Something New ....................................................................................................................................................1

P.G. Wodehouse .......................................................................................................................................1

The sunshine of a fair Spring morning fell graciously on London town. Out in Piccadilly its heartening

warmth seemed to infuse into traffic and pedestrians alike a novel jauntiness, so that bus drivers jested and

even the lips of chauffeurs uncurled into not unkindly smiles. Policemen whistled at their postsclerks, on

their way to work; beggars approached the task of trying to persuade perfect strangers to bear the burden of

their maintenance with that optimistic vim which makes all the difference. It was one of those happy

At nine o'clock precisely the door of Number Seven Arundel Street, Leicester Square, opened and a young

Of all the spots in London which may fairly be described as backwaters there is none that answers so

completely to the description as Arundel Street, Leicester Square. Passing along the north sidewalk of the

square, just where it joins Piccadilly, you hardly notice the bottleneck opening of the tiny culdesac. Day

and night the human flood roars past, ignoring it. Arundel Street is less than forty yards in length; and, though

there are two hotels in it, they are not fashionable hotels. It is just a backwater.

In shape Arundel Street is exactly like one of those flat stone jars in which Italian wine of the cheaper sort is

stored. The narrow neck that leads off Leicester Square opens abruptly into a small court. Hotels occupy two

sides of this; the third is at present given up to rooming houses for the impecunious. These are always just

going to be pulled down in the name of progress to make room for another hotel, but they never do meet with

that fate; and as they stand now so will they in all probability stand for generations to come.

They provide single rooms of moderate size, the bed modestly hidden during the day behind a battered

screen. The rooms contain a table, an easychair, a hard chair, a bureau, and a round tin bath, which, like the

bed, goes into hiding after its useful work is performed. And you may rent one of these rooms, with breakfast

Twentysix years before this story opens there had been born to Joseph Marson, minister, and Sarah his wife,

of Hayling, Massachusetts, in the United States of America, a son. This son, christened Ashe after a wealthy

uncle who subsequently doublecrossed them by leaving his money to charities, in due course proceeded to

Harvard to study for the ministry. So far as can be ascertained from contemporary records, he did not study a

great deal for the ministry; but he did succeed in running the mile in four minutes and a half and the half mile

at a correspondingly rapid speed, and his researches in the art of long jumping won him the respect of all.

That he should be awarded, at the conclusion of his Harvard career, one of those scholarships at Oxford

University instituted by the late Cecil Rhodes for the encouragement of the liberal arts, was a natural

The rest of Ashe's history follows almost automatically. He won his blue for athletics at Oxford, and

gladdened thousands by winning the mile and the half mile two years in succession against Cambridge at

Queen's Club. But owing to the pressure of other engagements he unfortunately omitted to do any studying,

and when the hour of parting arrived he was peculiarly unfitted for any of the learned professions. Having,

however, managed to obtain a sort of degree, enough to enable him to call himself a Bachelor of Arts, and

realizing that you can fool some of the people some of the time, he applied for and secured a series of private

A private tutor is a sort of blend of poor relation and nursemaid, and few of the stately homes of England are

without one. He is supposed to instill learning and deportment into the small son of the house; but what he is

really there for is to prevent the latter from being a nuisance to his parents when he is home from school on

Having saved a little money at this dreadful trade, Ashe came to London and tried newspaper work. After two

The Mammoth Publishing Company, which controls several important newspapers, a few weekly journals,

and a number of other things, does not disdain the pennies of the office boy and the junior clerk. One of its

many profitable ventures is a series of papercovered tales of crime and adventure. It was here that Ashe

found his niche. Those adventures of Gridley Quayle, Investigator, which are so popular with a certain

Until the advent of Ashe and Mr. Quayle, the British Pluck Library had been written by many hands and had

included the adventures of many heroes: but in Gridley Quayle the proprietors held that the ideal had been

reached, and Ashe received a commission to conduct the entire British Pluck Librarymonthlyhimself.

On the meager salary paid him for these labors he had been supporting himself ever since.

That was how Ashe came to be in Arundel Street, Leicester Square, on this May morning.

He was a tall, wellbuilt, fitlooking young man, with a clear eye and a strong chin; and he was dressed, as

he closed the front door behind him, in a sweater, flannel trousers, and rubbersoled gymnasium shoes. In

Having drawn in and expelled the morning air in a measured and solemn fashion, which the initiated observer

would have recognized as that scientific deep breathing so popular nowadays, he laid down his clubs,

When he had taken the secondfloor front of Number Seven, three months before, Ashe Marson had realized

that he must forego those morning exercises which had become a second nature to him, or else defy London's

unwritten law and brave London's mockery. He had not hesitated long. Physical fitness was his gospel. On

The first time he appeared in Arundel Street in his sweater and flannels he had barely whirled his Indian clubs

a) Two cabmenone intoxicated; b) Four waiters from the Hotel Mathis; c) Six waiters from the Hotel

Previtali; d) Six chambermaids from the Hotel Mathis; e) Five chambermaids from the Hotel Previtali; f) The

proprietor of the Hotel Mathis; g) The proprietor of the Hotel Previtali; h) A street cleaner; i) Eleven

They all laughedeven the catand kept on laughing. The intoxicated cabman called Ashe "Sunny Jim."

A month later, such is the magic of perseverance, his audience had narrowed down to the twentyseven

children. They still laughed, but without that ringing conviction which the sympathetic support of their elders

And now, after three months, the neighborhood, having accepted Ashe and his morning exercises as a natural

On this particular morning Ashe Marson skipped with even more than his usual vigor. This was because he

wished to expel by means of physical fatigue a small devil of discontent, of whose presence within him he

had been aware ever since getting out of bed. It is in the Spring that the ache for the larger life comes on us,

and this was a particularly mellow Spring morning. It was the sort of morning when the air gives us a feeling

of anticipationa feeling that, on a day like this, things surely cannot go jogging along in the same dull old

groove; a premonition that something romantic and exciting is about to happen to us.

But the southwest wind of Spring brings also remorse. We catch the vague spirit of unrest in the air and we

Ashe was doing this. Even as he skipped, he was conscious of a wish that he had studied harder at college and

was now in a position to be doing something better than hack work for a soulless publishing company. Never

before had he been so completely certain that he was sick to death of the rut into which he had fallen.

Skipping brought no balm. He threw down his rope and took up the Indian clubs. Indian clubs left him still

unsatisfied. The thought came to him that it was a long time since he had done his Larsen Exercises. Perhaps

The Larsen Exercises, invented by a certain Lieutenant Larsen, of the Swedish Army, have almost every sort

of merit. They make a man strong, supple, and slender. But they are not dignified. Indeed, to one seeing them

suddenly and without warning for the first time, they are markedly humorous. The only reason why King

Henry, of England, whose son sank with the White Ship, never smiled again, was because Lieutenant Larsen

So complacent, so insolently unselfconscious had Ashe become in the course of three months, owing to his

success in inducing the populace to look on anything he did with the indulgent eye of understanding, that it

simply did not occur to him, when he abruptly twisted his body into the shape of a corkscrew, in accordance

with the directions in the lieutenant's book for the consummation of Exercise One, that he was doing anything

And the behavior of those present seemed to justify his confidence. The proprietor of the Hotel Mathis

regarded him without a smile. The proprietor of the Hotel Previtali might have been in a trance, for all the

interest he displayed. The hotel employees continued their tasks impassively. The children were blind and

dumb. The cat across the way stropped its backbone against the railings unheeding.

But, even as he unscrambled himself and resumed a normal posture, from his immediate rear there rent the

quiet morning air a clear and musical laugh. It floated out on the breeze and hit him like a bullet.

Three months ago Ashe would have accepted the laugh as inevitable, and would have refused to allow it to

embarrass him; but long immunity from ridicule had sapped his resolution. He spun round with a jump,

From the window of the firstfloor front of Number Seven a girl was leaning. The Spring sunshine played on

her golden hair and lit up her bright blue eyes, fixed on his flanneled and sweatered person with a fascinated

For the space of perhaps two seconds they stared at each other, eye to eye. Then she vanished into the room.

Ashe was beaten. Three months ago a million girls could have laughed at his morning exercises without

turning him from his purpose. Today this one scoffer, alone and unaided, was sufficient for his undoing. The

depression which exercise had begun to dispel surged back on him. He had no heart to continue. Sadly

gathering up his belongings, he returned to his room, and found a cold bath tame and uninspiring.

The breakfastsincluded in the rentprovided by Mrs. Bell, the landlady of Number Seven, were held by

some authorities to be specially designed to quell the spirits of their victims, should they tend to soar

excessively. By the time Ashe had done his best with the disheveled fried egg, the chicory blasphemously

called coffee, and the charred bacon, misery had him firmly in its grip. And when he forced himself to the

table, and began to try to concoct the latest of the adventures of Gridley Quayle, Investigator, his spirit

This morning, as he sat and chewed his pen, his loathing for Gridley seemed to have reached its climax. It

was his habit, in writing these stories to think of a good title first, and then fit an adventure to it. And

overnight, in a moment of inspiration, he had jotted down on an envelope the words: "The Adventure of the

It was with the sullen repulsion of a vegetarian who finds a caterpillar in his salad that he now sat glaring at

The title had seemed so promising overnightso full of strenuous possibilities. It was still speciously

attractive; but now that the moment had arrived for writing the story its flaws became manifest.

What was a wand of death? It sounded good; but, coming down to hard facts, what was it? You cannot write

a story about a wand of death without knowing what a wand of death is; and, conversely, if you have thought

of such a splendid title you cannot jettison it offhand. Ashe rumpled his hair and gnawed his pen.

Ashe spun round in his chair. This was the last straw! If he had told Mrs. Ball once that he was never to be

disturbed in the morning on any pretext whatsoever, he had told her twenty times. It was simply too infernal

to be endured if his work time was to be cut into like this. Ashe ran over in his mind a few opening remarks.

A girl walked inthe girl of the firstfloor front; the girl with the blue eyes, who had laughed at his Larsen

Various circumstances contributed to the poorness of the figure Ashe cut in the opening moments of this

interview. In the first place, he was expecting to see his landlady, whose height was about four feet six, and

the sudden entry of somebody who was about five feet seven threw the universe temporarily out of focus. In

the second place, in anticipation of Mrs. Bell's entry, he had twisted his face into a forbidding scowl, and it

was no slight matter to change this on the spur of the moment into a pleasant smile. Finally, a man who has

been sitting for half an hour in front of a sheet of paper bearing the words: "The Adventure of the Wand of

Death," and trying to decide what a wand of death might be, has not his mind under proper control.

The net result of these things was that, for perhaps half a minute, Ashe behaved absurdly. He goggled and he

yammered. An alienist, had one been present, would have made up his mind about him without further

investigation. For an appreciable time he did not think of rising from his seat. When he did, the combined

Nor was the girl unembarrassed. If Ashe had been calmer he would have observed on her cheek the flush

which told that she, too, was finding the situation trying. But, woman being ever better equipped with poise

"No, no!" said Ashe. "Oh, no; not at allnot at all! No. Oh, nonot at allno!" And would have continued

"I wanted to apologize," she said, "for my abominable rudeness in laughing at you just now. It was idiotic of

Science, with a thousand triumphs to her credit, has not yet succeeded in discovering the correct reply for a

young man to make who finds himself in the appalling position of being apologized to by a pretty girl. If he

says nothing he seems sullen and unforgiving. If he says anything he makes a fool of himself. Ashe,

hesitating between these two courses, suddenly caught sight of the sheet of paper over which he had been

The delirium of the conversation was too much for Ashe. He burst out laughing. A moment later the girl did

"You are quite right to speak in that thankful tone. It's a horrid little paperall brownpaper patterns and

advice to the lovelorn and puzzles. I do a short story for it every week, under various names. A duke or an

"I am sorry for your troubles," said Ashe firmly; "but we are wandering from the point. What is a wand of

"Why, of course; it's the sacred ebony stick stolen from the Indian temple, which is supposed to bring death

to whoever possesses it. The hero gets hold of it, and the priests dog him and send him threatening messages.

"Absolute genius. I see it all. The hero calls in Gridley Quayle, and that patronizing ass, by the aid of a series

of wicked coincidences, solves the mystery; and there am I, with another month's work done."

"I do not read him! But he is published by the same firm that publishes Home Gossip, and I can't help seeing

his cover sometimes while I am waiting in the waiting room to see the editress."

Ashe felt like one who meets a boyhood's chum on a desert island. Here was a real bond between them.

"Does the Mammoth publish you, too? Why, we are comrades in misfortune fellow serfs! We should be

She sat down. It is a simple act, this of sitting down; but, like everything else, it may be an index to character.

There was something wholly satisfactory to Ashe in the manner in which this girl did it. She neither seated

herself on the extreme edge of the easychair, as one braced for instant flight; nor did she wallow in the

easychair, as one come to stay for the weekend. She carried herself in an unconventional situation with an

Etiquette is not rigid in Arundel Street; but, nevertheless, a girl in a firstfloor front may he excused for

showing surprise and hesitation when invited to a confidential chat with a secondfloor front young man

whom she has known only five minutes. But there is a freemasonry among those who live in large cities on

"Shall we introduce ourselves?" said Ashe. "Or did Mrs. Bell tell you my name? By the way, you have not

"I took my room day before yesterday. But your name, if you are the author of Gridley Quayle, is Felix

"Good heavens, no! Surely you don't think anyone's name could really be Felix Clovelly? That is only the

cloak under which I hide my shame. My real name is MarsonAshe Marson. And yours?"

"Because it is too extraordinary, too much like a Gridley Quayle coincidence. I am an American!"

"You miss the point. We are not only fellow serfswe are fellow exiles. You can't round the thing off by

"Strange. I know your home town quite well. But I have not yet made my birthplace famous; in fact, I doubt

"You are only twentysix and you call yourself a failure? I think that is a shameful thing to say."

"What would you call a man of twentysix whose only means of making a living was the writing of Gridley

"How do you know it's your only means of making a living? Why don't you try something new?"

"How should I know? Anything that comes along. Good gracious, Mr. Marson; here you are in the biggest

city in the world, with chances for adventure simply shrieking to you on every side."

"I must be deaf. The only thing I have heard shrieking to me on every side has been Mrs. Bellfor the

"Read the papers. Read the advertisement columns. I'm sure you will find something sooner or later. Don't

get into a groove. Be an adventurer. Snatch at the next chance, whatever it is."

"But why should you want a girl like me to stimulate you? Surely London is enough to do it without my

help? You can always find something new, surely? Listen, Mr. Marson. I was thrown on my own resources

about five years agonever mind how. Since then I have worked in a shop, done typewriting, been on the

"Why not? It was all experience; and I can assure you I would much rather be a lady's maid than a

"I think I know what you mean. I was a private tutor once. I suppose a governess is the female equivalent. I

have often wondered what General Sherman would have said about private tutoring if he expressed himself

"It was pretty good fun; and it gave me an opportunity of studying the aristocracy in its native haunts, which

"Oh, well; I keep on trying. I'm twentythree and I haven't achieved anything much yet; but I certainly don't

"I meant you to," said Joan placidly. "I hope I haven't bored you with my autobiography, Mr. Marson. I'm not

setting myself up as a shining example; but I do like action and hate stagnation."

"You are absolutely wonderful!" said Ashe. "You are a human correspondence course in efficiency, one of

the ones you see advertised in the back pages of the magazines, beginning, 'Young man, are you earning

enough?' with a picture showing the dead beat gazing wistfully at the boss' chair. You would galvanize a

"I think that was another slam," said Ashe pensively. "Well, I deserve it. Yes, you have stimulated me. I feel

like a new man. It's queer that you should have come to me right on top of everything else. I don't remember

"But you haven't read the advertisement pages? Read them. They may contain just the opening you want."

"Well, I'll do it; but my experience of advertisement pages is that they are monopolized by philanthropists

who want to lend you any sum from ten to a hundred thousand pounds on your note of hand only. However, I

"Goodby, Mr. Marson. You've got your detective story to write, and I have to think out something with a

duke in it by tonight; so I must be going." She smiled. "We have traveled a good way from the point where

we started, but I may as well go back to it before I leave you. I'm sorry I laughed at you this morning."

"I'm not. Come and laugh at me whenever you feel like it. I like being laughed at. Why, when I started my

morning exercises, half of London used to come and roll about the sidewalks in convulsions. I'm not an

attraction any longer and it makes me feel lonesome. There are twentynine of those Larsen Exercises and

you saw only part of the first. You have done so much for me that if I can be of any use to you, in helping

you to greet the day with a smile, I shall be only too proud. Exercise Six is a surefire mirthprovoker; I'll

start with it tomorrow morning. I can also recommend Exercise Elevena scream! Don't miss it."

She was gone; and Ashe, thrilling with new emotions, stared at the door which had closed behind her. He felt

Close beside the sheet of paper on which he had inscribed the now luminous and suggestive title of his new

Gridley Quayle story lay the Morning Post, the advertisement columns of which he had promised her to

His spirits sank as he did so. It was the same old game. A Mr. Brian MacNeill, though doing no business with

minors, was willingeven anxiousto part with his vast fortune to anyone over the age of twentyone

whose means happened to be a trifle straitened. This good man required no security whatever; nor did his

rivals in generosity, the Messrs. Angus Bruce, Duncan Macfarlane, Wallace Mackintosh and Donald

MacNab. They, too, showed a curious distaste for dealing with minors; but anyone of maturer years could

Ashe threw the paper down wearily. He had known all along that it was no good. Romance was dead and the

unexpected no longer happened. He picked up his pen and began to write "The Adventure of the Wand of

In a bedroom on the fourth floor of the Hotel Guelph in Piccadilly, the Honorable Frederick Threepwood sat

in bed, with his knees drawn up to his chin, and glared at the day with the glare of mental anguish. He had

He had just remembered. It is like that in this life. You wake up, feeling as fit as a fiddle; you look at the

window and see the sun, and thank Heaven for a fine day; you begin to plan a perfectly corking luncheon

party with some of the chappies you met last night at the National Sporting Club; and thenyou remember.

"Oh, dash it!" said the Honorable Freddie. And after a moment's pause: "And I was feeling so dashed happy!"

For the space of some minutes he remained plunged in sad meditation; then, picking up the telephone from

"This is Freddie Threepwood. I say, Dickie, old top, I want to see you about something devilish important.

"Thanks, old man. Thanks very much, and so onbut you won't forget to be in at twelve, will you?

He replaced the receiver quickly and sprang out of bed, for he had heard the door handle turn. When the door

opened he was giving a correct representation of a young man wasting no time in beginning his toilet for the

An elderly, thinfaced, baldheaded, amiably vacant man entered. He regarded the Honorable Freddie with a

"Shan't be more than a minute, gov'nor, now. Just got to have a tub and then chuck on a few clothes."

He disappeared into the bathroom. His father, taking a chair, placed the tips of his fingers together and in this

Like many fathers in his rank of life, the Earl of Emsworth had suffered much through that problem which,

with the exception of Mr. LloydGeorge, is practically the only fly in the British aristocratic amberthe

It is useless to try to gloss over the factin the aristocratic families of Great Britain the younger son is not

Apart, however, from the fact that he was a younger son, and, as such, a nuisance in any case, the honorable

Freddie had always annoyed his father in a variety of ways. The Earl of Emsworth was so constituted that no

man or thing really had the power to trouble him deeply; but Freddie had come nearer to doing it than

anybody else in the world. There had been a consistency, a perseverance, about his irritating performances

that had acted on the placid peer as dripping water on a stone. Isolated acts of annoyance would have been

powerless to ruffle his calm; but Freddie had been exploding bombs under his nose since he went to Eton.

He had been expelled from Eton for breaking out at night and roaming the streets of Windsor in a false

mustache. He had been sent down from Oxford for pouring ink from a secondstory window on the junior

dean of his college. He had spent two years at an expensive London crammer's and failed to pass into the

army. He had also accumulated an almost record series of racing debts, besides as shady a gang of

friendsfor the most part vaguely connected with the turfas any young man of his age ever contrived to

These things try the most placid of parents; and finally Lord Emsworth had put his foot down. It was the only

occasion in his life when he had acted with decision, and he did it with the accumulated energy of years. He

stopped his son's allowance, haled him home to Blandings Castle, and kept him there so relentlessly that until

the previous night, when they had come up together by an afternoon train, Freddie had not seen London for

Possibly it was the reflection that, whatever his secret troubles, he was at any rate once more in his beloved

metropolis that caused Freddie at this point to burst into discordant song. He splashed and warbled

Lord Emsworth's frown deepened and he began to tap his fingers together irritably. Then his brow cleared

What Lord Emsworth remembered was this: Late in the previous autumn the next estate to Blandings had

been rented by an American, a Mr. Petersa man with many millions, chronic dyspepsia, and one fair

daughterAline. The two families had met. Freddie and Aline had been thrown together; and, only a few

days before, the engagement had been announced. And for Lord Emsworth the only flaw in this best of all

Yes, he was glad Freddie was engaged to be married to Aline Peters. He liked Aline. He liked Mr. Peters.

Such was the relief he experienced that he found himself feeling almost affectionate toward Freddie, who

emerged from the bathroom at this moment, clad in a pink bathrobe, to find the paternal wrath evaporated,

Nevertheless, he wasted no time about his dressing. He was always ill at ease in his father's presence and he

wished to be elsewhere with all possible speed. He sprang into his trousers with such energy that he nearly

tripped himself up. As he disentangled himself he recollected something that had slipped his memory.

"By the way, gov'nor, I met an old pal of mine last night and asked him down to Blandings this week. That's

all right, isn't it? He's a man named Emerson, an American. He knows Aline quite well, he sayshas known

"Well, as a matter of fact, I met him last night for the first time. But it's all right. He's a good chap, don't you

Lord Emsworth was feeling too benevolent to raise the objections he certainly would have raised had his

"Doing anything special this morning, gov'nor? I rather thought of getting a bit of breakfast and then strolling

"Two hours ago. I trust that in the course of your strolling you will find time to call at Mr. Peters' and see

Aline. I shall be going there directly after lunch. Mr. Peters wishes to show me his collection ofI think

"Oh, I'll look in all right! Don't you worry! Or if I don't I'll call the old boy up on the phone and pass the time

of day. Well, I rather think I'll be popping off and getting that bit of breakfastwhat?"

Several comments on this speech suggested themselves to Lord Emsworth. In the first place, he did not

approve of Freddie's allusion to one of America's merchant princes as "the old boy." Second, his son's attitude

did not strike him as the ideal attitude of a young man toward his betrothed. There seemed to be a lack of

warmth. But, he reflected, possibly this was simply another manifestation of the modern spirit; and in any

Presently, Freddie having given his shoes a flick with a silk handkerchief and thrust the latter carefully up his

sleeve, they passed out and down into the main lobby of the hotel, where they partedFreddie to his bit of

breakfast; his father to potter about the streets and kill time until luncheon. London was always a trial to the

Earl of Emsworth. His heart was in the country and the city held no fascinations for him.

On one of the floors in one of the buildings in one of the streets that slope precipitously from the Strand to the

Thames Embankment, there is a door that would be all the better for a lick of paint, which bears what is

perhaps the most modest and unostentatious announcement of its kind in London. The grimy groundglass

Simply that and nothing more. It is rugged in its simplicity. You wonder, as you look at itif you have time

to look at and wonder about these thingswho this Jones may be; and what is the business he conducts with

As a matter of fact, these speculations had passed through suspicious minds at Scotland Yard, which had for

some time taken not a little interest in R. Jones. But beyond ascertaining that he bought and sold curios, did a

certain amount of bookmaking during the flatracing season, and had been known to lend money, Scotland

Yard did not find out much about Mr. Jones and presently dismissed him from its thoughts.

On the theory, given to the world by William Shakespeare, that it is the lean and hungrylooking men who

are dangerous, and that the "fat, sleekheaded men, and such as sleep o' nights," are harmless, R. Jones

should have been above suspicion. He was infinitely the fattest man in the westcentral postal district of

London. He was a round ball of a man, who wheezed when he walked upstairs, which was seldom, and shook

like jelly if some tactless friend, wishing to attract his attention, tapped him unexpectedly on the shoulder.

But this occurred still less frequently than his walking upstairs; for in R. Jones' circle it was recognized that

nothing is a greater breach of etiquette and worse form than to tap people unexpectedly on the shoulder. That,

R. Jones was about fifty years old, grayhaired, of a mauve complexion, jovial among his friends, and

perhaps even more jovial with chance acquaintances. It was estimated by envious intimates that his joviality

with chance acquaintances, specially with young men of the upper classes, with large purses and small

foreheadswas worth hundreds of pounds a year to him. There was something about his comfortable

appearance and his jolly manner that irresistibly attracted a certain type of young man. It was his good

fortune that this type of young man should be the type financially most worth attracting.

Freddie Threepwood had fallen under his spell during his short but crowded life in London. They had met for

the first time at the Derby; and ever since then R. Jones had held in Freddie's estimation that position of

guide, philosopher and friend which he held in the estimation of so many young men of Freddie's stamp.

That was why, at twelve o'clock punctually on this Spring day, he tapped with his cane on R. Jones' ground

glass, and showed such satisfaction and relief when the door was opened by the proprietor in person.

"Well, well, well!" said R. Jones rollickingly. "Whom have we here? The dashing bridegroomtobe, and no

R. Jones, like Lord Emsworth, was delighted that Freddie was about to marry a nice girl with plenty of

money. The sudden turning off of the tap from which Freddie's allowance had flowed had hit him hard. He

had other sources of income, of course; but few so easy and unfailing as Freddie had been in the days of his

"The prodigal son, by George! Creeping back into the fold after all this weary time! It seems years since I

saw you, Freddie. The old gov'nor put his foot downdidn't he?and stopped the funds. Damned shame! I

take it that things have loosened up a bit since the engagement was announcedeh?"

"Well, as a matter of fact, Dickie, old top," he said, "not so that you could notice it, don't you know! Things

are still pretty much the same. I managed to get away from Blandings for a night, because the gov'nor had to

come to London; but I've got to go back with him on the threeo'clock train. And, as for money, I can't get a

quid out of him. As a matter of fact, I'm in the deuce of a hole; and that's why I've come to you."

Even fat, jovial men have their moments of depression. R. Jones' face clouded, and jerky remarks about

hardness of times and losses on the Stock Exchange began to proceed from him. As Scotland Yard had

discovered, he lent money on occasion; but he did not lend it to youths in Freddie's unfortunate position.

"Oh, I don't want to make a touch, you know," Freddie hastened to explain. "It isn't that. As a matter of fact, I

managed to raise five hundred of the best this morning. That ought to be enough."

The thought entered his mind, as it had so often, that the world was full of easy marks. He wished he could

meet the moneylender who had been rash enough to advance the Honorable Freddie five hundred pounds.

Freddie felt in his pocket, produced a cigarette case, and from it extracted a newspaper clipping.

"Oh, the Stockheath breachofpromise case? I did more than that. I was in court all three days." R. Jones

emitted a cozy chuckle. "Is he a pal of yours? A cousin, eh? I wish you had seen him in the witness box, with

JellicoeSmith crossexamining him! The funniest thing I ever heard! And his letters to the girl! They read

"Don't, old man! Dickie, old topplease! I know all about it. I read the reports. They made poor old Percy

"Well, Nature had done that already; but I'm bound to say they improved on Nature's work. I should think

A spasm of pain passed over the Honorable Freddie's vacant face. He wriggled in his chair.

"It's not that. It'sthe fact is, Dickie, old top, I'm in exactly the same bally hole as poor old Percy was,

"Not absolutely thatyet. Look here; I'll tell you the whole thing. Do you remember a show at the Piccadilly

"No; I mean one particular girla girl called Joan Valentine. The rotten part is that I never met her."

"Welldon't you see?I used to go to the show every other night, and I fell frightfully in love with this

"I must have been or I shouldn't have been such an ass, don't you know! Well, as I was saying, I used to write

"She wouldn't meet me. She wouldn't even come out to luncheon. She didn't even answer my lettersjust

Freddie's voice died away. He thrust the knob of his cane into his mouth in a sort of frenzy.

A scarlet blush manifested itself on Freddie's young face. His eyes wandered sidewise. After a long pause a

R. Jones trembled as though an electric current had been passed through his plump frame. His little eyes

"Yards of it, old boyyards of it!" groaned Freddie. Panic filled him with speech. "You see the frightful hole

I'm in? This girl is bound to have kept the letters. I don't remember whether I actually proposed to her or not;

but anyway she's got enough material to make it worth while to have a dash at an actionespecially after

poor old Percy has just got soaked for such a pile of money and made breachofpromise cases the fashion,

"And now that the announcement of my engagement is out she's certain to get busy. Probably she has been

waiting for something of the sort. Don't you see that all the cards are in her hands? We couldn't afford to let

the thing come into court. That poetry would dish my marriage for a certainty. I'd have to emigrate or

something! Goodness knows what would happen at home! My old gov'nor would murder me! So you see

"Why, to get hold of this girl and get back the lettersdon't you see? I can't do it myself, cooped up miles

away in the country. And besides, I shouldn't know how to handle a thing like that. It needs a chappie with a

"Thanks for the compliment, Freddie; but I should imagine that something a little more solid than a

persuasive way would be required in a case like this. You said something a while ago about five hundred

"Here it is, old manin notes. I brought it on purpose. Will you really take the thing on? Do you think you

Freddie rose, with an expression approximating to happiness on his face. Some men have the power of

inspiring confidence in some of their fellows, though they fill others with distrust. Scotland Yard might look

askance at R. Jones, but to Freddie he was all that was helpful and reliable. He shook R. Jones' hand several

"That's absolutely topping of you, old man!" he said. "Then I'll leave the whole thing to you. Write me the

moment you have done anything, won't you? Goodby, old top, and thanks ever so much!"

The door closed. R. Jones remained where he sat, his fingers straying luxuriously among the crackling paper.

A feeling of complete happiness warmed R. Jones' bosom. He was uncertain whether or not his mission

would be successful; and to be truthful he was not letting that worry him much. What he was certain of was

the fact that the heavens had opened unexpectedly and dropped five hundred pounds into his lap.

The Earl of Emsworth stood in the doorway of the Senior Conservative Club's vast diningroom, and beamed

with a vague sweetness on the two hundred or so Senior Conservatives who, with much clattering of knives

and forks, were keeping body and soul together by means of the coffeeroom luncheon. He might have been

posing for a statue of Amiability. His pale blue eyes shone with a friendly light through their protecting

glasses; the smile of a man at peace with all men curved his weak mouth; his bald head, reflecting the

Nobody appeared to notice him. He so seldom came to London these days that he was practically a stranger

in the club; and in any case your Senior Conservative, when at lunch, has little leisure for observing anything

not immediately on the table in front of him. To attract attention in the diningroom of the Senior

Conservative Club between the hours of one and twothirty, you have to be a mutton chopnot an earl.

It is possible that, lacking the initiative to make his way down the long aisle and find a table for himself, he

might have stood there indefinitely, but for the restless activity of Adams, the head steward. It was Adams'

mission in life to flit to and fro, hauling wouldbe lunchers to their destinations, as a St. Bernard dog hauls

travelers out of Alpine snowdrifts. He sighted Lord Emsworth and secured him with a genteel pounce.

"A table, your lordship? This way, your lordship." Adams remembered him, of course. Adams remembered

Lord Emsworth followed him beamingly and presently came to anchor at a table in the farther end of the

room. Adams handed him the bill of fare and stood brooding over him like a providence.

It was business to know the tastes and dispositions of all the five thousand or so members of the Senior

Conservative Club and to suit his demeanor to them. To some he would hand the bill of fare swiftly, silently,

almost brusquely, as one who realizes that there are moments in life too serious for talk. Others, he knew,

liked conversation; and to those he introduced the subject of food almost as a submotive.

Lord Emsworth, having examined the bill of fare with a mild curiosity, laid it down and became

"No, Adams; I seldom visit London nowadays. London does not attract me. The countrythe fieldsthe

Something across the room seemed to attract his attention and his voice trailed off. He inspected this for some

"You were speaking of the attractions of life in the country, your lordship. You included the birds in your

"Oh, yes, yes, yes! Oh, yes, yes! Oh, yesto be sure. Do you ever go to the country, Adams?"

Whatever was the attraction across the room once more exercised its spell. His lordship concentrated himself

on it to the exclusion of all other mundane matters. Presently he came out of his trance again.

Adams never smiled during business hoursunless professionally, as it were, when a member made a joke;

but he was storing up in the recesses of his highly respectable body a large laugh, to he shared with his wife

when he reached home that night. Mrs. Adams never wearied of hearing of the eccentricities of the members

of the club. It occurred to Adams that he was in luck today. He was expecting a little party of friends to

You would never have thought it, to look at him when engaged in his professional duties, but Adams had

built up a substantial reputation as a humorist in his circle by his imitations of certain members of the club;

and it was a matter of regret to him that he got so few opportunities nowadays of studying the absentminded

Lord Emsworth. It was rare luckhis lordship coming in today, evidently in his best form.

"Adams, who is the gentleman over by the windowthe gentleman in the brown suit?"

"I never saw a man take such large mouthfuls. Did you ever see a man take such large mouthfuls, Adams?"

Adams refrained from expressing an opinion, but inwardly he was thrilling with artistic fervor. Mr.

Simmonds eating, was one of his best imitations, though Mrs. Adams was inclined to object to it on the score

that it was a bad example for the children. To be privileged to witness Lord Emsworth watching and

criticizing Mr. Simmonds was to collect material for a doublebarreled character study that would assuredly

"That man," went on Lord Emsworth, "is digging his grave with his teeth. Digging his grave with his teeth,

"Quite right. Very sensible of you, Adamsvery sensible of you. Very sen What was I saying,

"Quite rightquite right! Never take large mouthfuls, Adams. Never gobble. Have you any children,

"I hope you teach them not to gobble. They pay for it in later life. Americans gobble when young and ruin

their digestions. My American friend, Mr. Peters, suffers terribly from indigestion."

Adams lowered his voice to a confidential murmur: "If you will pardon the liberty, your lordshipI saw it in

"About Miss Peters, your lordship, and the Honorable Frederick. May I be permitted to offer my

"Eh, Oh, yesthe engagement. Yes, yes, yes! Yesto be sure. Yes; very satisfactory in every respect. High

time he settled down and got a little sense. I put it to him straight. I cut off his allowance and made him stay

Lord Emsworth had his lucid moments; and in the one that occurred now it came home to him that he was not

talking to himself, as he had imagined, but confiding intimate family secrets to the head steward of his club's

diningroom. He checked himself abruptly, and with a slight decrease of amiability fixed his gaze on the bill

of fare and ordered cold beef. For an instant he felt resentful against Adams for luring him on to soliloquize;

but the next moment his whole mind was gripped by the fascinating spectacle of Mr. Simmonds dealing with

The cold beef had the effect of restoring his lordship to complete amiability, and when Adams in the course

of his wanderings again found himself at the table he was once more disposed for light conversation.

"Yes, your lordship, in the Mail. It had quite a long piece about it. And the Honorable Frederick's photograph

and the young lady's were in the Mirror. Mrs. Adams clipped them out and put them in an album, knowing

that your lordship was a member of ours. If I may say so, your lordshipa beautiful young lady."

"Devilish attractive, Adamsand devilish rich. Mr. Peters is a millionaire, Adams."

"Damme! They all seem to be millionaires in America. Wish I knew how they managed it. Honestly, I hope.

Mr. Peters is an honest man, but his digestion is bad. He used to bolt his food. You don't bolt your food, I

"The late Mr. Gladstone used to chew each mouthful thirtythree times. Deuced good notion if you aren't in a

"All right, bring me some. You know, Adams, what I admire about Americans is their resource. Mr. Peters

tells me that as a boy of eleven he earned twenty dollars a week selling mint to saloon keepers, As they call

publicans over there. Why they wanted mint I cannot recollect. Mr. Peters explained the reason to me and it

seemed highly plausible at the time; but I have forgotten it. Possibly for mint sauce. It impressed me, Adams.

Twenty dollars is four pounds. I never earned four pounds a week when I was a boy of eleven; in fact, I don't

think I ever earned four pounds a week. His story impressed me, Adams. Every man ought to have an earning

"Furniture. It is unlikely that I shall ever be compelled to paint furniture for a living, but it is a consolation to

me to feel that I could do so if called on. There is a fascination about painting furniture, Adams. I have

painted the whole of my bedroom at Blandings and am now engaged on the museum. You would be surprised

at the fascination of it. It suddenly came back to me the other day that I had been inwardly longing to mess

about with paints and things since I was a boy. They stopped me when I was a boy. I recollect my old father

"Never mind. Tell him to bring the bill instead. I remember that I have an appointment. I must not be late."

Lord Emsworth felt in the pocket indicated, and with the air of an inexpert conjurer whose trick has

succeeded contrary to his expectations produced a silverplated fork. He regarded it with surprise; then he

"Adams, I'm getting absentminded. Have you ever noticed any traces of absentmindedness in me before?"

"Well, it's deuced peculiar! I have no recollection whatsoever of placing that fork in my pocket . . . Adams, I

want a taxicab." He glanced round the room, as though expecting to locate one by the fireplace.

The Earl of Emsworth ambled benevolently to the door, leaving Adams with the feeling that his day had been

Wafted through the sunlit streets in his taxicab, the Earl of Emsworth smiled benevolently on London's

teeming millions. He was as completely happy as only a fluffyminded old man with excellent health and a

large income can be. Other people worried about all sorts of thingsstrikes, wars, suffragettes, the

diminishing birth rate, the growing materialism of the age, a score of similar subjects.

Worrying, indeed, seemed to be the twentiethcentury specialty. Lord Emsworth never worried. Nature had

equipped him with a mind so admirably constructed for withstanding the disagreeableness of life that if an

unpleasant thought entered it, it passed out again a moment later. Except for a few of life's fundamental facts,

such as that his check book was in the righthand top drawer of his desk; that the Honorable Freddie

Threepwood was a young idiot who required perpetual restraint; and that when in doubt about anything he

had merely to apply to his secretary, Rupert Baxterexcept for these basic things, he never remembered

His was a life that lacked, perhaps, the sublimer emotions which raise man to the level of the gods; but

undeniably it was an extremely happy one. He never experienced the thrill of ambition fulfilled; but, on the

other hand, he never knew the agony of ambition frustrated. His name, when he died, would not live forever

in England's annals; he was spared the pain of worrying about this by the fact that he had no desire to live

forever in England's annals. He was possibly as nearly contented as a human being could be in this century of

Indeed, as he bowled along in his cab and reflected that a really charming girl, not in the chorus of any West

End theater, a girl with plenty of money and excellent breeding, hadin a moment, doubtless, of mental

aberrationbecome engaged to be married to the Honorable Freddie, he told himself that life at last was

The cab drew up before a house gay with flowered window boxes. Lord Emsworth paid the driver and stood

on the sidewalk looking up at this cheerful house, trying to remember why on earth he had told the man to

A few moments' steady thought gave him the answer to the riddle. This was Mr. Peters' town house, and he

had come to it by invitation to look at Mr. Peters' collection of scarabs. To be sure! He remembered

Lord Emsworth smiled. Scarabs, of course. You couldn't collect Arabs. He wondered idly, as he rang the bell,

what scarabs might be; but he was interested in a fluffy kind of way in all forms of collecting, and he was

very pleased to have the opportunity of examining these objects; whatever they were. He rather thought they

There are men in this world who cannot rest; who are so constituted that they can only take their leisure in the

shape of a change of work. To this fairly numerous class belonged Mr. J. Preston Peters, father of Freddie's

Aline. And to this meritor defectis to be attributed his almost maniacal devotion to that rather

Five years before, a nervous breakdown had sent Mr. Peters to a New York specialist. The specialist had

grown rich on similar cases and his advice was always the same. He insisted on Mr. Peters taking up a hobby.

"What sort of a hobby?" inquired Mr. Peters irritably. His digestion had just begun to trouble him at the time,

"Now my hobby," said the specialist, "is the collecting of scarabs. Why should you not collect scarabs?"

"Because," said Mr. Peters, "I shouldn't know one if you brought it to me on a plate. What are scarabs?"

"Scarabs," said the specialist, warming to his subject, "the Egyptian hieroglyphs."

The specialist began to wonder whether it would not have been better to advise Mr. Peters to collect postage

"I will not collect beetles!" said Mr. Peters definitely. "They give me the Willies."

"Scarabs are Egyptian symbols in the form of beetles," the specialist hurried on. "The most common form of

scarab is in the shape of a ring. Scarabs were used for seals. They were also employed as beads or ornaments.

Some scarabaei bear inscriptions having reference to places; as, for instance: 'Memphis is mighty forever.'"

"There isn't any other except the one in Tennessee," said Mr. Peters patriotically.

The specialist owed the fact that he was a nerve doctor instead of a nerve patient to his habit of never arguing

"Perhaps," he said, "you would care to glance at my collection. It is in the next room."

That was the beginning of Mr. Peters' devotion to scarabs. At first he did his collecting without any love of it,

partly because he had to collect something or suffer, but principally because of a remark the specialist made

"How long would it take me to get together that number of the things?" Mr. Peters inquired, when, having

looked his fill on the dullest assortment of objects he remembered ever to have seen, he was preparing to take

The specialist was proud of his collection. "How long? To make a collection as large as mine? Years, Mr.

From that moment Mr. Peters brought to the collecting of scarabs the same furious energy which had given

him so many dollars and so much indigestion. He went after scarabs like a dog after rats. He scooped in

scarabs from the four corners of the earth, until at the end of a year he found himself possessed of what,

This marked the end of the first phase ofso to speakthe scarabaean side of his life. Collecting had

become a habit with him, but he was not yet a real enthusiast. It occurred to him that the time had arrived for

a certain amount of pruning and elimination. He called in an expert and bade him go through the collection

and weed out what he felicitously termed the "dead ones." The expert did his job thoroughly. When he had

"The rest," he explained, "are practically valueless. If you are thinking of making a collection that will have

any value in the eyes of archeologists I should advise you to throw them away. The remaining twelve are

"How do you meangood? Why is one of these things valuable and another so much punk? They all look

And then the expert talked to Mr. Peters for nearly two hours about the New Kingdom, the Middle Kingdom,

Osiris, Ammon, Mut, Bubastis, dynasties, Cheops, the Hyksos kings, cylinders, bezels, Amenophis III,

Queen Taia, the Princess Gilukhipa of Mitanni, the lake of Zarukhe, Naucratis, and the Book of the Dead. He

When he had finished, Mr. Peters thanked him and went to the bathroom, where he bathed his temples with

That talk changed J. Preston Peters from a supercilious scooperup of random scarabs to what might be

called a genuine scarab fan. It does not matter what a man collects; if Nature has given him the collector's

mind he will become a fanatic on the subject of whatever collection he sets out to make. Mr. Peters had

collected dollars; he began to collect scarabs with precisely the same enthusiasm. He would have become just

as enthusiastic about butterflies or old china if he had turned his thoughts to them; but it chanced that what he

had taken up was the collecting of the scarab, and it gripped him more and more as the years went on.

Gradually he came to love his scarabs with that love, surpassing the love of women, which only collectors

know. He became an expert on those curious relics of a dead civilization. For a time they ran neck and neck

in his thoughts with business. When he retired from business he was free to make them the master passion of

his life. He treasured each individual scarab in his collection as a miser treasures gold.

Collecting, as Mr. Peters did it, resembles the drink habit. It begins as an amusement and ends as an

obsession. He was gloating over his treasures when the maid announced Lord Emsworth.

A curious species of mutual tolerationit could hardly be dignified by the title of friendshiphad sprung up

between these two men, so opposite in practically every respect. Each regarded the other with that feeling of

perpetual amazement with which we encounter those whose whole viewpoint and mode of life is foreign to

The American's force and nervous energy fascinated Lord Emsworth. As for Mr. Peters, nothing like the earl

had ever happened to him before in a long and varied life. Each, in fact, was to the other a perpetual freak

show, with no charge for admission. And if anything had been needed to cement the alliance it would have

They differed in collecting as they did in everything else. Mr. Peters' collecting, as has been shown, was

keen, furious, concentrated; Lord Emsworth's had the amiable doggeringness that marked every branch of his

life. In the museum at Blandings Castle you could find every manner of valuable and valueless curio. There

was no central motive; the place was simply an amateur junk shop. Side by side with a Gutenberg Bible for

which rival collectors would have bidden without a limit, you would come on a bullet from the field of

Waterloo, one of a consignment of ten thousand shipped there for the use of tourists by a Birmingham firm.

"My dear Mr. Peters," said Lord Emsworth sunnily, advancing into the room, "I trust I am not unpunctual., I

"I'd have asked you to lunch here," said Mr. Peters, "but you know how it is with me . . . I've promised the

doctor I'll give those nuts and grasses of his a fair trial, and I can do it pretty well when I'm alone with Aline;

but to have to sit by and see somebody else eating real food would be trying me too high."

Lord Emsworth murmured sympathetically. The other's digestive tribulations touched a ready chord. An

Lord Emsworth adjusted his glasses, and the mild smile disappeared from his face, to be succeeded by a set

look. A stage director of a movingpicture firm would have recognized the look. Lord Emsworth was

registering interestinterest which he perceived from the first instant would have to be completely

simulated; for instinct told him, as Mr. Peters began to talk, that he was about to be bored as he had seldom

Mr. Peters, in his character of showman, threw himself into his work with even more than his customary

energy. His flow of speech never faltered. He spoke of the New Kingdom, the Middle Kingdom, Osiris and

Ammon; waxed eloquent concerning Mut, Bubastis, Cheops, the Hyksos kings, cylinders, bezels and

Amenophis III; and became at times almost lyrical when touching on Queen Taia, the Princess Gilukhipa of

As one who, brooding on love or running over business projects in his mind, walks briskly into a lamppost

and comes back to the realities of life with a sense of jarring shock, Lord Emsworth started, blinked and

returned to consciousness. Far away his mind had beenseventy miles awayin the pleasant hothouses and

shady garden walks of Blandings Castle. He came back to London to find that his host, with a mingled air of

He took it and looked at it. That, apparently, was what he was meant to do. So far, all was well.

"Ah!" he saidthat blessed word; covering everything! He repeated it, pleased at his ready resource.

Lord Emsworth began to feel like a hunted stag. He could not go on saying "Ah!" indefinitely; yet what else

Strictly speaking, Lord Emsworth thought nothing of it; and he was wondering how to veil this opinion in

diplomatic words, when the providence that looks after all good men saved him by causing a knock at the

"Certainly," said Lord Emsworth gratefully. "Certainly, certainly, certainly! By all means."

The door closed behind Mr. Peters. Lord Emsworth was alone. For some moments he stood where he had

been left, a figure with small signs of alertness about it. But Mr. Peters did not return immediately. The

booming of his voice came faintly from some distant region. Lord Emsworth strolled to the window and

The sun still shone brightly on the quiet street. Across the road were trees. Lord Emsworth was fond of trees;

he looked at these approvingly. Then round the corner came a vagrom man, wheeling flowers in a barrow.

Flowers! Lord Emsworth's mind shot back to Blandings like a homing pigeon. Flowers! Had he or had he not

given Head Gardener Thorne adequate instructions as to what to do with those hydrangeas? Assuming that he

had not, was Thorne to be depended on to do the right thing by them by the light of his own intelligence?

He was aware of some curious little object in his hand. He accorded it a momentary inspection. It had no

message for him. It was probably something; but he could not remember what. He put it in his pocket and

At about the hour when the Earl of Emsworth was driving to keep his appointment with Mr. Peters, a party of

two sat at a corner table at Simpson's Restaurant, in the Strand. One of the two was a small, pretty,

goodnaturedlooking girl of about twenty; the other, a thickset young man, with a wiry crop of redbrown

hair and an expression of mingled devotion and determination. The girl was Aline Peters; the young man's

name was George Emerson. He, also, was an American, a rising member in a New York law firm. He had a

There are all sorts of restaurants in London, from the restaurant which makes you fancy you are in Paris to

the restaurant which makes you wish you were. There are palaces in Piccadilly, quaint lethal chambers in

Soho, and strange food factories in Oxford Street and Tottenham Court Road. There are restaurants which

specialize in ptomaine and restaurants which specialize in sinister vegetable messes. But there is only one

Simpson's, in the Strand, is unique. Here, if he wishes, the Briton may for the small sum of half a dollar

stupefy himself with food. The god of fatted plenty has the place under his protection. Its keynote is solid

It is a pleasant, soothing, hearty placea restful temple of food. No strident orchestra forces the diner to bolt

beef in ragtime. No long central aisle distracts his attention with its stream of new arrivals. There he sits,

alone with his food, while whiterobed priests, wheeling their smoking trucks, move to and fro, ever ready

All round the roomsome at small tables, some at large tables the worshipers sit, in their eyes that

resolute, concentrated look which is the peculiar property of the British luncher, exPresident Roosevelt's

Conversation does not flourish at Simpson's. Only two of all those present on this occasion showed any

For answer, Aline picked up from the floor beside her an illustrated paper and, having opened it at a page

George Emerson glanced at it disdainfully. There were two photographs on the page. One was of Aline; the

other of a heavy, loutishlooking youth, who wore that expression of pained glassiness which Young

Under one photograph were printed the words: "Miss Aline Peters, who is to marry the Honorable Frederick

Threepwood in June"; under the other. "The Honorable Frederick Threepwood, who is to marry Miss Aline

Peters in June." Above the photographs was the legend: "Forthcoming International Wedding. Son of the Earl

of Emsworth to marry American heiress." In one corner of the picture a Cupid, draped in the Stars and

Stripes, aimed his bow at the gentleman; in the other another Cupid, clad in a natty Union Jack, was drawing

The subeditor had done his work well. He had not been ambiguous. What he intended to convey to the reader

was that Miss Aline Peters, of America, was going to marry the Honorable Frederick Threepwood, son of the

George Emerson, however, was not an average reader. The subeditor's work did not impress him.

"You mustn't believe everything you see in the papers," he said. "What are the stout children in the onepiece

"Those are Cupids, George, aiming at us with their little bow a pretty and original idea."

Aline placidly devoured a fried potato. "You're simply trying to make me angry," she said; "and I call it very

mean of you. You know perfectly well how fatal it is to get angry at meals. It was eating while he was in a

bad temper that ruined father's digestion. George, that nice, fat carver is wheeling his truck this way. Flag him

"This," he said, "is Englandthis restaurant, I mean. You don't need to go any farther. Just take a good look

at this place and you have seen the whole country and can go home again. You may judge a country by its

meals. A people with imagination will eat with imagination. Look at the French; look at ourselves, The

Englishman loathes imagination. He goes to a place like this and says: 'Don't bother me to think. Here's half a

dollar. Give me foodany sort of fooduntil I tell you to stop.' And that's the principle on which he lives

"If that was meant to apply to Freddie and me, I think you're very rude. Do you mean that any girl would

George Emerson showed a trace of confusion. Being honest with himself, he had to admit that he did not

exactly know what he did meanif he meant anything. That, he felt rather bitterly, was the worst of Aline.

She would never let a fellow's good things go purely as good things; she probed and questioned and spoiled

the whole effect. He was quite sure that when he began to speak he had meant something, but what it was

escaped him for the moment. He had been urged to the homily by the fact that at a neighboring table he had

caught sight of a stout young Briton, with a red face, who reminded him of the Honorable Frederick

"Do you see that fellow in the gray suitI think he has been sleeping in itat the table on your right? Look

at the stodgy face. See the glassy eye. If that man sandbagged your Freddie and tied him up somewhere, and

turned up at the church instead of him, can you honestly tell me you would know the difference? Come, now,

wouldn't you simply say, 'Why, Freddie, how natural you look!' and go through the ceremony without a

"My dear girl, there isn't a man in this restaurant under the age of thirty who isn't just like Freddie. All

"Yes, I do. And, what is more, he expressly asked me to call him Freddie. 'Oh, dash it, old top, don't keep on

"Not at all. We met last night at the National Sporting Club. Porky Jones was going twenty rounds with Eddie

Flynn. I offered to give three to one on Eddie. Freddie, who was sitting next to me, took me in fivers. And if

you want any further proof of your young man's pinheadedness; mark that! A child could have seen that

Eddie had him going. Eddie comes from PittsburghGod bless it! My own home town!"

"You don't listenI told you he was from Pittsburgh. And afterward Threepwood chummed up with me and

told me that to real pals like me he was Freddie. I was a real pal, as I understood it, because I would have to

wait for my money. The fact was, he explained, his old governor had cut off his bally allowance."

"You're simply trying to poison my mind against him; and I don't think it's very nice of you, George."

"What do you meanpoison your mind? I'm not poisoning your mind; I'm simply telling you a few things

about him. You know perfectly well that you don't love him, and that you aren't going to marry himand

"If you can look me straight in the eyes and tell me you do, I will drop the whole thing and put on a little

"And all the while you're talking you're letting my carver get away," said Aline.

George called to the willing priest, who steered his truck toward them. Aline directed his dissection of the

"It all comes from America," said George patriotically. "And, anyway, can't you be a bit more spiritual? I

"If you were in my position, George, you wouldn't want to talk about anything else. It's doing him a world of

good, poor dear; but there are times when I'm sorry Father ever started this foodreform thing. You don't

know what it means for a healthy young girl to try and support life on nuts and grasses."

"And why should you?" broke out Emerson. "I'll tell you what it is, Alineyou are perfectly absurd about

"Very well, then, I will. I'll give it to you straight. You know quite well that you have let your father bully

you since you were in short frocks. I don't say it is your fault or his fault, or anybody's fault; I just state it as a

fact. It's temperament, I suppose. You are yielding and he is aggressive; and he has taken advantage of it.

"We now come to this idiotic Freddiemarriage business. Your father has forced you into that. It's all very

well to say that you are a free agent and that fathers don't coerce their daughters nowadays. The trouble is that

your father does. You let him do what he likes with you. He has got you hypnotized; and you won't break

away from this Freddie foolishness because you can't find the nerve. I'm going to help you find the nerve. I'm

"Freddie invited me last night. I think it was done by way of interest on the money he owed me; but he did it

"But, George, my dear boy, do you never read the etiquette books and the hints in the Sunday papers on how

to be the perfect gentleman? Don't you know you can't be a man's guest and take advantage of his hospitality

A dreamy look came into Aline's eyes. "I wonder what it feels like, being a countess," she said.

"You will never know." George looked at her pityingly. "My poor girl," he said, "have you been lured into

this engagement in the belief that popeyed Frederick, the Idiot Child, is going to be an earl some day? You

have been stung! Freddie is not the heir. His older brother, Lord Bosham, is as fit as a prizefighter and has

three healthy sons. Freddie has about as much chance of getting the title as I have."

"George, your education has been sadly neglected. Don't you know that the heir to the title always goes on a

yachting cruise, with his whole family, and gets drownedand the children too? It happens in every English

"Listen, Aline! Let us get this thing straight: I have been in love with you since I wore knickerbockers. I

"But sincerely. Last year, when I found that you had gone to England, I came on after you as soon as the firm

"I like the way you stand up for Freddie. So many men in your position might say horrid things about him."

"Oh, I've nothing against Freddie. He is practically an imbecile and I don't like his face; outside of that he's

all right. But you will be glad later that you did not marry him. You are much too real a person. What a wife

"I am alluding at the moment not to Freddie but to myself. I shall come home tired out. Maybe things will

have gone wrong downtown. I shall be fagged, disheartened. And then you will come with your cool, white

Aline shook her head. "It's no good, George. Really, you had better realize it. I'm very fond of you, but we are

"You are too overwhelmingtoo much like a bomb. I think you must be one of the supermen one reads

about. You would want your own way and nothing but your own way. Now, Freddie will roll through hoops

and sham dead, and we shall be the happiest pair in the world. I am much too placid and mild to make you

happy. You want somebody who would stand up to yousomebody like Joan Valentine."

"She is a girl who was at school with me. We were the greatest chumsat least, I worshiped her and would

have done anything for her; and I think she liked me. Then we lost touch with one another and didn't meet for

years. I met her on the street yesterday, and she is just the same. She has been through the most awful times.

Her father was quite rich; he died suddenly while he and Joan were in Paris, and she found that he hadn't left

a cent. He had been living right up to his income all the time. His life wasn't even insured. She came to

London; and, so far as I could make out from the short talk we had, she has done pretty nearly everything

since we last met. She worked in a shop and went on the stage, and all sorts of things. Isn't it awful, George!"

"Thanks! My idea of marriage is not a perpetual scrap. My notion of a wife is something cozy and

"Dear old George! Now pay the check and get me a taxi. I've endless things to do at home. If Freddie is in

town I suppose he will be calling to see me. Who is Freddie, do you ask? Freddie is my fiance, George. My

Emerson shook his head resignedly. "Curious how you cling to that Freddie idea. Never mind! I'll come down

to Blandings on Friday and we shall see what happens. Bear in mind the broad fact that you and I are going to

It was Aline Peters who had to bear the brunt of her father's mental agony when he discovered, shortly after

Lord Emsworth had left him, that the gem of his collection of scarabs had done the same. It is always the

"Don't sit there saying 'Father!' What's the use of saying 'Father!'? Do you think it is going to helpyour

saying 'Father!'? I'd rather the old pirate had taken the house and lot than that scarab. He knows what's what!

Trust him to walk off with the pick of the whole bunch! I did think I could leave the father of the man who's

going to marry my daughter for a second alone with the things. There's no morality among collectorsnone!

I'd trust a syndicate of Jesse James, Captain Kidd and Dick Turpin sooner than I would a collector. My

Cheops of the Fourth Dynasty! I wouldn't have lost it for five thousand dollars!"

"But, father, couldn't you write him a letter, asking for it back? He's such a nice old man! I'm sure he didn't

"Didn't mean to steal it! What do you think he meant to dotake it away and keep it safe for me for fear I

should lose it? Didn't mean to steal it! Bet you he's wellknown in society as a kleptomaniac. Bet you that

when his name is announced his friends pick up their spoons and send in a hurry call to police headquarters

for a squad to come and see that he doesn't sneak the front door. Of course he meant to steal it! He has a

museum of his own down in the country. My Cheops is going to lend tone to that. I'd give five thousand

dollars to get it back. If there's a man in this country with the spirit to break into that castle and steal that

scarab and hand it back to me, there's five thousand waiting for him right here; and if he wants to he can

"But, father, why can't you simply go to him and say it's yours and that you must have it back?"

"And have him come back at me by calling off this engagement of yours? Not if I know it! You can't go

about the place charging a man with theft and ask him to go on being willing to have his son marry your

daughter, can you? The slightest suggestion that I thought he had stolen this scarab and he would do the

Proud Old English Aristocrat and end everything. He's in the strongest position a thief has ever been in. You

Years of indigestion had made Mr. Peters' temper, even when in a normal mood, perfectly impossible; in a

crisis like this it ran amuck. He vented it on Aline because he had always vented his irritabilities on Aline;

because the fact of her sweet, gentle disposition, combined with the fact of their relationship, made her the

ideal person to receive the overflow of his black moods. While his wife had lived he had bullied her. On her

Aline did not cry, because she was not a girl who was given to tears; but, for all her placid good temper, she

was wounded. She was a girl who liked everything in the world to run smoothly and easily, and these scenes

with her father always depressed her. She took advantage of a lull in Mr. Peters' flow of words and slipped

Her cheerfulness had received a shock. She wanted sympathy. She wanted comforting. For a moment she

considered George Emerson in the role of comforter; but there were objections to George in this character.

Aline was accustomed to tease and chat with George, but at heart she was a little afraid of him; and instinct

told her that, as comforter, he would be too volcanic and supermanly for a girl who was engaged to marry

another man in June. George, as comforter, would be far too prone to trust to action rather than to the

soothing power of the spoken word. George's idea of healing the wound, she felt, would be to push her into a

No; she would not go to George. To whom, then? The vision of Joan Valentine came to herof Joan as she

had seen her yesterday, strong, cheerful, selfreliant, bearing herself, in spite of adversity, with a valiant

jauntiness. Yes; she would go and see Joan. She put on her hat and stole from the house.

Curiously enough, only a quarter of an hour before, R. Jones had set out with exactly the same object in view.

At almost exactly the hour when Aline Peters get off to visit her friend, Miss Valentine, three men sat in the

They were variously occupied. In the big chair nearest the door the Honorable Frederick

ThreepwoodFreddie to palswas reading. Next to him sat a young man whose eyes, glittering through

rimless spectacles, were concentrated on the upturned faces of several neat rows of playing cardsRupert

Baxter, Lord Emsworth's invaluable secretary, had no vices, but he sometimes relaxed his busy brain with a

game of solitaire. Beyond Baxter, a cigar in his mouth and a weak highball at his side, the Earl of Emsworth

The book the Honorable Freddie was reading was a small papercovered book. Its cover was decorated with

a color scheme in red, black and yellow, depicting a tense moment in the lives of a man with a black beard, a

man with a yellow beard, a man without any beard at all, and a young woman who, at first sight, appeared to

be all eyes and hair. The man with the black beard, to gain some private end, had tied this young woman with

ropes to a complicated system of machinery, mostly wheels and pulleys. The man with the yellow beard was

in the act of pushing or pulling a lever. The beardless man, protruding through a trapdoor in the floor, was

Above it, in a meandering scroll across the page, was: "Gridley Quayle, Investigator. The Adventure of the

The Honorable Freddie did not so much read as gulp the adventure of the Secret Six. His face was crimson

This is peculiarly an age in which each of us may, if we do but search diligently, find the literature suited to

his mental powers. Grave and earnest men, at Eton and elsewhere, had tried Freddie Threepwood with Greek,

with Latin and with English; and the sheeplike stolidity with which he declined to be interested in the

masterpieces of all three tongues had left them with the conviction that he would never read anything.

And then, years afterward, he had suddenly blossomed out as a studentonly, it is true, a student of the

Adventures of Gridley Quayle; but still a student. His was a dull life and Gridley Quayle was the only person

who brought romance into it. Existence for the Honorable Freddie was simply a sort of desert, punctuated

with monthly oases in the shape of new Quayle adventures. It was his ambition to meet the man who wrote

Lord Emsworth sat and smoked, and sipped and smoked again, at peace with all the world. His mind was as

nearly a blank as it is possible for the human mind to be. The hand that had not the task of holding the cigar

was at rest in his trousers pocket. The fingers of it fumbled idly with a small, hard object.

Gradually it filtered into his lordship's mind that this small, hard object was not familiar. It was something

newsomething that was neither his keys nor his pencil; nor was it his small change. He yielded to a

growing curiosity and drew it out. He examined it. It was a little something, rather like a fossilized beetle. It

The Honorable Freddie paid no attention to the remark. He was now at the very crest of his story, when every

line intensified the thrill. Incident was succeeding incident. The Secret Six were here, there and everywhere,

Annabel, the heroine, was having a perfectly rotten timekidnapped, and imprisoned every few minutes.

Gridley Quayle, hot on the scent, was covering somebody or other with his revolver almost continuously.

Freddie Threepwood had no time for chatting with his father. Not so Rupert Baxter. Chatting with Lord

Emsworth was one of the things for which he received his salary. He looked up from his cards.

"I have found a curious object in my pocket, Baxter. I was wondering how it got there."

He handed the thing to his secretary. Rupert Baxter's eyes lit up with sudden enthusiasm. He gasped.

"It is a scarab, Lord Emsworth; and unless I am mistakenand I think I may claim to be something of an

"It is, indeed. If it is not a rude question, how much did you give for it, Lord Emsworth? It must have been

the gem of somebody's collection. Was there a sale at Christie's this afternoon?"

Lord Emsworth shook his head. "I did not get it at Christie's, for I recollect that I had an important

engagement which prevented my going to Christie's. To be sure; yesI had promised to call on Mr. Peters

and examine his collection ofNow I wonder what it was that Mr. Peters said he collected!"

"Scarabs! You are quite right, Baxter. Now that I recall the episode, this is a scarab; and Mr. Peters gave it to

"Yes. The whole scene comes back to me. Mr. Peters, after telling me a great many exceedingly interesting

things about scarabs, which I regret to say I cannot remember, gave me this. And you say it is really valuable,

"Bless my soul!" Lord Emsworth beamed. "This is extremely interesting, Baxter. One has heard so much of

the princely hospitality of Americans. How exceedingly kind of Mr. Peters! I shall certainly treasure it,

though I must confess that from a purely spectacular standpoint it leaves me a little cold. However, I must not

"Time to dress for dinner? I had no idea it was so late. Baxter, you will be going past the museum door. Will

you be a good fellow and place this among the exhibits? You will know what to do with it better than I. I

always think of you as the curator of my little collection, Baxterhaha! Mind how you step when you are

in the museum. I was painting a chair there yesterday and I think I left the paint pot on the floor."

"Get up, Frederick, and go and dress, for dinner. What is that trash you are reading?"

The Honorable Freddie came out of his book much as a sleepwalker wakeswith a sense of having been

"Make haste! Beach rang the gong five minutes ago. What is that you are reading?"

He turned to the door, and the benevolent expression once more wandered athwart his face.

"Extremely kind of Mr. Peters!" he said. "Really, there is something almost Oriental in the lavish generosity

It had taken R. Jones just six hours to discover Joan Valentine's address. That it had not taken him longer is a

proof of his energy and of the excellence of his system of obtaining information; but R. Jones, when he

considered it worth his while, could be extremely energetic, and he was a past master at the art of finding out

He poured himself out of his cab and rang the bell of Number Seven. A disheveled maid answered the ring.

He wrote the words on the card and devoted the brief period of waiting to a careful scrutiny of his

surroundings. He looked out into the court and he looked as far as he could down the dingy passage; and the

"If this girl is the sort of girl who would hold up Freddie's letters," he mused, "she wouldn't be living in a

place like this. If she were on the make she would have more money than she evidently possesses. Therefore,

she is not on the make; and I am prepared to bet that she destroyed the letters as fast as she got them."

Those were, roughly, the thoughts of R. Jones as he stood in the doorway of Number Seven; and they were

important thoughts inasmuch as they determined his attitude toward Joan in the approaching interview. He

perceived that this matter must be handled delicatelythat he must be very much the gentleman. It would be

The maid returned and directed him to Joan's room with a brief word and a sweeping gesture.

R. Jones trudged laboriously up the short flight of stairs. It was very dark on the stairs and he stumbled.

Eventually, however, light came to him through an open door. Looking in, he saw a girl standing at the table.

She had an air of expectation; so he deduced that he had reached his journey's end.

One glance at the girl convinced R. Jones that he had been right. Circumstances had made him a rapid judge

of character, for in the profession of living by one's wits in a large city the first principle of offense and

Joan Valentine was a tall girl with wheatgold hair and eyes as brightly blue as a November sky when the

sun is shining on a frosty world. There was in them a little of November's cold glitter, too, for Joan had been

through much in the last few years; and experience, even though it does not harden, erects a defensive barrier

Her eyes were eyes that looked straight and challenged. They could thaw to the satin blue of the

Mediterranean Sea, where it purrs about the little villages of Southern France; but they did not thaw for

everybody. She looked what she wasa girl of action; a girl whom life had made both reckless and

Her eyes, as they met R. Jones' now, were cold and challenging. She, too, had learned the trick of swift

diagnosis of character, and what she saw of R. Jones in that first glance did not impress her favorably.

"Yes," said R. Jones. "Yes. . . . Miss Valentine, may I begin by begging you to realize that I have no intention

Joan's eyebrows rose. For an instant she did her visitor the injustice of suspecting that he had been dining too

"Let me explain: I have come here," R. Jones went on, getting more gentlemanly every moment, "on a very

distasteful errand, to oblige a friend. Will you bear in mind that whatever I say is said entirely on his behalf?"

By this time Joan had abandoned the idea that this stout person was a lifeinsurance tout, and was inclining

"You never met him, Miss Valentine; but when you were in the chorus at the Piccadilly Theatre, I believe, he

"Well, you see, Miss Valentine, the Honorable Frederick Threepwood is about to be married; and he thought

that possibly, on the whole, it would be better that the lettersand poetrywhich he wrote you were

Not all R. Jones' gentlemanlinessand during this speech he diffused it like a powerful scent in waves about

Joan rose and R. Jones followed her example. The interview was plainly at an end.

"Exactlyexactly; precisely! I assured Threepwood that my visit here would be a mere formality. I was

quite sure you had no intention whatever of worrying him. I may tell him definitely, then, that you have

The closing of the door behind him left him in total darkness, but he hardly liked to return and ask Joan to

reopen it in order to light him on his way. He was glad to be out of her presence. He was used to being looked

at in an unfriendly way by his fellows, but there had been something in Joan's eyes that had curiously

R. Jones groped his way down, relieved that all was over and had ended well. He believed what she had told

him, and he could conscientiously assure Freddie that the prospect of his sharing the fate of poor old Percy

was nonexistent. It is true that he proposed to add in his report that the destruction of the letters had been

purchased with difficulty, at a cost of just five hundred pounds; but that was a mere business formality.

He had almost reached the last step when there was a ring at the front door. With what he was afterward wont

to call an inspiration, he retreated with unusual nimbleness until he had almost reached Joan's door again.

"I wish you would go up and tell her that I want to see her. Say it's Miss PetersMiss Aline Peters."

The banister shook beneath R. Jones' sudden clutch. For a moment he felt almost faint. Then he began to

think swiftly. A great light had dawned on him, and the thought outstanding in his mind was that never again

would he trust a man or woman on the evidence of his senses. He could have sworn that this Valentine girl

was on the level. He had been perfectly satisfied with her statement that she had destroyed the letters. And all

the while she had been playing as deep a game as he had come across in the whole course of his professional

It was obvious now what her game was. Previous to his visit she had arranged a meeting with Freddie's

fiancee, with the view of opening negotiations for the sale of the letters. She had held him, Jones, at arm's

length because she was going to sell the letters to whoever would pay the best price. But for the accident of

his happening to be here when Miss Peters arrived, Freddie and his fiancee would have been bidding against

each other and raising each other's price. He had worked the same game himself a dozen times, and he

resented the entry of female competition into what he regarded as essentially a male field of enterprise.

As the maid stumped up the stairs he continued his retreat. He heard Joan's door open, and the stream of light

The disheveled maid was no polished mistress of ceremonies. She leaned down into the void and hailed

"No. Do come in! I was only surprised to see you so late. I didn't know you paid calls at this hour. Is anything

The door closed, the maid retired to the depths, and R. Jones stole cautiously down again. He was feeling

absolutely bewildered. Apparently his deductions, his second thoughts, had been all wrong, and Joan was,

after all, the honest person he had imagined at first sight. Those two girls had talked to each other as though

they were old friends; as though they had known each other all their lives. That was the thing which

With the tread of a red Indian, he approached the door and put his ear to it. He found he could hear quite

Aline, meantime, inside the room, had begun to draw comfort from Joan's very appearance, she looked so

Joan's eyes had changed the expression they had contained during the recent interview. They were soft now,

with a softness that was half compassionate, half contemptuous. It is the compensation which life gives to

those whom it has handled roughly in order that they shall be able to regard with a certain contempt the small

troubles of the sheltered. Joan remembered Aline of old, and knew her for a perennial victim of small

troubles. Even in their schooldays she had always needed to be looked after and comforted. Her sweet temper

had seemed to invite the minor slings and arrows of fortune. Aline was a girl who inspired protectiveness in a

certain type of her fellow human beings. It was this quality in her that kept George Emerson awake at nights;

Joan, for whom life was a constant struggle to keep the wolf within a reasonable distance from the door, and

who counted that day happy on which she saw her way clear to paying her weekly rent and possibly having a

trifle over for some coveted hat or pair of shoes, could not help feeling, as she looked at Aline, that her own

troubles were as nothing, and that the immediate need of the moment was to pet and comfort her friend. Her

knowledge of Aline told her the probable tragedy was that she had lost a brooch or had been spoken to

crossly by somebody; but it also told her that such tragedies bulked very large on Aline's horizon.

Trouble, after all, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder; and Aline was far less able to endure with

fortitude the loss of a brooch than she herself to bear the loss of a position the emoluments of which meant

"You're worried about something," she said. "Sit down and tell me all about it."

Aline sat down and looked about her at the shabby room. By that curious process of the human mind which

makes the spectacle of another's misfortune a palliative for one's own, she was feeling oddly comforted

already. Her thoughts were not definite and she could not analyze them; but what they amounted to was that,

though it was an unpleasant thing to be bullied by a dyspeptic father, the world manifestly held worse

tribulations, which her father's other outstanding quality, besides dyspepsiawealth, to witenabled her to

It was at this point the dim beginnings of philosophy began to invade her mind. The thing resolved itself

almost into an equation. If father had not had indigestion he would not have bullied her. But, if father had not

made a fortune he would not have had indigestion. Therefore, if father had not made a fortune he would not

have bullied her. Practically, in fact, if father did not bully her he would not be rich. And if he were not

She took in the faded carpet, the stained wall paper and the soiled curtains with a comprehensive glance. It

"It's nothing at all; really," she said. "I think I've been making rather a fuss about very little."

Joan was relieved. The struggling life breeds moods of depression, and such a mood had come to her just

before Aline's arrival. Life, at that moment, had seemed to stretch before her like a dusty, weary road, without

hope. She was sick of fighting. She wanted money and ease, and a surcease from this perpetual race with the

weekly bills. The mood had been the outcome partly of R. Jones' gentlemanlyveiled insinuations, but still

Mr. Peters might be unguarded in his speech when conversing with his daughterhe might play the tyrant

toward her in many ways; but he did not stint her in the matter of dress allowance, and, on the occasion when

she met Joan, Aline had been wearing so Parisian a hat and a tailormade suit of such obviously expensive

simplicity that greeneyed envy had almost spoiled Joan's pleasure at meeting this friend of her opulent days.

She had suppressed the envy, and it had revenged itself by assaulting her afresh in the form of the worst fit of

She had been loyally ready to sink her depression in order to alleviate Aline's, but it was a distinct relief to

Joan cast her mind back to the days of school and placed father as a rather irritable person, vaguely reputed to

Joan's depression lifted slightly. She had forgotten, in the stunning anguish of the sudden spectacle of that hat

and that tailormade suit, that Paris hats and hundredandtwentydollar suits not infrequently had what the

vulgar term a string attached to them. After all, she was independent. She might have to murder her beauty

with hats and frocks that had never been nearer Paris than the Tottenham Court Road; but at least no one

With a prefatory remark that it was all so ridiculous, really, Aline embarked on the narrative of the

Joan heard her out, checking a strong disposition to giggle. Her viewpoint was that of the average person, and

the average person cannot see the importance of the scarab in the scheme of things. The opinion she formed

of Mr. Peters was of his being an eccentric old gentleman, making a great todo about nothing at all. Losses

had to have a concrete value before they could impress Joan. It was beyond her to grasp that Mr. Peters

would sooner have lost a diamond necklace, if he had happened to possess one, than his Cheops of the Fourth

It was not until Aline, having concluded her tale, added one more strand to it that she found herself treating

"Father says he would give five thousand dollars to anyone who would get it back for him."

The whole story took on a different complexion for Joan. Money talks. Mr. Peters' words might have been

merely the rhetorical outburst of a heated moment; but, even discounting them, there seemed to remain a

certain exciting substratum. A man who shouts that he will give five thousand dollars for a thing may very

well mean he will give five hundred, and Joan's finances were perpetually in a condition which makes five

"It isn't really very much to father, you know. He gave away a hundred thousand a year ago to a university."

"You don't understand how father loves his scarabs. Since he retired from business, he has been simply

wrapped up in them. You know collectors are like that. You read in the papers about men giving all sorts of

Outside the door R. Jones, his ear close to the panel, drank in all these things greedily. He would have been

willing to remain in that attitude indefinitely in return for this kind of special information; but just as Aline

said these words a door opened on the floor above, and somebody came out, whistling, and began to descend

R. Jones stood not on the order of his going. He was down in the hall and fumbling with the handle of the

front door with an agility of which few casual observers of his dimensions would have deemed him capable.

The next moment he was out in the street, walking calmly toward Leicester Square, pondering over what he

Much of R. Jones' substantial annual income was derived from pondering over what he had heard.

In the room Joan was looking at Aline with the distended eyes of one who sees visions or has inspirations.

"Then you mean to say that your father would really give five thousand dollars to anyone who got this thing

Aline stared at her helplessly. In their schooldays, Joan had always swept her off her feet. Then, she had

always had the feeling that with Joan nothing was impossible. Heroine worship, like hero worship, dies hard.

She looked at Joan now with the stricken sensation of one who has inadvertently set powerful machinery in

"My dear child, it's perfectly simple. This earl of yours has taken the thing off to his castle, like a brigand.

You say you are going down there on Friday for a visit. All you have to do is to take me along with you, and

"Welldon't you see?if you went down there as a friend of mine and were caught stealing the scarab,

there would be just the trouble father wants to avoidabout my engagement, you see, and so on."

"Not think any more about it! My child, do you even faintly realize what five thousand dollarsor a quarter

of five thousand dollarsmeans to me? I would do anything for itanything! And there's the fun of it. I

don't suppose you can realize that, either. I want a change. I've been grubbing away here on nothing a week

for years, and it's time I had a vacation. There must be a way by which you could get me downWhy, of

course! Why didn't I think of it before! You shall take me on Friday as your lady's maid!"

Joan advanced on her where she sat and grasped her firmly by the shoulders. Her face was inflexible.

"Aline, my pet, it's no good arguing. You might just as well argue with a wolf on the trail of a fat Russian

peasant. I need that money. I need it in my business. I need it worse than anybody has ever needed anything.

And I'm going to have it! From now on, until further notice, I am your lady's maid. You can give your present

Aline met her eyes waveringly. The spirit of the old schooldays, when nothing was impossible where Joan

was concerned, had her in its grip. Moreover, the excitement of the scheme began to attract her.

"But, Joan," she said, "you know it's simply ridiculous. You could never pass as a lady's maid. The other

servants would find you out. I expect there are all sorts of things a lady's maid has got to do and not do."

"My dear Aline, I know them all. You can't stump me on belowstairs etiquette. I've been a lady's maid!"

"It's quite truethree years ago, when I was more than usually impecunious. The wolf was glued to the door

"I havepretty nearly. It's all right for you idle rich, Alineyou can sit still and contemplate life; but we

"You know, you always could make me do anything you wanted in the old days, Joan. I suppose I have got to

"Absolutely settled! Oh, Aline, there's one thing you must remember: Don't call me Joan when I'm down at

She paused. The recollection of the Honorable Freddie had come to her. No; Valentine would not do!

"No; not Valentine," she went on"it's too jaunty. I used it once years ago, but it never sounded just right. I

want something more respectable, more suited to my position. Can't you suggest something?"

"Simpson! It's exactly right. You must practice it. Simpson! Say it kindly and yet distantly, as though I were a

"Nothing," said Joan. "I was just thinking of something. There's a young man who lives on the floor above

this, and I was lecturing him yesterday on enterprise. I told him to go and find something exciting to do. I

wonder what he would say if he knew how thoroughly I am going to practice what I preach!"

In the morning following Aline's visit to Joan Valentine, Ashe sat in his room, the Morning Post on the table

before him. The heady influence of Joan had not yet ceased to work within him; and he proposed, in

pursuance of his promise to her, to go carefully through the columns of advertisements, however pessimistic

His first glance assured him that the vast fortunes of the philanthropists, whose acquaintance he had already

made in print, were not yet exhausted. Brian MacNeill still dangled his gold before the public; so did Angus

Bruce; so did Duncan Macfarlane and Wallace Mackintosh and Donald MacNab. They still had the money

Ashe was reading listlessly down the column when, from the mass of advertisements, one of an unusual sort

WANTED: Young Man of good appearance, who is poor and reckless, to undertake a delicate and dangerous

enterprise. Good pay for the right man. Apply between the hours of ten and twelve at offices of Mainprice,

And as he read it, half past ten struck on the little clock on his mantelpiece. It was probably this fact that

decided Ashe. If he had been compelled to postpone his visit to the offices of Messrs. Mainprice, Mainprice

Boole until the afternoon, it is possible that barriers of laziness might have reared themselves in the path of

adventure; for Ashe, an adventurer at heart, was also uncommonly lazy. As it was, however, he could make

Pausing but to put on his shoes, and having satisfied himself by a glance in the mirror that his appearance was

reasonably good, he seized his hat, shot out of the narrow mouth of Arundel Street like a shell, and scrambled

into a taxicab, with the feeling thatshort of murderthey could not make it too delicate and dangerous for

He was conscious of strange thrills. This, he told himself, was the only possible mode of life with spring in

the air. He had always been partial to those historical novels in which the characters are perpetually vaulting

on chargers and riding across country on perilous errands. This leaping into taxicabs to answer stimulating

advertisements in the Morning Post was very much the same sort of thing. It was with fine fervor animating

him that he entered the gloomy offices of Mainprice, Mainprice Boole. His brain was afire and he felt ready

"I have come in ans" he began, to the diminutive office boy, who seemed to be the nearest thing visible to

"Siddown. Gottatakeyerturn," said the office boy; and for the first time Ashe perceived that the anteroom in

This, in the circumstances, was something of a damper. He had pictured himself, during his ride in the cab,

striding into the office and saying. "The delicate and dangerous enterprise. Lead me to it!" He had not

realized until now that he was not the only man in London who, read the advertisement columns of the

Morning Post, and for an instant his heart sank at the sight of all this competition. A second and more

The Wanted column of the morning paper is a sort of dredger, which churns up strange creatures from the

mud of London's underworld. Only in response to the dredger's operations do they come to the surface in

such numbers as to be noticeable, for as a rule they are of a solitary habit and shun company; but when they

It is the saddest spectacle in the worldthat of the crowd collected by a Wanted advertisement. They are so

palpably not wanted by anyone for any purpose whatsoever; yet every time they gather together with a sort of

hopeful hopelessness. What they were originallythe units of these collectionsHeaven knows. Fate has

battered out of them every trace of individuality. Each now is exactly like his neighborno worse; no better.

Ashe, as he sat and watched them, was filled with conflicting emotions. Onehalf of him, thrilled with the

glamour of adventure, was chafing at the delay, and resentful of these poor creatures as of so many obstacles

to the beginning of all the brisk and exciting things that lay behind the mysterious brevity of the

advertisement; the other, pitifully alive to the tragedy of the occasion, was grateful for the delay.

On the whole, he was glad to feel that if one of these derelicts did not secure the "good pay for the right

man," it would not be his fault. He had been the last to arrive, and he would be the last to pass through that

door, which was the gateway of adventure the door with Mr. Boole inscribed on its ground glass, behind

which sat the author of the mysterious request for assistance, interviewing applicants. It would be through

their own shortcomingsnot because of his superior attractionsif they failed to please that unseen arbiter.

That they were so failing was plain. Scarcely had one scarred victim of London's unkindness passed through

before the bell would ring; the office boy, who, in the intervals of frowning sternly on the throng, as much as

to say that he would stand no nonsense, would cry, "Next!" and another dulleyed wreck would drift through,

to be followed a moment later by yet another. The one fact at present ascertainable concerning the unknown

searcher for reckless young men of good appearance was that he appeared to he possessed of considerable

decision of character, a man who did not take long to make up his mind. He was rejecting applicants now at

Expeditious though he was, he kept Ashe waiting for a considerable time. It was not until the hands of the fat

clock over the door pointed to twenty minutes past eleven that the office boy's "Next!" found him the only

survivor. He gave his clothes a hasty smack with the palm of his hand and his hair a fleeting dab to

The room assigned by the firm to their Mr. Boole for his personal use was a small and dingy compartment,

redolent of that atmosphere of desolation which lawyers alone know how to achieve. It gave the impression

of not having been swept since the foundation of the firm, in the year 1786. There was one small window,

covered with grime. It was one of those windows you see only in lawyers' offices. Possibly some reckless

Mainprice or harebrained Boole had opened it in a fit of mad excitement induced by the news of the Battle of

Waterloo, in 1815, and had been instantly expelled from the firm. Since then, no one had dared to tamper

Gazing through this windowor, rather, gazing at it, for Xrays could hardly have succeeded in actually

penetrating the alluvial deposits on the glasswas a little man. As Ashe entered, he turned and looked at him

Ashe was obliged to own to himself that he felt a little nervous. It is not every day that a young man of good

appearance, who has led a quiet life, meets face to face one who is prepared to pay him well for doing

something delicate and dangerous. To Ashe the sensation was entirely novel. The most delicate and

dangerous act he had performed to date had been the daily mastication of Mrs. Bell's breakfastincluded in

the rent. Yes, he had to admit ithe was nervous: and the fact that he was nervous made him hot and

To judge him by his appearance, the man at the window was also hot and uncomfortable. He was a little,

truculentlooking man, and his face at present was red with a flush that sat unnaturally on a normally

leadcolored face. His eyes looked out from under thick gray eyebrows with an almost tortured expression.

This was partly owing to the strain of interviewing Ashe's preposterous predecessors, but principally to the

fact that the little man had suddenly been seized with acute indigestion, a malady to which he was peculiarly

He removed from his mouth the black cigar he was smoking, inserted a digestive tabloid, and replaced the

cigar. Then he concentrated his attention on Ashe. As he did so the hostile expression of his face became

"In answer to my advertisement? I had given up hope of seeing anything part human. I thought you must be

one of the clerks. You're certainly more like what I advertised for. Of all the seedy bunches of dead beats I

ever struck, the aggregation I've just been interviewing was the seediest! When I spend good money in

advertising for a young man of good appearance, I want a young man of good appearancenot a tramp of

Ashe was sorry for his predecessors, but he was bound to admit that they certainly had corresponded

somewhat faithfully to the description just given. The comparative cordiality of his own reception removed

the slight nervousness that had been troubling him. He began to feel confidentalmost jaunty.

"I'm through," said the little man wearily. "I've had enough of interviewing applicants. You're the last one I'll

"Then we'll get down to business. I'll tell you what I want done, and if you are willing you can do it; if you

Ashe sat down. He resented the little man's tone, but this was not the moment for saying so. His companion

"So far as appearance goes," he said, "you are what I want." Ashe felt inclined to bow. "Whoever takes on

this job has got to act as my valet, and you look like a valet." Ashe felt less inclined to bow.

"You're tall and thin and ordinarylooking. Yes; so far as appearance goes, you fill the bill."

It seemed to Ashe that it was time to correct an impression the little man appeared to have formed.

"I am afraid," he said, "if all you want is a valet, you will have to look elsewhere. I got the idea from your

advertisement that something rather more exciting was in the air. I can recommend you to several good

He would have liked to fling the massive pewter inkwell at this little creature who had so keenly disappointed

Ashe resumed his seat. The hope of adventure dies hard on a Spring morning when one is twentysix, and he

"Don't be a damned fool!" said the little man. "Of course I'm not asking you to be a valet and nothing else."

"Well," he said at last, "maybe it's all for the best. If you weren't full of gall probably you wouldn't have come

here at all; and whoever takes on this job of mine has got to have gall if he has nothing else. I think we shall

"It's awkward. If I'm to make the thing clear to you I've got to trust you. And I don't know a thing about you. I

"And forget, halfway through, who was which! No; I guess I'll have to trust you."

The little man fastened his eyes on Ashe's in a piercing stare. Ashe met them smilingly. His spirits, always

fairly cheerful, had risen high by now. There was something about the little man, in spite of his brusqueness

"My soul! And this"he thumped the left section of his waistcoat"solid gold. You may fire when ready,

"It's all so darned complicated that I don't rightly know which is the beginning. Well, see here . . . I collect

scarabs. I'm crazy about scarabs. Ever since I quit business, you might say that I have practically lived for

"Though it sounds like an unkind thing to say of anyone," said Ashe. "Incidentally, what are scarabs?" He

held up his hand. "Wait! It all comes back to me. Expensive classical education, now bearing belated fruit.

ScarabaeusLatin; noun, nominativea beetle. ScarabaeeevocativeO you beetle! Scarabaeum

accusativethe beetle. Scarabaeiof the beetle. Scarabaeoto or for the beetle. I remember now.

"Well, I guess I've gotten together the best collection of scarabs outside the British Museum, and some of

them are worth what you like to me. I don't reckon money when it comes to a question of my scarabs. Do you

"Well, don't do it again. My name is J. Preston Peters, and Mr. Peters will do as well as anything else when

Shakespeare and Pope have both emphasized the tediousness of a twiceto1d tale; the Episode Of the Stolen

Scarab need not be repeated at this point, though it must be admitted that Mr. Peters' version of it differed

considerably from the calm, dispassionate description the author, in his capacity of official historian, has

In Mr. Peters' version the Earl of Emsworth appeared as a smooth and purposeful robber, a sort of elderly

Raffles, worming his way into the homes of the innocent, and only sparing that portion of their property

which was too heavy for him to carry away. Mr. Peters, indeed, specifically described the Earl of Emsworth

It took Ashe some little time to get a thorough grasp of the tangled situation; but he did it at last.

"You want to hire somebody to go to this castle and get this scarab back for you. I follow that. But why must

"That's simple enough. You don't think I'm asking him to buy a black mask and break in, do you? I'm making

it as easy for him as possible. I can't take a secretary down to the castle, for everybody knows that, now I've

retired, I haven't got a secretary; and if I engaged a new one and he was caught trying to steal my scarab from

the earl's collection, it would look suspicious. But a valet is different. Anyone can get fooled by a crook valet

"I see. There's just one other point: Suppose your accomplice does get caughtwhat then?"

"That," said Mr. Peters, "is the catch; and it's just because of that I am offering good pay to my man. We'll

suppose, for the sake of argument, that you accept the contract and get caught. Well, if that happens you've

got to look after yourself. I couldn't say a word. If I did it would all come out, and so far as the breaking off

of my daughter's engagement to young Threepwood is concerned, it would be just as bad as though I had

"You've got to bear that in mind. You've got to remember it if you forget everything else. I don't appear in

this business in any way whatsoever. If you get caught you take what's coming to you without a word. You

can't turn round and say: 'I am innocent. Mr. Peters will explain all'because Mr. Peters certainly won't. Mr.

"No; if you go into this, young man, you go into it with your eyes open. You go into it with a full

understanding of the risksbecause you think the reward, if you are successful, makes the taking of those

risks worth while. You and I know that what you are doing isn't really stealing; it's simply a tactful way of

getting back my own property. But the judge and jury will have different views."

"I am beginning to understand," said Ashe thoughtfully, "why you called the job delicate and dangerous."

Certainly it had been no overstatement. As a writer of detective stories for the British office boy, he had

imagined in his time many undertakings that might be so described, but few to which the description was

"It is," said Mr. Peters; "and that is why I'm offering good pay. Whoever carries this job through gets one

A look of positive geniality illuminated Mr. Peters' pinched features. He even went so far as to pat Ashe on

"Good boy!" he said. "Meet me at Paddington Station at four o'clock on Friday. And if there's anything more

There remained the telling of Joan Valentine; for it was obviously impossible not to tell her. When you have

revolutionized your life at the bidding of another you cannot well conceal the fact, as though nothing had

happened. Ashe had not the slightest desire to conceal the fact. On the contrary, he was glad to have such a

He could not tell her, of course, the secret details of the thing. Naturally those must remain hidden. No, he

"You know what you told me about doing something new? Well, I've just got a job as a valet."

Women are trained from infancy up to conceal their feelings. Joan did not start or otherwise express emotion.

"It will not be quite the same thing as three years ago," Joan explained. "It is just a cheap way of getting a

holiday. I used to know Miss Peters very well, you see. It will be more like traveling as her guest."

"Yes. By the way, how did you get the situation? And what put it into your head to be a valet at all? It seems

"IIwell, you see, the experience will be useful to me, of course, in my writing."

Ashe was becoming conscious of an undercurrent of something not altogether agreeable in the conversation.

It lacked the gay ease of their first interview. He was not apprehensive lest she might have guessed his secret.

There was, he felt, no possible means by which she could have done that. Yet the fact remained that those

keen blue eyes of hers were looking at him in a peculiar and penetrating manner. He felt damped.

Ashe drifted out. He was conscious of a wish that he understood girls. Girls, in his opinion, were odd.

When he had gone Joan Valentine hurried to the door and, having opened it an inch, stood listening. When

the sound of his door closing came to her she ran down the stairs and out into Arundel Street. She went to the

"I wonder," she said to the sadeyed waiter, "if you have a copy of the Morning Post?"

The waiter, a child of romantic Italy, was only too anxious to oblige youth and beauty. He disappeared and

Back in her room, she turned to the advertisement pages. She knew that life was full of what the unthinking

call coincidences; but the miracle of Ashe having selected by chance the father of Aline Peters as an

It did not take her long to discover the advertisement that had sent Ashe hurrying in a taxicab to the offices of

Messrs. Mainprice, Mainprice Boole. She had been looking for something of the kind.

She read it through twice and smiled. Everything was very clear to her. She looked at the ceiling above her

"You are quite a nice young man, Mr. Marson," she said softly; "but you mustn't try to jump my claim. I dare

say you need that money too; but I'm afraid you must go without. I am going to have itand nobody else!"

The fourfifteen express slid softly out of Paddington Station and Ashe Marson settled himself in the corner

seat of his secondclass compartment. Opposite him Joan Valentine had begun to read a magazine. Along the

corridor, in a firstclass smoking compartment, Mr. Peters was lighting a big black cigar. Still farther along

the corridor, in a firstclass nonsmoking compartment, Aline Peters looked through the window and thought

In English trains the tipping classes travel first; valets, lady's maids, footmen, nurses, and head stillroom

maids, second; and housemaids, grooms, and minor and inferior stillroom maids, third. But for these social

distinctions, the whole fabric of society, would collapse and anarchy stalk naked through the landas in the

Ashe was feeling remarkably lighthearted. He wished he had not bought Joan that magazine and thus

deprived himself temporarily of the pleasure of her conversation; but that was the only flaw in his happiness.

With the starting of the train, which might be considered the formal and official beginning of the delicate and

dangerous enterprise on which he had embarked, he had definitely come to the conclusion that the life

adventurous was the life for him. He had frequently suspected this to be the case, but it had required the

Almost more than physical courage, the ideal adventurer needs a certain lively inquisitiveness, the quality of

not being content to mind his own affairs; and in Ashe this quality was highly developed. From boyhood up

he had always been interested in things that were none of his business. And it is just that attribute which the

The modern young man may do adventurous things if they are thrust on him; but left to himself he will edge

away uncomfortably and look in the other direction when the goddess of adventure smiles at him. Training

and tradition alike pluck at his sleeve and urge him not to risk making himself ridiculous. And from sheer

horror of laying himself open to the charge of not minding his own business he falls into a stolid disregard of

all that is out of the ordinary and exciting. He tells himself that the shriek from the lonely house he passed

just now was only the high note of some amateur songstress, and that the maiden in distress whom he saw

pursued by the ruffian with a knife was merely earning the salary paid her by some motionpicture firm. And

Ashe had none of this degenerate coyness toward adventure. Though born within easy distance of Boston and

deposited by circumstances in London, he possessed, nevertheless, to a remarkable degree, that quality so

essentially the property of the New Yorkerthe quality known, for want of a more polished word, as rubber.

It is true that it had needed the eloquence of Joan Valentine to stir him from his groove; but that was because

he was also lazy. He loved new sights and new experiences. Yes; he was happy. The rattle of the train shaped

itself into a lively march. He told himself that he had found the right occupation for a young man in the

Joan, meantime, intrenched behind her magazine, was also busy with her thoughts. She was not reading the

magazine; she held it before her as a protection, knowing that if she laid it down Ashe would begin to talk.

And just at present she had no desire for conversation. She, like Ashe, was contemplating the immediate

future, but, unlike him, was not doing so with much pleasure. She was regretting heartily that she had not

resisted the temptation to uplift this young man and wishing that she had left him to wallow in the slothful

It is curious how frequently in this world our attempts to stimulate and uplift swoop back on us and smite us

like boomerangs. Ashe's presence was the direct outcome of her lecture on enterprise, and it added a

She did her best to be fair to Ashe. It was not his fault that he was about to try to deprive her of five thousand

dollars, which she looked on as her personal property; but illogically she found herself feeling a little hostile.

She glanced furtively at him over the magazine, choosing by ill chance a moment when he had just directed

his gaze at her. Their eyes met and there was nothing for it but to talk; so she tucked away her hostility in a

corner of her mind, where she could find it again when she wanted it, and prepared for the time being to be

friendly. After all, except for the fact that he was her rival, this was a pleasant and amusing young man, and

one for whom, until he made the announcement that had changed her whole attitude toward him, she had

There was something about him that made her feel that she would have liked to stroke his hair in a motherly

way and straighten his tie, and have cozy chats with him in darkened rooms by the light of open fires, and

make him tell her his inmost thoughts, and stimulate him to do something really worth while with his life; but

this, she held, was merely the instinct of a generous nature to be kind and helpful even to a comparative

He was conscious of a marked increase in the exhilaration the starting of the expedition had brought to him.

At the back of his mind he realized there had been all along a kind of wistful resentment at the change in this

girl's manner toward him. During the brief conversation when he had told her of his having secured his

present situation, and later, only a few minutes back, on the platform of Paddington Station, he had sensed a

coldness, a certain hostilityso different from her pleasant friendliness at their first meeting.

She had returned now to her earlier manner and he was surprised at the difference it made. He felt somehow

younger, more alive. The lilt of the train's rattle changed to a gay ragtime. This was curious, because Joan

was nothing more than a friend. He was not in love with her. One does not fall in love with a girl whom one

A moment's reflection enabled him to diagnose his sensations correctly. This odd impulse to leap across the

compartment and kiss Joan was not love. It was merely the natural desire of a goodhearted young man to be

"Well, what do you think of it all, Mr. Marson?" said Joan. "Are you sorry or glad that you let me persuade

you to do this perfectly mad thing? I feel responsible for you, you know. If it had not been for me you would

"You don't feel any misgivings now that you are actually committed to domestic service?"

Joan, against her will, smiled approval on this uncompromising attitude. This young man might be her rival,

but his demeanor on the eve of perilous times appealed to her. That was the spirit she liked and

admiredthat reckless acceptance of whatever might come. It was the spirit in which she herself had gone

into the affair and she was pleased to find that it animated Ashe alsothough, to be sure, it had its

drawbacks. It made his rivalry the more dangerous. This reflection injected a touch of the old hostility into

Joan perceived that she was in danger of going too far. She had no wish to unmask Ashe at the expense of

revealing her own secret. She must resist the temptation to hint that she had discovered his.

"I meant," she said quickly, "that from what I have seen of him Mr. Peters seems likely to be a rather trying

Ashe's face cleared. For a moment he had almost suspected that she had guessed his errand.

"Yes. I imagine he will be. He is what you might call quicktempered. He has dyspepsia, you know."

"What he wants is plenty of fresh air and no cigars, and a regular course of those Larsen Exercises that

"Are you going to try and persuade Mr. Peters to twist himself about like that? Do let me see it if you do."

"Old Peters didn't think so. He rather complimented me on my appearance. He said I was ordinarylooking."

Ashe looked at her. He was thinking that never in his life had he seen a girl so amazingly pretty. What it was

that she had done to herself was beyond him; but something, some trick of dress, had given her a touch of the

demure that made her irresistible. She was dressed in sober black, the ideal background for her fairness.

"While on the subject," he said, "I suppose you know you don't look in the least like a lady's maid? You look

"That's very nice of you, Mr. Marson, but you're quite wrong. Anyone could tell I was a lady's maid, a mile

"The dress is all right. It's the general effect. I don't think your expression is right. It'sit'sthere's too

"Well, let me tell you that meekness is her last quality. Why should she be meek? Doesn't she go in after the

"In to dinner." She smiled at the sight of his bewildered face. "I'm afraid you don't know much about the

etiquette of the new world you have entered so rashly. Didn't you know that the rules of precedence among

the servants of a big house in England are more rigid and complicated than in English society?"

"I'm not joking. You try going in to dinner out of your proper place when we get to Blandings and see what

"Heavens!" he whispered. "If a butler publicly rebuked me I think I should commit suicide. I couldn't survive

He stared, with fallen jaw, into the abyss of horror into which he had leaped so lightheartedly. The servant

problem, on this large scale, had been nonexistent for him until now. In the days of his youth, at Mayling,

Massachusetts, his needs had been ministered to by a muscular Swede. Later, at Oxford, there had been his

"scout" and his bed maker, harmless persons both, provided you locked up your whisky. And in London, his

last phase, a succession of servitors of the type of the disheveled maid at Number Seven had tended him.

That, dotted about the land of his adoption, there were houses in which larger staffs of domestics were

maintained, he had been vaguely aware. Indeed, in "Gridley Quayle, Investigator; the Adventure of the

Missing Marquis"number four of the serieshe had drawn a picture of the home life of a duke, in which a

butler and two powdered footmen had played their parts; but he had had no idea that rigid and complicated

rules of etiquette swayed the private lives of these individuals. If he had given the matter a thought he had

supposed that when the dinner hour arrived the butler and the two footmen would troop into the kitchen and

"Tell me," he said. "Tell me all you know. I feel as though I had escaped a frightful disaster."

"You probably have. I don't suppose there is anything so terrible as a snub from a butler."

"If there is I can't think of it. When I was at Oxford I used to go and stay with a friend of mine who had a

butler that looked like a Roman emperor in swallowtails. He terrified me. I used to grovel to the man. Please

"However large the house party is, Mr. Peters is sure to be the principal guest; so your standing will be

correspondingly magnificent. You come after the butler, the housekeeper, the groom of the chambers, Lord

"Lady Ann? Lord Emsworth's sister. She has lived with him since his wife died. What was I saying? Oh, yes!

After them come the honorable Frederick Threepwood's valet and myselfand then you."

"Yes, you are. There's a whole crowd who come after you. It all depends on how many other guests there are

"I suppose I charge in at the head of a drove of housemaids and scullery maids?"

"My dear Mr. Marson, if a housemaid or a scullery maid tried to get into the steward's room and have her

"Lynched, I should think. Kitchen maids and scullery maids eat in the kitchen. Chauffeurs, footmen,

underbutler, pantry boys, hall boy, odd man and steward'sroom footman take their meals in the servants'

hall, waited on by the hall boy. The stillroom maids have breakfast and tea in the stillroom, and dinner and

supper in the hall. The housemaids and nursery maids have breakfast and tea in the housemaid's sittingroom,

and dinner and supper in the hall. The head housemaid ranks next to the head stillroom maid. The laundry

maids have a place of their own near the laundry, and the head laundry maid ranks above the head

housemaid. The chef has his meals in a room of his own near the kitchen. Is there anything else I can tell you,

"We stop at Swindon in half an hour," said Joan softly. "Don't you think you would be wise to get out there

"You would be far happier in Arundel Street. Why don't you get out at Swindon and go back?"

Joan picked up her magazine again. Hostility had come out from the corner into which she had tucked it away

and was once more filling her mind. She knew it was illogical, but she could not help it. For a moment,

during her revelations of servants' etiquette, she had allowed herself to hope that she had frightened her rival

out of the field, and the disappointment made her feel irritable. She buried herself in a short story, and

countered Ashe's attempts at renewing the conversation with cold monosyllables, until he ceased his efforts

He was feeling hurt and angry. Her sudden coldness, following on the friendliness with which she had talked

so long, puzzled and infuriated him. He felt as though he had been snubbed, and for no reason.

He resented the defensive magazine, though he had bought it for her himself. He resented her attitude of

having ceased to recognize his existence. A sadness, a filmy melancholy, crept over him. He brooded on the

unutterable silliness of humanity, especially the female portion of it, in erecting artificial barriers to

At their first meeting, when she might have been excused for showing defensiveness, she had treated him

with unaffected ease. When that meeting had ended there was a tacit understanding between them that all the

preliminary awkwardnesses of the first stages of acquaintanceship were to be considered as having been

passed; and that when they met again, if they ever did, it would be as friends. And here she was, luring him

on with apparent friendliness, and then withdrawing into herself as though he had presumed.

A rebellious spirit took possession of him. He didn't care! Let her be cold and distant. He would show her that

she had no monopoly of those qualities. He would not speak to her until she spoke to him; and when she

spoke to him he would freeze her with his courteous but bleakly aloof indifference.

The train rattled on. Joan read her magazine. Silence reigned in the secondclass compartment. Swindon was

reached and passed. Darkness fell on the land. The journey began to seem interminable to Ashe; but presently

there came a creaking of brakes and the train jerked itself to another stop. A voice on the platform made itself

The village of Market Blandings is one of those sleepy English hamlets that modern progress has failed to

touch; except by the addition of a railroad station and a room over the grocer's shop where moving pictures

are on view on Tuesdays and Fridays. The church is Norman and the intelligence of the majority of the

natives Paleozoic. To alight at Market Blandings Station in the dusk of a rather chilly Spring day, when the

southwest wind has shifted to due east and the thrifty inhabitants have not yet lit their windows, is to be

smitten with the feeling that one is at the edge of the world with no friends near.

Ashe, as he stood beside Mr. Peters' baggage and raked the unsympathetic darkness with a dreary eye, gave

himself up to melancholy. Above him an oil lamp shed a meager light. Along the platform a small but sturdy

porter was juggling with a milk can. The east wind explored Ashe's system with chilly fingers.

Somewhere out in the darkness into which Mr. Peters and Aline had already vanished in a large automobile,

lay the castle, with its butler and its fearful code of etiquette. Soon the cart that was to convey him and the

Out of the gloom and into the feeble rays of the oil lamp came Joan Valentine. She had been away, tucking

Aline into the car. She looked warm and cheerful. She was smiling in the old friendly way.

If girls realized their responsibilities they would be so careful when they smiled that they would probably

abandon the practice altogether. There are moments in a man's life when a girl's smile can have as important

In the course of their brief acquaintance Joan had smiled at Ashe many times, but the conditions governing

those occasions had not been such as to permit him to be seriously affected. He had been pleased on such

occasions; he had admired her smile in a detached and critical spirit; but he had not been overwhelmed by it.

Now, however, after five minutes of solitude on the depressing platform of Market Blandings Station, he was

what the spiritualists call a sensitive subject. He had reached that depth of gloom and bodily discomfort when

a sudden smile has all the effect of strong liquor and good news administered simultaneously, warming the

blood and comforting the soul, and generally turning the world from a bleak desert into a land flowing with

It is not too much to ray that he reeled before Joan's smile. It was so entirely unexpected. He clutched Mr.

Peters' steamer trunk in his emotion. All his resolutions to be cold and distant were swept away. He had the

feeling that in a friendless universe here was somebody who was fond of him and glad to see him.

A smile of such importance demands analysis, and in this case repays it; for many things lay behind this

In the first place, she had had another of her swift changes of mood, and had once again tucked away hostility

into its corner. She had thought it over and had come to the conclusion that as she had no logical grievance

against Ashe for anything he had done to be distant to him was the behavior of a cat. Consequently she

resolved, when they should meet again, to resume her attitude of goodfellowship. That in itself would have

There was another reason, however, which had nothing to do with Ashe. While she had been tucking Aline

into the automobile she met the eye of the driver of that vehicle and had perceived a curious look in ita

look of amazement and sheer terror. A moment, later, when Aline called the driver Freddie, she had

understood. No wonder the Honorable Freddie had looked as though he had seen a ghost.

It would be a relief to the poor fellow when, as he undoubtedly would do in the course of the drive, he

inquired of Aline the name of her maid and was told that it was Simpson. He would mutter something about

"Reminds me of a girl I used to know," and would brood on the remarkable way in which Nature produces

doubles. But he had a bad moment, and it was partly at the recollection of his face that Joan smiled.

A third reason was because the sight of the Honorable Freddie had reminded her that R. Jones had said he had

written her poetry. That thought, too, had contributed toward the smile which so dazzled Ashe.

Ashe, not being miraculously intuitive, accepted the easier explanation that she smiled because she was glad

to be in his company; and this thought, coming on top of his mood of despair and general dissatisfaction with

In every man's life there is generally one moment to which in later years he can look back and say: "In this

In the almost incredibly brief time it took the small but sturdy porter to roll a milk can across the platform

and hump it, with a clang, against other milk cans similarly treated a moment before, Ashe fell in love.

The word is so loosely used, to cover a thousand varying shades of emotionfrom the volcanic passion of an

Antony for a Cleopatra to the tepid preference of a grocer's assistant for the Irish maid at the second house on

Main Street, as opposed to the Norwegian maid at the first house past the post officethe mere statement

that Ashe fell in love is not a sufficient description of his feelings as he stood grasping Mr. Peters' steamer

From his fourteenth year onward Ashe had been in love many times. His sensations in the case of Joan were

neither the terrific upheaval that had caused him, in his fifteenth year, to collect twentyeight photographs of

the heroine of the road company of a musical comedy which had visited the Hayling Opera House, nor the

milder flame that had caused him, when at college, to give up smoking for a week and try to read the

He did not wish the station platform of Market Blandings to become suddenly congested with red Indians so

that he might save Joan's life; and he did not wish to give up anything at all. But he was consciousto the

very depths of his beingthat a future in which Joan did not figure would be so insupportable as not to bear

considering; and in the immediate present he very strongly favored the idea of clasping Joan in his arms and

Mingled with these feelings was an excited gratitude to her for coming to him like this, with that electric

smile on her face; a stunned realization that she was a thousand times prettier than he had ever imagined; and

a humility that threatened to make him loose his clutch on the steamer trunk and roll about at her feet,

Gratitude, so far as he could dissect his tangled emotion was the predominating ingredient of his mood. Only

once in his life had he felt so passionately grateful to any human being. On that occasion, too, the object of

Years before, when a boy in his father's home in distant Hayling, Massachusetts, those in authority had

commanded that hein his eleventh year and as shy as one can be only at that interesting ageshould rise

in the presence of a roomful of strangers, adult guests, and recite "The Wreck of the Hesperus."

He had risen. He had blushed. He had stammered. He had contrived to whisper: "It was the Schooner

Hesperus." And then, in a corner of the room, a little girl, for no properly explained reason, had burst out

crying. She had yelled, she had bellowed, and would not be comforted; and in the ensuing confusion Ashe

All his life he had remembered the gratitude he had felt for that little timely girl, and never until now had he

experienced any other similar spasm. But as he looked at Joan he found himself renewing that emotion of

She was about to speak. In a sort of trance he watched her lips part. He waited almost reverently for the first

"Isn't it a shame?" she said. "I've just put a penny in the chocolate slot machineand it's empty! I've a good

Ashe felt as though he were listening to the strains of some grand sweet anthem.

The small but sturdy porter, weary of his work among the milk cans, or perhapslet us not do him an

In the gloom beyond him there gleamed a light which had not been there before. The meditative snort of a

horse supported his statement. He began to deal as authoritatively with Mr. Peters' steamer trunk as he had

"At last!" said Joan. "I hope it's a covered cart. I'm frozen. Let's go and see."

Cold is the ogre that drives all beautiful things into hiding. Below the surface of a frostbound garden there

lurk hidden bulbs, which are only biding their time to burst forth in a riot of laughing color; but shivering

Nature dare not put forth her flowers until the ogre has gone. Not otherwise does cold suppress love. A man

in an open cart on an English Spring night may continue to be in love; but love is not the emotion uppermost

The cart was not a covered cart. It was open to the four winds of heaven, of which the one at present active

proceeded from the bleak east. To this fact may he attributed Ashe's swift recovery from the exalted mood

into which Joan's smile had thrown him, his almost instant emergence from the trance. Deep down in him he

was aware that his attitude toward Joan had not changed, but his conscious self was too fully occupied with

the almost hopeless task of keeping his blood circulating, to permit of thoughts of love. Before the cart had

After an eternity of winding roads, darkened cottages, and black fields and hedges, the cart turned in at a

massive iron gate, which stood open giving entrance to a smooth gravel drive. Here the way ran for nearly a

mile through an open park of great trees and was then swallowed in the darkness of dense shrubberies.

Presently to the left appeared lights, at first in ones and twos, shining out and vanishing again; then, as the

shrubberies ended and the smooth lawns and terraces began, blazing down on the travelers from a score of

Against the pale gray sky Blandings Castle stood out like a mountain. It was a noble pile, of Early Tudor

building. Its history is recorded in England's history books and ViolletleDuc has written of its architecture.

The feature of it which impressed Ashe most at this moment, however, was the fact that it looked warm; and

for the first time since the drive began he found himself in a mood that approximated cheerfulness. It was a

little early to begin feeling cheerful, he discovered, for the journey was by no means over. Arrived within

sight of the castle, the cart began a detour, which, ten minutes later, brought it under an arch and over

cobblestones to the rear of the building, where it eventually pulled up in front of a great door.

Ashe descended painfully and beat his feet against the cobbles. He helped Joan to climb down. Joan was

The door opened. Warm, kitcheny scents came through it. Strong men hurried out to take down the trunks,

while fair women, in the shape of two nervous scullery maids, approached Joan and Ashe, and bobbed

curtsies. This under more normal conditions would have been enough to unman Ashe; but in his frozen state a

mere curtsying scullery maid expended herself harmlessly on him. He even acknowledged the greeting with a

The scullery maids, it seemed, were acting in much the same capacity as the attaches of royalty. One was

there to conduct Joan to the presence of Mrs. Twemlow, the housekeeper; the other to lead Ashe to where

Beach, the butler, waited to do honor to the valet of the castle's most important guest.

After a short walk down a stoneflagged passage Joan and her escort turned to the right. Ashe's objective

appeared to be located to the left. He parted from Joan with regret. Her moral support would have been

Presently his scullery maid stopped at a door and tapped thereon. A fruity voice, like old tawny port made

"The gentleman, Mr. Beach," said she, and scuttled away to the less rarefied atmosphere of the kitchen.

Ashe's first impression of Beach, the butler, was one of tension. Other people, confronted for the first time

with Beach, had felt the same. He had that strained air of being on the very point of bursting that one sees in

bullfrogs and toy balloons. Nervous and imaginative men, meeting Beach, braced themselves, involuntarily,

stiffening their muscles for the explosion. Those who had the pleasure of more intimate acquaintance with

him soon passed this stage, just as people whose homes are on the slopes of Mount Vesuvius become

As far back as they could remember Beach had always looked as though an apoplectic fit were a matter of

minutes; but he never had apoplexy and in time they came to ignore the possibility of it. Ashe, however,

approaching him with a fresh eye, had the feeling that this strain could not possibly continue and that within a

very short space of time the worst must happen. The prospect of this did much to rouse him from the coma

Butlers as a class seem to grow less and less like anything human in proportion to the magnificence of their

surroundings. There is a type of butler employed in the comparatively modest homes of small country

gentlemen who is practically a man and a brother; who hobnobs with the local tradesmen, sings a good comic

song at the village inn, and in times of crisis will even turn to and work the pump when the water supply

The greater the house the more does the butler diverge from this type. Blandings Castle was one of the more

important of England's show places, and Beach accordingly had acquired a dignified inertia that almost

qualified him for inclusion in the vegetable kingdom. He movedwhen he moved at allslowly. He

distilled speech with the air of one measuring out drops of some precious drug. His heavylidded eyes had

With an almost imperceptible wave of a fat white hand, he conveyed to Ashe that he desired him to sit down.

With a stately movement of his other hand, he picked up a kettle, which simmered on the hob. With an

In another moment Ashe was sipping a whisky toddy, with the feeling that he had been privileged to assist at

some mystic rite. Mr. Beach, posting himself before the fire and placing his bands behind his back, permitted

"When the wind is in the east," continued Mr. Beach, letting each syllable escape with apparent reluctance, "I

"I suffer from my feet," repeated the butler, measuring out the drops. "You are a young man, Mr. Marson.

Probably you do not know what it is to suffer from your feet." He surveyed Ashe, his whisky toddy and the

"I suffer extremely from my feetnot only corns. I have but recently recovered from an ingrowing toenail. I

Ashe regarded this martyr with increasing disfavor. It is the flaw in the character of many excessively healthy

young men that, though kindhearted enough in most respects, they listen with a regrettable feeling of

impatience to the confessions of those less happily situated as regards the ills of the flesh. Rightly or wrongly,

they hold that these statements should be reserved for the ear of the medical profession, and other and more

"I'm sorry," he said hastily. "You must have had a bad time. Is there a large house party here just now?"

"We are expecting," said Mr. Beach, "a number of guests. We shall in all probability sit down thirty or more

"A responsibility for you," said Ashe ingratiatingly, well pleased to be quit of the feet topic.

"You are right, Mr. Marson. Few persons realize the responsibilities of a man in my position. Sometimes, I

Ashe began to feel like a man trying to put out a fire which, as fast as he checks it at one point, breaks out at

"Sometimes when I come off duty everything gets blurred. The outlines of objects grow indistinct and misty.

The pleasantest functions must come to an end, and the moment. arrived when the final word on the subject

of swollen joints was spoken. Ashe, who had resigned himself to a permanent contemplation of the subject,

could hardly believe he heard correctly when, at the end of some ten minutes, his companion changed the

For a moment Ashe did what he would not have believed himself capable of doingregretted that the topic

of feet was no longer under discussion. The question placed him in an awkward position. If he lied and

credited himself with a lengthy experience as a valet, he risked exposing himself. If he told the truth and

confessed that this was his maiden effort in the capacity of gentleman's gentleman, what would the butler

think? There were objections to each course, but to tell the truth was the easier of the two; so he told it.

There was an awkward silence. Ashe appreciated its awkwardness. He was conscious of a grievance against

Mr. Peters. Why could not Mr. Peters have brought him down here as his secretary? To be sure, he had

advanced some objection to that course in their conversation at the offices of Mainprice, Mainprice Boole;

but merely a silly, farfetched objection. He wished he had had the sense to fight the point while there was

time; but at the moment when they were arranging plans he had been rather tickled by the thought of

becoming a valet. The notion had a pleasing musicalcomedy touch about it. Why had he not foreseen the

complications that must ensue? He could tell by the look on his face that this confounded butler was waiting

for him to give a full explanation. What would he think if he withheld it? He would probably suppose that

Well, there was nothing to be done about it. If Beach was suspicious, he must remain suspicious. Fortunately

Mr. Beach's eyebrows were still mutely urging him to reveal all, but Ashe directed his gaze at that portion of

the room which Mr. Beach did not fill. He would be hanged if he was going to let himself be hypnotized by a

pair of eyebrows into incriminating himself! He glared stolidly at the pattern of the wallpaper, which

represented a number of birds of an unknown species seated on a corresponding number of exotic shrubs.

The silence was growing oppressive. Somebody had to break it soon. And as Mr. Beach was still confining

himself to the language of the eyebrow and apparently intended to fight it out on that line if it took all

It seemed to him as he reconstructed the scene in bed that night that Providence must have suggested the

subject to Mr. Peters' indigestion; for the mere mention of his employer's sufferings acted like magic on the

"I might have had better luck while I was looking for a place," said Ashe. "I dare say you know how

"So," responded Mr. Beach, "I have been informed." He brooded for a space. "I, too," he proceeded, "suffer

from my stomach. I have a weak stomach. The lining of my stomach is not what I could wish the lining of my

"Tell me," said Ashe gratefully, leaning forward in an attitude of attention, "all about the lining of your

It was a quarter of an hour later when Mr. Beach was checked in his discourse by the chiming of the little

clock on the mantelpiece. He turned round and gazed at it with surprise not unmixed with displeasure.

"So late?" he said. "I shall have to be going about my duties. And you, also, Mr. Marson, if I may make the

suggestion. No doubt Mr. Peters will be wishing to have your assistance in preparing for dinner. If you go

along the passage outside you will come to the door that separates our portion of the house from the other. I

Following his directions Ashe came after a walk of a few yards to a greenbaize door, which, swinging at his

push, gave him a view of what he correctly took to be the main hall of the castlea wide, comfortable space,

ringed with settees and warmed by a log fire burning in a mammoth fireplace. On the right a broad staircase

It was at this point that Ashe realized the incompleteness of Mr. Beach's directions. Doubtless, the broad

staircase would take him to the floor on which were the bedrooms; but how was he to ascertain, without the

tedious process of knocking and inquiring at each door, which was the one assigned to Mr. Peters? It was too

late to go back and ask the butler for further guidance; already he was on his way to the cellar in quest of the

As he stood irresolute a door across the hall opened and a man of his own age came out. Through the

doorway, which the young man held open for an instant while he answered a question from somebody within,

Could this be the museumhis goal? The next moment the door, opening a few inches more, revealed the

outlying portions of an Egyptian mummy and brought certainty. It flashed across Ashe's mind that the sooner

he explored the museum and located Mr. Peters' scarab, the better. He decided to ask Beach to take him there

Meantime the young man had closed the museum door and was crossing the hall. He was a wiryhaired,

severelooking young man, with a sharp nose and eyes that gleamed through rimless spectaclesnone other,

in fact than Lord Emsworth's private secretary, the Efficient Baxter. Ashe hailed him:

"I say, old man, would you mind telling me how I get to Mr. Peters' room? I've lost my bearings."

He did not reflect that this was hardly the way in which valets in the best society addressed their superiors.

That is the worst of adopting what might be called a character part. One can manage the business well

Mr. Baxter would have accorded a hearty agreement to the statement that this was not the way in which a

valet should have spoken to him; but at the moment he was not aware that Ashe was a valet. From his easy

mode of address he assumed that he was one of the numerous guests who had been arriving at the castle all

day. As he had asked for Mr. Peters, he fancies that Ashe must be the Honorable Freddie's American friend,

George Emerson, whom he had not yet met. Consequently he replied with much cordiality that Mr. Peters'

Ashe went on his upward path and in a few moments was knocking at the door indicated. And sure enough it

Mr. Peters, partially arrayed in the correct garb for gentlemen about to dine, was standing in front of the

mirror, wrestling with his evening tie. As Ashe entered he removed his fingers and anxiously examined his

handiwork. It proved unsatisfactory. With a yelp and an oath, he tore the offending linen from his neck.

It was plain to Ashe that his employer was in no sunny mood. There are few things less calculated to

engender sunniness in a naturally badtempered man than a dress tie that will not let itself be pulled and

twisted into the right shape. Even when things went well, Mr. Peters hated dressing for dinner. Words cannot

There is something to be said in excuse for this impatience: It is a hollow mockery to be obliged to deck one's

person as for a feast when that feast is to consist of a little asparagus and a few nuts.

"Oh, it's you, is it? Come in, then. Don't stand staring. Close that door quick! Hustle! Don't scrape your feet

on the floor. Try to look intelligent. Don't gape. Where have you been all this while? Why didn't you come

Somewhat calmed by the snowwhite butterflyshaped creation that grew under Ashe's fingers, he permitted

himself to be helped into his coat. He picked up the remnant of a black cigar from the dressingtable and relit

"What the devil have you been doing with yourself then? You've had time to collar it a dozen times."

"What the devil do you waste time talking to butlers for? I suppose you haven't even located the museum

"Oh, you have, have you? Well, that's something. And how do you propose setting about the job?"

"Well, you didn't propose to stroll in in the afternoon, did you? How are you going to find the scarab when

Ashe had not thought of that. The deeper he went into this business the more things did there seem to be in it

"You don't know! Tell me, young man, are you considered pretty bright, as Englishmen go?"

"Oh, you were, were you? You blanked boneheaded, beaneating boob!" cried Mr. Peters, frothing over

quite unexpectedly and waving his arms in a sudden burst of fury. "Then if you are an American why don't

you show a little more enterprise? Why don't you put something over? Why do you loaf about the place as

though you were supposed to be an ornament? I want resultsand I want them quick!

"I'll tell you how you can recognize my scarab when you get into the museum. That shameless old

greengoods man who sneaked it from me has had the gall, the nerve, to put it all by itself, with a notice as

big as a circus poster alongside of it saying that it is a Cheops of the Fourth Dynasty, presented"Mr. Peters

choked"presented by J. Preston Peters, Esquire! That's how you're going to recognize it."

Ashe did not laugh, but he nearly dislocated a rib in his effort to abstain from doing so. It seemed to him that

this act on Lord Emsworth's part effectually disposed of the theory that Britons have no sense of humor. To

rob a man of his choicest possession and then thank him publicly for letting you have it appealed to Ashe as

"The thing isn't even in a glass case," continued Mr. Peters. "It's lying on an open tray on top of a cabinet of

Roman coins. Anybody who was left alone for two minutes in the place could take it! It's criminal

carelessness to leave a valuable scarab about like that. If Lord Jesse James was going to steal my Cheops he

might at least have had the decency to treat it as though it was worth something."

"It's got to be made easy if you are to get it!" snapped Mr. Peters. "Here's another thing: You say you are

going to try for it late at night. Well, what are you going to do if anyone catches you prowling round at that

"You would have to say something, wouldn't you? You wouldn't chat about the weather, would you? You

wouldn't discuss the latest play? You would have to think up some mighty good reason for being out of bed at

"Oh, you do admit that, do you? Well, what you would say is this: You would explain that I had rung for you

"Idiot! I don't mean that you're to say it if you're caught actually in the museum. If you're caught in the

museum the best thing you can do is to say nothing, and hope that the judge will let you off light because it's

your first offense. You're to say it if you're found wandering about on your way there."

"Does it? Well, let me tell you that it isn't so thin as you suppose, for it's what you will actually have to do

most nights. Two nights out of three I have to be read to sleep. My indigestion gives me insomnia." As

though to push this fact home, Mr. Peters suddenly bent double. "Oof!" he said. "Wow!" He removed the

cigar from his mouth and inserted a digestive tabloid. "The lining of my stomach is all wrong," he added.

It is curious how trivial are the immediate causes that produce revolutions. If Mr. Peters had worded his

complaint differently Ashe would in all probability have borne it without active protest. He had been growing

more and more annoyed with this little person who buzzed and barked and bit at him, yet the idea of definite

revolt had not occurred to him. But his sufferings at the hands of Beach, the butler, had reduced him to a state

where he could endure no further mention of stomachic linings. There comes a time when our capacity for

listening to detailed data about the linings of other people's stomachs is exhausted.

He looked at Mr. Peters sternly. He had ceased to be intimidated by the fiery little man and regarded him

"How do you expect not to have indigestion? You take no exercise and you smoke all day long."

The novel sensation of being criticizedand by a beardless youth at thatheld Mr. Peters silent. He started

convulsively, but he did not speak. Ashe, on his pet subject, became eloquent. In his opinion dyspeptics

cumbered the earth. To his mind they had the choice between health and sickness, and they deliberately chose

"Your sort of man makes me angry. I know your type inside out. You overwork and shirk exercise, and let

your temper run away with you, and smoke strong cigars on an empty stomach; and when you get indigestion

as a natural result you look on yourself as a martyr, nourish a perpetual grouch, and make the lives of

everybody you meet miserable. If you would put yourself into my hands for a month I would have you eating

bricks and thriving on them. Up in the morning, Larsen Exercises, cold bath, a brisk rubdown, sharp walk"

"Who the devil asked your opinion, you impertinent young hound?" inquired Mr. Peters.

"Don't interruptconfound you!" shouted Ashe. "Now you have made me forget what I was going to say."

Ashe took a step toward the door. "Very well, then," he said. "I'll quit! I'm through! You can get somebody

The sudden sagging of Mr. Peters' jaw, the look of consternation that flashed on his face, told Ashe he had

found the right weaponthat the game was in his hands. He continued with a feeling of confidence:

"If I had known what being your valet involved I wouldn't have undertaken the thing for a hundred thousand

dollars. Just because you had some idiotic prejudice against letting me come down here as your secretary,

which would have been the simple and obvious thing, I find myself in a position where at any moment I may

be publicly rebuked by the butler and have the head stillroom maid looking at me as though I were something

"Do you realize a fraction of the awful things you have let me in for? How on earth am I to remember

whether I go in before the chef or after the third footman? I shan't have a peaceful minute while I'm in this

place. I've got to sit and listen by the hour to a bore of a butler who seems to be a sort of walking hospital.

"And on top of all that you have the nerve, the insolence, to imagine that you can use me as a punching bag to

work your bad temper off! You have the immortal rind to suppose that I will stand for being nagged and

bullied by you whenever your suicidal way of living brings on an attack of indigestion! You have the

"Very well! I've had enough of it. I resign! If you want this scarab of yours recovered let somebody else do it.

Ashe was intoxicated with his own oratory. The sensation of bullyragging a genuine millionaire was new and

"That's all very well," he said, coldly disentangling himself from the hand. "You can't get out of it like that.

We have got to come to an understanding. The point is that if I am to be subjected to youryour senile

malevolence every time you have a twinge of indigestion, no amount of money could pay me to stop on."

"Throw it away! You say you were hasty. Of course you were hasty; and as long as you abuse your digestion

you will go on being hasty. I want something better than apologies. If I am to stop here we must get to the

root of things. You must put yourself in my hands as though I were your doctor. No more cigars. Every

"It would put new life into you. Do you consent to the cold baths? No? Very well!"

"Young man," he said slowly, "if, after all this, you fail to recover my Cheops for me I'llI'llBy George,

"Don't talk like that," said Ashe. "That's another thing you have got to remember. If my treatment is to be

successful you must not let yourself think in that way. You must exercise selfcontrol mentally. You must

In order that their gayety might not be diminishedand the food turned to ashes in their mouths by the

absence from the festive board of Mr. Beach, it was the custom for the upper servants at Blandings to

postpone the start of their evening meal until dinner was nearly over abovestairs. This enabled the butler to

take his place at the head of the table without fear of interruption, except for the few moments when coffee

Every night shortly before halfpast eightat which hour Mr. Beach felt that he might safely withdraw from

the diningroom and leave Lord Emsworth and his guests to the care of Merridew, the underbutler, and

James and Alfred, the footmen, returning only for a few minutes to lend tone and distinction to the

distribution of cigars and liqueursthose whose rank entitled them to do so made their way to the

housekeeper's room, to pass in desultory conversation the interval before Mr. Beach should arrive, and a

kitchen maid, with the appearance of one who has been straining at the leash and has at last managed to get

free, opened the door, with the announcement: "Mr. Beach, if you please, dinner is served." On which Mr.

Beach, extending a crooked elbow toward the housekeeper, would say, "Mrs. Twemlow!" and lead the way,

high and disposedly, down the passage, followed in order of rank by the rest of the company, in couples, to

For Blandings was not one of those housesor shall we say hovels?where the upper servants are expected

not only to feed but to congregate before feeding in the steward's room. Under the auspices of Mr. Beach and

of Mrs. Twemlow, who saw eye to eye with him in these matters, things were done properly at the castle,

with the correct solemnity. To Mr. Beach and Mrs. Twemlow the suggestion that they and their peers should

gather together in the same room in which they were to dine would have been as repellent as an

announcement from Lady Ann Warblington, the chatelaine, that the house party would eat in the

When Ashe, returning from his interview with Mr. Peters, was intercepted by a respectful small boy and

conducted to the housekeeper's room, he was conscious of a sensation of shrinking inferiority akin to his

emotions on his first day at school. The room was full and apparently on very cordial terms with itself.

Everybody seemed to know everybody and conversation was proceeding in a manner reminiscent of an Old

As a matter of fact, the house party at Blandings being in the main a gathering together of the Emsworth clan

by way of honor and as a means of introduction to Mr. Peters and daughter, the brideofthehousetobe,

most of the occupants of the housekeeper's room were old acquaintances and were renewing interrupted

A lull followed Ashe's arrival and all eyes, to his great discomfort, were turned in his direction. His

embarrassment was relieved by Mrs. Twemlow, who advanced to do the honors. Of Mrs. Twemlow little

need be attempted in the way of pen portraiture beyond the statement that she went as harmoniously with Mr.

Beach as one of a pair of vases or one of a brace of pheasants goes with its fellow. She had the same

appearance of imminent apoplexy, the same air of belonging to some dignified and haughty branch of the

Ashe had been waiting for somebody to say this, and had been a little surprised that Mr. Beach had not done

so. He was also surprised at the housekeeper's ready recognition of his identity, until he saw Joan in the

He envied Joan. In some amazing way she contrived to look not out of place in this gathering. He himself, he

Mrs. Twemlow began to make the introductionsa long and tedious process, which she performed

relentlessly, without haste and without scamping her work. With each member of the aristocracy of his new

profession Ashe shook hands, and on each member he smiled, until his facial and dorsal muscles were like to

crack under the strain. It was amazing that so many highclass domestics could be collected into one

"Miss Simpson you know," said Mrs. Twemlow, and Ashe was about to deny the charge when he perceived

that Joan was the individual referred to. "Mr. Judson, Mr. Marson. Mr. Judson is the Honorable Frederick's

"You have not the pleasure of our Freddie's acquaintance as yet, I take it, Mr. Marson?" observed Mr. Judson

"Mr. Marson, permit me to introduce you to Mr. Ferris, Lord Stockheath's gentleman."

"Miss Willoughby, this is Mr. Marson, who will take you in to dinner. Miss Willoughby is Lady Muriel

Mant's lady. As of course you are aware, Lady Mildred, our eldest daughter, married Colonel Horace Mant,

Ashe was not aware, and he was rather surprised that Mrs. Twemlow should have a daughter whose name

was Lady Mildred; but reason, coming to his rescue, suggested that by our she meant the offspring of the Earl

of Emsworth and his late countess. Miss Willoughby was a lighthearted damsel, with a smiling face and

Since etiquette forbade that he should take Joan in to dinner, Ashe was glad that at least an apparently

pleasant substitute had been provided. He had just been introduced to an appallingly statuesque lady of the

name of Chester, Lady Ann Warblington's own maid, and his somewhat hazy recollections of Joan's lecture

on belowstairs precedence had left him with the impression that this was his destined partner. He had

frankly quailed at the prospect of being linked to so much aristocratic hauteur.

When the final introduction had been made conversation broke out again. It dealt almost exclusively, so far as

Ashe could follow it, with the idiosyncrasies of the employers of those present. He took it that this happened

down the entire social scale below stairs. Probably the lower servants in the servants' hall discussed the upper

servants in the room, and the still lower servants in the housemaids' sittingroom discussed their superiors of

the servants' hall, and the stillroom gossiped about the housemaids' sittingroom.

He wondered which was the bottom circle of all, and came to the conclusion that it was probably represented

by the small respectful boy who had acted as his guide a short while before. This boy, having nobody to

discuss anybody with, presumably sat in solitary meditation, brooding on the oddjob man.

He thought of mentioning this theory to Miss Willoughby, but decided that it was too abstruse for her, and

contented himself with speaking of some of the plays he had seen before leaving London. Miss Willoughby

was an enthusiast on the drama; and, Colonel Mant's military duties keeping him much in town, she had had

wide opportunities of indulging her tastes. Miss Willoughby did not like the country. She thought it dull.

"I shan't find it dull here," said Ashe; and he was surprised to discover, through the medium of a pleased

Mr. Beach appeared in due season, a little distrait, as becomes a man who has just been engaged on important

"Alfred spilled the hock!" Ashe heard him announce to Mrs. Twemlow in a bitter undertone. "Within half an

Mrs. Twemlow murmured condolences. Mr. Beach's set expression was of one who is wondering how long

Ashe, miscalculating degrees of rank in spite of all his caution, was within a step of leaving the room out of

his proper turn; but the startled pressure of Miss Willoughby's hand on his arm warned him in time. He

stopped, to allow the statuesque Miss Chester to sail out under escort of a wizened little man with a horseshoe

pin in his tie, whose name, in company with nearly all the others that had been spoken to him since he came

"You were nearly making a bloomer!" said Miss Willoughby brightly. "You must be absentminded, Mr.

"Why, he forgets his own name sometimes! If it wasn't for Mr. Baxter, goodness knows what would happen

"You will if you stay here long. You can't get away from him if you're in the same house. Don't tell anyone I

said so; but he's the real master here. His lordship's secretary he calls himself; but he's really everything rolled

Ashe, searching in his dramatic memories for such a person in a play, inquired whether Miss Willoughby

meant PoohBah, in "The Mikado," of which there had been a revival in London recently. Miss Willoughby

"But Nosy Parker is what I call him," she said. "He minds everybody's business as well as his own."

The last of the procession trickled into the steward's room. Mr. Beach said grace somewhat patronizingly The

"You've seen Miss Peters, of course, Mr. Marson?" said Miss Willoughby, resuming conversation with the

Ashe began to wonder whether everybody he met was going to ask him this dangerous question.

Ashe was conscious of a prickly sensation. A little more of this and he might as well reveal his true mission

"How are you feeling after the journey, Mr. Marson?" said a voice from the other side of the table; and Ashe,

looking up gratefully, found Joan's eyes looking into his with a curiously amused expression

He was too grateful for the interruption to try to account for this. He replied that he was feeling very well,

which was not the case. Miss Willoughby's interest was diverted to a discussion of the defects of the various

At the head of the table Mr. Beach had started an intimate conversation with Mr. Ferris, the valet of Lord

Stockheath, the Honorable Freddie's "poor old Percy"a cousin, Ashe had gathered, of Aline Peters'

husbandtobe. The butler spoke in more measured tones even than usual, for he was speaking of tragedy.

"Yes, Mr. Beach," replied the valet, "it's a fact we made a pretty poor show." He took a sip from his glass.

"There is no concealing the factI have never tried to conceal itthat poor Percy is not bright."

"I couldn't see where the girlwhat's her name? was so very pretty. All the papers had pieces where it said

she was attractive, and what not; but she didn't look anything special to me from her photograph in the

"The photo didn't quite do her justice, Miss Chester. I was present in court, and I must admit she was

sveltedecidedly svelte. And you must recollect that Percy, from childhood up, has always been a highly

"We are speaking of the Stockheath breachofpromise case, Miss Simpson, of which you doubtless read in

the newspapers. Lord Stockheath is a nephew of ours. I fancy his lordship was greatly shocked at the

"He was," chimed in Mr. Judson from down the table. "I happened to overhear him speaking of it to young

Freddie. It was in the library on the morning when the judge made his final summing up and slipped it into

Lord Stockheath so proper. 'If ever anything of this sort happens to you, you young scalawag,' he says to

Mr. Beach coughed. "Mr. Judson!" "Oh, it's all right, Mr. Beach; we're all in the family here, in a manner of

speaking. It wasn't as though I was telling it to a lot of outsiders. I'm sure none of these ladies or gentlemen

"He says to Freddie: 'You young scalawag, if ever anything of this sort happens to you, you can pack up and

go one to Canada, for I'll have nothing more to do with you!'or words to that effect. And Freddie says: 'Oh,

However short Mr. Judson's imitation of his master's voice may have fallen of histrionic perfection, it pleased

"Mr. Judson is clever, isn't he, Mr. Marson?" whispered Miss Willoughby, gazing with adoring eyes at the

Mr. Beach thought it expedient to deflect the conversation. By the unwritten law of the room every individual

had the right to speak as freely as he wished about his own personal employer; but Judson, in his opinion,

Ashe noted as a curious fact that, though the actual valet of any person under discussion spoke of him almost

affectionately by his Christian name, the rest of the company used the greatest ceremony and gave him his

title with all respect. Lord Stockheath was Percy to Mr. Ferris, and the Honorable Frederick Threepwood was

Freddie to Mr. Judson; but to Ferris, Mr. Judson's Freddie was the Honorable Frederick, and to Judson Mr.

Ferris' Percy was Lord Stockheath. It was rather a pleasant form of etiquette, and struck Ashe as somehow

"Percy," went on Mr. Ferris, "is bearing it like a little Britonthe damages not having come out of his

pocket! It's his old fatherwho had to pay themthat's taking it to heart. You might say he's doing himself

proud. He says it's brought on his gout again, and that's why he's gone to Droitwich instead of coming here. I

"It has been," said Mr. Beach, summing up, "a most unfortunate occurrence. The modern tendency of the

lower classes to get above themselves is becoming more marked every day. The young female in this case

was, I understand, a barmaid. It is deplorable that our young men should allow themselves to get into such

"The wonder to me," said the irrepressible Mr. Judson, "is that more of these young chaps don't get put

through it. His lordship wasn't so wide of the mark when he spoke like that to Freddie in the library that time.

I give you my word, it's a mercy young Freddie hasn't been up against it! When we were in London, Freddie

and I," he went on, cutting through Mr. Beach's disapproving cough, "before what you might call the crash,

when his lordship cut off supplies and had him come back and live here, Freddie was asking for itbelieve

me! Fell in love with a girl in the chorus of one of the theaters. Used to send me to the stage door with notes

"What was her name? It's on the tip of my tongue. Funny how you forget these things! Freddie was pretty far

gone. I recollect once, happening to be looking round his room in his absence, coming on a poem he had

written to her. It was hot stuffvery hot! If that girl has kept those letters it's my belief we shall see Freddie

"Goo'," said Miss Chester's escort with unction. "You don't say so, Mr. Judson! It wouldn't half make them

look silly if the Honorable Frederick was sued for breach just now, with the wedding coming on!"

It was Joan's voice. and she had spoken with such decision that she had the ear of the table immediately. All

eyes looked in her direction. Ashe was struck with her expression. Her eyes were shining as though she were

angry; and there was a flush on her face. A phrase he had used in the train came back to him. She looked like

"What makes you say that, Miss Simpson?" inquired Judson, annoyed. He had been at pains to make the

It seemed to Ashe that Joan made an effort of some sort as though she were pulling herself together and

"Well," she said, almost lamely, "I don't think it at all likely that he proposed marriage to this girl."

"You never can tell," said Judson. "My impression is that Freddie did. It's my belief that there's something on

his mind these days. Before he went to London with his lordship the other day he was behaving very strange.

And since he came back it's my belief that he has been brooding. And I happen to know he followed the affair

of Lord Stockheath pretty closely, for he clipped the clippings out of the paper. I found them myself one day

Beach cleared his throathis mode of indicating that he was about to monopolize the conversation.

"And in any case, Miss Simpson," he said solemnly, with things come to the pass they have come to, and the

juriesdrawn from the lower classesin the nasty mood they're in, it don't seem hardly necessary in these

affairs for there to have been any definite promise of marriage. What with all this socialism rampant, they

seem so happy at the idea of being able to do one of us an injury that they give heavy damages without it. A

few ardent expressions, and that's enough for them. You recollect the Havant case, and when young Lord

Mount Anville was sued? What it comes to is that anarchy is getting the upper hand, and the lower classes are

getting above themselves. It's all these here cheap newspapers that does it. They tempt the lower classes to

"Only this morning I had to speak severe to that young fellow, James, the footman. He was a good young

fellow once and did his work well, and had a proper respect for people; but now he's gone all to pieces. And

why? Because six months ago he had the rheumatism, and had the audacity to send his picture and a

testimonial, saying that it had cured him of awful agonies, to Walkinshaw's Supreme Ointment, and they

printed it in half a dozen papers; and it has been the ruin of James. He has got above himself and don't care

"Well, all I can say is," resumed Judson, "that I hope to goodness nothing won't happen to Freddie of that

"Joan Valentine!" cried Judson, bringing his hands down on the tablecloth with a bang. "I've just remembered

it. That was the name of the girl Freddie used to write the letters and poems to; and that's who it is I've been

trying all along to think you reminded me of, Miss Simpson. You're the living image of Freddie's Miss Joan

Ashe was not normally a young man of particularly ready wit; but on this occasion it may have been that the

shock of this revelation, added to the fact that something must be done speedily if Joan's discomposure was

not to become obvious to all present, quickened his intelligence. Joan, usually so sure of herself, so ready of

resource, had gone temporarily to pieces. She was quite white, and her eyes met Ashe's with almost a hunted

If the attention of the company was to be diverted, something drastic must be done. A mere verbal attempt to

In the days of his childhood in Hayling, Massachusetts, he had played truant from Sunday school again and

again in order to frequent the society of one Eddie Waffles, the official bad boy of the locality. It was not so

much Eddie's charm of conversation which had attracted himthough that had been greatas the fact that

Eddie, among his other accomplishments, could give a lifelike imitation of two cats fighting in a back yard;

and Ashe felt that he could never be happy until he had acquired this gift from the master.

In course of time he had done so. It might be that his absences from Sunday school in the cause of art had left

him in later years a trifle shaky on the subject of the Kings of Judah, but his hardwon accomplishment had

made him in request at every smoking concert at Oxford; and it saved the situation now.

"Have you ever heard two cats fighting in a back yard?" he inquired casually of his neighbor, Miss

The next moment the performance was in full swing. Young Master Waffles, who had devoted considerable

study to his subject, had conceived the combat of his imaginary cats in a broad, almost Homeric, vein. The

unpleasantness opened with a low gurgling sound, answered by another a shade louder and possibly more

querulous. A momentary silence was followed by a longdrawn note, like rising wind, cut off abruptly and

succeeded by a grumbling mutter. The response to this was a couple of sharp howls. Both parties to the

contest then indulged in a discontented whining, growing louder and louder until the air was full of electric

menace. And then, after another sharp silence, came war, noisy and overwhelming.

Standing at Master Waffles' side, you could follow almost every movement of that intricate fray, and mark

how now one and now the other of the battlers gained a shortlived advantage. It was a great fight. Shrewd

blows were taken and given, and in the eye of the imagination you could see the air thick with flying fur.

Louder and louder grew the din; and then, at its height, it ceased in one crescendo of tumult, and all was still,

Such was the cat fight of Master Eddie Waffles; and Ashe, though falling short of the master, as a pupil must,

To say that the attention of the company was diverted from Mr. Judson and his remarks by the extraordinary

noises which proceeded from Ashe's lips would be to offer a mere shadowy suggestion of the sensation

caused by his efforts. At first, stunned surprise, then consternation, greeted him. Beach, the butler, was

staring as one watching a miracle, nearer apparently to apoplexy than ever. On the faces of the others every

That this should be happening in the steward's room at Blandings Castle was scarcely less amazing than if it

had taken place in a cathedral. The upper servants, rigid in their seats, looked at each other, like Cortes'

The last faint moan of feline defiance died away and silence fell on the room. Ashe turned to Miss

"Just like that!" he said. "I was telling Miss Willoughby," he added apologetically to Mrs. Twemlow, "about

For perhaps three seconds his social reputation swayed to and fro in the balance, while the company pondered

on what he had done. It was new; but it was humorousor was it vulgar? There is nothing the English upper

servant so abhors as vulgarity. That was what the steward's room was trying to make up its mind about.

Then Miss Willoughby threw her shapely head back and the squeal of her laughter smote the ceiling. And at

that the company made its decision. Everybody laughed. Everybody urged Ashe to give an encore.

Everybody was his friend and admirereverybody but Beach, the butler. Beach, the butler, was shocked to

his very core. His heavylidded eyes rested on Ashe with disapproval. It seemed to Beach, the butler, that

Ashe found Joan at his side. Dinner was over and the diners were making for the housekeeper's room.

"Thank you, Mr. Marson. That was very good of you and very clever." Her eyes twinkled. "But what a

terrible chance you took! You have made yourself a popular success, but you might just as easily have

"I'm afraid he didn't. In a minute or so I'm going to fawn on him and make all well."

"It was quite true, what that odious little man said. Freddie Threepwood did write me letters. Of course I

"But weren't you running the risk in coming here that he might recognize you? Wouldn't that make it rather

"I never met him, you see. He only wrote to me. When he came to the station to meet us this evening he

looked startled to see me; so I suppose he remembers my appearance. But Aline will have told him that my

"That fellow Judson said he was brooding. I think you ought to put him out of his misery."

"Mr. Judson must have been letting his imagination run away with him. He is out of his misery. He sent a

horrid fat man named Jones to see me in London about the letters, and I told him I had destroyed them. He

They went into the housekeeper's room. Mr. Beach was standing before the fire. Ashe went up to him. It was

not an easy matter to mollify Mr. Beach. Ashe tried the most tempting topics. He mentioned swollen

feethe dangled the lining of Mr. Beach's stomach temptingly before his eyes; but the butler was not to be

softened. Only when Ashe turned the conversation to the subject of the museum did a flicker of animation stir

Mr. Beach was fond and proud of the Blandings Castle museum. It had been the means of getting him into

print for the first and only time in his life. A year before, a representative of the Intelligencer and Echo, from

the neighboring town of Blatchford, had come to visit the castle on behalf of his paper; and he had begun one

section of his article with the words: "Under the auspices of Mr. Beach, my genial cicerone, I then visited his

He responded almost amiably to Ashe's questions. Yes; he had seen the scarabhe pronounced it

scayrubwhich Mr. Peters had presented to his lordship. He understood that his lordship thought very

highly of Mr. Peters' scayrub. He had overheard Mr. Baxter telling his lordship that it was extremely

"Mr. Beach," said Ashe, "I wonder whether you would take me to see Lord Emsworth's museum?"

One can attribute only to the nervous mental condition following the interview he had had with Ashe in his

Mr. Peters, shortly after dinner, was in a dangerous and reckless mood. He had had a wretched time all

through the meal. The Blandings chef had extended himself in honor of the house party, and had produced a

succession of dishes, which in happier days Mr. Peters would have devoured eagerly. To be compelled by

considerations of health to pass these by was enough to damp the liveliest optimist. Mr. Peters had suffered

terribly. Occasions of feasting and revelry like the present were for him so many battlefields, on which greed

All through dinner he brooded on Ashe's defiance and the horrors which were to result from that defiance.

One of Mr. Peters' most painful memories was of a two weeks' visit he had once paid to Mr. Muldoon in his

celebrated establishment at White Plains. He had been persuaded to go there by a brother millionaire whom,

until then, he had always regarded as a friend. The memory of Mr. Muldoon's cold shower baths and brisk

The thought that under Ashe's rule he was to go through privately very much what he had gone through in the

company of a gang of other unfortunates at Muldoon's froze him with horror. He knew those health cranks

who believed that all mortal ailments could be cured by cold showers and brisk walks. They were all alike

and they nearly killed you. His worst nightmare was the one where he dreamed he was back at Muldoon's,

He would not stand it! He would be hanged if he'd stand it! He would defy Ashe. But if he defied Ashe, Ashe

Mr. Peters began to appreciate the true meaning of the phrase about the horns of a dilemma. The horns of this

dilemma occupied his attention until the end of the dinner. He shifted uneasily from one to the other and back

again. He rose from the table in a thoroughly overwrought condition of mind. And then, somehow, in the

course of the evening, he found himself alone in the hall, not a dozen feet from the unlocked museum door.

It was not immediately that he appreciated the significance of this fact. He had come to the hall because its

solitude suited his mood. It was only after he had finished a cigarAshe could not stop his smoking after

dinnerthat it suddenly flashed on him that he had ready at hand a solution of all his troubles. A brief

minute's resolute action and the scarab would be his again, and the menace of Ashe a thing of the past. He

Not once since the removal of the scarab had begun to exercise his mind had Mr. Peters contemplated for an

instant the possibility of recovering it himself. The prospect of the unpleasantness that would ensue had been

enough to make him regard such an action as out of the question. The risk was too great to be considered for

Like Ashe, he had always visualized the recovery of his scarab as a thing of the small hours, a daring act to

be performed when sleep held the castle in its grip. That an opportunity would be presented to him of walking

in quite calmly and walking out again with the Cheops in his pocket, had never occurred to him as a

Yet now this chance was presenting itself in all its simplicity, and all he had to do was to grasp it. The door of

the museum was not even closed. He could see from where he stood that it was ajar.

He moved cautiously in its directionnot in a straight line as one going to a museum, but circuitously as one

strolling without an aim. From time to time he glanced over his shoulder. He reached the door, hesitated, and

passed it. He turned, reached the door againand again passed it. He stood for a moment darting his eyes

about the hall; then, in a burst of resolution, he dashed for the door and shot in like a rabbit.

At the same moment the Efficient Baxter, who, from the shelter of a pillar on the gallery that ran around

twothirds of the hall, had been eyeing the peculiar movements of the distinguished guest with considerable

Rupert Baxter, the Earl of Emsworth's indefatigable private secretary, was one of those men whose chief

characteristic is a vague suspicion of their fellow human beings. He did not suspect them of this or that

definite crime; he simply suspected them. He prowled through life as we are told the hosts of Midian

His powers in this respect were wellknown at Blandings Castle. The Earl of Emsworth said: "Baxter is

invaluablepositively invaluable." The Honorable Freddie said: "A chappie can't take a step in this bally

house without stumbling over that damn feller, Baxter!" The manservant and the maidservant within the

gates, like Miss Willoughby, employing that crisp gift for characterization which is the property of the

Peering over the railing of the balcony and observing the curious movements of Mr. Peters, who, as a matter

of fact, while making up his mind to approach the door, had been backing and filling about the hall in a

quaint serpentine manner like a man trying to invent a new variety of the tango, the Efficient Baxter had

found himself in some waywhy, he did not knowof what, he could not saybut in some nebulous way,

He had not definitely accused Mr. Peters in his mind of any specific tort or malfeasance. He had merely felt

But when Mr. Peters, making up his mind, leaped into the museum, Baxter's suspicions lost their vagueness

and became crystallized. Certainty descended on him like a bolt from the skies. On oath, before a notary, the

Efficient Baxter would have declared that J. Preston Peters was about to try to purloin the scarab.

Lest we should seem to be attributing too miraculous powers of intuition to Lord Emsworth's secretary, it

should be explained that the mystery which hung about that curio had exercised his mind not a little since his

employer had given it to him to place in the museum. He knew Lord Emsworth's power of forgetting and he

did not believe his account of the transaction. Scarab maniacs like Mr. Peters did not give away specimens

from their collections as presents. But he had not divined the truth of what had happened in London.

The conclusion at which he had arrived was that Lord Emsworth had bought the scarab and had forgotten all

about it. To support this theory was the fact that the latter had taken his check book to London with him.

Baxter's long acquaintance with the earl had left him with the conviction that there was no saying what he

As to Mr. Peters' motive for entering the museum, that, too, seemed completely clear to the secretary. He was

a curia enthusiast himself and he had served collectors in a secretarial capacity; and he knew, both from

experience and observation, that strange madness which may at any moment afflict the collector, blotting out

morality and the nice distinction between meum and tuum, as with a sponge. He knew that collectors who

would not steal a loaf if they were starving mightand didfall before the temptation of a coveted curio.

He descended the stairs three at a time, and entered the museum at the very instant when Mr. Peters'

twitching fingers were about to close on his treasure. He handled the delicate situation with eminent tact. Mr.

Peters, at the sound of his step, had executed a backward leap, which was as good as a confession of guilt,

and his face was rigid with dismay; but the Efficient Baxter pretended not to notice these phenomena. His

"Ah! Taking a look at our little collection, Mr. Peters? You will see that we have given the place of honor to

Mr. Peters was recovering slowly. Baxter talked on, to give him time. He spoke of Mut and Bubastis, of

Ammon and the Book of the Dead. He directed the other's attention to the Roman coins.

He was touching on some aspects of the Princess Gilukhipa of Mitanni, in whom his hearer could scarcely

fail to be interested, when the door opened and Beach, the butler, came in, accompanied by Ashe. In the

bustle of the interruption Mr. Peters escaped, glad to be elsewhere, and questioning for the first time in his

"I was not aware, sir," said Beach, the butler, "that you were in occupation of the museum. I would not have

intruded; but this young man expressed a desire to examine the exhibits, and I took the liberty of conducting

The light fell on Ashe's face, and he recognized him as the cheerful young man who had inquired the way to

Mr. Peters' room before dinner and who, he had by this time discovered, was not the Honorable Freddie's

friend, George Emersonor, indeed, any other of the guests of the house. He felt suspicious.

"Has he been in service long?" asked Baxter, remembering that a mere menial had addressed him as "old

Beach lowered his voice. He and the Efficient Baxter were old allies, and it seemed right to Beach to confide

"He has only just joined Mr. Peters, sir; and he has never been in service before. He told me so himself, and I

was unable to elicit from him any information as to his antecedents. His manner struck me, sir, as peculiar. It

crossed my mind to wonder whether Mr. Peters happened to be aware of this. I should dislike to do any

young man an injury; but it might be anyone coming to a gentleman without a character, like this young man.

"Mr. Peters probably knows all about him. Tell me, Beach, who was it suggested this visit to the museum?

The Efficient Baxter returned to the museum without a word. Ashe, standing in the middle of the room, was

impressing the topography of the place on his memory. He was unaware of the piercing stare of suspicion that

He did not see Baxter. He was not even thinking of Baxter; but Baxter was on the alert. Baxter was on the

AMONG the compensations of advancing age is a wholesome pessimism, which, though it takes the fine

edge off of whatever triumphs may come to us, has the admirable effect of preventing Fate from working off

on us any of those gold bricks, coins with strings attached, and unhatched chickens, at which ardent youth

snatches with such enthusiasm, to its subsequent disappointment. As we emerge from the twenties we grow

into a habit of mind that looks askance at Fate bearing gifts. We miss, perhaps, the occasional prize, but we

Ashe Marson had yet to reach the age of tranquil mistrust; and when Fate seemed to be treating him kindly he

was still young enough to accept such kindnesses on their face value and rejoice at them.

As he sat on his bed at the end of his first night in Castle Blandings, he was conscious to a remarkable degree

that Fortune was treating him well. He had survivednot merely without discredit, but with positive

triumphthe initiatory plunge into the etiquette maelstrom of life below stairs. So far from doing the wrong

thing and drawing down on himself the just scorn of the steward's room, he had been the life and soul of the

party. Even if tomorrow, in an absentminded fit, he should anticipate the groom of the chambers in the

So much for that. But that was only a part of Fortune's kindnesses. To have discovered on the first day of

their association the correct method of handling and reducing to subjection his irascible employer was an

even greater boon. A prolonged association with Mr. Peters on the lines in which their acquaintance had

begun would have been extremely trying. Now, by virtue of a fortunate stand at the outset, he had spiked the

Thirdly, and most important of all, he had not only made himself familiar with the locality and surroundings

of the scarab, but he had seen, beyond the possibility of doubt, that the removal of it and the earning of the

five thousand dollars would be the simplest possible task. Already he was spending the money in his mind.

And to such lengths had optimism led him that, as he sat on his bed reviewing the events of the day, his only

doubt was whether to get the scarab at once or to let it remain where it was until he had the opportunity of

doing Mr. Peters' interior good on the lines he had mapped out in their conversation; for, of course, directly

he had restored the scarab to its rightful owner and pocketed the reward, his position as healer and trainer to

He was sorry for that, because it troubled him to think that a sick man would not be made well; but, on the

whole, looking at it from every aspect, it would be best to get the scarab as soon as possible and leave Mr.

Peters' digestion to look after itself. Being twentysix and an optimist, he had no suspicion that Fate might be

playing with him; that Fate might have unpleasant surprises in store; that Fate even now was preparing to

He looked at his watch. It was five minutes to one. He had no idea whether they kept early hours at Blandings

Castle or not, but he deemed it prudent to give the household another hour in which to settle down. After

The novel he had brought down with him from London fortunately proved interesting. Two o'clock came

before he was ready for it. He slipped the book into his pocket and opened the door.

All was stillstill and uncommonly dark. Along the corridor on which his room was situated the snores of

sleeping domestics exploded, growled and twittered in the air. Every menial on the list seemed to be snoring,

some in one key, some in another, some defiantly, some plaintively; but the main fact was that they were all

snoring somehow, thus intimating that, so far as this side of the house was concerned, the coast might be

Researches made at an earlier hour had familiarized him with the geography of the place. He found his way

to the greenbaize door without difficulty and, stepping through, was in the hall, where the remains of the log

fire still glowed a fitful red. This, however, was the only illumination, and it was fortunate that he did not

He knew the direction and had measured the distance. It was precisely seventeen steps from where he stood.

He was beginning the eleventh when he bumped into somebody somebody softsomebody whose hand,

The fragment of a log fell on the ashes and the fire gave a dying spurt. Darkness succeeded the sudden glow.

The fire was out. That little flame had been its last effort before expiring, but it had been enough to enable

His astonishment was shortlived. Next moment the only thing that surprised him was the fact that he was

not more surprised. There was something about this girl that made the most bizarre happenings seem right

and natural. Ever since he had met her his life had changed from an orderly succession of uninteresting days

to a strange carnival of the unexpected, and use was accustoming him to it. Life had taken on the quality of a

dream, in which anything might happen and in which everything that did happen was to be accepted with the

It was strange that she should be here in the pitchdark hall in the middle of the night; butafter allno

stranger than that he should be. In this dream world in which he now moved it had to be taken for granted that

"Yes; I have come here to earn the five thousand dollars, too, Mr. Marson. We are rivals."

In his present frame of mind it seemed so simple and intelligible to Ashe that he wondered whether he was

really hearing it the first time. He had an odd feeling that he had known this all along.

Ashe was dimly conscious of some objection to this, but at first it eluded him. Then he pinned it down.

"I don't know what you mean. But Aline Peters is an old friend of mine. She told me her father would give a

There was a soft footfall on the stairs, a click, and above Ashe's head a light flashed out. He looked round. He

A general suspicion of mankind and a definite and particular suspicion of one individual made a bad opiate.

For over an hour sleep had avoided the Efficient Baxter with an unconquerable coyness. He had tried all the

known ways of wooing slumber, but they had failed him, from the counting of sheep downward. The events

of the night had whipped his mind to a restless activity. Try as he might to lose consciousness, the

It is the penalty of the suspicious type of mind that it suffers from its own activity. From the moment he

detected Mr. Peters in the act of rifling the museum and marked down Ashe as an accomplice, Baxter's repose

was doomed. Nor poppy nor mandragora, nor all the drowsy sirups of the world, could ever medicine him to

But it was the recollection that on previous occasions of wakefulness hot whisky and water had done the

trick, which had now brought him from his bed and downstairs. His objective was the decanter on the table of

the smokingroom, which was one of the rooms opening on the gallery that looked down on the hall. Hot

So out of bed he had climbed and downstairs he had come; and here he was, to all appearances, just in time to

foil the very plot on which he had been brooding. Mr. Peters might be in bed, but there in the hall below him

stood the accomplice, not ten paces from the museum's door. He arrived on the spot at racing speed and

And then, from the Baxter viewpoint, things began to go wrong. By all the rules of the game, Ashe, caught,

as it were, redhanded, should have wilted, stammered and confessed all; but Ashe was fortified by that

philosophic calm which comes to us in dreams, and, moreover, he had his story ready.

He had never expected to feel grateful to the little firebrand who employed him, but he had to admit that the

millionaire, in their late conversation, had shown forethought. The thought struck him that but for Mr. Peters'

advice he might by now be in an extremely awkward position; for his was not a swiftly inventive mind.

"Mr. Peters suffers from insomnia, sir. He has a weak digestion and pain sometimes prevents him from

With that meekness which makes the good man wronged so impressive a spectacle, Ashe produced and

"Here is the book I am about to read to him. I think, sir, if you will excuse me, I had better be going to his

He proceeded to mount the stairs. He was sorry for Mr. Peters, so shortly about to be roused from a refreshing

The Efficient Baxter dogged him the whole way, sprinting silently in his wake and dodging into the shadows

whenever the light of an occasional electric bulb made it inadvisable to keep to the open. Then abruptly he

gave up the pursuit. For the first time his comparative impotence in this silent conflict on which he had

embarked was made manifest to him, and he perceived that on mere suspicion, however strong, he could do

nothing. To accuse Mr. Peters of theft or to accuse him of being accessory to a theft was out of the question.

Yet his whole being revolted at the thought of allowing the sanctity of the museum to be violated. Officially

its contents belonged to Lord Emsworth, but ever since his connection with the castle he had been put in

charge of them, and he had come to look on them as his own property. If he was only a collector by proxy he

had, nevertheless, the collector's devotion to his curios, beside which the lioness' attachment to her cubs is

tepid; and he was prepared to do anything to retain in his possession a scarab toward which he already

Nonot quite anything! He stopped short at the idea of causing unpleasantness between the father of the

Honorable Freddie and the father of the Honorable Freddie's fiancee. His secretarial position at the castle was

There was only one way in which this delicate affair could be brought to a satisfactory conclusion. It was

obvious from what he had seen that night that Mr. Peters' connection with the attempt on the scarab was to be

merely sympathetic, and that the actual theft was to be accomplished by Ashe. His only course, therefore, was

to catch Ashe actually in the museum. Then Mr. Peters need not appear in the matter at all. Mr. Peters'

position in those circumstances would be simply that of a man who had happened to employ, through no fault

He had made a mistake, he perceived, in locking the door of the museum. In the future he must leave it open,

as a trap is open; and he must stay up nights and keep watch. With these reflections, the Efficient Baxter

Meantime Ashe had entered Mr. Peters' bedroom and switched on the light. Mr. Peters, who had just

Mr. Peters emitted a stifled howl, in which wrath and selfpity were nicely blended.

"And now you're awake again," said Ashe soothingly. "Such is life! A little rest, a little folding of the hands

in sleep, and then bing!off we go again. I hope you will like this novel. I dipped into it and it seems good."

"It was your suggestion; and, by the way, I must thank you for it. I apologize for calling it thin. It worked like

a charm. I don't think he believed itin fact, I know he didn't; but it held him. I couldn't have thought up

"I have been after your Cheops, but I didn't get it. Bad men were abroad. That fellow with the spectacles, who

was in the museum when I met you there this evening, swooped down from nowhere, and I had to tell him

that you had rung for me to read to you. Fortunately I had this novel on me. I think he followed me upstairs to

"Baxter," he said; "He's a man named BaxterLord Emsworth's private secretary; and he suspects us. He's

"Well, never mind. Let's be happy while we can. Make yourself comfortable and I'll start reading. After all,

what could be pleasanter than a little literature in the small hours? Shall I begin?"

Ashe Marson found Joan Valentine in the stable yard after breakfast the next morning, playing with a

"Request your canine friend to withdraw," said Ashe. "He prevents me from marshaling my thoughts."

"Never mind. I'll do my best in spite of him. Tell me, was I dreaming or did I really meet you in the hall this

"I suppose you were surprised when you found that I was on the same game as yourself."

"I knew it directly I saw the advertisement in the Morning Post. And I hunted up the Morning Post directly

"Partly that; but chiefly because you had the pluck to undertake a thing like this."

"And I'm a woman. And my theory, Mr. Marson, is that a woman can do nearly everything better than a man.

What a splendid test case this would make to settle the VotesforWomen question once and for all! Here we

areyou and Ia man and a woman, each trying for the same thing and each starting with equal chances.

"You can't get out of it with a compliment. I'm an ordinary woman and I'm going to beat a real man."

"I like you, Mr. Marson; but we must not let sentiment interfere with business. You want Mr. Peters' five

"I hate the thought of being the instrument to prevent you from getting the money."

"You won't be. I shall be the instrument to prevent you from getting it. I don't like that thought, either; but

"That's simply your oldfashioned masculine attitude toward the female, Mr. Marson. You look on woman as

a weak creature, to be shielded and petted. We aren't anything of the sort. We're terrors! We're as hard as

nails. We're awful creatures. You mustn't let my sex interfere with your trying to get this reward. Think of me

as though I were another man. We're up against each other in a fair fight, and I don't want any special

privileges. If you don't do your best from now onward I shall never forgive you. Do you understand?"

"And we shall need to do our best. That little man with the glasses is on his guard. I was listening to you last

night from behind the door. By the way, you shouldn't have told me to run away and then have stayed

yourself to be caught. That is an example of the sort of thing I mean. It was chivalrynot business."

"And what a capital story it was! I shall borrow it for my own use. If I am caught I shall say I had to read

Aline to sleep because she suffers from insomnia. And I shouldn't wonder if she didpoor girl! She doesn't

get enough to eat. She is being starvedpoor child! I heard one of the footmen say that she refused

everything at dinner last night. And, though she vows it isn't, my belief is that it's all because she is afraid to

"Well, yes; you caught me there. I admit that poor Aline is not a shining example of the formidable modern

woman; but" She stopped. "Oh, bother! I've just thought of what I ought to have saidthe good repartee

"Not at all. I'm like that myselfonly it is generally the next day when I hit the right answer. Shall we go

"Thank you so much," said Joan gratefully. "And why is she a weak creature? Because she has allowed

herself to be shielded and petted; because she has permitted man to give her special privileges, and

"But it brings me back to my point, which is that I am not going to imitate her and forfeit my independence of

action in return for chivalry. Try to look at it from my point of view, Mr. Marson. I know you need the

money just as much as I do. Well, don't you think I should feel a little mean if I thought you were not trying

your hardest to get it, simply because you didn't think it would be fair to try your hardest against a woman?

That would cripple me. I should not feel as though I had the right to do anything. It's too important a matter

for you to treat me like a child and let me win to avoid disappointing me. I want the money; but I don't want

"Believe me," said Ashe earnestly, "it will not be handed to you. I have studied the Baxter question more

deeply than you have, and I can assure you that Baxter is a menace. What has put him so firmly on the right

scent I don't know; but he seems to have divined the exact state of affairs in its entiretyso far as I am

concerned, that is to say. Of course he has no idea you are mixed up in the business; but I am afraid his

suspicion of me will hit you as well. What I mean is that, for some time to come, I fancy that man proposes to

camp out on the rug in front of the museum door. It would be madness for either of us to attempt to go there

"It is being made very hard for us, isn't it? And I thought it was going to be so simple."

"Let us look on the bright side. We are in no hurry. Blandings Castle is quite as comfortable as Number

Seven Arundel Street, and the commissariat department is a revelation to me. I had no idea English servants

did themselves so well. And, as for the social side, I love it; I revel in it. For the first time in my life I feel as

though I am somebody. Did you observe my manner toward the kitchen maid who waited on us at dinner last

night? A touch of the old noblesse about it, I fancy. Dignified but not unkind, I think. And I can keep it up.

"But what about Mr. Peters? Don't you think there is danger he may change his mind about that five thousand

"Not a chance of it. Being almost within touch of the scarab has had the worst effect on him. It has intensified

"Yes; I got Mrs. Twemlow to take me to the museum while you were talking to the butler. It was dreadful to

feel that it was lying there in the open waiting for somebody to take it, and not be able to do anything."

"I felt exactly the same. It isn't much to look at, is it? If it hadn't been for the label I wouldn't have believed it

was the thing for which Peters was offering five thousand dollars' reward. But that's his affair. A thing is

worth what somebody will give for it. Ours not to reason why; ours but to elude Baxter and gather it in."

Ashe uttered an exclamation. "You've hit it! Why not? Why any cutthroat competition? Why shouldn't we

"My idea," he said, "was that I should do what I might call the rough work; and"

"Well, youyou would, as it werehow shall I put it? You would, so to speak, lend moral support."

"I thought you said just now that it would be madness for either of us to attempt to go to the museum at

present." Joan laughed. "It won't do, Mr. Marson. You remind me of an old cat I once had. Whenever he

killed a mouse he would bring it into the drawingroom and lay it affectionately at my feet. I would reject the

corpse with horror and turn him out, but back he would come with his loathsome gift. I simply couldn't make

him understand that he was not doing me a kindness. He thought highly of his mouse and it was beyond him

"You are just the same with your chivalry. It's very kind of you to keep offering me your dead mouse; but

honestly I have no use for it. I won't take favors just because I happen to be a female. If we are going to form

this partnership I insist on doing my fair share of the work and running my fair share of the risksthe

"Say pigheaded; I shan't mind. Certainly I am! A girl has got to be, even nowadays, if she wants to play fair.

Listen, Mr. Marson; I will not have the dead mouse. I do not like dead mice. If you attempt to work off your

dead mouse on me this partnership ceases before it has begun. If we are to work together we are going to

make alternate attempts to get the scarab. No other arrangement will satisfy me."

"You don't do anything of the sort. We toss up for first chance, like little ladies and gentlemen. Have you a

"Tail it is," said Joan. "What a nuisance! Well, never mind I'll get my chance if you fail."

"I shan't fail," said Ashe fervently. "If I have to pull the museum down I won't fail. Thank heaven, there's no

As they parted at the door, Joan made one further remark: "There's just one thing, Mr. Marson."

"If I could have accepted the mouse from anyone I should certainly have accepted it from you."

It is worthy of record, in the light of after events, that at the beginning of their visit it was the general opinion

of the guests gathered together at Blandings Castle that the place was dull. The house party had that air of

torpor which one sees in the saloon passengers of an Atlantic linerthat appearance of resignation to an

enforced idleness and a monotony to be broken only by meals. Lord Emsworth's guests gave the impression,

This was partly the fault of the time of year, for most house parties are dull if they happen to fall between the

hunting and the shooting seasons, but must be attributed chiefly to Lord Emsworth's extremely sketchy

A host has no right to interne a regiment of his relations in his house unless he also invites lively and

agreeable outsiders to meet them. If he does commit this solecism the least he can do is to work himself to the

bone in the effort to invent amusements and diversions for his victims. Lord Emsworth had failed badly in

both these matters. With the exception of Mr. Peters, his daughter Aline and George Emerson, there was

nobody in the house who did not belong to the clan; and, as for his exerting himself to entertain, the company

toamusethemselveswhentheycometoaplace school of hosts. He pottered about the garden in an old

coatnow uprooting a weed, now wrangling with the autocrat from Scotland, who was theoretically in his

service as head gardenerdreamily satisfied, when he thought of them at all, that his guests were as

Apart from his son Freddie, whom he had long since dismissed as a youth of abnormal tastes, from whom

nothing reasonable was to be expected, he could not imagine anyone not being content merely to be at

A resolute hostess might have saved the situation; but Lady Ann Warblington's abilities in that direction

stopped short at leaving everything to Mrs. Twemlow and writing letters in her bedroom. When Lady Ann

Warblington was not writing letters in her bedroomwhich was seldom, for she had an apparently

inexhaustible correspondenceshe was nursing sick headaches in it. She was one of those hostesses whom a

guest never sees except when he goes into the library and espies the tail of her skirt vanishing through the

As for the ordinary recreations of the country house, the guests could frequent the billiard room, where they

were sure to find Lord Stockheath playing a hundred up with his cousin, Algernon Woostera spectacle of

the liveliest interestor they could, if fond of golf, console themselves for the absence of links in the

neighborhood with the exhilarating pastime of clock golf; or they could stroll about the terraces with such of

their relations as they happened to be on speaking terms with at the moment, and abuse their host and the rest

This was the favorite amusement; and after breakfast, on a morning ten days after Joan and Ashe had formed

their compact, the terraces were full of perambulating couples. Here, Colonel Horace Mant, walking with the

Bishop of Godalming, was soothing that dignitary by clothing in soldierly words thoughts that the latter had

not been able to crush down, but which his holy office scarcely permitted him to utter.

There, Lady Mildred Mant, linked to Mrs. Jack Hale, of the collateral branch of the family, was saying things

about her father in his capacity of host and entertainer, that were making her companion feel like the other

woman. Farther on, stopping occasionally to gesticulate, could be seen other Emsworth relations and

Leaning on the broad stone balustrade of the upper terrace, Aline Peters and George Emerson surveyed the

malcontents. Aline gave a little sigh, almost inaudible; but George's hearing was good.

"I was wondering when you are going to admit it," he said, shifting his position so that he faced her.

"That you can't stand the prospect; that the idea of being stuck for life with this crowd, like a fly on fly paper,

is too much for you; that you are ready to break off your engagement to Freddie and come away and marry

"Then you can breathe in this atmosphere! You surprise me!" He raked the terraces with hostile eyes. "Look

at them! Look at themcrawling round like doped beetles. My dear girl, it's no use your pretending that this

sort of thing wouldn't kill you. You're pining away already. You're thinner and paler since you came here.

Gee! How we shall look back at this and thank our stars that we're out of it when we're back in old New

York, with the elevated rattling and the street cars squealing over the points, and something doing every step

you take. I shall call you on the 'phone from the office and have you meet me down town somewhere, and

we'll have a bite to eat and go to some show, and a bit of supper afterward and a dance or two; and then go

"It's wrong. You can't talk like that when we are both enjoying the hospitality"

A wild laugh, almost a howl, disturbed the talk of the most adjacent of the perambulating relations. Colonel

Horace Mant, checked in midsentence, looked up resentfully at the cause of the interruption.

"I wish somebody would tell me whether it's that American fellow, Emerson, or young Freddie who's

supposed to be engaged to Miss Peters. Hanged if you ever see her and Freddie together, but she and

Emerson are never to be found apart. If my respected fatherinlaw had any sense I should have thought he

"You forget, my dear Horace," said the bishop charitably; "Miss Peters and Mr. Emerson have known each

"They were never nearly such children as Emsworth is now," snorted the colonel. "If that girl isn't in love

"No, no," said the bishop. "No, no! Surely not, Horace. What were you saying when you broke off?"

"I was saying that if a man wanted his relations never to speak to each other again for the rest of their lives

the best thing he could do would be to herd them all together in a dashed barrack of a house a hundred miles

from anywhere, and then go off and spend all his time prodding dashed flower beds with a spuddash it!"

"Just so; just so. So you were. Go on, Horace; I find a curious comfort in your words."

"I'm sorry; but you shouldn't spring these jokes on me so suddenly. You said enjoying! Yesreveling in it,

"And when you've said that you've said everything. You can't live on scenery and architecture for the rest of

"There goes father," interrupted Aline. "How fast he is walking! George, have you noticed a sort of difference

"He seems better somehow. He seems to have almost stopped smokingand I'm very glad, for those cigars

were awfully bad for him. The doctor expressly told him he must stop them, but he wouldn't pay any

attention to him. And he seems to take so much more exercise. My bedroom is next to his, you know, and

every morning I can hear things going on through the wallfather dancing about and puffing a good deal.

And one morning I met his valet going in with a pair of Indian clubs. I believe father is really taking himself

"And about time, too! How much longer are you to go on starving yourself to death just to give him the

resolution to stick to his dieting? It maddens me to see you at dinner. And it's killing you. You're getting pale

"You want somebody to take care of you and look after you. I'm the man. You may think you can fool me;

but I can tell. You're weakening on this Freddie proposition. You're beginning to see that it won't do. One of

these days you're going to come to me and say: 'George, you were right. I take the count. Me for the quiet

sneak to the station, without anybody knowing, and the break for London, and the wedding at the registrar's.'

Oh, I know! I couldn't have loved you all this time and not know. You're weakening."

The trouble with these supermen is that they lack reticence. They do not know how to omit. They expand

their chests and whoop. And a girl, even the mildest and sweetest of girlseven a girl like Aline

Peterscannot help resenting the note of triumph. But supermen despise tact. As far as one can gather, that

"I'm not weakening at all," she said, and her voice wasfor herquite acid. "Youyou take too much for

"It is not foolishness," said Aline pettishly, tears of annoyance in her eyes. "And I wish you wouldn't call him

"Very well, little girl," said George softly. "I wouldn't do anything to hurt you."

The fact that it never even occurred to George Emerson he was being offensively patronizing shows the stern

The Efficient Baxter bicycled broodingly to Market Blandings for tobacco. He brooded for several reasons.

He had just seen Aline Peters and George Emerson in confidential talk on the upper terrace, and that was one

thing which exercised his mind, for he suspected George Emerson. He suspected him nebulously as a snake

in the grass; as an influence working against the orderly progress of events concerning the marriage that had

been arranged and would shortly take place between Miss Peters and the Honorable Frederick Threepwood.

It would be too much to say that he had any idea that George was putting in such hard and consistent work in

his serpentine role; indeed if he could have overheard the conversation just recorded it is probable that Rupert

Baxter would have had heart failure; but he had observed the intimacy between the two as he observed most

things in his immediate neighborhood, and he disapproved of it. It was all very well to say that George

Emerson had known Aline Peters since she was a child. If that was so, then in the opinion of the Efficient

Baxter he had known her quite long enough and ought to start making the acquaintance of somebody else.

He blamed the Honorable Freddie. If the Honorable Freddie had been a more ardent lover he would have

spent his time with Aline, and George Emerson would have taken his proper place as one of the crowd at the

back of the stage. But Freddie's view of the matter seemed to be that he had done all that could be expected of

a chappie in getting engaged to the girl, and that now he might consider himself at liberty to drop her for a

So Baxter, as he bicycled to Market Blandings for tobacco, brooded on Freddie, Aline Peters and George

Emerson. He also brooded on Mr. Peters and Ashe Marson. Finally he brooded in a general way, because he

The spectacle of a young man doing his duty and enduring considerable discomforts while doing it is painful;

but there is such uplift in it, it affords so excellent a moral picture, that I cannot omit a short description of the

manner in which Rupert Baxter had spent the nights which had elapsed since his meeting with Ashe in the

In the gallery which ran above the hall there was a large chair, situated a few paces from the great staircase.

On this, in an overcoatfor the nights were chillyand rubbersoled shoes, the Efficient Baxter had sat,

without missing a single night, from one in the morning until daybreak, waiting, waiting, waiting. It had been

an ordeal to try the stoutest determination. Nature had never intended Baxter for a night bird. He loved his

bed. He knew that doctors held that insufficient sleep made a man pale and sallow, and he had always aimed

at the peachbloom complexion which comes from a sensible eight hours between the sheets.

One of the King Georges of EnglandI forget whichonce said that a certain number of hours' sleep each

nightI cannot recall at the moment how manymade a man something, which for the time being has

slipped my memory. Baxter agreed with him. It went against all his instincts to sit up in this fashion; but it

It troubled him that, as night after night went by and Ashe, the suspect, did not walk into the trap so carefully

laid for him, he found an increasing difficulty in keeping awake. The first two or three of his series of vigils

he had passed in an unimpeachable wakefulness, his chin resting on the rail of the gallery and his ears alert

for the slightest sound; but he had not been able to maintain this standard of excellence.

On several occasions he had caught himself in the act of dropping off, and the last night he had actually

wakened with a start to find it quite light. As his last recollection before that was of an inky darkness

impenetrable to the eye, dismay gripped him with a sudden clutch and he ran swiftly down to the museum.

His relief on finding that the scarab was still there had been tempered by thoughts of what might have been.

Baxter, then, as he bicycled to Market Blandings for tobacco, had good reason to brood. Having bought his

tobacco and observed the life and thought of the town for half an hourit was market day and the normal

stagnation of the place was temporarily relieved and brightened by pigs that eluded their keepers, and a bull

calf which caught a stout farmer at the psychological moment when he was tying his shoe lace and lifted him

six feethe made his way to the Emsworth Arms, the most respectable of the eleven inns the citizens of

In English country towns, if the public houses do not actually outnumber the inhabitants, they all do an

excellent trade. It is only when they are two to one that hard times hit them and set the innkeepers to blaming

It was not the busy bar, full to overflowing with honest British yeomenmany of them in a similar

conditionthat Baxter sought. His goal was the genteel diningroom on the first floor, where a bald and

shuffling waiter, own cousin to a tortoise, served luncheon to those desiring it. Lack of sleep had reduced

Baxter to a condition where the presence and chatter of the house party were insupportable. It was his

He had relied on having the room to himself, for Market Blandings did not lunch to a great extent; but to his

annoyance and disappointment the room was already occupied by a man in brown tweeds.

Occupied is the correct word, for at first sight this man seemed to fill the room. Never since almost forgotten

days when he used to frequent circuses and side shows, had Baxter seen a fellow human being so

extraordinarily obese. He was a man about fifty years old, grayhaired, of a mauve complexion, and his

To Baxter's chagrin, this person engaged him in conversation directly he took his seat at the table. There was

only one table in the room, as is customary in English inns, and it had the disadvantage that it collected those

seated at it into one party. It was impossible for Baxter to withdraw into himself and ignore this person's

It is doubtful whether he could have done it, however, had they been separated by yards of floor, for the fat

man was not only naturally talkative but, as appeared from his opening remarks, speech had been dammed up

"Morning!" he began; "nice day. Good for the farmers. I'll move up to your end of the table if I may, sir.

"Infernally quiet place, this, sir. I haven't found a soul to speak to since I arrived yesterday afternoon except

"I pity you. Wouldn't care to do it myself. Had to come here on business and shan't be sorry when it's

finished. I give you my word I couldn't sleep a wink last night because of the quiet. I was just dropping off

when a beast of a bird outside the window gave a chirrup, and it brought me up with a jerk as though

somebody had fired a gun. There's a damned cat somewhere near my room that mews. I lie in bed waiting for

"Heaven save me from the country! It may be all right for you, if you've got a comfortable home and a pal or

two to chat with after dinner; but you've no conception what it's like in this infernal townI suppose it calls

itself a town. What a hole! There's a church down the street. I'm told it's Norman or something. Anyway, it's

old. I'm not much of a man for churches as a rule, but I went and took a look at it.

"Then somebody told me there was a fine view from the end of High Street; so I went and took a look at that.

And now, so far as I can make out, I've done the sights and exhausted every possibility of entertainment the

town has to provideunless there's another church. I'm so reduced that I'll go and see the Methodist Chapel,

Fresh air, want of sleep and the closeness of the diningroom combined to make Baxter drowsy. He ate his

lunch in a torpor, hardly replying to his companion's remarks, who, for his part, did not seem to wish or to

"What do people do with themselves in a place like this? When they want amusement, I mean. I suppose it's

different if you've been brought up to it. Like being born colorblind or something. You don't notice. It's the

visitor who suffers. They've no enterprise in this sort of place. There's a bit of land just outside here that

would make a sweet steeplechase course; natural barriers; everything. It hasn't occurred to 'em to do anything

Baxter dozed. With his fork still impaling a piece of cold beef, he dropped into that halfawake, halfasleep

state which is Nature's daytime substitute for the true slumber of the night. The fat man, either not noticing or

Suddenly there was a break. Baxter sat up, blinking. He had a curious impression that his companion had said

"I thought you were dropping off when I looked at you. You've been dreaming. What should I say, 'Hello,

The conundrum was unanswerable. Baxter did not attempt to answer it. But there remained at the back of his

mind a quaint idea that he had caught sight, as he woke, of the Honorable Frederick Threepwood, his face

warningly contorted, vanishing through the doorway. Yet what could the Honorable Freddie be doing at the

A solution of the difficulty occurred to him: he had dreamed he had seen Freddie and that had suggested the

words which, reason pointed out, his companion could hardly have spoken. Even if the Honorable Freddie

should enter the room, this fat man, who was apparently a drummer of some kind, would certainly not know

Yes, that must be the explanation. After all, the quaintest things happened in dreams. Last night, when he had

fallen asleep in his chair, he had dreamed that he was sitting in a glass case in the museum, making faces at

Lord Emsworth, Mr. Peters, and Beach, the butler, who were trying to steal him, under the impression that he

was a scarab of the reign of Cheops of the Fourth Dynastya thing he would never have done when awake.

In the bedroom into which he had dashed to hide himself, on discovering that the diningroom was in

possession of the Efficient Baxter, the Honorable Freddie sat on a rickety chair, scowling. He elaborated a

"You can't take a step anywhere without stumbling over that damn feller, Baxter!"

He wondered whether Baxter had seen him. He wondered whether Baxter had recognized him. He wondered

He wondered, if such should be the case, whether R. Jones' presence of mind and native resource had been

"'Put the butter or drippings in a kettle on the range, and when hot add the onions and fry them; add the veal

and cook until brown. Add the water, cover closely, and cook very slowly until the meat is tender; then add

the seasoning and place the potatoes on top of the meat. Cover and cook until the potatoes are tender, but not

"'Curried Lobster,'" he read. "'Materials: Two onepound lobsters, two teaspoonfuls lemon juice, half a

spoonful curry powder, two tablespoonfuls butter, a tablespoonful flour, one cupful scalded milk, one cupful

"'Way of Preparing: Cream the butter and flour and add the scalded milk; then add the lemon juice, curry

powder, salt and pepper. Remove the lobster meat from the shells and cut into halfinch cubes.'"

"You didn't say anything about the latter. Oh, I see; it means the halfinch cubes. Yes?"

"'Refill the lobster shells, cover with buttered crumbs, and bake until the crumbs are brown. This will serve

"And make them feel an hour afterward as though they had swallowed a live wild cat," said Mr. Peters

"Not necessarily," said Ashe. "I could eat two portions of that at this very minute and go off to bed and sleep

Mr. Peters raised himself on his elbow and stared at him. They were in the millionaire's bedroom, the time

being one in the morning, and Mr. Peters had expressed a wish that Ashe should read him to sleep. He had

voted against Ashe's novel and produced from the recesses of his suitcase a muchthumbed cookbook. He

explained that since his digestive misfortunes had come on him he had derived a certain solace from its

It may be that to some men sorrow's crown of sorrow is remembering happier things; but Mr. Peters had not

found that to be the case. In his hour of affliction it soothed him to read of Hungarian Goulash and escaloped

brains, and to remember that he, too, the nutandgrass eater of today, had once dwelt in Arcadia.

The passage of the days, which had so sapped the stamina of the efficient Baxter, had had the opposite effect

on Mr. Peters. His was one of those natures that cannot deal in half measures. Whatever he did, he did with

the same driving energy. After the first passionate burst of resistance he had settled down into a model pupil

in Ashe's oneman school of physical culture. It had been the same, now that he came to look back on it, at

Now that he remembered, he had come away from White Plains hoping, indeed, never to see the place again,

but undeniably a different man physically. It was not the habit of Professor Muldoon to let his patients loaf;

but Mr. Peters, after the initial plunge, had needed no driving. He had worked hard at his cure then, because it

was the job in hand. He worked hard now, under the guidance of Ashe, because, once he had begun, the thing

Ashe, who had expected continued reluctance, had been astonished and delighted at the way in which the

millionaire had behaved. Nature had really intended Ashe for a trainer; he identified himself so thoroughly

In Mr. Peters' case there had been distinct improvement already. Miracles do not happen nowadays, and it

was too much to expect one who had maltreated his body so consistently for so many years to become whole

in a day; but to an optimist like Ashe signs were not wanting that in due season Mr. Peters would rise on

steppingstones of his dead self to higher things, and though never soaring into the class that devours lobster

a la Newburg and smiles after it, might yet prove himself a devil of a fellow among the mutton chops.

"You're a wonder!" said Mr. Peters. "You're fresh, and you have no respect for your elders and betters; but

you deliver the goods. That's the point. Why, I'm beginning to feel great! Say, do you know I felt a new

muscle in the small of my back this morning? They are coming out on me like a rash."

"Well, you're a pretty good advertisement for them if they need one. What were you before you came to

"That's the question everybody I have met since I arrived here has asked me. I believe it made the butler think

I was some sort of crook when I couldn't answer it. I used to write stories detective stories."

"What you ought to be doing is running a place over here in England like Muldoon has back home. But you

will be able to write one more story out of this business here, if you want to. When are you going to have

Mr. Peters hesitated. He had fallen out of the habit of being magnanimous during the past few years, for

dyspepsia brooks no divided allegiance and magnanimity has to take a back seat when it has its grip on you.

"See here," he said awkwardly; "I've been thinking this over latelyand what's the use? It's a queer thing;

and if anybody had told me a week ago that I should be saying it I wouldn't have believed him; but I am

beginning to like you. I don't want to get you into trouble. Let the old scarab go. What's a scarab anyway?

Forget about it and stick on here as my private Muldoon. If it's the five thousand that's worrying you, forget

Ashe was astounded. That it could really be his peppery employer who spoke was almost unbelievable.

Ashe's was a friendly nature and he could never be long associated with anyone without trying to establish

pleasant relations; but he had resigned himself in the present case to perpetual warfare.

He was touched; and if he had ever contemplated abandoning his venture, this, he felt, would have spurred

him on to see it through. This sudden revelation of the human in Mr. Peters was like a trumpet call.

"I wouldn't think of it," he said. "It's great of you to suggest such a thing; but I know just how you feel about

the thing, and I'm going to get it for you if I have to wring Baxter's neck. Probably Baxter will have given up

waiting as a bad job by now if he has been watching all this while. We've given him ten nights to cool off. I

expect he is in bed, dreaming pleasant dreams. It's nearly two o'clock. I'll wait another ten minutes and then

go down." He picked up the cookbook. "Lie back and make yourself comfortable, and I'll read you to sleep

"Are you ready? 'Pork Tenderloin Larded. Half pound fat pork'" A faint smile curved Mr. Peters' lips. His

eyes were closed and he breathed softly. Ashe went on in a low voice: "'four large pork tenderloins, one

cupful cracker crumbs, one cupful boiling water, two tablespoonfuls butter, one teaspoonful salt, half

"'Way of Preparing: Wipe the tenderloins with a damp cloth. With a sharp knife make a deep pocket

lengthwise in each tenderloin. Cut your pork into long thin strips and, with a needle, lard each tenderloin.

Melt the butter in the water, add the seasoning and the cracker crumbs, combining all thoroughly. Now fill

A snore sounded from the pillows, punctuating the recital like a mark of exclamation. Ashe laid down the

book and peered into the darkness beyond the rays of the bed lamp. His employer slept.

Ashe switched off the light and crept to the door. Out in the passage he stopped and listened. All was still. He

George Emerson sat in his bedroom in the bachelors' wing of the castle smoking a cigarette. A light of

resolution was in his eyes. He glanced at the table beside his bed and at what was on that table, and the light

of resolution flamed into a glare of fanatic determination. So might a medieval knight have looked on the eve

His cigarette burned down. He looked at his watch, put it back, and lit another cigarette. His aspect was the

aspect of one waiting for the appointed hour. Smoking his second cigarette, he resumed his meditations. They

George Emerson was troubled about Aline Peters. Watching over her, as he did, with a lover's eye, he had

perceived that about her which distressed him. On the terrace that morning she had been abrupt to himwhat

in a girl of less angelic disposition one might have called snappy. Yes, to be just, she had snapped at him.

That meant something. It meant that Aline was not well. It meant what her pallor and tired eyes meantthat

Eleven nights had George dined at Blandings Castle, and on each of the eleven nights he had been distressed

to see the manner in which Aline, declining the baked meats, had restricted herself to the miserable vegetable

messes which were all that doctor's orders permitted to her suffering father. George's pity had its limits. His

heart did not bleed for Mr. Peters. Mr. Peters' diet was his own affair. But that Aline should starve herself in

this fashion, purely by way of moral support for her parent, was another matter.

George was perhaps a shade material. Himself a robust young man and taking what might be called an

outsize in meals, he attached perhaps too much importance to food as an adjunct to the perfect life. In his

survey of Aline he took a line through his own requirements; and believing that eleven such dinners as he had

seen Aline partake of would have killed him he decided that his loved one was on the point of starvation.

No human being, he held, could exist on such Barmecide feasts. That Mr. Peters continued to do so did not

occur to him as a flaw in his reasoning. He looked on Mr. Peters as a sort of machine. Successful business

men often give that impression to the young. If George had been told that Mr. Peters went along on gasoline,

like an automobile, he would not have been much surprised. But that Alinehis Alineshould have to deny

herself the exercise of that mastication of rich meats which, together with the gift of speech, raises man above

He had devoted the day to thinking out a solution of the problem. Such was the overflowing goodness of

Aline's heart that not even he could persuade her to withdraw her moral support from her father and devote

herself to keeping up her strength as she should do. It was necessary to think of some other plan.

On the table by his bed was a stout sheet of packing paper. On this lay, like one of those pictures in still life

that one sees on suburban parlor walls, a tongue, some bread, a knife, a fork, salt, a corkscrew and a small

It is a pleasure, when one has been able hitherto to portray George's devotion only through the medium of his

speeches, to produce these comestibles as Exhibit A, to show that he loved Aline with no common love; for it

had not been an easy task to get them there. In a house of smaller dimensions he would have raided the larder

without shame, but at Blandings Castle there was no saying where the larder might be. All he knew was that

it lay somewhere beyond that greenbaize door opening on the hall, past which he was wont to go on his way

to bed. To prowl through the maze of the servants' quarters in search of it was impossible. The only thing to

Fortune had helped him at the start by arranging that the Honorable Freddie, also, should be going to Market

Blandings in the little runabout, which seated two. He had acquiesced in George's suggestion that he, George,

should occupy the other seat, but with a certain lack of enthusiasm it seemed to George. He had not

volunteered any reason as to why he was going to Market Blandings in the little runabout, and on arrival

there had betrayed an unmistakable desire to get rid of George at the earliest opportunity.

As this had suited George to perfection, he being desirous of getting rid of the Honorable Freddie at the

earliest opportunity, he had not been inquisitive, and they had parted on the outskirts of the town without

George had then proceeded to the grocer's, and after that to another of the Market Blandings inns, not the

Emsworth Arms, where he had bought the white wine. He did not believe in the local white wine, for he was

a young man with a palate and mistrusted country cellars, but he assumed that, whatever its quality, it would

He had then tramped the whole five miles back to the castle with his purchases. It was here that his real

troubles began and the quality of his love was tested. The walk, to a heavily laden man, was bad enough; but

it was as nothing compared with the ordeal of smuggling the cargo up to his bedroom. Superhuman though he

was, George was alive to the delicacy of the situation. One cannot convey food and drink to one's room in a

strange house without, if detected, seeming to cast a slur on the table of the host. It was as one who carries

dispatches through an enemy's lines that George took cover, emerged from cover, dodged, ducked and ran;

and the moment when he sank down on his bed, the door locked behind him, was one of the happiest of his

The recollection of that ordeal made the one he proposed to embark on now seem slight in comparison. All he

had to do was to go to Aline's room on the other side of the house, knock softly on the door until signs of

wakefulness made themselves heard from within, and then dart away into the shadows whence he had come,

and so back to bed. He gave Aline credit for the intelligence that would enable her, on finding a tongue, some

bread, a knife, a fork, salt, a corkscrew and a bottle of white wine on the mat, to know what to do with

The second clause, however, was not important, for he proposed to tell her whose was the hand next morning.

It only remained now to allow time to pass until the hour should be sufficiently advanced to insure safety for

the expedition. He looked at his watch again. It was nearly two. By this time the house must be asleep.

He gathered up the tongue, the bread, the knife, the fork, the salt, the corkscrew and the bottle of white wine,

On his chair in the gallery that ran round the hall, swathed in an overcoat and wearing rubbersoled shoes,

the Efficient Baxter sat and gazed into the darkness. He had lost the first fine careless rapture, as it were,

which had helped him to endure these vigils, and a great weariness was on him. He found difficulty in

keeping his eyes open, and when they were open the darkness seemed to press on them painfully. Take him

Time stood still. Baxter's thoughts began to wander. He knew that this was fatal and exerted himself to drag

them back. He tried to concentrate his mind on some one definite thing. He selected the scarab as a suitable

object, but it played him false. He had hardly concentrated on the scarab before his mind was straying off to

ancient Egypt, to Mr. Peters' dyspepsia, and on a dozen other branch lines of thought.

He blamed the fat man at the inn for this. If the fat man had not thrust his presence and conversation on him

he would have been able to enjoy a sound sleep in the afternoon, and would have come fresh to his nocturnal

task. He began to muse on the fat man. And by a curious coincidence whom should he meet a few moments

It happened in a somewhat singular manner, though it all seemed perfectly logical and consecutive to Baxter.

He was climbing up the outer wall of Westminster Abbey in his pyjamas and a tall hat, when the fat man,

suddenly thrusting his head out of a window which Baxter had not noticed until that moment, said, "Hello,

Baxter was about to explain that his name was not Freddie when he found himself walking down Piccadilly

with Ashe Marson. Ashe said to him: "Nobody loves me. Everybody steals my grapefruit!" And the pathos of

it cut the Efficient Baxter like a knife. He was on the point of replying; when Ashe vanished and Baxter

discovered that he was not in Piccadilly, as he had supposed, but in an aeroplane with Mr. Peters, hovering

Mr. Peters had a bomb in his band, which he was fondling with loving care. He explained to Baxter that he

had stolen it from the Earl of Emsworth's museum. "I did it with a slice of cold beef and a pickle," he

explained; and Baxter found himself realizing that that was the only way. "Now watch me drop it," said Mr.

Peters, closing one eye and taking aim at the castle. "I have to do this by the doctor's orders."

He loosed the bomb and immediately Baxter was lying in bed watching it drop. He was frightened, but the

idea of moving did not occur to him. The bomb fell very slowly, dipping and fluttering like a feather. It came

Baxter woke to a sound of tumult and crashing. For a moment he hovered between dreaming and waking, and

then sleep passed from him, and he was aware that something noisy and exciting was in progress in the hall

Coming down to first causes, the only reason why collisions of any kind occur is because two bodies defy

Nature's law that a given spot on a given plane shall at a given moment of time be occupied by only one

There was a certain spot near the foot of the great staircase which Ashe, coming downstairs from Mr. Peters'

room, and George Emerson, coming up to Aline's room, had to pass on their respective routes. George

reached it at one minute and three seconds after two a.m., moving silently but swiftly; and Ashe, also

maintaining a good rate of speed, arrived there at one minute and four seconds after the hour, when he ceased

to walk and began to fly, accompanied by George Emerson, now going down. His arms were round George's

In due season they reached the foot of the stairs and a small table, covered with occasional china and

photographs in frames, which lay adjacent to the foot of the stairs. Thatespecially the occasional

George Emerson thought it was a burglar. Ashe did not know what it was, but he knew he wanted to shake it

off; so he insinuated a hand beneath George's chin and pushed upward. George, by this time parted forever

from the tongue, the bread, the knife, the fork, the salt, the corkscrew and the bottle of white wine, and

having both hands free for the work of the moment, held Ashe with the left and punched him in the ribs with

Ashe, removing his left arm from George's neck, brought it up as a reinforcement to his right, and used both

as a means of throttling George. This led George, now permanently underneath, to grasp Ashe's ears firmly

and twist them, relieving the pressure on his throat and causing Ashe to utter the first vocal sound of the

evening, other than the explosive Ugh! that both had emitted at the instant of impact.

Ashe dislodged George's hands from his ears and hit George in the ribs with his elbow. George kicked Ashe

on the left ankle. Ashe rediscovered George's throat and began to squeeze it afresh; and a pleasant time was

being had by all when the Efficient Baxter, whizzing down the stairs, tripped over Ashe's legs, shot forward

and cannoned into another table, also covered with occasional china and photographs in frames.

The hall at Blandings Castle was more an extra drawingroom than a hall; and, when not nursing a sick

headache in her bedroom, Lady Ann Warblington would dispense afternoon tea there to her guests.

Consequently it was dotted pretty freely with small tables. There were, indeed, no fewer than five more in

The bumping into and smashing of small tables, however, is a task that calls for plenty of time, a leisured

pursuit; and neither George nor Ashe, a third party having been added to their little affair, felt a desire to stay

on and do the thing properly. Ashe was strongly opposed to being discovered and called on to account for his

presence there at that hour; and George, conscious of the tongue and its adjuncts now strewn about the hall,

had a similar prejudice against the tedious explanations that detection must involve.

As though by mutual consent each relaxed his grip. They stood panting for an instant; then, Ashe in the

direction where he supposed the greenbaize door of the servants' quarters to be, George to the staircase that

They had hardly done so when Baxter, having disassociated himself from the contents of the table he had

upset, began to grope his way toward the electriclight switch, the same being situated near the foot of the

main staircase. He went on all fours, as a safer method of locomotion, though slower, than the one he had

Noises began to make themselves heard on the floors above. Roused by the merry crackle of occasional

china, the house party was bestirring itself to investigate. Voices sounded, muffled and inquiring.

Meantime Baxter crawled steadily on his hands and knees toward the light switch. He was in much the same

condition as one White Hope of the ring is after he has put his chin in the way of the fist of a rival member of

the Truck Drivers' Union. He knew that he was still alive. More he could not say. The mists of sleep, which

still shrouded his brain, and the shakeup he had had from his encounter with the table, a corner of which he

And so the Efficient Baxter crawled on; and as he crawled his hand, advancing cautiously, fell on

somethingsomething that was not alive; something clammy and icecold, the touch of which filled him

To say that Baxter's heart stood still would be physiologically inexact. The heart does not stand still.

Whatever the emotions of its owner, it goes on beating. It would be more accurate to say that Baxter felt like

a man taking his first ride in an express elevator, who has outstripped his vital organs by several floors and

sees no immediate prospect of their ever catching up with him again. There was a great cold void where the

more intimate parts of his body should have been. His throat was dry and contracted. The flesh of his back

Painful and absorbing as had been his encounter with the table, Baxter had never lost sight of the fact that

close beside him a furious battle between unseen forces was in progress. He had heard the bumping and the

thumping and the tense breathing even as he picked occasional china from his person. Such a combat, he had

felt, could hardly fail to result in personal injury to either the party of the first part or the party of the second

part, or both. He knew now that worse than mere injury had happened, and that he knelt in the presence of

There was no doubt that the man was dead. Insensibility alone could never have produced this icy chill. He

raised his head in the darkness, and cried aloud to those approaching. He meant to cry: "Help! Murder!" But

fear prevented clear articulation. What he shouted was: "Heh! Mer!" On which, from the neighborhood of the

The Earl of Emsworth had been sleeping a sound and peaceful sleep when the imbroglio began downstairs.

He sat up and listened. Yes; undoubtedly burglars! He switched on his light and jumped out of bed. He took a

pistol from a drawer, and thus armed went to look into the matter. The dreamy peer was no poltroon.

It was quite dark when he arrived on the scene of conflict, in the van of a mixed bevy of pyjamaed and

dressinggowned relations. He was in the van because, meeting these relations in the passage above, he had

said to them: "Let me go first. I have a pistol." And they had let him go first. They were, indeed, awfully nice

about it, not thrusting themselves forward or jostling or anything, but behaving in a modest and selfeffacing

When Lord Emsworth said, "Let me go first," young Algernon Wooster, who was on the very point of

leaping to the fore, said, "Yes, by Jove! Sound scheme, by Gad!"and withdrew into the background; and

the Bishop of Godalming said: "By all means, Clarence undoubtedly; most certainly precede us."

When his sense of touch told him he had reached the foot of the stairs, Lord Emsworth paused. The hall was

very dark and the burglars seemed temporarily to have suspended activities. And then one of them, a man

with a ruffianly, grating voice, spoke. What it was he said Lord Emsworth could not understand. It sounded

like "Heh! Mer!"probably some secret signal to his confederates. Lord Emsworth raised his revolver and

Extremely fortunately for him, the Efficient Baxter had not changed his allfours attitude. This undoubtedly

saved Lord Emsworth the worry of engaging a new secretary. The shots sang above Baxter's head one after

the other, six in all, and found other billets than his person. They disposed themselves as follows: The first

shot broke a window and whistled out into the night; the second shot hit the dinner gong and made a perfectly

extraordinary noise, like the Last Trump; the third, fourth and fifth shots embedded themselves in the wall;

the sixth and final shot hit a lifesize picture of his lordship's grandmother in the face and improved it out of

One thinks no worse of Lord Emsworth's grandmother because she looked like Eddie Foy, and had allowed

herself to be painted, after the heavy classic manner of some of the portraits of a hundred years ago, in the

character of Venussuitably draped, of course, rising from the sea; but it was beyond the possibility of

denial that her grandson's bullet permanently removed one of Blandings Castle's most prominent eyesores.

Having emptied his revolver, Lord Emsworth said, "Who is there? Speak!" in rather an aggrieved tone, as

though he felt he had done his part in breaking the ice, and it was now for the intruder to exert himself and

The Efficient Baxter did not reply. Nothing in the world could have induced him to speak at that moment, or

to make any sound whatsoever that might betray his position to a dangerous maniac who might at any instant

reload his pistol and resume the fusillade. Explanations, in his opinion, could be deferred until somebody had

the presence of mind to switch on the lights. He flattened himself on the carpet and hoped for better things.

His cheek touched the corpse beside him; but though he winced and shuddered he made no outcry. After

A voice from above, the bishop's voice, said: "I think you have killed him, Clarence."

Another voice, that of Colonel Horace Mant, said: "Switch on those dashed lights! Why doesn't somebody?

When the lights came, it was from the other side of the hall. Six revolver shots, fired at quarter past two in the

morning, will rouse even sleeping domestics. The servants' quarters were buzzing like a hive. Shrill feminine

screams were puncturing the air. Mr. Beach, the butler, in a suit of pink silk pajamas, of which no one would

have suspected him, was leading a party of men servants down the stairsnot so much because he wanted to

The passage beyond the greenbaize door became congested, and there were cries for Mr. Beach to open it

and look through and see what was the matter; but Mr. Beach was smarter than that and wriggled back so that

Ashe opened the door. Since his escape from the hall he had been lurking in the neighborhood of the

greenbaize door and had been engulfed by the swirling throng. Finding himself with elbowroom for the first

They shone on a collection of semidressed figures, crowding the staircase; on a hall littered with china and

glass; on a dented dinner gong; on an edited and improved portrait of the late Countess of Emsworth; and on

the Efficient Baxter, in an overcoat and rubbersoled shoes, lying beside a cold tongue. At no great distance

lay a number of other objectsa knife, a fork, some bread, salt, a corkscrew and a bottle of white wine.

Using the word in the sense of saying something coherent, the Earl of Emsworth was the first to speak. He

The feeling of the company was one of profound disappointment. They were disgusted at the anticlimax. For

an instant, when the Efficient one did not move, a hope began to stir; but as soon as it was seen that he was

not even injured, gloom reigned. One of two things would have satisfied themeither a burglar or a corpse.

A burglar would have been welcome, dead or alive; but, if Baxter proposed to fill the part adequately it was

imperative that he be dead. He had disappointed them deeply by turning out to be the object of their quest.

There was a cold silence as he slowly raised himself from the floor. As his eyes fell on the tongue, he started

Lord Emsworth was also looking at the tongue and he leaped to a not unreasonable conclusion. He spoke

coldly and haughtily; for he was not only annoyed, like the others, at the anticlimax, but offended. He knew

that he was not one of your energetic hosts who exert themselves unceasingly to supply their guests with

entertainment; but there was one thing on which, as a host, he did pride himselfin the material matters of

"My dear Baxter," he said in the tones he usually reserved for the correction of his son Freddie, "if your

hunger is so great that you are unable to wait for breakfast and have to raid my larder in the middle of the

night, I wish to goodness you would contrive to make less noise about it. I do not grudge you the foodhelp

yourself when you pleasebut do remember that people who have not such keen appetites as yourself like to

sleep during the night. A far better plan, my dear fellow, would be to have sandwiches or bunsor whatever

Not even the bullets had disordered Baxter's faculties so much as this monstrous accusation. Explanations

pushed and jostled one another in his fermenting brain, but he could not utter them. On every side he met

gravely reproachful eyes. George Emerson was looking at him in pained disgust. Ashe Marson's face was the

face of one who could never have believed this had he not seen it with his own eyes. The scrutiny of the

He stammered. Words began to proceed from him, tripping and stumbling over each other. Lord Emsworth's

"Pray do not apologize, Baxter. The desire for food is human. It is your boisterous mode of securing and

The company began to stream moodily upstairs. The lights were switched off. The Efficient Baxter dragged

himself away. From the darkness in the direction of the servants' door a voice spoke.

It sounded like the fresh young voice of the knifeandshoe boy, but Baxter was too broken to investigate.

As we grow older and realize more clearly the limitations of human happiness, we come to see that the only

real and abiding pleasure in life is to give pleasure to other people. One must assume that the Efficient Baxter

had not reached the age when this comes home to a man, for the fact that he had given genuine pleasure to

There was no doubt about the pleasure he had given. Once they had got over their disappointment at finding

that he was not a dead burglar, the house party rejoiced wholeheartedly at the break in the monotony of life

at Blandings Castle. Relations who had not been on speaking terms for years forgot their quarrels and strolled

about the grounds in perfect harmony, abusing Baxter. The general verdict was that he was insane.

"Don't tell me that young fellow's all there," said Colonel Horace Mant; "because I know better. Have you

noticed his eye? Furtive! Shifty! Nasty gleam in it. Besidesdash it!did you happen to take a look at the

hall last night after he had been there? It was in ruins, my dear sirabsolute dashed ruins. It was positively

littered with broken china and tables that had been bowled over. Don't tell me that was just an accidental

"My dear sir, the man must have been thrashing aboutabsolutely thrashing about, like a dashed salmon on

a dashed hook. He must have had a paroxysm of some kindsome kind of a dashed fit. A doctor could give

you the name for it. It's a wellknown form of insanity. Paranoiaisn't that what they call it? Rush of blood

"I've heard fellows who have been in India talk of it. Natives get it. Don't know what they're doing, and

charge through the streets taking cracks at people with dashed whacking great knives. Same with this young

man, probably in a modified form at present. He ought to be in a home. One of these nights, if this grows on

"My dear Horace!" The Bishop of Godalming's voice was properly horrorstricken; but there was a certain

"Take my word for it! Though, mind you, I don't say they aren't well suited. Everyone knows that Emsworth

has been, to all practical intents and purposes, a dashed lunatic for years. What was it that your fellow

Emerson, Freddie's American friend, was saying, the other day about some acquaintance of his who is not

quite right in the head? Nobody in the houseis that it? Something to that effect, at any rate. I felt at the time

"A dashed lunatic, my dear sirhead of the family or no head of the family. A man as absentminded as he

is has no right to call himself sane. Nobody in the houseI recollect it nownobody in the house except

The Efficient Baxter, who had just left his presence, was feeling much the same about his noble employer.

After a sleepless night he had begun at an early hour to try and corner Lord Emsworth in order to explain to

him the true inwardness of last night's happenings. Eventually he had tracked him to the museum, where he

found him happily engaged in painting a cabinet of birds' eggs. He was seated on a small stool, a large pot of

red paint on the floor beside him, dabbing at the cabinet with a dripping brush. He was absorbed and made no

For ten minutes Baxter gave a vivid picture of his vigil and the manner in which it had been interrupted.

"Just so; just so, my dear fellow," said the earl when he had finished. "I quite understand. All I say is, if you

do require additional food in the night let one of the servants bring it to your room before bedtime; then there

will be no danger of these disturbances. There is no possible objection to your eating a hundred meals a day,

my good Baxter, provided you do not rouse the whole house over them. Some of us like to sleep during the

"Never mind, my dear fellow; never mind. Why make such an important thing of it? Many people like a light

snack before actually retiring. Doctors, I believe, sometimes recommend it. Tell me, Baxter, how do you

think the museum looks now? A little brighter? Better for the dash of color? I think so. Museums are

"My dear Baxter, I have told you that there is nothing to explain. You are getting a little tedious. What a

deep, rich red this is, and how clean new paint smells! Do you know, Baxter, I have been longing to mess

about with paint ever since I was a boy! I recollect my old father beating me with a walking stick. . . . That

would be before your time, of course. By the way, if you see Freddie, will you tell him I want to speak to

It was an overwrought Baxter who delivered the message to the Honorable Freddie, who, as predicted, was in

There are times when life presses hard on a man, and it pressed hard on Baxter now. Fate had played him a

sorry trick. It had put him in a position where he had to choose between two courses, each as disagreeable as

the other. He must either face a possible second fiasco like that of last night, or else he must abandon his post

His imagination quailed at the thought of a repetition of last night's horrors. He had been badly shaken by his

collision with the table and even more so by the events that had followed it. Those revolver shots still rang in

It was probably the memory of those shots that turned the scale. It was unlikely he would again become

entangled with a man bearing a tongue and the other thingshe had given up in despair the attempt to

unravel the mystery of the tongue; it completely baffled himbut it was by no means unlikely that if he

spent another night in the gallery looking on the hall he might not again become a target for Lord Emsworth's

irresponsible firearm. Nothing, in fact, was more likely; for in the disturbed state of the public mind the

He had actually overheard young Algernon Wooster telling Lord Stockheath he had a jolly good mind to sit

on the stairs that night with a shotgun, because it was his opinion that there was a jolly sight more in this

business than there seemed to be; and what he thought of the bally affair was that there was a gang of some

kind at work, and that that fellerwhat'shisname?that feller Baxter was some sort of an accomplice.

With these things in his mind Baxter decided to remain that night in the security of his bedroom. He had lost

his nerve. He formed this decision with the utmost reluctance, for the thought of leaving the road to the

museum clear for marauders was bitter in the extreme. If he could have overheard a conversation between

Joan Valentine and Ashe Marson it is probable he would have risked Lord Emsworth's revolver and the

Ashe, when he met Joan and recounted the events of the night, at which Joan, who was a sound sleeper, had

not been present, was inclined to blame himself as a failure. True, fate had been against him, but the fact

"You have done wonders," she said. "You have cleared the way for me. That is my idea of real teamwork. I'm

so glad now that we formed our partnership. It would have been too bad if I had got all the advantage of your

work and had jumped in and deprived you of the reward. As it is, I shall go down and finish the thing off

"On the contrary, tonight is the one night when there ought to be no risk at all."

"Because of what happened last night. Do you imagine Mr. Baxter will dare to stir from his bed after that? If

"You're quite right. I never looked at it in that way. Baxter wouldn't risk a second disaster. I'll certainly make

"I don't quite understand you, Mr. Marson. Do you propose to try to get the scarab tonight?"

"But, good heavens, consider my position! Do you seriously expect me to lie in bed while you do all the

"It's no more ridiculous than that I should do the same. Mr. Marson, there's no use in our going over all this

Joan refused to discuss the matter further, leaving Ashe in a condition of anxious misery comparable only to

that which, as night began to draw near, gnawed the vitals of the Efficient Baxter.

Breakfast at Blandings Castle was an informal meal. There was food and drink in the long dininghall for

such as were energetic enough to come down and get it; but the majority of the house party breakfasted in

their rooms, Lord Emsworth, whom nothing in the world would have induced to begin the day in the

company of a crowd of his relations, most of whom he disliked, setting them the example.

When, therefore, Baxter, yielding to Nature after having remained awake until the early morning, fell asleep

at nine o'clock, nobody came to rouse him. He did not ring his bell, so he was not disturbed; and he slept on

until half past eleven, by which time, it being Sunday morning and the house party including one bishop and

several of the minor clergy, most of the occupants of the place had gone off to church.

Baxter shaved and dressed hastily, for he was in state of nervous apprehension. He blamed himself for having

lain in bed so long. When every minute he was away might mean the loss of the scarab, he had passed several

hours in dreamy sloth. He had wakened with a presentiment. Something told him the scarab had been stolen

The house was very quiet as he made his way rapidly to the hall. As he passed a window he perceived Lord

Emsworth, in an unSabbatarian suit of tweeds and bearing a garden forkwhich must have pained the

bishopbending earnestly over a flower bed; but he was the only occupant of the grounds, and indoors there

was a feeling of emptiness. The hall had that Sundaymorning air of wanting to be left to itself, and

disapproving of the entry of anything human until lunch time, which can be felt only by a guest in a large

The portraits on the walls, especially the one of the Countess of Emsworth in the character of Venus rising

from the sea, stared at Baxter as he entered, with cold reproof. The very chairs seemed distant and unfriendly;

but Baxter was in no mood to appreciate their attitude. His conscience slept. His mind was occupied, to the

exclusion of all other things, by the scarab and its probable fate. How disastrously remiss it had been of him

not to keep guard last night! Long before he opened the museum door he was feeling the absolute certainty

It had. The card which announced that here was an Egyptian scarab of the reign of Cheops of the Fourth

Dynasty, presented by J. Preston Peters, Esquire, still lay on the cabinet in its wonted place; but now its neat

For all that he had expected this, for all his premonition of disaster, it was an appreciable time before the

Efficient Baxter rallied from the blow. He stood transfixed, goggling at the empty place.

Then his mind resumed its functions. All, he perceived, was not yet lost. Baxter the watchdog must retire, to

be succeeded by Baxter the sleuthhound. He had been unable to prevent the theft of the scarab, but he might

For the Doctor Watsons of this world, as opposed to the Sherlock Holmeses, success in the province of

detective work must always be, to a very large extent, the result of luck. Sherlock Holmes can extract a clew

from a wisp of straw or a flake of cigar ash; but Doctor Watson has to have it taken out for him and dusted,

The average man is a Doctor Watson. We are wont to scoff in a patronizing manner at that humble follower

of the great investigator; but as a matter of fact we should have been just as dull ourselves. We should not

Baxter was a Doctor Watson. What he wanted was a clew; but it is so hard for the novice to tell what is a

clew and what is not. And then he happened to look downand there on the floor was a clew that nobody

Baxter saw it, but did not immediately recognize it for what it was. What he saw, at first, was not a clew, but

just a mess. He had a tidy soul and abhorred messes, and this was a particularly messy mess. A considerable

portion of the floor was a sea of red paint. The can from which it had flowed was lying on its sidenear the

wall. He had noticed that the smell of paint had seemed particularly pungent, but had attributed this to a new

freshet of energy on the part of Lord Emsworth. He had not perceived that paint had been spilled.

Then suddenly, beneath the disguise of the mess, he saw the clew. A footmark! No less. A crimson footmark

on the polished wood! It was as clear and distinct as though it had been left there for the purpose of assisting

This perplexed Baxter. He had looked on the siege of the scarab as an exclusively male affair. But he was not

perplexed long. What could be simpler than that Mr. Peters should have enlisted female aid? The female of

the species is more deadly than the male. Probably she makes a better purloiner of scarabs. At any rate, there

Inspiration came to him. Aline Peters had a maid! What more likely than that secretly she should be a hireling

of Mr. Peters, on whom he had now come to look as a man of the blackest and most sinister character? Mr.

Peters was a collector; and when a collector makes up his mind to secure a treasure, he employs, Baxter

Baxter was now in a state of great excitement. He was hot on the scent and his brain was working like a buzz

saw in an ice box. According to his reasoning, if Aline Peters' maid had done this thing there should be red

paint in the hall marking her retreat, and possibly a faint stain on the stairs leading to the servants' bedrooms.

He hastened from the museum and subjected the hall to a keen scrutiny. Yes; there was red paint on the

carpet. He passed through the greenbaize door and examined the stairs. On the bottom step there was a faint

He was wondering how best to follow up this clew when he perceived Ashe coming down the stairs. Ashe,

like Baxter, and as the result of a night disturbed by anxious thoughts, had also overslept himself.

There are moments when the giddy excitement of being right on the trail causes the amateuror

Watsoniandetective to be incautious. If Baxter had been wise he would have achieved his objectthe

getting a glimpse of Joan's shoesby a devious and snaky route. As it was, zeal getting the better of

prudence, he rushed straight on. His early suspicion of Ashe had been temporarily obscured. Whatever Ashe's

claims to be a suspect, it had not been his footprint Baxter had seen in the museum.

"Where are the shoes of yesteryear?" murmured Ashe. "I should say at a venture, sir, that they would be in a

large basket somewhere near the kitchen. Our genial knifeandshoe boy collects them, I believe, at early

The room to which he referred was none other than the private sanctum of Mr. Beach, the butler, the door of

which, standing open, showed it to be empty. It was not Baxter's plan, excited as he was, to risk being

Ashe's brain was working rapidly as he made for the shoe cupboard, that little den of darkness and smells,

where Billy, the knifeandshoe boy, better known in the circle in which he moved as Young Bonehead,

pursued his menial tasks. What exactly was at the back of the Efficient Baxter's mind prompting these

He had not yet seen Joan this morning, and he did not know whether or not she had carried out her resolve of

attempting to steal the scarab on the previous night; but this activity and mystery on the part of their enemy

must have some sinister significance. He lathered up the shoe basket thoughtfully. He staggered back with it

and dumped it down on the floor of Mr. Beach's room. The Efficient Baxter, stooped eagerly over it. Ashe,

leaning against the wall, straightened the creases in his clothes and flicked disgustedly at an inky spot which

The Efficient Baxter uttered a grunt of satisfaction and bent once more to his task. Shoes flew about the

room. Baxter knelt on the floor beside the basket, and dug like a terrier at a rat hole. At last he made a find

and with an exclamation of triumph rose to his feet. In his hand he held a shoe.

"Now come with me. Leave the basket there. You can carry it back when you return."

Trouble had shaken his nerve. He was not certain that there might not be others besides Lord Emsworth in the

garden; and it occurred to him that, especially after his reputation for eccentric conduct had been so firmly

established by his misfortunes that night in the hall, it might cause comment should he appear before them

Ashe took the shoe and, doing so, understood what before had puzzled him. Across the toe was a broad

splash of red paint. Though he had nothing else to go on, he saw all. The shoe he held was a female shoe. His

own researches in the museum had made him aware of the presence there of red paint. It was not difficult to

In the garden Lord Emsworth, garden fork in hand, was dealing summarily with a green young weed that had

incautiously shown its head in the middle of a flower bed. He listened to Baxter's statement with more

interest than he usually showed in anybody's statements. He resented the loss of the scarab, not so much on

account of its intrinsic worth as because it had been the gift of his friend Mr. Peters.

"Indeed!" he said, when Baxter had finished. "Really? Dear me! It certainly seemsIt is extremely

"I have it with me. I brought it on purpose to show you." He looked at Ashe, who stood in close attendance.

"Ah!" he said. "Now let me look atThis, you say, is theJust so; just so! JustMy dear Baxter, it may be

that I have not examined this shoe with sufficient care, butCan you point out to me exactly where this paint

The Efficient Baxter stood staring at the shoe with wild, fixed stare. Of any suspicion of paint, red or

The shoe became the center of attraction, the center of all eyes. The Efficient Baxter fixed it with the piercing

glare of one who feels that his brain is tottering. Lord Emsworth looked at it with a mildly puzzled

expression. Ashe Marson examined it with a sort of affectionate interest, as though he were waiting for it to

"There was paint on this shoe," he said vehemently. "I tell you there was a splash of red paint across the toe.

"This is ridiculous. I saw it with my own eyes. It was a broad splash right across the toe."

"You must have made a mistake, my dear Baxter. There is certainly no trace of paint on this shoe. These

momentary optical delusions are, I fancy, not uncommon. Any doctor will tell you"

"I had an aunt, your lordship," said Ashe chattily, "who was remarkably subject"

"It is absurd! I cannot have been mistaken," said Baxter. "I am positively certain the toe of this shoe was red

"Really, Baxter," said the earl, "that is surely the least probable of solutions. This young man could hardly

have cleaned the shoe on his way from the house. A few days ago, when painting in the museum, I

inadvertently splashed some paint on my own shoe. I can assure you it does not brush off. It needs a very

"My theory, your lordship, is that Mr. Baxter was deceived by the lightandshade effects on the toe of the

shoe. The morning sun, streaming in through the window, must have shone on the shoe in such a manner as

to give it a momentary and fictitious aspect of redness. If Mr. Baxter recollects, he did not look long at the

shoe. The picture on the retina of the eye consequently had not time to fade. I myself remember thinking at

Lord Emsworth, now thoroughly bored with the whole affair and desiring nothing more than to be left alone

with his weeds and his garden fork, put in his word. Baxter, he felt, was curiously irritating these days. He

always seemed to be bobbing up. The Earl of Emsworth was conscious of a strong desire to be free from his

secretary's company. He was efficient, yesinvaluable indeedhe did not know what he should do without

Baxter; but there was no denying that his company ended after a while to become a trifle tedious. He took a

fresh grip on his garden fork and shifted it about in the air as a hint that the interview had lasted long enough.

"It seems to me, my dear fellow," he said, "the only explanation that will square with the facts. A shoe that is

really smeared with red paint does not become black of itself in the course of a few minutes."

"You are very right, your lordship," said Ashe approvingly. "May I go now, your lordship?"

The secretary passed the fraudulent piece of evidence to Ashe without a word; and the latter, having included

On returning to the butler's room, Ashe's first act was to remove a shoe from the top of the pile in the basket.

He was about to leave the room with it, when the sound of footsteps in the passage outside halted him.

"I do not in the least understand why you wish me to come here, my dear Baxter," said a voice, "and you are

For a moment Ashe was at a loss. It was a crisis that called for swift action, and it was a little hard to know

exactly what to do. It had been his intention to carry the paintsplashed shoe back to his own room, there to

clean it at his leisure; but it appeared that his strategic line of retreat was blocked. Plainly, the

possibilitynay, the certaintythat Ashe had substituted another shoe for the one with the incriminating

splash of paint on it had occurred to the Efficient Baxter almost directly the former had left the garden.

The window was open. Ashe looked out. There were bushes below. It was a makeshift policy, and one which

did not commend itself to him as the ideal method, but it seemed the only thing to be done, for already the

footsteps had reached the door. He threw the shoe out of window, and it sank beneath the friendly surface of

Ashe turned, relieved, and the next moment the door opened and Baxter walked in, accompaniedwith

Leaning against the wall, Ashe watched him with silent interest, as he burrowed among the contents of the

basket, like a terrier digging for rats. The Earl of Emsworth took no notice of the proceedings. He yawned

The scrutiny of the man whom he had now placed definitely as a malefactor irritated Baxter. Ashe was

looking at him in an insufferably tolerant manner, as if he were an indulgent father brooding over his infant

Ashe took a volume from the butler's slenderly stocked shelf. The shoeexpert resumed his investigations in

the basket. He went through it twice, but each time without success. After the second search he stood up and

looked wildly about the room. He was as certain as he could be of anything that the missing piece of evidence

was somewhere within those four walls. There was very little cover in the room, even for so small a fugitive

"Are you looking for Mr. Beach, sir?" said Ashe. "I think he has gone to church."

At this point the Earl of Emsworth, having done all the pottering possible in the restricted area, yawned like

Baxter was not listening. He was on the trail. He had caught sight of a small closet in the wall, next to the

"I could not say, sir. Mr. Beach, to whom the closet belongs, possibly keeps a few odd trifles there. A ball of

string, perhaps. Maybe an old pipe or something of that kind. Probably nothing of value or interest."

"Lord Emsworth," he said, "I have my reasons for thinking that this man is deliberately keeping the contents

of this closet from me. I am convinced that the shoe is in there. Have I your leave to break open the door?"

The earl looked a little dazed, as if he were unequal to the intellectual pressure of the conversation.

"Now, my dear Baxter," said the earl impatiently, "please tell me once again why you have brought me in

here. I cannot make head or tail of what you have been saying. Apparently you accuse this young man of

keeping his shoes in a closet. Why should you suspect him of keeping his shoes in a closet? And if he wishes

to do so, why on earth should not he keep his shoes in a closet? This is a free country."

"It all has to do with the theft of your scarab, Lord Emsworth. Somebody got into the museum and stole the

"Ah, yes; ah, yesso they did. I remember now. You told me. Bad, business that, my dear Baxter. Mr. Peters

gave me that scarab. He will be most deucedly annoyed if it's lost. Yes, indeed."

"Devilish careless of them. It must have made the dickens of a mess. Why don't people look where they are

"I suspect this man of shielding the criminal by hiding her shoe in this closet."

"The deuce it is! Then it was a woman who stole the scarab? Is that the way you figure it out? Bless my soul,

Baxter, one wonders what women are coming to nowadays. It's all this movement, I suppose. The Vote, and

all thateh? I recollect having a chat with the Marquis of Petersfield some time ago. He is in the Cabinet,

and he tells me it is perfectly infernal the way these women carry on. He said sometimes it got to such a

pitch, with them waving banners and presenting petitions, and throwing flour and things at a fellow, that if he

saw his own mother coming toward him, with a hand behind her back, he would run like a rabbit. Told me so

"So," said the Efficient Baxter, cutting in on the flow of speech, "what I wish to do is to break open this

"Objection, my dear fellow? None in the world. Why should I have any objection? Let me see! What is it you

He seized the poker from the fireplace and delivered two rapid blows on the closet door. The wood was

splintered. A third blow smashed the flimsy lock. The closet, with any skeletons it might contain, was open

It contained a corkscrew, a box of matches, a papercovered copy of a book entitled "Mary, the Beautiful

MillHand," a bottle of embrocation, a spool of cotton, two pencilstubs, and other useful and entertaining

objects. It contained, in fact, almost everything except a paintsplashed shoe, and Baxter gazed at the

"Are you satisfied now, my dear Baxter," said the earl, "or is there any more furniture that you would like to

break? You know, this furniture breaking is becoming a positive craze with you, my dear fellow. You ought

to fight against it. The night before last, I don't know how many tables broken in the hall; and now this closet.

Baxter did not reply. He was still trying to rally from the blow. A chance remark of Lord Emsworth's set him

off on the trail once more. Lord Emsworth, having said his say, had dismissed the affair from his mind and

begun to potter again. The course of his pottering had brought him to the fireplace, where a little pile of soot

"Dear me!" he said. "I must remember to tell Beach to have his chimney swept. It seems to need it badly."

No trumpetcall ever acted more instantaneously on old warhorse than this simple remark on the Efficient

Baxter. He was still convinced that Ashe had hidden the shoe somewhere in the room, and, now that the

closet had proved an alibi, the chimney was the only spot that remained unsearched. He dived forward with a

rush, nearly knocking Lord Emsworth off his feet, and thrust an arm up into the unknown. The startled peer,

Baxter continued to grope. The chimney was a roomy chimney, and needed careful examination. He wriggled

Baxter was baffled. He withdrew his hand from the chimney, and straightened himself. He brushed a bead of

perspiration from his face with the back of his hand. Unfortunately, he used the sooty hand, and the result

was too much for Lord Emsworth's politeness. He burst into a series of pleased chuckles.

"Your face, my dear Baxter! Your face! It is positively covered with sootpositively! You must go and

wash it. You are quite black. Really, my dear fellow, you present rather an extraordinary appearance. Run off

Against this crowning blow the Efficient Baxter could not stand up. It was the end.

At this moment, slightly muffled by the intervening door and passageway, there came from the direction of

the hall a sound like the delivery of a ton of coal. A heavy body bumped down the stairs, and a voice which

all three recognized as that of the Honorable Freddie uttered an oath that lost itself in a final crash and a

musical splintering sound, which Baxter for one had no difficulty in recognizing as the dissolution of

Even if they had not so able a detective as Baxter with them, Lord Emsworth and Ashe would have been at

no loss to guess what had happened. Doctor Watson himself could have deduced it from the evidence. The

With a little ingenuity this portion of the story of Mr. Peters' scarab could be converted into an excellent tract,

driving home the perils, even in this world, of absenting one's self from church on Sunday morning. If the

Honorable Freddie had gone to church he would not have been running down the great staircase at the castle

at this hour; and if he had not been running down the great staircase at the castle at that hour he would not

Muriel was a Persian cat belonging to Lady Ann Warblington. Lady Ann had breakfasted in bed and lain

there late, as she rather fancied she had one of her sick headaches coming on. Muriel had left her room in the

wake of the breakfast tray, being anxious to be present at the obsequies of a fried sole that had formed Lady

Ann's simple morning meal, and had followed the maid who bore it until she had reached the hall.

At this point the maid, who disliked Muriel, stopped and made a noise like an exploding pop bottle, at the

same time taking a little run in Muriel's direction and kicking at her with a menacing foot. Muriel, wounded

and startled, had turned in her tracks and sprinted back up the staircase at the exact moment when the

There was an instant when Freddie could have saved himself by planting a numberten shoe on Muriel's

spine, but even in that crisis he bethought him that he hardly stood solid enough with the authorities to risk

adding to his misdeeds the slaughter of his aunt's favorite cat, and he executed a rapid swerve. The spared cat

proceeded on her journey upstairs, while Freddie, touching the staircase at intervals, went on down.

Having reached the bottom, he sat amid the occasional china, like Marius among the ruins of Carthage, and

endeavored to ascertain the extent of his injuries. He had a dazed suspicion that he was irretrievably fractured

in a dozen places. It was in this attitude that the rescue party found him. He gazed up at them with silent

"In the name of goodness, Frederick," said Lord Emsworth peevishly, "what do you imagine you are doing?"

"It was that bally cat of Aunt Ann's," he said. "It came legging it up the stairs. I think I've broken my leg."

"You have certainly broken everything else," said his father unsympathetically. "Between you and Baxter, I

"Thanks, old chap," said Freddie gratefully as Ashe stepped forward and lent him an arm. "I think my bally

"And, Baxter, my dear fellow," said Lord Emsworth, "you might telephone to Doctor Bird, in Market

Blandings, and ask him to be good enough to drive out. I am sorry, Freddie," he added, "that you should have

met with this accident; butbut everything is soso disturbing nowadays that I feelI feel most

Ashe and the Honorable Freddie began to move across the hallFreddie hopping, Ashe advancing with a

sort of polka step. As they reached the stairs there was a sound of wheels outside and the vanguard of the

"It's all very well to give it out officially that Freddie has fallen downstairs and sprained his ankle," said

Colonel Horace Mant, discussing the affair with the Bishop of Godalming later in the afternoon; "but it's my

firm belief that that fellow Baxter did precisely as I said he wouldran amuck and inflicted dashed frightful

injuries on young Freddie. When I got into the house there was Freddie being helped up the stairs, while

Baxter, with his face covered with soot, was looking after him with a sort of evil grin. What had he smeared

"The whole thing is dashed fishy and mysterious and the sooner I can get Mildred safely out of the place, the

WHEN Lord Emsworth, sighting Mr. Peters in the group of returned churchgoers, drew him aside and broke

the news that the valuable scarab, so kindly presented by him to the castle museum, had been stolen in the

night by some person unknown, he thought the millionaire took it exceedingly well. Though the stolen object

no longer belonged to him, Mr. Peters no doubt still continued to take an affectionate interest in it and might

have been excused had he shown annoyance that his gift had been so carelessly guarded.

Mr. Peters was, however, thoroughly magnanimous about the matter. He deprecated the notion that the earl

could possibly have prevented this unfortunate occurrence. He quite understood. He was not in the least hurt.

Nobody could have foreseen such a calamity. These things happened and one had to accept them. He himself

had once suffered in much the same way, the gem of his collection having been removed almost beneath his

Altogether, he relieved Lord Emsworth's mind very much; and when he had finished doing so he departed

swiftly and rang for Ashe. When Ashe arrived he bubbled over with enthusiasm. He was lyrical in his praise.

He went so far as to slap Ashe on the back. It was only when the latter disclaimed all credit for what had

"It was Miss Peters' maid. It's a long story; but we were working in partnership. I tried for the thing and

It was with mixed feelings that Ashe listened while Mr. Peters transferred his adjectives of commendation to

Joan. He admired Joan's courage, he was relieved that her venture had ended without disaster, and he knew

that she deserved whatever anyone could find to say in praise of her enterprise: but, at first, though he tried to

crush it down, he could not help feeling a certain amount of chagrin that a girl should have succeeded where

he, though having the advantage of first chance, had failed. The terms of his partnership with Joan had jarred

A man may be in sympathy with the modern movement for the emancipation of woman and yet feel

aggrieved when a mere girl proves herself a more efficient thief than himself. Woman is invading man's

sphere more successfully every day; but there are still certain fields in which man may consider that he is

rightfully entitled to a monopolyand the purloining of scarabs in the watches of the night is surely one of

them. Joan, in Ashe's opinion, should have played a meeker and less active part.

These unworthy emotions did not last long. Whatever his other shortcomings, Ashe possessed a just mind. By

the time he had found Joan, after Mr. Peters had said his say, and dispatched him below stairs for that

purpose, he had purged himself of petty regrets and was prepared to congratulate her wholeheartedly. He

was, however, resolved that nothing should induce him to share in the reward. On that point, he resolved, he

"I have just left Mr. Peters," be began. "All is well. His check book lies before him on the table and he is

trying to make his fountain pen work long enough to write a check. But there is just one thing I want to

She interrupted him. To his surprise, she was eyeing him coldly and with disapproval.

"And there is just one thing I want to say," she said; "and that is, if you imagine I shall consent to accept a

"Exactly what I was going to say. Of course I couldn't dream of taking any of it."

"I don't understand you. You are certainly going to have it all. I told you when we made our agreement that I

should only take my share if you let me do my share of the work. Now that you have broken that agreement,

nothing could induce me to take it. I know you meant it kindly, Mr. Marson, but I simply can't feel grateful. I

told you that ours was a business contract and that I wouldn't have any chivalry; and I thought that after you

"What do I mean? Why, that you went down to the museum last night before me and took the scarab, though

"I know. I went down to the museum last night, as we had arranged; and when I got there there was no

"There wasn't a trace of it. I took it for granted that you had been down before me. I was furious!"

"But this is ridiculous!" said Ashe. "Who can have taken it? There was nobody beside ourselves who knew

"I waited until one o'clock. Then I slipped down, got into the museum, struck a match, and looked for the

scarab. It wasn't there. I couldn't believe it at first. I struck some more matchesquite a numberbut it was

no good. The scarab was gone; so I went back to bed and thought hard thoughts about you. It was silly of me.

I ought to have known you would not break your word; but there didn't seem any other solution of the thing's

"Well, somebody must have taken it; and the question is, what are we to do?" She laughed. "It seems to me

that we were a little premature in quarreling about how we are to divide that reward. It looks as though there

"Meantime," said Ashe gloomily, "I suppose I have got to go back and tell Peters. I expect it will break his

BLANDINGS CASTLE dozed in the calm of an English Sunday afternoon. All was peace. Freddie was in

bed, with orders from the doctor to stay there until further notice. Baxter had washed his face. Lord

Emsworth had returned to his garden fork. The rest of the house party strolled about the grounds or sat in

them, for the day was one of those late spring days that are warm with a premature suggestion of midsummer.

Aline Peters was sitting at the open window of her bedroom, which commanded an extensive view of the

terraces. A pile of letters lay on the table beside her, for she had just finished reading her mail. The postman

came late to the castle on Sundays and she had not been able to do this until luncheon was over.

Aline was puzzled. She was conscious of a fit of depression for which she could in no way account. She had a

feeling that all was not well with the world, which was the more remarkable in that she was usually keenly

susceptible to weather conditions and reveled in sunshine like a kitten. Yet here was a day nearly as fine as an

She looked down on the terrace; as she looked the figure of George Emerson appeared, walking swiftly. And

at the sight of him something seemed to tell her that she had found the key to her gloom.

There are many kinds of walk. George Emerson's was the walk of mental unrest. His hands were clasped

behind his back, his eyes stared straight in front of him from beneath lowering brows, and between his teeth

was an unlighted cigar. No man who is not a professional politician holds an unlighted cigar in his mouth

unless he wishes to irritate and baffle a ticket chopper in the subway, or because unpleasant meditations have

caused him to forget he has it there. Plainly, then, all was not well with George Emerson.

Aline had suspected as much at luncheon; and looking back she realized that it was at luncheon her

depression had begun. The discovery startled her a little. She had not been aware, or she had refused to admit

to herself, that George's troubles bulked so large on her horizon. She had always told herself that she liked

George, that George was a dear old friend, that George amused and stimulated her; but she would have

denied she was so wrapped up in George that the sight of him in trouble would be enough to spoil for her the

There was something not only startling but shocking in the thought; for she was honest enough with herself to

recognize that Freddie, her official loved one, might have paced the grounds of the castle chewing an

And she was to marry Freddie next month! This was surely a matter that called for thought. She proceeded,

Aline's was not a deep nature. She had never pretended to herself that she loved the Honorable Freddie in the

sense in which the word is used in books. She liked him and she liked the idea of being connected with the

peerage; her father liked the idea and she liked her father. And the combination of these likings had caused

her to reply "Yes" when, last Autumn, Freddie, swelling himself out like an embarrassed frog and gulping,

had uttered that memorable speech beginning, "I say, you know, it's like this, don't you know!"and ending,

She had looked forward to being placidly happy as the Honorable Mrs. Frederick Threepwood. And then

Until today she would have resented the suggestion that she was in love with George. She liked to be with

him, partly because he was so easy to talk to, and partly because it was exciting to be continually resisting the

will power he made no secret of trying to exercise. But today there was a difference. She had suspected it at

luncheon and she realized it now. As she looked down at him from behind the curtain, and marked his air of

She felt maternalhorribly maternal. George was in trouble and she wanted to comfort him.

Freddie, too, was in trouble. But did she want to comfort Freddie? No. On the contrary, she was already

regretting her promise, so lightly given before luncheon, to go and sit with him that afternoon. A

wellmarked feeling of annoyance that he should have been so silly as to tumble downstairs and sprain his

George Emerson continued to perambulate and Aline continued to watch him. At last she could endure it no

longer. She gathered up her letters, stacked them in a corner of the dressingtable and left the room. George

had reached the end of the terrace and turned when she began to descend the stone steps outside the front

door. He quickened his pace as he caught sight of her. He halted before her and surveyed her morosely.

"And here I am. Cheer up, George! Whatever is the matter? I've been sitting in my room looking at you, and

Aline took the yellow slip of paper. "A cable," added George. "I got it this morningmailed on from my

"Office cipher; I was forgetting. 'Elephant' means 'Seriously ill and unable to attend to duty.' Meredith is one

"Oh, I'm so sorry! Do you think he is very sick? Are you very fond of Mr. Meredith?"

"Meredith is a good fellow and I like him; but if it was simply a matter of his being ill I'm afraid I could

manage to bear up under the news. Unfortunately 'kangaroo' means 'Return, without fail, by the next boat.'"

"You must return by the next boat?" Aline looked at him, in her eyes a slowgrowing comprehension of the

Aline's eyes were fixed on the blue hills across the valley, but she did not see them. There was a mist

between. She was feeling crushed and illtreated and lonely. It was as though George was already gone and

"But, George!" she said; she could find no other words for her protest against the inevitable.

"It's bad luck," said Emerson quietly; "but I shouldn't wonder if it is not the best thing that really could have

happened. It finishes me cleanly, instead of letting me drag on and make both of us miserable. If this cable

hadn't come I suppose I should have gone on bothering you up to the day of your wedding. I should have

fancied, to the last moment, that there was a chance for me; but this ends me with one punch.

"Even I haven't the nerve to imagine that I can work a miracle in the few hours before the train leaves

tomorrow. I must just make the best of it. If we ever meet againand I don't see why we shouldyou will

be married. My particular brand of mental suggestion doesn't work at long range. I shan't hope to influence

"This thing," he said, "coming as a shock, coming out of the blue sky without warningMeredith is the last

man in the world you would expect to crack up; he looked as fit as a dray horse the last time I saw

himsomehow seems to have hammered a certain amount of sense into me. Odd it never struck me before;

but I suppose I have been about the most bumptious, conceited fool that ever happened.

"Why I should have imagined that there was a sort of irresistible fascination in me, which was bound to make

you break off your engagement and upset the whole universe simply to win the wonderful reward of marrying

me, is more than I can understand. I suppose it takes a shock to make a fellow see exactly what he really

amounts to. I couldn't think any more of you than I do; but, if I could, the way you have put up with my

mouthing and swaggering and posing as a sort of superman, would make me do it. You have been

Aline could not speak. She felt as though her whole world had been turned upside down in the last quarter of

an hour. This was a new George Emerson, a George at whom it was impossible to laugh, but an insidiously

attractive George. Her heart beat quickly. Her mind was not clear; but dimly she realized that he had pulled

down her chief barrier of defense and that she was more open to attack than she had ever been. Obstinacy, the

automatic desire to resist the pressure of a will that attempted to overcome her own, had kept her cool and

levelheaded in the past. With masterfulness she had been able to cope. Humility was another thing

Softheartedness was Aline's weakness. She had never clearly recognized it, but it had been partly pity that

had induced her to accept Freddie; he had seemed so downtrodden and sorry for himself during those Autumn

days when they had first met. Prudence warned her that strange things might happen if once she allowed

The silence lengthened. Aline could find nothing to say. In her present mood there was danger in speech.

"We have known each other so long," said Emerson, "and I have told you so often that I love you, we have

come to make almost a joke of it, as though we were playing some game. It just happens that that is our

wayto laugh at things; but I am going to say it once again, even though it has come to be a sort of catch

phrase. I love you! I'm reconciled to the fact that I am done for, out of the running, and that you are going to

"It isn't a question of whether I should be happier if I forgot you. I can't do it. It's just an impossibilityand

that's all there is to it. Whatever I may be to you, you are part of me, and you always will be part of me. I

might just as well try to go on living without breathing as living without loving you."

"That's all! I don't want to spoil a perfectly good Spring afternoon for you by pulling out the tragic stop. I had

to say all that; but it's the last time. It shan't occur again. There will be no tragedy when I step into the train

"You will? That will be splendid! Now I'll go and pack and break it to my host that I must leave him. I

expect, it will be news to him to learn that I am here. I doubt if he knows me by sight."

Aline stood where he had left her, leaning on the balustrade. In the fullness of time there came to her the

recollection she had promised Freddie that shortly after luncheon she would sit with him.

The Honorable Freddie, draped in purple pyjamas and propped up with many pillows, was lying in bed,

reading Gridley Quayle, Investigator. Aline's entrance occurred at a peculiarly poignant moment in the story

and gave him a feeling of having been brought violently to earth from a flight in the clouds. It is not often an

author has the good fortune to grip a reader as the author of Gridley Quayle gripped Freddie.

One of the results of his absorbed mood was that he greeted Aline with a stare of an even glassier quality than

usual. His eyes were by nature a trifle prominent; and to Aline, in the overstrung condition in which her talk

with George Emerson had left her, they seemed to bulge at her like a snail's. A man seldom looks his best in

bed, and to Aline, seeing him for the first time at this disadvantage, the Honorable Freddie seemed quite

repulsive. It was with a feeling of positive panic that she wondered whether he would want her to kiss him.

Freddie made no such demand. He was not one of your demonstrative lovers. He contented himself with

Her betrothed improved his appearance a little by hitching up his jaw. As though feeling that would be too

extreme a measure, he did not close his mouth altogether; but he diminished the abyss. The Honorable

Freddie belonged to the class of persons who move through life with their mouths always restfully open.

It seemed to Aline that on this particular afternoon a strange dumbness had descended on her. She had been

unable to speak to George and now she could not think of anything to say to Freddie. She looked at him and

"It was that bally cat of Aunt Ann's," said Freddie at length, essaying light conversation. "It came legging it

up the stairs and I took the most frightful toss. I hate cats! Do you hate cats? I knew a fellow in London who

Aline began to wonder whether there was not something permanently wrong with her organs of speech. It

should have been a simple matter to develop the cat theme, but she found herself unable to do so. Her mind

was concentrated, to the exclusion of all else, on the repellent nature of the spectacle provided by her loved

"I was just reading a corking book. Have you ever read these things? They come out every month, and they're

corking. The fellow who writes them must be a corker. It beats me how he thinks of these things. They are

"Yes; just beyond. It's a bit thick, don't you know! This chappie Quayle has been trapped in a lonely house,

thinking he was going to see a pal in distress; and instead of the pal there pop out a whole squad of masked

blighters with guns. I don't see how he's going to get out of it, myself; but I'll bet he does. He's a corker!"

If anybody could have pitied Aline more than she pitied herself, as she waded through the adventures of Mr.

Quayle, it would have been Ashe Marson. He had writhed as he wrote the words and she writhed as she read

Freddie hesitated. The desire to remain on the trail with Gridley struggled with rudimentary politeness.

"How would it beWould you mind if I just took a look at the rest of it myself? We could talk afterward,

"Of course! Do read if you want to. But do you really like this sort of thing, Freddie?"

Freddie had become absorbed in his story. Aline did not attempt further analysis of her attitude toward Mr.

It was a silence pregnant with thought. For the first time in their relations, she was trying to visualize to

herself exactly what marriage with this young man would mean. Hitherto, it struck her, she had really seen so

little of Freddie that she had scarcely had a chance of examining him. In the crowded world outside he had

always seemed a tolerable enough person. Today, somehow, he was different. Everything was different

This, she took it, was a fair sample of what she might expect after marriage. Marriage meantto come to

essentialsthat two people were very often and for lengthy periods alone together, dependent on each other

for mutual entertainment. What exactly would it be like, being alone often and for lengthy periods with

"It's all right," said Freddie without looking up. "He did get out! He had a bomb on him, and he threatened to

drop it and blow the place to pieces unless the blighters let him go. So they cheesed it. I knew he had

Like this! Aline drew a deep breath. It would be like thisforever and ever and everuntil she died. She

"Freddie," she said, "do you love me?" There was no reply. "Freddie, do you love me? Am I a part of you? If

The Honorable Freddie raised a flushed face and gazed at her with an absent eye.

"Eh? What?" he said. "Do IOh; yes. rather! I say, one of the blighters has just loosed a rattlesnake into

Aline rose from her seat and left the room softly. The Honorable Freddie read on, unheeding.

Ashe Marson had not fallen far short of the truth in his estimate of the probable effect on Mr. Peters of the

information that his precious scarab had once more been removed by alien hands and was now farther from

his grasp than ever. A drawback to success in life is that failure, when it does come, acquires an exaggerated

importance. Success had made Mr. Peters, in certain aspects of his character, a spoiled child.

At the moment when Ashe broke the news he would have parted with half his fortune to recover the scarab.

Its recovery had become a point of honor. He saw it as the prize of a contest between his will and that of

whatever malignant powers there might be ranged against him in the effort to show him that there were limits

to what he could achieve. He felt as he had felt in the old days when people sneaked up on him in Wall Street

and tried to loosen his grip on a railroad or a pet stock. He was suffering from that form of paranoia which

makes men multimillionaires. Nobody would be foolish enough to become a multimillionaire if it were not

Mr. Peters obtained a small relief for his feelings by doubling the existing reward, and Ashe went off in

search of Joan, hoping that this new stimulus, acting on their joint brains, might develop inspiration.

"Have any fresh ideas been vouchsafed to you?" he asked. "You may look on me as baffled."

"Don't give up," she urged. "Think again. Try to realize what this means, Mr. Marson. Between us we have

lost ten thousand dollars in a single night. I can't afford it. It is like losing a legacy. I absolutely refuse to give

in without an effort and go back to writing dukeandearl stories for Home Gossip."

"Why, I was forgetting that you were a writer of detective stories. You ought to be able to solve this mystery

"I can answer that. Gridley Quayle would have waited helplessly for some coincidence to happen to help him

"He was full of methods; but they never led him anywhere without the coincidence. However, we might try to

"Absolutely nothing. Let us try again. Whoever took the scarab must have had special information that Peters

"True! That would seem to be a flaw in the reasoning. Once again: Whoever took it must have been in urgent

"I should think your Mr. Quayle must have been a great comfort to his clients, wasn't he?" said Joan.

"Inductive reasoning, I admit, seems to have fallen down to a certain extent," said Ashe. "We must wait for

the coincidence. I have a feeling that it will come." He paused. "I am very fortunate in the way of

Ashe looked about him and was relieved to find that they appeared to be out of earshot of their species. It was

not easy to achieve this position at the castle if you happened to be there as a domestic servant. The space

provided for the ladies and gentlemen attached to the guests was limited, and it was rarely that you could

enjoy a stroll without bumping into a maid, a valet or a footman; but now they appeared to be alone. The

drive leading to the back regions of the castle was empty. As far as the eye could reach there were no signs of

"Was it not a strange coincidence," he said, "that you should have come into my life at all?"

"Not very," said Joan prosaically. "It was quite likely that we should meet sooner or later, as we lived on

Ashe felt damped. Logically, no doubt, she was right; but surely she might have helped him out a little in this

difficult situation. Surely her woman's intuition should have told her that a man who has been speaking in a

loud and cheerful voice does not, lower it to a husky whisper without some reason. The hopelessness of his

Ever since that evening at Market Blandings Station, when he realized that he loved her, he had been trying to

find an opportunity to tell her so; and every time they had met, the talk had seemed to be drawn irresistibly

into practical and unsentimental channels. And now, when he was doing his best to reason it out that they

were twin souls who had been brought together by a destiny it would be foolish to struggle against; when he

was trying to convey the impression that fate had designed them for each othershe said, "Why?" It was

He was about to go deeper into the matter when, from the direction of the castle, he perceived the Honorable

Freddie's valetMr. Judsonapproaching. That it was this repellent young man's object to break in on them

and rob him of his one small chance of inducing Joan to appreciate, as he did, the mysterious workings of

Providence as they affected herself and him, was obvious. There was no mistaking the valet's desire for

conversation. He had the air of one brimming over with speech. His wonted indolence was cast aside; and as

Ashe regarded the intruder with a malevolent eye. Never fond of Mr. Judson, he looked on him now with

positive loathing. It had not been easy for him to work himself up to the point where he could discuss with

Joan the mysterious ways of Providence, for there was that about her which made it hard to achieve

sentiment, That indefinable something in Joan Valentine which made for nocturnal raids on other people's

museums also rendered her a somewhat difficult person to talk to about twin souls and destiny. The qualities

that Ashe loved in herher strength, her capability, her valiant selfsufficingnesswere the very qualities

"It's true. There ain't a doubt of it now. It's been and happened just as I said that night."

"That night at dinnerthe first night you two came here. Don't you remember me talking about Freddie and

the girl he used to write letters to in Londonthe girl I said was so like you, Miss Simpson? What was her

name again? Joan Valentine. That was it. The girl at the theater that Freddie used to send me with letters to

pretty nearly every evening. Well, she's been and done it, same as I told you all that night she was jolly likely

to go and do. She's sticking young Freddie up for his letters, just as he ought to have known she would do if

he hadn't been a young fathead. They're all alike, these girlsevery one of them."

Mr. Judson paused, subjected the surrounding scenery to a cautious scrutiny and resumed.

"I took a suit of Freddie's clothes away to brush just now; and happening"Mr. Judson paused and gave a

little cough"happening to glance at the contents of his pockets I come across a letter. I took a sort of look

at it before setting it aside, that it was from a fellow named Jones; and it said that this girl, Valentine, was

sticking onto young Freddie's letters what he'd written her, and would see him blowed if she parted with them

under another thousand. And, as I made it out, Freddie had already given her five hundred.

"Where he got it is more than I can understand; but that's what the letter said. This fellow Jones said he had

passed it to her with his own hands; but she wasn't satisfied, and if she didn't get the other thousand she was

going to bring an action for breach. And now Freddie has given me a note to take to this Jones, who is

Joan had listened to this remarkable speech with a stunned amazement. At this point she made her first

She looked at Ashe helplessly. Their eyes methers wide with perplexity, his bright with the light of

"It shows," said Ashe slowly, "that he was in immediate and urgent need of money."

"You bet it does," said Mr. Judson with relish. "It looks to me as though young Freddie had about reached the

end of his tether this time. My word! There won't half be a kickup if she does sue him for breach! I'm off to

tell Mr. Beach and the rest. They'll jump out of their skins." His face fell. "Oh, Lord, I was forgetting this

"You're a good fellow, Marson," he said. "I'll do as much for you another time. I couldn't hardly bear not to

"Can't understand it? Why, it's perfectly clear. This is the coincidence for which, in my capacity of Gridley

Quayle, I was waiting. I can now resume inductive reasoning. Weighing the evidence, what do we find? That

"For Jones' purposes you are. Let's get this Jones element in the affair straightened out. What do you know of

"He was an enormously fat man who came to see me one night and said he had been sent to get back some

"Well, that part of it is clear, then. He is working a simple but ingenious game on Freddie. It wouldn't

succeed with everybody, I suppose; but from what I have seen and heard of him Freddie isn't strong on

intellect. He seems to have accepted the story without a murmur. What does he do? He has to raise a

thousand pounds immediately, and the raising of the first five hundred has exhausted his credit. He gets the

"But why? Why should he have thought of the scarab at all? That is what I can't understand. He couldn't have

meant to give it to Mr. Peters and claim the reward. He couldn't have known that Mr. Peters was offering a

reward. He couldn't have known that Lord Emsworth had not got the scarab quite properly. He couldn't have

"There's something in that. ButI have it! Jones must have known about the scarab and told him."

"It was the night of the day I first met you. I was wondering for a moment whether he could by any chance

have overheard Aline telling me about the scarab and the reward Mr. Peters was offering for it."

"Overheard! That word is like a bugle blast to me. Nine out of ten of Gridley Quayle's triumphs were due to

"I don't. How could he have overheard us? The door was closed and he was in the street by that time."

"He might have waited on the stairsyou remember how dark they are at Number Sevenand listened."

"Why? Why? What a beast of a word that isthe detective's bugbear. I thought I had it, until you

saidGreat Scott! I'll tell you why. I see it all. I have him with the goods. His object in coming to see you

about the letters was because Freddie wanted them back owing to his approaching marriage with Miss

"Before he is out of the house Miss Peters is giving her name at the front door. Put yourself in Jones' place.

What does he think? He is suspicious. He thinks there is some game on. He skips upstairs again, waits until

Miss Peters has gone into your room, then stands outside and listens. How about that?"

"He did do exactly that. I know it as though I had been there; in fact, it is highly probable I was there. You

say all this happened on the night we first met? I remember coming downstairs that nightI was going out to

a vaudeville showand hearing voices in your room. I remember it distinctly. In all probability I nearly ran

"It's a clear case. There isn't a flaw in it. The only question is, can I, on the evidence, go to young Freddie and

choke the scarab out of him? On the whole, I think I had better take this note to Jones, as I promised Judson,

and see whether I can't work something through him. Yes; that's the best plan. I'll be starting at once."

Perhaps the greatest hardship in being an invalid is the fact that people come and see you and keep your

spirits up. The Honorable Freddie Threepwood suffered extremely from this. His was not a gregarious nature

and it fatigued his limited brain powers to have to find conversation for his numerous visitors. All he wanted

was to be left alone to read the adventures of Gridley Quayle, and when tired of doing that to lie on his back

It is your dynamic person, your energetic world's worker, who chafes at being laid up with a sprained ankle.

The Honorable Freddie enjoyed it. From boyhood up he had loved lying in bed; and now that fate had

allowed him to do this without incurring rebuke he objected to having his reveries broken up by officious

He spent his rare intervals of solitude in trying to decide in his mind which of his cousins, uncles and aunts

was, all things considered, the greatest nuisance. Sometimes he would give the palm to Colonel Horace Mant,

who struck the soldierly note"I recollect in a hill campaign in the winter of the year '93 giving my ankle

the deuce of a twist." Anon the more spiritual attitude of the Bishop of Godalming seemed to annoy him more

Sometimes he would head the list with the name of his Cousin PercyLord Stockheathwho refused to

talk of anything except his late breachofpromise case and the effect the verdict had had on his old

governor. Freddie was in no mood just now to be sympathetic with others on their breachofpromise cases.

As he lay in bed reading on Monday morning, the only flaw in his enjoyment of this unaccustomed solitude

was the thought that presently the door was bound to open and some kind inquirer insinuate himself into the

His apprehensions proved well founded. Scarcely had he got well into the details of an ingenious plot on the

part of a secret society to eliminate Gridley Quayle by bribing his cooka bad lotto sprinkle choppedup

horsehair in his chicken fricassee, when the doorknob turned and Ashe Marson came in.

Freddie was not the only person who had found the influx of visitors into the sick room a source of irritation.

The fact that the invalid seemed unable to get a moment to himself had annoyed Ashe considerably. For some

little time he had hung about the passage in which Freddie's room was situated, full of enterprise, but unable

to make a forward move owing to the throng of sympathizers. What he had to say to the sufferer could not be

Freddie's sensation, on perceiving him, was one of relief. He had been half afraid it was the bishop. He

recognized Ashe as the valet chappie who had helped him to bed on the occasion of his accident. It might be

that he had come in a respectful way to make inquiries, but he was not likely to stop long. He nodded and

went on reading. And then, glancing up, he perceived Ashe standing beside the bed, fixing him with a

The Honorable Freddie hated piercing stares. One of the reasons why he objected to being left alone with his

future fatherinlaw, Mr. J. Preston Peters, was that Nature had given the millionaire a penetrating pair of

eyes, and the stress of business life in New York had developed in him a habit of boring holes in people with

them. A young man had to have a stronger nerve and a clearer conscience than the Honorable Freddie to

Though he accepted Aline's father as a necessary evil and recognized that his position entitled him to look at

people as sharply as he liked, whatever their feelings, he would be hanged if he was going to extend this

privilege to Mr. Peters' valet. This man standing beside him was giving him a look that seemed to his

sensitive imagination to have been fired redhot from a gun; and this annoyed and exasperated Freddie.

"What do you want?" he said querulously. "What are you staring at me like that for?"

Ashe sat down, leaned his elbows on the bed, and applied the look again from a lower elevation.

Whatever may have been Ashe's defects, so far as the handling of the inductivereasoning side of Gridley

Quayle's character was concerned, there was one scene in each of his stories in which he never failed. That

was the scene in the last chapter where Quayle, confronting his quarry, unmasked him. Quayle might have

floundered in the earlier part of the story, but in his big scene he was exactly right. He was curt, crisp and

Ashe, rehearsing this interview in the passage before his entry, had decided that he could hardly do better

than model himself on the detective. So he began to be curt, crisp and mercilessly compelling to Freddie; and

"I will tell you," he said. "If you can spare me a few moments of your valuable time I will put the facts before

you. Yes; press that bell if you wishand I will put them before witnesses. Lord Emsworth will no doubt be

Freddie's hand fell limply. The bell remained untouched. His mouth opened to its fullest extent. In the midst

of his panic he had a curious feeling that he had heard or read that last sentence somewhere before. Then he

remembered. Those very words occurred in Gridley Quayle, InvestigatorThe Adventure of the Blue Ruby.

"I will tell you what I mean. On Saturday night a valuable scarab was stolen from Lord Emsworth's private

Life, as many a worthy writer has pointed out, is full of ironies. It seemed to Freddie that here was a supreme

example of this fact. All these years he had wanted to meet a detective; and now that his wish had been

"The case," continued Ashe severely, "was placed in my hands. I investigated it. I discovered that you were in

"Ah!" said Ashe. "I further discovered that you were in communication with an individual named Jones."

"Yesterday I had a talk with this man Jones, who is staying in Market Blandings. Why is he staying in Market

Blandings? Because he had a reason for keeping in touch with you; because you were about to transfer to his

care something you could get possession of, but which only he could dispose ofthe scarab."

The Honorable Freddie was beyond speech. He made no comment on this statement. Ashe continued:

"I interviewed this man Jones. I said to him: 'I am in the Honorable Frederick Threepwood's confidence. I

know everything. Have you any instructions for me?' He replied: 'What do you know?' I answered: 'I know

that the Honorable Frederick Threepwood has something he wishes to hand to you, but which he has been

unable to hand to you owing to having had an accident and being confined to his room.' He then told me to

Freddie pulled himself together with an effort. He was in sore straits, but he saw one last chance. His

researches in detective fiction had given him the knowledge that detectives occasionally relaxed their

austerity when dealing with a deserving case. Even Gridley Quayle could sometimes be softened by a

hardluck story. Freddie could recall half a dozen times when a detected criminal had been spared by him

because he had done it all from the best motives. He determined to throw himself on Ashe's mercy.

"I say, you know," he said ingratiatingly, "I think it's very marvelous the way you've deduced everything, and

"I know your side of the case. You think you are being blackmailed by a Miss Valentine for some letters you

once wrote her. You are not. Miss Valentine has destroyed the letters. She told the man Jones so when he

went to see her in London. He kept your five hundred pounds and is trying to get another thousand out of you

"Good egg!" he said with fervor. He beamed happily. "This," he observed, "is a bit of all right."

For a space relief held him dumb. Then another aspect of the matter struck him, and he sat up again with a

"I say, you don't mean to say that that rotter Jones was such a rotter as to do a rotten thing like that?"

"But"the thing seemed to be filtering slowly into Freddie's intelligence "what I mean to say is,

"My short acquaintance with Mr. Jones," said Ashe "leads me to think that be probably isto himself."

"Dash it, I'll tell you what I'll do. The very next time I meet the brighter, I'll cut him dead. I will! The rotter!

Five hundred quid he's had off me for nothing! And, if it hadn't been for you, he'd have had another thousand!

I'm beginning to think that my old governor wasn't so far wrong when he used to curse me for going around

with Jones and the rest of that crowd. He knew a bit, by Gad! Well, I'm through with them. If the governor

ever lets me go to London again, I won't have anything to do with them. I'll jolly well cut the whole bunch!

"It strikes me," said Freddie gratefully, "that you are a dashed good sort. You seem to me to have the making

of an absolute topper! It's under the mattress. I had it on me when I fell downstairs and I had to shove it in

Ashe drew it out. He stood looking at it, absorbed. He could hardly believe his quest was at an end and that a

"You know," he said, "I've always wanted to meet a detective. What beats me is how you chappies find out

"That," said Ashe, "would take too long to explain. Of course I had to do some tense inductive reasoning; but

"I say, I wonder whether you've ever read any of these thingsthese Gridley Quayle stories? I know them by

With the scarab safely in his pocket, Ashe could contemplate the brightlycolored volume the other extended

toward him without active repulsion. Already he was beginning to feel a sort of sentiment for the depressing

There are certain supreme moments that cannot be adequately described. Freddie's appreciation of the fact

that such a moment had occurred in his life expressed itself in a startled cry and a convulsive movement of all

He would have gone on, doubtless, to say more; but at this moment voices made themselves heard outside the

door. There was a movement of feet. Then the door opened and a small procession entered.

It was headed by the Earl of Emsworth. Following him came Mr. Peters. And in the wake of the millionaire

were Colonel Horace Mant and the Efficient Baxter. They filed into the room and stood by the bedside. Ashe

Freddie glanced at the deputation without interest. His mind was occupied with other matters. He supposed

they had come to inquire after his ankle and he was mildly thankful that they had come in a body instead of

one by one. The deputation grouped itself about the bed and shuffled its feet. There was an atmosphere of

Mr. Peters fiddled dumbly with the coverlet. Colonel Mant cleared his throat. The Efficient Baxter scowled.

The words struck straight home at the Honorable Freddie's guilty conscience. Had they, too, tracked him

down? And was he now to be accused of having stolen that infernal scarab? A wave of relief swept over him

as he realized that he had got rid of the thing. A decent chappie like that detective would not give him away.

All he had to do was to keep his head and stick to stout denial. That was the gamestout denial.

"Of course you don'tdash it!" said Colonel Mant. "We're coming to that. And I should like to begin by

saying that, though in a sense it was my fault, I fail to see how I could have acted"

"Freddie, my boy," he began, "we have a somewhat unpleasanta somewhat erdisturbingWe are

"Exactly, Baxter. Precisely! You have put the thing in a nutshell. Really, my dear fellow, you are invaluable."

All eyes searched Freddie's face for signs of uncontrollable emotion. The deputation waited anxiously for his

"It is quite true, Freddie, my dear boy. She went to London with him on the tenfifty."

"And if I had not been forcibly restrained," said Baxter acidly, casting a vindictive look at Colonel Mant, "I

"I'm afraid that is true, Freddie. It was a most unfortunate misunderstanding. I'll tell you how it happened: I

chanced to be at the station bookstall when the train came in. Mr. Baxter was also in the station. The train

pulled up and this young fellow Emerson got insaid goodby to us, don't you know, and got in. Just as the

train was about to start, Miss Peters exclaiming, 'George dear, I'm going with you, dash it,' or some such

speechproceeded to gohell for leatherto the door of young Emerson's compartment. On which"

"On which," interrupted Baxter, "I made a spring to try and catch her. Apart from any other consideration, the

train was already moving and Miss Peters ran considerable risk of injury. I had hardly moved when I felt a

violent jerk at my ankle and fell to the ground. After I had recovered from the shock, which was not

"The fact is, Freddie, my boy," the colonel went on, "I acted under a misapprehension. Nobody can be sorrier

for the mistake than I; but recent events in this house had left me with the impression that Mr. Baxter here

was not quite responsible for his actionsoverwork or something, I imagined. I have seen it happen so often

in India, don't you know, where fellows run amuck and kick up the deuce's own delight. I am bound to admit

that I have been watching Mr. Baxter rather closely lately in the expectation that something of this very kind

"Of course I now realize my mistake; and I have apologized apologized humblydash it! But at the

moment I was firmly under the impression that our friend here had an attack of some kind and was about to

inflict injuries on Miss Peters. If I've seen it happen once in India, I've seen it happen a dozen times.

"I recollect, in the hot weather of the year '99or was it '93?I think '93one of my native

bearersHowever, I sprang forward and caught the crook of my walking stick on Mr. Baxter's ankle and

brought him down. And by the time explanations were made it was too late. The train had gone, with Miss

"And a telegram has just arrived," said Lord Emsworth, "to say that they are being married this afternoon at a

To all appearances Freddie was bearing it magnificently. Not a single exclamation, either of wrath or pain,

had escaped his lips. One would have said the shock had stunned him or that he had not heard, for his face

The fact was, the story had made very little impression on the Honorable Freddie of any sort. His grief at

Ashe's news about Joan Valentine; the stunning joy of having met in the flesh the author of the adventures of

Gridley Quayle; the general feeling that all was now right with the worldthese things deprived him of the

And there was a distinct feeling of reliefactual reliefthat now it would not be necessary for him to get

married. He had liked Aline; but whenever he really thought of it the prospect of getting married rather

appalled him. A chappie looked such an ass getting married! It appeared, however, that some verbal comment

on the state of affairs was required of him. He searched his mind for something adequate.

The deputation nodded pained nods. Freddie searched in his mind again. The deputation held its breath.

Mr. Peters walked heavily into his room. Ashe Marson was waiting for him there. He eyed Ashe dully.

For a moment Mr. Peters looked without comprehension at what Ashe was holding out; then his whole

"Where was it? Who took it? How did you choke it out of them? How did you find it? Who had it?"

"I don't know whether I ought to say. I don't want to start anything. You won't tell anyone?"

"Tell anyone! What do you take me for? Do you think I am going about advertising this? If I can sneak out

without that fellow Baxter jumping on my back I shall be satisfied. You can take it from me that there won't

"And I have been kicking because Aline can't marry him and has gone off with a regular fellow like young

Emerson! He's a good boyyoung Emerson. I knew his folks. He'll make a name for himself one of these

days. He's got getup in him. And I have been waiting to shoot him because he has taken Aline away from

"Why, if she had married Threepwood I should have had grandchildren who would have sneaked my watch

while I was dancing them on my knee! There is a taint of some sort in the whole family. Father sneaks my

Cheops and sonny sneaks it from father. What a gang! And the best blood in England! If that's England's idea

of good blood give me Hoboken! This settles it. I was a chump ever to come to a country like this. Property

"Where's my check book? I'm going to write you that check right away. You've earned it. Listen, young man;

I don't know what your ideas are, but if you aren't chained to this country I'll make it worth your while to stay

on with me. They say no one's indispensable, but you come mighty near it. If I had you at my elbow for a few

years I'd get right back into shape. I'm feeling better now than I have felt in yearsand you've only just

"How about it? You can call yourself what you likesecretary or trainer, or whatever suits you best. What

you will be is the fellow who makes me take exercise and stop smoking cigars, and generally looks after me.

It was a proposition that appealed both to Ashe's commercial and to his missionary instincts. His only regret

had been that, the scarab recovered, he and Mr. Peters would now, he supposed, part company. He had not

liked the idea of sending the millionaire back to the world a halfcured man. Already he had begun to look

on him in the light of a piece of creative work to which he had just set his hand.

But the thought of Joan gave him pause. If this meant separation from Joan it was not to be considered.

It has been said by those who have been through fires, earthquakes and shipwrecks that in such times of stress

the social barriers are temporarily broken down, and the spectacle may be seen of persons of the highest

social standing speaking quite freely to persons who are not in society at all; and of quite nice people

addressing others to whom they have never been introduced. The news of Aline Peters' elopement with

George Emerson, carried beyond the greenbaize door by Slingsby, the chauffeur, produced very much the

It was not only that Slingsby was permitted to penetrate into the housekeeper's room and tell his story to his

social superiors there, though that was an absolutely unprecedented occurrence; what was really

extraordinary was that mere menials discussed the affair with the personal ladies and gentlemen of the castle

guests, and were allowed to do so uncrushed. James, the footmanthat pushing individualactually shoved

his way into the room, and was heard by witnesses to remark to no less a person than Mr. Beach that it was a

And it is on record that his fellow footman, Alfred, meeting the groom of the chambers in the passage

outside, positively prodded him in the lower ribs, winked, and said: "What a day we're having!" One has to

go back to the worst excesses of the French Revolution to parallel these outrages. It was held by Mr. Beach

and Mrs. Twemlow afterward that the social fabric of the castle never fully recovered from this upheaval. It

may be they took an extreme view of the matter, but it cannot be denied that it wrought changes. The rise of

Slingsby is a case in point. Until this affair took place the chauffeur's standing had never been satisfactorily

settled. Mr. Beach and Mrs. Twemlow led the party which considered that he was merely a species of

coachman; but there was a smaller group which, dazzled by Slingsby's personality, openly declared it was not

right that he should take his meals in the servants' hall with such admitted plebeians as the odd man and the

The AlineGeorge elopement settled the point once and for all. Slingsby had carried George's bag to the

train. Slingsby had been standing a few yards from the spot where Aline began her dash for the carriage door.

Slingsby was able to exhibit the actual half sovereign with which George had tipped him only five minutes

before the great event. To send such a public man back to the servants' hall was impossible. By unspoken

consent the chauffeur dined that night in the steward's room, from which he was never dislodged.

Mr. Judson alone stood apart from the throng that clustered about the chauffeur. He was suffering the

bitterness of the supplanted. A brief while before and he had been the central figure, with his story of the

letter he had found in the Honorable Freddie's coat pocket. Now the importance of his story had been

engulfed in that of this later and greater sensation, Mr. Judson was learning, for the first time, on what

Joan was nowhere to be seen. In none of the spots where she might have been expected to be at such a time

was she to be found. Ashe had almost given up the search when, going to the back door and looking out as a

She greeted Ashe with a smile, but something was plainly troubling her. She did not speak for a moment and

"Gloom," she said. "Despondency, Mr. MarsonA sort of flat feeling. Don't you hate things happening?"

"Well, this affair of Aline, for instance. It's so big it makes one feel as though the whole world had altered. I

should like nothing to happen ever, and life just to jog peacefully along. That's not the gospel I preached to

you in Arundel Street, is it! I thought I was an advanced apostle of action; but I seem to have changed. I'm

afraid I shall never be able to make clear what I do mean. I only know I feel as though I have suddenly grown

old. These things are such milestones. Already I am beginning to look on the time before Aline behaved so

sensationally as terribly remote. Tomorrow it will be worse, and the day after that worse still. I can see that

"Yes; I door I think I do. What it comes to, in a few words, is that somebody you were fond of has gone

"Yesat least, that is partly it. I didn't really know Aline particularly well, beyond having been at school

with her, but you're right. It's not so much what has happened as what it represents that matters. This

elopement has marked the end of a phase of my life. I think I have it now. My life has been such a series of

jerks. I dash alongthen something happens which stops that bit of my life with a jerk; and then I have to

start over againa new bit. I think I'm getting tired of jerks. I want something stodgy and continuous.

"I'm like one of the old bus horses that could go on forever if people got off without making them stop. It's

the having to get the bus moving again that wears one out. This little section of my life since we came here is

over, and it is finished for good. I've got to start the bus going again on a new road and with a new set of

passengers. I wonder whether the old horses used to be sorry when they dropped one lot of passengers and

A sudden dryness invaded Ashe's throat. He tried to speak, but found no words. Joan went on:

"Do you ever get moods when life seems absolutely meaningless? It's like a badlyconstructed story, with all

sorts of characters moving in and out who have nothing to do with the plot. And when somebody comes

along that you think really has something to do with the plot, he suddenly drops out. After a while you begin

to wonder what the story is about, and you feel that it's about nothingjust a jumble."

Their eyes met and suddenly there descended on Ashe confidence. He felt cool and alert, sure of himself, as

in the old days he had felt when he ran races and, the nerveracking hours of waiting past, he listened for the

starter's gun. Subconsciously he was aware he had always been a little afraid of Joan, and that now he was no

"How can you tell?" she broke out. "We scarcely know each other. I shan't always be in this mood. I may get

"What is the good," said Ashe, "of traveling fast if you're going round in a circle? I know how you feel. I've

felt the same myself. You are an individualist. You think there is something tremendous just round the corner

and that you can get it if you try hard enough. There isn'tor if there is it isn't worth getting. Life is nothing

but a mutual aid association. I am going to help old Petersyou are going to help meI am going to help

"Ashe, you don't know what you are doing. You don't know me. I've been knocking about the world for five

"You are not in the least hardand you know it. Listen to me, Joan. Where's your sense of fairness? You

crash into my life, turn it upside down, dig me out of my quiet groove, revolutionize my whole existence; and

"How perfectly splendid! I was terrified lest I might have made you change your mind. I had to say all I did

to preserve my selfrespect after proposing to you. Yes; I did. How strange it is that men never seem to

understand a woman, however plainly she talks! You don't think I was really worrying because I had lost

Aline, do you? I thought I was going to lose you, and it made me miserable. You couldn't expect me to say it

in so many words; but I thoughtI was hopingyou guessed. I practically said it. Ashe! What are you

"But you mustn't! There's a scullery maid or somebody looking through the kitchen window. She will see us."

"Scullery maids have few pleasures," he said. "Theirs is a dull life. Let her see us."

The Earl of Emsworth sat by the sick bed and regarded the Honorable Freddie almost tenderly.

"I have been thinking it over, my boy, and perhaps I have been a little hard on you. When your ankle is better

I have decided to renew your allowance; and you may return to London, as you do not seem happy in the

"I say, gov'nor, you really are a topper! You really are, you know! I know just how you feel about the country

and the jolly old birds and trees and chasing the bally slugs off the young geraniums and all that sort of thing,

but somehow it's never quite hit me the same way. It's the way I'm built, I suppose. I like asphalt streets and

crowds and dodging taxis and meeting chappies at the club and popping in at the Empire for half an hour and

so forth. And there's something about having an allowanceI don't know . . . sort of makes you chuck your

chest out and feel you're someone. I don't know how to thank you, gov'nor! You'reyou're an absolute

sportsman! This is the most priceless bit of work you've ever done. I feel like a twoyearold. I don't know

when I've felt so braced. IIreally, you know, gov'nor, I'm most awfully grateful."

"Exactly," said Lord Emsworth. "Ahprecisely. But, Freddie, my boy," he added, not without pathos, "there

is just one thing more. Do you think thatwith an effortfor my sakeyou could endeavor this time not to

"Gov'nor," said the Honorable Freddie firmly, "I'll have a jolly good stab at it!"