Transcriber's Note: Minor typographical errors have been correctedwithout note. Dialect spellings, contractions and discrepancies havebeen retained. 

[Illustration: LOST AGAIN P. 136]

TALES OF FANTASY AND FACT

By

BRANDER MATTHEWS

NEW YORKHARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS1896

BOOKS BY BRANDER MATTHEWS. 

THE THEATRES OF PARIS. FRENCH DRAMATISTS OF THE 19TH CENTURY. THE LAST MEETING, a Story. A SECRET OF THE SEA, and Other Stories. PEN AND INK: Essays on Subjects of More or Less Importance. A FAMILY TREE, and Other Stories. WITH MY FRIENDS: Tales Told in Partnership. A TALE OF TWENTY-FIVE HOURS. TOM PAULDING, a Story for Boys. IN THE VESTIBULE LIMITED, a Story. AMERICANISMS AND BRITICISMS, with Other Essays on Other Isms. THE STORY OF A STORY, and Other Stories. THE DECISION OF THE COURT, a Comedy. STUDIES OF THE STAGE. THIS PICTURE AND THAT, a Comedy. VIGNETTES OF MANHATTAN. THE ROYAL MARINE, an Idyl of Narragansett. BOOK-BINDINGS, Old and New; Notes of a Book-Lover. HIS FATHER'S SON, a Novel of New York. AN INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF AMERICAN LITERATURE. TALES OF FANTASY AND FACT. ASPECTS OF FICTION, and Other Ventures in Criticism. (In Press. )

Copyright, 1896, by HARPER & BROTHERS. _All rights reserved. _

TOTHE MEMORY OF MY FRIENDH. C. BUNNER

CONTENTS

 Page

A PRIMER OF IMAGINARY GEOGRAPHY 3

THE KINETOSCOPE OF TIME 27

THE DREAM-GOWN OF THE JAPANESE AMBASSADOR 57

THE RIVAL GHOSTS 93

SIXTEEN YEARS WITHOUT A BIRTHDAY 131

THE TWINKLING OF AN EYE 143

A CONFIDENTIAL POSTSCRIPT 207

A PRIMER OF IMAGINARY GEOGRAPHY

"Ship ahoy!"

There was an answer from our bark--for such it seemed to me by thistime--but I could not make out the words. 

"Where do you hail from?" was the next question. 

I strained my ears to catch the response, being naturally anxious toknow whence I had come. 

"From the City of Destruction!" was what I thought I heard; and Iconfess that it surprised me not a little. 

"Where are you bound?" was asked in turn. 

Again I listened with intensest interest, and again did the replyastonish me greatly. 

"Ultima Thule!" was the answer from our boat, and the voice of the manwho answered was deep and melancholy. 

Then I knew that I had set out strange countries for to see, and that Iwas all unequipped for so distant a voyage. Thule I knew, or at least Ihad heard of the king who reigned there once and who cast his gobletinto the sea. But Ultima Thule! was not that beyond the uttermostborders of the earth?

"Any passengers?" was the next query, and I noted that the voice camenow from the left and was almost abreast of us. 

"One only, " responded the captain of our boat. 

"Where bound?" was the final inquiry. 

"To the Fortunate Islands!" was the answer; and as I heard this myspirits rose again, and I was glad, as what man would not be who was onhis way to the paradise where the crimson-flowered meadows are full ofthe shade of frankincense-trees and of fruits of gold?

Then the boat bounded forward again, and I heard the wash of the waves. 

All this time it seemed as though I were in darkness; but now I begandimly to discern the objects about me. I found that I was lying on asettee in a state-room at the stern of the vessel. Through the smallround window over my head the first rays of the rising sun darted andsoon lighted the little cabin. 

As I looked about me with curiosity, wondering how I came to be apassenger on so unexpected a voyage, I saw the figure of a man framedin the doorway at the foot of the stairs leading to the deck above. 

How it was I do not know, but I made sure at once that he was thecaptain of the ship, the man whose voice I had heard answering thehail. 

He was tall and dark, with a scant beard and a fiery and piercing gaze, which penetrated me as I faced him. Yet the expression of hiscountenance was not unfriendly; nor could any man lay eyes upon himwithout a movement of pity for the sadness written on his visage. 

I rose to my feet as he came forward. 

"Well, " he said, holding out his hand, "and how are you after yournap?"

He spoke our language with ease and yet with a foreign accent. Perhapsit was this which betrayed him to me. 

"Are you not Captain Vanderdecken?" I asked as I took his handheartily. 

"So you know me?" he returned, with a mournful little laugh, as hemotioned to me to sit down again. 

Thus the ice was broken, and he took his seat by my side, and we weresoon deep in talk. 

When he learned that I was a loyal New-Yorker, his cordialityincreased. 

"I have relatives in New Amsterdam, " he cried; "at least I had once. Diedrich Knickerbocker was my first cousin. And do you know Rip VanWinkle?"

Although I could not claim any close friendship with this gentleman, Iboasted myself fully acquainted with his history. 

"Yes, yes, " said Captain Vanderdecken, "I suppose he was before yourtime. Most people are so short-lived nowadays; it's only with thatWandering Jew now that I ever have a chat over old times. Well, well, but you have heard of Rip? Were you ever told that I was on a visit toHendrik Hudson the night Rip went up the mountain and took a drop toomuch?"

I had to confess that here was a fact I had not before known. 

"I ran up the river, " said the Hollander, "to have a game of bowls withthe Englishman and his crew, nearly all of them countrymen of mine;and, by-the-way, Hudson always insists that it was I who brought thestorm with me that gave poor Rip Van Winkle the rheumatism as he sleptoff his intoxication on the hillside under the pines. He was a goodfellow, Rip, and a very good judge of schnapps, too. "

Seeing him smile with the pleasant memories of past companionship, Imarvelled when the sorrowful expression swiftly covered his face againas a mask. 

"But why talk of those who are dead and gone and are happy?" he askedin his deep voice. "Soon there will be no one left, perhaps, butAhasuerus and Vanderdecken--the Wandering Jew and the Flying Dutchman. "

He sighed bitterly, and then he gave a short, hard laugh. 

"There's no use talking about these things, is there?" he cried. "In anhour or two, if the wind holds, I can show you the house in whichAhasuerus has established his museum, the only solace of his lonelylife. He has the most extraordinary gathering of curiosities the worldhas ever seen--truly a virtuoso's collection. An American reporter cameon a voyage with me fifty or sixty years ago, and I took him overthere. His name was Hawthorne. He interviewed the Jew, and wrote up thecollection in the American papers, so I've been told. "

"I remember reading the interview, " I said, "and it was indeed a mostremarkable collection. "

"It's all the more curious now for the odds and ends I've been able topick up here and there for my old friend, " Vanderdecken declared; "Igot him the horn of Hernani, the harpoon with which Long Tom Coffinpinned the British officer to the mast, the long rifle of Natty Bumppo, the letter A in scarlet cloth embroidered in gold by Hester Prynne, thebanner with the strange device 'Excelsior, ' the gold bug which was onceused as a plummet, Maud Muller's rake, and the jack-knives of HoseaBiglow and Sam Lawson. "

"You must have seen extraordinary things yourself, " I ventured tosuggest. 

"No man has seen stranger, " he answered, promptly. "No man has everbeen witness to more marvellous deeds than I--not even Ahasuerus, Iverily believe, for he has only the land, and I have the boundless sea. I survey mankind from China to Peru. I have heard the horns of elflandblowing, and I could tell you the song the sirens sang. I have droppedanchor at the No Man's Land, and off Lyonesse, and in Xanadu, whereAlph the sacred river ran. I have sailed from the still-vexedBermoothes to the New Atlantis, of which there is no mention even untilthe year 1629. "

"In which year there was published an account of it written in theLatin tongue, but by an Englishman, " I said, desirous to reveal myacquirements. 

"I have seen every strange coast, " continued the Flying Dutchman. "TheIsland of Bells and Robinson Crusoe's Island and the Kingdoms ofBrobdingnag and Lilliput. But it is not for me to vaunt myself for myvoyages. And of a truth there are men I should like to have met andtalked with whom I have yet failed to see. Especially is there oneUlysses, a sailor-man of antiquity who called himself Outis, whence Ihave sometimes suspected that he came from the town of Weissnichtwo. "

Just to discover what Vanderdecken would say, I inquired innocentlywhether this was the same person as one Captain Nemo of whose submarineexploits I had read. 

"Captain Nemo?" the Flying Dutchman repeated scornfully. "I never heardof him. Are you sure there is such a fellow?"

I tried to turn the conversation by asking if he had ever met anotherancient mariner named Charon. 

"Oh, yes, " was his answer. "Charon keeps the ferry across the Styx tothe Elysian Fields, past the sunless marsh of Acheron. Yes--I've methim more than once. I met him only last month, and he was very proud ofhis new electric launch with its storage battery. "

When I expressed my surprise at this, he asked me if I did not knowthat the underworld was now lighted by electricity, and that Pluto hadput in all the modern improvements. Before I had time to answer, herose from his seat and slapped me on the shoulder. 

"Come up with me!--if you want to behold things for yourself, " hecried. "So far, it seems to me, you have never seen the sights!"

I followed him on deck. The sun was now two hours high, and I couldjust make out a faint line of land on the horizon. 

"That rugged coast is Bohemia, which is really a desert country by thesea, although ignorant and bigoted pedants have dared to deny it, " andthe scorn of my companion as he said this was wonderful to see. "Itsborders touch Alsatia, of which the chief town is a city of refuge. Notfar inland, but a little to the south, is the beautiful Forest ofArden, where men and maids dwell together in amity, and where clownswander, making love to shepherdesses. Some of these same pestilentpedants have pretended to believe that this forest of Arden wassituated in France, which is absurd, as there are no serpents and nolions in France, while we have the best of evidence as to the existenceof both in Arden--you know that, don't you?"

I admitted that a green and gilded snake and a lioness with udders alldrawn dry were known to have been seen there both on the same day. Iventured to suggest further that possibly this Forest of Arden was theWandering Wood where Una met her lion. 

"Of course, " was the curt response; "everybody knows that Arden is amost beautiful region; even the toads there have precious jewels intheir heads. And if you range the forest freely you may chance to findalso the White Doe of Rylstone and the goat with the gilded horns thattold fortunes in Paris long ago by tapping with his hoof on atambourine. "

"These, then, are the Happy Hunting-Grounds?" I suggested with a lightlaugh. 

"Who would chase a tame goat?" he retorted with ill-concealed contemptfor my ill-advised remark. 

I thought it best to keep silence; and after a minute or two he resumedthe conversation, like one who is glad of a good listener. 

"In the outskirts of the Forest of Arden, " he began again, "standsthe Abbey of Thelema--the only abbey which is bounded by no walland in which there is no clock at all nor any dial. And what need isthere of knowing the time when one has for companions only comely andwell-conditioned men and fair women of sweet disposition? And the mottoof the Abbey of Thelema is _Fais ce que voudra_--Do what you will; andmany of those who dwell in the Forest of Arden will tell you that theyhave taken this also for their device, and that if you live under thegreenwood tree you may spend your life--as you like it. "

I acknowledged that this claim was probably well founded, since Irecalled a song of the foresters in which they declared themselveswithout an enemy but winter and rough weather. 

"Yes, " he went on, "they are fond of singing in the Forest of Arden, and they sing good songs. And so they do in the fair land beyond whereI have never been, and which I can never hope to go to see for myself, if all that they report be true--and yet what would I not give to seeit and to die there. "

And as he said this sadly, his voice sank into a sigh. 

"And where does the road through the forest lead, that you so much wishto set forth upon it?" I asked. 

"That's the way to Arcady, " he said--"to Arcady where all the leavesare merry. I may not go there, though I long for it. Those who attainto its borders never come back again--and why should they leave it? Yetthere are tales told, and I have heard that this Arcady is theveritable El Dorado, and that in it is the true Fountain of Youth, gushing forth unfailingly for the refreshment of all who may reach it. But no one may find the entrance who cannot see it by the light thatnever was on land or sea. "

"It must be a favored region, " I remarked. 

"Of a truth it is, " he answered; "and on the way there is the orchardwhere grow the golden apples of Hesperides, and the dragon is dead nowthat used to guard them, and so any one may help himself to thebeautiful fruit. And by the side of the orchard flows the river Lethe, of which it is not well for man to drink, though many men would tasteit gladly. " And again he sighed. 

I knew not what to say, and so waited for him to speak once more. 

"That promontory there on the weather bow, " he began again after a fewmoments' silence, "that is Barataria, which was long supposed to be anisland by its former governor, Don Sancho Panza, but which is now knownby all to be connected with the mainland. Pleasant pastures slope downto the water, and if we were closer in shore you might chance to seeRozinante, the famous charger of Don Quixote de la Mancha, grazingamicably with the horse that brought the good news from Ghent to Aix. "

"I wish I could see them!" I cried, enthusiastically; "but there isanother horse I would rather behold than any--the winged steedPegasus. "

Before responding, my guide raised his hand and shaded his eyes andscanned the horizon. 

"No, " he said at last. "I cannot descry any this afternoon. Sometimesin these latitudes I have seen a dozen hippogriffs circling about theship, and I should like to have shown them to you. Perhaps they are allin the paddock at the stock-farm, where Apollo is now mating them withnight-mares in the hope of improving the breed from which he selectsthe coursers that draw the chariot of the sun. They say that theexperiment would have more chance of success if it were easier to findthe night-mares' nests. "

"It was not a hippogriff I desired to see especially, " I returned whenhe paused, "although that would be interesting, no doubt. It was therenowned Pegasus himself. "

"Pegasus is much like the other hippogriffs, " he retorted, "althoughperhaps he has a little better record than any of them. But they say hehas not won a single aërial handicap since that American professor ofyours harnessed him to a one-hoss shay. That seemed to break hisspirit, somehow; and I'm told he would shy now even at a broomsticktrain. "

"Even if he is out of condition, " I declared, "Pegasus is still thesteed I desire to see above all. "

"I haven't set eyes on him for weeks, " was the answer, "so he isprobably moulting; this is the time of year. He has a roomy boxstall inthe new Augean stable at the foot of Mount Parnassus. You know theyhave turned the spring of Castaly so that it flows through thestable-yard now, and so it is easy enough to keep the place clean. "

"If I may not see Pegasus, " I asked, "is there any chance of my beingtaken to the Castle of the Sleeping Beauty?"

"I have never seen it myself, " he replied, "and so I cannot show it toyou. Rarely indeed may I leave the deck of my ship to go ashore; andthis castle that you ask about is very far inland. I am told that it isin a country which the French travellers call _La Scribie_, a curiousland, wherein the scene is laid of many a play, because its laws andits customs are exactly what every playwright has need of; but no poethas visited it for many years. Yet the Grand Duchess of Gerolstein, whose domains lie partly within the boundaries of Scribia, is still asubscriber to the _Gazette de Hollande_--the only newspaper I takehimself, by the way. "

This last remark of the Captain's explained how it was that he hadbeen able to keep up with the news of the day, despite his constantwanderings over the waste of waters; and what more natural in fact thanthat the Flying Dutchman should be a regular reader of the _HollandGazette_?

Vanderdecken went forward into the prow of the vessel, calling to me tofollow. 

"Do you see those peaks afar in the distance?" he asked, pointing overthe starboard bow. 

I could just make out a saw-like outline in the direction indicated. 

"Those are the Delectable Mountains, " he informed me; "and down on ahollow between the two ranges is the Happy Valley. "

"Where Rasselas lived?"

"Yes, " he replied, "and beyond the Delectable Mountains, on the farslope, lies Prester John's Kingdom, and there dwell anthropophagi, andmen whose heads do grow beneath their shoulders. At least, so they say. For my part, I have never seen any such. And I have now no desire to goto Prester John's Kingdom, since I have been told that he has latelymarried Pope Joan. Do you see that grove of trees there at the base ofthe mountains?"

I answered that I thought I could distinguish weirdly contortedbranches and strangely shivering foliage. 

"That is the deadly upas-tree, " he explained, "and it is as much as aman's life is worth to lie down in the shade of its twisted limbs. Islept there, on that point where the trees are the thickest, for afortnight a century or so ago--but all I had for my pains was aheadache. Still I should not advise you to adventure yourself under theshadow of those melancholy boughs. "

I confess at once that I was little prompted to a visit so dangerousand so profitless. 

"Profitless?" he repeated. "As to that I am not so certain, for if youhave a mind to see the rarest animals in the world, you could theresate your curiosity. On the shore, between the foot-hills and the groveof upas, is a park of wild beasts, the like of which no man has lookedupon elsewhere. Even from the deck of this ship I have seen more thanonce a drove of unicorns, or a herd of centaurs, come down to the waterto drink; and sometimes I have caught a pleasant glimpse of satyrs andfauns dancing in the sunlight. And once indeed--I shall never forgetthat extraordinary spectacle--as I sped past with every sail set and aten-knot breeze astern, I saw the phoenix blaze up in its new birth, while the little salamanders frisked in the intense flame. "

"The phoenix?" I cried. "You have seen the phoenix?"

"In just this latitude, " he answered, "but it was about nine o'clock inthe evening and I remember that the new moon was setting behind themountains when I happened to come on deck. "

"And what was the phoenix like?" I asked. 

"Really, " he replied, "the bird was almost as Herodotus described her, of the make and size of the eagle, with a plumage partly red and partlygolden. If we go by the point by noon, perhaps you may see her foryourself. "

"Is she there still?" I asked, in wonder. 

"Why not?" he returned. "All the game of this sort is carefullypreserved and the law is off on phoenixes only once in a century. Why, if it were not for the keepers, there soon would not be a singlegriffin or dragon left, not a single sphinx, not a single chimæra. Evenas it is, I am told they do not breed as freely now as when they couldroam the whole world in safety. That is why the game laws are sorigorous. Indeed, I am informed and believe that it is not permitted tokill the were-wolves even when their howling, as they run at large atnight, prevents all sleep. It is true, of course, that very few peoplecare to remain in such a neighborhood. "

"I should think not, " I agreed. "And what manner of people are they whodare to live here?"

"Along the shore there are a few harpies, " he answered; "and now andthen I have seen a mermaid on the rocks combing her hair with a goldencomb as she sang to herself. "

"Harpies?" I repeated, in disgust. "Why not the sea-serpent also?"

"There was a sea-serpent which lived for years in that cove yonder, "said the Captain, pointing to a pleasant bay on the starboard, "but Ihave not seen it lately. Unless I am in error, it had a pitched battlehereabouts with a kraken. I don't remember who got the better of thefight--but I haven't seen the snake since. "

As I scanned the surface of the water to see if I might not detect sometrace of one or another of these marvellous beasts of the sea, Iremarked a bank of fog lying across our course. 

"And what is this that we are coming to?" I inquired. 

"That?" Captain Vanderdecken responded, indicating the misty outlinestraight before us. "That is Altruria--at least it is so down in thecharts, but I have never set eyes on it actually. It belongs to Utopia, you know; and they say that, although it is now on the level of theearth, it used once to be a flying island--the same which was formerlyknown as Laputa, and which was first visited and described by CaptainLemuel Gulliver about the year 1727, or a little earlier. "

"So that is Altruria, " I said, trying in vain to see it more clearly. "There was an Altrurian in New York not long ago, but I had no chanceof speech with him. "

"They are pleasant folk, those Altrurians, " said the Captain, "althoughrather given to boasting. And they have really little enough to bragabout, after all. Their climate is execrable--I find it ever windyhereabouts, and when I get in sight of that bank of fog, I always lookout for squalls. I don't know just what the population is now, but Idoubt if it is growing. You see, people talk about moving there tolive, but they are rarely in a hurry to do it, I notice. Nor are themanufactures of the Altrurians as many as they were said to be. Theirchief export now is the famous Procrustean bed; although the old houseof Damocles & Co. Still does a good business in swords. Their tonnageis not what it used to be, and I'm told that they are issuing a gooddeal of paper money now to try and keep the balance of trade in theirfavor. "

"Are there not many poets among the inhabitants of Altruria?" I asked. 

"They are all poets and romancers of one kind or another, " declared theCaptain. "Come below again into the cabin, and I will show you some oftheir books. "

The sky was now overcast and there was a chill wind blowing, so I wasnot at all loath to leave the deck, and to follow Vanderdecken down thesteps into the cabin. 

He took a thin volume from the table. "This, " he said, "is one of theirbooks--'News from Nowhere, ' it is called. "

He extended it towards me, and I held out my hand for it, but itslipped through my fingers. I started forward in a vain effort to seizeit. 

As I did so, the walls and the floor of the cabin seemed to melt awayand to dissolve in air, and beyond them and taking their place were thewalls and floor of my own house. Then suddenly the clock on themantelpiece struck five, and I heard a bob-tail car rattling andclattering past the door on its way across town to Union Square, andthence to Greenwich Village, and so on down to the Hoboken Ferry. 

Then I found myself on my own sofa, bending forward to pick up thevolume of Cyrano de Bergerac, which lay on the carpet at my feet. I satup erect and collected my thoughts as best I could after so strange ajourney. And I wondered why it was that no one had ever prepared aprimer of imaginary geography, giving to airy nothings a localhabitation and a name, and accompanying it with an atlas of maps in themanner of the _Carte du Pays de Tendre_. 

(1894. )

THE KINETOSCOPE OF TIME

As the twelfth stroke of the bell in the tower at the corner tolledforth slowly, the midnight wind blew chill down the deserted avenue, and swept it clear of all belated wayfarers. The bare trees in the thinstrip of park clashed their lifeless branches; the river far belowslipped along silently. There was no moon, and the stars were shrouded. It was a black night. Yet far in the distance there was a gleam ofcheerful light which lured me on and on. I could not have said why itwas that I had ventured forth at that hour on such a night. It seemedto me as though the yellow glimmer I beheld afar off was the goal of myexcursion. Something within whispered to me then that I need go nofarther when once I had come to the spot whence the soft glareproceeded. 

The pall of darkness was so dense that I could not see the sparsehouses I chanced to pass, nor did I know where I was any more. I urgedforward blindly, walking towards the light, which was all that brokethe blackness before me; its faint illumination seemed to me somehow tobe kindly, inviting, irresistible. At last I came to a halt in front ofa building I had never before seen, although I thought myself wellacquainted with that part of the city. It was a circular edifice, or soit seemed to me then; and I judged that it had but a single story, ortwo, at the most. The door stood open to the street; and it was fromthis that the light was cast. So dim was this illumination now I hadcome to it that I marvelled I could have seen it at all afar off as Iwas when first I caught sight of it. 

While I stood at the portal of the unsuspected edifice, peeringdoubtfully within, wondering to what end I had been led thither, andhesitating as to my next step, I felt again the impulse to go forward. At that moment tiny darts of fire, as it were, glowed at the end of thehall that opened before me, and they ran together rapidly and joined inliquid lines and then faded as suddenly as they had come--but not toosoon for me to read the simple legend they had written in the air--aninvitation to me, so I interpreted it, to go forward again, to enterthe building, and to see for myself why I had been enticed there. 

Without hesitation I obeyed. I walked through the doorway, and I becameconscious that the door had closed behind me as I pressed forward. Thepassage was narrow and but faintly lighted; it bent to the right with acircular sweep as though it skirted the inner circumference of thebuilding; still curving, it sank by a gentle gradient; and then it roseagain and turned almost at right angles. Pushing ahead resolutely, although in not a little doubt as to the meaning of my adventure, Ithrust aside a heavy curtain, soft to the hand. Then I found myselfjust inside a large circular hall. Letting the hangings fall behind me, I took three or four irresolute paces which brought me almost to thecentre of the room. I saw that the walls were continuously draped withthe heavy folds of the same soft velvet, so that I could not even guesswhere it was I had entered. The rotunda was bare of all furniture;there was no table in it, no chair, no sofa; nor was anything hangingfrom the ceiling or against the curtained walls. All that the roomcontained was a set of four curiously shaped narrow stands, placed overagainst one another at the corners of what might be a square drawnwithin the circle of the hall. These narrow stands were close to thecurtains; they were perhaps a foot wide, each of them, or it might be alittle more: they were twice or three times as long as they were wide;and they reached a height of possibly three or four feet. 

Going towards one of these stands to examine it more curiously, Idiscovered that there were two projections from the top, resemblingeye-pieces, as though inviting the beholder to gaze into the inside ofthe stand. Then I thought I heard a faint metallic click above my head. Raising my eyes swiftly, I read a few words written, as it were, against the dark velvet of the heavy curtains in dots of flame thatflowed one into the other and melted away in a moment. When thismysterious legend had faded absolutely, I could not recall the words Ihad read in the fitful and flitting letters of fire, and yet I retainedthe meaning of the message; and I understood that if I chose to peerthrough the eye-pieces I should see a succession of strange dances. 

To gaze upon dancing was not what I had gone forth to do, but I saw noreason why I should not do so, as I was thus strangely bidden. Ilowered my head until my eyes were close to the two openings at the topof the stand. I looked into blackness at first, and yet I thought thatI could detect a mystic commotion of the invisible particles at which Iwas staring. I made no doubt that, if I waited, in due season thepromise would be fulfilled. After a period of expectancy which I couldnot measure, infinitesimal sparks darted hither and thither, and therewas a slight crackling sound. I concentrated my attention on what I wasabout to see; and in a moment more I was rewarded. 

The darkness took shape and robed itself in color; and there arose outof it a spacious banquet-hall, where many guests sat at supper. I couldnot make out whether they were Romans or Orientals; the structureitself had a Latin solidity, but the decorations were Eastern in theirglowing gorgeousness. The hall was illumined by hanging lamps, by thelight of which I tried to decide whether the ruler who sat in the seatof honor was a Roman or an Oriental. The beautiful woman beside himstruck me as Eastern beyond all question. While I gazed intently heturned to her and proffered a request. She smiled acquiescence, andthere was a flash of anticipated triumph in her eye as she beckoned toa menial and sent him forth with a message. A movement as of expectancyran around the tables where the guests sat at meat. The attendantsopened wide the portals and a young girl came forward. She was perhapsfourteen or fifteen years of age, but in the East women ripen young, and her beauty was indisputable. She had large, deep eyes and a fullmouth; and there was a chain of silver and golden coins twisted intoher coppery hair. She was so like to the woman who sat beside the rulerthat I did not doubt them to be mother and daughter. At a word from theelder the younger began to dance; and her dance was Oriental, slow atfirst, but holding every eye with its sensual fascination. The girl wasa mistress of the art; and not a man in the room withdrew his gaze fromher till she made an end and stood motionless before the ruler. He saida few words I could not hear, and then the daughter turned to themother for guidance; and again I caught the flash of triumph in theelder woman's eye and on her face the suggestion of a hatred about tobe glutted. And then the light faded and the darkness settled down onthe scene and I saw no more. 

I did not raise my head from the stand, for I felt sure that this wasnot all I was to behold; and in a few moments there was again a faintscintillation. In time the light was strong enough for me to perceivethe irregular flames of a huge bonfire burning in an old square of somemediæval city. It was evening, and yet a throng of men and women andchildren made an oval about the fire and about a slim girl who hadspread Persian carpet on the rough stones of the broad street. She wasa brunette, with dense black hair; she wore a striped skirt, and ajacket braided with gold had slipped from her bare shoulders. She helda tambourine in her hand and she was twisting and turning in cadence toher own song. Then she went to one side where stood a white goat withgilded horns and put down her tambourine and took up two swords; andwith these in her hands she resumed her dance. A man in the throng, aman of scant thirty-five, but already bald, a man of stalwart frame, fixed hot eyes upon her; and from time to time a smile and a sigh meton his lips, but the smile was more dolorous than the sigh. And as thegypsy girl ceased her joyous gyrations, the bonfire died out, anddarkness fell on the scene again, and I could no longer see anything. 

Again I waited, and after an interval no longer than the other therecame a faint glow that grew until I saw clearly as in the morning sunthe glade of a forest through which a brook rippled. A sad-faced womansat on a stone by the side of the streamlet; her gray garments set offthe strange ornament in the fashion of a single letter of the alphabetthat was embroidered in gold and in scarlet over her heart. Visible atsome distance was a little girl, like a bright-apparelled vision, in asunbeam, which fell down upon her through an arch of boughs. The rayquivered to and fro, making her figure dim or distinct, now like a realchild, now like a child's spirit, as the splendor came and went. Withviolets and anemones and columbines the little girl had decorated herhair. The mother looked at the child and the child danced and sparkledand prattled airily along the course of the streamlet, which kept up ababble, kind, quiet, soothing, but melancholy. Then the mother raisedher head as though her ears had detected the approach of some onethrough the wood. But before I could see who this newcomer might be, once more the darkness settled down upon the scene. 

This time I knew the interval between the succeeding visions and Iwaited without impatience; and in due season I found myself gazing at apicture as different as might be from any I had yet beheld. 

In the broad parlor of a house that seemed to be spacious, amiddle-aged lady, of an appearance at once austere and kindly, waslooking at a smiling gentleman who was coming towards her pulling alonga little negro girl about eight or nine years of age. She was one ofthe blackest of her race; and her round, shining eyes, glittering asglass beads, moved with quick and restless glances over everything inthe room. Her woolly hair was braided in sundry little tails, whichstuck out in every direction. She was dressed in a single filthy, ragged garment, made of bagging; and altogether there was something oddand goblin-like about her appearance. The severe old maid examined thisstrange creature in dismay and then directed a glance of inquiry at thegentleman in white. He smiled again and gave a signal to the littlenegro girl. Whereupon the black eyes glittered with a kind of wickeddrollery, and apparently she began to sing, keeping time with her handsand feet, spinning round, clapping her hands, knocking her kneestogether, in a wild, fantastic sort of time; and finally, turning asomersault or two, she came suddenly down on the carpet, and stood withher hands folded, and a most sanctimonious expression of meekness andsolemnity over her face, only broken by the cunning glances which sheshot askance from the corners of her eyes. The elderly lady stoodsilent, perfectly paralyzed with amazement, while the smiling gentlemanin white was amused at her astonishment. 

Once more the vision faded. And when, after the same interval, thedarkness began to disappear again, even while everything was dim andindistinct I knew that the scene was shifted from the South to theNorth. I saw a room comfortably furnished, with a fire smouldering in aporcelain stove. In a corner stood a stripped Christmas-tree, with itscandles burned out. Against the wall between the two doors was a piano, on which a man was playing--a man who twisted his head now and again tolook over his shoulder, sometimes at another and younger man standingby the stove, sometimes at a young woman who was dancing alone in thecentre of the room. This young woman had draped herself in a longparti-colored shawl and she held a tambourine in her hand. There was inher eyes a look of fear, as of one conscious of an impendingmisfortune. As I gazed she danced more and more wildly. The manstanding by the porcelain stove was apparently making suggestions, towhich she paid no heed. At last her hair broke loose and fell over hershoulders; and even this she did not notice, going on with her dancingas though it were a matter of life and death. Then one of the doorsopened and another woman stood on the threshold. The man at the pianoceased playing and left the instrument. The dancer paused unwillingly, and looked pleadingly up into the face of the younger man as he cameforward and put his arm around her. 

And then once more the light died away and I found myself peering intoa void blackness. This time, though I waited long, there were nocrackling sparks announcing another inexplicable vision. I peeredintently into the stand, but I saw nothing. At last I raised my headand looked about me. Then on the hangings over another of the fourstands, over the one opposite to that into which I had been looking, there appeared another message, the letters melting one into another inlines of liquid light; and this told me that in the other stand Icould, if I chose, gaze upon combats as memorable as the delectabledances I had been beholding. 

I made no hesitation, but crossed the room and took my place before theother stand and began at once to look through the projectingeye-pieces. No sooner had I taken this position than the dots of firedarted across the depth into which I was gazing; and then there came afull clear light as of a cloudless sky, and I saw the walls of anancient city. At the gates of the city there stood a young man, andtoward him there ran a warrior, brandishing a spear, while the bronzeof his helmet and his armor gleamed in the sunlight. And tremblingseized the young man and he fled in fear; and the warrior darted afterhim, trusting in his swift feet. Valiant was the flier, but farmightier he who fleetingly pursued him. At last the young man tookheart and made a stand against the warrior. They faced each other inlight. The warrior hurled his spear and it went over the young man'shead. And the young man then hurled his spear in turn and it struckfair upon the centre of the warrior's shield. Then the young man drewhis sharp sword that by his flank hung great and strong. But by somemagic the warrior had recovered his spear; and as the young man cameforward he hurled it again, and it drove through the neck of the youngman at the joint of his armor, and he fell in the dust. After that thesun was darkened; and in a moment more I was looking into an emptyblackness. 

When again the light returned it was once more with the full blaze ofmid-day that the scene was illumined, and the glare of the sun wasreflected from the burning sands of the desert. Two or three palmsarose near a well, and there two horsemen faced each other warily. Onewas a Christian knight in a coat of linked mail, over which he wore asurcoat of embroidered cloth, much frayed and bearing more than oncethe arms of the wearer--a couchant leopard. The other was a Saracen, who was circling swiftly about the knight of the leopard. The crusadersuddenly seized the mace which hung at his saddle-bow, and with astrong hand and unerring aim sent it crashing against the head of hisfoe, who raised his buckler of rhinoceros-hide in time to save hislife, though the force of the blow bore him from the saddle. The knightspurred his steed forward, but the Saracen leaped into his seat againwithout touching the stirrup. While the Christian recovered his mace, the infidel withdrew to a little distance and strung the short bow hecarried at his back. Then he circled about his foe, whose armor stoodhim in good stead, until the seventh shaft apparently found a lessperfect part, and the Christian dropped heavily from his horse. But thedismounted Oriental found himself suddenly in the grasp of theEuropean, who had recourse to this artifice to bring his enemy withinhis reach. The Saracen was saved again by his agility; and loosing hissword-belt, which the knight had grasped, he mounted his watchinghorse. He had lost his sword and his arrows and his turban, and thesedisadvantages seemed to incline him for a truce. He approached theChristian with his right hand extended, but no longer in a menacingattitude. What the result of this proffer of a parley might be I couldnot observe, for the figures became indistinct, as though a cloud hadsettled down on them; and in a few seconds more all was blank beforeme. 

When the next scene grew slowly into view I thought for a moment itmight be a continuation of the preceding, for the country I beheld wasalso soaking in the hot sunlight of the South, and there was also amounted knight in armor. A second glance undeceived me. This knight wasold and thin and worn, and his armor was broken and pieced, and hishelmet was but a barber's basin, and his steed was a pitiful skeleton. His countenance was sorrowful indeed, but there was that in his mannerwhich would stop any man from denying his nobility. His eye was firedwith a high purpose and a lofty resolve. In the distance before himwere a group of windmills waving their arms in the air, and the knighturged forward his wretched horse as though to charge them. Upon an assbehind him was a fellow of the baser sort, a genial, simple follower, seemingly serving him as his squire. As the knight pricked forward hissorry steed and couched his lance, the attendant apparently appealed tohim, and tried to explain, and even ventured on expostulation. But theknight gave no heed to the protests of the squire, who shook his headand dutifully followed his master. What the issue of this unequalcombat was to be I could not see, for the inexorable veil of darknessfell swiftly. 

Even after the stray sparks had again flitted through the blacknessinto which I was gazing daylight did not return, and it was withdifficulty I was able at last to make out a vague street in a mediævalcity doubtfully outlined by the hidden moon. From a window high abovethe stones there came a faint glimmer. Under this window stood asoldier worn with the wars, who carried himself as though glad now tobe at home again. He seemed to hear approaching feet, and he withdrewinto the shadow as two others advanced. One of these was a handsomeyouth with an eager face, in which spirituality and sensualitycontended. The other was older, of an uncertain age, and his expressionwas mocking and evil; he carried some sort of musical instrument, andto this he seemed to sing while the younger man looked up at thewindow. The soldier came forward angrily and dashed the instrument tothe ground with his sword. Then the newcomers drew also, and the elderguarded while the younger thrust. There were a few swift passes, andthen the younger of the two lunged fiercely, and the soldier fell backon the stones wounded to the death. Without a glance behind them, thetwo who had withstood his onslaught withdrew, as the window aboveopened and a fair-haired girl leaned forth. 

Then nothing was visible, until after an interval the light once morereturned and I saw a sadder scene than any yet. In a hollow of the baremountains a little knot of men in dark-blue uniforms were centred abouttheir commander, whose long locks floated from beneath his broad hat. Around this small band of no more than a score of soldiers, thousandsof red Indians were raging, with exultant hate in their eyes. Thebodies of dead comrades lay in narrowing circles about the thinninggroup of blue-coats. The red men were picking off their few survivingfoes, one by one; and the white men could do nothing, for theircartridges were all gone. They stood at bay, valiant and defiant, despite their many wounds; but the line of their implacable foemen wasdrawn tighter and tighter about them, and one after another they fellforward dying or dead, until at last only the long-haired commander wasleft, sore wounded but unconquered in spirit. 

When this picture of strong men facing death fearlessly was at lastdissolved into darkness like the others that had gone before, I had aninward monition that it was the last that would be shown me; and so itwas, for although I kept my place at the stand for two or three minutesmore, no warning sparks dispersed the opaque depth. 

When I raised my head from the eye-pieces, I became conscious that Iwas not alone. Almost in the centre of the circular hall stood amiddle-aged man of distinguished appearance, whose eyes were fixed uponme. I wondered who he was, and whence he had come, and how he hadentered, and what it might be that he wished with me. I caught aglimpse of a smile that lurked vaguely on his lips. Neither this smilenor the expression of his eyes was forbidding, though both were uncannyand inexplicable. He seemed to be conscious of a remoteness which wouldrender futile any effort of his towards friendliness. 

How long we stood thus staring the one at the other I do not know. Myheart beat heavily and my tongue refused to move when at last I triedto break the silence. 

Then he spoke, and his voice was low and strong and sweet. 

"You are welcome, " he began, and I noted that the accent was slightlyforeign, Italian perhaps, or it might be French. "I am glad always toshow the visions I have under my control to those who will appreciatethem. "

I tried to stammer forth a few words of thanks and of praise for what Ihad seen. 

"Did you recognize the strange scenes shown to you by these twoinstruments?" he asked, after bowing gently in acknowledgment of myawkward compliments. 

Then I plucked up courage and made bold to express to him the surpriseI had felt, not only at the marvellous vividness with which the actionshad been repeated before my eyes, like life itself in form and in colorand in motion, but also at the startling fact that some of the things Ihad been shown were true and some were false. Some of them had happenedactually to real men and women of flesh and blood, while others werebut bits of vain imagining of those who tell tales as an art and as ameans of livelihood. 

I expressed myself as best I could, clumsily, no doubt; but he listenedpatiently and with the smile of toleration on his lips. 

"Yes, " he answered, "I understand your surprise that the facts and thefictions are mingled together in these visions of mine as though therewas little to choose between them. You are not the first to wonder orto express that wonder; and the rest of them were young like you. Whenyou are as old as I am--when you have lived as long as I--when you haveseen as much of life as I--then you will know, as I know, that fact isoften inferior to fiction, and that it is often also one and the samething; for what might hare been is often quite as true as what actuallywas?"

I did not know what to say in answer to this, and so I said nothing. 

"What would you say to me, " he went on--and now it seemed to me thathis smile suggested rather pitying condescension than kindlytoleration--"what would you say to me, if I were to tell you that Imyself have seen all the many visions unrolled before you in theseinstruments? What would you say, if I declared that I had gazed on thedances of Salome and of Esmeralda? that I had beheld the combat ofAchilles and Hector and the mounted fight of Saladin and the Knight ofthe Leopard?"

"You are not Time himself?" I asked in amaze. 

He laughed lightly, and without bitterness or mockery. 

"No, " he answered, promptly, "I am not Time himself. And why should youthink so? Have I a scythe? Have I an hour-glass? Have I a forelock? DoI look so very old, then?"

I examined him more carefully to answer this last question, and themore I scrutinized him the more difficult I found it to declare hisage. At first I had thought him to be forty, perhaps, or of a certaintyless than fifty. But now, though his hair was black, though his eye wasbright, though his step was firm, though his gestures were free andsweeping, I had my doubts; and I thought I could perceive, one afteranother, many impalpable signs of extreme old age. 

Then, all at once, he grew restive under my fixed gaze. 

"But it is not about me that we need to waste time now, " he said, impatiently. "You have seen what two of my instruments contain; wouldyou like now to examine the contents of the other two?"

I answered in the affirmative. 

"The two you have looked into are gratuitous, " he continued. "For whatyou beheld in them there is no charge. But a sight of the visions inthe other two or in either one of them must be paid for. So far, youare welcome as my guest; but if you wish to see any more you must paythe price. "

I asked what the charge was, as I thrust my hand into my pocket to becertain that I had my purse with me. 

He saw my gesture, and he smiled once more. 

"The visions I can set before you in those two instruments you have notyet looked into are visions of your own life, " he said. "In that standthere, " and he indicated one behind my back, "you can see five of themost important episodes of your past. "

I withdrew my hand from my pocket. "I thank you, " I said, "but I knowmy own past, and I have no wish to see it again, however cheap thespectacle. "

"Then you will be more interested in the fourth of my instruments, " hesaid, as he waved his thin, delicate hand towards the stand which stoodin front of me. "In this you can see your future!"

I made an involuntary step forward; and then, at a second thought, Ishrank back again. 

"The price of this is not high, " he continued, "and it is not payablein money. "

"How, then, should I buy it?" I asked, doubtingly. 

"In life!" he answered, gravely. "The vision of life must be paid forin life itself. For every ten years of the future which I may unrollbefore you here, you must assign me a year of life--twelve months--todo with as I will. "

Strange as it seems to me now, I did not doubt that he could do as hedeclared. I hesitated, and then I fixed my resolve. 

"Thank you, " I said, and I saw that he was awaiting my decisioneagerly. "Thank you again for what I have already seen and for what youproffer me. But my past I have lived once, and there is no need to turnover again the leaves of that dead record. And the future I must faceas best I may, the more bravely, I think, that I do not know what itholds in store for me. "

"The price is low, " he urged. 

"It must be lower still, " I answered; "it might be nothing at all, andI should still decline. I cannot afford to be impatient now and toborrow knowledge of the future. I shall know all in good time. "

He seemed not a little disappointed as I said this. 

Then he made a final appeal: "Would you not wish to know even thematter of your end?"

"No, " I answered. "That is no temptation to me, for whatever it may beI must find fortitude to undergo it somehow, whether I am to pass awayin my sleep in my bed, or whether I shall have to withstand the chancesof battle and murder and sudden death. "

"That is your last word?" he inquired. 

"I thank you again for what I have seen, " I responded, bowing again;"but my decision is final. "

"Then I will detain you no longer, " he said, haughtily, and he walkedtowards the circling curtains and swept two of them aside. They drapedthemselves back, and I saw before me an opening like that through whichI had entered. 

I followed him, and the curtains dropped behind me as I passed into theinsufficiently illuminated passage beyond. I thought that themysterious being with whom I had been conversing had preceded me, butbefore I had gone twenty paces I found that I was alone. I pushedahead, and my path twisted and turned on itself and rose and fellirregularly like that by means of which I had made my way into theunknown edifice. At last I picked my steps down winding stairs, and atthe foot I saw the outline of a door. I pushed it back, and I foundmyself in the open air. 

I was in a broad street, and over my head an electric light suddenlyflared out and white-washed the pavement at my feet. At the corner atrain of the elevated railroad rushed by with a clattering roar and atrailing plume of white steam. Then a cable-car clanged past withincessant bangs upon its gong. Thus it was that I came back to theworld of actuality. 

I turned to get my bearings, that I might find my way home again. I wasstanding almost in front of a shop, the windows of which were filledwith framed engravings. 

One of these caught my eye, and I confess that I was surprised. It wasa portrait of a man--it was a portrait of the man with whom I had beentalking. 

I went close to the window, that I might see it better. The electriclight emphasized the lines of the high-bred face, with its sombresearching eyes and the air of old-world breeding. There could be nodoubt whatever that the original of this portrait was the man from whomI had just parted. By the costume I knew that the original had lived inthe last century; and the legend beneath the head, engraved in aflowing script, asserted this to be a likeness of "_Monsieur le Comtede Cagliostro_. "

(1895. )

THE DREAM-GOWN OF THE JAPANESE AMBASSADOR

I

After arranging the Egyptian and Mexican pottery so as to contrastagreeably with the Dutch and the German beer-mugs on the top of thebookcase that ran along one wall of the sitting-room, Cosmo Waynfletewent back into the bedroom and took from a half-empty trunk the littlecardboard boxes in which he kept the collection of playing-cards, andof all manner of outlandish equivalents for these simple instruments offortune, picked up here and there during his two or three years ofdilettante travelling in strange countries. At the same time he broughtout a Japanese crystal ball, which he stood upon its silver tripod, placing it on a little table in one of the windows on each side of thefireplace; and there the rays of the westering sun lighted it up atonce into translucent loveliness. 

The returned wanderer looked out of the window and saw on one side thegraceful and vigorous tower of the Madison Square Garden, with itsDiana turning in the December wind, while in the other direction hecould look down on the frozen paths of Union Square, only a blockdistant, but as far below him almost as though he were gazing down froma balloon. Then he stepped back into the sitting-room itself, and notedthe comfortable furniture and wood-fire crackling in friendly fashionon the hearth, and his own personal belongings, scattered here andthere as though they were settling themselves for a stay. Havingarrived from Europe only that morning, he could not but hold himselflucky to have found these rooms taken for him by the old friend to whomhe had announced his return, and with whom he was to eat his Christmasdinner that evening. He had not been on shore more than six or sevenhours, and yet the most of his odds and ends were unpacked and alreadyin place as though they belonged in this new abode. It was true that hehad toiled unceasingly to accomplish this, and as he stood there in hisshirt-sleeves, admiring the results of his labors, he was consciousalso that his muscles were fatigued, and that the easy-chair before thefire opened its arms temptingly. 

He went again into the bedroom, and took from one of his many trunks along, loose garment of pale-gray silk. Apparently this beautiful robewas intended to serve as a dressing-gown, and as such Cosmo Waynfleteutilized it immediately. The ample folds fell softly about him, and therich silk itself seemed to be soothing to his limbs, so delicate wasits fibre and so carefully had it been woven. Around the full skirtthere was embroidery of threads of gold, and again on the open andflowing sleeves. With the skilful freedom of Japanese art the patternof this decoration seemed to suggest the shrubbery about a spring, forthere were strange plants with huge leaves broadly outlined by thegolden threads, and in the midst of them water was seen bubbling fromthe earth and lapping gently over the edge of the fountain. As thereturned wanderer thrust his arms into the dressing-gown with itssymbolic embroidery on the skirt and sleeves, he remembered distinctlythe dismal day when he had bought it in a little curiosity-shop inNuremberg; and as he fastened across his chest one by one the loops ofsilken cord to the three coins which served as buttons down the frontof the robe, he recalled also the time and the place where he hadpicked up each of these pieces of gold and silver, one after another. The first of them was a Persian daric, which he had purchased from adealer on the Grand Canal in Venice; and the second was a Spanish pesostruck under Philip II. At Potosi, which he had found in a stall on theembankment of the Quay Voltaire, in Paris; and the third was a Yorkshilling, which he had bought from the man who had turned it up inploughing a field that sloped to the Hudson near Sleepy Hollow. 

Having thus wrapped himself in this unusual dressing-gown with itsunexpected buttons of gold and silver, Cosmo Waynflete went back intothe front room. He dropped into the arm-chair before the fire. It waswith a smile of physical satisfaction that he stretched out his feet tothe hickory blaze. 

The afternoon was drawing on, and in New York the sun sets early onChristmas day. The red rays shot into the window almost horizontally, and they filled the crystal globe with a curious light. Cosmo Waynfletelay back in his easy-chair, with his Japanese robe about him, and gazedintently at the beautiful ball which seemed like a bubble of air andwater. His mind went back to the afternoon in April, two years before, when he had found that crystal sphere in a Japanese shop within sightof the incomparable Fugiyama. 

II

As he peered into its transparent depths, with his vision focused uponthe spot of light where the rays of the setting sun touched it intoflame, he was but little surprised to discover that he could make outtiny figures in the crystal. For the moment this strange thing seemedto him perfectly natural. And the movements of these little men andwomen interested him so much that he watched them as they went to andfro, sweeping a roadway with large brooms. Thus it happened that thefixity of his gaze was intensified. And so it was that in a few minuteshe saw with no astonishment that he was one of the group himself, hehimself in the rich and stately attire of a samurai. From the instantthat Cosmo Waynflete discovered himself among the people whom he sawmoving before him, as his eyes were fastened on the illuminated dot inthe transparent ball, he ceased to see them as little figures, and heaccepted them as of the full stature of man. This increase in theirsize was no more a source of wonderment to him than it had been todiscern himself in the midst of them. He accepted both of thesemarvellous things without question--indeed, with no thought at all thatthey were in any way peculiar or abnormal. Not only this, butthereafter he seemed to have transferred his personality to the CosmoWaynflete who was a Japanese samurai and to have abandoned entirely theCosmo Waynflete who was an American traveller, and who had justreturned to New York that Christmas morning. So completely did theJapanese identity dominate that the existence of the American identitywas wholly unknown to him. It was as though the American had gone tosleep in New York at the end of the nineteenth century, and had waked aJapanese in Nippon in the beginning of the eighteenth century. 

With his sword by his side--a Murimasa blade, likely to bring bad luckto the wearer sooner or later--he had walked from his own house in thequarter of Kioto which is called Yamashina to the quarter which iscalled Yoshiwara, a place of ill repute, where dwell women of evillife, and where roysterers and drunkards come by night. He knew thatthe sacred duty of avenging his master's death had led him to cast offhis faithful wife so that he might pretend to riot in debauchery at theThree Sea-Shores. The fame of his shameful doings had spread abroad, and it must soon come to the ears of the man whom he wished to takeunawares. Now he was lying prone in the street, seemingly sunk in adrunken slumber, so that men might see him and carry the news to thetreacherous assassin of his beloved master. As he lay there thatafternoon, he revolved in his mind the devices he should use to makeaway with his enemy when the hour might be ripe at last for theaccomplishment of his holy revenge. To himself he called the roll ofhis fellow-ronins, now biding their time, as he was, and ready alwaysto obey his orders and to follow his lead to the death, when at lastthe sun should rise on the day of vengeance. 

So he gave no heed to the scoffs and the jeers of those who passedalong the street, laughing him to scorn as they beheld him lying therein a stupor from excessive drink at that inordinate hour of the day. And among those who came by at last was a man from Satsuma, who wasmoved to voice the reproaches of all that saw this sorry sight. 

"Is not this Oishi Kuranosuke, " said the man from Satsuma, "who was acouncillor of Asano Takumi no Kami, and who, not having the heart toavenge his lord, gives himself up to women and wine? See how he liesdrunk in the public street! Faithless beast! Fool and craven! Unworthyof the name of a samurai!"

And with that the man from Satsuma trod on him as he lay there, andspat upon him, and went away indignantly. The spies of Kotsuke no Sukeheard what the man from Satsuma had said, and they saw how he hadspurned the prostrate samurai with his foot; and they went their way toreport to their master that he need no longer have any fear of thecouncillors of Asano Takumi no Kami. All this the man, lying prone inthe dust of the street, noted; and it made his heart glad, for then hemade sure that the day was soon coming when he could do his duty atlast and take vengeance for the death of his master. 

III

He lay there longer than he knew, and the twilight settled down atlast, and the evening stars came out. And then, after a while, and byimperceptible degrees, Cosmo Waynflete became conscious that the scenehad changed and that he had changed with it. He was no longer in Japan, but in Persia. He was no longer lying like a drunkard in the street ofa city, but slumbering like a weary soldier in a little oasis by theside of a spring in the midst of a sandy desert. He was asleep, and hisfaithful horse was unbridled that it might crop the grass at will. 

The air was hot and thick, and the leaves of the slim tree above himwere never stirred by a wandering wind. Yet now and again there camefrom the darkness a faintly fetid odor. The evening wore on and stillhe slept, until at length in the silence of the night a strange hugecreature wormed its way steadily out of its lair amid the trees, anddrew near the sleeping man to devour him fiercely. But the horseneighed vehemently and beat the ground with his hoofs and waked hismaster. Then the hideous monster vanished; and the man, aroused fromhis sleep, saw nothing, although the evil smell still lingered in thesultry atmosphere. He lay down again once more, thinking that for oncehis steed had given a false alarm. Again the grisly dragon drew nigh, and again the courser notified its rider, and again the man could makeout nothing in the darkness of the night; and again he was wellnighstifled by the foul emanation that trailed in the wake of themisbegotten creature. He rebuked his horse and laid him down once more. 

A third time the dreadful beast approached, and a third time thefaithful charger awoke its angry master. But there came the breath of agentle breeze, so that the man did not fear to fill his lungs; andthere was a vague light in the heavens now, so that he could dimlydiscern his mighty enemy; and at once he girded himself for the fight. The scaly monster came full at him with dripping fangs, its mighty bodythrusting forward its huge and hideous head. The man met the attackwithout fear and smote the beast full on the crest, but the blowrebounded from its coat of mail. 

Then the faithful horse sprang forward and bit the dreadful creaturefull upon the neck and tore away the scales, so that its master's swordcould pierce the armored hide. So the man was able to dissever theghastly head and thus to slay the monstrous dragon. The blackness ofnight wrapped him about once more as he fell on his knees and gavethanks for his victory; and the wind died away again. 

IV

Only a few minutes later, so it seemed to him, Cosmo Waynflete becamedoubtfully aware of another change of time and place--of anothertransformation of his own being. He knew himself to be alone once more, and even without his trusty charger. Again he found himself groping inthe dark. But in a little while there was a faint radiance of light, and at last the moon came out behind a tower. Then he saw that he wasnot by the roadside in Japan or in the desert of Persia, but now insome unknown city of Southern Europe, where the architecture washispano-moresque. By the silver rays of the moon he was able to makeout the beautiful design damascened upon the blade of the sword whichhe held now in his hand ready drawn for self-defence. 

Then he heard hurried footfalls down the empty street, and a man rushedaround the corner pursued by two others, who had also weapons in theirhands. For a moment Cosmo Waynflete was a Spaniard, and to him it was apoint of honor to aid the weaker party. He cried to the fugitive topluck up heart and to withstand the enemy stoutly. But the hunted manfled on, and after him went one of the pursuers, a tall, thin fellow, with a long black cloak streaming behind him as he ran. 

The other of the two, a handsome lad with fair hair, came to a halt andcrossed swords with Cosmo, and soon showed himself to be skilled in theart of fence. So violent was the young fellow's attack that in theardor of self-defence Cosmo ran the boy through the body before he hadtime to hold his hand or even to reflect. 

The lad toppled over sideways. "Oh, my mother!" he cried, and in asecond he was dead. While Cosmo bent over the body, hasty footstepsagain echoed along the silent thoroughfare. Cosmo peered around thecorner, and by the struggling moonbeams he could see that it was thetall, thin fellow in the black cloak, who was returning with half ascore of retainers, all armed, and some of them bearing torches. 

Cosmo turned and fled swiftly, but being a stranger in the city he soonlost himself in its tortuous streets. Seeing a light in a window andobserving a vine that trailed from the balcony before it, he climbed upboldly, and found himself face to face with a gray-haired lady, whosevisage was beautiful and kindly and noble. In a few words he told herhis plight and besought sanctuary. She listened to him in silence, withexceeding courtesy of manner, as though she were weighing his wordsbefore making up her mind. She raised the lamp on her table and let itsbeams fall on his lineaments. And still she made no answer to hisappeal. 

Then came a glare of torches in the street below and a knocking at thedoor. Then at last the old lady came to a resolution; she lifted thetapestry at the head of her bed and told him to bestow himself there. No sooner was he hidden than the tall, thin man in the long black cloakentered hastily. He greeted the elderly lady as his aunt, and he toldher that her son had been set upon by a stranger in the street and hadbeen slain. She gave a great cry and never took her eyes from his face. Then he said that a servant had seen an unknown man climb to thebalcony of her house. What if it were the assassin of her son? Theblood left her face and she clutched at the table behind her, as shegave orders to have the house searched. 

When the room was empty at last she went to the head of the bed andbade the man concealed there to come forth and begone, but to cover hisface, that she might not be forced to know him again. So saying, shedropped on her knees before a crucifix, while he slipped out of thewindow again and down to the deserted street. 

He sped to the corner and turned it undiscovered, and breathed a sighof relief and of regret. He kept on steadily, gliding stealthily alongin the shadows, until he found himself at the city gate as the bell ofthe cathedral tolled the hour of midnight. 

V

How it was that he passed through the gate he could not declare withprecision, for seemingly a mist had settled about him. Yet a fewminutes later he saw that in some fashion he must have got beyond thewalls of the town, for he recognized the open country all around. And, oddly enough, he now discovered himself to be astride a bony steed. Hecould not say what manner of horse it was he was riding, but he feltsure that it was not the faithful charger that had saved his life inPersia, once upon a time, in days long gone by, as it seemed to himthen. He was not in Persia now--of that he was certain, nor in Japan, nor in the Iberian peninsula. Where he was he did not know. 

In the dead hush of midnight he could hear the barking of a dog on theopposite shore of a dusky and indistinct waste of waters that spreaditself far below him. The night grew darker and darker, the starsseemed to sink deeper in the sky, and driving clouds occasionally hidthem from his sight. He had never felt so lonely and dismal. In thecentre of the road stood an enormous tulip-tree; its limbs were gnarledand fantastic, large enough to form trunks for ordinary trees, twistingdown almost to the earth, and rising again into the air. As heapproached this fearful tree he thought he saw something white hangingin the midst of it, but on looking more narrowly he perceived it was aplace where it had been scathed by lightning and the white wood laidbare. About two hundred yards from the tree a small brook crossed theroad; and as he drew near he beheld--on the margin of this brook, andin the dark shadow of the grove--he beheld something huge, misshapen, black, and towering. It stirred not, but seemed gathered up in thegloom like some gigantic monster ready to spring upon the traveller. 

He demanded, in stammering accents, "Who are you?" He received noreply. He repeated his demand in a still more agitated voice. Stillthere was no answer. And then the shadowy object of alarm put itself inmotion, and with a scramble and a bound stood in the middle of theroad. He appeared to be a horseman of large dimensions and mounted on ablack horse of powerful frame. Having no relish for this strangemidnight companion, Cosmo Waynflete urged on his steed in hopes ofleaving the apparition behind; but the stranger quickened his horsealso to an equal pace. And when the first horseman pulled up, thinkingto lag behind, the second did likewise. There was something in themoody and dogged silence of this pertinacious companion that wasmysterious and appalling. It was soon fearfully accounted for. Onmounting a rising ground which brought the figure of hisfellow-traveller against the sky, gigantic in height and muffled in acloak, he was horror-struck to discover the stranger was headless!--buthis horror was still more increased in observing that the head whichshould have rested on the shoulders was carried before the body on thepommel of the saddle. 

The terror of Cosmo Waynflete rose to desperation, and he spurred hissteed suddenly in the hope of giving his weird companion the slip. Butthe headless horseman started full jump with him. His own horse, asthough possessed by a demon, plunged headlong down the hill. He couldhear, however, the black steed panting and blowing close behind him; heeven fancied that he felt the hot breath of the pursuer. When heventured at last to cast a look behind, he saw the goblin rising in thestirrups, and in the very act of hurling at him the grisly head. Hefell out of the saddle to the ground; and the black steed and thegoblin rider passed by him like a whirlwind. 

VI

How long he lay there by the roadside, stunned and motionless, he couldnot guess; but when he came to himself at last the sun was already highin the heavens. He discovered himself to be reclining on the tall grassof a pleasant graveyard which surrounded a tiny country church in theoutskirts of a pretty little village. It was in the early summer, andthe foliage was green above him as the boughs swayed gently to and froin the morning breeze. The birds were singing gayly as they flittedabout over his head. The bees hummed along from flower to flower. Atlast, so it seemed to him, he had come into a land of peace and quiet, where there was rest and comfort and where no man need go in fear ofhis life. It was a country where vengeance was not a duty and wheremidnight combats were not a custom he found himself smiling as hethought that a grisly dragon and a goblin rider would be equally out ofplace in this laughing landscape. 

Then the bell in the steeple of the little church began to ringmerrily, and he rose to his feet in expectation. All of a sudden theknowledge came to him why it was that they were ringing. He wonderedthen why the coming of the bride was thus delayed. He knew himself tobe a lover, with life opening brightly before him; and the world seemedto him sweeter than ever before and more beautiful. 

Then at last the girl whom he loved with his whole heart and who hadpromised to marry him appeared in the distance, and he thought he hadnever seen her look more lovely. As he beheld his bridal partyapproaching, he slipped into the church to await her at the altar. Thesunshine fell full upon the portal and made a halo about the girl'shead as she crossed the threshold. 

But even when the bride stood by his side and the clergyman had begunthe solemn service of the church the bells kept on, and soon theirchiming became a clangor, louder and sharper and more insistent. 

VII

So clamorous and so persistent was the ringing that Cosmo Waynflete wasroused at last. He found himself suddenly standing on his feet, withhis hand clutching the back of the chair in which he had been sittingbefore the fire when the rays of the setting sun had set long ago. Theroom was dark, for it was lighted now only by the embers of theburnt-out fire; and the electric bell was ringing steadily, as thoughthe man outside the door had resolved to waken the seven sleepers. 

Then Cosmo Waynflete was wide-awake again; and he knew where he wasonce more--not in Japan, not in Persia, not in Lisbon, not in SleepyHollow, but here in New York, in his own room, before his own fire. Heopened the door at once and admitted his friend, Paul Stuyvesant. 

"It isn't dinner-time, is it?" he asked. "I'm not late, am I? The factis, I've been asleep. "

"It is so good of you to confess that, " his friend answered, laughing;"although the length of time you kept me waiting and ringing might haveled me to suspect it. No, you are not late and it is not dinner-time. I've come around to have another little chat with you before dinner, that's all. "

"Take this chair, old man, " said Cosmo, as he threw anotherhickory-stick on the fire. Then he lighted the gas and sat down by theside of his friend. 

"This chair is comfortable, for a fact, " Stuyvesant declared, stretching himself out luxuriously. "No wonder you went to sleep. Whatdid you dream of?--strange places you had seen in your travels or thehomely scenes of your native land. "

Waynflete looked at his friend for a moment without answering thequestion. He was startled as he recalled the extraordinary series ofadventures which had fallen to his lot since he had fixed his gaze onthe crystal ball. It seemed to him as though he had been whirledthrough space and through time. 

"I suppose every man is always the hero of his own dreams, " he began, doubtfully. 

"Of course, " his friend returned; "in sleep our natural and healthyegotism is absolutely unrestrained. It doesn't make any matter wherethe scene is laid or whether the play is a comedy or a tragedy, thedreamer has always the centre of the stage, with the calcium lightturned full on him. "

"That's just it, " Waynflete went on; "this dream of mine makes me feelas if I were an actor, and as if I had been playing many parts, oneafter the other, in the swiftest succession. They are not familiar tome, and yet I confess to a vague feeling of unoriginality. It is asthough I were a plagiarist of adventure--if that be a possiblesupposition. I have just gone through these startling situationsmyself, and yet I'm sure that they have all of them happenedbefore--although, perhaps, not to any one man. Indeed, no one man couldhave had all these adventures of mine, because I see now that I havebeen whisked through the centuries and across the hemispheres with asuddenness possible only in dreams. Yet all my experiences seem somehowsecond-hand, and not really my own. "

"Picked up here and there--like your bric-à-brac?" suggestedStuyvesant. "But what are these alluring adventures of yours thatstretched through the ages and across the continents?"

Then, knowing how fond his friend was of solving mysteries and howproud he was of his skill in this art, Cosmo Waynflete narrated hisdream as it has been set down in these pages. 

When he had made an end, Paul Stuyvesant's first remark was: "I'm sorryI happened along just then and waked you up before you had time to getmarried. "

His second remark followed half a minute later. 

"I see how it was, " he said; "you were sitting in this chair andlooking at that crystal ball, which focussed the level rays of thesetting sun, I suppose? Then it is plain enough--you hypnotizedyourself!"

"I have heard that such a thing is possible, " responded Cosmo. "

"Possible?" Stuyvesant returned, "it is certain! But what is morecurious is the new way in which you combined your self-hypnotism withcrystal-gazing. You have heard of scrying, I suppose?"

"You mean the practice of looking into a drop of water or a crystalball or anything of that sort, " said Cosmo, "and of seeing things init--of seeing people moving about?"

"That's just what I do mean, " his friend returned. "And that's justwhat you have been doing. You fixed your gaze on the ball, and sohypnotized yourself; and then, in the intensity of your vision, youwere able to see figures in the crystal--with one of which visualizedemanations you immediately identified yourself. That's easy enough, Ithink. But I don't see what suggested to you your separate experiences. I recognize them, of course----"

"You recognize them?" cried Waynflete, in wonder. 

"I can tell you where you borrowed every one of your adventures, "Stuyvesant replied, "But what I'd like to know now is what suggested toyou just those particular characters and situations, and not any of themany others also stored away in your subconsciousness. "

So saying, he began to look about the room. 

"My subconsciousness?" repeated Waynflete. "Have I ever been a samuraiin my subconsciousness?"

Paul Stuyvesant looked at Cosmo Waynflete for nearly a minute withoutreply. Then all the answer he made was to say: "That's a queerdressing-gown you have on. "

"It is time I took it off, " said the other, as he twisted himself outof its clinging folds. "It is a beautiful specimen of weaving, isn'tit? I call it the dream-gown of the Japanese ambassador, for although Ibought it in a curiosity-shop in Nuremberg, it was once, I reallybelieve, the slumber-robe of an Oriental envoy. "

Stuyvesant took the silken garment from his friend's hand. 

"Why did the Japanese ambassador sell you his dream-gown in a Nurembergcuriosity-shop?" he asked. 

"He didn't, " Waynflete explained. "I never saw the ambassador, andneither did the old German lady who kept the shop. She told me shebought it from a Japanese acrobat who was out of an engagement anddesperately hard up. But she told me also that the acrobat had told herthat the garment had belonged to an ambassador who had given it to himas a reward of his skill, and that he never would have parted with itif he had not been dead-broke. "

Stuyvesant held the robe up to the light and inspected the embroideryon the skirt of it. 

"Yes, " he said, at last, "this would account for it, I suppose. Thisbit here was probably meant to suggest 'the well where the head waswashed, '--see?"

"I see that those lines may be meant to represent the outline of aspring of water, but I don't see what that has to do with my dream, "Waynflete answered. 

"Don't you?" Stuyvesant returned. "Then I'll show you. You had on thissilk garment embroidered here with an outline of the well in which waswashed the head of Kotsuke no Suke, the man whom the Forty-Seven Roninskilled. You know the story?"

"I read it in Japan, but----" began Cosmo. 

"You had that story stored away in your subconsciousness, " interruptedhis friend. "And when you hypnotized yourself by peering into thecrystal ball, this embroidery it was which suggested to you to seeyourself as the hero of the tale--Oishi Kuranosuke, the chief of theForty-Seven Ronins, the faithful follower who avenged his master bypretending to be vicious and dissipated--just like Brutus andLorenzaccio--until the enemy was off his guard and open to attack. "

"I think I do recall the tale of the Forty-Seven Ronins, but only veryvaguely, " said the hero of the dream. "For all I know I may have hadthe adventure of Oishi Kuranosuke laid on the shelf somewhere in mysubconsciousness, as you want me to believe. But how about my Persiandragon and my Iberian noblewoman?"

Paul Stuyvesant was examining the dream-gown of the Japanese ambassadorwith minute care. Suddenly he said, "Oh!" and then he looked up atCosmo Waynflete and asked: "What are those buttons? They seem to be oldcoins. "

"They are old coins, " the other answered; "it was a fancy of mine toutilize them on that Japanese dressing-gown. They are all different, you see. The first is----"

"Persian, isn't it?" interrupted Stuyvesant. 

"Yes, " Waynflete explained, "it is a Persian daric. And the second is aSpanish peso made at Potosi under Philip II. For use in America. Andthe third is a York shilling, one of the coins in circulation here inNew York at the time of the Revolution--I got that one, in fact, fromthe farmer who ploughed it up in a field at Tarrytown, near Sunnyside. "

"Then there are three of your adventures accounted for, Cosmo, andeasily enough, " Paul commented, with obvious satisfaction at his ownexplanation. "Just as the embroidery on the silk here suggested toyou--after you had hypnotized yourself--that you were the chief of theForty-Seven Ronins, so this first coin here in turn suggested to youthat you were Rustem, the hero of the 'Epic of Kings. ' You have readthe 'Shah-Nameh?'"

"I remember Firdausi's poem after a fashion only, " Cosmo answered. "Wasnot Rustem a Persian Hercules, so to speak?"

"That's it precisely, " the other responded, "and he had seven labors toperform; and you dreamed the third of them, the slaying of the grislydragon. For my own part, I think I should have preferred the fourth ofthem, the meeting with the lovely enchantress; but that's neither herenor there. "

"It seems to me I do recollect something about that fight of Rustem andthe strange beast. The faithful horse's name was Rakush, wasn't it?"asked Waynflete. 

"If you can recollect the 'Shah-Nameh, '" Stuyvesant pursued, "no doubtyou can recall also Beaumont and Fletcher's 'Custom of the Country?'That's where you got the midnight duel in Lisbon and the magnanimousmother, you know. "

"No, I didn't know, " the other declared. 

"Well, you did, for all that, " Paul went on. "The situation is takenfrom one in a drama of Calderon's, and it was much strengthened in thetaking. You may not now remember having read the play, but the incidentmust have been familiar to you, or else your subconsciousness couldn'thave yielded it up to you so readily at the suggestion of the Spanishcoin, could it?"

"I did read a lot of Elizabethan drama in my senior year at college, "admitted Cosmo, "and this piece of Beaumont and Fletcher's may havebeen one of those I read; but I totally fail to recall now what it wasall about. "

"You won't have the cheek to declare that you don't remember the'Legend of Sleepy Hollow, ' will you?" asked Stuyvesant. "Very obviouslyit was the adventure of Ichabod Crane and the Headless Horseman thatthe York shilling suggested to you. "

"I'll admit that I do recollect Irving's story now, " the otherconfessed. 

"So the embroidery on the dream-gown gives the first of your strangesituations; and the three others were suggested by the coins you havebeen using as buttons, " said Paul Stuyvesant. "There is only one thingnow that puzzles me: that is the country church and the noon weddingand the beautiful bride. "

And with that he turned over the folds of the silken garment that hungover his arm. 

Cosmo Waynflete hesitated a moment and a blush mantled his cheek. Thenhe looked his friend in the face and said: "I think I can account formy dreaming about her--I can account for that easily enough. "

"So can I, " said Paul Stuyvesant, as he held up the photograph of alovely American girl that he had just found in the pocket of thedream-gown of the Japanese ambassador. 

(1896. )

THE RIVAL GHOSTS

The good ship sped on her way across the calm Atlantic. It was anoutward passage, according to the little charts which the company hadcharily distributed, but most of the passengers were homeward bound, after a summer of rest and recreation, and they were counting the daysbefore they might hope to see Fire Island Light. On the lee side of theboat, comfortably sheltered from the wind, and just by the door of thecaptain's room (which was theirs during the day), sat a little group ofreturning Americans. The Duchess (she was down on the purser's list asMrs. Martin, but her friends and familiars called her the Duchess ofWashington Square) and Baby Van Rensselaer (she was quite old enough tovote, had her sex been entitled to that duty, but as the younger of twosisters she was still the baby of the family)--the Duchess and Baby VanRensselaer were discussing the pleasant English voice and the notunpleasant English accent of a manly young lordling who was going toAmerica for sport. Uncle Larry and Dear Jones were enticing each otherinto a bet on the ship's run of the morrow. 

"I'll give you two to one she don't make 420, " said Dear Jones. 

"I'll take it, " answered Uncle Larry. "We made 427 the fifth day lastyear. " It was Uncle Larry's seventeenth visit to Europe, and this wastherefore his thirty-fourth voyage. 

"And when did you get in?" asked Baby Van Rensselaer. "I don't care abit about the run, so long as we get in soon. "

"We crossed the bar Sunday night, just seven days after we leftQueenstown, and we dropped anchor off Quarantine at three o'clock onMonday morning. "

"I hope we sha'n't do that this time. I can't seem to sleep any whenthe boat stops. "

"I can, but I didn't, " continued Uncle Larry, "because my state-roomwas the most for'ard in the boat, and the donkey-engine that let downthe anchor was right over my head. "

"So you got up and saw the sun rise over the bay, " said Dear Jones, "with the electric lights of the city twinkling in the distance, andthe first faint flush of the dawn in the east just over Fort Lafayette, and the rosy tinge which spread softly upward, and----"

"Did you both come back together?" asked the Duchess. 

"Because he has crossed thirty-four times you must not suppose he has amonopoly in sunrises, " retorted Dear Jones. "No; this was my ownsunrise; and a mighty pretty one it was too. "

"I'm not matching sunrises with you, " remarked Uncle Larry calmly; "butI'm willing to back a merry jest called forth by my sunrise against anytwo merry jests called forth by yours. "

"I confess reluctantly that my sunrise evoked no merry jest at all. "Dear Jones was an honest man, and would scorn to invent a merry jest onthe spur of the moment. 

"That's where my sunrise has the call, " said Uncle Larry, complacently. 

"What was the merry jest?" was Baby Van Rensselaer's inquiry, thenatural result of a feminine curiosity thus artistically excited. 

"Well, here it is. I was standing aft, near a patriotic American and awandering Irishman, and the patriotic American rashly declared that youcouldn't see a sunrise like that anywhere in Europe, and this gave theIrishman his chance, and he said, 'Sure ye don't have 'm here till we'rethrough with 'em over there. '"

"It is true, " said Dear Jones, thoughtfully, "that they do have somethings over there better than we do; for instance, umbrellas. "

"And gowns, " added the Duchess. 

"And antiquities"--this was Uncle Larry's contribution. 

"And we do have some things so much better in America!" protested BabyVan Rensselaer, as yet uncorrupted by any worship of the effetemonarchies of despotic Europe. "We make lots of things a great dealnicer than you can get them in Europe--especially ice-cream. "

"And pretty girls, " added Dear Jones; but he did not look at her. 

"And spooks, " remarked Uncle Larry, casually. 

"Spooks?" queried the Duchess. 

"Spooks. I maintain the word. Ghost, if you like that better, orspectres. We turn out the best quality of spook----"

"You forget the lovely ghost stories about the Rhine and the BlackForest, " interrupted Miss Van Rensselaer, with feminine inconsistency. 

"I remember the Rhine and the Black Forest and all the other haunts ofelves and fairies and hobgoblins; but for good, honest spooks there isno place like home. And what differentiates our spook--_spiritusAmericanus_--from the ordinary ghost of literature is that itresponds to the American sense of humor. Take Irving's stories, forexample. The 'Headless Horseman'--that's a comic ghost story. And RipVan Winkle--consider what humor, and what good humor, there is in thetelling of his meeting with the goblin crew of Hendrik Hudson's men! Astill better example of this American way of dealing with legend andmystery is the marvellous tale of the rival ghosts. "

"The rival ghosts!" queried the Duchess and Baby Van Rensselaertogether. "Who were they?"

"Didn't I ever tell you about them?" answered Uncle Larry, a gleam ofapproaching joy flashing from his eye. 

"Since he is bound to tell us sooner or later, we'd better be resignedand hear it now, " said Dear Jones. 

"If you are not more eager, I won't tell it at all. "

"Oh, do, Uncle Larry! you know I just dote on ghost stories, " pleadedBaby Van Rensselaer. 

"Once upon a time, " began Uncle Larry--"in fact, a very few yearsago--there lived in the thriving town of New York a young Americancalled Duncan--Eliphalet Duncan. Like his name, he was half Yankeeand half Scotch, and naturally he was a lawyer, and had come to NewYork to make his way. His father was a Scotchman who had come overand settled in Boston and married a Salem girl. When Eliphalet Duncanwas about twenty he lost both of his parents. His father left himenough money to give him a start, and a strong feeling of pride inhis Scotch birth; you see there was a title in the family inScotland, and although Eliphalet's father was the younger son of ayounger son, yet he always remembered, and always bade his only sonto remember, that this ancestry was noble. His mother left him herfull share of Yankee grit and a little old house in Salem which hadbelonged to her family for more than two hundred years. She was aHitchcock, and the Hitchcocks had been settled in Salem since theyear 1. It was a great-great-grandfather of Mr. Eliphalet Hitchcockwho was foremost in the time of the Salem witchcraft craze. And thislittle old house which she left to my friend Eliphalet Duncan washaunted. "

"By the ghost of one of the witches, of course?" interrupted DearJones. 

"Now how could it be the ghost of a witch, since the witches were allburned at the stake? You never heard of anybody who was burned having aghost, did you?" asked Uncle Larry. 

"That's an argument in favor of cremation, at any rate, " replied DearJones, evading the direct question. 

"It is, if you don't like ghosts. I do, " said Baby Van Rensselaer. 

"And so do I, " added Uncle Larry. "I love a ghost as dearly as anEnglishman loves a lord. "

"Go on with your story, " said the Duchess, majestically overruling allextraneous discussion. 

"This little old house at Salem was haunted, " resumed Uncle Larry. "Andby a very distinguished ghost--or at least by a ghost with veryremarkable attributes. "

"What was he like?" asked Baby Van Rensselaer, with a premonitoryshiver of anticipatory delight. 

"It had a lot of peculiarities. In the first place, it never appearedto the master of the house. Mostly it confined its visitations tounwelcome guests. In the course of the last hundred years it hadfrightened away four successive mothers-in-law, while never intrudingon the head of the household. "

"I guess that ghost had been one of the boys when he was alive and inthe flesh. " This was Dear Jones's contribution to the telling of thetale. 

"In the second place, " continued Uncle Larry, "it never frightenedanybody the first time it appeared. Only on the second visit were theghost-seers scared; but then they were scared enough for twice, andthey rarely mustered up courage enough to risk a third interview. Oneof the most curious characteristics of this well-meaning spook was thatit had no face--or at least that nobody ever saw its face. "

"Perhaps he kept his countenance veiled?" queried the Duchess, who wasbeginning to remember that she never did like ghost stories. 

"That was what I was never able to find out. I have asked severalpeople who saw the ghost, and none of them could tell me anything aboutits face, and yet while in its presence they never noticed itsfeatures, and never remarked on their absence or concealment. It wasonly afterwards when they tried to recall calmly all the circumstancesof meeting with the mysterious stranger that they became aware thatthey had not seen its face. And they could not say whether the featureswere covered, or whether they were wanting, or what the trouble was. They knew only that the face was never seen. And no matter how oftenthey might see it, they never fathomed this mystery. To this day nobodyknows whether the ghost which used to haunt the little old house inSalem had a face, or what manner of face it had. "

"How awfully weird!" said Baby Van Rensselaer. "And why did the ghostgo away?"

"I haven't said it went away, " answered Uncle Larry, with much dignity. 

"But you said it _used_ to haunt the little old house at Salem, soI supposed it had moved. Didn't it?" the young lady asked. 

"You shall be told in due time. Eliphalet Duncan used to spend most ofhis summer vacations at Salem, and the ghost never bothered him at all, for he was the master of the house--much to his disgust, too, becausehe wanted to see for himself the mysterious tenant at will of hisproperty. But he never saw it, never. He arranged with friends to callhim whenever it might appear, and he slept in the next room with thedoor open; and yet when their frightened cries waked him the ghost wasgone, and his only reward was to hear reproachful sighs as soon as hewent back to bed. You see, the ghost thought it was not fair ofEliphalet to seek an introduction which was plainly unwelcome. "

Dear Jones interrupted the story-teller by getting up and tucking aheavy rug more snugly around Baby Van Rensselaer's feet, for the skywas now overcast and gray, and the air was damp and penetrating. 

"One fine spring morning, " pursued Uncle Larry, "Eliphalet Duncanreceived great news. I told you that there was a title in the family inScotland, and that Eliphalet's father was the younger son of a youngerson. Well, it happened that all Eliphalet's father's brothers anduncles had died off without male issue except the eldest son of theeldest son, and he, of course, bore the title, and was Baron Duncan ofDuncan. Now the great news that Eliphalet Duncan received in New Yorkone fine spring morning was that Baron Duncan and his only son had beenyachting in the Hebrides, and they had been caught in a black squall, and they were both dead. So my friend Eliphalet Duncan inherited thetitle and the estates. "

"How romantic!" said the Duchess. "So he was a baron!"

"Well, " answered Uncle Larry, "he was a baron if he chose. But hedidn't choose. "

"More fool he!" said Dear Jones, sententiously. 

"Well, " answered Uncle Larry, "I'm not so sure of that. You see, Eliphalet Duncan was half Scotch and half Yankee, and he had two eyesto the main chance. He held his tongue about his windfall of luck untilhe could find out whether the Scotch estates were enough to keep up theScotch title. He soon discovered that they were not, and that the lateLord Duncan, having married money, kept up such state as he could outof the revenues of the dowry of Lady Duncan. And Eliphalet, he decidedthat he would rather be a well-fed lawyer in New York, livingcomfortably on his practice, than a starving lord in Scotland, livingscantily on his title. "

"But he kept his title?" asked the Duchess. 

"Well, " answered Uncle Larry, "he kept it quiet. I knew it, and afriend or two more. But Eliphalet was a sight too smart to put 'BaronDuncan of Duncan, Attorney and Counsellor at Law, ' on his shingle. "

"What has all this got to do with your ghost?" asked Dear Jones, pertinently. 

"Nothing with that ghost, but a good deal with another ghost. Eliphaletwas very learned in spirit lore--perhaps because he owned the hauntedhouse at Salem, perhaps because he was a Scotchman by descent. At allevents, he had made a special study of the wraiths and white ladies andbanshees and bogies of all kinds whose sayings and doings and warningsare recorded in the annals of the Scottish nobility. In fact, he wasacquainted with the habits of every reputable spook in the Scotchpeerage. And he knew that there was a Duncan ghost attached to theperson of the holder of the title of Baron Duncan of Duncan. "

"So, besides being the owner of a haunted house in Salem, he was also ahaunted man in Scotland?" asked Baby Van Rensselaer. 

"Just so. But the Scotch ghost was not unpleasant, like the Salemghost, although it had one peculiarity in common with itstrans-atlantic fellow-spook. It never appeared to the holder of thetitle, just as the other never was visible to the owner of the house. In fact, the Duncan ghost was never seen at all. It was a guardianangel only. Its sole duty was to be in personal attendance on BaronDuncan of Duncan, and to warn him of impending evil. The traditions ofthe house told that the Barons of Duncan had again and again felt apremonition of ill fortune. Some of them had yielded and withdrawn fromthe venture they had undertaken, and it had failed dismally. Some hadbeen obstinate, and had hardened their hearts, and had gone on recklessto defeat and to death. In no case had a Lord Duncan been exposed toperil without fair warning. "

"Then how came it that the father and son were lost in the yacht offthe Hebrides?" asked Dear Jones. 

"Because they were too enlightened to yield to superstition. There isextant now a letter of Lord Duncan, written to his wife a few minutesbefore he and his son set sail, in which he tells her how hard he hashad to struggle with an almost overmastering desire to give up thetrip. Had he obeyed the friendly warning of the family ghost, theletter would have been spared a journey across the Atlantic. "

"Did the ghost leave Scotland for America as soon as the old barondied?" asked Baby Van Rensselaer, with much interest. 

"How did he come over, " queried Dear Jones--"in the steerage, or as acabin passenger?"

"I don't know, " answered Uncle Larry, calmly, "and Eliphalet didn'tknow. For as he was in no danger, and stood in no need of warning, hecouldn't tell whether the ghost was on duty or not. Of course he was onthe watch for it all the time. But he never got any proof of itspresence until he went down to the little old house of Salem, justbefore the Fourth of July. He took a friend down with him--a youngfellow who had been in the regular army since the day Fort Sumter wasfired on, and who thought that after four years of the littleunpleasantness down South, including six months in Libby, and after tenyears of fighting the bad Indians on the plains, he wasn't likely to bemuch frightened by a ghost. Well, Eliphalet and the officer sat out onthe porch all the evening smoking and talking over points in militarylaw. A little after twelve o'clock, just as they began to think it wasabout time to turn in, they heard the most ghastly noise in the house. It wasn't a shriek, or a howl, or a yell, or anything they could put aname to. It was an undeterminate, inexplicable shiver and shudder ofsound, which went wailing out of the window. The officer had been atCold Harbor, but he felt himself getting colder this time. Eliphaletknew it was the ghost who haunted the house. As this weird sound diedaway, it was followed by another, sharp, short, blood-curdling in itsintensity. Something in this cry seemed familiar to Eliphalet, and hefelt sure that it proceeded from the family ghost, the warning wraithof the Duncans. "

"Do I understand you to intimate that both ghosts were there together?"inquired the Duchess, anxiously. 

"Both of them were there, " answered Uncle Larry. "You see, one of thembelonged to the house, and had to be there all the time, and the otherwas attached to the person of Baron Duncan, and had to follow himthere; wherever he was, there was that ghost also. But Eliphalet, hehad scarcely time to think this out when he heard both sounds again, not one after another, but both together, and something told him--somesort of an instinct he had--that those two ghosts didn't agree, didn'tget on together, didn't exactly hit it off; in fact, that they werequarrelling. "

"Quarrelling ghosts! Well, I never!" was Baby Van Rensselaer's remark. 

"It is a blessed thing to see ghosts dwell together in unity, " saidDear Jones. 

And the Duchess added, "It would certainly be setting a betterexample. "

"You know, " resumed Uncle Larry, "that two waves of light or of soundmay interfere and produce darkness or silence. So it was with theserival spooks. They interfered, but they did not produce silence ordarkness. On the contrary, as soon as Eliphalet and the officer wentinto the house, there began at once a series of spiritualisticmanifestations--a regular dark séance. A tambourine was played upon, abell was rung, and a flaming banjo went singing around the room. "

"Where did they get the banjo?" asked Dear Jones, sceptically. 

"I don't know. Materialized it, maybe, just as they did the tambourine. You don't suppose a quiet New York lawyer kept a stock of musicalinstruments large enough to fit out a strolling minstrel troupe just onthe chance of a pair of ghosts coming to give him a surprise party, doyou? Every spook has its own instrument of torture. Angels play onharps, I'm informed, and spirits delight in banjos and tambourines. These spooks of Eliphalet Duncan's were ghosts with all modernimprovements, and I guess they were capable of providing their ownmusical weapons. At all events, they had them there in the little oldhouse at Salem the night Eliphalet and his friend came down. And theyplayed on them, and they rang the bell, and they rapped here, there, and everywhere. And they kept it up all night. "

"All night?" asked the awe-stricken Duchess. 

"All night long, " said Uncle Larry, solemnly; "and the next night too. Eliphalet did not get a wink of sleep, neither did his friend. On thesecond night the house ghost was seen by the officer; on the thirdnight it showed itself again; and the next morning the officer packedhis gripsack and took the first train to Boston. He was a New-Yorker, but he said he'd sooner go to Boston than see that ghost again. Eliphalet wasn't scared at all, partly because he never saw either thedomiciliary or the titular spook, and partly because he felt himself onfriendly terms with the spirit world, and didn't scare easily. Butafter losing three nights' sleep and the society of his friend, hebegan to be a little impatient, and to think that the thing had gonefar enough. You see, while in a way he was fond of ghosts, yet he likedthem best one at a time. Two ghosts were one too many. He wasn't benton making a collection of spooks. He and one ghost were company, but heand two ghosts were a crowd. "

"What did he do?" asked Baby Van Rensselaer. 

"Well, he couldn't do anything. He waited awhile, hoping they would gettired; but he got tired out first. You see, it comes natural to a spookto sleep in the daytime, but a man wants to sleep nights, and theywouldn't let him sleep nights. They kept on wrangling and quarrellingincessantly; they manifested and they dark-séanced as regularly as theold clock on the stairs struck twelve; they rapped and they rang bellsand they banged the tambourine and they threw the flaming banjo aboutthe house, and, worse than all, they swore. "

"I did not know that spirits were addicted to bad language, " said theDuchess. 

"How did he know they were swearing? Could he hear them?" asked DearJones. 

"That was just it, " responded Uncle Larry; "he could not hear them--atleast, not distinctly. There were inarticulate murmurs and stifledrumblings. But the impression produced on him was that they wereswearing. If they had only sworn right out, he would not have minded itso much, because he would have known the worst. But the feeling thatthe air was full of suppressed profanity was very wearing, and afterstanding it for a week he gave up in disgust and went to the WhiteMountains. "

"Leaving them to fight it out, I suppose, " interjected Baby VanRensselaer. 

"Not at all, " explained Uncle Larry. "They could not quarrel unless hewas present. You see, he could not leave the titular ghost behind him, and the domiciliary ghost could not leave the house. When he went awayhe took the family ghost with him, leaving the house ghost behind. Nowspooks can't quarrel when they are a hundred miles apart any more thanmen can. "

"And what happened afterwards?" asked Baby Van Rensselaer, with apretty impatience. 

"A most marvellous thing happened. Eliphalet Duncan went to the WhiteMountains, and in the car of the railroad that runs to the top of MountWashington he met a classmate whom he had not seen for years, and thisclassmate introduced Duncan to his sister, and this sister was aremarkably pretty girl, and Duncan fell in love with her at firstsight, and by the time he got to the top of Mount Washington he was sodeep in love that he began to consider his own unworthiness, and towonder whether she might ever be induced to care for him a little--everso little. "

"I don't think that is so marvellous a thing, " said Dear Jones, glancing at Baby Van Rensselaer. 

"Who was she?" asked the Duchess, who had once lived in Philadelphia. 

"She was Miss Kitty Sutton, of San Francisco, and she was a daughter ofold Judge Sutton, of the firm of Pixley & Sutton. "

"A very respectable family, " assented the Duchess. 

"I hope she wasn't a daughter of that loud and vulgar old Mrs. Suttonwhom I met at Saratoga one summer four or five years ago?" said DearJones. 

"Probably she was, " Uncle Larry responded. 

"She was a horrid old woman. The boys used to call her Mother Gorgon. "

"The pretty Kitty Sutton with whom Eliphalet Duncan had fallen in lovewas the daughter of Mother Gorgon. But he never saw the mother, who wasin Frisco, or Los Angeles, or Santa Fé, or somewhere out West, and hesaw a great deal of the daughter, who was up in the White Mountains. She was travelling with her brother and his wife, and as they journeyedfrom hotel to hotel Duncan went with them, and filled out thequartette. Before the end of the summer he began to think aboutproposing. Of course he had lots of chances, going on excursions asthey were every day. He made up his mind to seize the firstopportunity, and that very evening he took her out for a moonlight rowon Lake Winipiseogee. As he handed her into the boat he resolved to doit, and he had a glimmer of a suspicion that she knew he was going todo it, too. "

"Girls, " said Dear Jones, "never go out in a row-boat at night with ayoung man unless you mean to accept him. "

"Sometimes it's best to refuse him, and get it over once for all, " saidBaby Van Rensselaer, impersonally. 

"As Eliphalet took the oars he felt a sudden chill. He tried to shakeit off, but in vain. He began to have a growing consciousness ofimpending evil. Before he had taken ten strokes--and he was a swiftoarsman--he was aware of a mysterious presence between him and MissSutton. "

"Was it the guardian-angel ghost warning him off the match?"interrupted Dear Jones. 

"That's just what it was, " said Uncle Larry. "And he yielded to it, andkept his peace, and rowed Miss Sutton back to the hotel with hisproposal unspoken. "

"More fool he, " said Dear Jones. "It will take more than one ghost tokeep me from proposing when my mind is made up. " And he looked at BabyVan Rensselaer. 

"The next morning, " continued Uncle Larry, "Eliphalet overslepthimself, and when he went down to a late breakfast he found that theSuttons had gone to New York by the morning train. He wanted to followthem at once, and again he felt the mysterious presence overpoweringhis will. He struggled two days, and at last he roused himself to dowhat he wanted in spite of the spook. When he arrived in New York itwas late in the evening. He dressed himself hastily, and went to thehotel where the Suttons were, in the hope of seeing at least herbrother. The guardian angel fought every inch of the walk with him, until he began to wonder whether, if Miss Sutton were to take him, thespook would forbid the banns. At the hotel he saw no one that night, and he went home determined to call as early as he could the nextafternoon, and make an end of it. When he left his office about twoo'clock the next day to learn his fate, he had not walked five blocksbefore he discovered that the wraith of the Duncans had withdrawn hisopposition to the suit. There was no feeling of impending evil, noresistance, no struggle, no consciousness of an opposing presence. Eliphalet was greatly encouraged. He walked briskly to the hotel; hefound Miss Sutton alone. He asked her the question, and got hisanswer. "

"She accepted him, of course?" said Baby Van Rensselaer. 

"Of course, " said Uncle Larry. "And while they were in the first flushof joy, swapping confidences and confessions, her brother came into theparlor with an expression of pain on his face and a telegram in hishand. The former was caused by the latter, which was from Frisco, andwhich announced the sudden death of Mrs. Sutton, their mother. "

"And that was why the ghost no longer opposed the match?" questionedDear Jones. 

"Exactly. You see, the family ghost knew that Mother Gorgon was anawful obstacle to Duncan's happiness, so it warned him. But the momentthe obstacle was removed, it gave its consent at once. "

The fog was lowering its thick, damp curtain, and it was beginning tobe difficult to see from one end of the boat to the other. Dear Jonestightened the rug which enwrapped Baby Van Rensselaer, and thenwithdrew again into his own substantial coverings. 

Uncle Larry paused in his story long enough to light another of thetiny cigars he always smoked. 

"I infer that Lord Duncan"--the Duchess was scrupulous in the bestowalof titles--"saw no more of the ghosts after he was married. "

"He never saw them at all, at any time, either before or since. Butthey came very near breaking off the match, and thus breaking two younghearts. "

"You don't mean to say that they knew any just cause or impediment whythey should not forever after hold their peace?" asked Dear Jones. 

"How could a ghost, or even two ghosts, keep a girl from marrying theman she loved?" This was Baby Van Rensselaer's question. 

"It seems curious, doesn't it?" and Uncle Larry tried to warm himselfby two or three sharp pulls at his fiery little cigar. "And thecircumstances are quite as curious as the fact itself. You see, MissSutton wouldn't be married for a year after her mother's death, so sheand Duncan had lots of time to tell each other all they knew. Eliphaletgot to know a good deal about the girls she went to school with; andKitty soon learned all about his family. He didn't tell her about thetitle for a long time, as he wasn't one to brag. But he described toher the little old house at Salem. And one evening towards the end ofthe summer, the wedding-day having been appointed for early inSeptember, she told him that she didn't want a bridal tour at all; shejust wanted to go down to the little old house at Salem to spend herhoneymoon in peace and quiet, with nothing to do and nobody to botherthem. Well, Eliphalet jumped at the suggestion: it suited him down tothe ground. All of a sudden he remembered the spooks, and it knockedhim all of a heap. He had told her about the Duncan banshee, and theidea of having an ancestral ghost in personal attendance on her husbandtickled her immensely. But he had never said anything about the ghostwhich haunted the little old house at Salem. He knew she would befrightened out of her wits if the house ghost revealed itself to her, and he saw at once that it would be impossible to go to Salem on theirwedding trip. So he told her all about it, and how whenever he went toSalem the two ghosts interfered, and gave dark séances and manifestedand materialized and made the place absolutely impossible. Kittylistened in silence, and Eliphalet thought she had changed her mind. But she hadn't done anything of the kind. "

"Just like a man--to think she was going to, " remarked Baby VanRensselaer. 

"She just told him she could not bear ghosts herself, but she would notmarry a man who was afraid of them. "

"Just like a girl--to be so inconsistent, " remarked Dear Jones. 

Uncle Larry's tiny cigar had long been extinct. He lighted a new one, and continued: "Eliphalet protested in vain. Kitty said her mind wasmade up. She was determined to pass her honeymoon in the little oldhouse at Salem, and she was equally determined not to go there as longas there were any ghosts there. Until he could assure her that thespectral tenant had received notice to quit, and that there was nodanger of manifestations and materializing, she refused to be marriedat all. She did not intend to have her honeymoon interrupted by twowrangling ghosts, and the wedding could be postponed until he had madeready the house for her. "

"She was an unreasonable young woman, " said the Duchess. 

"Well, that's what Eliphalet thought, much as he was in love with her. And he believed he could talk her out of her determination. But hecouldn't. She was set. And when a girl is set, there's nothing to dobut to yield to the inevitable. And that's just what Eliphalet did. Hesaw he would either have to give her up or to get the ghosts out; andas he loved her and did not care for the ghosts, he resolved to tacklethe ghosts. He had clear grit, Eliphalet had--he was half Scotch andhalf Yankee, and neither breed turns tail in a hurry. So he made hisplans and he went down to Salem. As he said good-bye to Kitty he had animpression that she was sorry she had made him go; but she kept upbravely, and put a bold face on it, and saw him off, and went home andcried for an hour, and was perfectly miserable until he came back thenext day. "

"Did he succeed in driving the ghosts away?" asked Baby Van Rensselaer, with great interest. 

"That's just what I'm coming to, " said Uncle Larry, pausing at thecritical moment, in the manner of the trained story-teller. "You see, Eliphalet had got a rather tough job, and he would gladly have had anextension of time on the contract, but he had to choose between thegirl and the ghosts, and he wanted the girl. He tried to invent orremember some short and easy way with ghosts, but he couldn't. Hewished that somebody had invented a specific for spooks--something thatwould make the ghosts come out of the house and die in the yard. Hewondered if he could not tempt the ghosts to run in debt, so that hemight get the sheriff to help him. He wondered also whether the ghostscould not be overcome with strong drink--a dissipated spook, a spookwith delirium tremens, might be committed to the inebriate asylum. Butnone of these things seemed feasible. "

"What did he do?" interrupted Dear Jones. "The learned counsel willplease speak to the point. "

"You will regret this unseemly haste, " said Uncle Larry, gravely, "whenyou know what really happened. "

"What was it, Uncle Larry?" asked Baby Van Rensselaer. "I'm allimpatience. "

And Uncle Larry proceeded:

"Eliphalet went down to the little old house at Salem, and as soon asthe clock struck twelve the rival ghosts began wrangling as before. Raps here, there, and everywhere, ringing bells, banging tambourines, strumming banjos sailing about the room, and all the othermanifestations and materializations followed one another just as theyhad the summer before. The only difference Eliphalet could detect was astronger flavor in the spectral profanity; and this, of course, wasonly a vague impression, for he did not actually hear a single word. Hewaited awhile in patience, listening and watching. Of course he neversaw either of the ghosts, because neither of them could appear to him. At last he got his dander up, and he thought it was about time tointerfere, so he rapped on the table, and asked for silence. As soon ashe felt that the spooks were listening to him he explained thesituation to them. He told them he was in love, and that he could notmarry unless they vacated the house. He appealed to them as oldfriends, and he laid claim to their gratitude. The titular ghost hadbeen sheltered by the Duncan family for hundreds of years, and thedomiciliary ghost had had free lodging in the little old house at Salemfor nearly two centuries. He implored them to settle their differences, and to get him out of his difficulty at once. He suggested that theyhad better fight it out then and there, and see who was master. He hadbrought down with him all needful weapons. And he pulled out hisvalise, and spread on the table a pair of navy revolvers, a pair ofshot-guns, a pair of duelling-swords, and a couple of bowie-knives. Heoffered to serve as second for both parties, and to give the word whento begin. He also took out of his valise a pack of cards and a bottleof poison, telling them that if they wished to avoid carnage they mightcut the cards to see which one should take the poison. Then he waitedanxiously for their reply. For a little space there was silence. Thenhe became conscious of a tremulous shivering in one corner of the room, and he remembered that he had heard from that direction what soundedlike a frightened sigh when he made the first suggestion of the duel. Something told him that this was the domiciliary ghost, and that it wasbadly scared. Then he was impressed by a certain movement in theopposite corner of the room, as though the titular ghost were drawinghimself up with offended dignity. Eliphalet couldn't exactly see thosethings, because he never saw the ghosts, but he felt them. After asilence of nearly a minute a voice came from the corner where thefamily ghost stood--a voice strong and full, but trembling slightlywith suppressed passion. And this voice told Eliphalet it was plainenough that he had not long been the head of the Duncans, and that hehad never properly considered the characteristics of his race if now hesupposed that one of his blood could draw his sword against a woman. Eliphalet said he had never suggested that the Duncan ghost shouldraise his hand against a woman, and all he wanted was that the Duncanghost should fight the other ghost. And then the voice told Eliphaletthat the other ghost was a woman. "

"What?" said Dear Jones, sitting up suddenly. "You don't mean to tellme that the ghost which haunted the house was a woman?"

"Those were the very words Eliphalet Duncan used, " said Uncle Larry;"but he did not need to wait for the answer. All at once he recalledthe traditions about the domiciliary ghost, and he knew that what thetitular ghost said was the fact. He had never thought of the sex of aspook, but there was no doubt whatever that the house ghost was awoman. No sooner was this firmly fixed in Eliphalet's mind than he sawhis way out of the difficulty. The ghosts must be married!--for thenthere would be no more interference, no more quarrelling, no moremanifestations and materializations, no more dark séances, with theirraps and bells and tambourines and banjos. At first the ghosts wouldnot hear of it. The voice in the corner declared that the Duncan wraithhad never thought of matrimony. But Eliphalet argued with them, andpleaded and persuaded and coaxed, and dwelt on the advantages ofmatrimony. He had to confess, of course, that he did not know how toget a clergyman to marry them; but the voice from the corner gravelytold him that there need be no difficulty in regard to that, as therewas no lack of spiritual chaplains. Then, for the first time, the houseghost spoke, a low, clear, gentle voice, and with a quaint, old-fashioned New England accent, which contrasted sharply with thebroad Scotch speech of the family ghost. She said that Eliphalet Duncanseemed to have forgotten that she was married. But this did not upsetEliphalet at all; he remembered the whole case clearly, and he told hershe was not a married ghost, but a widow, since her husband had beenhanged for murdering her. Then the Duncan ghost drew attention to thegreat disparity in their ages, saying that he was nearly four hundredand fifty years old, while she was barely two hundred. But Eliphalethad not talked to juries for nothing; he just buckled to, and coaxedthose ghosts into matrimony. Afterwards he came to the conclusion thatthey were willing to be coaxed, but at the time he thought he hadpretty hard work to convince them of the advantages of the plan. "

"Did he succeed? asked Baby Van Rensselaer, with a woman's interest inmatrimony. 

"He did, " said Uncle Larry. "He talked the wraith of the Duncans andthe spectre of the little old house at Salem into a matrimonialengagement. And from the time they were engaged he had no more troublewith them. They were rival ghosts no longer. They were married by theirspiritual chaplain the very same day that Eliphalet Duncan met KittySutton in front of the railing of Grace Church. The ghostly bride andbridegroom went away at once on their bridal tour, and Lord and LadyDuncan went down to the little old house at Salem to pass theirhoneymoon. "

Uncle Larry stopped. His tiny cigar was out again. The tale of therival ghosts was told. A solemn silence fell on the little party on thedeck of the ocean steamer, broken harshly by the hoarse roar of thefog-horn. 

(1883. )

SIXTEEN YEARS WITHOUT A BIRTHDAY

While the journalist deftly dealt with the lobster _à la_ Newburg, as it bubbled in the chafing-dish before him, the deep-toned bell ofthe church at the corner began to strike twelve. 

"Give me your plates, quick, " he said, "and we'll drink Jack's healthbefore it's to-morrow. "

The artist and the soldier and the professor of mathematics did as theywere told; and then they filled their glasses. 

The journalist, still standing, looked the soldier in the eye, andsaid: "Jack, this is the first time The Quartet has met since the oldschool-days, ten years ago and more. That this reunion should takeplace on your birthday doubles the pleasure of the occasion. We wishyou many happy returns of the day!"

Then the artist and the mathematician rose also, and they looked at thesoldier, and repeated together, "Many happy returns of the day!"

Whereupon they emptied their glasses and sat down, and the soldier roseto his feet. 

"Thank you, boys, " he began, "but I think you have already made meenjoy this one birthday three times over. It was yesterday that I wastwenty-six, and----"

"But I didn't meet you till last night, " interrupted the journalist;"and yesterday was Sunday; and I couldn't get a box for the theatre andfind the other half of The Quartet all on Sunday, could I?"

"I'm not complaining because yesterday was my real birthday, " thesoldier returned, "even if you have now protracted the celebration onto the third day--it's just struck midnight, you know. All I have tosay is, that since you have given me a triplicate birthday this time, any future anniversary will have to spread itself over four days if itwants to beat the record, that's all. " And he took his seat again. 

"Well, " said the artist, who had recently returned from Paris, "thatwon't happen till we see 'the week of the four Thursdays, ' as theFrench say. "

"And we sha'n't see that for a month of Sundays, I guess, " thejournalist rejoined. 

There was a moment of silence, and then the mathematician spoke for thefirst time. 

"A quadruplex birthday will be odd enough, I grant you, " he began, "butI don't think it quite as remarkable as the case of the lady who had nobirthday for sixteen years after she was born. "

The soldier and the artist and the journalist all looked at theprofessor of mathematics, and they all smiled; but his face remainedperfectly grave. 

"What's that you say?" asked the journalist. "Sixteen years without abirthday? Isn't that a very large order?"

"Did you know the lady herself?" inquired the soldier. 

"She was my grandmother, " the mathematician answered. "She had nobirthday for the first sixteen years of her life. "

"You mean that she did not celebrate her birthdays, I suppose, " theartist remarked. "That's nothing. I know lots of families where theydon't keep any anniversaries at all. "

"No, " persisted the mathematician. "I meant what I said, and preciselywhat I said. My grandmother did not keep her first fifteen birthdaysbecause she couldn't. She didn't have them to keep. They didn't happen. The first time she had a chance to celebrate her birthday was when shecompleted her sixteenth year--and I need not tell you that the familymade the most of the event. "

"This a real grandmother you are talking about, " asked the journalist, "and not a fairy godmother?"

"I could understand her going without a birthday till she was fouryears old, " the soldier suggested, "if she was born on the 29th ofFebruary. "

"That accounts for four years, " the mathematician admitted, "since mygrandmother _was_ born on the 29th of February. "

"In what year?" the soldier pursued. "In 1796?"

The professor of mathematics nodded. 

"Then that accounts for eight years, " said the soldier. 

"I don't see that at all, " exclaimed the artist. 

"It's easy enough, " the soldier explained. "The year 1800 isn't aleap-year, you know. We have a leap-year every four years, except thefinal year of a century--1700, 1800, 1900. "

"I didn't know that, " said the artist. 

"I'd forgotten it, " remarked the journalist. "But that gets us overonly half of the difficulty. He says his grandmother didn't have abirthday till she was sixteen. We can all see now how it was she wentwithout this annual luxury for the first eight years. But who robbedher of the birthdays she was entitled to when she was eight and twelve. That's what I want to know. "

"Born February 29, 1796, the Gregorian calendar deprives her of abirthday in 1800, " the soldier said. "But she ought to have had herfirst chance February 29, 1804. I don't see how----" and he paused indoubt. "Oh!" he cried, suddenly; "where was she living in 1804?"

"Most of the time in Russia, " the mathematician answered. "Although thefamily went to England for a few days early in the year. "

"What was the date when they left Russia?" asked the soldier, eagerly. 

"They sailed from St. Petersburg in a Russian bark on the 10th ofFebruary, " answered the professor of mathematics, "and owing tohead-winds they did not reach England for a fortnight. "

"Exactly, " cried the soldier. "That's what I thought. That accounts forit. "

"I don't see how, " the artist declared; "that is, unless you mean tosuggest that the Czar confiscated the little American girl's birthdayand sent it to Siberia. "

"It's plain enough, " the soldier returned. "We have the reformedcalendar, the Gregorian calendar, you know, and the Russians haven't. They keep the old Julian calendar, and it's now ten days behind ours. They celebrate Christmas three days after we have begun the new year. So if the little girl left St. Petersburg in a Russian ship on February10, 1804, by the old reckoning, and was on the water two weeks, shewould land in England after March 1st by the new calendar. "

"That is to say, " the artist inquired, "the little girl came into anEnglish port thinking she was going to have her birthday the next week, and when she set foot on shore she found out that her birthday waspassed the week before. Is that what you mean?"

"Yes, " answered the soldier; and the mathematician nodded also. 

"Then all I have to say, " the artist continued, "is that it was a meantrick to play on a child that had been looking forward to her firstbirthday for eight years--to knock her into the middle of next week inthat fashion!"

"And she had to go four years more for her next chance, " said thejournalist. "Then she would be twelve. But you said she hadn't abirthday till she was sixteen. How did she lose the one she wasentitled to in 1808? She wasn't on a Russian ship again, was she?"

"No, " the mathematician replied; "she was on an American ship thattime. "

"On the North Sea?" asked the artist. 

"No, " was the calm answer; "on the Pacific. "

"Sailing east or west?" cried the soldier. 

"Sailing east, " answered the professor of mathematics, smiling again. 

"Then I see how it might happen, " the soldier declared. 

"Well, I don't, " confessed the artist. 

The journalist said nothing, as it seemed unprofessional to admitignorance of anything. 

"It is simple enough, " the soldier explained. "You see, the world isrevolving about the sun steadily, and it is always high noon somewhereon the globe. The day rolls round unceasing, and it is not cut off intotwenty-four hours. We happen to have taken the day of Greenwich orParis as the day of civilization, and we say that it begins earlier inChina and later in California; but it is all the same day, we say. Therefore there has to be some place out in the middle of the PacificOcean where we lose or gain a day--if we are going east, we gain it; ifwe are going west, we lose it. Now I suppose this little girl of twelvewas on her way from some Asiatic port to some American port, and theystopped on their voyage at Honolulu. Perhaps they dropped anchor therejust before midnight on their February 28, 1808, thinking that themorrow would be the 29th; but when they were hailed from the shore, just after midnight, they found out that it was already March 1st. "

As the soldier finished, he looked at the mathematician forconfirmation of his explanation. 

Thus appealed to, the professor of mathematics smiled and nodded, andsaid: "You have hit it. That's just how it was that my grandmother lostthe birthday she ought to have had when she was twelve, and had to gofour years more without one. "

"And so she really didn't have a birthday till she was sixteen!" theartist observed. "Well, all I can say is, your great-grandfather tooktoo many chances. I don't think he gave the child a fair show. I hopehe made it up to her when she was sixteen--that's all!"

An hour later The Quartet separated. The soldier and the artist walkedaway together, but the journalist delayed the mathematician. 

"I say, " he began, "that yarn about your grandmother was veryinteresting. It is an extraordinary combination of coincidences. Ican see it in the Sunday paper with a scare-head--

 'SIXTEEN YEARS WITHOUT A BIRTHDAY!'

Do you mind my using it?"

"But it isn't true, " said the professor. 

"Not true?" echoed the journalist. 

"No, " replied the mathematician. "I made it up. I hadn't done my shareof the talking, and I didn't want you to think I had nothing to say formyself. "

"Not a single word of truth in it?" the journalist returned. 

"Not a single word, " was the mathematician's answer. 

"Well, what of that?" the journalist declared. "I don't want to file itin an affidavit--I want to print it in a newspaper. "

(1894. )

THE TWINKLING OF AN EYE

I

The telegraph messenger looked again at the address on the envelope inhis hand, and then scanned the house before which he was standing. Itwas an old-fashioned building of brick, two stories high, with an atticabove; and it stood in an old-fashioned part of lower New York, notfar from the East River. Over the wide archway there was a smallweather-worn sign, "Ramapo Steel and Iron Works;" and over the smallerdoor alongside was a still smaller sign, "Whittier, Wheatcroft & Co. "

When the messenger-boy had made out the name, he opened this smallerdoor and entered the long, narrow store. Its sides and walls werecovered with bins and racks containing sample steel rails and ironbeams, and coils of wire of various sizes. Down at the end of the storewere desks where several clerks and book-keepers were at work. 

As the messenger drew near, a red-headed office-boy blocked thepassage, saying, somewhat aggressively, "Well?"

"Got a telegram for Whittier, Wheatcroft & Co. , " the messengerexplained, pugnaciously thrusting himself forward. 

"In there!" the office-boy returned, jerking his thumb over hisshoulder towards the extreme end of the building, an extension, roofedwith glass and separated by a glass screen from the space where theclerks were at work. 

The messenger pushed open the glazed door of this private office, abell jingled over his head, and the three occupants of the room lookedup. 

"Whittier, Wheatcroft & Co. ?" said the messenger, interrogatively, holding out the yellow envelope. 

"Yes, " responded Mr. Whittier, a tall, handsome old gentleman, takingthe telegram. "You sign, Paul. "

The youngest of the three, looking like his father, took themessenger's book, and, glancing at an old-fashioned clock which stoodin the corner, he wrote the name of the firm and the hour of delivery. He was watching the messenger go out. His attention was suddenly calledto subjects of more importance by a sharp exclamation from his father. 

"Well, well, well, " said the elder Whittier with his eyes fixed on thetelegram he had just read. "This is very strange--very strange indeed!"

"What's strange?" asked the third occupant of the office, Mr. Wheatcroft, a short, stout, irascible-looking man with a shock ofgrizzly hair. 

For all answer Mr. Whittier handed to Mr. Wheatcroft the thin slip ofpaper. 

No sooner had the junior partner read the paper than he seemed angrierthan was usual with him. 

"Strange!" he cried. "I should think it was strange! confoundedlystrange--and deuced unpleasant, too. "

"May I see what it is that's so very strange?" asked Paul, picking upthe despatch. 

"Of course you may see it, " growled Mr. Wheatcroft; "and let us seewhat you can make of it. "

The young man read the message aloud: "Deal off. Can get quarter centbetter terms. Carkendale. "

Then he read it again to himself. At last he said, "I confess I don'tsee anything so very mysterious in that. We've lost a contract, Isuppose; but that must have happened lots of times before, hasn't it?"

"It's happened twice before, this fall, " returned Mr. Wheatcroft, fiercely, "after our bid had been practically accepted and just beforethe signing of the final contract!"

"Let me explain, Wheatcroft, " interrupted the elder Whittier, gently. "You must not expect my son to understand the ins and outs of thisbusiness as we do. Besides, he has only been in the office ten days. "

"I don't expect him to understand, " growled Wheatcroft. "How could he?I don't understand it myself!"

"Close that door, Paul, " said Mr. Whittier. "I don't want any of theclerks to know what we are talking about. Here are the facts in thecase, and I think you will admit that they are certainly curious: Twicethis fall, and now a third time, we have been the lowest bidders forimportant orders, and yet, just before our bid was formally accepted, somebody has cut under us by a fraction of a cent and got the job. First we thought we were going to get the building of the BaratariaCentral's bridge over the Little Makintosh River, but in the end it wasthe Tuxedo Steel Company that got the contract. Then there was theorder for the fifty thousand miles of wire for the Trans-continentalTelegraph; we made an extraordinarily low estimate on that. We wantedthe contract, and we threw off, not only our profit, but evenallowances for office expenses; and yet five minutes before the lastbid had to be in, the Tuxedo Company put in an offer only a hundred andtwenty-five dollars less than ours. Now comes the telegram to-day. TheMethuselah Life Insurance Company is going to put up a big building; wewere asked to estimate on the steel framework. We wanted thatwork--times are hard and there is little doing, as you know, and wemust get work for our men if we can. We meant to have this contract ifwe could. We offered to do it at what was really actual cost ofmanufacture--without profit, first of all, and then without any chargeat all for office expenses, for interest on capital, for depreciationof plant. The vice-president of the Methuselah, the one who attends toall their real estate, is Mr. Carkendale. He told me yesterday that ourbid was very low, and that we were certain to get the contract. And nowhe sends me this. " Mr. Whittier picked up the telegram again. 

"But if we were going to do it at actual cost of manufacture, " said theyoung man, "and somebody else underbids us, isn't somebody else losingmoney on the job?"

"That's no sort of satisfaction to our men, " retorted Mr. Wheatcroft, cooking himself before the fire. "Somebody else--confound him!--will beable to keep his men together and to give them the wages we want forour men. Do you think somebody else is the Tuxedo Company again?"

"What of it?" asked Mr. Whittier. "Surely you don't suppose----"

"Yes, I do, " interrupted Mr. Wheatcroft, swiftly. "I do, indeed. Ihaven't been in this business thirty years for nothing. I know howhungry we get at all times for a big, fat contract; and I know we wouldany of us give a hundred dollars to the man who could tell us what ourchief rival has bid. It would be the cheapest purchase of the year, too. "

"Come, come, Wheatcroft, " said the elder Whittier; "you know we'venever done anything of that sort yet, and I think you and I are too oldto be tempted now. "

"Nothing of the sort, " snorted the fiery little man; "I'm open totemptation this very moment. If I could know what the Tuxedo people aregoing to bid on the new steel rails of the Springfield and Athens, I'dgive a thousand dollars. "

"If I understand you, Mr. Wheatcroft, " Paul Whittier asked, "you aresuggesting that there has been something done that is not fair?"

"That's just what I mean, " Mr. Wheatcroft declared, vehemently. 

"Do you mean to say that the Tuxedo people have somehow been madeacquainted with our bids?" asked the young man. 

"That's what I'm thinking now, " was the sharp answer. "I can't think ofanything else. For two months we haven't been successful in getting asingle one of the big contracts. We've had our share of the littlethings, of course, but they don't amount to much. The big things thatwe really wanted have slipped through our fingers. We've lost them bythe skin of our teeth every time. That isn't accident, is it? Of coursenot! Then there's only one explanation--there's a leak in this officesomewhere. "

"You don't suspect any of the clerks, do you, Mr. Wheatcroft?" askedthe elder Whittier, sadly. 

"I don't suspect anybody in particular, " returned the junior partner, brushing his hair up the wrong way; "and I suspect everybody ingeneral. I haven't an idea who it is, but it's somebody! It must besomebody--and if it is somebody, I'll do my best to get that somebodyinto the clutches of the law. "

"Who makes up the bids on these important contracts?" asked Paul. 

"Wheatcroft and I, " answered his father. "The specifications areforwarded to the works, and the engineers make their estimates of theactual cost of labor and material. These estimates are sent to us here, and we add whatever we think best for interest, and for expenses, forwear and tear, and for profit. "

"Who writes the letters making the offer--the one with actual figures Imean?" the son continued. 

"I do, " the elder Whittier explained; "I have always done it. "

"You don't dictate them to a typewriter?" Paul pursued. 

"Certainly not, " the father responded; "I write them with my own hand, and, what's more, I take the press-copy myself, and there is a specialletter-book for such things. This letter-book is always kept in thesafe in this office; in fact, I can say that this particularletter-book never leaves my hands except to go into that safe. And, asyou know, nobody has access to that safe except Wheatcroft and me. "

"And the Major, " corrected the junior partner. 

"No, " Mr. Whittier explained, "Van Zandt has no need to go there now. "

"But he used to, " Mr. Wheatcroft persisted. 

"He did once, " the senior partner returned; "but when we bought thosenew safes outside there in the main office, there was no longer anyneed for the chief book-keeper to go to this smaller safe; and so, lastmonth--it was while you were away, Wheatcroft--Van Zandt came in hereone afternoon, and said that, as he never had occasion to go to thissafe, he would rather not have the responsibility of knowing thecombination. I told him we had perfect confidence in him. "

"I should think so!" broke in the explosive Wheatcroft. "The Major hasbeen with us for thirty years now. I'd suspect myself of petty larcenyas soon as him. "

"As I said, " continued the elder Whittier; "I told him that we trustedhim perfectly, of course. But he urged me, and to please him I changedthe combination of this safe that afternoon. You will remember, Wheatcroft, that I gave you the new word the day you came back. "

"Yes, I remember, " said Mr. Wheatcroft. "But I don't see why the Majordid not want to know how to open that safe. Perhaps he is beginning tofeel his years now. He must be sixty, the Major; and I've been thinkingfor some time that he looks worn. "

"I noticed the change in him, " Paul remarked, "the first day I cameinto the office. He seemed ten years older than he was last winter. "

"Perhaps his wound troubles him again, " suggested Mr. Whittier. "Whatever the reason, it is at his own request that he is now ignorantof the combination. No one knows that but Wheatcroft and I. The lettersthemselves I wrote myself, and copied myself, and put them myself inthe envelopes I directed myself. I don't recall mailing them myself, but I may have done that too. So you see that there can't be anyfoundation for your belief, Wheatcroft, that somebody had access to ourbids. "

"I can't believe anything else!" cried Wheatcroft, impulsively. "Idon't know how it was done--I'm not a detective--but it was donesomehow. And if it was done, it was done by somebody! And what I'd liketo do is to catch that somebody in the act--that's all! I'd make it hotfor him!"

"You would like to have him out at the Ramapo Works, " said Paul, smiling at the little man's violence, "and put him under thesteam-hammer?"

"Yes, I would, " responded Mr. Wheatcroft. "I would indeed! Putting aman under a steam-hammer may seem a cruel punishment, but I think itwould cure the fellow of any taste for prying into our business in thefuture. "

"I think it would get him out of the habit of living, " the elderWhittier said, as the tall clock in the corner struck one. "But don'tlet's be so brutal. Let's go to lunch and talk the matter over quietly. I don't agree with your suspicion, Wheatcroft, but there may besomething in it. "

Five minutes later Mr. Whittier, Mr. Wheatcroft, and the only son ofthe senior partner left the glass-framed private office, and, walkingleisurely through the long store, passed into the street. 

They did not notice that the old book-keeper, Major Van Zandt, whosehigh desk was so placed that he could overlook the private office, hadbeen watching them ever since the messenger had delivered the despatch. He could not read the telegram, he could not hear the comments, but hecould see every movement and every gesture and every expression. Hegazed from one speaker to the other almost as though he were able tofollow the course of the discussion; and when the three members of thefirm walked past his desk, he found himself staring at them as if in avain effort to read on their faces the secret of the course of actionthey had resolved upon. 

II

After luncheon, as it happened, both the senior and the junior partnerof Whittier, Wheatcroft & Co. Had to attend meetings, and they wenttheir several ways, leaving Paul to return to the office alone. 

When he came opposite to the house which bore the weather-beaten signof the firm he stood still for a moment, and looked across with mingledpride and affection. The building was old-fashioned--so old-fashioned, indeed, that only a long-established firm could afford to occupy it. Itwas Paul Whittier's great-grandfather who had founded the Ramapo Works. There had been cast the cannon for many of the ships of the littleAmerican navy that gave so good an account of itself in the war of1812. Again, in 1848, had the house of Whittier, Wheatcroft & Co. --thepresent Mr. Wheatcroft's father having been taken into partnership byPaul's grandfather--been able to be of service to the government of theUnited States. All through the four years that followed the firing onthe flag in 1861 the Ramapo Works had been run day and night. Whenpeace came at last and the people had leisure to expand, a large shareof the rails needed by the new overland roads which were to bind theEast and West together in iron bonds had been rolled by Whittier, Wheatcroft & Co. Of late years, as Paul knew, the old firm seemed tohave lost some of its early energy, and, having young and vigorouscompetitors, it had barely held its own. 

That the Ramapo Works should once more take the lead was Paul Whittier'ssolemn purpose, and to this end he had been carefully trained. He wasnow a young man of twenty-five, a tall, handsome fellow, with a fullmustache over his firm mouth, and with clear, quick eyes below hiscurly brown hair. He had spent four years in college, carrying offhonors in mathematics, was popular with his classmates, who made himclass poet, and in his senior year he was elected president of thecollege photographic society. He had gone to a technological institute, where he had made himself master of the theory and practice ofmetallurgy. After a year of travel in Europe, where he had investigatedall the important steel and iron works he could get into, he had comehome to take a desk in the office. 

It was only for a moment that he stood on the sidewalk opposite, looking at the old building. Then he threw away his cigarette and wentover. Instead of entering the long store he walked down the alleywayleft open for the heavy wagons. When he came opposite to the privateoffice in the rear of the store he examined the doors and the windowscarefully, to see if he could detect any means of ingress other thanthose open to everybody. 

There was no door from the private office into the alleyway or into theyard. There was a door from the alleyway into the store, opposite tothe desks of the clerks, and within a few feet of the door leading fromthe store into the private office. 

Paul passed through this entrance, and found himself face to face withthe old book-keeper, Van Zandt, who was following all his movementswith a questioning gaze. 

"Good-afternoon, Major, " said Paul, pleasantly. "Have you been out foryour lunch yet?"

"I always get my dinner at noon, " the book-keeper gruffly answered, returning to his books. 

As Paul walked on he could not but think that the Major's manner wasungracious. And the young man remembered how cheerful the old man hadbeen, and how courteous always, when the son of the senior partner, while still a school-boy, used to come to the office on Saturdays. 

Paul had always delighted in the office, and the store, and the yardbehind, and he had spent many a holiday there, and Major Van Zandt hadalways been glad to see him, and had willingly answered his myriadquestions. 

Paul wondered why the book-keeper's manner was now so different. VanZandt was older, but he was not so very old, not more than sixty, andold age in itself is not sufficient to make a man surly and to sour histemper. That the Major had had trouble in his family was well known. His wife had been flighty and foolish, and it was believed that she hadrun away from him; and his only son was a wild lad, who had beenemployed by Whittier, Wheatcroft & Co. , out of regard for the father, and who had disgraced himself beyond forgiveness. Paul recalled vaguelythat the young fellow had gone West somewhere, and had been shot in amining-camp after a drunken brawl in a gambling-house. 

As Paul entered the private office he found the porter there, puttingcoal on the fire. 

Stepping back to close the glass door behind him, that they might bealone, he said:

"Mike, who shuts up the office at night?"

"Sure I do, Mr. Paul, " was the prompt reply. 

"And you open it in the morning?" the young man asked. 

"I do that!" Mike responded. 

"Do you see that these windows are always fastened on the inside?" wasthe next query. 

"Yes, Mr. Paul, " the porter replied. 

"Well, " and the inquirer hesitated briefly before putting thisquestion, "have you found any of these windows unfastened any morninglately when you came here?"

"And how did you know that?" Mike returned, in surprise. 

"What morning was it?" asked Paul, pushing his advantage. 

"It was last Monday mornin', Mr. Paul, " the porter explained, "an' howit was I dunno, for I had every wan of them windows tight on Saturdaynight, an' Monday mornin' one of them was unfastened whin I wint toopen it to let a bit of air into the office here. "

"You sleep here always, don't you?" Paul proceeded. 

"I've slept here ivery night for three years now come Thanksgivin', "Mike replied. "I've the whole top of the house to myself. It's anilligant apartment I have there, Mr. Paul. "

"Who was here Sunday?" was the next question. 

"Sure nobody was here at all, " responded the porter, "barrin' they camewhile I took me a bit of a walk after dinner. An' they couldn't havegot in anyway, for I lock up always, and I wasn't gone for an hour, ormaybe an hour an' a half. "

"I hope you will be very careful hereafter, " said Paul. 

"I will that, " promised Mike, "an' I am careful now always. "

The porter took up the coal-scuttle, and then he turned to Paul. 

"How was it ye knew that the winder was not fastened that mornin'?" heasked. 

"How did I know?" repeated the young man. "Oh, a little bird told me. "

When Mike had left the office Paul took a chair before the fire andlighted a cigar. For half an hour he sat silently thinking. 

He came to the conclusion that Mr. Wheatcroft was right in hissuspicion. Whittier, Wheatcroft & Co. Had lost important contractsbecause of underbidding, due to knowledge surreptitiously obtained. Hebelieved that some one had got into the store on Sunday while Mike wastaking a walk, and that this somebody had somehow opened the safe. There never was any money in that private safe; it was intended tocontain only important papers. It did contain the letter-book of thefirm's bids, and this is what was wanted by the man who had got intothe office, and who had let himself in by the window, leaving itunfastened behind him. How this man had got in, and why he did not getout by the way he entered, how he came to be able to open the privatesafe, the combination of which was known only to the twopartners--these were questions for which Paul Whittier had no answer. 

What grieved him when he had come to the conclusion was that thethief--for such the house-breaker was in reality--was probably one ofthe men in the employ of the firm. It seemed to him almost certain thatthe man who had broken in knew all the ins and outs of the office. Andhow could this knowledge have been obtained except by an employee? Paulwas well acquainted with the clerks in the outer office. There werefive of them, including the old book-keeper, and although none of themhad been with the firm as long as the Major, no one of them had beenthere less than ten years. Paul did not know which one to suspect. There was, in fact, no reason to suspect any particular clerk. And yetthat one of the five men in the main office on the other side of theglass partition within twenty feet of him--that one of those was theguilty man Paul did not doubt. 

And therefore it seemed to him not so important to prevent the thingfrom happening again as it was to catch the man who had done it. Thethief once caught, it would be easy thereafter for the firm to takeunusual precautions. But the first thing to do was to catch the thief. He had come and gone, and left no trail. But he must have visited theoffice at least three times in the past few weeks, since the firm hadlost three important contracts. Probably he had been there oftener thanthree times. Certainly he would come again. Sooner or later he wouldcome once too often. All that needed to be done was to set a trap forhim. 

While Paul was sitting quietly in the private office, smoking a cigarwith all his mental faculties at their highest tension, the clock inthe corner suddenly struck three. 

Paul swiftly swung around in his chair and looked at it. An oldeight-day clock it was, which not only told the time of the day, butpretended, also, to supply miscellaneous astronomical information. Itstood by itself in the corner. 

For a moment after it struck Paul stared at it with a fixed gaze, asthough he did not see what he was looking at. Then a light came intohis eyes and a smile flitted across his lips. 

He turned around slowly and measured with his eye the proportions ofthe room, the distance between the desks and the safe and the clock. Heglanced up at the sloping glass roof above him. Then he smiled again, and again sat silent for a minute. He rose to his feet and stood withhis back to the fire. Almost in front of him was the clock in thecorner. 

He took out his watch and compared its time with that of the clock. Apparently he found that the clock was too fast, for he walked over toit and turned the minute-hand back. It seemed that this was a moredifficult feat than he supposed or that he went about it carelessly, for the minute-hand broke off short in his fingers. A spasmodicmovement of his, as the thin metal snapped, pulled the chain off itscylinder, and the weight fell with a crash. 

All the clerks looked up; and the red-headed office-boy was prompt inanswer to the bell Paul rang a moment after. 

"Bobby, " said the young man to the boy, as he took his hat andovercoat, "I've just broken the clock. I know a shop where they make aspecialty of repairing timepieces like that. I'm going to tell them tosend for it at once. Give it to the man who will come this afternoonwith my card. Do you understand?"

"Cert, " the boy answered. "If he 'ain't got your card, he don't get theclock. "

"That's what I mean, " Paul responded, as he left the office. 

Before he reached the door he met Mr. Wheatcroft. 

"Paul, " cried the junior partner, explosively, "I've been thinkingabout that--about that--you know what I mean! And I have decided thatwe had better put a detective on this thing at once!"

"Yes, " said Paul, "that's a good idea. In fact, I had just come to thesame conclusion. I----"

Then he checked himself. He had turned round slightly to speak to Mr. Wheatcroft; he saw that Major Van Zandt was standing within ten feet ofthem, and he noticed that the old book-keeper's face was strangelypale. 

III

During the next week the office of Whittier, Wheatcroft & Co. Had itsusual aspect of prosperous placidity. The routine work was done in theroutine way; the porter opened the office every morning, and theoffice-boy arrived a few minutes after it was opened; the clerks cameat nine, and a little later the partners were to be seen in the inneroffice reading the morning's correspondence. 

The Whittiers, father and son, had had a discussion with Mr. Wheatcroftas to the most advisable course to adopt to prevent the future leakageof the trade secrets of the firm. The senior partner had succeeded indissuading the junior partner from the employment of detectives. 

"Not yet, " he said, "not yet. These clerks have all served usfaithfully for years, and I don't want to submit them to the indignityof being shadowed--that's what they call it, isn't it?--of beingshadowed by some cheap hireling who may try to distort the mostinnocent acts into evidence of guilt, so that he can show us how smarthe is. "

"But this sort of thing can't go on forever, " ejaculated Mr. Wheatcroft. "If we are to be underbid on every contract worth having, we might as well go out of the business!"

"That's true, of course, " Mr. Whittier admitted; "but we are not surethat we are being underbid unfairly. "

"The Tuxedo Company have taken away three contracts from us in the pasttwo months, " cried the junior partner; "we can be sure of that, can'twe?"

"We have lost three contracts, of course, " returned Mr. Whittier, inhis most conciliatory manner, "and the Tuxedo people have capturedthem. But that may be only a coincidence, after all. "

"It is a pretty expensive coincidence for us, " snorted Mr. Wheatcroft. 

"But because we have lost money, " the senior partner rejoined gently, laying his hand on Mr. Wheatcroft's arm, "that's no reason why weshould also lose our heads. It is no reason why we should depart fromour old custom of treating every man fairly. If there is any one in ouremploy here who is selling us, why, if we give him rope enough he willhang himself, sooner or later. "

"And before he suspends himself that way, " cried Mr. Wheatcroft, "wemay be forced to suspend ourselves. "

"Come, come, Wheatcroft, " said the senior partner, "I think we canafford to stand the loss a little longer. What we can't afford to do isto lose our self-respect by doing something irreparable. It may be thatwe shall have to employ detectives, but I don't think the time has comeyet. "

"Very well, " the junior partner declared, yielding an unwillingconsent. "I don't insist on it. I still think it would be best not towaste any more time--but I don't insist. What will happen is that weshall lose the rolling of those steel rails for the Springfield andAthens road--that's all. "

Paul Whittier had taken no part in this discussion. He agreed with hisfather, and saw he had no need to urge any further argument. 

Presently he asked when they intended to put in the bid for the rails. His father then explained that they were expecting a special estimatefrom the engineers at the Ramapo Works, and that it probably would beSaturday before this could be discussed by the partners and the exactfigures of the proposed contract determined. 

"And if we don't want to lose that contract for sure, " insisted Mr. Wheatcroft, "I think we had better change the combination on thatsafe. "

"May I suggest, " said Paul, "that it seems to me to be better to leavethe combination as it is. What we want to do is not to get thisSpringfield and Athens contract so much as to find out whether some onereally is getting at the letter-book. Therefore we mustn't make it anyharder for the some one to get at the letter-book. "

"Oh, very well, " Mr. Wheatcroft assented, a little ungraciously, "haveit your own way. But I want you to understand now that I think you areonly postponing the inevitable!"

And with that the subject was dropped. For several days the three menwho were together for hours in the office of the Ramapo Iron and SteelWorks refrained from any discussion of the question which was mostprominent in their minds. 

It was on Wednesday that the tall clock that Paul Whittier had brokenreturned from the repairer's. Paul himself helped the men to set it inits old place in the corner of the office, facing the safe, whichoccupied the corner diagonally opposite. 

It so chanced that Paul came down late on Thursday morning, and perhapsthis was the reason that a pressure of delayed work kept him in theoffice that evening long after every one else. The clerks had all gone, even Major Van Zandt, always the last to leave--and the porter had comein twice before the son of the senior partner was ready to go for thenight. The gas was lighted here and there in the long, narrow, desertedstore, as Paul walked through it from the office to the street. Opposite, the swift twilight of a New York November had already settleddown on the city. 

"Can't I carry yer bag for ye, Mister Paul?" asked the porter, who wasshowing him out. 

"No, thank you, Mike, " was the young man's answer. "That bag has verylittle in it. And, besides, I haven't got to carry it far. "

The next morning Paul was the first of the three to arrive. The clerkswere in their places already, but neither the senior nor the juniorpartner had yet come. The porter happened to be standing under thewagon archway as Paul Whittier was about to enter the store. 

The young man saw the porter, and a mischievous smile hovered about thecorners of his mouth. 

"Mike, " he said, pausing on the door-step, "do you think you ought tosmoke while you are cleaning out our office in the morning?"

"Sure, I haven't had me pipe in me mouth this mornin' at all, " theporter answered, taken by surprise. 

"But yesterday morning?" Paul pursued. 

"Yesterday mornin'!" Mike echoed, not a little puzzled. 

"Yesterday morning at ten minutes before eight you were in the privateoffice smoking a pipe. "

"But how did you see me, Mr. Paul?" cried Mike, in amaze. "Ye was latein comin' down yesterday, wasn't ye?"

Paul smiled pleasantly. 

"A little bird told me, " he said. 

"If I had the bird I'd ring his neck for tellin' tales, " the porterremarked. 

"I don't mind your smoking, Mike, " the young man went on, "that's yourown affair; but I'd rather you didn't smoke a pipe while you aretidying up the private office. "

"Well, Mister Paul, I won't do it again, " the porter promised. 

"And I wouldn't encourage Bob to smoke, either, " Paul continued. 

"I encourage him?" inquired Mike. 

"Yes, " Paul explained; "yesterday morning you let him light hiscigarette from your pipe--didn't you?"

"Were you peekin' in thro' the winder, Mister Paul?" the porter asked, eagerly. "Ye saw me, an' I never saw ye at all. "

"No, " the young man answered, "I can't say that I saw you myself. Alittle bird told me. "

And with that he left the wondering porter and entered the store. Justinside the door was the office-boy, who hastily hid an unlightedcigarette as he caught sight of the senior partner's son. 

When Paul saw the red-headed boy he smiled again, mischievously. 

"Bob, " he began, "when you want to see who can stand on his head thelongest, you or Danny the boot-black, don't you think you could choosea better place than the private office?"

The office-boy was quite as much taken by surprise as the porter hadbeen, but he was younger and quicker-witted. 

"And when did I have Danny in the office?" he asked, defiantly. 

"Yesterday morning, " Paul answered, still smiling, "a little beforehalf-past eight. "

"Yesterday mornin'?" repeated Bob, as though trying hard to recall allthe events of the day before. "Maybe Danny did come in for a minute. "

"He played leap-frog with you all the way into the private office, "Paul went on, while Bob looked at him with increasing wonder. 

"How did you know?" the office-boy asked, frankly. "Were you lookin'through the window?"

"How do I know that you and Danny stood on your heads in the corner ofthe office with your heels against the safe, scratching off the paint?Next time I'd try the yard, if I were you. Sports of that sort are morefun in the open air. "

And with that parting shot Paul went on his way to his own desk, leaving the office-boy greatly puzzled. 

Later in the day Bob and Mike exchanged confidences, and neither wasready with an explanation. 

"At school, " Bob declared, "we used to think teacher had eyes in theback of her head. She was everlastingly catchin' me when I did thingsbehind her back. But Mr. Paul beats that, for he see me doin' thingswhen he wasn't here. "

"Mister Paul wasn't here, for sure, yesterday mornin', " Mike asserted;"I'd take me oath o' that. An' if he wasn't here, how could he see megivin' ye a light from me pipe? Answer me that! He says it's a littlebird told him; but that's not it, I'm thinkin'. Not but that they haveclocks with birds into 'em, that come out and tell the time o' day, 'Cuckoo! Cuckoo! Cuckoo!' An' if that big clock he broke last week hada bird in it that could tell time that way, I'd break the thingquick--so I would. "

"It ain't no bird, " said Bob. "You can bet your life on that. No birdscan't tell him nothin' no more'n you can catch 'em by putting salt ontheir tails. I know what it is Mr. Paul does--least, I know how he doesit. It's second-sight, that's what it is! I see a man onct at thetheayter, an' he----"

But perhaps it is not necessary to set down here the office-boy'srecollection of the trick of an ingenious magician. 

About half an hour after Paul had arrived at the office Mr. Wheatcroftappeared. The junior partner hesitated in the doorway for a second, andthen entered. 

Paul was watching him, and the same mischievous smile flashed over theface of the young man. 

"You need not be alarmed to-day, Mr. Wheatcroft, " he said. "There is nofascinating female waiting for you this morning. "

"Confound the woman!" ejaculated Mr. Wheatcroft, testily. "I couldn'tget rid of her. "

"But you subscribed for the book at last, " asserted Paul, "and she wentaway happy. "

"I believe I did agree to take one copy of the work she showed me, "admitted Mr. Wheatcroft, a little sheepishly. Then he looked upsuddenly. "Why, bless my soul, " he cried, "that was yesterdaymorning----"

"Allowing for differences of clocks, " Paul returned, "it was about tenminutes to ten yesterday morning. "

"Then how do you come to know anything about it? I should like to betold that!" the junior partner inquired. "You did not get down tillnearly twelve. "

"I had an eye on you, " Paul answered, as the smile again flitted acrosshis face. 

"But I thought you were detained all the morning by a sick friend, "insisted Mr. Wheatcroft. 

"So I was, " Paul responded. "And if you won't believe I had an eye onyou, all I can say then is that a little bird told me. "

"Stuff and nonsense!" cried Mr. Wheatcroft. "Your little bird has twolegs, hasn't it?"

"Most birds have, " laughed Paul. 

"I mean two legs in a pair of trousers, " explained the junior partner, rumpling his grizzled hair with an impatient gesture. 

"You see how uncomfortable it is to be shadowed, " said Paul, turningthe topic as his father entered the office. 

That Saturday afternoon Mr. Whittier and Mr. Wheatcroft agreed on thebid to be made on the steel rails needed by the Springfield and Athensroad. While the elder Mr. Whittier wrote the letter to the railroadwith his own hand, his son manoeuvred the junior partner into theouter office, where all the clerks happened to be at work, includingthe old book-keeper. Then Paul managed his conversation with Mr. Wheatcroft so that any one of the five employees who chose to listen tothe apparently careless talk should know that the firm had just made abid on another important contract. Paul also spoke as though his fatherand himself would probably go out of town that Saturday night, toremain away till Monday morning. 

And just before the store was closed for the night, Paul Whittier woundup the eight-day clock that stood in the corner opposite the privatesafe. 

IV

Although the Whittiers, father and son, spent Sunday out of town, Paulmade an excuse to the friends whom they were visiting, and returned tothe city by a midnight train. Thus he was enabled to present himself atthe office of the Ramapo Works very early on Monday morning. 

It was so early, indeed, that no one of the employees had arrived whenthe son of the senior partner, bag in hand, pushed open the street doorand entered the long store, at the far end of which the porter wasstill tidying up for the day's work. 

"An' is that you, Mister Paul?" Mike asked in surprise, as he came outof the private office to see who the early visitor might be. "An' whatbrought ye out o' your bed before breakfast like this?"

"I always get out of bed before breakfast, " Paul replied. "Don't you?"

"Would I get up if I hadn't got to get up to get my livin'?" the porterreplied. 

Paul entered the office, followed by Mike, still wondering why theyoung man was there at that hour. 

After a swift glance round the office Paul put down his bag on thetable and turned suddenly to the porter with a question. 

"When does Bob get down here?"

Mike looked at the clock in the corner before answering. 

"It'll be ten minutes, " he said, "or maybe twenty, before the boy doesbe here to-day, seein' it's Monday mornin', an' he'll be tired with notworkin' of Sunday. "

"Ten minutes, " repeated Paul, slowly. After a moment's thought hecontinued, "Then I'll have to ask you to go out for me, Mike. "

"I can go anywhere ye want, Mister Paul, " the porter responded. 

"I want you to go----" began Paul, "I want you to go----" and hehesitated, as though he was not quite sure what it was he wished theporter to do, "I want you to go to the office of the _Gotham Gazette_and get me two copies of yesterday's paper. Do you understand?"

"Maybe they won't be open so early in the mornin', " said the Irishman. 

"That's no matter, " said Paul, hastily correcting himself; "I mean thatI want you to go there now and get the papers if you can. Of course, ifthe office isn't open I shall have to send again later. "

"I'll be goin' now, Mister Paul, " and Mike took his hat from a chairand started off at once. 

Paul walked through the store with the porter. When Mike had gone theyoung man locked the front door and returned at once to the privateoffice in the rear. He shut himself in, and lowered all the shades sothat whatever he might do inside could not be seen by any one on theoutside. 

Whatever it was he wished to do he was able to do it swiftly, for inless than a minute after he had closed the door of the office he openedit again and came out into the main store with his bag in his hand. Hewalked leisurely to the front of the store, arriving just in time tounlock the door as the office-boy came around the corner smoking acigarette. 

When Bob, still puffing steadily, was about to open the door and enterthe store he looked up and discovered that Paul was gazing at him. Theboy pinched the cigarette out of his mouth and dropped it outside, andthen came in, his eyes expressing his surprise at the presence of thesenior partner's son down-town at that early hour in the morning. 

Paul greeted the boy pleasantly, but Bob got away from him as soon aspossible. Ever since the young man had told what had gone on in theoffice when Bob was its only occupant, the office-boy was a littleafraid of the young man, as though somewhat mysterious, not to sayuncanny. 

Paul thought it best to wait for the porter's return, and he stoodoutside under the archway for five minutes, smoking a cigar, with hisbag at his feet. 

When Mike came back with the two copies of the Sunday newspaper he hadbeen sent to get, Paul gave him the money for them and an extra quarterfor himself. Then the young man picked up his bag again. 

"When my father comes down, Mike, " he said, "tell him I may be a littlelate in getting back this morning. "

"An' are ye goin' away now, Mister Paul?" the porter asked. "What goodwas it that ye got out o' bed before breakfast and come down here soearly in the mornin'?"

Paul laughed a little. "I had a reason for coming here this morning, "he answered, briefly; and with that he walked away, his bag in one handand the two bulky, gaudy papers in the other. 

Mike watched him turn the corner, and then went into the store again, where Bob greeted him promptly with the query why the old man's son hadbeen getting up by the bright light. 

"If I was the boss, or the boss's son either, " said Bob, "I wouldn'tget up till I was good and ready. I'd have my breakfast in bed if I hada mind to, an' my dinner too, an' my supper. An' I wouldn't do no work, an' I'd go to the theayter every night, and twice on Saturdays. "

"I dunno why Mister Paul was down, " Mike explained. "All he wanted wastwo o' thim Sunday papers with pictures in thim. What did he want twoo' thim for I dunno. There's reading enough in one o' thim to last me amonth of Sundays. "

It may be surmised that Mike would have been still more in the dark asto Paul Whittier's reasons for coming down-town so early that Mondaymorning if he could have seen the young man throw the copies of the_Gotham Gazette_ into the first ash-cart he passed after he was out ofrange of the porter's vision. 

Paul was not the only member of Whittier, Wheatcroft & Co. To arrive atthe office early that morning. Mr. Wheatcroft was usually punctual, taking his seat at his desk just as the clock struck half-past nine. Onthis Monday morning he entered the store a little before nine. 

As he walked back to the office he looked over at the desks of theclerks as though he was seeking some one. 

At the door of the office he met Bob. 

"Hasn't the Major come down yet?" he asked, shortly. 

"No, sir, " the boy answered. "He don't never get here till nine. "

"H'm, " grunted the junior partner. "When he does come, tell him I wantto see him at once--at once, do you understand?"

"I ain't deaf and dumb and blind, " Bob responded. "I'll steer him intoyou as soon as ever he shows up. "

But, for a wonder, the old book-keeper was late that morning. Ordinarily he was a model of exactitude. Yet the clock struck nine, andhalf-past, and ten before he appeared in the store. 

Before he changed his coat Bob was at his side. 

"Mr. Wheatcroft he wants to see you now in a hurry, " said the boy. 

Major Van Zandt paled swiftly, and steadied himself by a grasp of therailing. 

"Does Mr. Wheatcroft wish to see me?" he asked, faintly. 

"You bet he does, " the boy answered, "an' in a hurry, too. He camebright an' early this morning a-purpose to see you, an' he's beena-waiting for two hours. An' I guess he's got his mad up now. "

When the old book-keeper with his blanched face and his faltering stepentered the private office Mr. Wheatcroft wheeled around in his chair. 

"Oh, it's you, is it?" he cried. "At last!"

"I regret that I was late this morning, Mr. Wheatcroft, " Van Zandtbegan. 

"That's no matter, " said the employer;--"at least, I want to talk aboutsomething else. "

"About something else?" echoed the old man, feebly. 

"Yes, " responded Mr. Wheatcroft. "Shut the door behind you, please, sothat that red-headed cub out there can't hear what I am going to say, and take a chair. Yes; there is something else I've got to say to you, and I want you to be frank with me. "

Whatever it was that Mr. Wheatcroft had to say to Major Van Zandt ithad to be said under the eyes of the clerks on the other side of theglass partition. And it took a long time saying, for it was evident toany observer of the two men as they sat in the private office that Mr. Wheatcroft was trying to force an explanation of some kind from the oldbook-keeper, and that the Major was resisting his employer's entreatiesas best he could. Apparently the matter under discussion was of animportance so grave as to make Mr. Wheatcroft resolutely retain hisself-control; and not once did he let his voice break out explosively, as was his custom. 

Major Van Zandt was still closeted with Wheatcroft when Mr. Whittierarrived. The senior partner stopped near the street door to speak to aclerk, and he was joined almost immediately by his son. 

"Well, Paul, " said the father, "have I got down here before you afterall, and in spite of your running away last night?"

"No, " the son responded, "I was the first to arrive thismorning--luckily. "

"Luckily?" echoed his father. "I suppose that means that you have beenable to accomplish your purpose--whatever it was. You didn't tell me, you know. "

"I'm ready to tell you now, father, " said Paul, "since I havesucceeded. "

Walking down the store together, they came to the private office. 

As the old book-keeper saw them he started up, and made as if to leavethe office. 

"Keep your seat, Major, " cried Mr. Wheatcroft, sternly, but notunkindly. "Keep your seat, please. "

Then he turned to Mr. Whittier. "I have something to tell you both, "he said, "and I want the Major here while I tell you. Paul, may Itrouble you to see that the door is closed so that we are out ofhearing?"

"Certainly, " Paul responded, as he closed the door. 

"Well, Wheatcroft, " Mr. Whittier said, "what is all this mystery ofyours now?"

The junior partner swung around in his chair and faced Mr. Whittier. 

"My mystery?" he cried. "It's the mystery that puzzled us all, and I'vesolved it. "

"What do you mean?" asked the senior partner. 

"What I mean is, that somebody has been opening that safe there in thecorner, and reading our private letter-book, and finding out what wewere bidding on important contracts. What I mean is, that this man hastaken this information, filched from us, and sold it to ourcompetitors, who were not too scrupulous to buy stolen goods!"

"We all suspected this, as you know, " the elder Whittier said; "haveyou anything new to add to it now?"

"Haven't I?" returned Mr. Wheatcroft. "I've found the man! That's all!"

"You, too?" ejaculated Paul. 

"Who is he?" asked the senior partner. 

"Wait a minute, " Mr. Wheatcroft begged. "Don't be in a hurry and I'lltell you. Yesterday afternoon, I don't know what possessed me, but Ifelt drawn down-town for some reason. I wanted to see if anything wasgoing on down here. I knew we had made that bid Saturday, and Iwondered if anybody would try to get it on Sunday. So I came down aboutfour o'clock, and I saw a man sneak out of the front door of thisoffice. I followed him as swiftly as I could and as quietly, for Ididn't want to give the alarm until I knew more. The man did not see meas he turned to go up the steps of the elevated railroad station. Atthe corner I saw his face. "

"Did you recognize him?" asked Mr. Whittier. 

"Yes, " was the answer. "And he did not see me. There were tears rollingdown his cheeks, perhaps that's the reason. This morning I called himin here, and he has finally confessed the whole thing. "

"Who--who is it?" asked Mr. Whittier, dreading to look at the oldbook-keeper, who had been in the employ of the firm for thirty yearsand more. 

"It is Major Van Zandt!" Mr. Wheatcroft declared. 

There was a moment of silence; then the voice of Paul Whittier washeard, saying, "I think there is some mistake!"

"A mistake!" cried Mr. Wheatcroft. "What kind of a mistake?"

"A mistake as to the guilty man, " responded Paul. 

"Do you mean that the Major isn't guilty?" asked Mr. Wheatcroft. 

"That's what I mean, " Paul returned. 

"But he has confessed, " Mr. Wheatcroft retorted. 

"I can't help that, " was the response. "He isn't the man who openedthat safe yesterday afternoon at half-past three and took out theletter-book. "

The old book-keeper looked at the young man in frightened amazement. 

"I have confessed it, " he said, piteously--"I have confessed it. "

"I know you have, Major, " Paul declared, not unkindly. "And I don'tknow why you have, for you were not the man. "

"And if the man who confesses is not the man who did it, who is?" askedWheatcroft, sarcastically. 

"I don't know who is, although I have my suspicions, " said Paul; "but Ihave his photograph--taken in the act!"

V

When Paul Whittier said he had a photograph of the mysterious enemy ofthe Ramapo Steel and Iron Works in the very act of opening the safe, Mr. Whittier and Mr. Wheatcroft looked at each other in amazement. Major Van Zandt stared at the young man with fear and shame strugglingtogether in his face. 

Without waiting to enjoy his triumph, Paul put his hand in his pocketand took out two squares of bluish paper. 

"There, " he said, as he handed one to his father, "there is a blueprint of the man taken in this office at ten minutes past threeyesterday afternoon, just as he was about to open the safe in thecorner. You see he is kneeling with his hand on the lock, butapparently just then something alarmed him and he cast a hasty glanceover his shoulder. At that second the photograph was taken, and so wehave a full-face portrait of the man. "

Mr. Whittier had looked at the photograph, and he now passed it to theimpatient hand of the junior partner. 

"You see, Mr. Wheatcroft, " Paul continued, "that although the face inthe photograph bears a certain family likeness to Major Van Zandt's, all the same that is not a portrait of the Major. The man who was hereyesterday was a young man, a man young enough to be the Major's son!"

The old book-keeper looked at the speaker. 

"Mr. Paul, " he began, "you won't be hard on the----" then he pausedabruptly. 

"I confess I don't understand this at all!" declared Mr. Wheatcroft, irascibly. 

"I am afraid that I do understand it, " Mr. Whittier said, with a glanceof compassion at the Major. 

"There, " Paul continued, handing his father a second azure square, "there is a photograph taken here ten minutes after the first, at 3. 20yesterday afternoon. That shows the safe open and the young manstanding before it with the private letter-book in his hand. As hishead is bent over the pages of the book, the view of the face is not sogood. But there can be no doubt that it is the same man. You see that, don't you, Mr. Wheatcroft?"

"I see that, of course, " returned Mr. Wheatcroft, forcibly. "What Idon't see is why the Major here should confess if he isn't guilty!"

"I think I know the reason for that, " said Mr. Whittier, gently. 

"There haven't been two men at our books, have there?" asked Mr. Wheatcroft--"the Major, and also the fellow who has been photographed?"

Mr. Whittier looked at the book-keeper for a moment. 

"Major, " he said, with compassion in his voice, "you won't tell me thatit was you who sold our secrets to our rivals? And you might confess itagain and again, I should never believe it. I know you better. I haveknown you too long to believe any charge against your honesty, even ifyou bring it yourself. The real culprit, the man who is photographedhere, is your son, isn't he? There is no use in your trying to concealthe truth now, and there is no need to attempt it, because we shall belenient with him for your sake, Major. "

There was a moment's silence, broken by Wheatcroft suddenly saying:

"The Major's son? Why, he's dead, isn't he? He was shot in a brawlafter a spree somewhere out West two or three years ago--at least, that's what I understood at the time. "

"It is what I wanted everybody to understand at the time, " said thebook-keeper, breaking silence at last. "But it wasn't so. The boy wasshot, but he wasn't killed. I hoped that it would be a warning to him, and he would make a fresh start. Friends of mine got him a place inMexico, but luck was against him--so he wrote me--and he lost that. Then an old comrade of mine gave him another chance out in Denver, andfor a while he kept straight and did his work well. Then he broke downonce more and he was discharged. For six months I did not know what hadbecome of him. I've found out since that he was a tramp for weeks, andthat he walked most of the way from Colorado to New York. This fall heturned up in the city, ragged, worn out, sick. I wanted to order himaway, but I couldn't. I took him back and got him decent clothes andtook him to look for a place, for I knew that hard work was the onlything that would keep him out of mischief. He did not find a place, perhaps he did not look for one. But all at once I discovered that hehad money. He would not tell me how he got it. I knew he could not havecome by it honestly, and so I watched him. I spied after him, and atlast I found that he was selling you to the Tuxedo Company. "

"But how could he open the safe?" cried Mr. Wheatcroft. "You didn'tknow the new combination. "

"I did not tell him the combination I did know, " said the oldbook-keeper, with pathetic dignity. "And I didn't have to tell him. Hecan open almost any safe without knowing the combination. How he doesit, I don't know; it is his gift. He listens to the wheels as theyturn, and he sets first one and then the other; and in ten minutes thesafe is open. "

"How could he get into the store?" Mr. Whittier inquired. 

"He knew I had a key, " responded the old book-keeper, "and he stole itfrom me. He used to watch on Sunday afternoons till Mike went for awalk, and then he unlocked the store, and slipped in and opened thesafe. Two weeks ago Mike came back unexpectedly, and he had just timeto get out of one of the rear windows of this office. "

"Yes, " Paul remarked, as the Major paused, "Mike told me that he founda window unfastened. "

"I heard you asking about it, " Major Van Zandt explained, "and I knewthat if you were suspicious he was sure to be caught sooner or later. So I begged him not to try to injure you again. I offered him money togo away. But he refused my money; he said he could get it for himselfnow, and I might keep mine until he needed it. He gave me the slipyesterday afternoon. When I found he was gone I came here straight. Thefront door was unlocked; I walked in and found him just closing thesafe here. I talked to him, and he refused to listen to me. I tried toget him to give up his idea, and he struck me. Then I left him, and Iwent out, seeing no one as I hurried home. That's when Mr. Wheatcroftfollowed me, I suppose. The boy never came back all night. I haven'tseen him since; I don't know where he is, but he is my son, afterall--my only son! And when Mr. Wheatcroft accused me, I confessed atlast, thinking you might be easier on me than you would be on the boy. "

"My poor friend, " said Mr. Whittier, sympathetically, holding out hishand, which the Major clasped gratefully for a moment. 

"Now that we know who was selling us to the Tuxedo people, we canprotect ourselves hereafter, " declared Mr. Wheatcroft. "And in spite ofyour trying to humbug me into believing you guilty, Major, I'm willingto let your son off easy. "

"I think I can get him a place where he will be out of temptation, because he will be kept hard at work always, " said Paul. 

The old book-keeper looked up as though about to thank the young man, but there seemed to be a lump in his throat which prevented him fromspeaking. 

Suddenly Mr. Wheatcroft began, explosively, "That's all very well! butwhat I still don't understand is how Paul got those photographs!"

Mr. Whittier looked at his son and smiled. "That is a littlemysterious, Paul, " he said, "and I confess I'd like to know how you didit. "

"Were you concealed here yourself?" asked Mr. Wheatcroft. 

"No, " Paul answered. "If you will look round this room you will seethat there isn't a dark corner in which anybody could tuck himself. "

"Then where was the photographer hidden?" Mr. Wheatcroft inquired, withincreasing curiosity. 

"In the clock, " responded Paul. 

"In the clock?" echoed Mr. Wheatcroft, greatly amazed. "Why, thereisn't room in the case of that clock for a thin midget, let alone aman!"

Paul enjoyed puzzling his father's partner. "I didn't say I had a manthere or a midget either, " he explained. "I said that the photographerwas in the clock--and I might have said that the clock itself was thephotographer. "

Mr. Wheatcroft threw up his hands in disgust. "Well, " he cried, "if youwant to go on mystifying us in this absurd way, go on as long as youlike! But your father and I are entitled to some consideration, Ithink. "

"I'm not mystifying you at all; the clock took the picturesautomatically. I'll show you how, " Paul returned, getting up from hischair and going to the corner of the office. 

Taking a key from his pocket he opened the case of the clock andrevealed a small photographic apparatus inside, with the tube of theobjective opposite the round glass panel in the door of the case. Atthe bottom of the case was a small electrical battery, and on a smallshelf over this was an electro-magnet. 

"I begin to see how you did it, " Mr. Whittier remarked. "I am not anexpert in photography, Paul, and I'd like a full explanation. And makeit as simple as you can. "

"It's a very simple thing indeed, " said the son. "One day while I waswondering how we could best catch the man who was getting at the books, that clock happened to strike, and somehow it reminded me that in ourphotographic society at college we had once suggested that it would beamusing to attach a detective camera to a timepiece and take snapshotsevery few minutes all through the day. I saw that this clock of oursfaced the safe, and that it couldn't be better placed for the purpose. So when I had thought out my plan, I came over here and pretended thatthe clock was wrong, and in setting it right I broke off theminute-hand. Then I had a man I know send for it for repairs; he isboth an electrician and an expert photographer. Together we worked outthis device. Here is a small snap-shot camera loaded with a hundred andfifty films; and here is the electrical attachment which connects withthe clock so as to take a photograph every ten minutes from eight inthe morning to six at night. We arranged that the magnet should turnthe spool of film after every snap-shot. "

"Well!" cried Mr. Wheatcroft. "I don't know much about these things, but I read the papers, and I suppose you mean that the clock 'pressedthe button, ' and the electricity pulled the string. "

"That's it precisely, " the young man responded. "Of course I wasn'tquite sure how it would work, so I thought I would try it first on aweek-day when we were all here. It did work all right, and I madeseveral interesting discoveries. I found that Mike smoked a pipe inthis office--and that Bob played leap-frog in the store and stood onhis head in the corner there up against the safe!"

"The confounded young rascal!" interrupted Mr. Wheatcroft. 

Paul smiled as he continued. "I found also that Mr. Wheatcroft wascaptivated by a pretty book-agent and bought two bulky volumes hedidn't want. "

Mr. Wheatcroft looked sheepish for a moment. 

"Oh, that's how you knew, is it?" he growled, running his handsimpatiently through his shock of hair. 

"That's how I knew, " Paul replied. "I told you I had an eye on you. Itwas the lone eye of the camera. And on Sunday it kept watch for ushere, winking every ten minutes. From eight o'clock in the morning tothree in the afternoon it winked forty-two times, and all it saw wasthe same scene, the empty corner of the room here, with the safe in theshadow at first and at last in the full light that poured down from theglass roof over us. But a little after three a man came into the officeand made ready to open the safe. At ten minutes past three the clockand the camera took his photograph--in the twinkling of an eye. Attwenty minutes past three a second record was made. Before half-pastthree the man was gone, and the camera winked every ten minutes untilsix o'clock quite in vain. I came down early this morning and got theroll of negatives. One after another I developed them, disappointedthat I had almost counted fifty of them without reward. But theforty-third and the forty-fourth paid for all my trouble. "

Mr. Whittier gave his son a look of pride. "That was very ingeniouslyworked out, Paul; very ingeniously indeed, " he said. "If it had notbeen for your clock here I might have found it difficult to prove thatthe Major was innocent--especially since he declared himself guilty. "

Mr. Wheatcroft rose to his feet, to close the conversation. 

"I'm glad we know the truth, anyhow, " he asserted, emphatically. Andthen, as though to relieve the strain on the old book-keeper, he added, with a loud laugh at his own joke, "That clock had its hands before itsface all the time--but it kept its eyes open for all that!"

"Don't forget that it had only one eye, " said Whittier, joining in thelaugh; "it had an eye single to its duty. "

"You know the French saying, father, " added Paul, "'In the realm of theblind the one-eyed man is king. '"

(1895. )

A CONFIDENTIAL POSTSCRIPT

It was pithily said by one of old that a bore is a man who insists upontalking about himself when you want to talk about yourself. There issome truth in the saying, no doubt; but surely it should not apply tothe relation of an author to his readers. So long, at least, as theyare holding his book in their hands, it is a fair inference that theydo not wish to talk about themselves just that moment; indeed, it isnot a violent hypothesis to suggest that perhaps they are then willingenough to have him talk about himself. For the egotistic garrulity ofthe author there is, in fact, no more fit occasion than in the finalpages of his book. At that stage of the game he may fairly enough counton the good humor of his readers, since those who might be dissatisfiedwith him would all have yielded to discouragement long before thepostscript was reached. 

The customary preface is not so pleasant a place for a confidentialchat as the unconventional postscript. The real value and the truepurpose of the preface is to serve as a telephone for the writer of thebook and to bear his message to the professional book-reviewers. On theother hand, only truly devoted readers will track the author to hislair in a distant postscript. While it might be presumptuous for him totalk about himself before the unknown and anonymous book-reviewers, hecannot but be rejoiced at the chance of a gossip with his old friends, the gentle readers. 

Perhaps the present author cannot drop into conversation more easilythan by here venturing upon the expression of a purely personalfeeling--his own enjoyment in the weaving of the unsubstantial webs ofimprobable adventure that fill the preceding pages. With an ironicsatisfaction was it that a writer who is not unaccustomed to be calleda mere realist here attempted fantasy, even though the results of hiseffort may reveal invention only and not imagination. It may even bethat it was memory (mother of the muses) rather than invention(daughter of necessity) which inspired the 'Primer of ImaginaryGeography. ' I have an uneasy wonder whether I should ever have gone onthis voyage of discovery with Mynheer Vanderdecken, past the Bohemiawhich is a desert country by the sea, if I had not in my youth beenallowed to visit 'A Virtuoso's Collection'; and yet, to the best of myrecollection, it was no recalling of Hawthorne's tale, but a casualglance at the Carte du Pays de Tendre in a volume of Molière, whichfirst set me upon collecting the material for an imaginary geography. 

In the second of these little fantasies the midnight wanderer sawcertain combats famous in all literature and certain dances. Where itwas possible use was made of the actual words of the great authors whohad described these combats and these dances, the descriptions beingcondensed sometimes and sometimes their rhythm being a little modifiedso that they should not be out of keeping with the more pedestrianprose by which they were accompanied. Thus, as it happens, the dancesof little Pearl and of Topsy could be set forth, fortunately, almost inthe very phrases of Hawthorne and of Mrs. Stowe, while I was forced todescribe as best I could myself the gyrations of the wife who lived in'A Doll's House' and of her remote predecessor as a "new woman, " thedaughter of Herodias. The same method was followed in the writing ofthe third of these tales, although the authors then drawn upon weremost of them less well known; and the only quotation of any length wasthe one from Irving describing the mysterious deeds of the headlesshorseman. 

Now it chanced that the 'Dream-Gown of the Japanese Ambassador, 'instead of appearing complete in one number of a magazine, as the twoearlier tales had done, was published in various daily newspapers inthree instalments. In the first of these divisions the returnedtraveller fell asleep and saw himself in the crystal ball; in thesecond he went through the rest of his borrowed adventures; and in thethird his friend awakened him and unravelled the mystery. When thesecond part appeared a clergyman who had read the 'Sketch-Book' (eventhough he had never heard of the 'Forty Seven Ronins, ' or the'Shah-Nameh, ' or the 'Custom of the Country') took his pen and sat downand wrote swiftly to a newspaper, declaring that this instalment of mytale had been "cribbed bodily, and almost _verbatim et literatim_, in one-third of its entire length, from the familiar 'Legend of SleepyHollow. '" He asked sarcastically if the copyright notice printed at thehead of my story was meant to apply also to the passages plagiarizedfrom Irving. He declared also that "it is unfortunate for literarypersons of the stamp of the author of 'Vignettes of Manhattan' thatthere still exist readers who do not forget what they have read that isworth remembering. Such readers are not to be imposed on by the mostskilful bunglers (_sic_) who endeavor to pass off as their own thework of greater men. "

The writer of this letter had given his address, Christ Church Rectory, ----, N. J. (I suppress the name of the village for the sake of hisparishioners as I suppress the name of the man for the sake of hisfamily). Therefore I wrote to him at once, telling him that if he hadread the third and final instalment of my story with the same attentionhe had given to the second part he would understand why I was expectingto receive from him an apology for the letter he had sent to thenewspaper. In time there reached me this inadequate and disingenuousresponse, hardly worthy to be called even an apology for an apology:

 "In reply to your courteous communication, let me say that had I seen the close of your short story, I should have grasped the situation more fully, and should doubtless have refrained from giving it any special attention. 

 "When one considers, however, the manner in which your copy was published by the paper, deferring the explanation until the appearance of the third instalment, it must be acknowledged that there was opportunity for surprise and criticism. The fault should have been found with the way in which the article was published, rather than with the story itself, that appearing at its conclusion a self-confessed mosaic of quotations. Needless to add that its author's aim to amuse, entertain, and instruct has been manifestly subserved. 

 "Yours most sincerely, "---- ----"

Of another tale ('Sixteen Years without a Birthday') I have nothing tosay--except to record a friend's remark after he had finished it, thathe had "read something very like it not long before in a newspaper;" soperhaps I may be permitted to declare that I had not read somethingvery like it anywhere, but had, to the best of my belief, "made it allup out of my own head. " Nor need I say anything about the 'RivalGhosts'--except to note that it is here reprinted from an earliercollection of stories which has now for years been out of print. 

The last tale of all, the 'Twinkling of an Eye, ' received the secondprize for the best detective story, offered by a newspapersyndicate--the first prize being taken by a story written by Miss MaryE. Wilkins and Mr. J. E. Chamberlain. The use of the camera as adetective agency had been suggested to me by a brief newspaperparagraph glanced at casually several years before. And I confess thatit was with not a little amusement that I employed this device, since Ihad then recently seen my 'Vignettes of Manhattan' criticized as being"photographic in method. " Here again I had no reason to doubt theoriginality of my plot; and here once more was my confidence shattered, and I was forced to confess that fiction can never hope to keep aheadof fact. 

After the 'Twinkling of an Eye' was published in the newspapers whichhad joined in offering the prizes, it was printed again in one of thesmaller magazines. There it was read by a gentleman connected with ahardware house in Grand Rapids, who wrote to me, informing me that thestory I had laboriously pieced together had--in some of its details, atleast--been anticipated by real life more than a year before I sat downto write out my narrative. This gentleman has now kindly given mepermission to quote from his letter those passages which may be ofinterest to readers of the 'Twinkling of an Eye':

It appears that the cash-drawer of the hardware store, in which smallchange was habitually left over night for use in the morning before thebanks open, was robbed three nights running, although only a fewdollars were taken at a time. "The large vault, in which are kept thefirm's papers, had not been tampered with, and the work was evidentlythat of some petty thief. The night-watchman was a trusted employee, and my father did not wish to accuse him unjustly. And, besides, he didnot wish to warn the thief. So nothing was said to the watchman. Thenights on which the till had been tapped were Thursday, Friday, andSaturday. Father goes down to the store every Sunday morning for abouthalf an hour to open the mail, and it was then that he discovered theSaturday night theft. Directly after Sunday dinner, father went down tosee an electrical friend of his, who executed a plan which my fatherhad devised. The cash-drawer was situated in one corner of the office(quite a large one), in which both the wholesale and retail business istransacted. He placed a large detective camera in the corner oppositethe till, and beside it, and a little behind, a quantity of flash-lightpowder in a receptacle. This powder was connected by electric wireswith the till in such a manner, that when the drawer was opened thecircuit would be completed and the powder ignited. Everything worked toperfection. The office is always left dark at night, so the shutter ofthe camera could be left open without spoiling the film. The camera wasin place Sunday evening, but the thief stayed away. It was set again onMonday night, and that time we got him. A small wire was attached to aweight near the camera extending to the till. As the thief started toopen the drawer the weight made a slight noise. He glanced in thedirection of the noise, started, pulled the weight a little farther, and we had his picture. Detectives had already been working on thecase, and the thief was identified and arrested on the strength of theportrait. When he was informed that we had his picture, he made a fullconfession. He said that when the flash-light went off he nearlyfainted from fright. "

 * * * * *

After this experience I am tempted to give up all hope that I can everinvent anything which is not a fact, even before I make it up. I am nowprepared, therefore, to discover that I did really have an interviewwith Count Cagliostro, and also that I was actually an unwillingwitness at the wedding of the rival ghosts. 

(1896. )

THE END