Jerome K. Jerome .....................................................................................................................................1

REGINALD BLAKE, FINANCIER AND CAD....................................................................................1

AN ITEM OF FASHIONABLE INTELLIGENCE................................................................................7

BLASE BILLY......................................................................................................................................17

THE CHOICE OF CYRIL HARJOHN.................................................................................................24

THE MATERIALISATION OF CHARLES AND MIVANWAY .......................................................30

PORTRAIT OF A LADY ......................................................................................................................36

THE MAN WHO WOULD MANAGE................................................................................................42

THE MAN WHO LIVED FOR OTHERS .............................................................................................47

A MAN OF HABIT ...............................................................................................................................51

THE ABSENTMINDED MAN ...........................................................................................................56

A CHARMING WOMAN .....................................................................................................................61

WHIBLEY'S SPIRIT .............................................................................................................................64

THE MAN WHO WENT WRONG......................................................................................................68

THE HOBBY RIDER ............................................................................................................................74

THE MAN WHO DID NOT BELIEVE IN LUCK ...............................................................................78

DICK DUNKERMAN'S CAT ...............................................................................................................84

THE MINOR POET'S STORY.............................................................................................................88

THE DEGENERATION OF THOMAS HENRY .................................................................................93

THE CITY OF THE SEA ......................................................................................................................95

DRIFTWOOD ........................................................................................................................................98

The advantage of literature over life is that its characters are clearly defined, and act consistently. Nature,

always inartistic, takes pleasure in creating the impossible. Reginald Blake was as typical a specimen of the

wellbred cad as one could hope to find between Piccadilly Circus and Hyde Park Corner. Vicious without

passion, and possessing brain without mind, existence presented to him no difficulties, while his pleasures

brought him no pains. His morality was bounded by the doctor on the one side, and the magistrate on the

other. Careful never to outrage the decrees of either, he was at fortyfive still healthy, though stout; and had

achieved the not too easy task of amassing a fortune while avoiding all risk of Holloway. He and his wife,

Edith (nee Eppington), were as illmatched a couple as could be conceived by any dramatist seeking material

for a problem play. As they stood before the altar on their wedding morn, they might have been taken as

symbolising satyr and saint. More than twenty years his junior, beautiful with the beauty of a Raphael's

Madonna, his every touch of her seemed a sacrilege. Yet once in his life Mr. Blake played the part of a great

gentleman; Mrs. Blake, on the same occasion, contenting herself with a singularly mean rolemean even for

The affair, of course, had been a marriage of convenience. Blake, to do him justice, had made no pretence to

anything beyond admiration and regard. Few things grow monotonous sooner than irregularity. He would

tickle his jaded palate with respectability, and try for a change the companionship of a good woman. The

girl's face drew him, as the moonlight holds a man who, bored by the noise, turns from a heated room to press

his forehead to the windowpane. Accustomed to bid for what he wanted, he offered his price. The

Eppington family was poor and numerous. The girl, bred up to the false notions of duty inculcated by a

narrow conventionality, and, feminine like, half in love with martyrdom for its own sake, let her father

To a drama of this description, a lover is necessary, if the complications are to be of interest to the outside

world. Harry Sennett, a pleasantlooking enough young fellow, in spite of his receding chin, was possessed,

perhaps, of more good intention than sense. Under the influence of Edith's stronger character he was soon

persuaded to acquiesce meekly in the proposed arrangement. Both succeeded in convincing themselves that

they were acting nobly. The tone of the farewell interview, arranged for the eve of the wedding, would have

been fit and proper to the occasion had Edith been a modern Joan of Arc about to sacrifice her own happiness

on the altar of a great cause; as the girl was merely selling herself into ease and luxury, for no higher motive

than the desire to enable a certain number of more or less worthy relatives to continue living beyond their

legitimate means, the sentiment was perhaps exaggerated. Many tears were shed, and many everlasting

goodbyes spoken, though, seeing that Edith's new home would be only a few streets off, and that of

necessity their social set would continue to be the same, more experienced persons might have counselled

hope. Three months after the marriage they found themselves side by side at the same dinnertable; and after

a little melodramatic fencing with what they were pleased to regard as fate, they accommodated themselves

Blake was quite aware that Sennett had been Edith's lover. So had half a dozen other men, some younger,

some older than himself. He felt no more embarrassment at meeting them than, standing on the pavement

outside the Stock Exchange, he would have experienced greeting his brother jobbers after a settling day that

had transferred a fortune from their hands into his. Sennett, in particular, he liked and encouraged. Our whole

social system, always a mystery to the philosopher, owes its existence to the fact that few men and women

possess sufficient intelligence to be interesting to themselves. Blake liked company, but not much company

liked Blake. Young Sennett, however, could always be relied upon to break the tediousness of the domestic

dialogue. A common love of sport drew the two men together. Most of us improve upon closer knowledge,

"That is the man you ought to have married," said Blake one night to his wife, half laughingly, half seriously,

as they sat alone, listening to Sennett's departing footsteps echoing upon the deserted pavement. "He's a good

"He's a better man than I am, with all my highfalutin' talk, and, upon my soul, he loves you. Shall I go

"Kill myself," replied the other, with a laugh, "or run away with the first man that asked me."

Blake himself had made the path easy to them. There was little need for either fear or caution. Indeed, their

safest course lay in recklessness, and they took it. To Sennett the house was always open. It was Blake

himself who, when unable to accompany his wife, would suggest Sennett as a substitute. Club friends

shrugged their shoulders. Was the man completely under his wife's thumb; or, tired of her, was he playing

some devil's game of his own? To most of his acquaintances the latter explanation seemed the more plausible.

The gossip, in due course, reached the parental home. Mrs. Eppington shook the vials of her wrath over the

head of her sonin law. The father, always a cautious man, felt inclined to blame his child for her want of

"I believe the man is deliberately plotting to get rid of her," said Mrs. Eppington. "I shall tell him plainly

"You're a fool, Hannah," replied her husband, allowing himself the licence of the domestic hearth. "If you are

right, you will only precipitate matters; if you are wrong, you will tell him what there is no need for him to

know. Leave the matter to me. I can sound him without giving anything away, and meanwhile you talk to

So matters were arranged, but the interview between mother and daughter hardly improved the position. Mrs.

Eppington was conventionally moral; Edith had been thinking for herself, and thinking in a bad atmosphere.

"I had once," was Edith's reply, "before I came to live here. Do you know what this house is for me, with its

gilded mirrors, its couches, its soft carpets? Do you know what I am, and have been for two years?"

The elder woman rose, with a frightened pleading look upon her face, and the other stopped and turned away

"Oh! every silly thing that was ever done, was done for the best. _I_ thought it would be for the best, myself.

Everything would be so simple if only we were not alive. Don't let's talk any more. All you can say is quite

The silence continued for a while, the Dresdenchina clock on the mantelpiece ticking louder and louder as if

to say, "I, Time, am here. Do not make your plans forgetting me, little mortals; I change your thoughts and

"Intend! Oh, the right thing of course. We all intend that. I shall send Harry away with a few wellchosen

words of farewell, learn to love my husband and settle down to a life of quiet domestic bliss. Oh, it's easy

The girl's face wrinkled with a laugh that aged her. In that moment it was a hard, evil face, and with a pang

the elder woman thought of that other face, so like, yet so unlikethe sweet pure face of a girl that had given

to a sordid home its one touch of nobility. As under the lightning's flash we see the whole arc of the horizon,

so Mrs. Eppington looked and saw her child's life. The gilded, overfurnished room vanished. She and a

bigeyed, fairhaired child, the only one of her children she had ever understood, were playing wonderful

games in the twilight among the shadows of a tiny attic. Now she was the wolf, devouring Edith, who was

Red Riding Hood, with kisses. Now Cinderella's prince, now both her wicked sisters. But in the favourite

game of all, Mrs. Eppington was a beautiful princess, bewitched by a wicked dragon, so that she seemed to be

an old, worn woman. But curlyheaded Edith fought the dragon, represented by the threelegged rocking

horse, and slew him with much shouting and the toastingfork. Then Mrs. Eppington became again a

In this twilight hour the misbehaviour of the "General," the importunity of the family butcher, and the airs

The games ended. The little curly head would be laid against her breast "for five minutes' love," while the

restless little brain framed the endless question that children are for ever asking in all its thousand forms,

"What is life, mother? I am very little, and I think, and think, until I grow frightened. Oh, mother, tell me,

Had she dealt with these questions wisely? Might it not have been better to have treated them more seriously?

Could life after all be ruled by maxims learned from copybooks? She had answered as she had been

answered in her own farback days of questioning. Might it not have been better had she thought for herself?

It was the old baby cry, the cry of us all, children that we are, till mother Nature kisses us and bids us go to

Their arms were round each other now, and so they sat, mother and child once more. And the twilight of the

The masculine duet had more result, but was not conducted with the finesse that Mr. Eppington, who prided

himself on his diplomacy, had intended. Indeed, so evidently ill at ease was that gentleman, when the

moment came for talk, and so palpably were his pointless remarks mere efforts to delay an unpleasant

subject, that Blake, always direct bluntly though not illnaturedly asked him, "How much?"

"It's not thatat least that's not what I have come about," he answered confusedly.

Inwardly Mr. Eppington cursed himself for a fool, for the which he was perhaps not altogether without

excuse. He had meant to act the part of a clever counsel, acquiring information while giving none; by a

"Oh, nothing, nothing," was the feeble response, "merely looked in to see how Edith was."

"Much the same as at dinner last night, when you were here," answered Blake. "Come, out with it."

"Don't you think," he said, unconsciously glancing round the room to be sure they were alone, "that young

"Of course, we know it is all rightas nice a young fellow as ever livedand Edithand all that. Of

Blake rose. He had an ugly look when angry, and his language was apt to be coarse.

"Tell them to mind their own business, and leave me and my wife alone." That was the sense of what he said;

"But, my dear Blake," urged Mr. Eppington, "for your own sake, is it wise? There was a sort of boy and girl

attachment between them nothing of any moment, but all that gives colour to gossip. Forgive me, but I am

"Then don't open your ears to the chatter of a pack of fools," replied his soninlaw roughly. But the next

instant a softer expression passed over his face, and he laid his hand on the older man's arm.

"Perhaps there are many more, but there's one good woman in the world," he said, "and that's your daughter.

Come and tell me that the Bank of England is getting shaky on its legs, and I'll listen to you."

But the stronger the faith, the deeper strike the roots of suspicion. Blake said no further word on the subject,

and Sennett was as welcome as before. But Edith, looking up suddenly, would sometimes find her husband's

eyes fixed on her with a troubled look as of some dumb creature trying to understand; and often he would slip

out of the house of an evening by himself, returning home hours afterwards, tired and mudstained.

He made attempts to show his affection. This was the most fatal thing he could have done. Illtemper,

illtreatment even, she might have borne. His clumsy caresses, his foolish, halting words of tenderness

became a horror to her. She wondered whether to laugh or to strike at his upturned face. His tactless devotion

filled her life as with some sickly perfume, stifling her. If only she could be by herself for a little while to

think! But he was with her night and day. There were times when, as he would cross the room towards her, he

grew monstrous until he towered above her, a formless thing such as children dream of. And she would sit

with her lips tight pressed, clutching the chair lest she should start up screaming.

Her only thought was to escape from him. One day she hastily packed a few necessaries in a small handbag

and crept unperceived from the house. She drove to Charing Cross, but the Continental Express did not leave

Of what use was it? Her slender stock of money would soon be gone; how could she live? He would find her

Suddenly a fierce desire of life seized hold of her, the angry answer of her young blood to despair. Why

should she die, never having known what it was to live? Why should she prostrate herself before this

juggernaut of other people's respectability? Joy called to her; only her own cowardice stayed her from

stretching forth her hand and gathering it. She returned home a different woman, for hope had come to her.

A week later the butler entered the dining room, and handed Blake a letter addressed to him in his wife's

handwriting. He took it without a word, as though he had been expecting it. It simply told him that she had

The world is small, and money commands many services. Sennett had gone out for a stroll; Edith was left in

the tiny salon of their appartement at Fecamp. It was the third day of their arrival in the town. The door was

She rose frightened, but by a motion he reassured her. There was a quiet dignity about the man that was

He interrupted her vehemently. "I know nothing. I wish to know nothing. Go back to London at once. I have

made everything right; no one suspects. I shall not be there; you will never see me again, and you will have

She listened. Hers was not a great nature, and the desire to obtain happiness without paying the price was

strong upon her. As for his good name, what could that matter? he urged. People would only say that he had

gone back to the evil from which he had emerged, and few would be surprised. His life would go on much as

She quite understood his plan; it seemed mean of her to accept his proposal, and she argued feebly against it.

But he overcame all her objections. For his own sake, he told her, he would prefer the scandal to be

connected with his name rather than with that of his wife. As he unfolded his scheme, she began to feel that

in acquiescing she was conferring a favour. It was not the first deception he had arranged for the public, and

he appeared to be half in love with his own cleverness. She even found herself laughing at his mimicry of

what this acquaintance and that would say. Her spirits rose; the play that might have been a painful drama

The thing settled, he rose to go, and held out his hand. As she looked up into his face, something about the

"You will be well rid of me," she said. "I have brought you nothing but trouble."

His eyes travelled aimlessly about the room. "They taught me a lot of things when I was a boy," he said, "my

mother and othersthey meant wellwhich as I grew older I discovered to be lies; and so I came to think

that nothing good was true, and that everything and everybody was evil. And then"

His wandering eyes came round to her and he broke off abruptly. "Goodbye," he said, and the next moment

She sat wondering for a while what he had meant. Then Sennett returned, and the words went out of her head.

A good deal of sympathy was felt for Mrs. Blake. The man had a charming wife; he might have kept straight;

Speaking personally, I do not like the Countess of . She is not the type of woman I could love. I hesitate

the less giving expression to this sentiment by reason of the conviction that the Countess of would not be

unduly depressed even were the fact to reach her ears. I cannot conceive the Countess of 's being troubled

by the opinion concerning her of any being, human or divine, other than the Countess of .

But to be honest, I must admit that for the Earl of she makes an ideal wife. She rules him as she rules all

others, relations and retainers, from the curate to the dowager, but the rod, though firmly held, is wielded with

justice and kindly intent. Nor is it possible to imagine the Earl of 's living as contentedly as he does with

any partner of a less dominating turn of mind. He is one of those weakheaded, stronglimbed,

goodnatured, childish men, born to be guided in all matters, from the tying of a neckcloth to the choice of

a political party, by their women folk. Such men are in clover when their proprietor happens to be a good and

sensible woman, but are to be pitied when they get into the hands of the selfish or the foolish. As very young

men, they too often fall victims to badtempered chorus girls or to middleaged matrons of the class from

which Pope judged all womankind. They make capital husbands when well managed; treated badly, they say

little, but set to work, after the manner of a dissatisfied cat, to find a kinder mistress, generally succeeding.

The Earl of adored his wife, deeming himself the most fortunate of husbands, and better testimonial than

such no wife should hope for. Till the day she snatched him away from all other competitors, and claimed

him for her own, he had obeyed his mother with a dutifulness bordering on folly. Were the countess to die

tomorrow, he would be unable to tell you his mind on any single subject until his eldest daughter and his

still unmarried sister, ladies both of strong character, attracted towards one another by a mutual antagonism,

had settled between themselves which was to be mistress of him and of his house.

However, there is little fear (bar accidents) but that my friend the countess will continue to direct the

hereditary vote of the Earl of towards the goal of common sense and public good, guide his social policy

with judgment and kindness, and manage his estates with prudence and economy for many years to come.

She is a hearty, vigorous lady, of generous proportions, with the blood of sturdy forebears in her veins, and

one who takes the same excellent good care of herself that she bestows on all others dependent upon her

"I remember," said the doctorwe were dining with the doctor in homely fashion, and our wives had

adjourned to the drawingroom to discuss servants and husbands and other domestic matters with greater

freedom, leaving us to the claret and the twilight"I remember when we had the cholera in the villageit

must be twenty years ago nowthat woman gave up the London season to stay down here and take the

whole burden of the trouble upon her own shoulders. I do not feel any call to praise her; she liked the work,

and she was in her element, but it was good work for all that. She had no fear. She would carry the children in

her arms if time pressed and the little ambulance was not at hand. I have known her sit all night in a room not

twelve feet square, between a dying man and his dying wife. But the thing never touched her. Six years ago

we had the smallpox, and she went all through that in just the same way. I don't believe she has ever had a

day's illness in her life. She will be physicking this parish when my bones are rattling in my coffin, and she

will be laying down the laws of literature long after your statue has become a familiar ornament of

He laughed, but I detected a touch of irritation in his voice. My host looked a man wishful to be masterful

himself. I do not think he quite relished the calm way in which this grand dame took possession of all things

"I should call it the countess's," he answered. "It was the gossip of the county when I first came here, but

other curious things have happened among us to push it gradually out of memory. Most people, I really

believe, have quite forgotten that the Countess of once served behind a baker's counter."

"You don't say so," I exclaimed. The remark, I admit, sounds weak when written down; the most natural

"It's a fact," said the doctor, "though she does not suggest the shopgirl, does she? But then I have known

countesses, descended in a direct line from William the Conqueror, who did, so things balance one another.

Mary, Countess of , was, thirty years ago, Mary Sewell, daughter of a Taunton linendraper. The business,

profitable enough as country businesses go, was inadequate for the needs of the Sewell family, consisting, as

I believe it did, of seven boys and eight girls. Mary, the youngest, as soon as her brief schooling was over,

had to shift for herself. She seems to have tried her hand at one or two things, finally taking service with a

cousin, a baker and confectioner, who was doing well in Oxford Street. She must have been a remarkably

attractive girl; she's a handsome woman now. I can picture that soft creamy skin when it was fresh and

smooth, and the West of England girls run naturally to dimples and eyes that glisten as though they had been

just washed in morning dew. The shop did a good trade in ladies' lunchesit was the glass of sherry and

sweet biscuit period. I expect they dressed her in some neatfitting grey or black dress, with short sleeves,

showing her plump arms, and that she flitted around the marbletopped tables, smiling, and looking cool and

sweet. There the present Earl of , then young Lord C, fresh from Oxford, and new to the dangers of

London bachelordom, first saw her. He had accompanied some female relatives to the photographer's, and,

hotels and restaurants being deemed impossible in those days for ladies, had taken them to Sewell's to lunch.

Mary Sewell waited upon the party; and now as many of that party as are above ground wait upon Mary

"He showed good sense in marrying her," I said, "I admire him for it." The doctor's sixtyfour Lafitte was

excellent. I felt charitably inclined towards all men and women, even towards earls and countesses.

"I don't think he had much to do with it," laughed the doctor, "beyond being, like Barkis, 'willing.' It's a queer

story; some people profess not to believe it, but those who know her ladyship best think it is just the story that

must be true, because it is so characteristic of her. And besides, I happen to know that it is true."

"I am going to tell it you," said the doctor, lighting a fresh cigar, and pushing the box towards me.

I will leave you to imagine the lad's suddenly developed appetite for decantered sherry at sixpence a glass,

and the familiar currant bun of our youth. He lunched at Sewell's shop, he tea'd at Sewell's, occasionally he

dined at Sewell's, off cutlets, followed by assorted pastry. Possibly, merely from fear lest the affair should

reach his mother's ears, for he was neither worldlywise nor vicious, he made love to Mary under an assumed

name; and to do the girl justice, it must be remembered that she fell in love with and agreed to marry plain

Mr. John Robinson, son of a colonial merchant, a gentleman, as she must have seen, and a young man of easy

means, but of a position not so very much superior to her own. The first intimation she received that her lover

was none other than Lord C, the future Earl of , was vouchsafed her during a painful interview with his

"I never knew it, madam," asserted Mary, standing by the window of the drawingroom above the shop,

"Perhaps not," answered her ladyship coldly. "Would you have refused him if you had?"

"I cannot tell," was the girl's answer; "it would have been different from the beginning. He courted me and

"We won't go into all that," interrupted the other; "I am not here to defend him. I do not say he acted well.

Her ladyship prided herself upon her bluntness and practicability. As she spoke she took her chequebook

out of her reticule, and, opening it, dipped her pen into the ink. I am inclined to think that the flutter of that

chequebook was her ladyship's mistake. The girl had common sense, and must have seen the difficulties in

the way of a marriage between the heir to an earldom and a linen draper's daughter; and had the old lady

been a person of discernment, the interview might have ended more to her satisfaction. She made the error of

judging the world by one standard, forgetting there are individualities. Mary Sewell came from a West of

England stock that, in the days of Drake and Frobisher, had given more than one ablebodied pirate to the

service of the country, and that insult of the chequebook put the fight into her. Her lips closed with a little

"I don't mean to be disappointed," answered the girl, but she spoke quietly and respectfully. "We have

pledged our word to one another. If he is a gentleman, as I know he is, he will keep his, and I shall keep

Then her ladyship began to talk reason, as people do when it is too late. She pointed out to the girl the

difference of social position, and explained to her the miseries that come from marrying out of one's station.

But the girl by this time had got over her surprise, and perhaps had begun to reflect that, in any case, a

countessship was worth fighting for. The best of women are influenced by such considerations.

"I am not a lady, I know," she replied quietly, "but my people have always been honest folk, well known, and

I shall try to learn. I am not wishing to speak disrespectfully of my betters, but I was in service before I came

here, ma'am, as lady's maid, in a place where I saw much of what is called Society. I think I can be as good a

The countess began to grow angry again. "And who do you think will receive you?" she cried, "a girl who has

"Lady L came from behind the bar," Mary answered, "and that's not much better. And the Duchess of C, I

have heard, was a ballet girl, but nobody seems to remember it. I don't think the people whose opinion is

worth having will object to me for very long." The girl was beginning rather to enjoy the contest.

"You profess to love my son," cried the countess fiercely, "and you are going to ruin his life. You will drag

The girl must have looked rather fine at that moment, I should dearly love to have been present.

"There will be no dragging down, my lady," she replied, "on either side. I do love your son very dearly. He is

one of the kindest and best of gentlemen. But I am not blind, and whatever amount of cleverness there may

be between us belongs chiefly to me. I shall make it my duty to fit myself for the position of his wife, and to

help him in his work. You need not fear, my lady, I shall be a good wife to him, and he shall never regret it.

You might find him a richer wife, a better educated wife, but you will never find him a wife who will be

That practically brought the scene to a close. The countess had sense enough to see that she was only losing

"I think, my good girl, you must be mad," she said; "if you will not allow me to do anything for you, there's

an end to the matter. I did not come here to quarrel with you. My son knows his duty to me and to his family.

"Very well, my lady," said Mary Sewell, holding the door open for her ladyship to pass out, "we shall see

But however brave a front Mary Sewell may have maintained before the enemy, I expect she felt pretty limp

when thinking matters calmly over after her ladyship's departure. She knew her lover well enough to guess

that he would be as wax in the firm hands of his mother, while she herself would not have a chance of

opposing her influence against those seeking to draw him away from her. Once again she read through the

few schoolboy letters he had written her, and then looked up at the framed photograph that hung above the

mantelpiece of her little bedroom. The face was that of a frank, pleasantlooking young fellow, lightened by

eyes somewhat large for a man, but spoiled by a painfully weak mouth. The more Mary Sewell thought, the

more sure she felt in her own mind that he loved her, and had meant honestly by her. Did the matter rest with

him, she might reckon on being the future Countess of , but, unfortunately for her, the person to be

considered was not Lord C, but the present Countess of . From childhood, through boyhood, into

manhood it had never once occurred to Lord C to dispute a single command of his mother's, and his was not

the type of brain to readily receive new ideas. If she was to win in the unequal contest it would have to be by

art, not by strength. She sat down and wrote a letter which under all the circumstances was a model of

diplomacy. She knew that it would be read by the countess, and, writing it, she kept both mother and son in

mind. She made no reproaches, and indulged in but little sentiment. It was the letter of a woman who could

claim rights, but who asked only for courtesy. It stated her wish to see him alone and obtain from his own lips

the assurance that he wished their engagement to cease. "Do not fear," Mary Sewell wrote, "that I shall be

any annoyance to you. My own pride would not let me urge you to marry me against your desire, and I care

for you too much to cause you any pain. Assure me with your own lips that you wish our engagement to be at

The family were in town, and Mary sent her letter by a trusty hand. The countess read it with huge

satisfaction, and, resealing it, gave it herself into her son's hands. It promised a happy solution of the

problem. In imagination, she had all the night been listening to a vulgar breach of promise case. She herself

had been submitted to a most annoying crossexamination by a pert barrister. Her son's assumption of the

name of Robinson had been misunderstood and severely commented upon by the judge. A sympathetic jury

had awarded thumping damages, and for the next six months the family title would be a peg on which

musichall singers and comic journalists would hang their ribald jokes. Lord C read the letter, flushed, and

dutifully handed it back to his mother. She made pretence to read it as for the first time, and counselled him

"I am so glad," she said, "that the girl is taking the matter sensibly. We must really do something for her in

the future, when everything is settled. Let her ask for me, and then the servants will fancy she's a lady's maid

So that evening Mary Sewell, addressed by the butler as "young woman," was ushered into the small

drawingroom that connects the library of No. Grosvenor Square with the other reception rooms. The

"My son will be here in a moment," she explained, "he has informed me of the purport of your letter. Believe

me, my dear Miss Sewell, no one can regret his thoughtless conduct more than I do. But young men will be

young men, and they do not stop to reflect that what may be a joke to them may be taken quite seriously by

"Of course not, my dear," added the countess, "that's what I'm saying. It was very wrong of him altogether.

But with your pretty face, you will not, I am sure, have long to wait for a husband; we must see what we can

Fortunatelyor the interview might have ended in another quarrel the cause of all the trouble at this

moment entered the room, and the countess, whispering a few final words of instruction to him as she passed

Mary took a chair in the centre of the room, at equal distance from both doors. Lord C, finding any sort of a

seat uncomfortable under the circumstances, preferred to stand with his back to the mantelpiece. Dead silence

was maintained for a few seconds, and then Mary, drawing the daintiest of handkerchiefs from her pocket,

began to cry. The countess must have been a poor diplomatist, or she might have thought of this; or she may

have remembered her own appearance on the rare occasions when she herself, a big, rawboned girl, had

attempted the softening influence of tears, and have attached little importance to the possibility. But when

these soft, dimpled women cry, and cry quietly, it is another matter. Their eyes grow brighter, and the tears,

Lord C was as tenderhearted a lout as ever lived. In a moment he was on his knees with his arm round the

girl's waist, pouring out such halting words of love and devotion as came to his unready brain, cursing his

fate, his earldom, and his mother, and assuring Mary that his only chance of happiness lay in his making her

his countess. Had Mary liked to say the word at that moment, he would have caught her to his arms, and

defied the whole worldfor the time being. But Mary was a very practical young woman, and there are

difficulties in the way of handling a lover, who, however ready he may be to do your bidding so long as your

eyes are upon him, is liable to be turned from his purpose so soon as another influence is substituted for your

own. His lordship suggested an immediate secret marriage. But you cannot run out into the street, knock up a

clergyman, and get married on the spot, and Mary knew that the moment she was gone his lordship's will

would revert to his mother's keeping. Then his lordship suggested flight, but flight requires money, and the

countess knew enough to keep his lordship's purse in her own hands. Despair seized upon his lordship.

His lordship explained the position. The family estates were heavily encumbered. It was deemed advisable

that his lordship should marry Money, and Money, in the person of the only daughter of rich and ambitious

"Oh, she's nice enough," was the reply, "only I don't care for her and she doesn't care for me. It won't be

"How do you know she doesn't care for you?" asked Mary. A woman may be critical of her lover's

"Well, she happens to care for somebody else," answered his lordship, "she told me so herself."

In spite of her trouble, the girl could not help a laugh. These young swells seemed to have but small wills of

their own. Her ladyship, on the other side of the door, grew nervous. It was the only sound she had been able

"It's deuced awkward," explained his lordship, "when you'rewell, when you are anybody, you know. You

can't do as you like. Things are expected of you, and there's such a lot to be considered."

Mary rose and clasped her pretty dimpled hands, from which she had drawn her gloves, behind his neck.

For answer the lad hugged her to him very tightly, and there were tears in his eyes.

"Look here, Mary," he cried, "if I could only get rid of my position, and settle down with you as a country

gentleman, I'd do it tomorrow. Damn the title, it's going to be the curse of my life."

Perhaps in that moment Mary also wished that the title were at the bottom of the sea, and that her lover were

only the plain Mr. John Robinson she had thought him. These big, stupid men are often very loveable in spite

of, or because of their weakness. They appeal to the mother side of a woman's heart, and that is the biggest

Suddenly however, the door opened. The countess appeared, and sentiment flew out. Lord C, releasing

"I thought I heard Miss Sewell go out," said her ladyship in the icy tones that had never lost their power of

making her son's heart freeze within him. "I want to see you when you are free."

Mary waited without moving until the countess had left and closed the door behind her. Then she turned to

She scribbled the name down, and then said, looking the boy squarely in the face:

"You know I do, Mary," he answered, and his eyes spoke stronger than his words. "If I weren't a silly ass,

there would be none of this trouble. But I don't know how it is; I say to myself I'll do, a thing, but the mater

"I know," interrupted Mary with a smile. "Don't argue with her, fall in with all her views, and pretend to

"If you could only think of some plan," said his lordship, catching at the hope of her words, "you are so

"I am going to try," answered Mary, "and if I fail, you must run off with me, even if you have to do it right

What she meant was, "I shall have to run off with you," but she thought it better to put it the other way about.

Mary found her involuntary rival a meek, gentle little lady, as much under the influence of her blustering

father as was Lord C under that of his mother. What took place at the interview one can only surmise; but

certain it is that the two girls, each for her own ends, undertook to aid and abet one another.

Much to the surprised delight of their respective parents, there came about a change in the attitude hitherto

assumed towards one another by Miss Clementina Hodskiss and Lord C. All objections to his lordship's

unwilling attentions were suddenly withdrawn by the lady. Indeed, so swift to come and go are the whims of

women, his calls were actually encouraged, especially when, as generally happened, they coincided with the

absence from home of Mr. and Mrs. Hodskiss. Quite as remarkable was the newborn desire of Lord C

towards Miss Clementina Hodskiss. Mary's name was never mentioned, and the suggestion of immediate

marriage was listened to without remonstrance. Wiser folk would have puzzled their brains, but both her

ladyship and exContractor Hodskiss were accustomed to find all things yield to their wishes. The countess

saw visions of a rehabilitated estate, and Clementina's father dreamed of a peerage, secured by the influence

of aristocratic connections. All that the young folks stipulated for (and on that point their firmness was

supernatural) was that the marriage should be quiet, almost to the verge of secrecy.

"No beastly fuss," his lordship demanded. "Let it be somewhere in the country, and no mob!" and his mother,

"I should like to go down to Aunt Jane's and be married quietly from there," explained Miss Hodskiss to her

Aunt Jane resided on the outskirts of a small Hampshire village, and "sat under" a clergyman famous

"You can't be married by that old fool," thundered her fatherMr. Hodskiss always thundered; he thundered

Neither her ladyship nor the contractor liked the idea. The latter in particular had looked forward to a big

function, chronicled at length in all the newspapers. But after all, the marriage was the essential thing, and

perhaps, having regard to some foolish love passages that had happened between Clementina and a certain

So in due course Clementina departed for Aunt Jane's, accompanied only by her maid.

"A clean, wholesome girl," said of her Contractor Hodskiss, who cultivated affability towards the lower

"Quite sufficient for any decent woman," retorted the contractor. "When Clemmy wants painting and stuffing,

it will be time enough for her to think about getting one of your 'Ach Himmels' or 'Mon Dieus'."

"I like the girl myself immensely," agreed Clementina's mother. "You can trust her, and she doesn't give

Her praises reached even the countess, suffering severely at the moment from the tyranny of an elderly

"I must see this treasure," thought the countess to herself. "I am tired of these foreign minxes."

But no matter at what cunning hour her ladyship might call, the "treasure" always happened for some reason

"Your girl is always out when I come," laughed the countess. "One would fancy there was some reason for

Miss Hodskiss herself showed rather than spoke her appreciation of the girl. She seemed unable to move or

think without her. Not even from the interviews with Lord C was the maid always absent.

The marriage, it was settled, should be by licence. Mrs. Hodskiss made up her mind at first to run down and

see to the preliminaries, but really when the time arrived it hardly seemed necessary to take that trouble. The

ordering of the whole affair was so very simple, and the "treasure" appeared to understand the business most

thoroughly, and to be willing to take the whole burden upon her own shoulders. It was not, therefore, until the

evening before the wedding that the Hodskiss family arrived in force, filling Aunt Jane's small dwelling to its

utmost capacity. The swelling figure of the contractor, standing beside the tiny porch, compelled the

passerby to think of the doll's house in which the dwarf resides during fairtime, ringing his own bell out of

his own firstfloor window. The countess and Lord C were staying with her ladyship's sister, the Hon. Mrs.

J, at G Hall, some ten miles distant, and were to drive over in the morning. The then Earl of was in

Clementina complained of a headache after dinner, and went to bed early. The "treasure" also was indisposed.

"That girl is as eager about the thing," remarked Mrs. Hodskiss, "as though it was her own marriage."

In the morning Clementina was still suffering from her headache, but asserted her ability to go through the

ceremony, provided everybody would keep away, and not worry her. The "treasure" was the only person she

felt she could bear to have about her. Half an hour before it was time to start for church her mother looked her

up again. She had grown still paler, if possible, during the interval, and also more nervous and irritable. She

threatened to go to bed and stop there if she was not left quite alone. She almost turned her mother out of the

room, locking the door behind her. Mrs. Hodskiss had never known her daughter to be like this before.

The others went on, leaving her to follow in the last carriage with her father. The contractor, forewarned,

spoke little to her. Only once he had occasion to ask her a question, and then she answered in a strained,

unnatural voice. She appeared, so far as could be seen under her heavy veil, to be crying.

"Well, this is going to be a damned cheerful wedding," said Mr. Hodskiss, and lapsed into sulkiness.

The wedding was not so quiet as had been anticipated. The village had got scent of it, and had spread itself

upon the event, while half the house party from G Hall had insisted on driving over to take part in the

proceedings. The little church was better filled than it had been for many a long year past.

The presence of the stylish crowd unnerved the ancient clergyman, long unaccustomed to the sight of a

strange face, and the first sound of the ancient clergyman's voice unnerved the stylish crowd. What little

articulation he possessed entirely disappeared, no one could understand a word he said. He appeared to be

uttering sounds of distress. The ancient gentleman's infliction had to be explained in low asides, and it also

"It was a whim of Clementina's," whispered her mother. "Her father and myself were married from here, and

he christened her. The dear child's full of sentiment. I think it so nice of her."

Everybody agreed it was charming, but wished it were over. The general effect was weird in the extreme.

Lord C spoke up fairly well, but the bride's responses were singularly indistinct, the usual order of things

being thus reversed. The story of the naval lieutenant was remembered, and added to, and some of the more

In the vestry things assumed a brighter tone. There was no lack of witnesses to sign the register. The verger

pointed out to them the place, and they wrote their names, as people in such cases do, without stopping to

read. Then it occurred to some one that the bride had not yet signed. She stood apart, with her veil still down,

and appeared to have been forgotten. Encouraged, she came forward meekly, and took the pen from the hand

"Mary," wrote the bride, in a hand that looked as though it ought to have been firm, but which was not.

"Dear me," said the countess, "I never knew there was a Mary in your name. How differently you write when

"Why, what a lot of names you must have, my dear!" exclaimed the countess. "When are you going to get to

Breeding is not always proof against strong emotion. The countess snatched the bride's veil from her face,

and Mary Susannah Ruth Sewell stood before her, flushed and trembling, but looking none the less pretty

"I am sure your ladyship does not wish a scene," said Mary, speaking low. "The thing is done."

"The thing can be undone, and will be," retorted the countess in the same tone. "You, you"

"My wife, don't forget that, mother," said Lord C coming between them, and slipping Mary's hand on to his

arm. "We are both sorry to have had to go about the thing in this roundabout way, but we wanted to avoid a

fuss. I think we had better be getting away. I'm afraid Mr. Hodskiss is going to be noisy."

The doctor poured himself out a glass of claret, and drank it off. His throat must have been dry.

"And what became of Clementina?" I asked. "Did the naval lieutenant, while the others were at church, dash

"That's what ought to have happened, for the whole thing to be in keeping," agreed the doctor. "I believe as a

matter of fact she did marry him eventually, but not till some years later, after the contractor had died."

"And did Mr. Hodskiss make a noise in the vestry?" I persisted. The doctor never will finish a story.

"I can't say for certain," answered my host, "I only saw the gentleman once. That was at a shareholders'

"I suppose the bride and bridegroom slipped out as quietly as possible and drove straight off," I suggested.

"But how did she manage about her travelling frock?" I continued. "She could hardly have gone back to her

"I cannot tell you about all that," he replied. "I think I mentioned that Mary was a practical girl. Possibly she

I like a tidy story, where everybody is put into his or her proper place at the end. Your modern romance

"That also I cannot tell you for certain," answered the doctor, "but I give her credit for so much sense. Lord

C was of age, and with Mary at his elbow, quite knew his own mind. I believe they travelled for two or

three years. The first time I myself set eyes on the countess (nee Mary Sewell) was just after the late earl's

death. I thought she looked a countess, every inch of her, but then I had not heard the story. I mistook the

It was towards the end of August. He and I appeared to be the only two men left to the Club. He was sitting

by an open window, the Times lying on the floor beside him. I drew my chair a little closer and remarked:

He suppressed a yawn, and replied "Mornin'"dropping the "g." The custom was just coming into fashion;

"'Fraid so," was the response, after which he turned his head away and gently closed his eyes.

I opined that conversation was not to his wish, but this only made me more determined to talk, and to talk to

him above all others in London. The desire took hold of me to irritate himto break down the imperturbable

calm within which he moved and had his being; and I gathered myself together, and settled down to the task.

"Very," he replied, taking it from the floor and handing it to me. "Won't you read it?"

I had been careful to throw into my voice an aggressive cheeriness which I had calculated would vex him, but

his manner remained that of a man who is simply bored. I argued with him politely concerning the paper; but

he insisted, still with the same weary air, that he had done with it. I thanked him effusively. I judged that he

"They say that to read a Times leader," I persisted, "is a lesson in English composition."

The Times, I could see, was not going to be of much assistance to me. I lit a cigarette, and remarked that he

was not shooting. He admitted the fact. Under the circumstances, it would have taxed him to deny it, but the

"To myself," he said, "a tramp through miles of mud, in company with four gloomy men in black velveteen, a

couple of depressed looking dogs, and a heavy gun, the entire cavalcade being organised for the purpose of

killing some twelveandsixpence worth of poultry, suggests the disproportionate."

He was the type of man that shudders inwardly at the sound of laughter. I had the will to slap him on the

I asked him if he hunted. He replied that fourteen hours' talk a day about horses, and only about horses tired

He had apparently made up his mind to abandon himself to his fate, for he turned towards me with a resigned

air. An ancient nurse of mine had always described me as the most "wearing" child she had ever come across.

"I should go about more," he said, "were I able to see any difference between one place and another."

The talk drifted to women and bogus companies, dogs, literature, and suchlike matters. I found him well

"They used to be amusing," he said, speaking of the first named, "until they began to take themselves

I was forced into closer companionship with "Blase Billy" that autumn, for by chance a month later he and I

found ourselves the guests of the same delightful hostess, and I came to liking him better. He was a useful

man to have about one. In matters of fashion one could always feel safe following his lead. One knew that his

necktie, his collar, his socks, if not the very newest departure, were always correct; and upon social paths, as

guide, philosopher, and friend, he was invaluable. He knew every one, together with his or her previous

convictions. He was acquainted with every woman's past, and shrewdly surmised every man's future. He

could point you out the coalshed where the Countess of Glenleman had gambolled in her days of innocence,

and would take you to breakfast at the coffeeshop off the Mile End Road where "Sam. Smith, Estd. 1820,"

own brother to the worldfamed society novelist, SmithStratford, lived an uncriticised, unparagraphed,

unphotographed existence upon the profits of "rashers" at three ha'pence and "doorsteps" at two a penny.

He knew at what houses it was inadvisable to introduce soap, and at what tables it would be bad form to

denounce political jobbery. He could tell you offhand what trademark went with what crest, and

remembered the price paid for every baronetcy created during the last twentyfive years.

Regarding himself, he might have made claim with King Charles never to have said a foolish thing, and never

to have done a wise one. He despised, or affected to despise, most of his fellowmen, and those of his

Shortly described, one might have likened him to a Gaiety Johnny with brains. He was capital company after

So I thought of him until one day he fell in love; or to put it in the words of Teddy Tidmarsh, who brought

"The redhaired one," Teddy explained, to distinguish her from her sister, who had lately adopted the newer

"Gerty Lovell!" exclaimed the captain, "why, I've always been told the Lovell girls hadn't a penny among

"The old man's stone broke, I know for a certainty," volunteered Teddy, who picked up a mysterious but, in

other respects, satisfactory income in an office near Hatton Garden, and who was candour itself concerning

"Oh, some rich porkpacking or diamondsweating uncle has cropped up in Australia, or America, or one of

those places," suggested the captain, "and Billy's got wind of it in good time. Billy knows his way about."

We agreed that some such explanation was needed, though in all other respects Gerty Lovell was just the girl

that Reason (not always consulted on these occasions) might herself have chosen for "Blase Billy's" mate.

The sunlight was not too kind to her, but at evening parties, where the lighting has been well considered, I

have seen her look quite girlish. At her best she was not beautiful, but at her worst there was about her an air

of breeding and distinction that always saved her from being passed over, and she dressed to perfection. In

character she was the typical society woman: always charming, generally insincere. She went to Kensington

for her religion and to Mayfair for her morals; accepted her literature from Mudie's and her art from the

Grosvenor Gallery; and could and would gabble philanthropy, philosophy, and politics with equal fluency at

every fiveo'clock teatable she visited. Her ideas could always be guaranteed as the very latest, and her

opinion as that of the person to whom she was talking. Asked by a famous novelist one afternoon, at the

Pioneer Club, to give him some idea of her, little Mrs. Bund, the painter's wife, had remained for a few

"She is a woman to whom life could bring nothing more fully satisfying than a dinner invitation from a

duchess, and whose nature would be incapable of sustaining deeper suffering than that caused by an

At the time I should have said the epigram was as true as it was cruel, but I suppose we none of us quite know

I congratulated "Blase Billy," or to drop his Club nickname and give him the full benefit of his social label,

"The Hon. William Cecil Wychwood Stanley Drayton," on the occasion of our next meeting, which happened

upon the steps of the Savoy Restaurant, and I thoughtunless a quiver of the electric light deceived

It was the phrase that custom demands upon such occasions, and it came of its own accord to my tongue

without costing me the trouble of composition, but he seized upon it as though it had been a gem of friendly

"You will like her even more when you know her better," he said. "She is so different from the usual woman

that one meets. Come and see her tomorrow afternoon, she will be so pleased. Go about four, I will tell her

I rang the bell at ten minutes past five. Billy was there. She greeted me with a little tremor of embarrassment,

which sat oddly upon her, but which was not altogether unpleasing. She said it was kind of me to come so

early. I stayed for about half an hour, but conversation flagged, and some of my cleverest remarks attracted

When I rose to take my leave, Billy said that he must be off too, and that he would accompany me. Had they

been ordinary lovers, I should have been careful to give them an opportunity of making their adieus in secret;

but in the case of the Honourable William Drayton and the eldest Miss Lovell I concluded that such tactics

were needless, so I waited till he had shaken hands, and went downstairs with him.

But in the hall Billy suddenly ejaculated, "By Jove! Half a minute," and ran back up the stairs three at a time.

Apparently he found what he had gone for on the landing, for I did not hear the opening of the drawingroom

"Left my gloves behind me," he explained, as he took my arm. "I am always leaving my gloves about."

I did not mention that I had seen him take them from his hat and slip them into his coattail pocket.

We at the Club did not see very much of Billy during the next three months, but the captain, who prided

himself upon his playing of the role of smokingroom cynicthough he would have been better in the part

had he occasionally displayed a little originalitywas of opinion that our loss would be more than made up

to us after the marriage. Once in the twilight I caught sight of a figure that reminded me of Billy's,

accompanied by a figure that might have been that of the eldest Miss Lovell; but as the spot was Battersea

Park, which is not a fashionable evening promenade, and the two figures were holding each other's hands, the

whole picture being suggestive of the closing chapter of a London Journal romance, I concluded I had made

But I did see them in the Adelphi stalls one evening, rapt in a sentimental melodrama. I joined them between

the acts, and poked fun at the play, as one does at the Adelphi, but Miss Lovell begged me quite earnestly not

to spoil her interest, and Billy wanted to enter upon a serious argument as to whether a man was justified in

behaving as Will Terriss had just behaved towards the woman he loved. I left them and returned to my own

They married in due course. We were mistaken on one point. She brought Billy nothing. But they both

seemed quite content on his not too extravagant fortune. They took a tiny house not far from Victoria Station,

and hired a brougham for the season. They did not entertain very much, but they contrived to be seen

everywhere it was right and fashionable they should be seen. The Honourable Mrs. Drayton was a much

younger and brighter person than had been the eldest Miss Lovell, and as she continued to dress charmingly,

her social position rose rapidly. Billy went everywhere with her, and evidently took a keen pride in her

success. It was even said that he designed her dresses for her, and I have myself seen him earnestly studying

The captain's prophecy remained unfulfilled. "Blase Billy"if the name could still be applied to

himhardly ever visited the Club after his marriage. But I had grown to like him, and, as he had foretold, to

like his wife. I found their calm indifference to the burning questions of the day a positive relief from the

strenuous atmosphere of literary and artistic circles. In the drawingroom of their little house in Eaton Row,

the comparative merits of George Meredith and George R. Sims were not considered worth discussion. Both

were regarded as persons who afforded a certain amount of amusement in return for a certain amount of cash.

And on any Wednesday afternoon, Henrick Ibsen and Arthur Roberts would have been equally welcome, as

adding piquancy to the small gathering. Had I been compelled to pass my life in such a house, this Philistine

attitude might have palled upon me; but, under the circumstances, it refreshed me, and I made use of my

As months went by, they seemed to me to draw closer to one another, though I am given to understand that

such is not the rule in fashionable circles. One evening I arrived a little before my time, and was shown up

into the drawingroom by the softfooted butler. They were sitting in the dusk with their arms round one

another. It was impossible to withdraw, so I faced the situation and coughed. A pair of middleclass lovers

But the incident established an understanding between us, and I came to be regarded as a friend before whom

Studying them, I came to the conclusion that the ways and manners of love are very samelike throughout

the world, as though the foolish boy, unheedful of human advance, kept but one school for minor poet and

East End shopboy, for Girton girl and little milliner; taught but the one lesson to the

endofthenineteenth century Johnny that he taught to bearded Pict and Hun four thousand years ago.

Thus the summer and the winter passed pleasantly for the Honourable Billy, and then, as luck would have it,

he fell ill just in the very middle of the London season, when invitations to balls and dinner parties, luncheons

and "At Homes," were pouring in from every quarter; when the lawns at Hurlingham were at their smoothest,

It was unfortunate, too, that the fashions that season suited the Honourable Mrs. Billy as they had not suited

her for years. In the early spring, she and Billy had been hard at work planning costumes calculated to cause a

flutter through Mayfair, and the dresses and the bonnetseach one a work of artwere waiting on their

stands to do their killing work. But the Honourable Mrs. Billy, for the first time in her life, had lost interest in

Their friends were genuinely sorry, for society was Billy's element, and in it he was interesting and amusing.

But, as Lady Gower said, there was no earthly need for his wife to constitute herself a prisoner. Her shutting

Accordingly the Honourable Mrs. Drayton, to whom oddness was a crime, and the voice of Lady Gower as

the voice of duty, sacrificed her inclinations on the social shrine, laced the new costumes tight across her

But the Honourable Mrs. Drayton achieved not the success of former seasons. Her small talk grew so very

small, that even Park Lane found it unsatisfying. Her famous laugh rang mechanically. She smiled at the

wisdom of dukes, and became sad at the funny stories of millionaires. Society voted her a good wife but bad

company, and confined its attentions to cards of inquiry. And for this relief the Honourable Mrs. Drayton was

grateful, for Billy waned weaker and weaker. In the world of shadows in which she moved, he was the one

real thing. She was of very little practical use, but it comforted her to think that she was helping to nurse him.

"I do wish you would go out more," he would say. "It makes me feel that I'm such a selfish brute, keeping

you tied up here in this dismal little house. Besides," he would add, "people miss you; they will hate me for

keeping you away." For, where his wife was concerned, Billy's knowledge of the world availed him little. He

really thought society craved for the Honourable Mrs. Drayton, and would not be comforted where she was

"I would rather stop with you, dear," would be the answer; "I don't care to go about by myself. You must get

And so the argument continued, until one evening, as she sat by herself, the nurse entered softly, closed the

"I wish you would go out tonight, ma'am," said the nurse, "just for an hour or two. I think it would please

the master; he is worrying himself because he thinks it is his fault that you do not; and just now"the

The Honourable Mrs. Drayton rose, and, crossing to the window, stood for a while looking out.

"But where am I to go, nurse?" she said at length, turning with a smile. "I've no invitations anywhere."

"Can't you make believe to have one?" said the nurse. "It is only seven o'clock. Say you are going to a

dinnerparty; you can come home early then. Go and dress yourself, and come down and say goodbye to

"He has such sharp ears, nurse; he will listen for the opening of the door and the sound of the carriage."

"I will see to that," said the nurse. "I will tell them to have the carriage here at ten minutes to eight. Then you

can drive to the end of the street, slip out, and walk back. I will let you in myself."

"You must slip out for a few minutes before eleven, and the carriage must be waiting for you at the corner

In half an hour the Honourable Mrs. Drayton entered the sickroom, radiant in evening dress and jewels.

Fortunately the lights were low, or "BlaseBilly" might have been doubtful as to the effect his wife was

likely to produce. For her face was not the face that one takes to dinnerparties.

"Nurse tells me you are going to the Grevilles this evening. I am so glad. I've been worrying myself about

"How handsome you look, dear!" he said. "How they must have all been cursing me for keeping you shut up

here, like a princess in an ogre's castle! I shall never dare to face them again."

"I shall not be late," she said. "I shall be so anxious to get back and see how my boy has behaved. If you have

They kissed and parted, and at eleven she returned to the room. She told him what a delightful evening it had

The nurse told her that he had been more cheerful that evening than for many nights.

So every day the farce was played for him. One day it was to a luncheon that she went, in a costume by

Redfern; the next night to a ball, in a frock direct from Paris; again to an "At Home," or concert, or

dinnerparty. Loafers and passersby would stop to stare at a haggard, redeyed woman, dressed as for a

I heard them talking of her one afternoon, at a house where I called, and I joined the group to listen.

"I always thought her heartless, but I gave her credit for sense," a woman was saying. "One doesn't expect a

woman to be fond of her husband, but she needn't make a parade of ignoring him when he is dying."

I pleaded absence from town to inquire what was meant, and from all lips I heard the same account. One had

noticed her carriage at the door two or three evenings in succession. Another had seen her returning home. A

I could not fit the fact in with my knowledge of her, so the next evening I called. The door was opened

I followed her, and she closed the door behind her. She was dressed in a magnificent costume, her hair

"I am supposed to be at the opera tonight," she explained. "Sit down, if you have a few minutes to spare."

I said it was for a talk that I had come; and there, in the dark room, lighted only by the street lamp without,

she told me all. And at the end she dropped her head on her bare arms; and I turned away and looked out of

"I feel so ridiculous," she said, rising and coming towards me. "I sit here all the evening dressed like this. I'm

afraid I don't act my part very well; but, fortunately, dear Billy never was much of a judge of art, and it is

good enough for him. I tell him the most awful lies about what everybody has said to me, and what I've said

"I'm glad you think well of me," she said. "Billy has such a high opinion of you. You will hear some funny

I had to leave London again, and Billy died before I returned. I heard that she had to be fetched from a ball,

and was only just in time to touch his lips before they were cold. But her friends excused her by saying that

I called on her a little later, and before I left I hinted to her what people were saying, and asked her if I had

"I would rather you didn't," she answered. "It seems like making public the secret side of one's life."

Which struck me as a very remarkable sentiment, coming from the Hon. Mrs. Drayton, nee the elder Miss

Between a junior resident master of twentyone, and a backward lad of fifteen, there yawns an impassable

gulf. Between a struggling journalist of oneandthirty, and an M.D. of twentyfive, with a brilliant record

behind him, and a career of exceptional promise before him, a close friendship is however permissible.

"Our young friend," said the Rev. Mr. Fauerberg, standing in the most approved tutorial attitude, with his

hand upon his pupil's shoulder, "our young friend has been somewhat neglected, but I see in him possibilities

warranting hopewarranting, I may say, very great hope. For the present he will be under my especial care,

and you will not therefore concern yourself with his studies. He will sleep with Milling and the others in

The lad formed a liking for me, and I think, and hope, I rendered his sojourn at "Alpha House" less irksome

than otherwise it might have been. The Reverend Charles' method with the backward was on all fours with

that adopted for the bringing on of geese; he cooped them up and crammed them. The process is profitable to

Young Harjohn and myself left "Alpha House" at the end of the same term; he bound for Brasenose, I for

Bloomsbury. He made a point of never coming up to London without calling on me, when we would dine

together in one of Soho's many dingy, garlicscented restaurants, and afterwards, over our bottle of cheap

Beaune, discuss the coming of our lives; and when he entered Guy's I left John Street, and took chambers

close to his in Staple Inn. Those were pleasant days. Childhood is an overrated period, fuller of sorrow than

of joy. I would not take my childhood back, were it a gift, but I would give the rest of my life to live the

To Cyril I was the man of the world, and he looked to me for wisdom, not seeing always, I fear, that he got it;

while from him I gathered enthusiasm, and learnt the profit that comes to a man from the keeping of ideals.

Often as we have talked, I have felt as though a visible light came from him, framing his face as with the halo

of some pictured saint. Nature had wasted him, putting him into this nineteenth century of ours. Her victories

are accomplished. Her army of heroes, the few sung, the many forgotten, is disbanded. The long peace won

by their blood and pain is settled on the land. She had fashioned Cyril Harjohn for one of her soldiers. He

would have been a martyr, in the days when thought led to the stake, a fighter for the truth, when to speak

one's mind meant death. To lead some forlorn hope for Civilisation would have been his true work; Fate had

But there is work to be done in the world, though the labour lies now in the vineyard, not on the battlefield. A

small but sufficient fortune purchased for him freedom. To most men an assured income is the grave of

ambition; to Cyril it was the foundation of desire. Relieved from the necessity of working to live, he could

afford the luxury of living to work. His profession was to him a passion; he regarded it, not with the cold

curiosity of the scholar, but with the imaginative devotion of the disciple. To help to push its frontiers

forward, to carry its flag farther into the untravelled desert that ever lies beyond the moving boundary of

One summer evening, I remember, we were sitting in his rooms, and during a silence there came to us

through the open window the moaning of the city, as of a tired child. He rose and stretched his arms out

towards the darkening streets, as if he would gather to him all the toiling men and women and comfort them.

"Oh, that I could help you!" he cried, "my brothers and my sisters. Take my life, oh God, and spend it for me

The speech sounds theatrical, as I read it, written down, but to the young such words are not ridiculous, as to

In the natural order of events, he fell in love, and with just the woman one would expect him to be attracted

by. Elspeth Grant was of the type from which the world, by instinct rather than by convention, has drawn its

Madonnas and its saints. To describe a woman in words is impossible. Her beauty was not a possession to be

catalogued, but herself. One felt it as one feels the beauty of a summer's dawn breaking the shadows of a

sleeping city, but one cannot set it down. I often met her, and, when talking to her, I knew myselfI,

hackjournalist, frequenter of Fleet Street bars, retailer of smokeroom storiesa great gentleman,

In her presence life became a thing beautiful and gracious; a school for courtesy, and tenderness, and

I have wondered since, coming to see a little more clearly into the ways of men, whether it would not have

been better had she been less spiritual, had her nature possessed a greater alloy of earth, making it more fit for

the uses of this workaday world. But at the time, these two friends of mine seemed to me to have been

She appealed to all that was highest in Cyril's character, and he worshipped her with an unconcealed

adoration that, from any man less highminded, would have appeared affectation, and which she accepted

with the sweet content that Artemis might have accorded to the homage of Endymion.

There was no formal engagement between them. Cyril seemed to shrink from the materialising of his love by

any thought of marriage. To him she was an ideal of womanhood rather than a fleshandblood woman. His

love for her was a religion; it had no taint of earthly passion in its composition.

Had I known the world better I might have anticipated the result; for the red blood ran in my friend's veins;

and, alas, we dream our poems, not live them. But at the time, the idea of any other woman coming between

them would have appeared to me folly. The suggestion that that other woman might be Geraldine Fawley I

should have resented as an insult to my intelligence: that is the point of the story I do not understand to this

That he should be attracted by her, that he should love to linger near her, watching the dark flush come and

go across her face, seeking to call the fire into her dark eyes was another matter, and quite comprehensible;

for the girl was wonderfully handsome, with a bold, voluptuous beauty which invited while it dared. But

considered in any other light than that of an animal, she repelled. At times when, for her ends, it seemed

worth the exertion, she would assume a certain wayward sweetness, but her acting was always clumsy and

Cyril, at all events, was not taken in by it. One evening, at a Bohemian gathering, the entree to which was

notoriety rather than character, they had been talking together for some considerable time when, wishing to

speak to Cyril, I strolled up to join them. As I came towards them she moved away, her dislike for me being

"Miss Fawley prefers two as company to three," I observed, looking after her retreating figure.

"I am afraid she finds you what we should call an antisympathetic element," he replied, laughing.

His eyes rested upon her as she stood in the doorway, talking to a small, blackbearded man who had just

been introduced to her. After a few moments she went out upon his arm, and then Cyril turned to me.

"I think her," he replied, speaking, as was necessary, very low, "the embodiment of all that is evil in

womanhood. In old days she would have been a Cleopatra, a Theodora, a Delilah. Today, lacking

opportunity, she is the 'smart woman' grubbing for an opening into societyand old Fawley's daughter. I'm

His allusion to her parentage was significant. Few people thought of connecting clever, handsome Geraldine

Fawley with "Rogue Fawley," Jew renegade, exgaol bird, and outside broker; who, having expectations

from his daughter, took care not to hamper her by ever being seen in her company. But no one who had once

met the father could ever forget the relationship while talking to the daughter. The older face, with its cruelty,

its cunning, and its greed stood reproduced, feature for feature, line for line. It was as though Nature, for an

artistic freak, had set herself the task of fashioning hideousness and beauty from precisely the same materials.

Between the leer of the man and the smile of the girl, where lay the difference? It would have puzzled any

student of anatomy to point it out. Yet the one sickened, while to gain the other most men would have given

Cyril's answer to my question satisfied me for the time. He met the girl often, as was natural. She was a

singer of some repute, and our social circle was what is commonly called "literary and artistic." To do her

justice, however, she made no attempt to fascinate him, nor even to be particularly agreeable to him. Indeed,

she seemed to be at pains to show him her naturalin other words, her most objectionable side.

Coming out of the theatre one first night, we met her in the lobby. I was following Cyril at some little

distance, but as he stopped to speak to her the movement of the crowd placed me just behind them.

Under ordinary circumstances I should have taken the speech for badinageit was the kind of wit the

woman would have indulged in. But Cyril's face clouded with anger and vexation. I said nothing. I did not

wish him to know that I had overheard. I tried to believe that he was amusing himself, but my own

Next evening I went to Leightons' by myself. The Grants were in town, and Cyril was dining with them. I

found I did not know many people, and cared little for those I did. I was about to escape when Miss Fawley's

name was announced. I was close to the door, and she had to stop and speak to me. We exchanged a few

commonplaces. She either made love to a man or was rude to him. She generally talked to me without

looking at me, nodding and smiling meanwhile to people around. I have met many women equally

illmannered, and without her excuse. For a moment, however, she turned her eyes to mine.

"Where's your friend, Mr. Harjohn?" she asked. "I thought you were inseparables."

She laughed. I think it was the worst part about the woman, her laugh; it suggested so much cruelty.

It angered me into an indiscretion. She was moving away. I stepped in front of her and stopped her.

"What makes you think so?" I asked, and my voice, I know, betrayed the anxiety I felt as to her reply. She

looked me straight in the face. There was one virtue she possessedthe virtue that animals hold above

mankindtruthfulness. She knew I disliked herhate would be, perhaps, a more exact expression, did not

the word sound out of date, and she made no pretence of not knowing it and returning the compliment.

"Because I am here," she answered. "Why don't you save him? Have you no influence over him? Tell the

Saint to keep him; I don't want him. You heard what I said to him last night. I shall only marry him for the

sake of his position, and the money he can earn if he likes to work and not play the fool. Tell him what I have

She passed on to greet a decrepit old lord with a languishing smile, and I stood staring after her with, I fear, a

somewhat stupid expression, until some young fool came up grinning, to ask me whether I had seen a ghost

There was no need to wait; I felt no curiosity. Something told me the woman had spoken the truth. It was

mere want of motive that made me linger. I saw him come in, and watched him hanging round her, like a dog,

waiting for a kind word, or failing that, a look. I knew she saw me, and I knew it added to her zest that I was

there. Not till we were in the street did I speak to him. He started as I touched him. We were neither of us

good actors. He must have read much in my face, and I saw that he had read it; and we walked side by side in

silence, I thinking what to say, wondering whether I should do good or harm, wishing that we were anywhere

but in these silent, lifepacked streets, so filled with the unseen. It was not until we had nearly reached the

"Do you think I haven't told myself all that?" he said. "Do you think I don't know I'm a damned fool, a cad, a

"No," he replied, "because you're a fool, because you have only seen one side of me. You think me a grand

gentleman, because I talk big, and am full of noble sentiment. Why, you idiot, the Devil himself could take

you in. HE has his fine moods, I suppose, talks like a saint, and says his prayers with the rest of us. Do you

remember the first night at old Fauerberg's? You poked your silly head into the dormitory, and saw me

kneeling by the bedside, while the other fellows stood by grinning. You closed the door softlyyou thought

"It showed that you had pluck, if it showed nothing else," I answered. "Most boys would not have tried, and

"Ah, yes," he answered, "I promised the Mater I would, and I did. Poor old soul, she was as big a fool as you

are. She believed in me. Don't you remember, finding me one Saturday afternoon all alone, stuffing myself

I laughed at the recollection, though Heaven knows I was in no laughing mood. I had found him with an array

of pastry spread out before him, sufficient to make him ill for a week, and I had boxed his ears, and had

"The Mater gave me halfacrown a week for pocketmoney," he continued, "and I told the fellows I had

only a shilling, so that I could gorge myself with the other eighteenpence undisturbed. Pah! I was a little beast

"Yes," he answered, "and this is only a man's trick, and is natural enough; but it is going to ruin my life, to

turn me into a beast instead of a man. Good God! do you think I don't know what that woman will do for me?

She will drag me down, down, down, to her own level. All my ideas, all my ambition, all my life's work will

be bartered for a smug practice, among paying patients. I shall scheme and plot to make a big income that we

may live like a couple of plump animals, that we may dress ourselves gaudily and parade our wealth. Nothing

will satisfy her. Such women are leeches; their only cry is 'give, give, give.' So long as I can supply her with

money she will tolerate me, and to get it for her I shall sell my heart, and my brain, and my soul. She will

load herself with jewels, and go about from house to house, half naked, to leer at every man she comes

across: that is 'life' to such women. And I shall trot behind her, the laughing stock of every fool, the contempt

His vehemence made any words I could say sound weak before they were uttered. What argument could I

show stronger than that he had already put before himself? I knew his answer to everything I could urge.

My mistake had been in imagining him different from other men. I began to see that he was like the rest of

us: part angel, part devil. But the new point he revealed to me was that the higher the one, the lower the other.

It seems as if nature must balance her work; the nearer the leaves to heaven, the deeper the roots striking

down into the darkness. I knew that his passion for this woman made no change in his truer love. The one

was a spiritual, the other a mere animal passion. The memory of incidents that had puzzled me came back to

enlighten me. I remembered how often on nights when I had sat up late, working, I had heard his steps pass

my door, heavy and uncertain; how once in a dingy quarter of London, I had met one who had strangely

resembled him. I had followed him to speak, but the man's bleared eyes had stared angrily at me, and I had

turned away, calling myself a fool for my mistake. But as I looked at the face beside me now, I understood.

And then there rose up before my eyes the face I knew better, the eager noble face that to merely look upon

had been good. We had reached a small, evilsmelling street, leading from Leicester Square towards

Holborn. I caught him by the shoulders and turned him round with his back against some church railings. I

forget what I said. We are strange mixtures. I thought of the shy, backward boy I had coached and bullied at

old Fauerberg's, of the laughing handsome lad I had watched grow into manhood. The very restaurant we had

most frequented in his old Oxford dayswhere we had poured out our souls to one another, was in this very

street where we were standing. For the moment I felt towards him as perhaps his mother might have felt; I

wanted to scold him and to cry with him; to shake him and to put my arms about him. I pleaded with him,

and urged him, and called him every name I could put my tongue to. It must have seemed an odd

conversation. A passing policeman, making a not unnatural mistake, turned his bull'seye upon us, and

advised us sternly to go home. We laughed, and with that laugh Cyril came back to his own self, and we

walked on to Staple Inn more soberly. He promised me to go away by the very first train the next morning,

and to travel for some four or five months, and I undertook to make all the necessary explanations for him.

We both felt better for our talk, and when I wished him goodnight at his door, it was the real Cyril Harjohn

whose hand I gripped the real Cyril, because the best that is in a man is his real self. If there be any future

for man beyond this world, it is the good that is in him that will live. The other side of him is of the earth; it is

He kept his word. In the morning he was gone, and I never saw him again. I had many letters from him,

hopeful at first, full of strong resolves. He told me he had written to Elspeth, not telling her everything, for

that she would not understand, but so much as would explain; and from her he had had sweet womanly letters

in reply. I feared she might have been cold and unsympathetic, for often good women, untouched by

temptation themselves, have small tenderness for those who struggle. But her goodness was something more

than a mere passive quantity; she loved him the better because he had need of her. I believe she would have

saved him from himself, had not fate interfered and taken the matter out of her hands. Women are capable of

big sacrifices; I think this woman would have been content to lower herself, if by so doing she could have

But it was not to be. From India he wrote to me that he was coming home. I had not met the Fawley woman

for some time, and she had gone out of my mind until one day, chancing upon a theatrical paper, some weeks

old, I read that "Miss Fawley had sailed for Calcutta to fulfil an engagement of long standing."

I had his last letter in my pocket. I sat down and worked out the question of date. She would arrive in

Calcutta the day before he left. Whether it was chance or intention on her part I never knew; as likely as not

I heard no more from him, I hardly expected to do so, but three months later a mutual acquaintance stopped

"Thank God," was on my lips, but fortunately I checked myself. "How did it happen?" I asked.

"At a shooting party, up at some Rajah's place. Must have caught his gun in some brambles, I suppose. The

"Dear me," I said, "how very sad!" I could think of nothing else to say at the moment.

The fault that most people will find with this story is that it is unconvincing. Its scheme is improbable, its

atmosphere artificial. To confess that the thing really happenednot as I am about to set it down, for the pen

of the professional writer cannot but adorn and embroider, even to the detriment of his materialis, I am

well aware, only an aggravation of my offence, for the facts of life are the impossibilities of fiction. A truer

artist would have left this story alone, or at most have kept it for the irritation of his private circle. My lower

instinct is to make use of it. A very old man told me the tale. He was landlord of the Cromlech Arms, the only

inn of a small, rocksheltered village on the northeast coast of Cornwall, and had been so for nine and forty

years. It is called the Cromlech Hotel now, and is under new management, and during the season some four

coachloads of tourists sit down each day to table d'hote lunch in the lowceilinged parlour. But I am

speaking of years ago, when the place was a mere fishing harbour, undiscovered by the guide books.

The old landlord talked, and I hearkened the while we both sat drinking thin ale from earthenware mugs, late

one summer's evening, on the bench that runs along the wall just beneath the latticed windows. And during

the many pauses, when the old landlord stopped to puff his pipe in silence, and lay in a new stock of breath,

there came to us the murmuring voices of the Atlantic; and often, mingled with the pompous roar of the big

breakers farther out, we would hear the rippling laugh of some small wave that, maybe, had crept in to listen

The mistake that Charles Seabohn, Junior partner of the firm of Seabohn Son, civil engineers of London and

NewcastleuponTyne, and Mivanway Evans, youngest daughter of the Rev. Thomas Evans, Pastor of the

Presbyterian Church at Bristol, made originally, was marrying too young. Charles Seabohn could hardly have

been twenty years of age, and Mivanway could have been little more than seventeen, when they first met

upon the cliffs, two miles beyond the Cromlech Arms. Young Charles Seabohn, coming across the village in

the course of a walking tour, had decided to spend a day or two exploring the picturesque coast, and

Mivanway's father had hired that year a neighbouring farmhouse wherein to spend his summer vacation.

Early one morningfor at twenty one is virtuous, and takes exercise before breakfastas young Charles

Seabohn lay upon the cliffs, watching the white waters coming and going upon the black rocks below, he

became aware of a form rising from the waves. The figure was too far off for him to see it clearly, but

judging from the costume, it was a female figure, and promptly the mind of Charles, poetically inclined,

turned to thoughts of Venusor Aphrodite, as he, being a gentleman of delicate taste would have preferred

to term her. He saw the figure disappear behind a head land, but still waited. In about ten minutes or a

quarter of an hour it reappeared, clothed in the garments of the eighteen sixties, and came towards him.

Hidden from sight himself behind a group of rocks, he could watch it at his leisure, ascending the steep path

from the beach, and an exceedingly sweet and dainty figure it would have appeared, even to eyes less

susceptible than those of twenty. SeawaterI stand open to correctionis not, I believe, considered

anything of a substitute for curling tongs, but to the hair of the youngest Miss Evans it had given an

additional and most fascinating wave. Nature's red and white had been most cunningly laid on, and the large

childish eyes seemed to be searching the world for laughter, with which to feed a pair of delicious, pouting

lips. Charles's upturned face, petrified into admiration, was just the sort of thing for which they were on the

lookout. A startled "Oh!" came from the slightly parted lips, followed by the merriest of laughs, which in its

turn was suddenly stopped by a deep blush. Then the youngest Miss Evans looked offended, as though the

whole affair had been Charles's fault, which is the way of women. And Charles, feeling himself guilty under

that stern gaze of indignation, rose awkwardly and apologised meekly, whether for being on the cliffs at all or

The youngest Miss Evans graciously accepted the apology thus tendered with a bow, and passed on, and

Charles stood staring after her till the valley gathered her into its spreading arms and hid her from his view.

That was the beginning of all things. I am speaking of the Universe as viewed from the standpoint of Charles

Six months later they were man and wife, or perhaps it would be more correct to say boy and wifelet.

Seabohn senior counselled delay, but was overruled by the impatience of his junior partner. The Reverend

Mr. Evans, in common with most theologians, possessed a goodly supply of unmarried daughters, and a

limited income. Personally he saw no necessity for postponement of the marriage.

The month's honeymoon was spent in the New Forest. That was a mistake to begin with. The New Forest in

February is depressing, and they had chosen the loneliest spot they could find. A fortnight in Paris or Rome

would have been more helpful. As yet they had nothing to talk about except love, and that they had been

talking and writing about steadily all through the winter. On the tenth morning Charles yawned, and

Mivanway had a quiet halfhour's cry about it in her own room. On the sixteenth evening, Mivanway, feeling

irritable, and wondering why (as though fifteen damp, chilly days in the New Forest were not sufficient to

make any woman irritable), requested Charles not to disarrange her hair; and Charles, speechless with

astonishment, went out into the garden, and swore before all the stars that he would never caress Mivanway's

One supreme folly they had conspired to commit, even before the commencement of the honeymoon.

Charles, after the manner of very young lovers, had earnestly requested Mivanway to impose upon him some

task. He desired to do something great and noble to show his devotion. Dragons was the thing he had in

mind, though he may not have been aware of it. Dragons also, no doubt, flitted through Mivanway's brain,

but unfortunately for lovers the supply of dragons has lapsed. Mivanway, liking the conceit, however, thought

over it, and then decided that Charles must give up smoking. She had discussed the matter with her favourite

sister, and that was the only thing the girls could think of. Charles's face fell. He suggested some more

Herculean labour, some sacrifice more worthy to lay at Mivanway's feet. But Mivanway had spoken. She

might think of some other task, but the smoking prohibition would, in any case, remain. She dismissed the

Thus tobacco, the good angel of all men, no longer came each day to teach Charles patience and amiability,

They took up their residence in a suburb of Newcastle, and this was also unfortunate for them, because there

the society was scanty and middleaged; and, in consequence, they had still to depend much upon their own

resources. They knew little of life, less of each other, and nothing at all of themselves. Of course they

quarrelled, and each quarrel left the wound a little more raw. No kindly, experienced friend was at hand to

laugh at them. Mivanway would write down all her sorrows in a bulky diary, which made her feel worse; so

that before she had written for ten minutes her pretty, unwise head would drop upon her dimpled arm, and the

book the proper place for which was behind the firewould become damp with her tears; and Charles, his

day's work done and the clerks gone, would linger in his dingy office and hatch trifles into troubles.

The end came one evening after dinner, when, in the heat of a silly squabble, Charles boxed Mivanway's ears.

That was very ungentlemanly conduct, and he was heartily ashamed of himself the moment he had done it,

which was right and proper for him to be. The only excuse to be urged on his behalf is that girls sufficiently

pretty to have been spoilt from childhood by everyone about them can at times be intensely irritating.

Mivanway rushed up to her room, and locked herself in. Charles flew after her to apologise, but only arrived

It had only been the merest touch. A boy's muscles move quicker than his thoughts. But to Mivanway it was a

She spent half the night writing in the precious diary, with the result that in the morning she came down

feeling more bitter than she had gone up. Charles had walked the streets of Newcastle all night, and that had

not done him any good. He met her with an apology combined with an excuse, which was bad tactics.

Mivanway, of course, fastened upon the excuse, and the quarrel recommenced. She mentioned that she hated

him; he hinted that she had never loved him, and she retorted that he had never loved her. Had there been

anybody by to knock their heads together and suggest breakfast, the thing might have blown over, but the

combined effect of a sleepless night and an empty stomach upon each proved disastrous. Their words came

poisoned from their brains, and each believed they meant what they said. That afternoon Charles sailed from

Hull, on a ship bound for the Cape, and that evening Mivanway arrived at the paternal home in Bristol with

two trunks and the curt information that she and Charles had separated for ever. The next morning both

thought of a soft speech to say to the other, but the next morning was just twentyfour hours too late.

Eight days afterwards Charles's ship was run down in a fog, near the coast of Portugal, and every soul on

board was supposed to have perished. Mivanway read his name among the list of lost; the child died within

her, and she knew herself for a woman who had loved deeply, and will not love again.

Good luck intervening, however, Charles and one other man were rescued by a small trading vessel, and

landed in Algiers. There Charles learnt of his supposed death, and the idea occurred to him to leave the report

uncontradicted. For one thing, it solved a problem that had been troubling him. He could trust his father to

see to it that his own small fortune, with possibly something added, was handed over to Mivanway, and she

would be free if she wished to marry again. He was convinced that she did not care for him, and that she had

read of his death with a sense of relief. He would make a new life for himself, and forget her.

He continued his journey to the Cape, and once there he soon gained for himself an excellent position. The

colony was young, engineers were welcome, and Charles knew his business. He found the life interesting and

exciting. The rough, dangerous upcountry work suited him, and the time passed swiftly.

But in thinking he would forget Mivanway, he had not taken into consideration his own character, which at

bottom was a very gentlemanly character. Out on the lonely veldt he found himself dreaming of her. The

memory of her pretty face and merry laugh came back to him at all hours. Occasionally he would curse her

roundly, but that only meant that he was sore because of the thought of her; what he was really cursing was

himself and his own folly. Softened by the distance, her quick temper, her very petulance became mere added

graces; and if we consider women as human beings and not as angels, it was certainly a fact that he had lost a

very sweet and lovable woman. Ah! if she only were by his side nownow that he was a man capable of

appreciating her, and not a foolish, selfish boy. This thought would come to him as he sat smoking at the door

of his tent, and then he would regret that the stars looking down upon him were not the same stars that were

watching her, it would have made him feel nearer to her. For, though young people may not credit it, one

grows more sentimental as one grows older; at least, some of us do, and they perhaps not the least wise.

One night he had a vivid dream of her. She came to him and held out her hand, and he took it, and they said

goodbye to one another. They were standing on the cliff where he had first met her, and one of them was

In the towns men laugh at dreams, but away from civilisation we listen more readily to the strange tales that

Nature whispers to us. Charles Seabohn recollected this dream when he awoke in the morning.

He made up his mind to return to England at once; perhaps if he made haste he would be in time to kiss her.

But he could not start that day, for work was to be done; and Charles Seabohn, lover though he still was, had

grown to be a man, and knew that work must not be neglected even though the heart may be calling. So for a

day or two he stayed, and on the third night he dreamed of Mivanway again, and this time she lay within the

little chapel at Bristol where, on Sunday mornings, he had often sat with her. He heard her father's voice

reading the burial service over her, and the sister she had loved best was sitting beside him, crying softly.

Then Charles knew that there was no need for him to hasten. So he remained to finish his work. That done, he

would return to England. He would like again to stand upon the cliffs, above the little Cornish village, where

Thus a few months later Charles Seabohn, or Charles Denning, as he called himself, aged and bronzed, not

easily recognisable by those who had not known him well, walked into the Cromlech Arms, as six years

before he had walked in with his knapsack on his back, and asked for a room, saying he would be stopping in

In the evening he strolled out and made his way to the cliffs. It was twilight when he reached the place of

rocks to which the fancy loving Cornish folk had given the name of the Witches' Cauldron. It was from this

He took the pipe from his mouth, and leaning against a rock, whose rugged outline seemed fashioned into the

face of an old friend, gazed down the narrow pathway now growing indistinct in the dim light. And as he

gazed the figure of Mivanway came slowly up the pathway from the sea, and paused before him.

He felt no fear. He had half expected it. Her coming was the complement of his dreams. She looked older and

He wondered if she would speak to him, but she only looked at him with sad eyes; and he stood there in the

Had he on his return cared to discuss the subject with his landlord, had he even shown himself a ready

listenerfor the old man loved to gossiphe might have learnt that a young widow lady named Mrs.

Charles Seabohn, accompanied by an unmarried sister, had lately come to reside in the neighbourhood,

having, upon the death of a former tenant, taken the lease of a small farmhouse sheltered in the valley a mile

beyond the village, and that her favourite evening's walk was to the sea and back by the steep footway

Had he followed the figure of Mivanway into the valley, he would have known that out of sight of the

Witches' Cauldron it took to running fast till it reached a welcome door, and fell panting into the arms of

"My dear," said the elder woman, "you are trembling like a leaf. What has happened?"

"Charles!" repeated the other, looking at Mivanway as though she thought her mad.

"His spirit, I mean," explained Mivanway, in an awed voice. "It was standing in the shadow of the rocks, in

the exact spot where we first met. It looked older and more careworn; but, oh! Margaret, so sad and

"My dear," said her sister, leading her in, "you are overwrought. I wish we had never come back to this

"Oh! I was not frightened," answered Mivanway, "I have been expecting it every evening. I am so glad it

So next night Mivanway, though much against her sister's wishes and advice, persisted in her usual walk, and

Again Mivanway saw him standing in the shadow of the rocks. Charles had made up his mind that if the

thing happened again he would speak, but when the silent figure of Mivanway, clothed in the fading light,

That it was the spirit of Mivanway standing before him he had not the faintest doubt. One may dismiss other

people's ghosts as the phantasies of a weak brain, but one knows one's own to be realities, and Charles for the

last five years had mingled with a people whose dead dwell about them. Once, drawing his courage around

him, he made to speak, but as he did so the figure of Mivanway shrank from him, and only a sigh escaped his

lips, and hearing that the figure of Mivanway turned and again passed down the path into the valley, leaving

But the third night both arrived at the trysting spot with determination screwed up to the sticking point.

Charles was the first to speak. As the figure of Mivanway came towards him, with its eyes fixed sadly on

"Charles!" replied the figure of Mivanway. Both spoke in an awed whisper suitable to the circumstances, and

The question strikes one as somewhat farcical, but it must be remembered that Mivanway was the daughter of

a Gospeller of the old school, and had been brought up to beliefs that were not then out of date.

"As happy as I deserve to be," was the sad reply, and the answer the inference was not complimentary to

Now this speech fell very pleasantly upon Mivanway's ears. In the first place it relieved her of her despair

regarding Charles's future. No doubt his present suffering was keen, but there was hope for him. Secondly, it

was a decidedly "pretty" speech for a ghost, and I am not at all sure that Mivanway was the kind of woman to

"Forgive YOU!" replied Charles, in a tone of awed astonishment. "Can you forgive me? I was a brutea

"We were both to blame," answered Mivanway. But this time there was less submission in her tones. "But I

was the most at fault. I was a petulant child. I did not know how deeply I loved you."

"You loved me!" repeated the voice of Charles, and the voice lingered over the words as though it found

"Surely you never doubted it," answered the voice of Mivanway. "I never ceased to love you. I shall love you

The figure of Charles sprang forward as though it would clasp the ghost of Mivanway in its arms, but halted a

"Bless me before you go," he said, and with uncovered head the figure of Charles knelt to the figure of

Really, ghosts could be exceedingly nice when they liked. Mivanway bent graciously towards her shadowy

suppliant, and, as she did so, her eye caught sight of something on the grass beside it, and that something was

a wellcoloured meerschaum pipe. There was no mistaking it for anything else, even in that treacherous light;

it lay glistening where Charles, in falling upon his knees had jerked it from his breastpocket.

Charles, following Mivanway's eyes, saw it also, and the memory of the prohibition against smoking came

Without stopping to consider the futility of the actionnay, the direct confession implied therebyhe

instinctively grabbed at the pipe, and rammed it back into his pocket; and then an avalanche of mingled

understanding and bewilderment, fear and joy, swept Mivanway's brain before it. She felt she must do one of

two things, laugh or scream and go on screaming, and she laughed. Peal after peal of laughter she sent

echoing among the rocks, and Charles springing to his feet was just in time to catch her as she fell forward a

Ten minutes later the eldest Miss Evans, hearing heavy footsteps, went to the door. She saw what she took to

be the spirit of Charles Seabohn, staggering under the weight of the lifeless body of Mivanway, and the sight

not unnaturally alarmed her. Charles's suggestion of brandy, however, sounded human, and the urgent need

of attending to Mivanway kept her mind from dwelling upon problems tending towards insanity.

"I'll leave her with you," he whispered to the eldest Miss Evans. "It will be better for her not to see me until

Charles waited in the dark parlour for what seemed to him an exceedingly long time. But at last the eldest

And the eldest Miss Evans, left alone, sat down and wrestled with the conviction that she was dreaming.

My work pressed upon me, but the louder it challenged mesuch is the heart of the timid fighterthe less

stomach I felt for the contest. I wrestled with it in my study, only to be driven to my books. I walked out to

meet it in the streets, only to seek shelter from it in musichall or theatre. Thereupon it waxed importunate

and overbearing, till the shadow of it darkened all my doings. The thought of it sat beside me at the table,

and spoilt my appetite. The memory of it followed me abroad, and stood between me and my friends, so that

Then the throbbing town, with its thousand distracting voices, grew maddening to me. I felt the need of

converse with solitude, that master and teacher of all the arts, and I bethought me of the Yorkshire Wolds,

where a man may walk all day, meeting no human creature, hearing no voice but the curlew's cry; where,

lying prone upon the sweet grass, he may feel the pulsation of the earth, travelling at its eleven hundred miles

a minute through the ether. So one morning I bundled many things, some needful, more needless, into a bag,

hurrying lest somebody or something should happen to stay me, and that night I lay in a small northern town

that stands upon the borders of smokedom at the gate of the great moors; and at seven the next morning I took

my seat beside a oneeyed carrier behind an ancient piebald mare. The oneeyed carrier cracked his whip,

the piebald horse jogged forward. The nineteenth century, with its turmoil, fell away behind us; the distant

hills, creeping nearer, swallowed us up, and we became but a moving speck upon the face of the quiet earth.

Late in the afternoon we arrived at a village, the memory of which had been growing in my mind. It lies in

the triangle formed by the sloping walls of three great fells, and not even the telegraph wire has reached it

yet, to murmur to it whispers of the restless world or had not at the time of which I write. Nought disturbs

it save, once a day, the oneeyed carrierif he and his piebald mare have not yet laid their ancient bones to

restwho, passing through, leaves a few letters and parcels to be called for by the people of the scattered

hillfarms round about. It is the meetingplace of two noisy brooks. Through the sleepy days and the hushed

nights, one hears them ever chattering to themselves as children playing alone some game of makebelieve.

Coming from their faroff homes among the hills, they mingle their waters here, and journey on in company,

and then their converse is more serious, as becomes those who have joined hands and are moving onward

towards life together. Later they reach sad, weary towns, black beneath a neverlifted pall of smoke, where

day and night the clang of iron drowns all human voices, where the children play with ashes, where the men

and women have dull, patient faces; and so on, muddy and stained, to the deep sea that ceaselessly calls to

them. Here, however, their waters are fresh and clear, and their passing makes the only stir that the valley has

ever known. Surely, of all peaceful places, this was the one where a tired worker might find strength.

My oneeyed friend had suggested I should seek lodgings at the house of one Mistress Cholmondley, a

widow lady, who resided with her only daughter in the whitewashed cottage that is the last house in the

"Tha' can see th' house from here, by reason o' its standing so high above t'others," said the carrier, pointing

with his whip. "It's theer or nowhere, aw'm thinking, for folks don't often coom seeking lodgings in these

The tiny dwelling, half smothered in June roses, looked idyllic, and after a lunch of bread and cheese at the

little inn I made my way to it by the path that passes through the churchyard. I had conjured up the vision of a

stout, pleasant, comfortradiating woman, assisted by some bright, fresh girl, whose rosy cheeks and

sunburnt hands would help me banish from my mind all clogging recollections of the town; and hopeful, I

The cottage was furnished with a taste that surprised me, but in themselves my hosts disappointed me. My

bustling, comely housewife turned out a wizened, bleareyed dame. All day long she dozed in her big chair,

or crouched with shrivelled hands spread out before the fire. My dream of winsome maidenhood vanished

before the reality of a wearylooking, sharpfeatured woman of between forty and fifty. Perhaps there had

been a time when the listless eyes had sparkled with roguish merriment, when the shrivelled, tight drawn

lips had pouted temptingly; but spinsterhood does not sweeten the juices of a woman, and strong country air,

though, like old ale, it is good when taken occasionally, dulls the brain if lived upon. A narrow, uninteresting

woman I found her, troubled with a shyness that sat ludicrously upon her age, and that yet failed to save her

from the landlady's customary failing of loquacity concerning "better days," together with an irritating, if

All other details were, however, most satisfactory; and at the window commanding the road that leads

But the spirit of industry, once driven forth, returns with coy steps. I wrote for perhaps an hour, and then

throwing down my halting pen I looked about the room, seeking distraction. A Chippendale bookcase stood

against the wall and I strolled over to it. The key was in the lock, and opening its glass doors, I examined the

wellfilled shelves. They held a curious collection: miscellanies with quaint, glazed bindings; novels and

poems; whose authors I had never heard of; old magazines long dead, their very names forgotten;

"keepsakes" and annuals, redolent of an age of vastly pretty sentiments and lavendercoloured silks. On the

top shelf, however, was a volume of Keats wedged between a number of the Evangelical Rambler and

Young's Night Thoughts, and standing on tiptoe, I sought to draw it from its place.

The book was jambed so tightly that my efforts brought two or three others tumbling about me, covering me

with a cloud of fine dust, and to my feet there fell, with a rattle of glass and metal, a small miniature painting,

I picked it up, and, taking it to the window, examined it. It was the picture of a young girl, dressed in the

fashion of thirty years agoI mean thirty years ago then. I fear it must be nearer fifty, speaking as from

nowwhen our grandmothers wore corkscrew curls, and lowcut bodices that one wonders how they kept

from slipping down. The face was beautiful, not merely with the conventional beauty of tiresome regularity

and impossible colouring such as one finds in all miniatures, but with soul behind the soft deep eyes. As I

gazed, the sweet lips seemed to laugh at me, and yet there lurked a sadness in the smile, as though the artist,

in some rare moment, had seen the coming shadow of life across the sunshine of the face. Even my small

knowledge of Art told me that the work was clever, and I wondered why it should have lain so long

neglected, when as a mere ornament it was valuable. It must have been placed in the bookcase years ago by

I replaced it among its dusty companions, and sat down once more to my work. But between me and the

fading light came the face of the miniature, and would not be banished. Wherever I turned it looked out at me

from the shadows. I am not naturally fanciful, and the work I was engaged uponthe writing of a farcical

comedywas not of the kind to excite the dreamy side of a man's nature. I grew angry with myself, and

made a further effort to fix my mind upon the paper in front of me. But my thoughts refused to return from

their wanderings. Once, glancing back over my shoulder, I could have sworn I saw the original of the picture

sitting in the big chintzcovered chair in the far corner. It was dressed in a faded lilac frock, trimmed with

some old lace, and I could not help noticing the beauty of the folded hands, though in the portrait only the

Next morning I had forgotten the incident, but with the lighting of the lamp the memory of it awoke within

me, and my interest grew so strong that again I took the miniature from its hidingplace and looked at it.

And then the knowledge suddenly came to me that I knew the face. Where had I seen her, and when? I had

met her and spoken to her. The picture smiled at me, as if rallying me on my forgetfulness. I put it back upon

its shelf, and sat racking my brains trying to recollect. We had met somewherein the countrya long time

ago, and had talked of commonplace things. To the vision of her clung the scent of roses and the murmuring

voices of haymakers. Why had I never seen her again? Why had she passed so completely out of my mind?

My landlady entered to lay my supper, and I questioned her assuming a careless tone. Reason with or laugh at

myself as I would, this shadowy memory was becoming a romance to me. It was as though I were talking of

some loved, dead friend, even to speak of whom to commonplace people was a sacrilege. I did not want the

"Oh, yes," answered my landlady. Ladies had often lodged with her. Sometimes people stayed the whole

summer, wandering about the woods and fells, but to her thinking the great hills were lonesome. Some of her

lodgers had been young ladies, but she could not remember any of them having impressed her with their

beauty. But then it was said women were never a judge of other women. They had come and gone. Few had

"You have been letting lodgings for a long time?" I asked. "I suppose it could be fifteentwenty years ago

"Longer than that," she said quietly, dropping for the moment all affectation. "We came here from the farm

when my father died. He had had losses, and there was but little left. That is twenty seven years ago now."

I hastened to close the conversation, fearing longwinded recollections of "better days." I have heard such so

often from one landlady and another. I had not learnt much. Who was the original of the miniature, how it

came to be lying forgotten in the dusty bookcase were still mysteries; and with a strange perversity I could

So two days more passed by. My work took gradually a firmer grip upon my mind, and the face of the

miniature visited me less often. But in the evening of the third day, which was a Sunday, a curious thing

I was returning from a stroll, and dusk was falling as I reached the cottage. I had been thinking of my farce,

and I was laughing to myself at a situation that seemed to me comical, when, passing the window of my

room, I saw looking out the sweet fair face that had become so familiar to me. It stood close to the latticed

panes, a slim, girlish figure, clad in the oldfashioned lilac coloured frock in which I had imagined it on the

first night of my arrival, the beautiful hands clasped across the breast, as then they had been folded on the lap.

Her eyes were gazing down the road that passes through the village and goes south, but they seemed to be

dreaming, not seeing, and the sadness in them struck upon one almost as a cry. I was close to the window, but

the hedge screened me, and I remained watching, until, after a minute I suppose, though it appeared longer,

I entered, but the room was empty. I called, but no one answered. The uncomfortable suggestion took hold of

me that I must be growing a little crazy. All that had gone before I could explain to myself as a mere train of

thought, but this time it had come to me suddenly, uninvited, while my thoughts had been busy elsewhere.

This thing had appeared not to my brain but to my senses. I am not a believer in ghosts, but I am in the

hallucinations of a weak mind, and my own explanation was in consequence not very satisfactory to myself.

I tried to dismiss the incident, but it would not leave me, and later that same evening something else occurred

that fixed it still clearer in my thoughts. I had taken out two or three books at random with which to amuse

myself, and turning over the leaves of one of them, a volume of verses by some obscure poet, I found its

sentimental passages much scored and commented upon in pencil as was common fifty years agoas may

be common now, for your Fleet Street cynic has not altered the world and its ways to quite the extent that he

One poem in particular had evidently appealed greatly to the reader's sympathies. It was the old, old story of

the gallant who woos and rides away, leaving the maiden to weep. The poetry was poor, and at another time

its conventionality would have excited only my ridicule. But, reading it in conjunction with the quaint, naive

notes scattered about its margins, I felt no inclination to jeer. These hackneyed stories that we laugh at are

deep profundities to the many who find in them some shadow of their own sorrows, and shefor it was a

woman's handwritingto whom this book belonged had loved its trite verses, because in them she had read

her own heart. This, I told myself, was her story also. A common enough story in life as in literature, but

There was no reason for my connecting her with the original of the miniature, except perhaps a subtle

relationship between the thin nervous handwriting and the mobile features; yet I felt instinctively they were

one and the same, and that I was tracing, link by link, the history of my forgotten friend.

I felt urged to probe further, and next morning while my landlady was clearing away my breakfast things, I

"By the way," I said, "while I think of it, if I leave any books or papers here behind me, send them on at once.

I have a knack of doing that sort of thing. I suppose," I added, "your lodgers often do leave some of their

It sounded to myself a clumsy ruse. I wondered if she would suspect what was behind it.

"Not often," she answered. "Never that I can remember, except in the case of one poor lady who died here."

"Well, not exactly in this very room. We carried her upstairs, but she died immediately. She was dying when

she came here. I should not have taken her in had I known. So many people are prejudiced against a house

where death has occurred, as if there were anywhere it had not. It was not quite fair to us."

I did not speak for a while, and the rattle of the plates and knives continued undisturbed.

"Oh, just a few books and photographs, and suchlike small things that people bring with them to lodgings,"

was the reply. "Her people promised to send for them, but they never did, and I suppose I forgot them. They

"It won't drive you away, sir, I hope, what I have told you," she said. "It all happened a long while ago.

"Of course not," I answered. "It interested me, that was all." And the woman went out, closing the door

So here was the explanation, if I chose to accept it. I sat long that morning, wondering to myself whether

things I had learnt to laugh at could be after all realities. And a day or two afterwards I made a discovery that

Rummaging through this same dusty bookcase, I found in one of the illfitting drawers, beneath a heap of

torn and tumbled books, a diary belonging to the fifties, stuffed with many letters and shapeless flowers,

pressed between stained pages; and therefor the writer of stories, tempted by human documents, is

weakin faded ink, brown and withered like the flowers, I read the story I already knew.

Such a very old story it was, and so conventional. He was an artistwas ever story of this type written where

the hero was not an artist? They had been children together, loving each other without knowing it till one day

"May 18th.I do not know what to say, or how to begin. Chris loves me. I have been praying to God to

make me worthy of him, and dancing round the room in my bare feet for fear of waking them below. He

kissed my hands and clasped them round his neck, saying they were beautiful as the hands of a goddess, and

he knelt and kissed them again. I am holding them before me and kissing them myself. I am glad they are so

beautiful. O God, why are you so good to me? Help me to be a true wife to him. Help me that I may never

give him an instant's pain! Oh, that I had more power of loving, that I might love him better,"and thus

foolish thoughts for many pages, but foolish thoughts of the kind that has kept this worn old world, hanging

"Chris left this morning. He put a little packet into my hands at the last moment, saying it was the most

precious thing he possessed, and that when I looked at it I was to think of him who loved it. Of course I

guessed what it was, but I did not open it till I was alone in my room. It is the picture of myself that he has

been so secret about, but oh, so beautiful. I wonder if I am really as beautiful as this. But I wish he had not

made me look so sad. I am kissing the little lips. I love them, because he loved to kiss them. Oh, sweetheart!

it will be long before you kiss them again. Of course it was right for him to go, and I am glad he has been

able to manage it. He could not study properly in this quiet country place, and now he will be able to go to

Paris and Rome and he will be great. Even the stupid people here see how clever he is. But, oh, it will be so

With each letter that comes from him, similar foolish rhapsodies are written down, but these letters of his, I

gather, as I turn the pages, grow after a while colder and fewer, and a chill fear that dare not be penned creeps

"March 12th. Six weeks and no letter from Chris, and, oh dear! I am so hungry for one, for the last I have

almost kissed to pieces. I suppose he will write more often when he gets to London. He is working hard, I

know, and it is selfish of me to expect him to write more often, but I would sit up all night for a week rather

than miss writing to him. I suppose men are not like that. O God, help me, help me, whatever happens! How

foolish I am tonight! He was always careless. I will punish him for it when he comes back, but not very

Letters do come from him after that, but apparently they are less and less satisfactory, for the diary grows

angry and bitter, and the faded writing is blotted at times with tears. Then towards the end of another year

"It is all over now. I am glad it is finished. I have written to him, giving him up. I have told him I have ceased

to care for him, and that it is better we should both be free. It is best that way. He would have had to ask me

to release him, and that would have given him pain. He was always gentle. Now he will be able to marry her

with an easy conscience, and he need never know what I have suffered. She is more fitted for him than I am. I

A few lines follow, left blank, and then the writing is resumed, but in a stronger, more vehement hand.

"Why do I lie to myself? I hate her! I would kill her if I could. I hope she will make him wretched, and that

he will come to hate her as I do, and that she will die! Why did I let them persuade me to send that lying

letter? He will show it to her, and she will see through it and laugh at me. I could have held him to his

"What do I care about dignity, and womanliness, and right, and all the rest of the canting words! I want him. I

want his kisses and his arms about me. He is mine! He loved me once! I have only given him up because I

thought it a fine thing to play the saint. It is only an acted lie. I would rather be evil, and he loved me. Why

do I deceive myself? I want him. I care for nothing else at the bottom of my hearthis love, his kisses!"

And towards the end. "My God, what am I saying? Have I no shame, no strength? O God, help me!"

I looked among the letters lying between the pages of the book. Most of them were signed simply "Chris." or

"Christopher." But one gave his name in full, and it was a name I know well as that of a famous man, whose

hand I have often shaken. I thought of his hard featured, handsome wife, and of his great chill place, half

house, half exhibition, in Kensington, filled constantly with its smart, chattering set, among whom he seemed

always to be the uninvited guest; of his weary face and bitter tongue. And thinking thus there rose up before

me the sweet, sad face of the woman of the miniature, and, meeting her eyes as she smiled at me from out of

I took the miniature from its shelf. There would be no harm now in learning her name. So I stood with it in

"I tumbled this out of your bookcase," I said, "in reaching down some books. It is someone I know,

The woman took it from my hand, and a faint flush crossed her withered face. "I had lost it," she answered. "I

never thought of looking there. It's a portrait of myself, painted years ago, by a friend."

I looked from her to the miniature, as she stood among the shadows, with the lamplight falling on her face,

It has been told me by those in a position to knowand I can believe itthat at nineteen months of age he

wept because his grandmother would not allow him to feed her with a spoon, and that at three and a half he

was fished, in an exhausted condition, out of the waterbutt, whither he had climbed for the purpose of

Two years later he permanently injured his left eye, showing the cat how to carry kittens without hurting

them, and about the same period was dangerously stung by a bee while conveying it from a flower where, as

it seemed to him, it was only wasting its time, to one more rich in honeymaking properties.

His desire was always to help others. He would spend whole mornings explaining to elderly hens how to

hatch eggs, and would give up an afternoon's blackberrying to sit at home and crack nuts for his pet squirrel.

Before he was seven he would argue with his mother upon the management of children, and reprove his

As a child nothing could afford him greater delight than "minding" other children, or them less. He would

take upon himself this harassing duty entirely of his own accord, without hope of reward or gratitude. It was

immaterial to him whether the other children were older than himself or younger, stronger or weaker,

whenever and wherever he found them he set to work to "mind" them. Once, during a school treat, piteous

cries were heard coming from a distant part of the wood, and upon search being made, he was discovered

prone upon the ground, with a cousin of his, a boy twice his own weight, sitting upon him and steadily

He was a goodnatured lad, and at school he was always willing for the whole class to copy from his

slateindeed he would urge them to do so. He meant it kindly, but inasmuch as his answers were invariably

quite wrongwith a distinctive and inimitable wrongness peculiar to himselfthe result to his followers

was eminently unsatisfactory; and with the shallowness of youth that, ignoring motives, judges solely from

All his energies went to the instruction of others, leaving none for his own purposes. He would take callow

"Now, try and hit me on the nose," he would say, standing before them in an attitude of defence. "Don't be

And they would do it. And so soon as he had recovered from his surprise, and a little lessened the bleeding,

he would explain to them how they had done it all wrong, and how easily he could have stopped the blow if

Twice at golf he lamed himself for over a week, showing a novice how to "drive"; and at cricket on one

occasion I remember seeing his middle stump go down like a ninepin just as he was explaining to the bowler

how to get the balls in straight. After which he had a long argument with the umpire as to whether he was in

He has been known, during a stormy Channel passage, to rush excitedly upon the bridge in order to inform

the captain that he had "just seen a light about two miles away to the left"; and if he is on the top of an

omnibus he generally sits beside the driver, and points out to him the various obstacles likely to impede their

It was upon an omnibus that my own personal acquaintanceship with him began. I was sitting behind two

ladies when the conductor came up to collect fares. One of them handed him a sixpence telling him to take to

"No," said the other lady to her friend, handing the man a shilling, "I owe you sixpence, you give me

The conductor took the shilling, punched two twopenny tickets, and then stood trying to think it out.

"And you," she concluded to the conductor, "give me eightpence, then we shall be all right."

The conductor doled out to her the eightpencethe sixpence he had taken from the first lady, with a penny

and two halfpennies out of his own bagdistrustfully, and retired, muttering something about his duties not

I deemed the incident closed, when suddenly a florid gentleman on the opposite seat called out in stentorian

"'Oo's cheated 'oo out 'o fourpence?" replied the indignant conductor from the top of the steps, "it was a

"Two twopences don't make eightpence," retorted the florid gentleman hotly. "How much did you give the

"I gave him sixpence," replied the lady, examining her purse. "And then I gave you fourpence, you know,"

"Oh, that's impossible, dear," returned the other, "because I owed you sixpence to begin with."

"You gave me a shilling," said the conductor, who had returned, pointing an accusing forefinger at the elder

"Blow me if it ain't ME as 'as been cheated out of the fourpence," cried the conductor.

"Which I give to 'er," replied the conductor, again pointing the finger of accusation at the elder lady. "You

By this time everybody had forgotten what they had done, and contradicted themselves and one another. The

florid man took it upon himself to put everybody right, with the result that before Piccadilly Circus was

reached three passengers had threatened to report the conductor for unbecoming language. The conductor had

called a policeman and had taken the names and addresses of the two ladies, intending to sue them for the

fourpence (which they wanted to pay, but which the florid man would not allow them to do); the younger

lady had become convinced that the elder lady had meant to cheat her, and the elder lady was in tears.

The florid gentleman and myself continued to Charing Cross Station. At the booking office window it

transpired that we were bound for the same suburb, and we journeyed down together. He talked about the

At my gate we shook hands, and he was good enough to express delight at the discovery that we were near

neighbours. What attracted him to myself I failed to understand, for he had bored me considerably, and I had,

to the best of my ability, snubbed him. Subsequently I learned that it was a peculiarity of his to be charmed

Three days afterwards he burst into my study unannouncedhe appeared to regard himself as my bosom

"I met the postman as I was coming along," he said, handing me a blue envelope, "and he gave me this, for

"We must make a stand against this," he continued. "That's for water to the 29th September. You've no right

I replied to the effect that waterrates had to be paid, and that it seemed to me immaterial whether they were

"That's not it," he answered, "it's the principle of the thing. Why should you pay for water you have never

He was a fluent talker, and I was ass enough to listen to him. By the end of half an hour he had persuaded me

that the question was bound up with the inalienable rights of man, and that if I paid that fourteen and

tenpence in June instead of in September, I should be unworthy of the privileges my forefathers had fought

He told me the company had not a leg to stand upon, and at his instigation I sat down and wrote an insulting

The secretary replied that, having regard to the attitude I had taken up, it would be incumbent upon

themselves to treat it as a test case, and presumed that my solicitors would accept service on my behalf.

"You leave it to me," he said, pocketing the correspondence, "and we'll teach them a lesson."

I left it to him. My only excuse is that at the time I was immersed in the writing of what in those days was

termed a comedy drama. The little sense I possessed must, I suppose, have been absorbed by the play.

The magistrate's decision somewhat damped my ardour, but only inflamed his zeal. Magistrates, he said,

The judge was a kindly old gentleman, and said that bearing in mind the unsatisfactory wording of the

subclause, he did not think he could allow the company their costs, so that, all told, I got off for something

Afterwards our friendship waned, but living as we did in the same outlying suburb, I was bound to see a good

At parties of all kinds he was particularly prominent, and on such occasions, being in his most goodnatured

mood, was most to be dreaded. No human being worked harder for the enjoyment of others, or produced

One Christmas afternoon, calling upon a friend, I found some fourteen or fifteen elderly ladies and gentlemen

trotting solemnly round a row of chairs in the centre of the drawingroom while Poppleton played the piano.

Every now and then Poppleton would suddenly cease, and everyone would drop wearily into the nearest

chair, evidently glad of a rest; all but one, who would thereupon creep quietly away, followed by the envying

looks of those left behind. I stood by the door watching the weird scene. Presently an escaped player came

"Don't ask me," he answered grumpily. "Some of Poppleton's damned tomfoolery." Then he added savagely,

The servant was still waiting a favourable opportunity to announce me. I gave her a shilling not to, and got

After a satisfactory dinner, he would suggest an impromptu dance, and want you to roll up mats, or help him

He knew enough round games to have started a small purgatory of his own. Just as you were in the middle of

an interesting discussion, or a delightful teteatete with a pretty woman, he would swoop down upon you

with: "Come along, we're going to play literary consequences," and dragging you to the table, and putting a

piece of paper and a pencil before you, would tell you to write a description of your favourite heroine in

He never spared himself. It was always he who would volunteer to escort the old ladies to the station, and

who would never leave them until he had seen them safely into the wrong train. He it was who would play

"wild beasts" with the children, and frighten them into fits that would last all night.

So far as intention went, he was the kindest man alive. He never visited poor sick persons without taking with

him in his pocket some little delicacy calculated to disagree with them and make them worse. He arranged

yachting excursions for bad sailors, entirely at his own expense, and seemed to regard their subsequent

He loved to manage a wedding. Once he planned matters so that the bride arrived at the altar threequarters

of an hour before the groom, which led to unpleasantness upon a day that should have been filled only with

joy, and once he forgot the clergyman. But he was always ready to admit when he made a mistake.

At funerals, also, he was to the fore, pointing out to the grief stricken relatives how much better it was for

all concerned that the corpse was dead, and expressing a pious hope that they would soon join it.

The chiefest delight of his life, however, was to be mixed up in other people's domestic quarrels. No domestic

quarrel for miles round was complete without him. He generally came in as mediator, and finished as leading

As a journalist or politician his wonderful grasp of other people's business would have won for him esteem.

The first time we met, to speak, he was sitting with his back against a pollard willow, smoking a clay pipe.

He smoked it very slowly, but very conscientiously. After each whiff he removed the pipe from his mouth

"Feeling bad?" I asked from behind a tree, at the same time making ready for a run, big boys' answers to

To my surprise and relieffor at second glance I perceived I had underestimated the length of his legshe

appeared to regard the question as a natural and proper one, replying with unaffected candour, "Not yet."

My desire became to comfort hima sentiment I think he understood and was grateful for. Advancing into

the open, I sat down over against him, and watched him for a while in silence. Presently he said:

Rendered forgetful of present trouble by bitter recollection of the past, he puffed away at his pipe carelessly

"Yes," he replied gloomily; "all we fellows in the fifth form drink beer and smoke pipes."

He rose suddenly and made towards the hedge. Before he reached it, however, he stopped and addressed me,

"If you follow me, young 'un, or look, I'll punch your head," he said swiftly, and disappeared with a gurgle.

He left at the end of the terms and I did not see him again until we were both young men. Then one day I ran

against him in Oxford Street, and he asked me to come and spend a few days with his people in Surrey.

I found him wanlooking and depressed, and every now and then he sighed. During a walk across the

common he cheered up considerably, but the moment we got back to the house door he seemed to recollect

himself, and began to sigh again. He ate no dinner whatever, merely sipping a glass of wine and crumbling a

piece of bread. I was troubled at noticing this, but his relativesa maiden aunt, who kept house, two elder

sisters, and a weakeyed female cousin who had left her husband behind her in Indiawere evidently

charmed. They glanced at each other, and nodded and smiled. Once in a fit of abstraction he swallowed a bit

In the drawingroom, under cover of a sentimental song, sung by the female cousin, I questioned his aunt on

"You wait till your time comes," she answered, shaking her curls at me. "You won't care much about your

In the night, about halfpast eleven, I heard, as I thought, footsteps in the passage, and creeping to the door

and opening it I saw the figure of my friend in dressinggown and slippers, vanishing down the stairs. My

idea was that, his brain weakened by trouble, he had developed sleepwalking tendencies. Partly out of

curiosity, partly to watch over him, I slipped on a pair of trousers and followed him.

He placed his candle on the kitchen table and made a beeline for the pantry door, from where he

subsequently emerged with two pounds of cold beef on a plate and about a quart of beer in a jug; and I came

I assisted at his wedding, where it seemed to me he endeavoured to display more ecstasy than it was possible

for any human being to feel; and fifteen months later, happening to catch sight of an advertisement in the

births column of The Times, I called on my way home from the City to congratulate him. He was pacing up

and down the passage with his hat on, pausing at intervals to partake of an uninvitinglooking meal,

consisting of a cold mutton chop and a glass of lemonade, spread out upon a chair. Seeing that the cook and

the housemaid were wandering about the house evidently bored for want of something to do, and that the

diningroom, where he would have been much more out of the way, was empty and quite in order, I failed at

first to understand the reason for his deliberate choice of discomfort. I, however, kept my reflections to

"Couldn't be better," he replied with a groan. "The doctor said he'd never had a more satisfactory case in all

"Oh, I'm glad to hear that," I answered; "I was afraid you'd been worrying yourself."

"Worried!" he exclaimed. "My dear boy, I don't know whether I'm standing on my head or my heels" (he

gave one that idea). "This is the first morsel of food that's passed my lips for twentyfour hours."

At this moment the nurse appeared at the top of the stairs. He flew towards her, upsetting the lemonade in his

"They're doing splendidly," she answered, patting him on the shoulder in a motherly fashion. "Don't you

"I can't help it, Mrs. Jobson," he replied, sitting down upon the bottom stair, and leaning his head against the

"Of course you can't," said Mrs. Jobson admiringly; "and you wouldn't be much of a man if you could." Then

it was borne in upon me why he wore his hat, and dined off cold chops in the passage.

The following summer they rented a picturesque old house in Berkshire, and invited me down from a

Saturday to Monday. Their place was near the river, so I slipped a suit of flannels in my bag, and on the

Sunday morning I came down in them. He met me in the garden. He was dressed in a frock coat and a white

waistcoat; and I noticed that he kept looking at me out of the corner of his eye, and that he seemed to have a

trouble on his mind. The first breakfast bell rang, and then he said, "You haven't got any proper clothes with

"Proper clothes!" I exclaimed, stopping in some alarm. "Why, has anything given way?"

"Church," I said. "You're surely not going to church a fine day like this? I made sure you'd be playing tennis,

"Yes," he replied, nervously flicking a rosebush with a twig he had picked up. "You see, it isn't ourselves

exactly. Maud and I would rather like to, but our cook, she's Scotch, and a little strict in her notions."

"Well," he answered, "she thinks it strange if we don't, and so we generally do, just in the morningand

evening. And then in the afternoon a few of the village girls drop in, and we have a little singing and that sort

I did not say what I thought. Instead I said, "I've got that tweed suit I wore yesterday. I can put that on if you

He ceased flicking the rosebush, and knitted his brows. He seemed to be recalling it to his imagination.

"No," he said, shaking his head, "I'm afraid it would shock her. It's my fault, I know," he added, remorsefully.

"I suppose," he said, "you wouldn't care to pretend you were ill, and stop in bed just for the day?"

I explained that my conscience would not permit my being a party to such deception

"No, I thought you wouldn't," he replied. "I must explain it to her. I think I'll say you've lost your bag. I

Later on a fourteenth cousin died, leaving him a large fortune. He purchased an estate in Yorkshire, and

From May to the middle of August, save for a little fly fishing, which generally resulted in his getting his feet

wet and catching a cold, life was fairly peaceful; but from early autumn to late spring he found the work

decidedly trying. He was a stout man, constitutionally nervous of firearms, and a sixhours' tramp with a

heavy gun across ploughed fields, in company with a crowd of careless persons who kept blazing away

within an inch of other people's noses, harassed and exhausted him. He had to get out of bed at four on chilly

October mornings to go cubhunting, and twice a week throughout the winterexcept when a blessed frost

brought him a brief respitehe had to ride to hounds. That he usually got off with nothing more serious than

mere bruises and slight concussions of the spine, he probably owed to the fortunate circumstances of his

being little and fat. At stiff timber he shut his eyes and rode hard; and ten yards from a river he would begin

"If you are a country gentleman," he would say, "you must behave as a country gentleman, and take the rough

As ill fate would have it a chance speculation doubled his fortune, and it became necessary that he should go

into Parliament and start a yacht. Parliament made his head ache, and the yacht made him sick.

Notwithstanding, every summer he would fill it with a lot of expensive people who bored him, and sail away

During one cruise his guests built up a highlyinteresting gambling scandal. He himself was confined to his

cabin at the time, and knew nothing about it; but the Opposition papers, getting hold of the story, referred

casually to the yacht as a "floating hell," and The Police News awarded his portrait the place of honour as the

Later on he got into a cultured set, ruled by a thicklipped undergraduate. His favourite literature had hitherto

been of the Corelli and TitBits order, but now he read Meredith and the yellow book, and tried to

understand them; and instead of the Gaiety, he subscribed to the Independent Theatre, and fed "his soul," on

Dutch Shakespeares. What he liked in art was a pretty girl by a cottage door with an eligible young man in

the background, or a child and a dog doing something funny. They told him these things were wrong and

made him buy "Impressions" that stirred his liver to its deepest depths every time he looked at themgreen

cows on red hills by pink moonlight, or scarlethaired corpses with three feet of neck.

He said meekly that such seemed to him unnatural, but they answered that nature had nothing to do with the

question; that the artist saw things like that, and that whatever an artist sawno matter in what condition he

They took him to Wagner festivals and BurneJones's private views. They read him all the minor poets. They

booked seats for him at all Ibsen's plays. They introduced him into all the most soulful circles of artistic

One morning I met him coming down the steps of the Arts Club. He looked weary. He was just off to a

private view at the New Gallery. In the afternoon he had to attend an amateur performance of "The Cenci,"

given by the Shelley Society. Then followed three literary and artistic At Homes, a dinner with an Indian

nabob who couldn't speak a word of English, "Tristam and Isolde" at Covent Garden Theatre, and a ball at

"Come with me to Epping Forest," I said. "There's a fourhorse brake starts from Charing Cross at eleven. It's

Saturday, and there's bound to be a crowd down there. I'll play you a game of skittles, and we will have a shy

at the cocoanuts. You used to be rather smart at cocoanuts. We can have lunch there and be back at seven,

dine at the Troc., spend the evening at the Empire, and sup at the Savoy. What do you say?"

"My dear fellow," he replied, "what would people say?" And shaking me by the hand, he took his seat, and

There were three of us in the smokeroom of the Alexandraa very good friend of mine, myself, and, in the

opposite corner, a shy looking, unobtrusive man, the editor, as we subsequently learned, of a New York

"After the first few months," said my friend, "it is no more effort for a man to be a saint than to be a sinner; it

"I know," I interrupted, "it is every whit as easy to spring out of bed the instant you are called as to say 'All

Right,' and turn over for just another five minutes' snooze, when you have got into the way of it. It is no more

trouble not to swear than to swear, if you make a custom of it. Toast and water is as delicious as champagne,

when you have acquired the taste for it. Things are also just as easy the other way about. It is a mere question

"Don't be alarmed," he answered, "I meant merely as an argument. Now one of these would make you

"Very well," he continued. "Now I, as you know, smoke them all day long, and enjoy them. Why? Because I

have got into the habit. Years ago, when I was a young man, I smoked expensive Havanas. I found that I was

ruining myself. It was absolutely necessary that I should take a cheaper weed. I was living in Belgium at the

time, and a friend showed me these. I don't know what they areprobably cabbage leaves soaked in guano;

they tasted to me like that at firstbut they were cheap. Buying them by the five hundred, they cost me three

a penny. I determined to like them, and started with one a day. It was terrible work, I admit, but as I said to

myself, nothing could be worse than the Havanas themselves had been in the beginning. Smoking is an

acquired taste, and it must be as easy to learn to like one flavour as another. I persevered and I conquered.

Before the year was over I could think of them without loathing, at the end of two I could smoke them

without positive discomfort. Now I prefer them to any other brand on the market. Indeed, a good cigar

I suggested it might have been less painful to have given up smoking altogether.

"I did think of it," he replied, "but a man who doesn't smoke always seems to me bad company. There is

He leant back and puffed great clouds into the air, filling the small den with an odour suggestive of bilge

"Then again," he resumed after a pause, "take my claret. No, you don't like it." (I had not spoken, but my face

had evidently betrayed me.) "Nobody does, at least no one I have ever met. Three years ago, when I was

living in Hammersmith, we caught two burglars with it. They broke open the sideboard, and swallowed five

bottlefuls between them. A policeman found them afterwards, sitting on a doorstep a hundred yards off, the

'swag' beside them in a carpet bag. They were too ill to offer any resistance, and went to the station like

lambs, he promising to send the doctor to them the moment they were safe in the cells. Ever since then I have

"Well, I like that claret, and it does me good. I come in sometimes dead beat. I drink a couple of glasses, and

I'm a new man. I took to it in the first instance for the same reason that I took to the cigarsit was cheap. I

have it sent over direct from Geneva, and it costs me six shillings a dozen. How they do it I don't know. I

don't want to know. As you may remember, it's fairly heady and there's body in it.

"I knew one man," he continued, "who had a regular Mrs. Caudle of a wife. All day long she talked to him, or

at him, or of him, and at night he fell asleep to the rising and falling rhythm of what she thought about him.

At last she died, and his friends congratulated him, telling him that now he would enjoy peace. But it was the

peace of the desert, and the man did not enjoy it. For twoand twenty years her voice had filled the house,

penetrated through the conservatory, and floated in faint shrilly waves of sound round the garden, and out

into the road beyond. The silence now pervading everywhere frightened and disturbed him. The place was no

longer home to him. He missed the breezy morning insult, the long winter evening's reproaches beside the

flickering fire. At night he could not sleep. For hours he would lie tossing restlessly, his ears aching for the

"'Ah!' he would cry bitterly to himself, 'it is the old story, we never know the value of a thing until we have

"He grew ill. The doctors dosed him with sleeping draughts in vain. At last they told him bluntly that his life

"There were plenty of wives of the type he wanted in the neighbourhood, but the unmarried women were, of

necessity, inexperienced, and his health was such that he could not afford the time to train them.

"Fortunately, just as despair was about to take possession of him, a man died in the next parish, literally

talked to death, the gossip said, by his wife. He obtained an introduction, and called upon her the day after the

funeral. She was a cantankerous old woman, and the wooing was a harassing affair, but his heart was in his

"She proved, however, but a poor substitute. The spirit was willing but the flesh was weak. She had neither

that command of language nor of wind that had distinguished her rival. From his favourite seat at the bottom

of the garden he could not hear her at all, so he had his chair brought up into the conservatory. It was all right

for him there so long as she continued to abuse him; but every now and again, just as he was getting

comfortably settled down with his pipe and his newspaper, she would suddenly stop.

"He would drop his paper and sit listening, with a troubled, anxious expression.

"'Yes, I'm here. Where do you think I am you old fool?' she would gasp back in an exhausted voice.

"His face would brighten at the sound of her words. 'Go on, dear,' he would answer. 'I'm listening. I like to

"But the poor woman was utterly pumped out, and had not so much as a snort left.

"Then he would shake his head sadly. 'No, she hasn't poor dear Susan's flow,' he would say. 'Ah! what a

"At night she would do her best, but it was a lame and halting performance by comparison. After rating him

for little over three quarters of an hour, she would sink back on the pillow, and want to go to sleep. But he

"'Yes, dear,' he would say, 'you were speaking about Jane, and the way I kept looking at her during lunch.'

"It's extraordinary," concluded my friend, lighting a fresh cigar, "what creatures of habit we are."

"Very," I replied. "I knew a man who told tall stories till when he told a true one nobody believed it."

"Speaking of habit," said the unobtrusive man in the corner, "I can tell you a true story that I'll bet my bottom

"Haven't got a bottom dollar, but I'll bet you half a sovereign I do," replied my friend, who was of a sporting

"I'll take your word for it," said the unobtrusive man, and started straight away.

"He was a Jefferson man, this man I'm going to tell you of," he begun. "He was born in the town, and for

fortyseven years he never slept a night outside it. He was a most respectable mana drysalter from nine to

four, and a Presbyterian in his leisure moments. He said that a good life merely meant good habits. He rose at

seven, had family prayer at seventhirty, breakfasted at eight, got to his business at nine, had his horse

brought round to the office at four, and rode for an hour, reached home at five, had a bath and a cup of tea,

played with and read to the children (he was a domesticated man) till halfpast six, dressed and dined at

seven, went round to the club and played whist till quarter after ten, home again to evening prayer at

tenthirty, and bed at eleven. For fiveandtwenty years he lived that life with never a variation. It worked

into his system and became mechanical. The church clocks were set by him. He was used by the local

"One day a distant connection of his in London, an East Indian Merchant and an exLord Mayor died,

leaving him sole legatee and executor. The business was a complicated one and needed management. He

determined to leave his son by his first wife, now a young man of twentyfour, in charge at Jefferson, and to

establish himself with his second family in England, and look after the East Indian business.

"He set out from Jefferson City on October the fourth, and arrived in London on the seventeenth. He had

been ill during the whole of the voyage, and he reached the furnished house he had hired in Bayswater

somewhat of a wreck. A couple of days in bed, however, pulled him round, and on the Wednesday evening

he announced his intention of going into the City the next day to see to his affairs.

"On the Thursday morning he awoke at one o'clock. His wife told him she had not disturbed him, thinking the

sleep would do him good. He admitted that perhaps it had. Anyhow, he felt very well, and he got up and

dressed himself. He said he did not like the idea of beginning his first day by neglecting a religious duty, and

his wife agreeing with him, they assembled the servants and the children in the diningroom, and had family

prayer at halfpast one. After which he breakfasted and set off, reaching the City about three.

"His reputation for punctuality had preceded him, and surprise was everywhere expressed at his late arrival.

He explained the circumstances, however, and made his appointments for the following day to commence

"He remained at the office until late, and then went home. For dinner, usually the chief meal of the day, he

could manage to eat only a biscuit and some fruit. He attributed his loss of appetite to want of his customary

ride. He was strangely unsettled all the evening. He said he supposed he missed his game of whist, and

determined to look about him without loss of time for some quiet, respectable club. At eleven he retired with

his wife to bed, but could not sleep. He tossed and turned, and turned and tossed, but grew only more and

more wakeful and energetic. A little after midnight an overpowering desire seized him to go and wish the

children goodnight. He slipped on a dressinggown and stole into the nursery. He did not intend it, but the

opening of the door awoke them, and he was glad. He wrapped them up in the quilt, and, sitting on the edge

"Then he kissed them, bidding them be good and go to sleep; and finding himself painfully hungry, crept

downstairs, where in the back kitchen he made a hearty meal off cold game pie and cucumber.

"He retired to bed feeling more peaceful, yet still could not sleep, so lay thinking about his business affairs

"At one o'clock to the minute he awoke. His wife told him she had made every endeavour to rouse him, but in

vain. The man was vexed and irritated. If he had not been a very good man indeed, I believe he would have

sworn. The same programme was repeated as on the Thursday, and again he reached the City at three.

"This state of things went on for a month. The man fought against himself, but was unable to alter himself.

Every morning, or rather every afternoon at one he awoke. Every night at one he crept down into the kitchen

"He could not understand it, nobody could understand it. The doctor treated him for water on the brain,

hypnotic irresponsibility and hereditary lunacy. Meanwhile his business suffered, and his health grew worse.

He seemed to be living upside down. His days seemed to have neither beginning nor end, but to be all

middle. There was no time for exercise or recreation. When he began to feel cheerful and sociable everybody

"One day by chance the explanation came. His eldest daughter was preparing her home studies after dinner.

"'What time is it now in New York?' she asked, looking up from her geography book.

"'New York,' said her father, glancing at his watch, 'let me see. It's just ten now, and there's a little over four

"'Then in Jefferson,' said the mother, 'it would be still earlier, wouldn't it?'

"'Yes,' replied the girl, examining the map, 'Jefferson is nearly two degrees further west.'

"'Two degrees,' mused the father, 'and there's forty minutes to a degree. That would make it now, at the

"'Why, it's four o'clock in Jefferson, and just time for my ride. That's what I'm wanting.'

"There could be no doubt about it. For fiveandtwenty years he had lived by clockwork. But it was by

Jefferson clockwork, not London clockwork. He had changed his longitude, but not himself. The habits of a

"He examined the problem in all its bearings, and decided that the only solution was for him to return to the

order of his old life. He saw the difficulties in his way, but they were less than those he was at present

encountering. He was too formed by habit to adapt himself to circumstances. Circumstances must adapt

"He fixed his office hours from three till ten, leaving himself at halfpast nine. At ten he mounted his horse

and went for a canter in the Row, and on very dark nights he carried a lantern. News of it got abroad, and

"He dined at one o'clock in the morning, and afterwards strolled down to his club. He had tried to discover a

quiet, respectable club where the members were willing to play whist till four in the morning, but failing, had

been compelled to join a small Soho gamblinghell, where they taught him poker. The place was

occasionally raided by the police, but thanks to his respectable appearance, he generally managed to escape.

"At halfpast four he returned home, and woke up the family for evening prayers. At five he went to bed and

"The City chaffed him, and Bayswater shook its head over him, but that he did not mind. The only thing that

really troubled him was loss of spiritual communion. At five o'clock on Sunday afternoons he felt he wanted

chapel, but had to do without it. At seven he ate his simple midday meal. At eleven he had tea and muffins,

and at midnight he began to crave again for hymns and sermons. At three he had a breadandcheese supper,

At length my friend rose, and taking halfasovereign from his pocket, laid it upon the table, and linking his

You ask him to dine with you on Thursday to meet a few people who are anxious to know him.

"Now don't make a muddle of it," you say, recollectful of former mishaps, "and come on the Wednesday."

"Shan't be able to come Wednesday," he says, "shall be at the Mansion House, sketching dresses, and on

Friday I start for Scotland, so as to be at the opening of the Exhibition on Saturday. It's bound to be all right

this time. Where the deuce is that diary! Never mind, I'll make a note of it on thisyou can see me do it."

You stand over him while he writes the appointment down on a sheet of foolscap, and watch him pin it up

"I do hope he'll turn up," you say to your wife on the Thursday evening, while dressing.

"Are you sure you made it clear to him?" she replies, suspiciously, and you instinctively feel that whatever

Eight o'clock arrives, and with it the other guests. At halfpast eight your wife is beckoned mysteriously out

of the room, where the parlourmaid informs her that the cook has expressed a determination, in case of

Your wife, returning, suggests that if the dinner is to be eaten at all it had better be begun. She evidently

considers that in pretending to expect him you have been merely playing a part, and that it would have been

manlier and more straightforward for you to have admitted at the beginning that you had forgotten to invite

During the soup and the fish you recount anecdotes of his unpunctuality. By the time the entree arrives the

empty chair has begun to cast a gloom over the dinner, and with the joint the conversation drifts into talk

On Friday, at a quarter past eight, he dashes to the door and rings violently. Hearing his voice in the hall, you

"Sorry I'm late," he sings out cheerily. "Fool of a cabman took me to Alfred Place instead of"

"Well, what do you want now you are come?" you interrupt, feeling anything but genially inclined towards

"Oh," you grunt in reply. "Well, you go and get it somewhere else, then. You're not going to have it here."

"I did nothing of the kind," you tell him. "I asked you to dinner on Thursday, not on Friday."

"Because yours is the sort of mind that would get Friday firmly fixed into it, when Thursday was the day,"

And without another word he dashes out, and you hear him rushing down the road, shouting for the cab he

As you return to your study you reflect that he will have to travel all the way to Scotland in evening dress,

and will have to send out the hotel porter in the morning to buy him a suit of readymade clothes, and are

Matters work out still more awkwardly when it is he who is the host. I remember being with him on his

houseboat one day. It was a little after twelve, and we were sitting on the edge of the boat, dangling our feet

in the riverthe spot was a lonely one, halfway between Wallingford and Day's Lock. Suddenly round the

bend appeared two skiffs, each one containing six elaboratelydressed persons. As soon as they caught sight

"Oh, they all do that about here," he answered, without looking up. "Some beanfeast from Abingdon, I

The boats draw nearer. When about two hundred yards off an elderly gentleman raised himself up in the prow

McQuae heard his voice, and gave a start that all but pitched him into the water.

"Why, it's the Palmers and the Grahams and the Hendersons. I've asked them all over to lunch, and there's not

a blessed thing on board but two mutton chops and a pound of potatoes, and I've given the boy a holiday."

Another day I was lunching with him at the Junior Hogarth, when a man named Hallyard, a mutual friend,

"What are you fellows going to do this afternoon?" he asked, seating himself the opposite side of the table.

"Come with me if you want something to do," said McQuae. "I'm going to drive Leena down to Richmond."

("Leena" was the young lady he recollected being engaged to. It transpired afterwards that he was engaged to

three girls at the time. The other two he had forgotten all about.) "It's a roomy seat at the back."

An hour and a half later Hallyard walked into the smokingroom looking depressed and worn, and flung

"We got to Putney," he said, "with just an occasional run into a tramcar, and were going up the hill, when

suddenly he turned a corner. You know his style at a cornerover the curb, across the road, and into the

opposite lamppost. Of course, as a rule one is prepared for it, but I never reckoned on his turning up there,

and the first thing I recollect is finding myself sitting in the middle of the street with a dozen fools grinning at

"It takes a man a few minutes in such a case to think where he is and what has happened, and when I got up

they were some distance away. I ran after them for a quarter of a mile, shouting at the top of my voice, and

accompanied by a mob of boys, all yelling like hell on a Bank Holiday. But one might as well have tried to

"They might have guessed what had happened," he added, "by the shifting of the cart, if they'd had any sense.

He complained of soreness, and said he would go home. I suggested a cab, but he replied that he would rather

I met McQuae in the evening at the St. James's Theatre. It was a first night, and he was taking sketches for

"The very man I wanted to see," he said. "Did I take Hallyard with me in the cart to Richmond this

"So Leena says," he answered, greatly bewildered, "but I'll swear he wasn't there when we got to the Queen's

Everybody said he never would get married; that it was absurd to suppose he ever would remember the day,

the church, and the girl, all in one morning; that if he did get as far as the altar he would forget what he had

come for, and would give the bride away to his own best man. Hallyard had an idea that he was already

married, but that the fact had slipped his memory. I myself felt sure that if he did marry he would forget all

But everybody was wrong. By some miraculous means the ceremony got itself accomplished, so that if

Hallyard's idea be correct (as to which there is every possibility), there will be trouble. As for my own fears, I

dismissed them the moment I saw the lady. She was a charming, cheerful little woman, but did not look the

I had not seen him since his marriage, which had happened in the spring. Working my way back from

Scotland by easy stages, I stopped for a few days at Scarboro'. After table d'hote I put on my mackintosh, and

went out for a walk. It was raining hard, but after a month in Scotland one does not notice English weather,

and I wanted some air. Struggling along the dark beach with my head against the wind, I stumbled over a

crouching figure, seeking to shelter itself a little from the storm under the lee of the Spa wall.

I expected it to swear at me, but it seemed too brokenspirited to mind anything.

"But what in thunder!" I said, "are you doing here? Why, you're drenched to the skin."

"For heaven's sake," he said, "take me somewhere, and give me something to eat. I'm literally starving."

"Not a sou," he answered. "We got in here from York, the wife and I, about eleven. We left our things at the

station, and started to hunt for apartments. As soon as we were fixed, I changed my clothes and came out for

a walk, telling Maud I should be back at one to lunch. Like a fool, I never took the address, and never noticed

"It's an awful business," he continued. "I don't see how I'm ever going to find her. I hoped she might stroll

down to the Spa in the evening, and I've been hanging about the gates ever since six. I hadn't the threepence

"But have you no notion of the sort of street or the kind of house it was?" I enquired.

"Tried!" he exclaimed bitterly. "I've been knocking at doors, and asking if Mrs. McQuae lives there steadily

all the afternoon, and they slam the door in my face, mostly without answering. I told a policemanI

thought perhaps he might suggest somethingbut the idiot only burst out laughing, and that made me so

mad that I gave him a black eye, and had to cut. I expect they're on the lookout for me now."

"I went into a restaurant," he continued gloomily, "and tried to get them to trust me for a steak. But the

proprietress said she'd heard that tale before, and ordered me out before all the other customers. I think I'd

After a change of clothes and some supper, he discussed the case more calmly, but it was really a serious

affair. They had shut up their flat, and his wife's relatives were travelling abroad. There was no one to whom

he could send a letter to be forwarded; there was no one with whom she would be likely to communicate.

Nor did it seem to mefond as he was of his wife, and anxious as he undoubtedly was to recover herthat

he looked forward to the actual meeting, should it ever arrive, with any too pleasurable anticipation.

"She will think it strange," he murmured reflectively, sitting on the edge of the bed, and thoughtfully pulling

The following day, which was Wednesday, we went to a solicitor, and laid the case before him, and he

instituted inquiries among all the lodginghouse keepers in Scarborough, with the result that on Thursday

afternoon McQuae was restored (after the manner of an Adelphi hero in the last act) to his home and wife.

In her deep brown eyes there lurked pleased surprise, struggling with wonder. She looked from myself to the

friend who introduced us with a bewitching smile of incredulity, tempered by hope.

He assured her, adding laughingly, "The only genuine and original," and left us.

"I've always thought of you as a staid, middleaged man," she said, with a delicious little laugh, then added

"Come and talk to me," she said, seating herself upon a small settee, and making room for me.

I sat down awkwardly beside her, my head buzzing just a little, as with one glass too many of champagne. I

was in my literary childhood. One small book and a few essays and criticisms, scattered through various

obscure periodicals had been as yet my only contributions to current literature. The sudden discovery that I

was the Mr. Anybody, and that charming women thought of me, and were delighted to meet me, was a

"And it was really you who wrote that clever book?" she continued, "and all those brilliant things, in the

She gave breath to a little sigh of vain regret that went to my heart. To console her I commenced a laboured

compliment, but she stopped me with her fan. On after reflection I was glad she had it would have been

"I know what you are going to say," she laughed, "but don't. Besides, from you I should not know quite how

She let her ungloved hand rest for an instant upon mine. Had she left it there for two, I should have gone

down on my knees before her, or have stood on my head at her feethave made a fool of myself in some

"I don't want YOU to pay me compliments," she said, "I want us to be friends. Of course, in years, I'm old

enough to be your mother." (By the register I should say she might have been thirty two, but looked

twentysix. I was twentythree, and I fear foolish for my age.) "But you know the world, and you're so

different to the other people one meets. Society is so hollow and artificial; don't you find it so? You don't

know how I long sometimes to get away from it, to know someone to whom I could show my real self, who

would understand me. You'll come and see me sometimesI'm always at home on Wednesdaysand let me

It occurred to me that, maybe, she would like to hear a few of them there and then, but before I had got well

started a hollow Society man came up and suggested supper, and she was compelled to leave me. As she

disappeared, however, in the throng, she looked back over her shoulder with a glance half pathetic, half

comic, that I understood. It said, "Pity me, I've got to be bored by this vapid, shallow creature," and I did.

I sought her through all the rooms before I went. I wished to assure her of my sympathy and support. I

learned, however, from the butler that she had left early, in company with the hollow Society man.

A fortnight later I ran against a young literary friend in Regent Street, and we lunched together at the Monico.

"I met such a charming woman last night," he said, "a Mrs. Clifton Courtenay, a delightful woman."

"Oh, do YOU know her?" I exclaimed. "Oh, we're very old friends. She's always wanting me to go and see

"Oh, I didn't know YOU knew her," he answered. Somehow, the fact of my knowing her seemed to lessen her

"A wonderfully clever woman," he continued. "I'm afraid I disappointed her a little though." He said this,

however, with a laugh that contradicted his words. "She would not believe I was THE Mr. Smith. She

I could see nothing in my friend's book myself to suggest that the author was, of necessity, anything over

eighteen. The mistake appeared to me to display want of acumen, but it had evidently pleased him greatly.

"I felt quite sorry for her," he went on, "chained to that bloodless, artificial society in which she lives. 'You

can't tell,' she said to me, 'how I long to meet someone to whom I could show my real selfwho would

I went with him. My conversation with her was not as confidential as I had anticipated, owing to there being

some eighty other people present in a room intended for the accommodation of eight; but after surging round

for an hour in hot and aimless miseryas very young men at such gatherings do, knowing as a rule only the

man who has brought them, and being unable to find himI contrived to get a few words with her.

She greeted me with a smile, in the light of which I at once forgot my past discomfort, and let her fingers rest,

"How good of you to keep your promise," she said. "These people have been tiring me so. Sit here, and tell

"And that clever friend of yours that you came with. I met him at dear Lady Lennon's last week. Has HE

"Tell me about it?" she said. "I get so little time for reading, and then I only care to read the books that help

I described the work to her, and wishing to do my friend justice I even recited a few of the passages upon

One sentence in particular seemed to lay hold of her. "A good woman's arms round a man's neck is a lifebelt

Then a noisy old lady swooped down upon her, and I drifted away into a corner, where I tried to look as if I

Later on, feeling it time to go, I sought my friend, and found him talking to her in a corner. I approached and

waited. They were discussing the latest eastend murder. A drunken woman had been killed by her husband,

"Ah," she was saying, "what power a woman has to drag a man down or lift him up. I never read a case in

which a woman is concerned without thinking of those beautiful lines of yours: 'A good woman's arms round

Opinions differed concerning her religion and politics. Said the Low Church parson: "An earnest Christian

woman, sir, of that unostentatious type that has always been the bulwark of our Church. I am proud to know

that woman, and I am proud to think that poor words of mine have been the humble instrument to wean that

true woman's heart from the frivolities of fashion, and to fix her thoughts upon higher things. A good

Said the pale aristocraticlooking young Abbe to the Comtesse, the light of oldworld enthusiasm shining

from his deepset eyes: "I have great hopes for our dear friend. She finds it hard to sever the ties of time and

love. We are all weak, but her heart turns towards our mother Church as a child, though suckled among

strangers, yearns after many years for the bosom that has borne it. We have spoken, and I, even I, may be the

Said Sir Harry Bennett, the great Theosophist lecturer, writing to a friend: "A singularly gifted woman, and a

woman evidently thirsting for the truth. A woman capable of willing her own life. A woman not afraid of

thought and reason, a lover of wisdom. I have talked much with her at one time or another, and I have found

her grasp my meaning with a quickness of perception quite unusual in my experience; and the arguments I

have let fall, I am convinced, have borne excellent fruit. I look forward to her becoming, at no very distant

date, a valued member of our little band. Indeed, without betraying confidence, I may almost say I regard her

"With the enemy in our midst," said the florid old soldier, "it behoves every true manaye, and every true

womanto rally to the defence of the country; and all honour, say I, to noble ladies such as Mrs. Clifton

Courtenay, who, laying aside their natural shrinking from publicity, come forward in such a crisis as the

present to combat the forces of disorder and disloyalty now rampant in the land."

"But," some listener would suggest, "I gathered from young Jocelyn that Mrs. Clifton Courtenay held

"Jocelyn," the Colonel would reply with scorn; "pah! There may have been a short space of time during

which the fellow's long hair and windy rhetoric impressed her. But I flatter myself I've put MY spoke in Mr.

Jocelyn's wheel. Why, damme, sir, she's consented to stand for Grand Dame of the Bermondsey Branch of

"I know the woman is weak. But I do not blame her; I pity her. When the time comes, as soon it will, when

woman is no longer a puppet, dancing to the threads held by some brainless manwhen a woman is not

threatened with social ostracism for daring to follow her own conscience instead of that of her nearest male

relative then will be the time to judge her. It is not for me to betray the confidence reposed in me by a

suffering woman, but you can tell that interesting old fossil, Colonel Maxim, that he and the other old women

of the Bermondsey Branch of the Primrose League may elect Mrs. Clifton Courtenay for their President, and

make the most of it; they have only got the outside of the woman. Her heart is beating time to the tramp of an

onwardmarching people; her soul's eyes are straining for the glory of a coming dawn."

I never met it myself, but I knew Whibley very well indeed, so that I came to hear a goodish deal about it.

It appeared to be devoted to Whibley, and Whibley was extremely fond of it. Personally I am not interested in

spirits, and no spirit has ever interested itself in me. But I have friends whom they patronise, and my mind is

quite open on the subject. Of Whibley's Spirit I wish to speak with every possible respect. It was, I am willing

to admit, as hardworking and conscientious a spirit as any one could wish to live with. The only thing I have

It came with a carved cabinet that Whibley had purchased in Wardour Street for old oak, but which, as a

matter of fact, was chestnut wood, manufactured in Germany, and at first was harmless enough, saying

Whibley would amuse himself of an evening asking it questions, being careful to choose tolerably simple

themes, such as, "Are you there?" (to which the Spirit would sometimes answer "Yes!" and sometimes "No!")

"Can you hear me?" "Are you happy?"and so on. The Spirit made the cabinet crackthree times for

"Yes" and twice for "No." Now and then it would reply both "Yes!" and "No!" to the same question, which

Whibley attributed to overscrupulousness. When nobody asked it anything it would talk to itself, repeating

"Yes!" "No!" "No!" "Yes!" over and over again in an aimless, lonesome sort of a way that made you feel

After a while Whibley bought a table, and encouraged it to launch out into more active conversation. To

please Whibley, I assisted at some of the earlier seances, but during my presence it invariably maintained a

reticence bordering on positive dulness. I gathered from Whibley that it disliked me, thinking that I was

unsympathetic. The complaint was unjust; I was not unsympathetic, at least not at the commencement. I came

to hear it talk, and I wanted to hear it talk; I would have listened to it by the hour. What tired me was its

slowness in starting, and its foolishness when it had started, in using long words that it did not know how to

spell. I remember on one occasion, Whibley, Jobstock (Whibley's partner), and myself, sitting for two hours,

trying to understand what the thing meant by "Hesturnemysfear." It used no stops

whatever. It never so much as hinted where one sentence ended and another began. It never even told us

when it came to a proper name. Its idea of an evening's conversation was to plump down a hundred or so

vowels and consonants in front of you and leave you to make whatever sense out of them you could.

We fancied at first it was talking about somebody named Hester (it had spelt Hester with a "u" before we

allowed a margin for spelling), and we tried to work the sentence out on that basis, "Hester enemies fear," we

thought it might be. Whibley had a niece named Hester, and we decided the warning had reference to her. But

whether she was our enemy, and we were to fear her, or whether we had to fear her enemies (and, if so, who

were they?), or whether it was our enemies who were to be frightened by Hester, or her enemies, or enemies

generally, still remained doubtful. We asked the table if it meant the first suggestion, and it said "No." We

This answer annoyed me, but Whibley explained that the Spirit was angry with us for our stupidity (which

seemed quaint). He informed us that it always said first "No," and then "Yes," when it was angry, and as it

was his Spirit, and we were in his house, we kept our feelings to ourselves and started afresh.

This time we abandoned the "Hestur" theory altogether. Jobstock suggested "Haste" for the first word, and,

I think Jobstock was getting irritable. We had been sitting cramped up round a wretched little onelegged

table all the evening, and this was almost the first bit of gossip we had got out of it. To further excuse him, it

should also be explained that the gas had been put out by Whibley, and that the fire had gone out of its own

accord. He replied that it was hard labour enough to find out what the thing said without having to make

"It can't spell," he added, "and it's got a nasty, sulky temper. If it was my spirit I'd hire another spirit to kick

Whibley was one of the mildest little men I ever knew, but chaff or abuse of his Spirit roused the devil in

him, and I feared we were going to have a scene. Fortunately, I was able to get his mind back to the

consideration of "Hesturnemysfear" before anything worse happened than a few muttered remarks about the

laughter of fools, and want of reverence for sacred subjects being the sign of a shallow mind.

We tried "He's stern," and "His turn," and the "fear of Hesturnemy," and tried to think who "Hesturnemy"

might be. Three times we went over the whole thing again from the beginning, which meant six hundred and

six tiltings of the table, and then suddenly the explanation struck me"Eastern Hemisphere."

Whibley had asked it for any information it might possess concerning his wife's uncle, from whom he had not

The fame of Whibley's Spirit became noised abroad, with the result that Whibley was able to command the

willing service of more congenial assistants, and Jobstock and myself were dismissed. But we bore no malice.

Under these more favourable conditions the Spirit plucked up wonderfully, and talked everybody's head off.

It could never have been a cheerful companion, however, for its conversation was chiefly confined to

warnings and prognostications of evil. About once a fortnight Whibley would drop round on me, in a friendly

way, to tell me that I was to beware of a man who lived in a street beginning with a "C," or to inform me that

if I would go to a town on the coast where there were three churches I should meet someone who would do

me an irreparable injury, and, that I did not rush off then and there in search of that town he regarded as

In its passion for poking its ghostly nose into other people's affairs it reminded me of my earthly friend

Poppleton. Nothing pleased it better than being appealed to for aid and advice, and Whibley, who was a

perfect slave to it, would hunt half over the parish for people in trouble and bring them to it.

It would direct ladies, eager for divorce court evidence, to go to the third house from the corner of the fifth

street, past such and such a church or publichouse (it never would give a plain, straightforward address), and

ring the bottom bell but one twice. They would thank it effusively, and next morning would start to find the

fifth street past the church, and would ring the bottom bell but one of the third house from the corner twice,

and a man in his shirt sleeves would come to the door and ask them what they wanted.

They could not tell what they wanted, they did not know themselves, and the man would use bad language,

Then they would think that perhaps the Spirit meant the fifth street the other way, or the third house from the

"Hullo!" I exclaimed, "what are you doing here? I thought you were busy over that School Board case."

"Yes," he answered, "I ought really to be in London, but the truth is I'm rather expecting something to happen

"Well," he replied hesitatingly, as though he would rather not talk about it, "I don't exactly know yet."

"You've come from London to Edinburgh, and don't know what you've come for!" I cried.

"Well, you see," he said, still more reluctantly, as it seemed to me, "it was Maria's idea; she wished"

"Maria!" I interrupted, looking perhaps a little sternly at him, "who's Maria?" (His wife's name I knew was

"Oh! I forgot," he explained; "she never would tell her name before you, would she? It's the Spirit, you

"Oh! that," I said, "it's she that has sent you here. Didn't she tell you what for?"

"No," he answered, "that's what worries me. All she would say was, 'Go to Edinburghsomething will

"I don't know," he replied. "I've been here a week already, and Jobstock writes quite angrily. I wouldn't have

I hardly knew what to do. The little man was so dreadfully in earnest about the business that one could not

"You are sure," I said, after thinking a while, "that this Maria is a good Spirit? There are all sorts going about,

I'm told. You're sure this isn't the spirit of some deceased lunatic, playing the fool with you?"

"I've thought of that," he admitted. "Of course that might be so. If nothing happens soon I shall almost begin

"Well, I should certainly make some inquiries into its character before I trusted it any further," I answered,

"It was all right about Maria; something did happen in Edinburgh while I was there. That very morning I met

you one of my oldest clients died quite suddenly at his house at Queensferry, only a few miles outside the

"I'm glad of that," I answered, "I mean, of course, for Maria's sake. It was lucky you went then."

"Well, not altogether," he replied, "at least, not in a worldly sense. He left his affairs in a very complicated

state, and his eldest son went straight up to London to consult me about them, and, not finding me there, and

time being important, went to Kebble. I was rather disappointed when I got back and heard about it."

After that his affection for "Maria" increased tenfold, while her attachment to himself became a burden to his

friends. She grew too big for her table, and, dispensing with all mechanical intermediaries, talked to him

direct. She followed him everywhere. Mary's lamb couldn't have been a bigger nuisance. She would even go

with him into the bedroom, and carry on long conversations with him in the middle of the night. His wife

She turned up with him at picnics and Christmas parties. Nobody heard her speak to him, but it seemed

necessary for him to reply to her aloud, and to see him suddenly get up from his chair and slip away to talk

"I should really be glad," he once confessed to me, "to get a little time to myself. She means kindly, but it IS

a strain. And then the others don't like it. It makes them nervous. I can see it does."

One evening she caused quite a scene at the club. Whibley had been playing whist, with the Major for a

partner. At the end of the game the Major, leaning across the table toward him, asked, in a tone of deadly

calm, "May I inquire, sir, whether there was any earthly reason" (he emphasised "earthly") "for your

"IIam very sorry, Major," replied Whibley apologetically. "I Isomehow felt II ought to play that

"Entirely your own inspiration, or suggested?" persisted the Major, who had, of course, heard of "Maria."

Whibley admitted the play had been suggested to him. The Major rose from the table.

"Then, sir," said he, with concentrated indignation, "I decline to continue this game. A human fool I can

"I apologise," returned the Major coldly; "we will say a blessed spirit. I decline to play whist with spirits of

any kind; and I advise you, sir, if you intend giving many exhibitions with the lady, first to teach her the

Saying which the Major put on his hat and left the club, and I made Whibley drink a stiff glass of brandy and

Whibley got rid of "Maria" at last. It cost him in round figures about eight thousand pounds, but his family

A Spanish Count hired a furnished house a few doors from Whibley's, and one evening he was introduced to

Whibley, and came home and had a chat with him. Whibley told him about "Maria," and the Count quite fell

in love with her. He said that if only he had had such a spirit to help and advise him, it might have altered his

He was the first man who had ever said a kind word about the spirit, and Whibley loved him for it. The Count

seemed as though he could never see enough of Whibley after that evening, and the three of themWhibley,

The precise particulars I never heard. Whibley was always very reticent on the matter. Whether "Maria"

really did exist, and the Count deliberately set to work to bamboozle her (she was fool enough for anything),

or whether she was a mere hallucination of Whibley's, and the man tricked Whibley by "hypnotic

suggestions" (as I believe it is called), I am not prepared to say. The only thing certain is that "Maria"

convinced Whibley that the Count had discovered a secret gold mine in Peru. She said she knew all about it,

and counselled Whibley to beg the Count to let him put a few thousands into the working of it. "Maria," it

appeared, had known the Count from his boyhood, and could answer for it that he was the most honourable

The Count was astonished to find that Whibley knew all about his mine. Eight thousand pounds was needed

to start the workings, but he had not mentioned it to any one, as he wanted to keep the whole thing to himself,

and thought he could save the money on his estates in Portugal. However, to oblige "Maria," he would let

Whibley supply the money. Whibley supplied itin cash, and no one has ever seen the Count since.

That broke up Whibley's faith in "Maria," and a sensible doctor, getting hold of him threatened to prescribe a

lunatic asylum for him if ever he found him carrying on with any spirits again. That completed the cure.

I first met Jack Burridge nearly ten years ago on a certain North country racecourse.

The saddling bell had just rung for the chief event of the day. I was sauntering along with my hands in my

pockets, more interested in the crowd than in the race, when a sporting friend, crossing on his way to the

"Put your shirt on Mrs. Waller," he repeated still more impressively, and disappeared in the throng.

I stared after him in blank amazement. Why should I put my shirt on Mrs. Waller? Even if it would fit a lady.

I was passing the grand stand, and, glancing up, I saw "Mrs. Waller, twelve to one," chalked on a

bookmaker's board. Then it dawned upon me that "Mrs. Waller" was a horse, and, thinking further upon the

matter, I evolved the idea that my friend's advice, expressed in more becoming language, was "Back 'Mrs.

"Thank you," I said to myself, "I have backed castiron certainties before. Next time I bet upon a horse I

shall make the selection by shutting my eyes and putting a pin through the card."

But the seed had taken root. My friend's words surged in my brain. The birds passing overhead twittered, "Put

I reasoned with myself. I reminded myself of my few former ventures. But the craving to put, if not my shirt,

at all events half a sovereign on "Mrs. Waller" only grew the stronger the more strongly I battled against it. I

felt that if "Mrs. Waller" won and I had nothing on her, I should reproach myself to my dying day.

I was on the other side of the course. There was no time to get back to the enclosure. The horses were already

forming for the start. A few yards off, under a white umbrella, an outside bookmaker was shouting his final

prices in stentorian tones. He was a big, geniallooking man, with an honest red face.

I handed him half a sovereign, and he wrote me out a ticket. I crammed it into my waistcoat pocket, and

hurried off to see the race. To my intense astonishment "Mrs. Waller" won. The novel sensation of having

backed the winner so excited me that I forgot all about my money, and it was not until a good hour afterwards

Then I started off to search for the man under the white umbrella. I went to where I thought I had left him, but

Consoling myself with the reflection that my loss served me right for having been fool enough to trust an

outside "bookie," I turned on my heel and began to make my way back to my seat. Suddenly a voice hailed

"I saw you looking about, sir," he said, "but I could not make you hear. You was looking the wrong side of

"It is very good of you," I said; "I had given up all hopes of seeing you. Or," I added with a smile, "my seven

On my way into the town I came across him again. A small crowd was collected, thoughtfully watching a

Jack, pushing to the front, took in the scene and took off his coat in the same instant.

"Now then, my fine old English gentleman," he sang out, "come and have a try at me for a change."

The tramp was a burly ruffian, and I have seen better boxers than Jack. He got himself a black eye, and a

nasty cut over the lip, before he hardly knew where he was. But in spite of thatand a good deal morehe

At the end, as he helped his adversary up, I heard him say to the fellow in a kindly whisper:

"You're too good a sort, you know, to whollop a woman. Why, you very near give me a licking. You must

The fellow interested me. I waited and walked on with him. He told me about his home in London, at Mile

Endabout his old father and mother, his little brothers and sistersand what he was saving up to do for

Many that we met knew him, and all, when they saw his round, red face, smiled unconsciously. At the corner

of the High Street a palefaced little drudge of a girl passed us, saying as she slipped by "Goodevening, Mr.

"Oh, if you please, Mr. Burridge, he is out again. All the mills is closed," answered the child.

He took a couple of sovereigns from his waistcoat pocket, and closed the child's hand upon them.

"That's all right, my lass, that's all right," he said, stopping her stammering thanks. "You write to me if things

Strolling about the streets in the evening, I happened to pass the inn where he was staying. The parlour

window was open, and out into the misty night his deep, cheery voice, trolling forth an old fashioned

drinking song, came rolling like a wind, cleansing the corners of one's heart with its breezy humanness. He

was sitting at the head of the table surrounded by a crowd of jovial cronies. I lingered for a while watching

the scene. It made the world appear a less sombre dwellingplace than I had sometimes pictured it.

I determined, on my return to London, to look him up, and accordingly one evening started to find the little

bystreet off the Mile End Road in which he lived. As I turned the corner he drove up in his dogcart; it was

a smart turnout. On the seat beside him sat a neat, withered little old woman, whom he introduced to me as

"I tell 'im it's a fine gell as 'e oughter 'ave up 'ere aside 'im," said the old lady, preparing to dismount, "an old

"Get along with yer," he replied laughingly, jumping down and handing the reins to the lad who had been

waiting, "you could give some of the young uns points yet, mother. I allus promised the old lady as she

should ride behind her own 'oss one day," he continued, turning to me, "didn't I, mother?"

"Ay, ay," replied the old soul, as she hobbled nimbly up the steps, "ye're a good son, Jack, ye're a good son."

He led the way into the parlour. As he entered every face lightened up with pleasure, a harmony of joyous

welcome greeted him. The old hard world had been shut out with the slam of the front door. I seemed to have

wandered into Dickensland. The red faced man with the small twinkling eyes and the lungs of leather

loomed before me, a large, fat household fairy. From his capacious pockets came forth tobacco for the old

father; a huge bunch of hot house grapes for a neighbour's sickly child, who was stopping with them; a book

of Henty'sbeloved of boysfor a noisy youngster who called him "uncle"; a bottle of port wine for a wan,

elderly woman with a swollen facehis widowed sisterinlaw, as I subsequently learned; sweets enough

for the baby (whose baby I don't know) to make it sick for a week; and a roll of music for his youngest sister.

"We're agoing to make a lady of her," he said, drawing the child's shy face against his gaudy waistcoat, and

running his coarse hand through her pretty curls; "and she shall marry a jockey when she grows up."

After supper he brewed some excellent whisky punch, and insisted upon the old lady joining us, which she

eventually did with much coughing and protestation; but I noticed that she finished the tumblerful. For the

children he concocted a marvellous mixture, which he called an "eyecomposer," the chief ingredients being

hot lemonade, ginger wine, sugar, oranges, and raspberry vinegar. It had the desired effect.

I stayed till late, listening to his inexhaustible fund of stories. Over most of them he laughed with us

himselfa great gusty laugh that made the cheap glass ornaments upon the mantelpiece to tremble; but now

and then a recollection came to him that spread a sudden gravity across his jovial face, bringing a curious

Their tongues a little loosened by the punch, the old folks would have sung his praises to the verge of

"Shut up, mother," he cried at last, quite gruffly, "what I does I does to please myself. I likes to see people

comfortable about me. If they wasn't, it's me as would be more upset than them."

I did not see him again for nearly two years. Then one October evening, strolling about the East End, I met

him coming out of a little Chapel in the Burdett Road. He was so changed that I should not have known him

A pair of bushy sidewhiskers had given to his red face an aggressively respectable appearance. He was

dressed in an ill fitting suit of black, and carried an umbrella in one hand and a book in the other.

In some mysterious way he managed to look both thinner and shorter than my recollection of him.

Altogether, he suggested to me the idea that he himselfthe real manhad by some means or other been

extracted, leaving only his shrunken husk behind. The genial juices of humanity had been squeezed out of

His little eyes wandered shiftily up and down the street. "No, sir," he replied (his tones had lost their windy

boisterousnessa hard, metallic voice spoke to me), "not the one as you used to know, praise be the Lord."

"Yes, sir," he replied, "that's all over; I've been a vile sinner in my time, God forgive me for it. But, thank

"Come and have a drink," I said, slipping my arm through his, "and tell me all about it."

He disengaged himself from me, firmly but gently. "You mean well, sir," he said, "but I have given up the

Evidently he would have been rid of me, but a literary man, scenting material for his stockpot, is not easily

shaken off. I asked after the old folks, and if they were still stopping with him.

"Yes," he said, "for the present. Of course, a man can't be expected to keep people for ever; so many mouths

to fill is hard work these times, and everybody sponges on a man just because he's goodnatured."

"Tolerably well, thank you, sir. The Lord provides for His servants," he replied with a smug smile. "I have

He gave me the address reluctantly, and said he would esteem it a great pleasure if I would honour him by a

The following afternoon I went. I found the place to be a pawnbroker's shop, and from all appearances he

must have been doing a very brisk business. He was out himself attending a temperance committee, but his

old father was behind the counter, and asked me inside. Though it was a chilly day there was no fire in the

parlour, and the two old folks sat one each side of the empty hearth, silent and sad. They seemed little more

pleased to see me than their son, but after a while Mrs. Burridge's natural garrulity asserted itself, and we fell

"I couldn't rightly tell you, sir," answered the old lady, "she ain't livin' with us now. You see, sir," she

continued, "John's got different notions to what 'e used to 'ave. 'E don't cotten much to them as ain't found

"What, Bessie, sir?" said the old lady. "Oh, she's out at service, sir; John don't think it good for young folks to

"Ay, sir," she assented, "you may well say that. It nearly broke my 'art at fust; everythin' so different to what

it 'ad been. Not as I'd stand in the boy's light. If our being a bit uncomfortable like in this world is agoing to

do 'im any good in the next me and father ain't the ones to begrudge it, are we, old man?"

"It was a young woman as started 'im off," explained the old lady. "She come round to our place one day

acollectin' for somethin' or other, and Jack, in 'is free'anded way, 'e give 'er a fivepun' note. Next week

she come agen for somethin' else, and stopped and talked to 'im about 'is soul in the passage. She told 'im as 'e

was agoin' straight to 'ell, and that 'e oughter give up the bookmakin' and settle down to a respec'ble,

Godfearin' business. At fust 'e only laughed, but she lammed in tracts at 'im full of the most awful language;

and one day she fetched 'im round to one of them revivalist chaps, as fair settled 'im.

"'E ain't never been his old self since then. 'E give up the bettin' and bought this 'ere, though what's the

difference blessed if I can see. It makes my 'eart ache, it do, to 'ear my Jack a beatin' down the poor

peopleand it ain't like 'im. It went agen 'is grain at fust, I could see; but they told him as 'ow it was folks's

own fault that they was poor, and as 'ow it was the will of God, because they was a drinkin', improvident lot.

"Then they made 'im sign the pledge. 'E'd allus been used to 'is glass, Jack 'ad, and I think as knockin' it off

'ave soured 'im a bitseems as if all the sperit 'ad gone out of 'imand of course me and father 'ave 'ad to

give up our little drop too. Then they told 'im as 'e must give up smokin' that was another way of goin'

straight to 'elland that ain't made 'im any the more cheerful like, and father misses 'is little bitdon't ye,

"Ay," answered the old fellow savagely; "can't say I thinks much of these 'ere folks as is going to heaven;

An angry discussion in the shop interrupted us. Jack had returned, and was threatening an excited woman

with the police. It seemed she had miscalculated the date, and had come a day too late with her interest.

"It's providential she was late," he said, looking at it; "it's worth ten times what I lent on it."

He packed his father back into the shop, and his mother down into the kitchen to get his tea, and for a while

I found his conversation a strange mixture of selflaudation, showing through a flimsy veil of

selfdisparagement, and of satisfaction at the conviction that he was "saved," combined with equally evident

satisfaction that most other people weren't somewhat trying, however; and, remembering an appointment,

He made no effort to stay me, but I could see that he was bursting to tell me something. At last, taking a

I glanced at the part of the paper indicated. It announced a new mission to the Chinese, and heading the

He rubbed his big hands together. "The Lord will repay a hundredfold," he answered.

"In which case it's just as well to have a note of the advance down in black and white, eh?" I added.

His little eyes looked sharply at me; but he made no reply, and, shaking hands, I left him.

I sat up in bed and listened intently. It seemed to me as if someone with a muffled hammer were trying to

"Burglars," I said to myself (one assumes, as a matter of course, that everything happening in this world after

1 a.m. is due to burglars), and I reflected what a curiously literal, but at the same time slow and cumbersome,

My bed was by the window. I reached out my hand and drew aside a corner of the curtain. The sunlight

A most unbusinesslike hour for burglars, I thought. Why, it will be breakfasttime before they get in.

Suddenly there came a crash, and some substance striking against the blind fell upon the floor. I sprang out of

A redhaired young gentleman, scantily clad in a sweater and a pair of flannel trousers, stood on the lawn

"My tennis ball," he answered. "It must be somewhere in the room; it went clean through the window."

*** Quick tidied and spellchecked to herepage 155 *** "What are you doing?" I asked. "Playing tennis?"

"No," he said. "I am just practising against the side of the house. It improves your game wonderfully."

"It don't improve my night's rest," I answered somewhat surlily I fear. "I came down here for peace and quiet.

"Daytime!" he laughed. "Why it has been daytime for the last two hours. Never mind, I'll go round the other

He disappeared round the corner, and set to work at the back, where he woke up the dog. I heard another

window smash, followed by a sound as of somebody getting up violently in a distant part of the house, and

I had come to spend a few weeks at a boarding establishment in Deal. He was the only other young man in

the house, and I was naturally thrown a good deal upon his society. He was a pleasant, genial young fellow,

but he would have been better company had he been a little less enthusiastic as regards tennis.

He played tennis ten hours a day on the average. He got up romantic parties to play it by moonlight (when

half his time was generally taken up in separating his opponents), and godless parties to play it on Sundays.

On wet days I have seen him practising services by himself in a mackintosh and goloshes.

He had been spending the winter with his people at Tangiers, and I asked him how he liked the place.

"Oh, a beast of a hole!" he replied. "There is not a court anywhere in the town. We tried playing on the roof,

Switzerland he had been delighted with. He counselled me next time I went to stay at Zermatt.

"There is a capital court at Zermatt," he said. "You might almost fancy yourself at Wimbledon."

A mutual acquaintance whom I subsequently met told me that at the top of the Jungfrau he had said to him,

his eyes fixed the while upon a small snow plateau enclosed by precipices a few hundred feet below them

"By Jove! That wouldn't make half a bad little tennis courtthat flat bit down there. Have to be careful you

When he was not playing tennis, or practising tennis, or reading about tennis, he was talking about tennis.

Renshaw was the prominent figure in the tennis world at that time, and he mentioned Renshaw until there

grew up within my soul a dark desire to kill Renshaw in a quiet, unostentatious way, and bury him.

One drenching afternoon he talked tennis to me for three hours on end, referring to Renshaw, so far as I kept

count, four thousand nine hundred and thirteen times. After tea he drew his chair to the window beside me,

"Suppose someone took a gunsomeone who could aim very straight and went out and shot Renshaw till

he was quite dead, would you tennis players drop him and talk about somebody else?"

"Well, we won't argue about how many of them there are," I said. "Suppose someone killed the lot, should we

"Never," he replied emphatically. "Renshaw will always be a name wherever tennis is spoken of."

I dread to think what the result might have been had his answer been other than it was.

The next year he dropped tennis completely and became an ardent amateur photographer, whereupon all his

friends implored him to return to tennis, and sought to interest him in talk about services and returns and

Whatever he saw, wherever he went, he took. He took his friends, and made them his enemies. He took

babies, and brought despair to fond mothers' hearts. He took young wives, and cast a shadow on the home.

Once there was a young man who loved not wisely, so his friends thought, but the more they talked against

her the more he clung to her. Then a happy idea occurred to the father. He got Begglely to photograph her in

"But, my dear fellow, it's not a bit like her. You've made her look an ugly old woman."

"Whatever have you done to her feet? They can't be that size, you know. It isn't in nature!"

"But, heavens, man! Look at the shape you've made her. Where on earth did you get the idea from?"

"Great Scott!" he cried with a shudder, "what a ghastly expression you've got into it! It isn't human!"

Begglely was growing offended, but the father, who was standing by, came to his defence.

"It's nothing to do with Begglely," exclaimed the old gentleman suavely. "It can't be HIS fault. What is a

photographer? Simply an instrument in the hands of science. He arranges his apparatus, and whatever is in

"No," continued the old gentleman, laying a constrained hand upon Begglely, who was about to resume the

I was sorry for the poor girl, for I believe she really cared for the youngster; and as for her looks, they were

quite up to the average. But some evil sprite seemed to have got into Begglely's camera. It seized upon

defects with the unerring instinct of a born critic, and dilated upon them to the obscuration of all virtues. A

man with a pimple became a pimple with a man as background. People with strongly marked features became

merely adjuncts to their own noses. One man in the neighbourhood had, undetected, worn a wig for fourteen

years. Begglely's camera discovered the fraud in an instant, and so completely exposed it that the man's

friends wondered afterwards how the fact ever could have escaped them. The thing seemed to take a pleasure

in showing humanity at its very worst. Babies usually came out with an expression of low cunning. Most

young girls had to take their choice of appearing either as simpering idiots or embryo vixens. To mild old

ladies it generally gave a look of aggressive cynicism. Our vicar, as excellent an old gentleman as ever

breathed, Begglely presented to us as a beetlebrowed savage of a peculiarly low type of intellect; while

upon the leading solicitor of the town he bestowed an expression of such thinlyveiled hypocrisy that few

As regards myself I should, perhaps, make no comment, I am possibly a prejudiced party. All I will say,

therefore, is that if I in any way resemble Begglely's photograph of me, then the critics are fully justified in

everything they have at any time, anywhere, said of meand more. Nor, I maintainthough I make no

pretence of possessing the figure of Apollois one of my legs twice the length of the other, and neither does

it curve upwards. This I can prove. Begglely allowed that an accident had occurred to the negative during the

process of development, but this explanation does not appear on the picture, and I cannot help feeling that an

His perspective seemed to be governed by no law either human or divine. I have seen a photograph of his

uncle and a windmill, judging from which I defy any unprejudiced person to say which is the bigger, the

On one occasion he created quite a scandal in the parish by exhibiting a wellknown and eminently

respectable maiden lady nursing a young man on her knee. The gentleman's face was indistinct, and he was

dressed in a costume which, upon a man of his sizeone would have estimated him as rising 6 ft. 4 in.

appeared absurdly juvenile. He had one arm round her neck, and she was holding his other hand and

I, knowing something of Begglely's machine, willingly accepted the lady's explanation, which was to the

effect that the male in question was her nephew, aged eleven; but the uncharitable ridiculed this statement,

It was in the early days of the photographic craze, and an inexperienced world was rather pleased with the

idea of being taken on the cheap. The consequence was that nearly everyone for three miles round sat or

stood or leant or laid to Begglely at one time or another, with the result that a less conceited parish than ours

it would have been difficult to discover. No one who had once looked upon a photograph of himself taken by

Begglely ever again felt any pride in his personal appearance. The picture was invariably a revelation to him.

Later, some evildisposed person invented Kodaks, and Begglely went everywhere slung on to a thing that

looked like an overgrown missionary box, and that bore a legend to the effect that if Begglely would pull the

button, a shameless Company would do the rest. Life became a misery to Begglely's friends. Nobody dared to

do anything for fear of being taken in the act. He took an instantaneous photograph of his own father

swearing at the gardener, and snapped his youngest sister and her lover at the exact moment of farewell at the

garden gate. Nothing was sacred to him. He Kodaked his aunt's funeral from behind, and showed the chief

mourner but one whispering a funny story into the ear of the third cousin as they stood behind their hats

Public indignation was at its highest when a new comer to the neighbourhood, a young fellow named

Haynoth, suggested the getting together of a party for a summer's tour in Turkey. Everybody took up the idea

with enthusiasm, and recommended Begglely as the "party." We had great hopes from that tour. Our idea was

that Begglely would pull his button outside a harem or behind a sultana, and that a Bashi Bazouk or a

We were, however, partly doomed to disappointmentI say, "partly," because, although Begglely returned

alive, he came back entirely cured of his photographic craze. He said that every English speaking man,

woman, or child whom he met abroad had its camera with it, and that after a time the sight of a black cloth or

He told us that on the summit of Mount Tutra, in the Carpathians, the English and American amateur

photographers waiting to take "the grand panorama" were formed by the Hungarian police in queue, two

abreast, each with his or her camera under his or her arm, and that a man had to stand sometimes as long as

three and a half hours before his turn came round. He also told us that the beggars in Constantinople went

about with placards hung round their necks, stating their charges for being photographed. One of these price

One snap shot, back or front .. ... ... 2 frcs. " with expression ... ... 3 " " surprised in quaint attitude . 4 " "

He said that in some instances where a man had an exceptionally villainous cast of countenance, or was

exceptionally deformed, as much as twenty francs were demanded and readily obtained.

He abandoned photography and took to golf. He showed people how, by digging a hole here and putting a

brickbat or two there, they could convert a tennislawn into a miniature golf link,and did it for them. He

persuaded elderly ladies and gentlemen that it was the mildest exercise going, and would drag them for miles

over wet gorse and heather, and bring them home dead beat, coughing, and full of evil thoughts.

The last time I saw him was in Switzerland, a few months ago. He appeared indifferent to the subject of golf,

but talked much about whist. We met by chance at Grindelwald, and agreed to climb the Faulhorn together

next morning. Halfway up we rested, and I strolled on a little way by myself to gain a view. Returning, I

found him with a "Cavendish" in his hand and a pack of cards spread out before him on the grass, solving a

He got in at Ipswich with seven different weekly papers under his arm. I noticed that each one insured its

reader against death or injury by railway accident. He arranged his luggage upon the rack above him, took off

his hat and laid it on the seat beside him, mopped his bald head with a red silk handkerchief, and then set to

work steadily to write his name and address upon each of the seven papers. I sat opposite to him and read

Punch. I always take the old humour when travelling; I find it soothing to the nerves.

Passing over the points at Manningtree the train gave a lurch, and a horseshoe he had carefully placed in the

rack above him slipped through the netting, falling with a musical ring upon his head.

He appeared neither surprised nor angry. Having staunched the wound with his handkerchief, he stooped and

picked the horseshoe up, glanced at it with, as I thought, an expression of reproach, and dropped it gently

It was a foolish question. I told myself so the moment I had uttered it. The thing must have weighed three

pounds at the least; it was an exceptionally large and heavy shoe. The bump on his head was swelling visibly

before my eyes. Anyone but an idiot must have seen that he was hurt. I expected an irritable reply. I should

have given one myself had I been in his place. Instead, however, he seemed to regard the inquiry as a natural

"What were you doing with it?" I asked. It was an odd sort of thing for a man to be travelling with.

"It was lying in the roadway just outside the station," he explained; "I picked it up for luck."

He refolded his handkerchief so as to bring a cooler surface in contact with the swelling, while I murmured

"Yes," he said, "I've had a deal of luck in my time, but it's never turned out well."

"I was born on a Wednesday," he continued, "which, as I daresay you know, is the luckiest day a man can be

born on. My mother was a widow, and none of my relatives would do anything for me. They said it would be

like taking coals to Newcastle, helping a boy born on a Wednesday; and my uncle, when he died, left every

penny of his money to my brother Sam, as a slight compensation to him for having been born on a Friday. All

I ever got was advice upon the duties and responsibilities of wealth, when it arrived, and entreaties that I

He paused while folding up his various insurance papers and placing them in the inside breastpocket of his

"Then there are black cats," he went on; "they're said to be lucky. Why, there never was a blacker cat than the

one that followed me into my rooms in Bolsover Street the very first night I took them."

"Well, of course it all depends," he answered dreamily. "Maybe we'd never have suited one another; you can

He sat staring out of the window, and for a while I did not care to intrude upon his evidently painful

"Oh," he said. "Nothing extraordinary. She had to leave London for a time, and gave me her pet canary to

"No, perhaps not," he agreed; "but it created a coldness which others were not slow to take advantage of."

We sat and smoked in silence. I felt that the consolations of a stranger would sound weak.

"Piebald horses are lucky, too," he observed, knocking the ashes from his pipe against the window sash. "I

"Lost me the best crib I ever had in my life," was the simple rejoinder. "The governor stood it a good deal

longer than I had any right to expect; but you can't keep a man who is ALWAYS drunk. It gives a firm a bad

"You see," he went on, "I never had the head for it. To some men it would not have so much mattered, but the

"But why did you take it?" I persisted. "The horse didn't make you drink, did he?"

"Well, it was this way," he explained, continuing to rub gently the lump which was now about the size of an

egg. "The animal had belonged to a gentleman who travelled in the wine and spirit line, and who had been

accustomed to visit in the way of business almost every publichouse he came to. The result was you couldn't

get that little horse past a publichouse at least I couldn't. He sighted them a quarter of a mile off, and

made straight for the door. I struggled with him at first, but it was five to ten minutes' work getting him away,

and folks used to gather round and bet on us. I think, maybe, I'd have stuck to it, however, if it hadn't been for

a temperance chap who stopped one day and lectured the crowd about it from the opposite side of the street.

He called me Pilgrim, and said the little horse was 'Pollion,' or some such name, and kept on shouting out that

I was to fight him for a heavenly crown. After that they called us "Polly and the Pilgrim, fighting for the

crown." It riled me, that did, and at the very next house at which he pulled up I got down and said I'd come

for two of Scotch. That was the beginning. It took me years to break myself of the habit.

"But there," he continued, "it has always been the same. I hadn't been a fortnight in my first situation before

"Well, that couldn't have done you any harm," I remarked. "That was lucky enough."

"So the other clerks said at the time," he replied. "The old gentleman had never been known to give anything

away before in his life. 'He's taken a fancy to you,' they said; 'you are a lucky beggar!'"

"That was the trouble," he returned. "I didn't know what to do with it. It was ten o'clock on Christmas Eve,

just as I was leaving, that he gave it to me. 'Tiddling Brothers have sent me a goose, Biggles,' he said to me as

I helped him on with his great coat. 'Very kind of 'em, but I don't want it myself; you can have it!'

"Of course I thanked him, and was very grateful. He wished me a merry Christmas and went out. I tied the

thing up in brown paper, and took it under my arm. It was a fine bird, but heavy.

"Under all the circumstances, and it being Christmas time, I thought I would treat myself to a glass of beer. I

went into a quiet little house at the corner of the Lane and laid the goose on the counter.

"'That's a big 'un,' said the landlord; 'you'll get a good cut off him tomorrow.'

"His words set me thinking, and for the first time it struck me that I didn't want the birdthat it was of no

use to me at all. I was going down to spend the holidays with my young lady's people in Kent."

"No," he replied. "This was before that one. It was this goose I'm telling you of that upset this one. Well, her

folks were big farmers; it would have been absurd taking a goose down to them, and I knew no one in

London to give it to, so when the landlord came round again I asked him if he would care to buy it. I told him

"'I don't want it myself,' he answered. 'I've got three in the house already. Perhaps one of these gentlemen

"He turned to a couple of chaps who were sitting drinking gin. They didn't look to me worth the price of a

chicken between them. The seediest said he'd like to look at it, however, and I undid the parcel. He mauled

the thing pretty considerably, and cross examined me as to how I come by it, ending by upsetting half a

tumbler of gin and water over it. Then he offered me half a crown for it. It made me so angry that I took the

brown paper and the string in one hand and the goose in the other, and walked straight out without saying a

"I carried it in this way for some distance, because I was excited and didn't care how I carried it; but as I

cooled, I began to reflect how ridiculous I must look. One or two small boys evidently noticed the same

thing. I stopped under a lamppost and tried to tie it up again. I had a bag and an umbrella with me at the

same time, and the first thing I did was to drop the goose into the gutter, which is just what I might have

expected to do, attempting to handle four separate articles and three yards of string with one pair of hands. I

picked up about a quart of mud with that goose, and got the greater part of it over my hands and clothes and a

"I bundled everything up into my arm and made for the nearest pub, where I thought I would ask for a piece

"The bar was crowded. I pushed my way to the counter and flung the goose down in front of me. The men

nearest stopped talking to look at it; and a young fellow standing next to me said

"I had intended making another effort to sell it here, but they were clearly not the right sort. I had a pint of

alefor I was feeling somewhat tired and hotscraped as much of the mud off the bird as I could, made a

"Crossing the road a happy idea occurred to me. I thought I would raffle it. At once I set to work to find a

house where there might seem to be a likely lot. It cost me three or four whiskiesfor I felt I didn't want any

more beer, which is a thing that easily upsets mebut at length I found just the crowd I wanteda quiet

"I explained my views to the landlord. He said he had no objection; he supposed I would stand drinks round

"'Oh, that's nothing,' I explained. 'I happened to drop it. That will all wash off.'

"'That's mud,' I answered; 'you know what London mud is. And a gentleman spilled some gin over it. Nobody

"'Well,' he replied. 'I don't think I'll take a hand myself, but if any other gent likes to, that's his affair.'

"Nobody seemed enthusiastic. I started it at sixpence, and took a ticket myself. The potman had a free chance

for superintending the arrangements, and he succeeded in inducing five other men, much against their will, to

join us. I won it myself, and paid out three and twopence for drinks. A solemnlooking individual who had

been snoring in a corner suddenly woke up as I was going out, and offered me sevenpence ha'penny for

itwhy sevenpence ha'penny I have never been able to understand. He would have taken it away, I should

never have seen it again, and my whole life might have been different. But Fate has always been against me. I

replied, with perhaps unnecessary hauteur, that I wasn't a Christmas dinner fund for the destitute, and walked

"It was getting late, and I had a long walk home to my lodgings. I was beginning to wish I had never seen the

"The idea occurred to me to sell it to a poulterer. I looked for a shop, I found one in Myddleton Street. There

wasn't a customer near it, but by the way the man was shouting you might have thought that he was doing all

the trade of Clerkenwell. I took the goose out of the parcel and laid it on the shelf before him.

"He just seized the thing by the neck and flung it at me. I dodged, and it caught the side of my head. You can

have no idea, if you've never been hit on the head with a goose, how if hurts. I picked it up and hit him back

with it, and a policeman came up with the usual, 'Now then, what's all this about?'

"I explained the facts. The poulterer stepped to the edge of the curb and apostrophised the universe generally.

"'Look at that shop,' he said. "It's twenty minutes to twelve, and there's seven dozen geese hanging there that

"I perceived then that my notion had been a foolish one, and I followed the policeman's advice, and went

"Then said I to myself, 'I will give it away. I will select some poor deserving person, and make him a present

of the damned thing.' I passed a good many people, but no one looked deserving enough. It may have been

the time or it may have been the neighbourhood, but those I met seemed to me to be unworthy of the bird. I

offered it to a man in Judd Street, who I thought appeared hungry. He turned out to be a drunken ruffian. I

could not make him understand what I meant, and he followed me down the road abusing me at the top of his

voice, until, turning a corner without knowing it, he plunged down Tavistock Place, shouting after the wrong

man. In the Euston Road I stopped a halfstarved child and pressed it upon her. She answered 'Not me!' and

"I dropped it in a dark part of Seymour Street. A man picked it up and brought it after me. I was unequal to

any more explanations or arguments. I gave him twopence and plodded on with it once more. The pubs were

just closing, and I went into one for a final drink. As a matter of fact I had had enough already, being, as I am,

unaccustomed to anything more than an occasional class of beer. But I felt depressed, and I thought it might

"I meant to fling it over into Oakley Square, but a policeman had his eye on me, and followed me twice round

the railings. In Golding Road I sought to throw it down an area, but was frustrated in like manner. The whole

night police of London seemed to have nothing else to do but prevent my getting rid of that goose.

"They appeared so anxious about it that I fancied they might like to have it. I went up to one in Camden

"'I'll tell you what I don't want,' he replied severely, 'and that is none of your sauce.'

"He was very insulting, and I naturally answered him back. What actually passed I forget, but it ended in his

"I slipped out of his hands and bolted down King Street. He blew his whistle and started after me. A man

sprang out from a doorway in College Street and tried to stop me. I tied him up with a butt in the stomach,

and cut through the Crescent, doubling back into the Camden Road by Batt Street.

"At the Canal Bridge I looked behind me, and could see no one. I dropped the goose over the parapet, and it

"Heaving a sigh of relief, I turned and crossed into Randolph Street, and there a constable collared me. I was

arguing with him when the first fool came up breathless. They told me I had better explain the matter to the

"The Inspector asked me why I had run away when the other constable wanted to take me in charge. I replied

that it was because I did not desire to spend my Christmas holidays in the lockup, which he evidently

regarded as a singularly weak argument. He asked me what I had thrown into the canal. I told him a goose.

He asked me why I had thrown a goose into the canal. I told him because I was sick and tired of the animal.

"At this stage a sergeant came in to say that they had succeeded in recovering the parcel. They opened it on

"I pointed out to them that it wasn't my parcel, and that it wasn't my baby, but they hardly took the trouble to

"The Inspector said it was too grave a case for bail, which, seeing that I did not know a soul in London, was

somewhat immaterial. I got them to send a telegram to my young lady to say that I was unavoidably detained

in town, and passed as quiet and uneventful a Christmas Day and Boxing Day as I ever wish to spend.

"In the end the evidence against me was held to be insufficient to justify a conviction, and I got off on the

minor charge of drunk and disorderly. But I lost my situation and I lost my young lady, and I don't care if I

We were nearing Liverpool Street. He collected his luggage, and taking up his hat made an attempt to put it

on his head. But in consequence of the swelling caused by the horseshoe it would not go anywhere near him,

Richard Dunkerman and I had been old schoolfellows, if a gentleman belonging to the Upper Sixth, and

arriving each morning in a "topper" and a pair of gloves, and "a discredit to the Lower Fourth," in a Scotch

cap, can by any manner of means be classed together. And though in those early days a certain amount of

coldness existed between us, originating in a poem, composed and sung on occasions by myself in

commemoration of an alleged painful incident connected with a certain breakingup day, and which, if I

Dicky, Dicky, Dunk, Always in a funk, Drank a glass of sherry wine, And went home roaring drunk,

and kept alive by his brutal criticism of the same, expressed with the bony part of the knee, yet in after life we

came to know and like each other better. I drifted into journalism, while he for years had been an

unsuccessful barrister and dramatist; but one spring, to the astonishment of us all, he brought out the play of

the season, a somewhat impossible little comedy, but full of homely sentiment and belief in human nature. It

was about a couple of months after its production that he first introduced me to "Pyramids, Esquire."

I was in love at the time. Her name was, I think, Naomi, and I wanted to talk to somebody about her. Dick

had a reputation for taking an intelligent interest in other men's love affairs. He would let a lover rave by the

hour to him, taking brief notes the while in a bulky redcovered volume labelled "Commonplace Book." Of

course everybody knew that he was using them merely as raw material for his dramas, but we did not mind

that so long as he would only listen. I put on my hat and went round to his chambers.

We talked about indifferent matters for a quarter of an hour or so, and then I launched forth upon my theme. I

had exhausted her beauty and goodness, and was well into my own feelingsthe madness of my ever

imagining I had loved before, the utter impossibility of my ever caring for any other woman, and my desire to

die breathing her namebefore he made a move. I thought he had risen to reach down, as usual, the

"Commonplace Book," and so waited, but instead he went to the door and opened it, and in glided one of the

largest and most beautiful black tomcats I have ever seen. It sprang on Dick's knee with a soft "curroo,"

This was remarkable, as I had not seen Enid for years, and had quite forgotten her. Somehow it took the

glitter out of the conversation. A dozen sentences later Dick stopped me again with:

I began to get irritated. Julia, I remembered, had been cashier in a city restaurant, and had, when I was little

more than a boy, almost inveigled me into an engagement. I found myself getting hot at the recollection of

the spooney rhapsodies I had hoarsely poured into her powderstreaked ear while holding her flabby hand

"You certainly alluded to her as Julia," he replied mildly. "But never mind, you go on as you like, I shall

But the flame was dead within me. I tried to rekindle it, but every time I glanced up and met the green eyes of

the black Tom it flickered out again. I recalled the thrill that had penetrated my whole being when Naomi's

hand had accidently touched mine in the conservatory, and wondered whether she had done it on purpose. I

thought how good and sweet she was to that irritatingly silly old frump her mother, and wondered if it really

were her mother, or only hired. I pictured her crown of goldbrown hair as I had last seen it with the sunlight

kissing its wanton waves, and felt I would like to be quite sure that it were all her own.

Once I clutched the flying skirts of my enthusiasm with sufficient firmness to remark that in my own private

opinion a good woman was more precious than rubies; adding immediately afterwardsthe words escaping

me unconsciously before I was aware even of the thought "pity it's so difficult to tell 'em."

Then I gave it up, and sat trying to remember what I had said to her the evening before, and hoping I had not

"None of them can what?" I asked. Somehow I was feeling angry with Dick and with Dick's cat, and with

"Why talk love or any other kind of sentiment before old Pyramids here?" he replied, stroking the cat's soft

"That's just what I can't tell you," he answered, "but it's very remarkable. Old Leman dropped in here the

other evening and began in his usual style about Ibsen and the destiny of the human race, and the Socialistic

idea and all the rest of ityou know his way. Pyramids sat on the edge of the table there and looked at him,

just as he sat looking at you a few minutes ago, and in less than a quarter of an hour Leman had come to the

conclusion that society would do better without ideals and that the destiny of the human race was in all

probability the dust heap. He pushed his long hair back from his eyes and looked, for the first time in his life,

quite sane. 'We talk about ourselves,' he said, 'as though we were the end of creation. I get tired listening to

myself sometimes. Pah!' he continued, 'for all we know the human race may die out utterly and another insect

take our place, as possibly we pushed out and took the place of a former race of beings. I wonder if the ant

tribe may not be the future inheritors of the earth. They understand combination, and already have an extra

sense that we lack. If in the courses of evolution they grow bigger in brain and body, they may become

powerful rivals, who knows?' Curious to hear old Leman talking like that, wasn't it?"

"I don't know," he answered, "I suppose because he looked so old. The name came to me."

I leaned across and looked into the great green eyes, and the creature, never winking, never blinking, looked

back into mine, until the feeling came to me that I was being drawn down into the very wells of time. It

seemed as though the panorama of the ages must have passed in review before those expressionless orbsall

the loves and hopes and desires of mankind; all the everlasting truths that have been found false; all the

eternal faiths discovered to save, until it was discovered they damned. The strange black creature grew and

grew till it seemed to fill the room, and Dick and I to be but shadows floating in the air.

I forced from myself a laugh, that only in part, however, broke the spell, and inquired of Dick how he had

"It came to me," he answered, "one night six months ago. I was down on my luck at the time. Two of my

plays, on which I had built great hopes, had failed, one on top of the otheryou remember themand it

appeared absurd to think that any manager would ever look at anything of mine again. Old Walcott had just

told me that he did not consider it right of me under all the circumstances to hold Lizzie any longer to her

engagement, and that I ought to go away and give her a chance of forgetting me, and I had agreed with him. I

was alone in the world, and heavily in debt. Altogether things seemed about as hopeless as they could be, and

I don't mind confessing to you now that I had made up my mind to blow out my brains that very evening. I

had loaded my revolver, and it lay before me on the desk. My hand was toying with it when I heard a faint

scratching at the door. I paid no attention at first, but it grew more persistent, and at length, to stop the faint

noise which excited me more than I could account for, I rose and opened the door and IT walked in.

"It perched itself upon the corner of my desk beside the loaded pistol, and sat there bolt upright looking at

me; and I, pushing back my chair, sat looking at it. And there came a letter telling me that a man of whose

name I had never heard had been killed by a cow in Melbourne, and that under his will a legacy of three

thousand pounds fell into the estate of a distant relative of my own who had died peacefully and utterly

insolvent eighteen months previously, leaving me his sole heir and representative, and I put the revolver back

"Do you think Pyramids would come and stop with me for a week?" I asked, reaching over to stroke the cat

"Maybe he will some day," replied Dick in a low voice, but before the answer cameI know not whyI

"I came to talk to him as though he were a human creature," continued Dick, "and to discuss things with him.

My last play I regard as a collaboration; indeed, it is far more his than mine."

I should have thought Dick mad had not the cat been sitting there before me with its eyes looking into mine.

"It was rather a cynical play as I first wrote it," he went on, "a truthful picture of a certain corner of society as

I saw and knew it. From an artistic point of view I felt it was good; from the boxoffice standard it was

doubtful. I drew it from my desk on the third evening after Pyramids' advent, and read it through. He sat on

"It was the best thing I had ever written. Insight into life ran through every line, I found myself reading it

"'Very clever, my boy, very clever indeed. If you would just turn it topsyturvy, change all those bitter,

truthful speeches into noble sentiments; make your UnderSecretary for Foreign Affairs (who never has been

a popular character) die in the last act instead of the Yorkshireman, and let your bad woman be reformed by

her love for the hero and go off somewhere by herself and be good to the poor in a black frock, the piece

"I turned indignantly to see who was speaking. The opinions sounded like those of a theatrical manager. No

one was in the room but I and the cat. No doubt I had been talking to myself, but the voice was strange to me.

"'Be reformed by her love for the hero!' I retorted, contemptuously, for I was unable to grasp the idea that I

was arguing only with myself, 'why it's his mad passion for her that ruins his life.'

"'And will ruin the play with the great B.P.,' returned the other voice. 'The British dramatic hero has no

passion, but a pure and respectful admiration for an honest, hearty English girl pronounced "geyurl." You

"'And besides,' I persisted, unheeding the interruption, 'women born and bred and soaked for thirty years in an

"'Well, this one's got to, that's all,' was the sneering reply, 'let her hear an organ.'

"'You will be always unsuccessful,' was the rejoinder. 'My dear fellow, you and your plays, artistic or in

artistic, will be forgotten in a very few years hence. You give the world what it wants, and the world will give

"So, with Pyramids beside me day by day, I rewrote the play, and whenever I felt a thing to be utterly

impossible and false I put it down with a grin. And every character I made to talk claptrap sentiment while

Pyramids purred, and I took care that everyone of my puppets did that which was right in the eyes of the lady

with the lorgnettes in the second row of the dress circle; and old Hewson says the play will run five hundred

"But what is worst," concluded Dick, "is that I am not ashamed of myself, and that I seem content."

"What do you think the animal is?" I asked with a laugh, "an evil spirit"? For it had passed into the next room

and so out through the open window, and its strangely still green eyes no longer drawing mine towards them,

"You have not lived with it for six months," answered Dick quietly, "and felt its eyes for ever on you as I

"My knowledge of modern church history is not extensive," I replied. "I know him by name, of course. What

"He was a curate in the East End," continued Dick, and for ten years he laboured, poor and unknown, leading

one of those noble, heroic lives that here and there men do yet live, even in this age. Now he is the prophet of

the fashionable uptodate Christianity of South Kensington, drives to his pulpit behind a pair of thorough

bred Arabs, and his waistcoat is taking to itself the curved line of prosperity. He was in here the other

morning on behalf of Princess . They are giving a performance of one of my plays in aid of the Destitute

"And did Pyramids discourage him?" I asked, with perhaps the suggestion of a sneer.

"No," answered Dick, "so far as I could judge, it approved the scheme. The point of the matter is that the

moment Whycherly came into the room the cat walked over to him and rubbed itself affectionately against

"There was no need for any further explanation between us. I understood what lay behind those few words."

I lost sight of Dick for some time, though I heard a good deal of him, for he was rapidly climbing into the

position of the most successful dramatist of the day, and Pyramids I had forgotten all about, until one

afternoon calling on an artist friend who had lately emerged from the shadows of starving struggle into the

sunshine of popularity, I saw a pair of green eyes that seemed familiar to me gleaming at me from a dark

"Why, surely," I exclaimed, crossing over to examine the animal more closely, "why, yes, you've got Dick

"Yes," he said, "we can't live on ideals," and I, remembering, hastened to change the conversation.

Since then I have met Pyramids in the rooms of many friends of mine. They give him different names, but I

am sure it is the same cat, I know those green eyes. He always brings them luck, but they are never quite the

"Nobody," I hastened to add, "would look well in it. You, of course, look less awful in it than any other

"He means," exclaimed the Minor Poet, "that the thing itself not being preeminently beautiful, it does not

suit, is not in agreement with you. The contrast between you and anything approaching the ugly or the

"He didn't say it," replied the Woman of the World; "and besides it isn't ugly. It's the very latest fashion."

"Why is it," asked the Philosopher, "that women are such slaves to fashion? They think clothes, they talk

clothes, they read clothes, yet they have never understood clothes. The purpose of dress, after the primary

object of warmth has been secured, is to adorn, to beautify the particular wearer. Yet not one woman in a

thousand stops to consider what colours will go best with her complexion, what cut will best hide the defects

or display the advantages of her figure. If it be the fashion, she must wear it. And so we have palefaced girls

looking ghastly in shades suitable to dairy maids, and dots waddling about in costumes fit and proper to

six footers. It is as if crows insisted on wearing cockatoo's feathers on their heads, and rabbits ran about

"And are not you men every bit as foolish?" retorted the Girton Girl. "Sack coats come into fashion, and

dumpy little men trot up and down in them, looking like buttertubs on legs. You go about in July melting

under frockcoats and chimneypot hats, and because it is the stylish thing to do, you all play tennis in still

shirts and standup collars, which is idiotic. If fashion decreed that you should play cricket in a pair of

topboots and a diver's helmet, you would play cricket in a pair of topboots and a diver's helmet, and dub

every sensible fellow who didn't a cad. It's worse in you than in us; men are supposed to think for themselves,

"Big women and little men look well in nothing," said the Woman of the World. "Poor Emily was five foot

ten and a half, and never looked an inch under seven foot, whatever she wore. Empires came into fashion, and

the poor child looked like the giant's baby in a pantomime. We thought the Greek might help her, but it only

suggested a Crystal Palace statue tied up in a sheet, and tied up badly; and when puffsleeves and

shouldercapes were in and Teddy stood up behind her at a waterparty and sang 'Under the spreading

chestnuttree,' she took it as a personal insult and boxed his ears. Few men liked to be seen with her, and I'm

sure George proposed to her partly with the idea of saving himself the expense of a stepladder, she reaches

"I," said the Minor Poet, "take up the position of not wanting to waste my brain upon the subject. Tell me

what to wear, and I will wear it, and there is an end of the matter. If Society says, 'Wear blue shirts and white

collars,' I wear blue shirts and white collars. If she says, 'The time has now come when hats should be

broadbrimmed,' I take unto myself a broadbrimmed hat. The question does not interest me sufficiently for

me to argue it. It is your fop who refuses to follow fashion. He wishes to attract attention to himself by being

peculiar. A novelist whose books pass unnoticed, gains distinction by designing his own necktie; and many

an artist, following the line of least resistance, learns to let his hair grow instead of learning to paint."

"The fact is," remarked the Philosopher, "we are the mere creatures of fashion. Fashion dictates to us our

religion, our morality, our affections, our thoughts. In one age successful cattlelifting is a virtue, a few

hundred years later companypromoting takes its place as a respectable and legitimate business. In England

and America Christianity is fashionable, in Turkey, Mohammedanism, and 'the crimes of Clapham are chaste

in Martaban.' In Japan a woman dresses down to the knees, but would be considered immodest if she

displayed bare arms. In Europe it is legs that no pureminded woman is supposed to possess. In China we

worship our motherin law and despise our wife; in England we treat our wife with respect, and regard our

motherinlaw as the bulwark of comic journalism. The stone age, the iron age, the age of faith, the age of

infidelism, the philosophic age, what are they but the passing fashions of the world? It is fashion, fashion,

fashion wherever we turn. Fashion waits beside our cradle to lead us by the hand through life. Now literature

is sentimental, now hopefully humorous, now psychological, now newwomanly. Yesterday's pictures are the

laughingstock of the uptodate artist of today, and to day's art will be sneered at tomorrow. Now it is

fashionable to be democratic, to pretend that no virtue or wisdom can exist outside corduroy, and to abuse the

middle classes. One season we go slumming, and the next we are all socialists. We think we are thinking; we

are simply dressing ourselves up in words we do not understand for the gods to laugh at us."

"Don't be pessimistic," retorted the Minor Poet, "pessimism is going out. You call such changes fashions, I

call them the footprints of progress. Each phase of thought is an advance upon the former, bringing the

footsteps of the many nearer to the landmarks left by the mighty climbers of the past upon the mountain paths

of truth. The crowd that was satisfied with The Derby Day now appreciates Millet. The public that were

"And the play lovers, who stood for hours to listen to Shakespeare," interrupted the Philosopher, "now crowd

"The track sometimes descends for a little way, but it will wind upwards again," returned the Poet. "The

musichall itself is improving; I consider it the duty of every intellectual man to visit such places. The mere

influence of his presence helps to elevate the tone of the performance. I often go myself!"

"I was looking," said the Woman of the World, "at some old illustrated papers of thirty years ago, showing

the men dressed in those very absurd trousers, so extremely roomy about the waist, and so extremely tight

about the ankles. I recollect poor papa in them; I always used to long to fill them out by pouring in sawdust at

"You mean the pegtop period," I said. "I remember them distinctly myself, but it cannot be more than

"That is very nice of you," replied the Woman of the World, "and shows more tact than I should have given

you credit for. It could, as you say, have been only twentythree years ago. I know I was a very little girl at

the time. I think there must be some subtle connection between clothes and thought. I cannot imagine men in

those trousers and Dundreary whiskers talking as you fellows are talking now, any more than I could

conceive of a woman in a crinoline and a poke bonnet smoking a cigarette. I think it must be so, because dear

mother used to be the most easygoing woman in the world in her ordinary clothes, and would let papa

smoke all over the house. But about once every three weeks she would put on a hideous oldfashioned black

silk dress, that looked as if Queen Elizabeth must have slept in it during one of those seasons when she used

to go about sleeping anywhere, and then we all had to sit up. 'Look out, ma's got her black silk dress on,'

came to be a regular formula. We could always make papa take us out for a walk or a drive by whispering it

"I can never bear to look at those pictures of bygone fashions," said the Old Maid, "I see the bygone

people in them, and it makes me feel as though the faces that we love are only passing fashions with the rest.

We wear them for a little while upon our hearts, and think so much of them, and then there comes a time

when we lay them by, and forget them, and newer faces take their place, and we are satisfied. It seems so

"I wrote a story some years ago," remarked the Minor Poet, "about a young Swiss guide, who was betrothed

"Named Jeanne," corrected the Poet, "the majority of laughing French girls, in fiction, are named Suzette, I

am well aware. But this girl's mother's family was English. She was christened Jeanne after an aunt Jane, who

"I beg your pardon," apologised the Girton Girl, "I was not aware of that fact. What happened to her?"

"One morning, a few days before the date fixed for the wedding," said the Minor Poet, "she started off to pay

a visit to a relative living in the village, the other side of the mountain. It was a dangerous track, climbing

halfway up the mountain before it descended again, and skirting more than one treacherous slope, but the

girl was mountain born and bred, surefooted as a goat, and no one dreamed of harm."

"She went over, of course," said the Philosopher, "those sure footed girls always do."

"What happened," replied the Minor Poet, "was never known. The girl was never seen again."

"And what became of her lover?" asked the Girton Girl. "Was he, when next year's snow melted, and the

young men of the village went forth to gather Edelweiss, wherewith to deck their sweethearts, found by them

"No," said the Poet; "you do not know this story, you had better let me tell it. Her lover returned the morning

before the wedding day, to be met with the news. He gave way to no sign of grief, he repelled all consolation.

Taking his rope and axe he went up into the mountain by himself. All through the winter he haunted the track

by which she must have travelled, indifferent to the danger that he ran, impervious apparently to cold, or

hunger, or fatigue, undeterred by storm, or mist, or avalanche. At the beginning of the spring he returned to

the village, purchased building utensils, and day after day carried them back with him up into the mountain.

He hired no labour, he rejected the proffered assistance of his brother guides. Choosing an almost

inaccessible spot, at the edge of the great glacier, far from all paths, he built himself a hut, with his own

"In the 'season' he earned good fees, being known far and wide as one of the bravest and hardiest of all the

guides, but few of his clients liked him, for he was a silent, gloomy man, speaking little, and with never a

laugh or jest on the journey. Each fall, having provisioned himself, he would retire to his solitary hut, and bar

"One year, however, as the spring days wore on, and he did not appear among the guides, as was his wont,

the elder men, who remembered his story and pitied him, grew uneasy; and, after much deliberation, it was

determined that a party of them should force their way up to his eyrie. They cut their path across the ice

where no foot among them had trodden before, and finding at length the lonely snowencompassed hut,

knocked loudly with their axe staves on the door; but only the whirling echoes from the glacier's thousand

walls replied, so the foremost put his strong shoulder to the worn timber and the door flew open with a crash.

"They found him dead, as they had more than half expected, lying stiff and frozen on the rough couch at the

farther end of the hut; and, beside him, looking down upon him with a placid face, as a mother might watch

beside her sleeping child, stood Jeanne. She wore the flowers pinned to her dress that she had gathered when

their eyes had last seen her. The girl's face that had laughed back to their goodbye in the village, nineteen

"A strange steely light clung round her, half illuminating, half obscuring her, and the men drew back in fear,

thinking they saw a vision, till one, bolder than the rest, stretched out his hand and touched the ice that

"For eighteen years the man had lived there with this face that he had loved. A faint flush still lingered on the

fair cheeks, the laughing lips were still red. Only at one spot, above her temple, the wavy hair lay matted

"I never published it," explained the Minor Poet. "Within the same week two friends of mine, one of whom

had just returned from Norway and the other from Switzerland, confided to me their intention of writing

stories about girls who had fallen into glaciers, and who had been found by their friends long afterwards,

looking as good as new; and a few days later I chanced upon a book, the heroine of which had been dug out

of a glacier alive three hundred years after she had fallen in. There seemed to be a run on ice maidens, and I

"It is curious," said the Philosopher, "how there seems to be a fashion even in thought. An idea has often

occurred to me that has seemed to me quite new, and taking up a newspaper I have found that some man in

Russia or San Francisco has just been saying the very same thing in almost the very same words. We say a

thing is 'in the air'; it is more true than we are aware of. Thought does not grow in us. It is a thing apart, we

simply gather it. All truths, all discoveries, all inventions, they have not come to us from any one man. The

time grows ripe for them, and from this corner of the earth and from that, hands, guided by some instinct,

grope for and grasp them. Buddha and Christ seize hold of the morality needful to civilisation, and

promulgate it, unknown to one another, the one on the shores of the Ganges, the other by the Jordan. A dozen

forgotten explorers, FEELING America, prepared the way for Columbus to discover it. A deluge of blood is

required to sweep away old follies, and Rousseau and Voltaire, and a myriad others are set to work to fashion

the storm clouds. The steamengine, the spinning loom is 'in the air.' A thousand brains are busy with them, a

few go further than the rest. It is idle to talk of human thought; there is no such thing. Our minds are fed as

our bodies with the food God has provided for us. Thought hangs by the wayside, and we pick it and cook it,

"I cannot agree with you," replied the Minor Poet, "if we were simply automata, as your argument would

"The intelligent portion of mankind has been asking itself that question for many ages," returned the

"I hate people who always think as I do," said the Girton Girl; "there was a girl in our corridor who never

would disagree with me. Every opinion I expressed turned out to be her opinion also. It always irritated me."

"That might have been weakmindedness," said the Old Maid, which sounded ambiguous.

"It is not so unpleasant as having a person always disagreeing with you," said the Woman of the World. "My

cousin Susan never would agree with any one. If I came down in red she would say, 'Why don't you try green,

dear? every one says you look so well in green'; and when I wore green she would say, 'Why have you given

up red dear? I thought you rather fancied yourself in red.' When I told her of my engagement to Tom, she

burst into tears and said she couldn't help it. She had always felt that George and I were intended for one

another; and when Tom never wrote for two whole months, and behaved disgracefully inin other ways,

and I told her I was engaged to George, she reminded me of every word I had ever said about my affection

for Tom, and of how I had ridiculed poor George. Papa used to say, 'If any man ever tells Susan that he loves

her, she will argue him out of it, and will never accept him until he has jilted her, and will refuse to marry

"Oh, yes," answered the Woman of the World, "and is devoted to her children. She lets them do everything

The most respectable cat I have ever known was Thomas Henry. His original name was Thomas, but it

seemed absurd to call him that. The family at Hawarden would as soon think of addressing Mr. Gladstone as

"Bill." He came to us from the Reform Club, via the butcher, and the moment I saw him I felt that of all the

clubs in London that was the club he must have come from. Its atmosphere of solid dignity and petrified

conservatism seemed to cling to him. Why he left the club I am unable, at this distance of time, to remember

positively, but I am inclined to think that it came about owing to a difference with the new chef, an

overbearing personage who wanted all the fire to himself. The butcher, hearing of the quarrel, and knowing

us as a catless family, suggested a way out of the impasse that was welcomed both by cat and cook. The

parting between them, I believe, was purely formal, and Thomas arrived prejudiced in our favour.

My wife, the moment she saw him, suggested Henry as a more suitable name. It struck me that the

combination of the two would be still more appropriate, and accordingly, in the privacy of the domestic

circle, Thomas Henry he was called. When speaking of him to friends, we generally alluded to him as

He approved of us in his quiet, undemonstrative way. He chose my own particular easy chair for himself, and

stuck to it. An ordinary cat I should have shot out, but Thomas Henry was not the cat one chivvies. Had I

made it clear to him that I objected to his presence in my chair, I feel convinced he would have regarded me

much as I should expect to be regarded by Queen Victoria, were that gracious Lady to call upon me in a

friendly way, and were I to inform her that I was busy, and request her to look in again some other afternoon.

He would have risen, and have walked away, but he never would have spoken to me again so long as we

We had a lady staying with us at the timeshe still resides with us, but she is now older, and possessed of

more judgmentwho was no respecter of cats. Her argument was that seeing the tail stuck up, and came

conveniently to one's hand, that was the natural appendage by which to raise a cat. She also laboured under

the error that the way to feed a cat was to ram things into its head, and that its pleasure was to be taken out for

a ride in a doll's perambulator. I dreaded the first meeting of Thomas Henry with this lady. I feared lest she

should give him a false impression of us as a family, and that we should suffer in his eyes.

But I might have saved myself all anxiety. There was a something about Thomas Henry that checked

forwardness and damped familiarity. His attitude towards her was friendly but firm. Hesitatingly, and with a

newborn respect for cats, she put out her hand timidly towards its tail. He gently put it on the other side, and

looked at her. It was not an angry look nor an offended look. It was the expression with which Solomon

might have received the advances of the Queen of Sheba. It expressed condescension, combined with

He was really a most gentlemanly cat. A friend of mine, who believes in the doctrine of the transmigration of

souls, was convinced that he was Lord Chesterfield. He never clamoured for food, as other cats do. He would

sit beside me at meals, and wait till he was served. He would eat only the knuckleend of a leg of mutton,

and would never look at overdone beef. A visitor of ours once offered him a piece of gristle; he said

nothing, but quietly left the room, and we did not see him again until our friend had departed.

But every one has his price, and Thomas Henry's price was roast duck. Thomas Henry's attitude in the

presence of roast duck came to me as a psychological revelation. It showed me at once the lower and more

animal side of his nature. In the presence of roast duck Thomas Henry became simply and merely a cat,

swayed by all the savage instincts of his race. His dignity fell from him as a cloak. He clawed for roast duck,

he grovelled for it. I believe he would have sold himself to the devil for roast duck.

We accordingly avoided that particular dish: it was painful to see a cat's character so completely demoralised.

Besides, his manners, when roast duck was on the table, afforded a bad example to the children.

He was a shining light among all the eats of our neighbourhood. One might have set one's watch by his

movements. After dinner he invariably took half an hour's constitutional in the square; at ten o'clock each

night, precisely, he returned to the area door, and at eleven o'clock he was asleep in my easy chair. He made

no friends among the other cats. He took no pleasure in fighting, and I doubt his ever having loved, even in

youth; his was too cold and self contained a nature, female society he regarded with utter indifference.

So he lived with us a blameless existence during the whole winter. In the summer we took him down with us

into the country. We thought the change of air would do him good; he was getting decidedly stout. Alas, poor

Thomas Henry! the country was his ruin. What brought about the change I cannot say: maybe the air was too

bracing. He slid down the moral incline with frightful rapidity. The first night he stopped out till eleven, the

second night he never came home at all, the third night he came home at six o'clock in the morning, minus

half the fur on the top of his head. Of course, there was a lady in the case, indeed, judging by the riot that

went on all night, I am inclined to think there must have been a dozen. He was certainly a fine cat, and they

took to calling for him in the day time. Then gentleman cats who had been wronged took to calling also, and

demanding explanations, which Thomas Henry, to do him justice, was always ready to accord.

The village boys used to loiter round all day to watch the fights, and angry housewives would be constantly

charging into our kitchen to fling dead cats upon the table, and appeal to Heaven and myself for justice. Our

kitchen became a veritable cat's morgue, and I had to purchase a new kitchen table. The cook said it would

make her work simpler if she could keep a table entirely to herself. She said it quite confused her, having so

many dead cats lying round among her joints and vegetables: she was afraid of making a mistake.

Accordingly, the old table was placed under the window, and devoted to the cats; and, after that, she would

"What do you want me to do with it," I heard her asking an excited lady on one occasion; "cook it?"

"Well, I'm not making cat pie today," answered our cook. "You take it to its proper table. This is my table."

At first, "Justice" was generally satisfied with half a crown, but as time went on cats rose. I had hitherto

regarded cats as a cheap commodity, and I became surprised at the value attached to them. I began to think

seriously of breeding cats as an industry. At the prices current in that village, I could have made an income of

"Look what your beast has done," said one irate female, to whom I had been called out in the middle of

I looked. Thomas Henry appeared to have "done" a mangy, emaciated animal, that must have been far

happier dead than alive. Had the poor creature been mine I should have thanked him; but some people never

"It's a matter of opinion," I replied, "but personally I think you would have been unwise to refuse it. Taking

the animal as it stands, I don't feel inclined to give you more than a shilling for it. If you think you can do

"I'm not taking dead Christians," I answered firmly, "and even if I were I wouldn't give more than a shilling

for a specimen like that. You can consider him as a Christian, or you can consider him as a cat; but he's not

The number of cats that Thomas Henry contrived to dispose of also surprised me. Quite a massacre of cats

One evening, going into the kitchen, for I made it a practice now to visit the kitchen each evening, to inspect

the daily consignment of dead cats, I found, among others, a curiously marked tortoiseshell cat, lying on the

"That cat's worth half a sovereign," said the owner, who was standing by, drinking beer.

"My cat has killed him three times," I replied. "He was killed on Saturday as Mrs. Hedger's cat; on Monday

he was killed for Mrs. Myers. I was not quite positive on Monday; but I had my suspicions, and I made notes.

Now I recognise him. You take my advice, and bury him before he breeds a fever. I don't care how many

We gave Thomas Henry every chance to reform; but he only went from bad to worse, and added poaching

and chickenstalking to his other crimes, and I grew tired of paying for his vices.

I consulted the gardener, and the gardener said he had known cats taken that way before.

"Well, sir," replied the gardener, "I have heard as how a dose of brickbat and pond is a good thing in a

"We'll try him with a dose just before bed time," I answered. The gardener administered it, and we had no

Poor Thomas Henry! It shows to one how a reputation for respectability may lie in the mere absence of

temptation. Born and bred in the atmosphere of the Reform Club, what gentleman could go wrong? I was

sorry for Thomas Henry, and I have never believed in the moral influence of the country since.

They say, the chroniclers who have written the history of that low lying, windswept coast, that years ago

the foam fringe of the ocean lay further to the east; so that where now the North Sea creeps among the

treacherous sandreefs, it was once dry land. In those days, between the Abbey and the sea, there stood a

town of seven towers and four rich churches, surrounded by a wall of twelve stones' thickness, making it, as

men reckoned then, a place of strength and much import; and the monks, glancing their eyes downward from

the Abbey garden on the hill, saw beneath their feet its narrow streets, gay with the ever passing of rich

merchandise, saw its many wharves and waterways, ever noisy with the babel of strange tongues, saw its

many painted masts, wagging their grave heads above the dormer roofs and quaintlycarved oak gables.

Thus the town prospered till there came a night when it did evil in the sight of God and man. Those were

troublous times to Saxon dwellers by the sea, for the Danish waterrats swarmed round each river mouth,

scenting treasure from afar; and by none was the white flash of their sharp, strong teeth more often seen than

by the men of Eastern Anglia, and by none in Eastern Anglia more often than by the watchers on the walls of

the town of seven towers that once stood upon the dry land, but which now lies twenty fathom deep below the

waters. Many a bloody fight raged now without and now within its wall of twelve stones' thickness. Many a

groan of dying man, many a shriek of murdered woman, many a wail of mangled child, knocked at the Abbey

door upon its way to Heaven, calling the tremblingmonks from their beds, to pray for the souls that were

But at length peace came to the longtroubled land: Dane and Saxon agreeing to dwell in friendship side by

side, East Anglia being wide, and there being room for both. And all men rejoiced greatly, for all were weary

of a strife in which little had been gained on either side beyond hard blows, and their thoughts were of the

inglenook. So the longbearded Danes, their thirsty axes harmless on their backs, passed to and fro in

straggling bands, seeking where undisturbed and undisturbing they might build their homes; and thus it came

about that Haafager and his company, as the sun was going down, drew near to the town of seven towers, that

"We have fought, but now there is peace. Enter, and make merry with us, and tomorrow go your way."

"I am an old man, I pray you do not take my words amiss. There is peace between us, as you say, and we

thank you for your courtesy, but the stains are still fresh upon our swords. Let us camp here without your

walls, and a little later, when the grass has grown upon the fields where we have striven, and our young men

have had time to forget, we will make merry together, as men should who dwell side by side in the same

But the men of the town still urged Haafager, calling his people neighbours; and the Abbot, who had hastened

"Pass in, my children. Let there indeed be peace between you, that the blessing of God may be upon the land,

and upon both Dane and Saxon"; for the Abbot saw that the townsmen were well disposed towards the

Danes, and knew that men, when they have feasted and drunk together, think kinder of one another.

"Hold up your staff, my father, that the shadow of the cross your people worship may fall upon our path, so

we will pass into the town and there shall be peace between us, for though your gods are not our gods, faith

And the Abbot held his staff aloft between Haafager's people and the sun, it being fashioned in the form of a

cross, and under its shadow the Danes passed by into the town of seven towers, there being of them, with the

women and the children, nearly two thousand souls, and the gates were made fast behind them.

So they who had fought face to face, feasted side by side, pledging one another in the wine cup, as was the

custom; and Haafager's men, knowing themselves amongst friends, cast aside their arms, and when the feast

Then an evil voice arose in the town, and said: "Who are these that have come among us to share our land?

Are not the stones of our streets red with the blood of wife and child that they have slain? Do men let the wolf

go free when they have trapped him with meat? Let us fall upon them now that they are heavy with food and

wine, so that not one of them shall escape. Thus no further harm shall come to us from them nor from their

And the voice of evil prevailed, and the men of the town of seven towers fell upon the Danes with whom they

had broken meat, even to the women and the little children; and the blood of the people of Haafager cried

"I trusted in your spoken word. I broke meat with you. I put my faith in you and in your God. I passed

beneath the shadow of your cross to enter your doors. Let your God make answer!"

And there came a great sound from the sea as though a tongue had been given to the deep, so that the monks

And that winter a mighty storm arose, the like of which no man had known before; for the sea was piled upon

the dry land until the highest tower of the town of seven towers was not more high; and the waters moved

forward over the dry land. And the men of the town of seven towers fled from the oncoming of the waters,

but the waters overtook them so that not one of them escaped. And the town of the seven towers and of the

four churches, and of the many streets and quays, was buried underneath the waters, and the feet of the waters

still moved till they came to the hill whereon the Abbey stood. Then the Abbot prayed to God that the waters

And that this tale is true, and not a fable made by the weavers of words, he who doubts may know from the

fisherfolk, who today ply their calling amongst the reefs and sandbanks of that lonely coast. For there are

those among them who, peering from the bows of their small craft, have seen far down beneath their keels a

city of strange streets and many quays. But as to this, I, who repeat these things to you, cannot speak of my

own knowledge, for this city of the sea is only visible when a rare wind, blowing from the north, sweeps the

shadows from the waves; and though on many a sunny day I have drifted where its seven towers should once

have stood, yet for me that wind has never blown, pushing back the curtains of the sea, and, therefore, I have

But this I do know, that the rumbling stones of that ancient Abbey, between which and the foam fringe of the

ocean the town of seven towers once lay, now stand upon a wavewashed cliff, and that he who looks forth

from its shattered mullions today sees only the marshland and the wrinkled waters, hears only the plaint of

And that God's anger is not everlasting, and that the evil that there is in men shall be blotted out, he who

doubts may also learn from the wisdom of the simple fisherfolk, who dwell about the borders of the

marshland; for they will tell him that on stormy nights there speaks a deep voice from the sea, calling the

dead monks to rise from their forgotten graves, and chant a mass for the souls of the men of the town of seven

towers. Clothed in long glittering white, they move with slowly pacing feet around the Abbey's grassgrown

aisles, and the music of their prayers is heard above the screaming of the storm. And to this I also can bear

witness, for I have seen the passing of their shrouded forms behind the blackness of the shattered shafts; I

Thus for many ages have the dead monks prayed that the men of the town of seven towers may be forgiven.

Thus, for many ages yet shall they so pray, till the day come when of their once fair Abbey not a single stone

shall stand upon its fellow; and in that day it shall be known that the anger of God against the men of the

town of seven towers has passed away; and in that day the feet of the waters shall move back, and the town of

There be some, I know, who say that this is but a legend; who will tell you that the shadowy shapes that you

may see with your own eyes on stormy nights, waving their gleaming arms behind the ruined buttresses are

but of phosphorescent foam, tossed by the raging waves above the cliffs; and that the sweet, sad harmony

But such are of the blind, who see only with their eyes. For myself I see the whiterobed monks, and hear the

chanting of their mass for the souls of the sinful men of the town of seven towers. For it has been said that

when an evil deed is done, a prayer is born to follow it through time into eternity, and plead for it. Thus is the

whole world clasped around with folded hands both of the dead and of the living, as with a shield, lest the

Therefore, I know that the good monks of this nameless Abbey are still praying that the sin of those they love

MR. TRAVERS. MRS. TRAVERS. MARION [their daughter]. DAN [a gentleman of no position].

SCENE: A room opening upon a garden. The shadows creep from their corners, driving before them the

MRS. TRAVERS sits in a wickerwork easy chair. MR. TRAVERS, smoking a cigar, sits the other side of the

MRS. TRAVERS. Yes; I should keep this on if I were you, Marion. You'll find it very handy. One can

entertain so cheaply up the river; one is not expected to make much of a show. [She turns to her husband.]

Your poor cousin Emily used to work off quite half her list that wayrelations and Americans, and those

sort of people, you knowat that little place of theirs at Goring. You remember ita poky hole I always

thought it, but it had a lot of green stuff over the doorlooked very pretty from the other side of the river.

She always used to have cold meat and pickles for lunchcalled it a picnic. People said it was so homely

MRS. TRAVERS. And there was a special champagne she always kept for the riveronly twentyfive

shillings a dozen, I think she told me she paid for it, and very good it was too, for the price. That old Indian

majorwhat was his name?said it suited him better than anything else he had ever tried. He always used

to drink a tumblerful before breakfast; such a funny thing to do. I've often wondered where she got it.

MR. TRAVERS. So did most people who tasted it. Marion wants to forget those lessons, not learn them. She

MRS. TRAVERS. Oh, well, James, I don't know. None of us can afford to live up to the income we want

people to think we've got. One must economise somewhere. A pretty figure we should cut in the county if I

didn't know how to make fivepence look like a shilling. And, besides, there are certain people that one has to

be civil to, that, at the same time, one doesn't want to introduce into one's regular circle. If you take my

advice, Marion, you won't encourage those sisters of Harry's more than you can help. They're dear sweet

girls, and you can be very nice to them; but don't have them too much about. Their manners are terribly

oldfashioned, and they've no notion how to dress, and those sort of people let down the tone of a house.

MARION. I'm not likely to have many "dear sweet girls" on my visiting list. [With a laugh.] There will

MRS. TRAVERS. Well, I only want you to be careful, my dear. So much depends on how you begin, and

with prudence there's really no reason why you shouldn't do very well. I suppose there's no doubt about

MARION. I think you may trust me to see to that, mamma. It would be a bad bargain for me, if even the cash

MR. TRAVERS [jumping up]. Oh, I do wish you women wouldn't discuss the matter in that horribly

MRS. TRAVERS. Oh, don't be foolish, James. One must look at the practical side of these things. Marriage

is a matter of sentiment to a manvery proper that it should be. A woman has to remember that she's fixing

MARION. You see, papa dear, it's her one venture. If she doesn't sell herself to advantage then, she doesn't

MR. TRAVERS. Umph! When I was a young man, girls talked more about love and less about income.

[DAN enters from the garden. He is a man of a little over forty, his linen somewhat frayed about the edges.]

DAN. We've been out sailing. I've been sent up to fetch you. It's delightful on the river. The moon is just

MR. TRAVERS. Oh, never mind the cold. It's many a long year since you and I looked at the moon

[DAN places it about her. They move towards the window, where they stand talking. MARION has slipped

out and returns with her father's cap. He takes her face between his hands and looks at her.]

MARION. As much as one can care for a man with five thousand a year. Perhaps he will make it ten one

MARION [with a laugh]. Yeslet him see how ridiculous they look. I hate the nightit follows you and

MARION. Oh, tell me all the news. What is the world doing? Who has run away with whose wife? Who has

been swindling whom? Which philanthropist has been robbing the poor? What saint has been discovered

sinning? What is the latest scandal? Who has been found out? and what is it they have been doing? and what

MARION [she sits by the piano, softly touching the keys, idly recalling many memories]. What should it do?

DAN. I wish you wouldn't be clever. Everyone one meets is clever nowadays. It came in when the

MARION. And stupid people, I suppose, will come in when the clever people go out. I prefer the clever.

They have better manners. You're exceedingly disagreeable. [She leaves the piano, and, throwing herself

DAN. I know I am. The night has been with me also. It follows one and asks questions.

DAN. Manyand so many of them have no answer. Why am I a useless, drifting log upon the world's tide?

Why have all the young men passed me? Why am I, at thirtynine, let us say, with brain, with power, with

strengthnobody thinks I am worth anything, but I amI know it. I might have been an able editor,

devoting every morning from ten till three to arranging the affairs of the Universe, or a popular politician,

trying to understand what I was talking about, and to believe it. And what am I? A newspaper reporter, at

DAN. Does it matter! Does it matter whether a Union Jack or a Tricolor floats over the turrets of Badajoz?

yet we pour our blood into its ditches to decide the argument. Does it matter whether one star more or less is

marked upon our charts? yet we grow blind peering into their depths. Does it matter that one keel should slip

through the grip of the Polar ice? yet nearer, nearer to it, we pile our whitening bones. And it's worth playing,

the game of life. And there's a meaning in it. It's worth playing, if only that it strengthens the muscles of our

DAN. So like you that there are times when I almost wish I had never met you. You set me thinking about

DAN. Not enoughnot enough to go round. That is why a true woman has many lovers.

[There is a silence between them. Then MARION rises, but their eyes do not meet.]

MARION [she moves away, then, hesitating, half returns]. May I ask you a question?

MARION. Ifif at any time you felt regard again for a woman, would you, for her sake, if she wished it,

seek to gain, even now, that position in the world which is your rightwhich would make her proud of your

friendshipwould make her feel that even her life had not been altogether without purpose?

DAN. Too late! The old hack can only look over the hedge, and watch the field race by. The old ambition

stirs within me at timesespecially after a glass of good wineand Harry's wineGod bless himis

excellentbut tomorrow morning[with a shrug of his shoulders he finishes his meaning].

DAN. Nothing for his fortunesmuch for himself. My dear young lady, never waste pity on a man in

[A flower has fallen from her breast, whether by chance or meaning, he knows not. He picks it up and kisses

it; stands twirling it, undecided for a second, then lets it fall again upon the floor.]