Beasts and SuperBeasts ....................................................................................................................................1

Saki (H.H. Munro)...................................................................................................................................1

LEONARD BILSITER was one of those people who have failed to find this world 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 to convince themselves, and do

not vulgarise their beliefs by trying to convince other people. Leonard Bilsiter's beliefs were for "the few,"

His dabblings in the unseen might not have carried him beyond the customary platitudes of the

drawingroom visionary if accident had not reinforced his stockin trade of mystical lore. In company with

a friend, who was interested in a Ural mining concern, he had made a trip across Eastern Europe at a moment

when the great Russian railway strike was developing from a threat to a reality; its outbreak caught him on

the return journey, somewhere on the further side of Perm, and it was while waiting for a couple of days at a

wayside station in a state of suspended locomotion that he made the acquaintance of a dealer in harness and

metalware, who profitably whiled away the tedium of the long halt by initiating his English travelling

companion in a fragmentary system of folklore that he had picked up from TransBaikal traders and

natives. Leonard returned to his home circle garrulous about his Russian strike experiences, but oppressively

reticent about certain dark mysteries, which he alluded to under the resounding title of Siberian Magic. The

reticence wore off in a week or two under the influence of an entire lack of general curiosity, and Leonard

began to make more detailed allusions to the enormous powers which this new esoteric force, to use his own

description of it, conferred on the initiated few who knew how to wield it. His aunt, Cecilia Hoops, who

loved sensation perhaps rather better than she loved the truth, gave him as clamorous an advertisement as

anyone could wish for by retailing an account of how he had turned a vegetable marrow into a wood pigeon

before her very eyes. As a manifestation of the possession of supernatural powers, the story was discounted in

However divided opinion might be on the question of Leonard's status as a wonderworker or a charlatan, he

certainly arrived at Mary Hampton's houseparty with a reputation for preeminence in one or other of those

professions, and he was not disposed to shun such publicity as might fall to his share. Esoteric forces and

unusual powers figured largely in whatever conversation he or his aunt had a share in, and his own

performances, past and potential, were the subject of mysterious hints and dark avowals.

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

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

"A shewolf, of course," continued Mrs. Hampton; it would be too confusing to change one's sex as well as

"I'm not jesting, I'm quite serious, I assure you. Only don't do it today; we have only eight available bridge

players, and it would break up one of our tables. Tomorrow we shall be a larger party. Tomorrow night,

"In our present imperfect understanding of these hidden forces I think one should approach them with

humbleness rather than mockery," observed Leonard, with such severity that the subject was forthwith

Clovis Sangrail had sat unusually silent during the discussion on the possibilities of Siberian Magic; after

lunch he sidetracked Lord Pabham into the comparative seclusion of the billiardroom and delivered

"Have you such a thing as a shewolf in your collection of wild animals? A shewolf of moderately good

Lord Pabham considered. "There is Loiusa," he said, "a rather fine specimen of the timberwolf. I got her

two years ago in exchange for some Arctic foxes. Most of my animals get to be fairly tame before they've

been with me very long; I think I can say Louisa has an angelic temper, as shewolves go. Why do you ask?"

"I was wondering whether you would lend her to me for tomorrow night," said Clovis, with the careless

"Yes, wolves are nocturnal animals, so the late hours won't hurt her," said Clovis, with the air of one who has

taken everything into consideration; "one of your men could bring her over from Pabham Park after dusk, and

with a little help he ought to be able to smuggle her into the conservatory at the same moment that Mary

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

"Oh, that's your game, is it? You are going to do a little Siberian Magic on your own account. And is Mrs.

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

By the following day the houseparty had swollen to larger proportions, and Bilsiter's instinct for self

advertisement expanded duly under the stimulant of an increased audience. At dinner that evening he held

forth at length on the subject of unseen forces and untested powers, and his flow of impressive eloquence

continued unabated while coffee was being served in the drawing room preparatory to a general migration

His aunt ensured a respectful hearing for his utterances, but her sensationloving soul hankered after

"Won't you do something to CONVINCE them of your powers, Leonard?" she pleaded; "change something

into another shape. He can, you know, if he only chooses to," she informed the company.

"Oh, do," said Mavis Pellington earnestly, and her request was echoed by nearly everyone present. Even

those who were not open to conviction were perfectly willing to be entertained by an exhibition of amateur

"Has anyone present," he asked, "got a threepenny bit or some small object of no particular value ?"

"You're surely not going to make coins disappear, or something primitive of that sort?" said Clovis

"I think it very unkind of you not to carry out my suggestion of turning me into a wolf," said Mary Hampton,

as she crossed over to the conservatory to give her macaws their usual tribute from the dessert dishes.

"I have already warned you of the danger of treating these powers in a mocking spirit," said Leonard

"I don't believe you can do it," laughed Mary provocatively from the conservatory; "I dare you to do it if you

"Mrs. Hampton " began Leonard with increased solemnity, but he got no further. A breath of chill air

seemed to rush across the room, and at the same time the macaws broke forth into earsplitting screams.

"What on earth is the matter with those confounded birds, Mary?" exclaimed Colonel Hampton; at the same

moment an even more piercing scream from Mavis Pellington stampeded the entire company from their seats.

In various attitudes of helpless horror or instinctive defence they confronted the evillooking grey beast that

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

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

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

"What!" shouted Colonel Hampton, "you've taken the abominable liberty of turning my wife into a wolf, and

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

"I assure you I didn't turn Mrs. Hampton into a wolf; nothing was farther from 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

"Are we to have all these recriminations with that beast standing there ready to tear us to pieces?" wailed

"Lord Pabham, you know a good deal about wild beasts " suggested Colonel Hampton.

"The wild beasts that I have been accustomed to," said Lord Pabham, "have come with proper credentials

from wellknown dealers, or have been bred in my own menagerie. I've never before been confronted with

an animal that walks unconcernedly out of an azalea bush, leaving a charming and popular hostess

unaccounted for. As far as one can judge from OUTWARD characteristics," he continued, "it has the

appearance of a wellgrown female of the North American timberwolf, a variety of the common species

"Oh, never mind its Latin name," screamed Mavis, as the beast came a step or two further into the room;

"can't you entice it away with food, and shut it up where it can't do any harm?"

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

"Leonard," beseeched Mrs. Hoops tearfully, "even if this is none of your doing can't you use your great

powers to turn this dreadful beast into something harmless before it bites us all a rabbit or something?"

"I don't suppose Colonel Hampton would care to have his wife turned into a succession of fancy animals as

"Most wolves that I've had anything to do with have been inordinately fond of sugar," said Lord Pabham; "if

He took a piece of sugar from the saucer of his coffee cup and flung it to the expectant Louisa, who snapped

it in midair. There was a sigh of relief from the company; a wolf that ate sugar when it might at the least

have been employed in tearing macaws to pieces had already shed some of its terrors. The sigh deepened to a

gasp of thanksgiving when Lord Pabham decoyed the animal out of the room by a pretended largesse of

further sugar. There was an instant rush to the vacated conservatory. There was no trace of Mrs. Hampton

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

"If you haven't turned my wife into a wolf," said Colonel Hampton, "will you kindly explain where she has

disappeared to, since she obviously could not have gone through a locked door? I will not press you for an

explanation of how a North American timberwolf suddenly appeared in the conservatory, but I think I have

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

"If our hostess has really vanished out of human form," said Mrs. Hoops, "none of the ladies of the party can

The correct etiquette to be observed under the unusual circumstances received no further elucidation. The

"Some one has mesmerised me," she exclaimed crossly; "I found myself in the game larder, of all places,

being fed with sugar by Lord Pabham. I hate being mesmerised, and the doctor has forbidden me to touch

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

"Then you REALLY did turn me into a wolf, Mr. Bilsiter?" she exclaimed excitedly.

But Leonard had burned the boat in which he might now have embarked on a sea of glory. He could only

"It was I who took that liberty," said Clovis; "you see, I happen to have lived for a couple of years in

NorthEastern Russia, and I have more than a tourist's acquaintance with the magic craft of that region. One

does not care to speak about these strange powers, but once in a way, when one hears a lot of nonsense being

talked about them, one is tempted to show what Siberian magic can accomplish in the hands of someone who

really understands it. I yielded to that temptation. May I have some brandy? the effort has left me rather

If Leonard Bilsiter could at that moment have transformed Clovis into a cockroach and then have stepped on

"I never said I was going to die. I am presumably going to leave off being 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 has

just lived, one reincarnates in some lower organism. And I haven't been very good, when one comes to think

of it. I've been petty and mean and vindictive and all that sort of thing when circumstances have seemed to

"If you don't mind my saying so," observed Laura, "Egbert is a circumstance that would warrant any amount

of that sort of thing. You're married to him that's different; you've sworn to love, honour, and endure him: I

"Oh, I daresay the wrongness has been on my part," admitted Laura dispassionately; "he has merely been the

extenuating circumstance. He made a thin, peevish kind of fuss, for instance, when I took the collie puppies

"They chased his young broods of speckled Sussex and drove two sitting hens off their nests, besides running

all over the flower beds. You know how devoted he is to his poultry and garden."

"Anyhow, he needn't have gone on about it for the entire evening and then have said, `Let's say no more

about it' just when I was beginning to enjoy the discussion. That's where one of my petty vindictive revenges

came in," added Laura with an unrepentant chuckle; "I turned the entire family of speckled Sussex into his

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

"You see," resumed Laura, "I really HAVE some grounds for supposing that my next incarnation will be in a

lower organism. I shall be an animal of some kind. On the other hand, I haven't been a bad sort in my way, so

I think I may count on being a nice animal, something elegant and lively, with a love of fun. An otter,

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

"Personally I think an otter life would be rather enjoyable," continued Laura; "salmon to eat all the year

round, and the satisfaction of being able to fetch the trout in their own homes without having to wait for

hours till they condescend to rise to the fly you've been dangling before them; and an elegant svelte figure "

"Think of the otter hounds," interposed Amanda; "how dreadful to be hunted and harried and finally worried

"Rather fun with half the neighbourhood looking on, and anyhow not worse than this SaturdaytoTuesday

business of dying by inches; and then I should go on into something else. If I had been a moderately good

otter I suppose I should get back into human shape of some sort; probably something rather primitive a

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

"So dreadfully upsetting," Amanda complained to her uncleinlaw, Sir Lulworth Quayne. "I've asked quite

a lot of people down for golf and fishing, and the rhododendrons are just looking their best."

"Laura always was inconsiderate," said Sir Lulworth; "she was born during Goodwood week, with an

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

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

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

"One meets with those ideas of reincarnation so frequently, even in the West," said Sir Lulworth, "that one

can hardly set them down as being mad. And Laura was such an unaccountable person in this life that I

should not like to lay down definite rules as to what she might be doing in an after state."

"You think she really might have passed into some animal form?" asked Amanda. She was one of those who

Just then Egbert entered the breakfastroom, wearing an air of bereavement that Laura's demise would have

"Four of my speckled Sussex have been killed," he exclaimed; "the very four that were to go to the show on

Friday. One of them was dragged away and eaten right in the middle of that new carnation bed that I've been

to such trouble and expense over. My best flower bed and my best fowls singled out for destruction; it almost

seems as if the brute that did the deed had special knowledge how to be as devastating as possible in a short

"No," said Egbert, "there were marks of webbed feet all over the place, and we followed the tracks down to

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

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

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

Disregard for mortuary convention was carried to further lengths next day; during the absence of the family at

the funeral ceremony the remaining survivors of the speckled Sussex were massacred. The marauder's line of

retreat seemed to have embraced most of the flower beds on the lawn, but the strawberry beds in the lower

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

"On no account! You can't dream of such a thing!" exclaimed Amanda. "I mean, it wouldn't do, so soon after

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

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

"There's been so little water in the stream lately," objected Amanda; "it seems hardly sporting to hunt an

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

Even Amanda's opposition weakened when, during church time on the following Sunday, the otter made its

way into the house, raided half a salmon from the larder and worried it into scaly fragments on the Persian

"We shall have it hiding under our beds and biting pieces out of our feet before long," said Egbert, and from

what Amanda knew of this particular otter she felt that the possibility was not a remote one.

On the evening preceding the day fixed for the hunt Amanda spent a solitary hour walking by the banks of

the stream, making what she imagined to be hound noises. It was charitably supposed by those who

overheard her performance, that she was practising for farmyard imitations at the forthcoming village

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

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

"Rather. A fine sheotter. Your husband got rather badly bitten in trying to 'tail it.' Poor beast, I felt quite

sorry for it, it had such a human look in its eyes when it was killed. You'll call me silly, but do you know who

When Amanda had recovered to a certain extent from her attack of nervous prostration Egbert took her to the

Nile Valley to recuperate. Change of scene speedily brought about the desired recovery of health and mental

balance. The escapades of an adventurous otter in search of a variation of diet were viewed in their proper

light. Amanda's normally placid temperament reasserted itself. Even a hurricane of shouted curses, coming

from her husband's dressingroom, in her husband's voice, but hardly in his usual vocabulary, failed to

disturb her serenity as she made a leisurely toilet one evening in a Cairo hotel.

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

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

"THERE is a back way on to the lawn," said Mrs. Philidore Stossen to her daughter, "through a small grass

paddock and then through a walled fruit garden full of gooseberry bushes. I went all over the place last year

when the family were away. There is a door that opens from the fruit garden into a shrubbery, and once we

emerge from there we can mingle with the guests as if we had come in by the ordinary way. It's much safer

than going in by the front entrance and running the risk of coming bang up against the hostess; that would be

"To a garden party, yes; to THE garden party of the season, certainly not. Every one of any consequence in

the county, with the exception of ourselves, has been asked to meet the Princess, and it would be far more

troublesome to invent explanations as to why we weren't there than to get in by a roundabout way. I stopped

Mrs. Cuvering in the road yesterday and talked very pointedly about the Princess. If she didn't choose to take

the hint and send me an invitation it's not my fault, is it? Here we are: we just cut across the grass and through

Mrs. Stossen and her daughter, suitably arrayed for a county garden party function with an infusion of

Almanack de Gotha, sailed through the narrow grass paddock and the ensuing gooseberry garden with the air

of state barges making an unofficial progress along a rural trout stream. There was a certain amount of furtive

haste mingled with the stateliness of their advance, as though hostile searchlights might be turned on them

at any moment; and, as a matter of fact, they were not unobserved. Matilda Cuvering, with the alert eyes of

thirteen years old and the added advantage of an exalted position in the branches of a medlar tree, had

enjoyed a good view of the Stossen flanking movement and had foreseen exactly where it would break down

"They'll find the door locked, and they'll jolly well have to go back the way they came," she remarked to

herself. "Serves them right for not coming in by the proper entrance. What a pity Tarquin Superbus isn't loose

in the paddock. After all, as every one else is enjoying themselves, I don't see why Tarquin shouldn't have an

Matilda was of an age when thought is action; she slid down from the branches of the medlar tree, and when

she clambered back again Tarquin, the huge white Yorkshire boarpig, had exchanged the narrow limits of

his stye for the wider range of the grass paddock. The discomfited Stossen expedition, returning in

recriminatory but otherwise orderly retreat from the unyielding obstacle of the locked door, came to a sudden

"What a villainouslooking animal," exclaimed Mrs. Stossen; "it wasn't there when we came in."

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

The boarpig had drawn nearer to the gate for a closer inspection of the human intruders, and stood

champing his jaws and blinking his small red eyes in a manner that was doubtless intended to be

disconcerting, and, as far as the Stossens were concerned, thoroughly achieved that result.

"If they think they're going to drive him away by reciting lists of the kings of Israel and Judah they're laying

themselves out for disappointment," observed Matilda from her seat in the medlar tree. As she made the

observation aloud Mrs. Stossen became for the first time aware of her presence. A moment or two earlier she

would have been anything but pleased at the discovery that the garden was not as deserted as it looked, but

now she hailed the fact of the child's presence on the scene with absolute relief.

"PERMETTEZMOI EXPLIQUER. You see, I'm rather under a cloud," said Matilda. "I'm staying with my

aunt, and I was told I must behave particularly well today, as lots of people were coming for a garden party,

and I was told to imitate Claude, that's my young cousin, who never does anything wrong except by accident,

and then is always apologetic about it. It seems they thought I ate too much raspberry trifle at lunch, and they

said Claude never eats too much raspberry trifle. 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 hands and started forcible feeding with

a whole bucketful of raspberry trifle that they were keeping for the gardenparty. Lots of it went on to his

sailorsuit and some of it on to the bed, but a good deal went down Claude's throat, and they can't say again

that he has never been known to eat too much raspberry trifle. That is why I am not allowed to go to the

party, and as an additional punishment I must speak French all the afternoon. I've had to tell you all this in

English, as there were words like `forcible feeding' that I didn't know the French for; of course I could have

invented them, but if I had said NOURRITURE OBLIGATOIRE you wouldn't have had the least idea what I

"Oh, very well, TRES BIEN," said Mrs. Stossen reluctantly; in moments of flurry such French as she knew

was not under very good control. "LA, A L'AUTRE COTE DE LA PORTE, EST UN COCHON "

"UNE BETE," corrected Matilda; "a pig is masculine as long as you call it a pig, but if you lose your temper

with it and call it a ferocious beast it becomes one of us at once. French is a dreadfully unsexing language."

"For goodness' sake let us talk English then," said Mrs. Stossen. "Is there any way out of this garden except

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

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

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

"Shall I recite to you to make the time pass quicker?" asked Matilda obligingly. " `Belinda, the little

Breadwinner,' is considered my best piece, or, perhaps, it ought to be something in French. Henri Quatre's

"If you will go and fetch some one to drive that animal away I will give you something to buy yourself a nice

"That is the most practical suggestion you have made yet for getting out of the garden," she remarked

cheerfully; "Claude and I are collecting money for the Children's Fresh Air Fund, and we are seeing which of

"I shall be very glad to contribute half a crown, very glad indeed," said Mrs. Stossen, digging that coin out of

"Claude is a long way ahead of me at present," continued Matilda, taking no notice of the suggested offering;

"you see, he's only eleven, and has golden hair, and those are enormous advantages when you're on the

collecting job. Only the other day a Russian lady gave him ten shillings. Russians understand the art of giving

far better than we do. I expect Claude will net quite twentyfive shillings this afternoon; he'll have the field to

himself, and he'll be able to do the pale, fragile, notlongforthisworld business to perfection after his

raspberry trifle experience. Yes, he'll be QUITE two pounds ahead of me by now."

With much probing and plucking and many regretful murmurs the beleaguered ladies managed to produce

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

Mother and daughter muttered certain remarks under their breath, in which the word "beast" was prominent,

"I find I HAVE got another halfcrown," said Mrs. Stossen in a shaking voice; "here you are. Now please

Matilda slipped down from the tree, took possession of the donation, and proceeded to pick up a handful of

overripe medlars from the grass at her feet. Then she climbed over the gate and addressed herself

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

Tarquin couldn't. By dint of throwing the fruit in front of him at judicious intervals Matilda decoyed him

"Well, I never! The little minx!" exclaimed Mrs. Stossen when she was safely on the high road. "The animal

wasn't savage at all, and as for the ten shillings, I don't believe the Fresh Air Fund will see a penny of it!"

There she was unwarrantably harsh in her judgment. If you examine the books of the fund you will find the

THE hunting season had come to an end, and the Mullets had not succeeded in selling the Brogue. There had

been a kind of tradition in the family for the past three or four years, a sort of fatalistic hope, that the Brogue

would find a purchaser before the hunting was over; but seasons came and went without anything happening

to justify such illfounded optimism. The animal had been named Berserker in the earlier stages of its career;

it had been rechristened the Brogue later on, in recognition of the fact that, once acquired, it was extremely

difficult to get rid of. The unkinder wits of the neighbourhood had been known to suggest that the first letter

of its name was superfluous. The Brogue had been variously described in sale catalogues as a light weight

hunter, a lady's hack, and, more simply, but still with a touch of imagination, as a useful brown gelding,

standing 15.1. Toby Mullet had ridden him for four seasons with the West Wessex; you can ride almost any

sort of horse with the West Wessex as long as it is an animal that knows the country. The Brogue knew the

country intimately, having personally created most of the gaps 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, but he was

probably rather safer to ride to hounds than he was as a hack on country roads. According to the Mullet

family, he was not really roadshy, but there were one or two objects of dislike that brought on sudden

attacks of what Toby called the swerving sickness. Motors and cycles he treated with tolerant disregard, but

pigs, wheelbarrows, piles of stones by the roadside, perambulators in a village street, gates painted too

aggressively white, and sometimes, but not always, the newer kind of beehives, turned him aside from his

tracks in vivid imitation of the zigzag course of forked lightning. If a pheasant rose noisily from the other side

of a hedgerow the Brogue would spring into the air at the same moment, but this may have been due to a

desire to be companionable. The Mullet family contradicted the widely prevalent report that the horse was a

It was about the third week in May that Mrs. Mullet, relict of the late Sylvester Mullet, and mother of Toby

and a bunch of daughters, assailed Clovis Sangrail on the outskirts of the village with a breathless catalogue

"You know our new neighbour, Mr. Penricarde?" she vociferated; "awfully rich, owns tin mines in Cornwall,

middleaged and rather quiet. He's taken the Red House on a long lease and spent a lot of money on

Clovis spent a moment or two in assimilating the astonishing news; then he broke out into unstinted

congratulation. If he had belonged to a more emotional race he would probably have kissed Mrs. Mullet.

"How wonderfully lucky to have pulled it off at last! Now you can buy a decent animal. I've always said that

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

"Mr. Penricarde," said Mrs. Mullet, sinking her voice to what she imagined to be an impressive whisper,

though it rather resembled a hoarse, excited squeak, "Mr. Penricarde has just begun to pay attentions to

Jessie. Slight at first, but now unmistakable. I was a fool not to have seen it sooner. Yesterday, at the Rectory

garden party, he asked her what her favourite flowers were, and she told him carnations, and today a whole

stack of carnations has arrived, clove and malmaison and lovely dark red ones, regular exhibition blooms, and

a box of chocolates that he must have got on purpose from London. And he's asked her to go round the links

with him to morrow. And now, just at this critical moment, Toby has sold him that animal. It's a calamity!"

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

"I've got a houseful of daughters," said Mrs. Mullet, "and I've been trying well, not to get them off my

hands, of course, but a husband or two wouldn't be amiss among the lot of them; there are six of them, you

"I don't know," said Clovis, "I've never counted, but I expect you're right as to the number; mothers generally

"And now," continued Mrs. Mullet, in her tragic whisper, "when there's a rich husbandinprospect

imminent on the horizon Toby goes and sells him that 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 member of our family. What is to be

done? We can't very well ask to have the horse back; you see, we praised it up like anything when we thought

there was a chance of his buying it, and said it was just the animal to suit him."

"Couldn't you steal it out of his stable and send it to grass at some farm miles away?" suggested Clovis;

"write 'Votes for Women' on the stable door, and the thing would pass for a Suffragette outrage. No one who

"Every newspaper in the country would ring with the affair," said Mrs. Mullet; "can't you imagine the

headline, 'Valuable Hunter Stolen by Suffragettes'? The police would scour the countryside till they found the

"Well, Jessie must try and get it back from Penricarde on the plea that it's an old favourite. She can say it was

only sold because the stable had to be pulled down under the terms of an old repairing lease, and that now it

"It sounds a queer proceeding to ask for a horse back when you've just sold him," said Mrs. Mullet, "but

something must be done, and done at once. The man is not used to horses, and I believe I told him it was as

quiet as a lamb. After all, lambs go kicking and twisting about as if they were demented, don't they?"

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

"It's all right about the proposal," she announced he came out with it at the sixth hole. I said I must have time

"My dear," said her mother, "I think a little more maidenly reserve and hesitation would have been advisable,

as you've known him so short a time. You might have waited till the ninth hole."

"The seventh is a very long hole," said Jessie; "besides, the tension was putting us both off our game. By the

time we'd got to the ninth hole we'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 in London to wind up with. Two of his nieces

are to be asked to be bridesmaids, so with our lot there will be seven, which is rather a lucky number. You are

to wear your pearl grey, with any amount of Honiton lace jabbed into it. By the way, he's coming over this

evening to ask your consent to the whole affair. So far all's well, but about the Brogue it's a different matter. I

told him the legend about the stable, and how keen we were about buying the horse back, but he seems

equally keen on keeping it. He said he must have horse exercise now that he's living in the country, and he's

going to start riding tomorrow. He's ridden a few times in the Row, on an animal that was accustomed to

carry octogenarians and people undergoing rest cures, and that's about all his experience in the saddle oh,

and he rode a pony once in Norfolk, when he was fifteen and the pony twentyfour; and tomorrow he's going

to ride the Brogue! I shall be a widow before I'm married, and I do so want to see what Corsica's like; it looks

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

"Nobody can ride that animal with any safety," said Mrs. Mullet, "except Toby, and he knows by long

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

"White gates!" exclaimed Mrs. Mullet; "did you mention what effect a pig has on him? He'll have to go past

Lockyer's farm to get to the high road, and there's sure to be a pig or two grunting about in the lane."

"It's obvious that Penricarde mustn't be allowed to go out on that animal," said Clovis, "at least not till Jessie

has married him, and tired of him. I tell you what: ask him to a picnic tomorrow, starting at an early hour;

he's not the sort to go out for a ride before breakfast. The day after I'll get the rector to drive him over to

Crowleigh before lunch, to see the new cottage hospital they're building there. The Brogue will be standing

idle in the stable and Toby can offer to exercise it; then it can pick up a stone or something of the sort and go

conveniently lame. If you hurry on the wedding a bit the lameness fiction can be kept up till the ceremony is

It was nobody's fault that the rain came down in torrents the next morning, making a picnic a fantastic

impossibility. It was also nobody's fault, but sheer illluck, that the weather cleared up sufficiently in the

afternoon to tempt Mr. Penricarde to make his first essay with the Brogue. They did not get as far as the pigs

at Lockyer's farm; the rectory gate was painted a dull unobtrusive green, but it had been white a year or two

ago, and the Brogue never forgot that he had been in the habit of making a violent curtsey, a backpedal and

a swerve at this particular point of the road. Subsequently, there being apparently no further 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

Mr. Penricarde, a little stunned and shaken, and suffering from a bruised knee and some minor damages,

goodnaturedly ascribed the accident to his own inexperience with horses and country roads, and allowed

Jessie to nurse him back into complete recovery and golf fitness within something less than a week.

In the list of wedding presents which the local newspaper published a fortnight or so later appeared the

"You've rather done it, haven't you?" he chuckled; "Jane Martlet has only been here five days, and she never

stays less than a fortnight, even when she's asked definitely for a week. You'll never get her out of the house

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

"They used to be; that's what makes them all the more bitter now. Each feels that she has nursed a viper in her

bosom. Nothing fans the flame of human resentment so much as the discovery that one's bosom has been

"It was a bronze Leghorn or some such exotic breed, and Dora sold it to Jane at a rather exotic price. They

both go in for prize poultry, you know, and Jane thought she was going to get her money back in a large

family of pedigree chickens. The bird turned out to be an abstainer from the egg habit, and I'm told that the

letters which passed between the two women were a revelation as to how much invective could be got on to a

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

"People tried," said Clovis, "but it must have been rather like composing the storm music of the `Fliegende

Hollander.' Jane was willing to take back 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 know she'd as soon think of owning

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

"On the contrary, the difficulty will be to get them to leave off. Their remarks on each other's conduct and

character have hitherto been governed by the fact that only four ounces of plain speaking can be sent through

"I can't put Dora off," said Mrs. Sangrail. "I've already postponed her visit once, and nothing short of a

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

"Servants are a bit of a nuisance," muttered Clovis, as he sat in the smokingroom after lunch, talking fitfully

to Jane Martlet in the intervals of putting together the materials of a cocktail, which he had irreverently

patented under the name of an Ella Wheeler Wilcox. It was partly compounded of old brandy and partly of

curacoa; there were other ingredients, but they were never indiscriminately revealed.

"Servants a nuisance!" exclaimed Jane, bounding into the topic with the exuberant plunge of a hunter when it

leaves the high road and feels turf under its hoofs; "I should think they were! The trouble I've had in getting

suited this year you would hardly believe. But I don't see what you have to complain of your mother is so

wonderfully lucky in her servants. Sturridge, for instance he's been with you for years, and I'm sure he's a

"That's just the trouble," said Clovis. "It's when servants have been with you for years that they become a

really serious nuisance. The 'here today and gone to morrow' sort don't matter you've simply got to

"That doesn't prevent them from giving trouble. Now, you've mentioned Sturridge it was Sturridge I was

particularly thinking of when I made the observation about servants being a nuisance."

"I know he's excellent, and we just couldn't get along without him; he's the one reliable element in this rather

haphazard household. But his very orderliness has had an effect on him. Have you ever considered what it

must be like to go on unceasingly doing the correct thing in the correct manner in the same surroundings for

the greater part of a lifetime? To know and ordain and superintend exactly what silver and glass and table

linen shall be used and set out on what occasions, to have cellar and pantry and platecupboard under a

minutely devised and undeviating administration, to be noiseless, impalpable, omnipresent, and, as far as

"Exactly," said Clovis thoughtfully, swallowing his completed Ella Wheeler Wilcox.

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

"On most points he's thoroughly sane and reliable," said Clovis, "but at times he is subject to the most

obstinate delusions, and on those occasions he becomes not merely a nuisance but a decided embarrassment."

"Unfortunately they usually centre round one of the guests of the house party, and that is where the

awkwardness comes in. For instance, he took it into his head that Matilda Sheringham was the Prophet Elijah,

and as all that he remembered about Elijah's history was the episode of the ravens in the wilderness he

absolutely declined to interfere with what he imagined to be Matilda's private catering arrangements,

wouldn't allow any tea to be sent up to her in the morning, and if he was waiting at table he passed her over

"Oh, Matilda got fed, after a fashion, but it was judged to be best for her to cut her visit short. It was really

"I shouldn't have done that," said Jane, "I should have humoured him in some way. I certainly shouldn't have

"It is not always wise to humour people when they get these ideas into their heads. There's no knowing to

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

"One can never be certain," said Clovis; "now and then he gets some idea about a guest which might take an

"What, has he taken a fancy about some one here now?" asked Jane excitedly; "how thrilling! Do tell me who

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

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

"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 Ella Wheeler Wilcox, "dead."

"Ghost? Dear no. No one ever heard of a ghost that came down to breakfast 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 that perplexes

and annoys him. All his life he has been accustomed to look on Queen Anne as the personification of

everything that is dead and done with, 'as dead as Queen Anne,' you know; and now he has to fill your glass

at lunch and dinner and listen to your accounts of the gay time you had at the Dublin Horse Show, and

"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; "I caught 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

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

"You'll have to keep a sharp lookout all the time and be on your guard to frustrate any murderous attack,"

said Jane, adding in a tone of weak obstinacy: "It's a dreadful situation to be in, with a mad butler dangling

over you like the sword of What'shisname, but I'm certainly not going to cut my visit short."

It was in the hall the next morning after a late breakfast that Clovis had his final inspiration as he stood

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

"Writing letters in the morningroom, sir," said Sturridge, announcing a fact of which his questioner was

"She wants to copy the inscription on that old baskethilted sabre," said Clovis, pointing to a venerable

weapon hanging on the wall. "I wish you'd take it to her; my hands are all over oil. Take it without the sheath,

The butler drew the blade, still keen and bright in its wellcared for old age, and carried it into the

morningroom. There was a door near the writingtable leading to a back stairway; Jane vanished through it

with such lightning rapidity that the butler doubted whether she had seen him come in. Half an hour later

"Mother will be awfully vexed when she comes back from her ride and finds you have gone," he observed to

the departing guest, "but I'll make up some story about an urgent wire having called you away. It wouldn't do

Jane sniffed slightly at Clovis' ideas of unnecessary alarm, and was almost rude to the young man who came

The miracle lost some of its usefulness from the fact that Dora wrote the same day postponing the date of her

visit, but, at any rate, Clovis holds the record as the only human being who ever hustled Jane Martlet out of

"MY aunt will be down presently, Mr. Nuttel," said a very selfpossessed young lady of fifteen; "in the

Framton Nuttel endeavoured to say the correct something which should duly flatter the niece of the moment

without unduly discounting the aunt that was to come. Privately he doubted more than ever whether these

formal visits on a succession of total strangers would do much towards helping the nerve cure which he was

"I know how it will be," his sister had said when he was preparing to migrate to this rural retreat; "you will

bury yourself down there and not speak to a living soul, and your nerves will be worse than ever from

moping. I shall just give you letters of introduction to all the people I know there. Some of them, as far as I

Framton wondered whether Mrs. Sappleton, the lady to whom he was presenting one of the letters of

"Do you know many of the people round here?" asked the niece, when she judged that they had had sufficient

"Hardly a soul," said Framton. "My sister was staying here, at the rectory, you know, some four years ago,

"Then you know practically nothing about my aunt?" pursued the selfpossessed young lady.

"Only her name and address," admitted the caller. He was wondering whether Mrs. Sappleton was in the

married or widowed state. An undefinable something about the room seemed to suggest masculine habitation.

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

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

"You may wonder why we keep that window wide open on an October afternoon," said the niece, indicating

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

"Out through that window, three years ago to a day, her husband and her two young brothers went off for

their day's shooting. They never came back. In crossing the moor to their favourite snipeshooting ground

they were all three engulfed in a treacherous piece of bog. It had been that dreadful wet summer, you know,

and places that were safe in other years gave way suddenly without warning. Their bodies were never

recovered. That was the dreadful part of it." Here the child's voice lost its selfpossessed note and became

falteringly human. "Poor aunt always thinks that they will come back some day, they and the little brown

spaniel that was 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 with his 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 will all walk in through that window

She broke off with a little shudder. It was a relief to Framton when the aunt bustled into the room with a

"I hope you don't mind the open window," said Mrs. Sappleton briskly; "my husband and brothers will be

home directly from shooting, and they always come in this way. They've been out for snipe in the marshes

today, so they'll make a fine mess over my poor carpets. So like you menfolk, 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 purely horrible. He made a desperate but only partially successful effort to turn the talk

on to a less ghastly topic; he was conscious that his hostess was giving him only a fragment of her attention,

and her eyes were constantly straying past him to the open window and the lawn beyond. It was certainly an

unfortunate coincidence that he should have paid his visit on this tragic anniversary.

"The doctors agree in ordering me complete rest, an absence of mental excitement, and avoidance of anything

in the nature of violent physical exercise," announced Framton, who laboured under the tolerably

widespread delusion that total strangers and chance acquaintances are hungry for the least detail of one's

ailments and infirmities, their cause and cure. "On the matter of diet they are not so much in agreement," he

"No?" said Mrs. Sappleton, in a voice which only replaced a yawn at the last moment. Then she suddenly

"Here they are at last!" she cried. "Just in time for tea, and don't they look as if they were muddy up to the

Framton shivered slightly and turned towards the niece with a look intended to convey sympathetic

comprehension. The child was staring out through the open window with dazed horror in her eyes. In a chill

shock of nameless fear Framton swung round in his seat and looked in the same direction.

In the deepening twilight three figures were walking across the lawn towards the window; they all carried

guns under their arms, and one of them was additionally burdened with a white coat hung over his shoulders.

A tired brown spaniel kept close at their heels. Noiselessly they neared the house, and then a hoarse young

Framton grabbed wildly at his stick and hat; the halldoor, the graveldrive, and the front gate were

dimlynoted stages in his headlong retreat. A cyclist coming along the road had to run into the hedge to avoid

"Here we are, my dear," said the bearer of the white mackintosh, coming in through the window; "fairly

"A most extraordinary man, a Mr. Nuttel," said Mrs. Sappleton; "could only talk about his illnesses, and

dashed off without a word of goodbye or 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 had a horror of dogs. He was once hunted

into a cemetery somewhere on the banks of the Ganges by a pack of pariah dogs, and had to spend the night

in a newly dug grave with the creatures snarling and grinning and foaming just above him. Enough to make

THE great galleon lay in semiretirement under the sand and weed and water of the northern bay where the

fortune of war and weather had long ago ensconced it. Three and a quarter centuries had passed since the day

when it had taken the high seas as an important unit of a fighting squadron precisely which squadron the

learned were not agreed. The galleon had brought nothing into the world, but it had, according to tradition

and report, taken much out of it. But how much? There again the learned were in disagreement. Some were as

generous in their estimate as an incometax assessor, others applied a species of higher criticism to the

submerged treasure chests, and debased their contents to the currency of goblin gold. Of the former school

The Duchess was not only a believer in the existence of a sunken treasure of alluring proportions; she also

believed that she knew of a method by which the said treasure might be precisely located and cheaply

disembedded. An aunt on her mother's side of the family had been Maid of Honour at the Court of Monaco,

and had taken a respectful interest in the deepsea researches in which the Throne of that country, impatient

perhaps of its terrestrial restrictions, was wont to immerse itself. It was through the instrumentality of this

relative that the Duchess learned of an invention, perfected and very nearly patented by a Monegaskan

savant, by means of which the homelife of the Mediterranean sardine might be studied at a depth of many

fathoms in a cold white light of more than ballroom brilliancy. Implicated in this invention (and, in the

Duchess's eyes, the most attractive part of it) was an electric suction dredge, specially designed for dragging

to the surface such objects of interest and value as might be found in the more accessible levels of the

oceanbed. The rights of the invention were to be acquired for a matter of eighteen hundred francs, and the

apparatus for a few thousand more. The Duchess of Dulverton was rich, as the world counted wealth; she

nursed the hope, of being one day rich at her own computation. Companies had been formed and efforts had

been made again and again during the course of three centuries to probe for the alleged treasures of the

interesting galleon; with the aid of this invention she considered that she might go to work on the wreck

privately and independently. After all, one of her ancestors on her mother's side was descended from Medina

Sidonia, so she was of opinion that she had as much right to the treasure as anyone. She acquired the

Among other family ties and encumbrances, Lulu possessed a nephew, Vasco Honiton, a young gentleman

who was blessed with a small income and a large circle of relatives, and lived impartially and precariously on

both. The name Vasco had been given him possibly in the hope that he might live up to its adventurous

tradition, but he limited himself strictly to the home industry of adventurer, preferring to exploit the assured

rather than to explore the unknown. Lulu's intercourse with him had been restricted of recent years to the

negative processes of being out of town when he called on her, and short of money when he wrote to her.

Now, however, she bethought herself of his eminent suitability for the direction of a treasureseeking

experiment; if anyone could extract gold from an unpromising situation it would certainly be Vasco of

course, under the necessary safeguards in the way of supervision. Where money was in question Vasco's

Somewhere on the west coast of Ireland the Dulverton property included a few acres of shingle, rock, and

heather, too barren to support even an agrarian outrage, but embracing a small and fairly deep bay where the

lobster yield was good in most seasons. There was a bleak little house on the property, and for those who

liked lobsters and solitude, and were able to accept an Irish cook's ideas as to what might be perpetrated in

the name of mayonnaise, Innisgluther was a tolerable exile during the summer months. Lulu seldom went

there herself, but she lent the house lavishly to friends and relations. She put it now at Vasco's disposal.

"It will be the very place to practise and experiment with the salvage apparatus," she said; "the bay is quite

deep in places, and you will be able to test everything thoroughly before starting on the treasure hunt."

"The apparatus works beautifully," he informed his aunt; "the deeper one got the clearer everything grew. We

"No! really?" said Lulu; "poor Billy Yuttley's boat. I remember it went down somewhere off that coast some

three years ago. His body was washed ashore at the Point. People said at the time that the boat was capsized

intentionally a case of suicide, you know. People always say that sort of thing when anything tragic

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

"In a locker of the SUBROSA I found a watertight strongbox. It contained papers." Vasco paused with

dramatic effect and searched for a moment in the inner breastpocket of his coat. He drew out a folded slip of

paper. The Duchess snatched at it in almost indecent haste and moved appreciably nearer the fireplace.

"Oh no," said Vasco carelessly, "that is a list of the wellknown people who would be involved in a very

disagreeable scandal if the SUBROSA'S papers were made public. I've put you at the head of it, otherwise it

The Duchess gazed helplessly at the string of names, which seemed for the moment to include nearly every

one she knew. As a matter of fact, her own name at the head of the list exercised an almost paralysing effect

"Of course you have destroyed the papers?" she asked, when she had somewhat recovered herself. She was

"But you should have," said Lulu angrily; "if, as you say, they are highly compromising "

"Then you should put them out of harm's way at once. Supposing anything should leak out, think of all these

poor, unfortunate people who would be involved in the disclosures," and Lulu tapped the list with an agitated

"Unfortunate, perhaps, but not poor," corrected Vasco; "if you read the list carefully you'll notice that I

haven't troubled to include anyone whose financial standing isn't above question."

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

"Nothing for the remainder of my life," he answered meaningly. "A little hunting, perhaps," he continued,

"and I shall have a villa at Florence. The Villa SubRosa would sound rather quaint and picturesque, don't

you think, and quite a lot of people would be able to attach a meaning to the name. And I suppose I must have

Lulu's relative, who lived at the Court of Monaco, got quite a snappish answer when she wrote

THE farmhouse kitchen probably stood where it did as a matter of accident or haphazard choice; yet its

situation might have been planned by a masterstrategist in farmhouse architecture. Dairy and poultryyard,

and herb garden, and all the busy places of the farm seemed to lead by easy access into its wide flagged

haven, where there was room for everything and 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

windowseat, built into an embrasure beyond the huge fireplace, looked out on a wild spreading view of hill

and heather and wooded combe. The window nook made almost a little room in itself, quite the pleasantest

room in the farm as far as situation and capabilities went. Young Mrs. Ladbruk, whose husband had just

come into the farm by way of inheritance, cast covetous eyes on this snug corner, and her fingers itched to

make it bright and cosy with chintz curtains and bowls of flowers, and a shelf or two of old china. The musty

farm parlour, looking out on to a prim, cheerless garden imprisoned within high, blank walls, was not a room

"When we are more settled I shall work wonders in the way of making the kitchen habitable," said the young

woman to her occasional visitors. There was an unspoken wish in those words, a wish which was

unconfessed as well as unspoken. Emma Ladbruk was the mistress of the farm; jointly with 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

On one of the shelves of an old dresser, in company with chipped sauceboats, pewter jugs, cheesegraters,

and paid bills, rested a worn and ragged Bible, on whose front page was the record, in faded ink, of a baptism

dated ninetyfour years ago. "Martha Crale" was the name written on that yellow page. The yellow, wrinkled

old dame who hobbled and muttered about the kitchen, looking like a dead autumn leaf which the winter

winds still pushed hither and thither, had once been Martha Crale; for seventy odd years she had been Martha

Mountjoy. For longer than anyone could remember she had pattered to and fro between oven and

washhouse and dairy, and out to chickenrun and garden, grumbling and muttering and scolding, but

working unceasingly. Emma Ladbruk, of whose coming she took as little notice as she would of a bee

wandering in at a window on a summer's day, used at first to watch her with a kind of frightened curiosity.

She was so old and so much a part of the place, it was difficult to think of her exactly as a living thing. Old

Shep, the whitenozzled, stifflimbed collie, waiting for his time to die, seemed almost more human than the

withered, driedup old woman. He had been a riotous, roystering puppy, mad with the joy of life, when she

was already a tottering, hobbling dame; now he was just a blind, breathing carcase, nothing more, and she

still worked with frail energy, still swept and baked and washed, fetched and carried. If there were something

in these wise old dogs that did not perish utterly with death, Emma used to think to herself, what generations

of ghostdogs there must be out on those hills, that Martha had reared and fed and tended and spoken a last

goodbye word to in that old kitchen. And what memories she must have of human generations that had

passed away in her time. It was difficult for anyone, let alone a stranger like Emma, to get her to talk of the

days that had been; her shrill, quavering speech was of doors that had been left unfastened, pails that had got

mislaid, calves whose feedingtime was overdue, and the various little faults and lapses that chequer a

farmhouse routine. Now and again, when election time came round, she would unstore her recollections of

the old names round which the fight had waged in the days gone by. There had been a Palmerston, that had

been a name down Tiverton way; Tiverton was not a far journey as the crow flies, but to Martha it was almost

a foreign country. Later there had been Northcotes and Aclands, and many other newer names that she had

forgotten; the names changed, but it was always Libruls and Toories, Yellows and Blues. And they always

quarrelled and shouted as to who was right and who was wrong. The one they quarrelled about most was a

fine old 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 had

never been on one side or the other; none of "they" had ever done the farm a stroke of good. Such was her

When the halffrightened curiosity had somewhat faded away, Emma Ladbruk was uncomfortably conscious

of another feeling towards the old woman. She was a quaint old tradition, lingering about the place, she was

part and parcel of the farm itself, she was something at once pathetic and picturesque but she was

dreadfully in the way. Emma had come to the farm full of plans for little reforms and improvements, in part

the result of training in the newest ways and methods, in part the outcome of her own ideas and fancies.

Reforms in the kitchen region, if those deaf old ears could have been induced to give them even a hearing,

would have met with short shrift and scornful rejection, and the kitchen region spread over the zone of dairy

and market business and half the work of the household. Emma, with the latest science of deadpoultry

dressing at her fingertips, sat by, an unheeded watcher, while old Martha trussed the chickens for the

marketstall as she had trussed them for nearly fourscore years all leg and no breast. And the hundred

hints anent effective cleaning and labour lightening and the things that make for wholesomeness which the

young woman was ready to impart or to put into action dropped away into nothingness before that wan,

muttering, unheeding presence. Above all, the coveted window corner, that was to be a dainty, cheerful oasis

in the gaunt old kitchen, stood now choked and lumbered with a litter of odds and ends that Emma, for all her

nominal authority, would not have dared or cared to displace; over them seemed to be spun the protection of

something that was like a human cobweb. Decidedly Martha was in the way. It would have been an unworthy

meanness to have wished to see the span of that brave old life shortened by a few paltry months, but as the

days sped by Emma was conscious that the wish was there, disowned though it might be, lurking at the back

She felt the meanness of the wish come over her with a qualm of selfreproach one day when she came into

the kitchen and found an unaccustomed state of things in that usually busy quarter. Old Martha was not

working. A basket of corn was on the floor by her side, and out in the yard the poultry were beginning to

clamour a protest of overdue feedingtime. But Martha sat huddled in a shrunken bunch on the window seat,

looking out with her dim old eyes as though she saw something stranger than the autumn landscape.

"'Tis death, 'tis death acoming," answered the quavering voice; "I knew 'twere coming. I knew it. 'Tweren't

for nothing that old Shep's been howling all morning. An' last night I heard the screechowl give the

deathcry, and there were something white as run across the yard yesterday; 'tweren't a cat nor a stoat, 'twere

something. The fowls knew 'twere something; they all drew off to one side. Ay, there's been warnings. I knew

The young woman's eyes clouded with pity. The old thing sitting there so white and shrunken had once been

a merry, noisy child, playing about in lanes and haylofts and farmhouse garrets; that had been eighty odd

years ago, and now she was just a frail old body cowering under the approaching chill of the death that was

coming at last to take her. It was not probable that much could be done for her, but Emma hastened away to

get assistance and counsel. Her husband, she knew, was down at a tree felling some little distance off, but

she might find some other intelligent soul who knew the old woman better than she did. The farm, she soon

found out, had that faculty common to farmyards of swallowing up and losing its human population. The

poultry followed her in interested fashion, and swine grunted interrogations at her from behind the bars of

their styes, but barnyard and rickyard, orchard and stables and dairy, gave no reward to her search. Then, as

she retraced her steps towards the kitchen, she came suddenly on her cousin, young Mr. Jim, as every one

called him, who divided his time between amateur horsedealing, rabbitshooting, and flirting with the farm

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

"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 the beginning of the breakup," persisted

"It don't look like it," he said, nodding towards the yard. Emma turned to catch the meaning of his remark.

Old Martha stood in the middle of a mob of poultry scattering handfuls of grain around her. The turkeycock,

with the bronzed sheen of his feathers and the purplered 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 bottlegreen heads, made a medley of rich colour, in the centre of which

the old woman looked like a withered stalk standing amid a riotous growth of gailyhued flowers. But she

threw the grain deftly amid the wilderness of beaks, and her quavering voice carried as far as the two people

who were watching her. She was still harping on the theme of death coming to the farm.

"'Tis young Mister Ladbruk," she shrilled back; "they've just acarried his body in. Run out of the way of a

tree that was coming down an' ran hisself on to an iron post. Dead when they picked un up. Aye, I knew

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

The farm was a family property, and passed to the rabbitshooting cousin as the nextofkin. Emma Ladbruk

drifted out of its history as a bee that had wandered in at an open window might flit its way out again. On a

cold grey morning she stood waiting, with her boxes already stowed in the farm cart, till the last of the market

produce should be ready, for the train she was to catch was of less importance than the chickens and butter

and eggs that were to be offered for sale. From where she stood she could see an angle of the long latticed

window that was to have been cosy with curtains and gay with bowls of flowers. Into her mind came the

thought that for months, perhaps for years, long after she had been utterly forgotten, a white, unheeding face

would be seen peering out through those latticed panes, and a weak muttering voice would be heard

quavering up and down those flagged passages. She made her way to a narrow barred casement that opened

into the farm larder. Old Martha was standing at a table trussing a pair of chickens for the market stall as she

I'VE asked Latimer Springfield to spend Sunday with us and stop the night," announced Mrs. Durmot at the

"Exactly; the poll is on Wednesday, and the poor man will have worked himself to a shadow by that time.

Imagine what electioneering must be like in this awful soaking rain, going along slushy country roads and

speaking to damp audiences in draughty schoolrooms, day after day for a fortnight. He'll have to put in an

appearance at some place of worship on Sunday morning, and he can come to us immediately afterwards and

have a thorough respite from everything connected with politics. I won't let him even think of them. I've had

the picture of Cromwell dissolving the Long Parliament taken down from the staircase, and even the portrait

of Lord Rosebery's 'Ladas' removed from the smokingroom. And Vera," added Mrs. Durmot, turning to her

sixteenyearold niece, "be careful what colour 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 be almost as bad, with this

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

Latimer Springfield was a rather cheerless, oldish young man, who went into politics somewhat in the spirit

in which other people might go into halfmourning. Without being an enthusiast, however, he was a fairly

strenuous plodder, and Mrs. Durmot had been reasonably near the mark in asserting that he was working at

high pressure over this election. The restful lull which his hostess enforced on him was decidedly welcome,

and yet the nervous excitement of the contest had too great a hold on him to be totally banished.

"I know he's going to sit up half the night working up points for his final speeches," said Mrs. Durmot

regretfully; "however, we've kept politics at arm's length all the afternoon and evening. More than that we

Latimer had scarcely shut his bedroom door before he was immersed in a sheaf of notes and pamphlets, while

a fountainpen and pocketbook were brought into play for the due marshalling of useful facts and discreet

fictions. He had been at work for perhaps thirtyfive minutes, and the house was seemingly consecrated to

the healthy slumber of country life, when a stifled squealing and scuffling in the passage was followed by a

loud tap at his door. Before he had time to answer, a much encumbered Vera burst into the room with the

Latimer was moderately fond of animals, and particularly interested in small livestock rearing from the

economic point of view; in fact, one of the pamphlets on which he was at that moment engaged warmly

advocated the further development of the pig and poultry industry in our rural districts; but he was

pardonably unwilling to share even a commodious bedroom with samples of henroost and stye products.

"Wouldn't they be happier somewhere outside?" he asked, tactfully expressing his own preference in the

"There is no outside," said Vera impressively, "nothing but a waste of dark, swirling waters. The reservoir at

"Well, there isn't now, it's jolly well all over the place, and as we stand particularly low we're the centre of an

inland sea just at present. You see the river has overflowed its banks as well."

"Heaps, I should say. The second housemaid has already identified three bodies that have floated past the

billiardroom window as being the young man she's engaged to. Either she's engaged to a large assortment of

the population round here or else she's very careless at identification. Of course it may be the same body

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

"We can't," said Vera decidedly, "we haven't any boats and we're cut off by a raging torrent from any human

habitation. My aunt particularly hoped you would keep to your room and not add to the confusion, but she

thought it would be so kind of you if you would take in Hartlepool's Wonder, the gamecock, you know, for

the night. You see, there are eight other gamecocks, and they fight like furies if they get together, so we're

putting one in each bedroom. The fowlhouses are all flooded out, you know. And then I thought perhaps

you wouldn't mind taking in this wee piggie; he's rather a little love, but he has a vile temper. He gets that

from his mother not that I like to say things against her when she's lying dead and drowned in her stye, poor

thing. What he really wants is a man's firm hand to keep him in order. I'd try and grapple with him myself,

only I've got my chow in my room, you know, and he goes for pigs wherever he finds them."

"Couldn't the pig go in the bathroom?" asked Latimer faintly, wishing that he had taken up as determined a

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

"Yes, thirty of them came to rescue us while the water was only waisthigh; 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 the hot 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 coast scenery by Tuke. Two of the boys are wearing your Melton overcoat; I hope you

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

"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 the cockerel class last year at Gloucester. He'll probably roost on the rail

at the bottom of your bed. I wonder if he'd feel more at home if some of his wives were up here with him?

The hens are all in the pantry, and I think I could pick out Hartlepool Helen; she's his favourite."

Latimer showed a belated firmness on the subject of Hartlepool Helen, and Vera withdrew without pressing

the point, having first settled the gamecock on his extemporised perch and taken an affectionate farewell of

the pigling. Latimer undressed and got into bed with all due speed, judging that the pig would abate its

inquisitorial restlessness once the light was turned out. As a substitute for a cosy, strawbedded sty the room

offered, at first inspection, few attractions, but the disconsolate animal suddenly discovered an appliance in

which the most luxuriously contrived piggeries were notably deficient. The sharp edge of the underneath part

of the bed was pitched at exactly the right elevation to permit the pigling to scrape himself ecstatically

backwards and forwards, with an artistic humping of the back at the crucial moment and an accompanying

gurgle of longdrawn delight. The gamecock, who may have fancied that he was being rocked in the

branches of a pinetree, bore the motion with greater fortitude than Latimer was able to command. A series

of slaps directed at the pig's body were accepted more as an additional and 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 with the

case. Latimer slipped out of bed in search of a weapon of dissuasion. There was sufficient light in the room to

enable the pig to detect this manoeuvre, and the vile temper, inherited from the drowned mother, found full

play. Latimer bounded back into bed, and his conqueror, after a few threatening snorts and champings of its

jaws, resumed its massage operations with renewed zeal. During the long wakeful hours which ensued

Latimer tried to distract his mind from his own immediate troubles by dwelling with decent sympathy on the

second housemaid's bereavement, but he found himself more often wondering how many Boy Scouts were

sharing his Melton overcoat. The role of Saint Martin malgre lui was not one which appealed to him.

Towards dawn the pigling fell into a happy slumber, and Latimer might have followed its example, but at

about the same time Stupor Hartlepooli gave a rousing crow, clattered down to the floor and forthwith

commenced a spirited combat with his reflection in the wardrobe mirror. Remembering that the bird was

more or less under his care Latimer performed Hague Tribunal offices by draping a bathtowel over the

provocative mirror, but the ensuing peace was local and shortlived. The deflected energies of the gamecock

found new outlet in a sudden and sustained attack on the sleeping and temporarily inoffensive pigling, and

the duel which followed was desperate and embittered beyond any possibility of effective intervention. The

feathered combatant had the advantage of being able, when hard pressed, to take refuge on the bed, and freely

availed himself of this circumstance; the pigling never quite succeeded in hurling himself on to the same

Neither side could claim any decisive success, and the struggle had been practically fought to a standstill by

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

The pigling, as though aware that it might have outstayed its welcome, dashed out at the door, and the

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

A cold suspicion was stealing over Latimer's mind; he went to the window and drew up the blind. A light,

drizzling rain was falling, but there was not the faintest trace of any inundation.

"I should not like to think of you as a deliberate liar," he observed coldly, "but one occasionally has to do

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

THE season of strikes seemed to have run itself to a standstill. Almost every trade and industry and calling in

which a dislocation could possibly be engineered had indulged in that luxury. The last and least successful

convulsion had been the strike of the World's Union of Zoological Garden attendants, who, pending the

settlement of certain demands, refused to minister further to the wants of the animals committed to their

charge or to allow any other keepers to take their place. In this case the threat of the Zoological Gardens

authorities that if the men "came out" the animals should come out also had intensified and precipitated the

crisis. The imminent prospect of the larger carnivores, to say nothing of rhinoceroses and bull bison, roaming

at large and unfed in the heart of London, was not one which permitted of prolonged conferences. The

Government of the day, which from its tendency to be a few hours behind the course of events had been

nicknamed the Government of the afternoon, was obliged to intervene with promptitude and decision. A

strong force of Bluejackets was despatched to Regent's Park to take over the temporarily abandoned duties of

the strikers. Bluejackets were chosen in preference to land forces, partly on account of the traditional

readiness of the British Navy to go anywhere and do anything, partly by reason of the familiarity of the

average sailor with monkeys, parrots, and other tropical fauna, but chiefly at the urgent request of the First

Lord of the Admiralty, who was keenly desirous of an opportunity for performing some personal act of

"If he insists on feeding the infant jaguar himself, in defiance of its mother's wishes, there may be another

byelection in the north," said one of his colleagues, with a hopeful inflection in his voice. "Byelections are

As a matter of fact the strike collapsed peacefully without any outside intervention. The majority of the

keepers had become so attached to their charges that they returned to work of their own accord.

And then the nation and the newspapers turned with a sense of relief to happier things. It seemed as if a new

era of contentment was about to dawn. Everybody had struck who could possibly want to strike or who could

possibly be cajoled or bullied into striking, whether they wanted to or not. The lighter and brighter side of life

might now claim some attention. And conspicuous among the other topics that sprang into sudden

The Duke of Falvertoon was one of those human HORS D'OEUVRES that stimulate the public appetite for

sensation without giving it much to feed on. As a mere child he had been precociously brilliant; he had

declined the editorship of the ANGLIAN REVIEW at an age when most boys are content to have declined

MENSA, a table, and though he could not claim to have originated the Futurist movement in literature, his

"Letters to a possible Grandson," written at the age of fourteen, had attracted considerable notice. In later

days his brilliancy had been less conspicuously displayed. During a debate in the House of Lords on affairs in

Morocco, at a moment when that country, for the fifth time in seven years, had brought half Europe to the

verge of war, he had interpolated the remark "a little Moor and how much it is," but in spite of the

encouraging reception accorded to this one political utterance he was never tempted to a further display in

that direction. It began to be generally understood that he did not intend to supplement his numerous town

And then had come the unlookedfor tidings of the imminent proceedings for divorce. And such a divorce!

There were crosssuits and allegations and counter allegations, charges of cruelty and desertion, everything

in fact that was necessary to make the case one of the most complicated and sensational of its kind. And the

number of distinguished people involved or cited as witnesses not only embraced both political parties in the

realm and several Colonial governors, but included an exotic contingent from France, Hungary, the United

States of North America, and the Grand Duchy of Baden. Hotel accommodation of the more expensive sort

began to experience a strain on its resources. "It will be quite like the Durbar without the elephants,"

exclaimed an enthusiastic lady who, to do her justice, had never seen a Durbar. The general feeling was one

of thankfulness that the last of the strikes had been got over before the date fixed for the hearing of the great

As a reaction from the season of gloom and industrial strife that had just passed away the agencies that

purvey and stagemanage sensations laid themselves out to do their level best on this momentous occasion.

Men who had made their reputations as special descriptive writers were mobilised from distant corners of

Europe and the further side of the Atlantic in order to enrich with their pens the daily printed records of the

case; one wordpainter, who specialised in descriptions of how witnesses turn pale under crossexamination,

was summoned hurriedly back from a famous and prolonged murder trial in Sicily, where indeed his talents

were being decidedly wasted. Thumbnail artists and expert kodak manipulators were retained at extravagant

salaries, and special dress reporters were in high demand. An enterprising Paris firm of costume builders

presented the defendant Duchess with three special creations, to be worn, marked, learned, and extensively

reported at various critical stages of the trial; and as for the cinematograph agents, their industry and

persistence was untiring. Films representing the Duke saying goodbye to his favourite canary on the eve of

the trial were in readiness weeks before the event was due to take place; other films depicted the Duchess

holding imaginary consultations with fictitious lawyers or making a light repast off specially advertised

vegetarian sandwiches during a supposed luncheon interval. As far as human foresight and human enterprise

Two days before the case was down for hearing the advance reporter of an important syndicate obtained an

interview with the Duke for the purpose of gleaning some final grains of information concerning his Grace's

"I suppose I may say this will be one of the biggest affairs of its kind during the lifetime of a generation,"

began the reporter as an excuse for the unsparing minuteness of detail that he was about to make quest for.

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

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

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

"But think of the arrangements that have been made, the special reporting, the cinematographs, the catering

for the distinguished foreign witnesses, the prepared musichall allusions; think of all the money that has

"Exactly," said the Duke coldly, "the Duchess and I have realised that it is we who provide the material out of

which this great farreaching industry has been built up. Widespread employment will be given and

enormous profits made during the duration of the case, and we, on whom all the stress and racket falls, will

get what? An unenviable notoriety and the privilege of paying heavy legal expenses whichever way the

verdict goes. Hence our decision to strike. We don't wish to be reconciled; we fully realise that it is a grave

step to take, but unless we get some reasonable consideration out of this vast stream of wealth and industry

that we have called into being we intend coming out of court and staying out. Good afternoon."

The news of this latest strike spread universal dismay. Its inaccessibility to the ordinary methods of

persuasion made it peculiarly formidable. If the Duke and Duchess persisted in being reconciled the

Government could hardly be called on to interfere. Public opinion in the shape of social ostracism might be

brought to bear on them, but that was as far as coercive measures could go. There was nothing for it but a

conference, with powers to propose liberal terms. As it was, several of the foreign witnesses had already

The conference, protracted, uncomfortable, and occasionally acrimonious, succeeded at last in arranging for a

resumption of litigation, but it was a fruitless victory. The Duke, with a touch of his earlier precocity, died of

IT was autumn in London, that blessed season between the harshness of winter and the insincerities of

summer; a trustful season when one buys bulbs and sees to the registration of one's vote, believing

Morton Crosby sat on a bench in a secluded corner of Hyde Park, lazily enjoying a cigarette and watching the

slow grazing promenade of a pair of snowgeese, the male looking rather like an albino edition of the

russethued female. Out of the corner of his eye Crosby also noted with some interest the hesitating

hoverings of a human figure, which had passed and repassed his seat two or three times at shortening

intervals, like a wary crow about to alight near some possibly edible morsel. Inevitably the figure came to an

anchorage on the bench, within easy talking distance of its original occupant. The uncaredfor clothes, the

aggressive, grizzled beard, and the furtive, evasive eye of the newcomer bespoke the professional cadger,

the man who would undergo hours of humiliating talespinning and rebuff rather than adventure on half a

For a while the newcomer fixed his eyes straight in front of him in a strenuous, unseeing gaze; then his

voice broke out with the insinuating inflection of one who has a story to retail well worth any loiterer's while

"As far as I am concerned," said Crosby, "the strangeness has worn off in the course of thirtysix years."

"Ah," said the greybeard, "I could tell you things that you'd hardly believe. Marvellous things that have really

"Nowadays there is no demand for marvellous things that have really happened," said Crosby discouragingly;

"the professional writers of fiction turn these things out so much better. For instance, my neighbours tell me

wonderful, incredible things that their Aberdeens and chows and borzois have done; I never listen to them.

"I am a prominent and I think I may say an influential member of the Mussulman community of Eastern

The greybeard was obviously disconcerted at this new check to introductory conversation, but the defeat was

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

"An Afghan!" said the other, smitten into bewildered silence for a moment. Then he recovered himself and

"Afghanistan. Ah! We've had some wars with that country; now, I daresay, 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 intense feeling. Crosby saw the opening and

"It possesses, nevertheless, a number of highly talented and ingenious beggars," he said; "if I had not spoken

so disparagingly of marvellous things that have really happened I would tell you the story of Ibrahim and the

eleven camelloads of blottingpaper. Also I have forgotten exactly how it ended."

"My own lifestory is a curious one," said the stranger, apparently stifling all desire to hear the history of

"We are supposed to undergo complete change in the course of every seven years," said Crosby, as an

"I mean I was not always in such distressing circumstances as I am at present," pursued the stranger

"That sounds rather rude," said Crosby stiffly, "considering that you are at present talking to a man reputed to

"I don't mean in that way," said the greybeard hastily; "I've been very much interested in your conversation. I

was alluding to my unfortunate financial situation. You mayn't hardly believe it, but at the present moment I

am absolutely without a farthing. Don't see any prospect of getting any money, either, for the next few days. I

"In the town of Yom," said Crosby, "which is in Southern Afghanistan, and which also happens to be my

birthplace, there was a Chinese philosopher who used to say that one of the three chiefest human blessings

"Ah, I daresay," said the stranger, in a tone that betrayed no enthusiasm for the philosopher's memory; "and

"Then I expect he had friends who would help him liberally whenever he was in difficulties, such as I am in

"In Yom," said Crosby, "it is not necessary to have friends in order to obtain help. Any citizen of Yom would

"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 a few days' impecuniosity five shillings, or perhaps a rather larger sum

"There would be a certain preliminary," said Crosby; "one would take him to a wineshop and treat him to a

measure of wine, and then, after a little highflown conversation, one would put the desired sum in his hand

and wish him goodday. It is a roundabout way of performing a simple transaction, but in the East all ways

"Ah," he exclaimed, with a thin sneer ringing meaningly through his words, "I suppose you've given up all

those generous customs since you left your town. Don't practise them now, I expect."

"No one who has lived in Yom," said Crosby fervently, "and remembers its green hills covered with apricot

and almond trees, and the cold water that rushes down like a caress from the upland snows and dashes under

the little wooden bridges, no one who remembers these things and treasures the memory of them would ever

give up a single one of its unwritten laws and customs. To me they are as binding as though I still lived in

"Then if I was to ask you for a small loan " began the greybeard fawningly, edging nearer on the seat and

hurriedly wondering how large he might safely make his request, "if I was to ask you for, say "

"At any other time, certainly," said Crosby; "in the months of November and December, however, it is

absolutely forbidden for anyone of our race to give or receive loans or gifts; in fact, one does not willingly

speak of them. It is considered unlucky. We will therefore close this discussion."

"But it is still October!" exclaimed the adventurer with an eager, angry whine, as Crosby rose from his seat;

"The Afghan November began yesterday," said Crosby severely, and in another moment he was striding

across the Park, leaving his recent companion scowling and muttering furiously on the seat.

"I don't believe a word of his story," he chattered to himself; "pack of nasty lies from beginning to end. Wish

The snorts and snarls that escaped from him for the next quarter of an hour went far to support the truth of the

LADY CARLOTTA stepped out on to the platform of the small wayside station and took a turn or two up

and down its uninteresting length, to kill time till the train should be pleased to proceed on its way. Then, in

the roadway 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 the animal that helps him to earn a living. Lady Carlotta promptly

betook her to the roadway, and put rather a different complexion on the struggle. Certain of her acquaintances

were wont to give her plentiful admonition as to the undesirability of interfering on behalf of a distressed

animal, such interference being "none of her business." Only once had she put the doctrine of

noninterference into practice, when one of its most eloquent exponents had been besieged for nearly three

hours in a small and extremely uncomfortable maytree by an angry boarpig, while Lady Carlotta, on the

other side of the fence, had proceeded with the watercolour sketch she was engaged on, and refused to

interfere between the boar and his prisoner. It is to be feared that she lost the friendship of the ultimately

rescued lady. On this occasion she merely lost the train, which gave way to the first sign of impatience it had

shown throughout the journey, and steamed off without her. She bore the desertion with philosophical

indifference; her friends and relations were thoroughly well used to the fact of her luggage arriving without

her. She wired a vague noncommittal message to her destination to say that she was coming on "by another

train." Before she had time to think what her next move might be she was confronted by an imposingly attired

lady, who seemed to be taking a prolonged mental inventory of her clothes and looks.

"You must be Miss Hope, the governess I've come to meet," said the apparition, in a tone that admitted of

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

"It's gone astray," said the alleged governess, falling in with the excellent rule of life that the absent are

always to blame; the luggage had, in point of fact, behaved with perfect correctitude. "I've just telegraphed

"How provoking," said Mrs. Quabarl; "these railway companies are so careless. However, my maid can lend

During the drive to the Quabarl mansion Lady Carlotta was impressively introduced to the nature of the

charge that had been thrust upon her; she learned that Claude and Wilfrid were delicate, sensitive young

people, that Irene had the artistic temperament highly developed, and that Viola was something or other else

of a mould equally commonplace among children of 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 lifestories

of men and women who really lived, not merely committing a mass of names and dates to memory. French,

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

Mrs. Quabarl, to use a colloquial expression, was knocked off her perch. She was one of those imperfectly

selfassured individuals who are magnificent and autocratic as long as they are not seriously opposed. The

least show of unexpected resistance goes a long way towards rendering them cowed and apologetic. When

the new governess failed to express wondering admiration of the large newlypurchased and expensive car,

and lightly alluded to the superior advantages of one or two makes which had just been put on the market, the

discomfiture of her patroness became almost abject. Her feelings were those which might have animated a

general of ancient warfaring days, on beholding his heaviest battleelephant ignominiously driven off the

At dinner that evening, although reinforced by her husband, who usually duplicated her opinions and lent her

moral support generally, Mrs. Quabarl regained none of her lost ground. The governess not only helped

herself well and truly to wine, but held forth with considerable show of critical knowledge on various vintage

matters, concerning which the Quabarls were in no wise able to pose as authorities. Previous governesses had

limited their conversation on the wine topic to a respectful and doubtless sincere expression of a preference

for water. When this one went as far as to recommend a wine firm in whose hands you could not go very far

wrong Mrs. Quabarl thought it time to turn the conversation into more usual channels.

"We got very satisfactory references about you from Canon Teep," she observed; "a very estimable man, I

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

"MY DEAR Miss Hope! I trust you are exaggerating," exclaimed the Quabarls in unison.

"One must in justice admit that there is some provocation," continued the romancer. "Mrs. Teep is quite the

most irritating bridgeplayer that I have ever sat down with; her leads and declarations would condone a

certain amount of brutality in her partner, but to souse her with the contents of the only sodawater syphon in

the house on a Sunday afternoon, when one couldn't get another, argues an indifference to the comfort of

others which I cannot altogether overlook. You may think me hasty in my judgments, but it was practically

Mr. Quabarl made a welcome diversion by asking what studies the new instructress proposed to inaugurate

"Ah, history," he observed sagely; "now in teaching them history you must take care to interest them in what

they learn. You must make them feel that they are being introduced to the lifestories of men and women

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

"What are you children doing out here?" demanded Mrs. Quabarl the next morning, on finding Irene sitting

rather glumly at the head of the stairs, while her sister was perched in an attitude of depressed discomfort on

"We are having a history lesson," came the unexpected reply. "I am supposed to be Rome, and Viola up there

is the shewolf; not a real wolf, but the figure of one that the Romans used to set store by I forget why.

"Yes, they've got to carry them off. They didn't want to, but Miss Hope got one of father's fivesbats and said

she'd give them a number nine spanking if they didn't, so they've gone to do it."

A loud, angry screaming from the direction of the lawn drew Mrs. Quabarl thither in hot haste, fearful lest the

threatened castigation might even now be in process of infliction. The outcry, however, came principally

from the two small daughters of the lodgekeeper, who were being hauled and pushed towards the house by

the panting and dishevelled Claude and Wilfrid, whose task was rendered even more arduous by the

incessant, if not very effectual, attacks of the captured maidens' small brother. The governess, fivesbat in

hand, sat negligently on the stone balustrade, presiding over the scene with the cold impartiality of a Goddess

of Battles. A furious and repeated chorus of "I'll tell muvver" rose from the lodgechildren, but the

lodgemother, who was hard of hearing, was for the moment immersed in the preoccupation of her washtub.

After an apprehensive glance in the direction of the lodge (the good woman was gifted with the highly

militant temper which is sometimes the privilege of deafness) Mrs. Quabarl flew indignantly to the rescue of

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

"Early Roman history; the Sabine Women, don't you know? It's the SchartzMetterklume method to make

children understand history by acting it themselves; fixes it in their memory, you know. Of course, if, thanks

to your interference, your boys go through life thinking that the Sabine women ultimately escaped, I really

"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 luggage will be sent after you as soon as it arrives."

"I'm not certain exactly where I shall be for the next few days," said the dismissed instructress of youth; "you

might keep my luggage till I wire my address. There are only a couple of trunks and some golfclubs and a

"A leopard cub!" gasped Mrs. Quabarl. Even in her departure this extraordinary person seemed destined to

"Well, it's rather left off being a cub; it's more than halfgrown, you know. 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 for me,

The advent of the genuine Miss Hope, who had made a mistake as to the day on which she was due to arrive,

caused a turmoil which that good lady was quite unused to inspiring. Obviously the Quabarl family had been

"How tiresome for you, dear Carlotta," said her hostess, when the overdue guest ultimately arrived; "how

very tiresome losing your train and having to stop overnight in a strange place."

"IT'S not the daily grind that I complain of," said Blenkinthrope resentfully; "it's the dull grey sameness of

my life outside of office hours. Nothing of interest comes my way, nothing remarkable or out of the common.

Even the little things that I do try to find some interest in don't seem to interest other people. Things in my

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

"To be exact you told me that it weighed just under two pounds, but I took into account the fact that abnormal

vegetables and freshwater fish have an after life, in which growth is not arrested."

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

"The fault is with the potato, not with us," said Gorworth; "we are not in 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 case as

yourself; their lives are commonplace and not very interesting to themselves, and they certainly are not going

to wax enthusiastic over the commonplace events in other men's lives. Tell them something startling,

dramatic, piquant that has happened to yourself or to someone in your family, and you will capture their

interest at once. They will talk about you with a certain personal pride to all their acquaintances. 'Man I know

intimately, fellow called Blenkinthrope, lives down my way, had two of his fingers clawed clean off by a

lobster he was carrying home to supper. Doctor says entire hand may have to come off.' Now that is

conversation of a very high order. But imagine walking into a tennis club with the remark: 'I know a man

"But hang it all, my dear fellow," said Blenkinthrope impatiently, "haven't I just told you that nothing of a

"Invent something," said Gorworth. Since winning a prize for excellence in Scriptural knowledge at a

preparatory school he had felt licensed to be a little more unscrupulous than the circle he moved in. Much

might surely be excused to one who in early life could give a list of seventeen trees mentioned in the Old

"A snake got into your henrun yesterday morning and killed six out of seven pullets, first mesmerising them

with its eyes and then biting them as they stood helpless. The seventh pullet was one of that French sort, with

feathers all over its eyes, so it escaped the mesmeric snare, and just flew at what it could see of the snake and

"Thank you," said Blenkinthrope stiffly; "it's a very clever invention. If such a thing had really happened in

my poultryrun I admit I should have been proud and interested to tell people about it. But I'd rather stick to

fact, even if it is plain fact." All the same his mind dwelt wistfully on the story of the Seventh Pullet. He

could picture himself telling it in the train amid the absorbed interest of his fellowpassengers.

Unconsciously all sorts of little details and improvements began to suggest themselves.

Wistfulness was still his dominant mood when he took his seat in the railway carriage the next morning.

Opposite him sat Stevenham, who had attained to a recognised brevet of importance through the fact of an

uncle having dropped dead in the act of voting at a Parliamentary election. That had happened three years

ago, but Stevenham was still deferred to on all questions of home and foreign politics.

"Hullo, how's the giant mushroom, or whatever it was?" was all the notice Blenkinthrope got from his fellow

Young Duckby, whom he mildly disliked, speedily monopolised the general attention by an account of a

"Had four young pigeons carried off last night by a whacking big rat. Oh, a monster he must have been; you

No moderatesized rat ever seemed to carry out any predatory operations in these regions; they were all

"Pretty hard lines that," continued Duckby, seeing that he had secured the attention and respect of the

company; "four squeakers carried off at one swoop. You'd find it rather hard to match that in the way of

"I had six pullets out of a pen of seven killed by a snake yesterday afternoon," said Blenkinthrope, in a voice

"It fascinated them with its deadly, glittering eyes, one after the other, and struck them down while they stood

helpless. A bedridden neighbour, who wasn't able to call for assistance, witnessed it all from her bedroom

"The interesting part of it is about the seventh pullet, the one that didn't get killed," resumed Blenkinthrope,

slowly lighting a cigarette. His diffidence had left him, and he was beginning to realise how safe and easy

depravity can seem once one has the courage to begin. "The six dead birds were Minorcas; the seventh was a

Houdan with a mop of feathers all over its eyes. It could hardly see the snake at all, so of course it wasn't

mesmerised like the others. It just could see something wriggling on the ground, and went for it and pecked it

In the course of the next few days Blenkinthrope discovered how little the loss of one's selfrespect affects

one when one has gained the esteem of the world. His story found its way into one of the poultry papers, and

was copied thence into a daily newssheet as a matter of general interest. A lady wrote from the North of

Scotland recounting a similar episode which she had witnessed as occurring between a stoat and a blind

grouse. Somehow a lie seems so much less reprehensible when one can call it a lee.

For awhile the adapter of the Seventh Pullet story enjoyed to the full his altered standing as a person of

consequence, one who had had some share in the strange events of his times. Then he was thrust once again

into the cold grey background by the sudden blossoming into importance of SmithPaddon, a daily

fellowtraveller, whose little girl had been knocked down and nearly hurt by a car belonging to a

musicalcomedy actress. The actress was not in the car at the time, but she was in numerous photographs

which appeared in the illustrated papers of Zoto Dobreen inquiring after the wellbeing of Maisie, daughter

of Edmund SmithPaddon, Esq. With this new human interest to absorb them the travelling companions were

almost rude when Blenkinthrope tried to explain his contrivance for keeping vipers and peregrine falcons out

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

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

It was a few days later that Blenkinthrope revealed a chapter of family history to the customary gathering in

"Curious thing happened to my aunt, the one who lives in Paris," he began. He had several aunts, but they

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

Whatever the story gained in picturesqueness from the draggingin of diplomatic "atmosphere," it ceased

from that moment to command any acceptance as a record of current events. Gorworth had warned his

neophyte that this would be the case, but the traditional enthusiasm of the neophyte had triumphed over

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

A subdued murmur of admiration went round the company. Blenkinthrope's aunts 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 an instant to light a cigar. At that moment

a youngish man came up behind him, drew the blade from a swordstick, and stabbed him half a dozen times

through and through. 'Scoundrel,' he cried to his victim, 'you do not know me. My name is Henri Leturc.' The

elder man wiped away some of the blood that was spattering his clothes, turned to his assailant, and said:

`And since when has an attempted assassination been considered an introduction?' Then he finished lighting

his cigar and walked away. My aunt had intended screaming for the police, but seeing the indifference with

which the principal in the affair treated the matter she felt that it would be an impertinence on her part to

interfere. Of course I need hardly say she put the whole thing down to the effects of a warm, drowsy

afternoon and the Legation champagne. Now comes the astonishing part of my story. A fortnight later a bank

manager was stabbed to death with a swordstick in that very part of the Bois. His assassin was the son of a

charwoman formerly working at the bank, who had been dismissed from her job by the manager on account

From that moment Blenkinthrope was tacitly accepted as the Munchausen of the party. No effort was spared

to draw him out from day to day in the exercise of testing their powers of credulity, and Blenkinthrope, in the

false security of an assured and receptive audience, waxed industrious and ingenious in supplying the demand

for marvels. Duckby's satirical story of a tame otter that had a tank in the garden to swim in, and whined

restlessly whenever the waterrate was overdue, was scarcely an unfair parody of some of Blenkinthrope's

Returning to his villa one evening Blenkinthrope found his wife sitting in front of a pack of cards, which she

"No, dear; this is the Death's Head patience, the most difficult of them all. I've never got it to work out, and

somehow I should be rather frightened if I did. Mother only got it out once in her life; she was afraid of it,

too. Her greataunt had done it once and fallen dead from excitement the next moment, and mother always

had a feeling that she would die if she ever got it out. She died the same night that she did it. She was in bad

"Don't do it if it frightens you," was Blenkinthrope's practical comment as he left the room. A few minutes

"John, it gave me such a turn, I nearly got it out. Only the five of diamonds held me up at the end. I really

"Why, you can do it," said Blenkinthrope, who had come back to the room; "if you shift the eight of clubs on

His wife made the suggested move with hasty, trembling fingers, and piled the outstanding cards on to their

respective packs. Then she followed the example of her mother and greatgrandaunt.

Blenkinthrope had been genuinely fond of his wife, but in the midst of his bereavement one dominant thought

obtruded itself. Something sensational and real had at last come into his life; no longer was it a grey,

colourless record. The headlines which might appropriately describe his domestic tragedy kept shaping

themselves in his brain. "Inherited presentiment comes true." "The Death's Head patience: Cardgame that

justified its sinister name in three generations." He wrote out a full story of the fatal occurrence for the

ESSEX VEDETTE, the editor of which was a friend of his, and to another friend he gave a condensed

account, to be taken up to the office of one of the halfpenny dailies. But in both cases his reputation as a

romancer stood fatally in the way of the fulfilment of his ambitions. "Not the right thing to be

Munchausening in a time of sorrow" agreed his friends among themselves, and a brief note of regret at the

"sudden death of the wife of our respected neighbour, Mr. John Blenkinthrope, from heart failure," appearing

in the news column of the local paper was the forlorn outcome of his visions of widespread publicity.

Blenkinthrope shrank from the society of his erstwhile travelling companions and took to travelling

townwards by an earlier train. He sometimes tries to enlist the sympathy and attention of a chance

acquaintance in details of the whistling prowess of his best canary or the dimensions of his largest beetroot;

he scarcely recognises himself as the man who was once spoken about and pointed out as the owner of the

"YOU'VE just come back from Adelaide's funeral, haven't you?" said Sir Lulworth to his nephew; "I suppose

"You'll do nothing of the sort. It wouldn't be respectful either to your greataunt's memory or to the lunch.

We begin with Spanish olives, then a borshch, then more olives and a bird of some kind, and a rather enticing

Rhenish wine, not at all expensive as wines go in this country, but still quite laudable in its way. Now there's

absolutely nothing in that menu that harmonises in the least with the subject of your great aunt Adelaide or

her funeral. She was a charming woman, and quite as intelligent as she had any need to be, but somehow she

"She used to say you were frivolous," said Egbert. Something in his tone suggested that he rather endorsed

"I believe I once considerably scandalised her by declaring that clear soup was a more important factor in life

than a clear conscience. She had very little sense of proportion. By the way, she made you her principal heir,

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

"Business is not my strong point at any time," said Sir Lulworth, "and certainly not when we're on the

"It isn't exactly business," explained Egbert, as he followed his uncle into the diningroom.

"Then we can't possibly speak about it now," said Sir Lulworth; "no one could talk seriously during a

borshch. A beautifully constructed borshch, such as you are going to experience presently, ought not only to

banish conversation but almost to annihilate thought. Later on, when we arrive at the second stage of olives, I

shall be quite ready to discuss that new book on Borrow, or, if you prefer it, the present situation in the Grand

Duchy of Luxemburg. But I absolutely decline to talk anything approaching business till we have finished

For the greater part of the meal Egbert sat in an abstracted silence, the silence of a man whose mind is

focussed on one topic. When the coffee stage had been reached he launched himself suddenly athwart his

"I think I told you that greataunt Adelaide had made me her executor. There wasn't very much to be done in

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

"Stacks of them, and most of them highly uninteresting. There was one packet, however, which I thought

might repay a careful perusal. It was a bundle of correspondence from her brother Peter."

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

"Probably the simplest explanation was the correct one," said Sir Lulworth; "he slipped on the stone staircase

Egbert shook his head. "The medical evidence all went to prove that the blow on the head was struck by some

one coming up behind him. A wound caused by violent contact with the steps could not possibly have been

inflicted at that angle of the skull. They experimented with a dummy figure falling in every conceivable

"But the motive?" exclaimed Sir Lulworth; "no one had any interest in doing away with him, and the number

of people who destroy Canons of the Established Church for the mere fun of killing must be extremely

limited. Of course there are individuals of weak mental balance who do that sort of thing, but they seldom

"I know he was," said Sir Lulworth, "simply because he was about the only person on the premises at the

time of the tragedy. But could anything be sillier than trying to fasten a charge of murder on to Sebastien? He

had nothing to gain, in fact, a good deal to lose, from the death of his employer. The Canon was paying him

quite as good wages as I was able to offer him when I took him over into my service. I have since raised them

to something a little more in accordance with his real worth, but at the time he was glad to find a new place

without troubling about an increase of wages. People were fighting rather shy of him, and he had no friends

in this country. No; if anyone in the world was interested in the prolonged life and unimpaired digestion of

"People don't always weigh the consequences of their rash acts," said Egbert, "otherwise there would be very

"He is a southerner," admitted Sir Lulworth; "to be geographically exact I believe he hails from the French

slopes of the Pyrenees. I took that into consideration when he nearly killed the gardener's boy the other day

for bringing him a spurious substitute for sorrel. One must always make allowances for origin and locality

and early environment; `Tell me your longitude and I'll know what latitude to allow you,' is my motto."

"My dear Egbert, between nearly killing a gardener's boy and altogether killing a Canon there is a wide

difference. No doubt you have often felt a temporary desire to kill a gardener's boy; you have never given

way to it, and I respect you for your selfcontrol. But I don't suppose you have ever wanted to kill an

octogenarian Canon. Besides, as far as we know, there had never been any quarrel or disagreement between

"Ah!" said Egbert, with the air of a man coming at last into a deferred inheritance of conversational

He pushed away his coffee cup and drew a pocketbook from his inner breastpocket. From the depths of the

pocketbook he produced an envelope, and from the envelope he extracted a letter, closely written in a small,

"One of the Canon's numerous letters to Aunt Adelaide," he explained, "written a few days before his death.

Her memory was already failing when she received it, and I daresay she forgot the contents as soon as she

had read it; otherwise, in the light of what subsequently happened, we should have heard something of this

letter before now. If it had been produced at the inquest I fancy it would have made some difference in the

course of affairs. The evidence, as you remarked just now, choked off suspicion against Sebastien by

disclosing an utter absence of anything that could be considered a motive or provocation for the crime, if

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

" 'I very much fear I shall have to get rid of Sebastien. He cooks divinely, but he has the temper of a fiend or

an anthropoid ape, and I am really in bodily fear of him. We had a dispute the other day as to the correct sort

of lunch to be served on Ash Wednesday, and I got so irritated and annoyed at his conceit and obstinacy that

at last I threw a cupful of coffee in his face and called him at the same time an impudent jackanapes. Very

little of the coffee went actually in his face, but I have never seen a human being show such deplorable lack

of selfcontrol. 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 times since caught him scowling and muttering in a highly

unpleasant fashion, and lately I have fancied that he was dogging my footsteps about the grounds, particularly

"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 when he has quitted my service.' "

Egbert paused for a moment at the conclusion of the extract; then, as his uncle made no remark, he added: "If

lack of motive was the only factor that saved Sebastien from prosecution I fancy this letter will put a different

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

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

Egbert's voice rose almost to a scream. Sir Lulworth had flung the paper well and truly into the glowing

centre of the grate. The small, neat hand writing shrivelled into black flaky nothingness.

"What on earth did you do that for?" gasped Egbert. "That letter was our one piece of evidence to connect

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

NORMAN GORTSBY sat on a bench in the Park, with his back to a strip of bushplanted sward, fenced by

the park railings, and the Row fronting him across a wide stretch of carriage drive. Hyde Park Corner, with its

rattle and hoot of traffic, lay immediately to his right. It was some thirty minutes past six on an early March

evening, and dusk had fallen heavily over the scene, dusk mitigated by some faint moonlight and many street

lamps. There was a wide emptiness over road and sidewalk, and yet there were many unconsidered figures

moving silently through the halflight, or dotted unobtrusively on bench and chair, scarcely to be

The scene pleased Gortsby and harmonised with his present mood. Dusk, to his mind, was the hour of the

defeated. Men and women, who had fought and lost, who hid their fallen fortunes and dead hopes as far as

possible from the scrutiny of the curious, came forth in this hour of gloaming, when their shabby clothes and

bowed shoulders and unhappy eyes might pass unnoticed, 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 on them, therefore they came out in

this batfashion, taking their pleasure sadly in a pleasureground that had emptied of its rightful occupants.

Beyond the sheltering screen of bushes and palings came a realm of brilliant lights and noisy, rushing traffic.

A blazing, manytiered stretch of windows shone through the dusk and almost dispersed it, marking the

haunts of those other people, who held their own in life's struggle, or at any rate had not had to admit failure.

So Gortsby's imagination pictured things as he sat on his bench in the almost deserted walk. He was in the

mood to count himself among the defeated. Money troubles did not press on him; had he so wished he could

have strolled into the thoroughfares of light and noise, and taken his place among the jostling ranks of those

who enjoyed prosperity or struggled for it. He had failed in a more subtle ambition, and for the moment he

was heartsore and disillusionised, and not disinclined to take a certain cynical pleasure in observing and

labelling his fellow wanderers as they went their ways in the dark stretches between the lamplights.

On the bench by his side sat an elderly gentleman with a drooping air of defiance that was probably the

remaining vestige of selfrespect in an individual who had ceased to defy successfully anybody or anything.

His clothes could scarcely be called shabby, at least they passed muster in the halflight, but one's

imagination could not have pictured the wearer embarking on the purchase of a halfcrown box of chocolates

or laying out ninepence on a carnation buttonhole. He belonged unmistakably to that forlorn orchestra to

whose piping no one dances; he was one of the world's lamenters who induce no responsive weeping. As he

rose to go Gortsby imagined him returning to a home circle where he was snubbed and of no account, or to

some bleak lodging where his ability to pay a weekly bill was the beginning and end of the interest he

inspired. His retreating figure vanished slowly into the shadows, and his place on the bench was taken almost

immediately by a young man, fairly well dressed but scarcely more cheerful of mien than his predecessor. As

if to emphasise the fact that the world went badly with him the newcorner unburdened himself of an angry

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

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

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

"Came up this afternoon, meaning to stay at the Patagonian Hotel in Berkshire Square," continued the young

man; "when I got there I found it had been pulled down some weeks ago and a cinema theatre run up on the

site. The taxi driver recommended me to another hotel some way off and I went 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 I

hate using hotel soap. Then I strolled about a bit, had a drink at a bar and looked at the shops, and when I

came to turn my steps back to the hotel I suddenly realised that I didn't remember its name or even what

street it was in. There's a nice predicament for a fellow who hasn't any friends or connections in London! Of

course I can wire to my people for the address, but they won't have got my letter till tomorrow; meantime

I'm without any money, came out with about a shilling on me, which went in buying the soap and getting the

drink, and here I am, wandering about with twopence in my pocket and nowhere to go for the night."

There was an eloquent pause after the story had been told. "I suppose you think I've spun you rather an

impossible yarn," said the young man presently,with a suggestion of resentment in his voice.

"Not at all impossible," said Gortsby judicially; "I remember doing exactly the same thing once in a foreign

capital, and on that occasion there were two of us, which made it more remarkable. Luckily we remembered

that the hotel was on a sort of canal, and when we struck the canal we were able to find our way back to the

The youth brightened at the reminiscence. "In a foreign city I wouldn't mind so much," he said; "one could go

to one's Consul and get the requisite help from him. Here in one's own land one is far more derelict if one

gets into a fix. Unless I can find some decent chap to swallow my story and lend me some money I seem

likely to spend the night on the Embankment. I'm glad, anyhow, that you don't think the story outrageously

He threw a good deal of warmth into the last remark, as though perhaps to indicate his hope that Gortsby did

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

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

"To lose an hotel and a cake of soap on one afternoon suggests wilful carelessness," said Gortsby, but the

young man scarcely waited to hear the end of the remark. He flitted away down the path, his head held high,

"It was a pity," mused Gortsby; "the going out to get one's own soap was the one convincing touch in the

whole story, and yet it was just that little detail that brought him to grief. If he had had the brilliant

forethought to provide himself with a cake of soap, wrapped and sealed with all the solicitude of the chemist's

counter, he would have been a genius in his particular line. In his particular line genius certainly consists of

With that reflection Gortsby rose to go; as he did so an exclamation of concern escaped him. Lying on the

ground by the side of the bench was a small oval packet, wrapped and sealed with the solicitude of a

chemist's counter. It could be nothing else but a cake of soap, and it had evidently fallen out of the youth's

overcoat pocket when he flung himself down 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 of his pursuit standing irresolutely on the border of the carriage

drive, evidently uncertain whether to strike across the Park or make for the bustling pavements of

Knightsbridge. He turned round sharply with an air of 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 of your overcoat pocket when you sat down on the seat. I saw it on the ground

after you left. You must excuse my disbelief, but appearances were really rather against you, and now, as I

appealed to the testimony of the soap I think I ought to abide by its verdict. If the loan of a sovereign is any

"Here is my card with my address," continued Gortsby; "any day this week will do for returning the money,

"Lucky thing your finding it," said the youth, and then, with a catch in his voice, he blurted out a word or two

"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 been acute. It's a lesson to me not to be too clever in judging by circumstances."

As Gortsby retraced his steps past the seat where the little drama had taken place he saw an elderly gentleman

poking and peering beneath it and on all sides of it, and recognised his earlier fellow occupant.

"I HOPE you've come full of suggestions for Christmas," said Lady Blonze to her latest arrived guest; "the

oldfashioned Christmas and the uptodate Christmas are both so played out. I want to have something

"I was staying with the Mathesons last month," said Blanche Boveal eagerly, "and we had such a good idea.

Every one in the houseparty had to be a character and behave consistently all the time, and at the end of the

visit one had to guess what every one's character was. The one who was voted to have acted his or her

"I was St. Francis of Assisi," continued Blanche; "we hadn't got to keep to our right sexes. I kept getting up in

the middle of a meal, and throwing out food to the birds; you see, the chief thing that one remembers of St.

Francis is that he was fond of the birds. Every one was so stupid about it, and thought that I was the old man

who feeds the sparrows in the Tuileries Gardens. Then Colonel Pentley was the Jolly Miller on the banks of

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

"If you could imagine all that you might as well imagine cattle on the further bank and keep on calling them

home, Maryfashion, across the sands of Dee. Or you might change the river to the Yarrow and imagine it

was 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 it was 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 had carried out her character better than anyone.

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

Sir Nicholas was not so enthusiastic. "Are you quite sure, my dear, that you're wise in doing this thing?" he

said to his wife when they were alone together. "It might do very well at the Mathesons, where they had

rather a staid, elderly houseparty, but here it will be a different matter. There is the Durmot flapper, for

instance, who simply stops at nothing, and you know what Van Tahn is like. Then there is Cyril Skatterly; he

has madness on one side of his family and a Hungarian grandmother on the other."

"It's the unknown that is to be dreaded," said Sir Nicholas. "If Skatterly took it into his head to represent a

"Of course we shan't allow any Bible characters. Besides, I don't know what the Bulls of Bashan really did

that was so very dreadful; they just came round and gaped, as far as I remember."

"My dear, you don't know what Skatterly's Hungarian imagination mightn't read into the part; it would be

small satisfaction to say to him afterwards: 'You've behaved as no Bull of Bashan would have behaved.' "

"Oh, you're an alarmist," said Lady Blonze; I particularly want to have this idea carried out. It will be sure to

Dinner that evening was not a particularly lively affair; the strain of trying to impersonate a self imposed

character or to glean hints of identity from other people's conduct acted as a check on the natural festivity of

such a gathering. There was a general feeling of gratitude and acquiescence when goodnatured Rachel

Klammerstein suggested that there should be an hour or two's respite from "the game" while they all listened

to a little pianoplaying after dinner. Rachel's love of piano music was not indiscriminate, and concentrated

itself chiefly on selections rendered by her idolised offspring, Moritz and Augusta, who, to do them justice,

The Klammersteins were deservedly popular as Christmas guests; they gave expensive gifts lavishly on

Christmas Day and New Year, and Mrs. Klammerstein had already dropped hints of her intention to present

the prize for the best enacted character in the game competition. Every one had brightened at this prospect; if

it had fallen to Lady Blonze, as hostess, to provide the prize, she would have considered that a little souvenir

of some twenty or twentyfive shillings' value would meet the case, whereas coming from a Klammerstein

The close time for impersonation efforts came to an end with the final withdrawal of Moritz and Augusta

from the piano. Blanche Boveal retired early, leaving the room in a series of laboured leaps that she hoped

might be recognised as a tolerable imitation of Pavlova. Vera Durmot, the sixteenyearold flapper,

expressed her confident opinion that the performance was intended to typify Mark Twain's famous jumping

frog, and her diagnosis of the case found general acceptance. Another guest to set an example of early

bedgoing was Waldo Plubley, who conducted his life on a minutely regulated system of timetables and

hygienic routine. Waldo was a plump, indolent young man of sevenandtwenty, whose mother had early in

his life decided for him that he was unusually delicate, and by dint of much coddling and homekeeping had

succeeded in making him physically soft and mentally peevish. Nine hours' unbroken sleep, preceded by

elaborate breathing exercises and other hygienic ritual, was among the indispensable regulations which

Waldo imposed on himself, and there were innumerable small observances which he exacted from those who

were in any way obliged to minister to his requirements; a special teapot for the decoction of his early tea was

always solemnly handed over to the bedroom staff of any house in which he happened to be staying. No one

had ever quite mastered the mechanism of this precious vessel, but Bertie van Tahn was responsible for the

legend that its spout had to be kept facing north during the process of infusion.

On this particular night the irreducible nine hours were severely mutilated by the sudden and by no means

noiseless incursion of a pyjamaclad figure into Waldo's room at an hour midway between midnight and

"What is the matter? What are you looking for?" asked the awakened and astonished Waldo, slowly

recognising Van Tahn, who appeared to be searching hastily for something he had lost.

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

"I can't argue the matter at this hour of the night," said Bertie, and began hastily rummaging in the chest of

"I've only got your word for it," said Bertie, whisking most of the bedclothes on to the floor; "if you weren't

Waldo was by this time convinced that Van Tahn was raving mad, and made an anxious, effort to humour

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

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

And by way of emphasising his annoyance at the prospect he sent Waldo's pillows flying to the top of the

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

"My dear boy, have you never heard the ballad of Little BoPeep?" said Bertie with a chuckle. "It's my

character in the Game, you know. If I didn't go hunting about for my lost sheep no one would be able to guess

who I was; and now go to sleepy weeps like a good child or I shall be cross with you."

"I leave you to imagine," wrote Waldo in the course of a long letter to his mother, "how much sleep I was

able to recover that night, and you know how essential nine uninterrupted hours of slumber are to my health."

On the other hand he was able to devote some wakeful hours to exercises in breathing wrath and fury against

Breakfast at Blonzecourt was a scattered meal, on the "come when you please" principle, but the houseparty

was supposed to gather in full strength at lunch. On the day after the "Game" had been started there were,

however, some notable absentees. Waldo Plubley, for instance, was reported to be nursing a headache. A

large breakfast and an "A.B.C." had been 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't there a thing of Moliere's, 'LE

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

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

"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, addressing herself to Cyril Skatterly.

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

"I saw you and Vera come back," said Lady Blonze, "but I didn't see the Klammersteins. Did you put them

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

"We didn't stop to consider that," said Skatterly; "we asked them to get out for a moment, on the pretence that

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

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

"It's something to do with Spanish history; we don't mind giving you that clue," said Skatterly, helping

himself cheerfully to salad, and then Bertie 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;

Lady Blonze's Christmas party was talked about and written about to an extent that she had not anticipated in

her most ambitious moments. The letters from Waldo's mother would alone have made it memorable.

BASSET HARROWCLUFF returned to the home of his fathers, after an absence of four years, distinctly

well pleased with himself. He was only thirtyone, but he had put in some useful service in an

outoftheway, though not unimportant, corner of the world. He had quieted a province, kept open a trade

route, enforced the tradition of respect which is worth the ransom of many kings in outoftheway regions,

and done the whole business on rather less expenditure than would be requisite for organising a charity in the

home country. In Whitehall and places where they think, they doubtless thought well of him. It was not

inconceivable, his father allowed himself to imagine, that Basset's name might figure in the next list of

Basset was inclined to be rather contemptuous of his halfbrother, Lucas, whom he found feverishly

engrossed in the same medley of elaborate futilities that had claimed his whole time and energies, such as

they were, four years ago, and almost as far back before that as he could remember. It was the contempt of

the man of action for the man of activities, and it was probably reciprocated. Lucas was an overwell

nourished individual, some nine years Basset's senior, with a colouring that would have been accepted as a

sign of intensive culture in an asparagus, but probably meant in this case mere abstention from exercise. His

hair and forehead furnished a recessional note in a personality that was in all other respects obtrusive and

assertive. There was certainly no Semitic blood in Lucas's parentage, but his appearance contrived to convey

at least a suggestion of Jewish extraction. Clovis Sangrail, who knew most of his associates by sight, said it

Two days after Basset's return, Lucas frisked in to lunch in a state of twittering excitement that could not be

restrained even for the immediate consideration of soup, but had to be verbally discharged in spluttering

"I've got hold of an idea for something immense," he babbled, "something that 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 halfbrother was in the habit of discovering futilities that were "simply It" at frequently

recurring intervals. The discovery generally meant that he flew up to town, preceded by glowingly worded

telegrams, to see some one connected with the stage or the publishing world, got together one or two

momentous luncheon parties, flitted in and out of "Gambrinus" for one or two evenings, and returned home

with an air of subdued importance and the asparagus tint slightly intensified. The great idea was generally

"The inspiration came to me whilst I was dressing," announced Lucas; "it will be THE thing in the next

music hall REVUE. All London will go mad over it. It's just a couplet; of course there will be other words,

A lifting, catchy sort of refrain, you see, and big drum business on the two syllables of borzoi. It's

immense. And I've thought out all the business of it; the singer will sing the first verse alone, then during the

second verse Cousin Teresa will walk through, followed by four wooden dogs on wheels; Caesar will be an

Irish terrier, Fido a black poodle, Jock a foxterrier, and the borzoi, of course, will be a borzoi. During the

third verse Cousin Teresa will come on alone, and the dogs will be drawn across by themselves from the

opposite wing; then Cousin Teresa will catch on to the singer and go offstage in one direction, while the

dogs' procession goes off in the other, crossing en route, which is always very effective. There'll be a lot of

applause there, and for the fourth verse Cousin Teresa will come on in sables and the dogs will all have coats

on. Then I've got a great idea for the fifth verse; each of the dogs will be led on by a Nut, and Cousin Teresa

will come on from the opposite side, crossing en route, always effective, and then she turns round and leads

the whole lot of them off on a string, and all the time every one singing like mad:

TumTum! Drum business on the two last syllables. I'm so excited, I shan't sleep a wink tonight. I'm off

If any of the rest of the family felt any excitement over the creation of Cousin Teresa, they were signally

"Poor Lucas does take his silly little ideas seriously," said Colonel Harrowcluff afterwards in the

"Yes," said his younger son, in a slightly less tolerant tone, "in a day or two he'll come back and tell us that

his sensational masterpiece is above the heads of the public, and in about three weeks' time he'll be wild with

enthusiasm over a scheme to dramatise the poems of Herrick or something equally promising."

And then an extraordinary thing befell. In defiance of all precedent Lucas's glowing anticipations were

justified and endorsed by the course of events. If Cousin Teresa was above the heads of the public, the public

heroically adapted itself to her altitude. Introduced as an experiment at a dull moment in a new REVUE, the

success of the item was unmistakable; the calls were so insistent and uproarious that even Lucas' ample

devisings of additional "business" scarcely sufficed to keep pace with the demand. Packed houses on

successive evenings confirmed the verdict of the first night audience, stalls and boxes filled significantly just

before the turn came on, and emptied significantly after the last ENCORE had been given. The manager

tearfully acknowledged that Cousin Teresa was It. Stage hands and supers and programme sellers

acknowledged it to one another without the least reservation. The name of the REVUE dwindled to secondary

importance, and vast letters of electric blue blazoned the words "Cousin Teresa" from the front of the great

palace of pleasure. And, of course, the magic of the famous refrain laid its spell all over the Metropolis.

Restaurant proprietors were obliged to provide the members of their orchestras with painted wooden dogs on

wheels, in order that the muchdemanded and always conceded melody should be rendered with the

necessary spectacular effects, and the crash of bottles and forks on the tables at the mention of the big borzoi

usually drowned the sincerest efforts of drum or cymbals. Nowhere and at no time could one get away from

the double thump that brought up the rear of the refrain; revellers reeling home at night banged it on doors

and hoardings, milkmen clashed their cans to its cadence, messenger boys hit smaller messenger boys

resounding double smacks on the same principle. And the more thoughtful circles of the great city were not

deaf to the claims and significance of the popular melody. An enterprising and emancipated preacher

discoursed from his pulpit on the inner meaning of "Cousin Teresa," and Lucas Harrowcluff was invited to

lecture on the subject of his great achievement to members of the Young Mens' Endeavour League, the Nine

Arts Club, and other learned and willingtolearn bodies. In Society it seemed to be the one thing people

really cared to talk about; men and women of middle age and average education might be seen together in

corners earnestly discussing, not the question whether Servia should have an outlet on the Adriatic, or the

possibilities of a British success in international polo contests, but the more absorbing topic of the

"Politics and patriotism are so boring and so out of date," said a revered lady who had some pretensions to

oracular utterance; "we are too cosmopolitan nowadays to be really moved by them. That is why one

welcomes an intelligible production like 'Cousin Teresa,' that has a genuine 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 been to see

it eighteen times and I'm going again tomorrow and on Thursday. One can't see it often enough."

"It would be rather a popular move if we gave this Harrowcluff person a knighthood or something of the

"Which? There is only one, isn't there?" said the Minister; "the 'Cousin Teresa' man, of course. I think every

one would be pleased if we knighted him. Yes, you can put him down on the list of certainties under the

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

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

And thus, after a fashion, Colonel Harrowcluff's expectation of seeing his son's name in the list of Honours

SIR LULWORTH QUAYNE was making a leisurely progress through the Zoological Society's Gardens in

company with his nephew, recently returned from Mexico. The latter was interested in comparing and

contrasting allied types of animals occurring in the North American and Old World fauna.

"One of the most remarkable things in the wanderings of species," he observed, "is the sudden impulse to trek

and migrate that breaks out now and again, for no apparent reason, in communities of hitherto stayathome

"In human affairs the same phenomenon is occasionally noticeable," said Sir Lulworth; "perhaps the most

striking instance of it occurred in this country while you were away in the wilds of Mexico. I mean the

wander fever which suddenly displayed itself in the managing and editorial staffs of certain London

newspapers. It began with the stampede of the entire staff of one of our most brilliant and enterprising

weeklies to the banks of the Seine and the heights of Montmartre. The migration was a brief one, but it

heralded an era of restlessness in the Press world which lent quite a new meaning to the phrase 'newspaper

circulation.' Other editorial staffs were not slow to imitate the example that had been set them. Paris soon

dropped out of fashion as being too near home; Nurnberg, Seville, and Salonica became more favoured as

planting out grounds for the personnel of not only weekly but daily papers as well. The localities were

perhaps not always well chosen; the fact of a leading organ of Evangelical thought being edited for two

successive fortnights from Trouville and Monte Carlo was generally admitted to have been a mistake. And

even when enterprising and adventurous editors took themselves and their staffs further afield there were

some unavoidable clashings. For instance, the SCRUTATOR, SPORTING BLUFF, and THE DAMSELS'

OWN PAPER all pitched on Khartoum for the same week. It was, perhaps, a desire to outdistance all

possible competition that influenced the management of the DAILY INTELLIGENCER, one of the most

solid and respected organs of Liberal opinion, in its decision to transfer its offices for three or four weeks

from Fleet Street to Eastern Turkestan, allowing, of course, a necessary margin of time for the journey there

and back. This was, in many respects, the most remarkable of all the Press stampedes that were experienced

at this time. There was no makebelieve about the undertaking; proprietor, manager, editor, subeditors,

leaderwriters, principal reporters, and so forth, all took part in what was popularly alluded to as the DRANG

NACH OSTEN; an intelligent and efficient officeboy was all that was left in the deserted hive of editorial

"Well, you see," said Sir Lulworth, "the migration idea was falling somewhat into disrepute from the half

hearted manner in which it was occasionally carried out. You were not impressed by the information that

such and such a paper was being edited and brought out at Lisbon or Innsbruck if you chanced to see the

principal leader writer or the art editor lunching as usual at their accustomed restaurants. The DAILY

INTELLIGENCER was determined to give no loophole for cavil at the genuineness of its pilgrimage, and it

must be admitted that to a certain extent the arrangements made for transmitting copy and carrying on the

usual features of the paper during the long outward journey worked smoothly and well. The series of articles

which commenced at Baku on 'What Cobdenism might do for the camel industry' ranks among the best of the

recent contributions to Free Trade literature, while the views on foreign policy enunciated 'from a roof in

Yarkand' showed at least as much grasp of the international situation as those that had germinated within half

a mile of Downing Street. Quite in keeping, too, with the older and better traditions of British journalism was

the manner of the homecoming; no bombast, no personal advertisement, no flamboyant interviews. Even a

complimentary luncheon at the Voyagers' Club was courteously declined. Indeed, it began to be felt that the

selfeffacement of the returned pressmen was being carried to a pedantic length. Foreman compositors,

advertisement clerks, and other members of the non editorial staff, who had, of course, taken no part in the

great trek, found it as impossible to get into direct communication with the editor and his satellites now that

they had returned as when they had been excusably inaccessible in Central Asia. The sulky, overworked

officeboy, who was the one connecting link between the editorial brain and the business departments of the

paper, sardonically explained the new aloofness as the 'Yarkand manner.' Most of the reporters and

subeditors seemed to have been dismissed in autocratic fashion since their return and new ones engaged by

letter; to these the editor and his immediate associates remained an unseen presence, issuing its instructions

solely through the medium of curt typewritten notes. Something mystic and Tibetan and forbidden had

replaced the human bustle and democratic simplicity of premigration days, and the same experience was

encountered by those who made social overtures to the returned wanderers. The most brilliant hostess of

Twentieth Century London flung the pearl of her hospitality into the unresponsive trough of the editorial

letterbox; it seemed as if nothing short of a Royal command would drag the hermitsouled REVENANTS

from their selfimposed seclusion. People began to talk unkindly of the effect of high altitudes and Eastern

atmosphere on minds and temperaments unused to such luxuries. The Yarkand manner was not popular."

"And the contents of the paper," said the nephew, "did they show the influence 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 was noticeable. A certain Oriental carelessness seemed to have crept into

the editorial department, and perhaps a note of lassitude not unnatural in the work of men who had returned

from what had been a fairly arduous journey. The aforetime standard of excellence was scarcely maintained,

but at any rate the general lines of policy and outlook were not departed from. It was in the realm of foreign

affairs that a startling change took place. Blunt, forcible, outspoken articles appeared, couched in language

which nearly turned the autumn manoeuvres of six important Powers into mobilisations. Whatever else the

DAILY INTELLIGENCER had learned 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 had never bought it before; the men in

Downing Street took a different view. The Foreign Secretary, hitherto accounted a rather reticent man,

became positively garrulous in the course of perpetually disavowing the sentiments expressed in the DAILY

INTELLIGENCER'S leaders; and then one day the Government came to the conclusion that something

definite and drastic must be done. A deputation, consisting of the Prime Minister, the Foreign Secretary, four

leading financiers, and a wellknown Nonconformist divine, made its way to the offices of the paper. At the

door leading to the editorial department the way was barred by a nervous but defiant officeboy.

" 'We insist on seeing the editor or some responsible person,' said the Prime Minister, and the deputation

forced its way in. The boy had spoken truly; there was no one to be seen. In the whole suite of rooms there

" 'Where is the editor?' 'Or the foreign editor?' 'Or the chief leaderwriter? Or anybody?'

"In answer to the shower of questions the boy unlocked a drawer and produced a strangelooking envelope,

which bore a Khokand postmark, and a date of some seven or eight months back. It contained a scrap of

" 'Entire party captured by brigand tribe on homeward journey. Quarter of million demanded as ransom, but

"There followed the signatures of the principal members of the party and instructions as to how and where the

"The letter had been directed to the officeboyin charge, who had quietly suppressed it. No one is a hero to

one's own officeboy, and he evidently considered that a quarter of a million was an unwarrantable outlay for

such a doubtfully advantageous object as the repatriation of an errant newspaper staff. So he drew the

editorial and other salaries, forged what signatures were necessary, engaged new reporters, did what

subediting he could, and made as much use as possible of the large accumulation of special articles that was

held in reserve for emergencies. The articles on foreign affairs were entirely his own composition.

"Of course the whole thing had to be kept as quiet as possible; an interim staff, pledged to secrecy, was

appointed to keep the paper going till the pining captives could be sought out, ransomed, and brought home,

in twos and threes to escape notice, and gradually things were put back on their old footing. The articles on

"But," interposed the nephew, "how on earth did the boy account to the relatives all those months for the

"That," said Sir Lulworth, "was the most brilliant stroke of all. To the wife or nearest relative of each of the

missing men he forwarded a letter, copying the handwriting of the supposed writer as well as he could, and

making excuses about vile pens and ink; in each letter he told the 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 wild liberty and

allurements of Eastern life, and was going to spend several months roaming in some selected region. Many of

the wives started off immediately in pursuit of their errant husbands, and it took the Government a

considerable time and much trouble to reclaim them from their fruitless quests along the banks of the Oxus,

the Gobi Desert, the Orenburg steppe, and other outlandish places. One of them, I believe, is still lost

SOPHIE CHATTELMONKHEIM was a Socialist by conviction and a ChattelMonkheim by marriage. The

particular member of that wealthy family whom she had married was rich, even as his relatives counted

riches. Sophie had very advanced and decided views as to the distribution of money: it was a pleasing and

fortunate circumstance that she also had the money. When she inveighed eloquently against the evils of

capitalism at drawingroom meetings and Fabian conferences she was conscious of a comfortable feeling

that the system, with all its inequalities and iniquities, would probably last her time. It is one of the

consolations of middleaged reformers that the good they inculcate must live after them if it is to live at all.

On a certain spring evening, somewhere towards the dinnerhour, Sophie sat tranquilly between her mirror

and her maid, undergoing the process of having her hair built into an elaborate reflection of the prevailing

fashion. She was hedged round with a great peace, the peace of one who has attained a desired end with much

effort and perseverance, and who has found it still eminently desirable in its attainment. The Duke of Syria

had consented to come beneath her roof as a guest, was even now installed beneath her roof, and would

shortly be sitting at her diningtable. As a good Socialist, Sophie disapproved of social distinctions, and

derided the idea of a princely caste, but if there were to be these artificial gradations of rank and dignity she

was pleased and anxious to have an exalted specimen of an exalted order included in her houseparty. She

was broadminded enough to love the sinner while hating the sin not that she entertained any warm feeling

of personal affection for the Duke of Syria, who was a comparative stranger, but still, as Duke of Syria, he

was very, very welcome beneath her roof. She could not have explained why, but no one was likely to ask her

"You must surpass yourself tonight, Richardson," she said complacently to her maid; "I must be looking my

The maid said nothing, but from the concentrated look in her eyes and the deft play of her fingers it was

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

Richardson held a hurried conference with an invisible messenger at the door; when she returned there was

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

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

"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 Lord Grimford's two years ago. As soon as the household staff here learned that

you had engaged him they resolved to `down tools' as a protest. They haven't got any grievance against you

"But," protested Sophie, "he is the only man in England who understands how to make a Byzantine omelette.

I engaged him specially for the Duke of Syria's visit, and it would be impossible to replace him at short

notice. I should have to send to Paris, and the Duke loves Byzantine omelettes. It was the one thing we talked

"This is too awful," said Sophie; "a strike of servants at a moment like this, with the Duke of Syria staying in

the house. Something must be done immediately. Quick, finish my hair and I'll go and see what I can do to

"I can't finish your hair, madame," said Richardson quietly, but with immense decision. "I belong to the union

and I can't do another halfminute's work till the strike is settled. I'm sorry to be disobliging."

"But this is inhuman!" exclaimed Sophie tragically; "I've always been a model mistress and I've refused to

employ any but union servants, and this is the result. I can't finish my hair myself; I don't know how to. What

"Wicked is the word," said Richardson; "I'm a good Conservative and I've no patience with this Socialist

foolery, asking your pardon. It's tyranny, that's what it is, all along the line, but I've my living to make, same

as other people, and I've got to belong to the union. I couldn't touch another hairpin without a strike permit,

"Here's a nice affair," she screamed, "a strike of household servants without a moment's warning, and I'm left

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

"Dinner!" snorted Catherine, "what on earth is the good of dinner when none of us will be able to appear at

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

"Henry? He's in worse case than any of us. His man is the only person who really understands that ridiculous

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

"My good woman," said Catherine, speaking with a fearful intensity, "Henry was in the bath when the strike

"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 this time I'm

"I simply can't send away Gaspare," wailed Sophie; "I should never be able to secure another omelette

"Any difficulty that I may experience in securing another husband is of course a trifle beneath anyone's

Sophie capitulated. "Go," she said to Richardson, "and tell the Strike Committee, or whoever are directing

this affair, that Gaspare is herewith dismissed. And ask Gaspare to see me presently in the library, when I will

pay him what is due to him and make what excuses I can; and then fly back and finish my hair."

Some half an hour later Sophie marshalled her guests in the Grand Salon preparatory to the formal march to

the diningroom. Except that Henry Malsom was of the ripe raspberry tint that one sometimes sees at private

theatricals representing the human complexion, there was little outward sign among those assembled of the

crisis that had just been encountered and surmounted. But the tension had been too stupefying while it lasted

not to leave some mental effects behind it. Sophie talked at random to her illustrious guest, and found her

eyes straying with increasing frequency towards the great doors through which would presently come the

blessed announcement that dinner was served. Now and again she glanced mirrorward at the reflection of

her wonderfully coiffed hair, as an insurance underwriter might gaze thankfully at an overdue vessel that had

ridden safely into harbour in the wake of a devastating hurricane. Then the doors opened and the welcome

figure of the butler entered the room. But he made no general announcement of a banquet in readiness, and

"There is no dinner, madame," he said gravely; "the kitchen staff have 'downed tools.' Gaspare belongs to the

Union of Cooks and Kitchen Employees, and as soon as they heard of his summary dismissal at a moment's

notice they struck work. They demand his instant reinstatement and 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 on the

After the lapse of eighteen months Sophie Chattel Monkheim is beginning to go about again among her old

haunts and associates, but she still has to be very careful. The doctors will not let her attend anything at all

exciting, such as a drawingroom meeting or a Fabian conference; it is doubtful, indeed, whether she wants

"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, not to speak of birthdays, there are quite enough remembrance days as it

is. I tried to save myself trouble at Christmas by just sending flowers to all my friends, but it wouldn't work;

Gertrude has eleven hothouses and about thirty gardeners, so it would have been ridiculous to send flowers

to her, and Milly has just started a florist's shop, so it was equally out of the question there. The stress of

having to decide in a hurry what to give to Gertrude and Milly just when I thought I'd got the whole question

nicely off my mind completely ruined my Christmas, and then the awful monotony of the letters of thanks:

'Thank you so much for your lovely flowers. It was so good of you to think of me.' Of course in the majority

of cases I hadn't thought about the recipients at all; their names were down in my list of 'people who must not

be left out.' If I trusted to remembering them there would be some awful sins of omission."

"The trouble is," said Clovis to his aunt, "all these days of intrusive remembrance harp so persistently on one

aspect of human nature and entirely ignore the other; that is why they become so perfunctory and artificial. At

Christmas and New Year you are emboldened and encouraged by convention to send gushing messages of

optimistic goodwill and servile affection to people whom you would scarcely ask to lunch unless some one

else had failed you at the last moment; if you are supping at a restaurant on New Year's Eve you are

permitted and expected to join hands and sing 'For Auld Lang Syne' with strangers whom you have never

seen before and never want to see again. But no licence is allowed in the opposite direction."

"There is no outlet for demonstrating your feelings towards people whom you simply loathe. That is really

the crying need of our modern civilisation. Just think how jolly it would be if a recognised day were set apart

for the paying off of old scores and grudges, a day when one could lay oneself out to be gracefully vindictive

to a carefully treasured list of 'people who must not be let off.' I remember when I was at a private school we

had one day, the last Monday of the term I think it was, consecrated to the settlement of feuds and grudges; of

course we did not appreciate it as much as it deserved, because, after all, any day of the term could be used

for that purpose. Still, if one had chastised a smaller boy for being cheeky weeks before, one was always

permitted on that day to recall the episode to his memory by chastising him again. That is what the French

"I should call it reconstructing the punishment," said Mrs. Thackenbury; "and, anyhow, I don't see how you

could introduce a system of primitive schoolboy vengeance into civilised adult life. We haven't outgrown our

passions, but we are supposed to have learned how to keep them within strictly decorous limits."

"Of course the thing would have to be done furtively and politely," said Clovis; "the charm of it would be that

it would never be perfunctory like the other thing. Now, for instance, you say to yourself: 'I must show the

Webleys some attention at Christmas, they were kind to dear Bertie at Bournemouth,' and you send them a

calendar, and daily for six days after Christmas the male Webley asks the female Webley if she has

remembered to thank you for the calendar you sent them. Well, transplant that idea to the other and more

human side of your nature, and say to yourself: 'Next Thursday is Nemesis Day; what on earth can I do to

those odious people next door who made such an absurd fuss when Ping Yang bit their youngest child?' Then

you'd get up awfully early on the allotted day and climb over into their garden and dig for truffles on their

tennis court with a good gardening fork, choosing, of course, that part of the court that was screened from

observation by the laurel bushes. You wouldn't find any truffles but you would find a great peace, such as no

"I shouldn't," said Mrs. Thackenbury, though her air of protest sounded a bit forced; "I should feel rather a

"You exaggerate the power of upheaval which a worm would be able to bring into play in the limited time

available," said Clovis; "if you put in a strenuous ten minutes with a really useful fork, the result ought to

"Of course they would," said Clovis; "that would be half the satisfaction of the thing, just as you like people

at Christmas to know what presents or cards you've sent them. The thing would be much easier to manage, of

course, when you were on outwardly friendly terms with the object of your dislike. That greedy little Agnes

Blaik, for instance, who thinks of nothing but her food, it would be quite simple to ask her to a picnic in some

wild woodland spot and lose her just before lunch was served; when you found her again every morsel of

"It would require no ordinary human strategy to lose Agnes Blaik when luncheon was imminent: in fact, I

"Then have all the other guests, people whom you dislike, and lose the luncheon. It could have been sent by

"For them, but not for you," said Clovis; "you would have had an early and comforting lunch before you

started, and you could improve the occasion by mentioning in detail the items of the missing banquet the

lobster Newburg and the egg mayonnaise, and the curry that was to have been heated in a chafingdish.

Agnes Blaik would be delirious long before 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 could induce them to play silly games,

such as that idiotic one of 'the Lord Mayor's dinnerparty,' in which every one has to choose the name of a

dish and do something futile when it is called out. In this case they would probably burst into tears when their

Mrs. Thackenbury was silent for a moment; she was probably making a mental list of the people she would

like to invite to the Duke Humphrey picnic. Presently she asked: "And that odious young man, Waldo

Plubley, who is always coddling himself have you thought of anything that one could do to him?"

"If there was anything like a general observance of the festival," said Clovis, "Waldo would be in such

demand that you would have to bespeak him weeks beforehand, and even then, if there were an east wind

blowing or a cloud or two in the sky he might be too careful of his precious self to come out. It would be

rather jolly if you could lure him into a hammock in the orchard, just near the spot where there is a wasps'

nest every summer. A comfortable hammock on a warm afternoon would appeal to his indolent tastes, and

then, when he was getting drowsy, a lighted fusee thrown into the nest would bring the wasps out in an

indignant mass, and they would soon find a 'home away from home' on Waldo's fat body. It takes some doing

"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 have some wet straw ready to hand, and set it alight under the hammock

at the same time that the fusee was thrown into the nest; the smoke would keep all but the most militant of the

wasps just outside the stinging line, and as long as Waldo remained within its protection he would escape

serious damage, and could be eventually restored to his mother, kippered all over and swollen in places, but

IT was the season of sales. The august establishment of Walpurgis and Nettlepink had lowered its prices for

an entire week as a concession to trade observances, much as an Archduchess might protestingly contract an

attack of influenza for the unsatisfactory reason that influenza was locally prevalent. Adela Chemping, who

considered herself in some measure superior to the allurements of an ordinary bargain sale, made a point of

Which showed that beneath her surface strength of character there flowed a gracious undercurrent of human

With a view to providing herself with a male escort Mrs. Chemping had invited her youngest nephew to

accompany her on the first day of the shopping expedition, throwing in the additional allurement of a

cinematograph theatre and the prospect of light refreshment. As Cyprian was not yet eighteen she hoped he

might not have reached that stage in masculine development when parcelcarrying is looked on as a thing

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

Cyprian was a boy who carried with him through early life the wondering look of a dreamer, the eyes of one

who sees things that are not visible to ordinary mortals, and invests the commonplace things of this world

with qualities unsuspected by plainer folk the eyes of a poet or a house agent. He was quietly dressed that

sartorial quietude which frequently accompanies early adolescence, and is usually attributed by novelwriters

to the influence of a widowed mother. His hair was brushed back in a smoothness as of ribbon seaweed and

seamed with a narrow furrow that scarcely aimed at being a parting. His aunt particularly noted this item of

his toilet when they met at the appointed rendezvous, because he was standing waiting for her bareheaded.

"You are not going to be what they call a Nut, are you?" she inquired with some anxiety, partly with the idea

that a Nut would be an extravagance which her sister's small household would scarcely be justified in

incurring, partly, perhaps, with the instinctive apprehension that a Nut, even in its embryo stage, would refuse

"I didn't bring a hat," he said, "because it is such a nuisance when one is shopping; I mean it is so awkward if

one meets anyone one knows and has to take one's hat off when one's hands are full of parcels. If one hasn't

"It is more orthodox to wear a hat," she observed, and then turned her attention briskly to the business in

"We will go first to the tablelinen counter," she said, leading the way in that direction; "I should like to look

The wondering look deepened in Cyprian's eyes as he followed his aunt; he belonged to a generation that is

supposed to be overfond of the role of mere spectator, but looking at napkins that one did not mean to buy

was a pleasure beyond his comprehension. Mrs. Chemping held one or two napkins up to the light and stared

fixedly at them, as though she half expected to find some revolutionary cypher written on them in scarcely

visible ink; then she suddenly broke away in the direction of the glassware department.

"Millicent asked me to get her a couple of decanters if there were any going really cheap," she explained on

the way, "and I really do want a salad bowl. I can come back to the napkins later on."

She handled and scrutinised a large number of decanters and a long series of salad bowls, and finally bought

"No one uses that kind of vase nowadays," she informed Cyprian, "but they will do for presents next

Two sunshades that were marked down to a price that Mrs. Chemping considered absurdly cheap were added

"One of them will do for Ruth Colson; she is going out to the Malay States, and a sunshade will always be

useful there. And I must get her some thin writing paper. It takes up no room in one's baggage."

Mrs. Chemping bought stacks of writing paper; it was so cheap, and it went so flat in a trunk or portmanteau.

She also bought a few envelopes envelopes somehow seemed rather an extragavance compared with

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

Cyprian behaved in an exemplary fashion in the refreshment department, and cheerfully accepted a fish cake

and a mince pie and a small cup of coffee as adequate restoratives after two hours of concentrated shopping.

He was adamant, however, in resisting his aunt's suggestion that a hat should be bought for him at the counter

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

Perhaps he was going to develop into a Nut after all. It was a disquieting symptom that he left all the parcels

"We shall be getting more parcels presently," he said, "so we need not collect these till we have finished our

His aunt was doubtfully appeased; some of the pleasure and excitement of a shopping expedition seemed to

evaporate when one was deprived of immediate personal contact with one's purchases.

"I'm going to look at those napkins again," she said, as they descended the stairs to the ground floor. "You

need not come," she added, as the dreaming look in the boy's eyes changed for a moment into one of mute

protest, "you can meet me afterwards in the cutlery department; I've just remembered that I haven't a

Cyprian was not to be found in the cutlery department when his aunt in due course arrived there, but in the

crush and bustle of anxious shoppers and busy attendants it was an easy matter to miss anyone. It was in the

leather goods department some quarter of an hour later that Adela Chemping caught sight of her nephew,

separated from her by a rampart of suitcases and portmanteaux and hemmed in by the jostling crush of

human beings that now invaded every corner of the great shopping emporium. She was just in time to witness

a pardonable but rather embarrassing mistake on the part of a lady who had wriggled her way with unstayable

determination towards the bareheaded Cyprian, and was now breathlessly demanding the sale price of a

"There now," exclaimed Adela to herself, "she takes him for one of the shop assistants because he hasn't got a

Perhaps it had. Cyprian, at any rate, seemed neither startled nor embarrassed by the error into which the good

lady had fallen. Examining the ticket on the bag, he announced in a clear, dispassionate voice:

"Black seal, thirtyfour shillings, marked down to twentyeight. As a matter of fact, we are clearing them out

at a special reduction price of twentysix shillings. They are going off rather fast."

"Will you take it as it is?" asked Cyprian; "it will be a matter of a few minutes to get it wrapped up, there is

"Never mind, I'll take it as it is," said the purchaser, clutching her treasure and counting the money into

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

When she next came across Cyprian he was standing in the crowd that pushed and jostled around the counters

of the book department. The dream look was deeper than ever in his eyes. He had just sold two books of

"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. She owes about fifteen weeks of it, and says she doesn't know where any of it

"Betsy Mullen always is in difficulties with her rent, and the more people 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 will have to go into a

smaller and cheaper cottage; there are several to be had 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 to move."

"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 suppose there's another quince tree in the whole parish. And she never makes any quince

jam; I think to have a quince tree and not to make quince jam shows such strength of character. Oh, she can't

"When one is sixteen," said Mrs. Bebberly Cumble severely, "one talks of things being impossible which are

merely uncongenial. It is not only possible but it is desirable that Betsy Mullen should move into smaller

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

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

"I'm not talking about anything that belongs to Betsy herself," said Vera darkly; "but, of course, you don't

"You must tell me at once," exclaimed the aunt, her senses leaping into alertness like those of a terrier

suddenly exchanging a bored drowsiness for 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 should be the last person to suggest that you should do anything that you ought not to do to " began Mrs.

"And I am always swayed by the last person who speaks to me," admitted Vera, "so I'll do what I ought not to

Mrs. Bebberley Cumble thrust a very pardonable sense of exasperation into the background of her mind and

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

"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 no end of trouble and mystery and newspaper speculation about it. It's rather amusing

to think of the columns of conjecture in the Press and the police and detectives hunting about everywhere at

home and abroad, and all the while that innocentlooking 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

"Oh no, not that," said Vera, "but something quite as important and just as mysterious if anything, rather

"Of course Betsy hasn't an idea as to what they are," said Vera; "she just knows that they are something

valuable and that she must keep quiet about them. I found out quite by accident what they were and how they

came 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 who was motoring through the village was struck by the snug loneliness of

the cottage and thought it would be just the thing. Mrs. Lamper arranged the matter with Betsy and smuggled

"I am quite aware that she takes soup and flannel and improving literature to the poorer cottagers," said Mrs.

Bebberly Cumble, "but that is hardly the same sort of thing as disposing of stolen goods, and she must have

known something about their history; anyone who reads the papers, even casually, must have been aware of

the theft, and I should think the things were not hard to recognise. Mrs. Lamper has always had the reputation

"Of course she was screening some one else," said Vera. "A remarkable feature of the affair is the

extraordinary number of quite respectable people who have involved themselves in its meshes by trying to

shield others. You would be really astonished if you knew some of the names of the individuals mixed up in

it, and I don't suppose a tithe of them know who the original culprits were; and now I've got you entangled in

"You most certainly have not entangled me," said Mrs. Bebberly Cumble indignantly. "I have no intention of

shielding anybody. The police must know about it at once; a theft is a theft, whoever is involved. If

respectable people choose to turn themselves into receivers and disposers of stolen goods, well, they've

"Oh, aunt," said Vera reproachfully, "it would break the poor Canon's heart if Cuthbert were to be involved in

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

"Of course I know you think a lot of him, and that he's engaged to marry Beatrice, and that it will be a

frightfully good match, and that he's your ideal of what a soninlaw ought to be. All the same, it was

Cuthbert's idea to stow the things away in the cottage, and it was his motor that brought them. He was only

doing it to help his friend Pegginson, you know the Quaker man, who is always agitating for a smaller

Navy. I forget how he got involved in it. I warned you that there 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 to leave the cottage;

the things take up a good bit of room, and she couldn't go carrying them about with her other goods and

chattels without attracting notice. Of course if she were to fall ill and die it would be equally 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

another dozen years at least. By that time perhaps some other arrangements will have been made for

"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 to her best girl friend, "and meanwhile

old Betsy is living rent free, with soup twice a week and my aunt's doctor to see her whenever she has a

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

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

"Oh, about the jewels? I invented that part," explained Vera; "I mean the mystery was where old Betsy's

arrears of rent were to come from; and she would have hated leaving that jolly quince tree."

"I don't specialise in it," said Clovis; "it's all right while you're doing it, but the aftereffects are sometimes so

disconcerting the mute reproachful looks of the people you've aided and abetted in matrimonial

experiments. It's as bad as selling a man a horse with half a dozen latent vices and watching him discover

them piecemeal in the course of the 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 I believe a certain amount of money adheres to her.

What I don't see is how you will ever manage to propose to her. In all the time I've known her I don't

remember her to have stopped talking for three consecutive minutes. You'll have to race her six times round

the grass paddock for a bet, and then blurt your proposal out before she's got her wind back. The paddock is

laid up for hay, but if you're really in love with her you won't let a consideration of that sort stop you,

"I think I could manage the proposing part right enough," said Hugo, "if I could count on being left alone

with her for four or five hours. The trouble 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 same quarter. He's quite heartbreakingly

rich and is rather a swell in his way; in fact, our hostess is obviously a bit flattered at having him here. If she

gets wind of the fact that he's inclined to be attracted by Betty Coulterneb she'll think it a splendid match and

throw them into each other's arms all day long, and then where will my opportunities come in? My one

anxiety is to keep him out of the girl's way as much as possible, and if you could help me "

"If you want me to trot Lanner round the countryside, inspecting alleged Roman 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 taken

"He trotted out some wellworn chestnut as the latest thing in good stories, and I remarked, quite innocently,

that I never could remember whether it was George II. or James II. who was so fond of that particular story,

and now he regards me with politely draped dislike. I'll do my best for you, if the opportunity arises, but it

"It's so nice having Mr. Lanner here," confided Mrs. Olston to Clovis the next 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.

Between you 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."

"For what he can GET?" said the hostess with a touch of indignation in her voice; "what do you mean? He's a

"He has one ruling passion," said Clovis, "and there's something he can get here that is not to be had for love

"Eggcollecting," said Clovis. "He has agents all over the world getting rare eggs for him, and his collection

is one of the finest in Europe; but his great ambition is to collect his treasures personally. He stops at no

"Good heavens! The buzzards, the roughlegged buzzards!" exclaimed Mrs. Olston; "you don't think he's

"What do you think yourself?" asked Clovis; "the only pair of roughlegged buzzards known to breed in this

country are nesting in your woods. Very few people know about them, but as a member of the league for

protecting rare birds that information would be at his disposal. I came down in the train with him, and I

noticed that a bulky volume of Dresser's 'Birds of Europe' was one of the requisites that he had packed in his

"This is appalling," said Mrs. Olston; "my husband would never forgive me if anything happened to those

birds. They've been seen about the woods for the last year or two, but this is the first time they've nested. As

you say, they are almost the only pair known to be breeding in the whole of Great Britain; and now their nest

is going to be harried by a guest staying under my roof. I must do something to stop it. Do you think if I

"There is a story going about, which I fancy is true in most of its details, of something that happened not long

ago somewhere on the coast of the Sea of Marmora, in which our friend had a hand. A Syrian nightjar, or

some such bird, was known to be breeding in the olive gardens of a rich Armenian, who for some reason or

other wouldn't allow Lanner to go in and take the eggs, though he offered cash down for the permission. The

Armenian was found beaten nearly to death a day or two later, and his fences levelled. It was assumed to be a

case of Mussulman aggression, and noted as such in all the Consular reports, but the eggs are in the Lanner

collection. No, I don't think I should appeal to his better feelings if I were you."

"I must do something," said Mrs. Olston tearfully; "my husband's parting words when he went off to Norway

were an injunction to see that those birds were not disturbed, and he's asked about them every time he's

"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 governess should be by his side in relays all day long. A fellow guest he could

get rid of, but he couldn't very well shake off members of the household, and even the most determined

collector would hardly go climbing after forbidden buzzards' eggs with a German governess hanging round

Lanner, who had been lazily watching for an opportunity for prosecuting his courtship of the Coulterneb girl,

found presently that his chances of getting her to himself for ten minutes even were non existent. If the girl

was ever alone he never was. His hostess had changed suddenly, as far as he was concerned, from the

desirable type that lets her guests do nothing in the way that best pleases them, to the sort that drags them

over the ground like so many harrows. She showed him the herb garden and the greenhouses, the village

church, some watercolour sketches that her sister had done in Corsica, and the place where it was hoped that

He was shown all the Aylesbury ducklings and the row of wooden hives where there would have been bees if

there had not been bee disease. He was also taken to the end of a long lane and shown a distant mound

whereon local tradition reported that the Danes had once pitched a camp. And when his hostess had to desert

him temporarily for other duties he would find Evelyn walking solemnly by his side. Evelyn was fourteen

and talked chiefly about good and evil, and of how much one might accomplish in the way of regenerating

the world if one was thoroughly determined to do one's utmost. It was generally rather a relief when she was

displaced by Jack, who was nine years old, and talked exclusively about the Balkan War without throwing

any fresh light on its political or military history. The German governess told Lanner more about Schiller

than he had ever heard in his life about any one person; it was perhaps his own fault for having told her that

he was not interested in Goethe. When the governess went off picket duty the hostess was again on hand with

a nottobegainsaid invitation to visit the cottage of an old woman who remembered Charles James Fox;

the woman had been dead for two or three years, but the cottage was still there. Lanner was called back to

Hugo did not bring off his affair with Betty Coulterneb. Whether she refused him or whether, as was more

generally supposed, he did not get a chance of saying three consecutive words, has never been exactly

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

"RONNIE is a great trial to me," said Mrs. Attray plaintively. "Only eighteen years old last February and

already a confirmed gambler. I am sure I don't know where he inherits it from; his father never touched cards,

and you know how little I play a game of bridge on Wednesday afternoons in the winter, for threepence a

hundred, and even that I shouldn't do if it wasn't that Edith always wants a fourth and would be certain to ask

that detestable Jenkinham woman if she couldn't get me. I would much rather sit and talk any day than play

bridge; cards are such a waste of time, I think. But as to Ronnie, bridge and baccarat and pokerpatience are

positively all that he thinks about. Of course I've done my best to stop it; I've asked the Norridrums not to let

him play cards when he's over there, but you might as well ask the Atlantic Ocean to keep quiet for a crossing

"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 done about the place; they were very accommodating about the new roof for the

orchid house. And they lend me one of their cars when mine is out of order; you know how often it gets out

"I don't know how often," said Eleanor, "but it must happen very frequently. Whenever I want you to take me

anywhere in your car I am always told that there is something wrong with it, or else that the chauffeur has got

"He suffers quite a lot from neuralgia," said Mrs. Attray hastily. "Anyhow," she continued, "you can

understand that I don't want to offend the 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 particular meal will appear on the table or what

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

"Still," pursued Mrs. Attray, "whatever their own home life may be, as landlords and neighbours they are

considerate and obliging, so I don't want to quarrel with them. Besides, if Ronnie didn't play cards there he'd

"Firm? I am firm," exclaimed Mrs. Attray; "I am more than firm I am farseeing. I've done everything I can

think of to prevent Ronnie from playing 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 the church offertory in his name instead of

giving him instalments of small silver to put in the bag on Sundays. I wouldn't even let him have the money

to tip the hunt servants with, but sent it by postal order. He was furiously sulky about it, but I reminded him

of what happened to the ten shillings that I gave him for the Young Men's Endeavour League 'SelfDenial

"Well, Ronnie did some preliminary endeavouring with it, on his own account, in connection with the Grand

National. If it had come off, as he expressed it, he would have given the League twentyfive shillings and

netted a comfortable commission for himself; as it was, that ten shillings was one of the things the League

had to deny itself. Since then 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 wristwatch and his

hunting flask and both his cigarette cases, and I shouldn't be surprised if he's wearing imitationgold sleeve

links instead of those his Aunt Rhoda gave him on his seventeenth birthday. He can't sell his clothes, of

course, except his winter overcoat, and I've locked that up in the camphor cupboard on the pretext of

preserving it from moth. I really don't see what else he can raise money on. I consider that I've been both firm

"He was there yesterday afternoon and stayed to dinner," said Mrs. Attray. "I don't quite know when he came

"Then depend on it he was gambling," said Eleanor, with the assured air of one who has few ideas and makes

"He can't gamble if he has no money and no chance of getting any," argued Mrs. Attray; "even if one plays

"He may have sold some of the Amherst pheasant chicks," suggested Eleanor; "they would fetch about ten or

"Ronnie wouldn't do such a thing," said Mrs. Attray; "and anyhow I went and counted them this morning and

they're all there. No," she continued, with the quiet satisfaction that comes from a sense of painstaking and

merited achievement, "I fancy that Ronnie had to content himself with the role of onlooker last night, as far

"Is that clock right?" asked Eleanor, whose eyes had been straying restlessly towards the mantelpiece for

"Three minutes past the halfhour," exclaimed Mrs. Attray; "cook must be preparing something unusually

sumptuous in your honour. I am not in the secret; I've been out all the morning, you know."

Eleanor smiled forgivingly. A special effort by Mrs. Attray's cook was worth waiting a few minutes for.

As a matter of fact, the luncheon fare, when it made its tardy appearance, was distinctly unworthy of the

reputation which the justlytreasured cook had built up for herself. The soup alone would have sufficed to

cast a gloom over any meal that it had inaugurated, and it was not redeemed by anything that followed.

Eleanor said little, but when she spoke there was a hint of tears in her voice that was far more eloquent than

outspoken denunciation would have been, and even the insouciant Ronald showed traces of depression when

"Not quite the best luncheon I've enjoyed in your house," said Eleanor at last, when her final hope had

"My dear, it's the worst meal I've sat down to for years," said her hostess; "that last dish tasted principally of

red pepper and wet toast. I'm awfully sorry. Is anything the matter in the kitchen, Pellin?" she asked of the

"Well, ma'am, the new cook hadn't hardly time to see to things properly, coming in so sudden " commenced

"What on earth do you mean? What is Colonel Norridrum's cook doing in my kitchen and where is my

"Perhaps I can explain better than Pellin can," said Ronald hurriedly; "the fact is, I was dining at the

Norridrums' yesterday, and they were wishing they had a swell cook like yours, just for today and

tomorrow, while they've got some gourmet staying with them: their own cook is no earthly good well,

you've seen what she turns out when she's at all flurried. So I thought it would be rather sporting to play them

at baccarat for the loan of our cook against a money stake, and I lost, that's all. I have had rotten luck at

The remainder of his explanation, of how he had assured the cooks that the temporary transfer had his

mother's sanction, and had smuggled the one out and the other in during the maternal absence, was drowned

"If I had sold the woman into slavery there couldn't have been a bigger fuss about it," he confided afterwards

to Bertie Norridrum, "and Eleanor Saxelby raged and ramped the louder of the two. I tell you what, I'll bet

you two of the Amherst pheasants to five shillings that she refuses to have me as a partner at the croquet

MARION EGGELBY sat talking to Clovis on the only subject that she ever willingly talked about her

offspring and their varied perfections and accomplishments. Clovis was not in what could be called a

receptive mood; the younger generation of Eggelby, depicted in the glowing improbable colours of parent

impressionism, aroused in him no enthusiasm. Mrs. Eggelby, on the other hand, was furnished with

"You would like Eric," she said, argumentatively rather than hopefully. Clovis had intimated very

unmistakably that he was unlikely to care extravagantly for either Amy or Willie. "Yes, I feel sure you would

like Eric. Every one takes to him at once. You know, he always reminds me of that famous picture of the

"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 was trying to concentrate one's mind on what one's partner's original

declaration had been, and to remember what suits one's opponents had originally discarded, what it would be

like to have some one persistently reminding one of a picture of the youthful David. It would be simply

"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. Eric is considered quite a wonderful draughtsplayer."

"You are strewing dreadful risks in the path of your family," said Clovis; "a friend of mine who is a prison

chaplain told me that among the worst criminal cases that have come under his notice, men condemned to

death or to long periods of penal servitude, there was not a single bridgeplayer. On the other hand, he knew

"I really don't see what my boys have got to do with the criminal classes," said Mrs. Eggelby resentfully.

"That shows that you were nervous as to how they would turn out," said Clovis. "Now, my mother never

bothered about bringing me up. She just saw to it that I got whacked at decent intervals and was taught the

difference between right and wrong; there is some difference, you know, but I've forgotten what it is."

"Well, you see, I took up natural history and a whole lot of other subjects at the same time, and one can't

remember everything, can one? I used to know the difference between the Sardinian dormouse and the

ordinary kind, and whether the wryneck arrives at our shores earlier than the cuckoo, or the other way

round, and how long the walrus takes in growing to maturity; I daresay you knew all those sorts of things

"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 things that one forgets, while the trivial, unnecessary facts of life stick in one's

memory. There's my cousin, Editha Clubberley, for instance; I can never forget that her birthday is on the

12th of October. It's a matter of utter indifference to me on what date her birthday falls, or whether she was

born at all; either fact seems to me absolutely trivial, or unnecessary I've heaps of other cousins to go on

with. On the other hand, when I'm staying with Hildegarde Shrubley I can never remember the important

circumstance whether her first husband got his unenviable reputation on the Turf or the Stock Exchange, and

that uncertainty rules Sport and Finance out of the conversation at once. One can never mention travel, either,

"Mrs. Shrubley and I move in very different circles," said Mrs. Eggelby stiffly.

"No one who knows Hildegarde could possibly accuse her of moving in a circle," said Clovis; "her view of

life seems to be a nonstop run with an inexhaustible supply of petrol. If she can get some one else to pay for

the petrol so much the better. I don't mind confessing to you that she has taught me more than any other

"What kind of knowledge?" demanded Mrs. Eggelby, with the air a jury might collectively wear when

"Well, among other things, she's introduced me to at least four different ways 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 the diningtable. I suppose their powers of enlightened

"I daresay, if we knew more of her history, we should find out that she'd often been ill before eating the

lobster. Aren't you concealing the fact that 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, I don't personally know of any. Of course if she ate it as a child of two

weeks old it might have been her first illness and her last. But if that was the case I think you should have

"I must be going," said Mrs. Eggelby, in a tone which had been thoroughly sterilised of even perfunctory

"I have so enjoyed our little talk about Eric," he said; "I quite look forward to meeting him some day."

"Goodbye," said Mrs. Eggelby frostily; the supplementary remark which she made at the back of her throat

KENELM JERTON entered the dininghall of the Golden Galleon Hotel in the full crush of the luncheon

hour. Nearly every seat was occupied, and small additional tables had been brought in, where floor space

permitted, to accommodate latecomers, with the result that many of the tables were almost touching each

other. Jerton was beckoned by a waiter to the only vacant table that was discernible, and took his seat with

the uncomfortable and wholly groundless idea that nearly every one in the room was staring at him. He was a

youngish man of ordinary appearance, quiet of dress and unobtrusive of manner, and he could never wholly

rid himself of the idea that a fierce light of public scrutiny beat on him as though he had been a notability or a

supernut. After he had ordered his lunch there came the unavoidable interval of waiting, with nothing to do

but to stare at the flower vase on his table and to be stared at (in imagination) by several flappers, some

maturer beings of the same sex, and a satiricallooking Jew. In order to carry off the situation with some

appearance of unconcern he became spuriously interested in the contents of the flowervase.

"What is the name of these roses, d'you know?" he asked the waiter. The waiter was ready at all times to

conceal his ignorance concerning items of the winelist or menu; he was frankly ignorant as to the specific

The voice came from a pleasantfaced, welldressed young woman who was sitting at a table that almost

touched Jerton's. He thanked her hurriedly and nervously for the information, and made some inconsequent

"It is a curious thing," said the young woman, that, "I should be able to tell you the name of those roses

without an effort of memory, because if you were to ask me my name I should be utterly unable to give it to

Jerton had not harboured the least intention of extending his thirst for namelabels 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 of memory. I was in the train coming down

here; my ticket told me that I had come from Victoria and was bound for this place. I had a couple of

fivepound notes and a sovereign on me, no visiting cards or any other means of identification, and no idea

as to who I am. I can only hazily recollect that I have a title; I am Lady Somebody beyond that my mind is

"That is what I didn't know. I knew the name of this hotel and made up my mind to come here, and when the

hotel porter who meets the trains asked if I had any luggage I had to invent a dressingbag and dressbasket;

I could always pretend that they had gone astray. I gave him the name of Smith, and presently he emerged

from a confused pile of luggage and passengers with a dressing bag and dressbasket labelled

Jerton said nothing, but he rather wondered what the lawful owner of the baggage would do.

"Of course it was dreadful arriving at a strange hotel with the name of KestrelSmith, but it would have been

Jerton had visions of harassed railway officials and distraught KestrelSmiths, but he made no attempt to

"Naturally, none of my keys would fit the things, but I told an intelligent page boy that I had lost my

keyring, and he had the locks forced in a twinkling. Rather too intelligent, that boy; he will probably end in

Dartmoor. The KestrelSmith toilet tools aren't up to much, but they are better than nothing."

"If you feel sure that you have a title," said Jerton, " why not get hold of 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 to one, you know. If you were an army officer and had lost your identity you

might pore over the Army List for months without finding out who your were. I'm going on another tack; I'm

trying to find out by various little tests who I am NOT that will narrow the range of uncertainty down a bit.

You may have noticed, for instance, that I'm lunching principally off lobster Newburg."

"It's an extravagance, because it's one of the most expensive dishes on the menu, but at any rate it proves that

I'm not Lady Starping; she never touches shellfish, and poor Lady Braddleshrub has no digestion at all; if I

am HER I shall certainly die in agony in the course of the afternoon, and the duty of finding out who I am

will devolve on the press and the police and those sort of people; I shall be past caring. Lady Knewford

doesn't know one rose from another and she hates men, so she wouldn't have spoken to you in any case; and

Lady Mousehilton flirts with every man she meets I haven't flirted with you, have I?"

"Oh, but, of course, there are heaps of them that I couldn't possibly be women who've got grandchildren or

sons old enough to have celebrated their coming of age. I've only got to consider the ones about my own age.

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 of papers that you can find in the smokingroom, and see if you come

across my portrait with infant son or anything of that sort. It won't take you ten minutes. I'll meet you in the

And the Fair Unknown, having graciously pressed Jerton into the search for her lost identity, rose and left the

room. As she passed the young man's table she halted for a moment and whispered:

"Did you notice that I tipped the waiter a shilling? We can cross Lady Ulwight off the list; she would have

At five o'clock Jerton made his way to the hotel lounge; he had spent a diligent but fruitless quarter of an

hour among the illustrated weeklies in the smoking room. His new acquaintance was seated at a small tea

"Only negative information. I'm not Lady Befnal. She disapproves dreadfully of any form of gambling, so

when I recognised a wellknown book maker in the hotel lobby I went and put a tenner on an unnamed filly

by William the Third out of Mitrovitza for the threefifteen race. I suppose the fact of the animal being

"No, came in fourth, the most irritating thing a horse can do when you've backed it win or place. Anyhow, I

"Well, yes, it has rather cleared me out," admitted the identityseeker; "a florin is about all I've got left on

me. The lobster Newburg made my lunch rather an expensive one, and, of course, I had to tip that boy for

what he did to the KestrelSmith locks. I've got rather a useful idea, though. I feel certain that I belong to the

Pivot Club; I'll go back to town and ask the hall porter there if there are any letters for me. He knows all the

members by sight, and if there are any letters or telephone messages waiting for me of course that will solve

the problem. If he says there aren't any I shall say: 'You know who I am, don't you?' so I'll find out anyway."

The plan seemed a sound one; a difficulty in its execution suggested itself to Jerton.

"Of course," said the lady, when he hinted at the obstacle, "there's my fare back to town, and my bill here and

cabs and things. If you'll lend me three pounds that ought to see me through comfortably. Thanks ever so.

Then there is the question of that luggage: I don't want to be saddled with that for the rest of my life. I'll have

it brought down to the hall and you can pretend to mount guard over it while I'm writing a letter. Then I shall

just slip away to the station, and you can wander off to the smokingroom, 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 the luggage while its temporary owner

slipped unobtrusively out of the hotel. Her departure was not, however, altogether unnoticed. Two gentlemen

"Did you see that tall young woman in grey who went out just now? She is the Lady "

His promenade carried him out of earshot at the critical moment when he was about to disclose the elusive

identity. The Lady Who? Jerton could scarcely run after a total stranger, break into his conversation, and ask

him for information concerning a chance passerby. Besides, it was desirable that he should keep up the

appearance of looking after the luggage. In a minute or two, however, the important personage, the man who

knew, came strolling back alone. Jerton summoned up all his courage and waylaid him.

"I think I heard you say you knew the lady who went out of the hotel a few minutes ago, a tall lady, dressed

in grey. Excuse me for asking if you 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've met her somewhere before, but I'm blest

"Yes, she's the Lady Champion at golf in my part of the world. An awful good sort, and goes about a good

deal in Society, but she has an awkward habit of losing her memory every now and then, and gets into all

sorts of fixes. 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 to assimilate his information he found his

whole attention centred on an angrylooking lady who was making loud and fretfulseeming inquiries of the

"Has any luggage been brought here from the station by mistake, a dressbasket and dressingcase, with the

name KestrelSmith? It can't be traced anywhere. I saw it put in at Victoria, that I'll swear. Why there is

Jerton heard no more. He fled down to the Turkish bath, and stayed there for hours.

THEOPHIL ESHLEY was an artist by profession, a cattle painter by force of environment. It is not to be

supposed that he lived on a ranche or a dairy farm, in an atmosphere pervaded with horn and hoof,

milkingstool, and brandingiron. His home was in a parklike, villa dotted district that only just escaped

the reproach of being suburban. On one side of his garden there abutted a small, picturesque meadow, in

which an enterprising neighbour pastured some small picturesque cows of the Channel Island persuasion. At

noonday in summertime the cows stood kneedeep in tall meadowgrass under the shade of a group of

walnut trees, with the sunlight falling in dappled patches on their mousesleek coats. Eshley had conceived

and executed a dainty picture of two reposeful milchcows in a setting of walnut tree and meadowgrass and

filtered sunbeam, and the Royal Academy had duly exposed the same on the walls of its Summer Exhibition.

The Royal Academy encourages orderly, methodical habits in its children. Eshley had painted a successful

and acceptable picture of cattle drowsing picturesquely under walnut trees, and as he had begun, so, of

necessity, he went on. His "Noontide Peace," a study of two dun cows under a walnut tree, was followed by

"A Midday Sanctuary," a study of a walnut tree, with two dun cows under it. In due succession there came

"Where the Gad Flies Cease from Troubling," "The Haven of the Herd," and "Adream in Dairyland,"

studies of walnut trees and dun cows. His two attempts to break away from his own tradition were signal

failures: "Turtle Doves alarmed by Sparrowhawk" and "Wolves on the Roman Campagna" came back to his

studio in the guise of abominable heresies, and Eshley climbed back into grace and the public gaze with "A

On a fine afternoon in late autumn he was putting some finishing touches to a study of meadow weeds when

his neighbour, Adela Pingsford, assailed the outer door of his studio with loud peremptory knockings.

"There is an ox in my garden," she announced, in explanation of the tempestuous intrusion.

"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 object to. My garden has just been put straight for the winter, and an ox roaming

about in it won't improve matters. Besides, there are the chrysanthemums just coming into flower."

"I imagine it came in by the gate," said the lady impatiently; "it couldn't have climbed the walls, and I don't

suppose anyone dropped it from an aeroplane as a Bovril advertisement. The immediately important question

"If it was anxious to go," said Adela Pingsford rather angrily, "I should not 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 with

an attack of neuralgia. Anything that I may have learned at school or in after life about how to remove a large

ox from a small garden seems to have escaped from my memory now. All I could think of was that you were

a near neighbour and a cattle painter, presumably more or less familiar with the subjects that you painted, and

"I paint dairy cows, certainly," admitted Eshley, "but I cannot claim to have had any experience in

roundingup stray oxen. I've seen it done on a cinema film, of course, but there were always horses and lots

of other accessories; besides, one never knows how much of those pictures are faked."

Adela Pingsford said nothing, but led the way to her garden. It was normally a fairsized garden, but it

looked small in comparison with the ox, a huge mottled brute, dull red about the head and shoulders, passing

to dirty white on the flanks and hindquarters, with shaggy ears and large bloodshot eyes. It bore about as

much resemblance to the dainty paddock heifers that Eshley was accustomed to paint as the chief of a

Kurdish nomad clan would to a Japanese teashop girl. Eshley stood very near the gate while he studied the

"It's eating a chrysanthemum," said Eshley at last, when the silence had become unbearable.

"How observant you are," said Adela bitterly. "You seem to notice everything. As a matter of fact, it has got

The necessity for doing something was becoming imperative. Eshley took a step or two in the direction of the

animal, clapped his hands, and made noises of the "Hish" and "Shoo" variety. If the ox heard them it gave no

"If any hens should ever stray into my garden," said Adela, "I should certainly 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 icy calm, as a glowing orange

"Since you have been so frank about the variety of the chrysanthemum," said Eshley, "I don't mind telling

The icy calm broke down; Adela Pingsford used language that sent the artist instinctively a few feet nearer to

the ox. He picked up a peastick and flung it with some determination against the animal's mottled flanks.

The operation of mashing MADEMOISELLE LOUISE BICHOT into a petal salad was suspended for a long

moment, while the ox gazed with concentrated inquiry at the stickthrower. Adela gazed with equal

concentration and more obvious hostility at the same focus. As the beast neither lowered its head nor stamped

its feet Eshley ventured on another javelin exercise with another peastick. The ox seemed to realise at once

that it was to go; it gave a hurried final pluck at the bed where the chrysanthemums had been, and strode

swiftly up the garden. Eshley ran to head it towards the gate, but only succeeded in quickening its pace from

a walk to a lumbering trot. With an air of inquiry, but with no real hesitation, it crossed the tiny strip of turf

that the charitable called the croquet lawn, and pushed its way through the open French window into the

morningroom. Some chrysanthemums and other autumn herbage stood about the room in vases, and the

animal resumed its browsing operations; all the same, Eshley fancied that the beginnings of a hunted look had

come into its eyes, a look that counselled respect. He discontinued his attempt to interfere with its choice of

"Mr. Eshley," said Adela in a shaking voice, "I asked you to drive that beast 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 the

"Cattle drives are not in my line," said Eshley; "if I remember I told you so at the outset." "I quite agree,"

retorted the lady, "painting pretty pictures of pretty little cows is what you're suited for. Perhaps you'd like to

"Implements? I won't have you use a lasso. The room will be wrecked if there's a struggle."

But the artist marched out of the garden. In a couple of minutes he returned, laden with easel,

"Do you mean to say that you're going to sit quietly down and paint that brute while it's destroying my

"I don't see what standing you have in the matter," said the artist; "you can hardly pretend that it's your ox,

"You seem to forget that it's in my morningroom, eating my flowers," came the raging retort.

"You seem to forget that the cook has neuralgia," said Eshley; "she may be just dozing off into a merciful

sleep and your outcry will waken her. Consideration for others should be the guiding principle of people in

"The man is mad!" exclaimed Adela tragically. A moment later it was Adela herself who appeared to go mad.

The ox had finished the vaseflowers and the cover of "Israel Kalisch," and appeared to be thinking of

leaving its rather restricted quarters. Eshley noticed its restlessness and promptly flung it some bunches of

"I forget how the proverb runs," he observed; of something about 'better a dinner of herbs than a stalled ox

where hate is.' We seem to have all the ingredients for the proverb ready to hand."

"I shall go to the Public Library and get them to telephone for the police," announced Adela, and, raging

Some minutes later the ox, awakening probably to the suspicion that oil cake and chopped mangold was

waiting for it in some appointed byre, stepped with much precaution out of the morningroom, stared with

grave inquiry at the no longer obtrusive and peastickthrowing human, and then lumbered heavily but

swiftly out of the garden. Eshley packed up his tools and followed the animal's example and "Larkdene" was

The episode was the turningpoint in Eshley's artistic career. His remarkable picture, "Ox in a

morningroom, late autumn," was one of the sensations and successes of the next Paris Salon, and when it

was subsequently exhibited at Munich it was bought by the Bavarian Government, in the teeth of the spirited

bidding of three meatextract firms. From that moment his success was continuous and assured, and the

Royal Academy was thankful, two years later, to give a conspicuous position on its walls to his large canvas

Eshley presented Adela Pingsford with a new copy of "Israel Kalisch," and a couple of finely flowering

plants of MADAME ADNRE BLUSSET, but nothing in the nature of a real reconciliation has taken place

IT was a hot afternoon, and the railway carriage was correspondingly sultry, and the next stop was at

Templecombe, nearly an hour ahead. The occupants of the carriage were a small girl, and a smaller girl, and a

small boy. An aunt belonging to the children occupied one corner seat, and the further corner seat on the

opposite side was occupied by a bachelor who was a stranger to their party, but the small girls and the small

boy emphatically occupied the compartment. Both the aunt and the children were conversational in a limited,

persistent way, reminding one of the attentions of a housefly that refuses to be discouraged. Most of the aunt's

remarks seemed to begin with "Don't," and nearly all of the children's remarks began with "Why?" The

bachelor said nothing out loud. "Don't, Cyril, don't," exclaimed the aunt, as the small boy began smacking the

The child moved reluctantly to the window. "Why are those sheep being driven out of that field?" he asked.

"I expect they are being driven to another field where there is more grass," said the aunt weakly.

"But there is lots of grass in that field," protested the boy; "there's nothing else but grass there. Aunt, there's

"Oh, look at those cows!" exclaimed the aunt. Nearly every field along the line had contained cows or

The frown on the bachelor's face was deepening to a scowl. He was a hard, unsympathetic man, the aunt

decided in her mind. She was utterly unable to come to any satisfactory decision about the grass in the other

The smaller girl created a diversion by beginning to recite "On the Road to Mandalay." She only knew the

first line, but she put her limited knowledge to the fullest possible use. She repeated the line over and over

again in a dreamy but resolute and very audible voice; it seemed to the bachelor as though some one had had

a bet with her that she could not repeat the line aloud two thousand times without stopping. Whoever it was

"Come over here and listen to a story," said the aunt, when the bachelor had looked twice at her and once at

The children moved listlessly towards the aunt's end of the carriage. Evidently her reputation as a story

In a low, confidential voice, interrupted at frequent intervals by loud, petulant questionings from her listeners,

she began an unenterprising and deplorably uninteresting story about a little girl who was good, and made

friends with every one on account of her goodness, and was finally saved from a mad bull by a number of

"Wouldn't they have saved her if she hadn't been good?" demanded the bigger of the small girls. It was

"Well, yes," admitted the aunt lamely, "but I don't think they would have run quite so fast to her help if they

"It's the stupidest story I've ever heard," said the bigger of the small girls, with immense conviction.

The smaller girl made no actual comment on the story, but she had long ago recommenced a murmured

"You don't seem to be a success as a storyteller," said the bachelor suddenly from his corner.

"It's a very difficult thing to tell stories that children can both understand and appreciate," she said stiffly.

"Once upon a time," began the bachelor, "there was a little girl called Bertha, who was extraordinarily

The children's momentarilyaroused interest began at once to flicker; all stories seemed dreadfully alike, no

"She did all that she was told, she was always truthful, she kept her clothes clean, ate milk puddings as

though they were jam tarts, learned her lessons perfectly, and was polite in her manners."

There was a wave of reaction in favour of the story; the word horrible in connection with goodness was a

novelty that commended itself. It seemed to introduce a ring of truth that was absent from the aunt's tales of

"She was so good," continued the bachelor, "that she won several medals for goodness, which she always

wore, pinned on to her dress. There was a medal for obedience, another medal for punctuality, and a third for

good behaviour. They were large metal medals and they clicked against one another as she walked. No other

child in the town where she lived had as many as three medals, so everybody knew that she must be an extra

"Everybody talked about her goodness, and the Prince of the country got to hear about it, and he said that as

she was so very good she might be allowed 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 it was a great honour for Bertha to be

"Why weren't there any sheep?" came the inevitable question arising out of that answer.

The aunt permitted herself a smile, which might almost have been described as a grin.

"There were no sheep in the park," said the bachelor, "because the Prince's mother had once had a dream that

her son would either be killed by a sheep or else by a clock falling on him. For that reason the Prince never

"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 the park, but there were lots of little pigs running all over the place."

"Black with white faces, white with black spots, black all over, grey with white patches, and some were white

The storyteller paused to let a full idea of the park's treasures sink into the children's imaginations; then he

"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 not pick any of the kind Prince's flowers, and she had meant to keep her promise,

so of course it made her feel silly to find that there were no flowers to pick."

"Because the pigs had eaten them all," said the bachelor promptly. "The gardeners had told the Prince that

There was a murmur of approval at the excellence of the Prince's decision; so many people would have

"There were lots of other delightful things in the park. There were ponds with gold and blue and green fish in

them, and trees with beautiful parrots that said clever things at a moment's notice, and humming birds that

hummed all the popular tunes of the day. Bertha walked up and down and enjoyed herself immensely, and

thought to herself: 'If I were not so extraordinarily good I should not have been allowed to come into this

beautiful park and enjoy all that there is to be seen in it,' and her three medals clinked against one another as

she walked and helped to remind her how very good she really was. Just then an enormous wolf came

prowling into the park to see if it could catch a fat little pig for its supper."

"What colour was it?" asked the children, amid an immediate quickening of interest.

"Mudcolour all over, with a black tongue and pale grey eyes that gleamed with unspeakable ferocity. The

first thing that it saw in the park was Bertha; her pinafore was so spotlessly white and clean that it could be

seen from a great distance. Bertha saw the wolf and saw that it was stealing towards her, and she began to

wish that she had never been allowed to come into the park. She ran as hard as she could, and the wolf came

after her with huge leaps and bounds. She managed to reach a shrubbery of myrtle bushes and she hid herself

in one of the thickest of the bushes. The wolf came sniffing among the branches, its black tongue lolling out

of its mouth and its pale grey eyes glaring with rage. Bertha was terribly frightened, and thought to herself: 'If

I had not been so extraordinarily 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 not sniff out where Bertha was hiding, and the bushes

were so thick that he might have hunted about in them for a long time without catching sight of her, so he

thought he might as well go off and catch a little pig instead. Bertha was trembling very much at having the

wolf prowling and sniffing so near her, and as she trembled the medal for obedience clinked against the

medals for good conduct and punctuality. The wolf was just moving away when he heard the sound of the

medals clinking and stopped to listen; they clinked again in a bush quite near him. He dashed into the bush,

his pale grey eyes gleaming with ferocity and triumph, and dragged Bertha out and devoured her to the last

morsel. All that was left of her were her shoes, bits of clothing, and the three medals for goodness."

"The story began badly," said the smaller of the small girls, "but it had a beautiful ending."

"It is the most beautiful story that I ever heard," said the bigger of the small girls, with immense decision.

"A most improper story to tell to young children! You have undermined the effect of years of careful

"At any rate," said the bachelor, collecting his belongings preparatory to leaving the carriage, "I kept them

"Unhappy woman!" he observed to himself as he walked down the platform of Templecombe station; "for the

next six months or so those children will assail her in public with demands for an improper story!"

TREDDLEFORD sat in an easeful armchair in front of a slumberous fire, with a volume of verse in his

hand and the comfortable consciousness that outside the club windows the rain was dripping and pattering

with persistent purpose. A chill, wet October afternoon was merging into a bleak, wet October evening, and

the club smokingroom seemed warmer and cosier by contrast. It was an afternoon on which to be wafted

away from one's climatic surroundings, and "The Golden journey to Samarkand" promised to bear

Treddleford well and bravely into other lands and under other skies. He had already migrated from London

the rainswept to Bagdad the Beautiful, and stood by the Sun Gate "in the olden time" when an icy breath of

imminent annoyance seemed to creep between the book and himself. Amblecope, the man with the restless,

prominent eyes and the mouth ready mobilised for conversational openings, had planted himself in a

neighbouring armchair. For a twelvemonth and some odd weeks Treddleford had skilfully avoided making

the acquaintance of his voluble fellowclubman; he had marvellously escaped from the infliction of his

relentless record of tedious personal achievements, or alleged achievements, on golf links, turf, and gaming

table, by flood and field and covertside. Now his season of immunity was coming to an end. There was no

escape; in another moment he would be numbered among those who knew Amblecope to speak to or

The intruder was armed with a copy of COUNTRY LIFE, not for purposes of reading, but as an aid to

"Rather a good portrait of Throstlewing," he remarked explosively, turning his large challenging eyes on

Treddleford; "somehow it reminds me very much of Yellowstep, who was supposed to be such a good thing

for the Grand Prix in 1903. Curious race that was; I suppose I've seen every race for the Grand Prix for the

"Be kind enough never to mention the Grand Prix in my hearing," said Treddleford desperately; "it awakens

acutely distressing memories. I can't explain why without going into a long and complicated story."

"Oh, certainly, certainly," said Amblecope hastily; long and complicated stories that were not told by himself

were abominable in his eyes. He turned the pages of COUNTRY LIFE and became spuriously interested in

"Not a bad representation of the Mongolian variety," he exclaimed, holding it up for his neighbour's

inspection. "They do very well in some covers. Take some stopping too, once they're fairly on the wing. I

"My aunt, who owns the greater part of Lincolnshire," broke in Treddleford, with dramatic abruptness,

"possesses perhaps the most remarkable record in the way of a pheasant bag that has ever been achieved. She

is seventyfive and can't hit a thing, but she always goes out with the guns. When I say she can't hit a thing, I

don't mean to say that she doesn't occasionally endanger the lives of her fellowguns, because that wouldn't

be true. In fact, the chief Government Whip won't allow Ministerial M.P.'s to go out with her; 'We don't want

to incur byelections needlessly,' he quite reasonably observed. Well, the other day she winged a pheasant,

and brought it to earth with a feather or two knocked out of it; it was a runner, and my aunt saw herself in

danger of being 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 bracken and brushwood, and when it took to the open country and

started across a ploughed field she jumped on to the shooting pony and went after it. The chase was a long

one, and when my aunt at last ran the bird to a standstill she was nearer home than she was to the shooting

"The story rests on my aunt's authority," said Treddleford coldly, "and she is local vicepresident of the

Young Women's Christian Association. She trotted three miles or so to her home, and it was not till the

middle of the afternoon that it was discovered that the lunch for the entire shooting party was in a pannier

"Some birds, of course, take a lot of killing," said Amblecope; "so do some fish. I remember once I was

fishing in the Exe, lovely trout stream, lots of fish, though they don't run to any great size "

"One of them did," announced Treddleford, with emphasis. "My uncle, the Bishop of Southmolton, came

across a giant trout in a pool just off the main stream of the Exe near Ugworthy; he tried it with every kind of

fly and worm every day for three weeks without an atom of success, and then Fate intervened on his behalf.

There was a low stone bridge just over this pool, and on the last day of his fishing holiday a motor van ran

violently into the parapet and turned completely over; no one was hurt, but part of the parapet was knocked

away, and the entire load that the van was carrying was pitched over and fell a little way into the pool. In a

couple of minutes the giant trout was flapping and twisting on bare mud at the bottom of a waterless pool,

and my uncle was able to walk down to him and fold him to his breast. The vanload consisted of

blottingpaper, and every drop of water in that pool had been sucked up into the mass of spilt cargo."

There was silence for nearly half a minute in the smokingroom, and Treddleford began to let his mind steal

back towards the golden road that led to Samarkand. Amblecope, however, rallied, and remarked in a rather

"Talking of motor accidents, the narrowest squeak I ever had was the other day, motoring with old Tommy

Yarby in North Wales. Awfully good sort, old Yarby, thorough good sportsman, and the best "

"It was in North Wales," said Treddleford, "that my sister met with her sensational carriage accident last year.

She was on her way to a gardenparty at Lady Nineveh's, about the only gardenparty that ever comes to

pass in those parts in the course of the year, and therefore a thing that she would have been very sorry to

miss. She was driving a young horse that she'd only bought a week or two previously, warranted to be

perfectly steady with motor traffic, bicycles, and other common objects of the roadside. The animal lived up

to its reputation, and passed the most explosive of motor bikes with an indifference that almost amounted to

apathy. However, I suppose we all draw the line somewhere, and this particular cob drew it at travelling wild

beast shows. Of course my sister didn't know that, but she knew it very distinctly when she turned a sharp

corner and found herself in a mixed company of camels, piebald horses, and canarycoloured vans. The

dogcart was overturned in a ditch and kicked to splinters, and the cob went home across country. Neither my

sister nor the groom was hurt, but the problem of how to get to the Nineveh gardenparty, some three miles

distant, seemed rather difficult to solve; once there, of course, my sister would easily find some one to drive

her home. 'I suppose you wouldn't care for the loan of a couple of my camels?' the showman suggested, in

humorous sympathy. ' I would,' said my sister, who had ridden camelback in Egypt, and she overruled the

objections of the groom, who hadn't. She picked out two of the most presentable looking of the beasts and

had them dusted and made as tidy as was possible at short notice, and set out for the Nineveh mansion. You

may imagine the sensation that her small but imposing caravan created when she arrived at the hall door. The

entire gardenparty flocked up to gape. My sister was rather glad to slip down from her camel, and the groom

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 knows camel language backwards, thought he would show off by making the

beasts kneel down in orthodox fashion. Unfortunately camel wordsofcommand are not the same all the

world over; these were magnificent Turkestan camels, accustomed to stride up the stony terraces of mountain

passes, and when Doulton shouted at them they went side by side up the front steps, into the entrance hall,

and up the grand staircase. The German governess met them just at the turn of the corridor. The Ninevehs

nursed her with devoted attention for weeks, and when I last heard from them she was well enough to go

about her duties again, but the doctor says she will always suffer from Hagenbeck heart."

Amblecope got up from his chair and moved to another part of the room. Treddleford reopened his book and

For a blessed halfhour he disported himself in imagination by the "gay AleppoGate," and listened to the

birdvoiced singingman. Then the world of today called him back; a page summoned him to speak with a

As Treddleford was about to pass out of the room he encountered Amblecope, also passing out, on his way to

the billiardroom, where, perchance, some luckless wight might be secured and held fast to listen to the

number of his attendances at the Grand Prix, with subsequent remarks on Newmarket and the

Cambridgeshire. Amblecope made as if to pass out first, but a newborn pride was surging in Treddleford's

"I believe I take precedence," he said coldly; "you are merely the club Bore; I am the club Liar."

TERESA, Mrs. Thropplestance, was the richest and most intractable old woman in the county of Woldshire.

In her dealings with the world in general her manner suggested a blend between a Mistress of the Robes and a

Master of Foxhounds, with the vocabulary of both. In her domestic circle she comported herself in the

arbitrary style that one attributes, probably without the least justification, to an American political Boss in the

bosom of his caucus. The late Theodore Thropplestance had left her, some thirtyfive years ago, in absolute

possession of a considerable fortune, a large landed property, and a gallery full of valuable pictures. In those

intervening years she had outlived her son and quarrelled with her elder grandson, who had married without

her consent or approval. Bertie Thropplestance, her younger grandson, was the heirdesignate to her

property, and as such he was a centre of interest and concern to some halfhundred ambitious mothers with

daughters of marriageable age. Bertie was an amiable, easygoing young man, who was quite 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 who would come under his grandmother's veto. The favourable recommendation would

Teresa's houseparties were always rounded off with a plentiful garnishing of presentable young women and

alert, attendant mothers, but the old lady was emphatically discouraging whenever any one of her girl guests

became at all likely to outbid the others as a possible granddaughterinlaw. It was the inheritance of her

fortune and estate that was in question, and she was evidently disposed to exercise and enjoy her powers of

selection and rejection to the utmost. Bertie's preferences did not greatly matter; he was of the sort who can

be stolidly happy with any kind of wife; he had cheerfully put up with his grandmother all his life, so was not

likely to fret and fume over anything that might befall him in the way of a helpmate.

The party that gathered under Teresa's roof in Christmas week of the year nineteenhundredandsomething

was of smaller proportions than usual, and Mrs. Yonelet, who formed one of the party, was inclined to

deduce hopeful augury from this circumstance. Dora Yonelet and Bertie were so obviously made for one

another, she confided to the vicar's wife, and if the old lady were accustomed to seeing them about a lot

together she might adopt the view that they would make a suitable married couple.

"People soon get used to an idea if it is dangled constantly before their eyes," said Mrs. Yonelet hopefully,

"and the more often Teresa sees those young people together, happy in each other's company, the more she

will get to take a kindly interest in Dora as a possible and desirable wife for Bertie."

"My dear," said the vicar's wife resignedly, "my own Sybil was thrown together with Bertie under the most

romantic circumstances I'll tell you about it some day but it made no impression whatever on Teresa; she

put her foot down in the most uncompromising fashion, and Sybil married an Indian civilian."

"Quite right of her," said Mrs. Yonelet with vague approval; "it's what any girl of spirit would have done.

Still, that was a year or two ago, I believe; Bertie is older now, and so is Teresa. Naturally she must be

The vicar's wife reflected that Teresa seemed to be the one person who showed no immediate anxiety to

Mrs. Yonelet was a woman of resourceful energy and generalship; she involved the other members of the

house party, the deadweight, so to speak, in all manner of exercises and occupations that segregated them

from Bertie and Dora, who were left to their own devisings that is to say, to Dora's devisings and Bertie's

accommodating acquiescence. Dora helped in the Christmas decorations of the parish church, and Bertie

helped her to help. Together they fed the swans, till the birds went on a dyspepsiastrike, together they

played billiards, together they photographed the village almshouses, and, at a respectful distance, the tame 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 of the human race; nothing in its record encouraged its human neighbours to feel a

Whatever sport or exercise or occupation Bertie and Dora indulged in together was unfailingly chronicled and

"Those two inseparables have just come in from a bicycle ride," she would announce; "quite a picture they

"A picture needing words," would be Teresa's private comment, and as far as Bertie was concerned she was

On the afternoon after Christmas Day Mrs. Yonelet dashed into the drawingroom, where her hostess was

sitting amid a circle of guests and teacups and muffin dishes. Fate had placed what seemed like a

trumpcard in the hands of the patientlymanoeuvring mother. With eyes blazing with excitement and a

In swift, excited sentences, broken with maternal emotion, she gave supplementary information as to how the

treacherous animal had ambushed Dora as she was hunting for a strayed golf ball, and how Bertie had dashed

"It was touch and go! She threw her niblick at it, but that didn't stop it. In another moment she would have

"The animal is not safe," said Teresa, handing her agitated guest a cup of tea. "I forget if you take sugar. I

suppose the solitary life it leads has soured its temper. There are muffins in the grate. It's not my fault; I've

tried to get it a mate for ever so long. You don't know of anyone with a lady elk for sale or exchange, do

But Mrs. Yonelet was in no humour to listen to talk of elk marriages. The mating of two human beings was

the subject uppermost in her mind, and the opportunity for advancing her pet project was too valuable to be

"Teresa," she exclaimed impressively, "after those two young people have been thrown together so

dramatically, nothing can be quite the same again between them. Bertie has done more than save Dora's life;

he has earned her affection. One cannot help feeling that Fate has consecrated them for one another."

"Exactly what the vicar's wife said when Bertie saved Sybil from the elk a year or two ago," observed Teresa

placidly; "I pointed out to her that he had rescued Mirabel Hicks from the same predicement a few months

previously, and that priority really belonged to the gardener's boy, who had been rescued in the January of

"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 she had eleven children and I had only one elk. I also gave her a black silk skirt;

she said that though there hadn't been a funeral in her family she felt as if there had been. Anyhow, we parted

friends. I can't offer you a silk skirt, Emily, but you may have another cup of tea. As I have already remarked,

Teresa dosed the discussion, having deftly conveyed the impression that she considered the mother of the

gardener's boy had shown a far more reasonable spirit than the parents of other elkassaulted victims.

"Teresa is devoid of feeling," said Mrs. Yonelet afterwards to the vicar's wife; "to sit there, talking of

"Of course you know whom she really intends Bertie to marry?" asked the vicar's wife; "I've noticed it for

"She's of quite good family, I believe," said the vicar's wife, "and not at all the mouseintheback ground

sort of person that governesses are usually supposed to be. In fact, next to Teresa, she's about the most

assertive and combative personality in the neighbourhood. She's pointed out to my husband all sorts of errors

in his sermons, and she gave Sir Laurence a public lecture on how he ought to handle the hounds. You know

how sensitive Sir Laurence is about any criticism of his Mastership, and to have a governess laying down the

law to him nearly drove him into a fit. She's behaved like that to every one, except, of course, Teresa, and

every one has been defensively rude to her in return. The Bickelbys are simply too afraid of her to get rid of

her. Now isn't that exactly the sort of woman whom Teresa would take a delight in installing as her

successor? Imagine the discomfort and awkwardness in the county if we suddenly 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 sign of being attracted in that quarter?"

"Oh, she's quite nicelooking in a way, and dresses well, and plays a good game of tennis. She often comes

across the park with messages from the Bickelby mansion, and one of these days Bertie will rescue her from

the elk, which has become almost a habit with him, and Teresa will say that Fate has consecrated them to one

another. Bertie might not be disposed to pay much attention to the consecrations of Fate, but he would not

The vicar's wife spoke with the quiet authority of one who has intuitive knowledge, and in her heart of hearts

Six months later the elk had to be destroyed. In a fit of exceptional moroseness it had killed the Bickelbys'

German governess. It was an irony of its fate that it should achieve popularity in the last moments of its

career; at any rate, it established, the record of being the only living thing that had permanently thwarted

Dora Yonelet broke off her engagement with an Indian civilian, and married Bertie three months after his

grandmother's death Teresa did not long survive the German governess fiasco. At Christmas time every

year young Mrs. Thropplestance hangs an extra large festoon of evergreens on the elk horns that decorate the

"It was a fearsome beast," she observes to Bertie, "but I always feel that it was instrumental in bringing us

"HAVE you written to thank the Froplinsons for what they sent us?" asked Egbert.

"No," said Janetta, with a note of tired defiance in her voice; "I've written eleven letters today expressing

surprise and gratitude for sundry unmerited gifts, but I haven't written to the Froplinsons."

"I don't dispute the necessity, but I don't think the some one should be me," said Janetta. "I wouldn't mind

writing a letter of angry recrimination or heartless satire to some suitable recipient; in fact, I should rather

enjoy it, but I've come to the end of my capacity for expressing servile amiability. Eleven letters today and

nine yesterday, all couched in the same strain of ecstatic thankfulness: really, you can't expect me to sit down

"I've written nearly as many," said Egbert, "and I've had my usual business correspondence to get through,

"A William the Conqueror calendar," said Janetta, "with a quotation of one of his great thoughts for every

"Impossible," said Egbert; "he didn't have three hundred and sixtyfive thoughts in the whole of his life, or, if

"Well, it was William Wordsworth, then," said Janetta; "I know William came into it somewhere."

"That sounds more probable," said Egbert; "well, let's collaborate on this letter of thanks and get it done. I'll

dictate, and you can scribble it down. 'Dear Mrs. Froplinson thank you and your husband so much for the

"We sent them something on the twentysecond," said Janetta, "so they simply HAD to think of us. There

"Bridgemarkers," said Janetta, "in a cardboard case, with some inanity about '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

the attendant 'How much?' When he said 'Ninepence,' I gave him their address, jabbed our card in, paid

tenpence or elevenpence to cover the postage, and thanked heaven. With less sincerity and infinitely more

"One is not supposed to notice social deformities of that sort," said Janetta; "it wouldn't be polite. Besides,

what trouble did they take to find out whether we read Wordsworth with gladness? For all they knew or cared

we might be frantically embedded in the belief that all poetry begins and ends with John Masefield, and it

might infuriate or depress us to have a daily sample of Wordsworthian products flung at us."

" 'How clever of you to guess that Wordsworth is our favourite poet,' " dictated Egbert.

"Do you realise what that means?" she asked; "a Wordsworth booklet next Christmas, and another calendar

the Christmas after, with the same problem of having to write suitable letters of thankfulness. No, the best

thing to do is to drop all further allusion to the calendar and switch off on to some other topic."

"Oh, something like this: 'What do you think of the New Year Honours List? A friend of ours made such a

clever remark when he read it.' Then you can stick in any remark that comes into your head; it needn't be

"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've both written ourselves out. Heavens!

I've just remembered Mrs. Stephen Ludberry. I haven't thanked her for what she sent."

There was a long silence, the forlorn silence of those who are bereft of hope and have almost ceased to care.

Presently Egbert started from his seat with an air of resolution. The light of battle was in his eyes.

"Gladly," said Janetta. "Are you going to write to Mrs. Ludberry or the Froplinsons?"

"To neither," said Egbert, drawing a stack of notepaper towards him; "I'm going to write to the editor of every

enlightened and influential newspaper in the Kingdom, I'm going to suggest that there should be a sort of

epistolary Truce of God during the festivities of Christmas and New Year. From the twentyfourth of

December to the third or fourth of January it shall be considered an offence against good sense and good

feeling to write or expect any letter or communication that does not deal with 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 new cooks, and so forth, these will be dealt with

in the usual manner as something inevitable, a legitimate part of our daily life. But all the devastating

accretions of correspondence, incident to the festive season, these should be swept away to give the season a

chance of being really festive, a time of untroubled, unpunctuated peace and good will."

"But you would have to make some acknowledgment of presents received," objected Janetta; "otherwise

"Of course, I have thought of that," said Egbert; "every present that was sent off would be accompanied by a

ticket bearing the date of dispatch and the signature of the sender, and some conventional hieroglyphic to

show that it was intended to be a Christmas or New Year gift; there would be a counterfoil with space for the

recipient's name and the date of arrival, and all you would have to do would be to sign and date the

counterfoil, add a conventional hieroglyphic indicating heartfelt thanks and gratified surprise, put the thing

"It sounds delightfully simple," said Janetta wistfully, "but people would consider it too cutand dried, too

"It is not a bit more perfunctory than the present system," said Egbert; "I have only the same conventional

language of gratitude at my disposal with which to thank dear old Colonel Chuttle for his perfectly delicious

Stilton, which we shall devour to the last morsel, and the Froplinsons for their calendar, which we shall never

look at. Colonel Chuttle knows that we are grateful for the Stilton, without having to be told so, and the

Froplinsons know that we are bored with their calendar, whatever we may say to the contrary, just as we

know that they are bored with the bridgemarkers in spite of their written assurance that they thanked us for

our charming little gift. What is more, the Colonel knows that even if we had taken a sudden aversion to

Stilton or been forbidden it by the doctor, we should still have written a letter of hearty thanks around it. So

you see the present system of acknowledgment is just as perfunctory and conventional as the counterfoil

"Your plan would certainly bring the ideal of a Happy Christmas a step nearer realisation," said Janetta.

"There are exceptions, of course," said Egbert, "people who really try to infuse a breath of reality into their

letters of acknowledgment. Aunt Susan, for instance, who writes: 'Thank you very much for the ham; not

such a good flavour as the one you sent last year, which itself was not a particularly good one. Hams are not

what they used to be.' It would be a pity to be deprived of her Christmas comments, but that loss would be

ADVENTURES, according to the proverb, are to the adventurous. Quite as often they are to the non

adventurous, to the retiring, to the constitutionally timid. John James Abbleway had been endowed by Nature

with the sort of disposition that instinctively avoids Carlist intrigues, slum crusades, the tracking of wounded

wild beasts, and the moving of hostile amendments at political meetings. If a mad dog or a Mad Mullah had

come his way he would have surrendered the way without hesitation. At school he had unwillingly acquired a

thorough knowledge of the German tongue out of deference to the plainlyexpressed wishes of a

foreignlanguages master, who, though he taught modern subjects, employed oldfashioned methods in

driving his lessons home. It was this enforced familiarity with an important commercial language which

thrust Abbleway in later years into strange lands where adventures were less easy to guard 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

prosaic business errand to the far city of Vienna, and, having sent him there, continued to keep him there, still

engaged in humdrum affairs of commerce, but with the possibilities of romance and adventure, or even

misadventure, jostling at his elbow. After two and a half years of exile, however, John James Abbleway had

embarked on only one hazardous undertaking, and that was of a nature which would assuredly have

overtaken him sooner or later if he had been leading a sheltered, stayathome existence at Dorking or

Huntingdon. He fell placidly in love with a placidly lovable English girl, the sister of one of his commercial

colleagues, 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 was engaged to. The further step by which she was to become Mrs. John

Abbleway was to take place a twelvemonth hence in a town in the English midlands, by which time the firm

that employed John James would have no further need for his presence in the Austrian capital.

It was early in April, two months after the installation of Abbleway as the young man Miss Penning was

engaged to, when he received a letter from her, written from Venice. She was still peregrinating under the

wing of her brother, and as the latter's business arrangements would take him across to Fiume for a day or

two, she had conceived the idea that it would be rather jolly if John could obtain leave of absence and run

down to the Adriatic coast to meet them. She had looked up the route on the map, and the journey did not

appear likely to be expensive. Between the lines of her communication there lay a hint that if he really cared

Abbleway obtained leave of absence and added a journey to Fiume to his life's adventures. He left Vienna on

a cold, cheerless day. The flower shops were full of spring blooms, and the weekly organs of illustrated

humour were full of spring topics, but the skies were heavy with clouds that looked like cottonwool that has

"Snow comes," said the train official to the station officials; and they agreed 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 a heavy white mantle, the telegraph wires became thick glistening ropes,

the line itself was buried more and more completely under a carpeting of snow, through which the not very

powerful engine ploughed its way with increasing difficulty. The ViennaFiume line is scarcely the best

equipped of the Austrian State railways, and Abbleway began to have serious fears for a breakdown. The

train had slowed down to a painful and precarious crawl and presently came to a halt at a spot where the

drifting snow had accumulated in a formidable barrier. The engine made a special effort and broke through

the obstruction, but in the course of another twenty minutes it was again held up. The process of breaking

through was renewed, and the train doggedly resumed its way, encountering and surmounting fresh

hindrances at frequent intervals. After a standstill of unusually long duration in a particularly deep drift the

compartment in which Abbleway was sitting gave a huge jerk and a lurch, and then seemed to remain

stationary; it undoubtedly was not moving, and yet he could hear the puffing of the engine and the slow

rumbling and jolting of wheels. The puffing and rumbling grew fainter, as though it were dying away through

the agency of intervening distance. Abbleway suddenly gave vent to an exclamation of scandalised alarm,

opened the window, and peered out into the snowstorm. The flakes perched on his eyelashes and blurred his

vision, but he saw enough to help him to realise what had happened. The engine had made a mighty plunge

through the drift and had gone merrily forward, lightened of the load of its rear carriage, whose coupling had

snapped under the strain. Abbleway was alone, or almost alone, with a derelict railway waggon, in the heart

of some Styrian or Croatian forest. In the thirdclass compartment next to his own he remembered to have

seen a peasant woman, who had entered the train at a small wayside station. "With the exception of that

woman," he exclaimed dramatically to himself, "the nearest living beings are probably a pack of wolves."

Before making his way to the thirdclass compartment to acquaint his fellowtraveller with the extent of the

disaster Abbleway hurriedly pondered the question of the woman's nationality. He had acquired a smattering

of Slavonic tongues during his residence in Vienna, and felt competent to grapple with several racial

"If she is Croat or Serb or Bosniak I shall be able to make her understand," he promised himself. "If she is

He entered the carriage and made his momentous announcement in the best approach to Croat speech that he

The woman shook her head with a movement that might be intended to convey resignation to the will of

heaven, but probably meant noncomprehension. Abbleway repeated his information with variations of

"Ah," said the woman at last in German dialect, "the train has gone? We are left. Ah, so."

She seemed about as much interested as though Abbleway had told her the result of the municipal elections in

"They will find out at some station, and when the line is clear of snow they will send an engine. It happens

"Many," said the woman; "just outside this forest my aunt was devoured three years ago, as she was coming

home from market. The horse and a young pig that was in the cart were eaten too. The horse was a very old

one, but it was a beautiful young pig, oh, so fat. I cried when I heard that it was taken. They spare nothing."

"They may attack us here," said Abbleway tremulously; "they could easily break in, these carriages are like

"It is the day of Saint Maria Kleopha, my nameday. She would not allow me to be eaten by wolves on her

"It is only afternoon now; if we are to be left here till morning we shall be starving."

"I have here some good eatables," said the woman tranquilly; "on my festival day it is natural that I should

have provision with me. I have five good blood sausages; in the town shops they cost twentyfive heller

"I will give you fifty heller apiece for a couple of them," said Abbleway with some enthusiasm.

"In a railway accident things become very dear," said the woman; "these bloodsausages are four kronen

"You cannot get them any cheaper on this train," said the woman, with relentless logic, "because there aren't

any others to get. In Agram you can buy them cheaper, and in Paradise no doubt they will be given to us for

nothing, but here they cost four kronen each. I have a small piece of Emmenthaler cheese and a honeycake

and a piece of bread that I can let you have. That will be another three kronen, eleven kronen in all. There is a

Abbleway wondered to himself what price she would have put on the ham, and hurried to pay her the eleven

kronen before her emergency tariff expanded into a famine tariff. As he was taking possession of his modest

store of eatables he suddenly heard a noise which set his heart thumping in a miserable fever of fear. 'There

was a scraping and shuffling as of some animal or animals trying to climb up to the footboard. In another

moment, through the snowencrusted glass of the carriage window, he saw a gaunt prickeared head, with

gaping jaw and lolling tongue and gleaming teeth; a second later another head shot up.

"There are hundreds of them," whispered Abbleway; "they have scented us. They will tear the carriage to

"Not me, on my nameday. The holy Maria Kleopha would not permit it," said the woman with provoking

The heads dropped down from the window and an uncanny silence fell on the beleaguered carriage.

Abbleway neither moved nor spoke. Perhaps the brutes had not clearly seen or winded the human occupants

"It grows cold," said the woman suddenly, crossing over to the far end of the carriage, where the heads had

appeared. "The heating apparatus does not work any longer. See, over there beyond the trees, there is a

chimney with smoke coming from it. It is not far, and the snow has nearly stopped, I shall find a path through

"Not on my nameday," said the woman obstinately, and before he could stop her she had opened the door

and climbed down into the snow. A moment later he hid his face in his hands; two gaunt lean figures rushed

upon her from the forest. No doubt she had courted her fate, but Abbleway had no wish to see a human being

When he looked at last a new sensation of scandalised astonishment took possession of him. He had been

straitly brought up in a small English town, and he was not prepared to be the witness of a miracle. The

wolves were not doing anything worse to the woman than drench her with snow as they gambolled round her.

"My cousin Karl's dogs, yes," she answered; that is his inn, over beyond the trees. I knew it was there, but I

did not want to take you there; he is always grasping with strangers. However, it grows too cold to remain in

A whistle sounded, and a relief engine made its appearance, snorting its way sulkily through the snow.

Abbleway did not have the opportunity for finding out whether Karl was really avaricious.

THE children were to be driven, as a special treat, to the sands at Jagborough. Nicholas was not to be of the

party; he was in disgrace. Only that morning he had refused to eat his wholesome breadandmilk on the

seemingly frivolous ground that there was a frog in it. Older and wiser and better people had told him that

there could not possibly be a frog in his breadandmilk and that he was not to talk nonsense; he continued,

nevertheless, to talk what seemed the veriest nonsense, and described with much detail the colouration and

markings of the alleged frog. The dramatic part of the incident was that there really was a frog in Nicholas'

basin of breadandmilk; he had put it there himself, so he felt entitled to know something about it. The sin

of taking a frog from the garden and putting it into a bowl of wholesome breadandmilk was enlarged on at

great length, but the fact that stood out clearest in the whole affair, as it presented itself to the mind of

Nicholas, was that the older, wiser, and better people had been proved to be profoundly in error in matters

"You said there couldn't possibly be a frog in my breadandmilk; there WAS a frog in my

breadandmilk," he repeated, with the insistence of a skilled tactician who does not intend to shift from

So his boycousin and girlcousin and his quite uninteresting younger brother were to be taken to

Jagborough sands that afternoon and he was to stay at home. His cousins' aunt, who insisted, by an

unwarranted stretch of imagination, in styling herself his aunt also, had hastily invented the Jagborough

expedition in order to impress on Nicholas the delights that 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 would be rigorously debarred; if all the children sinned

collectively they were suddenly informed of a circus in a neighbouring town, a circus of unrivalled merit and

uncounted elephants, to which, but for their depravity, they would have been taken that very day.

A few decent tears were looked for on the part of Nicholas when the moment for the departure of the

expedition arrived. As a matter of fact, however, all the crying was done by his girlcousin, who scraped her

knee rather painfully against the step of the carriage as she was scrambling in.

"How she did howl," said Nicholas cheerfully, as the party drove off without any of the elation of high spirits

"She'll soon get over that," said the SOIDISANT aunt; "it will be a glorious afternoon for racing about over

"Bobby won't enjoy himself much, and he won't race much either," said Nicholas with a grim chuckle; his

"He told you twice, but you weren't listening. You often don't listen when we tell you important things."

"You are not to go into the gooseberry garden," said the aunt, changing the subject.

Nicholas did not admit the flawlessness of the reasoning; he felt perfectly capable of being in disgrace and in

a gooseberry garden at the same moment. His face took on an expression of considerable obstinacy. It was

clear to his aunt that he was determined to get into the gooseberry garden, "only," as she remarked to herself,

Now the gooseberry garden had two doors by which it might be entered, and once a small person like

Nicholas could slip in there he could effectually disappear from view amid the masking growth of artichokes,

raspberry canes, and fruit bushes. The aunt had many other things to do that afternoon, but she spent an hour

or two in trivial gardening operations among flower beds and shrubberies, whence she could keep a watchful

eye on the two doors that led to the forbidden paradise. She was a woman of few ideas, with immense powers

Nicholas made one or two sorties into the front garden, wriggling his way with obvious stealth of purpose

towards one or other of the doors, but never able for a moment to evade the aunt's watchful eye. As a matter

of fact, he had no intention of trying to get into the gooseberry garden, but it was extremely convenient for

him that his aunt should believe that he had; it was a belief that would keep her on selfimposed sentryduty

for the greater part of the afternoon. Having thoroughly confirmed and fortified her suspicions Nicholas

slipped back into the house and rapidly put into execution a plan of action that had long germinated in his

brain. By standing on a chair in the library one could reach a shelf on which reposed a fat, importantlooking

key. The key was as important as it looked; it was the instrument which kept the mysteries of the

lumberroom secure from unauthorised intrusion, which opened a way only for aunts and suchlike

privileged persons. Nicholas had not had much experience of the art of fitting keys into keyholes and turning

locks, but for some days past he had practised with the key of the schoolroom door; he did not believe in

trusting too much to luck and accident. The key turned stiffly in the lock, but it turned. The door opened, and

Nicholas was in an unknown land, compared with which the gooseberry garden was a stale delight, a mere

Often and often Nicholas had pictured to himself what the lumberroom might be like, that region that was

so carefully sealed from youthful eyes and concerning which no questions were ever answered. It came up to

his expectations. In the first place it was large and dimly lit, one high window opening on to the forbidden

garden being its only source of illumination. In the second place it was a storehouse of unimagined treasures.

The auntbyassertion was one of those people who think that things spoil by use and consign them to dust

and damp by way of preserving them. Such parts of the house as Nicholas knew best were rather bare and

cheerless, but here there were wonderful things for the eye to feast on. First and foremost there was a piece of

framed tapestry that was evidently meant to be a firescreen. To Nicholas it was a living, breathing story; he

sat down on a roll of Indian hangings, glowing in wonderful colours beneath a layer of dust, and took in all

the details of the tapestry picture. A man, dressed in the hunting costume of some remote period, had just

transfixed a stag with an arrow; it could not have been a difficult shot because the stag was only one or two

paces away from him; in the thicklygrowing vegetation that the picture suggested 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

chase had evidently been trained to keep to heel till the arrow was discharged. That part of the picture was

simple, if interesting, but did the huntsman see, what Nicholas saw, that four galloping wolves were coming

in his direction through the wood? There might be more than four of them hidden behind the trees, and in any

case would the man and his dogs be able to cope with the four wolves if they made an attack? The man had

only two arrows 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 large stag at a ridiculously short range. Nicholas sat for many golden minutes

revolving the possibilities of the scene; he was inclined to think that there were more than four wolves and

But there were other objects of delight and interest claiming his instant attention: there were quaint twisted

candlesticks in the shape of snakes, and a teapot fashioned like a china duck, out of whose open beak the tea

was supposed to come. How dull and shapeless the nursery teapot seemed in comparison! And there was a

carved sandalwood box packed tight with aromatic cottonwool, and between the layers of cottonwool were

little brass figures, humpnecked bulls, and peacocks and goblins, delightful to see and to handle. Less

promising in appearance was a large square book with plain black covers; Nicholas peeped into it, and,

behold, it was full of coloured pictures of birds. And such birds! In the garden, and in the lanes when he went

for a walk, Nicholas came across a few birds, of which the largest were an occasional magpie or

woodpigeon; here were herons and bustards, kites, toucans, tigerbitterns, brush turkeys, ibises, golden

pheasants, a whole portrait gallery of undreamedof creatures. And as he was admiring the colouring of the

mandarin duck and assigning a lifehistory to it, the voice of his aunt in shrill vociferation of his name came

from the gooseberry garden without. She had grown suspicious at his long disappearance, and had leapt to the

conclusion that he had climbed over the wall behind the sheltering screen of the lilac bushes; she was now

engaged in energetic and rather hopeless search 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

It was probably the first time for twenty years that anyone had smiled in that lumberroom.

Presently the angry repetitions of Nicholas' name gave way to a shriek, and a cry for somebody to come

quickly. Nicholas shut the book, restored it carefully to its place in a corner, and shook some dust from a

neighbouring pile of newspapers over it. Then he crept from the room, locked the door, and replaced the key

exactly where he had found it. His aunt was still calling his name when he sauntered into the front garden.

"Me," came the answer from the other side of the wall; "didn't you hear me? I've been looking for you in the

gooseberry garden, and I've slipped into the rain water tank. Luckily there's no water in it, but the sides are

slippery and I can't get out. Fetch the little ladder from under the cherry tree "

"I told you not to, and now I tell you that you may," came the voice from the rainwater tank, rather

"Your voice doesn't sound like aunt's," objected Nicholas; "you may be the Evil One tempting me to be

disobedient. Aunt often tells me that the Evil One tempts me and that I always yield. This time I'm not going

"Don't talk nonsense," said the prisoner in the tank; "go and fetch the ladder."

"Certainly there will be," said the aunt, privately resolving that Nicholas should have none of it.

"Now I know that you are the Evil One and not aunt," shouted Nicholas gleefully; "when we asked aunt for

strawberry jam yesterday she said there wasn't any. I know there are four jars of it in the store cupboard,

because I looked, and of course you know it's there, but she doesn't, because she said there wasn't any. Oh,

There was an unusual sense of luxury in being able to talk to an aunt as though one was talking to the Evil

One, but Nicholas knew, with childish discernment, that such luxuries were not to be overindulged in. He

walked noisily away, and it was a kitchenmaid, in search of parsley, who eventually rescued the aunt from the

Tea that evening was partaken of in a fearsome silence. The tide had been at its highest when the children had

arrived at Jagborough Cove, so there had been no sands to play on a circumstance that the aunt had

overlooked in the haste of organising her punitive expedition. The tightness of Bobby's boots had had

disastrous effect on his temper the whole of the afternoon, and altogether the children could not have been

said to have enjoyed themselves. The aunt maintained the frozen muteness of one who has suffered

undignified and unmerited detention in a rainwater tank for thirtyfive minutes. As for Nicholas, he, too,

was silent, in the absorption of one who has much to think about; it was just possible, he considered, that the

huntsman would escape with his hounds while the wolves feasted on the stricken stag.

"I am worried," admitted Suzanne; "not worried exactly, but anxious. You see, my birthday happens next

"You lucky person," interrupted Eleanor; "my birthday doesn't come till the end of March."

"Well, old Bertram Kneyght is over in England just now from the Argentine. He's a kind of distant cousin of

my mother's, and so enormously 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 Cousin Bertram when he does turn up. I can't say he's ever

been of much solid use to us, but yesterday the subject of my birthday cropped up, and he asked me to let him

"As a rule when one is confronted with a problem like that," said Suzanne, "all one's ideas vanish; one doesn't

seem to have a desire in the world. Now it so happens that I have been very keen on a little Dresden figure

that I saw somewhere in Kensington; about thirty six shillings, quite beyond my means. I was very nearly

describing the figure, and giving Bertram the address of the shop. And then it suddenly struck me that

thirtysix shillings was such a ridiculously inadequate sum for a man of his immense wealth to spend on a

birthday present. He could give thirtysix pounds as easily as you or I could buy a bunch of violets. I don't

"The question is," said Eleanor, "what are his ideas as to presentgiving? Some of the wealthiest people have

curiously cramped views on that subject. When people grow gradually rich their requirements and standard of

living expand in proportion, while their presentgiving instincts often remain in the undeveloped condition of

their earlier days. Something showy and nottoo expensive in a shop is their only conception of the ideal

gift. That is why even quite good shops have their counters and windows crowded with things worth about

four shillings that look as if they might be worth sevenand six, and are priced at ten shillings and labelled

"I know," said Suzanne; "that is why it is so risky to be vague when one is giving indications of one's wants.

Now if I say to him: 'I am going out to Davos this winter, so anything in the travelling line would be

acceptable,' he might give me a dressingbag 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, a fan will be sure to be useful.' "

"Yes, and I've got tons of fans, so you see where the danger and anxiety lies. Now if there is one thing more

than another that I really urgently want it is furs. I simply haven't any. I'm told that Davos is full of Russians,

and they are sure to wear the most lovely sables and things. To be among people who are smothered in furs

"If it's furs that you're out for," said Eleanor, "you will have to superintend the choice of them in person. You

can't be sure that your cousin knows the difference between silverfox and ordinary squirrel."

"There are some heavenly silverfox stoles at Goliath and Mastodon's," said Suzanne, with a sigh; "if I could

only inveigle Bertram into their building and take him for a stroll through the fur department!"

"He lives somewhere near there, doesn't he?" said Eleanor. "Do you know what his habits are? Does he take a

"He usually walks down to his club about three o'clock, if it's a fine day. That takes him right past Goliath

"Let us two meet him accidentally at the street corner tomorrow," said Eleanor; "we can walk a little way

with him, and with luck we ought to be able to side track him into the shop. You can say you want to get a

hairnet or something. When we're safely there I can say: 'I wish you'd tell me what you want for your

birthday.' Then you'll have everything ready to hand the rich cousin, the fur department, and the topic of

"It's a great idea," said Suzanne; "you really are a brick. Come round tomorrow at twenty to three; don't be

At a few minutes to three the next afternoon the furtrappers walked warily towards the selected corner. In

the near distance rose the colossal pile of Messrs. Goliath and Mastodon's famed establishment. The

afternoon was brilliantly fine, exactly the sort of weather to tempt a gentleman of advancing years into the

"I say, dear, I wish you'd do something for me this evening," said Eleanor to her companion; "just drop in

after dinner on some pretext or other, 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 come in unexpectedly about ninefifteen,

and I particularly want to be free to talk to him while the others are playing."

"Sorry, my dear, no can do," said Suzanne; "ordinary bridge at threepence a hundred, with such dreadfully

"But I most particularly want an opportunity to talk with Harry," urged Eleanor, an angry glint coming into

"Sorry, anything to oblige, but not that," said Suzanne cheerfully; the sacrifices of friendship were beautiful

Eleanor said nothing further on the subject, but the corners of her mouth rearranged themselves.

Mr. Bertram Kneyght greeted his cousin and her friend with genuine heartiness, and readily accepted their

invitation to explore the crowded mart that stood temptingly at their elbow. The plateglass doors swung

open and the trio plunged bravely into the jostling throng of buyers and loiterers.

Suzanne, in her anxiety to pilot her cousin to the desired haven of the fur department, was usually a few paces

ahead of the others, coming back to them now and then if they lingered for a moment at some attractive

counter, with the nervous solicitude of a parent rook encouraging its young ones on their first flying

"It's Suzanne's birthday on Wednesday next," confided Eleanor to Bertram Kneyght at a moment when

Suzanne had left them unusually far behind; "my birthday comes the day before, so we are both on the

"Ah," said Bertram. "Now, perhaps you can advise me on that very point. I want to give Suzanne something,

"She's rather a problem," said Eleanor. "She seems to have everything one can think of, lucky girl. A fan is

always useful; she'll be going to a lot of dances at Davos this winter. Yes, I should think a fan would please

her more than anything. After our birthdays are over we inspect each other's muster of presents, and I always

feel dreadfully humble. She gets 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 all well off, so I can't expect them to do

anything more than just remember the day with some little trifle. Two years ago an uncle on my mother's side

of the family, who had come into a small legacy, promised me a silverfox stole for my birthday. I can't tell

you how excited I was about it, how I pictured myself showing it off to all my friends and enemies. Then just

at that moment his wife died, and, of course, poor man, he could not be expected to think of birthday presents

at such a time. He has lived abroad ever since, and I never got my fur. Do you know, to this day I can

scarcely look at a silverfox pelt in a shop window 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 feel that way. Look, there is the fan

counter, on your left; you can easily slip away in the crowd. Get her as nice a one as you can see she is such

"Hullo, I thought I had lost you," said Suzanne, making her way through an obstructive knot of shoppers.

"I got separated from him long ago. I thought he was on ahead with you," said Eleanor. "We shall never find

"All our trouble and forethought thrown away," said Suzanne sulkily, when they had pushed their way

"I can't think why you didn't grab him by the arm," said Eleanor; "I would have if I'd known him longer, but

"Thank you very much for the photograph frame. It was just what I wanted. Very good of you. I say, do you

know what that Kneyght person has given me? Just what you said he would a wretched fan. What? Oh yes,

"You must come and see what he's given me," came in Eleanor's voice over the 'phone.

"Your cousin appears to be one of those rare people of wealth who take a pleasure in giving good presents,"

"I wondered why he was so anxious to know where she lived," snapped Suzanne to herself as she rang off.

A cloud has arisen between the friendships of the two young women; as far as Eleanor is concerned the cloud

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 pleasantest aspects. Gregory had managed to get home for a hurried lunch

and a smoke afterwards in the little snuggery; the lunch had been a good one, and there was just time to do

justice to the coffee and cigarettes. Both were excellent in their way, and Gregory was, in his way, an

excellent husband. Jocantha rather suspected herself of making him a very charming wife, and more than

"I don't suppose a more thoroughly contented personality is to be found in all Chelsea," observed Jocantha in

allusion to herself; "except perhaps Attab," she continued, glancing towards the large tabbymarked cat that

lay in considerable ease in a corner of the divan. "He lies there, purring and dreaming, shifting his limbs now

and then in an ecstasy of cushioned comfort. He seems the incarnation of everything soft and silky and

velvety, without a sharp edge in his composition, a dreamer whose philosophy is sleep and let sleep; and

then, as evening draws on, he goes out into the garden with a red glint in his eyes and slays a drowsy

"As every pair of sparrows hatches out ten or more young ones in the year, while their food supply remains

stationary, it is just as well that the Attabs of the community should have that idea of how to pass an amusing

afternoon," said Gregory. Having delivered himself of this sage comment he lit another cigarette, bade

"Remember, dinner's a wee bit earlier tonight, as we're going to the Haymarket," she called after him.

Left to herself, Jocantha continued the process of looking at her life with placid, introspective eyes. If she had

not everything she wanted in this world, at least she was very well pleased with what she had got. She was

very well pleased, for instance, with the snuggery, which contrived somehow to be cosy and dainty and

expensive all at once. The porcelain was rare and beautiful, the Chinese enamels took on wonderful tints in

the firelight, the rugs and hangings led the eye through sumptuous harmonies of colouring. It was a room in

which one might have suitably entertained an ambassador or an archbishop, but it was also a room in which

one could cut out pictures for a scrapbook without feeling that one was scandalising the deities of the place

with one's litter. And as with 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 good reason for being one of the most contented women

From being in a mood of simmering satisfaction with her lot she passed to the phase of being generously

commiserating for those thousands around her whose lives and circumstances were dull, cheap, pleasureless,

and empty. Work girls, shop assistants and so forth, the class that have neither the happygolucky freedom

of the poor nor the leisured freedom of the rich, came specially within the range of her sympathy. It was sad

to think that there were young people who, after a long day's work, had to sit alone in chill, dreary bedrooms

because they could not afford the price of a cup of coffee and a sandwich in a restaurant, still less a shilling

Jocantha's mind was still dwelling on this theme when she started forth on an afternoon campaign of

desultory shopping; it would be rather a comforting thing, she told herself, if she could do something, on the

spur of the moment, to bring a gleam of pleasure and interest into the life of even one or two wistful

hearted, emptypocketed workers; it would add a good deal to her sense of enjoyment at the theatre that

night. She would get two upper circle tickets for a popular play, make her way into some cheap teashop, and

present the tickets to the first couple of interesting work girls with whom she could casually drop into

conversation. She could explain matters by saying that she was unable to use the tickets herself and did not

want them to be wasted, and, on the other hand, did not want the trouble of sending them back. On further

reflection she decided that it might be better to get only one ticket and give it to some lonelylooking girl

sitting eating her frugal meal by herself; the girl might scrape acquaintance with her nextseat neighbour at

With the Fairy Godmother impulse strong upon her, Jocantha marched into a ticket agency and selected with

immense care an upper circle seat for the "Yellow Peacock," a play that was attracting a considerable amount

of discussion and criticism. Then she went forth in search of a teashop and philanthropic adventure, at about

the same time that Attab sauntered into the garden with a mind attuned to sparrow stalking. In a corner of an

A.B.C. shop she found an unoccupied table, whereat she promptly installed herself, impelled by the fact that

at the next table was sitting a young girl, rather plain of feature, with tired, listless eyes, and a general air of

uncomplaining forlornness. Her dress was of poor material, but aimed at being in the fashion, her hair was

pretty, and her complexion bad; she was finishing a modest meal of tea and scone, and she was not very

different in her way from thousands of other girls who were finishing, or beginning, or continuing their teas

in London teashops at that exact moment. The odds were enormously in favour of the supposition that she

had never seen the "Yellow Peacock"; obviously she supplied excellent material for Jocantha's first

Jocantha ordered some tea and a muffin, and then turned a friendly scrutiny on her neighbour with a view to

catching her eye. At that precise moment the girl's face lit up with sudden pleasure, her eyes sparkled, a flush

came into her cheeks, and she looked almost pretty. A young man, whom she greeted with an affectionate

"Hullo, Bertie," came up to her table and took his seat in a chair facing her. Jocantha looked hard at the new

comer; he was in appearance a few years younger than herself, very much better looking than Gregory, rather

better looking, in fact, than any of the young men of her set. She guessed him to be a wellmannered young

clerk in some wholesale warehouse, existing and amusing himself as best he might on a tiny salary, and

commanding a holiday of about two weeks in the year. He was aware, of course, of his good looks, but with

the shy self consciousness of the AngloSaxon, not the blatant complacency of the Latin or Semite. He was

obviously on terms of friendly intimacy with the girl he was talking to, probably they were drifting towards a

formal engagement. Jocantha pictured the boy's home, in a rather narrow circle, with a tiresome mother who

always wanted to know how and where he spent his evenings. He would exchange that humdrum thraldom in

due course for a home of his own, dominated by a chronic scarcity of pounds, shillings, and pence, and a

dearth of most of the things that made life attractive or comfortable. Jocantha felt extremely sorry for him.

She wondered if he had seen the "Yellow Peacock"; the odds were enormously in favour of the supposition

that he had not. The girl 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: "My husband has made other arrangements for me this

evening; would you care to make use of this ticket, which would otherwise be wasted?" Then she could come

there again one afternoon for tea, and, if she saw him, ask him how he liked the play. If he was a nice boy and

improved on acquaintance he could be given more theatre tickets, and perhaps asked to come one Sunday to

tea at Chelsea. Jocantha made up her mind that he would improve on acquaintance, and that Gregory would

like him, and that the Fairy Godmother business would prove far more entertaining than she had originally

anticipated. The boy was distinctly presentable; he knew how to brush his hair, which was possibly an

imitative faculty; he knew what colour of tie suited him, which might be intuition; he was exactly the type

that Jocantha admired, which of course was accident. Altogether she was rather pleased when the girl looked

at the clock and bade a friendly but hurried farewell to her companion. Bertie nodded "goodbye," gulped

down a mouthful of tea, and then produced from his overcoat pocket a papercovered book, bearing the title

The laws of teashop etiquette forbid that you should offer theatre tickets to a stranger without having first

caught the stranger's eye. It is even better if you can ask to have a sugar basin passed to you, having

previously concealed the fact that you have a large and wellfilled sugar basin on your own table; this is not

difficult to manage, as the printed menu is generally nearly as large as the table, and can be made to stand on

end. Jocantha set to work hopefully; she had a long and rather highpitched discussion with the waitress

concerning alleged defects in an altogether blameless muffin, she made loud and plaintive inquiries about the

tube service to some impossibly remote suburb, she talked with brilliant insincerity to the teashop kitten,

and as a last resort she upset a milkjug and swore at it daintily. Altogether she attracted a good deal of

attention, but never for a moment did she attract the attention of the boy with the beautifullybrushed hair,

who was some thousands of miles away in the baking plains of Hindostan, amid deserted bungalows,

seething bazaars, and riotous barrack squares, listening to the throbbing of tomtoms and the distant rattle of

Jocantha went back to her house in Chelsea, which struck her for the first time as looking dull and over

furnished. She had a resentful conviction that Gregory would be uninteresting at dinner, and that the play

would be stupid after dinner. On the whole her frame of mind showed a marked divergence from the purring

complacency of Attab, who was again curled up in his corner of the divan with a great peace radiating from

OF all the genuine Bohemians who strayed from time to time into the wouldbe Bohemian circle of the

Restaurant Nuremberg, Owl Street, Soho, none was more interesting and more elusive than Gebhard

Knopfschrank. He had no friends, and though he treated all the restaurant frequenters as acquaintances he

never seemed to wish to carry the acquaintanceship beyond the door that led into Owl Street and the outer

world. He dealt with them all rather as a market woman might deal with chance passersby, exhibiting her

wares and chattering about the weather and the slackness of business, occasionally about rheumatism, but

never showing a desire to penetrate into their daily lives or to dissect their ambitions.

He was understood to belong to a family of peasant farmers, somewhere in Pomerania; some two years ago,

according to all that was known of him, he had abandoned the labours and responsibilities of swine tending

Well, there was a ship that left Stolpmunde for London twice a month, that carried few passengers, but

carried them cheaply; the railway fares to Munich or Paris were not cheap. Thus it was that he came to select

The question that had long and seriously agitated the frequenters of the Nuremberg was whether this goose

boy migrant was really a souldriven genius, spreading his wings to the light, or merely an enterprising

young man who fancied he could paint and was pardonably anxious to escape from the monotony of rye

bread diet and the sandy, swinebestrewn plains of Pomerania. There was reasonable ground for doubt and

caution; the artistic groups that foregathered at the little restaurant contained so many 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 the supposition, that a

selfannounced genius of any sort in their midst was inevitably suspect. On the other hand, there was the

everimminent danger of entertaining, and snubbing, an angel unawares. There had been the lamentable case

of Sledonti, the dramatic poet, who had been belittled and coldshouldered in the Owl Street hall of

judgment, and had been afterwards hailed as a master singer by the Grand Duke Constantine

Constantinovitch "the most educated of the Romanoffs," according to Sylvia Strubble, who spoke rather as

one who knew every individual member of the Russian imperial family; as a matter of fact, she knew a

newspaper correspondent, a young man who ate BORTSCH with the air of having invented it. Sledonti's

"Poems of Death and Passion" were now being sold by the thousand in seven European languages, and were

about to be translated into Syrian, a circumstance which made the discerning critics of the Nuremberg rather

As regards Knopfschrank's work, they did not lack opportunity for inspecting and appraising it. However

resolutely he might hold himself aloof from the social life of his restaurant acquaintances, he was not minded

to hide his artistic performances from their inquiring gaze. Every evening, or nearly every evening, at about

seven o'clock, he would make his appearance, sit himself down at his accustomed table, throw a bulky black

portfolio on to the chair opposite him, nod round indiscriminately at his fellowguests, and commence the

serious business of eating and drinking. 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 studies and sketches, and silently pass them round from table to table, paying especial

attention to any new diners who might be present. On the back of each sketch was marked in plain figures the

If his work was not obviously stamped with the hall mark of genius, at any rate it was remarkable for its

choice of an unusual and unvarying theme. His pictures always represented some wellknown street or public

place in London, fallen into decay and denuded of its human population, in the place of which there roamed a

wild fauna, which, from its wealth of exotic species, must have originally escaped from Zoological Gardens

and travelling beast shows. "Giraffes drinking at the fountain pools, Trafalgar Square," was one of the most

notable and characteristic of his studies, while even more sensational was the gruesome picture of "Vultures

attacking dying camel in Upper Berkeley Street." There were also photographs of the large canvas on which

he had been engaged for some months, and which he was now endeavouring to sell to some enterprising

dealer or adventurous amateur. The subject was "Hyaenas asleep in Euston Station," a composition that left

"Of course it may be immensely clever, it may be something epochmaking in the realm of art," said Sylvia

Strubble to her own particular circle of listeners, "but, on the other hand, it may be merely mad. One mustn't

pay 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, or even for some of the sketches, we should know better how to place the man

"We may all be cursing ourselves one of these days," said Mrs. NougatJones, "for not having bought up his

entire portfolio of sketches. At the same time, when there is so much real talent going about, one does not feel

like planking down ten shillings for what looks like a bit of whimsical oddity. Now that picture that he

showed us last week, 'Sandgrouse roosting on the Albert Memorial,' was very impressive, and of course I

could see there was good workmanship in it and breadth of treatment; but it didn't in the least convey the

Albert Memorial to me, and Sir James Beanquest tells me that sandgrouse don't roost, they sleep on the

Whatever talent or genius the Pomeranian artist might possess, it certainly failed to receive commercial

sanction. The portfolio remained bulky with unsold sketches, and the "Euston Siesta," as the wits of the

Nuremberg nicknamed the large canvas, was still in the market. The outward and visible signs of financial

embarrassment began to be noticeable; the halfbottle of cheap claret at dinnertime gave way to a small

glass of lager, and this in turn was displaced by water. The one andsixpenny set dinner receded from an

everyday event to a Sunday extravagance; on ordinary days the artist contented himself with a sevenpenny

omelette and some bread and cheese, and there were evenings when he did not put in an appearance at all. On

the rare occasions when he spoke of his own affairs it was observed that he began to talk more about

"It is a busy time there now with us," he said wistfully; "the schwines are driven out into the fields after

harvest, and must be looked after. I could be helping to look after if I was there. Here it is difficult to live; art

"Ah, it cost money! There is the ship passage to Stolpmunde, and there is money that I owe at my lodgings.

"Perhaps," suggested Mrs. NougatJones, "if you were to offer them for a little less, some of us would be

glad to buy a few. Ten shillings is always a consideration, you know, to people who are not over well off.

Once a peasant, always a peasant. The mere suggestion of a bargain to be struck brought a twinkle of

"Nine schilling nine pence each," he snapped, and seemed disappointed that Mrs. NougatJones did not

pursue the subject further. He had evidently expected her to offer seven and fourpence.

The weeks sped by, and Knopfschrank came more rarely to the restaurant in Owl Street, while his meals on

those occasions became more and more meagre. And then came a triumphal day, when he appeared early in

the evening in a high state of elation, and ordered an elaborate meal that scarcely stopped short of being a

banquet. The ordinary resources of the kitchen were supplemented by an imported dish of smoked

goosebreast, a Pomeranian delicacy that was luckily procurable at a firm of DELIKATESSEN merchants in

Coventry Street, while a longnecked bottle of Rhine wine gave a finishing touch of festivity and good cheer

"He has evidently sold his masterpiece," whispered Sylvia Strubble to Mrs. NougatJones, who had come in

"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 he has put pennies in the music box three times, once to play the 'Star

spangled Banner,' then a Sousa march, and then the 'Star spangled Banner' again. It must be an American

millionaire, and he's evidently got a very big price for it; he's just beaming and chuckling with satisfaction."

"Hush! no, don't. Let's buy some of his sketches, quick, before we are supposed to know that he's famous;

otherwise he'll be doubling the prices. I am so glad he's had a success at last. I always believed in him, you

For the sum of ten shillings each Miss Strubble acquired the drawings of the camel dying in Upper Berkeley

Street and of the giraffes quenching their thirst in Trafalgar Square; at the same price Mrs. NougatJones

secured the study of roosting sandgrouse. A more ambitious picture, "Wolves and wapiti fighting on the

"And now what are your plans?" asked a young man who contributed occasional paragraphs to an artistic

"I go back to Stolpmunde as soon as the ship sails," said the artist, "and I do not return. Never."

"Ah, there is nossing in it. One starves. Till to day I have sold not one of my sketches. Tonight you have

"Ah, the rich American," chuckled the artist. "God be thanked. He dash his car right into our herd of schwines

as they were being driven out to the fields. Many of our best schwines he killed, but he paid all damages. He

paid perhaps more than they were worth, many times more than they would have fetched in the market after a

When one is in a hurry one must pay what one is asked. God be thanked for rich Americans, who are always

in a hurry to get somewhere else. My father and mother, they have now so plenty of money; they send me

some to pay my debts and come home. I start on Monday for Stolpmunde and I do not come back. Never."

In time he will be forgotten, but at present Knopfschrank is almost as sore a subject as Sledonti with some of