THE TOYS OF PEACE

Contents:

The Toys of PeaceLouiseTeaThe Disappearance of Crispina UmberleighThe Wolves of CernogratzLouisThe GuestsThe PenanceThe Phantom LuncheonA Bread and Butter MissBertie's Christmas EveForewarnedThe InterlopersQuail SeedCanossaThe ThreatExcepting Mrs. PentherbyMarkThe HedgehogThe Mappined LifeFateThe BullMorlveraShock TacticsThe Seven Cream JugsThe Occasional GardenThe SheepThe OversightHyacinthThe Image of the Lost SoulThe Purple of the Balkan KingsThe Cupboard of the YesterdaysFor the Duration of the War

THE TOYS OF PEACE

"Harvey, " said Eleanor Bope, handing her brother a cutting from a Londonmorning paper of the 19th of March, "just read this about children'stoys, please; it exactly carries out some of our ideas about influenceand upbringing. "

"In the view of the National Peace Council, " ran the extract, "there aregrave objections to presenting our boys with regiments of fighting men, batteries of guns, and squadrons of 'Dreadnoughts. ' Boys, the Counciladmits, naturally love fighting and all the panoply of war . . . But thatis no reason for encouraging, and perhaps giving permanent form to, theirprimitive instincts. At the Children's Welfare Exhibition, which opensat Olympia in three weeks' time, the Peace Council will make analternative suggestion to parents in the shape of an exhibition of 'peacetoys. ' In front of a specially-painted representation of the PeacePalace at The Hague will be grouped, not miniature soldiers but miniaturecivilians, not guns but ploughs and the tools of industry . . . It ishoped that manufacturers may take a hint from the exhibit, which willbear fruit in the toy shops. "

"The idea is certainly an interesting and very well-meaning one, " saidHarvey; "whether it would succeed well in practice--"

"We must try, " interrupted his sister; "you are coming down to us atEaster, and you always bring the boys some toys, so that will be anexcellent opportunity for you to inaugurate the new experiment. Go aboutin the shops and buy any little toys and models that have special bearingon civilian life in its more peaceful aspects. Of course you mustexplain the toys to the children and interest them in the new idea. Iregret to say that the 'Siege of Adrianople' toy, that their Aunt Susansent them, didn't need any explanation; they knew all the uniforms andflags, and even the names of the respective commanders, and when I heardthem one day using what seemed to be the most objectionable language theysaid it was Bulgarian words of command; of course it _may_ have been, butat any rate I took the toy away from them. Now I shall expect yourEaster gifts to give quite a new impulse and direction to the children'sminds; Eric is not eleven yet, and Bertie is only nine-and-a-half, sothey are really at a most impressionable age. "

"There is primitive instinct to be taken into consideration, you know, "said Harvey doubtfully, "and hereditary tendencies as well. One of theirgreat-uncles fought in the most intolerant fashion at Inkerman--he wasspecially mentioned in dispatches, I believe--and their great-grandfathersmashed all his Whig neighbours' hot houses when the great Reform Billwas passed. Still, as you say, they are at an impressionable age. Iwill do my best. "

On Easter Saturday Harvey Bope unpacked a large, promising-looking redcardboard box under the expectant eyes of his nephews. "Your uncle hasbrought you the newest thing in toys, " Eleanor had said impressively, andyouthful anticipation had been anxiously divided between Albaniansoldiery and a Somali camel-corps. Eric was hotly in favour of thelatter contingency. "There would be Arabs on horseback, " he whispered;"the Albanians have got jolly uniforms, and they fight all day long, andall night, too, when there's a moon, but the country's rocky, so they'vegot no cavalry. "

A quantity of crinkly paper shavings was the first thing that met theview when the lid was removed; the most exiting toys always began likethat. Harvey pushed back the top layer and drew forth a square, ratherfeatureless building. 

"It's a fort!" exclaimed Bertie. 

"It isn't, it's the palace of the Mpret of Albania, " said Eric, immenselyproud of his knowledge of the exotic title; "it's got no windows, yousee, so that passers-by can't fire in at the Royal Family. "

"It's a municipal dust-bin, " said Harvey hurriedly; "you see all therefuse and litter of a town is collected there, instead of lying aboutand injuring the health of the citizens. "

In an awful silence he disinterred a little lead figure of a man in blackclothes. 

"That, " he said, "is a distinguished civilian, John Stuart Mill. He wasan authority on political economy. "

"Why?" asked Bertie. 

"Well, he wanted to be; he thought it was a useful thing to be. "

Bertie gave an expressive grunt, which conveyed his opinion that therewas no accounting for tastes. 

Another square building came out, this time with windows and chimneys. 

"A model of the Manchester branch of the Young Women's ChristianAssociation, " said Harvey. 

"Are there any lions?" asked Eric hopefully. He had been reading Romanhistory and thought that where you found Christians you might reasonablyexpect to find a few lions. 

"There are no lions, " said Harvey. "Here is another civilian, RobertRaikes, the founder of Sunday schools, and here is a model of a municipalwash-house. These little round things are loaves baked in a sanitarybakehouse. That lead figure is a sanitary inspector, this one is adistrict councillor, and this one is an official of the Local GovernmentBoard. "

"What does he do?" asked Eric wearily. 

"He sees to things connected with his Department, " said Harvey. "Thisbox with a slit in it is a ballot-box. Votes are put into it at electiontimes. "

"What is put into it at other times?" asked Bertie. 

"Nothing. And here are some tools of industry, a wheelbarrow and a hoe, and I think these are meant for hop-poles. This is a model beehive, andthat is a ventilator, for ventilating sewers. This seems to be anothermunicipal dust-bin--no, it is a model of a school of art and publiclibrary. This little lead figure is Mrs. Hemans, a poetess, and this isRowland Hill, who introduced the system of penny postage. This is SirJohn Herschel, the eminent astrologer. "

"Are we to play with these civilian figures?" asked Eric. 

"Of course, " said Harvey, "these are toys; they are meant to be playedwith. "

"But how?"

It was rather a poser. "You might make two of them contest a seat inParliament, " said Harvey, "an have an election--"

"With rotten eggs, and free fights, and ever so many broken heads!"exclaimed Eric. 

"And noses all bleeding and everybody drunk as can be, " echoed Bertie, who had carefully studied one of Hogarth's pictures. 

"Nothing of the kind, " said Harvey, "nothing in the least like that. Votes will be put in the ballot-box, and the Mayor will count them--andhe will say which has received the most votes, and then the twocandidates will thank him for presiding, and each will say that thecontest has been conducted throughout in the pleasantest and moststraightforward fashion, and they part with expressions of mutual esteem. There's a jolly game for you boys to play. I never had such toys when Iwas young. "

"I don't think we'll play with them just now, " said Eric, with an entireabsence of the enthusiasm that his uncle had shown; "I think perhaps weought to do a little of our holiday task. It's history this time; we'vegot to learn up something about the Bourbon period in France. "

"The Bourbon period, " said Harvey, with some disapproval in his voice. 

"We've got to know something about Louis the Fourteenth, " continued Eric;"I've learnt the names of all the principal battles already. "

This would never do. "There were, of course, some battles fought duringhis reign, " said Harvey, "but I fancy the accounts of them were muchexaggerated; news was very unreliable in those days, and there werepractically no war correspondents, so generals and commanders couldmagnify every little skirmish they engaged in till they reached theproportions of decisive battles. Louis was really famous, now, as alandscape gardener; the way he laid out Versailles was so much admiredthat it was copied all over Europe. "

"Do you know anything about Madame Du Barry?" asked Eric; "didn't shehave her head chopped off?"

"She was another great lover of gardening, " said Harvey, evasively; "infact, I believe the well known rose Du Barry was named after her, and nowI think you had better play for a little and leave your lessons tilllater. "

Harvey retreated to the library and spent some thirty or forty minutes inwondering whether it would be possible to compile a history, for use inelementary schools, in which there should be no prominent mention ofbattles, massacres, murderous intrigues, and violent deaths. The Yorkand Lancaster period and the Napoleonic era would, he admitted tohimself, present considerable difficulties, and the Thirty Years' Warwould entail something of a gap if you left it out altogether. Still, itwould be something gained if, at a highly impressionable age, childrencould be got to fix their attention on the invention of calico printinginstead of the Spanish Armada or the Battle of Waterloo. 

It was time, he thought, to go back to the boys' room, and see how theywere getting on with their peace toys. As he stood outside the door hecould hear Eric's voice raised in command; Bertie chimed in now and againwith a helpful suggestion. 

"That is Louis the Fourteenth, " Eric was saying, "that one inknee-breeches, that Uncle said invented Sunday schools. It isn't a bitlike him, but it'll have to do. "

"We'll give him a purple coat from my paintbox by and by, " said Bertie. 

"Yes, an' red heels. That is Madame de Maintenon, that one he calledMrs. Hemans. She begs Louis not to go on this expedition, but he turns adeaf ear. He takes Marshal Saxe with him, and we must pretend that theyhave thousands of men with them. The watchword is _Qui vive_? and theanswer is _L'etat c'est moi_--that was one of his favourite remarks, youknow. They land at Manchester in the dead of the night, and a Jacobiteconspirator gives them the keys of the fortress. "

Peeping in through the doorway Harvey observed that the municipal dust-bin had been pierced with holes to accommodate the muzzles of imaginarycannon, and now represented the principal fortified position inManchester; John Stuart Mill had been dipped in red ink, and apparentlystood for Marshal Saxe. 

"Louis orders his troops to surround the Young Women's ChristianAssociation and seize the lot of them. 'Once back at the Louvre and thegirls are mine, ' he exclaims. We must use Mrs. Hemans again for one ofthe girls; she says 'Never, ' and stabs Marshal Saxe to the heart. "

"He bleeds dreadfully, " exclaimed Bertie, splashing red ink liberallyover the facade of the Association building. 

"The soldiers rush in and avenge his death with the utmost savagery. Ahundred girls are killed"--here Bertie emptied the remainder of the redink over the devoted building--"and the surviving five hundred aredragged off to the French ships. 'I have lost a Marshal, ' says Louis, 'but I do not go back empty-handed. '"

Harvey stole away from the room, and sought out his sister. 

"Eleanor, " he said, "the experiment--"

"Yes?"

"Has failed. We have begun too late. "

LOUISE

"The tea will be quite cold, you'd better ring for some more, " said theDowager Lady Beanford. 

Susan Lady Beanford was a vigorous old woman who had coquetted withimaginary ill-health for the greater part of a lifetime; Clovis Sangrailirreverently declared that she had caught a chill at the Coronation ofQueen Victoria and had never let it go again. Her sister, JaneThropplestance, who was some years her junior, was chiefly remarkable forbeing the most absent-minded woman in Middlesex. 

"I've really been unusually clever this afternoon, " she remarked gaily, as she rang for the tea. "I've called on all the people I meant to callon; and I've done all the shopping that I set out to do. I evenremembered to try and match that silk for you at Harrod's, but I'dforgotten to bring the pattern with me, so it was no use. I really thinkthat was the only important thing I forgot during the whole afternoon. Quite wonderful for me, isn't it?"

"What have you done with Louise?" asked her sister. "Didn't you take herout with you? You said you were going to. "

"Good gracious, " exclaimed Jane, "what have I done with Louise? I musthave left her somewhere. "

"But where?"

"That's just it. Where have I left her? I can't remember if theCarrywoods were at home or if I just left cards. If there were at home Imay have left Louise there to play bridge. I'll go and telephone to LordCarrywood and find out. "

"Is that you, Lord Carrywood?" she queried over the telephone; "it's me, Jane Thropplestance. I want to know, have you seen Louise?"

"'Louise, '" came the answer, "it's been my fate to see it three times. Atfirst, I must admit, I wasn't impressed by it, but the music grows on oneafter a bit. Still, I don't think I want to see it again just atpresent. Were you going to offer me a seat in your box?"

"Not the opera 'Louise'--my niece, Louise Thropplestance. I thought Imight have left her at your house. "

"You left cards on us this afternoon, I understand, but I don't think youleft a niece. The footman would have been sure to have mentioned it ifyou had. Is it going to be a fashion to leave nieces on people as wellas cards? I hope not; some of these houses in Berkeley-square havepractically no accommodation for that sort of thing. "

"She's not at the Carrywoods', " announced Jane, returning to her tea;"now I come to think of it, perhaps I left her at the silk counter atSelfridge's. I may have told her to wait there a moment while I went tolook at the silks in a better light, and I may easily have forgottenabout her when Ifound I hadn't your pattern with me. In that case she'sstill sitting there. She wouldn't move unless she was told to; Louisehas no initiative. "

"You said you tried to match the silk at Harrod's, " interjected thedowager. 

"Did I? Perhaps it was Harrod's. I really don't remember. It was oneof those places where every one is so kind and sympathetic and devotedthat one almost hates to take even a reel of cotton away from suchpleasant surroundings. "

"I think you might have taken Louise away. I don't like the idea of herbeing there among a lot of strangers. Supposing some unprincipled personwas to get into conversation with her. "

"Impossible. Louise has no conversation. I've never discovered a singletopic on which she'd anything to say beyond 'Do you think so? I dare sayyou're right. ' I really thought her reticence about the fall of theRibot Ministry was ridiculous, considering how much her dear mother usedto visit Paris. This bread and butter is cut far too thin; it crumblesaway long before you can get it to your mouth. One feels so absurd, snapping at one's food in mid-air, like a trout leaping at may-fly. "

"I am rather surprised, " said the dowager, "that you can sit there makinga hearty tea when you've just lost a favourite niece. "

"You talk as if I'd lost her in a churchyard sense, instead of havingtemporarily mislaid her. I'm sure to remember presently where I lefther. "

"You didn't visit any place of devotion, did you? If you've left hermooning about Westminster Abbey or St. Peter's, Eaton Square, withoutbeing able to give any satisfactory reason why she's there, she'll beseized under the Cat and Mouse Act and sent to Reginald McKenna. "

"That would be extremely awkward, " said Jane, meeting an irresolute pieceof bread and butter halfway; "we hardly know the McKennas, and it wouldbe very tiresome having to telephone to some unsympathetic privatesecretary, describing Louise to him and asking to have her sent back intime for dinner. Fortunately, I didn't go to any place of devotion, though I did get mixed up with a Salvation Army procession. It was quiteinteresting to be at close quarters with them, they're so absolutelydifferent to what they used to be when I first remember them in the'eighties. They used to go about then unkempt and dishevelled, in a sortof smiling rage with the world, and now they're spruce and jaunty andflamboyantly decorative, like a geranium bed with religious convictions. Laura Kettleway was going on about them in the lift of the Dover StreetTube the other day, saying what a lot of good work they did, and what aloss it would have been if they'd never existed. 'If they had neverexisted, ' I said, 'Granville Barker would have been certain to haveinvented something that looked exactly like them. ' If you say thingslike that, quite loud, in a Tube lift, they always sound like epigrams. "

"I think you ought to do something about Louise, " said the dowager. 

"I'm trying to think whether she was with me when I called on AdaSpelvexit. I rather enjoyed myself there. Ada was trying, as usual, toram that odious Koriatoffski woman down my throat, knowing perfectly wellthat I detest her, and in an unguarded moment she said: 'She's leavingher present house and going to Lower Seymour Street. ' 'I dare say shewill, if she stays there long enough, ' I said. Ada didn't see it forabout three minutes, and then she was positively uncivil. No, I amcertain I didn't leave Louise there. "

"If you could manage to remember where you _did_ leave her, it would bemore to the point than these negative assurances, " said Lady Beanford;"so far, all we know is that she is not at the Carrywoods', or AdaSpelvexit's, or Westminster Abbey. "

"That narrows the search down a bit, " said Jane hopefully; "I ratherfancy she must have been with me when I went to Mornay's. I know I wentto Mornay's, because I remember meeting that delightful Malcolm What's-his-name there--you know whom I mean. That's the great advantage ofpeople having unusual first names, you needn't try and remember whattheir other name is. Of course I know one or two other Malcolms, butnone that could possibly be described as delightful. He gave me twotickets for the Happy Sunday Evenings in Sloane Square. I've probablyleft them at Mornay's, but still it was awfully kind of him to give themto me. "

"Do you think you left Louise there?"

"I might telephone and ask. Oh, Robert, before you clear the tea-thingsaway I wish you'd ring up Mornay's, in Regent Street, and ask if I lefttwo theatre tickets and one niece in their shop this afternoon. "

"A niece, ma'am?" asked the footman. 

"Yes, Miss Louise didn't come home with me, and I'm not sure where I lefther. "

"Miss Louise has been upstairs all the afternoon, ma'am, reading to thesecond kitchenmaid, who has the neuralgia. I took up tea to Miss Louiseat a quarter to five o'clock, ma'am. "

"Of course, how silly of me. I remember now, I asked her to read the_Faerie Queene_ to poor Emma, to try to send her to sleep. I always getsome one to read the _Faerie Queene_ to me when I have neuralgia, and itusually sends me to sleep. Louise doesn't seem to have been successful, but one can't say she hasn't tried. I expect after the first hour or sothe kitchenmaid would rather have been left alone with her neuralgia, butof course Louise wouldn't leave off till some one told her to. Anyhow, you can ring up Mornay's, Robert, and ask whether I left two theatretickets there. Except for your silk, Susan, those seem to be the onlythings I've forgotten this afternoon. Quite wonderful for me. "

TEA

James Cushat-Prinkly was a young man who had always had a settledconviction that one of these days he would marry; up to the age of thirty-four he had done nothing to justify that conviction. He liked andadmired a great many women collectively and dispassionately withoutsingling out one for especial matrimonial consideration, just as onemight admire the Alps without feeling that one wanted any particular peakas one's own private property. His lack of initiative in this matteraroused a certain amount of impatience among the sentimentally-mindedwomen-folk of his home circle; his mother, his sisters, anaunt-in-residence, and two or three intimate matronly friends regardedhis dilatory approach to the married state with a disapproval that wasfar from being inarticulate. His most innocent flirtations were watchedwith the straining eagerness which a group of unexercised terriersconcentrates on the slightest movements of a human being who may bereasonably considered likely to take them for a walk. No decent-souledmortal can long resist the pleading of several pairs of walk-beseechingdog-eyes; James Cushat-Prinkly was not sufficiently obstinate orindifferent to home influences to disregard the obviously expressed wishof his family that he should become enamoured of some nice marriageablegirl, and when his Uncle Jules departed this life and bequeathed him acomfortable little legacy it really seemed the correct thing to do to setabout discovering some one to share it with him. The process ofdiscovery was carried on more by the force of suggestion and the weightof public opinion than by any initiative of his own; a clear workingmajority of his female relatives and the aforesaid matronly friends hadpitched on Joan Sebastable as the most suitable young woman in his rangeof acquaintance to whom he might propose marriage, and James becamegradually accustomed to the idea that he and Joan would go togetherthrough the prescribed stages of congratulations, present-receiving, Norwegian or Mediterranean hotels, and eventual domesticity. It wasnecessary, however to ask the lady what she thought about the matter; thefamily had so far conducted and directed the flirtation with ability anddiscretion, but the actual proposal would have to be an individualeffort. 

Cushat-Prinkly walked across the Park towards the Sebastable residence ina frame of mind that was moderately complacent. As the thing was goingto be done he was glad to feel that he was going to get it settled andoff his mind that afternoon. Proposing marriage, even to a nice girllike Joan, was a rather irksome business, but one could not have ahoneymoon in Minorca and a subsequent life of married happiness withoutsuch preliminary. He wondered what Minorca was really like as a place tostop in; in his mind's eye it was an island in perpetual half-mourning, with black or white Minorca hens running all over it. Probably it wouldnot be a bit like that when one came to examine it. People who had beenin Russia had told him that they did not remember having seen any Muscovyducks there, so it was possible that there would be no Minorca fowls onthe island. 

His Mediterranean musings were interrupted by the sound of a clockstriking the half-hour. Half-past four. A frown of dissatisfactionsettled on his face. He would arrive at the Sebastable mansion just atthe hour of afternoon tea. Joan would be seated at a low table, spreadwith an array of silver kettles and cream-jugs and delicate porcelain tea-cups, behind which her voice would tinkle pleasantly in a series oflittle friendly questions about weak or strong tea, how much, if any, sugar, milk, cream, and so forth. "Is it one lump? I forgot. You dotake milk, don't you? Would you like some more hot water, if it's toostrong?"

Cushat-Prinkly had read of such things in scores of novels, and hundredsof actual experiences had told him that they were true to life. Thousandsof women, at this solemn afternoon hour, were sitting behind daintyporcelain and silver fittings, with their voices tinkling pleasantly in acascade of solicitous little questions. Cushat-Prinkly detested thewhole system of afternoon tea. According to his theory of life a womanshould lie on a divan or couch, talking with incomparable charm orlooking unutterable thoughts, or merely silent as a thing to be lookedon, and from behind a silken curtain a small Nubian page should silentlybring in a tray with cups and dainties, to be accepted silently, as amatter of course, without drawn-out chatter about cream and sugar and hotwater. If one's soul was really enslaved at one's mistress's feet howcould one talk coherently about weakened tea? Cushat-Prinkly had neverexpounded his views on the subject to his mother; all her life she hadbeen accustomed to tinkle pleasantly at tea-time behind dainty porcelainand silver, and if he had spoken to her about divans and Nubian pages shewould have urged him to take a week's holiday at the seaside. Now, as hepassed through a tangle of small streets that led indirectly to theelegant Mayfair terrace for which he was bound, a horror at the idea ofconfronting Joan Sebastable at her tea-table seized on him. A momentarydeliverance presented itself; on one floor of a narrow little house atthe noisier end of Esquimault Street lived Rhoda Ellam, a sort of remotecousin, who made a living by creating hats out of costly materials. Thehats really looked as if they had come from Paris; the cheques she gotfor them unfortunately never looked as if they were going to Paris. However, Rhoda appeared to find life amusing and to have a fairly goodtime in spite of her straitened circumstances. Cushat-Prinkly decided toclimb up to her floor and defer by half-an-hour or so the importantbusiness which lay before him; by spinning out his visit he couldcontrive to reach the Sebastable mansion after the last vestiges ofdainty porcelain had been cleared away. 

Rhoda welcomed him into a room that seemed to do duty as workshop, sitting-room, and kitchen combined, and to be wonderfully clean andcomfortable at the same time. 

"I'm having a picnic meal, " she announced. "There's caviare in that jarat your elbow. Begin on that brown bread-and-butter while I cut somemore. Find yourself a cup; the teapot is behind you. Now tell me abouthundreds of things. "

She made no other allusion to food, but talked amusingly and made hervisitor talk amusingly too. At the same time she cut thebread-and-butter with a masterly skill and produced red pepper and slicedlemon, where so many women would merely have produced reasons and regretsfor not having any. Cushat-Prinkly found that he was enjoying anexcellent tea without having to answer as many questions about it as aMinister for Agriculture might be called on to reply to during anoutbreak of cattle plague. 

"And now tell me why you have come to see me, " said Rhoda suddenly. "Youarouse not merely my curiosity but my business instincts. I hope you'vecome about hats. I heard that you had come into a legacy the other day, and, of course, it struck me that it would be a beautiful and desirablething for you to celebrate the event by buying brilliantly expensive hatsfor all your sisters. They may not have said anything about it, but Ifeel sure the same idea has occurred to them. Of course, with Goodwoodon us, I am rather rushed just now, but in my business we're accustomedto that; we live in a series of rushes--like the infant Moses. "

"I didn't come about hats, " said her visitor. "In fact, I don't think Ireally came about anything. I was passing and I just thought I'd look inand see you. Since I've been sitting talking to you, however, ratherimportant idea has occurred to me. If you'll forget Goodwood for amoment and listen to me, I'll tell you what it is. "

Some forty minutes later James Cushat-Prinkly returned to the bosom ofhis family, bearing an important piece of news. 

"I'm engaged to be married, " he announced. 

A rapturous outbreak of congratulation and self-applause broke out. 

"Ah, we knew! We saw it coming! We foretold it weeks ago!"

"I'll bet you didn't, " said Cushat-Prinkly. "If any one had told me atlunch-time to-day that I was going to ask Rhoda Ellam to marry me andthat she was going to accept me I would have laughed at the idea. "

The romantic suddenness of the affair in some measure compensated James'swomen-folk for the ruthless negation of all their patient effort andskilled diplomacy. It was rather trying to have to deflect theirenthusiasm at a moment's notice from Joan Sebastable to Rhoda Ellam; but, after all, it was James's wife who was in question, and his tastes hadsome claim to be considered. 

On a September afternoon of the same year, after the honeymoon in Minorcahad ended, Cushat-Prinkly came into the drawing-room of his new house inGranchester Square. Rhoda was seated at a low table, behind a service ofdainty porcelain and gleaming silver. There was a pleasant tinkling notein her voice as she handed him a cup. 

"You like it weaker than that, don't you? Shall I put some more hotwater to it? No?"

THE DISAPPEARANCE OF CRISPINA UMBERLEIGH

In a first-class carriage of a train speeding Balkanward across the flat, green Hungarian plain two Britons sat in friendly, fitful converse. Theyhad first foregathered in the cold grey dawn at the frontier line, wherethe presiding eagle takes on an extra head and Teuton lands pass fromHohenzollern to Habsburg keeping--and where a probing official beakrequires to delve in polite and perhaps perfunctory, but always tiresome, manner into the baggage of sleep-hungry passengers. After a day's breakof their journey at Vienna the travellers had again foregathered at thetrainside and paid one another the compliment of settling instinctivelyinto the same carriage. The elder of the two had the appearance andmanner of a diplomat; in point of fact he was the well-connected foster-brother of a wine business. The other was certainly a journalist. Neither man was talkative and each was grateful to the other for notbeing talkative. That is why from time to time they talked. 

One topic of conversation naturally thrust itself forward in front of allothers. In Vienna the previous day they had learned of the mysteriousvanishing of a world-famous picture from the walls of the Louvre. 

"A dramatic disappearance of that sort is sure to produce a crop ofimitations, " said the Journalist. 

"It has had a lot of anticipations, for the matter of that, " said theWine-brother. 

"Oh, of course there have been thefts from the Louvre before. "

"I was thinking of the spiriting away of human beings rather thanpictures. In particular I was thinking of the case of my aunt, CrispinaUmberleigh. "

"I remember hearing something of the affair, " said the Journalist, "but Iwas away from England at the time. I never quite knew what was supposedto have happened. "

"You may hear what really happened if you will respect it as aconfidence, " said the Wine Merchant. "In the first place I may say thatthe disappearance of Mrs. Umberleigh was not regarded by the familyentirely as a bereavement. My uncle, Edward Umberleigh, was not by anymeans a weak-kneed individual, in fact in the world of politics he had tobe reckoned with more or less as a strong man, but he was unmistakablydominated by Crispina; indeed I never met any human being who was notfrozen into subjection when brought into prolonged contact with her. Somepeople are born to command; Crispina Mrs. Umberleigh was born tolegislate, codify, administrate, censor, license, ban, execute, and sitin judgement generally. If she was not born with that destiny sheadopted it at an early age. From the kitchen regions upwards every onein the household came under her despotic sway and stayed there with thesubmissiveness of molluscs involved in a glacial epoch. As a nephew on afooting of only occasional visits she affected me merely as an epidemic, disagreeable while it lasted, but without any permanent effect; but herown sons and daughters stood in mortal awe of her; their studies, friendships, diet, amusements, religious observances, and way of doingtheir hair were all regulated and ordained according to the august lady'swill and pleasure. This will help you to understand the sensation ofstupefaction which was caused in the family when she unobtrusively andinexplicably vanished. It was as though St. Paul's Cathedral or thePiccadilly Hotel had disappeared in the night, leaving nothing but anopen space to mark where it had stood. As far as was known nothing wastroubling her; in fact there was much before her to make lifeparticularly well worth living. The youngest boy had come back fromschool with an unsatisfactory report, and she was to have sat injudgement on him the very afternoon of the day she disappeared--if it hadbeen he who had vanished in a hurry one could have supplied the motive. Then she was in the middle of a newspaper correspondence with a ruraldean in which she had already proved him guilty of heresy, inconsistency, and unworthy quibbling, and no ordinary consideration would have inducedher to discontinue the controversy. Of course the matter was put in thehands of the police, but as far as possible it was kept out of thepapers, and the generally accepted explanation of her withdrawal from hersocial circle was that she had gone into a nursing home. "

"And what was the immediate effect on the home circle?" asked theJournalist. 

"All the girls bought themselves bicycles; the feminine cycling craze wasstill in existence, and Crispina had rigidly vetoed any participation init among the members of her household. The youngest boy let himself goto such an extent during his next term that it had to be his last as faras that particular establishment was concerned. The elder boyspropounded a theory that their mother might be wandering somewhereabroad, and searched for her assiduously, chiefly, it must be admitted, in a class of Montmartre resort where it was extremely improbable thatshe would be found. "

"And all this while couldn't your uncle get hold of the least clue?"

"As a matter of fact he had received some information, though of course Idid not know of it at the time. He got a message one day telling himthat his wife had been kidnapped and smuggled out of the country; she wassaid to be hidden away, in one of the islands off the coast of Norway Ithink it was, in comfortable surroundings and well cared for. And withthe information came a demand for money; a lump sum of 2000 pounds was tobe paid yearly. Failing this she would be immediately restored to herfamily. "

The Journalist was silent for a moment, and them began to laugh quietly. 

"It was certainly an inverted form of holding to ransom, " he said. 

"If you had known my aunt, " said the Wine Merchant, "you would havewondered that they didn't put the figure higher. "

"I realise the temptation. Did your uncle succumb to it?"

"Well, you see, he had to think of others as well as himself. For thefamily to have gone back into the Crispina thraldom after having tastedthe delights of liberty would have been a tragedy, and there were evenwider considerations to be taken into account. Since his bereavement hehad unconsciously taken up a far bolder and more initiatory line inpublic affairs, and his popularity and influence had increasedcorrespondingly. From being merely a strong man in the political worldhe began to be spoken of as _the_ strong man. All this he knew would bejeopardised if he once more dropped into the social position of thehusband of Mrs. Umberleigh. He was a rich man, and the 2000 pounds ayear, though not exactly a fleabite, did not seem an extravagant price topay for the boarding-out of Crispina. Of course, he had severe qualms ofconscience about the arrangement. Later on, when he took me into hisconfidence, he told me that in paying the ransom, or hush-money as Ishould have called it, he was partly influenced by the fear that if herefused it the kidnappers might have vented their rage and disappointmenton their captive. It was better, he said, to think of her being wellcared for as a highly-valued paying-guest in one of the Lofoden Islandsthan to have her struggling miserably home in a maimed and mutilatedcondition. Anyway he paid the yearly instalment as punctually as onepays a fire insurance, and with equal promptitude there would come anacknowledgment of the money and a brief statement to the effect thatCrispina was in good health and fairly cheerful spirits. One report evenmentioned that she was busying herself with a scheme for proposed reformsin Church management to be pressed on the local pastorate. Another spokeof a rheumatic attack and a journey to a 'cure' on the mainland, and onthat occasion an additional eighty pounds was demanded and conceded. Ofcourse it was to the interest of the kidnappers to keep their charge ingood health, but the secrecy with which they managed to shroud theirarrangements argued a really wonderful organisation. If my uncle waspaying a rather high price, at least he could console himself with thereflection that he was paying specialists' fees. "

"Meanwhile had the police given up all attempts to track the missinglady?" asked the Journalist. 

"Not entirely; they came to my uncle from time to time to report on clueswhich they thought might yield some elucidation as to her fate orwhereabouts, but I think they had their suspicions that he was possessedof more information than he had put at their disposal. And then, after adisappearance of more than eight years, Crispina returned with dramaticsuddenness to the home she had left so mysteriously. "

"She had given her captors the slip?"

"She had never been captured. Her wandering away had been caused by asudden and complete loss of memory. She usually dressed rather in thestyle of a superior kind of charwoman, and it was not so very surprisingthat she should have imagined that she was one; and still less thatpeople should accept her statement and help her to get work. She hadwandered as far afield as Birmingham, and found fairly steady employmentthere, her energy and enthusiasm in putting people's rooms in ordercounterbalancing her obstinate and domineering characteristics. It wasthe shock of being patronisingly addressed as 'my good woman' by acurate, who was disputing with her where the stove should be placed in aparish concert hall that led to the sudden restoration of her memory. 'Ithink you forget who you are speaking to, ' she observed crushingly, whichwas rather unduly severe, considering she had only just remembered itherself. "

"But, " exclaimed the Journalist, "the Lofoden Island people! Who hadthey got hold of?"

"A purely mythical prisoner. It was an attempt in the first place bysome one who knew something of the domestic situation, probably adischarged valet, to bluff a lump sum out of Edward Umberleigh before themissing woman turned up; the subsequent yearly instalments were anunlooked-for increment to the original haul. 

"Crispina found that the eight years' interregnum had materially weakenedher ascendancy over her now grown-up offspring. Her husband, however, never accomplished anything great in the political world after herreturn; the strain of trying to account satisfactorily for an unspecifiedexpenditure of sixteen thousand pounds spread over eight yearssufficiently occupied his mental energies. Here is Belgrad and anothercustom house. "

THE WOLVES OF CERNOGRATZ

"Are they any old legends attached to the castle?" asked Conrad of hissister. Conrad was a prosperous Hamburg merchant, but he was the onepoetically-dispositioned member of an eminently practical family. 

The Baroness Gruebel shrugged her plump shoulders. 

"There are always legends hanging about these old places. They are notdifficult to invent and they cost nothing. In this case there is a storythat when any one dies in the castle all the dogs in the village and thewild beasts in forest howl the night long. It would not be pleasant tolisten to, would it?"

"It would be weird and romantic, " said the Hamburg merchant. 

"Anyhow, it isn't true, " said the Baroness complacently; "since we boughtthe place we have had proof that nothing of the sort happens. When theold mother-in-law died last springtime we all listened, but there was nohowling. It is just a story that lends dignity to the place withoutcosting anything. "

"The story is not as you have told it, " said Amalie, the grey oldgoverness. Every one turned and looked at her in astonishment. She waswont to sit silent and prim and faded in her place at table, neverspeaking unless some one spoke to her, and there were few who troubledthemselves to make conversation with her. To-day a sudden volubility haddescended on her; she continued to talk, rapidly and nervously, lookingstraight in front of her and seeming to address no one in particular. 

"It is not when _any one_ dies in the castle that the howling is heard. It was when one of the Cernogratz family died here that the wolves camefrom far and near and howled at the edge of the forest just before thedeath hour. There were only a few couple of wolves that had their lairsin this part of the forest, but at such a time the keepers say therewould be scores of them, gliding about in the shadows and howling inchorus, and the dogs of the castle and the village and all the farmsround would bay and howl in fear and anger at the wolf chorus, and as thesoul of the dying one left its body a tree would crash down in the park. That is what happened when a Cernogratz died in his family castle. Butfor a stranger dying here, of course no wolf would howl and no tree wouldfall. Oh, no. "

There was a note of defiance, almost of contempt, in her voice as shesaid the last words. The well-fed, much-too-well dressed Baroness staredangrily at the dowdy old woman who had come forth from her usual andseemly position of effacement to speak so disrespectfully. 

"You seem to know quite a lot about the von Cernogratz legends, FrauleinSchmidt, " she said sharply; "I did not know that family histories wereamong the subjects you are supposed to be proficient in. "

The answer to her taunt was even more unexpected and astonishing than theconversational outbreak which had provoked it. 

"I am a von Cernogratz myself, " said the old woman, "that is why I knowthe family history. "

"You a von Cernogratz? You!" came in an incredulous chorus. 

"When we became very poor, " she explained, "and I had to go out and giveteaching lessons, I took another name; I thought it would be more inkeeping. But my grandfather spent much of his time as a boy in thiscastle, and my father used to tell me many stories about it, and, ofcourse, I knew all the family legends and stories. When one has nothingleft to one but memories, one guards and dusts them with especial care. Ilittle thought when I took service with you that I should one day comewith you to the old home of my family. I could wish it had been anywhereelse. "

There was silence when she finished speaking, and then the Baronessturned the conversation to a less embarrassing topic than familyhistories. But afterwards, when the old governess had slipped awayquietly to her duties, there arose a clamour of derision and disbelief. 

"It was an impertinence, " snapped out the Baron, his protruding eyestaking on a scandalised expression; "fancy the woman talking like that atour table. She almost told us we were nobodies, and I don't believe aword of it. She is just Schmidt and nothing more. She has been talkingto some of the peasants about the old Cernogratz family, and raked uptheir history and their stories. "

"She wants to make herself out of some consequence, " said the Baroness;"she knows she will soon be past work and she wants to appeal to oursympathies. Her grandfather, indeed!"

The Baroness had the usual number of grandfathers, but she never, neverboasted about them. 

"I dare say her grandfather was a pantry boy or something of the sort inthe castle, " sniggered the Baron; "that part of the story may be true. "

The merchant from Hamburg said nothing; he had seen tears in the oldwoman's eyes when she spoke of guarding her memories--or, being of animaginative disposition, he thought he had. 

"I shall give her notice to go as soon as the New Year festivities areover, " said the Baroness; "till then I shall be too busy to managewithout her. "

But she had to manage without her all the same, for in the cold bitingweather after Christmas, the old governess fell ill and kept to her room. 

"It is most provoking, " said the Baroness, as her guests sat round thefire on one of the last evenings of the dying year; "all the time thatshe has been with us I cannot remember that she was ever seriously ill, too ill to go about and do her work, I mean. And now, when I have thehouse full, and she could be useful in so many ways, she goes and breaksdown. One is sorry for her, of course, she looks so withered andshrunken, but it is intensely annoying all the same. "

"Most annoying, " agreed the banker's wife, sympathetically; "it is theintense cold, I expect, it breaks the old people up. It has beenunusually cold this year. "

"The frost is the sharpest that has been known in December for manyyears, " said the Baron. 

"And, of course, she is quite old, " said the Baroness; "I wish I hadgiven her notice some weeks ago, then she would have left before thishappened to her. Why, Wappi, what is the matter with you?"

The small, woolly lapdog had leapt suddenly down from its cushion andcrept shivering under the sofa. At the same moment an outburst of angrybarking came from the dogs in the castle-yard, and other dogs could beheard yapping and barking in the distance. 

"What is disturbing the animals?" asked the Baron. 

And then the humans, listening intently, heard the sound that had rousedthe dogs to their demonstrations of fear and rage; heard a long-drawnwhining howl, rising and falling, seeming at one moment leagues away, atothers sweeping across the snow until it appeared to come from the footof the castle walls. All the starved, cold misery of a frozen world, allthe relentless hunger-fury of the wild, blended with other forlorn andhaunting melodies to which one could give no name, seemed concentrated inthat wailing cry. 

"Wolves!" cried the Baron. 

Their music broke forth in one raging burst, seeming to come fromeverywhere. 

"Hundreds of wolves, " said the Hamburg merchant, who was a man of strongimagination. 

Moved by some impulse which she could not have explained, the Baronessleft her guests and made her way to the narrow, cheerless room where theold governess lay watching the hours of the drying year slip by. Inspite of the biting cold of the winter night, the window stood open. Witha scandalised exclamation on her lips, the Baroness rushed forward toclose it. 

"Leave it open, " said the old woman in a voice that for all its weaknesscarried an air of command such as the Baroness had never heard beforefrom her lips. 

"But you will die of cold!" she expostulated. 

"I am dying in any case, " said the voice, "and I want to hear theirmusic. They have come from far and wide to sing the death-music of myfamily. It is beautiful that they have come; I am the last vonCernogratz that will die in our old castle, and they have come to sing tome. Hark, how loud they are calling!"

The cry of the wolves rose on the still winter air and floated round thecastle walls in long-drawn piercing wails; the old woman lay back on hercouch with a look of long-delayed happiness on her face. 

"Go away, " she said to the Baroness; "I am not lonely any more. I am oneof a great old family . . . "

"I think she is dying, " said the Baroness when she had rejoined herguests; "I suppose we must send for a doctor. And that terrible howling!Not for much money would I have such death-music. "

"That music is not to be bought for any amount of money, " said Conrad. 

"Hark! What is that other sound?" asked the Baron, as a noise ofsplitting and crashing was heard. 

It was a tree falling in the park. 

There was a moment of constrained silence, and then the banker's wifespoke. 

"It is the intense cold that is splitting the trees. It is also the coldthat has brought the wolves out in such numbers. It is many years sincewe have had such a cold winter. "

The Baroness eagerly agreed that the cold was responsible for thesethings. It was the cold of the open window, too, which caused the heartfailure that made the doctor's ministrations unnecessary for the oldFraulein. But the notice in the newspapers looked very well--

 "On December 29th, at Schloss Cernogratz, Amalie von Cernogratz, for many years the valued friend of Baron and Baroness Gruebel. "

LOUIS

"It would be jolly to spend Easter in Vienna this year, " saidStrudwarden, "and look up some of my old friends there. It's about thejolliest place I know of to be at for Easter--"

"I thought we had made up our minds to spend Easter at Brighton, "interrupted Lena Strudwarden, with an air of aggrieved surprise. 

"You mean that you had made up your mind that we should spend Easterthere, " said her husband; "we spent last Easter there, and Whitsuntide aswell, and the year before that we were at Worthing, and Brighton againbefore that. I think it would be just as well to have a real change ofscene while we are about it. "

"The journey to Vienna would be very expensive, " said Lena. 

"You are not often concerned about economy, " said Strudwarden, "and inany case the trip of Vienna won't cost a bit more than the rathermeaningless luncheon parties we usually give to quite meaninglessacquaintances at Brighton. To escape from all that set would be aholiday in itself. "

Strudwarden spoke feelingly; Lena Strudwarden maintained an equallyfeeling silence on that particular subject. The set that she gatheredround her at Brighton and other South Coast resorts was composed ofindividuals who might be dull and meaningless in themselves, but whounderstood the art of flattering Mrs. Strudwarden. She had no intentionof foregoing their society and their homage and flinging herself amongunappreciative strangers in a foreign capital. 

"You must go to Vienna alone if you are bent on going, " she said; "Icouldn't leave Louis behind, and a dog is always a fearful nuisance in aforeign hotel, besides all the fuss and separation of the quarantinerestrictions when one comes back. Louis would die if he was parted fromme for even a week. You don't know what that would mean to me. "

Lena stooped down and kissed the nose of the diminutive brown Pomeranianthat lay, snug and irresponsive, beneath a shawl on her lap. 

"Look here, " said Strudwarden, "this eternal Louis business is getting tobe a ridiculous nuisance. Nothing can be done, no plans can be made, without some veto connected with that animal's whims or convenience beingimposed. If you were a priest in attendance on some African fetish youcouldn't set up a more elaborate code of restrictions. I believe you'dask the Government to put off a General Election if you thought it wouldinterfere with Louis's comfort in any way. "

By way of answer to this tirade Mrs. Strudwarden stooped down again andkissed the irresponsive brown nose. It was the action of a woman with abeautifully meek nature, who would, however, send the whole world to thestake sooner than yield an inch where she knew herself to be in theright. 

"It isn't as if you were in the least bit fond of animals, " went onStrudwarden, with growing irritation; "when we are down at Kerryfield youwon't stir a step to take the house dogs out, even if they're dying for arun, and I don't think you've been in the stables twice in your life. Youlaugh at what you call the fuss that's being made over the exterminationof plumage birds, and you are quite indignant with me if I interfere onbehalf of an ill-treated, over-driven animal on the road. And yet youinsist on every one's plans being made subservient to the convenience ofthat stupid little morsel of fur and selfishness. "

"You are prejudiced against my little Louis, " said Lena, with a world oftender regret in her voice. 

"I've never had the chance of being anything else but prejudiced againsthim, " said Strudwarden; "I know what a jolly responsive companion adoggie can be, but I've never been allowed to put a finger near Louis. You say he snaps at any one except you and your maid, and you snatchedhim away from old Lady Peterby the other day, when she wanted to pet him, for fear he would bury his teeth in her. All that I ever see of him isthe top of his unhealthy-looking little nose, peeping out from his basketor from your muff, and I occasionally hear his wheezy little bark whenyou take him for a walk up and down the corridor. You can't expect oneto get extravagantly fond of a dog of that sort. One might as well workup an affection for the cuckoo in a cuckoo-clock. "

"He loves me, " said Lena, rising from the table, and bearing the shawl-swathed Louis in her arms. "He loves only me, and perhaps that is why Ilove him so much in return. I don't care what you say against him, I amnot going to be separated from him. If you insist on going to Vienna youmust go alone, as far as I am concerned. I think it would be much moresensible if you were to come to Brighton with Louis and me, but of courseyou must please yourself. "

"You must get rid of that dog, " said Strudwarden's sister when Lena hadleft the room; "it must be helped to some sudden and merciful end. Lenais merely making use of it as an instrument for getting her own way ondozens of occasions when she would otherwise be obliged to yieldgracefully to your wishes or to the general convenience. I am convincedthat she doesn't care a brass button about the animal itself. When herfriends are buzzing round her at Brighton or anywhere else and the dogwould be in the way, it has to spend whole days alone with the maid, butif you want Lena to go with you anywhere where she doesn't want to goinstantly she trots out the excuse that she couldn't be separated fromher dog. Have you ever come into a room unobserved and heard Lenatalking to her beloved pet? I never have. I believe she only fussesover it when there's some one present to notice her. "

"I don't mind admitting, " said Strudwarden, "that I've dwelt more thanonce lately on the possibility of some fatal accident putting an end toLouis's existence. It's not very easy, though, to arrange a fatality fora creature that spends most of its time in a muff or asleep in a toykennel. I don't think poison would be any good; it's obviously horriblyover-fed, for I've seen Lena offer it dainties at table sometimes, but itnever seems to eat them. "

"Lena will be away at church on Wednesday morning, " said ElsieStrudwarden reflectively; "she can't take Louis with her there, and sheis going on to the Dellings for lunch. That will give you several hoursin which to carry out your purpose. The maid will be flirting with thechauffeur most of the time, and, anyhow, I can manage to keep her out ofthe way on some pretext or other. "

"That leaves the field clear, " said Strudwarden, "but unfortunately mybrain is equally a blank as far as any lethal project is concerned. Thelittle beast is so monstrously inactive; I can't pretend that it leaptinto the bath and drowned itself, or that it took on the butcher'smastiff in unequal combat and got chewed up. In what possible guisecould death come to a confirmed basket-dweller? It would be toosuspicious if we invented a Suffragette raid and pretended that theyinvaded Lena's boudoir and threw a brick at him. We should have to do alot of other damage as well, which would be rather a nuisance, and theservants would think it odd that they had seen nothing of the invaders. "

"I have an idea, " said Elsie; "get a box with an air-tight lid, and borea small hole in it, just big enough to let in an indiarubber tube. PopLouis, kennel and all, into the box, shut it down, and put the other endof the tube over the gas-bracket. There you have a perfect lethalchamber. You can stand the kennel at the open window afterwards, to getrid of the smell of gas, and all that Lena will find when she comes homelate in the afternoon will be a placidly defunct Louis. "

"Novels have been written about women like you, " said Strudwarden; "youhave a perfectly criminal mind. Let's come and look for a box. "

Two mornings later the conspirators stood gazing guiltily at a stoutsquare box, connected with the gas-bracket by a length of indiarubbertubing. 

"Not a sound, " said Elsie; "he never stirred; it must have been quitepainless. All the same I feel rather horrid now it's done. "

"The ghastly part has to come, " said Strudwarden, turning off the gas. "We'll lift the lid slowly, and let the gas out by degrees. Swing thedoor to and fro to send a draught through the room. "

Some minutes later, when the fumes had rushed off, he stooped down andlifted out the little kennel with its grim burden. Elsie gave anexclamation of terror. Louis sat at the door of his dwelling, head erectand ears pricked, as coldly and defiantly inert as when they had put himinto his execution chamber. Strudwarden dropped the kennel with a jerk, and stared for a long moment at the miracle-dog; then he went into a pealof chattering laughter. 

It was certainly a wonderful imitation of a truculent-looking toyPomeranian, and the apparatus that gave forth a wheezy bark when youpressed it had materially helped the imposition that Lena, and Lena'smaid, had foisted on the household. For a woman who disliked animals, but liked getting her own way under a halo of unselfishness, Mrs. Strudwarden had managed rather well. 

"Louis is dead, " was the curt information that greeted Lena on her returnfrom her luncheon party. 

"Louis _dead_!" she exclaimed. 

"Yes, he flew at the butcher-boy and bit him, and he bit me, too, when Itried to get him off, so I had to have him destroyed. You warned me thathe snapped, but you didn't tell me that he was downright dangerous. Ishall have to pay the boy something heavy by way of compensation, so youwill have to go without those buckles that you wanted to have for Easter;also I shall have to go to Vienna to consult Dr. Schroeder, who is aspecialist on dog-bites, and you will have to come too. I have sent whatremains of Louis to Rowland Ward to be stuffed; that will be my Eastergift to you instead of the buckles. For Heaven's sake, Lena, weep, ifyou really feel it so much; anything would be better than standing therestaring as if you thought I had lost my reason. "

Lena Strudwarden did not weep, but her attempt at laughing was anunmistakable failure. 

THEGUESTS

"The landscape seen from our windows is certainly charming, " saidAnnabel; "those cherry orchards and green meadows, and the river windingalong the valley, and the church tower peeping out among the elms, theyall make a most effective picture. There's something dreadfully sleepyand languorous about it, though; stagnation seems to be the dominantnote. Nothing ever happens here; seedtime and harvest, an occasionaloutbreak of measles or a mildly destructive thunderstorm, and a littleelection excitement about once in five years, that is all that we have tomodify the monotony of our existence. Rather dreadful, isn't it?"

"On the contrary, " said Matilda, "I find it soothing and restful; butthen, you see, I've lived in countries where things do happen, ever somany at a time, when you're not ready for them happening all at once. "

"That, of course, makes a difference, " said Annabel. 

"I have never forgotten, " said Matilda, "the occasion when the Bishop ofBequar paid us an unexpected visit; he was on his way to lay thefoundation-stone of a mission-house or something of the sort. "

"I thought that out there you were always prepared for emergency gueststurning up, " said Annabel. 

"I was quite prepared for half a dozen Bishops, " said Matilda, "but itwas rather disconcerting to find out after a little conversation thatthis particular one was a distant cousin of mine, belonging to a branchof the family that had quarrelled bitterly and offensively with ourbranch about a Crown Derby dessert service; they got it, and we ought tohave got it, in some legacy, or else we got it and they thought theyought to have it, I forget which; anyhow, I know they behaveddisgracefully. Now here was one of them turning up in the odour ofsanctity, so to speak, and claiming the traditional hospitality of theEast. "

"It was rather trying, but you could have left your husband to do most ofthe entertaining. "

"My husband was fifty miles up-country, talking sense, or what heimagined to be sense, to a village community that fancied one of theirleading men was a were-tiger. "

"A what tiger?"

"A were-tiger; you've heard of were-wolves, haven't you, a mixture ofwolf and human being and demon? Well, in those parts they havewere-tigers, or think they have, and I must say that in this case, so faras sworn and uncontested evidence went, they had every ground forthinking so. However, as we gave up witchcraft prosecutions about threehundred years ago, we don't like to have other people keeping on ourdiscarded practices; it doesn't seem respectful to our mental and moralposition. "

"I hope you weren't unkind to the Bishop, " said Annabel. 

"Well, of course he was my guest, so I had to be outwardly polite to him, but he was tactless enough to rake up the incidents of the old quarrel, and to try to make out that there was something to be said for the wayhis side of the family had behaved; even if there was, which I don't fora moment admit, my house was not the place in which to say it. I didn'targue the matter, but I gave my cook a holiday to go and visit his agedparents some ninety miles away. The emergency cook was not a specialistin curries, in fact, I don't think cooking in any shape or form couldhave been one of his strong points. I believe he originally came to usin the guise of a gardener, but as we never pretended to have anythingthat could be considered a garden he was utilised as assistant goat-herd, in which capacity, I understand, he gave every satisfaction. When theBishop heard that I had sent away the cook on a special and unnecessaryholiday he saw the inwardness of the manoeuvre, and from that moment wewere scarcely on speaking terms. If you have ever had a Bishop with whomyou were not on speaking terms staying in your house, you will appreciatethe situation. "

Annabel confessed that her life-story had never included such adisturbing experience. 

"Then, " continued Matilda, "to make matters more complicated, theGwadlipichee overflowed its banks, a thing it did every now and then whenthe rains were unduly prolonged, and the lower part of the house and allthe out-buildings were submerged. We managed to get the ponies loose intime, and the syce swam the whole lot of them off to the nearest risingground. A goat or two, the chief goat-herd, the chief goat-herd's wife, and several of their babies came to anchorage in the verandah. All therest of the available space was filled up with wet, bedraggled-lookinghens and chickens; one never really knows how many fowls one possessestill the servants' quarters are flooded out. Of course, I had beenthrough something of the sort in previous floods, but never before had Ihad a houseful of goats and babies and half-drowned hens, supplemented bya Bishop with whom I was hardly on speaking terms. "

"It must have been a trying experience, " commented Annabel. 

"More embarrassments were to follow. I wasn't going to let a mereordinary flood wash out the memory of that Crown Derby dessert service, and I intimated to the Bishop that his large bedroom, with a writingtable in it, and his small bath-room, with a sufficiency of cold-waterjars in it, was his share of the premises, and that space was rathercongested under the existing circumstances. However, at about threeo'clock in the afternoon, when he had awakened from his midday sleep, hemade a sudden incursion into the room that was normally the drawing-room, but was now dining-room, store-house, saddle-room, and half a dozen othertemporary premises as well. From the condition of my guest's costume heseemed to think it might also serve as his dressing-room. 

"'I'm afraid there is nowhere for you to sit, ' I said coldly; 'theverandah is full of goats. '

"'There is a goat in my bedroom, ' he observed with equal coldness, andmore than a suspicion of sardonic reproach. 

"'Really, ' I said, 'another survivor? I thought all the other goats weredone for. '

"'This particular goat is quite done for, ' he said, 'it is being devouredby a leopard at the present moment. That is why I left the room; someanimals resent being watched while they are eating. '

"The leopard, of course, was easily explained; it had been hanging roundthe goat sheds when the flood came, and had clambered up by the outsidestaircase leading to the Bishop's bath-room, thoughtfully bringing a goatwith it. Probably it found the bath-room too damp and shut-in for itstaste, and transferred its banqueting operations to the bedroom while theBishop was having his nap. "

"What a frightful situation!" exclaimed Annabel; "fancy having a raveningleopard in the house, with a flood all round you. "

"Not in the least ravening, " said Matilda; "it was full of goat, had anyamount of water at its disposal if it felt thirsty, and probably had nomore immediate wish than a desire for uninterrupted sleep. Still, Ithink any one will admit that it was an embarrassing predicament to haveyour only available guest-room occupied by a leopard, the verandah chokedup with goats and babies and wet hens, and a Bishop with whom you werescarcely on speaking terms planted down in your own sitting-room. Ireally don't know how I got through those crawling hours, and of coursemealtimes only made matters worse. The emergency cook had every excusefor sending in watery soup and sloppy rice, and as neither the chief goat-herd nor his wife were expert divers, the cellar could not be reached. Fortunately the Gwadlipichee subsides as rapidly as it rises, and justbefore dawn the syce came splashing back, with the ponies only fetlockdeep in water. Then there arose some awkwardness from the fact that theBishop wished to leave sooner than the leopard did, and as the latter wasensconced in the midst of the former's personal possessions there was anobvious difficulty in altering the order of departure. I pointed out tothe Bishop that a leopard's habits and tastes are not those of an otter, and that it naturally preferred walking to wading; and that in any case ameal of an entire goat, washed down with tub-water, justified a certainamount of repose; if I had had guns fired to frighten the animal away, asthe Bishop suggested, it would probably merely have left the bedroom tocome into the already over-crowded drawing-room. Altogether it wasrather a relief when they both left. Now, perhaps, you can understand myappreciation of a sleepy countryside where things don't happen. "

THE PENANCE

Octavian Ruttle was one of those lively cheerful individuals on whomamiability had set its unmistakable stamp, and, like most of his kind, his soul's peace depended in large measure on the unstinted approval ofhis fellows. In hunting to death a small tabby cat he had done a thingof which he scarcely approved himself, and he was glad when the gardenerhad hidden the body in its hastily dug grave under a lone oak-tree in themeadow, the same tree that the hunted quarry had climbed as a last efforttowards safety. It had been a distasteful and seemingly ruthless deed, but circumstances had demanded the doing of it. Octavian kept chickens;at least he kept some of them; others vanished from his keeping, leavingonly a few bloodstained feathers to mark the manner of their going. Thetabby cat from the large grey house that stood with its back to themeadow had been detected in many furtive visits to the hen-coups, andafter due negotiation with those in authority at the grey house asentence of death had been agreed on. "The children will mind, but theyneed not know, " had been the last word on the matter. 

The children in question were a standing puzzle to Octavian; in thecourse of a few months he considered that he should have known theirnames, ages, the dates of their birthdays, and have been introduced totheir favourite toys. They remained however, as non-committal as thelong blank wall that shut them off from the meadow, a wall over whichtheir three heads sometimes appeared at odd moments. They had parents inIndia--that much Octavian had learned in the neighbourhood; the children, beyond grouping themselves garment-wise into sexes, a girl and two boys, carried their life-story no further on his behoof. And now it seemed hewas engaged in something which touched them closely, but must be hiddenfrom their knowledge. 

The poor helpless chickens had gone one by one to their doom, so it wasmeet that their destroyer should come to a violent end; yet Octavian feltsome qualms when his share of the violence was ended. The little cat, headed off from its wonted tracks of safety, had raced unfriended fromshelter to shelter, and its end had been rather piteous. Octavian walkedthrough the long grass of the meadow with a step less jaunty than usual. And as he passed beneath the shadow of the high blank wall he glanced upand became aware that his hunting had had undesired witnesses. Threewhite set faces were looking down at him, and if ever an artist wanted athreefold study of cold human hate, impotent yet unyielding, raging yetmasked in stillness, he would have found it in the triple gaze that metOctavian's eye. 

"I'm sorry, but it had to be done, " said Octavian, with genuine apologyin his voice. 

"Beast!"

The answer came from three throats with startling intensity. 

Octavian felt that the blank wall would not be more impervious to hisexplanations than the bunch of human hostility that peered over itscoping; he wisely decided to withhold his peace overtures till a morehopeful occasion. 

Two days later he ransacked the best sweet shop in the neighbouringmarket town for a box of chocolates that by its size and contents shouldfitly atone for the dismal deed done under the oak tree in the meadow. The two first specimens that were shown him he hastily rejected; one hada group of chickens pictured on its lid, the other bore the portrait of atabby kitten. A third sample was more simply bedecked with a spray ofpainted poppies, and Octavian hailed the flowers of forgetfulness as ahappy omen. He felt distinctly more at ease with his surroundings whenthe imposing package had been sent across to the grey house, and amessage returned to say that it had been duly given to the children. Thenext morning he sauntered with purposeful steps past the long blank wallon his way to the chicken-run and piggery that stood at the bottom of themeadow. The three children were perched at their accustomed look-out, and their range of sight did not seem to concern itself with Octavian'spresence. As he became depressingly aware of the aloofness of their gazehe also noted a strange variegation in the herbage at his feet; thegreensward for a considerable space around was strewn and speckled with achocolate-coloured hail, enlivened here and there with gay tinsel-likewrappings or the glistening mauve of crystallised violets. It was asthough the fairy paradise of a greedyminded child had taken shape andsubstance in the vegetation of the meadow. Octavian's bloodmoney hadbeen flung back at him in scorn. 

To increase his discomfiture the march of events tended to shift theblame of ravaged chicken-coops from the supposed culprit who had alreadypaid full forfeit; the young chicks were still carried off, and it seemedhighly probable that the cat had only haunted the chicken-run to prey onthe rats which harboured there. Through the flowing channels of servanttalk the children learned of this belated revision of verdict, andOctavian one day picked up a sheet of copy-book paper on which waspainstakingly written: "Beast. Rats eated your chickens. " More ardentlythan ever did he wish for an opportunity for sloughing off the disgracethat enwrapped him, and earning some happier nickname from his threeunsparing judges. 

And one day a chance inspiration came to him. Olivia, his two-year-olddaughter, was accustomed to spend the hour from high noon till oneo'clock with her father while the nursemaid gobbled and digested herdinner and novelette. About the same time the blank wall was usuallyenlivened by the presence of its three small wardens. Octavian, withseeming carelessness of purpose, brought Olivia well within hail of thewatchers and noted with hidden delight the growing interest that dawnedin that hitherto sternly hostile quarter. His little Olivia, with hersleepy placid ways, was going to succeed where he, with his anxious well-meant overtures, had so signally failed. He brought her a large yellowdahlia, which she grasped tightly in one hand and regarded with a stareof benevolent boredom, such as one might bestow on amateur classicaldancing performed in aid of a deserving charity. Then he turned shyly tothe group perched on the wall and asked with affected carelessness, "Doyou like flowers?" Three solemn nods rewarded his venture. 

"Which sorts do you like best?" he asked, this time with a distinctbetrayal of eagerness in his voice. 

"Those with all the colours, over there. " Three chubby arms pointed to adistant tangle of sweet-pea. Child-like, they had asked for what layfarthest from hand, but Octavian trotted off gleefully to obey theirwelcome behest. He pulled and plucked with unsparing hand, and broughtevery variety of tint that he could see into his bunch that was rapidlybecoming a bundle. Then he turned to retrace his steps, and found theblank wall blanker and more deserted than ever, while the foreground wasvoid of all trace of Olivia. Far down the meadow three children werepushing a go-cart at the utmost speed they could muster in the directionof the piggeries; it was Olivia's go-cart and Olivia sat in it, somewhatbumped and shaken by the pace at which she was being driven, butapparently retaining her wonted composure of mind. Octavian stared for amoment at the rapidly moving group, and then started in hot pursuit, shedding as he ran sprays of blossom from the mass of sweet-pea that hestill clutched in his hands. Fast as he ran the children had reached thepiggery before he could overtake them, and he arrived just in time to seeOlivia, wondering but unprotesting, hauled and pushed up to the roof ofthe nearest sty. They were old buildings in some need of repair, and therickety roof would certainly not have borne Octavian's weight if he hadattempted to follow his daughter and her captors on their new vantageground. 

"What are you going to do with her?" he panted. There was no mistakingthe grim trend of mischief in those flushed by sternly composed youngfaces. 

"Hang her in chains over a slow fire, " said one of the boys. Evidentlythey had been reading English history. 

"Frow her down the pigs will d'vour her, every bit 'cept the palms of herhands, " said the other boy. It was also evident that they had studiedBiblical history. 

The last proposal was the one which most alarmed Octavian, since it mightbe carried into effect at a moment's notice; there had been cases, heremembered, of pigs eating babies. 

"You surely wouldn't treat my poor little Olivia in that way?" hepleaded. 

"You killed our little cat, " came in stern reminder from three throats. 

"I'm sorry I did, " said Octavian, and if there is a standard measurementin truths Octavian's statement was assuredly a large nine. 

"We shall be very sorry when we've killed Olivia, " said the girl, "but wecan't be sorry till we've done it. "

The inexorable child-logic rose like an unyielding rampart beforeOctavian's scared pleadings. Before he could think of any fresh line ofappeal his energies were called out in another direction. Olivia hadslid off the roof and fallen with a soft, unctuous splash into a morassof muck and decaying straw. Octavian scrambled hastily over the pigstywall to her rescue, and at once found himself in a quagmire that engulfedhis feet. Olivia, after the first shock of surprise at her sudden dropthrough the air, had been mildly pleased at finding herself in close andunstinted contact with the sticky element that oozed around her, but asshe began to sink gently into the bed of slime a feeling dawned on herthat she was not after all very happy, and she began to cry in thetentative fashion of the normally good child. Octavian, battling withthe quagmire, which seemed to have learned the rare art of giving way atall points without yielding an inch, saw his daughter slowly disappearingin the engulfing slush, her smeared face further distorted with thecontortions of whimpering wonder, while from their perch on the pigstyroof the three children looked down with the cold unpitying detachment ofthe Parcae Sisters. 

"I can't reach her in time, " gasped Octavian, "she'll be choked in themuck. Won't you help her?"

"No one helped our cat, " came the inevitable reminder. 

"I'll do anything to show you how sorry I am about that, " cried Octavian, with a further desperate flounder, which carried him scarcely two inchesforward. 

"Will you stand in a white sheet by the grave?"

"Yes, " screamed Octavian. 

"Holding a candle?"

"An' saying 'I'm a miserable Beast'?"

Octavian agreed to both suggestions. 

"For a long, long time?"

"For half an hour, " said Octavian. There was an anxious ring in hisvoice as he named the time-limit; was there not the precedent of a Germanking who did open-air penance for several days and nights at Christmas-time clad only in his shirt? Fortunately the children did not appear tohave read German history, and half an hour seemed long and goodly intheir eyes. 

"All right, " came with threefold solemnity from the roof, and a momentlater a short ladder had been laboriously pushed across to Octavian, wholost no time in propping it against the low pigsty wall. Scramblinggingerly along its rungs he was able to lean across the morass thatseparated him from his slowly foundering offspring and extract her likean unwilling cork from it's slushy embrace. A few minutes later he waslistening to the shrill and repeated assurances of the nursemaid that herprevious experience of filthy spectacles had been on a notably smallerscale. 

That same evening when twilight was deepening into darkness Octavian tookup his position as penitent under the lone oak-tree, having firstcarefully undressed the part. Clad in a zephyr shirt, which on thisoccasion thoroughly merited its name, he held in one hand a lightedcandle and in the other a watch, into which the soul of a dead plumberseemed to have passed. A box of matches lay at his feet and was resortedto on the fairly frequent occasions when the candle succumbed to thenight breezes. The house loomed inscrutable in the middle distance, butas Octavian conscientiously repeated the formula of his penance he feltcertain that three pairs of solemn eyes were watching his moth-sharedvigil. 

And the next morning his eyes were gladdened by a sheet of copy-bookpaper lying beside the blank wall, on which was written the message "Un-Beast. "

THE PHANTOM LUNCHEON

"The Smithly-Dubbs are in Town, " said Sir James. "I wish you would showthem some attention. Ask them to lunch with you at the Ritz orsomewhere. "

"From the little I've seen of the Smithly-Dubbs I don't thing I want tocultivate their acquaintance, " said Lady Drakmanton. 

"They always work for us at election times, " said her husband; "I don'tsuppose they influence very many votes, but they have an uncle who is onone of my ward committees, and another uncle speaks sometimes at some ofour less important meetings. Those sort of people expect some return inthe shape of hospitality. "

"Expect it!" exclaimed Lady Drakmanton; "the Misses Smithly-Dubb do morethan that; they almost demand it. They belong to my club, and hang aboutthe lobby just about lunch-time, all three of them, with their tongueshanging out of their mouths and the six-course look in their eyes. If Iwere to breathe the word 'lunch' they would hustle me into a taxi andscream 'Ritz' or 'Dieudonne's' to the driver before I knew what washappening. "

"All the same, I think you ought to ask them to a meal of some sort, "persisted Sir James. 

"I consider that showing hospitality to the Smithly-Dubbs is carryingFree Food principles to a regrettable extreme, " said Lady Drakmanton;"I've entertained the Joneses and the Browns and the Snapheimers and theLubrikoffs, and heaps of others whose names I forget, but I don't see whyI should inflict the society of the Misses Smithly-Dubb on myself for asolid hour. Imagine it, sixty minutes, more or less, of unrelentinggobble and gabble. Why can't _you_ take them on, Milly?" she asked, turning hopefully to her sister. 

"I don't know them, " said Milly hastily. 

"All the better; you can pass yourself off as me. People say that we areso alike that they can hardly tell us apart, and I've only spoken tothese tiresome young women about twice in my life, at committee-rooms, and bowed to them in the club. Any of the club page-boys will point themout to you; they're always to be found lolling about the hall just beforelunch-time. "

"My dear Betty, don't be absurd, " protested Milly; "I've got some peoplelunching with me at the Carlton to-morrow, and I'm leaving Town the dayafterwards. "

"What time is your lunch to-morrow?" asked Lady Drakmanton reflectively. 

"Two o'clock, " said Milly. 

"Good, " said her sister; "the Smithly-Dubbs shall lunch with meto-morrow. It shall be rather an amusing lunch-party. At least, I shallbe amused. "

The last two remarks she made to herself. Other people did not alwaysappreciate her ideas of humour. Sir James never did. 

The next day Lady Drakmanton made some marked variations in her usualtoilet effects. She dressed her hair in an unaccustomed manner, and puton a hat that added to the transformation of her appearance. When shehad made one or two minor alterations she was sufficiently unlike herusual smart self to produce some hesitation in the greeting which theMisses Smithly-Dubb bestowed on her in the club-lobby. She responded, however, with a readiness which set their doubts at rest. 

"What is the Carlton like for lunching in?" she asked breezily. 

The restaurant received an enthusiastic recommendation from the threesisters. 

"Let's go and lunch there, shall we?" she suggested, and in a fewminutes' time the Smithly-Dubb mind was contemplating at close quarters ahappy vista of baked meats and approved vintage. 

"Are you going to start with caviare? I am, " confided Lady Drakmanton, and the Smithly-Dubbs started with caviare. The subsequent dishes werechosen in the same ambitious spirit, and by the time they had arrived atthe wild duck course it was beginning to be a rather expensive lunch. 

The conversation hardly kept pace with the brilliancy of the menu. Repeated references on the part of the guests to the local politicalconditions and prospects in Sir James's constituency were met with vague"ahs" and "indeeds" from Lady Drakmanton, who might have been expected tobe specially interested. 

"I think when the Insurance Act is a little better understood it willlose some of its present unpopularity, " hazarded Cecilia Smithly-Dubb. 

"Will it? I dare say. I'm afraid politics don't interest me very much, "said Lady Drakmanton. 

The three Miss Smithly-Dubbs put down their cups of Turkish coffee andstared. Then they broke into protesting giggles. 

"Of course, you're joking, " they said. 

"Not me, " was the disconcerting answer; "I can't make head or tail ofthese bothering old politics. Never could, and never want to. I'vequite enough to do to manage my own affairs, and that's a fact. "

"But, " exclaimed Amanda Smithly-Dubb, with a squeal of bewildermentbreaking into her voice, "I was told you spoke so informingly about theInsurance Act at one of our social evenings. "

It was Lady Drakmanton who stared now. "Do you know, " she said, with ascared look around her, "rather a dreadful thing is happening. I'msuffering from a complete loss of memory. I can't even think who I am. Iremember meeting you somewhere, and I remember you asking me to come andlunch with you here, and that I accepted your kind invitation. Beyondthat my mind is a positive blank. "

The scared look was transferred with intensified poignancy to the facesof her companions. 

"_You_ asked _us_ to lunch, " they exclaimed hurriedly. That seemed amore immediately important point to clear up than the question ofidentity. 

"Oh, no, " said the vanishing hostess, "_that_ I do remember about. Youinsisted on my coming here because the feeding was so good, and I mustsay it comes up to all you said about it. A very nice lunch it's been. What I'm worrying about is who on earth am I? I haven't the faintestnotion?"

"You are Lady Drakmanton, " exclaimed the three sisters in chorus. 

"Now, don't make fun of me, " she replied, crossly, "I happen to know herquite well by sight, and she isn't a bit like me. And it's an odd thingyou should have mentioned her, for it so happens she's just come into theroom. That lady in black, with the yellow plume in her hat, there overby the door. "

The Smithly-Dubbs looked in the indicated direction, and the uneasinessin their eyes deepened into horror. In outward appearance the lady whohad just entered the room certainly came rather nearer to theirrecollection of their Member's wife than the individual who was sittingat table with them. 

"Who _are_ you, then, if that is Lady Drakmanton?" they asked in panic-stricken bewilderment. 

"That is just what I don't know, " was the answer; "and you don't seem toknow much better than I do. "

"You came up to us in the club--"

"In what club?"

"The New Didactic, in Calais Street. "

"The New Didactic!" exclaimed Lady Drakmanton with an air of returningillumination; "thank you so much. Of course, I remember now who I am. I'm Ellen Niggle, of the Ladies' Brasspolishing Guild. The Club employsme to come now and then and see to the polishing of the brass fittings. That's how I came to know Lady Drakmanton by sight; she's very often inthe Club. And you are the ladies who so kindly asked me out to lunch. Funny how it should all have slipped my memory, all of a sudden. Theunaccustomed good food and wine must have been too much for me; for themoment I really couldn't call to mind who I was. Good gracious, " shebroke off suddenly, "it's ten past two; I should be at a polishing job inWhitehall. I must scuttle off like a giddy rabbit. Thanking you everso. "

She left the room with a scuttle sufficiently suggestive of the animalshe had mentioned, but the giddiness was all on the side of herinvoluntary hostesses. The restaurant seemed to be spinning round them;and the bill when it appeared did nothing to restore their composure. They were as nearly in tears as it is permissible to be during theluncheon hour in a really good restaurant. Financially speaking, theywere well able to afford the luxury of an elaborate lunch, but theirideas on the subject of entertaining differed very sharply, according tothe circumstances of whether they were dispensing or receivinghospitality. To have fed themselves liberally at their own expense was, perhaps, an extravagance to be deplored, but, at any rate, they had hadsomething for their money; to have drawn an unknown and sociallyunremunerative Ellen Niggle into the net of their hospitality was acatastrophe that they could not contemplate with any degree of calmness. 

The Smithly-Dubbs never quite recovered from their unnerving experience. They have given up politics and taken to doing good. 

A BREAD AND BUTTER MISS

"Starling Chatter and Oakhill have both dropped back in the betting, "said Bertie van Tahn, throwing the morning paper across the breakfasttable. 

"That leaves Nursery Tea practically favourite, " said Odo Finsberry. 

"Nursery Tea and Pipeclay are at the top of the betting at present, " saidBertie, "but that French horse, Le Five O'Clock, seems to be fancied asmuch as anything. Then there is Whitebait, and the Polish horse with aname like some one trying to stifle a sneeze in church; they both seem tohave a lot of support. "

"It's the most open Derby there's been for years, " said Odo. 

"It's simply no good trying to pick the winner on form, " said Bertie;"one must just trust to luck and inspiration. "

"The question is whether to trust to one's own inspiration, or somebodyelse's. _Sporting Swank_ gives Count Palatine to win, and Le FiveO'Clock for a place. "

"Count Palatine--that adds another to our list of perplexities. Goodmorning, Sir Lulworth; have you a fancy for the Derby by any chance?"

"I don't usually take much interest in turf matters, " said Sir Lulworth, who had just made his appearance, "but I always like to have a bet on theGuineas and the Derby. This year, I confess, it's rather difficult topick out anything that seems markedly better than anything else. What doyou think of Snow Bunting?"

"Snow Bunting?" said Odo, with a groan, "there's another of them. Surely, Snow Bunting has no earthly chance?"

"My housekeeper's nephew, who is a shoeing-smith in the mounted sectionof the Church Lads' Brigade, and an authority on horseflesh, expects himto be among the first three. "

"The nephews of housekeepers are invariably optimists, " said Bertie;"it's a kind of natural reaction against the professional pessimism oftheir aunts. "

"We don't seem to get much further in our search for the probablewinner, " said Mrs. De Claux; "the more I listen to you experts the morehopelessly befogged I get. "

"It's all very well to blame us, " said Bertie to his hostess; "youhaven't produced anything in the way of an inspiration. "

"My inspiration consisted in asking you down for Derby week, " retortedMrs. De Claux; "I thought you and Odo between you might throw some lighton the question of the moment. "

Further recriminations were cut short by the arrival of Lola Pevensey, who floated into the room with an air of gracious apology. 

"So sorry to be so late, " she observed, making a rapid tour of inspectionof the breakfast dishes. 

"Did you have a good night?" asked her hostess with perfunctorysolicitude. 

"Quite, thank you, " said Lola; "I dreamt a most remarkable dream. "

A flutter, indicative of general boredom; went round the table. Otherpeople's dreams are about as universally interesting as accounts of otherpeople's gardens, or chickens, or children. 

"I dreamt about the winner of the Derby, " said Lola. 

A swift reaction of attentive interest set in. 

"Do tell us what you dreamt, " came in a chorus. 

"The really remarkable thing about it is that I've dreamt it two nightsrunning, " said Lola, finally deciding between the allurements of sausagesand kedgeree; "that is why I thought it worth mentioning. You know, whenI dream things two or three nights in succession, it always meanssomething; I have special powers in that way. For instance, I oncedreamed three times that a winged lion was flying through the sky and oneof his wings dropped off, and he came to the ground with a crash; justafterwards the Campanile at Venice fell down. The winged lion is thesymbol of Venice, you know, " she added for the enlightenment of those whomight not be versed in Italian heraldry. "Then, " she continued, "justbefore the murder of the King and Queen of Servia I had a vivid dream oftwo crowned figures walking into a slaughter-house by the banks of a bigriver, which I took to be the Danube; and only the other day--"

"Do tell us what you've dreamt about the Derby, " interrupted Odoimpatiently. 

"Well, I saw the finish of the race as clearly as anything; and one horsewon easily, almost in a canter, and everybody cried out 'Bread and Butterwins! Good old Bread and Butter. ' I heard the name distinctly, and I'vehad the same dream two nights running. "

"Bread and Butter, " said Mrs. De Claux, "now, whatever horse can thatpoint to? Why--of course; Nursery Tea!"

She looked round with the triumphant smile of a successful unraveller ofmystery. 

"How about Le Five O'Clock?" interposed Sir Lulworth. 

"It would fit either of them equally well, " said Odo; "can you rememberany details about the jockey's colours? That might help us. "

"I seem to remember a glimpse of lemon sleeves or cap, but I can't besure, " said Lola, after due reflection. 

"There isn't a lemon jacket or cap in the race, " said Bertie, referringto a list of starters and jockeys; "can't you remember anything about theappearance of the horse? If it were a thick-set animal, this bread andbutter would typify Nursery Tea; and if it were thin, of course, it wouldmean Le Five O'Clock. "

"That seems sound enough, " said Mrs. De Claux; "do think, Lola dear, whether the horse in your dream was thin or stoutly built. "

"I can't remember that it was one or the other, " said Lola; "one wouldn'tnotice such a detail in the excitement of a finish. "

"But this was a symbolic animal, " said Sir Lulworth; "if it were totypify thick or thin bread and butter surely it ought to have been eitheras bulky and tubby as a shire cart-horse; or as thin as a heraldicleopard. "

"I'm afraid you are rather a careless dreamer, " said Bertie resentfully. 

"Of course, at the moment of dreaming I thought I was witnessing a realrace, not the portent of one, " said Lola; "otherwise I should haveparticularly noticed all helpful details. "

"The Derby isn't run till to-morrow, " said Mrs. De Claux; "do you thinkyou are likely to have the same dream again to-night? If so; you can fixyour attention on the important detail of the animal's appearance. "

"I'm afraid I shan't sleep at all to-night, " said Lola pathetically;"every fifth night I suffer from insomnia, and it's due to-night. "

"It's most provoking, " said Bertie; "of course, we can back both horses, but it would be much more satisfactory to have all our money on thewinner. Can't you take a sleeping-draught, or something?"

"Oakleaves, soaked in warm water and put under the bed, are recommendedby some, " said Mrs. De Claux. 

"A glass of Benedictine, with a drop of eau-de-Cologne--" said SirLulworth. 

"I have tried every known remedy, " said Lola, with dignity; "I've been amartyr to insomnia for years. "

"But now we are being martyrs to it, " said Odo sulkily; "I particularlywant to land a big coup over this race. "

"I don't have insomnia for my own amusement, " snapped Lola. 

"Let us hope for the best, " said Mrs. De Claux soothingly; "to-night mayprove an exception to the fifth-night rule. "

But when breakfast time came round again Lola reported a blank night asfar as visions were concerned. 

"I don't suppose I had as much as ten minutes' sleep, and, certainly, nodreams. "

"I'm so sorry, for your sake in the first place, and ours as well, " saidher hostess; "do you think you could induce a short nap after breakfast?It would be so good for you--and you _might_ dream something. Therewould still be time for us to get our bets on. "

"I'll try if you like, " said Lola; "it sounds rather like a small childbeing sent to bed in disgrace. "

"I'll come and read the _Encyclopaedia Britannica_ to you if you think itwill make you sleep any sooner, " said Bertie obligingly. 

Rain was falling too steadily to permit of outdoor amusement, and theparty suffered considerably during the next two hours from the absolutequiet that was enforced all over the house in order to give Lola everychance of achieving slumber. Even the click of billiard balls wasconsidered a possible factor of disturbance, and the canaries werecarried down to the gardener's lodge, while the cuckoo clock in the hallwas muffled under several layers of rugs. A notice, "Please do not Knockor Ring, " was posted on the front door at Bertie's suggestion, and guestsand servants spoke in tragic whispers as though the dread presence ofdeath or sickness had invaded the house. The precautions proved of noavail: Lola added a sleepless morning to a wakeful night, and the bets ofthe party had to be impartially divided between Nursery Tea and theFrench Colt. 

"So provoking to have to split out bets, " said Mrs. De Claux, as herguests gathered in the hall later in the day, waiting for the result ofthe race. 

"I did my best for you, " said Lola, feeling that she was not getting herdue share of gratitude; "I told you what I had seen in my dreams, a brownhorse, called Bread and Butter, winning easily from all the rest. "

"What?" screamed Bertie, jumping up from his sea, "a _brown_ horse!Miserable woman, you never said a word about it's being a brown horse. "

"Didn't I?" faltered Lola; "I thought I told you it was a brown horse. Itwas certainly brown in both dreams. But I don't see what the colour hasgot to do with it. Nursery Tea and Le Five O'Clock are both chestnuts. "

"Merciful Heaven! Doesn't brown bread and butter with a sprinkling oflemon in the colours suggest anything to you?" raged Bertie. 

A slow, cumulative groan broke from the assembly as the meaning of hiswords gradually dawned on his hearers. 

For the second time that day Lola retired to the seclusion of her room;she could not face the universal looks of reproach directed at her whenWhitebait was announced winner at the comfortable price of fourteen toone. 

BERTIE'S CHRISTMAS EVE

It was Christmas Eve, and the family circle of Luke Steffink, Esq. , wasaglow with the amiability and random mirth which the occasion demanded. Along and lavish dinner had been partaken of, waits had been round andsung carols; the house-party had regaled itself with more caroling on itsown account, and there had been romping which, even in a pulpitreference, could not have been condemned as ragging. In the midst of thegeneral glow, however, there was one black unkindled cinder. 

Bertie Steffink, nephew of the aforementioned Luke, had early in lifeadopted the profession of ne'er-do-weel; his father had been something ofthe kind before him. At the age of eighteen Bertie had commenced thatround of visits to our Colonial possessions, so seemly and desirable inthe case of a Prince of the Blood, so suggestive of insincerity in ayoung man of the middle-class. He had gone to grow tea in Ceylon andfruit in British Columbia, and to help sheep to grow wool in Australia. At the age of twenty he had just returned from some similar errand inCanada, from which it may be gathered that the trial he gave to thesevarious experiments was of the summary drum-head nature. Luke Steffink, who fulfilled the troubled role of guardian and deputy-parent to Bertie, deplored the persistent manifestation of the homing instinct on hisnephew's part, and his solemn thanks earlier in the day for the blessingof reporting a united family had no reference to Bertie's return. 

Arrangements had been promptly made for packing the youth off to adistant corner of Rhodesia, whence return would be a difficult matter;the journey to this uninviting destination was imminent, in fact a morecareful and willing traveller would have already begun to think about hispacking. Hence Bertie was in no mood to share in the festive spiritwhich displayed itself around him, and resentment smouldered within himat the eager, self-absorbed discussion of social plans for the comingmonths which he heard on all sides. Beyond depressing his uncle and thefamily circle generally by singing "Say au revoir, and not good-bye, " hehad taken no part in the evening's conviviality. 

Eleven o'clock had struck some half-hour ago, and the elder Steffinksbegan to throw out suggestions leading up to that process which theycalled retiring for the night. 

"Come, Teddie, it's time you were in your little bed, you know, " saidLuke Steffink to his thirteen-year-old son. 

"That's where we all ought to be, " said Mrs. Steffink. 

"There wouldn't be room, " said Bertie. 

The remark was considered to border on the scandalous; everybody ateraisins and almonds with the nervous industry of sheep feeding duringthreatening weather. 

"In Russia, " said Horace Bordenby, who was staying in the house as aChristmas guest, "I've read that the peasants believe that if you go intoa cow-house or stable at midnight on Christmas Eve you will hear theanimals talk. They're supposed to have the gift of speech at that onemoment of the year. "

"Oh, _do_ let's _all_ go down to the cow-house and listen to what they'vegot to say!" exclaimed Beryl, to whom anything was thrilling and amusingif you did it in a troop. 

Mrs. Steffink made a laughing protest, but gave a virtual consent bysaying, "We must all wrap up well, then. " The idea seemed ascatterbrained one to her, and almost heathenish, but if afforded anopportunity for "throwing the young people together, " and as such shewelcomed it. Mr. Horace Bordenby was a young man with quite substantialprospects, and he had danced with Beryl at a local subscription ball asufficient number of times to warrant the authorised inquiry on the partof the neighbours whether "there was anything in it. " Though Mrs. Steffink would not have put it in so many words, she shared the idea ofthe Russian peasantry that on this night the beast might speak. 

The cow-house stood at the junction of the garden with a small paddock, an isolated survival, in a suburban neighbourhood; of what had once beena small farm. Luke Steffink was complacently proud of his cow-house andhis two cows; he felt that they gave him a stamp of solidity which nonumber of Wyandottes or Orpingtons could impart. They even seemed tolink him in a sort of inconsequent way with those patriarchs who derivedimportance from their floating capital of flocks and herbs, he-asses andshe-asses. It had been an anxious and momentous occasion when he had hadto decide definitely between "the Byre" and "the Ranch" for the naming ofhis villa residence. A December midnight was hardly the moment he wouldhave chosen for showing his farm-building to visitors, but since it was afine night, and the young people were anxious for an excuse for a mildfrolic, Luke consented to chaperon the expedition. The servants had longsince gone to bed, so the house was left in charge of Bertie, whoscornfully declined to stir out on the pretext of listening to bovineconversation. 

"We must go quietly, " said Luke, as he headed the procession of gigglingyoung folk, brought up in the rear by the shawled and hooded figure ofMrs. Steffink; "I've always laid stress on keeping this a quiet andorderly neighbourhood. "

It was a few minutes to midnight when the party reached the cow-house andmade its way in by the light of Luke's stable lantern. For a momentevery one stood in silence, almost with a feeling of being in church. 

"Daisy--the one lying down--is by a shorthorn bull out of a Guernseycow, " announced Luke in a hushed voice, which was in keeping with theforegoing impression. 

"Is she?" said Bordenby, rather as if he had expected her to be byRembrandt. 

"Myrtle is--"

Myrtle's family history was cut short by a little scream from the womenof the party. 

The cow-house door had closed noiselessly behind them and the key hadturned gratingly in the lock; then they heard Bertie's voice pleasantlywishing them good-night and his footsteps retreating along the gardenpath. 

Luke Steffink strode to the window; it was a small square opening of theold-fashioned sort, with iron bars let into the stonework. 

"Unlock the door this instant, " he shouted, with as much air of menacingauthority as a hen might assume when screaming through the bars of a coopat a marauding hawk. In reply to his summons the hall-door closed with adefiant bang. 

A neighbouring clock struck the hour of midnight. If the cows hadreceived the gift of human speech at that moment they would not have beenable to make themselves heard. Seven or eight other voices were engagedin describing Bertie's present conduct and his general character at ahigh pressure of excitement and indignation. 

In the course of half an hour or so everything that it was permissible tosay about Bertie had been said some dozens of times, and other topicsbegan to come to the front--the extreme mustiness of the cow-house, thepossibility of it catching fire, and the probability of it being a RowtonHouse for the vagrant rats of the neighbourhood. And still no sign ofdeliverance came to the unwilling vigil-keepers. 

Towards one o'clock the sound of rather boisterous and undisciplinedcarol-singing approached rapidly, and came to a sudden anchorage, apparently just outside the garden-gate. A motor-load of youthful"bloods, " in a high state of conviviality, had made a temporary halt forrepairs; the stoppage, however, did not extend to the vocal efforts ofthe party, and the watchers in the cow-shed were treated to a highlyunauthorised rendering of "Good King Wenceslas, " in which the adjective"good" appeared to be very carelessly applied. 

The noise had the effect of bringing Bertie out into the garden, but heutterly ignored the pale, angry faces peering out at the cow-housewindow, and concentrated his attention on the revellers outside the gate. 

"Wassail, you chaps!" he shouted. 

"Wassail, old sport!" they shouted back; "we'd jolly well drink y'rhealth, only we've nothing to drink it in. "

"Come and wassail inside, " said Bertie hospitably; "I'm all alone, andthere's heap's of 'wet'. "

They were total strangers, but his touch of kindness made them instantlyhis kin. In another moment the unauthorised version of King Wenceslas, which, like many other scandals, grew worse on repetition, went echoingup the garden path; two of the revellers gave an impromptu performance onthe way by executing the staircase waltz up the terraces of what LukeSteffink, hitherto with some justification, called his rock-garden. Therock part of it was still there when the waltz had been accorded itsthird encore. Luke, more than ever like a cooped hen behind thecow-house bars, was in a position to realise the feelings ofconcert-goers unable to countermand the call for an encore which theyneither desire or deserve. 

The hall door closed with a bang on Bertie's guests, and the sounds ofmerriment became faint and muffled to the weary watchers at the other endof the garden. Presently two ominous pops, in quick succession, madethemselves distinctly heard. 

"They've got at the champagne!" exclaimed Mrs. Steffink. 

"Perhaps it's the sparkling Moselle, " said Luke hopefully. 

Three or four more pops were heard. 

"The champagne _and_ the sparkling Moselle, " said Mrs. Steffink. 

Luke uncorked an expletive which, like brandy in a temperance household, was only used on rare emergencies. Mr. Horace Bordenby had been makinguse of similar expressions under his breath for a considerable time past. The experiment of "throwing the young people together" had been prolongedbeyond a point when it was likely to produce any romantic result. 

Some forty minutes later the hall door opened and disgorged a crowd thathad thrown off any restraint of shyness that might have influenced itsearlier actions. Its vocal efforts in the direction of carol singingwere now supplemented by instrumental music; a Christmas-tree that hadbeen prepared for the children of the gardener and other householdretainers had yielded a rich spoil of tin trumpets, rattles, and drums. The life-story of King Wenceslas had been dropped, Luke was thankful tonotice, but it was intensely irritating for the chilled prisoners in thecow-house to be told that it was a hot time in the old town to-night, together with some accurate but entirely superfluous information as tothe imminence of Christmas morning. Judging by the protests which beganto be shouted from the upper windows of neighbouring houses thesentiments prevailing in the cow-house were heartily echoed in otherquarters. 

The revellers found their car, and, what was more remarkable, managed todrive off in it, with a parting fanfare of tin trumpets. The lively beatof a drum disclosed the fact that the master of the revels remained onthe scene. 

"Bertie!" came in an angry, imploring chorus of shouts and screams fromthe cow-house window. 

"Hullo, " cried the owner of the name, turning his rather errant steps inthe direction of the summons; "are you people still there? Must haveheard everything cows got to say by this time. If you haven't, no usewaiting. After all, it's a Russian legend, and Russian Chrismush Eve notdue for 'nother fortnight. Better come out. "

After one or two ineffectual attempts he managed to pitch the key of thecow-house door in through the window. Then, lifting his voice in thestrains of "I'm afraid to go home in the dark, " with a lusty drumaccompaniment, he led the way back to the house. The hurried processionof the released that followed in his steps came in for a good deal of theadverse comment that his exuberant display had evoked. 

It was the happiest Christmas Eve he had ever spent. To quote his ownwords, he had a rotten Christmas. 

FOREWARNED

Alethia Debchance sat in a corner of an otherwise empty railway carriage, more or less at ease as regarded body, but in some trepidation as tomind. She had embarked on a social adventure of no little magnitude ascompared with the accustomed seclusion and stagnation of her past life. At the age of twenty-eight she could look back on nothing more eventfulthan the daily round of her existence in her aunt's house atWebblehinton, a hamlet four and a half miles distant from a country townand about a quarter of a century removed from modern times. Theirneighbours had been elderly and few, not much given to socialintercourse, but helpful or politely sympathetic in times of illness. Newspapers of the ordinary kind were a rarity; those that Alethia sawregularly were devoted exclusively either to religion or to poultry, andthe world of politics was to her an unheeded unexplored region. Herideas on life in general had been acquired through the medium of popularrespectable novel-writers, and modified or emphasised by such knowledgeas her aunt, the vicar, and her aunt's housekeeper had put at herdisposal. And now, in her twenty-ninth year, her aunt's death had lefther, well provided for as regards income, but somewhat isolated in thematter of kith and kin and human companionship. She had some cousins whowere on terms of friendly, though infrequent, correspondence with her, but as they lived permanently in Ceylon, a locality about which she knewlittle, beyond the assurance contained in the missionary hymn that thehuman element there was vile, they were not of much immediate use to her. Other cousins she also possessed, more distant as regards relationship, but not quite so geographically remote, seeing that they lived somewherein the Midlands. She could hardly remember ever having met them, butonce or twice in the course of the last three or four years they hadexpressed a polite wish that she should pay them a visit; they hadprobably not been unduly depressed by the fact that her aunt's failinghealth had prevented her from accepting their invitation. The note ofcondolence that had arrived on the occasion of her aunt's death hadincluded a vague hope that Alethia would find time in the near future tospend a few days with her cousins, and after much deliberation and manyhesitations she had written to propose herself as a guest for a definitedate some week ahead. The family, she reflected with relief, was not alarge one; the two daughters were married and away, there was only oldMrs. Bludward and her son Robert at home. Mrs. Bludward was something ofan invalid, and Robert was a young man who had been at Oxford and wasgoing into Parliament. Further than that Alethia's information did notgo; her imagination, founded on her extensive knowledge of the people onemet in novels, had to supply the gaps. The mother was not difficult toplace; she would either be an ultra-amiable old lady, bearing her feeblehealth with uncomplaining fortitude, and having a kind word for thegardener's boy and a sunny smile for the chance visitor, or else shewould be cold and peevish, with eyes that pierced you like a gimlet, anda unreasoning idolatry of her son. Alethia's imagination rather inclinedher to the latter view. Robert was more of a problem. There were threedominant types of manhood to be taken into consideration in working outhis classification; there was Hugo, who was strong, good, and beautiful, a rare type and not very often met with; there was Sir Jasper, who wasutterly vile and absolutely unscrupulous, and there was Nevil, who wasnot really bad at heart, but had a weak mouth and usually required thelife-work of two good women to keep him from ultimate disaster. It wasprobable, Alethia considered, that Robert came into the last category, inwhich case she was certain to enjoy the companionship of one or twoexcellent women, and might possibly catch glimpses of undesirableadventuresses or come face to face with reckless admiration-seekingmarried women. It was altogether an exciting prospect, this suddenventure into an unexplored world of unknown human beings, and Alethiarather wished that she could have taken the vicar with her; she was not, however, rich or important enough to travel with a chaplain, as theMarquis of Moystoncleugh always did in the novel she had just beenreading, so she recognised that such a proceeding was out of thequestion. 

The train which carried Alethia towards her destination was a local one, with the wayside station habit strongly developed. At most of thestations no one seemed to want to get into the train or to leave it, butat one there were several market folk on the platform, and two men, ofthe farmer or small cattle-dealer class, entered Alethia's carriage. Apparently they had just foregathered, after a day's business, and theirconversation consisted of a rapid exchange of short friendly inquiries asto health, family, stock, and so forth, and some grumbling remarks on theweather. Suddenly, however, their talk took a dramatically interestingturn, and Alethia listened with wide-eyed attention. 

"What do you think of Mister Robert Bludward, eh?"

There was a certain scornful ring in his question. 

"Robert Bludward? An out-an'-out rotter, that's what he is. Ought to beashamed to look any decent man in the face. Send him to Parliament torepresent us--not much! He'd rob a poor man of his last shilling, hewould. "

"Ah, that he would. Tells a pack of lies to get our votes, that's allthat he's after, damn him. Did you see the way the _Argus_ showed him upthis week? Properly exposed him, hip and thigh, I tell you. "

And so on they ran, in their withering indictment. There could be nodoubt that it was Alethia's cousin and prospective host to whom they werereferring; the allusion to a Parliamentary candidature settled that. Whatcould Robert Bludward have done, what manner of man could he be, thatpeople should speak of him with such obvious reprobation?

"He was hissed down at Shoalford yesterday, " said one of the speakers. 

Hissed! Had it come to that? There was something dramatically biblicalin the idea of Robert Bludward's neighbours and acquaintances hissing himfor very scorn. Lord Hereward Stranglath had been hissed, now Alethiacame to think of it, in the eighth chapter of _Matterby Towers_, while inthe act of opening a Wesleyan bazaar, because he was suspected (unjustlyas it turned out afterwards) of having beaten the German governess todeath. And in _Tainted Guineas_ Roper Squenderby had been deservedlyhissed, on the steps of the Jockey Club, for having handed a rival ownera forged telegram, containing false news of his mother's death, justbefore the start for an important race, thereby ensuring the withdrawalof his rival's horse. In placid Saxon-blooded England people did notdemonstrate their feelings lightly and without some strong compellingcause. What manner of evildoer was Robert Bludward?

The train stopped at another small station, and the two men got out. Oneof them left behind him a copy of the _Argus_, the local paper to whichhe had made reference. Alethia pounced on it, in the expectation offinding a cultured literary endorsement of the censure which these roughfarming men had expressed in their homely, honest way. She had not farto look; "Mr. Robert Bludward, Swanker, " was the title of one of theprincipal articles in the paper. She did not exactly know what a swankerwas, probably it referred to some unspeakable form of cruelty, but sheread enough in the first few sentences of the article to discover thather cousin Robert, the man at whose house she was about to stay, was anunscrupulous, unprincipled character, of a low order of intelligence, yetcunning withal, and that he and his associates were responsible for mostof the misery, disease, poverty, and ignorance with which the country wasafflicted; never, except in one or two of the denunciatory Psalms, whichshe had always supposed to have be written in a spirit of exaggeratedOriental imagery, had she read such an indictment of a human being. Andthis monster was going to meet her at Derrelton Station in a few shortminutes. She would know him at once; he would have the dark beetlingbrows, the quick, furtive glance, the sneering, unsavoury smile thatalways characterised the Sir Jaspers of this world. It was too late toescape; she must force herself to meet him with outward calm. 

It was a considerable shock to her to find that Robert was fair, with asnub nose, merry eye, and rather a schoolboy manner. "A serpent induckling's plumage, " was her private comment; merciful chance hadrevealed him to her in his true colours. 

As they drove away from the station a dissipated-looking man of thelabouring class waved his hat in friendly salute. "Good luck to you, Mr. Bludward, " he shouted; "you'll come out on top! We'll break oldChobham's neck for him. "

"Who was that man?" asked Alethia quickly. 

"Oh, one of my supporters, " laughed Robert; "a bit of a poacher and a bitof a pub-loafer, but he's on the right side. "

So these were the sort of associates that Robert Bludward consorted with, thought Alethia. 

"Who is the person he referred to as old Chobham?" she asked. 

"Sir John Chobham, the man who is opposing me, " answered Robert; "that ishis house away there among the trees on the right. "

So there was an upright man, possibly a very Hugo in character, who wasthwarting and defying the evildoer in his nefarious career, and there wasa dastardly plot afoot to break his neck! Possibly the attempt would bemade within the next few hours. He must certainly be warned. Alethiaremembered how Lady Sylvia Broomgate, in _Nightshade Court_, hadpretended to be bolted with by her horse up to the front door of athreatened county magnate, and had whispered a warning in his ear whichsaved him from being the victim of foul murder. She wondered if therewas a quiet pony in the stables on which she would be allowed to ride outalone. The chances were that she would be watched. Robert would comespurring after her and seize her bridle just as she was turning in at SirJohn's gates. 

A group of men that they passed in a village street gave them no veryfriendly looks, and Alethia thought she heard a furtive hiss; a momentlater they came upon an errand boy riding a bicycle. He had the frankopen countenance, neatly brushed hair and tidy clothes that betoken aclear conscience and a good mother. He stared straight at the occupantsof the car, and, after he had passed them, sang in his clear, boyishvoice:

"We'll hang Bobby Bludward on the sour apple tree. "

Robert merely laughed. That was how he took the scorn and condemnationof his fellow-men. He had goaded them to desperation with his shamelessdepravity till they spoke openly of putting him to a violent death, andhe laughed. 

Mrs. Bludward proved to be of the type that Alethia had suspected, thin-lipped, cold-eyed, and obviously devoted to her worthless son. From herno help was to be expected. Alethia locked her door that night, andplaced such ramparts of furniture against it that the maid had greatdifficulty in breaking in with the early tea in the morning. 

After breakfast Alethia, on the pretext of going to look at an outlyingrose-garden, slipped away to the village through which they had passed onthe previous evening. She remembered that Robert had pointed out to hera public reading-room, and here she considered it possible that she mightmeet Sir John Chobham, or some one who knew him well and would carry amessage to him. The room was empty when she entered it; a _Graphic_twelve days old, a yet older copy of _Punch_, and one or two local paperslay upon the central table; the other tables were stacked for the mostpart with chess and draughts-boards, and wooden boxes of chessmen anddominoes. Listlessly she picked up one of the papers, the _Sentinel_, and glanced at its contents. Suddenly she started, and began to readwith breathless attention a prominently printed article, headed "A LittleLimelight on Sir John Chobham. " The colour ebbed away from her face, alook of frightened despair crept into her eyes. Never, in any novel thatshe had read, had a defenceless young woman been confronted with asituation like this. Sir John, the Hugo of her imagination, was, ifanything, rather more depraved and despicable than Robert Bludward. Hewas mean, evasive, callously indifferent to his country's interests, acheat, a man who habitually broke his word, and who was responsible, withhis associates, for most of the poverty, misery, crime, and nationaldegradation with which the country was afflicted. He was also acandidate for Parliament, it seemed, and as there was only one seat inthis particular locality, it was obvious that the success of eitherRobert or Sir John would mean a check to the ambitions of the other, hence, no doubt, the rivalry and enmity between these otherwise kindredsouls. One was seeking to have his enemy done to death, the other wasapparently trying to stir up his supporters to an act of "Lynch law". Allthis in order that there might be an unopposed election, that one orother of the candidates might go into Parliament with honeyed eloquenceon his lips and blood on his heart. Were men really so vile?

"I must go back to Webblehinton at once, " Alethia informed her astonishedhostess at lunch time; "I have had a telegram. A friend is veryseriously ill and I have been sent for. "

It was dreadful to have to concoct lies, but it would be more dreadful tohave to spend another night under that roof. 

Alethia reads novels now with even greater appreciation than before. Shehas been herself in the world outside Webblehinton, the world where thegreat dramas of sin and villainy are played unceasingly. She had comeunscathed through it, but what might have happened if she had goneunsuspectingly to visit Sir John Chobham and warn him of his danger? Whatindeed! She had been saved by the fearless outspokenness of the localPress. 

THE INTERLOPERS

In a forest of mixed growth somewhere on the eastern spurs of theKarpathians, a man stood one winter night watching and listening, asthough he waited for some beast of the woods to come within the range ofhis vision, and, later, of his rifle. But the game for whose presence hekept so keen an outlook was none that figured in the sportsman's calendaras lawful and proper for the chase; Ulrich von Gradwitz patrolled thedark forest in quest of a human enemy. 

The forest lands of Gradwitz were of wide extent and well stocked withgame; the narrow strip of precipitous woodland that lay on its outskirtwas not remarkable for the game it harboured or the shooting it afforded, but it was the most jealously guarded of all its owner's territorialpossessions. A famous law suit, in the days of his grandfather, hadwrested it from the illegal possession of a neighbouring family of pettylandowners; the dispossessed party had never acquiesced in the judgmentof the Courts, and a long series of poaching affrays and similar scandalshad embittered the relationships between the families for threegenerations. The neighbour feud had grown into a personal one sinceUlrich had come to be head of his family; if there was a man in the worldwhom he detested and wished ill to it was Georg Znaeym, the inheritor ofthe quarrel and the tireless game-snatcher and raider of the disputedborder-forest. The feud might, perhaps, have died down or beencompromised if the personal ill-will of the two men had not stood in theway; as boys they had thirsted for one another's blood, as men eachprayed that misfortune might fall on the other, and this wind-scourgedwinter night Ulrich had banded together his foresters to watch the darkforest, not in quest of four-footed quarry, but to keep a look-out forthe prowling thieves whom he suspected of being afoot from across theland boundary. The roebuck, which usually kept in the sheltered hollowsduring a storm-wind, were running like driven things to-night, and therewas movement and unrest among the creatures that were wont to sleepthrough the dark hours. Assuredly there was a disturbing element in theforest, and Ulrich could guess the quarter from whence it came. 

He strayed away by himself from the watchers whom he had placed in ambushon the crest of the hill, and wandered far down the steep slopes amid thewild tangle of undergrowth, peering through the tree trunks and listeningthrough the whistling and skirling of the wind and the restless beatingof the branches for sight and sound of the marauders. If only on thiswild night, in this dark, lone spot, he might come across Georg Znaeym, man to man, with none to witness--that was the wish that was uppermost inhis thoughts. And as he stepped round the trunk of a huge beech he cameface to face with the man he sought. 

The two enemies stood glaring at one another for a long silent moment. Each had a rifle in his hand, each had hate in his heart and murderuppermost in his mind. The chance had come to give full play to thepassions of a lifetime. But a man who has been brought up under the codeof a restraining civilisation cannot easily nerve himself to shoot downhis neighbour in cold blood and without word spoken, except for anoffence against his hearth and honour. And before the moment ofhesitation had given way to action a deed of Nature's own violenceoverwhelmed them both. A fierce shriek of the storm had been answered bya splitting crash over their heads, and ere they could leap aside a massof falling beech tree had thundered down on them. Ulrich von Gradwitzfound himself stretched on the ground, one arm numb beneath him and theother held almost as helplessly in a tight tangle of forked branches, while both legs were pinned beneath the fallen mass. His heavy shooting-boots had saved his feet from being crushed to pieces, but if hisfractures were not as serious as they might have been, at least it wasevident that he could not move from his present position till some onecame to release him. The descending twig had slashed the skin of hisface, and he had to wink away some drops of blood from his eyelashesbefore he could take in a general view of the disaster. At his side, sonear that under ordinary circumstances he could almost have touched him, lay Georg Znaeym, alive and struggling, but obviously as helplesslypinioned down as himself. All round them lay a thick-strewn wreckage ofsplintered branches and broken twigs. 

Relief at being alive and exasperation at his captive plight brought astrange medley of pious thank-offerings and sharp curses to Ulrich'slips. Georg, who was early blinded with the blood which trickled acrosshis eyes, stopped his struggling for a moment to listen, and then gave ashort, snarling laugh. 

"So you're not killed, as you ought to be, but you're caught, anyway, " hecried; "caught fast. Ho, what a jest, Ulrich von Gradwitz snared in hisstolen forest. There's real justice for you!"

And he laughed again, mockingly and savagely. 

"I'm caught in my own forest-land, " retorted Ulrich. "When my men cometo release us you will wish, perhaps, that you were in a better plightthan caught poaching on a neighbour's land, shame on you. "

Georg was silent for a moment; then he answered quietly:

"Are you sure that your men will find much to release? I have men, too, in the forest to-night, close behind me, and _they_ will be here firstand do the releasing. When they drag me out from under these damnedbranches it won't need much clumsiness on their part to roll this mass oftrunk right over on the top of you. Your men will find you dead under afallen beech tree. For form's sake I shall send my condolences to yourfamily. "

"It is a useful hint, " said Ulrich fiercely. "My men had orders tofollow in ten minutes time, seven of which must have gone by already, andwhen they get me out--I will remember the hint. Only as you will havemet your death poaching on my lands I don't think I can decently send anymessage of condolence to your family. "

"Good, " snarled Georg, "good. We fight this quarrel out to the death, you and I and our foresters, with no cursed interlopers to come betweenus. Death and damnation to you, Ulrich von Gradwitz. "

"The same to you, Georg Znaeym, forest-thief, game-snatcher. "

Both men spoke with the bitterness of possible defeat before them, foreach knew that it might be long before his men would seek him out or findhim; it was a bare matter of chance which party would arrive first on thescene. 

Both had now given up the useless struggle to free themselves from themass of wood that held them down; Ulrich limited his endeavours to aneffort to bring his one partially free arm near enough to his outer coat-pocket to draw out his wine-flask. Even when he had accomplished thatoperation it was long before he could manage the unscrewing of thestopper or get any of the liquid down his throat. But what a Heaven-sentdraught it seemed! It was an open winter, and little snow had fallen asyet, hence the captives suffered less from the cold than might have beenthe case at that season of the year; nevertheless, the wine was warmingand reviving to the wounded man, and he looked across with something likea throb of pity to where his enemy lay, just keeping the groans of painand weariness from crossing his lips. 

"Could you reach this flask if I threw it over to you?" asked Ulrichsuddenly; "there is good wine in it, and one may as well be ascomfortable as one can. Let us drink, even if to-night one of us dies. "

"No, I can scarcely see anything; there is so much blood caked round myeyes, " said Georg, "and in any case I don't drink wine with an enemy. "

Ulrich was silent for a few minutes, and lay listening to the wearyscreeching of the wind. An idea was slowly forming and growing in hisbrain, an idea that gained strength every time that he looked across atthe man who was fighting so grimly against pain and exhaustion. In thepain and languor that Ulrich himself was feeling the old fierce hatredseemed to be dying down. 

"Neighbour, " he said presently, "do as you please if your men come first. It was a fair compact. But as for me, I've changed my mind. If my menare the first to come you shall be the first to be helped, as though youwere my guest. We have quarrelled like devils all our lives over thisstupid strip of forest, where the trees can't even stand upright in abreath of wind. Lying here to-night thinking I've come to think we'vebeen rather fools; there are better things in life than getting thebetter of a boundary dispute. Neighbour, if you will help me to bury theold quarrel I--I will ask you to be my friend. "

Georg Znaeym was silent for so long that Ulrich thought, perhaps, he hadfainted with the pain of his injuries. Then he spoke slowly and injerks. 

"How the whole region would stare and gabble if we rode into the market-square together. No one living can remember seeing a Znaeym and a vonGradwitz talking to one another in friendship. And what peace therewould be among the forester folk if we ended our feud to-night. And ifwe choose to make peace among our people there is none other tointerfere, no interlopers from outside . . . You would come and keep theSylvester night beneath my roof, and I would come and feast on some highday at your castle . . . I would never fire a shot on your land, savewhen you invited me as a guest; and you should come and shoot with medown in the marshes where the wildfowl are. In all the countryside thereare none that could hinder if we willed to make peace. I never thoughtto have wanted to do other than hate you all my life, but I think I havechanged my mind about things too, this last half-hour. And you offeredme your wine-flask . . . Ulrich von Gradwitz, I will be your friend. "

For a space both men were silent, turning over in their minds thewonderful changes that this dramatic reconciliation would bring about. Inthe cold, gloomy forest, with the wind tearing in fitful gusts throughthe naked branches and whistling round the tree-trunks, they lay andwaited for the help that would now bring release and succour to bothparties. And each prayed a private prayer that his men might be thefirst to arrive, so that he might be the first to show honourableattention to the enemy that had become a friend. 

Presently, as the wind dropped for a moment, Ulrich broke silence. 

"Let's shout for help, " he said; he said; "in this lull our voices maycarry a little way. "

"They won't carry far through the trees and undergrowth, " said Georg, "but we can try. Together, then. "

The two raised their voices in a prolonged hunting call. 

"Together again, " said Ulrich a few minutes later, after listening invain for an answering halloo. 

"I heard nothing but the pestilential wind, " said Georg hoarsely. 

There was silence again for some minutes, and then Ulrich gave a joyfulcry. 

"I can see figures coming through the wood. They are following in theway I came down the hillside. "

Both men raised their voices in as loud a shout as they could muster. 

"They hear us! They've stopped. Now they see us. They're running downthe hill towards us, " cried Ulrich. 

"How many of them are there?" asked Georg. 

"I can't see distinctly, " said Ulrich; "nine or ten, "

"Then they are yours, " said Georg; "I had only seven out with me. "

"They are making all the speed they can, brave lads, " said Ulrich gladly. 

"Are they your men?" asked Georg. "Are they your men?" he repeatedimpatiently as Ulrich did not answer. 

"No, " said Ulrich with a laugh, the idiotic chattering laugh of a manunstrung with hideous fear. 

"Who are they?" asked Georg quickly, straining his eyes to see what theother would gladly not have seen. 

"_Wolves_. "

QUAIL SEED

"The outlook is not encouraging for us smaller businesses, " said Mr. Scarrick to the artist and his sister, who had taken rooms over hissuburban grocery store. "These big concerns are offering all sorts ofattractions to the shopping public which we couldn't afford to imitate, even on a small scale--reading-rooms and play-rooms and gramophones andHeaven knows what. People don't care to buy half a pound of sugarnowadays unless they can listen to Harry Lauder and have the latestAustralian cricket scores ticked off before their eyes. With the bigChristmas stock we've got in we ought to keep half a dozen assistantshard at work, but as it is my nephew Jimmy and myself can pretty wellattend to it ourselves. It's a nice stock of goods, too, if I could onlyrun it off in a few weeks time, but there's no chance of that--not unlessthe London line was to get snowed up for a fortnight before Christmas. Idid have a sort of idea of engaging Miss Luffcombe to give recitationsduring afternoons; she made a great hit at the Post Office entertainmentwith her rendering of 'Little Beatrice's Resolve'. "

"Anything less likely to make your shop a fashionable shopping centre Ican't imagine, " said the artist, with a very genuine shudder; "if I weretrying to decide between the merits of Carlsbad plums and confected figsas a winter dessert it would infuriate me to have my train of thoughtentangled with little Beatrice's resolve to be an Angel of Light or agirl scout. No, " he continued, "the desire to get something thrown infor nothing is a ruling passion with the feminine shopper, but you can'tafford to pander effectively to it. Why not appeal to another instinct;which dominates not only the woman shopper but the male shopper--in fact, the entire human race?"

"What is that instinct, sir?" said the grocer. 

* * * * *

Mrs. Greyes and Miss Fritten had missed the 2. 18 to Town, and as therewas not another train till 3. 12 they thought that they might as well maketheir grocery purchases at Scarrick's. It would not be sensational, theyagreed, but it would still be shopping. 

For some minutes they had the shop almost to themselves, as far ascustomers were concerned, but while they were debating the respectivevirtues and blemishes of two competing brands of anchovy paste they werestartled by an order, given across the counter, for six pomegranates anda packet of quail seed. Neither commodity was in general demand in thatneighbourhood. Equally unusual was the style and appearance of thecustomer; about sixteen years old, with dark olive skin, large duskyeyes, and think, low-growing, blue-black hair, he might have made hisliving as an artist's model. As a matter of fact he did. The bowl ofbeaten brass that he produced for the reception of his purchases wasdistinctly the most astonishing variation on the string bag or marketingbasket of suburban civilisation that his fellow-shoppers had ever seen. He threw a gold piece, apparently of some exotic currency, across thecounter, and did not seem disposed to wait for any change that might beforthcoming. 

"The wine and figs were not paid for yesterday, " he said; "keep what isover of the money for our future purchases. "

"A very strange-looking boy?" said Mrs. Greyes interrogatively to thegrocer as soon as his customer had left. 

"A foreigner, I believe, " said Mr. Scarrick, with a shortness that wasentirely out of keeping with his usually communicative manner. 

"I wish for a pound and a half of the best coffee you have, " said anauthoritative voice a moment or two later. The speaker was a tall, authoritative-looking man of rather outlandish aspect, remarkable amongother things for a full black beard, worn in a style more in vogue inearly Assyria than in a London suburb of the present day. 

"Has a dark-faced boy been here buying pomegranates?" he asked suddenly, as the coffee was being weighed out to him. 

The two ladies almost jumped on hearing the grocer reply with anunblushing negative. 

"We have a few pomegranates in stock, " he continued, "but there has beenno demand for them. "

"My servant will fetch the coffee as usual, " said the purchaser, producing a coin from a wonderful metal-work purse. As an apparentafterthought he fired out the question: "Have you, perhaps, any quailseed?"

"No, " said the grocer, without hesitation, "we don't stock it. "

"What will he deny next?" asked Mrs. Greyes under her breath. What madeit seem so much worse was the fact that Mr. Scarrick had quite recentlypresided at a lecture on Savonarola. 

Turning up the deep astrachan collar of his long coat, the stranger sweptout of the shop, with the air, Miss Fritten afterwards described it, of aSatrap proroguing a Sanhedrim. Whether such a pleasant function everfell to a Satrap's lot she was not quite certain, but the similefaithfully conveyed her meaning to a large circle of acquaintances. 

"Don't let's bother about the 3. 12, " said Mrs. Greyes; "let's go and talkthis over at Laura Lipping's. It's her day. "

When the dark-faced boy arrived at the shop next day with his brassmarketing bowl there was quite a fair gathering of customers, most ofwhom seemed to be spinning out their purchasing operations with the airof people who had very little to do with their time. In a voice that washeard all over the shop, perhaps because everybody was intentlylistening, he asked for a pound of honey and a packet of quail seed. 

"More quail seed!" said Miss Fritten. "Those quails must be voracious, or else it isn't quail seed at all. "

"I believe it's opium, and the bearded man is a detective, " said Mrs. Greyes brilliantly. 

"I don't, " said Laura Lipping; "I'm sure it's something to do with thePortuguese Throne. "

"More likely to be a Persian intrigue on behalf of the ex-Shah, " saidMiss Fritten; "the bearded man belongs to the Government Party. Thequail-seed is a countersign, of course; Persia is almost next door toPalestine, and quails come into the Old Testament, you know. "

"Only as a miracle, " said her well-informed younger sister; "I've thoughtall along it was part of a love intrigue. "

The boy who had so much interest and speculation centred on him was onthe point of departing with his purchases when he was waylaid by Jimmy, the nephew-apprentice, who, from his post at the cheese and baconcounter, commanded a good view of the street. 

"We have some very fine Jaffa oranges, " he said hurriedly, pointing to acorner where they were stored, behind a high rampart of biscuit tins. There was evidently more in the remark than met the ear. The boy flew atthe oranges with the enthusiasm of a ferret finding a rabbit family athome after a long day of fruitless subterranean research. Almost at thesame moment the bearded stranger stalked into the shop, and flung anorder for a pound of dates and a tin of the best Smyrna halva across thecounter. The most adventurous housewife in the locality had never heardof halva, but Mr. Scarrick was apparently able to produce the best Smyrnavariety of it without a moment's hesitation. 

"We might be living in the Arabian Nights, " said Miss Fritten, excitedly. 

"Hush! Listen, " beseeched Mrs. Greyes. 

"Has the dark-faced boy, of whom I spoke yesterday, been here to-day?"asked the stranger. 

"We've had rather more people than usual in the shop to-day, " said Mr. Scarrick, "but I can't recall a boy such as you describe. "

Mrs. Greyes and Miss Fritten looked round triumphantly at their friends. It was, of course, deplorable that any one should treat the truth as anarticle temporarily and excusably out of stock, but they felt gratifiedthat the vivid accounts they had given of Mr. Scarrick's traffic infalsehoods should receive confirmation at first hand. 

"I shall never again be able to believe what he tells me about theabsence of colouring matter in the jam, " whispered an aunt of Mrs. Greyestragically. 

The mysterious stranger took his departure; Laura Lipping distinctly sawa snarl of baffled rage reveal itself behind his heavy moustache andupturned astrachan collar. After a cautious interval the seeker afteroranges emerged from behind the biscuit tins, having apparently failed tofind any individual orange that satisfied his requirements. He, too, took his departure, and the shop was slowly emptied of its parcel andgossip laden customers. It was Emily Yorling's "day", and most of theshoppers made their way to her drawing-room. To go direct from ashopping expedition to a tea party was what was known locally as "livingin a whirl". 

Two extra assistants had been engaged for the following afternoon, andtheir services were in brisk demand; the shop was crowded. People boughtand bought, and never seemed to get to the end of their lists. Mr. Scarrick had never had so little difficulty in persuading customers toembark on new experiences in grocery wares. Even those women whosepurchases were of modest proportions dawdled over them as though they hadbrutal, drunken husbands to go home to. The afternoon had draggeduneventfully on, and there was a distinct buzz of unpent excitement whena dark-eyed boy carrying a brass bowl entered the shop. The excitementseemed to have communicated itself to Mr. Scarrick; abruptly deserting alady who was making insincere inquiries about the home life of the Bombayduck, he intercepted the newcomer on his way to the accustomed counterand informed him, amid a deathlike hush, that he had run out of quailseed. 

The boy looked nervously round the shop, and turned hesitatingly to go. He was again intercepted, this time by the nephew, who darted out frombehind his counter and said something about a better line of oranges. Theboy's hesitation vanished; he almost scuttled into the obscurity of theorange corner. There was an expectant turn of public attention towardsthe door, and the tall, bearded stranger made a really effectiveentrance. The aunt of Mrs. Greyes declared afterwards that she foundherself sub-consciously repeating "The Assyrian came down like a wolf onthe fold" under her breath, and she was generally believed. 

The newcomer, too, was stopped before he reached the counter, but not byMr. Scarrick or his assistant. A heavily veiled lady, whom no one hadhitherto noticed, rose languidly from a seat and greeted him in a clear, penetrating voice. 

"Your Excellency does his shopping himself?" she said. 

"I order the things myself, " he explained; "I find it difficult to makemy servants understand. "

In a lower, but still perfectly audible, voice the veiled lady gave him apiece of casual information. 

"They have some excellent Jaffa oranges here. " Then with a tinklinglaugh she passed out of the shop. 

The man glared all round the shop, and then, fixing his eyesinstinctively on the barrier of biscuit tins, demanded loudly of thegrocer: "You have, perhaps, some good Jaffa oranges?"

Every one expected an instant denial on the part of Mr. Scarrick of anysuch possession. Before he could answer, however, the boy had brokenforth from his sanctuary. Holding his empty brass bowl before him hepassed out into the street. His face was variously described afterwardsas masked with studied indifference, overspread with ghastly pallor, andblazing with defiance. Some said that his teeth chattered, others thathe went out whistling the Persian National Hymn. There was no mistaking, however, the effect produced by the encounter on the man who had seemedto force it. If a rabid dog or a rattlesnake had suddenly thrust itscompanionship on him he could scarcely have displayed a greater access ofterror. His air of authority and assertiveness had gone, his masterfulstride had given way to a furtive pacing to and fro, as of an animalseeking an outlet for escape. In a dazed perfunctory manner, always withhis eyes turning to watch the shop entrance, he gave a few random orders, which the grocer made a show of entering in his book. Now and then hewalked out into the street, looked anxiously in all directions, andhurried back to keep up his pretence of shopping. From one of thesesorties he did not return; he had dashed away into the dusk, and neitherhe nor the dark-faced boy nor the veiled lady were seen again by theexpectant crowds that continued to throng the Scarrick establishment fordays to come. 

* * * * *

"I can never thank you and your sister sufficiently, " said the grocer. 

"We enjoyed the fun of it, " said the artist modestly, "and as for themodel, it was a welcome variation on posing for hours for 'The LostHylas'. "

"At any rate, " said the grocer, "I insist on paying for the hire of theblack beard. "

CANOSSA

Demosthenes Platterbaff, the eminent Unrest Inducer, stood on his trialfor a serious offence, and the eyes of the political world were focussedon the jury. The offence, it should be stated, was serious for theGovernment rather than for the prisoner. He had blown up the Albert Hallon the eve of the great Liberal Federation Tango Tea, the occasion onwhich the Chancellor of the Exchequer was expected to propound his newtheory: "Do partridges spread infectious diseases?" Platterbaff hadchosen his time well; the Tango Tea had been hurriedly postponed, butthere were other political fixtures which could not be put off under anycircumstances. The day after the trial there was to be a by-election atNemesis-on-Hand, and it had been openly announced in the division that ifPlatterbaff were languishing in gaol on polling day the Governmentcandidate would be "outed" to a certainty. Unfortunately, there could beno doubt or misconception as to Platterbaff's guilt. He had not onlypleaded guilty, but had expressed his intention of repeating his escapadein other directions as soon as circumstances permitted; throughout thetrial he was busy examining a small model of the Free Trade Hall inManchester. The jury could not possibly find that the prisoner had notdeliberately and intentionally blown up the Albert Hall; the questionwas: Could they find any extenuating circumstances which would permit ofan acquittal? Of course any sentence which the law might feel compelledto inflict would be followed by an immediate pardon, but it was highlydesirable, from the Government's point of view, that the necessity forsuch an exercise of clemency should not arise. A headlong pardon, on theeve of a bye-election, with threats of a heavy voting defection if itwere withheld or even delayed, would not necessarily be a surrender, butit would look like one. Opponents would be only too ready to attributeungenerous motives. Hence the anxiety in the crowded Court, and in thelittle groups gathered round the tape-machines in Whitehall and DowningStreet and other affected centres. 

The jury returned from considering their verdict; there was a flutter, anexcited murmur, a deathlike hush. The foreman delivered his message:

"The jury find the prisoner guilty of blowing up the Albert Hall. Thejury wish to add a rider drawing attention to the fact that a by-electionis pending in the Parliamentary division of Nemesis-on-Hand. "

"That, of course, " said the Government Prosecutor, springing to his feet, "is equivalent to an acquittal?"

"I hardly think so, " said the Judge, coldly; "I feel obliged to sentencethe prisoner to a week's imprisonment. "

"And may the Lord have mercy on the poll, " a Junior Counsel exclaimedirreverently. 

It was a scandalous sentence, but then the Judge was not on theMinisterial side in politics. 

The verdict and sentence were made known to the public at twenty minutespast five in the afternoon; at half-past five a dense crowd was massedoutside the Prime Minister's residence lustily singing, to the air of"Trelawney":

 "And should our Hero rot in gaol, For e'en a single day, There's Fifteen Hundred Voting Men Will vote the other way. "

"Fifteen hundred, " said the Prime Minister, with a shudder; "it's toohorrible to think of. Our majority last time was only a thousand andseven. "

"The poll opens at eight to-morrow morning, " said the Chief Organiser;"we must have him out by 7 a. M. "

"Seven-thirty, " amended the Prime Minister; "we must avoid any appearanceof precipitancy. "

"Not later than seven-thirty, then, " said the Chief Organiser; "I havepromised the agent down there that he shall be able to display postersannouncing 'Platterbaff is Out, ' before the poll opens. He said it wasour only chance of getting a telegram 'Radprop is In' to-night. "

At half-past seven the next morning the Prime Minister and the ChiefOrganiser sat at breakfast, making a perfunctory meal, and awaiting thereturn of the Home Secretary, who had gone in person to superintend thereleasing of Platterbaff. Despite the earliness of the hour a smallcrowd had gathered in the street outside, and the horrible menacingTrelawney refrain of the "Fifteen Hundred Voting Men" came in a steady, monotonous chant. 

"They will cheer presently when they hear the news, " said the PrimeMinister hopefully; "hark! They are booing some one now! That must beMcKenna. "

The Home Secretary entered the room a moment later, disaster written onhis face. 

"He won't go!" he exclaimed. 

"Won't go? Won't leave gaol?"

"He won't go unless he has a brass band. He says he never has leftprison without a brass band to play him out, and he's not going to gowithout one now. "

"But surely that sort of thing is provided by his supporters andadmirers?" said the Prime Minister; "we can hardly be supposed to supplya released prisoner with a brass band. How on earth could we defend iton the Estimates?"

"His supporters say it is up to us to provide the music, " said the HomeSecretary; "they say we put him in prison, and it's our affair to seethat he leaves it in a respectable manner. Anyway, he won't go unless hehas a band. "

The telephone squealed shrilly; it was a trunk call from Nemesis. 

"Poll opens in five minutes. Is Platterbaff out yet? In Heaven's name, why--"

The Chief Organiser rang off. 

"This is not a moment for standing on dignity, " he observed bluntly;"musicians must be supplied at once. Platterbaff must have his band. "

"Where are you going to find the musicians?" asked the Home Secretarywearily; "we can't employ a military band, in fact, I don't think he'dhave one if we offered it, and there ain't any others. There's amusicians' strike on, I suppose you know. "

"Can't you get a strike permit?" asked the Organiser. 

"I'll try, " said the Home Secretary, and went to the telephone. 

Eight o'clock struck. The crowd outside chanted with an increasingvolume of sound:

 "Will vote the other way. "

A telegram was brought in. It was from the central committee rooms atNemesis. "Losing twenty votes per minute, " was its brief message. 

Ten o'clock struck. The Prime Minister, the Home Secretary, the ChiefOrganiser, and several earnest helpful friends were gathered in the innergateway of the prison, talking volubly to Demosthenes Platterbaff, whostood with folded arms and squarely planted feet, silent in their midst. Golden-tongued legislators whose eloquence had swayed the Marconi InquiryCommittee, or at any rate the greater part of it, expended their arts oforatory in vain on this stubborn unyielding man. Without a band he wouldnot go; and they had no band. 

A quarter past ten, half-past. A constant stream of telegraph boyspoured in through the prison gates. 

"Yamley's factory hands just voted you can guess how, " ran a despairingmessage, and the others were all of the same tenour. Nemesis was goingthe way of Reading. 

"Have you any band instruments of an easy nature to play?" demanded theChief Organiser of the Prison Governor; "drums, cymbals, those sort ofthings?"

"The warders have a private band of their own, " said the Governor, "butof course I couldn't allow the men themselves--"

"Lend us the instruments, " said the Chief Organiser. 

One of the earnest helpful friends was a skilled performer on the cornet, the Cabinet Ministers were able to clash cymbals more or less in tune, and the Chief Organiser has some knowledge of the drum. 

"What tune would you prefer?" he asked Platterbaff. 

"The popular song of the moment, " replied the Agitator after a moment'sreflection. 

It was a tune they had all heard hundreds of times, so there was nodifficulty in turning out a passable imitation of it. To the improvisedstrains of "I didn't want to do it" the prisoner strode forth to freedom. The word of the song had reference, it was understood, to theincarcerating Government and not to the destroyer of the Albert Hall. 

The seat was lost, after all, by a narrow majority. The local TradeUnionists took offence at the fact of Cabinet Ministers having personallyacted as strike-breakers, and even the release of Platterbaff failed topacify them. 

The seat was lost, but Ministers had scored a moral victory. They hadshown that they knew when and how to yield. 

THE THREAT

Sir Lulworth Quayne sat in the lounge of his favourite restaurant, theGallus Bankiva, discussing the weaknesses of the world with his nephew, who had lately returned from a much-enlivened exile in the wilds ofMexico. It was that blessed season of the year when the asparagus andthe plover's egg are abroad in the land, and the oyster has not yetwithdrawn into it's summer entrenchments, and Sir Lulworth and his nephewwere in that enlightened after-dinner mood when politics are seen intheir right perspective, even the politics of Mexico. 

"Most of the revolutions that take place in this country nowadays, " saidSir Lulworth, "are the product of moments of legislative panic. Take, for instance, one of the most dramatic reforms that has been carriedthrough Parliament in the lifetime of this generation. It happenedshortly after the coal strike, of unblessed memory. To you, who havebeen plunged up to the neck in events of a more tangled and tumbleddescription, the things I am going to tell you of may seem of secondaryinterest, but after all we had to live in the midst of them. "

Sir Lulworth interrupted himself for a moment to say a few kind words tothe liqueur brandy he had just tasted, and them resumed his narrative. 

"Whether one sympathises with the agitation for female suffrage or notone has to admit that its promoters showed tireless energy andconsiderable enterprise in devising and putting into action new methodsfor accomplishing their ends. As a rule they were a nuisance and aweariness to the flesh, but there were times when they verged on thepicturesque. There was the famous occasion when they enlivened anddiversified the customary pageantry of the Royal progress to openParliament by letting loose thousands of parrots, which had beencarefully trained to scream 'Votes for women, ' and which circled roundhis Majesty's coach in a clamorous cloud of green, and grey and scarlet. It was really rather a striking episode from the spectacular point ofview; unfortunately, however, for its devisers, the secret of theirintentions had not been well kept, and their opponents let loose at thesame moment a rival swarm of parrots, which screeched 'I _don't_ think'and other hostile cries, thereby robbing the demonstration of theunanimity which alone could have made it politically impressive. In theprocess of recapture the birds learned a quantity of additional languagewhich unfitted them for further service in the Suffragette cause; some ofthe green ones were secured by ardent Home Rule propagandists and trainedto disturb the serenity of Orange meetings by pessimistic reflections onSir Edward Carson's destination in the life to come. In fact, the birdin politics is a factor that seems to have come to stay; quite recently, at a political gathering held in a dimly-lighted place of worship, thecongregation gave a respectful hearing for nearly ten minutes to ajackdaw from Wapping, under the impression that they were listening tothe Chancellor of the Exchequer, who was late in arriving. "

"But the Suffragettes, " interrupted the nephew; "what did they do next?"

"After the bird fiasco, " said Sir Lulworth, "the militant section made ademonstration of a more aggressive nature; they assembled in force on theopening day of the Royal Academy Exhibition and destroyed some three orfour hundred of the pictures. This proved an even worse failure than theparrot business; every one agreed that there was always far too manypictures in the Academy Exhibition, and the drastic weeding out of a fewhundred canvases was regarded as a positive improvement. Moreover, fromthe artists' point of view it was realised that the outrage constituted asort of compensation for those whose works were persistently 'skied', since out of sight meant also out of reach. Altogether it was one of themost successful and popular exhibitions that the Academy had held formany years. Then the fair agitators fell back on some of their earliermethods; they wrote sweetly argumentative plays to prove that they oughtto have the vote, they smashed windows to show that they must have thevote, and they kicked Cabinet Ministers to demonstrate that they'd betterhave the vote, and still the coldly reasoned or unreasoned reply was thatthey'd better not. Their plight might have been summed up in aperversion of Gilbert's lines--

 "Twenty voteless millions we, Voteless all against our will, Twenty years hence we shall be Twenty voteless millions still. "

And of course the great idea for their master-stroke of strategy camefrom a masculine source. Lena Dubarri, who was the captain-general oftheir thinking department, met Waldo Orpington in the Mall one afternoon, just at a time when the fortunes of the Cause were at their lowest ebb. Waldo Orpington is a frivolous little fool who chirrups at drawing-roomconcerts and can recognise bits from different composers withoutreferring to the programme, but all the same he occasionally has ideas. He didn't care a twopenny fiddlestring about the Cause, but he ratherenjoyed the idea of having his finger in the political pie. Also it ispossible, though I should think highly improbable, that he admired LenaDubarri. Anyhow, when Lena gave a rather gloomy account of the existingstate of things in the Suffragette World, Waldo was not merelysympathetic but ready with a practical suggestion. Turning his gazewestward along the Mall, towards the setting sun and Buckingham Palace, he was silent for a moment, and then said significantly, 'You haveexpended your energies and enterprise on labours of destruction; why hasit never occurred to you to attempt something far more terrific?'

"'What do you mean?' she asked him eagerly. 

"'Create. '

"'Do you mean create disturbances? We've been doing nothing else formonths, ' she said. 

"Waldo shook his head, and continued to look westward along the Mall. He's rather good at acting in an amateur sort of fashion. Lena followedhis gaze, and then turned to him with a puzzled look of inquiry. 

"'Exactly, ' said Waldo, in answer to her look. 

"'But--how can we create?' she asked; 'it's been done already. '

"'Do it _again_, ' said Waldo, 'and again and again--'

"Before he could finish the sentence she had kissed him. She declaredafterwards that he was the first man she had ever kissed, and he declaredthat she was the first woman who had ever kissed him in the Mall, so theyboth secured a record of a kind. 

"Within the next day or two a new departure was noticeable in Suffragettetactics. They gave up worrying Ministers and Parliament and took toworrying their own sympathisers and supporters--for funds. The ballot-box was temporarily forgotten in the cult of the collecting-box. Thedaughters of the horseleech were not more persistent in their demands, the financiers of the tottering _ancien regime_ were not more desperatein their expedients for raising money than the Suffragist workers of allsections at this juncture, and in one way and another, by fair means andnormal, they really got together a very useful sum. What they were goingto do with it no one seemed to know, not even those who were most activein collecting work. The secret on this occasion had been well kept. Certain transactions that leaked out from time to time only added to themystery of the situation. 

"'Don't you long to know what we are going to do with our treasurehoard?' Lena asked the Prime Minister one day when she happened to sitnext to him at a whist drive at the Chinese Embassy. 

"'I was hoping you were going to try a little personal bribery, ' heresponded banteringly, but some genuine anxiety and curiosity lay behindthe lightness of his chaff; 'of course I know, ' he added, 'that you havebeen buying up building sites in commanding situations in and around theMetropolis. Two or three, I'm told, are on the road to Brighton, andanother near Ascot. You don't mean to fortify them, do you?'

"'Something more insidious than that, ' she said; 'you could prevent usfrom building forts; you can't prevent us from erecting an exact replicaof the Victoria Memorial on each of those sites. They're all privateproperty, with no building restrictions attached. '

"'Which memorial?' he asked; 'not the one in front of Buckingham Palace?Surely not that one?'

"'That one, ' she said. 

"'My dear lady, ' he cried, 'you can't be serious. It is a beautiful andimposing work of art--at any rate one is getting accustomed to it, andeven if one doesn't happen to admire it one can always look in anotherdirection. But imagine what life would be like if one saw that erectionconfronting one wherever one went. Imagine the effect on people withtired, harassed nerves who saw it three times on the way to Brighton andthree times on the way back. Imagine seeing it dominate the landscape atAscot, and trying to keep your eye off it on the Sandwich golf links. What have your countrymen done to deserve such a thing?'

"'They have refused us the vote, ' said Lena bitterly. 

"The Prime Minister always declared himself an opponent of anythingsavouring of panic legislation, but he brought a Bill into Parliamentforthwith and successfully appealed to both Houses to pass it through allits stages within the week. And that is how we got one of the mostglorious measures of the century. "

"A measure conferring the vote on women?" asked the nephew. 

"Oh dear, no. An Act which made it a penal offence to erectcommemorative statuary anywhere within three miles of a public highway. "

EXCEPTING MRS. PENTHERBY

It was Reggie Bruttle's own idea for converting what had threatened to bean albino elephant into a beast of burden that should help him along thestony road of his finances. "The Limes, " which had come to him byinheritance without any accompanying provision for its upkeep, was one ofthose pretentious, unaccommodating mansions which none but a man ofwealth could afford to live in, and which not one wealthy man in ahundred would choose on its merits. It might easily languish in theestate market for years, set round with noticeboards proclaiming it, inthe eyes of a sceptical world, to be an eminently desirable residence. 

Reggie's scheme was to turn it into the headquarters of a prolongedcountry-house party, in session during the months from October till theend of March--a party consisting of young or youngish people of bothsexes, too poor to be able to do much hunting or shooting on a seriousscale, but keen on getting their fill of golf, bridge, dancing, andoccasional theatre-going. No one was to be on the footing of a payingguest, but every one was to rank as a paying host; a committee would lookafter the catering and expenditure, and an informal sub-committee wouldmake itself useful in helping forward the amusement side of the scheme. 

As it was only an experiment, there was to be a general agreement on thepart of those involved in it to be as lenient and mutually helpful to oneanother as possible. Already a promising nucleus, including one or twoyoung married couples, had been got together, and the thing seemed to befairly launched. 

"With good management and a little unobtrusive hard work, I think thething ought to be a success, " said Reggie, and Reggie was one of thosepeople who are painstaking first and optimistic afterwards. 

"There is one rock on which you will unfailingly come to grief, manageyou never so wisely, " said Major Dagberry, cheerfully; "the women willquarrel. Mind you, " continued this prophet of disaster, "I don't saythat some of the men won't quarrel too, probably they will; but the womenare bound to. You can't prevent it; it's in the nature of the sex. Thehand that rocks the cradle rocks the world, in a volcanic sense. A womanwill endure discomforts, and make sacrifices, and go without things to anheroic extent, but the one luxury she will not go without is herquarrels. No matter where she may be, or how transient her appearance ona scene, she will instal her feminine feuds as assuredly as a Frenchmanwould concoct soup in the waste of the Arctic regions. At thecommencement of a sea voyage, before the male traveller knows half adozen of his fellow passengers by sight, the average woman will havestarted a couple of enmities, and laid in material for one or twomore--provided, of course, that there are sufficient women aboard topermit quarrelling in the plural. If there's no one else she willquarrel with the stewardess. This experiment of yours is to run for sixmonths; in less than five weeks there will be war to the knife declaringitself in half a dozen different directions. "

"Oh, come, there are only eight women in the party; they won't pickquarrels quite so soon as that, " protested Reggie. 

"They won't all originate quarrels, perhaps, " conceded the Major, "butthey will all take sides, and just as Christmas is upon you, with itsconventions of peace and good will, you will find yourself in for aglacial epoch of cold, unforgiving hostility, with an occasional Etnaflare of open warfare. You can't help it, old boy; but, at any rate, youcan't say you were not warned. "

The first five weeks of the venture falsified Major Dagberry's predictionand justified Reggie's optimism. There were, of course, occasional smallbickerings, and the existence of certain jealousies might be detectedbelow the surface of everyday intercourse; but, on the whole, the women-folk got on remarkably well together. There was, however, a notableexception. It had not taken five weeks for Mrs. Pentherby to get herselfcordially disliked by the members of her own sex; five days had beenamply sufficient. Most of the women declared that they had detested herthe moment they set eyes on her; but that was probably an afterthought. 

With the menfolk she got on well enough, without being of the type ofwoman who can only bask in male society; neither was she lacking in thegeneral qualities which make an individual useful and desirable as amember of a co-operative community. She did not try to "get the betterof" her fellow-hosts by snatching little advantages or cleverly evadingher just contributions; she was not inclined to be boring or snobbish inthe way of personal reminiscence. She played a fair game of bridge, andher card-room manners were irreproachable. But wherever she came incontact with her own sex the light of battle kindled at once; her talentof arousing animosity seemed to border on positive genius. 

Whether the object of her attentions was thick-skinned or sensitive, quick-tempered or good-natured, Mrs. Pentherby managed to achieve thesame effect. She exposed little weaknesses, she prodded sore places, shesnubbed enthusiasms, she was generally right in a matter of argument, or, if wrong, she somehow contrived to make her adversary appear foolish andopinionated. She did, and said, horrible things in a matter-of-factinnocent way, and she did, and said, matter-of-fact innocent things in ahorrible way. In short, the unanimous feminine verdict on her was thatshe was objectionable. 

There was no question of taking sides, as the Major had anticipated; infact, dislike of Mrs. Pentherby was almost a bond of union between theother women, and more than one threatening disagreement had been rapidlydissipated by her obvious and malicious attempts to inflame and extendit; and the most irritating thing about her was her successful assumptionof unruffled composure at moments when the tempers of her adversarieswere with difficulty kept under control. She made her most scathingremarks in the tone of a tube conductor announcing that the next stationis Brompton Road--the measured, listless tone of one who knows he isright, but is utterly indifferent to the fact that he proclaims. 

On one occasion Mrs. Val Gwepton, who was not blessed with the mostreposeful of temperaments, fairly let herself go, and gave Mrs. Pentherbya vivid and truthful _resume_ of her opinion of her. The object of thisunpent storm of accumulated animosity waited patiently for a lull, andthen remarked quietly to the angry little woman--

"And now, my dear Mrs. Gwepton, let me tell you something that I've beenwanting to say for the last two or three minutes, only you wouldn't givenme a chance; you've got a hairpin dropping out on the left side. Youthin-haired women always find it difficult to keep your hairpins in. "

"What can one do with a woman like that?" Mrs. Val demanded afterwards ofa sympathising audience. 

Of course, Reggie received numerous hints as to the unpopularity of thisjarring personality. His sister-in-law openly tackled him on the subjectof her many enormities. Reggie listened with the attenuated regret thatone bestows on an earthquake disaster in Bolivia or a crop failure inEastern Turkestan, events which seem so distant that one can almostpersuade oneself they haven't happened. 

"That woman has got some hold over him, " opined his sister-in-law, darkly; "either she is helping him to finance the show, and presumes onthe fact, or else, which Heaven forbid, he's got some queer infatuationfor her. Men do take the most extraordinary fancies. "

Matters never came exactly to a crisis. Mrs. Pentherby, as a source ofpersonal offence, spread herself over so wide an area that no one womanof the party felt impelled to rise up and declare that she absolutelyrefused to stay another week in the same house with her. What iseverybody's tragedy is nobody's tragedy. There was ever a certainconsolation in comparing notes as to specific acts of offence. Reggie'ssister-in-law had the added interest of trying to discover the secretbond which blunted his condemnation of Mrs. Pentherby's long catalogue ofmisdeeds. There was little to go on from his manner towards her inpublic, but he remained obstinately unimpressed by anything that was saidagainst her in private. 

With the one exception of Mrs. Pentherby's unpopularity, the house-partyscheme was a success on its first trial, and there was no difficultyabout reconstructing it on the same lines for another winter session. Itso happened that most of the women of the party, and two or three of themen, would not be available on this occasion, but Reggie had laid hisplans well ahead and booked plenty of "fresh blood" for the departure. Itwould be, if any thing, rather a larger party than before. 

"I'm so sorry I can't join this winter, " said Reggie's sister-in-law, "but we must go to our cousins in Ireland; we've put them off so often. What a shame! You'll have none of the same women this time. "

"Excepting Mrs. Pentherby, " said Reggie, demurely. 

"Mrs. Pentherby! _Surely_, Reggie, you're not going to be so idiotic asto have that woman again! She'll set all the women's backs up just asshe did this time. What _is_ this mysterious hold she's go over you?"

"She's invaluable, " said Reggie; "she's my official quarreller. "

"Your--what did you say?" gasped his sister-in-law. 

"I introduced her into the house-party for the express purpose ofconcentrating the feuds and quarrelling that would otherwise have brokenout in all directions among the womenkind. I didn't need the advice andwarning of sundry friends to foresee that we shouldn't get through sixmonths of close companionship without a certain amount of pecking andsparring, so I thought the best thing was to localise and sterilise it inone process. Of course, I made it well worth the lady's while, and asshe didn't know any of you from Adam, and you don't even know her realname, she didn't mind getting herself disliked in a useful cause. "

"You mean to say she was in the know all the time?"

"Of course she was, and so were one or two of the men, so she was able tohave a good laugh with us behind the scenes when she'd done anythingparticularly outrageous. And she really enjoyed herself. You see, she'sin the position of poor relation in a rather pugnacious family, and herlife has been largely spent in smoothing over other people's quarrels. You can imagine the welcome relief of being able to go about saying anddoing perfectly exasperating things to a whole houseful of women--and allin the cause of peace. "

"I think you are the most odious person in the whole world, " saidReggie's sister-in-law. Which was not strictly true; more than anybody, more than ever she disliked Mrs. Pentherby. It was impossible tocalculate how many quarrels that woman had done her out of. 

MARK

Augustus Mellowkent was a novelist with a future; that is to say, alimited but increasing number of people read his books, and there seemedgood reason to suppose that if he steadily continued to turn out novelsyear by year a progressively increasing circle of readers would acquirethe Mellowkent habit, and demand his works from the libraries andbookstalls. At the instigation of his publisher he had discarded thebaptismal Augustus and taken the front name of Mark. 

"Women like a name that suggests some one strong and silent, able butunwilling to answer questions. Augustus merely suggests idle splendour, but such a name as Mark Mellowkent, besides being alliterative, conjuresup a vision of some one strong and beautiful and good, a sort of blend ofGeorges Carpentier and the Reverend What's-his-name. "

One morning in December Augustus sat in his writing-room, at work on thethird chapter of his eighth novel. He had described at some length, forthe benefit of those who could not imagine it, what a rectory gardenlooks like in July; he was now engaged in describing at greater lengththe feelings of a young girl, daughter of a long line of rectors andarchdeacons, when she discovers for the first time that the postman isattractive. 

"Their eyes met, for a brief moment, as he handed her two circulars andthe fat wrapper-bound bulk of the _East Essex News_. Their eyes met, forthe merest fraction of a second, yet nothing could ever be quite the sameagain. Cost what it might she felt that she must speak, must break theintolerable, unreal silence that had fallen on them. 'How is yourmother's rheumatism?' she said. "

The author's labours were cut short by the sudden intrusion of amaidservant. 

"A gentleman to see you, sir, " said the maid, handing a card with thename Caiaphas Dwelf inscribed on it; "says it's important. "

Mellowkent hesitated and yielded; the importance of the visitor's missionwas probably illusory, but he had never met any one with the nameCaiaphas before. It would be at least a new experience. 

Mr. Dwelf was a man of indefinite age; his high, narrow forehead, coldgrey eyes, and determined manner bespoke an unflinching purpose. He hada large book under his arm, and there seemed every probability that hehad left a package of similar volumes in the hall. He took a seat beforeit had been offered him, placed the book on the table, and began toaddress Mellowkent in the manner of an "open letter. "

"You are a literary man, the author of several well-known books--"

"I am engage on a book at the present moment--rather busily engaged, "said Mellowkent, pointedly. 

"Exactly, " said the intruder; "time with you is a commodity ofconsiderable importance. Minutes, even, have their value. "

"They have, " agreed Mellowkent, looking at his watch. 

"That, " said Caiaphas, "is why this book that I am introducing to yournotice is not a book that you can afford to be without. _Right Here_ isindispensable for the writing man; it is no ordinary encyclopaedia, or Ishould not trouble to show it to you. It is an inexhaustible mine ofconcise information--"

"On a shelf at my elbow, " said the author, "I have a row of referencebooks that supply me with all the information I am likely to require. "

"Here, " persisted the would-be salesman, "you have it all in one compactvolume. No matter what the subject may be which you wish to look up, orthe fact you desire to verify, _Right Here_ gives you all that you wantto know in the briefest and most enlightening form. Historicalreference, for instance; career of John Huss, let us say. Here we are:'Huss, John, celebrated religious reformer. Born 1369, burned atConstance 1415. The Emperor Sigismund universally blamed. '"

"If he had been burnt in these days every one would have suspected theSuffragettes, " observed Mellowkent. 

"Poultry-keeping, now, " resumed Caiaphas, "that's a subject that mightcrop up in a novel dealing with English country life. Here we have allabout it: 'The Leghorn as egg-producer. Lack of maternal instinct in theMinorca. Gapes in chickens, its cause and cure. Ducklings for the earlymarket, how fattened. ' There, you see, there it all is, nothinglacking. "

"Except the maternal instinct in the Minorca, and that you could hardlybe expected to supply. "

"Sporting records, that's important, too; now how many men, sporting meneven, are there who can say off-hand what horse won the Derby in anyparticular year? Now it's just a little thing of that sort--"

"My dear sir, " interrupted Mellowkent, "there are at least four men in myclub who can not only tell me what horse won in any given year, but whathorse ought to have won and why it didn't. If your book could supply amethod for protecting one from information of that sort it would do morethan anything you have yet claimed for it. "

"Geography, " said Caiaphas, imperturbably; "that's a thing that a busyman, writing at high pressure, may easily make a slip over. Only theother day a well-known author made the Volga flow into the Black Seainstead of the Caspian; now, with this book--"

"On a polished rose-wood stand behind you there reposes a reliable and up-to-date atlas, " said Mellowkent; "and now I must really ask you to begoing. "

"An atlas, " said Caiaphas, "gives merely the chart of the river's course, and indicates the principal towns that it passes. Now _Right Here_ givesyou the scenery, traffic, ferry-boat charges, the prevalent types offish, boatmen's slang terms, and hours of sailing of the principal riversteamers. If gives you--"

Mellowkent sat and watched the hard-featured, resolute, pitilesssalesman, as he sat doggedly in the chair wherein he had installedhimself, unflinchingly extolling the merits of his undesired wares. Aspirit of wistful emulation took possession of the author; why could henot live up to the cold stern name he had adopted? Why must he sit hereweakly and listen to this weary, unconvincing tirade, why could he not beMark Mellowkent for a few brief moments, and meet this man on levelterms?

A sudden inspiration flashed across his. 

"Have you read my last book, _The Cageless Linnet_?" he asked. 

"I don't read novels, " said Caiaphas tersely. 

"Oh, but you ought to read this one, every one ought to, " exclaimedMellowkent, fishing the book down from a shelf; "published at sixshillings, you can have it at four-and-six. There is a bit in chapterfive that I feel sure you would like, where Emma is alone in the birchcopse waiting for Harold Huntingdon--that is the man her family want herto marry. She really wants to marry him, too, but she does not discoverthat till chapter fifteen. Listen: 'Far as the eye could stretch rolledthe mauve and purple billows of heather, lit up here and there with theglowing yellow of gorse and broom, and edged round with the delicategreys and silver and green of the young birch trees. Tiny blue and brownbutterflies fluttered above the fronds of heather, revelling in thesunlight, and overhead the larks were singing as only larks can sing. Itwas a day when all Nature--"

"In _Right Here_ you have full information on all branches of Naturestudy, " broke in the bookagent, with a tired note sounding in his voicefor the first time; "forestry, insect life, bird migration, reclamationof waste lands. As I was saying, no man who has to deal with the variedinterests of life--"

"I wonder if you would care for one of my earlier books, _The Reluctanceof Lady Cullumpton_, " said Mellowkent, hunting again through thebookshelf; "some people consider it my best novel. Ah, here it is. Isee there are one or two spots on the cover, so I won't ask more thanthree-and-ninepence for it. Do let me read you how it opens:

"'Beatrice Lady Cullumpton entered the long, dimly-lit drawing-room, hereyes blazing with a hope that she guessed to be groundless, her lipstrembling with a fear that she could not disguise. In her hand shecarried a small fan, a fragile toy of lace and satinwood. Somethingsnapped as she entered the room; she had crushed the fan into a dozenpieces. '

"There, what do you think of that for an opening? It tells you at oncethat there's something afoot. "

"I don't read novels, " said Caiaphas sullenly. 

"But just think what a resource they are, " exclaimed the author, "on longwinter evenings, or perhaps when you are laid up with a strained ankle--athing that might happen to any one; or if you were staying in a house-party with persistent wet weather and a stupid hostess and insufferablydull fellow-guests, you would just make an excuse that you had letters towrite, go to your room, light a cigarette, and for three-and-ninepenceyou could plunge into the society of Beatrice Lady Cullumpton and herset. No one ought to travel without one or two of my novels in theirluggage as a stand-by. A friend of mine said only the other day that hewould as soon think of going into the tropics without quinine as of goingon a visit without a couple of Mark Mellowkents in his kit-bag. Perhapssensation is more in your line. I wonder if I've got a copy of _ThePython's Kiss_. "

Caiaphas did not wait to be tempted with selections from that thrillingwork of fiction. With a muttered remark about having no time to waste onmonkey-talk, he gathered up his slighted volume and departed. He made noaudible reply to Mellowkent's cheerful "Good morning, " but the latterfancied that a look of respectful hatred flickered in the cold grey eyes. 

THE HEDGEHOG

A "Mixed Double" of young people were contesting a game of lawn tennis atthe Rectory garden party; for the past five-and-twenty years at leastmixed doubles of young people had done exactly the same thing on exactlythe same spot at about the same time of year. The young people changedand made way for others in the course of time, but very little elseseemed to alter. The present players were sufficiently conscious of thesocial nature of the occasion to be concerned about their clothes andappearance, and sufficiently sport-loving to be keen on the game. Boththeir efforts and their appearance came under the fourfold scrutiny of aquartet of ladies sitting as official spectators on a bench immediatelycommanding the court. It was one of the accepted conditions of theRectory garden party that four ladies, who usually knew very little abouttennis and a great deal about the players, should sit at that particularspot and watch the game. It had also come to be almost a tradition thattwo ladies should be amiable, and that the other two should be Mrs. Doleand Mrs. Hatch-Mallard. 

"What a singularly unbecoming way Eva Jonelet has taken to doing her hairin, " said Mrs. Hatch-Mallard; "it's ugly hair at the best of times, butshe needn't make it look ridiculous as well. Some one ought to tellher. "

Eva Jonelet's hair might have escaped Mrs. Hatch-Mallard's condemnationif she could have forgotten the more glaring fact that Eva was Mrs. Dole's favourite niece. It would, perhaps, have been a more comfortablearrangement if Mrs. Hatch-Mallard and Mrs. Dole could have been asked tothe Rectory on separate occasions, but there was only one garden party inthe course of the year, and neither lady could have been omitted from thelist of invitations without hopelessly wrecking the social peace of theparish. 

"How pretty the yew trees look at this time of year, " interposed a ladywith a soft, silvery voice that suggested a chinchilla muff painted byWhistler. 

"What do you mean by this time of year?" demanded Mrs. Hatch-Mallard. "Yew trees look beautiful at all times of the year. That is their greatcharm. "

"Yew trees never look anything but hideous under any circumstances or atany time of year, " said Mrs. Dole, with the slow, emphatic relish of onewho contradicts for the pleasure of the thing. "They are only fit forgraveyards and cemeteries. "

Mrs. Hatch-Mallard gave a sardonic snort, which, being translated, meantthat there were some people who were better fitted for cemeteries thanfor garden parties. 

"What is the score, please?" asked the lady with the chinchilla voice. 

The desired information was given her by a young gentleman in spotlesswhite flannels, whose general toilet effect suggested solicitude ratherthan anxiety. 

"What an odious young cub Bertie Dykson has become!" pronounced Mrs. Dole, remembering suddenly that Bertie was a favourite with Mrs. Hatch-Mallard. "The young men of to-day are not what they used to be twentyyears ago. "

"Of course not, " said Mrs. Hatch-Mallard; "twenty years ago Bertie Dyksonwas just two years old, and you must expect some difference in appearanceand manner and conversation between those two periods. "

"Do you know, " said Mrs. Dole, confidentially, "I shouldn't be surprisedif that was intended to be clever. "

"Have you any one interesting coming to stay with you, Mrs. Norbury?"asked the chinchilla voice, hastily; "you generally have a house party atthis time of year. "

"I've got a most interesting woman coming, " said Mrs. Norbury, who hadbeen mutely struggling for some chance to turn the conversation into asafe channel; "an old acquaintance of mine, Ada Bleek--"

"What an ugly name, " said Mrs. Hatch-Mallard. 

"She's descended from the de la Bliques, an old Huguenot family ofTouraine, you know. "

"There weren't any Huguenots in Touraine, " said Mrs. Hatch-Mallard, whothought she might safely dispute any fact that was three hundred yearsold. 

"Well, anyhow, she's coming to stay with me, " continued Mrs. Norbury, bringing her story quickly down to the present day, "she arrives thisevening, and she's highly clairvoyante, a seventh daughter of a seventhdaughter, you now, and all that sort of thing. "

"How very interesting, " said the chinchilla voice; "Exwood is just theright place for her to come to, isn't it? There are supposed to beseveral ghosts there. "

"That is why she was so anxious to come, " said Mrs. Norbury; "she put offanother engagement in order to accept my invitation. She's had visionsand dreams, and all those sort of things, that have come true in a mostmarvellous manner, but she's never actually seen a ghost, and she'slonging to have that experience. She belongs to that Research Society, you know. "

"I expect she'll see the unhappy Lady Cullumpton, the most famous of allthe Exwood ghosts, " said Mrs. Dole; "my ancestor, you know, Sir GervaseCullumpton, murdered his young bride in a fit of jealousy while they wereon a visit to Exwood. He strangled her in the stables with a stirrupleather, just after they had come in from riding, and she is seensometimes at dusk going about the lawns and the stable yard, in a longgreen habit, moaning and trying to get the thong from round her throat. Ishall be most interested to hear if your friend sees--"

"I don't know why she should be expected to see a trashy, traditionalapparition like the so-called Cullumpton ghost, that is only vouched forby housemaids and tipsy stable-boys, when my uncle, who was the owner ofExwood, committed suicide there under the most tragical circumstances, and most certainly haunts the place. "

"Mrs. Hatch-Mallard has evidently never read _Popple's County History_, "said Mrs. Dole icily, "or she would know that the Cullumpton ghost has awealth of evidence behind it--"

"Oh, Popple!" exclaimed Mrs. Hatch-Mallard scornfully; "any rubbishy oldstory is good enough for him. Popple, indeed! Now my uncle's ghost wasseen by a Rural Dean, who was also a Justice of the Peace. I shouldthink that would be good enough testimony for any one. Mrs. Norbury, Ishall take it as a deliberate personal affront if your clairvoyantefriend sees any other ghost except that of my uncle. "

"I daresay she won't see anything at all; she never has yet, you know, "said Mrs. Norbury hopefully. 

"It was a most unfortunate topic for me to have broached, " she lamentedafterwards to the owner of the chinchilla voice; "Exwood belongs to Mrs. Hatch-Mallard, and we've only got it on a short lease. A nephew of hershas been wanting to live there for some time, and if we offend her in anyway she'll refuse to renew the lease. I sometimes think these garden-parties are a mistake. "

The Norburys played bridge for the next three nights till nearly oneo'clock; they did not care for the game, but it reduced the time at theirguest's disposal for undesirable ghostly visitations. 

"Miss Bleek is not likely to be in a frame of mind to see ghosts, " saidHugo Norbury, "if she goes to bed with her brain awhirl with royal spadesand no trumps and grand slams. "

"I've talked to her for hours about Mrs. Hatch-Mallard's uncle, " said hiswife, "and pointed out the exact spot where he killed himself, andinvented all sorts of impressive details, and I've found an old portraitof Lord John Russell and put it in her room, and told her that it'ssupposed to be a picture of the uncle in middle age. If Ada does see aghost at all it certainly ought to be old Hatch-Mallard's. At any rate, we've done our best. "

The precautions were in vain. On the third morning of her stay Ada Bleekcame down late to breakfast, her eyes looking very tired, but ablaze withexcitement, her hair done anyhow, and a large brown volume hugged underher arm. 

"At last I've seen something supernatural!" she exclaimed, and gave Mrs. Norbury a fervent kiss, as though in gratitude for the opportunityafforded her. 

"A ghost!" cried Mrs. Norbury, "not really!"

"Really and unmistakably!"

"Was it an oldish man in the dress of about fifty years ago?" asked Mrs. Norbury hopefully. 

"Nothing of the sort, " said Ada; "it was a white hedgehog. "

"A white hedgehog!" exclaimed both the Norburys, in tones of disconcertedastonishment. 

"A huge white hedgehog with baleful yellow eyes, " said Ada; "I was lyinghalf asleep in bed when suddenly I felt a sensation as of somethingsinister and unaccountable passing through the room. I sat up and lookedround, and there, under the window, I saw an evil, creeping thing, a sortof monstrous hedgehog, of a dirty white colour, with black, loathsomeclaws that clicked and scraped along the floor, and narrow, yellow eyesof indescribable evil. It slithered along for a yard or two, alwayslooking at me with its cruel, hideous eyes, then, when it reached thesecond window, which was open it clambered up the sill and vanished. Igot up at once and went to the window; there wasn't a sign of itanywhere. Of course, I knew it must be something from another world, butit was not till I turned up Popple's chapter on local traditions that Irealised what I had seen. "

She turned eagerly to the large brown volume and read: "'NicholasHerison, an old miser, was hung at Batchford in 1763 for the murder of afarm lad who had accidentally discovered his secret hoard. His ghost issupposed to traverse the countryside, appearing sometimes as a white owl, sometimes as a huge white hedgehog. "

"I expect you read the Popple story overnight, and that made you _think_you saw a hedgehog when you were only half awake, " said Mrs. Norbury, hazarding a conjecture that probably came very near the truth. 

Ada scouted the possibility of such a solution of her apparition. 

"This must be hushed up, " said Mrs. Norbury quickly; "the servants--"

"Hushed up!" exclaimed Ada, indignantly; "I'm writing a long report on itfor the Research Society. "

It was then that Hugo Norbury, who is not naturally a man of brilliantresource, had one of the really useful inspirations of his life. 

"It was very wicked of us, Miss Bleek, " he said, "but it would be a shameto let it go further. That white hedgehog is an old joke of ours;stuffed albino hedgehog, you know, that my father brought home fromJamaica, where they grow to enormous size. We hide it in the room with astring on it, run one end of the string through the window; then we pullif from below and it comes scraping along the floor, just as you'vedescribed, and finally jerks out of the window. Taken in heaps ofpeople; they all read up Popple and think it's old Harry Nicholson'sghost; we always stop them from writing to the papers about it, though. That would be carrying matters too far. "

Mrs. Hatch-Mallard renewed the lease in due course, but Ada Bleek hasnever renewed her friendship. 

THE MAPPINED LIFE

"These Mappin Terraces at the Zoological Gardens are a great improvementon the old style of wild-beast cage, " said Mrs. James Gurtleberry, putting down an illustrated paper; "they give one the illusion of seeingthe animals in their natural surroundings. I wonder how much of theillusion is passed on to the animals?"

"That would depend on the animal, " said her niece; "a jungle-fowl, forinstance, would no doubt think its lawful jungle surroundings werefaithfully reproduced if you gave it a sufficiency of wives, a goodlyvariety of seed food and ants' eggs, a commodious bank of loose earth todust itself in, a convenient roosting tree, and a rival or two to makematters interesting. Of course there ought to be jungle-cats and birdsof prey and other agencies of sudden death to add to the illusion ofliberty, but the bird's own imagination is capable of inventingthose--look how a domestic fowl will squawk an alarm note if a rook orwood pigeon passes over its run when it has chickens. "

"You think, then, they really do have a sort of illusion, if you givethem space enough--"

"In a few cases only. Nothing will make me believe that an acre or so ofconcrete enclosure will make up to a wolf or a tiger-cat for the range ofnight prowling that would belong to it in a wild state. Think of thedictionary of sound and scent and recollection that unfolds before a realwild beat as it comes out from its lair every evening, with the knowledgethat in a few minutes it will be hieing along to some distant huntingground where all the joy and fury of the chase awaits it; think of thecrowded sensations of the brain when every rustle, every cry, every benttwig, and every whiff across the nostrils means something, something todo with life and death and dinner. Imagine the satisfaction of stealingdown to your own particular drinking spot, choosing your own particulartree to scrape your claws on, finding your own particular bed of driedgrass to roll on. Then, in the place of all that, put a concretepromenade, which will be of exactly the same dimensions whether you raceor crawl across it, coated with stale, unvarying scents and surroundedwith cries and noises that have ceased to have the least meaning orinterest. As a substitute for a narrow cage the new enclosures areexcellent, but I should think they are a poor imitation of a life ofliberty. "

"It's rather depressing to think that, " said Mrs. Gurtleberry; "they lookso spacious and so natural, but I suppose a good deal of what seemsnatural to us would be meaningless to a wild animal. "

"That is where our superior powers of self-deception come in, " said theniece; "we are able to live our unreal, stupid little lives on ourparticular Mappin terrace, and persuade ourselves that we really areuntrammelled men and women leading a reasonable existence in a reasonablesphere. "

"But good gracious, " exclaimed the aunt, bouncing into an attitude ofscandalised defence, "we are leading reasonable existences! What onearth do you mean by trammels? We are merely trammelled by the ordinarydecent conventions of civilised society. "

"We are trammelled, " said the niece, calmly and pitilessly, "byrestrictions of income and opportunity, and above all by lack ofinitiative. To some people a restricted income doesn't matter a bit, infact it often seems to help as a means for getting a lot of reality outof life; I am sure there are men and women who do their shopping inlittle back streets of Paris, buying four carrots and a shred of beef fortheir daily sustenance, who lead a perfectly real and eventful existence. Lack of initiative is the thing that really cripples one, and that iswhere you and I and Uncle James are so hopelessly shut in. We are justso many animals stuck down on a Mappin terrace, with this difference inour disfavour, that the animals are there to be looked at, while nobodywants to look at us. As a matter of fact there would be nothing to lookat. We get colds in winter and hay fever in summer, and if a wasphappens to sting one of us, well, that is the wasp's initiative, notours; all we do is to wait for the swelling to go down. Whenever we doclimb into local fame and notice, it is by indirect methods; if ithappens to be a good flowering year for magnolias the neighbourhoodobserves: 'Have you seen the Gurtleberry's magnolia? It is a perfectmass of flowers, ' and we go about telling people that there are fifty-seven blossoms as against thirty-nine the previous year. "

"In Coronation year there were as many as sixty, " put in the aunt, "youruncle has kept a record for the last eight years. "

"Doesn't it ever strike you, " continued the niece relentlessly, "that ifwe moved away from here or were blotted out of existence our local claimto fame would pass on automatically to whoever happened to take the houseand garden? People would say to one another, 'Have you seen the Smith-Jenkins' magnolia? It is a perfect mass of flowers, ' or else'Smith-Jenkins tells me there won't be a single blossom on their magnoliathis year; the east winds have turned all the buds black. ' Now if, whenwe had gone, people still associated our names with the magnolia tree, nomatter who temporarily possessed it, if they said, 'Ah, that's the treeon which the Gurtleberrys hung their cook because she sent up the wrongkind of sauce with the asparagus, ' that would be something really due toour own initiative, apart from anything east winds or magnolia vitalitymight have to say in the matter. "

"We should never do such a thing, " said the aunt. 

The niece gave a reluctant sigh. 

"I can't imagine it, " she admitted. "Of course, " she continued, "thereare heaps of ways of leading a real existence without committingsensational deeds of violence. It's the dreadful little everyday acts ofpretended importance that give the Mappin stamp to our life. It would beentertaining, if it wasn't so pathetically tragic, to hear Uncle Jamesfuss in here in the morning and announce, 'I must just go down into thetown and find out what the men there are saying about Mexico. Mattersare beginning to look serious there. ' Then he patters away into thetown, and talks in a highly serious voice to the tobacconist, incidentally buying an ounce of tobacco; perhaps he meets one or twoothers of the world's thinkers and talks to them in a highly seriousvoice, then he patters back here and announces with increased importance, 'I've just been talking to some men in the town about the condition ofaffairs in Mexico. They agree with the view that I have formed, thatthings there will have to get worse before they get better. ' Of coursenobody in the town cared in the least little bit what his views aboutMexico were or whether he had any. The tobacconist wasn't even flutteredat his buying the ounce of tobacco; he knows that he purchases the samequantity of the same sort of tobacco every week. Uncle James might justas well have lain on his back in the garden and chattered to the lilactree about the habits of caterpillars. "

"I really will not listen to such things about your uncle, " protestedMrs. James Gurtleberry angrily. 

"My own case is just as bad and just as tragic, " said the niece, dispassionately; "nearly everything about me is conventionalmake-believe. I'm not a good dancer, and no one could honestly call megood-looking, but when I go to one of our dull little local dances I'mconventionally supposed to 'have a heavenly time, ' to attract the ardenthomage of the local cavaliers, and to go home with my head awhirl withpleasurable recollections. As a matter of fact, I've merely put in somehours of indifferent dancing, drunk some badly-made claret cup, andlistened to an enormous amount of laborious light conversation. Amoonlight hen-stealing raid with the merry-eyed curate would beinfinitely more exciting; imagine the pleasure of carrying off all thosewhite minorcas that the Chibfords are always bragging about. When we haddisposed of them we could give the proceeds to a charity, so there wouldbe nothing really wrong about it. But nothing of that sort lies withinthe Mappined limits of my life. One of these days somebody dull anddecorous and undistinguished will 'make himself agreeable' to me at atennis party, as the saying is, and all the dull old gossips of theneighbourhood will begin to ask when we are to be engaged, and at last weshall be engaged, and people will give us butter-dishes andblotting-cases and framed pictures of young women feeding swans. Hullo, Uncle, are you going out?"

"I'm just going down to the town, " announced Mr. James Gurtleberry, withan air of some importance: "I want to hear what people are saying aboutAlbania. Affairs there are beginning to take on a very serious look. It's my opinion that we haven't seen the worst of things yet. "

In this he was probably right, but there was nothing in the immediate orprospective condition of Albania to warrant Mrs. Gurtleberry in burstinginto tears. 

FATE

Rex Dillot was nearly twenty-four, almost good-looking and quitepenniless. His mother was supposed to make him some sort of an allowanceout of what her creditors allowed her, and Rex occasionally strayed intothe ranks of those who earn fitful salaries as secretaries or companionsto people who are unable to cope unaided with their correspondence ortheir leisure. For a few months he had been assistant editor andbusiness manager of a paper devoted to fancy mice, but the devotion hadbeen all on one side, and the paper disappeared with a certain abruptnessfrom club reading-rooms and other haunts where it had made a gratuitousappearance. Still, Rex lived with some air of comfort and well-being, asone can live if one is born with a genius for that sort of thing, and akindly Providence usually arranged that his week-end invitationscoincided with the dates on which his one white dinner-waistcoat was in alaundry-returned condition of dazzling cleanness. He played most gamesbadly, and was shrewd enough to recognise the fact, but he had developeda marvellously accurate judgement in estimating the play and chances ofother people, whether in a golf match, billiard handicap, or croquettournament. By dint of parading his opinion of such and such a player'ssuperiority with a sufficient degree of youthful assertiveness he usuallysucceeded in provoking a wager at liberal odds, and he looked to his week-end winnings to carry him through the financial embarrassments of his mid-week existence. The trouble was, as he confided to Clovis Sangrail, thathe never had enough available or even prospective cash at his command toenable him to fix the wager at a figure really worth winning. 

"Some day, " he said, "I shall come across a really safe thing, a bet thatsimply can't go astray, and then I shall put it up for all I'm worth, orrather for a good deal more than I'm worth if you sold me up to the lastbutton. "

"It would be awkward if it didn't happen to come off, " said Clovis. 

"It would be more than awkward, " said Rex; "it would be a tragedy. Allthe same, it would be extremely amusing to bring it off. Fancy awakingin the morning with about three hundred pounds standing to one's credit. I should go and clear out my hostess's pigeon-loft before breakfast outof sheer good-temper. "

"Your hostess of the moment mightn't have a pigeon-loft, " said Clovis. 

"I always choose hostesses that have, " said Rex; "a pigeon-loft isindicative of a careless, extravagant, genial disposition, such as I liketo see around me. People who strew corn broadcast for a lot of featheredinanities that just sit about cooing and giving each other the glad eyein a Louis Quatorze manner are pretty certain to do you well. "

"Young Strinnit is coming down this afternoon, " said Clovis reflectively;"I dare say you won't find it difficult to get him to back himself atbilliards. He plays a pretty useful game, but he's not quite as good ashe fancies he is. "

"I know one member of the party who can walk round him, " said Rex softly, an alert look coming into his eyes; "that cadaverous-looking Major whoarrived last night. I've seen him play at St. Moritz. If I could getStrinnit to lay odds on himself against the Major the money would be safein my pocket. This looks like the good thing I've been watching andpraying for. "

"Don't be rash, " counselled Clovis, "Strinnit may play up to his self-imagined form once in a blue moon. "

"I intend to be rash, " said Rex quietly, and the look on his facecorroborated his words. 

"Are you all going to flock to the billiard-room?" asked TeresaThundleford, after dinner, with an air of some disapproval and a gooddeal of annoyance. "I can't see what particular amusement you find inwatching two men prodding little ivory balls about on a table. "

"Oh, well, " said her hostess, "it's a way of passing the time, you know. "

"A very poor way, to my mind, " said Mrs. Thundleford; "now I was going tohave shown all of you the photographs I took in Venice last summer. "

"You showed them to us last night, " said Mrs. Cuvering hastily. 

"Those were the ones I took in Florence. These are quite a differentlot. "

"Oh, well, some time to-morrow we can look at them. You can leave themdown in the drawing-room, and then every one can have a look. "

"I should prefer to show them when you are all gathered together, as Ihave quite a lot of explanatory remarks to make, about Venetian art andarchitecture, on the same lines as my remarks last night on theFlorentine galleries. Also, there are some verses of mine that I shouldlike to read you, on the rebuilding of the Campanile. But, of course, ifyou all prefer to watch Major Latton and Mr. Strinnit knocking ballsabout on a table--"

"They are both supposed to be first-rate players, " said the hostess. 

"I have yet to learn that my verses and my art _causerie_ are of second-rate quality, " said Mrs. Thundleford with acerbity. "However, as you allseem bent on watching a silly game, there's no more to be said. I shallgo upstairs and finish some writing. Later on, perhaps, I will come downand join you. "

To one, at least, of the onlookers the game was anything but silly. Itwas absorbing, exciting, exasperating, nerve-stretching, and finally itgrew to be tragic. The Major with the St. Moritz reputation was playinga long way below his form, young Strinnit was playing slightly above his, and had all the luck of the game as well. From the very start the ballsseemed possessed by a demon of contrariness; they trundled aboutcomplacently for one player, they would go nowhere for the other. 

"A hundred and seventy, seventy-four, " sang out the youth who wasmarking. In a game of two hundred and fifty up it was an enormous leadto hold. Clovis watched the flush of excitement die away from Dillot'sface, and a hard white look take its place. 

"How much have you go on?" whispered Clovis. The other whispered the sumthrough dry, shaking lips. It was more than he or any one connected withhim could pay; he had done what he had said he would do. He had beenrash. 

"Two hundred and six, ninety-eight. "

Rex heard a clock strike ten somewhere in the hall, then anothersomewhere else, and another, and another; the house seemed full ofstriking clocks. Then in the distance the stable clock chimed in. Inanother hour they would all be striking eleven, and he would be listeningto them as a disgraced outcast, unable to pay, even in part, the wager hehad challenged. 

"Two hundred and eighteen, a hundred and three. " The game was as good asover. Rex was as good as done for. He longed desperately for theceiling to fall in, for the house to catch fire, for anything to happenthat would put an end to that horrible rolling to and fro of red andwhite ivory that was jostling him nearer and nearer to his doom. 

"Two hundred and twenty-eight, a hundred and seven. "

Rex opened his cigarette-case; it was empty. That at least gave him apretext to slip away from the room for the purpose of refilling it; hewould spare himself the drawn-out torture of watching that hopeless gameplayed out to the bitter end. He backed away from the circle of absorbedwatchers and made his way up a short stairway to a long, silent corridorof bedrooms, each with a guests' name written in a little square on thedoor. In the hush that reigned in this part of the house he could stillhear the hateful click-click of the balls; if he waited for a few minuteslonger he would hear the little outbreak of clapping and buzz ofcongratulation that would hail Strinnit's victory. On the alert tensionof his nerves there broke another sound, the aggressive, wrath-inducingbreathing of one who sleeps in heavy after-dinner slumber. The soundcame from a room just at his elbow; the card on the door bore theannouncement "Mrs. Thundleford. " The door was just slightly ajar; Rexpushed it open an inch or two more and looked in. The august Teresa hadfallen asleep over an illustrated guide to Florentine art-galleries; ather side, somewhat dangerously near the edge of the table, was a reading-lamp. If Fate had been decently kind to him, thought Rex, bitterly, thatlamp would have been knocked over by the sleeper and would have giventhem something to think of besides billiard matches. 

There are occasions when one must take one's Fate in one's hands. Rextook the lamp in his. 

"Two hundred and thirty-seven, one hundred and fifteen. " Strinnit was atthe table, and the balls lay in good position for him; he had a choice oftwo fairly easy shots, a choice which he was never to decide. A suddenhurricane of shrieks and a rush of stumbling feet sent every one flockingto the door. The Dillot boy crashed into the room, carrying in his armsthe vociferous and somewhat dishevelled Teresa Thundleford; her clothingwas certainly not a mass of flames, as the more excitable members of theparty afterwards declared, but the edge of her skirt and part of thetable-cover in which she had been hastily wrapped were alight in aflickering, half-hearted manner. Rex flung his struggling burden on thebilliard table, and for one breathless minute the work of beating out thesparks with rugs and cushions and playing on them with soda-water syphonsengrossed the energies of the entire company. 

"It was lucky I was passing when it happened, " panted Rex; "some one hadbetter see to the room, I think the carpet is alight. "

As a matter of fact the promptitude and energy of the rescuer hadprevented any great damage being done, either to the victim or hersurroundings. The billiard table had suffered most, and had to be laidup for repairs; perhaps it was not the best place to have chosen for thescene of salvage operations; but then, as Clovis remarked, when one isrushing about with a blazing woman in one's arms one can't stop to thinkout exactly where one is going to put her. 

THEBULL

Tom Yorkfield had always regarded his half-brother, Laurence, with a lazyinstinct of dislike, toned down, as years went on, to a tolerant feelingof indifference. There was nothing very tangible to dislike him for; hewas just a blood-relation, with whom Tom had no single taste or interestin common, and with whom, at the same time, he had had no occasion forquarrel. Laurence had left the farm early in life, and had lived for afew years on a small sum of money left him by his mother; he had taken uppainting as a profession, and was reported to be doing fairly well at it, well enough, at any rate, to keep body and soul together. He specialisedin painting animals, and he was successful in finding a certain number ofpeople to buy his pictures. Tom felt a comforting sense of assuredsuperiority in contrasting his position with that of his half-brother;Laurence was an artist-chap, just that and nothing more, though you mightmake it sound more important by calling an animal painter; Tom was afarmer, not in a very big way, it was true, but the Helsery farm had beenin the family for some generations, and it had a good reputation for thestock raised on it. Tom had done his best, with the little capital athis command, to maintain and improve the standard of his small herd ofcattle, and in Clover Fairy he had bred a bull which was something ratherbetter than any that his immediate neighbours could show. It would nothave made a sensation in the judging-ring at an important cattle show, but it was as vigorous, shapely, and healthy a young animal as any smallpractical farmer could wish to possess. At the King's Head on marketdays Clover Fairy was very highly spoken of, and Yorkfield used todeclare that he would not part with him for a hundred pounds; a hundredpounds is a lot of money in the small farming line, and probably anythingover eighty would have tempted him. 

It was with some especial pleasure that Tom took advantage of one ofLaurence's rare visits to the farm to lead him down to the enclosurewhere Clover Fairy kept solitary state--the grass widower of a grazingharem. Tom felt some of his old dislike for his half-brother reviving;the artist was becoming more languid in his manner, more unsuitablyturned-out in attire, and he seemed inclined to impart a slightlypatronising tone to his conversation. He took no heed of a flourishingpotato crop, but waxed enthusiastic over a clump of yellow-flowering weedthat stood in a corner by a gateway, which was rather galling to theowner of a really very well weeded farm; again, when he might have beenduly complimentary about a group of fat, black-faced lambs, that simplycried aloud for admiration, he became eloquent over the foliage tints ofan oak copse on the hill opposite. But now he was being taken to inspectthe crowning pride and glory of Helsery; however grudging he might be inhis praises, however backward and niggardly with his congratulations, hewould have to see and acknowledge the many excellences of thatredoubtable animal. Some weeks ago, while on a business journey toTaunton, Tom had been invited by his half-brother to visit a studio inthat town, where Laurence was exhibiting one of his pictures, a largecanvas representing a bull standing knee-deep in some marshy ground; ithad been good of its kind, no doubt, and Laurence had seemed inordinatelypleased with it; "the best thing I've done yet, " he had said over andover again, and Tom had generously agreed that it was fairly life-like. Now, the man of pigments was going to be shown a real picture, a livingmodel of strength and comeliness, a thing to feast the eyes on, a picturethat exhibited new pose and action with every shifting minute, instead ofstanding glued into one unvarying attitude between the four walls of aframe. Tom unfastened a stout wooden door and led the way into a straw-bedded yard. 

"Is he quiet?" asked the artist, as a young bull with a curly red coatcame inquiringly towards them. 

"He's playful at times, " said Tom, leaving his half-brother to wonderwhether the bull's ideas of play were of the catch-as-catch-can order. Laurence made one or two perfunctory comments on the animal's appearanceand asked a question or so as to his age and such-like details; then hecoolly turned the talk into another channel. 

"Do you remember the picture I showed you at Taunton?" he asked. 

"Yes, " grunted Tom; "a white-faced bull standing in some slush. Don'tadmire those Herefords much myself; bulky-looking brutes, don't seem tohave much life in them. Daresay they're easier to paint that way; now, this young beggar is on the move all the time, aren't you, Fairy?"

"I've sold that picture, " said Laurence, with considerable complacency inhis voice. 

"Have you?" said Tom; "glad to hear it, I'm sure. Hope you're pleasedwith what you've got for it. "

"I got three hundred pounds for it, " said Laurence. 

Tom turned towards him with a slowly rising flush of anger in his face. Three hundred pounds! Under the most favourable market conditions thathe could imagine his prized Clover Fairy would hardly fetch a hundred, yet here was a piece of varnished canvas, painted by his half-brother, selling for three times that sum. It was a cruel insult that went homewith all the more force because it emphasised the triumph of thepatronising, self-satisfied Laurence. The young farmer had meant to puthis relative just a little out of conceit with himself by displaying thejewel of his possessions, and now the tables were turned, and his valuedbeast was made to look cheap and insignificant beside the price paid fora mere picture. It was so monstrously unjust; the painting would neverbe anything more than a dexterous piece of counterfeit life, while CloverFairy was the real thing, a monarch in his little world, a personality inthe countryside. After he was dead, even, he would still be something ofa personality; his descendants would graze in those valley meadows andhillside pastures, they would fill stall and byre and milking-shed, theirgood red coats would speckle the landscape and crowd the market-place;men would note a promising heifer or a well-proportioned steer, and say:"Ah, that one comes of good old Clover Fairy's stock. " All that time thepicture would be hanging, lifeless and unchanging, beneath its dust andvarnish, a chattel that ceased to mean anything if you chose to turn itwith its back to the wall. These thoughts chased themselves angrilythrough Tom Yorkfield's mind, but he could not put them into words. Whenhe gave tongue to his feelings he put matters bluntly and harshly. 

"Some soft-witted fools may like to throw away three hundred pounds on abit of paintwork; can't say as I envy them their taste. I'd rather havethe real thing than a picture of it. "

He nodded towards the young bull, that was alternately staring at themwith nose held high and lowering its horns with a half-playful, half-impatient shake of the head. 

Laurence laughed a laugh of irritating, indulgent amusement. 

"I don't think the purchaser of my bit of paintwork, as you call it, needworry about having thrown his money away. As I get to be better knownand recognised my pictures will go up in value. That particular one willprobably fetch four hundred in a sale-room five or six years hence;pictures aren't a bad investment if you know enough to pick out the workof the right men. Now you can't say your precious bull is going to getmore valuable the longer you keep him; he'll have his little day, andthen, if you go on keeping him, he'll come down at last to a fewshillingsworth of hoofs and hide, just at a time, perhaps, when my bullis being bought for a big sum for some important picture gallery. "

It was too much. The united force of truth and slander and insult putover heavy a strain on Tom Yorkfield's powers of restraint. In his righthand he held a useful oak cudgel, with his left he made a grab at theloose collar of Laurence's canary-coloured silk shirt. Laurence was nota fighting man; the fear of physical violence threw him off his balanceas completely as overmastering indignation had thrown Tom off his, andthus it came to pass that Clover Fairy was regaled with the unprecedentedsight of a human being scudding and squawking across the enclosure, likethe hen that would persist in trying to establish a nesting-place in themanger. In another crowded happy moment the bull was trying to jerkLaurence over his left shoulder, to prod him in the ribs while still inthe air, and to kneel on him when he reached the ground. It was only thevigorous intervention of Tom that induced him to relinquish the last itemof his programme. 

Tom devotedly and ungrudgingly nursed his half brother to a completerecovery from his injuries, which consisted of nothing more serious thana dislocated shoulder, a broken rib or two, and a little nervousprostration. After all, there was no further occasion for rancour in theyoung farmer's mind; Laurence's bull might sell for three hundred, or forsix hundred, and be admired by thousands in some big picture gallery, butit would never toss a man over one shoulder and catch him a jab in theribs before he had fallen on the other side. That was Clover Fairy'snoteworthy achievement, which could never be taken away from him. 

Laurence continues to be popular as an animal artist, but his subjectsare always kittens or fawns or lambkins--never bulls. 

MORLVERA

The Olympic Toy Emporium occupied a conspicuous frontage in an importantWest End street. It was happily named Toy Emporium, because one wouldnever have dreamed of according it the familiar and yet pulse-quickeningname of toyshop. There was an air of cold splendour and elaboratefailure about the wares that were set out in its ample windows; they werethe sort of toys that a tired shop-assistant displays and explains atChristmas time to exclamatory parents and bored, silent children. Theanimal toys looked more like natural history models than the comfortable, sympathetic companions that one would wish, at a certain age, to take tobed with one, and to smuggle into the bath-room. The mechanical toysincessantly did things that no one could want a toy to do more than ahalf a dozen times in its lifetime; it was a merciful reflection that inany right-minded nursery the lifetime would certainly be short. 

Prominent among the elegantly-dressed dolls that filled an entire sectionof the window frontage was a large hobble-skirted lady in a confection ofpeach-coloured velvet, elaborately set off with leopard skin accessories, if one may use such a conveniently comprehensive word in describing anintricate feminine toilette. She lacked nothing that is to be found in acarefully detailed fashion-plate--in fact, she might be said to havesomething more than the average fashion-plate female possesses; in placeof a vacant, expressionless stare she had character in her face. It mustbe admitted that it was bad character, cold, hostile, inquisitorial, witha sinister lowering of one eyebrow and a merciless hardness about thecorners of the mouth. One might have imagined histories about her by thehour, histories in which unworthy ambition, the desire for money, and anentire absence of all decent feeling would play a conspicuous part. 

As a matter of fact, she was not without her judges and biographers, evenin this shop-window stage of her career. Emmeline, aged ten, and Bert, aged seven, had halted on the way from their obscure back street to theminnow-stocked water of St. James's Park, and were critically examiningthe hobble-skirted doll, and dissecting her character in no very tolerantspirit. There is probably a latent enmity between the necessarily under-clad and the unnecessarily overdressed, but a little kindness and goodfellowship on the part of the latter will often change the sentiment toadmiring devotion; if the lady in peach-coloured velvet and leopard skinhad worn a pleasant expression in addition to her other elaboratefurnishings, Emmeline at least might have respected and even loved her. As it was, she gave her a horrible reputation, based chiefly on asecondhand knowledge of gilded depravity derived from the conversation ofthose who were skilled in the art of novelette reading; Bert filled in afew damaging details from his own limited imagination. 

"She's a bad lot, that one is, " declared Emmeline, after a longunfriendly stare; "'er 'usbind 'ates 'er. "

"'E knocks 'er abart, " said Bert, with enthusiasm. 

"No, 'e don't, cos 'e's dead; she poisoned 'im slow and gradual, so thatnobody didn't know. Now she wants to marry a lord, with 'eaps and 'eapsof money. 'E's got a wife already, but she's going to poison 'er, too. "

"She's a bad lot, " said Bert with growing hostility. 

"'Er mother 'ates her, and she's afraid of 'er, too, cos she's got aserkestic tongue; always talking serkesms, she is. She's greedy, too; ifthere's fish going, she eats 'er own share and 'er little girl's as well, though the little girl is dellikit. "

"She 'ad a little boy once, " said Bert, "but she pushed 'im into thewater when nobody wasn't looking. "

"No she didn't, " said Emmeline, "she sent 'im away to be kep' by poorpeople, so 'er 'usbind wouldn't know where 'e was. They ill-treat 'imsomethink cruel. "

"Wot's 'er nime?" asked Bert, thinking that it was time that sointeresting a personality should be labelled. 

"'Er nime?" said Emmeline, thinking hard, "'er nime's Morlvera. " It wasas near as she could get to the name of an adventuress who figuredprominently in a cinema drama. There was silence for a moment while thepossibilities of the name were turned over in the children's minds. 

"Those clothes she's got on ain't paid for, and never won't be, " saidEmmeline; "she thinks she'll get the rich lord to pay for 'em, but 'ewon't. 'E's given 'er jools, 'underds of pounds' worth. "

"'E won't pay for the clothes, " said Bert, with conviction. Evidentlythere was some limit to the weak good nature of wealthy lords. 

At that moment a motor carriage with liveried servants drew up at theemporium entrance; a large lady, with a penetrating and rather hurriedmanner of talking, stepped out, followed slowly and sulkily by a smallboy, who had a very black scowl on his face and a very white sailor suitover the rest of him. The lady was continuing an argument which hadprobably commenced in Portman Square. 

"Now, Victor, you are to come in and buy a nice doll for your cousinBertha. She gave you a beautiful box of soldiers on your birthday, andyou must give her a present on hers. "

"Bertha is a fat little fool, " said Victor, in a voice that was as loudas his mother's and had more assurance in it. 

"Victor, you are not to say such things. Bertha is not a fool, and sheis not in the least fat. You are to come in and choose a doll for her. "

The couple passed into the shop, out of view and hearing of the two back-street children. 

"My, he is in a wicked temper, " exclaimed Emmeline, but both she and Bertwere inclined to side with him against the absent Bertha, who wasdoubtless as fat and foolish as he had described her to be. 

"I want to see some dolls, " said the mother of Victor to the nearestassistant; "it's for a little girl of eleven. "

"A fat little girl of eleven, " added Victor by way of supplementaryinformation. 

"Victor, if you say such rude things about your cousin, you shall go tobed the moment we get home, without having any tea. "

"This is one of the newest things we have in dolls, " said the assistant, removing a hobble-skirted figure in peach-coloured velvet from thewindow; "leopard skin toque and stole, the latest fashion. You won't getanything newer than that anywhere. It's an exclusive design. "

"Look!" whispered Emmeline outside; "they've bin and took Morlvera. "

There was a mingling of excitement and a certain sense of bereavement inher mind; she would have liked to gaze at that embodiment of overdresseddepravity for just a little longer. 

"I 'spect she's going away in a kerridge to marry the rich lord, "hazarded Bert. 

"She's up to no good, " said Emmeline vaguely. 

Inside the shop the purchase of the doll had been decided on. 

"It's a beautiful doll, and Bertha will be delighted with it, " assertedthe mother of Victor loudly. 

"Oh, very well, " said Victor sulkily; "you needn't have it stuck into abox and wait an hour while it's being done up into a parcel. I'll takeit as it is, and we can go round to Manchester Square and give it toBertha, and get the thing done with. That will save me the trouble ofwriting: 'For dear Bertha, with Victor's love, ' on a bit of paper. "

"Very well, " said his mother, "we can go to Manchester Square on our wayhome. You must wish her many happy returns of to-morrow, and give herthe doll. "

"I won't let the little beast kiss me, " stipulated Victor. 

His mother said nothing; Victor had not been half as troublesome as shehad anticipated. When he chose he could really be dreadfully naughty. 

Emmeline and Bert were just moving away from the window when Morlveramade her exit from the shop, very carefully in Victor's arms. A look ofsinister triumph seemed to glow in her hard, inquisitorial face. As forVictor, a certain scornful serenity had replaced the earlier scowls; hehad evidently accepted defeat with a contemptuous good grace. 

The tall lady gave a direction to the footman and settled herself in thecarriage. The little figure in the white sailor suit clambered in besideher, still carefully holding the elegantly garbed doll. 

The car had to be backed a few yards in the process of turning. Verystealthily, very gently, very mercilessly Victor sent Morlvera flyingover his shoulder, so that she fell into the road just behind theretrogressing wheel. With a soft, pleasant-sounding scrunch the car wentover the prostrate form, then it moved forward again with anotherscrunch. The carriage moved off and left Bert and Emmeline gazing inscared delight at a sorry mess of petrol-smeared velvet, sawdust, andleopard skin, which was all that remained of the hateful Morlvera. Theygave a shrill cheer, and then raced away shuddering from the scene of somuch rapidly enacted tragedy. 

Later that afternoon, when they were engaged in the pursuit of minnows bythe waterside in St. James's Park, Emmeline said in a solemn undertone toBert--

"I've bin finking. Do you know oo 'e was? 'E was 'er little boy wotshe'd sent away to live wiv poor folks. 'E come back and done that. "

SHOCK TATICS

On a late spring afternoon Ella McCarthy sat on a green-painted chair inKensington Gardens, staring listlessly at an uninteresting stretch ofpark landscape, that blossomed suddenly into tropical radiance as anexpected figure appeared in the middle distance. 

"Hullo, Bertie!" she exclaimed sedately, when the figure arrived at thepainted chair that was the nearest neighbour to her own, and dropped intoit eagerly, yet with a certain due regard for the set of its trousers;"hasn't it been a perfect spring afternoon?"

The statement was a distinct untruth as far as Ella's own feelings wereconcerned; until the arrival of Bertie the afternoon had been anythingbut perfect. 

Bertie made a suitable reply, in which a questioning note seemed tohover. 

"Thank you ever so much for those lovely handkerchiefs, " said Ella, answering the unspoken question; "they were just what I've been wanting. There's only one thing spoilt my pleasure in your gift, " she added, witha pout. 

"What was that?" asked Bertie anxiously, fearful that perhaps he hadchosen a size of handkerchief that was not within the correct femininelimit. 

"I should have liked to have written and thanked you for them as soon asI got them, " said Ella, and Bertie's sky clouded at once. 

"You know what mother is, " he protested; "she opens all my letters, andif she found I'd been giving presents to any one there'd have beensomething to talk about for the next fortnight. "

"Surely, at the age of twenty--" began Ella. 

"I'm not twenty till September, " interrupted Bertie. 

"At the age of nineteen years and eight months, " persisted Ella, "youmight be allowed to keep your correspondence private to yourself. "

"I ought to be, but things aren't always what they ought to be. Motheropens every letter that comes into the house, whoever it's for. Mysisters and I have made rows about it time and again, but she goes ondoing it. "

"I'd find some way to stop her if I were in your place, " said Ellavaliantly, and Bertie felt that the glamour of his anxiously deliberatedpresent had faded away in the disagreeable restriction that hedged roundits acknowledgment. 

"Is anything the matter?" asked Bertie's friend Clovis when they met thatevening at the swimming-bath. 

"Why do you ask?" said Bertie. 

"When you wear a look of tragic gloom in a swimming-bath, " said Clovis, "it's especially noticeable from the fact that you're wearing very littleelse. Didn't she like the handkerchiefs?"

Bertie explained the situation. 

"It is rather galling, you know, " he added, "when a girl has a lot ofthings she wants to write to you and can't send a letter except by someroundabout, underhand way. "

"One never realises one's blessings while one enjoys them, " said Clovis;"now I have to spend a considerable amount of ingenuity inventing excusesfor not having written to people. "

"It's not a joking matter, " said Bertie resentfully: "you wouldn't findit funny if your mother opened all your letters. "

"The funny thing to me is that you should let her do it. "

"I can't stop it. I've argued about it--"

"You haven't used the right kind of argument, I expect. Now, if everytime one of your letters was opened you lay on your back on the dining-table during dinner and had a fit, or roused the entire family in themiddle of the night to hear you recite one of Blake's 'Poems ofInnocence, ' you would get a far more respectful hearing for futureprotests. People yield more consideration to a mutilated mealtime or abroken night's rest, than ever they would to a broken heart. "

"Oh, dry up, " said Bertie crossly, inconsistently splashing Clovis fromhead to foot as he plunged into the water. 

It was a day or two after the conversation in the swimming-bath that aletter addressed to Bertie Heasant slid into the letter-box at his home, and thence into the hands of his mother. Mrs. Heasant was one of thoseempty-minded individuals to whom other people's affairs are perpetuallyinteresting. The more private they are intended to be the more acute isthe interest they arouse. She would have opened this particular letterin any case; the fact that it was marked "private, " and diffused adelicate but penetrating aroma merely caused her to open it with headlonghaste rather than matter-of-course deliberation. The harvest ofsensation that rewarded her was beyond all expectations. 

 "Bertie, carissimo, " it began, "I wonder if you will have the nerve to do it: it will take some nerve, too. Don't forget the jewels. They are a detail, but details interest me. 

 "Yours as ever, Clotilde. "

 "Your mother must not know of my existence. If questioned swear you never heard of me. "

For years Mrs. Heasant had searched Bertie's correspondence diligentlyfor traces of possible dissipation or youthful entanglements, and at lastthe suspicions that had stimulated her inquisitorial zeal were justifiedby this one splendid haul. That any one wearing the exotic name"Clotilde" should write to Bertie under the incriminating announcement"as ever" was sufficiently electrifying, without the astounding allusionto the jewels. Mrs. Heasant could recall novels and dramas whereinjewels played an exciting and commanding role, and here, under her ownroof, before her very eyes as it were, her own son was carrying on anintrigue in which jewels were merely an interesting detail. Bertie wasnot due home for another hour, but his sisters were available for theimmediate unburdening of a scandal-laden mind. 

"Bertie is in the toils of an adventuress, " she screamed; "her name isClotilde, " she added, as if she thought they had better know the worst atonce. There are occasions when more harm than good is done by shieldingyoung girls from a knowledge of the more deplorable realities of life. 

By the time Bertie arrived his mother had discussed every possible andimprobable conjecture as to his guilty secret; the girls limitedthemselves to the opinion that their brother had been weak rather thanwicked. 

"Who is Clotilde?" was the question that confronted Bertie almost beforehe had got into the hall. His denial of any knowledge of such a personwas met with an outburst of bitter laughter. 

"How well you have learned your lesson!" exclaimed Mrs. Heasant. Butsatire gave way to furious indignation when she realised that Bertie didnot intend to throw any further light on her discovery. 

"You shan't have any dinner till you've confessed everything, " shestormed. 

Bertie's reply took the form of hastily collecting material for animpromptu banquet from the larder and locking himself into his bedroom. His mother made frequent visits to the locked door and shouted asuccession of interrogations with the persistence of one who thinks thatif you ask a question often enough an answer will eventually result. Bertie did nothing to encourage the supposition. An hour had passed infruitless one-sided palaver when another letter addressed to Bertie andmarked "private" made its appearance in the letter-box. Mrs. Heasantpounced on it with the enthusiasm of a cat that has missed its mouse andto whom a second has been unexpectedly vouchsafed. If she hoped forfurther disclosures assuredly she was not disappointed. 

 "So you have really done it!" the letter abruptly commenced; "Poor Dagmar. Now she is done for I almost pity her. You did it very well, you wicked boy, the servants all think it was suicide, and there will be no fuss. Better not touch the jewels till after the inquest. 

 "Clotilde. "

Anything that Mrs. Heasant had previously done in the way of outcry waseasily surpassed as she raced upstairs and beat frantically at her son'sdoor. 

"Miserable boy, what have you done to Dagmar?"

"It's Dagmar now, is it?" he snapped; "it will be Geraldine next. "

"That it should come to this, after all my efforts to keep you at home ofan evening, " sobbed Mrs. Heasant; "it's no use you trying to hide thingsfrom me; Clotilde's letter betrays everything. "

"Does it betray who she is?" asked Bertie; "I've heard so much about her, I should like to know something about her home-life. Seriously, if yougo on like this I shall fetch a doctor; I've often enough been preachedat about nothing, but I've never had an imaginary harem dragged into thediscussion. "

"Are these letters imaginary?" screamed Mrs. Heasant; "what about thejewels, and Dagmar, and the theory of suicide?"

No solution of these problems was forthcoming through the bedroom door, but the last post of the evening produced another letter for Bertie, andits contents brought Mrs. Heasant that enlightenment which had alreadydawned on her son. 

 "Dear Bertie, " it ran; "I hope I haven't distracted your brain with the spoof letters I've been sending in the name of a fictitious Clotilde. You told me the other day that the servants, or somebody at your home, tampered with your letters, so I thought I would give any one that opened them something exciting to read. The shock might do them good. 

 "Yours, "Clovis Sangrail. "

Mrs. Heasant knew Clovis slightly, and was rather afraid of him. It wasnot difficult to read between the lines of his successful hoax. In achastened mood she rapped once more at Bertie's door. 

"A letter from Mr. Sangrail. It's all been a stupid hoax. He wrotethose other letters. Why, where are you going?"

Bertie had opened the door; he had on his hat and overcoat. 

"I'm going for a doctor to come and see if anything's the matter withyou. Of course it was all a hoax, but no person in his right mind couldhave believed all that rubbish about murder and suicide and jewels. You've been making enough noise to bring the house down for the last houror two. "

"But what was I to think of those letters?" whimpered Mrs. Heasant. 

"I should have known what to think of them, " said Bertie; "if you chooseto excite yourself over other people's correspondence it's your ownfault. Anyhow, I'm going for a doctor. "

It was Bertie's great opportunity, and he knew it. His mother wasconscious of the fact that she would look rather ridiculous if the storygot about. She was willing to pay hush-money. 

"I'll never open your letters again, " she promised. And Clovis has nomore devoted slave than Bertie Heasant. 

THE SEVEN CREAM JUGS

"I suppose we shall never see Wilfred Pigeoncote here now that he hasbecome heir to the baronetcy and to a lot of money, " observed Mrs. PeterPigeoncote regretfully to her husband. 

"Well, we can hardly expect to, " he replied, "seeing that we alwayschoked him off from coming to see us when he was a prospective nobody. Idon't think I've set eyes on him since he was a boy of twelve. "

"There was a reason for not wanting to encourage his acquaintanceship, "said Mrs. Peter. "With that notorious failing of his he was not the sortof person one wanted in one's house. "

"Well, the failing still exists, doesn't it?" said her husband; "or doyou suppose a reform of character is entailed along with the estate?"

"Oh, of course, there is still that drawback, " admitted the wife, "butone would like to make the acquaintance of the future head of the family, if only out of mere curiosity. Besides, cynicism apart, his being richwill make a difference in the way people will look at his failing. Whena man is absolutely wealthy, not merely well-to-do, all suspicion ofsordid motive naturally disappears; the thing becomes merely a tiresomemalady. "

Wilfrid Pigeoncote had suddenly become heir to his uncle, Sir WilfridPigeoncote, on the death of his cousin, Major Wilfrid Pigeoncote, who hadsuccumbed to the after-effects of a polo accident. (A Wilfrid Pigeoncotehad covered himself with honours in the course of Marlborough'scampaigns, and the name Wilfrid had been a baptismal weakness in thefamily ever since. ) The new heir to the family dignity and estates was ayoung man of about five-and-twenty, who was known more by reputation thanby person to a wide circle of cousins and kinsfolk. And the reputationwas an unpleasant one. The numerous other Wilfrids in the family weredistinguished one from another chiefly by the names of their residencesor professions, as Wilfrid of Hubbledown, and young Wilfrid the Gunner, but this particular scion was known by the ignominious and expressivelabel of Wilfrid the Snatcher. From his late schooldays onward he hadbeen possessed by an acute and obstinate form of kleptomania; he had theacquisitive instinct of the collector without any of the collector'sdiscrimination. Anything that was smaller and more portable than asideboard, and above the value of ninepence, had an irresistibleattraction for him, provided that it fulfilled the necessary condition ofbelonging to some one else. On the rare occasions when he was includedin a country-house party, it was usual and almost necessary for his host, or some member of the family, to make a friendly inquisition through hisbaggage on the eve of his departure, to see if he had packed up "bymistake" any one else's property. The search usually produced a largeand varied yield. 

"This is funny, " said Peter Pigeoncote to his wife, some half-hour aftertheir conversation; "here's a telegram from Wilfrid, saying he's passingthrough here in his motor, and would like to stop and pay us hisrespects. Can stay for the night if it doesn't inconvenience us. Signed'Wilfrid Pigeoncote. ' Must be the Snatcher; none of the others have amotor. I suppose he's bringing us a present for the silver wedding. "

"Good gracious!" said Mrs. Peter, as a thought struck her; "this israther an awkward time to have a person with his failing in the house. All those silver presents set out in the drawing-room, and others comingby every post; I hardly know what we've got and what are still to come. We can't lock them all up; he's sure to want to see them. "

"We must keep a sharp look-out, that's all, " said Peter reassuringly. 

"But these practised kleptomaniacs are so clever, " said his wife, apprehensively, "and it will be so awkward if he suspects that we arewatching him. "

Awkwardness was indeed the prevailing note that evening when the passingtraveller was being entertained. The talk flitted nervously andhurriedly from one impersonal topic to another. The guest had none ofthe furtive, half-apologetic air that his cousins had rather expected tofind; he was polite, well-assured, and, perhaps, just a little inclinedto "put on side". His hosts, on the other hand, wore an uneasy mannerthat might have been the hallmark of conscious depravity. In the drawing-room, after dinner, their nervousness and awkwardness increased. 

"Oh, we haven't shown you the silver-wedding presents, " said Mrs. Peter, suddenly, as though struck by a brilliant idea for entertaining theguest; "here they all are. Such nice, useful gifts. A few duplicates, of course. "

"Seven cream jugs, " put in Peter. 

"Yes, isn't it annoying, " went on Mrs. Peter; "seven of them. We feelthat we must live on cream for the rest of our lives. Of course, some ofthem can be changed. "

Wilfrid occupied himself chiefly with such of the gifts as were ofantique interest, carrying one or two of them over to the lamp to examinetheir marks. The anxiety of his hosts at these moments resembled thesolicitude of a cat whose newly born kittens are being handed round forinspection. 

"Let me see; did you give me back the mustard-pot? This is its placehere, " piped Mrs. Peter. 

"Sorry. I put it down by the claret-jug, " said Wilfrid, busy withanother object. 

"Oh, just let me have the sugar-sifter again, " asked Mrs. Peter, doggeddetermination showing through her nervousness; "I must label it who itcomes from before I forget. "

Vigilance was not completely crowned with a sense of victory. After theyhad said "Good-night" to their visitor, Mrs. Peter expressed herconviction that he had taken something. 

"I fancy, by his manner, that there was something up, " corroborated herhusband; "do you miss anything?"

Mrs. Peters hastily counted the array of gifts. 

"I can only make it thirty-four, and I think it should be thirty-five, "she announced; "I can't remember if thirty-five includes the Archdeacon'scruet-stand that hasn't arrived yet. "

"How on earth are we to know?" said Peter. "The mean pig hasn't broughtus a present, and I'm hanged if he shall carry one off. "

"To-morrow, when's he having his bath, " said Mrs. Peter excitedly, "he'ssure to leave his keys somewhere, and we can go through his portmanteau. It's the only thing to do. "

On the morrow an alert watch was kept by the conspirators behind half-closed doors, and when Wilfrid, clad in a gorgeous bath-robe, had madehis way to the bath-room, there was a swift and furtive rush by twoexcited individuals towards the principal guest-chamber. Mrs. Peter keptguard outside, while her husband first made a hurried and successfulsearch for the keys, and then plunged at the portmanteau with the air ofa disagreeably conscientious Customs official. The quest was a briefone; a silver cream jug lay embedded in the folds of some zephyr shirts. 

"The cunning brute, " said Mrs. Peters; "he took a cream jug because therewere so many; he thought one wouldn't be missed. Quick, fly down with itand put it back among the others. "

Wilfrid was late in coming down to breakfast, and his manner showedplainly that something was amiss. 

"It's an unpleasant thing to have to say, " he blurted out presently, "butI'm afraid you must have a thief among your servants. Something's beentaken out of my portmanteau. It was a little present from my mother andmyself for your silver wedding. I should have given it to you last nightafter dinner, only it happened to be a cream jug, and you seemed annoyedat having so many duplicates, so I felt rather awkward about giving youanother. I thought I'd get it changed for something else, and now it'sgone. "

"Did you say it was from your _mother_ and yourself?" asked Mr. And Mrs. Peter almost in unison. The Snatcher had been an orphan these manyyears. 

"Yes, my mother's at Cairo just now, and she wrote to me at Dresden totry and get you something quaint and pretty in the old silver line, and Ipitched on this cream jug. "

Both the Pigeoncotes had turned deadly pale. The mention of Dresden hadthrown a sudden light on the situation. It was Wilfrid the Attache, avery superior young man, who rarely came within their social horizon, whom they had been entertaining unawares in the supposed character ofWilfrid the Snatcher. Lady Ernestine Pigeoncote, his mother, moved incircles which were entirely beyond their compass or ambitions, and theson would probably one day be an Ambassador. And they had rifled anddespoiled his portmanteau! Husband and wife looked blankly anddesperately at one another. It was Mrs. Peter who arrived first at aninspiration. 

"How dreadful to think there are thieves in the house! We keep thedrawing-room locked up at night, of course, but anything might be carriedoff while we are at breakfast. "

She rose and went out hurriedly, as though to assure herself that thedrawing-room was not being stripped of its silverware, and returned amoment later, bearing a cream jug in her hands. 

"There are eight cream jugs now, instead of seven, " she cried; "this onewasn't there before. What a curious trick of memory, Mr. Wilfrid! Youmust have slipped downstairs with it last night and put it there beforewe locked up, and forgotten all about having done it in the morning. "

"One's mind often plays one little tricks like that, " said Mr. Peter, with desperate heartiness. "Only the other day I went into the town topay a bill, and went in again next day, having clean forgotten that I'd--"

"It is certainly the jug I bought for you, " said Wilfrid, looking closelyat it; "it was in my portmanteau when I got my bath-robe out thismorning, before going to my bath, and it was not there when I unlockedthe portmanteau on my return. Some one had taken it while I was awayfrom the room. "

The Pigeoncotes had turned paler than ever. Mrs. Peter had a finalinspiration. 

"Get me my smelling-salts, dear, " she said to her husband; "I thinkthey're in the dressing-room. "

Peter dashed out of the room with glad relief; he had lived so longduring the last few minutes that a golden wedding seemed withinmeasurable distance. 

Mrs. Peter turned to her guest with confidential coyness. 

"A diplomat like you will know how to treat this as if it hadn'thappened. Peter's little weakness; it runs in the family. "

"Good Lord! Do you mean to say he's a kleptomaniac, like CousinSnatcher?"

"Oh, not exactly, " said Mrs. Peter, anxious to whitewash her husband alittle greyer than she was painting him. "He would never touch anythinghe found lying about, but he can't resist making a raid on things thatare locked up. The doctors have a special name for it. He must havepounced on your portmanteau the moment you went to your bath, and takenthe first thing he came across. Of course, he had no motive for taking acream jug; we've already got _seven_, as you know--not, of course, thatwe don't value the kind of gift you and your mother--hush here's Petercoming. "

Mrs. Peter broke off in some confusion, and tripped out to meet herhusband in the hall. 

"It's all right, " she whispered to him; "I've explained everything. Don'tsay anything more about it. "

"Brave little woman, " said Peter, with a gasp of relief; "I could neverhave done it. "

* * * * *

Diplomatic reticence does not necessarily extend to family affairs. PeterPigeoncote was never able to understand why Mrs. Consuelo van Bullyon, who stayed with them in the spring, always carried two very obvious jewel-cases with her to the bath-room, explaining them to any one she chancedto meet in the corridor as her manicure and face-massage set. 

THE OCCASIONAL GARDEN

"Don't talk to me about town gardens, " said Elinor Rapsley; "which means, of course, that I want you to listen to me for an hour or so while I talkabout nothing else. 'What a nice-sized garden you've got, ' people saidto us when we first moved here. What I suppose they meant to say waswhat a nice-sized site for a garden we'd got. As a matter of fact, thesize is all against it; it's too large to be ignored altogether andtreated as a yard, and it's too small to keep giraffes in. You see, ifwe could keep giraffes or reindeer or some other species of browsinganimal there we could explain the general absence of vegetation by areference to the fauna of the garden: 'You can't have wapiti _and_ Darwintulips, you know, so we didn't put down any bulbs last year. ' As it is, we haven't got the wapiti, and the Darwin tulips haven't survived thefact that most of the cats of the neighbourhood hold a parliament in thecentre of the tulip bed; that rather forlorn looking strip that weintended to be a border of alternating geranium and spiraea has beenutilised by the cat-parliament as a division lobby. Snap divisions seemto have been rather frequent of late, far more frequent than the geraniumblooms are likely to be. I shouldn't object so much to ordinary cats, but I do complain of having a congress of vegetarian cats in my garden;they must be vegetarians, my dear, because, whatever ravages they maycommit among the sweet pea seedlings, they never seem to touch thesparrows; there are always just as many adult sparrows in the garden onSaturday as there were on Monday, not to mention newly-fledged additions. There seems to have been an irreconcilable difference of opinion betweensparrows and Providence since the beginning of time as to whether acrocus looks best standing upright with its roots in the earth or in arecumbent posture with its stem neatly severed; the sparrows always havethe last word in the matter, at least in our garden they do. I fancythat Providence must have originally intended to bring in an amendingAct, or whatever it's called, providing either for a less destructivesparrow or a more indestructible crocus. The one consoling point aboutour garden is that it's not visible from the drawing-room or the smoking-room, so unless people are dinning or lunching with us they can't spy outthe nakedness of the land. That is why I am so furious with GwendaPottingdon, who has practically forced herself on me for lunch onWednesday next; she heard me offer the Paulcote girl lunch if she was upshopping on that day, and, of course, she asked if she might come too. She is only coming to gloat over my bedraggled and flowerless borders andto sing the praises of her own detestably over-cultivated garden. I'msick of being told that it's the envy of the neighbourhood; it's likeeverything else that belongs to her--her car, her dinner-parties, evenher headaches, they are all superlative; no one else ever had anythinglike them. When her eldest child was confirmed it was such a sensationalevent, according to her account of it, that one almost expected questionsto be asked about it in the House of Commons, and now she's coming onpurpose to stare at my few miserable pansies and the gaps in my sweet-peaborder, and to give me a glowing, full-length description of the rare andsumptuous blooms in her rose-garden. "

"My dear Elinor, " said the Baroness, "you would save yourself all thisheart-burning and a lot of gardener's bills, not to mention sparrowanxieties, simply by paying an annual subscription to the O. O. S. A. "

"Never heard of it, " said Elinor; "what is it?"

"The Occasional-Oasis Supply Association, " said the Baroness; "it existsto meet cases exactly like yours, cases of backyards that are of nopractical use for gardening purposes, but are required to blossom intodecorative scenic backgrounds at stated intervals, when a luncheon ordinner-party is contemplated. Supposing, for instance, you have peoplecoming to lunch at one-thirty; you just ring up the Association at aboutten o'clock the same morning, and say 'lunch garden'. That is all thetrouble you have to take. By twelve forty-five your yard is carpetedwith a strip of velvety turf, with a hedge of lilac or red may, orwhatever happens to be in season, as a background, one or two cherrytrees in blossom, and clumps of heavily-flowered rhododendrons filling inthe odd corners; in the foreground you have a blaze of carnations orShirley poppies, or tiger lilies in full bloom. As soon as the lunch isover and your guests have departed the garden departs also, and all thecats in Christendom can sit in council in your yard without causing you amoment's anxiety. If you have a bishop or an antiquary or something ofthat sort coming to lunch you just mention the fact when you are orderingthe garden, and you get an old-world pleasaunce, with clipped yew hedgesand a sun-dial and hollyhocks, and perhaps a mulberry tree, and bordersof sweet-williams and Canterbury bells, and an old-fashioned beehive ortwo tucked away in a corner. Those are the ordinary lines of supply thatthe Oasis Association undertakes, but by paying a few guineas a yearextra you are entitled to its emergency E. O. N. Service. "

"What on earth is an E. O. N. Service?"

"It's just a conventional signal to indicate special cases like theincursion of Gwenda Pottingdon. It means you've got some one coming tolunch or dinner whose garden is alleged to be 'the envy of theneighbourhood. '"

"Yes, " exclaimed Elinor, with some excitement, "and what happens then?"

"Something that sounds like a miracle out of the Arabian Nights. Yourbackyard becomes voluptuous with pomegranate and almond trees, lemongroves, and hedges of flowering cactus, dazzling banks of azaleas, marble-basined fountains, in which chestnut-and-white pond-herons step daintilyamid exotic water-lilies, while golden pheasants strut about on alabasterterraces. The whole effect rather suggests the idea that Providence andNorman Wilkinson have dropped mutual jealousies and collaborated toproduce a background for an open-air Russian Ballet; in point of fact, itis merely the background to your luncheon party. If there is any kickleft in Gwenda Pottingdon, or whoever your E. O. N. Guest of the moment maybe, just mention carelessly that your climbing putella is the only one inEngland, since the one at Chatsworth died last winter. There isn't sucha thing as a climbing putella, but Gwenda Pottingdon and her kind don'tusually know one flower from another without prompting. "

"Quick, " said Elinor, "the address of the Association. "

Gwenda Pottingdon did not enjoy her lunch. It was a simple yet elegantmeal, excellently cooked and daintily served, but the piquant sauce ofher own conversation was notably lacking. She had prepared a longsuccession of eulogistic comments on the wonders of her town garden, withits unrivalled effects of horticultural magnificence, and, behold, hertheme was shut in on every side by the luxuriant hedge of Siberianberberis that formed a glowing background to Elinor's bewilderingfragment of fairyland. The pomegranate and lemon trees, the terracedfountain, where golden carp slithered and wriggled amid the roots ofgorgeous-hued irises, the banked masses of exotic blooms, the pagoda-likeenclosure, where Japanese sand-badgers disported themselves, all thesecontributed to take away Gwenda's appetite and moderate her desire totalk about gardening matters. 

"I can't say I admire the climbing putella, " she observed shortly, "andanyway it's not the only one of its kind in England; I happen to know ofone in Hampshire. How gardening is going out of fashion; I supposepeople haven't the time for it nowadays. "

Altogether it was quite one of Elinor's most successful luncheon parties. 

It was distinctly an unforeseen catastrophe that Gwenda should have burstin on the household four days later at lunch-time and made her wayunbidden into the dining-room. 

"I thought I must tell you that my Elaine has had a water-colour sketchaccepted by the Latent Talent Art Guild; it's to be exhibited at theirsummer exhibition at the Hackney Gallery. It will be the sensation ofthe moment in the art world--Hullo, what on earth has happened to yourgarden? It's not there!"

"Suffragettes, " said Elinor promptly; "didn't you hear about it? Theybroke in and made hay of the whole thing in about ten minutes. I was soheart-broken at the havoc that I had the whole place cleared out; I shallhave it laid out again on rather more elaborate lines. "

"That, " she said to the Baroness afterwards "is what I call having anemergency brain. "

THE SHEEP

The enemy had declared "no trumps. " Rupert played out his ace and kingof clubs and cleared the adversary of that suit; then the Sheep, whom theFates had inflicted on him for a partner, took the third round with thequeen of clubs, and, having no other club to lead back, opened anothersuit. The enemy won the remainder of the tricks--and the rubber. 

"I had four more clubs to play; we only wanted the odd trick to win therubber, " said Rupert. 

"But I hadn't another club to lead you, " exclaimed the Sheep, with hisready, defensive smile. 

"It didn't occur to you to throw your queen away on my king and leave mewith the command of the suit, " said Rupert, with polite bitterness. 

"I suppose I ought to have--I wasn't certain what to do. I'm awfullysorry, " said the Sheep. 

Being awfully and uselessly sorry formed a large part of his occupationin life. If a similar situation had arisen in a subsequent hand he wouldhave blundered just as certainly, and he would have been just asirritatingly apologetic. 

Rupert stared gloomily across at him as he sat smiling and fumbling withhis cards. Many men who have good brains for business do not possess therudiments of a card-brain, and Rupert would not have judged and condemnedhis prospective brother-in-law on the evidence of his bridge play alone. The tragic part of it was that he smiled and fumbled through life just asfatuously and apologetically as he did at the card-table. And behind thedefensive smile and the well-worn expressions of regret there shone ascarcely believable but quite obvious self-satisfaction. Every sheep ofthe pasture probably imagines that in an emergency it could becometerrible as an army with banners--one has only to watch how they stamptheir feet and stiffen their necks when a minor object of suspicion comesinto view and behaves meekly. And probably the majority of human sheepsee themselves in imagination taking great parts in the world's moreimpressive dramas, forming swift, unerring decisions in moments ofcrisis, cowing mutinies, allaying panics, brave, strong, simple, but, inspite of their natural modesty, always slightly spectacular. 

"Why in the name of all that is unnecessary and perverse should Kathleenchoose this man for her future husband?" was the question that Rupertasked himself ruefully. There was young Malcolm Athling, asnice-looking, decent, level-headed a fellow as any one could wish tomeet, obviously her very devoted admirer, and yet she must throw herselfaway on this pale-eyed, weak-mouthed embodiment of self-approvingineptitude. If it had been merely Kathleen's own affair Rupert wouldhave shrugged his shoulders and philosophically hoped that she might makethe best of an undeniably bad bargain. But Rupert had no heir; his ownboy lay underground somewhere on the Indian frontier, in goodly company. And the property would pass in due curse to Kathleen and Kathleen'shusband. The Sheep would live there in the beloved old home, rearing upother little Sheep, fatuous and rabbit-faced and self-satisfied likehimself, to dwell in the land and possess it. It was not a soothingprospect. 

Towards dusk on the afternoon following the bridge experience Rupert andthe Sheep made their way homeward after a day's mixed shooting. TheSheep's cartridge bag was nearly empty, but his game bag showed no signsof over-crowding. The birds he had shot at had seemed for the most partas impervious to death or damage as the hero of a melodrama. And foreach failure to drop his bird he had some explanation or apology ready onhis lips. Now he was striding along in front of his host, chatteringhappily over his shoulder, but obviously on the look-out for some belatedrabbit or woodpigeon that might haply be secured as an eleventh-houraddition to his bag. As they passed the edge of a small copse a largebird rose from the ground and flew slowly towards the trees, offering aneasy shot to the oncoming sportsmen. The Sheep banged forth with bothbarrels, and gave an exultant cry. 

"Horray! I've shot a thundering big hawk!"

"To be exact, you've shot a honey-buzzard. That is the hen bird of oneof the few pairs of honey-buzzards breeding in the United Kingdom. We'vekept them under the strictest preservation for the last four years; everygame-keeper and village gun loafer for twenty miles round has been warnedand bribed and threatened to respect their sanctity, and egg-snatchingagents have been carefully guarded against during the breeding season. Hundreds of lovers of rare birds have delighted in seeing theirsnap-shotted portraits in _Country Life_, and now you've reduced the henbird to a lump of broken feathers. "

Rupert spoke quietly and evenly, but for a moment or two a gleam ofpositive hatred shone in his eyes. 

"I say, I'm so sorry, " said the Sheep, with his apologetic smile. "Ofcourse I remember hearing about the buzzards, but somehow I didn'tconnect this bird with them. And it was such an east shot--"

"Yes, " said Rupert; "that was the trouble. "

Kathleen found him in the gun-room smoothing out the feathers of the deadbird. She had already been told of the catastrophe. 

"What a horrid misfortune, " she said sympathetically. 

"It was my dear Robbie who first discovered them, the last time he washome on leave. Don't you remember how excited he was about them? Let'sgo and have some tea. "

Both bridge and shooting were given a rest for the next two or threeweeks. Death, who enters into no compacts with party whips, had forced aParliamentary vacancy on the neighbourhood at the least convenientseason, and the local partisans on either side found themselves immersedin the discomforts of a mid-winter election. Rupert took his politicsseriously and keenly. He belonged to that type of strangely but ratherhappily constituted individuals which these islands seem to produce in afair plenty; men and women who for no personal profit or gain go forthfrom their comfortable firesides or club card-rooms to hunt to and fro inthe mud and rain and wind for the capture or tracking of a stray votehere and there on their party's behalf--not because they think they oughtto, but because they want to. And his energies were welcome enough onthis occasion, for the seat was a closely disputed possession, and itsloss or retention would count for much in the present position of theParliamentary game. With Kathleen to help him, he had worked his cornerof the constituency with tireless, well-directed zeal, taking his shareof the dull routine work as well as of the livelier episodes. Thetalking part of the campaign wound up on the eve of the poll with ameeting in a centre where more undecided votes were supposed to beconcentrated than anywhere else in the division. A good final meetinghere would mean everything. And the speakers, local and imported, leftnothing undone to improve the occasion. Rupert was down for theunimportant task of moving the complimentary vote to the chairman whichshould close the proceedings. 

"I'm so hoarse, " he protested, when the moment arrived; "I don't believeI can make my voice heard beyond the platform. "

"Let me do it, " said the Sheep; "I'm rather good at that sort of thing. "

The chairman was popular with all parties, and the Sheep's opening wordsof complimentary recognition received a round of applause. The oratorsmiled expansively on his listeners and seized the opportunity to add afew words of political wisdom on his own account. People looked at theclock or began to grope for umbrellas and discarded neckwraps. Then, inthe midst of a string of meaningless platitudes, the Sheep deliveredhimself of one of those blundering remarks which travel from one end of aconstituency to the other in half an hour, and are seized on by the otherside as being more potent on their behalf than a ton of electionliterature. There was a general shuffling and muttering across thelength and breadth of the hall, and a few hisses made themselves heard. The Sheep tried to whittle down his remark, and the chairmanunhesitatingly threw him over in his speech of thanks, but the damage wasdone. 

"I'm afraid I lost touch with the audience rather over that remark, " saidthe Sheep afterwards, with his apologetic smile abnormally developed. 

"You lost us the election, " said the chairman, and he proved a trueprophet. 

A month or so of winter sport seemed a desirable pick-me-up after thestrenuous work and crowning discomfiture of the election. Rupert andKathleen hied them away to a small Alpine resort that was just cominginto prominence, and thither the Sheep followed them in due course, inhis role of husband-elect. The wedding had been fixed for the end ofMarch. 

It was a winter of early and unseasonable thaws, and the far end of thelocal lake, at a spot where swift currents flowed into it, was decoratedwith notices, written in three languages, warning skaters not to ventureover certain unsafe patches. The folly of approaching too near thesedanger spots seemed to have a natural fascination for the Sheep. 

"I don't see what possible danger there can be, " he protested, with hisinevitable smile, when Rupert beckoned him away from the proscribed area;"the milk that I put out on my window-sill last night was frozen an inchdeep. "

"It hadn't got a strong current flowing through it, " said Rupert; "in anycase, there is not much sense in hovering round a doubtful piece of icewhen there are acres of good ice to skate over. The secretary of the ice-committee has warned you once already. "

A few minutes later Rupert heard a loud squeal of fear, and saw a darkspot blotting the smoothness of the lake's frozen surface. The Sheep wasstruggling helplessly in an ice-hole of his own making. Rupert gave oneloud curse, and then dashed full tilt for the shore; outside a low stablebuilding on the lake's edge he remembered having seen a ladder. If hecould slide it across the ice-hole before the Sheep went under the rescuewould be comparatively simple work. Other skaters were dashing up from adistance, and, with the ladder's help, they could get him out of hisdeath-trap without having to trust themselves on the margin of rottenice. Rupert sprang on to the surface of lumpy, frozen snow, andstaggered to where the ladder lay. He had already lifted it when therattle of a chain and a furious outburst of growls burst on his hearing, and he was dashed to the ground by a mass of white and tawny fur. Asturdy young yard-dog, frantic with the pleasure of performing his firstpiece of actice guardian service, was ramping and snarling over him, rendering the task of regaining his feet or securing the ladder a matterof considerable difficulty. When he had at last succeeded in bothefforts he was just by a hair's-breadth too late to be of any use. TheSheep had definitely disappeared under the ice-rift. 

Kathleen Athling and her husband stay the greater part of the year withRupert, and a small Robbie stands in some danger of being idolised by adevoted uncle. But for twelve months of the year Rupert's mostinseparable and valued companion is a sturdy tawny and white yard-dog. 

THE OVERSIGHT

"It's like a Chinese puzzle, " said Lady Prowche resentfully, staring at ascribbled list of names that spread over two or three loose sheets ofnotepaper on her writing-table. Most of the names had a pencil markrunning through them. 

"What is like a Chinese puzzle?" asked Lena Luddleford briskly; sherather prided herself on being able to grapple with the minor problems oflife. 

"Getting people suitably sorted together. Sir Richard likes me to have ahouse party about this time of year, and gives me a free hand as to whomI should invite; all he asks is that it should be a peaceable party, withno friction or unpleasantness. "

"That seems reasonable enough, " said Lena. 

"Not only reasonable, my dear, but necessary. Sir Richard has hisliterary work to think of; you can't expect a man to concentrate on thetribal disputes of Central Asian clansmen when he's got social feudsblazing under his own roof. "

"But why should they blaze? Why should there be feuds at all within thecompass of a house party?"

"Exactly; why should they blaze or why should they exist?" echoed LadyProwche; "the point is that they always do. We have been unlucky;persistently unlucky, now that I come to look back on things. We havealways got people of violently opposed views under one roof, and theresult has been not merely unpleasantness but explosion. "

"Do you mean people who disagree on matters of political opinion andreligious views?" asked Lena. 

"No, not that. The broader lines of political or religious differencedon't matter. You can have Church of England and Unitarian and Buddhistunder the same roof without courting disaster; the only Buddhist I everhad down here quarrelled with everybody, but that was on account of hisnaturally squabblesome temperament; it had nothing to do with hisreligion. And I've always found that people can differ profoundly aboutpolitics and meet on perfectly good terms at breakfast. Now, Miss LarborJones, who was staying here last year, worships Lloyd George as a sort ofwingless angel, while Mrs. Walters, who was down here at the same time, privately considers him to be--an antelope, let us say. "

"An antelope?"

"Well, not an antelope exactly, but something with horns and hoofs andtail. "

"Oh, I see. "

"Still, that didn't prevent them from being the chummiest of mortals onthe tennis court and in the billiard-room. They did quarrel finally, about a lead in a doubled hand of no-trumps, but that of course is athing that no account of judicious guest-grouping could prevent. Mrs. Walters had got king, knave, ten, and seven of clubs--"

"You were saying that there were other lines of demarcation that causedthe bother, " interrupted Lena. 

"Exactly. It is the minor differences and side-issues that give so muchtrouble, " said Lady Prowche; "not to my dying day shall I forget lastyear's upheaval over the Suffragette question. Laura Henniseed left thehouse in a state of speechless indignation, but before she had reachedthat state she had used language that would not have been tolerated inthe Austrian Reichsrath. Intensive bear-gardening was Sir Richard'sdescription of the whole affair, and I don't think he exaggerated. "

"Of course the Suffragette question is a burning one, and lets loose themost dreadful ill-feeling, " said Lena; "but one can generally find outbeforehand what people's opinions--"

"My dear, the year before it was worse. It was Christian Science. SelinaGoobie is a sort of High Priestess of the Cult, and she put down allopposition with a high hand. Then one evening, after dinner, ClovisSangrail put a wasp down her back, to see if her theory about the non-existence of pain could be depended on in an emergency. The wasp wassmall, but very efficient, and it had been soured in temper by being keptin a paper cage all the afternoon. Wasps don't stand confinement well, at least this one didn't. I don't think I ever realised till that momentwhat the word 'invective' could be made to mean. I sometimes wake in thenight and think I still hear Selina describing Clovis's conduct andgeneral character. That was the year that Sir Richard was writing hisvolume on 'Domestic Life in Tartary. ' The critics all blamed it for alack of concentration. "

"He's engaged on a very important work this year, isn't he?" asked Lena. 

"'Land-tenure in Turkestan, '" said Lady Prowche; "he is just at work onthe final chapters and they require all the concentration he can givethem. That is why I am so very anxious not to have any unfortunatedisturbance this year. I have taken every precaution I can think of tobring non-conflicting and harmonious elements together; the only twopeople I am not quite easy about are the Atkinson man and Marcus Popham. They are the two who will be down here longest together, and if they aregoing to fall foul of one another about any burning question, well, therewill be more unpleasantness. "

"Can't you find out anything about them? About their opinions, I mean. "

"Anything? My dear Lena, there's scarcely anything that I haven't foundout about them. They're both of them moderate Liberal, Evangelical, mildly opposed to female suffrage, they approve of the Falconer Report, and the Stewards' decision about Craganour. Thank goodness in thiscountry we don't fly into violent passions about Wagner and Brahms andthings of that sort. There is only one thorny subject that I haven'tbeen able to make sure about, the only stone that I have left unturned. Are they unanimously anti-vivisectionist or do they both uphold thenecessity for scientific experiment? There has been a lot ofcorrespondence on the subject in our local newspapers of late, and thevicar is certain to preach a sermon about it; vicars are dreadfullyprovocative at times. Now, if you could only find out for me whetherthese two men are divergently for or against--"

"I!" exclaimed Lena; "how am I to find out? I don't know either of themto speak to. "

"Still you might discover, in some roundabout way. Write to them, underas assumed name of course, for subscriptions to one or other cause--or, better still, send a stamped type-written reply postcard, with a requestfor a declaration for or against vivisection; people who would hesitateto commit themselves to a subscription will cheerfully write Yes or No ona prepaid postcard. If you can't manage it that way, try and meet themat some one's house and get into argument on the subject. I think Millyoccasionally has one or other of them at her at-homes; you might have theluck to meet both of them there the same evening. Only it must be donesoon. My invitations ought to go out by Wednesday or Thursday at thelatest, and to-day is Friday. 

"Milly's at-homes are not very amusing, as a rule, " said Lena, "and onenever gets a chance of talking uninterruptedly to any one for a couple ofminutes at a time; Milly is one of those restless hostesses who alwaysseem to be trying to see how you look in different parts of the room, infresh grouping effects. Even if I got to speak to Popham or Atkinson Icouldn't plunge into a topic like vivisection straight away. No, I thinkthe postcard scheme would be more hopeful and decidedly less tiresome. How would it be best to word them?"

"Oh, something like this: 'Are you in favour of experiments on livinganimals for the purpose of scientific research--Yes or No?' That isquite simple and unmistakable. If they don't answer it will at least bean indication that they are indifferent about the subject, and that isall I want to know. "

"All right, " said Lena, "I'll get my brother-in-law to let me have themaddressed to his office, and he can telephone the result of theplebiscite direct to you. "

"Thank you ever so much, " said Lady Prowche gratefully, "and be sure toget the cards sent off as soon as possible. "

On the following Tuesday the voice of an office clerk, speaking throughthe telephone, informed Lady Prowche that the postcard poll showedunanimous hostility to experiments on living animals. 

Lady Prowche thanked the office clerk, and in a louder and more ferventvoice she thanked Heaven. The two invitations, already sealed andaddressed, were immediately dispatched; in due course they were bothaccepted. The house party of the halcyon hours, as the prospectivehostess called it, was auspiciously launched. 

Lena Luddleford was not included among the guests, having previouslycommitted herself to another invitation. At the opening day of a cricketfestival, however, she ran across Lady Prowche, who had motored over fromthe other side of the county. She wore the air of one who is notinterested in cricket and not particularly interested in life. She shookhands limply with Lena, and remarked that it was a beastly day. 

"The party, how has it gone off?" asked Lena quickly. 

"Don't speak of it!" was the tragical answer; "why do I always have suchrotten luck?"

"But what has happened?"

"It has been awful. Hyaenas could not have behaved with greatersavagery. Sir Richard said so, and he has been in countries where hyaenaslive, so he ought to know. They actually came to blows!"

"Blows?"

"Blows and curses. It really might have been a scene from one ofHogarth's pictures. I never felt so humiliated in my life. What theservants must have thought!"

"But who were the offenders?"

"Oh, naturally the very two that we took all the trouble about. "

"I thought they agreed on every subject that one could violently disagreeabout--religion, politics, vivisection, the Derby decision, the FalconerReport; what else was there left to quarrel about?"

"My dear, we were fools not to have thought of it. One of them was Pro-Greek and the other Pro-Bulgar. "

HYACINTH

"The new fashion of introducing the candidate's children into an electioncontest is a pretty one, " said Mrs. Panstreppon; "it takes away somethingfrom the acerbity of party warfare, and it makes an interestingexperience for children to look back on in after years. Still, if youwill listen to my advice, Matilda, you will not take Hyacinth with youdown to Luffbridge on election day. "

"Not take Hyacinth!" exclaimed his mother; "but why not? Jutterly isbringing his three children, and they are going to drive a pair of Nubiandonkeys about the town, to emphasise the fact that their father has beenappointed Colonial Secretary. We are making the demand for a strong Navya special feature in _our_ campaign, and it will be particularlyappropriate to have Hyacinth dressed in his sailor suit. He'll lookheavenly. "

"The question is, not how he'll look, but how he'll behave. He's adelightful child, of course, but there is a strain of unbridled pugnacityin him that breaks out at times in a really alarming fashion. You mayhave forgotten the affair of the little Gaffin children; I haven't. "

"I was in India at the time, and I've only a vague recollection of whathappened; he was very naughty, I know. "

"He was in his goat-carriage, and met the Gaffins in their perambulator, and he drove the goat full tilt at them and sent the perambulatorspinning. Little Jacky Gaffin was pinned down under the wreckage, andwhile the nurse had her hands full with the goat Hyacinth was laying intoJacky's legs with his belt like a small fury. "

"I'm not defending him, " said Matilda, "but they must have done somethingto annoy him. "

"Nothing intentionally, but some one had unfortunately told him that theywere half French--their mother was a Duboc, you know--and he had beenhaving a history lesson that morning, and had just heard of the finalloss of Calais by the English, and was furious about it. He said he'dteach the little toads to go snatching towns from us, but we didn't knowat the time that he was referring to the Gaffins. I told him afterwardsthat all bad feeling between the two nations had died out long ago, andthat anyhow the Gaffins were only half French, and he said that it wasonly the French half of Jacky that he had been hitting; the rest had beenburied under the perambulator. If the loss of Calais unloosed such furyin him, I tremble to think what the possible loss of the election mightentail. "

"All that happened when he was eight; he's older now and knows better. "

"Children with Hyacinth's temperament don't know better as they growolder; they merely know more. "

"Nonsense. He will enjoy the fun of the election, and in any case he'llbe tired out by the time the poll is declared, and the new sailor suitthat I've had made for him is just in the right shade of blue for ourelection colours, and it will exactly match the blue of his eyes. Hewill be a perfectly charming note of colour. "

"There is such a thing as letting one's aesthetic sense override one'smoral sense, " said Mrs. Panstreppon. "I believe you would have condonedthe South Sea Bubble and the persecution of the Albigenses if they hadbeen carried out in effective colour schemes. However, if anythingunfortunate should happen down at Luffbridge, don't say it wasn'tforeseen by one member of the family. "

The election was keenly but decorously contested. The newly-appointedColonial Secretary was personally popular, while the Government to whichhe adhered was distinctly unpopular, and there was some expectancy thatthe majority of four hundred, obtained at the last election, would bealtogether wiped out. Both sides were hopeful, but neither could feelconfident. The children were a great success; the little Jutterlys drovetheir chubby donkeys solemnly up and down the main streets, displayingposters which advocated the claims of their father on the broad generalgrounds that he was their father, while as for Hyacinth, his conductmight have served as a model for any seraph-child that had strayedunwittingly on to the scene of an electoral contest. Of his own accord, and under the delighted eyes of half a dozen camera operators, he hadgone up to the Jutterly children and presented them with a packet ofbutterscotch; "we needn't be enemies because we're wearing the oppositecolours, " he said with engaging friendliness, and the occupants of thedonkey-cart accepted his offering with polite solemnity. The grown-upmembers of both political camps were delighted at the incident--with theexception of Mrs. Panstreppon, who shuddered. 

"Never was Clytemnestra's kiss sweeter than on the night she slew me, "she quoted, but made the quotation to herself. 

The last hour of the poll was a period of unremitting labour for bothparties; it was generally estimated that not more than a dozen votesseparated the candidates, and every effort was made to bring upobstinately wavering electors. It was with a feeling of relaxation andrelief that every one heard the clocks strike the hour for the close ofthe poll. Exclamations broke out from the tired workers, and corks flewout from bottles. 

"Well, if we haven't won; we've done our level best. " "It has been aclean straight fight, with no rancour. " "The children were quite acharming feature, weren't they?"

The children? It suddenly occurred to everybody that they had seennothing of the children for the last hour. What had become of the threelittle Jutterlys and their donkey-cart, and, for the matter of that, whathad become of Hyacinth. Hurried, anxious embassies went backwards andforwards between the respective party headquarters and the variouscommittee-rooms, but there was blank ignorance everywhere as to thewhereabouts of the children. Every one had been too busy in the closingmoments of the poll to bestow a thought on them. Then there came atelephone call at the Unionist Women's Committee-rooms, and the voice ofHyacinth was heard demanding when the poll would be declared. 

"Where are you, and where are the Jutterly children?" asked his mother. 

"I've just finished having high-tea at a pastry-cook's, " came the answer, "and they let me telephone. I've had a poached egg and a sausage rolland four meringues. "

"You'll be ill. Are the little Jutterlys with you?"

"Rather not. They're in a pigstye. "

"A pigstye? Why? What pigstye?"

"Near the Crawleigh Road. I met them driving about a back road, and toldthem they were to have tea with me, and put their donkeys in a yard thatI knew of. Then I took them to see an old sow that had got ten littlepigs. I got the sow into the outer stye by giving her bits of bread, while the Jutterlys went in to look at the litter, then I bolted the doorand left them there. "

"You wicked boy, do you mean to say you've left those poor children therealone in the pigstye?"

"They're not alone, they've got ten little pigs in with them; they'rejolly well crowded. They were pretty mad at being shut in, but not halfas mad as the old sow is at being shut out from her young ones. If shegets in while they're there she'll bite them into mincemeat. I can getthem out by letting a short ladder down through the top window, andthat's what I'm going to do _if we win_. If their blighted father getsin, I'm just going to open the door for the sow, and let her do what shedashed well likes to them. That's why I want to know when the poll willbe declared. "

Here the narrator rang off. A wild stampede and a frantic sending-off ofmessengers took place at the other end of the telephone. Nearly all theworkers on either side had disappeared to their various club-rooms andpublic-house bars to await the declaration of the poll, but enough localinformation could be secured to determine the scene of Hyacinth'sexploit. Mr. John Ball had a stable yard down near the Crawleigh Road, up a short lane, and his sow was known to have a litter of ten youngones. Thither went in headlong haste both the candidates, Hyacinth'smother, his aunt (Mrs. Panstreppon), and two or three hurriedly-summonedfriends. The two Nubian donkeys, contentedly munching at bundles of hay, met their gaze as they entered the yard. The hoarse savage grunting ofan enraged animal and the shriller note of thirteen young voices, threeof them human, guided them to the stye, in the outer yard of which a hugeYorkshire sow kept up a ceaseless raging patrol before a closed door. Reclining on the broad ledge of an open window, from which point ofvantage he could reach down and shoot the bolt of the door, was Hyacinth, his blue sailor-suit somewhat the worse of wear, and his angel smileexchanged for a look of demoniacal determination. 

"If any of you come a step nearer, " he shouted, "the sow will be insidein half a jiffy. "

A storm of threatening, arguing, entreating expostulation broke from thebaffled rescue party, but it made no more impression on Hyacinth than thesquealing tempest that raged within the stye. 

"If Jutterly heads the poll I'm going to let the sow in. I'll teach theblighters to win elections from us. "

"He means it, " said Mrs. Panstreppon; "I feared the worst when I saw thatbutterscotch incident. "

"It's all right, my little man, " said Jutterly, with the duplicity towhich even a Colonial Secretary can sometimes stoop, "your father hasbeen elected by a large majority. "

"Liar!" retorted Hyacinth, with the directness of speech that is notmerely excusable, but almost obligatory, in the political profession;"the votes aren't counted yet. You won't gammon me as to the result, either. A boy that I've palled with is going to fire a gun when the pollis declared; two shots if we've won, one shot if we haven't. "

The situation began to look critical. "Drug the sow, " whisperedHyacinth's father. 

Some one went off in the motor to the nearest chemist's shop and returnedpresently with two large pieces of bread, liberally dosed with narcotic. The bread was thrown deftly and unostentatiously into the stye, butHyacinth saw through the manoeuvre. He set up a piercing imitation of asmall pit in Purgatory, and the infuriated mother ramped round and roundthe stye; the pieces of bread were trampled into slush. 

At any moment now the poll might be declared. Jutterly flew back to theTown Hall, where the votes were being counted. His agent met him with asmile of hope. 

"You're eleven ahead at present, and only about eighty more to becounted; you're just going to squeak through. "

"I mustn't squeak through, " exclaimed Jutterly, hoarsely. "You mustobject to every doubtful vote on our side that can possibly bedisallowed. I must _not_ have the majority. "

Then was seen the unprecedented sight of a party agent challenging thevotes on his own side with a captiousness that his opponents would havehesitated to display. One or two votes that would have certainly passedmuster under ordinary circumstances were disallowed, but even so Jutterlywas six ahead with only thirty more to be counted. 

To the watchers by the stye the moments seemed intolerable. As a lastresort some one had been sent for a gun with which to shoot the sow, though Hyacinth would probably draw the bolt the moment such a weapon wasbrought into the yard. Nearly all the men were away from their homes, however, on election night, and the messenger had evidently gone farafield in his search. It must be a matter of minutes now to thedeclaration of the poll. 

A sudden roar of shouting and cheering was heard from the direction ofthe Town Hall. Hyacinth's father clutched a pitchfork and prepared todash into the stye in the forlorn hope of being in time. 

A shot rang out in the evening air. Hyacinth stooped down from his perchand put his finger on the bolt. The sow pressed furiously against thedoor. 

"Bang, " came another shot. 

Hyacinth wriggled back, and sent a short ladder down through the windowof the inner stye. 

"Now you can come up, you unclean little blighters, " he sang out; "mydaddy's got in, not yours. Hurry up, I can't keep the sow waiting muchlonger. And don't you jolly well come butting into any election againwhere I'm on the job. "

In the reaction that set in after the deliverance furious recriminationwere indulged in by the lately opposed candidates, their women folk, agents, and party helpers. A recount was demanded, but failed toestablish the fact that the Colonial Secretary had obtained a majority. Altogether the election left a legacy of soreness behind it, apart fromany that was experienced by Hyacinth in person. 

"It is the last time I shall let him go to an election, " exclaimed hismother. 

"There I think you are going to extremes, " said Mrs. Panstreppon; "ifthere should be a general election in Mexico I think you might safely lethim go there, but I doubt whether our English politics are suited to therough and tumble of an angel-child. "

THE IMAGE OF THE LOST SOLE

There were a number of carved stone figures placed at intervals along theparapets of the old Cathedral; some of them represented angels, otherskings and bishops, and nearly all were in attitudes of pious exaltationand composure. But one figure, low down on the cold north side of thebuilding, had neither crown, mitre, not nimbus, and its face was hard andbitter and downcast; it must be a demon, declared the fat blue pigeonsthat roosted and sunned themselves all day on the ledges of the parapet;but the old belfry jackdaw, who was an authority on ecclesiasticalarchitecture, said it was a lost soul. And there the matter rested. 

One autumn day there fluttered on to the Cathedral roof a slender, sweet-voiced bird that had wandered away from the bare fields and thinninghedgerows in search of a winter roosting-place. It tried to rest itstired feet under the shade of a great angel-wing or to nestle in thesculptured folds of a kingly robe, but the fat pigeons hustled it awayfrom wherever it settled, and the noisy sparrow-folk drove it off theledges. No respectable bird sang with so much feeling, they cheeped oneto another, and the wanderer had to move on. 

Only the effigy of the Lost Soul offered a place of refuge. The pigeonsdid not consider it safe to perch on a projection that leaned so much outof the perpendicular, and was, besides, too much in the shadow. Thefigure did not cross its hands in the pious attitude of the other gravendignitaries, but its arms were folded as in defiance and their angle madea snug resting-place for the little bird. Every evening it crepttrustfully into its corner against the stone breast of the image, and thedarkling eyes seemed to keep watch over its slumbers. The lonely birdgrew to love its lonely protector, and during the day it would sit fromtime to time on some rainshoot or other abutment and trill forth itssweetest music in grateful thanks for its nightly shelter. And, it mayhave been the work of wind and weather, or some other influence, but thewild drawn face seemed gradually to lose some of its hardness andunhappiness. Every day, through the long monotonous hours, the song ofhis little guest would come up in snatches to the lonely watcher, and atevening, when the vesper-bell was ringing and the great grey bats slidout of their hiding-places in the belfry roof, the bright-eyed bird wouldreturn, twitter a few sleepy notes, and nestle into the arms that werewaiting for him. Those were happy days for the Dark Image. Only thegreat bell of the Cathedral rang out daily its mocking message, "Afterjoy . . . Sorrow. "

The folk in the verger's lodge noticed a little brown bird flitting aboutthe Cathedral precincts, and admired its beautiful singing. "But it is apity, " said they, "that all that warbling should be lost and wasted farout of hearing up on the parapet. " They were poor, but they understoodthe principles of political economy. So they caught the bird and put itin a little wicker cage outside the lodge door. 

That night the little songster was missing from its accustomed haunt, andthe Dark Image knew more than ever the bitterness of loneliness. Perhapshis little friend had been killed by a prowling cat or hurt by a stone. Perhaps . . . Perhaps he had flown elsewhere. But when morning camethere floated up to him, through the noise and bustle of the Cathedralworld, a faint heart-aching message from the prisoner in the wicker cagefar below. And every day, at high noon, when the fat pigeons werestupefied into silence after their midday meal and the sparrows werewashing themselves in the street-puddles, the song of the little birdcame up to the parapets--a song of hunger and longing and hopelessness, acry that could never be answered. The pigeons remarked, betweenmealtimes, that the figure leaned forward more than ever out of theperpendicular. 

One day no song came up from the little wicker cage. It was the coldestday of the winter, and the pigeons and sparrows on the Cathedral rooflooked anxiously on all sides for the scraps of food which they weredependent on in hard weather. 

"Have the lodge-folk thrown out anything on to the dust-heap?" inquiredone pigeon of another which was peering over the edge of the northparapet. 

"Only a little dead bird, " was the answer. 

There was a crackling sound in the night on the Cathedral roof and anoise as of falling masonry. The belfry jackdaw said the frost wasaffecting the fabric, and as he had experienced many frosts it must havebeen so. In the morning it was seen that the Figure of the Lost Soul hadtoppled from its cornice and lay now in a broken mass on the dust-heapoutside the verger's lodge. 

"It is just as well, " cooed the fat pigeons, after they had peered at thematter for some minutes; "now we shall have a nice angel put up there. Certainly they will put an angel there. "

"After joy . . . Sorrow, " rang out the great bell. 

THE PURPLE OF THE BALKAN KINGS

Luitpold Wolkenstein, financier and diplomat on a small, obtrusive, self-important scale, sat in his favoured cafe in the world-wise Habsburgcapital, confronted with the _Neue Freie Presse_ and the cup of cream-topped coffee and attendant glass of water that a sleek-headed piccolohad just brought him. For years longer than a dog's lifetimesleek-headed piccolos had placed the _Neue Freie Presse_ and a cup ofcream-topped coffee on his table; for years he had sat at the same spot, under the dust-coated, stuffed eagle, that had once been a living, soaring bird on the Styrian mountains, and was now made monstrous andsymbolical with a second head grafted on to its neck and a gilt crownplanted on either dusty skull. To-day Luitpold Wolkenstein read no morethan the first article in his paper, but read it again and again. 

"The Turkish fortress of Kirk Kilisseh has fallen . . . The Serbs, it isofficially announced, have taken Kumanovo . . . The fortress of KirkKilisseh lost, Kumanovo taken by the Serbs, these are tiding forConstantinople resembling something out of Shakspeare's tragedies of thekings . . . The neighbourhood of Adrianople and the Eastern region, where the great battle is now in progress, will not reveal merely thefuture of Turkey, but also what position and what influence the BalkanStates are to have in the world. "

For years longer than a dog's lifetime Luitpold Wolkenstein had disposedof the pretensions and strivings of the Balkan States over the cup ofcream-topped coffee that sleek-headed piccolos had brought him. Nevertravelling further eastward than the horse-fair at Temesvar, neverinviting personal risk in an encounter with anything more potentiallydesperate than a hare or partridge, he had constituted himself thecritical appraiser and arbiter of the military and national prowess ofthe small countries that fringed the Dual Monarchy on its Danube border. And his judgment had been one of unsparing contempt for small-scaleefforts, of unquestioning respect for the big battalions and full purses. Over the whole scene of the Balkan territories and their troubledhistories had loomed the commanding magic of the words "the GreatPowers"--even more imposing in their Teutonic rendering, "DieGrossmachte. "

Worshipping power and force and money-mastery as an elderly nerve-riddenwoman might worship youthful physical energy, the comfortable, plump-bodied cafe-oracle had jested and gibed at the ambitions of theBalkan kinglets and their peoples, had unloosed against them that batteryof strange lip-sounds that a Viennese employs almost as an auxiliarylanguage to express the thoughts when his thoughts are not complimentary. British travellers had visited the Balkan lands and reported high thingsof the Bulgarians and their future, Russian officers had taken peeps attheir army and confessed "this is a thing to be reckoned with, and it isnot we who have created it, they have done it by themselves. " But overhis cups of coffee and his hour-long games of dominoes the oracle hadlaughed and wagged his head and distilled the worldly wisdom of hiscastle. The Grossmachte had not succeeded in stifling the roll of thewar-drum, that was true; the big battalions of the Ottoman Empire wouldhave to do some talking, and then the big purses and big threatenings ofthe Powers would speak and the last word would be with them. Inimagination Luitpold heard the onward tramp of the red-fezzed bayonetbearers echoing through the Balkan passes, saw the little sheepskin-cladmannikins driven back to their villages, saw the augustly chidingspokesman of the Powers dictating, adjusting, restoring, settling thingsonce again in their allotted places, sweeping up the dust of conflict, and now his ears had to listen to the war-drum rolling in quite anotherdirection, had to listen to the tramp of battalions that were bigger andbolder and better skilled in war-craft than he had deemed possible inthat quarter; his eyes had to read in the columns of his accustomednewspaper a warning to the Grossmachte that they had something new tolearn, something new to reckon with, much that was time-honoured torelinquish. "The Great Powers will have not little difficulty inpersuading the Balkan States of the inviolability of the principle thatEurope cannot permit any fresh partition of territory in the East withouther approval. Even now, while the campaign is still undecided, there arerumours of a project of fiscal unity, extending over the entire Balkanlands, and further of a constitutional union in imitation of the GermanEmpire. That is perhaps only a political straw blown by the storm, butit is not possible to dismiss the reflection that the Balkan Statesleagued together command a military strength with which the Great Powerswill have to reckon . . . The people who have poured out their blood onthe battlefields and sacrificed the available armed men of an entiregeneration in order to encompass a union with their kinsfolk will notremain any longer in an attitude of dependence on the Great Powers or onRussia, but will go their own ways . . . The blood that has been pouredforth to-day gives for the first time a genuine tone to the purple of theBalkan Kings. The Great Powers cannot overlook the fact that a peoplethat has tasted victory will not let itself be driven back again withinits former limits. Turkey has lost to-day not only Kirk Kilisseh andKumanovo, but Macedonia also. "

Luitpold Wolkenstein drank his coffee, but the flavour had somehow goneout of it. His world, his pompous, imposing, dictating world, hadsuddenly rolled up into narrower dimensions. The big purses and the bigthreats had been pushed unceremoniously on one side; a force that hecould not fathom, could not comprehend, had made itself rudely felt. Theaugust Caesars of Mammon and armament had looked down frowningly on thecombat, and those about to die had not saluted, had no intention ofsaluting. A lesson was being imposed on unwilling learners, a lesson ofrespect for certain fundamental principles, and it was not the smallstruggling States who were being taught the lesson. 

Luitpold Wolkenstein did not wait for the quorum of domino players toarrive. They would all have read the article in the _Freie Presse_. Andthere are moments when an oracle finds its greatest salvation inwithdrawing itself from the area of human questioning. 

THE CUPBOARD OF THE YESTERDAYS

"War is a cruelly destructive thing, " said the Wanderer, dropping hisnewspaper to the floor and staring reflectively into space. 

"Ah, yes, indeed, " said the Merchant, responding readily to what seemedlike a safe platitude; "when one thinks of the loss of life and limb, thedesolated homesteads, the ruined--"

"I wasn't thinking of anything of the sort, " said the Wanderer; "I wasthinking of the tendency that modern war has to destroy and banish thevery elements of picturesqueness and excitement that are its chief excuseand charm. It is like a fire that flares up brilliantly for a while andthen leaves everything blacker and bleaker than before. After everyimportant war in South-East Europe in recent times there has been ashrinking of the area of chronically disturbed territory, a stiffening ofthe area of chronically disturbed territory, a stiffening of frontierlines, an intrusion of civilised monotony. And imagine what may happenat the conclusion of this war if the Turk should really be driven out ofEurope. "

"Well, it would be a gain to the cause of good government, I suppose, "said the Merchant. 

"But have you counted the loss?" said the other. "The Balkans have longbeen the last surviving shred of happy hunting-ground for theadventurous, a playground for passions that are fast becoming atrophiedfor want of exercise. In old bygone days we had the wars in the LowCountries always at our doors, as it were; there was no need to go farafield into malaria-stricken wilds if one wanted a life of boot andsaddle and licence to kill and be killed. Those who wished to see lifehad a decent opportunity for seeing death at the same time. "

"It is scarcely right to talk of killing and bloodshed in that way, " saidthe Merchant reprovingly; "one must remember that all men are brothers. "

"One must also remember that a large percentage of them are youngerbrothers; instead of going into bankruptcy, which is the usual tendencyof the younger brother nowadays, they gave their families a fair chanceof going into mourning. Every bullet finds a billet, according to arather optimistic proverb, and you must admit that nowadays it isbecoming increasingly difficult to find billets for a lot of younggentlemen who would have adorned, and probably thoroughly enjoyed, one ofthe old-time happy-go-lucky wars. But that is not exactly the burden ofmy complaint. The Balkan lands are especially interesting to us in theserapidly-moving days because they afford us the last remaining glimpse ofa vanishing period of European history. When I was a child one of theearliest events of the outside world that forced itself coherently undermy notice was a war in the Balkans; I remember a sunburnt, soldierly manputting little pin-flags in a war-map, red flags for the Turkish forcesand yellow flags for the Russians. It seemed a magical region, with itsmountain passes and frozen rivers and grim battlefields, its driftingsnows, and prowling wolves; there was a great stretch of water that borethe sinister but engaging name of the Black Sea--nothing that I everlearned before or after in a geography lesson made the same impression onme as that strange-named inland sea, and I don't think its magic has everfaded out of my imagination. And there was a battle called Plevna thatwent on and on with varying fortunes for what seemed like a great part ofa lifetime; I remember the day of wrath and mourning when the little redflag had to be taken away from Plevna--like other maturer judges, I wasbacking the wrong horse, at any rate the losing horse. And now to-day weare putting little pin-flags again into maps of the Balkan region, andthe passions are being turned loose once more in their playground. "

"The war will be localised, " said the Merchant vaguely; "at least everyone hopes so. "

"It couldn't wish for a better locality, " said the Wanderer; "there is acharm about those countries that you find nowhere else in Europe, thecharm of uncertainty and landslide, and the little dramatic happeningsthat make all the difference between the ordinary and the desirable. "

"Life is held very cheap in those parts, " said the Merchant. 

"To a certain extent, yes, " said the Wanderer. "I remember a man atSofia who used to teach me Bulgarian in a rather inefficient manner, interspersed with a lot of quite wearisome gossip. I never knew what hispersonal history was, but that was only because I didn't listen; he toldit to me many times. After I left Bulgaria he used to send me Sofianewspapers from time to time. I felt that he would be rather tiresome ifI ever went there again. And then I heard afterwards that some men camein one day from Heaven knows where, just as things do happen in theBalkans, and murdered him in the open street, and went away as quietly asthey had come. You will not understand it, but to me there was somethingrather piquant in the idea of such a thing happening to such a man; afterhis dullness and his long-winded small-talk it seemed a sort of brilliant_esprit d'esalier_ on his part to meet with an end of such ruthlesslyplanned and executed violence. "

The Merchant shook his head; the piquancy of the incident was not withinstriking distance of his comprehension. 

"I should have been shocked at hearing such a thing about any one I hadknown, " he said. 

"The present war, " continued his companion, without stopping to discusstwo hopelessly divergent points of view, "may be the beginning of the endof much that has hitherto survived the resistless creeping-in ofcivilisation. If the Balkan lands are to be finally parcelled outbetween the competing Christian Kingdoms and the haphazard rule of theTurk banished to beyond the Sea of Marmora, the old order, or disorder ifyou like, will have received its death-blow. Something of its spiritwill linger perhaps for a while in the old charmed regions where it boresway; the Greek villagers will doubtless be restless and turbulent andunhappy where the Bulgars rule, and the Bulgars will certainly berestless and turbulent and unhappy under Greek administration, and therival flocks of the Exarchate and Patriarchate will make themselvesintensely disagreeable to one another wherever the opportunity offers;the habits of a lifetime, of several lifetimes, are not laid aside all atonce. And the Albanians, of course, we shall have with us still, atroubled Moslem pool left by the receding wave of Islam in Europe. Butthe old atmosphere will have changed, the glamour will have gone; thedust of formality and bureaucratic neatness will slowly settle down overthe time-honoured landmarks; the Sanjak of Novi Bazar, the MuerstegAgreement, the Komitadje bands, the Vilayet of Adrianople, all thosefamiliar outlandish names and things and places, that we have known solong as part and parcel of the Balkan Question, will have passed awayinto the cupboard of yesterdays, as completely as the Hansa League andthe wars of the Guises. 

"They were the heritage that history handed down to us, spoiled anddiminished no doubt, in comparison with yet earlier days that we neverknew, but still something to thrill and enliven one little corner of ourContinent, something to help us to conjure up in our imagination the dayswhen the Turk was thundering at the gates of Vienna. And what shall wehave to hand down to our children? Think of what their news from theBalkans will be in the course of another ten or fifteen years. SocialistCongress at Uskub, election riot at Monastir, great dock strike atSalonika, visit of the Y. M. C. A. To Varna. Varna--on the coast of thatenchanted sea! They will drive out to some suburb to tea, and write homeabout it as the Bexhill of the East. 

"War is a wickedly destructive thing. "

"Still, you must admit--" began the Merchant. But the Wanderer was notin the mood to admit anything. He rose impatiently and walked to wherethe tape-machine was busy with the news from Adrianople. 

FOR THE DURATION OF THE WAR

The Rev. Wilfrid Gaspilton, in one of those clerical migrationsinconsequent-seeming to the lay mind, had removed from the moderatelyfashionable parish of St. Luke's, Kensingate, to the immoderately ruralparish of St. Chuddocks, somewhere in Yondershire. There were doubtlesssubstantial advantages connected with the move, but there were certainlysome very obvious drawbacks. Neither the migratory clergyman nor hiswife were able to adapt themselves naturally and comfortably to theconditions of country life. Beryl, Mrs. Gaspilton, had always lookedindulgently on the country as a place where people of irreproachableincome and hospitable instincts cultivated tennis-lawns and rose-gardensand Jacobean pleasaunces, wherein selected gatherings of interested week-end guests might disport themselves. Mrs. Gaspilton considered herselfas distinctly an interesting personality, and from a limited standpointshe was doubtless right. She had indolent dark eyes and a comfortablechin, which belied the slightly plaintive inflection which she threw intoher voice at suitable intervals. She was tolerably well satisfied withthe smaller advantages of life, but she regretted that Fate had not seenits way to reserve for her some of the ampler successes for which shefelt herself well qualified. She would have liked to be the centre of aliterary, slightly political salon, where discerning satellites mighthave recognised the breadth of her outlook on human affairs and theundoubted smallness of her feet. As it was, Destiny had chosen for herthat she should be the wife of a rector, and had now further decreed thata country rectory should be the background to her existence. She rapidlymade up her mind that her surroundings did not call for exploration; Noahhad predicted the Flood, but no one expected him to swim about in it. Digging in a wet garden or trudging through muddy lanes were exertionswhich she did not propose to undertake. As long as the garden producedasparagus and carnations at pleasingly frequent intervals Mrs. Gaspiltonwas content to approve of its expense and otherwise ignore its existence. She would fold herself up, so to speak, in an elegant, indolent littleworld of her own, enjoying the minor recreations of being gently rude tothe doctor's wife and continuing the leisurely production of her oneliterary effort, _The Forbidden Horsepond_, a translation of BaptisteLeopoy's _L'Abreuvoir interdit_. It was a labour which had already beenso long drawn-out that it seemed probable that Baptiste Lepoy would dropout of vogue before her translation of his temporarily famous novel wasfinished. However, the languid prosecution of the work had invested Mrs. Gaspilton with a certain literary dignity, even in Kensingate circles, and would place her on a pinnacle in St. Chuddocks, where hardly any oneread French, and assuredly no one had heard of _L'Abreuvoir interdit_. 

The Rector's wife might be content to turn her back complacently on thecountry; it was the Rector's tragedy that the country turned its back onhim. With the best intention in the world and the immortal example ofGilbert White before him, the Rev. Wilfrid found himself as bored and illat ease in his new surroundings as Charles II would have been at a modernWesleyan Conference. The birds that hopped across his lawn hopped acrossit as though it were their lawn, and not his, and gave him plainly tounderstand that in their eyes he was infinitely less interesting than agarden worm or the rectory cat. The hedgeside and meadow flowers wereequally uninspiring; the lesser celandine seemed particularly unworthy ofthe attention that English poets had bestowed on it, and the Rector knewthat he would be utterly miserable if left alone for a quarter of an hourin its company. With the human inhabitants of his parish he was nobetter off; to know them was merely to know their ailments, and theailments were almost invariably rheumatism. Some, of course, had otherbodily infirmities, but they always had rheumatism as well. The Rectorhad not yet grasped the fact that in rural cottage life not to haverheumatism is as glaring an omission as not to have been presented atCourt would be in more ambitious circles. And with all this death oflocal interest there was Beryl shutting herself off with her ridiculouslabours on _The Forbidden Horsepond_. 

"I don't see why you should suppose that any one wants to read BaptisteLepoy in English, " the Reverend Wilfrid remarked to his wife one morning, finding her surrounded with her usual elegant litter of dictionaries, fountain pens, and scribbling paper; "hardly any one bothers to read himnow in France. "

"My dear, " said Beryl, with an intonation of gentle weariness, "haven'ttwo or three leading London publishers told me they wondered no one hadever translated _L'Abreuvoir interdit_, and begged me--"

"Publishers always clamour for the books that no one has ever written, and turn a cold shoulder on them as soon as they're written. If St. Paulwere living now they would pester him to write an Epistle to theEsquimaux, but no London publisher would dream of reading his Epistle tothe Ephesians. "

"Is there any asparagus in the garden?" asked Beryl; "because I've toldcook--"

"Not anywhere in the garden, " snapped the Rector, "but there's no doubtplenty in the asparagus-bed, which is the usual place for it. "

And he walked away into the region of fruit trees and vegetable beds toexchange irritation for boredom. It was there, among the gooseberrybushes and beneath the medlar trees, that the temptation to theperpetration of a great literary fraud came to him. 

Some weeks later the _Bi-Monthly Review_ gave to the world, under theguarantee of the Rev. Wilfrid Gaspilton, some fragments of Persian verse, alleged to have been unearthed and translated by a nephew who was atpresent campaigning somewhere in the Tigris valley. The Rev. Wilfridpossessed a host of nephews, and it was of course, quite possible thatone or more of them might be in military employ in Mesopotamia, though noone could call to mind any particular nephew who could have beensuspected of being a Persian scholar. 

The verses were attributed to one Ghurab, a hunter, or, according toother accounts, warden of the royal fishponds, who lived, in someunspecified century, in the neighbourhood of Karmanshah. They breathed aspirit of comfortable, even-tempered satire and philosophy, disclosing amockery that did not trouble to be bitter, a joy in life that was notpassionate to the verge of being troublesome. 

 "A Mouse that prayed for Allah's aid Blasphemed when no such aid befell: A Cat, who feasted on that mouse, Thought Allah managed vastly well. 

 Pray not for aid to One who made A set of never-changing Laws, But in your need remember well He gave you speed, or guile--or claws. 

 Some laud a life of mild content: Content may fall, as well as Pride. The Frog who hugged his lowly Ditch Was much disgruntled when it dried. 

 'You are not on the Road to Hell, ' You tell me with fanatic glee: Vain boaster, what shall that avail If Hell is on the road to thee?

 A Poet praised the Evening Star, Another praised the Parrot's hue: A Merchant praised his merchandise, And he, at least, praised what he knew. "

It was this verse which gave the critics and commentators some clue as tothe probable date of the composition; the parrot, they reminded thepublic, was in high vogue as a type of elegance in the days of Hafiz ofShiraz; in the quatrains of Omar it makes no appearance. 

The next verse, it was pointed out, would apply to the politicalconditions of the present day as strikingly as to the region and era forwhich it was written--

 "A Sultan dreamed day-long of Peace, The while his Rivals' armies grew: They changed his Day-dreams into sleep --The Peace, methinks, he never knew. "

Woman appeared little, and wine not at all in the verse of the hunter-poet, but there was at least one contribution to the love-philosophy ofthe East--

 "O Moon-faced Charmer, and Star-drowned Eyes, And cheeks of soft delight, exhaling musk, They tell me that thy charm will fade; ah well, The Rose itself grows hue-less in the Dusk. "

Finally, there was a recognition of the Inevitable, a chill breathblowing across the poet's comfortable estimate of life--

 "There is a sadness in each Dawn, A sadness that you cannot rede: The joyous Day brings in its train The Feast, the Loved One, and the Steed. 

 Ah, there shall come a Dawn at last That brings no life-stir to your ken, A long, cold Dawn without a Day, And ye shall rede its sadness then. "

The verses of Ghurab came on the public at a moment when a comfortable, slightly quizzical philosophy was certain to be welcome, and theirreception was enthusiastic. Elderly colonels, who had outlived the loveof truth, wrote to the papers to say that they had been familiar with theworks of Ghurab in Afghanistan, and Aden, and other suitable localities aquarter of a century ago. A Ghurab-of-Karmanshah Club sprang intoexistence, the members of which alluded to each other as BrotherGhurabians on the slightest provocation. And to the flood of inquiries, criticisms, and requests for information, which naturally poured in onthe discoverer, or rather the discloser, of this long-hidden poet, theRev. Wilfrid made one effectual reply: Military considerations forbadeany disclosures which might throw unnecessary light on his nephew'smovements. 

After the war the Rector's position will be one of unthinkableembarrassment, but for the moment, at any rate, he has driven _TheForbidden Horsepond_ out of the field.