination, as auseful brown gelding, standing 15. 1. Toby Mullet had ridden him for fourseasons with the West Wessex; you can ride almost any sort of horse withthe West Wessex as long as it is an animal that knows the country. TheBrogue knew the country intimately, having personally created most of thegaps that were to be met with in banks and hedges for many miles round. His manners and characteristics were not ideal in the hunting field, buthe was probably rather safer to ride to hounds than he was as a hack oncountry roads. According to the Mullet family, he was not really road-shy, but there were one or two objects of dislike that brought on suddenattacks of what Toby called the swerving sickness. Motors and cycles hetreated with tolerant disregard, but pigs, wheelbarrows, piles of stonesby the roadside, perambulators in a village street, gates painted tooaggressively white, and sometimes, but not always, the newer kind ofbeehives, turned him aside from his tracks in vivid imitation of thezigzag course of forked lightning. If a pheasant rose noisily from theother side of a hedgerow the Brogue would spring into the air at the samemoment, but this may have been due to a desire to be companionable. TheMullet family contradicted the widely prevalent report that the horse wasa confirmed crib-biter. 

It was about the third week in May that Mrs. Mullet, relict of the lateSylvester Mullet, and mother of Toby and a bunch of daughters, assailedClovis Sangrail on the outskirts of the village with a breathlesscatalogue of local happenings. 

"You know our new neighbour, Mr. Penricarde?" she vociferated; "awfullyrich, owns tin mines in Cornwall, middle-aged and rather quiet. He'staken the Red House on a long lease and spent a lot of money onalterations and improvements. Well, Toby's sold him the Brogue!"

Clovis spent a moment or two in assimilating the astonishing news; thenhe broke out into unstinted congratulation. If he had belonged to a moreemotional race he would probably have kissed Mrs. Mullet. 

"How wonderfully lucky to have pulled it off at last! Now you can buy adecent animal. I've always said that Toby was clever. Ever so manycongratulations. "

"Don't congratulate me. It's the most unfortunate thing that could havehappened!" said Mrs. Mullet dramatically. 

Clovis stared at her in amazement. 

"Mr. Penricarde, " said Mrs. Mullet, sinking her voice to what sheimagined to be an impressive whisper, though it rather resembled ahoarse, excited squeak, "Mr. Penricarde has just begun to pay attentionsto Jessie. Slight at first, but now unmistakable. I was a fool not tohave seen it sooner. Yesterday, at the Rectory garden party, he askedher what her favourite flowers were, and she told him carnations, and to-day a whole stack of carnations has arrived, clove and malmaison andlovely dark red ones, regular exhibition blooms, and a box of chocolatesthat he must have got on purpose from London. And he's asked her to goround the links with him to-morrow. And now, just at this criticalmoment, Toby has sold him that animal. It's a calamity!"

"But you've been trying to get the horse off your hands for years, " saidClovis. 

"I've got a houseful of daughters, " said Mrs. Mullet, "and I've beentrying--well, not to get them off my hands, of course, but a husband ortwo wouldn't be amiss among the lot of them; there are six of them, youknow. "

"I don't know, " said Clovis, "I've never counted, but I expect you'reright as to the number; mothers generally know these things. "

"And now, " continued Mrs. Mullet, in her tragic whisper, "when there's arich husband-in-prospect imminent on the horizon Toby goes and sells himthat miserable animal. It will probably kill him if he tries to ride it;anyway it will kill any affection he might have felt towards any memberof our family. What is to be done? We can't very well ask to have thehorse back; you see, we praised it up like anything when we thought therewas a chance of his buying it, and said it was just the animal to suithim. "

"Couldn't you steal it out of his stable and send it to grass at somefarm miles away?" suggested Clovis; "write 'Votes for Women' on thestable door, and the thing would pass for a Suffragette outrage. No onewho knew the horse could possibly suspect you of wanting to get it backagain. "

"Every newspaper in the country would ring with the affair, " said Mrs. Mullet; "can't you imagine the headline, 'Valuable Hunter Stolen bySuffragettes'? The police would scour the countryside till they foundthe animal. "

"Well, Jessie must try and get it back from Penricarde on the plea thatit's an old favourite. She can say it was only sold because the stablehad to be pulled down under the terms of an old repairing lease, and thatnow it has been arranged that the stable is to stand for a couple ofyears longer. "

"It sounds a queer proceeding to ask for a horse back when you've justsold him, " said Mrs. Mullet, "but something must be done, and done atonce. The man is not used to horses, and I believe I told him it was asquiet as a lamb. After all, lambs go kicking and twisting about as ifthey were demented, don't they?"

"The lamb has an entirely unmerited character for sedateness, " agreedClovis. 

Jessie came back from the golf links next day in a state of mingledelation and concern. 

"It's all right about the proposal, " she announced; "he came out with itat the sixth hole. I said I must have time to think it over. I acceptedhim at the seventh. "

"My dear, " said her mother, "I think a little more maidenly reserve andhesitation would have been advisable, as you've known him so short atime. You might have waited till the ninth hole. "

"The seventh is a very long hole, " said Jessie; "besides, the tension wasputting us both off our game. By the time we'd got to the ninth holewe'd settled lots of things. The honeymoon is to be spent in Corsica, with perhaps a flying visit to Naples if we feel like it, and a week inLondon to wind up with. Two of his nieces are to be asked to bebridesmaids, so with our lot there will be seven, which is rather a luckynumber. You are to wear your pearl grey, with any amount of Honiton lacejabbed into it. By the way, he's coming over this evening to ask yourconsent to the whole affair. So far all's well, but about the Brogueit's a different matter. I told him the legend about the stable, and howkeen we were about buying the horse back, but he seems equally keen onkeeping it. He said he must have horse exercise now that he's living inthe country, and he's going to start riding to-morrow. He's ridden a fewtimes in the Row, on an animal that was accustomed to carry octogenariansand people undergoing rest cures, and that's about all his experience inthe saddle--oh, and he rode a pony once in Norfolk, when he was fifteenand the pony twenty-four; and to-morrow he's going to ride the Brogue! Ishall be a widow before I'm married, and I do so want to see whatCorsica's like; it looks so silly on the map. "

Clovis was sent for in haste, and the developments of the situation putbefore him. 

"Nobody can ride that animal with any safety, " said Mrs. Mullet, "exceptToby, and he knows by long experience what it is going to shy at, andmanages to swerve at the same time. "

"I did hint to Mr. Penricarde--to Vincent, I should say--that the Broguedidn't like white gates, " said Jessie. 

"White gates!" exclaimed Mrs. Mullet; "did you mention what effect a pighas on him? He'll have to go past Lockyer's farm to get to the highroad, and there's sure to be a pig or two grunting about in the lane. "

"He's taken rather a dislike to turkeys lately, " said Toby. 

"It's obvious that Penricarde mustn't be allowed to go out on thatanimal, " said Clovis, "at least not till Jessie has married him, andtired of him. I tell you what: ask him to a picnic to-morrow, startingat an early hour; he's not the sort to go out for a ride beforebreakfast. The day after I'll get the rector to drive him over toCrowleigh before lunch, to see the new cottage hospital they're buildingthere. The Brogue will be standing idle in the stable and Toby can offerto exercise it; then it can pick up a stone or something of the sort andgo conveniently lame. If you hurry on the wedding a bit the lamenessfiction can be kept up till the ceremony is safely over. "

Mrs. Mullet belonged to an emotional race, and she kissed Clovis. 

It was nobody's fault that the rain came down in torrents the nextmorning, making a picnic a fantastic impossibility. It was also nobody'sfault, but sheer ill-luck, that the weather cleared up sufficiently inthe afternoon to tempt Mr. Penricarde to make his first essay with theBrogue. They did not get as far as the pigs at Lockyer's farm; therectory gate was painted a dull unobtrusive green, but it had been whitea year or two ago, and the Brogue never forgot that he had been in thehabit of making a violent curtsey, a back-pedal and a swerve at thisparticular point of the road. Subsequently, there being apparently nofurther call on his services, he broke his way into the rectory orchard, where he found a hen turkey in a coop; later visitors to the orchardfound the coop almost intact, but very little left of the turkey. 

Mr. Penricarde, a little stunned and shaken, and suffering from a bruisedknee and some minor damages, good-naturedly ascribed the accident to hisown inexperience with horses and country roads, and allowed Jessie tonurse him back into complete recovery and golf-fitness within somethingless than a week. 

In the list of wedding presents which the local newspaper published afortnight or so later appeared the following item:

"Brown saddle-horse, 'The Brogue, ' bridegroom's gift to bride. "

"Which shows, " said Toby Mullet, "that he knew nothing. "

"Or else, " said Clovis, "that he has a very pleasing wit. "

THE HEN

"Dora Bittholz is coming on Thursday, " said Mrs. Sangrail. 

"This next Thursday?" asked Clovis

His mother nodded. 

"You've rather done it, haven't you?" he chuckled; "Jane Martlet has onlybeen here five days, and she never stays less than a fortnight, even whenshe's asked definitely for a week. You'll never get her out of the houseby Thursday. "

"Why should I?" asked Mrs. Sangrail; "she and Dora are good friends, aren't they? They used to be, as far as I remember. "

"They used to be; that's what makes them all the more bitter now. Eachfeels that she has nursed a viper in her bosom. Nothing fans the flameof human resentment so much as the discovery that one's bosom has beenutilised as a snake sanatorium. "

"But what has happened? Has some one been making mischief?"

"Not exactly, " said Clovis; "a hen came between them. "

"A hen? What hen?"

"It was a bronze Leghorn or some such exotic breed, and Dora sold it toJane at a rather exotic price. They both go in for prize poultry, youknow, and Jane thought she was going to get her money back in a largefamily of pedigree chickens. The bird turned out to be an abstainer fromthe egg habit, and I'm told that the letters which passed between the twowomen were a revelation as to how much invective could be got on to asheet of notepaper. "

"How ridiculous!" said Mrs. Sangrail. "Couldn't some of their friendscompose the quarrel?"

"People tried, " said Clovis, "but it must have been rather like composingthe storm music of the 'Fliegende Hollander. ' Jane was willing to takeback some of her most libellous remarks if Dora would take back the hen, but Dora said that would be owning herself in the wrong, and you knowshe'd as soon think of owning slum property in Whitechapel as do that. "

"It's a most awkward situation, " said Mrs. Sangrail. "Do you supposethey won't speak to one another?"

"On the contrary, the difficulty will be to get them to leave off. Theirremarks on each other's conduct and character have hitherto been governedby the fact that only four ounces of plain speaking can be sent throughthe post for a penny. "

"I can't put Dora off, " said Mrs. Sangrail. "I've already postponed hervisit once, and nothing short of a miracle would make Jane leave beforeher self-allotted fortnight is over. "

"Miracles are rather in my line, " said Clovis. "I don't pretend to bevery hopeful in this case but I'll do my best. "

"As long as you don't drag me into it--" stipulated his mother. 

* * * * *

"Servants are a bit of a nuisance, " muttered Clovis, as he sat in thesmoking-room after lunch, talking fitfully to Jane Martlet in theintervals of putting together the materials of a cocktail, which he hadirreverently patented under the name of an Ella Wheeler Wilcox. It waspartly compounded of old brandy and partly of curacoa; there were otheringredients, but they were never indiscriminately revealed. 

"Servants a nuisance!" exclaimed Jane, bounding into the topic with theexuberant plunge of a hunter when it leaves the high road and feels turfunder its hoofs; "I should think they were! The trouble I've had ingetting suited this year you would hardly believe. But I don't see whatyou have to complain of--your mother is so wonderfully lucky in herservants. Sturridge, for instance--he's been with you for years, and I'msure he's a paragon as butlers go. "

"That's just the trouble, " said Clovis. "It's when servants have beenwith you for years that they become a really serious nuisance. The 'hereto-day and gone to-morrow' sort don't matter--you've simply got toreplace them; it's the stayers and the paragons that are the real worry. "

"But if they give satisfaction--"

"That doesn't prevent them from giving trouble. Now, you've mentionedSturridge--it was Sturridge I was particularly thinking of when I madethe observation about servants being a nuisance. "

"The excellent Sturridge a nuisance! I can't believe it. "

"I know he's excellent, and we just couldn't get along without him; he'sthe one reliable element in this rather haphazard household. But hisvery orderliness has had an effect on him. Have you ever considered whatit must be like to go on unceasingly doing the correct thing in thecorrect manner in the same surroundings for the greater part of alifetime? To know and ordain and superintend exactly what silver andglass and table linen shall be used and set out on what occasions, tohave cellar and pantry and plate-cupboard under a minutely devised andundeviating administration, to be noiseless, impalpable, omnipresent, and, as far as your own department is concerned, omniscient?"

"I should go mad, " said Jane with conviction. 

"Exactly, " said Clovis thoughtfully, swallowing his completed EllaWheeler Wilcox. 

"But Sturridge hasn't gone mad, " said Jane with a flutter of inquiry inher voice. 

"On most points he's thoroughly sane and reliable, " said Clovis, "but attimes he is subject to the most obstinate delusions, and on thoseoccasions he becomes not merely a nuisance but a decided embarrassment. "

"What sort of delusions?"

"Unfortunately they usually centre round one of the guests of the houseparty, and that is where the awkwardness comes in. For instance, he tookit into his head that Matilda Sheringham was the Prophet Elijah, and asall that he remembered about Elijah's history was the episode of theravens in the wilderness he absolutely declined to interfere with what heimagined to be Matilda's private catering arrangements, wouldn't allowany tea to be sent up to her in the morning, and if he was waiting attable he passed her over altogether in handing round the dishes. "

"How very unpleasant. Whatever did you do about it?"

"Oh, Matilda got fed, after a fashion, but it was judged to be best forher to cut her visit short. It was really the only thing to be done, "said Clovis with some emphasis. 

"I shouldn't have done that, " said Jane, "I should have humoured him insome way. I certainly shouldn't have gone away. "

Clovis frowned. 

"It is not always wise to humour people when they get these ideas intotheir heads. There's no knowing to what lengths they may go if youencourage them. "

"You don't mean to say he might be dangerous, do you?" asked Jane withsome anxiety. 

"One can never be certain, " said Clovis; "now and then he gets some ideaabout a guest which might take an unfortunate turn. That is preciselywhat is worrying me at the present moment. "

"What, has he taken a fancy about some one here now?" asked Janeexcitedly; "how thrilling! Do tell me who it is. "

"You, " said Clovis briefly. 

"Me?"

Clovis nodded. 

"Who on earth does he think I am?"

"Queen Anne, " was the unexpected answer. 

"Queen Anne! What an idea. But, anyhow, there's nothing dangerous abouther; she's such a colourless personality. "

"What does posterity chiefly say about Queen Anne?" asked Clovis rathersternly. 

"The only thing that I can remember about her, " said Jane, "is the saying'Queen Anne's dead. '"

"Exactly, " said Clovis, staring at the glass that had held the EllaWheeler Wilcox, "dead. "

"Do you mean he takes me for the ghost of Queen Anne?" asked Jane. 

"Ghost? Dear no. No one ever heard of a ghost that came down tobreakfast and ate kidneys and toast and honey with a healthy appetite. No, it's the fact of you being so very much alive and flourishing thatperplexes and annoys him. All his life he has been accustomed to look onQueen Anne as the personification of everything that is dead and donewith, 'as dead as Queen Anne, ' you know; and now he has to fill yourglass at lunch and dinner and listen to your accounts of the gay time youhad at the Dublin Horse Show, and naturally he feels that something'svery wrong with you. "

"But he wouldn't be downright hostile to me on that account, would he?"Jane asked anxiously. 

"I didn't get really alarmed about it till lunch to-day, " said Clovis; "Icaught him glowering at you with a very sinister look and muttering:'Ought to be dead long ago, she ought, and some one should see to it. 'That's why I mentioned the matter to you. "

"This is awful, " said Jane; "your mother must be told about it at once. "

"My mother mustn't hear a word about it, " said Clovis earnestly; "itwould upset her dreadfully. She relies on Sturridge for everything. "

"But he might kill me at any moment, " protested Jane. 

"Not at any moment; he's busy with the silver all the afternoon. "

"You'll have to keep a sharp look-out all the time and be on your guardto frustrate any murderous attack, " said Jane, adding in a tone of weakobstinacy: "It's a dreadful situation to be in, with a mad butlerdangling over you like the sword of What's-his-name, but I'm certainlynot going to cut my visit short. "

Clovis swore horribly under his breath; the miracle was an obviousmisfire. 

It was in the hall the next morning after a late breakfast that Clovishad his final inspiration as he stood engaged in coaxing rust spots froman old putter. 

"Where is Miss Martlet?" he asked the butler, who was at that momentcrossing the hall. 

"Writing letters in the morning-room, sir, " said Sturridge, announcing afact of which his questioner was already aware. 

"She wants to copy the inscription on that old basket-hilted sabre, " saidClovis, pointing to a venerable weapon hanging on the wall. "I wishyou'd take it to her; my hands are all over oil. Take it without thesheath, it will be less trouble. "

The butler drew the blade, still keen and bright in its well-cared forold age, and carried it into the morning-room. There was a door near thewriting-table leading to a back stairway; Jane vanished through it withsuch lightning rapidity that the butler doubted whether she had seen himcome in. Half an hour later Clovis was driving her and herhastily-packed luggage to the station. 

"Mother will be awfully vexed when she comes back from her ride and findsyou have gone, " he observed to the departing guest, "but I'll make upsome story about an urgent wire having called you away. It wouldn't doto alarm her unnecessarily about Sturridge. "

Jane sniffed slightly at Clovis' ideas of unnecessary alarm, and wasalmost rude to the young man who came round with thoughtful inquiries asto luncheon-baskets. 

The miracle lost some of its usefulness from the fact that Dora wrote thesame day postponing the date of her visit, but, at any rate, Clovis holdsthe record as the only human being who ever hustled Jane Martlet out ofthe time-table of her migrations. 

THE OPEN WINDOW

"My aunt will be down presently, Mr. Nuttel, " said a very self-possessedyoung lady of fifteen; "in the meantime you must try and put up with me. "

Framton Nuttel endeavoured to say the correct something which should dulyflatter the niece of the moment without unduly discounting the aunt thatwas to come. Privately he doubted more than ever whether these formalvisits on a succession of total strangers would do much towards helpingthe nerve cure which he was supposed to be undergoing. 

"I know how it will be, " his sister had said when he was preparing tomigrate to this rural retreat; "you will bury yourself down there and notspeak to a living soul, and your nerves will be worse than ever frommoping. I shall just give you letters of introduction to all the peopleI know there. Some of them, as far as I can remember, were quite nice. "

Framton wondered whether Mrs. Sappleton, the lady to whom he waspresenting one of the letters of introduction, came into the nicedivision. 

"Do you know many of the people round here?" asked the niece, when shejudged that they had had sufficient silent communion. 

"Hardly a soul, " said Framton. "My sister was staying here, at therectory, you know, some four years ago, and she gave me letters ofintroduction to some of the people here. "

He made the last statement in a tone of distinct regret. 

"Then you know practically nothing about my aunt?" pursued theself-possessed young lady. 

"Only her name and address, " admitted the caller. He was wonderingwhether Mrs. Sappleton was in the married or widowed state. Anundefinable something about the room seemed to suggest masculinehabitation. 

"Her great tragedy happened just three years ago, " said the child; "thatwould be since your sister's time. "

"Her tragedy?" asked Framton; somehow in this restful country spottragedies seemed out of place. 

"You may wonder why we keep that window wide open on an Octoberafternoon, " said the niece, indicating a large French window that openedon to a lawn. 

"It is quite warm for the time of the year, " said Framton; "but has thatwindow got anything to do with the tragedy?"

"Out through that window, three years ago to a day, her husband and hertwo young brothers went off for their day's shooting. They never cameback. In crossing the moor to their favourite snipe-shooting ground theywere all three engulfed in a treacherous piece of bog. It had been thatdreadful wet summer, you know, and places that were safe in other yearsgave way suddenly without warning. Their bodies were never recovered. That was the dreadful part of it. " Here the child's voice lost its self-possessed note and became falteringly human. "Poor aunt always thinksthat they will come back some day, they and the little brown spaniel thatwas lost with them, and walk in at that window just as they used to do. That is why the window is kept open every evening till it is quite dusk. Poor dear aunt, she has often told me how they went out, her husband withhis white waterproof coat over his arm, and Ronnie, her youngest brother, singing 'Bertie, why do you bound?' as he always did to tease her, because she said it got on her nerves. Do you know, sometimes on still, quiet evenings like this, I almost get a creepy feeling that they willall walk in through that window--"

She broke off with a little shudder. It was a relief to Framton when theaunt bustled into the room with a whirl of apologies for being late inmaking her appearance. 

"I hope Vera has been amusing you?" she said. 

"She has been very interesting, " said Framton. 

"I hope you don't mind the open window, " said Mrs. Sappleton briskly; "myhusband and brothers will be home directly from shooting, and they alwayscome in this way. They've been out for snipe in the marshes to-day, sothey'll make a fine mess over my poor carpets. So like you men-folk, isn't it?"

She rattled on cheerfully about the shooting and the scarcity of birds, and the prospects for duck in the winter. To Framton it was all purelyhorrible. He made a desperate but only partially successful effort toturn the talk on to a less ghastly topic; he was conscious that hishostess was giving him only a fragment of her attention, and her eyeswere constantly straying past him to the open window and the lawn beyond. It was certainly an unfortunate coincidence that he should have paid hisvisit on this tragic anniversary. 

"The doctors agree in ordering me complete rest, an absence of mentalexcitement, and avoidance of anything in the nature of violent physicalexercise, " announced Framton, who laboured under the tolerably widespreaddelusion that total strangers and chance acquaintances are hungry for theleast detail of one's ailments and infirmities, their cause and cure. "Onthe matter of diet they are not so much in agreement, " he continued. 

"No?" said Mrs. Sappleton, in a voice which only replaced a yawn at thelast moment. Then she suddenly brightened into alert attention--but notto what Framton was saying. 

"Here they are at last!" she cried. "Just in time for tea, and don'tthey look as if they were muddy up to the eyes!"

Framton shivered slightly and turned towards the niece with a lookintended to convey sympathetic comprehension. The child was staring outthrough the open window with dazed horror in her eyes. In a chill shockof nameless fear Framton swung round in his seat and looked in the samedirection. 

In the deepening twilight three figures were walking across the lawntowards the window; they all carried guns under their arms, and one ofthem was additionally burdened with a white coat hung over his shoulders. A tired brown spaniel kept close at their heels. Noiselessly they nearedthe house, and then a hoarse young voice chanted out of the dusk: "Isaid, Bertie, why do you bound?"

Framton grabbed wildly at his stick and hat; the hall-door, the gravel-drive, and the front gate were dimly-noted stages in his headlongretreat. A cyclist coming along the road had to run into the hedge toavoid an imminent collision. 

"Here we are, my dear, " said the bearer of the white mackintosh, comingin through the window; "fairly muddy, but most of it's dry. Who was thatwho bolted out as we came up?"

"A most extraordinary man, a Mr. Nuttel, " said Mrs. Sappleton; "couldonly talk about his illnesses, and dashed off without a word of good-byeor apology when you arrived. One would think he had seen a ghost. "

"I expect it was the spaniel, " said the niece calmly; "he told me he hada horror of dogs. He was once hunted into a cemetery somewhere on thebanks of the Ganges by a pack of pariah dogs, and had to spend the nightin a newly dug grave with the creatures snarling and grinning and foamingjust above him. Enough to make anyone their nerve. "

Romance at short notice was her speciality. 

THE TREASURE SHIP

The great galleon lay in semi-retirement under the sand and weed andwater of the northern bay where the fortune of war and weather had longago ensconced it. Three and a quarter centuries had passed since the daywhen it had taken the high seas as an important unit of a fightingsquadron--precisely which squadron the learned were not agreed. Thegalleon had brought nothing into the world, but it had, according totradition and report, taken much out of it. But how much? There againthe learned were in disagreement. Some were as generous in theirestimate as an income-tax assessor, others applied a species of highercriticism to the submerged treasure chests, and debased their contents tothe currency of goblin gold. Of the former school was Lulu, Duchess ofDulverton. 

The Duchess was not only a believer in the existence of a sunken treasureof alluring proportions; she also believed that she knew of a method bywhich the said treasure might be precisely located and cheaplydisembedded. An aunt on her mother's side of the family had been Maid ofHonour at the Court of Monaco, and had taken a respectful interest in thedeep-sea researches in which the Throne of that country, impatientperhaps of its terrestrial restrictions, was wont to immerse itself. Itwas through the instrumentality of this relative that the Duchess learnedof an invention, perfected and very nearly patented by a Monegaskansavant, by means of which the home-life of the Mediterranean sardinemight be studied at a depth of many fathoms in a cold white light of morethan ball-room brilliancy. Implicated in this invention (and, in theDuchess's eyes, the most attractive part of it) was an electric suctiondredge, specially designed for dragging to the surface such objects ofinterest and value as might be found in the more accessible levels of theocean-bed. The rights of the invention were to be acquired for a matterof eighteen hundred francs, and the apparatus for a few thousand more. The Duchess of Dulverton was rich, as the world counted wealth; shenursed the hope, of being one day rich at her own computation. Companieshad been formed and efforts had been made again and again during thecourse of three centuries to probe for the alleged treasures of theinteresting galleon; with the aid of this invention she considered thatshe might go to work on the wreck privately and independently. Afterall, one of her ancestors on her mother's side was descended from MedinaSidonia, so she was of opinion that she had as much right to the treasureas anyone. She acquired the invention and bought the apparatus. 

Among other family ties and encumbrances, Lulu possessed a nephew, VascoHoniton, a young gentleman who was blessed with a small income and alarge circle of relatives, and lived impartially and precariously onboth. The name Vasco had been given him possibly in the hope that hemight live up to its adventurous tradition, but he limited himselfstrictly to the home industry of adventurer, preferring to exploit theassured rather than to explore the unknown. Lulu's intercourse with himhad been restricted of recent years to the negative processes of beingout of town when he called on her, and short of money when he wrote toher. Now, however, she bethought herself of his eminent suitability forthe direction of a treasure-seeking experiment; if anyone could extractgold from an unpromising situation it would certainly be Vasco--ofcourse, under the necessary safeguards in the way of supervision. Wheremoney was in question Vasco's conscience was liable to fits of obstinatesilence. 

Somewhere on the west coast of Ireland the Dulverton property included afew acres of shingle, rock, and heather, too barren to support even anagrarian outrage, but embracing a small and fairly deep bay where thelobster yield was good in most seasons. There was a bleak little houseon the property, and for those who liked lobsters and solitude, and wereable to accept an Irish cook's ideas as to what might be perpetrated inthe name of mayonnaise, Innisgluther was a tolerable exile during thesummer months. Lulu seldom went there herself, but she lent the houselavishly to friends and relations. She put it now at Vasco's disposal. 

"It will be the very place to practise and experiment with the salvageapparatus, " she said; "the bay is quite deep in places, and you will beable to test everything thoroughly before starting on the treasure hunt. "

In less than three weeks Vasco turned up in town to report progress. 

"The apparatus works beautifully, " he informed his aunt; "the deeper onegot the clearer everything grew. We found something in the way of asunken wreck to operate on, too!"

"A wreck in Innisgluther Bay!" exclaimed Lulu. 

"A submerged motor-boat, the _Sub-Rosa_, " said Vasco. 

"No! really?" said Lulu; "poor Billy Yuttley's boat. I remember it wentdown somewhere off that coast some three years ago. His body was washedashore at the Point. People said at the time that the boat was capsizedintentionally--a case of suicide, you know. People always say that sortof thing when anything tragic happens. "

"In this case they were right, " said Vasco. 

"What do you mean?" asked the Duchess hurriedly. "What makes you thinkso?"

"I know, " said Vasco simply. 

"Know? How can you know? How can anyone know? The thing happened threeyears ago. "

"In a locker of the _Sub-Rosa_ I found a water-tight strong-box. Itcontained papers. " Vasco paused with dramatic effect and searched for amoment in the inner breast-pocket of his coat. He drew out a folded slipof paper. The Duchess snatched at it in almost indecent haste and movedappreciably nearer the fireplace. 

"Was this in the _Sub-Rosa's_ strong-box?" she asked. 

"Oh no, " said Vasco carelessly, "that is a list of the well-known peoplewho would be involved in a very disagreeable scandal if the _Sub-Rosa's_papers were made public. I've put you at the head of it, otherwise itfollows alphabetical order. "

The Duchess gazed helplessly at the string of names, which seemed for themoment to include nearly every one she knew. As a matter of fact, herown name at the head of the list exercised an almost paralysing effect onher thinking faculties. 

"Of course you have destroyed the papers?" she asked, when she hadsomewhat recovered herself. She was conscious that she made the remarkwith an entire lack of conviction. 

Vasco shook his head. 

"But you should have, " said Lulu angrily; "if, as you say, they arehighly compromising--"

"Oh, they are, I assure you of that, " interposed the young man. 

"Then you should put them out of harm's way at once. Supposing anythingshould leak out, think of all these poor, unfortunate people who would beinvolved in the disclosures, " and Lulu tapped the list with an agitatedgesture. 

"Unfortunate, perhaps, but not poor, " corrected Vasco; "if you read thelist carefully you'll notice that I haven't troubled to include anyonewhose financial standing isn't above question. "

Lulu glared at her nephew for some moments in silence. Then she askedhoarsely: "What are you going to do?"

"Nothing--for the remainder of my life, " he answered meaningly. "Alittle hunting, perhaps, " he continued, "and I shall have a villa atFlorence. The Villa Sub-Rosa would sound rather quaint and picturesque, don't you think, and quite a lot of people would be able to attach ameaning to the name. And I suppose I must have a hobby; I shall probablycollect Raeburns. "

Lulu's relative, who lived at the Court of Monaco, got quite a snappishanswer when she wrote recommending some further invention in the realm ofmarine research. 

THE COBWEB

The farmhouse kitchen probably stood where it did as a matter of accidentor haphazard choice; yet its situation might have been planned by amaster-strategist in farmhouse architecture. Dairy and poultry-yard, andherb garden, and all the busy places of the farm seemed to lead by easyaccess into its wide flagged haven, where there was room for everythingand where muddy boots left traces that were easily swept away. And yet, for all that it stood so well in the centre of human bustle, its long, latticed window, with the wide window-seat, built into an embrasurebeyond the huge fireplace, looked out on a wild spreading view of hilland heather and wooded combe. The window nook made almost a little roomin itself, quite the pleasantest room in the farm as far as situation andcapabilities went. Young Mrs. Ladbruk, whose husband had just come intothe farm by way of inheritance, cast covetous eyes on this snug corner, and her fingers itched to make it bright and cosy with chintz curtainsand bowls of flowers, and a shelf or two of old china. The musty farmparlour, looking out on to a prim, cheerless garden imprisoned withinhigh, blank walls, was not a room that lent itself readily either tocomfort or decoration. 

"When we are more settled I shall work wonders in the way of making thekitchen habitable, " said the young woman to her occasional visitors. There was an unspoken wish in those words, a wish which was unconfessedas well as unspoken. Emma Ladbruk was the mistress of the farm; jointlywith her husband she might have her say, and to a certain extent her way, in ordering its affairs. But she was not mistress of the kitchen. 

On one of the shelves of an old dresser, in company with chipped sauce-boats, pewter jugs, cheese-graters, and paid bills, rested a worn andragged Bible, on whose front page was the record, in faded ink, of abaptism dated ninety-four years ago. "Martha Crale" was the name writtenon that yellow page. The yellow, wrinkled old dame who hobbled andmuttered about the kitchen, looking like a dead autumn leaf which thewinter winds still pushed hither and thither, had once been Martha Crale;for seventy odd years she had been Martha Mountjoy. For longer thananyone could remember she had pattered to and fro between oven and wash-house and dairy, and out to chicken-run and garden, grumbling andmuttering and scolding, but working unceasingly. Emma Ladbruk, of whosecoming she took as little notice as she would of a bee wandering in at awindow on a summer's day, used at first to watch her with a kind offrightened curiosity. She was so old and so much a part of the place, itwas difficult to think of her exactly as a living thing. Old Shep, thewhite-nozzled, stiff-limbed collie, waiting for his time to die, seemedalmost more human than the withered, dried-up old woman. He had been ariotous, roystering puppy, mad with the joy of life, when she was alreadya tottering, hobbling dame; now he was just a blind, breathing carcase, nothing more, and she still worked with frail energy, still swept andbaked and washed, fetched and carried. If there were something in thesewise old dogs that did not perish utterly with death, Emma used to thinkto herself, what generations of ghost-dogs there must be out on thosehills, that Martha had reared and fed and tended and spoken a last good-bye word to in that old kitchen. And what memories she must have ofhuman generations that had passed away in her time. It was difficult foranyone, let alone a stranger like Emma, to get her to talk of the daysthat had been; her shrill, quavering speech was of doors that had beenleft unfastened, pails that had got mislaid, calves whose feeding-timewas overdue, and the various little faults and lapses that chequer afarmhouse routine. Now and again, when election time came round, shewould unstore her recollections of the old names round which the fighthad waged in the days gone by. There had been a Palmerston, that hadbeen a name down Tiverton way; Tiverton was not a far journey as the crowflies, but to Martha it was almost a foreign country. Later there hadbeen Northcotes and Aclands, and many other newer names that she hadforgotten; the names changed, but it was always Libruls and Toories, Yellows and Blues. And they always quarrelled and shouted as to who wasright and who was wrong. The one they quarrelled about most was a fineold gentleman with an angry face--she had seen his picture on the walls. She had seen it on the floor too, with a rotten apple squashed over it, for the farm had changed its politics from time to time. Martha hadnever been on one side or the other; none of "they" had ever done thefarm a stroke of good. Such was her sweeping verdict, given with all apeasant's distrust of the outside world. 

When the half-frightened curiosity had somewhat faded away, Emma Ladbrukwas uncomfortably conscious of another feeling towards the old woman. Shewas a quaint old tradition, lingering about the place, she was part andparcel of the farm itself, she was something at once pathetic andpicturesque--but she was dreadfully in the way. Emma had come to thefarm full of plans for little reforms and improvements, in part theresult of training in the newest ways and methods, in part the outcome ofher own ideas and fancies. Reforms in the kitchen region, if those deafold ears could have been induced to give them even a hearing, would havemet with short shrift and scornful rejection, and the kitchen regionspread over the zone of dairy and market business and half the work ofthe household. Emma, with the latest science of dead-poultry dressing ather finger-tips, sat by, an unheeded watcher, while old Martha trussedthe chickens for the market-stall as she had trussed them for nearlyfourscore years--all leg and no breast. And the hundred hints anenteffective cleaning and labour-lightening and the things that make forwholesomeness which the young woman was ready to impart or to put intoaction dropped away into nothingness before that wan, muttering, unheeding presence. Above all, the coveted window corner, that was to bea dainty, cheerful oasis in the gaunt old kitchen, stood now choked andlumbered with a litter of odds and ends that Emma, for all her nominalauthority, would not have dared or cared to displace; over them seemed tobe spun the protection of something that was like a human cobweb. Decidedly Martha was in the way. It would have been an unworthy meannessto have wished to see the span of that brave old life shortened by a fewpaltry months, but as the days sped by Emma was conscious that the wishwas there, disowned though it might be, lurking at the back of her mind. 

She felt the meanness of the wish come over her with a qualm ofself-reproach one day when she came into the kitchen and found anunaccustomed state of things in that usually busy quarter. Old Marthawas not working. A basket of corn was on the floor by her side, and outin the yard the poultry were beginning to clamour a protest of overduefeeding-time. But Martha sat huddled in a shrunken bunch on the windowseat, looking out with her dim old eyes as though she saw somethingstranger than the autumn landscape. 

"Is anything the matter, Martha?" asked the young woman. 

"'Tis death, 'tis death a-coming, " answered the quavering voice; "I knew'twere coming. I knew it. 'Tweren't for nothing that old Shep's beenhowling all morning. An' last night I heard the screech-owl give thedeath-cry, and there were something white as run across the yardyesterday; 'tweren't a cat nor a stoat, 'twere something. The fowls knew'twere something; they all drew off to one side. Ay, there's beenwarnings. I knew it were a-coming. "

The young woman's eyes clouded with pity. The old thing sitting there sowhite and shrunken had once been a merry, noisy child, playing about inlanes and hay-lofts and farmhouse garrets; that had been eighty odd yearsago, and now she was just a frail old body cowering under the approachingchill of the death that was coming at last to take her. It was notprobable that much could be done for her, but Emma hastened away to getassistance and counsel. Her husband, she knew, was down at atree-felling some little distance off, but she might find some otherintelligent soul who knew the old woman better than she did. The farm, she soon found out, had that faculty common to farmyards of swallowing upand losing its human population. The poultry followed her in interestedfashion, and swine grunted interrogations at her from behind the bars oftheir styes, but barnyard and rickyard, orchard and stables and dairy, gave no reward to her search. Then, as she retraced her steps towardsthe kitchen, she came suddenly on her cousin, young Mr. Jim, as every onecalled him, who divided his time between amateur horse-dealing, rabbit-shooting, and flirting with the farm maids. 

"I'm afraid old Martha is dying, " said Emma. Jim was not the sort ofperson to whom one had to break news gently. 

"Nonsense, " he said; "Martha means to live to a hundred. She told me so, and she'll do it. "

"She may be actually dying at this moment, or it may just be thebeginning of the break-up, " persisted Emma, with a feeling of contemptfor the slowness and dulness of the young man. 

A grin spread over his good-natured features. 

"It don't look like it, " he said, nodding towards the yard. Emma turnedto catch the meaning of his remark. Old Martha stood in the middle of amob of poultry scattering handfuls of grain around her. The turkey-cock, with the bronzed sheen of his feathers and the purple-red of his wattles, the gamecock, with the glowing metallic lustre of his Eastern plumage, the hens, with their ochres and buffs and umbers and their scarlet combs, and the drakes, with their bottle-green heads, made a medley of richcolour, in the centre of which the old woman looked like a withered stalkstanding amid a riotous growth of gaily-hued flowers. But she threw thegrain deftly amid the wilderness of beaks, and her quavering voicecarried as far as the two people who were watching her. She was stillharping on the theme of death coming to the farm. 

"I knew 'twere a-coming. There's been signs an' warnings. "

"Who's dead, then, old Mother?" called out the young man. 

"'Tis young Mister Ladbruk, " she shrilled back; "they've just a-carriedhis body in. Run out of the way of a tree that was coming down an' ranhisself on to an iron post. Dead when they picked un up. Aye, I knew'twere coming. "

And she turned to fling a handful of barley at a belated group of guinea-fowl that came racing toward her. 

* * * * *

The farm was a family property, and passed to the rabbit-shooting cousinas the next-of-kin. Emma Ladbruk drifted out of its history as a beethat had wandered in at an open window might flit its way out again. Ona cold grey morning she stood waiting, with her boxes already stowed inthe farm cart, till the last of the market produce should be ready, forthe train she was to catch was of less importance than the chickens andbutter and eggs that were to be offered for sale. From where she stoodshe could see an angle of the long latticed window that was to have beencosy with curtains and gay with bowls of flowers. Into her mind came thethought that for months, perhaps for years, long after she had beenutterly forgotten, a white, unheeding face would be seen peering outthrough those latticed panes, and a weak muttering voice would be heardquavering up and down those flagged passages. She made her way to anarrow barred casement that opened into the farm larder. Old Martha wasstanding at a table trussing a pair of chickens for the market stall asshe had trussed them for nearly fourscore years. 

THE LULL

"I've asked Latimer Springfield to spend Sunday with us and stop thenight, " announced Mrs. Durmot at the breakfast-table. 

"I thought he was in the throes of an election, " remarked her husband. 

"Exactly; the poll is on Wednesday, and the poor man will have workedhimself to a shadow by that time. Imagine what electioneering must belike in this awful soaking rain, going along slushy country roads andspeaking to damp audiences in draughty schoolrooms, day after day for afortnight. He'll have to put in an appearance at some place of worshipon Sunday morning, and he can come to us immediately afterwards and havea thorough respite from everything connected with politics. I won't lethim even think of them. I've had the picture of Cromwell dissolving theLong Parliament taken down from the staircase, and even the portrait ofLord Rosebery's 'Ladas' removed from the smoking-room. And Vera, " addedMrs. Durmot, turning to her sixteen-year-old niece, "be careful whatcolour ribbon you wear in your hair; not blue or yellow on any account;those are the rival party colours, and emerald green or orange would bealmost as bad, with this Home Rule business to the fore. "

"On state occasions I always wear a black ribbon in my hair, " said Verawith crushing dignity. 

Latimer Springfield was a rather cheerless, oldish young man, who wentinto politics somewhat in the spirit in which other people might go intohalf-mourning. Without being an enthusiast, however, he was a fairlystrenuous plodder, and Mrs. Durmot had been reasonably near the mark inasserting that he was working at high pressure over this election. Therestful lull which his hostess enforced on him was decidedly welcome, andyet the nervous excitement of the contest had too great a hold on him tobe totally banished. 

"I know he's going to sit up half the night working up points for hisfinal speeches, " said Mrs. Durmot regretfully; "however, we've keptpolitics at arm's length all the afternoon and evening. More than thatwe cannot do. "

"That remains to be seen, " said Vera, but she said it to herself. 

Latimer had scarcely shut his bedroom door before he was immersed in asheaf of notes and pamphlets, while a fountain-pen and pocket-book werebrought into play for the due marshalling of useful facts and discreetfictions. He had been at work for perhaps thirty-five minutes, and thehouse was seemingly consecrated to the healthy slumber of country life, when a stifled squealing and scuffling in the passage was followed by aloud tap at his door. Before he had time to answer, a much-encumberedVera burst into the room with the question; "I say, can I leave thesehere?"

"These" were a small black pig and a lusty specimen of black-redgamecock. 

Latimer was moderately fond of animals, and particularly interested insmall livestock rearing from the economic point of view; in fact, one ofthe pamphlets on which he was at that moment engaged warmly advocated thefurther development of the pig and poultry industry in our ruraldistricts; but he was pardonably unwilling to share even a commodiousbedroom with samples of henroost and stye products. 

"Wouldn't they be happier somewhere outside?" he asked, tactfullyexpressing his own preference in the matter in an apparent solicitude fortheirs. 

"There is no outside, " said Vera impressively, "nothing but a waste ofdark, swirling waters. The reservoir at Brinkley has burst. "

"I didn't know there was a reservoir at Brinkley, " said Latimer. 

"Well, there isn't now, it's jolly well all over the place, and as westand particularly low we're the centre of an inland sea just at present. You see the river has overflowed its banks as well. "

"Good gracious! Have any lives been lost?"

"Heaps, I should say. The second housemaid has already identified threebodies that have floated past the billiard-room window as being the youngman she's engaged to. Either she's engaged to a large assortment of thepopulation round here or else she's very careless at identification. Ofcourse it may be the same body coming round again and again in a swirl; Ihadn't thought of that. "

"But we ought to go out and do rescue work, oughtn't we?" said Latimer, with the instinct of a Parliamentary candidate for getting into the locallimelight. 

"We can't, " said Vera decidedly, "we haven't any boats and we're cut offby a raging torrent from any human habitation. My aunt particularlyhoped you would keep to your room and not add to the confusion, but shethought it would be so kind of you if you would take in Hartlepool'sWonder, the gamecock, you know, for the night. You see, there are eightother gamecocks, and they fight like furies if they get together, sowe're putting one in each bedroom. The fowl-houses are all flooded out, you know. And then I thought perhaps you wouldn't mind taking in thiswee piggie; he's rather a little love, but he has a vile temper. He getsthat from his mother--not that I like to say things against her whenshe's lying dead and drowned in her stye, poor thing. What he reallywants is a man's firm hand to keep him in order. I'd try and grapplewith him myself, only I've got my chow in my room, you know, and he goesfor pigs wherever he finds them. "

"Couldn't the pig go in the bathroom?" asked Latimer faintly, wishingthat he had taken up as determined a stand on the subject of bedroomswine as the chow had. 

"The bathroom?" Vera laughed shrilly. "It'll be full of Boy Scouts tillmorning if the hot water holds out. "

"Boy Scouts?"

"Yes, thirty of them came to rescue us while the water was only waist-high; then it rose another three feet or so and we had to rescue them. We're giving them hot baths in batches and drying their clothes in thehot-air cupboard, but, of course, drenched clothes don't dry in a minute, and the corridor and staircase are beginning to look like a bit of coastscenery by Tuke. Two of the boys are wearing your Melton overcoat; Ihope you don't mind. "

"It's a new overcoat, " said Latimer, with every indication of mindingdreadfully. 

"You'll take every care of Hartlepool's Wonder, won't you?" said Vera. "His mother took three firsts at Birmingham, and he was second in thecockerel class last year at Gloucester. He'll probably roost on the railat the bottom of your bed. I wonder if he'd feel more at home if some ofhis wives were up here with him? The hens are all in the pantry, and Ithink I could pick out Hartlepool Helen; she's his favourite. "

Latimer showed a belated firmness on the subject of Hartlepool Helen, andVera withdrew without pressing the point, having first settled thegamecock on his extemporised perch and taken an affectionate farewell ofthe pigling. Latimer undressed and got into bed with all due speed, judging that the pig would abate its inquisitorial restlessness once thelight was turned out. As a substitute for a cosy, straw-bedded sty theroom offered, at first inspection, few attractions, but the disconsolateanimal suddenly discovered an appliance in which the most luxuriouslycontrived piggeries were notably deficient. The sharp edge of theunderneath part of the bed was pitched at exactly the right elevation topermit the pigling to scrape himself ecstatically backwards and forwards, with an artistic humping of the back at the crucial moment and anaccompanying gurgle of long-drawn delight. The gamecock, who may havefancied that he was being rocked in the branches of a pine-tree, bore themotion with greater fortitude than Latimer was able to command. A seriesof slaps directed at the pig's body were accepted more as an additionaland pleasing irritant than as a criticism of conduct or a hint to desist;evidently something more than a man's firm hand was needed to deal withthe case. Latimer slipped out of bed in search of a weapon ofdissuasion. There was sufficient light in the room to enable the pig todetect this manoeuvre, and the vile temper, inherited from the drownedmother, found full play. Latimer bounded back into bed, and hisconqueror, after a few threatening snorts and champings of its jaws, resumed its massage operations with renewed zeal. During the longwakeful hours which ensued Latimer tried to distract his mind from hisown immediate troubles by dwelling with decent sympathy on the secondhousemaid's bereavement, but he found himself more often wondering howmany Boy Scouts were sharing his Melton overcoat. The role of SaintMartin malgre lui was not one which appealed to him. 

Towards dawn the pigling fell into a happy slumber, and Latimer mighthave followed its example, but at about the same time Stupor Hartlepooligave a rousing crow, clattered down to the floor and forthwith commenceda spirited combat with his reflection in the wardrobe mirror. Rememberingthat the bird was more or less under his care Latimer performed HagueTribunal offices by draping a bath-towel over the provocative mirror, butthe ensuing peace was local and short-lived. The deflected energies ofthe gamecock found new outlet in a sudden and sustained attack on thesleeping and temporarily inoffensive pigling, and the duel which followedwas desperate and embittered beyond any possibility of effectiveintervention. The feathered combatant had the advantage of being able, when hard pressed, to take refuge on the bed, and freely availed himselfof this circumstance; the pigling never quite succeeded in hurlinghimself on to the same eminence, but it was not from want of trying. 

Neither side could claim any decisive success, and the struggle had beenpractically fought to a standstill by the time that the maid appearedwith the early morning tea. 

"Lor, sir, " she exclaimed in undisguised astonishment, "do you want thoseanimals in your room?"

_Want_!

The pigling, as though aware that it might have outstayed its welcome, dashed out at the door, and the gamecock followed it at a more dignifiedpace. 

"If Miss Vera's dog sees that pig--!" exclaimed the maid, and hurried offto avert such a catastrophe. 

A cold suspicion was stealing over Latimer's mind; he went to the windowand drew up the blind. A light, drizzling rain was falling, but therewas not the faintest trace of any inundation. 

Some half-hour later he met Vera on the way to the breakfast-room. 

"I should not like to think of you as a deliberate liar, " he observedcoldly, "but one occasionally has to do things one does not like. "

"At any rate I kept your mind from dwelling on politics all the night, "said Vera. 

Which was, of course, perfectly true. 

THE UNKINDEST BLOW

The season of strikes seemed to have run itself to a standstill. Almostevery trade and industry and calling in which a dislocation couldpossibly be engineered had indulged in that luxury. The last and leastsuccessful convulsion had been the strike of the World's Union ofZoological Garden attendants, who, pending the settlement of certaindemands, refused to minister further to the wants of the animalscommitted to their charge or to allow any other keepers to take theirplace. In this case the threat of the Zoological Gardens authoritiesthat if the men "came out" the animals should come out also hadintensified and precipitated the crisis. The imminent prospect of thelarger carnivores, to say nothing of rhinoceroses and bull bison, roamingat large and unfed in the heart of London, was not one which permitted ofprolonged conferences. The Government of the day, which from itstendency to be a few hours behind the course of events had been nicknamedthe Government of the afternoon, was obliged to intervene withpromptitude and decision. A strong force of Bluejackets was despatchedto Regent's Park to take over the temporarily abandoned duties of thestrikers. Bluejackets were chosen in preference to land forces, partlyon account of the traditional readiness of the British Navy to goanywhere and do anything, partly by reason of the familiarity of theaverage sailor with monkeys, parrots, and other tropical fauna, butchiefly at the urgent request of the First Lord of the Admiralty, who waskeenly desirous of an opportunity for performing some personal act ofunobtrusive public service within the province of his department. 

"If he insists on feeding the infant jaguar himself, in defiance of itsmother's wishes, there may be another by-election in the north, " said oneof his colleagues, with a hopeful inflection in his voice. "By-electionsare not very desirable at present, but we must not be selfish. "

As a matter of fact the strike collapsed peacefully without any outsideintervention. The majority of the keepers had become so attached totheir charges that they returned to work of their own accord. 

And then the nation and the newspapers turned with a sense of relief tohappier things. It seemed as if a new era of contentment was about todawn. Everybody had struck who could possibly want to strike or whocould possibly be cajoled or bullied into striking, whether they wantedto or not. The lighter and brighter side of life might now claim someattention. And conspicuous among the other topics that sprang intosudden prominence was the pending Falvertoon divorce suit. 

The Duke of Falvertoon was one of those human _hors d'oeuvres_ thatstimulate the public appetite for sensation without giving it much tofeed on. As a mere child he had been precociously brilliant; he haddeclined the editorship of the _Anglian Review_ at an age when most boysare content to have declined _mensa_, a table, and though he could notclaim to have originated the Futurist movement in literature, his"Letters to a possible Grandson, " written at the age of fourteen, hadattracted considerable notice. In later days his brilliancy had beenless conspicuously displayed. During a debate in the House of Lords onaffairs in Morocco, at a moment when that country, for the fifth time inseven years, had brought half Europe to the verge of war, he hadinterpolated the remark "a little Moor and how much it is, " but in spiteof the encouraging reception accorded to this one political utterance hewas never tempted to a further display in that direction. It began to begenerally understood that he did not intend to supplement his numeroustown and country residences by living overmuch in the public eye. 

And then had come the unlooked-for tidings of the imminent proceedingsfor divorce. And such a divorce! There were cross-suits and allegationsand counter-allegations, charges of cruelty and desertion, everything infact that was necessary to make the case one of the most complicated andsensational of its kind. And the number of distinguished people involvedor cited as witnesses not only embraced both political parties in therealm and several Colonial governors, but included an exotic contingentfrom France, Hungary, the United States of North America, and the GrandDuchy of Baden. Hotel accommodation of the more expensive sort began toexperience a strain on its resources. "It will be quite like the Durbarwithout the elephants, " exclaimed an enthusiastic lady who, to do herjustice, had never seen a Durbar. The general feeling was one ofthankfulness that the last of the strikes had been got over before thedate fixed for the hearing of the great suit. 

As a reaction from the season of gloom and industrial strife that hadjust passed away the agencies that purvey and stage-manage sensationslaid themselves out to do their level best on this momentous occasion. Men who had made their reputations as special descriptive writers weremobilised from distant corners of Europe and the further side of theAtlantic in order to enrich with their pens the daily printed records ofthe case; one word-painter, who specialised in descriptions of howwitnesses turn pale under cross-examination, was summoned hurriedly backfrom a famous and prolonged murder trial in Sicily, where indeed histalents were being decidedly wasted. Thumb-nail artists and expert kodakmanipulators were retained at extravagant salaries, and special dressreporters were in high demand. An enterprising Paris firm of costumebuilders presented the defendant Duchess with three special creations, tobe worn, marked, learned, and extensively reported at various criticalstages of the trial; and as for the cinematograph agents, their industryand persistence was untiring. Films representing the Duke saying good-bye to his favourite canary on the eve of the trial were in readinessweeks before the event was due to take place; other films depicted theDuchess holding imaginary consultations with fictitious lawyers or makinga light repast off specially advertised vegetarian sandwiches during asupposed luncheon interval. As far as human foresight and humanenterprise could go nothing was lacking to make the trial a success. 

Two days before the case was down for hearing the advance reporter of animportant syndicate obtained an interview with the Duke for the purposeof gleaning some final grains of information concerning his Grace'spersonal arrangements during the trial. 

"I suppose I may say this will be one of the biggest affairs of its kindduring the lifetime of a generation, " began the reporter as an excuse forthe unsparing minuteness of detail that he was about to make quest for. 

"I suppose so--if it comes off, " said the Duke lazily. 

"If?" queried the reporter, in a voice that was something between a gaspand a scream. 

"The Duchess and I are both thinking of going on strike, " said the Duke. 

"Strike!"

The baleful word flashed out in all its old hideous familiarity. Wasthere to be no end to its recurrence?

"Do you mean, " faltered the reporter, "that you are contemplating amutual withdrawal of the charges?"

"Precisely, " said the Duke. 

"But think of the arrangements that have been made, the specialreporting, the cinematographs, the catering for the distinguished foreignwitnesses, the prepared music-hall allusions; think of all the money thathas been sunk--"

"Exactly, " said the Duke coldly, "the Duchess and I have realised that itis we who provide the material out of which this great far-reachingindustry has been built up. Widespread employment will be given andenormous profits made during the duration of the case, and we, on whomall the stress and racket falls, will get--what? An unenviable notorietyand the privilege of paying heavy legal expenses whichever way theverdict goes. Hence our decision to strike. We don't wish to bereconciled; we fully realise that it is a grave step to take, but unlesswe get some reasonable consideration out of this vast stream of wealthand industry that we have called into being we intend coming out of courtand staying out. Good afternoon. "

The news of this latest strike spread universal dismay. Itsinaccessibility to the ordinary methods of persuasion made it peculiarlyformidable. If the Duke and Duchess persisted in being reconciled theGovernment could hardly be called on to interfere. Public opinion in theshape of social ostracism might be brought to bear on them, but that wasas far as coercive measures could go. There was nothing for it but aconference, with powers to propose liberal terms. As it was, several ofthe foreign witnesses had already departed and others had telegraphedcancelling their hotel arrangements. 

The conference, protracted, uncomfortable, and occasionally acrimonious, succeeded at last in arranging for a resumption of litigation, but it wasa fruitless victory. The Duke, with a touch of his earlier precocity, died of premature decay a fortnight before the date fixed for the newtrial. 

THE ROMANCERS

It was autumn in London, that blessed season between the harshness ofwinter and the insincerities of summer; a trustful season when one buysbulbs and sees to the registration of one's vote, believing perpetuallyin spring and a change of Government. 

Morton Crosby sat on a bench in a secluded corner of Hyde Park, lazilyenjoying a cigarette and watching the slow grazing promenade of a pair ofsnow-geese, the male looking rather like an albino edition of the russet-hued female. Out of the corner of his eye Crosby also noted with someinterest the hesitating hoverings of a human figure, which had passed andrepassed his seat two or three times at shortening intervals, like a warycrow about to alight near some possibly edible morsel. Inevitably thefigure came to an anchorage on the bench, within easy talking distance ofits original occupant. The uncared-for clothes, the aggressive, grizzledbeard, and the furtive, evasive eye of the new-comer bespoke theprofessional cadger, the man who would undergo hours of humiliating tale-spinning and rebuff rather than adventure on half a day's decent work. 

For a while the new-comer fixed his eyes straight in front of him in astrenuous, unseeing gaze; then his voice broke out with the insinuatinginflection of one who has a story to retail well worth any loiterer'swhile to listen to. 

"It's a strange world, " he said. 

As the statement met with no response he altered it to the form of aquestion. 

"I daresay you've found it to be a strange world, mister?"

"As far as I am concerned, " said Crosby, "the strangeness has worn off inthe course of thirty-six years. "

"Ah, " said the greybeard, "I could tell you things that you'd hardlybelieve. Marvellous things that have really happened to me. "

"Nowadays there is no demand for marvellous things that have reallyhappened, " said Crosby discouragingly; "the professional writers offiction turn these things out so much better. For instance, myneighbours tell me wonderful, incredible things that their Aberdeens andchows and borzois have done; I never listen to them. On the other hand, I have read 'The Hound of the Baskervilles' three times. "

The greybeard moved uneasily in his seat; then he opened up new country. 

"I take it that you are a professing Christian, " he observed. 

"I am a prominent and I think I may say an influential member of theMussulman community of Eastern Persia, " said Crosby, making an excursionhimself into the realms of fiction. 

The greybeard was obviously disconcerted at this new check tointroductory conversation, but the defeat was only momentary. 

"Persia. I should never have taken you for a Persian, " he remarked, witha somewhat aggrieved air. 

"I am not, " said Crosby; "my father was an Afghan. "

"An Afghan!" said the other, smitten into bewildered silence for amoment. Then he recovered himself and renewed his attack. 

"Afghanistan. Ah! We've had some wars with that country; now, Idaresay, instead of fighting it we might have learned something from it. A very wealthy country, I believe. No real poverty there. "

He raised his voice on the word "poverty" with a suggestion of intensefeeling. Crosby saw the opening and avoided it. 

"It possesses, nevertheless, a number of highly talented and ingeniousbeggars, " he said; "if I had not spoken so disparagingly of marvellousthings that have really happened I would tell you the story of Ibrahimand the eleven camel-loads of blotting-paper. Also I have forgottenexactly how it ended. "

"My own life-story is a curious one, " said the stranger, apparentlystifling all desire to hear the history of Ibrahim; "I was not always asyou see me now. "

"We are supposed to undergo complete change in the course of every sevenyears, " said Crosby, as an explanation of the foregoing announcement. 

"I mean I was not always in such distressing circumstances as I am atpresent, " pursued the stranger doggedly. 

"That sounds rather rude, " said Crosby stiffly, "considering that you areat present talking to a man reputed to be one of the most giftedconversationalists of the Afghan border. "

"I don't mean in that way, " said the greybeard hastily; "I've been verymuch interested in your conversation. I was alluding to my unfortunatefinancial situation. You mayn't hardly believe it, but at the presentmoment I am absolutely without a farthing. Don't see any prospect ofgetting any money, either, for the next few days. I don't suppose you'veever found yourself in such a position, " he added. 

"In the town of Yom, " said Crosby, "which is in Southern Afghanistan, andwhich also happens to be my birthplace, there was a Chinese philosopherwho used to say that one of the three chiefest human blessings was to beabsolutely without money. I forget what the other two were. "

"Ah, I daresay, " said the stranger, in a tone that betrayed no enthusiasmfor the philosopher's memory; "and did he practise what he preached?That's the test. "

"He lived happily with very little money or resources, " said Crosby. 

"Then I expect he had friends who would help him liberally whenever hewas in difficulties, such as I am in at present. "

"In Yom, " said Crosby, "it is not necessary to have friends in order toobtain help. Any citizen of Yom would help a stranger as a matter ofcourse. "

The greybeard was now genuinely interested. 

The conversation had at last taken a favourable turn. 

"If someone, like me, for instance, who was in undeserved difficulties, asked a citizen of that town you speak of for a small loan to tide over afew days' impecuniosity--five shillings, or perhaps a rather largersum--would it be given to him as a matter of course?"

"There would be a certain preliminary, " said Crosby; "one would take himto a wine-shop and treat him to a measure of wine, and then, after alittle high-flown conversation, one would put the desired sum in his handand wish him good-day. It is a roundabout way of performing a simpletransaction, but in the East all ways are roundabout. "

The listener's eyes were glittering. 

"Ah, " he exclaimed, with a thin sneer ringing meaningly through hiswords, "I suppose you've given up all those generous customs since youleft your town. Don't practise them now, I expect. "

"No one who has lived in Yom, " said Crosby fervently, "and remembers itsgreen hills covered with apricot and almond trees, and the cold waterthat rushes down like a caress from the upland snows and dashes under thelittle wooden bridges, no one who remembers these things and treasuresthe memory of them would ever give up a single one of its unwritten lawsand customs. To me they are as binding as though I still lived in thathallowed home of my youth. "

"Then if I was to ask you for a small loan--" began the greybeardfawningly, edging nearer on the seat and hurriedly wondering how large hemight safely make his request, "if I was to ask you for, say--"

"At any other time, certainly, " said Crosby; "in the months of Novemberand December, however, it is absolutely forbidden for anyone of our raceto give or receive loans or gifts; in fact, one does not willingly speakof them. It is considered unlucky. We will therefore close thisdiscussion. "

"But it is still October!" exclaimed the adventurer with an eager, angrywhine, as Crosby rose from his seat; "wants eight days to the end of themonth!"

"The Afghan November began yesterday, " said Crosby severely, and inanother moment he was striding across the Park, leaving his recentcompanion scowling and muttering furiously on the seat. 

"I don't believe a word of his story, " he chattered to himself; "pack ofnasty lies from beginning to end. Wish I'd told him so to his face. Calling himself an Afghan!"

The snorts and snarls that escaped from him for the next quarter of anhour went far to support the truth of the old saying that two of a tradenever agree. 

THE SCHARTZ-METTERKLUME METHOD

Lady Carlotta stepped out on to the platform of the small wayside stationand took a turn or two up and down its uninteresting length, to kill timetill the train should be pleased to proceed on its way. Then, in theroadway beyond, she saw a horse struggling with a more than ample load, and a carter of the sort that seems to bear a sullen hatred against theanimal that helps him to earn a living. Lady Carlotta promptly betookher to the roadway, and put rather a different complexion on thestruggle. Certain of her acquaintances were wont to give her plentifuladmonition as to the undesirability of interfering on behalf of adistressed animal, such interference being "none of her business. " Onlyonce had she put the doctrine of non-interference into practice, when oneof its most eloquent exponents had been besieged for nearly three hoursin a small and extremely uncomfortable may-tree by an angry boar-pig, while Lady Carlotta, on the other side of the fence, had proceeded withthe water-colour sketch she was engaged on, and refused to interferebetween the boar and his prisoner. It is to be feared that she lost thefriendship of the ultimately rescued lady. On this occasion she merelylost the train, which gave way to the first sign of impatience it hadshown throughout the journey, and steamed off without her. She bore thedesertion with philosophical indifference; her friends and relations werethoroughly well used to the fact of her luggage arriving without her. Shewired a vague non-committal message to her destination to say that shewas coming on "by another train. " Before she had time to think what hernext move might be she was confronted by an imposingly attired lady, whoseemed to be taking a prolonged mental inventory of her clothes andlooks. 

"You must be Miss Hope, the governess I've come to meet, " said theapparition, in a tone that admitted of very little argument. 

"Very well, if I must I must, " said Lady Carlotta to herself withdangerous meekness. 

"I am Mrs. Quabarl, " continued the lady; "and where, pray, is yourluggage?"

"It's gone astray, " said the alleged governess, falling in with theexcellent rule of life that the absent are always to blame; the luggagehad, in point of fact, behaved with perfect correctitude. "I've justtelegraphed about it, " she added, with a nearer approach to truth. 

"How provoking, " said Mrs. Quabarl; "these railway companies are socareless. However, my maid can lend you things for the night, " and sheled the way to her car. 

During the drive to the Quabarl mansion Lady Carlotta was impressivelyintroduced to the nature of the charge that had been thrust upon her; shelearned that Claude and Wilfrid were delicate, sensitive young people, that Irene had the artistic temperament highly developed, and that Violawas something or other else of a mould equally commonplace among childrenof that class and type in the twentieth century. 

"I wish them not only to be _taught_, " said Mrs. Quabarl, "but_interested_ in what they learn. In their history lessons, for instance, you must try to make them feel that they are being introduced to the life-stories of men and women who really lived, not merely committing a massof names and dates to memory. French, of course, I shall expect you totalk at meal-times several days in the week. "

"I shall talk French four days of the week and Russian in the remainingthree. "

"Russian? My dear Miss Hope, no one in the house speaks or understandsRussian. "

"That will not embarrass me in the least, " said Lady Carlotta coldly. 

Mrs. Quabarl, to use a colloquial expression, was knocked off her perch. She was one of those imperfectly self-assured individuals who aremagnificent and autocratic as long as they are not seriously opposed. Theleast show of unexpected resistance goes a long way towards renderingthem cowed and apologetic. When the new governess failed to expresswondering admiration of the large newly-purchased and expensive car, andlightly alluded to the superior advantages of one or two makes which hadjust been put on the market, the discomfiture of her patroness becamealmost abject. Her feelings were those which might have animated ageneral of ancient warfaring days, on beholding his heaviestbattle-elephant ignominiously driven off the field by slingers andjavelin throwers. 

At dinner that evening, although reinforced by her husband, who usuallyduplicated her opinions and lent her moral support generally, Mrs. Quabarl regained none of her lost ground. The governess not only helpedherself well and truly to wine, but held forth with considerable show ofcritical knowledge on various vintage matters, concerning which theQuabarls were in no wise able to pose as authorities. Previousgovernesses had limited their conversation on the wine topic to arespectful and doubtless sincere expression of a preference for water. When this one went as far as to recommend a wine firm in whose hands youcould not go very far wrong Mrs. Quabarl thought it time to turn theconversation into more usual channels. 

"We got very satisfactory references about you from Canon Teep, " sheobserved; "a very estimable man, I should think. "

"Drinks like a fish and beats his wife, otherwise a very lovablecharacter, " said the governess imperturbably. 

"_My dear_ Miss Hope! I trust you are exaggerating, " exclaimed theQuabarls in unison. 

"One must in justice admit that there is some provocation, " continued theromancer. "Mrs. Teep is quite the most irritating bridge-player that Ihave ever sat down with; her leads and declarations would condone acertain amount of brutality in her partner, but to souse her with thecontents of the only soda-water syphon in the house on a Sundayafternoon, when one couldn't get another, argues an indifference to thecomfort of others which I cannot altogether overlook. You may think mehasty in my judgments, but it was practically on account of the syphonincident that I left. "

"We will talk of this some other time, " said Mrs. Quabarl hastily. 

"I shall never allude to it again, " said the governess with decision. 

Mr. Quabarl made a welcome diversion by asking what studies the newinstructress proposed to inaugurate on the morrow. 

"History to begin with, " she informed him. 

"Ah, history, " he observed sagely; "now in teaching them history you musttake care to interest them in what they learn. You must make them feelthat they are being introduced to the life-stories of men and women whoreally lived--"

"I've told her all that, " interposed Mrs. Quabarl. 

"I teach history on the Schartz-Metterklume method, " said the governessloftily. 

"Ah, yes, " said her listeners, thinking it expedient to assume anacquaintance at least with the name. 

* * * * *

"What are you children doing out here?" demanded Mrs. Quabarl the nextmorning, on finding Irene sitting rather glumly at the head of thestairs, while her sister was perched in an attitude of depresseddiscomfort on the window-seat behind her, with a wolf-skin rug almostcovering her. 

"We are having a history lesson, " came the unexpected reply. "I amsupposed to be Rome, and Viola up there is the she-wolf; not a real wolf, but the figure of one that the Romans used to set store by--I forget why. Claude and Wilfrid have gone to fetch the shabby women. "

"The shabby women?"

"Yes, they've got to carry them off. They didn't want to, but Miss Hopegot one of father's fives-bats and said she'd give them a number ninespanking if they didn't, so they've gone to do it. "

A loud, angry screaming from the direction of the lawn drew Mrs. Quabarlthither in hot haste, fearful lest the threatened castigation might evennow be in process of infliction. The outcry, however, came principallyfrom the two small daughters of the lodge-keeper, who were being hauledand pushed towards the house by the panting and dishevelled Claude andWilfrid, whose task was rendered even more arduous by the incessant, ifnot very effectual, attacks of the captured maidens' small brother. Thegoverness, fives-bat in hand, sat negligently on the stone balustrade, presiding over the scene with the cold impartiality of a Goddess ofBattles. A furious and repeated chorus of "I'll tell muvver" rose fromthe lodge-children, but the lodge-mother, who was hard of hearing, wasfor the moment immersed in the preoccupation of her washtub. 

After an apprehensive glance in the direction of the lodge (the goodwoman was gifted with the highly militant temper which is sometimes theprivilege of deafness) Mrs. Quabarl flew indignantly to the rescue of thestruggling captives. 

"Wilfrid! Claude! Let those children go at once. Miss Hope, what onearth is the meaning of this scene?"

"Early Roman history; the Sabine Women, don't you know? It's the Schartz-Metterklume method to make children understand history by acting itthemselves; fixes it in their memory, you know. Of course, if, thanks toyour interference, your boys go through life thinking that the Sabinewomen ultimately escaped, I really cannot be held responsible. "

"You may be very clever and modern, Miss Hope, " said Mrs. Quabarl firmly, "but I should like you to leave here by the next train. Your luggagewill be sent after you as soon as it arrives. "

"I'm not certain exactly where I shall be for the next few days, " saidthe dismissed instructress of youth; "you might keep my luggage till Iwire my address. There are only a couple of trunks and some golf-clubsand a leopard cub. "

"A leopard cub!" gasped Mrs. Quabarl. Even in her departure thisextraordinary person seemed destined to leave a trail of embarrassmentbehind her. 

"Well, it's rather left off being a cub; it's more than half-grown, youknow. A fowl every day and a rabbit on Sundays is what it usually gets. Raw beef makes it too excitable. Don't trouble about getting the car forme, I'm rather inclined for a walk. "

And Lady Carlotta strode out of the Quabarl horizon. 

The advent of the genuine Miss Hope, who had made a mistake as to the dayon which she was due to arrive, caused a turmoil which that good lady wasquite unused to inspiring. Obviously the Quabarl family had beenwoefully befooled, but a certain amount of relief came with theknowledge. 

"How tiresome for you, dear Carlotta, " said her hostess, when the overdueguest ultimately arrived; "how very tiresome losing your train and havingto stop overnight in a strange place. "

"Oh dear, no, " said Lady Carlotta; "not at all tiresome--for me. "

THE SEVENTH PULLET

"It's not the daily grind that I complain of, " said Blenkinthroperesentfully; "it's the dull grey sameness of my life outside of officehours. Nothing of interest comes my way, nothing remarkable or out ofthe common. Even the little things that I do try to find some interestin don't seem to interest other people. Things in my garden, forinstance. "

"The potato that weighed just over two pounds, " said his friend Gorworth. 

"Did I tell you about that?" said Blenkinthrope; "I was telling theothers in the train this morning. I forgot if I'd told you. "

"To be exact you told me that it weighed just under two pounds, but Itook into account the fact that abnormal vegetables and freshwater fishhave an after-life, in which growth is not arrested. "

"You're just like the others, " said Blenkinthrope sadly, "you only makefun of it. "

"The fault is with the potato, not with us, " said Gorworth; "we are notin the least interested in it because it is not in the least interesting. The men you go up in the train with every day are just in the same caseas yourself; their lives are commonplace and not very interesting tothemselves, and they certainly are not going to wax enthusiastic over thecommonplace events in other men's lives. Tell them something startling, dramatic, piquant that has happened to yourself or to someone in yourfamily, and you will capture their interest at once. They will talkabout you with a certain personal pride to all their acquaintances. 'ManI know intimately, fellow called Blenkinthrope, lives down my way, hadtwo of his fingers clawed clean off by a lobster he was carrying home tosupper. Doctor says entire hand may have to come off. ' Now that isconversation of a very high order. But imagine walking into a tennisclub with the remark: 'I know a man who has grown a potato weighing twoand a quarter pounds. '"

"But hang it all, my dear fellow, " said Blenkinthrope impatiently, "haven't I just told you that nothing of a remarkable nature ever happensto me?"

"Invent something, " said Gorworth. Since winning a prize for excellencein Scriptural knowledge at a preparatory school he had felt licensed tobe a little more unscrupulous than the circle he moved in. Much mightsurely be excused to one who in early life could give a list of seventeentrees mentioned in the Old Testament. 

"What sort of thing?" asked Blenkinthrope, somewhat snappishly. 

"A snake got into your hen-run yesterday morning and killed six out ofseven pullets, first mesmerising them with its eyes and then biting themas they stood helpless. The seventh pullet was one of that French sort, with feathers all over its eyes, so it escaped the mesmeric snare, andjust flew at what it could see of the snake and pecked it to pieces. "

"Thank you, " said Blenkinthrope stiffly; "it's a very clever invention. If such a thing had really happened in my poultry-run I admit I shouldhave been proud and interested to tell people about it. But I'd ratherstick to fact, even if it is plain fact. " All the same his mind dweltwistfully on the story of the Seventh Pullet. He could picture himselftelling it in the train amid the absorbed interest of hisfellow-passengers. Unconsciously all sorts of little details andimprovements began to suggest themselves. 

Wistfulness was still his dominant mood when he took his seat in therailway carriage the next morning. Opposite him sat Stevenham, who hadattained to a recognised brevet of importance through the fact of anuncle having dropped dead in the act of voting at a Parliamentaryelection. That had happened three years ago, but Stevenham was stilldeferred to on all questions of home and foreign politics. 

"Hullo, how's the giant mushroom, or whatever it was?" was all the noticeBlenkinthrope got from his fellow travellers. 

Young Duckby, whom he mildly disliked, speedily monopolised the generalattention by an account of a domestic bereavement. 

"Had four young pigeons carried off last night by a whacking big rat. Oh, a monster he must have been; you could tell by the size of the hole hemade breaking into the loft. "

No moderate-sized rat ever seemed to carry out any predatory operationsin these regions; they were all enormous in their enormity. 

"Pretty hard lines that, " continued Duckby, seeing that he had securedthe attention and respect of the company; "four squeakers carried off atone swoop. You'd find it rather hard to match that in the way ofunlooked-for bad luck. "

"I had six pullets out of a pen of seven killed by a snake yesterdayafternoon, " said Blenkinthrope, in a voice which he hardly recognised ashis own. 

"By a snake?" came in excited chorus. 

"It fascinated them with its deadly, glittering eyes, one after theother, and struck them down while they stood helpless. A bedriddenneighbour, who wasn't able to call for assistance, witnessed it all fromher bedroom window. "

"Well, I never!" broke in the chorus, with variations. 

"The interesting part of it is about the seventh pullet, the one thatdidn't get killed, " resumed Blenkinthrope, slowly lighting a cigarette. His diffidence had left him, and he was beginning to realise how safe andeasy depravity can seem once one has the courage to begin. "The six deadbirds were Minorcas; the seventh was a Houdan with a mop of feathers allover its eyes. It could hardly see the snake at all, so of course itwasn't mesmerised like the others. It just could see something wrigglingon the ground, and went for it and pecked it to death. "

"Well, I'm blessed!" exclaimed the chorus. 

In the course of the next few days Blenkinthrope discovered how littlethe loss of one's self-respect affects one when one has gained the esteemof the world. His story found its way into one of the poultry papers, and was copied thence into a daily news-sheet as a matter of generalinterest. A lady wrote from the North of Scotland recounting a similarepisode which she had witnessed as occurring between a stoat and a blindgrouse. Somehow a lie seems so much less reprehensible when one can callit a lee. 

For awhile the adapter of the Seventh Pullet story enjoyed to the fullhis altered standing as a person of consequence, one who had had someshare in the strange events of his times. Then he was thrust once againinto the cold grey background by the sudden blossoming into importance ofSmith-Paddon, a daily fellow-traveller, whose little girl had beenknocked down and nearly hurt by a car belonging to a musical-comedyactress. The actress was not in the car at the time, but she was innumerous photographs which appeared in the illustrated papers of ZotoDobreen inquiring after the well-being of Maisie, daughter of EdmundSmith-Paddon, Esq. With this new human interest to absorb them thetravelling companions were almost rude when Blenkinthrope tried toexplain his contrivance for keeping vipers and peregrine falcons out ofhis chicken-run. 

Gorworth, to whom he unburdened himself in private, gave him the samecounsel as heretofore. 

"Invent something. "

"Yes, but what?"

The ready affirmative coupled with the question betrayed a significantshifting of the ethical standpoint. 

It was a few days later that Blenkinthrope revealed a chapter of familyhistory to the customary gathering in the railway carriage. 

"Curious thing happened to my aunt, the one who lives in Paris, " hebegan. He had several aunts, but they were all geographicallydistributed over Greater London. 

"She was sitting on a seat in the Bois the other afternoon, afterlunching at the Roumanian Legation. "

Whatever the story gained in picturesqueness from the dragging-in ofdiplomatic "atmosphere, " it ceased from that moment to command anyacceptance as a record of current events. Gorworth had warned hisneophyte that this would be the case, but the traditional enthusiasm ofthe neophyte had triumphed over discretion. 

"She was feeling rather drowsy, the effect probably of the champagne, which she's not in the habit of taking in the middle of the day. "

A subdued murmur of admiration went round the company. Blenkinthrope'saunts were not used to taking champagne in the middle of the year, regarding it exclusively as a Christmas and New Year accessory. 

"Presently a rather portly gentleman passed by her seat and paused aninstant to light a cigar. At that moment a youngish man came up behindhim, drew the blade from a swordstick, and stabbed him half a dozen timesthrough and through. 'Scoundrel, ' he cried to his victim, 'you do notknow me. My name is Henri Leturc. ' The elder man wiped away some of theblood that was spattering his clothes, turned to his assailant, and said:'And since when has an attempted assassination been considered anintroduction?' Then he finished lighting his cigar and walked away. Myaunt had intended screaming for the police, but seeing the indifferencewith which the principal in the affair treated the matter she felt thatit would be an impertinence on her part to interfere. Of course I needhardly say she put the whole thing down to the effects of a warm, drowsyafternoon and the Legation champagne. Now comes the astonishing part ofmy story. A fortnight later a bank manager was stabbed to death with aswordstick in that very part of the Bois. His assassin was the son of acharwoman formerly working at the bank, who had been dismissed from herjob by the manager on account of chronic intemperance. His name wasHenri Leturc. "

From that moment Blenkinthrope was tacitly accepted as the Munchausen ofthe party. No effort was spared to draw him out from day to day in theexercise of testing their powers of credulity, and Blenkinthrope, in thefalse security of an assured and receptive audience, waxed industriousand ingenious in supplying the demand for marvels. Duckby's satiricalstory of a tame otter that had a tank in the garden to swim in, andwhined restlessly whenever the water-rate was overdue, was scarcely anunfair parody of some of Blenkinthrope's wilder efforts. And then oneday came Nemesis. 

Returning to his villa one evening Blenkinthrope found his wife sittingin front of a pack of cards, which she was scrutinising with unusualconcentration. 

"The same old patience-game?" he asked carelessly. 

"No, dear; this is the Death's Head patience, the most difficult of themall. I've never got it to work out, and somehow I should be ratherfrightened if I did. Mother only got it out once in her life; she wasafraid of it, too. Her great-aunt had done it once and fallen dead fromexcitement the next moment, and mother always had a feeling that shewould die if she ever got it out. She died the same night that she didit. She was in bad health at the time, certainly, but it was a strangecoincidence. "

"Don't do it if it frightens you, " was Blenkinthrope's practical commentas he left the room. A few minutes later his wife called to him. 

"John, it gave me such a turn, I nearly got it out. Only the five ofdiamonds held me up at the end. I really thought I'd done it. "

"Why, you can do it, " said Blenkinthrope, who had come back to the room;"if you shift the eight of clubs on to that open nine the five can bemoved on to the six. "

His wife made the suggested move with hasty, trembling fingers, and piledthe outstanding cards on to their respective packs. Then she followedthe example of her mother and great-grand-aunt. 

Blenkinthrope had been genuinely fond of his wife, but in the midst ofhis bereavement one dominant thought obtruded itself. Somethingsensational and real had at last come into his life; no longer was it agrey, colourless record. The headlines which might appropriatelydescribe his domestic tragedy kept shaping themselves in his brain. "Inherited presentiment comes true. " "The Death's Head patience: Card-game that justified its sinister name in three generations. " He wroteout a full story of the fatal occurrence for the _Essex Vedette_, theeditor of which was a friend of his, and to another friend he gave acondensed account, to be taken up to the office of one of the halfpennydailies. But in both cases his reputation as a romancer stood fatally inthe way of the fulfilment of his ambitions. "Not the right thing to beMunchausening in a time of sorrow" agreed his friends among themselves, and a brief note of regret at the "sudden death of the wife of ourrespected neighbour, Mr. John Blenkinthrope, from heart failure, "appearing in the news column of the local paper was the forlorn outcomeof his visions of widespread publicity. 

Blenkinthrope shrank from the society of his erstwhile travellingcompanions and took to travelling townwards by an earlier train. Hesometimes tries to enlist the sympathy and attention of a chanceacquaintance in details of the whistling prowess of his best canary orthe dimensions of his largest beetroot; he scarcely recognises himself asthe man who was once spoken about and pointed out as the owner of theSeventh Pullet. 

THE BLIND SPOT

"You've just come back from Adelaide's funeral, haven't you?" said SirLulworth to his nephew; "I suppose it was very like most other funerals?"

"I'll tell you all about it at lunch, " said Egbert. 

"You'll do nothing of the sort. It wouldn't be respectful either to yourgreat-aunt's memory or to the lunch. We begin with Spanish olives, thena borshch, then more olives and a bird of some kind, and a ratherenticing Rhenish wine, not at all expensive as wines go in this country, but still quite laudable in its way. Now there's absolutely nothing inthat menu that harmonises in the least with the subject of your great-aunt Adelaide or her funeral. She was a charming woman, and quite asintelligent as she had any need to be, but somehow she always reminded meof an English cook's idea of a Madras curry. "

"She used to say you were frivolous, " said Egbert. Something in his tonesuggested that he rather endorsed the verdict. 

"I believe I once considerably scandalised her by declaring that clearsoup was a more important factor in life than a clear conscience. Shehad very little sense of proportion. By the way, she made you herprincipal heir, didn't she?"

"Yes, " said Egbert, "and executor as well. It's in that connection thatI particularly want to speak to you. "

"Business is not my strong point at any time, " said Sir Lulworth, "andcertainly not when we're on the immediate threshold of lunch. "

"It isn't exactly business, " explained Egbert, as he followed his uncleinto the dining-room. 

"It's something rather serious. Very serious. "

"Then we can't possibly speak about it now, " said Sir Lulworth; "no onecould talk seriously during a borshch. A beautifully constructedborshch, such as you are going to experience presently, ought not only tobanish conversation but almost to annihilate thought. Later on, when wearrive at the second stage of olives, I shall be quite ready to discussthat new book on Borrow, or, if you prefer it, the present situation inthe Grand Duchy of Luxemburg. But I absolutely decline to talk anythingapproaching business till we have finished with the bird. "

For the greater part of the meal Egbert sat in an abstracted silence, thesilence of a man whose mind is focussed on one topic. When the coffeestage had been reached he launched himself suddenly athwart his uncle'sreminiscences of the Court of Luxemburg. 

"I think I told you that great-aunt Adelaide had made me her executor. There wasn't very much to be done in the way of legal matters, but I hadto go through her papers. "

"That would be a fairly heavy task in itself. I should imagine therewere reams of family letters. "

"Stacks of them, and most of them highly uninteresting. There was onepacket, however, which I thought might repay a careful perusal. It was abundle of correspondence from her brother Peter. "

"The Canon of tragic memory, " said Lulworth. 

"Exactly, of tragic memory, as you say; a tragedy that has never beenfathomed. "

"Probably the simplest explanation was the correct one, " said SirLulworth; "he slipped on the stone staircase and fractured his skull infalling. "

Egbert shook his head. "The medical evidence all went to prove that theblow on the head was struck by some one coming up behind him. A woundcaused by violent contact with the steps could not possibly have beeninflicted at that angle of the skull. They experimented with a dummyfigure falling in every conceivable position. "

"But the motive?" exclaimed Sir Lulworth; "no one had any interest indoing away with him, and the number of people who destroy Canons of theEstablished Church for the mere fun of killing must be extremely limited. Of course there are individuals of weak mental balance who do that sortof thing, but they seldom conceal their handiwork; they are moregenerally inclined to parade it. "

"His cook was under suspicion, " said Egbert shortly. 

"I know he was, " said Sir Lulworth, "simply because he was about the onlyperson on the premises at the time of the tragedy. But could anything besillier than trying to fasten a charge of murder on to Sebastien? He hadnothing to gain, in fact, a good deal to lose, from the death of hisemployer. The Canon was paying him quite as good wages as I was able tooffer him when I took him over into my service. I have since raised themto something a little more in accordance with his real worth, but at thetime he was glad to find a new place without troubling about an increaseof wages. People were fighting rather shy of him, and he had no friendsin this country. No; if anyone in the world was interested in theprolonged life and unimpaired digestion of the Canon it would certainlybe Sebastien. "

"People don't always weigh the consequences of their rash acts, " saidEgbert, "otherwise there would be very few murders committed. Sebastienis a man of hot temper. "

"He is a southerner, " admitted Sir Lulworth; "to be geographically exactI believe he hails from the French slopes of the Pyrenees. I took thatinto consideration when he nearly killed the gardener's boy the other dayfor bringing him a spurious substitute for sorrel. One must always makeallowances for origin and locality and early environment; 'Tell me yourlongitude and I'll know what latitude to allow you, ' is my motto. "

"There, you see, " said Egbert, "he nearly killed the gardener's boy. "

"My dear Egbert, between nearly killing a gardener's boy and altogetherkilling a Canon there is a wide difference. No doubt you have often felta temporary desire to kill a gardener's boy; you have never given way toit, and I respect you for your self-control. But I don't suppose youhave ever wanted to kill an octogenarian Canon. Besides, as far as weknow, there had never been any quarrel or disagreement between the twomen. The evidence at the inquest brought that out very clearly. "

"Ah!" said Egbert, with the air of a man coming at last into a deferredinheritance of conversational importance, "that is precisely what I wantto speak to you about. "

He pushed away his coffee cup and drew a pocket-book from his innerbreast-pocket. From the depths of the pocket-book he produced anenvelope, and from the envelope he extracted a letter, closely written ina small, neat handwriting. 

"One of the Canon's numerous letters to Aunt Adelaide, " he explained, "written a few days before his death. Her memory was already failingwhen she received it, and I daresay she forgot the contents as soon asshe had read it; otherwise, in the light of what subsequently happened, we should have heard something of this letter before now. If it had beenproduced at the inquest I fancy it would have made some difference in thecourse of affairs. The evidence, as you remarked just now, choked offsuspicion against Sebastien by disclosing an utter absence of anythingthat could be considered a motive or provocation for the crime, if crimethere was. "

"Oh, read the letter, " said Sir Lulworth impatiently. 

"It's a long rambling affair, like most of his letters in his lateryears, " said Egbert. "I'll read the part that bears immediately on themystery. 

"'I very much fear I shall have to get rid of Sebastien. He cooksdivinely, but he has the temper of a fiend or an anthropoid ape, and I amreally in bodily fear of him. We had a dispute the other day as to thecorrect sort of lunch to be served on Ash Wednesday, and I got soirritated and annoyed at his conceit and obstinacy that at last I threw acupful of coffee in his face and called him at the same time an impudentjackanapes. Very little of the coffee went actually in his face, but Ihave never seen a human being show such deplorable lack of self-control. I laughed at the threat of killing me that he spluttered out in his rage, and thought the whole thing would blow over, but I have several timessince caught him scowling and muttering in a highly unpleasant fashion, and lately I have fancied that he was dogging my footsteps about thegrounds, particularly when I walk of an evening in the Italian Garden. '

"It was on the steps in the Italian Garden that the body was found, "commented Egbert, and resumed reading. 

"'I daresay the danger is imaginary; but I shall feel more at ease whenhe has quitted my service. '"

Egbert paused for a moment at the conclusion of the extract; then, as hisuncle made no remark, he added: "If lack of motive was the only factorthat saved Sebastien from prosecution I fancy this letter will put adifferent complexion on matters. "

"Have you shown it to anyone else?" asked Sir Lulworth, reaching out hishand for the incriminating piece of paper. 

"No, " said Egbert, handing it across the table, "I thought I would tellyou about it first. Heavens, what are you doing?"

Egbert's voice rose almost to a scream. Sir Lulworth had flung the paperwell and truly into the glowing centre of the grate. The small, neathandwriting shrivelled into black flaky nothingness. 

"What on earth did you do that for?" gasped Egbert. "That letter was ourone piece of evidence to connect Sebastien with the crime. "

"That is why I destroyed it, " said Sir Lulworth. 

"But why should you want to shield him?" cried Egbert; "the man is acommon murderer. "

"A common murderer, possibly, but a very uncommon cook. "

DUSK

Norman Gortsby sat on a bench in the Park, with his back to a strip ofbush-planted sward, fenced by the park railings, and the Row fronting himacross a wide stretch of carriage drive. Hyde Park Corner, with itsrattle and hoot of traffic, lay immediately to his right. It was somethirty minutes past six on an early March evening, and dusk had fallenheavily over the scene, dusk mitigated by some faint moonlight and manystreet lamps. There was a wide emptiness over road and sidewalk, and yetthere were many unconsidered figures moving silently through the half-light, or dotted unobtrusively on bench and chair, scarcely to bedistinguished from the shadowed gloom in which they sat. 

The scene pleased Gortsby and harmonised with his present mood. Dusk, tohis mind, was the hour of the defeated. Men and women, who had foughtand lost, who hid their fallen fortunes and dead hopes as far as possiblefrom the scrutiny of the curious, came forth in this hour of gloaming, when their shabby clothes and bowed shoulders and unhappy eyes might passunnoticed, or, at any rate, unrecognised. 

 A king that is conquered must see strange looks, So bitter a thing is the heart of man. 

The wanderers in the dusk did not choose to have strange looks fasten onthem, therefore they came out in this bat-fashion, taking their pleasuresadly in a pleasure-ground that had emptied of its rightful occupants. Beyond the sheltering screen of bushes and palings came a realm ofbrilliant lights and noisy, rushing traffic. A blazing, many-tieredstretch of windows shone through the dusk and almost dispersed it, marking the haunts of those other people, who held their own in life'sstruggle, or at any rate had not had to admit failure. So Gortsby'simagination pictured things as he sat on his bench in the almost desertedwalk. He was in the mood to count himself among the defeated. Moneytroubles did not press on him; had he so wished he could have strolledinto the thoroughfares of light and noise, and taken his place among thejostling ranks of those who enjoyed prosperity or struggled for it. Hehad failed in a more subtle ambition, and for the moment he was heartsoreand disillusionised, and not disinclined to take a certain cynicalpleasure in observing and labelling his fellow wanderers as they wenttheir ways in the dark stretches between the lamp-lights. 

On the bench by his side sat an elderly gentleman with a drooping air ofdefiance that was probably the remaining vestige of self-respect in anindividual who had ceased to defy successfully anybody or anything. Hisclothes could scarcely be called shabby, at least they passed muster inthe half-light, but one's imagination could not have pictured the wearerembarking on the purchase of a half-crown box of chocolates or laying outninepence on a carnation buttonhole. He belonged unmistakably to thatforlorn orchestra to whose piping no one dances; he was one of theworld's lamenters who induce no responsive weeping. As he rose to goGortsby imagined him returning to a home circle where he was snubbed andof no account, or to some bleak lodging where his ability to pay a weeklybill was the beginning and end of the interest he inspired. Hisretreating figure vanished slowly into the shadows, and his place on thebench was taken almost immediately by a young man, fairly well dressedbut scarcely more cheerful of mien than his predecessor. As if toemphasise the fact that the world went badly with him the new-cornerunburdened himself of an angry and very audible expletive as he flunghimself into the seat. 

"You don't seem in a very good temper, " said Gortsby, judging that he wasexpected to take due notice of the demonstration. 

The young man turned to him with a look of disarming frankness which puthim instantly on his guard. 

"You wouldn't be in a good temper if you were in the fix I'm in, " hesaid; "I've done the silliest thing I've ever done in my life. "

"Yes?" said Gortsby dispassionately. 

"Came up this afternoon, meaning to stay at the Patagonian Hotel inBerkshire Square, " continued the young man; "when I got there I found ithad been pulled down some weeks ago and a cinema theatre run up on thesite. The taxi driver recommended me to another hotel some way off and Iwent there. I just sent a letter to my people, giving them the address, and then I went out to buy some soap--I'd forgotten to pack any and Ihate using hotel soap. Then I strolled about a bit, had a drink at a barand looked at the shops, and when I came to turn my steps back to thehotel I suddenly realised that I didn't remember its name or even whatstreet it was in. There's a nice predicament for a fellow who hasn't anyfriends or connections in London! Of course I can wire to my people forthe address, but they won't have got my letter till to-morrow; meantimeI'm without any money, came out with about a shilling on me, which wentin buying the soap and getting the drink, and here I am, wandering aboutwith twopence in my pocket and nowhere to go for the night. "

There was an eloquent pause after the story had been told. "I supposeyou think I've spun you rather an impossible yarn, " said the young manpresently, with a suggestion of resentment in his voice. 

"Not at all impossible, " said Gortsby judicially; "I remember doingexactly the same thing once in a foreign capital, and on that occasionthere were two of us, which made it more remarkable. Luckily weremembered that the hotel was on a sort of canal, and when we struck thecanal we were able to find our way back to the hotel. "

The youth brightened at the reminiscence. "In a foreign city I wouldn'tmind so much, " he said; "one could go to one's Consul and get therequisite help from him. Here in one's own land one is far more derelictif one gets into a fix. Unless I can find some decent chap to swallow mystory and lend me some money I seem likely to spend the night on theEmbankment. I'm glad, anyhow, that you don't think the storyoutrageously improbable. "

He threw a good deal of warmth into the last remark, as though perhaps toindicate his hope that Gortsby did not fall far short of the requisitedecency. 

"Of course, " said Gortsby slowly, "the weak point of your story is thatyou can't produce the soap. "

The young man sat forward hurriedly, felt rapidly in the pockets of hisovercoat, and then jumped to his feet. 

"I must have lost it, " he muttered angrily. 

"To lose an hotel and a cake of soap on one afternoon suggests wilfulcarelessness, " said Gortsby, but the young man scarcely waited to hearthe end of the remark. He flitted away down the path, his head heldhigh, with an air of somewhat jaded jauntiness. 

"It was a pity, " mused Gortsby; "the going out to get one's own soap wasthe one convincing touch in the whole story, and yet it was just thatlittle detail that brought him to grief. If he had had the brilliantforethought to provide himself with a cake of soap, wrapped and sealedwith all the solicitude of the chemist's counter, he would have been agenius in his particular line. In his particular line genius certainlyconsists of an infinite capacity for taking precautions. "

With that reflection Gortsby rose to go; as he did so an exclamation ofconcern escaped him. Lying on the ground by the side of the bench was asmall oval packet, wrapped and sealed with the solicitude of a chemist'scounter. It could be nothing else but a cake of soap, and it hadevidently fallen out of the youth's overcoat pocket when he flung himselfdown on the seat. In another moment Gortsby was scudding along the dusk-shrouded path in anxious quest for a youthful figure in a light overcoat. He had nearly given up the search when he caught sight of the object ofhis pursuit standing irresolutely on the border of the carriage drive, evidently uncertain whether to strike across the Park or make for thebustling pavements of Knightsbridge. He turned round sharply with an airof defensive hostility when he found Gortsby hailing him. 

"The important witness to the genuineness of your story has turned up, "said Gortsby, holding out the cake of soap; "it must have slid out ofyour overcoat pocket when you sat down on the seat. I saw it on theground after you left. You must excuse my disbelief, but appearanceswere really rather against you, and now, as I appealed to the testimonyof the soap I think I ought to abide by its verdict. If the loan of asovereign is any good to you--"

The young man hastily removed all doubt on the subject by pocketing thecoin. 

"Here is my card with my address, " continued Gortsby; "any day this weekwill do for returning the money, and here is the soap--don't lose itagain it's been a good friend to you. "

"Lucky thing your finding it, " said the youth, and then, with a catch inhis voice, he blurted out a word or two of thanks and fled headlong inthe direction of Knightsbridge. 

"Poor boy, he as nearly as possible broke down, " said Gortsby to himself. "I don't wonder either; the relief from his quandary must have beenacute. It's a lesson to me not to be too clever in judging bycircumstances. "

As Gortsby retraced his steps past the seat where the little drama hadtaken place he saw an elderly gentleman poking and peering beneath it andon all sides of it, and recognised his earlier fellow occupant. 

"Have you lost anything, sir?" he asked. 

"Yes, sir, a cake of soap. "

A TOUCH OF REALISM

"I hope you've come full of suggestions for Christmas, " said Lady Blonzeto her latest arrived guest; "the old-fashioned Christmas and the up-to-date Christmas are both so played out. I want to have something reallyoriginal this year. "

"I was staying with the Mathesons last month, " said Blanche Bovealeagerly, "and we had such a good idea. Every one in the house-party hadto be a character and behave consistently all the time, and at the end ofthe visit one had to guess what every one's character was. The one whowas voted to have acted his or her character best got a prize. "

"It sounds amusing, " said Lady Blonze. 

"I was St. Francis of Assisi, " continued Blanche; "we hadn't got to keepto our right sexes. I kept getting up in the middle of a meal, andthrowing out food to the birds; you see, the chief thing that oneremembers of St. Francis is that he was fond of the birds. Every one wasso stupid about it, and thought that I was the old man who feeds thesparrows in the Tuileries Gardens. Then Colonel Pentley was the JollyMiller on the banks of Dee. "

"How on earth did he do that?" asked Bertie van Tahn. 

"'He laughed and sang from morn till night, '" explained Blanche. 

"How dreadful for the rest of you, " said Bertie; "and anyway he wasn't onthe banks of Dee. "

"One had to imagine that, " said Blanche. 

"If you could imagine all that you might as well imagine cattle on thefurther bank and keep on calling them home, Mary-fashion, across thesands of Dee. Or you might change the river to the Yarrow and imagine itwas on the top of you, and say you were Willie, or whoever it was, drowned in Yarrow. "

"Of course it's easy to make fun of it, " said Blanche sharply, "but itwas extremely interesting and amusing. The prize was rather a fiasco, though. You see, Millie Matheson said her character was Lady Bountiful, and as she was our hostess of course we all had to vote that she hadcarried out her character better than anyone. Otherwise I ought to havegot the prize. "

"It's quite an idea for a Christmas party, " said Lady Blonze; "we mustcertainly do it here. "

Sir Nicholas was not so enthusiastic. "Are you quite sure, my dear, thatyou're wise in doing this thing?" he said to his wife when they werealone together. "It might do very well at the Mathesons, where they hadrather a staid, elderly house-party, but here it will be a differentmatter. There is the Durmot flapper, for instance, who simply stops atnothing, and you know what Van Tahn is like. Then there is CyrilSkatterly; he has madness on one side of his family and a Hungariangrandmother on the other. "

"I don't see what they could do that would matter, " said Lady Blonze. 

"It's the unknown that is to be dreaded, " said Sir Nicholas. "IfSkatterly took it into his head to represent a Bull of Bashan, well, I'drather not be here. "

"Of course we shan't allow any Bible characters. Besides, I don't knowwhat the Bulls of Bashan really did that was so very dreadful; they justcame round and gaped, as far as I remember. "

"My dear, you don't know what Skatterly's Hungarian imagination mightn'tread into the part; it would be small satisfaction to say to himafterwards: 'You've behaved as no Bull of Bashan would have behaved. '"

"Oh, you're an alarmist, " said Lady Blonze; "I particularly want to havethis idea carried out. It will be sure to be talked about a lot. "

"That is quite possible, " said Sir Nicholas. 

* * * * *

Dinner that evening was not a particularly lively affair; the strain oftrying to impersonate a self-imposed character or to glean hints ofidentity from other people's conduct acted as a check on the naturalfestivity of such a gathering. There was a general feeling of gratitudeand acquiescence when good-natured Rachel Klammerstein suggested thatthere should be an hour or two's respite from "the game" while they alllistened to a little piano-playing after dinner. Rachel's love of pianomusic was not indiscriminate, and concentrated itself chiefly onselections rendered by her idolised offspring, Moritz and Augusta, who, to do them justice, played remarkably well. 

The Klammersteins were deservedly popular as Christmas guests; they gaveexpensive gifts lavishly on Christmas Day and New Year, and Mrs. Klammerstein had already dropped hints of her intention to present theprize for the best enacted character in the game competition. Every onehad brightened at this prospect; if it had fallen to Lady Blonze, ashostess, to provide the prize, she would have considered that a littlesouvenir of some twenty or twenty-five shillings' value would meet thecase, whereas coming from a Klammerstein source it would certainly run toseveral guineas. 

The close time for impersonation efforts came to an end with the finalwithdrawal of Moritz and Augusta from the piano. Blanche Boveal retiredearly, leaving the room in a series of laboured leaps that she hopedmight be recognised as a tolerable imitation of Pavlova. Vera Durmot, the sixteen-year-old flapper, expressed her confident opinion that theperformance was intended to typify Mark Twain's famous jumping frog, andher diagnosis of the case found general acceptance. Another guest to setan example of early bed-going was Waldo Plubley, who conducted his lifeon a minutely regulated system of time-tables and hygienic routine. Waldowas a plump, indolent young man of seven-and-twenty, whose mother hadearly in his life decided for him that he was unusually delicate, and bydint of much coddling and home-keeping had succeeded in making himphysically soft and mentally peevish. Nine hours' unbroken sleep, preceded by elaborate breathing exercises and other hygienic ritual, wasamong the indispensable regulations which Waldo imposed on himself, andthere were innumerable small observances which he exacted from those whowere in any way obliged to minister to his requirements; a special teapotfor the decoction of his early tea was always solemnly handed over to thebedroom staff of any house in which he happened to be staying. No onehad ever quite mastered the mechanism of this precious vessel, but Bertievan Tahn was responsible for the legend that its spout had to be keptfacing north during the process of infusion. 

On this particular night the irreducible nine hours were severelymutilated by the sudden and by no means noiseless incursion of a pyjama-clad figure into Waldo's room at an hour midway between midnight anddawn. 

"What is the matter? What are you looking for?" asked the awakened andastonished Waldo, slowly recognising Van Tahn, who appeared to besearching hastily for something he had lost. 

"Looking for sheep, " was the reply. 

"Sheep?" exclaimed Waldo. 

"Yes, sheep. You don't suppose I'm looking for giraffes, do you?"

"I don't see why you should expect to find either in my room, " retortedWaldo furiously. 

"I can't argue the matter at this hour of the night, " said Bertie, andbegan hastily rummaging in the chest of drawers. Shirts and underwearwent flying on to the floor. 

"There are no sheep here, I tell you, " screamed Waldo. 

"I've only got your word for it, " said Bertie, whisking most of thebedclothes on to the floor; "if you weren't concealing something youwouldn't be so agitated. "

Waldo was by this time convinced that Van Tahn was raving mad, and madean anxious, effort to humour him. 

"Go back to bed like a dear fellow, " he pleaded, "and your sheep willturn up all right in the morning. "

"I daresay, " said Bertie gloomily, "without their tails. Nice fool Ishall look with a lot of Manx sheep. "

And by way of emphasising his annoyance at the prospect he sent Waldo'spillows flying to the top of the wardrobe. 

"But _why_ no tails?" asked Waldo, whose teeth were chattering with fearand rage and lowered temperature. 

"My dear boy, have you never heard the ballad of Little Bo-Peep?" saidBertie with a chuckle. "It's my character in the Game, you know. If Ididn't go hunting about for my lost sheep no one would be able to guesswho I was; and now go to sleepy weeps like a good child or I shall becross with you. "

"I leave you to imagine, " wrote Waldo in the course of a long letter tohis mother, "how much sleep I was able to recover that night, and youknow how essential nine uninterrupted hours of slumber are to my health. "

On the other hand he was able to devote some wakeful hours to exercisesin breathing wrath and fury against Bertie van Tahn. 

Breakfast at Blonzecourt was a scattered meal, on the "come when youplease" principle, but the house-party was supposed to gather in fullstrength at lunch. On the day after the "Game" had been started therewere, however, some notable absentees. Waldo Plubley, for instance, wasreported to be nursing a headache. A large breakfast and an "A. B. C. " hadbeen taken up to his room, but he had made no appearance in the flesh. 

"I expect he's playing up to some character, " said Vera Durmot; "isn'tthere a thing of Moliere's, '_Le Malade Imaginaire_'? I expect he'sthat. "

Eight or nine lists came out, and were duly pencilled with thesuggestion. 

"And where are the Klammersteins?" asked Lady Blonze; "they're usually sopunctual. "

"Another character pose, perhaps, " said Bertie van Tahn; "'the Lost TenTribes. '"

"But there are only three of them. Besides, they'll want their lunch. Hasn't anyone seen anything of them?"

"Didn't you take them out in your car?" asked Blanche Boveal, addressingherself to Cyril Skatterly. 

"Yes, took them out to Slogberry Moor immediately after breakfast. MissDurmot came too. "

"I saw you and Vera come back, " said Lady Blonze, "but I didn't see theKlammersteins. Did you put them down in the village?"

"No, " said Skatterly shortly. 

"But where are they? Where did you leave them?"

"We left them on Slogberry Moor, " said Vera calmly. 

"On Slogberry Moor? Why, it's more than thirty miles away! How are theygoing to get back?"

"We didn't stop to consider that, " said Skatterly; "we asked them to getout for a moment, on the pretence that the car had stuck, and then wedashed off full speed and left them there. "

"But how dare you do such a thing? It's most inhuman! Why, it's beensnowing for the last hour. "

"I expect there'll be a cottage or farmhouse somewhere if they walk amile or two. "

"But why on earth have you done it?"

The question came in a chorus of indignant bewilderment. 

"_That_ would be telling what our characters are meant to be, " said Vera. 

"Didn't I warn you?" said Sir Nicholas tragically to his wife. 

"It's something to do with Spanish history; we don't mind giving you thatclue, " said Skatterly, helping himself cheerfully to salad, and thenBertie van Tahn broke forth into peals of joyous laughter. 

"I've got it! Ferdinand and Isabella deporting the Jews! Oh, lovely!Those two have certainly won the prize; we shan't get anything to beatthat for thoroughness. "

Lady Blonze's Christmas party was talked about and written about to anextent that she had not anticipated in her most ambitious moments. Theletters from Waldo's mother would alone have made it memorable. 

COUSIN TERESA

Basset Harrowcluff returned to the home of his fathers, after an absenceof four years, distinctly well pleased with himself. He was only thirty-one, but he had put in some useful service in an out-of-the-way, thoughnot unimportant, corner of the world. He had quieted a province, keptopen a trade route, enforced the tradition of respect which is worth theransom of many kings in out-of-the-way regions, and done the wholebusiness on rather less expenditure than would be requisite fororganising a charity in the home country. In Whitehall and places wherethey think, they doubtless thought well of him. It was notinconceivable, his father allowed himself to imagine, that Basset's namemight figure in the next list of Honours. 

Basset was inclined to be rather contemptuous of his half-brother, Lucas, whom he found feverishly engrossed in the same medley of elaboratefutilities that had claimed his whole time and energies, such as theywere, four years ago, and almost as far back before that as he couldremember. It was the contempt of the man of action for the man ofactivities, and it was probably reciprocated. Lucas was an over-wellnourished individual, some nine years Basset's senior, with a colouringthat would have been accepted as a sign of intensive culture in anasparagus, but probably meant in this case mere abstention from exercise. His hair and forehead furnished a recessional note in a personality thatwas in all other respects obtrusive and assertive. There was certainlyno Semitic blood in Lucas's parentage, but his appearance contrived toconvey at least a suggestion of Jewish extraction. Clovis Sangrail, whoknew most of his associates by sight, said it was undoubtedly a case ofprotective mimicry. 

Two days after Basset's return, Lucas frisked in to lunch in a state oftwittering excitement that could not be restrained even for the immediateconsideration of soup, but had to be verbally discharged in splutteringcompetition with mouthfuls of vermicelli. 

"I've got hold of an idea for something immense, " he babbled, "somethingthat is simply It. "

Basset gave a short laugh that would have done equally well as a snort, if one had wanted to make the exchange. His half-brother was in thehabit of discovering futilities that were "simply It" at frequentlyrecurring intervals. The discovery generally meant that he flew up totown, preceded by glowingly-worded telegrams, to see some one connectedwith the stage or the publishing world, got together one or two momentousluncheon parties, flitted in and out of "Gambrinus" for one or twoevenings, and returned home with an air of subdued importance and theasparagus tint slightly intensified. The great idea was generallyforgotten a few weeks later in the excitement of some new discovery. 

"The inspiration came to me whilst I was dressing, " announced Lucas; "itwill be _the_ thing in the next music-hall _revue_. All London will gomad over it. It's just a couplet; of course there will be other words, but they won't matter. Listen:

 Cousin Teresa takes out Caesar, Fido, Jock, and the big borzoi. 

A lifting, catchy sort of refrain, you see, and big-drum business on thetwo syllables of bor-zoi. It's immense. And I've thought out all thebusiness of it; the singer will sing the first verse alone, then duringthe second verse Cousin Teresa will walk through, followed by four woodendogs on wheels; Caesar will be an Irish terrier, Fido a black poodle, Jock a fox-terrier, and the borzoi, of course, will be a borzoi. Duringthe third verse Cousin Teresa will come on alone, and the dogs will bedrawn across by themselves from the opposite wing; then Cousin Teresawill catch on to the singer and go off-stage in one direction, while thedogs' procession goes off in the other, crossing en route, which isalways very effective. There'll be a lot of applause there, and for thefourth verse Cousin Teresa will come on in sables and the dogs will allhave coats on. Then I've got a great idea for the fifth verse; each ofthe dogs will be led on by a Nut, and Cousin Teresa will come on from theopposite side, crossing en route, always effective, and then she turnsround and leads the whole lot of them off on a string, and all the timeevery one singing like mad:

 Cousin Teresa takes out Caesar Fido, Jock, and the big borzoi. 

Tum-Tum! Drum business on the two last syllables. I'm so excited, Ishan't sleep a wink to-night. I'm off to-morrow by the ten-fifteen. I'vewired to Hermanova to lunch with me. "

If any of the rest of the family felt any excitement over the creation ofCousin Teresa, they were signally successful in concealing the fact. 

"Poor Lucas does take his silly little ideas seriously, " said ColonelHarrowcluff afterwards in the smoking-room. 

"Yes, " said his younger son, in a slightly less tolerant tone, "in a dayor two he'll come back and tell us that his sensational masterpiece isabove the heads of the public, and in about three weeks' time he'll bewild with enthusiasm over a scheme to dramatise the poems of Herrick orsomething equally promising. "

And then an extraordinary thing befell. In defiance of all precedentLucas's glowing anticipations were justified and endorsed by the courseof events. If Cousin Teresa was above the heads of the public, thepublic heroically adapted itself to her altitude. Introduced as anexperiment at a dull moment in a new _revue_, the success of the item wasunmistakable; the calls were so insistent and uproarious that even Lucas'ample devisings of additional "business" scarcely sufficed to keep pacewith the demand. Packed houses on successive evenings confirmed theverdict of the first night audience, stalls and boxes filledsignificantly just before the turn came on, and emptied significantlyafter the last _encore_ had been given. The manager tearfullyacknowledged that Cousin Teresa was It. Stage hands and supers andprogramme sellers acknowledged it to one another without the leastreservation. The name of the _revue_ dwindled to secondary importance, and vast letters of electric blue blazoned the words "Cousin Teresa" fromthe front of the great palace of pleasure. And, of course, the magic ofthe famous refrain laid its spell all over the Metropolis. Restaurantproprietors were obliged to provide the members of their orchestras withpainted wooden dogs on wheels, in order that the much-demanded and alwaysconceded melody should be rendered with the necessary spectaculareffects, and the crash of bottles and forks on the tables at the mentionof the big borzoi usually drowned the sincerest efforts of drum orcymbals. Nowhere and at no time could one get away from the double thumpthat brought up the rear of the refrain; revellers reeling home at nightbanged it on doors and hoardings, milkmen clashed their cans to itscadence, messenger boys hit smaller messenger boys resounding doublesmacks on the same principle. And the more thoughtful circles of thegreat city were not deaf to the claims and significance of the popularmelody. An enterprising and emancipated preacher discoursed from hispulpit on the inner meaning of "Cousin Teresa, " and Lucas Harrowcluff wasinvited to lecture on the subject of his great achievement to members ofthe Young Mens' Endeavour League, the Nine Arts Club, and other learnedand willing-to-learn bodies. In Society it seemed to be the one thingpeople really cared to talk about; men and women of middle age andaverage education might be seen together in corners earnestly discussing, not the question whether Servia should have an outlet on the Adriatic, orthe possibilities of a British success in international polo contests, but the more absorbing topic of the problematic Aztec or Nilotic originof the Teresa _motiv_. 

"Politics and patriotism are so boring and so out of date, " said arevered lady who had some pretensions to oracular utterance; "we are toocosmopolitan nowadays to be really moved by them. That is why onewelcomes an intelligible production like 'Cousin Teresa, ' that has agenuine message for one. One can't understand the message all at once, of course, but one felt from the very first that it was there. I've beento see it eighteen times and I'm going again to-morrow and on Thursday. One can't see it often enough. "

* * * * *

"It would be rather a popular move if we gave this Harrowcluff person aknighthood or something of the sort, " said the Minister reflectively. 

"Which Harrowcluff?" asked his secretary. 

"Which? There is only one, isn't there?" said the Minister; "the 'CousinTeresa' man, of course. I think every one would be pleased if weknighted him. Yes, you can put him down on the list of certainties--underthe letter L. "

"The letter L, " said the secretary, who was new to his job; "does thatstand for Liberalism or liberality?"

Most of the recipients of Ministerial favour were expected to qualify inboth of those subjects. 

"Literature, " explained the Minister. 

And thus, after a fashion, Colonel Harrowcluff's expectation of seeinghis son's name in the list of Honours was gratified. 

THE YARKAND MANNER

Sir Lulworth Quayne was making a leisurely progress through theZoological Society's Gardens in company with his nephew, recentlyreturned from Mexico. The latter was interested in comparing andcontrasting allied types of animals occurring in the North American andOld World fauna. 

"One of the most remarkable things in the wanderings of species, " heobserved, "is the sudden impulse to trek and migrate that breaks out nowand again, for no apparent reason, in communities of hitherto stay-at-home animals. "

"In human affairs the same phenomenon is occasionally noticeable, " saidSir Lulworth; "perhaps the most striking instance of it occurred in thiscountry while you were away in the wilds of Mexico. I mean the wanderfever which suddenly displayed itself in the managing and editorialstaffs of certain London newspapers. It began with the stampede of theentire staff of one of our most brilliant and enterprising weeklies tothe banks of the Seine and the heights of Montmartre. The migration wasa brief one, but it heralded an era of restlessness in the Press worldwhich lent quite a new meaning to the phrase 'newspaper circulation. 'Other editorial staffs were not slow to imitate the example that had beenset them. Paris soon dropped out of fashion as being too near home;Nurnberg, Seville, and Salonica became more favoured as planting-outgrounds for the personnel of not only weekly but daily papers as well. The localities were perhaps not always well chosen; the fact of a leadingorgan of Evangelical thought being edited for two successive fortnightsfrom Trouville and Monte Carlo was generally admitted to have been amistake. And even when enterprising and adventurous editors tookthemselves and their staffs further afield there were some unavoidableclashings. For instance, the _Scrutator_, _Sporting Bluff_, and _TheDamsels' Own Paper_ all pitched on Khartoum for the same week. It was, perhaps, a desire to out-distance all possible competition thatinfluenced the management of the _Daily Intelligencer_, one of the mostsolid and respected organs of Liberal opinion, in its decision totransfer its offices for three or four weeks from Fleet Street to EasternTurkestan, allowing, of course, a necessary margin of time for thejourney there and back. This was, in many respects, the most remarkableof all the Press stampedes that were experienced at this time. There wasno make-believe about the undertaking; proprietor, manager, editor, sub-editors, leader-writers, principal reporters, and so forth, all took partin what was popularly alluded to as the _Drang nach Osten_; anintelligent and efficient office-boy was all that was left in thedeserted hive of editorial industry. "

"That was doing things rather thoroughly, wasn't it?" said the nephew. 

"Well, you see, " said Sir Lulworth, "the migration idea was fallingsomewhat into disrepute from the half-hearted manner in which it wasoccasionally carried out. You were not impressed by the information thatsuch and such a paper was being edited and brought out at Lisbon orInnsbruck if you chanced to see the principal leader-writer or the arteditor lunching as usual at their accustomed restaurants. The _DailyIntelligencer_ was determined to give no loophole for cavil at thegenuineness of its pilgrimage, and it must be admitted that to a certainextent the arrangements made for transmitting copy and carrying on theusual features of the paper during the long outward journey workedsmoothly and well. The series of articles which commenced at Baku on'What Cobdenism might do for the camel industry' ranks among the best ofthe recent contributions to Free Trade literature, while the views onforeign policy enunciated 'from a roof in Yarkand' showed at least asmuch grasp of the international situation as those that had germinatedwithin half a mile of Downing Street. Quite in keeping, too, with theolder and better traditions of British journalism was the manner of thehome-coming; no bombast, no personal advertisement, no flamboyantinterviews. Even a complimentary luncheon at the Voyagers' Club wascourteously declined. Indeed, it began to be felt that theself-effacement of the returned pressmen was being carried to a pedanticlength. Foreman compositors, advertisement clerks, and other members ofthe non-editorial staff, who had, of course, taken no part in the greattrek, found it as impossible to get into direct communication with theeditor and his satellites now that they had returned as when they hadbeen excusably inaccessible in Central Asia. The sulky, overworkedoffice-boy, who was the one connecting link between the editorial brainand the business departments of the paper, sardonically explained the newaloofness as the 'Yarkand manner. ' Most of the reporters and sub-editorsseemed to have been dismissed in autocratic fashion since their returnand new ones engaged by letter; to these the editor and his immediateassociates remained an unseen presence, issuing its instructions solelythrough the medium of curt typewritten notes. Something mystic andTibetan and forbidden had replaced the human bustle and democraticsimplicity of pre-migration days, and the same experience was encounteredby those who made social overtures to the returned wanderers. The mostbrilliant hostess of Twentieth Century London flung the pearl of herhospitality into the unresponsive trough of the editorial letter-box; itseemed as if nothing short of a Royal command would drag thehermit-souled _revenants_ from their self-imposed seclusion. Peoplebegan to talk unkindly of the effect of high altitudes and Easternatmosphere on minds and temperaments unused to such luxuries. TheYarkand manner was not popular. "

"And the contents of the paper, " said the nephew, "did they show theinfluence of the new style?"

"Ah!" said Sir Lulworth, "that was the exciting thing. In home affairs, social questions, and the ordinary events of the day not much change wasnoticeable. A certain Oriental carelessness seemed to have crept intothe editorial department, and perhaps a note of lassitude not unnaturalin the work of men who had returned from what had been a fairly arduousjourney. The aforetime standard of excellence was scarcely maintained, but at any rate the general lines of policy and outlook were not departedfrom. It was in the realm of foreign affairs that a startling changetook place. Blunt, forcible, outspoken articles appeared, couched inlanguage which nearly turned the autumn manoeuvres of six importantPowers into mobilisations. Whatever else the _Daily Intelligencer_ hadlearned in the East, it had not acquired the art of diplomatic ambiguity. The man in the street enjoyed the articles and bought the paper as he hadnever bought it before; the men in Downing Street took a different view. The Foreign Secretary, hitherto accounted a rather reticent man, becamepositively garrulous in the course of perpetually disavowing thesentiments expressed in the _Daily Intelligencer's_ leaders; and then oneday the Government came to the conclusion that something definite anddrastic must be done. A deputation, consisting of the Prime Minister, the Foreign Secretary, four leading financiers, and a well-knownNonconformist divine, made its way to the offices of the paper. At thedoor leading to the editorial department the way was barred by a nervousbut defiant office-boy. 

"'You can't see the editor nor any of the staff, ' he announced. 

"'We insist on seeing the editor or some responsible person, ' said thePrime Minister, and the deputation forced its way in. The boy had spokentruly; there was no one to be seen. In the whole suite of rooms therewas no sign of human life. 

"'Where is the editor?' 'Or the foreign editor?' 'Or the chief leader-writer? Or anybody?'

"In answer to the shower of questions the boy unlocked a drawer andproduced a strange-looking envelope, which bore a Khokand postmark, and adate of some seven or eight months back. It contained a scrap of paperon which was written the following message:

 "'Entire party captured by brigand tribe on homeward journey. Quarter of million demanded as ransom, but would probably take less. Inform Government, relations, and friends. '

"There followed the signatures of the principal members of the party andinstructions as to how and where the money was to be paid. 

"The letter had been directed to the office-boy-in-charge, who hadquietly suppressed it. No one is a hero to one's own office-boy, and heevidently considered that a quarter of a million was an unwarrantableoutlay for such a doubtfully advantageous object as the repatriation ofan errant newspaper staff. So he drew the editorial and other salaries, forged what signatures were necessary, engaged new reporters, did whatsub-editing he could, and made as much use as possible of the largeaccumulation of special articles that was held in reserve foremergencies. The articles on foreign affairs were entirely his owncomposition. 

"Of course the whole thing had to be kept as quiet as possible; aninterim staff, pledged to secrecy, was appointed to keep the paper goingtill the pining captives could be sought out, ransomed, and brought home, in twos and threes to escape notice, and gradually things were put backon their old footing. The articles on foreign affairs reverted to thewonted traditions of the paper. "

"But, " interposed the nephew, "how on earth did the boy account to therelatives all those months for the non-appearance--"

"That, " said Sir Lulworth, "was the most brilliant stroke of all. To thewife or nearest relative of each of the missing men he forwarded aletter, copying the handwriting of the supposed writer as well as hecould, and making excuses about vile pens and ink; in each letter he toldthe same story, varying only the locality, to the effect that the writer, alone of the whole party, was unable to tear himself away from the wildliberty and allurements of Eastern life, and was going to spend severalmonths roaming in some selected region. Many of the wives started offimmediately in pursuit of their errant husbands, and it took theGovernment a considerable time and much trouble to reclaim them fromtheir fruitless quests along the banks of the Oxus, the Gobi Desert, theOrenburg steppe, and other outlandish places. One of them, I believe, isstill lost somewhere in the Tigris Valley. "

"And the boy?"

"Is still in journalism. "

THE BYZANTINE OMELETTE

Sophie Chattel-Monkheim was a Socialist by conviction and aChattel-Monkheim by marriage. The particular member of that wealthyfamily whom she had married was rich, even as his relatives countedriches. Sophie had very advanced and decided views as to thedistribution of money: it was a pleasing and fortunate circumstance thatshe also had the money. When she inveighed eloquently against the evilsof capitalism at drawing-room meetings and Fabian conferences she wasconscious of a comfortable feeling that the system, with all itsinequalities and iniquities, would probably last her time. It is one ofthe consolations of middle-aged reformers that the good they inculcatemust live after them if it is to live at all. 

On a certain spring evening, somewhere towards the dinner-hour, Sophiesat tranquilly between her mirror and her maid, undergoing the process ofhaving her hair built into an elaborate reflection of the prevailingfashion. She was hedged round with a great peace, the peace of one whohas attained a desired end with much effort and perseverance, and who hasfound it still eminently desirable in its attainment. The Duke of Syriahad consented to come beneath her roof as a guest, was even now installedbeneath her roof, and would shortly be sitting at her dining-table. As agood Socialist, Sophie disapproved of social distinctions, and deridedthe idea of a princely caste, but if there were to be these artificialgradations of rank and dignity she was pleased and anxious to have anexalted specimen of an exalted order included in her house-party. Shewas broad-minded enough to love the sinner while hating the sin--not thatshe entertained any warm feeling of personal affection for the Duke ofSyria, who was a comparative stranger, but still, as Duke of Syria, hewas very, very welcome beneath her roof. She could not have explainedwhy, but no one was likely to ask her for an explanation, and mosthostesses envied her. 

"You must surpass yourself to-night, Richardson, " she said complacentlyto her maid; "I must be looking my very best. We must all surpassourselves. "

The maid said nothing, but from the concentrated look in her eyes and thedeft play of her fingers it was evident that she was beset with theambition to surpass herself. 

A knock came at the door, a quiet but peremptory knock, as of some onewho would not be denied. 

"Go and see who it is, " said Sophie; "it may be something about thewine. "

Richardson held a hurried conference with an invisible messenger at thedoor; when she returned there was noticeable a curious listlessness inplace of her hitherto alert manner. 

"What is it?" asked Sophie. 

"The household servants have 'downed tools, ' madame, " said Richardson. 

"Downed tools!" exclaimed Sophie; "do you mean to say they've gone onstrike?"

"Yes, madame, " said Richardson, adding the information: "It's Gasparethat the trouble is about. "

"Gaspare?" said Sophie wanderingly; "the emergency chef! The omelettespecialist!"

"Yes, madame. Before he became an omelette specialist he was a valet, and he was one of the strike-breakers in the great strike at LordGrimford's two years ago. As soon as the household staff here learnedthat you had engaged him they resolved to 'down tools' as a protest. Theyhaven't got any grievance against you personally, but they demand thatGaspare should be immediately dismissed. "

"But, " protested Sophie, "he is the only man in England who understandshow to make a Byzantine omelette. I engaged him specially for the Dukeof Syria's visit, and it would be impossible to replace him at shortnotice. I should have to send to Paris, and the Duke loves Byzantineomelettes. It was the one thing we talked about coming from thestation. "

"He was one of the strike-breakers at Lord Grimford's, " reiteratedRichardson. 

"This is too awful, " said Sophie; "a strike of servants at a moment likethis, with the Duke of Syria staying in the house. Something must bedone immediately. Quick, finish my hair and I'll go and see what I cando to bring them round. "

"I can't finish your hair, madame, " said Richardson quietly, but withimmense decision. "I belong to the union and I can't do another half-minute's work till the strike is settled. I'm sorry to be disobliging. "

"But this is inhuman!" exclaimed Sophie tragically; "I've always been amodel mistress and I've refused to employ any but union servants, andthis is the result. I can't finish my hair myself; I don't know how to. What am I to do? It's wicked!"

"Wicked is the word, " said Richardson; "I'm a good Conservative and I'veno patience with this Socialist foolery, asking your pardon. It'styranny, that's what it is, all along the line, but I've my living tomake, same as other people, and I've got to belong to the union. Icouldn't touch another hair-pin without a strike permit, not if you wasto double my wages. "

The door burst open and Catherine Malsom raged into the room. 

"Here's a nice affair, " she screamed, "a strike of household servantswithout a moment's warning, and I'm left like this! I can't appear inpublic in this condition. "

After a very hasty scrutiny Sophie assured her that she could not. 

"Have they all struck?" she asked her maid. 

"Not the kitchen staff, " said Richardson, "they belong to a differentunion. "

"Dinner at least will be assured, " said Sophie, "that is something to bethankful for. "

"Dinner!" snorted Catherine, "what on earth is the good of dinner whennone of us will be able to appear at it? Look at your hair--and look atme! or rather, don't. "

"I know it's difficult to manage without a maid; can't your husband beany help to you?" asked Sophie despairingly. 

"Henry? He's in worse case than any of us. His man is the only personwho really understands that ridiculous new-fangled Turkish bath that heinsists on taking with him everywhere. "

"Surely he could do without a Turkish bath for one evening, " said Sophie;"I can't appear without hair, but a Turkish bath is a luxury. "

"My good woman, " said Catherine, speaking with a fearful intensity, "Henry was in the bath when the strike started. In it, do youunderstand? He's there now. "

"Can't he get out?"

"He doesn't know how to. Every time he pulls the lever marked 'release'he only releases hot steam. There are two kinds of steam in the bath, 'bearable' and 'scarcely bearable'; he has released them both. By thistime I'm probably a widow. "

"I simply can't send away Gaspare, " wailed Sophie; "I should never beable to secure another omelette specialist. "

"Any difficulty that I may experience in securing another husband is ofcourse a trifle beneath anyone's consideration, " said Catherine bitterly. 

Sophie capitulated. "Go, " she said to Richardson, "and tell the StrikeCommittee, or whoever are directing this affair, that Gaspare is herewithdismissed. And ask Gaspare to see me presently in the library, when Iwill pay him what is due to him and make what excuses I can; and then flyback and finish my hair. "

Some half an hour later Sophie marshalled her guests in the Grand Salonpreparatory to the formal march to the dining-room. Except that HenryMalsom was of the ripe raspberry tint that one sometimes sees at privatetheatricals representing the human complexion, there was little outwardsign among those assembled of the crisis that had just been encounteredand surmounted. But the tension had been too stupefying while it lastednot to leave some mental effects behind it. Sophie talked at random toher illustrious guest, and found her eyes straying with increasingfrequency towards the great doors through which would presently come theblessed announcement that dinner was served. Now and again she glancedmirror-ward at the reflection of her wonderfully coiffed hair, as aninsurance underwriter might gaze thankfully at an overdue vessel that hadridden safely into harbour in the wake of a devastating hurricane. Thenthe doors opened and the welcome figure of the butler entered the room. But he made no general announcement of a banquet in readiness, and thedoors closed behind him; his message was for Sophie alone. 

"There is no dinner, madame, " he said gravely; "the kitchen staff have'downed tools. ' Gaspare belongs to the Union of Cooks and KitchenEmployees, and as soon as they heard of his summary dismissal at amoment's notice they struck work. They demand his instant reinstatementand an apology to the union. I may add, madame, that they are very firm;I've been obliged even to hand back the dinner rolls that were already onthe table. "

After the lapse of eighteen months Sophie Chattel-Monkheim is beginningto go about again among her old haunts and associates, but she still hasto be very careful. The doctors will not let her attend anything at allexciting, such as a drawing-room meeting or a Fabian conference; it isdoubtful, indeed, whether she wants to. 

THE FEAST OF NEMESIS

"It's a good thing that Saint Valentine's Day has dropped out of vogue, "said Mrs. Thackenbury; "what with Christmas and New Year and Easter, notto speak of birthdays, there are quite enough remembrance days as it is. I tried to save myself trouble at Christmas by just sending flowers toall my friends, but it wouldn't work; Gertrude has eleven hot-houses andabout thirty gardeners, so it would have been ridiculous to send flowersto her, and Milly has just started a florist's shop, so it was equallyout of the question there. The stress of having to decide in a hurrywhat to give to Gertrude and Milly just when I thought I'd got the wholequestion nicely off my mind completely ruined my Christmas, and then theawful monotony of the letters of thanks: 'Thank you so much for yourlovely flowers. It was so good of you to think of me. ' Of course in themajority of cases I hadn't thought about the recipients at all; theirnames were down in my list of 'people who must not be left out. ' If Itrusted to remembering them there would be some awful sins of omission. "

"The trouble is, " said Clovis to his aunt, "all these days of intrusiveremembrance harp so persistently on one aspect of human nature andentirely ignore the other; that is why they become so perfunctory andartificial. At Christmas and New Year you are emboldened and encouragedby convention to send gushing messages of optimistic goodwill and servileaffection to people whom you would scarcely ask to lunch unless some oneelse had failed you at the last moment; if you are supping at arestaurant on New Year's Eve you are permitted and expected to join handsand sing 'For Auld Lang Syne' with strangers whom you have never seenbefore and never want to see again. But no licence is allowed in theopposite direction. "

"Opposite direction; what opposite direction?" queried Mrs. Thackenbury. 

"There is no outlet for demonstrating your feelings towards people whomyou simply loathe. That is really the crying need of our moderncivilisation. Just think how jolly it would be if a recognised day wereset apart for the paying off of old scores and grudges, a day when onecould lay oneself out to be gracefully vindictive to a carefullytreasured list of 'people who must not be let off. ' I remember when Iwas at a private school we had one day, the last Monday of the term Ithink it was, consecrated to the settlement of feuds and grudges; ofcourse we did not appreciate it as much as it deserved, because, afterall, any day of the term could be used for that purpose. Still, if onehad chastised a smaller boy for being cheeky weeks before, one was alwayspermitted on that day to recall the episode to his memory by chastisinghim again. That is what the French call reconstructing the crime. "

"I should call it reconstructing the punishment, " said Mrs. Thackenbury;"and, anyhow, I don't see how you could introduce a system of primitiveschoolboy vengeance into civilised adult life. We haven't outgrown ourpassions, but we are supposed to have learned how to keep them withinstrictly decorous limits. "

"Of course the thing would have to be done furtively and politely, " saidClovis; "the charm of it would be that it would never be perfunctory likethe other thing. Now, for instance, you say to yourself: 'I must showthe Webleys some attention at Christmas, they were kind to dear Bertie atBournemouth, ' and you send them a calendar, and daily for six days afterChristmas the male Webley asks the female Webley if she has remembered tothank you for the calendar you sent them. Well, transplant that idea tothe other and more human side of your nature, and say to yourself: 'NextThursday is Nemesis Day; what on earth can I do to those odious peoplenext door who made such an absurd fuss when Ping Yang bit their youngestchild?' Then you'd get up awfully early on the allotted day and climbover into their garden and dig for truffles on their tennis court with agood gardening fork, choosing, of course, that part of the court that wasscreened from observation by the laurel bushes. You wouldn't find anytruffles but you would find a great peace, such as no amount of present-giving could ever bestow. "

"I shouldn't, " said Mrs. Thackenbury, though her air of protest sounded abit forced; "I should feel rather a worm for doing such a thing. "

"You exaggerate the power of upheaval which a worm would be able to bringinto play in the limited time available, " said Clovis; "if you put in astrenuous ten minutes with a really useful fork, the result ought tosuggest the operations of an unusually masterful mole or a badger in ahurry. "

"They might guess I had done it, " said Mrs. Thackenbury. 

"Of course they would, " said Clovis; "that would be half the satisfactionof the thing, just as you like people at Christmas to know what presentsor cards you've sent them. The thing would be much easier to manage, ofcourse, when you were on outwardly friendly terms with the object of yourdislike. That greedy little Agnes Blaik, for instance, who thinks ofnothing but her food, it would be quite simple to ask her to a picnic insome wild woodland spot and lose her just before lunch was served; whenyou found her again every morsel of food could have been eaten up. "

"It would require no ordinary human strategy to lose Agnes Blaik whenluncheon was imminent: in fact, I don't believe it could be done. "

"Then have all the other guests, people whom you dislike, and lose theluncheon. It could have been sent by accident in the wrong direction. "

"It would be a ghastly picnic, " said Mrs. Thackenbury. 

"For them, but not for you, " said Clovis; "you would have had an earlyand comforting lunch before you started, and you could improve theoccasion by mentioning in detail the items of the missing banquet--thelobster Newburg and the egg mayonnaise, and the curry that was to havebeen heated in a chafing-dish. Agnes Blaik would be delirious longbefore you got to the list of wines, and in the long interval of waiting, before they had quite abandoned hope of the lunch turning up, you couldinduce them to play silly games, such as that idiotic one of 'the LordMayor's dinner-party, ' in which every one has to choose the name of adish and do something futile when it is called out. In this case theywould probably burst into tears when their dish is mentioned. It wouldbe a heavenly picnic. "

Mrs. Thackenbury was silent for a moment; she was probably making amental list of the people she would like to invite to the Duke Humphreypicnic. Presently she asked: "And that odious young man, Waldo Plubley, who is always coddling himself--have you thought of anything that onecould do to him?" Evidently she was beginning to see the possibilitiesof Nemesis Day. 

"If there was anything like a general observance of the festival, " saidClovis, "Waldo would be in such demand that you would have to bespeak himweeks beforehand, and even then, if there were an east wind blowing or acloud or two in the sky he might be too careful of his precious self tocome out. It would be rather jolly if you could lure him into a hammockin the orchard, just near the spot where there is a wasps' nest everysummer. A comfortable hammock on a warm afternoon would appeal to hisindolent tastes, and then, when he was getting drowsy, a lighted fuseethrown into the nest would bring the wasps out in an indignant mass, andthey would soon find a 'home away from home' on Waldo's fat body. Ittakes some doing to get out of a hammock in a hurry. "

"They might sting him to death, " protested Mrs. Thackenbury. 

"Waldo is one of those people who would be enormously improved by death, "said Clovis; "but if you didn't want to go as far as that, you could havesome wet straw ready to hand, and set it alight under the hammock at thesame time that the fusee was thrown into the nest; the smoke would keepall but the most militant of the wasps just outside the stinging line, and as long as Waldo remained within its protection he would escapeserious damage, and could be eventually restored to his mother, kipperedall over and swollen in places, but still perfectly recognisable. "

"His mother would be my enemy for life, " said Mrs. Thackenbury. 

"That would be one greeting less to exchange at Christmas, " said Clovis. 

THE DREAMER

It was the season of sales. The august establishment of Walpurgis andNettlepink had lowered its prices for an entire week as a concession totrade observances, much as an Arch-duchess might protestingly contract anattack of influenza for the unsatisfactory reason that influenza waslocally prevalent. Adela Chemping, who considered herself in somemeasure superior to the allurements of an ordinary bargain sale, made apoint of attending the reduction week at Walpurgis and Nettlepink's. 

"I'm not a bargain hunter, " she said, "but I like to go where bargainsare. "

Which showed that beneath her surface strength of character there floweda gracious undercurrent of human weakness. 

With a view to providing herself with a male escort Mrs. Chemping hadinvited her youngest nephew to accompany her on the first day of theshopping expedition, throwing in the additional allurement of acinematograph theatre and the prospect of light refreshment. As Cyprianwas not yet eighteen she hoped he might not have reached that stage inmasculine development when parcel-carrying is looked on as a thingabhorrent. 

"Meet me just outside the floral department, " she wrote to him, "anddon't be a moment later than eleven. "

Cyprian was a boy who carried with him through early life the wonderinglook of a dreamer, the eyes of one who sees things that are not visibleto ordinary mortals, and invests the commonplace things of this worldwith qualities unsuspected by plainer folk--the eyes of a poet or a houseagent. He was quietly dressed--that sartorial quietude which frequentlyaccompanies early adolescence, and is usually attributed by novel-writersto the influence of a widowed mother. His hair was brushed back in asmoothness as of ribbon seaweed and seamed with a narrow furrow thatscarcely aimed at being a parting. His aunt particularly noted this itemof his toilet when they met at the appointed rendezvous, because he wasstanding waiting for her bareheaded. 

"Where is your hat?" she asked. 

"I didn't bring one with me, " he replied. 

Adela Chemping was slightly scandalised. 

"You are not going to be what they call a Nut, are you?" she inquiredwith some anxiety, partly with the idea that a Nut would be anextravagance which her sister's small household would scarcely bejustified in incurring, partly, perhaps, with the instinctiveapprehension that a Nut, even in its embryo stage, would refuse to carryparcels. 

Cyprian looked at her with his wondering, dreamy eyes. 

"I didn't bring a hat, " he said, "because it is such a nuisance when oneis shopping; I mean it is so awkward if one meets anyone one knows andhas to take one's hat off when one's hands are full of parcels. If onehasn't got a hat on one can't take it off. "

Mrs. Chemping sighed with great relief; her worst fear had been laid atrest. 

"It is more orthodox to wear a hat, " she observed, and then turned herattention briskly to the business in hand. 

"We will go first to the table-linen counter, " she said, leading the wayin that direction; "I should like to look at some napkins. "

The wondering look deepened in Cyprian's eyes as he followed his aunt; hebelonged to a generation that is supposed to be over-fond of the role ofmere spectator, but looking at napkins that one did not mean to buy was apleasure beyond his comprehension. Mrs. Chemping held one or two napkinsup to the light and stared fixedly at them, as though she half expectedto find some revolutionary cypher written on them in scarcely visibleink; then she suddenly broke away in the direction of the glasswaredepartment. 

"Millicent asked me to get her a couple of decanters if there were anygoing really cheap, " she explained on the way, "and I really do want asalad bowl. I can come back to the napkins later on. "

She handled and scrutinised a large number of decanters and a long seriesof salad bowls, and finally bought seven chrysanthemum vases. 

"No one uses that kind of vase nowadays, " she informed Cyprian, "but theywill do for presents next Christmas. "

Two sunshades that were marked down to a price that Mrs. Chempingconsidered absurdly cheap were added to her purchases. 

"One of them will do for Ruth Colson; she is going out to the MalayStates, and a sunshade will always be useful there. And I must get hersome thin writing paper. It takes up no room in one's baggage. "

Mrs. Chemping bought stacks of writing paper; it was so cheap, and itwent so flat in a trunk or portmanteau. She also bought a fewenvelopes--envelopes somehow seemed rather an extragavance compared withnotepaper. 

"Do you think Ruth will like blue or grey paper?" she asked Cyprian. 

"Grey, " said Cyprian, who had never met the lady in question. 

"Have you any mauve notepaper of this quality?" Adela asked theassistant. 

"We haven't any mauve, " said the assistant, "but we've two shades ofgreen and a darker shade of grey. "

Mrs. Chemping inspected the greens and the darker grey, and chose theblue. 

"Now we can have some lunch, " she said. 

Cyprian behaved in an exemplary fashion in the refreshment department, and cheerfully accepted a fish cake and a mince pie and a small cup ofcoffee as adequate restoratives after two hours of concentrated shopping. He was adamant, however, in resisting his aunt's suggestion that a hatshould be bought for him at the counter where men's headwear was beingdisposed of at temptingly reduced prices. 

"I've got as many hats as I want at home, " he said, "and besides, itrumples one's hair so, trying them on. "

Perhaps he was going to develop into a Nut after all. It was adisquieting symptom that he left all the parcels in charge of the cloak-room attendant. 

"We shall be getting more parcels presently, " he said, "so we need notcollect these till we have finished our shopping. "

His aunt was doubtfully appeased; some of the pleasure and excitement ofa shopping expedition seemed to evaporate when one was deprived ofimmediate personal contact with one's purchases. 

"I'm going to look at those napkins again, " she said, as they descendedthe stairs to the ground floor. "You need not come, " she added, as thedreaming look in the boy's eyes changed for a moment into one of muteprotest, "you can meet me afterwards in the cutlery department; I've justremembered that I haven't a corkscrew in the house that can be dependedon. "

Cyprian was not to be found in the cutlery department when his aunt indue course arrived there, but in the crush and bustle of anxious shoppersand busy attendants it was an easy matter to miss anyone. It was in theleather goods department some quarter of an hour later that AdelaChemping caught sight of her nephew, separated from her by a rampart ofsuit-cases and portmanteaux and hemmed in by the jostling crush of humanbeings that now invaded every corner of the great shopping emporium. Shewas just in time to witness a pardonable but rather embarrassing mistakeon the part of a lady who had wriggled her way with unstayabledetermination towards the bareheaded Cyprian, and was now breathlesslydemanding the sale price of a handbag which had taken her fancy. 

"There now, " exclaimed Adela to herself, "she takes him for one of theshop assistants because he hasn't got a hat on. I wonder it hasn'thappened before. "

Perhaps it had. Cyprian, at any rate, seemed neither startled norembarrassed by the error into which the good lady had fallen. Examiningthe ticket on the bag, he announced in a clear, dispassionate voice:

"Black seal, thirty-four shillings, marked down to twenty-eight. As amatter of fact, we are clearing them out at a special reduction price oftwenty-six shillings. They are going off rather fast. "

"I'll take it, " said the lady, eagerly digging some coins out of herpurse. 

"Will you take it as it is?" asked Cyprian; "it will be a matter of a fewminutes to get it wrapped up, there is such a crush. "

"Never mind, I'll take it as it is, " said the purchaser, clutching hertreasure and counting the money into Cyprian's palm. 

Several kind strangers helped Adela into the open air. 

"It's the crush and the heat, " said one sympathiser to another; "it'senough to turn anyone giddy. "

When she next came across Cyprian he was standing in the crowd thatpushed and jostled around the counters of the book department. The dreamlook was deeper than ever in his eyes. He had just sold two books ofdevotion to an elderly Canon. 

THE QUINCE TREE

"I've just been to see old Betsy Mullen, " announced Vera to her aunt, Mrs. Bebberly Cumble; "she seems in rather a bad way about her rent. Sheowes about fifteen weeks of it, and says she doesn't know where any of itis to come from. "

"Betsy Mullen always is in difficulties with her rent, and the morepeople help her with it the less she troubles about it, " said the aunt. "I certainly am not going to assist her any more. The fact is, she willhave to go into a smaller and cheaper cottage; there are several to behad at the other end of the village for half the rent that she is paying, or supposed to be paying, now. I told her a year ago that she ought tomove. "

"But she wouldn't get such a nice garden anywhere else, " protested Vera, "and there's such a jolly quince tree in the corner. I don't supposethere's another quince tree in the whole parish. And she never makes anyquince jam; I think to have a quince tree and not to make quince jamshows such strength of character. Oh, she can't possibly move away fromthat garden. "

"When one is sixteen, " said Mrs. Bebberly Cumble severely, "one talks ofthings being impossible which are merely uncongenial. It is not onlypossible but it is desirable that Betsy Mullen should move into smallerquarters; she has scarcely enough furniture to fill that big cottage. "

"As far as value goes, " said Vera after a short pause, "there is more inBetsy's cottage than in any other house for miles round. "

"Nonsense, " said the aunt; "she parted with whatever old china ware shehad long ago. "

"I'm not talking about anything that belongs to Betsy herself, " said Veradarkly; "but, of course, you don't know what I know, and I don't supposeI ought to tell you. "

"You must tell me at once, " exclaimed the aunt, her senses leaping intoalertness like those of a terrier suddenly exchanging a bored drowsinessfor the lively anticipation of an immediate rat hunt. 

"I'm perfectly certain that I oughtn't to tell you anything about it, "said Vera, "but, then, I often do things that I oughtn't to do. "

"I should be the last person to suggest that you should do anything thatyou ought not to do to--" began Mrs. Bebberly Cumble impressively. 

"And I am always swayed by the last person who speaks to me, " admittedVera, "so I'll do what I ought not to do and tell you. "

Mrs. Bebberley Cumble thrust a very pardonable sense of exasperation intothe background of her mind and demanded impatiently:

"What is there in Betsy Mullen's cottage that you are making such a fussabout?"

"It's hardly fair to say that _I've_ made a fuss about it, " said Vera;"this is the first time I've mentioned the matter, but there's been noend of trouble and mystery and newspaper speculation about it. It'srather amusing to think of the columns of conjecture in the Press and thepolice and detectives hunting about everywhere at home and abroad, andall the while that innocent-looking little cottage has held the secret. "

"You don't mean to say it's the Louvre picture, La Something or other, the woman with the smile, that disappeared about two years ago?"exclaimed the aunt with rising excitement. 

"Oh no, not that, " said Vera, "but something quite as important and justas mysterious--if anything, rather more scandalous. "

"Not the Dublin--?"

Vera nodded. 

"The whole jolly lot of them. "

"In Betsy's cottage? Incredible!"

"Of course Betsy hasn't an idea as to what they are, " said Vera; "shejust knows that they are something valuable and that she must keep quietabout them. I found out quite by accident what they were and how theycame to be there. You see, the people who had them were at their wits'end to know where to stow them away for safe keeping, and some one whowas motoring through the village was struck by the snug loneliness of thecottage and thought it would be just the thing. Mrs. Lamper arranged thematter with Betsy and smuggled the things in. "

"Mrs. Lamper?"

"Yes; she does a lot of district visiting, you know. "

"I am quite aware that she takes soup and flannel and improvingliterature to the poorer cottagers, " said Mrs. Bebberly Cumble, "but thatis hardly the same sort of thing as disposing of stolen goods, and shemust have known something about their history; anyone who reads thepapers, even casually, must have been aware of the theft, and I shouldthink the things were not hard to recognise. Mrs. Lamper has always hadthe reputation of being a very conscientious woman. "

"Of course she was screening some one else, " said Vera. "A remarkablefeature of the affair is the extraordinary number of quite respectablepeople who have involved themselves in its meshes by trying to shieldothers. You would be really astonished if you knew some of the names ofthe individuals mixed up in it, and I don't suppose a tithe of them knowwho the original culprits were; and now I've got you entangled in themess by letting you into the secret of the cottage. "

"You most certainly have not entangled me, " said Mrs. Bebberly Cumbleindignantly. "I have no intention of shielding anybody. The police mustknow about it at once; a theft is a theft, whoever is involved. Ifrespectable people choose to turn themselves into receivers and disposersof stolen goods, well, they've ceased to be respectable, that's all. Ishall telephone immediately--"

"Oh, aunt, " said Vera reproachfully, "it would break the poor Canon'sheart if Cuthbert were to be involved in a scandal of this sort. Youknow it would. "

"Cuthbert involved! How can you say such things when you know how muchwe all think of him?"

"Of course I know you think a lot of him, and that he's engaged to marryBeatrice, and that it will be a frightfully good match, and that he'syour ideal of what a son-in-law ought to be. All the same, it wasCuthbert's idea to stow the things away in the cottage, and it was hismotor that brought them. He was only doing it to help his friendPegginson, you know--the Quaker man, who is always agitating for asmaller Navy. I forget how he got involved in it. I warned you thatthere were lots of quite respectable people mixed up in it, didn't I?That's what I meant when I said it would be impossible for old Betsy toleave the cottage; the things take up a good bit of room, and shecouldn't go carrying them about with her other goods and chattels withoutattracting notice. Of course if she were to fall ill and die it would beequally unfortunate. Her mother lived to be over ninety, she tells me, so with due care and an absence of worry she ought to last for anotherdozen years at least. By that time perhaps some other arrangements willhave been made for disposing of the wretched things. "

"I shall speak to Cuthbert about it--after the wedding, " said Mrs. Bebberly Cumble. 

"The wedding isn't till next year, " said Vera, in recounting the story toher best girl friend, "and meanwhile old Betsy is living rent free, withsoup twice a week and my aunt's doctor to see her whenever she has afinger ache. "

"But how on earth did you get to know about it all?" asked her friend, inadmiring wonder. 

"It was a mystery--" said Vera. 

"Of course it was a mystery, a mystery that baffled everybody. Whatbeats me is how you found out--"

"Oh, about the jewels? I invented that part, " explained Vera; "I meanthe mystery was where old Betsy's arrears of rent were to come from; andshe would have hated leaving that jolly quince tree. "

THE FORBIDDEN BUZZARDS

"Is matchmaking at all in your line?"

Hugo Peterby asked the question with a certain amount of personalinterest. 

"I don't specialise in it, " said Clovis; "it's all right while you'redoing it, but the after-effects are sometimes so disconcerting--the mutereproachful looks of the people you've aided and abetted in matrimonialexperiments. It's as bad as selling a man a horse with half a dozenlatent vices and watching him discover them piecemeal in the course ofthe hunting season. I suppose you're thinking of the Coulterneb girl. She's certainly jolly, and quite all right as far as looks go, and Ibelieve a certain amount of money adheres to her. What I don't see ishow you will ever manage to propose to her. In all the time I've knownher I don't remember her to have stopped talking for three consecutiveminutes. You'll have to race her six times round the grass paddock for abet, and then blurt your proposal out before she's got her wind back. Thepaddock is laid up for hay, but if you're really in love with her youwon't let a consideration of that sort stop you, especially as it's notyour hay. "

"I think I could manage the proposing part right enough, " said Hugo, "ifI could count on being left alone with her for four or five hours. Thetrouble is that I'm not likely to get anything like that amount of grace. That fellow Lanner is showing signs of interesting himself in the samequarter. He's quite heartbreakingly rich and is rather a swell in hisway; in fact, our hostess is obviously a bit flattered at having himhere. If she gets wind of the fact that he's inclined to be attracted byBetty Coulterneb she'll think it a splendid match and throw them intoeach other's arms all day long, and then where will my opportunities comein? My one anxiety is to keep him out of the girl's way as much aspossible, and if you could help me--"

"If you want me to trot Lanner round the countryside, inspecting allegedRoman remains and studying local methods of bee culture and crop raising, I'm afraid I can't oblige you, " said Clovis. "You see, he's takensomething like an aversion to me since the other night in the smoking-room. "

"What happened in the smoking-room?"

"He trotted out some well-worn chestnut as the latest thing in goodstories, and I remarked, quite innocently, that I never could rememberwhether it was George II. Or James II. Who was so fond of that particularstory, and now he regards me with politely-draped dislike. I'll do mybest for you, if the opportunity arises, but it will have to be in aroundabout, impersonal manner. "

* * * * *

"It's so nice having Mr. Lanner here, " confided Mrs. Olston to Clovis thenext afternoon; "he's always been engaged when I've asked him before. Such a nice man; he really ought to be married to some nice girl. Betweenyou and me, I have an idea that he came down here for a certain reason. "

"I've had much the same idea, " said Clovis, lowering his voice; "in fact, I'm almost certain of it. "

"You mean he's attracted by--" began Mrs. Olston eagerly. 

"I mean he's here for what he can get, " said Clovis. 

"For what he can _get_?" said the hostess with a touch of indignation inher voice; "what do you mean? He's a very rich man. What should he wantto get here?"

"He has one ruling passion, " said Clovis, "and there's something he canget here that is not to be had for love nor for money anywhere else inthe country, as far as I know. "

"But what? Whatever do you mean? What is his ruling passion?"

"Egg-collecting, " said Clovis. "He has agents all over the world gettingrare eggs for him, and his collection is one of the finest in Europe; buthis great ambition is to collect his treasures personally. He stops atno expense nor trouble to achieve that end. "

"Good heavens! The buzzards, the rough-legged buzzards!" exclaimed Mrs. Olston; "you don't think he's going to raid their nest?"

"What do you think yourself?" asked Clovis; "the only pair ofrough-legged buzzards known to breed in this country are nesting in yourwoods. Very few people know about them, but as a member of the leaguefor protecting rare birds that information would be at his disposal. Icame down in the train with him, and I noticed that a bulky volume ofDresser's 'Birds of Europe' was one of the requisites that he had packedin his travelling-kit. It was the volume dealing with short-winged hawksand buzzards. "

Clovis believed that if a lie was worth telling it was worth tellingwell. 

"This is appalling, " said Mrs. Olston; "my husband would never forgive meif anything happened to those birds. They've been seen about the woodsfor the last year or two, but this is the first time they've nested. Asyou say, they are almost the only pair known to be breeding in the wholeof Great Britain; and now their nest is going to be harried by a gueststaying under my roof. I must do something to stop it. Do you think ifI appealed to him--"

Clovis laughed. 

"There is a story going about, which I fancy is true in most of itsdetails, of something that happened not long ago somewhere on the coastof the Sea of Marmora, in which our friend had a hand. A Syriannightjar, or some such bird, was known to be breeding in the olivegardens of a rich Armenian, who for some reason or other wouldn't allowLanner to go in and take the eggs, though he offered cash down for thepermission. The Armenian was found beaten nearly to death a day or twolater, and his fences levelled. It was assumed to be a case of Mussulmanaggression, and noted as such in all the Consular reports, but the eggsare in the Lanner collection. No, I don't think I should appeal to hisbetter feelings if I were you. "

"I must do something, " said Mrs. Olston tearfully; "my husband's partingwords when he went off to Norway were an injunction to see that thosebirds were not disturbed, and he's asked about them every time he'swritten. Do suggest something. "

"I was going to suggest picketing, " said Clovis. 

"Picketing! You mean setting guards round the birds?"

"No; round Lanner. He can't find his way through those woods by night, and you could arrange that you or Evelyn or Jack or the German governessshould be by his side in relays all day long. A fellow guest he couldget rid of, but he couldn't very well shake off members of the household, and even the most determined collector would hardly go climbing afterforbidden buzzards' eggs with a German governess hanging round his neck, so to speak. "

Lanner, who had been lazily watching for an opportunity for prosecutinghis courtship of the Coulterneb girl, found presently that his chances ofgetting her to himself for ten minutes even were non-existent. If thegirl was ever alone he never was. His hostess had changed suddenly, asfar as he was concerned, from the desirable type that lets her guests donothing in the way that best pleases them, to the sort that drags themover the ground like so many harrows. She showed him the herb garden andthe greenhouses, the village church, some water-colour sketches that hersister had done in Corsica, and the place where it was hoped that celerywould grow later in the year. 

He was shown all the Aylesbury ducklings and the row of wooden hiveswhere there would have been bees if there had not been bee disease. Hewas also taken to the end of a long lane and shown a distant moundwhereon local tradition reported that the Danes had once pitched a camp. And when his hostess had to desert him temporarily for other duties hewould find Evelyn walking solemnly by his side. Evelyn was fourteen andtalked chiefly about good and evil, and of how much one might accomplishin the way of regenerating the world if one was thoroughly determined todo one's utmost. It was generally rather a relief when she was displacedby Jack, who was nine years old, and talked exclusively about the BalkanWar without throwing any fresh light on its political or militaryhistory. The German governess told Lanner more about Schiller than hehad ever heard in his life about any one person; it was perhaps his ownfault for having told her that he was not interested in Goethe. When thegoverness went off picket duty the hostess was again on hand with a not-to-be-gainsaid invitation to visit the cottage of an old woman whoremembered Charles James Fox; the woman had been dead for two or threeyears, but the cottage was still there. Lanner was called back to townearlier than he had originally intended. 

Hugo did not bring off his affair with Betty Coulterneb. Whether sherefused him or whether, as was more generally supposed, he did not get achance of saying three consecutive words, has never been exactlyascertained. Anyhow, she is still the jolly Coulterneb girl. 

The buzzards successfully reared two young ones, which were shot by alocal hairdresser. 

THE STAKE

"Ronnie is a great trial to me, " said Mrs. Attray plaintively. "Onlyeighteen years old last February and already a confirmed gambler. I amsure I don't know where he inherits it from; his father never touchedcards, and you know how little I play--a game of bridge on Wednesdayafternoons in the winter, for three-pence a hundred, and even that Ishouldn't do if it wasn't that Edith always wants a fourth and would becertain to ask that detestable Jenkinham woman if she couldn't get me. Iwould much rather sit and talk any day than play bridge; cards are such awaste of time, I think. But as to Ronnie, bridge and baccarat and poker-patience are positively all that he thinks about. Of course I've done mybest to stop it; I've asked the Norridrums not to let him play cards whenhe's over there, but you might as well ask the Atlantic Ocean to keepquiet for a crossing as expect them to bother about a mother's naturalanxieties. "

"Why do you let him go there?" asked Eleanor Saxelby. 

"My dear, " said Mrs. Attray, "I don't want to offend them. After all, they are my landlords and I have to look to them for anything I want doneabout the place; they were very accommodating about the new roof for theorchid house. And they lend me one of their cars when mine is out oforder; you know how often it gets out of order. "

"I don't know how often, " said Eleanor, "but it must happen veryfrequently. Whenever I want you to take me anywhere in your car I amalways told that there is something wrong with it, or else that thechauffeur has got neuralgia and you don't like to ask him to go out. "

"He suffers quite a lot from neuralgia, " said Mrs. Attray hastily. "Anyhow, " she continued, "you can understand that I don't want to offendthe Norridrums. Their household is the most rackety one in the county, and I believe no one ever knows to an hour or two when any particularmeal will appear on the table or what it will consist of when it doesappear. "

Eleanor Saxelby shuddered. She liked her meals to be of regularoccurrence and assured proportions. 

"Still, " pursued Mrs. Attray, "whatever their own home life may be, aslandlords and neighbours they are considerate and obliging, so I don'twant to quarrel with them. Besides, if Ronnie didn't play cards therehe'd be playing somewhere else. "

"Not if you were firm with him, " said Eleanor "I believe in being firm. "

"Firm? I am firm, " exclaimed Mrs. Attray; "I am more than firm--I amfarseeing. I've done everything I can think of to prevent Ronnie fromplaying for money. I've stopped his allowance for the rest of the year, so he can't even gamble on credit, and I've subscribed a lump sum to thechurch offertory in his name instead of giving him instalments of smallsilver to put in the bag on Sundays. I wouldn't even let him have themoney to tip the hunt servants with, but sent it by postal order. He wasfuriously sulky about it, but I reminded him of what happened to the tenshillings that I gave him for the Young Men's Endeavour League'Self-Denial Week. '"

"What did happen to it?" asked Eleanor. 

"Well, Ronnie did some preliminary endeavouring with it, on his ownaccount, in connection with the Grand National. If it had come off, ashe expressed it, he would have given the League twenty-five shillings andnetted a comfortable commission for himself; as it was, that tenshillings was one of the things the League had to deny itself. Sincethen I've been careful not to let him have a penny piece in his hands. "

"He'll get round that in some way, " said Eleanor with quiet conviction;"he'll sell things. "

"My dear, he's done all that is to be done in that direction already. He's got rid of his wrist-watch and his hunting flask and both hiscigarette cases, and I shouldn't be surprised if he's wearing imitation-gold sleeve links instead of those his Aunt Rhoda gave him on hisseventeenth birthday. He can't sell his clothes, of course, except hiswinter overcoat, and I've locked that up in the camphor cupboard on thepretext of preserving it from moth. I really don't see what else he canraise money on. I consider that I've been both firm and farseeing. "

"Has he been at the Norridrums lately?" asked Eleanor. 

"He was there yesterday afternoon and stayed to dinner, " said Mrs. Attray. "I don't quite know when he came home, but I fancy it was late. "

"Then depend on it he was gambling, " said Eleanor, with the assured airof one who has few ideas and makes the most of them. "Late hours in thecountry always mean gambling. "

"He can't gamble if he has no money and no chance of getting any, " arguedMrs. Attray; "even if one plays for small stakes one must have a decentprospect of paying one's losses. "

"He may have sold some of the Amherst pheasant chicks, " suggestedEleanor; "they would fetch about ten or twelve shillings each, Idaresay. "

"Ronnie wouldn't do such a thing, " said Mrs. Attray; "and anyhow I wentand counted them this morning and they're all there. No, " she continued, with the quiet satisfaction that comes from a sense of painstaking andmerited achievement, "I fancy that Ronnie had to content himself with therole of onlooker last night, as far as the card-table was concerned. "

"Is that clock right?" asked Eleanor, whose eyes had been strayingrestlessly towards the mantel-piece for some little time; "lunch isusually so punctual in your establishment. "

"Three minutes past the half-hour, " exclaimed Mrs. Attray; "cook must bepreparing something unusually sumptuous in your honour. I am not in thesecret; I've been out all the morning, you know. "

Eleanor smiled forgivingly. A special effort by Mrs. Attray's cook wasworth waiting a few minutes for. 

As a matter of fact, the luncheon fare, when it made its tardyappearance, was distinctly unworthy of the reputation which the justly-treasured cook had built up for herself. The soup alone would havesufficed to cast a gloom over any meal that it had inaugurated, and itwas not redeemed by anything that followed. Eleanor said little, butwhen she spoke there was a hint of tears in her voice that was far moreeloquent than outspoken denunciation would have been, and even theinsouciant Ronald showed traces of depression when he tasted the rognonsSaltikoff. 

"Not quite the best luncheon I've enjoyed in your house, " said Eleanor atlast, when her final hope had flickered out with the savoury. 

"My dear, it's the worst meal I've sat down to for years, " said herhostess; "that last dish tasted principally of red pepper and wet toast. I'm awfully sorry. Is anything the matter in the kitchen, Pellin?" sheasked of the attendant maid. 

"Well, ma'am, the new cook hadn't hardly time to see to things properly, coming in so sudden--" commenced Pellin by way of explanation. 

"The new cook!" screamed Mrs. Attray. 

"Colonel Norridrum's cook, ma'am, " said Pellin. 

"What on earth do you mean? What is Colonel Norridrum's cook doing in mykitchen--and where is my cook?"

"Perhaps I can explain better than Pellin can, " said Ronald hurriedly;"the fact is, I was dining at the Norridrums' yesterday, and they werewishing they had a swell cook like yours, just for to-day and to-morrow, while they've got some gourmet staying with them: their own cook is noearthly good--well, you've seen what she turns out when she's at allflurried. So I thought it would be rather sporting to play them atbaccarat for the loan of our cook against a money stake, and I lost, that's all. I have had rotten luck at baccarat all this year. "

The remainder of his explanation, of how he had assured the cooks thatthe temporary transfer had his mother's sanction, and had smuggled theone out and the other in during the maternal absence, was drowned in theoutcry of scandalised upbraiding. 

"If I had sold the woman into slavery there couldn't have been a biggerfuss about it, " he confided afterwards to Bertie Norridrum, "and EleanorSaxelby raged and ramped the louder of the two. I tell you what, I'llbet you two of the Amherst pheasants to five shillings that she refusesto have me as a partner at the croquet tournament. We're drawn together, you know. "

This time he won his bet. 

CLOVIS ON PARENTAL RESPONSIBILITIES

Marion Eggelby sat talking to Clovis on the only subject that she everwillingly talked about--her offspring and their varied perfections andaccomplishments. Clovis was not in what could be called a receptivemood; the younger generation of Eggelby, depicted in the glowingimprobable colours of parent impressionism, aroused in him no enthusiasm. Mrs. Eggelby, on the other hand, was furnished with enthusiasm enough fortwo. 

"You would like Eric, " she said, argumentatively rather than hopefully. Clovis had intimated very unmistakably that he was unlikely to careextravagantly for either Amy or Willie. "Yes, I feel sure you would likeEric. Every one takes to him at once. You know, he always reminds me ofthat famous picture of the youthful David--I forget who it's by, but it'svery well known. "

"That would be sufficient to set me against him, if I saw much of him, "said Clovis. "Just imagine at auction bridge, for instance, when one wastrying to concentrate one's mind on what one's partner's originaldeclaration had been, and to remember what suits one's opponents hadoriginally discarded, what it would be like to have some one persistentlyreminding one of a picture of the youthful David. It would be simplymaddening. If Eric did that I should detest him. "

"Eric doesn't play bridge, " said Mrs. Eggelby with dignity. 

"Doesn't he?" asked Clovis; "why not?"

"None of my children have been brought up to play card games, " said Mrs. Eggelby; "draughts and halma and those sorts of games I encourage. Ericis considered quite a wonderful draughts-player. "

"You are strewing dreadful risks in the path of your family, " saidClovis; "a friend of mine who is a prison chaplain told me that among theworst criminal cases that have come under his notice, men condemned todeath or to long periods of penal servitude, there was not a singlebridge-player. On the other hand, he knew at least two expert draughts-players among them. "

"I really don't see what my boys have got to do with the criminalclasses, " said Mrs. Eggelby resentfully. "They have been most carefullybrought up, I can assure you that. "

"That shows that you were nervous as to how they would turn out, " saidClovis. "Now, my mother never bothered about bringing me up. She justsaw to it that I got whacked at decent intervals and was taught thedifference between right and wrong; there is some difference, you know, but I've forgotten what it is. "

"Forgotten the difference between right and wrong!" exclaimed Mrs. Eggelby. 

"Well, you see, I took up natural history and a whole lot of othersubjects at the same time, and one can't remember everything, can one? Iused to know the difference between the Sardinian dormouse and theordinary kind, and whether the wry-neck arrives at our shores earlierthan the cuckoo, or the other way round, and how long the walrus takes ingrowing to maturity; I daresay you knew all those sorts of things once, but I bet you've forgotten them. "

"Those things are not important, " said Mrs. Eggelby, "but--"

"The fact that we've both forgotten them proves that they are important, "said Clovis; "you must have noticed that it's always the important thingsthat one forgets, while the trivial, unnecessary facts of life stick inone's memory. There's my cousin, Editha Clubberley, for instance; I cannever forget that her birthday is on the 12th of October. It's a matterof utter indifference to me on what date her birthday falls, or whethershe was born at all; either fact seems to me absolutely trivial, orunnecessary--I've heaps of other cousins to go on with. On the otherhand, when I'm staying with Hildegarde Shrubley I can never remember theimportant circumstance whether her first husband got his unenviablereputation on the Turf or the Stock Exchange, and that uncertainty rulesSport and Finance out of the conversation at once. One can never mentiontravel, either, because her second husband had to live permanentlyabroad. "

"Mrs. Shrubley and I move in very different circles, " said Mrs. Eggelbystiffly. 

"No one who knows Hildegarde could possibly accuse her of moving in acircle, " said Clovis; "her view of life seems to be a non-stop run withan inexhaustible supply of petrol. If she can get some one else to payfor the petrol so much the better. I don't mind confessing to you thatshe has taught me more than any other woman I can think of. "

"What kind of knowledge?" demanded Mrs. Eggelby, with the air a jurymight collectively wear when finding a verdict without leaving the box. 

"Well, among other things, she's introduced me to at least four differentways of cooking lobster, " said Clovis gratefully. "That, of course, wouldn't appeal to you; people who abstain from the pleasures of the card-table never really appreciate the finer possibilities of thedining-table. I suppose their powers of enlightened enjoyment getatrophied from disuse. "

"An aunt of mine was very ill after eating a lobster, " said Mrs. Eggelby. 

"I daresay, if we knew more of her history, we should find out that she'doften been ill before eating the lobster. Aren't you concealing the factthat she'd had measles and influenza and nervous headache and hysteria, and other things that aunts do have, long before she ate the lobster?Aunts that have never known a day's illness are very rare; in fact, Idon't personally know of any. Of course if she ate it as a child of twoweeks old it might have been her first illness--and her last. But ifthat was the case I think you should have said so. "

"I must be going, " said Mrs. Eggelby, in a tone which had been thoroughlysterilised of even perfunctory regret. 

Clovis rose with an air of graceful reluctance. 

"I have so enjoyed our little talk about Eric, " he said; "I quite lookforward to meeting him some day. "

"Good-bye, " said Mrs. Eggelby frostily; the supplementary remark whichshe made at the back of her throat was--

"I'll take care that you never shall!"

A HOLIDAY TASK

Kenelm Jerton entered the dining-hall of the Golden Galleon Hotel in thefull crush of the luncheon hour. Nearly every seat was occupied, andsmall additional tables had been brought in, where floor space permitted, to accommodate latecomers, with the result that many of the tables werealmost touching each other. Jerton was beckoned by a waiter to the onlyvacant table that was discernible, and took his seat with theuncomfortable and wholly groundless idea that nearly every one in theroom was staring at him. He was a youngish man of ordinary appearance, quiet of dress and unobtrusive of manner, and he could never wholly ridhimself of the idea that a fierce light of public scrutiny beat on him asthough he had been a notability or a super-nut. After he had ordered hislunch there came the unavoidable interval of waiting, with nothing to dobut to stare at the flower-vase on his table and to be stared at (inimagination) by several flappers, some maturer beings of the same sex, and a satirical-looking Jew. In order to carry off the situation withsome appearance of unconcern he became spuriously interested in thecontents of the flower-vase. 

"What is the name of these roses, d'you know?" he asked the waiter. Thewaiter was ready at all times to conceal his ignorance concerning itemsof the wine-list or menu; he was frankly ignorant as to the specific nameof the roses. 

"_Amy Sylvester Partinglon_, " said a voice at Jerton's elbow. 

The voice came from a pleasant-faced, well-dressed young woman who wassitting at a table that almost touched Jerton's. He thanked herhurriedly and nervously for the information, and made some inconsequentremark about the flowers. 

"It is a curious thing, " said the young woman, that, "I should be able totell you the name of those roses without an effort of memory, because ifyou were to ask me my name I should be utterly unable to give it to you. "

Jerton had not harboured the least intention of extending his thirst forname-labels to his neighbour. After her rather remarkable announcement, however, he was obliged to say something in the way of polite inquiry. 

"Yes, " answered the lady, "I suppose it is a case of partial loss ofmemory. I was in the train coming down here; my ticket told me that Ihad come from Victoria and was bound for this place. I had a couple offive-pound notes and a sovereign on me, no visiting cards or any othermeans of identification, and no idea as to who I am. I can only hazilyrecollect that I have a title; I am Lady Somebody--beyond that my mind isa blank. "

"Hadn't you any luggage with you?" asked Jerton. 

"That is what I didn't know. I knew the name of this hotel and made upmy mind to come here, and when the hotel porter who meets the trainsasked if I had any luggage I had to invent a dressing-bag anddress-basket; I could always pretend that they had gone astray. I gavehim the name of Smith, and presently he emerged from a confused pile ofluggage and passengers with a dressing-bag and dress-basket labelledKestrel-Smith. I had to take them; I don't see what else I could havedone. "

Jerton said nothing, but he rather wondered what the lawful owner of thebaggage would do. 

"Of course it was dreadful arriving at a strange hotel with the name ofKestrel-Smith, but it would have been worse to have arrived withoutluggage. Anyhow, I hate causing trouble. "

Jerton had visions of harassed railway officials and distraught Kestrel-Smiths, but he made no attempt to clothe his mental picture in words. Thelady continued her story. 

"Naturally, none of my keys would fit the things, but I told anintelligent page boy that I had lost my key-ring, and he had the locksforced in a twinkling. Rather too intelligent, that boy; he willprobably end in Dartmoor. The Kestrel-Smith toilet tools aren't up tomuch, but they are better than nothing. "

"If you feel sure that you have a title, " said Jerton, "why not get holdof a peerage and go right through it?"

"I tried that. I skimmed through the list of the House of Lords in'Whitaker, ' but a mere printed string of names conveys awfully little toone, you know. If you were an army officer and had lost your identityyou might pore over the Army List for months without finding out who yourwere. I'm going on another tack; I'm trying to find out by variouslittle tests who I am _not_--that will narrow the range of uncertaintydown a bit. You may have noticed, for instance, that I'm lunchingprincipally off lobster Newburg. "

Jerton had not ventured to notice anything of the sort. 

"It's an extravagance, because it's one of the most expensive dishes onthe menu, but at any rate it proves that I'm not Lady Starping; she nevertouches shell-fish, and poor Lady Braddleshrub has no digestion at all;if I am _her_ I shall certainly die in agony in the course of theafternoon, and the duty of finding out who I am will devolve on the pressand the police and those sort of people; I shall be past caring. LadyKnewford doesn't know one rose from another and she hates men, so shewouldn't have spoken to you in any case; and Lady Mousehilton flirts withevery man she meets--I haven't flirted with you, have I?"

Jerton hastily gave the required assurance. 

"Well, you see, " continued the lady, "that knocks four off the list atonce. "

"It'll be rather a lengthy process bringing the list down to one, " saidJerton. 

"Oh, but, of course, there are heaps of them that I couldn't possiblybe--women who've got grandchildren or sons old enough to have celebratedtheir coming of age. I've only got to consider the ones about my ownage. I tell you how you might help me this afternoon, if you don't mind;go through any of the back numbers of _Country Life_ and those sort ofpapers that you can find in the smoking-room, and see if you come acrossmy portrait with infant son or anything of that sort. It won't take youten minutes. I'll meet you in the lounge about tea-time. Thanksawfully. "

And the Fair Unknown, having graciously pressed Jerton into the searchfor her lost identity, rose and left the room. As she passed the youngman's table she halted for a moment and whispered:

"Did you notice that I tipped the waiter a shilling? We can cross LadyUlwight off the list; she would have died rather than do that. "

At five o'clock Jerton made his way to the hotel lounge; he had spent adiligent but fruitless quarter of an hour among the illustrated weekliesin the smoking-room. His new acquaintance was seated at a smalltea-table, with a waiter hovering in attendance. 

"China tea or Indian?" she asked as Jerton came up. 

"China, please, and nothing to eat. Have you discovered anything?"

"Only negative information. I'm not Lady Befnal. She disapprovesdreadfully of any form of gambling, so when I recognised a well-knownbook maker in the hotel lobby I went and put a tenner on an unnamed fillyby William the Third out of Mitrovitza for the three-fifteen race. Isuppose the fact of the animal being nameless was what attracted me. "

"Did it win?" asked Jerton. 

"No, came in fourth, the most irritating thing a horse can do when you'vebacked it win or place. Anyhow, I know now that I'm not Lady Befnal. "

"It seems to me that the knowledge was rather dearly bought, " commentedJerton. 

"Well, yes, it has rather cleared me out, " admitted the identity-seeker;"a florin is about all I've got left on me. The lobster Newburg made mylunch rather an expensive one, and, of course, I had to tip that boy forwhat he did to the Kestrel-Smith locks. I've got rather a useful idea, though. I feel certain that I belong to the Pivot Club; I'll go back totown and ask the hall porter there if there are any letters for me. Heknows all the members by sight, and if there are any letters or telephonemessages waiting for me of course that will solve the problem. If hesays there aren't any I shall say: 'You know who I am, don't you?' soI'll find out anyway. "

The plan seemed a sound one; a difficulty in its execution suggesteditself to Jerton. 

"Of course, " said the lady, when he hinted at the obstacle, "there's myfare back to town, and my bill here and cabs and things. If you'll lendme three pounds that ought to see me through comfortably. Thanks everso. Then there is the question of that luggage: I don't want to besaddled with that for the rest of my life. I'll have it brought down tothe hall and you can pretend to mount guard over it while I'm writing aletter. Then I shall just slip away to the station, and you can wanderoff to the smoking-room, and they can do what they like with the things. They'll advertise them after a bit and the owner can claim them. "

Jerton acquiesced in the manoeuvre, and duly mounted guard over theluggage while its temporary owner slipped unobtrusively out of the hotel. Her departure was not, however, altogether unnoticed. Two gentlemen werestrolling past Jerton, and one of them remarked to the other:

"Did you see that tall young woman in grey who went out just now? She isthe Lady--"

His promenade carried him out of earshot at the critical moment when hewas about to disclose the elusive identity. The Lady Who? Jerton couldscarcely run after a total stranger, break into his conversation, and askhim for information concerning a chance passer-by. Besides, it wasdesirable that he should keep up the appearance of looking after theluggage. In a minute or two, however, the important personage, the manwho knew, came strolling back alone. Jerton summoned up all his courageand waylaid him. 

"I think I heard you say you knew the lady who went out of the hotel afew minutes ago, a tall lady, dressed in grey. Excuse me for asking ifyou could tell me her name; I've been talking to her for half an hour;she--er--she knows all my people and seems to know me, so I suppose I'vemet her somewhere before, but I'm blest if I can put a name to her. Couldyou--?"

"Certainly. She's a Mrs. Stroope. "

"_Mrs_. ?" queried Jerton. 

"Yes, she's the Lady Champion at golf in my part of the world. An awfulgood sort, and goes about a good deal in Society, but she has an awkwardhabit of losing her memory every now and then, and gets into all sorts offixes. She's furious, too, if you make any allusion to it afterwards. Good day, sir. "

The stranger passed on his way, and before Jerton had had time toassimilate his information he found his whole attention centred on anangry-looking lady who was making loud and fretful-seeming inquiries ofthe hotel clerks. 

"Has any luggage been brought here from the station by mistake, a dress-basket and dressing-case, with the name Kestrel-Smith? It can't betraced anywhere. I saw it put in at Victoria, that I'll swear. Why--thereis my luggage! and the locks have been tampered with!"

Jerton heard no more. He fled down to the Turkish bath, and stayed therefor hours. 

THE STALLED OX

Theophil Eshley was an artist by profession, a cattle painter by force ofenvironment. It is not to be supposed that he lived on a ranche or adairy farm, in an atmosphere pervaded with horn and hoof, milking-stool, and branding-iron. His home was in a park-like, villa-dotted districtthat only just escaped the reproach of being suburban. On one side ofhis garden there abutted a small, picturesque meadow, in which anenterprising neighbour pastured some small picturesque cows of theChannel Island persuasion. At noonday in summertime the cows stood knee-deep in tall meadow-grass under the shade of a group of walnut trees, with the sunlight falling in dappled patches on their mouse-sleek coats. Eshley had conceived and executed a dainty picture of two reposeful milch-cows in a setting of walnut tree and meadow-grass and filtered sunbeam, and the Royal Academy had duly exposed the same on the walls of itsSummer Exhibition. The Royal Academy encourages orderly, methodicalhabits in its children. Eshley had painted a successful and acceptablepicture of cattle drowsing picturesquely under walnut trees, and as hehad begun, so, of necessity, he went on. His "Noontide Peace, " a studyof two dun cows under a walnut tree, was followed by "A Mid-daySanctuary, " a study of a walnut tree, with two dun cows under it. In duesuccession there came "Where the Gad-Flies Cease from Troubling, " "TheHaven of the Herd, " and "A-dream in Dairyland, " studies of walnut treesand dun cows. His two attempts to break away from his own tradition weresignal failures: "Turtle Doves alarmed by Sparrow-hawk" and "Wolves onthe Roman Campagna" came back to his studio in the guise of abominableheresies, and Eshley climbed back into grace and the public gaze with "AShaded Nook where Drowsy Milkers Dream. "

On a fine afternoon in late autumn he was putting some finishing touchesto a study of meadow weeds when his neighbour, Adela Pingsford, assailedthe outer door of his studio with loud peremptory knockings. 

"There is an ox in my garden, " she announced, in explanation of thetempestuous intrusion. 

"An ox, " said Eshley blankly, and rather fatuously; "what kind of ox?"

"Oh, I don't know what kind, " snapped the lady. "A common or garden ox, to use the slang expression. It is the garden part of it that I objectto. My garden has just been put straight for the winter, and an oxroaming about in it won't improve matters. Besides, there are thechrysanthemums just coming into flower. "

"How did it get into the garden?" asked Eshley. 

"I imagine it came in by the gate, " said the lady impatiently; "itcouldn't have climbed the walls, and I don't suppose anyone dropped itfrom an aeroplane as a Bovril advertisement. The immediately importantquestion is not how it got in, but how to get it out. "

"Won't it go?" said Eshley. 

"If it was anxious to go, " said Adela Pingsford rather angrily, "I shouldnot have come here to chat with you about it. I'm practically all alone;the housemaid is having her afternoon out and the cook is lying down withan attack of neuralgia. Anything that I may have learned at school or inafter life about how to remove a large ox from a small garden seems tohave escaped from my memory now. All I could think of was that you werea near neighbour and a cattle painter, presumably more or less familiarwith the subjects that you painted, and that you might be of some slightassistance. Possibly I was mistaken. "

"I paint dairy cows, certainly, " admitted Eshley, "but I cannot claim tohave had any experience in rounding-up stray oxen. I've seen it done ona cinema film, of course, but there were always horses and lots of otheraccessories; besides, one never knows how much of those pictures arefaked. "

Adela Pingsford said nothing, but led the way to her garden. It wasnormally a fair-sized garden, but it looked small in comparison with theox, a huge mottled brute, dull red about the head and shoulders, passingto dirty white on the flanks and hind-quarters, with shaggy ears andlarge blood-shot eyes. It bore about as much resemblance to the daintypaddock heifers that Eshley was accustomed to paint as the chief of aKurdish nomad clan would to a Japanese tea-shop girl. Eshley stood verynear the gate while he studied the animal's appearance and demeanour. Adela Pingsford continued to say nothing. 

"It's eating a chrysanthemum, " said Eshley at last, when the silence hadbecome unbearable. 

"How observant you are, " said Adela bitterly. "You seem to noticeeverything. As a matter of fact, it has got six chrysanthemums in itsmouth at the present moment. "

The necessity for doing something was becoming imperative. Eshley took astep or two in the direction of the animal, clapped his hands, and madenoises of the "Hish" and "Shoo" variety. If the ox heard them it gave nooutward indication of the fact. 

"If any hens should ever stray into my garden, " said Adela, "I shouldcertainly send for you to frighten them out. You 'shoo' beautifully. Meanwhile, do you mind trying to drive that ox away? That is a_Mademoiselle Louise Bichot_ that he's begun on now, " she added in icycalm, as a glowing orange head was crushed into the huge munching mouth. 

"Since you have been so frank about the variety of the chrysanthemum, "said Eshley, "I don't mind telling you that this is an Ayrshire ox. "

The icy calm broke down; Adela Pingsford used language that sent theartist instinctively a few feet nearer to the ox. He picked up a pea-stick and flung it with some determination against the animal's mottledflanks. The operation of mashing _Mademoiselle Louise Bichot_ into apetal salad was suspended for a long moment, while the ox gazed withconcentrated inquiry at the stick-thrower. Adela gazed with equalconcentration and more obvious hostility at the same focus. As the beastneither lowered its head nor stamped its feet Eshley ventured on anotherjavelin exercise with another pea-stick. The ox seemed to realise atonce that it was to go; it gave a hurried final pluck at the bed wherethe chrysanthemums had been, and strode swiftly up the garden. Eshleyran to head it towards the gate, but only succeeded in quickening itspace from a walk to a lumbering trot. With an air of inquiry, but withno real hesitation, it crossed the tiny strip of turf that the charitablecalled the croquet lawn, and pushed its way through the open Frenchwindow into the morning-room. Some chrysanthemums and other autumnherbage stood about the room in vases, and the animal resumed itsbrowsing operations; all the same, Eshley fancied that the beginnings ofa hunted look had come into its eyes, a look that counselled respect. Hediscontinued his attempt to interfere with its choice of surroundings. 

"Mr. Eshley, " said Adela in a shaking voice, "I asked you to drive thatbeast out of my garden, but I did not ask you to drive it into my house. If I must have it anywhere on the premises I prefer the garden to themorning-room. "

"Cattle drives are not in my line, " said Eshley; "if I remember I toldyou so at the outset. " "I quite agree, " retorted the lady, "paintingpretty pictures of pretty little cows is what you're suited for. Perhapsyou'd like to do a nice sketch of that ox making itself at home in mymorning-room?"

This time it seemed as if the worm had turned; Eshley began stridingaway. 

"Where are you going?" screamed Adela. 

"To fetch implements, " was the answer. 

"Implements? I won't have you use a lasso. The room will be wrecked ifthere's a struggle. "

But the artist marched out of the garden. In a couple of minutes hereturned, laden with easel, sketching-stool, and painting materials. 

"Do you mean to say that you're going to sit quietly down and paint thatbrute while it's destroying my morning-room?" gasped Adela. 

"It was your suggestion, " said Eshley, setting his canvas in position. 

"I forbid it; I absolutely forbid it!" stormed Adela. 

"I don't see what standing you have in the matter, " said the artist; "youcan hardly pretend that it's your ox, even by adoption. "

"You seem to forget that it's in my morning-room, eating my flowers, "came the raging retort. 

"You seem to forget that the cook has neuralgia, " said Eshley; "she maybe just dozing off into a merciful sleep and your outcry will waken her. Consideration for others should be the guiding principle of people in ourstation of life. "

"The man is mad!" exclaimed Adela tragically. A moment later it wasAdela herself who appeared to go mad. The ox had finished thevase-flowers and the cover of "Israel Kalisch, " and appeared to bethinking of leaving its rather restricted quarters. Eshley noticed itsrestlessness and promptly flung it some bunches of Virginia creeperleaves as an inducement to continue the sitting. 

"I forget how the proverb runs, " he observed; "of something about 'bettera dinner of herbs than a stalled ox where hate is. ' We seem to have allthe ingredients for the proverb ready to hand. "

"I shall go to the Public Library and get them to telephone for thepolice, " announced Adela, and, raging audibly, she departed. 

Some minutes later the ox, awakening probably to the suspicion that oilcake and chopped mangold was waiting for it in some appointed byre, stepped with much precaution out of the morning-room, stared with graveinquiry at the no longer obtrusive and pea-stick-throwing human, and thenlumbered heavily but swiftly out of the garden. Eshley packed up histools and followed the animal's example and "Larkdene" was left toneuralgia and the cook. 

The episode was the turning-point in Eshley's artistic career. Hisremarkable picture, "Ox in a morning-room, late autumn, " was one of thesensations and successes of the next Paris Salon, and when it wassubsequently exhibited at Munich it was bought by the BavarianGovernment, in the teeth of the spirited bidding of three meat-extractfirms. From that moment his success was continuous and assured, and theRoyal Academy was thankful, two years later, to give a conspicuousposition on its walls to his large canvas "Barbary Apes Wrecking aBoudoir. "

Eshley presented Adela Pingsford with a new copy of "Israel Kalisch, " anda couple of finely flowering plants of _Madame Adnre Blusset_, butnothing in the nature of a real reconciliation has taken place betweenthem. 

THE STORY-TELLER

It was a hot afternoon, and the railway carriage was correspondinglysultry, and the next stop was at Templecombe, nearly an hour ahead. Theoccupants of the carriage were a small girl, and a smaller girl, and asmall boy. An aunt belonging to the children occupied one corner seat, and the further corner seat on the opposite side was occupied by abachelor who was a stranger to their party, but the small girls and thesmall boy emphatically occupied the compartment. Both the aunt and thechildren were conversational in a limited, persistent way, reminding oneof the attentions of a housefly that refuses to be discouraged. Most ofthe aunt's remarks seemed to begin with "Don't, " and nearly all of thechildren's remarks began with "Why?" The bachelor said nothing out loud. "Don't, Cyril, don't, " exclaimed the aunt, as the small boy begansmacking the cushions of the seat, producing a cloud of dust at eachblow. 

"Come and look out of the window, " she added. 

The child moved reluctantly to the window. "Why are those sheep beingdriven out of that field?" he asked. 

"I expect they are being driven to another field where there is moregrass, " said the aunt weakly. 

"But there is lots of grass in that field, " protested the boy; "there'snothing else but grass there. Aunt, there's lots of grass in thatfield. "

"Perhaps the grass in the other field is better, " suggested the auntfatuously. 

"Why is it better?" came the swift, inevitable question. 

"Oh, look at those cows!" exclaimed the aunt. Nearly every field alongthe line had contained cows or bullocks, but she spoke as though she weredrawing attention to a rarity. 

"Why is the grass in the other field better?" persisted Cyril. 

The frown on the bachelor's face was deepening to a scowl. He was ahard, unsympathetic man, the aunt decided in her mind. She was utterlyunable to come to any satisfactory decision about the grass in the otherfield. 

The smaller girl created a diversion by beginning to recite "On the Roadto Mandalay. " She only knew the first line, but she put her limitedknowledge to the fullest possible use. She repeated the line over andover again in a dreamy but resolute and very audible voice; it seemed tothe bachelor as though some one had had a bet with her that she could notrepeat the line aloud two thousand times without stopping. Whoever itwas who had made the wager was likely to lose his bet. 

"Come over here and listen to a story, " said the aunt, when the bachelorhad looked twice at her and once at the communication cord. 

The children moved listlessly towards the aunt's end of the carriage. Evidently her reputation as a story-teller did not rank high in theirestimation. 

In a low, confidential voice, interrupted at frequent intervals by loud, petulant questionings from her listeners, she began an unenterprising anddeplorably uninteresting story about a little girl who was good, and madefriends with every one on account of her goodness, and was finally savedfrom a mad bull by a number of rescuers who admired her moral character. 

"Wouldn't they have saved her if she hadn't been good?" demanded thebigger of the small girls. It was exactly the question that the bachelorhad wanted to ask. 

"Well, yes, " admitted the aunt lamely, "but I don't think they would haverun quite so fast to her help if they had not liked her so much. "

"It's the stupidest story I've ever heard, " said the bigger of the smallgirls, with immense conviction. 

"I didn't listen after the first bit, it was so stupid, " said Cyril. 

The smaller girl made no actual comment on the story, but she had longago recommenced a murmured repetition of her favourite line. 

"You don't seem to be a success as a story-teller, " said the bachelorsuddenly from his corner. 

The aunt bristled in instant defence at this unexpected attack. 

"It's a very difficult thing to tell stories that children can bothunderstand and appreciate, " she said stiffly. 

"I don't agree with you, " said the bachelor. 

"Perhaps you would like to tell them a story, " was the aunt's retort. 

"Tell us a story, " demanded the bigger of the small girls. 

"Once upon a time, " began the bachelor, "there was a little girl calledBertha, who was extraordinarily good. "

The children's momentarily-aroused interest began at once to flicker; allstories seemed dreadfully alike, no matter who told them. 

"She did all that she was told, she was always truthful, she kept herclothes clean, ate milk puddings as though they were jam tarts, learnedher lessons perfectly, and was polite in her manners. "

"Was she pretty?" asked the bigger of the small girls. 

"Not as pretty as any of you, " said the bachelor, "but she was horriblygood. "

There was a wave of reaction in favour of the story; the word horrible inconnection with goodness was a novelty that commended itself. It seemedto introduce a ring of truth that was absent from the aunt's tales ofinfant life. 

"She was so good, " continued the bachelor, "that she won several medalsfor goodness, which she always wore, pinned on to her dress. There was amedal for obedience, another medal for punctuality, and a third for goodbehaviour. They were large metal medals and they clicked against oneanother as she walked. No other child in the town where she lived had asmany as three medals, so everybody knew that she must be an extra goodchild. "

"Horribly good, " quoted Cyril. 

"Everybody talked about her goodness, and the Prince of the country gotto hear about it, and he said that as she was so very good she might beallowed once a week to walk in his park, which was just outside the town. It was a beautiful park, and no children were ever allowed in it, so itwas a great honour for Bertha to be allowed to go there. "

"Were there any sheep in the park?" demanded Cyril. 

"No;" said the bachelor, "there were no sheep. "

"Why weren't there any sheep?" came the inevitable question arising outof that answer. 

The aunt permitted herself a smile, which might almost have beendescribed as a grin. 

"There were no sheep in the park, " said the bachelor, "because thePrince's mother had once had a dream that her son would either be killedby a sheep or else by a clock falling on him. For that reason the Princenever kept a sheep in his park or a clock in his palace. "

The aunt suppressed a gasp of admiration. 

"Was the Prince killed by a sheep or by a clock?" asked Cyril. 

"He is still alive, so we can't tell whether the dream will come true, "said the bachelor unconcernedly; "anyway, there were no sheep in thepark, but there were lots of little pigs running all over the place. "

"What colour were they?"

"Black with white faces, white with black spots, black all over, greywith white patches, and some were white all over. "

The story-teller paused to let a full idea of the park's treasures sinkinto the children's imaginations; then he resumed:

"Bertha was rather sorry to find that there were no flowers in the park. She had promised her aunts, with tears in her eyes, that she would notpick any of the kind Prince's flowers, and she had meant to keep herpromise, so of course it made her feel silly to find that there were noflowers to pick. "

"Why weren't there any flowers?"

"Because the pigs had eaten them all, " said the bachelor promptly. "Thegardeners had told the Prince that you couldn't have pigs and flowers, sohe decided to have pigs and no flowers. "

There was a murmur of approval at the excellence of the Prince'sdecision; so many people would have decided the other way. 

"There were lots of other delightful things in the park. There wereponds with gold and blue and green fish in them, and trees with beautifulparrots that said clever things at a moment's notice, and humming birdsthat hummed all the popular tunes of the day. Bertha walked up and downand enjoyed herself immensely, and thought to herself: 'If I were not soextraordinarily good I should not have been allowed to come into thisbeautiful park and enjoy all that there is to be seen in it, ' and herthree medals clinked against one another as she walked and helped toremind her how very good she really was. Just then an enormous wolf cameprowling into the park to see if it could catch a fat little pig for itssupper. "

"What colour was it?" asked the children, amid an immediate quickening ofinterest. 

"Mud-colour all over, with a black tongue and pale grey eyes that gleamedwith unspeakable ferocity. The first thing that it saw in the park wasBertha; her pinafore was so spotlessly white and clean that it could beseen from a great distance. Bertha saw the wolf and saw that it wasstealing towards her, and she began to wish that she had never beenallowed to come into the park. She ran as hard as she could, and thewolf came after her with huge leaps and bounds. She managed to reach ashrubbery of myrtle bushes and she hid herself in one of the thickest ofthe bushes. The wolf came sniffing among the branches, its black tonguelolling out of its mouth and its pale grey eyes glaring with rage. Berthawas terribly frightened, and thought to herself: 'If I had not been soextraordinarily good I should have been safe in the town at this moment. 'However, the scent of the myrtle was so strong that the wolf could notsniff out where Bertha was hiding, and the bushes were so thick that hemight have hunted about in them for a long time without catching sight ofher, so he thought he might as well go off and catch a little piginstead. Bertha was trembling very much at having the wolf prowling andsniffing so near her, and as she trembled the medal for obedience clinkedagainst the medals for good conduct and punctuality. The wolf was justmoving away when he heard the sound of the medals clinking and stopped tolisten; they clinked again in a bush quite near him. He dashed into thebush, his pale grey eyes gleaming with ferocity and triumph, and draggedBertha out and devoured her to the last morsel. All that was left of herwere her shoes, bits of clothing, and the three medals for goodness. "

"Were any of the little pigs killed?"

"No, they all escaped. "

"The story began badly, " said the smaller of the small girls, "but it hada beautiful ending. "

"It is the most beautiful story that I ever heard, " said the bigger ofthe small girls, with immense decision. 

"It is the _only_ beautiful story I have ever heard, " said Cyril. 

A dissentient opinion came from the aunt. 

"A most improper story to tell to young children! You have underminedthe effect of years of careful teaching. "

"At any rate, " said the bachelor, collecting his belongings preparatoryto leaving the carriage, "I kept them quiet for ten minutes, which wasmore than you were able to do. "

"Unhappy woman!" he observed to himself as he walked down the platform ofTemplecombe station; "for the next six months or so those children willassail her in public with demands for an improper story!"

A DEFENSIVE DIAMOND

Treddleford sat in an easeful arm-chair in front of a slumberous fire, with a volume of verse in his hand and the comfortable consciousness thatoutside the club windows the rain was dripping and pattering withpersistent purpose. A chill, wet October afternoon was merging into ableak, wet October evening, and the club smoking-room seemed warmer andcosier by contrast. It was an afternoon on which to be wafted away fromone's climatic surroundings, and "The Golden journey to Samarkand"promised to bear Treddleford well and bravely into other lands and underother skies. He had already migrated from London the rain-swept toBagdad the Beautiful, and stood by the Sun Gate "in the olden time" whenan icy breath of imminent annoyance seemed to creep between the book andhimself. Amblecope, the man with the restless, prominent eyes and themouth ready mobilised for conversational openings, had planted himself ina neighbouring arm-chair. For a twelvemonth and some odd weeksTreddleford had skilfully avoided making the acquaintance of his volublefellow-clubman; he had marvellously escaped from the infliction of hisrelentless record of tedious personal achievements, or allegedachievements, on golf links, turf, and gaming table, by flood and fieldand covert-side. Now his season of immunity was coming to an end. Therewas no escape; in another moment he would be numbered among those whoknew Amblecope to speak to--or rather, to suffer being spoken to. 

The intruder was armed with a copy of _Country Life_, not for purposes ofreading, but as an aid to conversational ice-breaking. 

"Rather a good portrait of Throstlewing, " he remarked explosively, turning his large challenging eyes on Treddleford; "somehow it reminds mevery much of Yellowstep, who was supposed to be such a good thing for theGrand Prix in 1903. Curious race that was; I suppose I've seen everyrace for the Grand Prix for the last--"

"Be kind enough never to mention the Grand Prix in my hearing, " saidTreddleford desperately; "it awakens acutely distressing memories. Ican't explain why without going into a long and complicated story. "

"Oh, certainly, certainly, " said Amblecope hastily; long and complicatedstories that were not told by himself were abominable in his eyes. Heturned the pages of _Country Life_ and became spuriously interested inthe picture of a Mongolian pheasant. 

"Not a bad representation of the Mongolian variety, " he exclaimed, holding it up for his neighbour's inspection. "They do very well in somecovers. Take some stopping too, once they're fairly on the wing. Isuppose the biggest bag I ever made in two successive days--"

"My aunt, who owns the greater part of Lincolnshire, " broke inTreddleford, with dramatic abruptness, "possesses perhaps the mostremarkable record in the way of a pheasant bag that has ever beenachieved. She is seventy-five and can't hit a thing, but she always goesout with the guns. When I say she can't hit a thing, I don't mean to saythat she doesn't occasionally endanger the lives of her fellow-guns, because that wouldn't be true. In fact, the chief Government Whip won'tallow Ministerial M. P. 's to go out with her; 'We don't want to incur by-elections needlessly, ' he quite reasonably observed. Well, the other dayshe winged a pheasant, and brought it to earth with a feather or twoknocked out of it; it was a runner, and my aunt saw herself in danger ofbeing done out of about the only bird she'd hit during the present reign. Of course she wasn't going to stand that; she followed it through brackenand brushwood, and when it took to the open country and started across aploughed field she jumped on to the shooting pony and went after it. Thechase was a long one, and when my aunt at last ran the bird to astandstill she was nearer home than she was to the shooting party; shehad left that some five miles behind her. "

"Rather a long run for a wounded pheasant, " snapped Amblecope. 

"The story rests on my aunt's authority, " said Treddleford coldly, "andshe is local vice-president of the Young Women's Christian Association. She trotted three miles or so to her home, and it was not till the middleof the afternoon that it was discovered that the lunch for the entireshooting party was in a pannier attached to the pony's saddle. Anyway, she got her bird. "

"Some birds, of course, take a lot of killing, " said Amblecope; "so dosome fish. I remember once I was fishing in the Exe, lovely troutstream, lots of fish, though they don't run to any great size--"

"One of them did, " announced Treddleford, with emphasis. "My uncle, theBishop of Southmolton, came across a giant trout in a pool just off themain stream of the Exe near Ugworthy; he tried it with every kind of flyand worm every day for three weeks without an atom of success, and thenFate intervened on his behalf. There was a low stone bridge just overthis pool, and on the last day of his fishing holiday a motor van ranviolently into the parapet and turned completely over; no one was hurt, but part of the parapet was knocked away, and the entire load that thevan was carrying was pitched over and fell a little way into the pool. Ina couple of minutes the giant trout was flapping and twisting on bare mudat the bottom of a waterless pool, and my uncle was able to walk down tohim and fold him to his breast. The van-load consisted ofblotting-paper, and every drop of water in that pool had been sucked upinto the mass of spilt cargo. "

There was silence for nearly half a minute in the smoking-room, andTreddleford began to let his mind steal back towards the golden road thatled to Samarkand. Amblecope, however, rallied, and remarked in a rathertired and dispirited voice:

"Talking of motor accidents, the narrowest squeak I ever had was theother day, motoring with old Tommy Yarby in North Wales. Awfully goodsort, old Yarby, thorough good sportsman, and the best--"

"It was in North Wales, " said Treddleford, "that my sister met with hersensational carriage accident last year. She was on her way to a garden-party at Lady Nineveh's, about the only garden-party that ever comes topass in those parts in the course of the year, and therefore a thing thatshe would have been very sorry to miss. She was driving a young horsethat she'd only bought a week or two previously, warranted to beperfectly steady with motor traffic, bicycles, and other common objectsof the roadside. The animal lived up to its reputation, and passed themost explosive of motor-bikes with an indifference that almost amountedto apathy. However, I suppose we all draw the line somewhere, and thisparticular cob drew it at travelling wild beast shows. Of course mysister didn't know that, but she knew it very distinctly when she turneda sharp corner and found herself in a mixed company of camels, piebaldhorses, and canary-coloured vans. The dogcart was overturned in a ditchand kicked to splinters, and the cob went home across country. Neithermy sister nor the groom was hurt, but the problem of how to get to theNineveh garden-party, some three miles distant, seemed rather difficultto solve; once there, of course, my sister would easily find some one todrive her home. 'I suppose you wouldn't care for the loan of a couple ofmy camels?' the showman suggested, in humorous sympathy. 'I would, ' saidmy sister, who had ridden camel-back in Egypt, and she overruled theobjections of the groom, who hadn't. She picked out two of the mostpresentable-looking of the beasts and had them dusted and made as tidy aswas possible at short notice, and set out for the Nineveh mansion. Youmay imagine the sensation that her small but imposing caravan createdwhen she arrived at the hall door. The entire garden-party flocked up togape. My sister was rather glad to slip down from her camel, and thegroom was thankful to scramble down from his. Then young Billy Doulton, of the Dragoon Guards, who has been a lot at Aden and thinks he knowscamel-language backwards, thought he would show off by making the beastskneel down in orthodox fashion. Unfortunately camel words-of-command arenot the same all the world over; these were magnificent Turkestan camels, accustomed to stride up the stony terraces of mountain passes, and whenDoulton shouted at them they went side by side up the front steps, intothe entrance hall, and up the grand staircase. The German governess metthem just at the turn of the corridor. The Ninevehs nursed her withdevoted attention for weeks, and when I last heard from them she was wellenough to go about her duties again, but the doctor says she will alwayssuffer from Hagenbeck heart. "

Amblecope got up from his chair and moved to another part of the room. Treddleford reopened his book and betook himself once more across

 The dragon-green, the luminous, the dark, the serpent-haunted sea. 

For a blessed half-hour he disported himself in imagination by the "gayAleppo-Gate, " and listened to the bird-voiced singing-man. Then theworld of to-day called him back; a page summoned him to speak with afriend on the telephone. 

As Treddleford was about to pass out of the room he encounteredAmblecope, also passing out, on his way to the billiard-room, where, perchance, some luckless wight might be secured and held fast to listento the number of his attendances at the Grand Prix, with subsequentremarks on Newmarket and the Cambridgeshire. Amblecope made as if topass out first, but a new-born pride was surging in Treddleford's breastand he waved him back. 

"I believe I take precedence, " he said coldly; "you are merely the clubBore; I am the club Liar. "

THE ELK

Teresa, Mrs. Thropplestance, was the richest and most intractable oldwoman in the county of Woldshire. In her dealings with the world ingeneral her manner suggested a blend between a Mistress of the Robes anda Master of Foxhounds, with the vocabulary of both. In her domesticcircle she comported herself in the arbitrary style that one attributes, probably without the least justification, to an American political Bossin the bosom of his caucus. The late Theodore Thropplestance had lefther, some thirty-five years ago, in absolute possession of a considerablefortune, a large landed property, and a gallery full of valuablepictures. In those intervening years she had outlived her son andquarrelled with her elder grandson, who had married without her consentor approval. Bertie Thropplestance, her younger grandson, was the heir-designate to her property, and as such he was a centre of interest andconcern to some half-hundred ambitious mothers with daughters ofmarriageable age. Bertie was an amiable, easy-going young man, who wasquite ready to marry anyone who was favourably recommended to his notice, but he was not going to waste his time in falling in love with anyone whowould come under his grandmother's veto. The favourable recommendationwould have to come from Mrs. Thropplestance. 

Teresa's house-parties were always rounded off with a plentifulgarnishing of presentable young women and alert, attendant mothers, butthe old lady was emphatically discouraging whenever any one of her girlguests became at all likely to outbid the others as a possiblegranddaughter-in-law. It was the inheritance of her fortune and estatethat was in question, and she was evidently disposed to exercise andenjoy her powers of selection and rejection to the utmost. Bertie'spreferences did not greatly matter; he was of the sort who can bestolidly happy with any kind of wife; he had cheerfully put up with hisgrandmother all his life, so was not likely to fret and fume overanything that might befall him in the way of a helpmate. 

The party that gathered under Teresa's roof in Christmas week of the yearnineteen-hundred-and-something was of smaller proportions than usual, andMrs. Yonelet, who formed one of the party, was inclined to deduce hopefulaugury from this circumstance. Dora Yonelet and Bertie were so obviouslymade for one another, she confided to the vicar's wife, and if the oldlady were accustomed to seeing them about a lot together she might adoptthe view that they would make a suitable married couple. 

"People soon get used to an idea if it is dangled constantly before theireyes, " said Mrs. Yonelet hopefully, "and the more often Teresa sees thoseyoung people together, happy in each other's company, the more she willget to take a kindly interest in Dora as a possible and desirable wifefor Bertie. "

"My dear, " said the vicar's wife resignedly, "my own Sybil was throwntogether with Bertie under the most romantic circumstances--I'll tell youabout it some day--but it made no impression whatever on Teresa; she puther foot down in the most uncompromising fashion, and Sybil married anIndian civilian. "

"Quite right of her, " said Mrs. Yonelet with vague approval; "it's whatany girl of spirit would have done. Still, that was a year or two ago, Ibelieve; Bertie is older now, and so is Teresa. Naturally she must beanxious to see him settled. "

The vicar's wife reflected that Teresa seemed to be the one person whoshowed no immediate anxiety to supply Bertie with a wife, but she keptthe thought to herself. 

Mrs. Yonelet was a woman of resourceful energy and generalship; sheinvolved the other members of the house-party, the deadweight, so tospeak, in all manner of exercises and occupations that segregated themfrom Bertie and Dora, who were left to their own devisings--that is tosay, to Dora's devisings and Bertie's accommodating acquiescence. Dorahelped in the Christmas decorations of the parish church, and Bertiehelped her to help. Together they fed the swans, till the birds went ona dyspepsia-strike, together they played billiards, together theyphotographed the village almshouses, and, at a respectful distance, thetame elk that browsed in solitary aloofness in the park. It was "tame"in the sense that it had long ago discarded the least vestige of fear ofthe human race; nothing in its record encouraged its human neighbours tofeel a reciprocal confidence. 

Whatever sport or exercise or occupation Bertie and Dora indulged intogether was unfailingly chronicled and advertised by Mrs. Yonelet forthe due enlightenment of Bertie's grandmother. 

"Those two inseparables have just come in from a bicycle ride, " she wouldannounce; "quite a picture they make, so fresh and glowing after theirspin. "

"A picture needing words, " would be Teresa's private comment, and as faras Bertie was concerned she was determined that the words should remainunspoken. 

On the afternoon after Christmas Day Mrs. Yonelet dashed into the drawing-room, where her hostess was sitting amid a circle of guests and teacupsand muffin-dishes. Fate had placed what seemed like a trump-card in thehands of the patiently-manoeuvring mother. With eyes blazing withexcitement and a voice heavily escorted with exclamation marks she made adramatic announcement. 

"Bertie has saved Dora from the elk!"

In swift, excited sentences, broken with maternal emotion, she gavesupplementary information as to how the treacherous animal had ambushedDora as she was hunting for a strayed golf ball, and how Bertie haddashed to her rescue with a stable fork and driven the beast off in thenick of time. 

"It was touch and go! She threw her niblick at it, but that didn't stopit. In another moment she would have been crushed beneath its hoofs, "panted Mrs. Yonelet. 

"The animal is not safe, " said Teresa, handing her agitated guest a cupof tea. "I forget if you take sugar. I suppose the solitary life itleads has soured its temper. There are muffins in the grate. It's notmy fault; I've tried to get it a mate for ever so long. You don't knowof anyone with a lady elk for sale or exchange, do you?" she asked thecompany generally. 

But Mrs. Yonelet was in no humour to listen to talk of elk marriages. Themating of two human beings was the subject uppermost in her mind, and theopportunity for advancing her pet project was too valuable to beneglected. 

"Teresa, " she exclaimed impressively, "after those two young people havebeen thrown together so dramatically, nothing can be quite the same againbetween them. Bertie has done more than save Dora's life; he has earnedher affection. One cannot help feeling that Fate has consecrated themfor one another. "

"Exactly what the vicar's wife said when Bertie saved Sybil from the elka year or two ago, " observed Teresa placidly; "I pointed out to her thathe had rescued Mirabel Hicks from the same predicement a few monthspreviously, and that priority really belonged to the gardener's boy, whohad been rescued in the January of that year. There is a good deal ofsameness in country life, you know. "

"It seems to be a very dangerous animal, " said one of the guests. 

"That's what the mother of the gardener's boy said, " remarked Teresa;"she wanted me to have it destroyed, but I pointed out to her that shehad eleven children and I had only one elk. I also gave her a black silkskirt; she said that though there hadn't been a funeral in her family shefelt as if there had been. Anyhow, we parted friends. I can't offer youa silk skirt, Emily, but you may have another cup of tea. As I havealready remarked, there are muffins in the grate. "

Teresa dosed the discussion, having deftly conveyed the impression thatshe considered the mother of the gardener's boy had shown a far morereasonable spirit than the parents of other elk-assaulted victims. 

"Teresa is devoid of feeling, " said Mrs. Yonelet afterwards to thevicar's wife; "to sit there, talking of muffins, with an appallingtragedy only narrowly averted--"

"Of course you know whom she really intends Bertie to marry?" asked thevicar's wife; "I've noticed it for some time. The Bickelbys' Germangoverness. "

"A German governess! What an idea!" gasped Mrs. Yonelet. 

"She's of quite good family, I believe, " said the vicar's wife, "and notat all the mouse-in-the-back-ground sort of person that governesses areusually supposed to be. In fact, next to Teresa, she's about the mostassertive and combative personality in the neighbourhood. She's pointedout to my husband all sorts of errors in his sermons, and she gave SirLaurence a public lecture on how he ought to handle the hounds. You knowhow sensitive Sir Laurence is about any criticism of his Mastership, andto have a governess laying down the law to him nearly drove him into afit. She's behaved like that to every one, except, of course, Teresa, and every one has been defensively rude to her in return. The Bickelbysare simply too afraid of her to get rid of her. Now isn't that exactlythe sort of woman whom Teresa would take a delight in installing as hersuccessor? Imagine the discomfort and awkwardness in the county if wesuddenly found that she was to be the future hostess at the Hall. Teresa's only regret will be that she won't be alive to see it. "

"But, " objected Mrs. Yonelet, "surely Bertie hasn't shown the least signof being attracted in that quarter?"

"Oh, she's quite nice-looking in a way, and dresses well, and plays agood game of tennis. She often comes across the park with messages fromthe Bickelby mansion, and one of these days Bertie will rescue her fromthe elk, which has become almost a habit with him, and Teresa will saythat Fate has consecrated them to one another. Bertie might not bedisposed to pay much attention to the consecrations of Fate, but he wouldnot dream of opposing his grandmother. "

The vicar's wife spoke with the quiet authority of one who has intuitiveknowledge, and in her heart of hearts Mrs. Yonelet believed her. 

Six months later the elk had to be destroyed. In a fit of exceptionalmoroseness it had killed the Bickelbys' German governess. It was anirony of its fate that it should achieve popularity in the last momentsof its career; at any rate, it established, the record of being the onlyliving thing that had permanently thwarted Teresa Thropplestance's plans. 

Dora Yonelet broke off her engagement with an Indian civilian, andmarried Bertie three months after his grandmother's death--Teresa did notlong survive the German governess fiasco. At Christmas time every yearyoung Mrs. Thropplestance hangs an extra large festoon of evergreens onthe elk horns that decorate the hall. 

"It was a fearsome beast, " she observes to Bertie, "but I always feelthat it was instrumental in bringing us together. "

Which, of course, was true. 

"DOWN PENS"

"Have you written to thank the Froplinsons for what they sent us?" askedEgbert. 

"No, " said Janetta, with a note of tired defiance in her voice; "I'vewritten eleven letters to-day expressing surprise and gratitude forsundry unmerited gifts, but I haven't written to the Froplinsons. "

"Some one will have to write to them, " said Egbert. 

"I don't dispute the necessity, but I don't think the some one should beme, " said Janetta. "I wouldn't mind writing a letter of angryrecrimination or heartless satire to some suitable recipient; in fact, Ishould rather enjoy it, but I've come to the end of my capacity forexpressing servile amiability. Eleven letters to-day and nine yesterday, all couched in the same strain of ecstatic thankfulness: really, youcan't expect me to sit down to another. There is such a thing as writingoneself out. "

"I've written nearly as many, " said Egbert, "and I've had my usualbusiness correspondence to get through, too. Besides, I don't know whatit was that the Froplinsons sent us. "

"A William the Conqueror calendar, " said Janetta, "with a quotation ofone of his great thoughts for every day in the year. "

"Impossible, " said Egbert; "he didn't have three hundred and sixty-fivethoughts in the whole of his life, or, if he did, he kept them tohimself. He was a man of action, not of introspection. "

"Well, it was William Wordsworth, then, " said Janetta; "I know Williamcame into it somewhere. "

"That sounds more probable, " said Egbert; "well, let's collaborate onthis letter of thanks and get it done. I'll dictate, and you canscribble it down. 'Dear Mrs. Froplinson--thank you and your husband somuch for the very pretty calendar you sent us. It was very good of youto think of us. '"

"You can't possibly say that, " said Janetta, laying down her pen. 

"It's what I always do say, and what every one says to me, " protestedEgbert. 

"We sent them something on the twenty-second, " said Janetta, "so theysimply _had_ to think of us. There was no getting away from it. "

"What did we send them?" asked Egbert gloomily. 

"Bridge-markers, " said Janetta, "in a cardboard case, with some inanityabout 'digging for fortune with a royal spade' emblazoned on the cover. The moment I saw it in the shop I said to myself 'Froplinsons' and to theattendant 'How much?' When he said 'Ninepence, ' I gave him theiraddress, jabbed our card in, paid tenpence or elevenpence to cover thepostage, and thanked heaven. With less sincerity and infinitely moretrouble they eventually thanked me. "

"The Froplinsons don't play bridge, " said Egbert. 

"One is not supposed to notice social deformities of that sort, " saidJanetta; "it wouldn't be polite. Besides, what trouble did they take tofind out whether we read Wordsworth with gladness? For all they knew orcared we might be frantically embedded in the belief that all poetrybegins and ends with John Masefield, and it might infuriate or depress usto have a daily sample of Wordsworthian products flung at us. "

"Well, let's get on with the letter of thanks, " said Egbert. 

"Proceed, " said Janetta. 

"'How clever of you to guess that Wordsworth is our favourite poet, '"dictated Egbert. 

Again Janetta laid down her pen. 

"Do you realise what that means?" she asked; "a Wordsworth booklet nextChristmas, and another calendar the Christmas after, with the sameproblem of having to write suitable letters of thankfulness. No, thebest thing to do is to drop all further allusion to the calendar andswitch off on to some other topic. "

"But what other topic?"

"Oh, something like this: 'What do you think of the New Year HonoursList? A friend of ours made such a clever remark when he read it. ' Thenyou can stick in any remark that comes into your head; it needn't beclever. The Froplinsons won't know whether it is or isn't. "

"We don't even know on which side they are in politics, " objected Egbert;"and anyhow you can't suddenly dismiss the subject of the calendar. Surely there must be some intelligent remark that can be made about it. "

"Well, we can't think of one, " said Janetta wearily; "the fact is, we'veboth written ourselves out. Heavens! I've just remembered Mrs. StephenLudberry. I haven't thanked her for what she sent. "

"What did she send?"

"I forget; I think it was a calendar. "

There was a long silence, the forlorn silence of those who are bereft ofhope and have almost ceased to care. 

Presently Egbert started from his seat with an air of resolution. Thelight of battle was in his eyes. 

"Let me come to the writing-table, " he exclaimed. 

"Gladly, " said Janetta. "Are you going to write to Mrs. Ludberry or theFroplinsons?"

"To neither, " said Egbert, drawing a stack of notepaper towards him; "I'mgoing to write to the editor of every enlightened and influentialnewspaper in the Kingdom, I'm going to suggest that there should be asort of epistolary Truce of God during the festivities of Christmas andNew Year. From the twenty-fourth of December to the third or fourth ofJanuary it shall be considered an offence against good sense and goodfeeling to write or expect any letter or communication that does not dealwith the necessary events of the moment. Answers to invitations, arrangements about trains, renewal of club subscriptions, and, of course, all the ordinary everyday affairs of business, sickness, engaging newcooks, and so forth, these will be dealt with in the usual manner assomething inevitable, a legitimate part of our daily life. But all thedevastating accretions of correspondence, incident to the festive season, these should be swept away to give the season a chance of being reallyfestive, a time of untroubled, unpunctuated peace and good will. "

"But you would have to make some acknowledgment of presents received, "objected Janetta; "otherwise people would never know whether they hadarrived safely. "

"Of course, I have thought of that, " said Egbert; "every present that wassent off would be accompanied by a ticket bearing the date of dispatchand the signature of the sender, and some conventional hieroglyphic toshow that it was intended to be a Christmas or New Year gift; there wouldbe a counterfoil with space for the recipient's name and the date ofarrival, and all you would have to do would be to sign and date thecounterfoil, add a conventional hieroglyphic indicating heartfelt thanksand gratified surprise, put the thing into an envelope and post it. "

"It sounds delightfully simple, " said Janetta wistfully, "but peoplewould consider it too cut-and-dried, too perfunctory. "

"It is not a bit more perfunctory than the present system, " said Egbert;"I have only the same conventional language of gratitude at my disposalwith which to thank dear old Colonel Chuttle for his perfectly deliciousStilton, which we shall devour to the last morsel, and the Froplinsonsfor their calendar, which we shall never look at. Colonel Chuttle knowsthat we are grateful for the Stilton, without having to be told so, andthe Froplinsons know that we are bored with their calendar, whatever wemay say to the contrary, just as we know that they are bored with thebridge-markers in spite of their written assurance that they thanked usfor our charming little gift. What is more, the Colonel knows that evenif we had taken a sudden aversion to Stilton or been forbidden it by thedoctor, we should still have written a letter of hearty thanks around it. So you see the present system of acknowledgment is just as perfunctoryand conventional as the counterfoil business would be, only ten timesmore tiresome and brain-racking. "

"Your plan would certainly bring the ideal of a Happy Christmas a stepnearer realisation, " said Janetta. 

"There are exceptions, of course, " said Egbert, "people who really try toinfuse a breath of reality into their letters of acknowledgment. AuntSusan, for instance, who writes: 'Thank you very much for the ham; notsuch a good flavour as the one you sent last year, which itself was not aparticularly good one. Hams are not what they used to be. ' It would bea pity to be deprived of her Christmas comments, but that loss would beswallowed up in the general gain. "

"Meanwhile, " said Janetta, "what am I to say to the Froplinsons?"

THE NAME-DAY

Adventures, according to the proverb, are to the adventurous. Quite asoften they are to the non-adventurous, to the retiring, to theconstitutionally timid. John James Abbleway had been endowed by Naturewith the sort of disposition that instinctively avoids Carlist intrigues, slum crusades, the tracking of wounded wild beasts, and the moving ofhostile amendments at political meetings. If a mad dog or a Mad Mullahhad come his way he would have surrendered the way without hesitation. Atschool he had unwillingly acquired a thorough knowledge of the Germantongue out of deference to the plainly-expressed wishes of aforeign-languages master, who, though he taught modern subjects, employedold-fashioned methods in driving his lessons home. It was this enforcedfamiliarity with an important commercial language which thrust Abblewayin later years into strange lands where adventures were less easy toguard against than in the ordered atmosphere of an English country town. The firm that he worked for saw fit to send him one day on a prosaicbusiness errand to the far city of Vienna, and, having sent him there, continued to keep him there, still engaged in humdrum affairs ofcommerce, but with the possibilities of romance and adventure, or evenmisadventure, jostling at his elbow. After two and a half years ofexile, however, John James Abbleway had embarked on only one hazardousundertaking, and that was of a nature which would assuredly haveovertaken him sooner or later if he had been leading a sheltered, stay-at-home existence at Dorking or Huntingdon. He fell placidly in love with aplacidly lovable English girl, the sister of one of his commercialcolleagues, who was improving her mind by a short trip to foreign parts, and in due course he was formally accepted as the young man she wasengaged to. The further step by which she was to become Mrs. JohnAbbleway was to take place a twelvemonth hence in a town in the Englishmidlands, by which time the firm that employed John James would have nofurther need for his presence in the Austrian capital. 

It was early in April, two months after the installation of Abbleway asthe young man Miss Penning was engaged to, when he received a letter fromher, written from Venice. She was still peregrinating under the wing ofher brother, and as the latter's business arrangements would take himacross to Fiume for a day or two, she had conceived the idea that itwould be rather jolly if John could obtain leave of absence and run downto the Adriatic coast to meet them. She had looked up the route on themap, and the journey did not appear likely to be expensive. Between thelines of her communication there lay a hint that if he really cared forher--

Abbleway obtained leave of absence and added a journey to Fiume to hislife's adventures. He left Vienna on a cold, cheerless day. The flowershops were full of spring blooms, and the weekly organs of illustratedhumour were full of spring topics, but the skies were heavy with cloudsthat looked like cotton-wool that has been kept over long in a shopwindow. 

"Snow comes, " said the train official to the station officials; and theyagreed that snow was about to come. And it came, rapidly, plenteously. The train had not been more than an hour on its journey when the cotton-wool clouds commenced to dissolve in a blinding downpour of snowflakes. The forest trees on either side of the line were speedily coated with aheavy white mantle, the telegraph wires became thick glistening ropes, the line itself was buried more and more completely under a carpeting ofsnow, through which the not very powerful engine ploughed its way withincreasing difficulty. The Vienna-Fiume line is scarcely the bestequipped of the Austrian State railways, and Abbleway began to haveserious fears for a breakdown. The train had slowed down to a painfuland precarious crawl and presently came to a halt at a spot where thedrifting snow had accumulated in a formidable barrier. The engine made aspecial effort and broke through the obstruction, but in the course ofanother twenty minutes it was again held up. The process of breakingthrough was renewed, and the train doggedly resumed its way, encounteringand surmounting fresh hindrances at frequent intervals. After astandstill of unusually long duration in a particularly deep drift thecompartment in which Abbleway was sitting gave a huge jerk and a lurch, and then seemed to remain stationary; it undoubtedly was not moving, andyet he could hear the puffing of the engine and the slow rumbling andjolting of wheels. The puffing and rumbling grew fainter, as though itwere dying away through the agency of intervening distance. Abblewaysuddenly gave vent to an exclamation of scandalised alarm, opened thewindow, and peered out into the snowstorm. The flakes perched on hiseyelashes and blurred his vision, but he saw enough to help him torealise what had happened. The engine had made a mighty plunge throughthe drift and had gone merrily forward, lightened of the load of its rearcarriage, whose coupling had snapped under the strain. Abbleway wasalone, or almost alone, with a derelict railway waggon, in the heart ofsome Styrian or Croatian forest. In the third-class compartment next tohis own he remembered to have seen a peasant woman, who had entered thetrain at a small wayside station. "With the exception of that woman, " heexclaimed dramatically to himself, "the nearest living beings areprobably a pack of wolves. "

Before making his way to the third-class compartment to acquaint hisfellow-traveller with the extent of the disaster Abbleway hurriedlypondered the question of the woman's nationality. He had acquired asmattering of Slavonic tongues during his residence in Vienna, and feltcompetent to grapple with several racial possibilities. 

"If she is Croat or Serb or Bosniak I shall be able to make herunderstand, " he promised himself. "If she is Magyar, heaven help me! Weshall have to converse entirely by signs. "

He entered the carriage and made his momentous announcement in the bestapproach to Croat speech that he could achieve. 

"The train has broken away and left us!"

The woman shook her head with a movement that might be intended to conveyresignation to the will of heaven, but probably meant noncomprehension. Abbleway repeated his information with variations of Slavonic tongues andgenerous displays of pantomime. 

"Ah, " said the woman at last in German dialect, "the train has gone? Weare left. Ah, so. "

She seemed about as much interested as though Abbleway had told her theresult of the municipal elections in Amsterdam. 

"They will find out at some station, and when the line is clear of snowthey will send an engine. It happens that way sometimes. "

"We may be here all night!" exclaimed Abbleway. 

The woman nodded as though she thought it possible. 

"Are there wolves in these parts?" asked Abbleway hurriedly. 

"Many, " said the woman; "just outside this forest my aunt was devouredthree years ago, as she was coming home from market. The horse and ayoung pig that was in the cart were eaten too. The horse was a very oldone, but it was a beautiful young pig, oh, so fat. I cried when I heardthat it was taken. They spare nothing. "

"They may attack us here, " said Abbleway tremulously; "they could easilybreak in, these carriages are like matchwood. We may both be devoured. "

"You, perhaps, " said the woman calmly; "not me. "

"Why not you?" demanded Abbleway. 

"It is the day of Saint Maria Kleopha, my name-day. She would not allowme to be eaten by wolves on her day. Such a thing could not be thoughtof. You, yes, but not me. "

Abbleway changed the subject. 

"It is only afternoon now; if we are to be left here till morning weshall be starving. "

"I have here some good eatables, " said the woman tranquilly; "on myfestival day it is natural that I should have provision with me. I havefive good blood-sausages; in the town shops they cost twenty-five hellereach. Things are dear in the town shops. "

"I will give you fifty heller apiece for a couple of them, " said Abblewaywith some enthusiasm. 

"In a railway accident things become very dear, " said the woman; "theseblood-sausages are four kronen apiece. "

"Four kronen!" exclaimed Abbleway; "four kronen for a blood-sausage!"

"You cannot get them any cheaper on this train, " said the woman, withrelentless logic, "because there aren't any others to get. In Agram youcan buy them cheaper, and in Paradise no doubt they will be given to usfor nothing, but here they cost four kronen each. I have a small pieceof Emmenthaler cheese and a honey-cake and a piece of bread that I canlet you have. That will be another three kronen, eleven kronen in all. There is a piece of ham, but that I cannot let you have on my name-day. "

Abbleway wondered to himself what price she would have put on the ham, and hurried to pay her the eleven kronen before her emergency tariffexpanded into a famine tariff. As he was taking possession of his modeststore of eatables he suddenly heard a noise which set his heart thumpingin a miserable fever of fear. 'There was a scraping and shuffling as ofsome animal or animals trying to climb up to the footboard. In anothermoment, through the snow-encrusted glass of the carriage window, he saw agaunt prick-eared head, with gaping jaw and lolling tongue and gleamingteeth; a second later another head shot up. 

"There are hundreds of them, " whispered Abbleway; "they have scented us. They will tear the carriage to pieces. We shall be devoured. "

"Not me, on my name-day. The holy Maria Kleopha would not permit it, "said the woman with provoking calm. 

The heads dropped down from the window and an uncanny silence fell on thebeleaguered carriage. Abbleway neither moved nor spoke. Perhaps thebrutes had not clearly seen or winded the human occupants of thecarriage, and had prowled away on some other errand of rapine. 

The long torture-laden minutes passed slowly away. 

"It grows cold, " said the woman suddenly, crossing over to the far end ofthe carriage, where the heads had appeared. "The heating apparatus doesnot work any longer. See, over there beyond the trees, there is achimney with smoke coming from it. It is not far, and the snow hasnearly stopped, I shall find a path through the forest to that house withthe chimney. "

"But the wolves!" exclaimed Abbleway; "they may--"

"Not on my name-day, " said the woman obstinately, and before he couldstop her she had opened the door and climbed down into the snow. Amoment later he hid his face in his hands; two gaunt lean figures rushedupon her from the forest. No doubt she had courted her fate, butAbbleway had no wish to see a human being torn to pieces and devouredbefore his eyes. 

When he looked at last a new sensation of scandalised astonishment tookpossession of him. He had been straitly brought up in a small Englishtown, and he was not prepared to be the witness of a miracle. The wolveswere not doing anything worse to the woman than drench her with snow asthey gambolled round her. 

A short, joyous bark revealed the clue to the situation. 

"Are those--dogs?" he called weakly. 

"My cousin Karl's dogs, yes, " she answered; "that is his inn, over beyondthe trees. I knew it was there, but I did not want to take you there; heis always grasping with strangers. However, it grows too cold to remainin the train. Ah, ah, see what comes!"

A whistle sounded, and a relief engine made its appearance, snorting itsway sulkily through the snow. Abbleway did not have the opportunity forfinding out whether Karl was really avaricious. 

THE LUMBER ROOM

The children were to be driven, as a special treat, to the sands atJagborough. Nicholas was not to be of the party; he was in disgrace. Only that morning he had refused to eat his wholesome bread-and-milk onthe seemingly frivolous ground that there was a frog in it. Older andwiser and better people had told him that there could not possibly be afrog in his bread-and-milk and that he was not to talk nonsense; hecontinued, nevertheless, to talk what seemed the veriest nonsense, anddescribed with much detail the colouration and markings of the allegedfrog. The dramatic part of the incident was that there really was a frogin Nicholas' basin of bread-and-milk; he had put it there himself, so hefelt entitled to know something about it. The sin of taking a frog fromthe garden and putting it into a bowl of wholesome bread-and-milk wasenlarged on at great length, but the fact that stood out clearest in thewhole affair, as it presented itself to the mind of Nicholas, was thatthe older, wiser, and better people had been proved to be profoundly inerror in matters about which they had expressed the utmost assurance. 

"You said there couldn't possibly be a frog in my bread-and-milk; there_was_ a frog in my bread-and-milk, " he repeated, with the insistence of askilled tactician who does not intend to shift from favourable ground. 

So his boy-cousin and girl-cousin and his quite uninteresting youngerbrother were to be taken to Jagborough sands that afternoon and he was tostay at home. His cousins' aunt, who insisted, by an unwarranted stretchof imagination, in styling herself his aunt also, had hastily inventedthe Jagborough expedition in order to impress on Nicholas the delightsthat he had justly forfeited by his disgraceful conduct at the breakfast-table. It was her habit, whenever one of the children fell from grace, to improvise something of a festival nature from which the offender wouldbe rigorously debarred; if all the children sinned collectively they weresuddenly informed of a circus in a neighbouring town, a circus ofunrivalled merit and uncounted elephants, to which, but for theirdepravity, they would have been taken that very day. 

A few decent tears were looked for on the part of Nicholas when themoment for the departure of the expedition arrived. As a matter of fact, however, all the crying was done by his girl-cousin, who scraped her kneerather painfully against the step of the carriage as she was scramblingin. 

"How she did howl, " said Nicholas cheerfully, as the party drove offwithout any of the elation of high spirits that should have characterisedit. 

"She'll soon get over that, " said the _soi-disant_ aunt; "it will be aglorious afternoon for racing about over those beautiful sands. How theywill enjoy themselves!"

"Bobby won't enjoy himself much, and he won't race much either, " saidNicholas with a grim chuckle; "his boots are hurting him. They're tootight. "

"Why didn't he tell me they were hurting?" asked the aunt with someasperity. 

"He told you twice, but you weren't listening. You often don't listenwhen we tell you important things. "

"You are not to go into the gooseberry garden, " said the aunt, changingthe subject. 

"Why not?" demanded Nicholas. 

"Because you are in disgrace, " said the aunt loftily. 

Nicholas did not admit the flawlessness of the reasoning; he feltperfectly capable of being in disgrace and in a gooseberry garden at thesame moment. His face took on an expression of considerable obstinacy. It was clear to his aunt that he was determined to get into thegooseberry garden, "only, " as she remarked to herself, "because I havetold him he is not to. "

Now the gooseberry garden had two doors by which it might be entered, andonce a small person like Nicholas could slip in there he couldeffectually disappear from view amid the masking growth of artichokes, raspberry canes, and fruit bushes. The aunt had many other things to dothat afternoon, but she spent an hour or two in trivial gardeningoperations among flower beds and shrubberies, whence she could keep awatchful eye on the two doors that led to the forbidden paradise. Shewas a woman of few ideas, with immense powers of concentration. 

Nicholas made one or two sorties into the front garden, wriggling his waywith obvious stealth of purpose towards one or other of the doors, butnever able for a moment to evade the aunt's watchful eye. As a matter offact, he had no intention of trying to get into the gooseberry garden, but it was extremely convenient for him that his aunt should believe thathe had; it was a belief that would keep her on self-imposed sentry-dutyfor the greater part of the afternoon. Having thoroughly confirmed andfortified her suspicions Nicholas slipped back into the house and rapidlyput into execution a plan of action that had long germinated in hisbrain. By standing on a chair in the library one could reach a shelf onwhich reposed a fat, important-looking key. The key was as important asit looked; it was the instrument which kept the mysteries of the lumber-room secure from unauthorised intrusion, which opened a way only foraunts and such-like privileged persons. Nicholas had not had muchexperience of the art of fitting keys into keyholes and turning locks, but for some days past he had practised with the key of the schoolroomdoor; he did not believe in trusting too much to luck and accident. Thekey turned stiffly in the lock, but it turned. The door opened, andNicholas was in an unknown land, compared with which the gooseberrygarden was a stale delight, a mere material pleasure. 

Often and often Nicholas had pictured to himself what the lumber-roommight be like, that region that was so carefully sealed from youthfuleyes and concerning which no questions were ever answered. It came up tohis expectations. In the first place it was large and dimly lit, onehigh window opening on to the forbidden garden being its only source ofillumination. In the second place it was a storehouse of unimaginedtreasures. The aunt-by-assertion was one of those people who think thatthings spoil by use and consign them to dust and damp by way ofpreserving them. Such parts of the house as Nicholas knew best wererather bare and cheerless, but here there were wonderful things for theeye to feast on. First and foremost there was a piece of framed tapestrythat was evidently meant to be a fire-screen. To Nicholas it was aliving, breathing story; he sat down on a roll of Indian hangings, glowing in wonderful colours beneath a layer of dust, and took in all thedetails of the tapestry picture. A man, dressed in the hunting costumeof some remote period, had just transfixed a stag with an arrow; it couldnot have been a difficult shot because the stag was only one or two pacesaway from him; in the thickly-growing vegetation that the picturesuggested it would not have been difficult to creep up to a feeding stag, and the two spotted dogs that were springing forward to join in the chasehad evidently been trained to keep to heel till the arrow was discharged. That part of the picture was simple, if interesting, but did the huntsmansee, what Nicholas saw, that four galloping wolves were coming in hisdirection through the wood? There might be more than four of them hiddenbehind the trees, and in any case would the man and his dogs be able tocope with the four wolves if they made an attack? The man had only twoarrows left in his quiver, and he might miss with one or both of them;all one knew about his skill in shooting was that he could hit a largestag at a ridiculously short range. Nicholas sat for many golden minutesrevolving the possibilities of the scene; he was inclined to think thatthere were more than four wolves and that the man and his dogs were in atight corner. 

But there were other objects of delight and interest claiming his instantattention: there were quaint twisted candlesticks in the shape of snakes, and a teapot fashioned like a china duck, out of whose open beak the teawas supposed to come. How dull and shapeless the nursery teapot seemedin comparison! And there was a carved sandal-wood box packed tight witharomatic cotton-wool, and between the layers of cotton-wool were littlebrass figures, hump-necked bulls, and peacocks and goblins, delightful tosee and to handle. Less promising in appearance was a large square bookwith plain black covers; Nicholas peeped into it, and, behold, it wasfull of coloured pictures of birds. And such birds! In the garden, andin the lanes when he went for a walk, Nicholas came across a few birds, of which the largest were an occasional magpie or wood-pigeon; here wereherons and bustards, kites, toucans, tiger-bitterns, brush turkeys, ibises, golden pheasants, a whole portrait gallery of undreamed-ofcreatures. And as he was admiring the colouring of the mandarin duck andassigning a life-history to it, the voice of his aunt in shrillvociferation of his name came from the gooseberry garden without. Shehad grown suspicious at his long disappearance, and had leapt to theconclusion that he had climbed over the wall behind the sheltering screenof the lilac bushes; she was now engaged in energetic and rather hopelesssearch for him among the artichokes and raspberry canes. 

"Nicholas, Nicholas!" she screamed, "you are to come out of this at once. It's no use trying to hide there; I can see you all the time. "

It was probably the first time for twenty years that anyone had smiled inthat lumber-room. 

Presently the angry repetitions of Nicholas' name gave way to a shriek, and a cry for somebody to come quickly. Nicholas shut the book, restoredit carefully to its place in a corner, and shook some dust from aneighbouring pile of newspapers over it. Then he crept from the room, locked the door, and replaced the key exactly where he had found it. Hisaunt was still calling his name when he sauntered into the front garden. 

"Who's calling?" he asked. 

"Me, " came the answer from the other side of the wall; "didn't you hearme? I've been looking for you in the gooseberry garden, and I've slippedinto the rain-water tank. Luckily there's no water in it, but the sidesare slippery and I can't get out. Fetch the little ladder from under thecherry tree--"

"I was told I wasn't to go into the gooseberry garden, " said Nicholaspromptly. 

"I told you not to, and now I tell you that you may, " came the voice fromthe rain-water tank, rather impatiently. 

"Your voice doesn't sound like aunt's, " objected Nicholas; "you may bethe Evil One tempting me to be disobedient. Aunt often tells me that theEvil One tempts me and that I always yield. This time I'm not going toyield. "

"Don't talk nonsense, " said the prisoner in the tank; "go and fetch theladder. "

"Will there be strawberry jam for tea?" asked Nicholas innocently. 

"Certainly there will be, " said the aunt, privately resolving thatNicholas should have none of it. 

"Now I know that you are the Evil One and not aunt, " shouted Nicholasgleefully; "when we asked aunt for strawberry jam yesterday she saidthere wasn't any. I know there are four jars of it in the storecupboard, because I looked, and of course you know it's there, but shedoesn't, because she said there wasn't any. Oh, Devil, you _have_ soldyourself!"

There was an unusual sense of luxury in being able to talk to an aunt asthough one was talking to the Evil One, but Nicholas knew, with childishdiscernment, that such luxuries were not to be over-indulged in. Hewalked noisily away, and it was a kitchenmaid, in search of parsley, whoeventually rescued the aunt from the rain-water tank. 

Tea that evening was partaken of in a fearsome silence. The tide hadbeen at its highest when the children had arrived at Jagborough Cove, sothere had been no sands to play on--a circumstance that the aunt hadoverlooked in the haste of organising her punitive expedition. Thetightness of Bobby's boots had had disastrous effect on his temper thewhole of the afternoon, and altogether the children could not have beensaid to have enjoyed themselves. The aunt maintained the frozen mutenessof one who has suffered undignified and unmerited detention in a rain-water tank for thirty-five minutes. As for Nicholas, he, too, wassilent, in the absorption of one who has much to think about; it was justpossible, he considered, that the huntsman would escape with his houndswhile the wolves feasted on the stricken stag. 

FUR

"You look worried, dear, " said Eleanor. 

"I am worried, " admitted Suzanne; "not worried exactly, but anxious. Yousee, my birthday happens next week--"

"You lucky person, " interrupted Eleanor; "my birthday doesn't come tillthe end of March. "

"Well, old Bertram Kneyght is over in England just now from theArgentine. He's a kind of distant cousin of my mother's, and soenormously rich that we've never let the relationship drop out of sight. Even if we don't see him or hear from him for years he is always CousinBertram when he does turn up. I can't say he's ever been of much soliduse to us, but yesterday the subject of my birthday cropped up, and heasked me to let him know what I wanted for a present. "

"Now I understand the anxiety, " observed Eleanor. 

"As a rule when one is confronted with a problem like that, " saidSuzanne, "all one's ideas vanish; one doesn't seem to have a desire inthe world. Now it so happens that I have been very keen on a littleDresden figure that I saw somewhere in Kensington; about thirty-sixshillings, quite beyond my means. I was very nearly describing thefigure, and giving Bertram the address of the shop. And then it suddenlystruck me that thirty-six shillings was such a ridiculously inadequatesum for a man of his immense wealth to spend on a birthday present. Hecould give thirty-six pounds as easily as you or I could buy a bunch ofviolets. I don't want to be greedy, of course, but I don't like beingwasteful. "

"The question is, " said Eleanor, "what are his ideas as topresent-giving? Some of the wealthiest people have curiously crampedviews on that subject. When people grow gradually rich theirrequirements and standard of living expand in proportion, while theirpresent-giving instincts often remain in the undeveloped condition oftheir earlier days. Something showy and not-too-expensive in a shop istheir only conception of the ideal gift. That is why even quite goodshops have their counters and windows crowded with things worth aboutfour shillings that look as if they might be worth seven-and-six, and arepriced at ten shillings and labelled seasonable gifts. '"

"I know, " said Suzanne; "that is why it is so risky to be vague when oneis giving indications of one's wants. Now if I say to him: 'I am goingout to Davos this winter, so anything in the travelling line would beacceptable, ' he might give me a dressing-bag with gold-mounted fittings, but, on the other hand, he might give me Baedeker's Switzerland, or'Skiing without Tears, ' or something of that sort. "

"He would be more likely to say: 'She'll be going to lots of dances, afan will be sure to be useful. '"

"Yes, and I've got tons of fans, so you see where the danger and anxietylies. Now if there is one thing more than another that I really urgentlywant it is furs. I simply haven't any. I'm told that Davos is full ofRussians, and they are sure to wear the most lovely sables and things. Tobe among people who are smothered in furs when one hasn't any oneselfmakes one want to break most of the Commandments. "

"If it's furs that you're out for, " said Eleanor, "you will have tosuperintend the choice of them in person. You can't be sure that yourcousin knows the difference between silver-fox and ordinary squirrel. "

"There are some heavenly silver-fox stoles at Goliath and Mastodon's, "said Suzanne, with a sigh; "if I could only inveigle Bertram into theirbuilding and take him for a stroll through the fur department!"

"He lives somewhere near there, doesn't he?" said Eleanor. "Do you knowwhat his habits are? Does he take a walk at any particular time of day?"

"He usually walks down to his club about three o'clock, if it's a fineday. That takes him right past Goliath and Mastodon's. "

"Let us two meet him accidentally at the street corner to-morrow, " saidEleanor; "we can walk a little way with him, and with luck we ought to beable to side-track him into the shop. You can say you want to get a hair-net or something. When we're safely there I can say: 'I wish you'd tellme what you want for your birthday. ' Then you'll have everything readyto hand--the rich cousin, the fur department, and the topic of birthdaypresents. "

"It's a great idea, " said Suzanne; "you really are a brick. Come roundto-morrow at twenty to three; don't be late, we must carry out our ambushto the minute. "

At a few minutes to three the next afternoon the fur-trappers walkedwarily towards the selected corner. In the near distance rose thecolossal pile of Messrs. Goliath and Mastodon's famed establishment. Theafternoon was brilliantly fine, exactly the sort of weather to tempt agentleman of advancing years into the discreet exercise of a leisurelywalk. 

"I say, dear, I wish you'd do something for me this evening, " saidEleanor to her companion; "just drop in after dinner on some pretext orother, and stay on to make a fourth at bridge with Adela and the aunts. Otherwise I shall have to play, and Harry Scarisbrooke is going to comein unexpectedly about nine-fifteen, and I particularly want to be free totalk to him while the others are playing. "

"Sorry, my dear, no can do, " said Suzanne; "ordinary bridge atthree-pence a hundred, with such dreadfully slow players as your aunts, bores me to tears. I nearly go to sleep over it. "

"But I most particularly want an opportunity to talk with Harry, " urgedEleanor, an angry glint coming into her eyes. 

"Sorry, anything to oblige, but not that, " said Suzanne cheerfully; thesacrifices of friendship were beautiful in her eyes as long as she wasnot asked to make them. 

Eleanor said nothing further on the subject, but the corners of her mouthrearranged themselves. 

"There's our man!" exclaimed Suzanne suddenly; "hurry!"

Mr. Bertram Kneyght greeted his cousin and her friend with genuineheartiness, and readily accepted their invitation to explore the crowdedmart that stood temptingly at their elbow. The plate-glass doors swungopen and the trio plunged bravely into the jostling throng of buyers andloiterers. 

"Is it always as full as this?" asked Bertram of Eleanor. 

"More or less, and autumn sales are on just now, " she replied. 

Suzanne, in her anxiety to pilot her cousin to the desired haven of thefur department, was usually a few paces ahead of the others, coming backto them now and then if they lingered for a moment at some attractivecounter, with the nervous solicitude of a parent rook encouraging itsyoung ones on their first flying expedition. 

"It's Suzanne's birthday on Wednesday next, " confided Eleanor to BertramKneyght at a moment when Suzanne had left them unusually far behind; "mybirthday comes the day before, so we are both on the look-out forsomething to give each other. "

"Ah, " said Bertram. "Now, perhaps you can advise me on that very point. I want to give Suzanne something, and I haven't the least idea what shewants. "

"She's rather a problem, " said Eleanor. "She seems to have everythingone can think of, lucky girl. A fan is always useful; she'll be going toa lot of dances at Davos this winter. Yes, I should think a fan wouldplease her more than anything. After our birthdays are over we inspecteach other's muster of presents, and I always feel dreadfully humble. Shegets such nice things, and I never have anything worth showing. You see, none of my relations or any of the people who give me presents are at allwell off, so I can't expect them to do anything more than just rememberthe day with some little trifle. Two years ago an uncle on my mother'sside of the family, who had come into a small legacy, promised me asilver-fox stole for my birthday. I can't tell you how excited I wasabout it, how I pictured myself showing it off to all my friends andenemies. Then just at that moment his wife died, and, of course, poorman, he could not be expected to think of birthday presents at such atime. He has lived abroad ever since, and I never got my fur. Do youknow, to this day I can scarcely look at a silver-fox pelt in a shopwindow or round anyone's neck without feeling ready to burst into tears. I suppose if I hadn't had the prospect of getting one I shouldn't feelthat way. Look, there is the fan counter, on your left; you can easilyslip away in the crowd. Get her as nice a one as you can see--she issuch a dear, dear girl. "

"Hullo, I thought I had lost you, " said Suzanne, making her way throughan obstructive knot of shoppers. "Where is Bertram?"

"I got separated from him long ago. I thought he was on ahead with you, "said Eleanor. "We shall never find him in this crush. "

Which turned out to be a true prediction. 

"All our trouble and forethought thrown away, " said Suzanne sulkily, whenthey had pushed their way fruitlessly through half a dozen departments. 

"I can't think why you didn't grab him by the arm, " said Eleanor; "Iwould have if I'd known him longer, but I'd only just been introduced. It's nearly four now, we'd better have tea. "

Some days later Suzanne rang Eleanor up on the telephone. 

"Thank you very much for the photograph frame. It was just what Iwanted. Very good of you. I say, do you know what that Kneyght personhas given me? Just what you said he would--a wretched fan. What? Ohyes, quite a good enough fan in its way, but still . . . "

"You must come and see what he's given me, " came in Eleanor's voice overthe 'phone. 

"You! Why should he give you anything?"

"Your cousin appears to be one of those rare people of wealth who take apleasure in giving good presents, " came the reply. 

"I wondered why he was so anxious to know where she lived, " snappedSuzanne to herself as she rang off. 

A cloud has arisen between the friendships of the two young women; as faras Eleanor is concerned the cloud has a silver-fox lining. 

THE PHILANTHROPIST AND THE HAPPY CAT

Jocantha Bessbury was in the mood to be serenely and graciously happy. Her world was a pleasant place, and it was wearing one of its pleasantestaspects. Gregory had managed to get home for a hurried lunch and a smokeafterwards in the little snuggery; the lunch had been a good one, andthere was just time to do justice to the coffee and cigarettes. Bothwere excellent in their way, and Gregory was, in his way, an excellenthusband. Jocantha rather suspected herself of making him a very charmingwife, and more than suspected herself of having a first-rate dressmaker. 

"I don't suppose a more thoroughly contented personality is to be foundin all Chelsea, " observed Jocantha in allusion to herself; "exceptperhaps Attab, " she continued, glancing towards the large tabby-markedcat that lay in considerable ease in a corner of the divan. "He liesthere, purring and dreaming, shifting his limbs now and then in anecstasy of cushioned comfort. He seems the incarnation of everythingsoft and silky and velvety, without a sharp edge in his composition, adreamer whose philosophy is sleep and let sleep; and then, as eveningdraws on, he goes out into the garden with a red glint in his eyes andslays a drowsy sparrow. "

"As every pair of sparrows hatches out ten or more young ones in theyear, while their food supply remains stationary, it is just as well thatthe Attabs of the community should have that idea of how to pass anamusing afternoon, " said Gregory. Having delivered himself of this sagecomment he lit another cigarette, bade Jocantha a playfully affectionategood-bye, and departed into the outer world. 

"Remember, dinner's a wee bit earlier to-night, as we're going to theHaymarket, " she called after him. 

Left to herself, Jocantha continued the process of looking at her lifewith placid, introspective eyes. If she had not everything she wanted inthis world, at least she was very well pleased with what she had got. Shewas very well pleased, for instance, with the snuggery, which contrivedsomehow to be cosy and dainty and expensive all at once. The porcelainwas rare and beautiful, the Chinese enamels took on wonderful tints inthe firelight, the rugs and hangings led the eye through sumptuousharmonies of colouring. It was a room in which one might have suitablyentertained an ambassador or an archbishop, but it was also a room inwhich one could cut out pictures for a scrap-book without feeling thatone was scandalising the deities of the place with one's litter. And aswith the snuggery, so with the rest of the house, and as with the house, so with the other departments of Jocantha's life; she really had goodreason for being one of the most contented women in Chelsea. 

From being in a mood of simmering satisfaction with her lot she passed tothe phase of being generously commiserating for those thousands aroundher whose lives and circumstances were dull, cheap, pleasureless, andempty. Work girls, shop assistants and so forth, the class that haveneither the happy-go-lucky freedom of the poor nor the leisured freedomof the rich, came specially within the range of her sympathy. It was sadto think that there were young people who, after a long day's work, hadto sit alone in chill, dreary bedrooms because they could not afford theprice of a cup of coffee and a sandwich in a restaurant, still less ashilling for a theatre gallery. 

Jocantha's mind was still dwelling on this theme when she started forthon an afternoon campaign of desultory shopping; it would be rather acomforting thing, she told herself, if she could do something, on thespur of the moment, to bring a gleam of pleasure and interest into thelife of even one or two wistful-hearted, empty-pocketed workers; it wouldadd a good deal to her sense of enjoyment at the theatre that night. Shewould get two upper circle tickets for a popular play, make her way intosome cheap tea-shop, and present the tickets to the first couple ofinteresting work girls with whom she could casually drop intoconversation. She could explain matters by saying that she was unable touse the tickets herself and did not want them to be wasted, and, on theother hand, did not want the trouble of sending them back. On furtherreflection she decided that it might be better to get only one ticket andgive it to some lonely-looking girl sitting eating her frugal meal byherself; the girl might scrape acquaintance with her next-seat neighbourat the theatre and lay the foundations of a lasting friendship. 

With the Fairy Godmother impulse strong upon her, Jocantha marched into aticket agency and selected with immense care an upper circle seat for the"Yellow Peacock, " a play that was attracting a considerable amount ofdiscussion and criticism. Then she went forth in search of a tea-shopand philanthropic adventure, at about the same time that Attab saunteredinto the garden with a mind attuned to sparrow stalking. In a corner ofan A. B. C. Shop she found an unoccupied table, whereat she promptlyinstalled herself, impelled by the fact that at the next table wassitting a young girl, rather plain of feature, with tired, listless eyes, and a general air of uncomplaining forlornness. Her dress was of poormaterial, but aimed at being in the fashion, her hair was pretty, and hercomplexion bad; she was finishing a modest meal of tea and scone, and shewas not very different in her way from thousands of other girls who werefinishing, or beginning, or continuing their teas in London tea-shops atthat exact moment. The odds were enormously in favour of the suppositionthat she had never seen the "Yellow Peacock"; obviously she suppliedexcellent material for Jocantha's first experiment in haphazardbenefaction. 

Jocantha ordered some tea and a muffin, and then turned a friendlyscrutiny on her neighbour with a view to catching her eye. At thatprecise moment the girl's face lit up with sudden pleasure, her eyessparkled, a flush came into her cheeks, and she looked almost pretty. Ayoung man, whom she greeted with an affectionate "Hullo, Bertie, " came upto her table and took his seat in a chair facing her. Jocantha lookedhard at the new-comer; he was in appearance a few years younger thanherself, very much better looking than Gregory, rather better looking, infact, than any of the young men of her set. She guessed him to be a well-mannered young clerk in some wholesale warehouse, existing and amusinghimself as best he might on a tiny salary, and commanding a holiday ofabout two weeks in the year. He was aware, of course, of his good looks, but with the shy self-consciousness of the Anglo-Saxon, not the blatantcomplacency of the Latin or Semite. He was obviously on terms offriendly intimacy with the girl he was talking to, probably they weredrifting towards a formal engagement. Jocantha pictured the boy's home, in a rather narrow circle, with a tiresome mother who always wanted toknow how and where he spent his evenings. He would exchange that humdrumthraldom in due course for a home of his own, dominated by a chronicscarcity of pounds, shillings, and pence, and a dearth of most of thethings that made life attractive or comfortable. Jocantha felt extremelysorry for him. She wondered if he had seen the "Yellow Peacock"; theodds were enormously in favour of the supposition that he had not. Thegirl had finished her tea and would shortly be going back to her work;when the boy was alone it would be quite easy for Jocantha to say: "Myhusband has made other arrangements for me this evening; would you careto make use of this ticket, which would otherwise be wasted?" Then shecould come there again one afternoon for tea, and, if she saw him, askhim how he liked the play. If he was a nice boy and improved onacquaintance he could be given more theatre tickets, and perhaps asked tocome one Sunday to tea at Chelsea. Jocantha made up her mind that hewould improve on acquaintance, and that Gregory would like him, and thatthe Fairy Godmother business would prove far more entertaining than shehad originally anticipated. The boy was distinctly presentable; he knewhow to brush his hair, which was possibly an imitative faculty; he knewwhat colour of tie suited him, which might be intuition; he was exactlythe type that Jocantha admired, which of course was accident. Altogethershe was rather pleased when the girl looked at the clock and bade afriendly but hurried farewell to her companion. Bertie nodded"good-bye, " gulped down a mouthful of tea, and then produced from hisovercoat pocket a paper-covered book, bearing the title "Sepoy and Sahib, a tale of the great Mutiny. "

The laws of tea-shop etiquette forbid that you should offer theatretickets to a stranger without having first caught the stranger's eye. Itis even better if you can ask to have a sugar basin passed to you, havingpreviously concealed the fact that you have a large and well-filled sugarbasin on your own table; this is not difficult to manage, as the printedmenu is generally nearly as large as the table, and can be made to standon end. Jocantha set to work hopefully; she had a long and rather high-pitched discussion with the waitress concerning alleged defects in analtogether blameless muffin, she made loud and plaintive inquiries aboutthe tube service to some impossibly remote suburb, she talked withbrilliant insincerity to the tea-shop kitten, and as a last resort sheupset a milk-jug and swore at it daintily. Altogether she attracted agood deal of attention, but never for a moment did she attract theattention of the boy with the beautifully-brushed hair, who was somethousands of miles away in the baking plains of Hindostan, amid desertedbungalows, seething bazaars, and riotous barrack squares, listening tothe throbbing of tom-toms and the distant rattle of musketry. 

Jocantha went back to her house in Chelsea, which struck her for thefirst time as looking dull and over-furnished. She had a resentfulconviction that Gregory would be uninteresting at dinner, and that theplay would be stupid after dinner. On the whole her frame of mind showeda marked divergence from the purring complacency of Attab, who was againcurled up in his corner of the divan with a great peace radiating fromevery curve of his body. 

But then he had killed his sparrow. 

ON APPROVAL

Of all the genuine Bohemians who strayed from time to time into the would-be Bohemian circle of the Restaurant Nuremberg, Owl Street, Soho, nonewas more interesting and more elusive than Gebhard Knopfschrank. He hadno friends, and though he treated all the restaurant frequenters asacquaintances he never seemed to wish to carry the acquaintanceshipbeyond the door that led into Owl Street and the outer world. He dealtwith them all rather as a market woman might deal with chance passers-by, exhibiting her wares and chattering about the weather and the slacknessof business, occasionally about rheumatism, but never showing a desire topenetrate into their daily lives or to dissect their ambitions. 

He was understood to belong to a family of peasant farmers, somewhere inPomerania; some two years ago, according to all that was known of him, hehad abandoned the labours and responsibilities of swine tending and gooserearing to try his fortune as an artist in London. 

"Why London and not Paris or Munich?" he had been asked by the curious. 

Well, there was a ship that left Stolpmunde for London twice a month, that carried few passengers, but carried them cheaply; the railway faresto Munich or Paris were not cheap. Thus it was that he came to selectLondon as the scene of his great adventure. 

The question that had long and seriously agitated the frequenters of theNuremberg was whether this goose-boy migrant was really a soul-drivengenius, spreading his wings to the light, or merely an enterprising youngman who fancied he could paint and was pardonably anxious to escape fromthe monotony of rye bread diet and the sandy, swine-bestrewn plains ofPomerania. There was reasonable ground for doubt and caution; theartistic groups that foregathered at the little restaurant contained somany young women with short hair and so many young men with long hair, who supposed themselves to be abnormally gifted in the domain of music, poetry, painting, or stagecraft, with little or nothing to support thesupposition, that a self-announced genius of any sort in their midst wasinevitably suspect. On the other hand, there was the ever-imminentdanger of entertaining, and snubbing, an angel unawares. There had beenthe lamentable case of Sledonti, the dramatic poet, who had beenbelittled and cold-shouldered in the Owl Street hall of judgment, and hadbeen afterwards hailed as a master singer by the Grand Duke ConstantineConstantinovitch--"the most educated of the Romanoffs, " according toSylvia Strubble, who spoke rather as one who knew every individual memberof the Russian imperial family; as a matter of fact, she knew a newspapercorrespondent, a young man who ate _bortsch_ with the air of havinginvented it. Sledonti's "Poems of Death and Passion" were now being soldby the thousand in seven European languages, and were about to betranslated into Syrian, a circumstance which made the discerning criticsof the Nuremberg rather shy of maturing their future judgments toorapidly and too irrevocably. 

As regards Knopfschrank's work, they did not lack opportunity forinspecting and appraising it. However resolutely he might hold himselfaloof from the social life of his restaurant acquaintances, he was notminded to hide his artistic performances from their inquiring gaze. Everyevening, or nearly every evening, at about seven o'clock, he would makehis appearance, sit himself down at his accustomed table, throw a bulkyblack portfolio on to the chair opposite him, nod round indiscriminatelyat his fellow-guests, and commence the serious business of eating anddrinking. When the coffee stage was reached he would light a cigarette, draw the portfolio over to him, and begin to rummage among its contents. With slow deliberation he would select a few of his more recent studiesand sketches, and silently pass them round from table to table, payingespecial attention to any new diners who might be present. On the backof each sketch was marked in plain figures the announcement "Price tenshillings. "

If his work was not obviously stamped with the hall-mark of genius, atany rate it was remarkable for its choice of an unusual and unvaryingtheme. His pictures always represented some well-known street or publicplace in London, fallen into decay and denuded of its human population, in the place of which there roamed a wild fauna, which, from its wealthof exotic species, must have originally escaped from Zoological Gardensand travelling beast shows. "Giraffes drinking at the fountain pools, Trafalgar Square, " was one of the most notable and characteristic of hisstudies, while even more sensational was the gruesome picture of"Vultures attacking dying camel in Upper Berkeley Street. " There werealso photographs of the large canvas on which he had been engaged forsome months, and which he was now endeavouring to sell to someenterprising dealer or adventurous amateur. The subject was "Hyaenasasleep in Euston Station, " a composition that left nothing to be desiredin the way of suggesting unfathomed depths of desolation. 

"Of course it may be immensely clever, it may be something epoch-makingin the realm of art, " said Sylvia Strubble to her own particular circleof listeners, "but, on the other hand, it may be merely mad. One mustn'tpay too much attention to the commercial aspect of the case, of course, but still, if some dealer would make a bid for that hyaena picture, oreven for some of the sketches, we should know better how to place the manand his work. "

"We may all be cursing ourselves one of these days, " said Mrs. Nougat-Jones, "for not having bought up his entire portfolio of sketches. Atthe same time, when there is so much real talent going about, one doesnot feel like planking down ten shillings for what looks like a bit ofwhimsical oddity. Now that picture that he showed us last week, 'Sand-grouse roosting on the Albert Memorial, ' was very impressive, and ofcourse I could see there was good workmanship in it and breadth oftreatment; but it didn't in the least convey the Albert Memorial to me, and Sir James Beanquest tells me that sand-grouse don't roost, they sleepon the ground. "

Whatever talent or genius the Pomeranian artist might possess, itcertainly failed to receive commercial sanction. The portfolio remainedbulky with unsold sketches, and the "Euston Siesta, " as the wits of theNuremberg nicknamed the large canvas, was still in the market. Theoutward and visible signs of financial embarrassment began to benoticeable; the half-bottle of cheap claret at dinner-time gave way to asmall glass of lager, and this in turn was displaced by water. The one-and-sixpenny set dinner receded from an everyday event to a Sundayextravagance; on ordinary days the artist contented himself with asevenpenny omelette and some bread and cheese, and there were eveningswhen he did not put in an appearance at all. On the rare occasions whenhe spoke of his own affairs it was observed that he began to talk moreabout Pomerania and less about the great world of art. 

"It is a busy time there now with us, " he said wistfully; "the schwinesare driven out into the fields after harvest, and must be looked after. Icould be helping to look after if I was there. Here it is difficult tolive; art is not appreciate. "

"Why don't you go home on a visit?" some one asked tactfully. 

"Ah, it cost money! There is the ship passage to Stolpmunde, and thereis money that I owe at my lodgings. Even here I owe a few schillings. IfI could sell some of my sketches--"

"Perhaps, " suggested Mrs. Nougat-Jones, "if you were to offer them for alittle less, some of us would be glad to buy a few. Ten shillings isalways a consideration, you know, to people who are not over well off. Perhaps if you were to ask six or seven shillings--"

Once a peasant, always a peasant. The mere suggestion of a bargain to bestruck brought a twinkle of awakened alertness into the artist's eyes, and hardened the lines of his mouth. 

"Nine schilling nine pence each, " he snapped, and seemed disappointedthat Mrs. Nougat-Jones did not pursue the subject further. He hadevidently expected her to offer seven and fourpence. 

The weeks sped by, and Knopfschrank came more rarely to the restaurant inOwl Street, while his meals on those occasions became more and moremeagre. And then came a triumphal day, when he appeared early in theevening in a high state of elation, and ordered an elaborate meal thatscarcely stopped short of being a banquet. The ordinary resources of thekitchen were supplemented by an imported dish of smoked goosebreast, aPomeranian delicacy that was luckily procurable at a firm of_delikatessen_ merchants in Coventry Street, while a long-necked bottleof Rhine wine gave a finishing touch of festivity and good cheer to thecrowded table. 

"He has evidently sold his masterpiece, " whispered Sylvia Strubble toMrs. Nougat-Jones, who had come in late. 

"Who has bought it?" she whispered back. 

"Don't know; he hasn't said anything yet, but it must be some American. Do you see, he has got a little American flag on the dessert dish, and hehas put pennies in the music box three times, once to play the'Star-spangled Banner, ' then a Sousa march, and then the 'Star-spangledBanner' again. It must be an American millionaire, and he's evidentlygot a very big price for it; he's just beaming and chuckling withsatisfaction. "

"We must ask him who has bought it, " said Mrs. Nougat-Jones. 

"Hush! no, don't. Let's buy some of his sketches, quick, before we aresupposed to know that he's famous; otherwise he'll be doubling theprices. I am so glad he's had a success at last. I always believed inhim, you know. "

For the sum of ten shillings each Miss Strubble acquired the drawings ofthe camel dying in Upper Berkeley Street and of the giraffes quenchingtheir thirst in Trafalgar Square; at the same price Mrs. Nougat-Jonessecured the study of roosting sand-grouse. A more ambitious picture, "Wolves and wapiti fighting on the steps of the Athenaeum Club, " found apurchaser at fifteen shillings. 

"And now what are your plans?" asked a young man who contributedoccasional paragraphs to an artistic weekly. 

"I go back to Stolpmunde as soon as the ship sails, " said the artist, "and I do not return. Never. "

"But your work? Your career as painter?"

"Ah, there is nossing in it. One starves. Till to-day I have sold notone of my sketches. To-night you have bought a few, because I am goingaway from you, but at other times, not one. "

"But has not some American--?"

"Ah, the rich American, " chuckled the artist. "God be thanked. He dashhis car right into our herd of schwines as they were being driven out tothe fields. Many of our best schwines he killed, but he paid alldamages. He paid perhaps more than they were worth, many times more thanthey would have fetched in the market after a month of fattening, but hewas in a hurry to get on to Dantzig. When one is in a hurry one must paywhat one is asked. God be thanked for rich Americans, who are always ina hurry to get somewhere else. My father and mother, they have now soplenty of money; they send me some to pay my debts and come home. Istart on Monday for Stolpmunde and I do not come back. Never. "

"But your picture, the hyaenas?"

"No good. It is too big to carry to Stolpmunde. I burn it. "

In time he will be forgotten, but at present Knopfschrank is almost assore a subject as Sledonti with some of the frequenters of the NurembergRestaurant, Owl Street, Soho.