1 files changed, 6108 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/12133-0.txt b/12133-0.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6aa19e5
--- /dev/null
+++ b/12133-0.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,6108 @@
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 12133 ***
+The Lady of the Barge
+
+by W. W. JACOBS
+
+1911
+
+
+
+
+Contents
+
+ THE LADY OF THE BARGE
+ THE MONKEY’S PAW
+ BILL’S PAPER CHASE
+ THE WELL
+ CUPBOARD LOVE
+ IN THE LIBRARY
+ CAPTAIN ROGERS
+ A TIGER’S SKIN
+ A MIXED PROPOSAL
+ AN ADULTERATION ACT
+ A GOLDEN VENTURE
+ THREE AT TABLE
+
+
+
+
+Illustrations
+
+ He denied it again, hotly.
+ “You villain!” she said, in a choking voice.
+ “What’s that?” cried the old woman.
+ Mrs. Driver fell back before the emerging form of Mr. Bodfish.
+ Burleigh, with a feeling of nausea, drew back toward the door.
+ Gunn placed a hand, which lacked two fingers, on his breast.
+ “Don’t you think Major Brill is somewhat hasty in his conclusions?”
+ He saw another tatterdemalion coming toward him.
+ “You say you’re a doctor?”
+ The second officer leaned forward.
+ “You get younger than ever, Mrs. Pullen.”
+ “We’ll leave you two young things alone.”
+
+
+
+
+THE LADY OF THE BARGE
+
+
+The master of the barge _Arabella_ sat in the stern of his craft with
+his right arm leaning on the tiller. A desultory conversation with the
+mate of a schooner, who was hanging over the side of his craft a few
+yards off, had come to a conclusion owing to a difference of opinion on
+the subject of religion. The skipper had argued so warmly that he
+almost fancied he must have inherited the tenets of the Seventh-day
+Baptists from his mother while the mate had surprised himself by the
+warmth of his advocacy of a form of Wesleyanism which would have made
+the members of that sect open their eyes with horror. He had, moreover,
+confirmed the skipper in the error of his ways by calling him a bargee,
+the ranks of the Baptists receiving a defender if not a recruit from
+that hour.
+
+With the influence of the religious argument still upon him, the
+skipper, as the long summer’s day gave place to night, fell to
+wondering where his own mate, who was also his brother-in-law, had got
+to. Lights which had been struggling with the twilight now burnt bright
+and strong, and the skipper, moving from the shadow to where a band of
+light fell across the deck, took out a worn silver watch and saw that
+it was ten o’clock.
+
+Almost at the same moment a dark figure appeared on the jetty above and
+began to descend the ladder, and a strongly built young man of
+twenty-two sprang nimbly to the deck.
+
+“Ten o’clock, Ted,” said the skipper, slowly. “It’ll be eleven in an
+hour’s time,” said the mate, calmly.
+
+“That’ll do,” said the skipper, in a somewhat loud voice, as he noticed
+that his late adversary still occupied his favourite strained position,
+and a fortuitous expression of his mother’s occurred to him: “Don’t
+talk to me; I’ve been arguing with a son of Belial for the last
+half-hour.”
+
+“Bargee,” said the son of Belial, in a dispassionate voice.
+
+“Don’t take no notice of him, Ted,” said the skipper, pityingly.
+
+“He wasn’t talking to me,” said Ted. “But never mind about him; I want
+to speak to you in private.”
+
+“Fire away, my lad,” said the other, in a patronizing voice.
+
+“Speak up,” said the voice from the schooner, encouragingly. “I’m
+listening.”
+
+There was no reply from the bargee. The master led the way to the
+cabin, and lighting a lamp, which appealed to more senses than one,
+took a seat on a locker, and again requested the other to fire away.
+
+“Well, you see, it’s this way,” began the mate, with a preliminary
+wriggle: “there’s a certain young woman—”
+
+“A certain young what?” shouted the master of the _Arabella_.
+
+“Woman,” repeated the mate, snappishly; “you’ve heard of a woman afore,
+haven’t you? Well, there’s a certain young woman I’m walking out with
+I—”
+
+“Walking out?” gasped the skipper. “Why, I never ’eard o’ such a
+thing.”
+
+“You would ha’ done if you’d been better looking, p’raps,” retorted the
+other. “Well, I’ve offered this young woman to come for a trip with
+us.”
+
+“Oh, you have, ’ave you!” said the skipper, sharply. “And what do you
+think Louisa will say to it?”
+
+“That’s your look out,” said Louisa’s brother, cheerfully. “I’ll make
+her up a bed for’ard, and we’ll all be as happy as you please.”
+
+He started suddenly. The mate of the schooner was indulging in a series
+of whistles of the most amatory description.
+
+“There she is,” he said. “I told her to wait outside.”
+
+He ran upon deck, and his perturbed brother-in-law, following at his
+leisure, was just in time to see him descending the ladder with a young
+woman and a small handbag.
+
+“This is my brother-in-law, Cap’n Gibbs,” said Ted, introducing the new
+arrival; “smartest man at a barge on the river.”
+
+The girl extended a neatly gloved hand, shook the skipper’s affably,
+and looked wonderingly about her.
+
+“It’s very close to the water, Ted,” she said, dubiously.
+
+The skipper coughed. “We don’t take passengers as a rule,” he said,
+awkwardly; “we ’ain’t got much convenience for them.”
+
+“Never mind,” said the girl, kindly; “I sha’nt expect too much.”
+
+She turned away, and following the mate down to the cabin, went into
+ecstasies over the space-saving contrivances she found there. The
+drawers fitted in the skipper’s bunk were a source of particular
+interest, and the owner watched with strong disapprobation through the
+skylight her efforts to make him an apple-pie bed with the limited
+means at her disposal. He went down below at once as a wet blanket.
+
+“I was just shaking your bed up a bit,” said Miss Harris, reddening.
+
+“I see you was,” said the skipper, briefly.
+
+He tried to pluck up courage to tell her that he couldn’t take her, but
+only succeeded in giving vent to an inhospitable cough.
+
+“I’ll get the supper,” said the mate, suddenly; “you sit down, old man,
+and talk to Lucy.”
+
+In honour of the visitor he spread a small cloth, and then proceeded to
+produce cold beef, pickles, and accessories in a manner which reminded
+Miss Harris of white rabbits from a conjurer’s hat. Captain Gibbs,
+accepting the inevitable, ate his supper in silence and left them to
+their glances.
+
+“We must make you up a bed, for’ard, Lucy,” said the mate, when they
+had finished.
+
+Miss Harris started. “Where’s that?” she inquired.
+
+“Other end o’ the boat,” replied the mate, gathering up some bedding
+under his arm. “You might bring a lantern, John.”
+
+The skipper, who was feeling more sociable after a couple of glasses of
+beer, complied, and accompanied the couple to the tiny forecastle. A
+smell compounded of bilge, tar, paint, and other healthy disinfectants
+emerged as the scuttle was pushed back. The skipper dangled the lantern
+down and almost smiled.
+
+“I can’t sleep there,” said the girl, with decision. “I shall die o’
+fright.”
+
+“You’ll get used to it,” said Ted, encouragingly, as he helped her
+down; “it’s quite dry and comfortable.”
+
+He put his arm round her waist and squeezed her hand, and aided by this
+moral support, Miss Harris not only consented to remain, but found
+various advantages in the forecastle over the cabin, which had escaped
+the notice of previous voyagers.
+
+“I’ll leave you the lantern,” said the mate, making it fast, “and we
+shall be on deck most o’ the night. We get under way at two.”
+
+He quitted the forecastle, followed by the skipper, after a polite but
+futile attempt to give him precedence, and made his way to the cabin
+for two or three hours’ sleep.
+
+“There’ll be a row at the other end, Ted,” said the skipper, nervously,
+as he got into his bunk. “Louisa’s sure to blame me for letting you
+keep company with a gal like this. We was talking about you only the
+other day, and she said if you was married five years from now, it ’ud
+be quite soon enough.”
+
+“Let Loo mind her own business,” said the mate, sharply; “she’s not
+going to nag me. She’s not _my_ wife, thank goodness!”
+
+He turned over and fell fast asleep, waking up fresh and bright three
+hours later, to commence what he fondly thought would be the
+pleasantest voyage of his life.
+
+The _Arabella_ dropped slowly down with the tide, the wind being so
+light that she was becalmed by every tall warehouse on the way. Off
+Greenwich, however, the breeze freshened somewhat, and a little later
+Miss Harris, looking somewhat pale as to complexion and untidy as to
+hair, came slowly on deck.
+
+“Where’s the looking-glass?” she asked, as Ted hastened to greet her.
+“How does my hair look?”
+
+“All wavy,” said the infatuated young man; “all little curls and
+squiggles. Come down in the cabin; there’s a glass there.”
+
+Miss Harris, with a light nod to the skipper as he sat at the tiller,
+followed the mate below, and giving vent to a little cry of indignation
+as she saw herself in the glass, waved the amorous Ted on deck, and
+started work on her disarranged hair.
+
+At breakfast-time a little friction was caused by what the mate
+bitterly termed the narrow-minded, old-fashioned ways of the skipper.
+He had arranged that the skipper should steer while he and Miss Harris
+breakfasted, but the coffee was no sooner on the table than the skipper
+called him, and relinquishing the helm in his favour, went below to do
+the honours. The mate protested.
+
+“It’s not proper,” said the skipper. “Me and ’er will ’ave our meals
+together, and then you must have yours. She’s under my care.”
+
+Miss Harris assented blithely, and talk and laughter greeted the ears
+of the indignant mate as he steered. He went down at last to cold
+coffee and lukewarm herrings, returning to the deck after a hurried
+meal to find the skipper narrating some of his choicest experiences to
+an audience which hung on his lightest word.
+
+The disregard they showed for his feelings was maddening, and for the
+first time in his life he became a prey to jealousy in its worst form.
+It was quite clear to him that the girl had become desperately
+enamoured of the skipper, and he racked his brain in a wild effort to
+discover the reason.
+
+[Illustration: He denied it again, hotly.]
+
+With an idea of reminding his brother-in-law of his position, he
+alluded two or three times in a casual fashion to his wife. The skipper
+hardly listened to him, and patting Miss Harris’s cheek in a fatherly
+manner, regaled her with an anecdote of the mate’s boyhood which the
+latter had spent a goodly portion of his life in denying. He denied it
+again, hotly, and Miss Harris, conquering for a time her laughter,
+reprimanded him severely for contradicting.
+
+By the time dinner was ready he was in a state of sullen apathy, and
+when the meal was over and the couple came on deck again, so far forgot
+himself as to compliment Miss Harris upon her appetite.
+
+“I’m ashamed of you, Ted,” said the skipper, with severity.
+
+“I’m glad you know what shame is,” retorted the mate.
+
+“If you can’t be’ave yourself, you’d better keep a bit for’ard till you
+get in a better temper,” continued the skipper.
+
+“I’ll be pleased to,” said the smarting mate. “I wish the barge was
+longer.”
+
+“It couldn’t be too long for me,” said Miss Harris, tossing her head.
+
+“Be’aving like a schoolboy,” murmured the skipper.
+
+“I know how to behave _my_-self,” said the mate, as he disappeared
+below. His head suddenly appeared again over the companion. “If some
+people don’t,” he added, and disappeared again.
+
+He was pleased to notice as he ate his dinner that the giddy prattle
+above had ceased, and with his back turned toward the couple when he
+appeared on deck again, he lounged slowly forward until the skipper
+called him back again.
+
+“Wot was them words you said just now, Ted?” he inquired.
+
+The mate repeated them with gusto.
+
+“Very good,” said the skipper, sharply; “very good.”
+
+“Don’t you ever speak to me again,” said Miss Harris, with a stately
+air, “because I won’t answer you if you do.”
+
+The mate displayed more of his schoolboy nature. “Wait till you’re
+spoken to,” he said, rudely. “This is your gratefulness, I suppose?”
+
+“Gratefulness?” said Miss Harris, with her chin in the air. “What for?”
+
+“For bringing you for a trip,” replied the mate, sternly.
+
+“_You_ bringing me for a trip!” said Miss Harris, scornfully. “Captain
+Gibbs is the master here, I suppose. He is giving me the trip. You’re
+only the mate.”
+
+“Just so,” said the mate, with a grin at his brother-in-law, which made
+that worthy shift uneasily. “I wonder what Loo will say when she sees
+you with a lady aboard?”
+
+“She came to please you,” said Captain Gibbs, with haste.
+
+“Ho! she did, did she?” jeered the mate. “Prove it; only don’t look to
+me to back you, that’s all.”
+
+The other eyed him in consternation, and his manner changed.
+
+“Don’t play the fool, Ted,” he said, not unkindly; “you know what Loo
+is.”
+
+“Well, I’m reckoning on that,” said the mate, deliberately. “I’m going
+for’ard; don’t let me interrupt you two. So long.”
+
+He went slowly forward, and lighting his pipe, sprawled carelessly on
+the deck, and renounced the entire sex forthwith. At teatime the
+skipper attempted to reverse the procedure at the other meals; but as
+Miss Harris steadfastly declined to sit at the same table as the mate,
+his good intentions came to naught.
+
+He made an appeal to what he termed the mate’s better nature, after
+Miss Harris had retired to the seclusion of her bed-chamber, but in
+vain.
+
+“She’s nothing to do with me,” declared the mate, majestically. “I wash
+my hands of her. She’s a flirt. I’m like Louisa, I can’t bear flirts.”
+
+The skipper said no more, but his face was so worn that Miss Harris,
+when she came on deck in the early morning and found the barge gliding
+gently between the grassy banks of a river, attributed it to the
+difficulty of navigating so large a craft on so small and winding a
+stream.
+
+“We shall be alongside in ’arf an hour,” said the skipper, eyeing her.
+
+Miss Harris expressed her gratification.
+
+“P’raps you wouldn’t mind going down the fo’c’sle and staying there
+till we’ve made fast,” said the other. “I’d take it as a favour. My
+owners don’t like me to carry passengers.”
+
+Miss Harris, who understood perfectly, said, “Certainly,” and with a
+cold stare at the mate, who was at no pains to conceal his amusement,
+went below at once, thoughtfully closing the scuttle after her.
+
+“There’s no call to make mischief, Ted,” said the skipper, somewhat
+anxiously, as they swept round the last bend and came into view of
+Coalsham.
+
+The mate said nothing, but stood by to take in sail as they ran swiftly
+toward the little quay. The pace slackened, and the _Arabella_, as
+though conscious of the contraband in her forecastle, crept slowly to
+where a stout, middle-aged woman, who bore a strong likeness to the
+mate, stood upon the quay.
+
+“There’s poor Loo,” said the mate, with a sigh.
+
+The skipper made no reply to this infernal insinuation. The barge ran
+alongside the quay and made fast.
+
+“I thought you’d be up,” said Mrs. Gibbs to her husband. “Now come
+along to breakfast; Ted’ll follow on.”
+
+Captain Gibbs, dived down below for his coat, and slipping ashore,
+thankfully prepared to move off with his wife.
+
+“Come on as soon as you can, Ted,” said the latter. “Why, what on earth
+is he making that face for?”
+
+She turned in amazement as her brother, making a pretence of catching
+her husband’s eye, screwed his face up into a note of interrogation and
+gave a slight jerk with his thumb.
+
+“Come along,” said Captain Gibbs, taking her arm with much affection.
+
+“But what’s Ted looking like that for?” demanded his wife, as she
+easily intercepted another choice facial expression of the mate’s.
+
+“Oh, it’s his fun,” replied her husband, walking on.
+
+“_Fun?_” repeated Mrs. Gibbs, sharply. “What’s the matter, Ted.”
+
+“Nothing,” replied the mate.
+
+“Touch o’ toothache,” said the skipper. “Come along, Loo; I can just do
+with one o’ your breakfasts.”
+
+Mrs. Gibbs suffered herself to be led on, and had got at least five
+yards on the way home, when she turned and looked back. The mate had
+still got the toothache, and was at that moment in all the agonies of a
+phenomenal twinge.
+
+“There’s something wrong here,” said Mrs. Gibbs as she retraced her
+steps. “Ted, what are you making that face for?”
+
+“It’s my own face,” said the mate, evasively.
+
+Mrs. Gibbs conceded the point, and added bitterly that it couldn’t be
+helped. All the same she wanted to know what he meant by it.
+
+“Ask John,” said the vindictive mate.
+
+Mrs. Gibbs asked. Her husband said he didn’t know, and added that Ted
+had been like it before, but he had not told her for fear of
+frightening her. Then he tried to induce her to go with him to the
+chemist’s to get something for it.
+
+Mrs. Gibbs shook her head firmly, and boarding the barge, took a seat
+on the hatch and proceeded to catechise her brother as to his symptoms.
+He denied that there was anything the matter with him, while his eyes
+openly sought those of Captain Gibbs as though asking for instruction.
+
+“You come home, Ted,” she said at length.
+
+“I can’t,” said the mate. “I can’t leave the ship.”
+
+“Why not?” demanded his sister.
+
+“Ask John,” said the mate again.
+
+At this Mrs. Gibbs’s temper, which had been rising, gave way
+altogether, and she stamped fiercely upon the deck. A stamp of the foot
+has been for all time a rough-and-ready means of signalling; the
+fore-scuttle was drawn back, and the face of a young and pretty girl
+appeared framed in the opening. The mate raised his eyebrows with a
+helpless gesture, and as for the unfortunate skipper, any jury would
+have found him guilty without leaving the box. The wife of his bosom,
+with a flaming visage, turned and regarded him.
+
+[Illustration: “You villain!” she said, in a choking voice.]
+
+“You villain!” she said, in a choking voice.
+
+Captain Gibbs caught his breath and looked appealingly at the mate.
+
+“It’s a little surprise for you, my dear,” he faltered, “it’s Ted’s
+young lady.”
+
+“Nothing of the kind,” said the mate, sharply.
+
+“It’s not? How dare you say such a thing?” demanded Miss Harris,
+stepping on to the deck.
+
+“Well, you brought her aboard, Ted, you know you did,” pleaded the
+unhappy skipper.
+
+The mate did not deny it, but his face was so full of grief and
+surprise that the other’s heart sank within him.
+
+“All right,” said the mate at last; “have it your own way.”
+
+“Hold your tongue, Ted,” shouted Mrs. Gibbs; “you’re trying to shield
+him.”
+
+“I tell you Ted brought her aboard, and they had a lover’s quarrel,”
+said her unhappy spouse. “It’s nothing to do with me at all.”
+
+“And that’s why you told me Ted had got the toothache, and tried to get
+me off to the chemist’s, I s’pose,” retorted his wife, with virulence.
+“Do you think I’m a fool? How dare you ask a young woman on this barge?
+How dare you?”
+
+“I didn’t ask her,” said her husband.
+
+“I s’pose she came without being asked,” sneered his wife, turning her
+regards to the passenger; “she looks the sort that might. You
+brazen-faced girl!”
+
+“Here, go easy, Loo,” interrupted the mate, flushing as he saw the
+girl’s pale face.
+
+“Mind your own business,” said his sister, violently.
+
+“It is my business,” said the repentant mate. “I brought her aboard,
+and then we quarrelled.”
+
+“I’ve no doubt,” said his sister, bitterly; “it’s very pretty, but it
+won’t do.”
+
+“I swear it’s the truth,” said the mate.
+
+“Why did John keep it so quiet and hide her for, then?” demanded his
+sister.
+
+“I came down for the trip,” said Miss Harris; “that is all about it.
+There is nothing to make a fuss about. How much is it, Captain Gibbs?”
+
+She produced a little purse from her pocket, but before the embarrassed
+skipper could reply, his infuriated wife struck it out of her hand. The
+mate sprang instinctively forward, but too late, and the purse fell
+with a splash into the water. The girl gave a faint cry and clasped her
+hands.
+
+“How am I to get back?” she gasped.
+
+“I’ll see to that, Lucy,” said the mate. “I’m very sorry—I’ve been a
+brute.”
+
+“_You?_” said the indignant girl. “I would sooner drown myself than be
+beholden to you.”
+
+“I’m very sorry,” repeated the mate, humbly.
+
+“There’s enough of this play-acting,” interposed Mrs. Gibbs. “Get off
+this barge.”
+
+“You stay where you are,” said the mate, authoritatively.
+
+“Send that girl off this barge,” screamed Mrs. Gibbs to her husband.
+
+Captain Gibbs smiled in a silly fashion and scratched his head. “Where
+is she to go?” he asked feebly.
+
+“Wh’at does it matter to you where she goes?” cried his wife, fiercely.
+“Send her off.”
+
+The girl eyed her haughtily, and repulsing the mate as he strove to
+detain her, stepped to the side. Then she paused as he suddenly threw
+off his coat, and sitting down on the hatch, hastily removed his boots.
+The skipper, divining his intentions, seized him by the arm.
+
+“Don’t be a fool, Ted,” he gasped; “you’ll get under the barge.”
+
+The mate shook him off, and went in with a splash which half drowned
+his adviser. Miss Harris, clasping her hands, ran to the side and gazed
+fearfully at the spot where he had disappeared, while his sister in a
+terrible voice seized the opportunity to point out to her husband the
+probably fatal results of his ill-doing. There was an anxious interval,
+and then the mate’s head appeared above the water, and after a
+breathing-space disappeared again. The skipper, watching uneasily,
+stood by with a lifebelt.
+
+“Come out, Ted,” screamed his sister as he came up for breath again.
+
+The mate disappeared once more, but coming up for the third time, hung
+on to the side of the barge to recover a bit. A clothed man in the
+water savours of disaster and looks alarming. Miss Harris began to cry.
+
+“You’ll be drowned,” she whimpered.
+
+“Come out,” said Mrs. Gibbs, in a raspy voice. She knelt on the deck
+and twined her fingers in his hair. The mate addressed her in terms
+rendered brotherly by pain.
+
+“Never mind about the purse,” sobbed Miss Harris; “it doesn’t matter.”
+
+“Will you make it up if I come out, then,” demanded the diver.
+
+“No; I’ll never speak to you again as long as I live,” said the girl,
+passionately.
+
+The mate disappeared again. This time he was out of sight longer than
+usual, and when he came up merely tossed his arms weakly and went down
+again. There was a scream from the women, and a mighty splash as the
+skipper went overboard with a life-belt. The mate’s head, black and
+shining, showed for a moment; the skipper grabbed him by the hair and
+towed him to the barge’s side, and in the midst of a considerable
+hubbub both men were drawn from the water.
+
+The skipper shook himself like a dog, but the mate lay on the deck
+inert in a puddle of water. Mrs. Gibbs frantically slapped his hands;
+and Miss Harris, bending over him, rendered first aid by kissing him
+wildly.
+
+Captain Gibbs pushed her away. “He won’t come round while you’re
+a-kissing of him,” he cried, roughly.
+
+To his indignant surprise the drowned man opened one eye and winked
+acquiescence. The skipper dropped his arms by his side and stared at
+him stupidly.
+
+“I saw his eyelid twitch,” cried Mrs. Gibbs, joyfully.
+
+“He’s all right,” said her indignant husband; “’e ain’t born to be
+drowned, ’e ain’t. I’ve spoilt a good suit of clothes for nothing.”
+
+To his wife’s amazement, he actually walked away from the insensible
+man, and with a boathook reached for his hat, which was floating by.
+Mrs. Gibbs, still gazing in blank astonishment, caught a seraphic smile
+on the face of her brother as Miss Harris continued her ministrations,
+and in a pardonable fit of temper the overwrought woman gave him a box
+on the ear, which brought him round at once.
+
+“Where am I?” he inquired, artlessly.
+
+Mrs. Gibbs told him. She also told him her opinion of him, and without
+plagiarizing her husband’s words, came to the same conclusion as to his
+ultimate fate.
+
+“You come along home with me,” she said, turning in a friendly fashion
+to the bewildered girl. “They deserve what they’ve got—both of ’em. I
+only hope that they’ll both get such awful colds that they won’t find
+their voices for a twelvemonth.”
+
+She took the girl by the arm and helped her ashore. They turned their
+heads once in the direction of the barge, and saw the justly incensed
+skipper keeping the mate’s explanations and apologies at bay with a
+boat-hook. Then they went in to breakfast.
+
+
+
+
+THE MONKEY’S PAW
+
+I
+
+Without, the night was cold and wet, but in the small parlour of
+Laburnam Villa the blinds were drawn and the fire burned brightly.
+Father and son were at chess, the former, who possessed ideas about the
+game involving radical changes, putting his king into such sharp and
+unnecessary perils that it even provoked comment from the white-haired
+old lady knitting placidly by the fire.
+
+“Hark at the wind,” said Mr. White, who, having seen a fatal mistake
+after it was too late, was amiably desirous of preventing his son from
+seeing it.
+
+“I’m listening,” said the latter, grimly surveying the board as he
+stretched out his hand. “Check.”
+
+“I should hardly think that he’d come to-night,” said his father, with
+his hand poised over the board.
+
+“Mate,” replied the son.
+
+“That’s the worst of living so far out,” bawled Mr. White, with sudden
+and unlooked-for violence; “of all the beastly, slushy, out-of-the-way
+places to live in, this is the worst. Pathway’s a bog, and the road’s a
+torrent. I don’t know what people are thinking about. I suppose because
+only two houses in the road are let, they think it doesn’t matter.”
+
+“Never mind, dear,” said his wife, soothingly; “perhaps you’ll win the
+next one.”
+
+Mr. White looked up sharply, just in time to intercept a knowing glance
+between mother and son. The words died away on his lips, and he hid a
+guilty grin in his thin grey beard.
+
+“There he is,” said Herbert White, as the gate banged to loudly and
+heavy footsteps came toward the door.
+
+The old man rose with hospitable haste, and opening the door, was heard
+condoling with the new arrival. The new arrival also condoled with
+himself, so that Mrs. White said, “Tut, tut!” and coughed gently as her
+husband entered the room, followed by a tall, burly man, beady of eye
+and rubicund of visage.
+
+“Sergeant-Major Morris,” he said, introducing him.
+
+The sergeant-major shook hands, and taking the proffered seat by the
+fire, watched contentedly while his host got out whiskey and tumblers
+and stood a small copper kettle on the fire.
+
+At the third glass his eyes got brighter, and he began to talk, the
+little family circle regarding with eager interest this visitor from
+distant parts, as he squared his broad shoulders in the chair and spoke
+of wild scenes and doughty deeds; of wars and plagues and strange
+peoples.
+
+“Twenty-one years of it,” said Mr. White, nodding at his wife and son.
+“When he went away he was a slip of a youth in the warehouse. Now look
+at him.”
+
+“He don’t look to have taken much harm,” said Mrs. White, politely.
+
+“I’d like to go to India myself,” said the old man, “just to look round
+a bit, you know.”
+
+“Better where you are,” said the sergeant-major, shaking his head. He
+put down the empty glass, and sighing softly, shook it again.
+
+“I should like to see those old temples and fakirs and jugglers,” said
+the old man. “What was that you started telling me the other day about
+a monkey’s paw or something, Morris?”
+
+“Nothing,” said the soldier, hastily. “Leastways nothing worth
+hearing.”
+
+“Monkey’s paw?” said Mrs. White, curiously.
+
+“Well, it’s just a bit of what you might call magic, perhaps,” said the
+sergeant-major, offhandedly.
+
+His three listeners leaned forward eagerly. The visitor absent-mindedly
+put his empty glass to his lips and then set it down again. His host
+filled it for him.
+
+“To look at,” said the sergeant-major, fumbling in his pocket, “it’s
+just an ordinary little paw, dried to a mummy.”
+
+He took something out of his pocket and proffered it. Mrs. White drew
+back with a grimace, but her son, taking it, examined it curiously.
+
+“And what is there special about it?” inquired Mr. White as he took it
+from his son, and having examined it, placed it upon the table.
+
+“It had a spell put on it by an old fakir,” said the sergeant-major, “a
+very holy man. He wanted to show that fate ruled people’s lives, and
+that those who interfered with it did so to their sorrow. He put a
+spell on it so that three separate men could each have three wishes
+from it.”
+
+His manner was so impressive that his hearers were conscious that their
+light laughter jarred somewhat.
+
+“Well, why don’t you have three, sir?” said Herbert White, cleverly.
+
+The soldier regarded him in the way that middle age is wont to regard
+presumptuous youth. “I have,” he said, quietly, and his blotchy face
+whitened.
+
+“And did you really have the three wishes granted?” asked Mrs. White.
+
+“I did,” said the sergeant-major, and his glass tapped against his
+strong teeth.
+
+“And has anybody else wished?” persisted the old lady.
+
+“The first man had his three wishes. Yes,” was the reply; “I don’t know
+what the first two were, but the third was for death. That’s how I got
+the paw.”
+
+His tones were so grave that a hush fell upon the group.
+
+“If you’ve had your three wishes, it’s no good to you now, then,
+Morris,” said the old man at last. “What do you keep it for?”
+
+The soldier shook his head. “Fancy, I suppose,” he said, slowly. “I did
+have some idea of selling it, but I don’t think I will. It has caused
+enough mischief already. Besides, people won’t buy. They think it’s a
+fairy tale; some of them, and those who do think anything of it want to
+try it first and pay me afterward.”
+
+“If you could have another three wishes,” said the old man, eyeing him
+keenly, “would you have them?”
+
+“I don’t know,” said the other. “I don’t know.”
+
+He took the paw, and dangling it between his forefinger and thumb,
+suddenly threw it upon the fire. White, with a slight cry, stooped down
+and snatched it off.
+
+“Better let it burn,” said the soldier, solemnly.
+
+“If you don’t want it, Morris,” said the other, “give it to me.”
+
+“I won’t,” said his friend, doggedly. “I threw it on the fire. If you
+keep it, don’t blame me for what happens. Pitch it on the fire again
+like a sensible man.”
+
+The other shook his head and examined his new possession closely. “How
+do you do it?” he inquired.
+
+“Hold it up in your right hand and wish aloud,” said the
+sergeant-major, “but I warn you of the consequences.”
+
+“Sounds like the _Arabian Nights_,” said Mrs. White, as she rose and
+began to set the supper. “Don’t you think you might wish for four pairs
+of hands for me?”
+
+Her husband drew the talisman from pocket, and then all three burst
+into laughter as the sergeant-major, with a look of alarm on his face,
+caught him by the arm.
+
+“If you must wish,” he said, gruffly, “wish for something sensible.”
+
+Mr. White dropped it back in his pocket, and placing chairs, motioned
+his friend to the table. In the business of supper the talisman was
+partly forgotten, and afterward the three sat listening in an
+enthralled fashion to a second instalment of the soldier’s adventures
+in India.
+
+“If the tale about the monkey’s paw is not more truthful than those he
+has been telling us,” said Herbert, as the door closed behind their
+guest, just in time for him to catch the last train, “we sha’nt make
+much out of it.”
+
+“Did you give him anything for it, father?” inquired Mrs. White,
+regarding her husband closely.
+
+“A trifle,” said he, colouring slightly. “He didn’t want it, but I made
+him take it. And he pressed me again to throw it away.”
+
+“Likely,” said Herbert, with pretended horror. “Why, we’re going to be
+rich, and famous and happy. Wish to be an emperor, father, to begin
+with; then you can’t be henpecked.”
+
+He darted round the table, pursued by the maligned Mrs. White armed
+with an antimacassar.
+
+Mr. White took the paw from his pocket and eyed it dubiously. “I don’t
+know what to wish for, and that’s a fact,” he said, slowly. “It seems
+to me I’ve got all I want.”
+
+“If you only cleared the house, you’d be quite happy, wouldn’t you?”
+said Herbert, with his hand on his shoulder. “Well, wish for two
+hundred pounds, then; that’ll just do it.”
+
+His father, smiling shamefacedly at his own credulity, held up the
+talisman, as his son, with a solemn face, somewhat marred by a wink at
+his mother, sat down at the piano and struck a few impressive chords.
+
+“I wish for two hundred pounds,” said the old man distinctly.
+
+A fine crash from the piano greeted the words, interrupted by a
+shuddering cry from the old man. His wife and son ran toward him.
+
+“It moved,” he cried, with a glance of disgust at the object as it lay
+on the floor.
+
+“As I wished, it twisted in my hand like a snake.”
+
+“Well, I don’t see the money,” said his son as he picked it up and
+placed it on the table, “and I bet I never shall.”
+
+“It must have been your fancy, father,” said his wife, regarding him
+anxiously.
+
+He shook his head. “Never mind, though; there’s no harm done, but it
+gave me a shock all the same.”
+
+They sat down by the fire again while the two men finished their pipes.
+Outside, the wind was higher than ever, and the old man started
+nervously at the sound of a door banging upstairs. A silence unusual
+and depressing settled upon all three, which lasted until the old
+couple rose to retire for the night.
+
+“I expect you’ll find the cash tied up in a big bag in the middle of
+your bed,” said Herbert, as he bade them good-night, “and something
+horrible squatting up on top of the wardrobe watching you as you pocket
+your ill-gotten gains.”
+
+He sat alone in the darkness, gazing at the dying fire, and seeing
+faces in it. The last face was so horrible and so simian that he gazed
+at it in amazement. It got so vivid that, with a little uneasy laugh,
+he felt on the table for a glass containing a little water to throw
+over it. His hand grasped the monkey’s paw, and with a little shiver he
+wiped his hand on his coat and went up to bed.
+
+II
+
+In the brightness of the wintry sun next morning as it streamed over
+the breakfast table he laughed at his fears. There was an air of
+prosaic wholesomeness about the room which it had lacked on the
+previous night, and the dirty, shrivelled little paw was pitched on the
+sideboard with a carelessness which betokened no great belief in its
+virtues.
+
+“I suppose all old soldiers are the same,” said Mrs. White. “The idea
+of our listening to such nonsense! How could wishes be granted in these
+days? And if they could, how could two hundred pounds hurt you,
+father?”
+
+“Might drop on his head from the sky,” said the frivolous Herbert.
+
+“Morris said the things happened so naturally,” said his father, “that
+you might if you so wished attribute it to coincidence.”
+
+“Well, don’t break into the money before I come back,” said Herbert as
+he rose from the table. “I’m afraid it’ll turn you into a mean,
+avaricious man, and we shall have to disown you.”
+
+His mother laughed, and following him to the door, watched him down the
+road; and returning to the breakfast table, was very happy at the
+expense of her husband’s credulity. All of which did not prevent her
+from scurrying to the door at the postman’s knock, nor prevent her from
+referring somewhat shortly to retired sergeant-majors of bibulous
+habits when she found that the post brought a tailor’s bill.
+
+“Herbert will have some more of his funny remarks, I expect, when he
+comes home,” she said, as they sat at dinner.
+
+“I dare say,” said Mr. White, pouring himself out some beer; “but for
+all that, the thing moved in my hand; that I’ll swear to.”
+
+“You thought it did,” said the old lady soothingly.
+
+“I say it did,” replied the other. “There was no thought about it; I
+had just—- What’s the matter?”
+
+His wife made no reply. She was watching the mysterious movements of a
+man outside, who, peering in an undecided fashion at the house,
+appeared to be trying to make up his mind to enter. In mental
+connection with the two hundred pounds, she noticed that the stranger
+was well dressed, and wore a silk hat of glossy newness. Three times he
+paused at the gate, and then walked on again. The fourth time he stood
+with his hand upon it, and then with sudden resolution flung it open
+and walked up the path. Mrs. White at the same moment placed her hands
+behind her, and hurriedly unfastening the strings of her apron, put
+that useful article of apparel beneath the cushion of her chair.
+
+She brought the stranger, who seemed ill at ease, into the room. He
+gazed at her furtively, and listened in a preoccupied fashion as the
+old lady apologized for the appearance of the room, and her husband’s
+coat, a garment which he usually reserved for the garden. She then
+waited as patiently as her sex would permit, for him to broach his
+business, but he was at first strangely silent.
+
+“I—was asked to call,” he said at last, and stooped and picked a piece
+of cotton from his trousers. “I come from ‘Maw and Muggins.’”
+
+The old lady started. “Is anything the matter?” she asked,
+breathlessly. “Has anything happened to Herbert? What is it? What is
+it?”
+
+Her husband interposed. “There, there, mother,” he said, hastily. “Sit
+down, and don’t jump to conclusions. You’ve not brought bad news, I’m
+sure, sir;” and he eyed the other wistfully.
+
+“I’m sorry—” began the visitor.
+
+“Is he hurt?” demanded the mother, wildly.
+
+The visitor bowed in assent. “Badly hurt,” he said, quietly, “but he is
+not in any pain.”
+
+“Oh, thank God!” said the old woman, clasping her hands. “Thank God for
+that! Thank—”
+
+She broke off suddenly as the sinister meaning of the assurance dawned
+upon her and she saw the awful confirmation of her fears in the other’s
+averted face. She caught her breath, and turning to her slower-witted
+husband, laid her trembling old hand upon his. There was a long
+silence.
+
+“He was caught in the machinery,” said the visitor at length in a low
+voice.
+
+“Caught in the machinery,” repeated Mr. White, in a dazed fashion,
+“yes.”
+
+He sat staring blankly out at the window, and taking his wife’s hand
+between his own, pressed it as he had been wont to do in their old
+courting-days nearly forty years before.
+
+“He was the only one left to us,” he said, turning gently to the
+visitor. “It is hard.”
+
+The other coughed, and rising, walked slowly to the window. “The firm
+wished me to convey their sincere sympathy with you in your great
+loss,” he said, without looking round. “I beg that you will understand
+I am only their servant and merely obeying orders.”
+
+There was no reply; the old woman’s face was white, her eyes staring,
+and her breath inaudible; on the husband’s face was a look such as his
+friend the sergeant might have carried into his first action.
+
+“I was to say that ‘Maw and Meggins’ disclaim all responsibility,”
+continued the other. “They admit no liability at all, but in
+consideration of your son’s services, they wish to present you with a
+certain sum as compensation.”
+
+Mr. White dropped his wife’s hand, and rising to his feet, gazed with a
+look of horror at his visitor. His dry lips shaped the words, “How
+much?”
+
+“Two hundred pounds,” was the answer.
+
+Unconscious of his wife’s shriek, the old man smiled faintly, put out
+his hands like a sightless man, and dropped, a senseless heap, to the
+floor.
+
+III
+
+In the huge new cemetery, some two miles distant, the old people buried
+their dead, and came back to a house steeped in shadow and silence. It
+was all over so quickly that at first they could hardly realize it, and
+remained in a state of expectation as though of something else to
+happen —something else which was to lighten this load, too heavy for
+old hearts to bear.
+
+But the days passed, and expectation gave place to resignation—the
+hopeless resignation of the old, sometimes miscalled, apathy. Sometimes
+they hardly exchanged a word, for now they had nothing to talk about,
+and their days were long to weariness.
+
+It was about a week after that the old man, waking suddenly in the
+night, stretched out his hand and found himself alone. The room was in
+darkness, and the sound of subdued weeping came from the window. He
+raised himself in bed and listened.
+
+“Come back,” he said, tenderly. “You will be cold.”
+
+“It is colder for my son,” said the old woman, and wept afresh.
+
+The sound of her sobs died away on his ears. The bed was warm, and his
+eyes heavy with sleep. He dozed fitfully, and then slept until a sudden
+wild cry from his wife awoke him with a start.
+
+“_The paw!_” she cried wildly. “The monkey’s paw!”
+
+He started up in alarm. “Where? Where is it? What’s the matter?”
+
+She came stumbling across the room toward him. “I want it,” she said,
+quietly. “You’ve not destroyed it?”
+
+“It’s in the parlour, on the bracket,” he replied, marvelling. “Why?”
+
+She cried and laughed together, and bending over, kissed his cheek.
+
+“I only just thought of it,” she said, hysterically. “Why didn’t I
+think of it before? Why didn’t _you_ think of it?”
+
+“Think of what?” he questioned.
+
+“The other two wishes,” she replied, rapidly. “We’ve only had one.”
+
+“Was not that enough?” he demanded, fiercely.
+
+“No,” she cried, triumphantly; “we’ll have one more. Go down and get it
+quickly, and wish our boy alive again.”
+
+The man sat up in bed and flung the bedclothes from his quaking limbs.
+“Good God, you are mad!” he cried, aghast.
+
+“Get it,” she panted; “get it quickly, and wish—Oh, my boy, my boy!”
+
+Her husband struck a match and lit the candle. “Get back to bed,” he
+said, unsteadily. “You don’t know what you are saying.”
+
+“We had the first wish granted,” said the old woman, feverishly; “why
+not the second?”
+
+“A coincidence,” stammered the old man.
+
+“Go and get it and wish,” cried his wife, quivering with excitement.
+
+The old man turned and regarded her, and his voice shook. “He has been
+dead ten days, and besides he—I would not tell you else, but—I could
+only recognize him by his clothing. If he was too terrible for you to
+see then, how now?”
+
+“Bring him back,” cried the old woman, and dragged him toward the door.
+“Do you think I fear the child I have nursed?”
+
+He went down in the darkness, and felt his way to the parlour, and then
+to the mantelpiece. The talisman was in its place, and a horrible fear
+that the unspoken wish might bring his mutilated son before him ere he
+could escape from the room seized upon him, and he caught his breath as
+he found that he had lost the direction of the door. His brow cold with
+sweat, he felt his way round the table, and groped along the wall until
+he found himself in the small passage with the unwholesome thing in his
+hand.
+
+Even his wife’s face seemed changed as he entered the room. It was
+white and expectant, and to his fears seemed to have an unnatural look
+upon it. He was afraid of her.
+
+“_Wish!_” she cried, in a strong voice.
+
+“It is foolish and wicked,” he faltered.
+
+“_Wish!_” repeated his wife.
+
+He raised his hand. “I wish my son alive again.”
+
+The talisman fell to the floor, and he regarded it fearfully. Then he
+sank trembling into a chair as the old woman, with burning eyes, walked
+to the window and raised the blind.
+
+He sat until he was chilled with the cold, glancing occasionally at the
+figure of the old woman peering through the window. The candle-end,
+which had burned below the rim of the china candlestick, was throwing
+pulsating shadows on the ceiling and walls, until, with a flicker
+larger than the rest, it expired. The old man, with an unspeakable
+sense of relief at the failure of the talisman, crept back to his bed,
+and a minute or two afterward the old woman came silently and
+apathetically beside him.
+
+Neither spoke, but lay silently listening to the ticking of the clock.
+A stair creaked, and a squeaky mouse scurried noisily through the wall.
+The darkness was oppressive, and after lying for some time screwing up
+his courage, he took the box of matches, and striking one, went
+downstairs for a candle.
+
+At the foot of the stairs the match went out, and he paused to strike
+another; and at the same moment a knock, so quiet and stealthy as to be
+scarcely audible, sounded on the front door.
+
+The matches fell from his hand and spilled in the passage. He stood
+motionless, his breath suspended until the knock was repeated. Then he
+turned and fled swiftly back to his room, and closed the door behind
+him. A third knock sounded through the house.
+
+[Illustration: “What’s that?” cried the old woman.]
+
+“_What’s that?_” cried the old woman, starting up.
+
+“A rat,” said the old man in shaking tones—“a rat. It passed me on the
+stairs.”
+
+His wife sat up in bed listening. A loud knock resounded through the
+house.
+
+“It’s Herbert!” she screamed. “It’s Herbert!”
+
+She ran to the door, but her husband was before her, and catching her
+by the arm, held her tightly.
+
+“What are you going to do?” he whispered hoarsely.
+
+“It’s my boy; it’s Herbert!” she cried, struggling mechanically. “I
+forgot it was two miles away. What are you holding me for? Let go. I
+must open the door.”
+
+“For God’s sake don’t let it in,” cried the old man, trembling.
+
+“You’re afraid of your own son,” she cried, struggling. “Let me go. I’m
+coming, Herbert; I’m coming.”
+
+There was another knock, and another. The old woman with a sudden
+wrench broke free and ran from the room. Her husband followed to the
+landing, and called after her appealingly as she hurried downstairs. He
+heard the chain rattle back and the bottom bolt drawn slowly and
+stiffly from the socket. Then the old woman’s voice, strained and
+panting.
+
+“The bolt,” she cried, loudly. “Come down. I can’t reach it.”
+
+But her husband was on his hands and knees groping wildly on the floor
+in search of the paw. If he could only find it before the thing outside
+got in. A perfect fusillade of knocks reverberated through the house,
+and he heard the scraping of a chair as his wife put it down in the
+passage against the door. He heard the creaking of the bolt as it came
+slowly back, and at the same moment he found the monkey’s paw, and
+frantically breathed his third and last wish.
+
+The knocking ceased suddenly, although the echoes of it were still in
+the house. He heard the chair drawn back, and the door opened. A cold
+wind rushed up the staircase, and a long loud wail of disappointment
+and misery from his wife gave him courage to run down to her side, and
+then to the gate beyond. The street lamp flickering opposite shone on a
+quiet and deserted road.
+
+
+
+
+BILL’S PAPER CHASE
+
+
+Sailormen ’ave their faults, said the night watchman, frankly. I’m not
+denying of it. I used to ’ave myself when I was at sea, but being close
+with their money is a fault as can seldom be brought ag’in ’em.
+
+I saved some money once—two golden sovereigns, owing to a ’ole in my
+pocket. Before I got another ship I slept two nights on a doorstep and
+’ad nothing to eat, and I found them two sovereigns in the lining o’ my
+coat when I was over two thousand miles away from the nearest pub.
+
+I on’y knew one miser all the years I was at sea. Thomas Geary ’is name
+was, and we was shipmates aboard the barque _Grenada_, homeward bound
+from Sydney to London.
+
+Thomas was a man that was getting into years; sixty, I think ’e was,
+and old enough to know better. ’E’d been saving ’ard for over forty
+years, and as near as we could make out ’e was worth a matter o’ six
+’undered pounds. He used to be fond o’ talking about it, and letting us
+know how much better off ’e was than any of the rest of us.
+
+We was about a month out from Sydney when old Thomas took sick. Bill
+Hicks said that it was owing to a ha’penny he couldn’t account for; but
+Walter Jones, whose family was always ill, and thought ’e knew a lot
+about it, said that ’e knew wot it was, but ’e couldn’t remember the
+name of it, and that when we got to London and Thomas saw a doctor, we
+should see as ’ow ’e was right.
+
+Whatever it was the old man got worse and worse. The skipper came down
+and gave ’im some physic and looked at ’is tongue, and then ’e looked
+at our tongues to see wot the difference was. Then ’e left the cook in
+charge of ’im and went off.
+
+The next day Thomas was worse, and it was soon clear to everybody but
+’im that ’e was slipping ’is cable. He wouldn’t believe it at first,
+though the cook told ’im, Bill Hicks told him, and Walter Jones ’ad a
+grandfather that went off in just the same way.
+
+“I’m not going to die,” says Thomas “How can I die and leave all that
+money?”
+
+“It’ll be good for your relations, Thomas,” says Walter Jones.
+
+“I ain’t got any,” says the old man.
+
+“Well, your friends, then, Thomas,” says Walter, soft-like.
+
+“Ain’t got any,” says the old man ag’in.
+
+“Yes, you ’ave, Thomas,” says Walter, with a kind smile; “I could tell
+you one you’ve got.”
+
+Thomas shut his eyes at ’im and began to talk pitiful about ’is money
+and the ’ard work ’e’d ’ad saving of it. And by-and-by ’e got worse,
+and didn’t reckernise us, but thought we was a pack o’ greedy, drunken
+sailormen. He thought Walter Jones was a shark, and told ’im so, and,
+try all ’e could, Walter couldn’t persuade ’im different.
+
+He died the day arter. In the morning ’e was whimpering about ’is money
+ag’in, and angry with Bill when ’e reminded ’im that ’e couldn’t take
+it with ’im, and ’e made Bill promise that ’e should be buried just as
+’e was. Bill tucked him up arter that, and when ’e felt a canvas belt
+tied round the old man’s waist ’e began to see wot ’e was driving at.
+
+The weather was dirty that day and there was a bit o’ sea running,
+consequently all ’ands was on deck, and a boy about sixteen wot used to
+’elp the steward down aft was lookin’ arter Thomas. Me and Bill just
+run down to give a look at the old man in time.
+
+“I _am_ going to take it with me, Bill,” says the old man.
+
+“That’s right,” says Bill.
+
+“My mind’s—easy now,” says Thomas. “I gave it to Jimmy—to—to—throw
+overboard for me.”
+
+“_Wot?_” says Bill, staring.
+
+“That’s right, Bill,” says the boy. “He told me to. It was a little
+packet o’ banknotes. He gave me tuppence for doing it.”
+
+Old Thomas seemed to be listening. ’Is eyes was open, and ’e looked
+artful at Bill to think what a clever thing ’e’d done.
+
+“Nobody’s goin’-to spend-_my_ money,” ’e says. “Nobody’s——”
+
+We drew back from ’is bunk and stood staring at ’im. Then Bill turned
+to the boy.
+
+“Go and tell the skipper ’e’s gone,” ’e says, “and mind, for your own
+sake, don’t tell the skipper or anybody else that you’ve thrown all
+that money overboard.”
+
+“Why not?” says Jimmy.
+
+“Becos you’ll be locked up for it,” says Bill; “you’d no business to do
+it. You’ve been and broke the law. It ought to ha’ been left to
+somebody.”
+
+Jimmy looked scared, and arter ’e was gone I turned to Bill, and I
+looks at ’im and I says “What’s the little game, Bill?”
+
+“_Game?_” said Bill, snorting at me. “I don’t want the pore boy to get
+into trouble, do I? Pore little chap. You was young yourself once.”
+
+“Yes,” I says; “but I’m a bit older now, Bill, and unless you tell me
+what your little game is, I shall tell the skipper myself, and the
+chaps too. Pore old Thomas told ’im to do it, so where’s the boy to
+blame?”
+
+“Do you think Jimmy _did?_” says Bill, screwing up his nose at me.
+“That little varmint is walking about worth six ’undered quid. Now you
+keep your mouth shut and I’ll make it worth your while.”
+
+Then I see Bill’s game. “All right, I’ll keep quiet for the sake of my
+half,” I says, looking at ’im.
+
+I thought he’d ha’ choked, and the langwidge ’e see fit to use was
+a’most as much as I could answer.
+
+“Very well, then,” ’e says, at last, “halves it is. It ain’t robbery
+becos it belongs to nobody, and it ain’t the boy’s becos ’e was told to
+throw it overboard.”
+
+They buried pore old Thomas next morning, and arter it was all over
+Bill put ’is ’and on the boy’s shoulder as they walked for’ard and ’e
+says, “Poor old Thomas ’as gone to look for ’is money,” he says;
+“wonder whether ’e’ll find it! Was it a big bundle, Jimmy?”
+
+“No,” says the boy, shaking ’is ’ead. “They was six ’undered pound
+notes and two sovereigns, and I wrapped the sovereigns up in the notes
+to make ’em sink. Fancy throwing money away like that, Bill: seems a
+sin, don’t it?”
+
+Bill didn’t answer ’im, and that afternoon the other chaps below being
+asleep we searched ’is bunk through and through without any luck, and
+at last Bill sat down and swore ’e must ha’ got it about ’im.
+
+We waited till night, and when everybody was snoring ’ard we went over
+to the boy’s bunk and went all through ’is pockets and felt the
+linings, and then we went back to our side and Bill said wot ’e thought
+about Jimmy in whispers.
+
+“He must ha’ got it tied round ’is waist next to ’is skin, like Thomas
+’ad,” I says.
+
+We stood there in the dark whispering, and then Bill couldn’t stand it
+any longer, and ’e went over on tiptoe to the bunk ag’in. He was
+tremblin’ with excitement and I wasn’t much better, when all of a
+sudden the cook sat up in ’is bunk with a dreadful laughing scream and
+called out that somebody was ticklin’ ’im.
+
+I got into my bunk and Bill got into ’is, and we lay there listening
+while the cook, who was a terrible ticklish man, leaned out of ’is bunk
+and said wot ’e’d do if it ’appened ag’in.
+
+“Go to sleep,” says Walter Jones; “you’re dreamin’. Who d’you think
+would want to tickle you?”
+
+“I tell you,” says the cook, “somebody come over and tickled me with a
+’and the size of a leg o’ mutton. I feel creepy all over.”
+
+Bill gave it up for that night, but the next day ’e pretended to think
+Jimmy was gettin’ fat an’ ’e caught ’old of ’im and prodded ’im all
+over. He thought ’e felt something round ’is waist, but ’e couldn’t be
+sure, and Jimmy made such a noise that the other chaps interfered and
+told Bill to leave ’im alone. For a whole week we tried to find that
+money, and couldn’t, and Bill said it was a suspicious thing that Jimmy
+kept aft a good deal more than ’e used to, and ’e got an idea that the
+boy might ha’ ’idden it somewhere there. At the end of that time,
+’owever, owing to our being short-’anded, Jimmy was sent for’ard to
+work as ordinary seaman, and it began to be quite noticeable the way ’e
+avoided Bill.
+
+At last one day we got ’im alone down the fo’c’sle, and Bill put ’is
+arm round ’im and got im on the locker and asked ’im straight out where
+the money was.
+
+“Why, I chucked it overboard,” he says. “I told you so afore. What a
+memory you’ve got, Bill!”
+
+Bill picked ’im up and laid ’im on the locker, and we searched ’im
+thoroughly. We even took ’is boots off, and then we ’ad another look in
+’is bunk while ’e was putting ’em on ag’in.
+
+“If you’re innercent,” says Bill, “why don’t you call out?—eh?”
+
+“Because you told me not to say anything about it, Bill,” says the boy.
+“But I will next time. Loud, I will.”
+
+“Look ’ere,” says Bill, “you tell us where it is, and the three of
+us’ll go shares in it. That’ll be two ’undered pounds each, and we’ll
+tell you ’ow to get yours changed without getting caught. We’re
+cleverer than you are, you know.”
+
+“I know that, Bill,” says the boy; “but it’s no good me telling you
+lies. I chucked it overboard.”
+
+“Very good, then,” says Bill, getting up. “I’m going to tell the
+skipper.”
+
+“Tell ’im,” says Jimmy. “I don’t care.”
+
+“Then you’ll be searched _arter you’ve stepped ashore_,” says Bill,
+“and you won’t be allowed on the ship ag’in. You’ll lose it all by
+being greedy, whereas if you go shares with us you’ll ’ave two ’undered
+pounds.”
+
+I could see as ’ow the boy ’adn’t thought o’ that, and try as ’e would
+’e couldn’t ’ide ’is feelin’s. He called Bill a red-nosed shark, and ’e
+called me somethin’ I’ve forgotten now.
+
+“Think it over,” says Bill; “mind, you’ll be collared as soon as you’ve
+left the gangway and searched by the police.”
+
+“And will they tickle the cook too, I wonder?” says Jimmy, savagely.
+
+“And if they find it you’ll go to prison,” says Bill, giving ’im a
+clump o’ the side o’ the ’ead, “and you won’t like that, I can tell
+you.”
+
+“Why, ain’t it nice, Bill?” says Jimmy, holding ’is ear.
+
+Bill looked at ’im and then ’e steps to the ladder. “I’m not going to
+talk to you any more, my lad,” ’e says. “I’m going to tell the
+skipper.”
+
+He went up slowly, and just as ’e reached the deck Jimmy started up and
+called ’im. Bill pretended not to ’ear, and the boy ran up on deck and
+follered ’im; and arter a little while they both came down again
+together.
+
+“Did you wish to speak to me, my lad?” says Bill, ’olding ’is ’ead up.
+
+“Yes,” says the boy, fiddling with ’is fingers; “if you keep your ugly
+mouth shut, we’ll go shares.”
+
+“Ho!” says Bill, “I thought you throwed it overboard!”
+
+“I thought so, too, Bill,” says Jimmy, very softly, “and when I came
+below ag’in I found it in my trousers pocket.”
+
+“Where is it now?” says Bill.
+
+“Never mind where it is,” says the boy; “you couldn’t get it if I was
+to tell you. It’ll take me all my time to do it myself.”
+
+“Where is it?” says Bill, ag’in. “I’m goin’ to take care of it. I won’t
+trust you.”
+
+“And I can’t trust you,” says Jimmy.
+
+“If you don’t tell me where it is this minute,” says Bill, moving to
+the ladder ag’in, “I’m off to tell the skipper. I want it in my ’ands,
+or at any rate my share of it. Why not share it out now?”
+
+“Because I ’aven’t got it,” says Jimmy, stamping ’is foot, “that’s why,
+and it’s all your silly fault. Arter you came pawing through my pockets
+when you thought I was asleep I got frightened and ’id it.”
+
+“Where?” says Bill.
+
+“In the second mate’s mattress,” says Jimmy. “I was tidying up down aft
+and I found a ’ole in the underneath side of ’is mattress and I shoved
+it in there, and poked it in with a bit o’ stick.”
+
+“And ’ow are you going to get it?” says Bill, scratching ’is ’ead.
+
+“That’s wot I don’t know, seeing that I’m not allowed aft now,” says
+Jimmy. “One of us’ll ’ave to make a dash for it when we get to London.
+And mind if there’s any ’ankypanky on your part, Bill, I’ll give the
+show away myself.”
+
+The cook came down just then and we ’ad to leave off talking, and I
+could see that Bill was so pleased at finding that the money ’adn’t
+been thrown overboard that ’e was losing sight o’ the difficulty o’
+getting at it. In a day or two, ’owever, ’e see it as plain as me and
+Jimmy did, and, as time went by, he got desprit, and frightened us both
+by ’anging about aft every chance ’e got.
+
+The companion-way faced the wheel, and there was about as much chance
+o’ getting down there without being seen as there would be o’ taking a
+man’s false teeth out of ’is mouth without ’is knowing it. Jimmy went
+down one day while Bill was at the wheel to look for ’is knife, wot ’e
+thought ’e’d left down there, and ’ed ’ardly got down afore Bill saw
+’im come up ag’in, ’olding on to the top of a mop which the steward was
+using.
+
+We couldn’t figure it out nohow, and to think o’ the second mate, a
+little man with a large fam’ly, who never ’ad a penny in ’is pocket,
+sleeping every night on a six ’undered pound mattress, sent us pretty
+near crazy. We used to talk it over whenever we got a chance, and Bill
+and Jimmy could scarcely be civil to each other. The boy said it was
+Bill’s fault, and ’e said it was the boy’s.
+
+“The on’y thing I can see,” says the boy, one day, “is for Bill to ’ave
+a touch of sunstroke as ’e’s leaving the wheel one day, tumble
+’ead-first down the companion-way, and injure ’isself so severely that
+’e can’t be moved. Then they’ll put ’im in a cabin down aft, and p’raps
+I’ll ’ave to go and nurse ’im. Anyway, _he’ll_ be down there.”
+
+“It’s a very good idea, Bill,” I says.
+
+“Ho,” says Bill, looking at me as if ’e would eat me. “Why don’t you do
+it, then?”
+
+“I’d sooner you did it, Bill,” says the boy; “still, I don’t mind which
+it is. Why not toss up for it?”
+
+“Get away,” says Bill. “Get away afore I do something you won’t like,
+you blood-thirsty little murderer.”
+
+“I’ve got a plan myself,” he says, in a low voice, after the boy ’ad
+’opped off, “and if I can’t think of nothing better I’ll try it, and
+mind, not a word to the boy.”
+
+He didn’t think o’ nothing better, and one night just as we was making
+the Channel ’e tried ’is plan. He was in the second mate’s watch, and
+by-and-by ’e leans over the wheel and says to ’im in a low voice, “This
+is my last v’y’ge, sir.”
+
+“Oh,” says the second mate, who was a man as didn’t mind talking to a
+man before the mast. “How’s that?”
+
+“I’ve got a berth ashore, sir,” says Bill, “and I wanted to ask a
+favour, sir.”
+
+The second mate growled and walked off a pace or two.
+
+“I’ve never been so ’appy as I’ve been on this ship,” says Bill; “none
+of us ’ave. We was saying so the other night, and everybody agreed as
+it was owing to you, sir, and your kindness to all of us.”
+
+The second mate coughed, but Bill could see as ’e was a bit pleased.
+
+“The feeling came over me,” says Bill, “that when I leave the sea for
+good I’d like to ’ave something o’ yours to remember you by, sir. And
+it seemed to me that if I ’ad your—mattress I should think of you ev’ry
+night o’ my life.”
+
+“My _wot?_” says the second mate, staring at ’im.
+
+“Your mattress, sir,” says Bill. “If I might make so bold as to offer a
+pound for it, sir. I want something wot’s been used by you, and I’ve
+got a fancy for that as a keepsake.”
+
+The second mate shook ’is ’ead. “I’m sorry, Bill,” ’e says, gently,
+“but I couldn’t let it go at that.”
+
+“I’d sooner pay thirty shillin’s than not ’ave it, sir,” says Bill,
+’umbly.
+
+“I gave a lot of money for that mattress,” says the mate, ag’in. “I
+forgit ’ow much, but a lot. You don’t know ’ow valuable that mattress
+is.”
+
+“I know it’s a good one, sir, else you wouldn’t ’ave it,” says Bill.
+“Would a couple o’ pounds buy it, sir?”
+
+The second mate hum’d and ha’d, but Bill was afeard to go any ’igher.
+So far as ’e could make out from Jimmy, the mattress was worth about
+eighteen pence—to anybody who wasn’t pertiklar.
+
+“I’ve slept on that mattress for years,” says the second mate, looking
+at ’im from the corner of ’is eye. “I don’t believe I could sleep on
+another. Still, to oblige you, Bill, you shall ’ave it at that if you
+don’t want it till we go ashore?”
+
+“Thankee, sir,” says Bill, ’ardly able to keep from dancing, “and I’ll
+’and over the two pounds when we’re paid off. I shall keep it all my
+life, sir, in memory of you and your kindness.”
+
+“And mind you keep quiet about it,” says the second mate, who didn’t
+want the skipper to know wot ’e’d been doing, “because I don’t want to
+be bothered by other men wanting to buy things as keepsakes.”
+
+Bill promised ’im like a shot, and when ’e told me about it ’e was
+nearly crying with joy.
+
+“And mind,” ’e says, “I’ve bought that mattress, bought it as it
+stands, and it’s got nothing to do with Jimmy. We’ll each pay a pound
+and halve wot’s in it.”
+
+He persuaded me at last, but that boy watched us like a cat watching a
+couple of canaries, and I could see we should ’ave all we could do to
+deceive ’_im_. He seemed more suspicious o’ Bill than me, and ’e kep’
+worrying us nearly every day to know what we were going to do.
+
+We beat about in the channel with a strong ’ead-wind for four days, and
+then a tug picked us up and towed us to London.
+
+The excitement of that last little bit was ’orrible. Fust of all we ’ad
+got to get the mattress, and then in some way we ’ad got to get rid o’
+Jimmy. Bill’s idea was for me to take ’im ashore with me and tell ’im
+that Bill would join us arterwards, and then lose ’im; but I said that
+till I’d got my share I couldn’t bear to lose sight o’ Bill’s honest
+face for ’alf a second.
+
+And, besides, Jimmy wouldn’t ’ave gone.
+
+All the way up the river ’e stuck to Bill, and kept asking ’im wot we
+were to do. ’E was ’alf crying, and so excited that Bill was afraid the
+other chaps would notice it.
+
+We got to our berth in the East India Docks at last, and arter we were
+made fast we went below to ’ave a wash and change into our shoregoing
+togs. Jimmy watched us all the time, and then ’e comes up to Bill
+biting ’is nails, and says:
+
+“How’s it to be done, Bill?”
+
+“Hang about arter the rest ’ave gone ashore, and trust to luck,” says
+Bill, looking at me. “We’ll see ’ow the land lays when we draw our
+advance.”
+
+We went down aft to draw ten shillings each to go ashore with. Bill and
+me got ours fust, and then the second mate who ’ad tipped ’im the wink
+followed us out unconcerned-like and ’anded Bill the mattress rolled up
+in a sack.
+
+“’Ere you are, Bill,” ’e says.
+
+“Much obliged, sir,” says Bill, and ’is ’ands trembled so as ’e could
+’ardly ’old it, and ’e made to go off afore Jimmy come on deck.
+
+Then that fool of a mate kept us there while ’e made a little speech.
+Twice Bill made to go off, but ’e put ’is ’and on ’is arm and kept ’im
+there while ’e told ’im ’ow he’d always tried to be liked by the men,
+and ’ad generally succeeded, and in the middle of it up popped Master
+Jimmy.
+
+He gave a start as he saw the bag, and ’is eyes opened wide, and then
+as we walked forward ’e put ’is arm through Bill’s and called ’im all
+the names ’e could think of.
+
+“You’d steal the milk out of a cat’s saucer,” ’e says; “but mind, you
+don’t leave this ship till I’ve got my share.”
+
+“I meant it for a pleasant surprise for you, Jimmy,” says Bill, trying
+to smile.
+
+“I don’t like your surprises, Bill, so I don’t deceive you,” says the
+boy. “Where are you going to open it?”
+
+“I was thinking of opening it in my bunk,” says Bill. “The perlice
+might want to examine it if we took it through the dock. Come on,
+Jimmy, old man.”
+
+“Yes; all right,” says the boy, nodding ’is ’ead at ’im. “I’ll stay up
+’ere. You might forget yourself, Bill, if I trusted myself down there
+with you alone. You can throw my share up to me, and then you’ll leave
+the ship afore I do. See?”
+
+“Go to blazes,” says Bill; and then, seeing that the last chance ’ad
+gone, we went below, and ’e chucked the bundle in ’is bunk. There was
+only one chap down there, and arter spending best part o’ ten minutes
+doing ’is hair ’e nodded to us and went off.
+
+Half a minute later Bill cut open the mattress and began to search
+through the stuffing, while I struck matches and watched ’im. It wasn’t
+a big mattress and there wasn’t much stuffing, but we couldn’t seem to
+see that money. Bill went all over it ag’in and ag’in, and then ’e
+stood up and looked at me and caught ’is breath painful.
+
+“Do you think the mate found it?” ’e says, in a ’usky voice.
+
+We went through it ag’in, and then Bill went half-way up the fo’c’s’le
+ladder and called softly for Jimmy. He called three times, and then,
+with a sinking sensation in ’is stummick, ’e went up on deck and I
+follered ’im. The boy was nowhere to be seen. All we saw was the ship’s
+cat ’aving a wash and brush-up afore going ashore, and the skipper
+standing aft talking to the owner.
+
+We never saw that boy ag’in. He never turned up for ’is box, and ’e
+didn’t show up to draw ’is pay. Everybody else was there, of course,
+and arter I’d got mine and come outside I see pore Bill with ’is back
+up ag’in a wall, staring ’ard at the second mate, who was looking at
+’im with a kind smile, and asking ’im ’ow he’d slept. The last thing I
+saw of Bill, the pore chap ’ad got ’is ’ands in ’is trousers pockets,
+and was trying ’is hardest to smile back.
+
+
+
+
+THE WELL
+
+I
+
+Two men stood in the billiard-room of an old country house, talking.
+Play, which had been of a half-hearted nature, was over, and they sat
+at the open window, looking out over the park stretching away beneath
+them, conversing idly.
+
+“Your time’s nearly up, Jem,” said one at length, “this time six weeks
+you’ll be yawning out the honeymoon and cursing the man—woman I mean—
+who invented them.”
+
+Jem Benson stretched his long limbs in the chair and grunted in
+dissent.
+
+“I’ve never understood it,” continued Wilfred Carr, yawning. “It’s not
+in my line at all; I never had enough money for my own wants, let alone
+for two. Perhaps if I were as rich as you or Crœsus I might regard it
+differently.”
+
+There was just sufficient meaning in the latter part of the remark for
+his cousin to forbear to reply to it. He continued to gaze out of the
+window and to smoke slowly.
+
+“Not being as rich as Crœsus—or you,” resumed Carr, regarding him from
+beneath lowered lids, “I paddle my own canoe down the stream of Time,
+and, tying it to my friends’ door-posts, go in to eat their dinners.”
+
+“Quite Venetian,” said Jem Benson, still looking out of the window.
+“It’s not a bad thing for you, Wilfred, that you have the doorposts and
+dinners—and friends.”
+
+Carr grunted in his turn. “Seriously though, Jem,” he said, slowly,
+“you’re a lucky fellow, a very lucky fellow. If there is a better girl
+above ground than Olive, I should like to see her.”
+
+“Yes,” said the other, quietly.
+
+“She’s such an exceptional girl,” continued Carr, staring out of the
+window. “She’s so good and gentle. She thinks you are a bundle of all
+the virtues.”
+
+He laughed frankly and joyously, but the other man did not join him.
+“Strong sense—of right and wrong, though,” continued Carr, musingly.
+“Do you know, I believe that if she found out that you were not—-”
+
+“Not what?” demanded Benson, turning upon him fiercely, “Not what?”
+
+“Everything that you are,” returned his cousin, with a grin that belied
+his words, “I believe she’d drop you.”
+
+“Talk about something else,” said Benson, slowly; “your pleasantries
+are not always in the best taste.”
+
+Wilfred Carr rose and taking a cue from the rack, bent over the board
+and practiced one or two favourite shots. “The only other subject I can
+talk about just at present is my own financial affairs,” he said
+slowly, as he walked round the table.
+
+“Talk about something else,” said Benson again, bluntly.
+
+“And the two things are connected,” said Carr, and dropping his cue he
+half sat on the table and eyed his cousin.
+
+There was a long silence. Benson pitched the end of his cigar out of
+the window, and leaning back closed his eyes.
+
+“Do you follow me?” inquired Carr at length.
+
+Benson opened his eyes and nodded at the window.
+
+“Do you want to follow my cigar?” he demanded.
+
+“I should prefer to depart by the usual way for your sake,” returned
+the other, unabashed. “If I left by the window all sorts of questions
+would be asked, and you know what a talkative chap I am.”
+
+“So long as you don’t talk about my affairs,” returned the other,
+restraining himself by an obvious effort, “you can talk yourself
+hoarse.”
+
+“I’m in a mess,” said Carr, slowly, “a devil of a mess. If I don’t
+raise fifteen hundred by this day fortnight, I may be getting my board
+and lodging free.”
+
+“Would that be any change?” questioned Benson.
+
+“The quality would,” retorted the other. “The address also would not be
+good. Seriously, Jem, will you let me have the fifteen hundred?”
+
+“No,” said the other, simply.
+
+Carr went white. “It’s to save me from ruin,” he said, thickly.
+
+“I’ve helped you till I’m tired,” said Benson, turning and regarding
+him, “and it is all to no good. If you’ve got into a mess, get out of
+it. You should not be so fond of giving autographs away.”
+
+“It’s foolish, I admit,” said Carr, deliberately. “I won’t do so any
+more. By the way, I’ve got some to sell. You needn’t sneer. They’re not
+my own.”
+
+“Whose are they?” inquired the other.
+
+“Yours.”
+
+Benson got up from his chair and crossed over to him. “What is this?”
+he asked, quietly. “Blackmail?”
+
+“Call it what you like,” said Carr. “I’ve got some letters for sale,
+price fifteen hundred. And I know a man who would buy them at that
+price for the mere chance of getting Olive from you. I’ll give you
+first offer.”
+
+“If you have got any letters bearing my signature, you will be good
+enough to give them to me,” said Benson, very slowly.
+
+“They’re mine,” said Carr, lightly; “given to me by the lady you wrote
+them to. I must say that they are not all in the best possible taste.”
+
+His cousin reached forward suddenly, and catching him by the collar of
+his coat pinned him down on the table.
+
+“Give me those letters,” he breathed, sticking his face close to
+Carr’s.
+
+“They’re not here,” said Carr, struggling. “I’m not a fool. Let me go,
+or I’ll raise the price.”
+
+The other man raised him from the table in his powerful hands,
+apparently with the intention of dashing his head against it. Then
+suddenly his hold relaxed as an astonished-looking maid-servant entered
+the room with letters. Carr sat up hastily.
+
+“That’s how it was done,” said Benson, for the girl’s benefit as he
+took the letters.
+
+“I don’t wonder at the other man making him pay for it, then,” said
+Carr, blandly.
+
+“You will give me those letters?” said Benson, suggestively, as the
+girl left the room.
+
+“At the price I mentioned, yes,” said Carr; “but so sure as I am a
+living man, if you lay your clumsy hands on me again, I’ll double it.
+Now, I’ll leave you for a time while you think it over.”
+
+He took a cigar from the box and lighting it carefully quitted the
+room. His cousin waited until the door had closed behind him, and then
+turning to the window sat there in a fit of fury as silent as it was
+terrible.
+
+The air was fresh and sweet from the park, heavy with the scent of
+new-mown grass. The fragrance of a cigar was now added to it, and
+glancing out he saw his cousin pacing slowly by. He rose and went to
+the door, and then, apparently altering his mind, he returned to the
+window and watched the figure of his cousin as it moved slowly away
+into the moonlight. Then he rose again, and, for a long time, the room
+was empty.
+
+
+It was empty when Mrs. Benson came in some time later to say good-night
+to her son on her way to bed. She walked slowly round the table, and
+pausing at the window gazed from it in idle thought, until she saw the
+figure of her son advancing with rapid strides toward the house. He
+looked up at the window.
+
+“Good-night,” said she.
+
+“Good-night,” said Benson, in a deep voice.
+
+“Where is Wilfred?”
+
+“Oh, he has gone,” said Benson.
+
+“Gone?”
+
+“We had a few words; he was wanting money again, and I gave him a piece
+of my mind. I don’t think we shall see him again.”
+
+“Poor Wilfred!” sighed Mrs. Benson. “He is always in trouble of some
+sort. I hope that you were not too hard upon him.”
+
+“No more than he deserved,” said her son, sternly. “Good night.”
+
+II
+
+The well, which had long ago fallen into disuse, was almost hidden by
+the thick tangle of undergrowth which ran riot at that corner of the
+old park. It was partly covered by the shrunken half of a lid, above
+which a rusty windlass creaked in company with the music of the pines
+when the wind blew strongly. The full light of the sun never reached
+it, and the ground surrounding it was moist and green when other parts
+of the park were gaping with the heat.
+
+Two people walking slowly round the park in the fragrant stillness of a
+summer evening strayed in the direction of the well.
+
+“No use going through this wilderness, Olive,” said Benson, pausing on
+the outskirts of the pines and eyeing with some disfavour the gloom
+beyond.
+
+“Best part of the park,” said the girl briskly; “you know it’s my
+favourite spot.”
+
+“I know you’re very fond of sitting on the coping,” said the man
+slowly, “and I wish you wouldn’t. One day you will lean back too far
+and fall in.”
+
+“And make the acquaintance of Truth,” said Olive lightly. “Come along.”
+
+She ran from him and was lost in the shadow of the pines, the bracken
+crackling beneath her feet as she ran. Her companion followed slowly,
+and emerging from the gloom saw her poised daintily on the edge of the
+well with her feet hidden in the rank grass and nettles which
+surrounded it. She motioned her companion to take a seat by her side,
+and smiled softly as she felt a strong arm passed about her waist.
+
+“I like this place,” said she, breaking a long silence, “it is so
+dismal —so uncanny. Do you know I wouldn’t dare to sit here alone, Jem.
+I should imagine that all sorts of dreadful things were hidden behind
+the bushes and trees, waiting to spring out on me. Ugh!”
+
+“You’d better let me take you in,” said her companion tenderly; “the
+well isn’t always wholesome, especially in the hot weather.
+
+“Let’s make a move.”
+
+The girl gave an obstinate little shake, and settled herself more
+securely on her seat.
+
+“Smoke your cigar in peace,” she said quietly. “I am settled here for a
+quiet talk. Has anything been heard of Wilfred yet?”
+
+“Nothing.”
+
+“Quite a dramatic disappearance, isn’t it?” she continued. “Another
+scrape, I suppose, and another letter for you in the same old strain;
+‘Dear Jem, help me out.’”
+
+Jem Benson blew a cloud of fragrant smoke into the air, and holding his
+cigar between his teeth brushed away the ash from his coat sleeves.
+
+“I wonder what he would have done without you,” said the girl, pressing
+his arm affectionately. “Gone under long ago, I suppose. When we are
+married, Jem, I shall presume upon the relationship to lecture him. He
+is very wild, but he has his good points, poor fellow.”
+
+“I never saw them,” said Benson, with startling bitterness. “God knows
+I never saw them.”
+
+“He is nobody’s enemy but his own,” said the girl, startled by this
+outburst.
+
+“You don’t know much about him,” said the other, sharply. “He was not
+above blackmail; not above ruining the life of a friend to do himself a
+benefit. A loafer, a cur, and a liar!”
+
+The girl looked up at him soberly but timidly and took his arm without
+a word, and they both sat silent while evening deepened into night and
+the beams of the moon, filtering through the branches, surrounded them
+with a silver network. Her head sank upon his shoulder, till suddenly
+with a sharp cry she sprang to her feet.
+
+“What was that?” she cried breathlessly.
+
+“What was what?” demanded Benson, springing up and clutching her fast
+by the arm.
+
+She caught her breath and tried to laugh.
+
+“You’re hurting me, Jem.”
+
+His hold relaxed.
+
+“What is the matter?” he asked gently.
+
+“What was it startled you?”
+
+“I was startled,” she said, slowly, putting her hands on his shoulder.
+“I suppose the words I used just now are ringing in my ears, but I
+fancied that somebody behind us whispered ‘_Jem, help me out_.’”
+
+“Fancy,” repeated Benson, and his voice shook; “but these fancies are
+not good for you. You—are frightened—at the dark and the gloom of these
+trees. Let me take you back to the house.”
+
+“No, I’m not frightened,” said the girl, reseating herself. “I should
+never be really frightened of anything when you were with me, Jem. I’m
+surprised at myself for being so silly.”
+
+The man made no reply but stood, a strong, dark figure, a yard or two
+from the well, as though waiting for her to join him.
+
+“Come and sit down, sir,” cried Olive, patting the brickwork with her
+small, white hand, “one would think that you did not like your
+company.”
+
+He obeyed slowly and took a seat by her side, drawing so hard at his
+cigar that the light of it shone upon his face at every breath. He
+passed his arm, firm and rigid as steel, behind her, with his hand
+resting on the brickwork beyond.
+
+“Are you warm enough?” he asked tenderly, as she made a little
+movement. “Pretty fair,” she shivered; “one oughtn’t to be cold at this
+time of the year, but there’s a cold, damp air comes up from the well.”
+
+As she spoke a faint splash sounded from the depths below, and for the
+second time that evening, she sprang from the well with a little cry of
+dismay.
+
+“What is it now?” he asked in a fearful voice. He stood by her side and
+gazed at the well, as though half expecting to see the cause of her
+alarm emerge from it.
+
+“Oh, my bracelet,” she cried in distress, “my poor mother’s bracelet.
+I’ve dropped it down the well.”
+
+“Your bracelet!” repeated Benson, dully. “Your bracelet? The diamond
+one?”
+
+“The one that was my mother’s,” said Olive. “Oh, we can get it back
+surely. We must have the water drained off.”
+
+“Your bracelet!” repeated Benson, stupidly.
+
+“Jem,” said the girl in terrified tones, “dear Jem, what is the
+matter?”
+
+For the man she loved was standing regarding her with horror. The moon
+which touched it was not responsible for all the whiteness of the
+distorted face, and she shrank back in fear to the edge of the well. He
+saw her fear and by a mighty effort regained his composure and took her
+hand.
+
+“Poor little girl,” he murmured, “you frightened me. I was not looking
+when you cried, and I thought that you were slipping from my arms,
+down—down—”
+
+His voice broke, and the girl throwing herself into his arms clung to
+him convulsively.
+
+“There, there,” said Benson, fondly, “don’t cry, don’t cry.”
+
+“To-morrow,” said Olive, half-laughing, half-crying, “we will all come
+round the well with hook and line and fish for it. It will be quite a
+new sport.”
+
+“No, we must try some other way,” said Benson. “You shall have it
+back.”
+
+“How?” asked the girl.
+
+“You shall see,” said Benson. “To-morrow morning at latest you shall
+have it back. Till then promise me that you will not mention your loss
+to anyone. Promise.”
+
+“I promise,” said Olive, wonderingly. “But why not?”
+
+“It is of great value, for one thing, and—But there—there are many
+reasons. For one thing it is my duty to get it for you.”
+
+“Wouldn’t you like to jump down for it?” she asked mischievously.
+“Listen.”
+
+She stooped for a stone and dropped it down.
+
+“Fancy being where that is now,” she said, peering into the blackness;
+“fancy going round and round like a mouse in a pail, clutching at the
+slimy sides, with the water filling your mouth, and looking up to the
+little patch of sky above.”
+
+“You had better come in,” said Benson, very quietly. “You are
+developing a taste for the morbid and horrible.”
+
+The girl turned, and taking his arm walked slowly in the direction of
+the house; Mrs. Benson, who was sitting in the porch, rose to receive
+them.
+
+“You shouldn’t have kept her out so long,” she said chidingly. “Where
+have you been?”
+
+“Sitting on the well,” said Olive, smiling, “discussing our future.”
+
+“I don’t believe that place is healthy,” said Mrs. Benson,
+emphatically. “I really think it might be filled in, Jem.”
+
+“All right,” said her son, slowly. “Pity it wasn’t filled in long ago.”
+
+He took the chair vacated by his mother as she entered the house with
+Olive, and with his hands hanging limply over the sides sat in deep
+thought. After a time he rose, and going upstairs to a room which was
+set apart for sporting requisites selected a sea fishing line and some
+hooks and stole softly downstairs again. He walked swiftly across the
+park in the direction of the well, turning before he entered the shadow
+of the trees to look back at the lighted windows of the house. Then
+having arranged his line he sat on the edge of the well and cautiously
+lowered it.
+
+He sat with his lips compressed, occasionally looking about him in a
+startled fashion, as though he half expected to see something peering
+at him from the belt of trees. Time after time he lowered his line
+until at length in pulling it up he heard a little metallic tinkle
+against the side of the well.
+
+He held his breath then, and forgetting his fears drew the line in inch
+by inch, so as not to lose its precious burden. His pulse beat rapidly,
+and his eyes were bright. As the line came slowly in he saw the catch
+hanging to the hook, and with a steady hand drew the last few feet in.
+Then he saw that instead of the bracelet he had hooked a bunch of keys.
+
+With a faint cry he shook them from the hook into the water below, and
+stood breathing heavily. Not a sound broke the stillness of the night.
+He walked up and down a bit and stretched his great muscles; then he
+came back to the well and resumed his task.
+
+For an hour or more the line was lowered without result. In his
+eagerness he forgot his fears, and with eyes bent down the well fished
+slowly and carefully. Twice the hook became entangled in something, and
+was with difficulty released. It caught a third time, and all his
+efforts failed’ to free it. Then he dropped the line down the well, and
+with head bent walked toward the house.
+
+He went first to the stables at the rear, and then retiring to his room
+for some time paced restlessly up and down. Then without removing his
+clothes he flung himself upon the bed and fell into a troubled sleep.
+
+III
+
+Long before anybody else was astir he arose and stole softly
+downstairs. The sunlight was stealing in at every crevice, and flashing
+in long streaks across the darkened rooms. The dining-room into which
+he looked struck chill and cheerless in the dark yellow light which
+came through the lowered blinds. He remembered that it had the same
+appearance when his father lay dead in the house; now, as then,
+everything seemed ghastly and unreal; the very chairs standing as their
+occupants had left them the night before seemed to be indulging in some
+dark communication of ideas.
+
+Slowly and noiselessly he opened the hall door and passed into the
+fragrant air beyond. The sun was shining on the drenched grass and
+trees, and a slowly vanishing white mist rolled like smoke about the
+grounds. For a moment he stood, breathing deeply the sweet air of the
+morning, and then walked slowly in the direction of the stables.
+
+The rusty creaking of a pump-handle and a spatter of water upon the
+red-tiled courtyard showed that somebody else was astir, and a few
+steps farther he beheld a brawny, sandy-haired man gasping wildly under
+severe self-infliction at the pump.
+
+“Everything ready, George?” he asked quietly.
+
+“Yes, sir,” said the man, straightening up suddenly and touching his
+forehead. “Bob’s just finishing the arrangements inside. It’s a lovely
+morning for a dip. The water in that well must be just icy.”
+
+“Be as quick as you can,” said Benson, impatiently.
+
+“Very good, sir,” said George, burnishing his face harshly with a very
+small towel which had been hanging over the top of the pump. “Hurry up,
+Bob.”
+
+In answer to his summons a man appeared at the door of the stable with
+a coil of stout rope over his arm and a large metal candlestick in his
+hand.
+
+“Just to try the air, sir,” said George, following his master’s glance,
+“a well gets rather foul sometimes, but if a candle can live down it, a
+man can.”
+
+His master nodded, and the man, hastily pulling up the neck of his
+shirt and thrusting his arms into his coat, followed him as he led the
+way slowly to the well.
+
+“Beg pardon, sir,” said George, drawing up to his side, “but you are
+not looking over and above well this morning. If you’ll let me go down
+I’d enjoy the bath.”
+
+“No, no,” said Benson, peremptorily.
+
+“You ain’t fit to go down, sir,” persisted his follower. “I’ve never
+seen you look so before. Now if—”
+
+“Mind your business,” said his master curtly.
+
+George became silent and the three walked with swinging strides through
+the long wet grass to the well. Bob flung the rope on the ground and at
+a sign from his master handed him the candlestick.
+
+“Here’s the line for it, sir,” said Bob, fumbling in his pockets.
+
+Benson took it from him and slowly tied it to the candlestick. Then he
+placed it on the edge of the well, and striking a match, lit the candle
+and began slowly to lower it.
+
+“Hold hard, sir,” said George, quickly, laying his hand on his arm,
+“you must tilt it or the string’ll burn through.”
+
+Even as he spoke the string parted and the candlestick fell into the
+water below.
+
+Benson swore quietly.
+
+“I’ll soon get another,” said George, starting up.
+
+“Never mind, the well’s all right,” said Benson.
+
+“It won’t take a moment, sir,” said the other over his shoulder.
+
+“Are you master here, or am I?” said Benson hoarsely.
+
+George came back slowly, a glance at his master’s face stopping the
+protest upon his tongue, and he stood by watching him sulkily as he sat
+on the well and removed his outer garments. Both men watched him
+curiously, as having completed his preparations he stood grim and
+silent with his hands by his sides.
+
+“I wish you’d let me go, sir,” said George, plucking up courage to
+address him. “You ain’t fit to go, you’ve got a chill or something. I
+shouldn’t wonder it’s the typhoid. They’ve got it in the village bad.”
+
+For a moment Benson looked at him angrily, then his gaze softened. “Not
+this time, George,” he said, quietly. He took the looped end of the
+rope and placed it under his arms, and sitting down threw one leg over
+the side of the well.
+
+“How are you going about it, sir?” queried George, laying hold of the
+rope and signing to Bob to do the same.
+
+“I’ll call out when I reach the water,” said Benson; “then pay out
+three yards more quickly so that I can get to the bottom.”
+
+“Very good, sir,” answered both.
+
+Their master threw the other leg over the coping and sat motionless.
+His back was turned toward the men as he sat with head bent, looking
+down the shaft. He sat for so long that George became uneasy.
+
+“All right, sir?” he inquired.
+
+“Yes,” said Benson, slowly. “If I tug at the rope, George, pull up at
+once. Lower away.”
+
+The rope passed steadily through their hands until a hollow cry from
+the darkness below and a faint splashing warned them that he had
+reached the water. They gave him three yards more and stood with
+relaxed grasp and strained ears, waiting.
+
+“He’s gone under,” said Bob in a low voice.
+
+The other nodded, and moistening his huge palms took a firmer grip of
+the rope.
+
+Fully a minute passed, and the men began to exchange uneasy glances.
+Then a sudden tremendous jerk followed by a series of feebler ones
+nearly tore the rope from their grasp.
+
+“Pull!” shouted George, placing one foot on the side and hauling
+desperately. “Pull! pull! He’s stuck fast; he’s not coming; PULL!”
+
+In response to their terrific exertions the rope came slowly in, inch
+by inch, until at length a violent splashing was heard, and at the same
+moment a scream of unutterable horror came echoing up the shaft.
+
+“What a weight he is!” panted Bob. “He’s stuck fast or something. Keep
+still, sir; for heaven’s sake, keep still.”
+
+For the taut rope was being jerked violently by the struggles of the
+weight at the end of it. Both men with grunts and sighs hauled it in
+foot by foot.
+
+“All right, sir,” cried George, cheerfully.
+
+He had one foot against the well, and was pulling manfully; the burden
+was nearing the top. A long pull and a strong pull, and the face of a
+dead man with mud in the eyes and nostrils came peering over the edge.
+Behind it was the ghastly face of his master; but this he saw too late,
+for with a great cry he let go his hold of the rope and stepped back.
+The suddenness overthrew his assistant, and the rope tore through his
+hands. There was a frightful splash.
+
+“You fool!” stammered Bob, and ran to the well helplessly.
+
+“Run!” cried George. “Run for another line.”
+
+He bent over the coping and called eagerly down as his assistant sped
+back to the stables shouting wildly. His voice re-echoed down the
+shaft, but all else was silence.
+
+
+
+
+CUPBOARD LOVE
+
+
+In the comfortable living-room at Negget’s farm, half parlour and half
+kitchen, three people sat at tea in the waning light of a November
+afternoon. Conversation, which had been brisk, had languished somewhat,
+owing to Mrs. Negget glancing at frequent intervals toward the door,
+behind which she was convinced the servant was listening, and checking
+the finest periods and the most startling suggestions with a warning
+’_ssh!_
+
+“Go on, uncle,” she said, after one of these interruptions.
+
+“I forget where I was,” said Mr. Martin Bodfish, shortly.
+
+“Under our bed,” Mr. Negget reminded him.
+
+“Yes, watching,” said Mrs. Negget, eagerly.
+
+It was an odd place for an ex-policeman, especially as a small legacy
+added to his pension had considerably improved his social position, but
+Mr. Bodfish had himself suggested it in the professional hope that the
+person who had taken Mrs. Negget’s gold brooch might try for further
+loot. He had, indeed, suggested baiting the dressing-table with the
+farmer’s watch, an idea which Mr. Negget had promptly vetoed.
+
+“I can’t help thinking that Mrs. Pottle knows something about it,” said
+Mrs. Negget, with an indignant glance at her husband.
+
+“Mrs. Pottle,” said the farmer, rising slowly and taking a seat on the
+oak settle built in the fireplace, “has been away from the village for
+near a fortnit.”
+
+“I didn’t say she took it,” snapped his wife. “I said I believe she
+knows something about it, and so I do. She’s a horrid woman. Look at
+the way she encouraged her girl Looey to run after that young traveller
+from Smithson’s. The whole fact of the matter is, it isn’t your brooch,
+so you don’t care.”
+
+“I said—” began Mr. Negget.
+
+“I know what you said,” retorted his wife, sharply, “and I wish you’d
+be quiet and not interrupt uncle. Here’s my uncle been in the police
+twenty-five years, and you won’t let him put a word in edgeways.’
+
+“My way o’ looking at it,” said the ex-policeman, slowly, “is different
+to that o’ the law; my idea is, an’ always has been, that everybody is
+guilty until they’ve proved their innocence.”
+
+“It’s a wonderful thing to me,” said Mr. Negget in a low voice to his
+pipe, “as they should come to a house with a retired policeman living
+in it. Looks to me like somebody that ain’t got much respect for the
+police.”
+
+The ex-policeman got up from the table, and taking a seat on the settle
+opposite the speaker, slowly filled a long clay and took a spill from
+the fireplace. His pipe lit, he turned to his niece, and slowly bade
+her go over the account of her loss once more.
+
+“I missed it this morning,” said Mrs. Negget, rapidly, “at ten minutes
+past twelve o’clock by the clock, and half-past five by my watch which
+wants looking to. I’d just put the batch of bread into the oven, and
+gone upstairs and opened the box that stands on my drawers to get a
+lozenge, and I missed the brooch.”
+
+“Do you keep it in that box?” asked the ex-policeman, slowly.
+
+“Always,” replied his niece. “I at once came down stairs and told Emma
+that the brooch had been stolen. I said that I named no names, and
+didn’t wish to think bad of anybody, and that if I found the brooch
+back in the box when I went up stairs again, I should forgive whoever
+took it.”
+
+“And what did Emma say?” inquired Mr. Bodfish.
+
+“Emma said a lot o’ things,” replied Mrs. Negget, angrily. “I’m sure by
+the lot she had to say you’d ha’ thought she was the missis and me the
+servant. I gave her a month’s notice at once, and she went straight up
+stairs and sat on her box and cried.”
+
+“Sat on her box?” repeated the ex-constable, impressively. “Oh!”
+
+“That’s what I thought,” said his niece, “but it wasn’t, because I got
+her off at last and searched it through and through. I never saw
+anything like her clothes in all my life. There was hardly a button or
+a tape on; and as for her stockings—”
+
+“She don’t get much time,” said Mr. Negget, slowly.
+
+“That’s right; I thought you’d speak up for her,” cried his wife,
+shrilly.
+
+“Look here—” began Mr. Negget, laying his pipe on the seat by his side
+and rising slowly.
+
+“Keep to the case in hand,” said the ex-constable, waving him back to
+his seat again. “Now, Lizzie.”
+
+“I searched her box through and through,” said his niece, “but it
+wasn’t there; then I came down again and had a rare good cry all to
+myself.”
+
+“That’s the best way for you to have it,” remarked Mr. Negget,
+feelingly.
+
+Mrs. Negget’s uncle instinctively motioned his niece to silence, and
+holding his chin in his hand, scowled frightfully in the intensity of
+thought.
+
+“See a cloo?” inquired Mr. Negget, affably.
+
+“You ought to be ashamed of yourself, George,” said his wife, angrily;
+“speaking to uncle when he’s looking like that.”
+
+Mr. Bodfish said nothing; it is doubtful whether he even heard these
+remarks; but he drew a huge notebook from his pocket, and after vainly
+trying to point his pencil by suction, took a knife from the table and
+hastily sharpened it.
+
+“Was the brooch there last night?” he inquired.
+
+“It were,” said Mr. Negget, promptly. “Lizzie made me get up just as
+the owd clock were striking twelve to get her a lozenge.”
+
+“It seems pretty certain that the brooch went since then,” mused Mr.
+Bodfish.
+
+“It would seem like it to a plain man,” said Mr. Negget, guardedly.
+
+“I should like to see the box,” said Mr. Bodfish.
+
+Mrs. Negget went up and fetched it and stood eyeing him eagerly as he
+raised the lid and inspected the contents. It contained only a few
+lozenges and some bone studs. Mr. Negget helped himself to a lozenge,
+and going back to his seat, breathed peppermint.
+
+“Properly speaking, that ought not to have been touched,” said the
+ex-constable, regarding him with some severity.
+
+“Eh!” said the startled farmer, putting his finger to his lips.
+
+“Never mind,” said the other, shaking his head. “It’s too late now.”
+
+“He doesn’t care a bit,” said Mrs. Negget, somewhat sadly. “He used to
+keep buttons in that box with the lozenges until one night he gave me
+one by mistake. Yes, you may laugh—I’m glad you can laugh.”
+
+Mr. Negget, feeling that his mirth was certainly ill-timed, shook for
+some time in a noble effort to control himself, and despairing at
+length, went into the back place to recover. Sounds of blows indicative
+of Emma slapping him on the back did not add to Mrs. Negget’s serenity.
+
+“The point is,” said the ex-constable, “could anybody have come into
+your room while you was asleep and taken it?”
+
+“No,” said Mrs. Negget, decisively. “I’m a very poor sleeper, and I’d
+have woke at once, but if a flock of elephants was to come in the room
+they wouldn’t wake George. He’d sleep through anything.”
+
+“Except her feeling under my piller for her handkerchief,” corroborated
+Mr. Negget, returning to the sitting-room.
+
+Mr. Bodfish waved them to silence, and again gave way to deep thought.
+Three times he took up his pencil, and laying it down again, sat and
+drummed on the table with his fingers. Then he arose, and with bent
+head walked slowly round and round the room until he stumbled over a
+stool.
+
+“Nobody came to the house this morning, I suppose?” he said at length,
+resuming his seat.
+
+“Only Mrs. Driver,” said his niece.
+
+“What time did she come?” inquired Mr. Bodfish.
+
+“Here! look here!” interposed Mr. Negget. “I’ve known Mrs. Driver
+thirty year a’most.”
+
+“What time did she come?” repeated the ex-constable, pitilessly.
+
+His niece shook her head. “It might have been eleven, and again it
+might have been earlier,” she replied. “I was out when she came.”
+
+“Out!” almost shouted the other.
+
+Mrs. Negget nodded.
+
+“She was sitting in here when I came back.”
+
+Her uncle looked up and glanced at the door behind which a small
+staircase led to the room above.
+
+“What was to prevent Mrs. Driver going up there while you were away?”
+he demanded.
+
+“I shouldn’t like to think that of Mrs. Driver,” said his niece,
+shaking her head; “but then in these days one never knows what might
+happen. Never. I’ve given up thinking about it. However, when I came
+back, Mrs. Driver was here, sitting in that very chair you are sitting
+in now.”
+
+Mr. Bodfish pursed up his lips and made another note. Then he took a
+spill from the fireplace, and lighting a candle, went slowly and
+carefully up the stairs. He found nothing on them but two caked rims of
+mud, and being too busy to notice Mr. Negget’s frantic signalling,
+called his niece’s attention to them.
+
+“What do you think of that?” he demanded, triumphantly.
+
+“Somebody’s been up there,” said his niece. “It isn’t Emma, because she
+hasn’t been outside the house all day; and it can’t be George, because
+he promised me faithful he’d never go up there in his dirty boots.”
+
+Mr. Negget coughed, and approaching the stairs, gazed with the eye of a
+stranger at the relics as Mr. Bodfish hotly rebuked a suggestion of his
+niece’s to sweep them up.
+
+“Seems to me,” said the conscience-stricken Mr. Negget, feebly, “as
+they’re rather large for a woman.”
+
+“Mud cakes,” said Mr. Bodfish, with his most professional manner; “a
+small boot would pick up a lot this weather.”
+
+“So it would,” said Mr. Negget, and with brazen effrontery not only met
+his wife’s eye without quailing, but actually glanced down at her
+boots.
+
+Mr. Bodfish came back to his chair and ruminated. Then he looked up and
+spoke.
+
+“It was missed this morning at ten minutes past twelve,” he said,
+slowly; “it was there last night. At eleven o’clock you came in and
+found Mrs. Driver sitting in that chair.”
+
+“No, the one you’re in,” interrupted his niece.
+
+“It don’t signify,” said her uncle. “Nobody else has been near the
+place, and Emma’s box has been searched.
+
+“Thoroughly searched,” testified Mrs. Negget.
+
+“Now the point is, what did Mrs. Driver come for this morning?” resumed
+the ex-constable. “Did she come—”
+
+He broke off and eyed with dignified surprise a fine piece of wireless
+telegraphy between husband and wife. It appeared that Mr. Negget sent
+off a humorous message with his left eye, the right being for some
+reason closed, to which Mrs. Negget replied with a series of frowns and
+staccato shakes of the head, which her husband found easily
+translatable. Under the austere stare of Mr. Bodfish their faces at
+once regained their wonted calm, and the ex-constable in a somewhat
+offended manner resumed his inquiries.
+
+“Mrs. Driver has been here a good bit lately,” he remarked, slowly.
+
+Mr. Negget’s eyes watered, and his mouth worked piteously.
+
+“If you can’t behave yourself, George,” began his wife, fiercely.
+
+“What is the matter?” demanded Mr. Bodfish. “I’m not aware that I’ve
+said anything to be laughed at.”
+
+“No more you have, uncle,” retorted his niece; “only George is such a
+stupid. He’s got an idea in his silly head that Mrs. Driver—But it’s
+all nonsense, of course.”
+
+“I’ve merely got a bit of an idea that it’s a wedding-ring, not a
+brooch, Mrs. Driver is after,” said the farmer to the perplexed
+constable.
+
+Mr. Bodfish looked from one to the other. “But you always keep yours
+on, Lizzie, don’t you?” he asked.
+
+“Yes, of course,” replied his niece, hurriedly; “but George has always
+got such strange ideas. Don’t take no notice of him.”
+
+Her uncle sat back in his chair, his face still wrinkled perplexedly;
+then the wrinkles vanished suddenly, chased away by a huge glow, and he
+rose wrathfully and towered over the match-making Mr. Negget. “How dare
+you?” he gasped.
+
+Mr. Negget made no reply, but in a cowardly fashion jerked his thumb
+toward his wife.
+
+“Oh! George! How can you say so?” said the latter.
+
+“I should never ha’ thought of it by myself,” said the farmer; “but I
+think they’d make a very nice couple, and I’m sure Mrs. Driver thinks
+so.”
+
+The ex-constable sat down in wrathful confusion, and taking up his
+notebook again, watched over the top of it the silent charges and
+countercharges of his niece and her husband.
+
+“If I put my finger on the culprit,” he asked at length, turning to his
+niece, “what do you wish done to her?”
+
+Mrs. Negget regarded him with an expression which contained all the
+Christian virtues rolled into one.
+
+“Nothing,” she said, softly. “I only want my brooch back.”
+
+The ex-constable shook his head at this leniency.
+
+“Well, do as you please,” he said, slowly. “In the first place, I want
+you to ask Mrs. Driver here to tea to-morrow—oh, I don’t mind Negget’s
+ridiculous ideas—pity he hasn’t got something better to think of; if
+she’s guilty, I’ll soon find it out. I’ll play with her like a cat with
+a mouse. I’ll make her convict herself.”
+
+“Look here!” said Mr. Negget, with sudden vigour. “I won’t have it. I
+won’t have no woman asked here to tea to be got at like that. There’s
+only my friends comes here to tea, and if any friend stole anything o’
+mine, I’d be one o’ the first to hush it up.”
+
+“If they were all like you, George,” said his wife, angrily, “where
+would the law be?”
+
+“Or the police?” demanded Mr. Bodfish, staring at him.
+
+“I won’t have it!” repeated the farmer, loudly. “I’m the law here, and
+I’m the police here. That little tiny bit o’ dirt was off my boots, I
+dare say. I don’t care if it was.”
+
+“Very good,” said Mr. Bodfish, turning to his indignant niece; “if he
+likes to look at it that way, there’s nothing more to be said. I only
+wanted to get your brooch back for you, that’s all; but if he’s against
+it—”
+
+“I’m against your asking Mrs. Driver here to my house to be got at,”
+said the farmer.
+
+“O’ course if you can find out who took the brooch, and get it back
+again anyway, that’s another matter.”
+
+Mr. Bodfish leaned over the table toward his niece.
+
+“If I get an opportunity, I’ll search her cottage,” he said, in a low
+voice. “Strictly speaking, it ain’t quite a legal thing to do, o
+course, but many o’ the finest pieces of detective work have been done
+by breaking the law. If she’s a kleptomaniac, it’s very likely lying
+about somewhere in the house.”
+
+He eyed Mr. Negget closely, as though half expecting another outburst,
+but none being forthcoming, sat back in his chair again and smoked in
+silence, while Mrs. Negget, with a carpet-brush which almost spoke,
+swept the pieces of dried mud from the stairs.
+
+Mr. Negget was the last to go to bed that night, and finishing his pipe
+over the dying fire, sat for some time in deep thought. He had from the
+first raised objections to the presence of Mr. Bodfish at the farm, but
+family affection, coupled with an idea of testamentary benefits, had so
+wrought with his wife that he had allowed her to have her own way. Now
+he half fancied that he saw a chance of getting rid of him. If he could
+only enable the widow to catch him searching her house, it was highly
+probable that the ex-constable would find the village somewhat too hot
+to hold him. He gave his right leg a congratulatory slap as he thought
+of it, and knocking the ashes from his pipe, went slowly up to bed.
+
+He was so amiable next morning that Mr. Bodfish, who was trying to
+explain to Mrs. Negget the difference between theft and kleptomania,
+spoke before him freely. The ex-constable defined kleptomania as a sort
+of amiable weakness found chiefly among the upper circles, and cited
+the case of a lady of title whose love of diamonds, combined with great
+hospitality, was a source of much embarrassment to her guests.
+
+For the whole of that day Mr. Bodfish hung about in the neighbourhood
+of the widow’s cottage, but in vain, and it would be hard to say
+whether he or Mr. Negget, who had been discreetly shadowing him, felt
+the disappointment most. On the day following, however, the
+ex-constable from a distant hedge saw a friend of the widow’s enter the
+cottage, and a little later both ladies emerged and walked up the road.
+
+He watched them turn the corner, and then, with a cautious glance
+round, which failed, however, to discover Mr. Negget, the ex-constable
+strolled casually in the direction of the cottage, and approaching it
+from the rear, turned the handle of the door and slipped in.
+
+He searched the parlour hastily, and then, after a glance from the
+window, ventured up stairs. And he was in the thick of his self-imposed
+task when his graceless nephew by marriage, who had met Mrs. Driver and
+referred pathetically to a raging thirst which he had hoped to have
+quenched with some of her home-brewed, brought the ladies hastily back
+again.
+
+“I’ll go round the back way,” said the wily Negget as they approached
+the cottage. “I just want to have a look at that pig of yours.”
+
+He reached the back door at the same time as Mr. Bodfish, and placing
+his legs apart, held it firmly against the frantic efforts of the
+exconstable. The struggle ceased suddenly, and the door opened easily
+just as Mrs. Driver and her friend appeared in the front room, and the
+farmer, with a keen glance at the door of the larder which had just
+closed, took a chair while his hostess drew a glass of beer from the
+barrel in the kitchen.
+
+Mr. Negget drank gratefully and praised the brew. From beer the
+conversation turned naturally to the police, and from the police to the
+listening Mr. Bodfish, who was economizing space by sitting on the
+bread-pan, and trembling with agitation.
+
+“He’s a lonely man,” said Negget, shaking his head and glancing from
+the corner of his eye at the door of the larder. In his wildest dreams
+he had not imagined so choice a position, and he resolved to give full
+play to an idea which suddenly occurred to him.
+
+“I dare say,” said Mrs. Driver, carelessly, conscious that her friend
+was watching her.
+
+“And the heart of a little child,” said Negget; “you wouldn’t believe
+how simple he is.”
+
+Mrs. Clowes said that it did him credit, but, speaking for herself, she
+hadn’t noticed it.
+
+“He was talking about you night before last,” said Negget, turning to
+his hostess; “not that that’s anything fresh. He always is talking
+about you nowadays.”
+
+The widow coughed confusedly and told him not to be foolish.
+
+“Ask my wife,” said the farmer, impressively; “they were talking about
+you for hours. He’s a very shy man is my wife’s uncle, but you should
+see his face change when your name’s mentioned.”
+
+As a matter of fact, Mr. Bodfish’s face was at that very moment taking
+on a deeper shade of crimson.
+
+“Everything you do seems to interest him,” continued the farmer,
+disregarding Mrs. Driver’s manifest distress; “he was asking Lizzie
+about your calling on Monday; how long you stayed, and where you sat;
+and after she’d told him, I’m blest if he didn’t go and sit in the same
+chair!”
+
+This romantic setting to a perfectly casual action on the part of Mr.
+Bodfish affected the widow visibly, but its effect on the ex-constable
+nearly upset the bread-pan.
+
+“But here,” continued Mr. Negget, with another glance at the larder,
+“he might go on like that for years. He’s a wunnerful shy man—big, and
+gentle, and shy. He wanted Lizzie to ask you to tea yesterday.”
+
+“Now, Mr. Negget,” said the blushing widow. “Do be quiet.”
+
+“Fact,” replied the farmer; “solemn fact, I assure you. And he asked
+her whether you were fond of jewellery.”
+
+“I met him twice in the road near here yesterday,” said Mrs. Clowes,
+suddenly. “Perhaps he was waiting for you to come out.”
+
+“I dare say,” replied the farmer. “I shouldn’t wonder but what he’s
+hanging about somewhere near now, unable to tear himself away.”
+
+Mr. Bodfish wrung his hands, and his thoughts reverted instinctively to
+instances in his memory in which charges of murder had been altered by
+the direction of a sensible judge to manslaughter. He held his breath
+for the next words.
+
+Mr. Negget drank a little more ale and looked at Mrs. Driver.
+
+“I wonder whether you’ve got a morsel of bread and cheese?” he said,
+slowly. “I’ve come over that hungry—”
+
+[Illustration: Mrs. Driver fell back before the emerging form of Mr.
+Bodfish.]
+
+The widow and Mr. Bodfish rose simultaneously. It required not the
+brain of a trained detective to know that the cheese was in the larder.
+The unconscious Mrs. Driver opened the door, and then with a wild
+scream fell back before the emerging form of Mr. Bodfish into the arms
+of Mrs. Clowes. The glass of Mr. Negget smashed on the floor, and the
+farmer himself, with every appearance of astonishment, stared at the
+apparition open-mouthed.
+
+“Mr.—Bodfish!” he said at length, slowly.
+
+Mr. Bodfish, incapable of speech, glared at him ferociously.
+
+“Leave him alone,” said Mrs. Clowes, who was ministering to her friend.
+“Can’t you see the man’s upset at frightening her? She’s coming round,
+Mr. Bodfish; don’t be alarmed.”
+
+“Very good,” said the farmer, who found his injured relative’s gaze
+somewhat trying. “I’ll go, and leave him to explain to Mrs. Driver why
+he was hidden in her larder. It don’t seem a proper thing to me.”
+
+“Why, you silly man,” said Mrs. Clowes, gleefully, as she paused at the
+door, “that don’t want any explanation. Now, Mr. Bodfish, we’re giving
+you your chance. Mind you make the most of it, and don’t be too shy.”
+
+She walked excitedly up the road with the farmer, and bidding him
+good-bye at the corner, went off hastily to spread the news. Mr. Negget
+walked home soberly, and hardly staying long enough to listen to his
+wife’s account of the finding of the brooch between the chest of
+drawers and the wall, went off to spend the evening with a friend, and
+ended by making a night of it.
+
+
+
+
+IN THE LIBRARY
+
+
+The fire had burnt low in the library, for the night was wet and warm.
+It was now little more than a grey shell, and looked desolate. Trayton
+Burleigh, still hot, rose from his armchair, and turning out one of the
+gas-jets, took a cigar from a box on a side-table and resumed his seat
+again.
+
+The apartment, which was on the third floor at the back of the house,
+was a combination of library, study, and smoke-room, and was the daily
+despair of the old housekeeper who, with the assistance of one servant,
+managed the house. It was a bachelor establishment, and had been left
+to Trayton Burleigh and James Fletcher by a distant connection of both
+men some ten years before.
+
+Trayton Burleigh sat back in his chair watching the smoke of his cigar
+through half-closed eyes. Occasionally he opened them a little wider
+and glanced round the comfortable, well-furnished room, or stared with
+a cold gleam of hatred at Fletcher as he sat sucking stolidly at his
+brier pipe. It was a comfortable room and a valuable house, half of
+which belonged to Trayton Burleigh; and yet he was to leave it in the
+morning and become a rogue and a wanderer over the face of the earth.
+James Fletcher had said so. James Fletcher, with the pipe still between
+his teeth and speaking from one corner of his mouth only, had
+pronounced his sentence.
+
+“It hasn’t occurred to you, I suppose,” said Burleigh, speaking
+suddenly, “that I might refuse your terms.”
+
+“No,” said Fletcher, simply.
+
+Burleigh took a great mouthful of smoke and let it roll slowly out.
+
+“I am to go out and leave you in possession?” he continued. “You will
+stay here sole proprietor of the house; you will stay at the office
+sole owner and representative of the firm? You are a good hand at a
+deal, James Fletcher.”
+
+“I am an honest man,” said Fletcher, “and to raise sufficient money to
+make your defalcations good will not by any means leave me the gainer,
+as you very well know.”
+
+“There is no necessity to borrow,” began Burleigh, eagerly. “We can pay
+the interest easily, and in course of time make the principal good
+without a soul being the wiser.”
+
+“That you suggested before,” said Fletcher, “and my answer is the same.
+I will be no man’s confederate in dishonesty; I will raise every penny
+at all costs, and save the name of the firm—and yours with it—but I
+will never have you darken the office again, or sit in this house after
+to-night.”
+
+“_You_ won’t,” cried Burleigh, starting up in a frenzy of rage.
+
+“_I_ won’t,” said Fletcher. “You can choose the alternative: disgrace
+and penal servitude. Don’t stand over me; you won’t frighten me, I can
+assure you. Sit down.”
+
+“You have arranged so many things in your kindness,” said Burleigh,
+slowly, resuming his seat again, “have you arranged how I am to live?”
+
+“You have two strong hands, and health,” replied Fletcher. “I will give
+you the two hundred pounds I mentioned, and after that you must look
+out for yourself. You can take it now.”
+
+He took a leather case from his breast pocket, and drew out a roll of
+notes. Burleigh, watching him calmly, stretched out his hand and took
+them from the table. Then he gave way to a sudden access of rage, and
+crumpling them in his hand, threw them into a corner of the room.
+Fletcher smoked on.
+
+“Mrs. Marl is out?” said Burleigh, suddenly.
+
+Fletcher nodded.
+
+“She will be away the night,” he said, slowly; “and Jane too; they have
+gone together somewhere, but they will be back at half-past eight in
+the morning.”
+
+“You are going to let me have one more breakfast in the old place,
+then,” said Burleigh. “Half-past eight, half-past—-”
+
+He rose from his chair again. This time Fletcher took his pipe from his
+mouth and watched him closely. Burleigh stooped, and picking up the
+notes, placed them in his pocket.
+
+“If I am to be turned adrift, it shall not be to leave you here,” he
+said, in a thick voice.
+
+He crossed over and shut the door; as he turned back Fletcher rose from
+his chair and stood confronting him. Burleigh put his hand to the wall,
+and drawing a small Japanese sword from its sheath of carved ivory,
+stepped slowly toward him.
+
+“I give you one chance, Fletcher,” he said, grimly. “You are a man of
+your word. Hush this up and let things be as they were before, and you
+are safe.”
+
+“Put that down,” said Fletcher, sharply.
+
+“By —, I mean what I say!” cried the other.
+
+“I mean what I said!” answered Fletcher.
+
+He looked round at the last moment for a weapon, then he turned
+suddenly at a sharp sudden pain, and saw Burleigh’s clenched fist
+nearly touching his breast-bone. The hand came away from his breast
+again, and something with it. It went a long way off. Trayton Burleigh
+suddenly went to a great distance and the room darkened. It got quite
+dark, and Fletcher, with an attempt to raise his hands, let them fall
+to his side instead, and fell in a heap to the floor.
+
+He was so still that Burleigh could hardly realize that it was all
+over, and stood stupidly waiting for him to rise again. Then he took
+out his handkerchief as though to wipe the sword, and thinking better
+of it, put it back into his pocket again, and threw the weapon on to
+the floor.
+
+[Illustration: Burleigh, with a feeling of nausea, drew back toward
+the door.]
+
+The body of Fletcher lay where it had fallen, the white face turned up
+to the gas. In life he had been a commonplace-looking man, not to say
+vulgar; now Burleigh, with a feeling of nausea, drew back toward the
+door, until the body was hidden by the table, and relieved from the
+sight, he could think more clearly. He looked down carefully and
+examined his clothes and his boots. Then he crossed the room again, and
+with his face averted, turned out the gas. Something seemed to stir in
+the darkness, and with a faint cry he blundered toward the door before
+he had realized that it was the clock. It struck twelve.
+
+He stood at the head of the stairs trying to recover himself; trying to
+think. The gas on the landing below, the stairs and the furniture, all
+looked so prosaic and familiar that he could not realize what had
+occurred. He walked slowly down and turned the light out. The darkness
+of the upper part of the house was now almost appalling, and in a
+sudden panic he ran down stairs into the lighted hall, and snatching a
+hat from the stand, went to the door and walked down to the gate.
+
+Except for one window the neighbouring houses were in darkness, and the
+lamps shone upon a silent street. There was a little rain in the air,
+and the muddy road was full of pebbles. He stood at the gate trying to
+screw up his courage to enter the house again. Then he noticed a figure
+coming slowly up the road and keeping close to the palings.
+
+The full realization of what he had done broke in upon him when he
+found himself turning to fly from the approach of the constable. The
+wet cape glistening in the lamplight, the slow, heavy step, made him
+tremble. Suppose the thing upstairs was not quite dead and should cry
+out? Suppose the constable should think it strange for him to be
+standing there and follow him in? He assumed a careless attitude, which
+did not feel careless, and as the man passed bade him good-night, and
+made a remark as to the weather.
+
+Ere the sound of the other’s footsteps had gone quite out of hearing,
+he turned and entered the house again before the sense of companionship
+should have quite departed. The first flight of stairs was lighted by
+the gas in the hall, and he went up slowly. Then he struck a match and
+went up steadily, past the library door, and with firm fingers turned
+on the gas in his bedroom and lit it. He opened the window a little
+way, and sitting down on his bed, tried to think.
+
+He had got eight hours. Eight hours and two hundred pounds in small
+notes. He opened his safe and took out all the loose cash it contained,
+and walking about the room, gathered up and placed in his pockets such
+articles of jewellery as he possessed.
+
+The first horror had now to some extent passed, and was succeeded by
+the fear of death.
+
+With this fear on him he sat down again and tried to think out the
+first moves in that game of skill of which his life was the stake. He
+had often read of people of hasty temper, evading the police for a
+time, and eventually falling into their hands for lack of the most
+elementary common sense. He had heard it said that they always made
+some stupid blunder, left behind them some damning clue. He took his
+revolver from a drawer and saw that it was loaded. If the worst came to
+the worst, he would die quickly.
+
+Eight hours’ start; two hundred odd pounds. He would take lodgings at
+first in some populous district, and let the hair on his face grow.
+When the hue-and-cry had ceased, he would go abroad and start life
+again. He would go out of a night and post letters to himself, or
+better still, postcards, which his landlady would read. Postcards from
+cheery friends, from a sister, from a brother. During the day he would
+stay in and write, as became a man who described himself as a
+journalist.
+
+Or suppose he went to the sea? Who would look for him in flannels,
+bathing and boating with ordinary happy mortals? He sat and pondered.
+One might mean life, and the other death. Which?
+
+His face burned as he thought of the responsibility of the choice. So
+many people went to the sea at that time of year that he would surely
+pass unnoticed. But at the sea one might meet acquaintances. He got up
+and nervously paced the room again. It was not so simple, now that it
+meant so much, as he had thought.
+
+The sharp little clock on the mantel-piece rang out “one,” followed
+immediately by the deeper note of that in the library. He thought of
+the clock, it seemed the only live thing in that room, and shuddered.
+He wondered whether the thing lying by the far side of the table heard
+it. He wondered—-
+
+He started and held his breath with fear. Somewhere down stairs a board
+creaked loudly, then another. He went to the door, and opening it a
+little way, but without looking out, listened. The house was so still
+that he could hear the ticking of the old clock in the kitchen below.
+He opened the door a little wider and peeped out. As he did so there
+was a sudden sharp outcry on the stairs, and he drew back into the room
+and stood trembling before he had quite realized that the noise had
+been made by the cat. The cry was unmistakable; but what had disturbed
+it?
+
+There was silence again, and he drew near the door once more. He became
+certain that something was moving stealthily on the stairs. He heard
+the boards creak again, and once the rails of the balustrade rattled.
+The silence and suspense were frightful. Suppose that the something
+which had been Fletcher waited for him in the darkness outside?
+
+He fought his fears down, and opening the door, determined to see what
+was beyond. The light from his room streamed out on to the landing, and
+he peered about fearfully. Was it fancy, or did the door of Fletcher’s
+room opposite close as he looked? Was it fancy, or did the handle of
+the door really turn?
+
+In perfect silence, and watching the door as he moved, to see that
+nothing came out and followed him, he proceeded slowly down the dark
+stairs. Then his jaw fell, and he turned sick and faint again. The
+library door, which he distinctly remembered closing, and which,
+moreover, he had seen was closed when he went up stairs to his room,
+now stood open some four or five inches. He fancied that there was a
+rustling inside, but his brain refused to be certain. Then plainly and
+unmistakably he heard a chair pushed against the wall.
+
+He crept to the door, hoping to pass it before the thing inside became
+aware of his presence. Something crept stealthily about the room. With
+a sudden impulse he caught the handle of the door, and, closing it
+violently, turned the key in the lock, and ran madly down the stairs.
+
+A fearful cry sounded from the room, and a heavy hand beat upon the
+panels of the door. The house rang with the blows, but above them
+sounded the loud hoarse cries of human fear. Burleigh, half-way down to
+the hall, stopped with his hand on the balustrade and listened. The
+beating ceased, and a man’s voice cried out loudly for God’s sake to
+let him out.
+
+At once Burleigh saw what had happened and what it might mean for him.
+He had left the hall door open after his visit to the front, and some
+wandering bird of the night had entered the house. No need for him to
+go now. No need to hide either from the hangman’s rope or the felon’s
+cell. The fool above had saved him. He turned and ran up stairs again
+just as the prisoner in his furious efforts to escape wrenched the
+handle from the door.
+
+“Who’s there?” he cried, loudly.
+
+“Let me out!” cried a frantic voice. “For God’s sake, open the door!
+There’s something here.”
+
+“Stay where you are!” shouted Burleigh, sternly. “Stay where you are!
+If you come out, I’ll shoot you like a dog!”
+
+The only response was a smashing blow on the lock of the door. Burleigh
+raised his pistol, and aiming at the height of a man’s chest, fired
+through the panel.
+
+The report and the crashing of the wood made one noise, succeeded by an
+unearthly stillness, then the noise of a window hastily opened.
+Burleigh fled hastily down the stairs, and flinging wide the hall door,
+shouted loudly for assistance.
+
+It happened that a sergeant and the constable on the beat had just met
+in the road. They came toward the house at a run. Burleigh, with
+incoherent explanations, ran up stairs before them, and halted outside
+the library door. The prisoner was still inside, still trying to
+demolish the lock of the sturdy oaken door. Burleigh tried to turn the
+key, but the lock was too damaged to admit of its moving. The sergeant
+drew back, and, shoulder foremost, hurled himself at the door and burst
+it open.
+
+He stumbled into the room, followed by the constable, and two shafts of
+light from the lanterns at their belts danced round the room. A man
+lurking behind the door made a dash for it, and the next instant the
+three men were locked together.
+
+Burleigh, standing in the doorway, looked on coldly, reserving himself
+for the scene which was to follow. Except for the stumbling of the men
+and the sharp catch of the prisoner’s breath, there was no noise. A
+helmet fell off and bounced and rolled along the floor. The men fell;
+there was a sobbing snarl and a sharp click. A tall figure rose from
+the floor; the other, on his knees, still held the man down. The
+standing figure felt in his pocket, and, striking a match, lit the gas.
+
+The light fell on the flushed face and fair beard of the sergeant. He
+was bare-headed, and his hair dishevelled. Burleigh entered the room
+and gazed eagerly at the half-insensible man on the floor-a short,
+thick-set fellow with a white, dirty face and a black moustache. His
+lip was cut and bled down his neck. Burleigh glanced furtively at the
+table. The cloth had come off in the struggle, and was now in the place
+where he had left Fletcher.
+
+“Hot work, sir,” said the sergeant, with a smile. “It’s fortunate we
+were handy.”
+
+The prisoner raised a heavy head and looked up with unmistakable terror
+in his eyes.
+
+“All right, sir,” he said, trembling, as the constable increased the
+pressure of his knee. “I ’ain’t been in the house ten minutes
+altogether. By —, I’ve not.”
+
+The sergeant regarded him curiously.
+
+“It don’t signify,” he said, slowly; “ten minutes or ten seconds won’t
+make any difference.”
+
+The man shook and began to whimper.
+
+“It was ’ere when I come,” he said, eagerly; “take that down, sir. I’ve
+only just come, and it was ’ere when I come. I tried to get away then,
+but I was locked in.”
+
+“What was?” demanded the sergeant.
+
+“_That_,” he said, desperately.
+
+The sergeant, following the direction of the terror-stricken black
+eyes, stooped by the table. Then, with a sharp exclamation, he dragged
+away the cloth. Burleigh, with a sharp cry of horror, reeled back
+against the wall.
+
+“All right, sir,” said the sergeant, catching him; “all right. Turn
+your head away.”
+
+He pushed him into a chair, and crossing the room, poured out a glass
+of whiskey and brought it to him. The glass rattled against his teeth,
+but he drank it greedily, and then groaned faintly. The sergeant waited
+patiently. There was no hurry.
+
+“Who is it, sir?” he asked at length.
+
+“My friend—Fletcher,” said Burleigh, with an effort. “We lived
+together.” He turned to the prisoner.
+
+“You damned villain!”
+
+“He was dead when I come in the room, gentlemen,” said the prisoner,
+strenuously. “He was on the floor dead, and when I see ’im, I tried to
+get out. S’ ’elp me he was. You heard me call out, sir. I shouldn’t ha’
+called out if I’d killed him.”
+
+“All right,” said the sergeant, gruffly; “you’d better hold your
+tongue, you know.”
+
+“You keep quiet,” urged the constable.
+
+The sergeant knelt down and raised the dead man’s head.
+
+“I ’ad nothing to do with it,” repeated the man on the floor. “I ’ad
+nothing to do with it. I never thought of such a thing. I’ve only been
+in the place ten minutes; put that down, sir.”
+
+The sergeant groped with his left hand, and picking up the Japanese
+sword, held it at him.
+
+“I’ve never seen it before,” said the prisoner, struggling.
+
+“It used to hang on the wall,” said Burleigh. “He must have snatched it
+down. It was on the wall when I left Fletcher a little while ago.”
+
+“How long?” inquired the sergeant.
+
+“Perhaps an hour, perhaps half an hour,” was the reply. “I went to my
+bedroom.”
+
+The man on the floor twisted his head and regarded him narrowly.
+
+“You done it!” he cried, fiercely. “You done it, and you want me to
+swing for it.”
+
+“That’ll do,” said the indignant constable.
+
+The sergeant let his burden gently to the floor again.
+
+“You hold your tongue, you devil!” he said, menacingly.
+
+He crossed to the table and poured a little spirit into a glass and
+took it in his hand. Then he put it down again and crossed to Burleigh.
+
+“Feeling better, sir?” he asked.
+
+The other nodded faintly.
+
+“You won’t want this thing any more,” said the sergeant.
+
+He pointed to the pistol which the other still held, and taking it from
+him gently, put it into his pocket.
+
+“You’ve hurt your wrist, sir,” he said, anxiously.
+
+Burleigh raised one hand sharply, and then the other.
+
+“This one, I think,” said the sergeant. “I saw it just now.”
+
+He took the other’s wrists in his hand, and suddenly holding them in
+the grip of a vice, whipped out something from his pocket—something
+hard and cold, which snapped suddenly on Burleigh’s wrists, and held
+them fast.
+
+“That’s right,” said the sergeant; “keep quiet.”
+
+The constable turned round in amaze; Burleigh sprang toward him
+furiously.
+
+“Take these things off!” he choked. “Have you gone mad? Take them off!”
+
+“All in good time,” said the sergeant.
+
+“Take them off!” cried Burleigh again.
+
+For answer the sergeant took him in a powerful grip, and staring
+steadily at his white face and gleaming eyes, forced him to the other
+end of the room and pushed him into a chair.
+
+“Collins,” he said, sharply.
+
+“Sir?” said the astonished subordinate.
+
+“Run to the doctor at the corner hard as you can run!” said the other.
+“_This man is not dead!_”
+
+As the man left the room the sergeant took up the glass of spirits he
+had poured out, and kneeling down by Fletcher again, raised his head
+and tried to pour a little down his throat. Burleigh, sitting in his
+corner, watched like one in a trance. He saw the constable return with
+the breathless surgeon, saw the three men bending over Fletcher, and
+then saw the eyes of the dying man open and the lips of the dying man
+move. He was conscious that the sergeant made some notes in a
+pocket-book, and that all three men eyed him closely. The sergeant
+stepped toward him and placed his hand on his shoulder, and obedient to
+the touch, he arose and went with him out into the night.
+
+
+
+
+CAPTAIN ROGERS
+
+
+A man came slowly over the old stone bridge, and averting his gaze from
+the dark river with its silent craft, looked with some satisfaction
+toward the feeble lights of the small town on the other side. He walked
+with the painful, forced step of one who has already trudged far. His
+worsted hose, where they were not darned, were in holes, and his coat
+and knee-breeches were rusty with much wear, but he straightened
+himself as he reached the end of the bridge and stepped out bravely to
+the taverns which stood in a row facing the quay.
+
+He passed the “Queen Anne”—a mere beershop—without pausing, and after a
+glance apiece at the “Royal George” and the “Trusty Anchor,” kept on
+his way to where the “Golden Key” hung out a gilded emblem. It was the
+best house in Riverstone, and patronized by the gentry, but he adjusted
+his faded coat, and with a swaggering air entered and walked boldly
+into the coffee-room.
+
+The room was empty, but a bright fire afforded a pleasant change to the
+chill October air outside. He drew up a chair, and placing his feet on
+the fender, exposed his tattered soles to the blaze, as a waiter who
+had just seen him enter the room came and stood aggressively inside the
+door.
+
+“Brandy and water,” said the stranger; “hot.”
+
+“The coffee-room is for gentlemen staying in the house,” said the
+waiter.
+
+The stranger took his feet from the fender, and rising slowly, walked
+toward him. He was a short man and thin, but there was something so
+menacing in his attitude, and something so fearsome in his stony brown
+eyes, that the other, despite his disgust for ill-dressed people, moved
+back uneasily.
+
+“Brandy and water, hot,” repeated the stranger; “and plenty of it. D’ye
+hear?”
+
+The man turned slowly to depart.
+
+“Stop!” said the other, imperiously. “What’s the name of the landlord
+here?”
+
+“Mullet,” said the fellow, sulkily.
+
+“Send him to me,” said the other, resuming his seat; “and hark you, my
+friend, more civility, or ’twill be the worse for you.”
+
+He stirred the log on the fire with his foot until a shower of sparks
+whirled up the chimney. The door opened, and the landlord, with the
+waiter behind him, entered the room, but he still gazed placidly at the
+glowing embers.
+
+“What do you want?” demanded the landlord, in a deep voice.
+
+The stranger turned a little weazened yellow face and grinned at him
+familiarly.
+
+“Send that fat rascal of yours away,” he said, slowly.
+
+The landlord started at his voice and eyed him closely; then he signed
+to the man to withdraw, and closing the door behind him, stood silently
+watching his visitor.
+
+“You didn’t expect to see me, Rogers,” said the latter.
+
+“My name’s Mullet,” said the other, sternly. “What do you want?”
+
+“Oh, Mullet?” said the other, in surprise. “I’m afraid I’ve made a
+mistake, then. I thought you were my old shipmate, Captain Rogers. It’s
+a foolish mistake of mine, as I’ve no doubt Rogers was hanged years
+ago. You never had a brother named Rogers, did you?”
+
+“I say again, what do you want?” demanded the other, advancing upon
+him.
+
+“Since you’re so good,” said the other. “I want new clothes, food, and
+lodging of the best, and my pockets filled with money.”
+
+“You had better go and look for all those things, then,” said Mullet.
+“You won’t find them here.”
+
+“Ay!” said the other, rising. “Well, well—There was a hundred guineas
+on the head of my old shipmate Rogers some fifteen years ago. I’ll see
+whether it has been earned yet.”
+
+“If I gave you a hundred guineas,” said the innkeeper, repressing his
+passion by a mighty effort, “you would not be satisfied.”
+
+“Reads like a book,” said the stranger, in tones of pretended delight.
+“What a man it is!”
+
+He fell back as he spoke, and thrusting his hand into his pocket, drew
+forth a long pistol as the innkeeper, a man of huge frame, edged toward
+him.
+
+“Keep your distance,” he said, in a sharp, quick voice.
+
+The innkeeper, in no wise disturbed at the pistol, turned away calmly,
+and ringing the bell, ordered some spirits. Then taking a chair, he
+motioned to the other to do the same, and they sat in silence until the
+staring waiter had left the room again. The stranger raised his glass.
+
+“My old friend Captain Rogers,” he said, solemnly, “and may he never
+get his deserts!”
+
+“From what jail have you come?” inquired Mullet, sternly.
+
+“’Pon my soul,” said the other, “I have been in so many—looking for
+Captain Rogers—that I almost forget the last, but I have just tramped
+from London, two hundred and eighty odd miles, for the pleasure of
+seeing your damned ugly figure-head again; and now I’ve found it, I’m
+going to stay. Give me some money.”
+
+The innkeeper, without a word, drew a little gold and silver from his
+pocket, and placing it on the table, pushed it toward him.
+
+“Enough to go on with,” said the other, pocketing it; “in future it is
+halves. D’ye hear me? _Halves!_ And I’ll stay here and see I get it.”
+
+He sat back in his chair, and meeting the other’s hatred with a gaze as
+steady as his own, replaced his pistol.
+
+“A nice snug harbor after our many voyages,” he continued. “Shipmates
+we were, shipmates we’ll be; while Nick Gunn is alive you shall never
+want for company. Lord! Do you remember the Dutch brig, and the fat
+frightened mate?”
+
+“I have forgotten it,” said the other, still eyeing him steadfastly. “I
+have forgotten many things. For fifteen years I have lived a decent,
+honest life. Pray God for your own sinful soul, that the devil in me
+does not wake again.”
+
+“Fifteen years is a long nap,” said Gunn, carelessly; “what a godsend
+it’ll be for you to have me by you to remind you of old times! Why,
+you’re looking smug, man; the honest innkeeper to the life! Gad! who’s
+the girl?”
+
+He rose and made a clumsy bow as a girl of eighteen, after a moment’s
+hesitation at the door, crossed over to the innkeeper.
+
+“I’m busy, my dear,” said the latter, somewhat sternly.
+
+“Our business,” said Gunn, with another bow, “is finished. Is this your
+daughter, Rog— Mullet?”
+
+“My stepdaughter,” was the reply.
+
+[Illustration: Gunn placed a hand, which lacked two fingers, on his
+breast.]
+
+Gunn placed a hand, which lacked two fingers, on his breast, and bowed
+again.
+
+“One of your father’s oldest friends,” he said smoothly; “and fallen on
+evil days; I’m sure your gentle heart will be pleased to hear that your
+good father has requested me—for a time—to make his house my home.”
+
+“Any friend of my father’s is welcome to me, sir,” said the girl,
+coldly. She looked from the innkeeper to his odd-looking guest, and
+conscious of something strained in the air, gave him a little bow and
+quitted the room.
+
+“You insist upon staying, then?” said Mullet, after a pause.
+
+“More than ever,” replied Gunn, with a leer toward the door. “Why, you
+don’t think I’m _afraid_, Captain? You should know me better than
+that.”
+
+“Life is sweet,” said the other.
+
+“Ay,” assented Gunn, “so sweet that you will share things with me to
+keep it.”
+
+“No,” said the other, with great calm. “I am man enough to have a
+better reason.”
+
+“No psalm singing,” said Gunn, coarsely. “And look cheerful, you old
+buccaneer. Look as a man should look who has just met an old friend
+never to lose him again.”
+
+He eyed his man expectantly and put his hand to his pocket again, but
+the innkeeper’s face was troubled, and he gazed stolidly at the fire.
+
+“See what fifteen years’ honest, decent life does for us,” grinned the
+intruder.
+
+The other made no reply, but rising slowly, walked to the door without
+a word.
+
+“Landlord,” cried Gunn, bringing his maimed hand sharply down on the
+table.
+
+The innkeeper turned and regarded him.
+
+“Send me in some supper,” said Gunn; “the best you have, and plenty of
+it, and have a room prepared. The best.”
+
+The door closed silently, and was opened a little later by the dubious
+George coming in to set a bountiful repast. Gunn, after cursing him for
+his slowness and awkwardness, drew his chair to the table and made the
+meal of one seldom able to satisfy his hunger. He finished at last, and
+after sitting for some time smoking, with his legs sprawled on the
+fender, rang for a candle and demanded to be shown to his room.
+
+His proceedings when he entered it were but a poor compliment to his
+host. Not until he had poked and pried into every corner did he close
+the door. Then, not content with locking it, he tilted a chair beneath
+the handle, and placing his pistol beneath his pillow, fell fast
+asleep.
+
+Despite his fatigue he was early astir next morning. Breakfast was laid
+for him in the coffee-room, and his brow darkened. He walked into the
+hall, and after trying various doors entered a small sitting-room,
+where his host and daughter sat at breakfast, and with an easy
+assurance drew a chair to the table. The innkeeper helped him without a
+word, but the girl’s hand shook under his gaze as she passed him some
+coffee.
+
+“As soft a bed as ever I slept in,” he remarked.
+
+“I hope that you slept well,” said the girl, civilly.
+
+“Like a child,” said Gunn, gravely; “an easy conscience. Eh, Mullet?”
+
+The innkeeper nodded and went on eating. The other, after another
+remark or two, followed his example, glancing occasionally with warm
+approval at the beauty of the girl who sat at the head of the table.
+
+“A sweet girl,” he remarked, as she withdrew at the end of the meal;
+“and no mother, I presume?”
+
+“No mother,” repeated the other.
+
+Gunn sighed and shook his head.
+
+“A sad case, truly,” he murmured. “No mother and such a guardian. Poor
+soul, if she but knew! Well, we must find her a husband.”
+
+He looked down as he spoke, and catching sight of his rusty clothes and
+broken shoes, clapped his hand to his pocket; and with a glance at his
+host, sallied out to renew his wardrobe. The innkeeper, with an
+inscrutable face, watched him down the quay, then with bent head he
+returned to the house and fell to work on his accounts.
+
+In this work Gunn, returning an hour later, clad from head to foot in
+new apparel, offered to assist him. Mullett hesitated, but made no
+demur; neither did he join in the ecstasies which his new partner
+displayed at the sight of the profits. Gunn put some more gold into his
+new pockets, and throwing himself back in a chair, called loudly to
+George to bring him some drink.
+
+In less than a month the intruder was the virtual master of the “Golden
+Key.” Resistance on the part of the legitimate owner became more and
+more feeble, the slightest objection on his part drawing from the
+truculent Gunn dark allusions to his past and threats against his
+future, which for the sake of his daughter he could not ignore. His
+health began to fail, and Joan watched with perplexed terror the growth
+of a situation which was in a fair way of becoming unbearable.
+
+The arrogance of Gunn knew no bounds. The maids learned to tremble at
+his polite grin, or his worse freedom, and the men shrank appalled from
+his profane wrath. George, after ten years’ service, was brutally
+dismissed, and refusing to accept dismissal from his hands, appealed to
+his master. The innkeeper confirmed it, and with lack-lustre eyes
+fenced feebly when his daughter, regardless of Gunn’s presence,
+indignantly appealed to him.
+
+“The man was rude to my friend, my dear,” he said dispiritedly
+
+“If he was rude, it was because Mr. Gunn deserved it,” said Joan,
+hotly.
+
+Gunn laughed uproariously.
+
+“Gad, my dear, I like you!” he cried, slapping his leg. “You’re a girl
+of spirit. Now I will make you a fair offer. If you ask for George to
+stay, stay he shall, as a favour to your sweet self.”
+
+The girl trembled.
+
+“Who is master here?” she demanded, turning a full eye on her father.
+
+Mullet laughed uneasily.
+
+“This is business,” he said, trying to speak lightly, “and women can’t
+understand it. Gunn is—is valuable to me, and George must go.”
+
+“Unless you plead for him, sweet one?” said Gunn.
+
+The girl looked at her father again, but he turned his head away and
+tapped on the floor with his foot. Then in perplexity, akin to tears,
+she walked from the room, carefully drawing her dress aside as Gunn
+held the door for her.
+
+“A fine girl,” said Gunn, his thin lips working; “a fine spirit. ’Twill
+be pleasant to break it; but she does not know who is master here.”
+
+“She is young yet,” said the other, hurriedly.
+
+“I will soon age her if she looks like that at me again,” said Gunn.
+“By —, I’ll turn out the whole crew into the street, and her with them,
+an’ I wish it. I’ll lie in my bed warm o’ nights and think of her
+huddled on a doorstep.”
+
+His voice rose and his fists clenched, but he kept his distance and
+watched the other warily. The innkeeper’s face was contorted and his
+brow grew wet. For one moment something peeped out of his eyes; the
+next he sat down in his chair again and nervously fingered his chin.
+
+“I have but to speak,” said Gunn, regarding him with much satisfaction,
+“and you will hang, and your money go to the Crown. What will become of
+her then, think you?”
+
+The other laughed nervously.
+
+“’Twould be stopping the golden eggs,” he ventured.
+
+“Don’t think too much of that,” said Gunn, in a hard voice. “I was
+never one to be baulked, as you know.”
+
+“Come, come. Let us be friends,” said Mullet; “the girl is young, and
+has had her way.”
+
+He looked almost pleadingly at the other, and his voice trembled. Gunn
+drew himself up, and regarding him with a satisfied sneer, quitted the
+room without a word.
+
+Affairs at the “Golden Key” grew steadily worse and worse. Gunn
+dominated the place, and his vile personality hung over it like a
+shadow. Appeals to the innkeeper were in vain; his health was breaking
+fast, and he moodily declined to interfere. Gunn appointed servants of
+his own choosing-brazen maids and foul-mouthed men. The old patrons
+ceased to frequent the “Golden Key,” and its bedrooms stood empty. The
+maids scarcely deigned to take an order from Joan, and the men spoke to
+her familiarly. In the midst of all this the innkeeper, who had
+complained once or twice of vertigo, was seized with a fit.
+
+Joan, flying to him for protection against the brutal advances of Gunn,
+found him lying in a heap behind the door of his small office, and in
+her fear called loudly for assistance. A little knot of servants
+collected, and stood regarding him stupidly. One made a brutal jest.
+Gunn, pressing through the throng, turned the senseless body over with
+his foot, and cursing vilely, ordered them to carry it upstairs.
+
+Until the surgeon came, Joan, kneeling by the bed, held on to the
+senseless hand as her only protection against the evil faces of Gunn
+and his protégés. Gunn himself was taken aback, the innkeeper’s death
+at that time by no means suiting his aims.
+
+The surgeon was a man of few words and fewer attainments, but under his
+ministrations the innkeeper, after a long interval, rallied. The
+half-closed eyes opened, and he looked in a dazed fashion at his
+surroundings. Gunn drove the servants away and questioned the man of
+medicine. The answers were vague and interspersed with Latin. Freedom
+from noise and troubles of all kinds was insisted upon and Joan was
+installed as nurse, with a promise of speedy assistance.
+
+The assistance arrived late in the day in the shape of an elderly
+woman, whose Spartan treatment of her patients had helped many along
+the silent road. She commenced her reign by punching the sick man’s
+pillows, and having shaken him into consciousness by this means, gave
+him a dose of physic, after first tasting it herself from the bottle.
+
+After the first rally the innkeeper began to fail slowly. It was seldom
+that he understood what was said to him, and pitiful to the beholder to
+see in his intervals of consciousness his timid anxiety to earn the
+good-will of the all-powerful Gunn. His strength declined until
+assistance was needed to turn him in the bed, and his great sinewy
+hands were forever trembling and fidgeting on the coverlet.
+
+Joan, pale with grief and fear, tended him assiduously. Her
+stepfather’s strength had been a proverb in the town, and many a hasty
+citizen had felt the strength of his arm. The increasing lawlessness of
+the house filled her with dismay, and the coarse attentions of Gunn
+became more persistent than ever. She took her meals in the sick-room,
+and divided her time between that and her own.
+
+Gunn himself was in a dilemma. With Mullet dead, his power was at an
+end and his visions of wealth dissipated. He resolved to feather his
+nest immediately, and interviewed the surgeon. The surgeon was
+ominously reticent, the nurse cheerfully ghoulish.
+
+“Four days I give him,” she said, calmly; “four blessed days, not but
+what he might slip away at any moment.”
+
+Gunn let one day of the four pass, and then, choosing a time when Joan
+was from the room, entered it for a little quiet conversation. The
+innkeeper’s eyes were open, and, what was more to the purpose,
+intelligent.
+
+“You’re cheating the hangman, after all,” snarled Gunn. “I’m off to
+swear an information.”
+
+The other, by a great effort, turned his heavy head and fixed his
+wistful eyes on him.
+
+“Mercy!” he whispered. “For her sake—give me—a little time!”
+
+“To slip your cable, I suppose,” quoth Gunn. “Where’s your money?
+Where’s your hoard, you miser?”
+
+Mullet closed his eyes. He opened them again slowly and strove to
+think, while Gunn watched him narrowly. When he spoke, his utterance
+was thick and labored.
+
+“Come to-night,” he muttered, slowly. “Give me—time—I will make your
+—your fortune. But the nurse-watches.”
+
+“I’ll see to her,” said Gunn, with a grin. “But tell me now, lest you
+die first.”
+
+“You will—let Joan—have a share?” panted the innkeeper.
+
+“Yes, yes,” said Gunn, hastily.
+
+The innkeeper strove to raise himself in the bed, and then fell back
+again exhausted as Joan’s step was heard on the stairs. Gunn gave a
+savage glance of warning at him, and barring the progress of the girl
+at the door, attempted to salute her. Joan came in pale and trembling,
+and falling on her knees by the bedside, took her father’s hand in hers
+and wept over it. The innkeeper gave a faint groan and a shiver ran
+through his body.
+
+It was nearly an hour after midnight that Nick Gunn, kicking off his
+shoes, went stealthily out onto the landing. A little light came from
+the partly open door of the sick-room, but all else was in blackness.
+He moved along and peered in.
+
+The nurse was siting in a high-backed oak chair by the fire. She had
+slipped down in the seat, and her untidy head hung on her bosom. A
+glass stood on the small oak table by her side, and a solitary candle
+on the high mantel-piece diffused a sickly light. Gunn entered the
+room, and finding that the sick man was dozing, shook him roughly.
+
+The innkeeper opened his eyes and gazed at him blankly.
+
+“Wake, you fool,” said Gunn, shaking him again.
+
+The other roused and muttered something incoherently. Then he stirred
+slightly.
+
+“The nurse,” he whispered.
+
+“She’s safe enow,” said Gunn. “I’ve seen to that.”
+
+He crossed the room lightly, and standing before the unconscious woman,
+inspected her closely and raised her in the chair. Her head fell limply
+over the arm.
+
+“Dead?” inquired Mullet, in a fearful whisper.
+
+“Drugged,” said Gunn, shortly. “Now speak up, and be lively.”
+
+The innkeeper’s eyes again travelled in the direction of the nurse.
+
+“The men,” he whispered; “the servants.”
+
+“Dead drunk and asleep,” said Gunn, biting the words. “The last day
+would hardly rouse them. Now will you speak, damn you!”
+
+“I must—take care—of Joan,” said the father.
+
+Gunn shook his clenched hand at him.
+
+“My money—is—is—” said the other. “Promise me on—your oath—Joan.”
+
+“Ay, ay,” growled Gunn; “how many more times? I’ll marry her, and she
+shall have what I choose to give her. Speak up, you fool! It’s not for
+you to make terms. Where is it?”
+
+He bent over, but Mullet, exhausted with his efforts, had closed his
+eyes again, and half turned his head.
+
+“Where is it, damn you?” said Gunn, from between his teeth.
+
+Mullet opened his eyes again, glanced fearfully round the room, and
+whispered. Gunn, with a stifled oath, bent his ear almost to his mouth,
+and the next moment his neck was in the grip of the strongest man in
+Riverstone, and an arm like a bar of iron over his back pinned him down
+across the bed.
+
+“You _dog!_” hissed a fierce voice in his ear. “I’ve got you—Captain
+Rogers at your service, and now you may tell his name to all you can.
+Shout it, you spawn of hell. Shout it!”
+
+He rose in bed, and with a sudden movement flung the other over on his
+back. Gunn’s eyes were starting from his head, and he writhed
+convulsively.
+
+“I thought you were a sharper man, Gunn,” said Rogers, still in the
+same hot whisper, as he relaxed his grip a little; “you are too simple,
+you hound! When you first threatened me I resolved to kill you. Then
+you threatened my daughter. I wish that you had nine lives, that I
+might take them all. Keep still!”
+
+He gave a half-glance over his shoulder at the silent figure of the
+nurse, and put his weight on the twisting figure on the bed.
+
+“You drugged the hag, good Gunn,” he continued. “To-morrow morning,
+Gunn, they will find you in your room dead, and if one of the scum you
+brought into my house be charged with the murder, so much the better.
+When I am well they will go. I am already feeling a little bit
+stronger, Gunn, as you see, and in a month I hope to be about again.”
+
+He averted his face, and for a time gazed sternly and watchfully at the
+door. Then he rose slowly to his feet, and taking the dead man in his
+arms, bore him slowly and carefully to his room, and laid him a huddled
+heap on the floor. Swiftly and noiselessly he put the dead man’s shoes
+on and turned his pockets inside out, kicked a rug out of place, and
+put a guinea on the floor. Then he stole cautiously down stairs and set
+a small door at the back open. A dog barked frantically, and he hurried
+back to his room. The nurse still slumbered by the fire.
+
+She awoke in the morning shivering with the cold, and being jealous of
+her reputation, rekindled the fire, and measuring out the dose which
+the invalid should have taken, threw it away. On these unconscious
+preparations for an alibi Captain Rogers gazed through half-closed
+lids, and then turning his grim face to the wall, waited for the
+inevitable alarm.
+
+
+
+
+A TIGER’S SKIN
+
+
+The travelling sign-painter who was repainting the sign of the
+“Cauliflower” was enjoying a well-earned respite from his labours. On
+the old table under the shade of the elms mammoth sandwiches and a
+large slice of cheese waited in an untied handkerchief until such time
+as his thirst should be satisfied. At the other side of the table the
+oldest man in Claybury, drawing gently at a long clay pipe, turned a
+dim and regretful eye up at the old signboard.
+
+“I’ve drunk my beer under it for pretty near seventy years,” he said,
+with a sigh. “It’s a pity it couldn’t ha’ lasted my time.”
+
+The painter, slowly pushing a wedge of sandwich into his mouth,
+regarded him indulgently.
+
+“It’s all through two young gentlemen as was passing through ’ere a
+month or two ago,” continued the old man; “they told Smith, the
+landlord, they’d been looking all over the place for the ‘Cauliflower,’
+and when Smith showed ’em the sign they said they thought it was the
+‘George the Fourth,’ and a very good likeness, too.”
+
+The painter laughed and took another look at the old sign; then, with
+the nervousness of the true artist, he took a look at his own. One or
+two shadows—
+
+He flung his legs over the bench and took up his brushes. In ten
+minutes the most fervent loyalist would have looked in vain for any
+resemblance, and with a sigh at the pitfalls which beset the artist he
+returned to his interrupted meal and hailed the house for more beer.
+
+“There’s nobody could mistake your sign for anything but a
+cauliflower,” said the old man; “it looks good enough to eat.”
+
+The painter smiled and pushed his mug across the table. He was a
+tender-hearted man, and once—when painting the sign of the “Sir Wilfrid
+Lawson”—knew himself what it was to lack beer. He began to discourse on
+art, and spoke somewhat disparagingly of the cauliflower as a subject.
+With a shake of his head he spoke of the possibilities of a spotted cow
+or a blue lion.
+
+“Talking of lions,” said the ancient, musingly, “I s’pose as you never
+’eard tell of the Claybury tiger? It was afore your time in these
+parts, I expect.”
+
+The painter admitted his ignorance, and, finding that the allusion had
+no reference to an inn, pulled out his pipe and prepared to listen.
+
+“It’s a while ago now,” said the old man, slowly, “and the circus the
+tiger belonged to was going through Claybury to get to Wickham, when,
+just as they was passing Gill’s farm, a steam-ingine they ’ad to draw
+some o’ the vans broke down, and they ’ad to stop while the blacksmith
+mended it. That being so, they put up a big tent and ’ad the circus
+’ere.
+
+“I was one o’ them as went, and I must say it was worth the money,
+though Henry Walker was disappointed at the man who put ’is ’ead in the
+lion’s mouth. He said that the man frightened the lion first, before ’e
+did it.
+
+“It was a great night for Claybury, and for about a week nothing else
+was talked of. All the children was playing at being lions and tigers
+and such-like, and young Roberts pretty near broke ’is back trying to
+see if he could ride horseback standing up.
+
+“It was about two weeks after the circus ’ad gone when a strange thing
+’appened: the big tiger broke loose. Bill Chambers brought the news
+first, ’aving read it in the newspaper while ’e was ’aving his tea. He
+brought out the paper and showed us, and soon after we ’eard all sorts
+o’ tales of its doings.
+
+“At first we thought the tiger was a long way off, and we was rather
+amused at it. Frederick Scott laughed ’imself silly a’most up ’ere one
+night thinking ’ow surprised a man would be if ’e come ’ome one night
+and found the tiger sitting in his armchair eating the baby. It didn’t
+seem much of a laughing matter to me, and I said so; none of us liked
+it, and even Sam Jones, as ’ad got twins for the second time, said
+‘Shame!’ But Frederick Scott was a man as would laugh at anything.
+
+“When we ’eard that the tiger ’ad been seen within three miles of
+Claybury things began to look serious, and Peter Gubbins said that
+something ought to be done, but before we could think of anything to do
+something ’appened.
+
+“We was sitting up ’ere one evening ’aving a mug o’ beer and a
+pipe—same as I might be now if I’d got any baccy left—and talking about
+it, when we ’eard a shout and saw a ragged-looking tramp running toward
+us as ’ard as he could run. Every now and then he’d look over ’is
+shoulder and give a shout, and then run ’arder than afore.
+
+“‘It’s the _tiger!_’ ses Bill Chambers, and afore you could wink a’most
+he was inside the house, ’aving first upset Smith and a pot o’ beer in
+the doorway.
+
+“Before he could get up, Smith ’ad to wait till we was all in. His
+langwidge was awful for a man as ’ad a license to lose, and everybody
+shouting ‘Tiger!’ as they trod on ’im didn’t ease ’is mind. He was
+inside a’most as soon as the last man, though, and in a flash he ’ad
+the door bolted just as the tramp flung ’imself agin it, all out of
+breath and sobbing ’is hardest to be let in.
+
+“‘Open the door,’ he ses, banging on it.
+
+“‘Go away,’ ses Smith.
+
+“‘It’s the tiger,’ screams the tramp; ‘open the door.’
+
+“‘You go away,’ ses Smith, ‘you’re attracting it to my place; run up
+the road and draw it off.’”
+
+“Just at that moment John Biggs, the blacksmith, come in from the
+taproom, and as soon as he ’eard wot was the matter ’e took down
+Smith’s gun from behind the bar and said he was going out to look after
+the wimmen and children.
+
+“‘Open the door,’ he ses.
+
+“He was trying to get out and the tramp outside was trying to get in,
+but Smith held on to that door like a Briton. Then John Biggs lost ’is
+temper, and he ups with the gun—Smith’s own gun, mind you—and fetches
+’im a bang over the ’ead with it. Smith fell down at once, and afore we
+could ’elp ourselves the door was open, the tramp was inside, and John
+Biggs was running up the road, shouting ’is hardest.
+
+“We ’ad the door closed afore you could wink a’most, and then, while
+the tramp lay in a corner ’aving brandy, Mrs. Smith got a bowl of water
+and a sponge and knelt down bathing ’er husband’s ’ead with it.
+
+“‘Did you see the tiger?’ ses Bill Chambers.
+
+“‘See it?’ ses the tramp, with a shiver. ‘Oh, Lord!’
+
+“He made signs for more brandy, and Henery Walker, wot was acting as
+landlord, without being asked, gave it to ’im.
+
+“‘It chased me for over a mile,’ ses the tramp; ‘my ’eart’s breaking.’
+
+“He gave a groan and fainted right off. A terrible faint it was, too,
+and for some time we thought ’ed never come round agin. First they
+poured brandy down ’is throat, then gin, and then beer, and still ’e
+didn’t come round, but lay quiet with ’is eyes closed and a horrible
+smile on ’is face.
+
+“He come round at last, and with nothing stronger than water, which
+Mrs. Smith kept pouring into ’is mouth. First thing we noticed was that
+the smile went, then ’is eyes opened, and suddenly ’e sat up with a
+shiver and gave such a dreadful scream that we thought at first the
+tiger was on top of us.
+
+“Then ’e told us ’ow he was sitting washing ’is shirt in a ditch, when
+he ’eard a snuffling noise and saw the ’ead of a big tiger sticking
+through the hedge the other side. He left ’is shirt and ran, and ’e
+said that, fortunately, the tiger stopped to tear the shirt to pieces,
+else ’is last hour would ’ave arrived.
+
+“When ’e ’ad finished Smith went upstairs and looked out of the bedroom
+winders, but ’e couldn’t see any signs of the tiger, and ’e said no
+doubt it ’ad gone down to the village to see wot it could pick up, or
+p’raps it ’ad eaten John Biggs.
+
+“However that might be, nobody cared to go outside to see, and after it
+got dark we liked going ’ome less than ever.
+
+“Up to ten o’clock we did very well, and then Smith began to talk about
+’is license. He said it was all rubbish being afraid to go ’ome, and
+that, at any rate, the tiger couldn’t eat more than one of us, and
+while ’e was doing that there was the chance for the others to get ’ome
+safe. Two or three of ’em took a dislike to Smith that night and told
+’im so.
+
+“The end of it was we all slept in the tap-room that night. It seemed
+strange at first, but anything was better than going ’ome in the dark,
+and we all slept till about four next morning, when we woke up and
+found the tramp ’ad gone and left the front door standing wide open.
+
+“We took a careful look-out, and by-and-by first one started off and
+then another to see whether their wives and children ’ad been eaten or
+not. Not a soul ’ad been touched, but the wimmen and children was that
+scared there was no doing anything with ’em. None o’ the children would
+go to school, and they sat at ’ome all day with the front winder
+blocked up with a mattress to keep the tiger out.
+
+“Nobody liked going to work, but it ’ad to be done and as Farmer Gill
+said that tigers went to sleep all day and only came out toward evening
+we was a bit comforted. Not a soul went up to the ‘Cauliflower’ that
+evening for fear of coming ’ome in the dark, but as nothing ’appened
+that night we began to ’ope as the tiger ’ad travelled further on.
+
+“Bob Pretty laughed at the whole thing and said ’e didn’t believe there
+was a tiger; but nobody minded wot ’e said, Bob Pretty being, as I’ve
+often told people, the black sheep o’ Claybury, wot with poaching and,
+wot was worse, ’is artfulness.
+
+“But the very next morning something ’appened that made Bob Pretty look
+silly and wish ’e ’adn’t talked quite so fast; for at five o’clock
+Frederick Scott, going down to feed ’is hins, found as the tiger ’ad
+been there afore ’im and ’ad eaten no less than seven of ’em. The side
+of the hin-’ouse was all broke in, there was a few feathers lying on
+the ground, and two little chicks smashed and dead beside ’em.
+
+“The way Frederick Scott went on about it you’d ’ardly believe. He said
+that Govinment ’ud ’ave to make it up to ’im, and instead o’ going to
+work ’e put the two little chicks and the feathers into a pudding basin
+and walked to Cudford, four miles off, where they ’ad a policeman.
+
+“He saw the policeman, William White by name, standing at the back door
+of the ‘Fox and Hounds’ public house, throwing a ’andful o’ corn to the
+landlord’s fowls, and the first thing Mr. White ses was, ‘it’s off my
+beat,’ he ses.
+
+“‘But you might do it in your spare time, Mr. White,’ ses Frederick
+Scott. It’s very likely that the tiger’ll come back to my hin ’ouse for
+the rest of ’em, and he’d be very surprised if ’e popped ’is ’ead in
+and see you there waiting for ’im.’
+
+“He’d ’ave reason to be,’ ses Policeman White, staring at ’im.
+
+“‘Think of the praise you’d get,’ said Frederick Scott, coaxing like.
+
+“‘Look ’ere,’ ses Policeman White, ‘if you don’t take yourself and that
+pudding basin off pretty quick, you’ll come along o’ me, d’ye see?
+You’ve been drinking and you’re in a excited state.’
+
+“He gave Frederick Scott a push and follered ’im along the road, and
+every time Frederick stopped to ask ’im wot ’e was doing of ’e gave ’im
+another push to show ’im.
+
+“Frederick Scott told us all about it that evening, and some of the
+bravest of us went up to the ‘Cauliflower’ to talk over wot was to be
+done, though we took care to get ’ome while it was quite light. That
+night Peter Gubbins’s two pigs went. They were two o’ the likeliest
+pigs I ever seed, and all Peter Gubbins could do was to sit up in bed
+shivering and listening to their squeals as the tiger dragged ’em off.
+Pretty near all Claybury was round that sty next morning looking at the
+broken fence. Some of them looked for the tiger’s footmarks, but it was
+dry weather and they couldn’t see any. Nobody knew whose turn it would
+be next, and the most sensible man there, Sam Jones, went straight off
+’ome and killed his pig afore ’e went to work.
+
+“Nobody knew what to do; Farmer Hall said as it was a soldier’s job,
+and ’e drove over to Wickham to tell the police so, but nothing came of
+it, and that night at ten minutes to twelve Bill Chambers’s pig went.
+It was one o’ the biggest pigs ever raised in Claybury, but the tiger
+got it off as easy as possible. Bill ’ad the bravery to look out of the
+winder when ’e ’eard the pig squeal, but there was such a awful
+snarling noise that ’e daresn’t move ’and or foot.
+
+“Dicky Weed’s idea was for people with pigs and such-like to keep ’em
+in the house of a night, but Peter Gubbins and Bill Chambers both
+pointed out that the tiger could break a back door with one blow of ’is
+paw, and that if ’e got inside he might take something else instead o’
+pig. And they said that it was no worse for other people to lose pigs
+than wot it was for them.
+
+“The odd thing about it was that all this time nobody ’ad ever seen the
+tiger except the tramp and people sent their children back to school
+agin and felt safe going about in the daytime till little Charlie
+Gubbins came running ’ome crying and saying that ’e’d seen it. Next
+morning a lot more children see it and was afraid to go to school, and
+people began to wonder wot ’ud happen when all the pigs and poultry was
+eaten.
+
+“Then Henery Walker see it. We was sitting inside ’ere with scythes,
+and pitchforks, and such-like things handy, when we see ’im come in
+without ’is hat. His eyes were staring and ’is hair was all rumpled. He
+called for a pot o’ ale and drank it nearly off, and then ’e sat
+gasping and ’olding the mug between ’is legs and shaking ’is ’ead at
+the floor till everybody ’ad left off talking to look at ’im.
+
+“‘Wot’s the matter, Henery?’ ses one of ’em.
+
+“‘Don’t ask me,’ ses Henery Walker, with a shiver.
+
+“‘You don’t mean to say as ’ow you’ve seen the tiger?” ses Bill
+Chambers.
+
+“Henery Walker didn’t answer ’im. He got up and walked back’ards and
+for’ards, still with that frightened look in ’is eyes, and once or
+twice ’e give such a terrible start that ’e frightened us ’arf out of
+our wits. Then Bill Chambers took and forced ’im into a chair and give
+’im two o’ gin and patted ’im on the back, and at last Henery Walker
+got ’is senses back agin and told us ’ow the tiger ’ad chased ’im all
+round and round the trees in Plashett’s Wood until ’e managed to climb
+up a tree and escape it. He said the tiger ’ad kept ’im there for over
+an hour, and then suddenly turned round and bolted off up the road to
+Wickham.
+
+“It was a merciful escape, and everybody said so except Sam Jones, and
+’e asked so many questions that at last Henery Walker asked ’im
+outright if ’e disbelieved ’is word.
+
+“‘It’s all right, Sam,’ ses Bob Pretty, as ’ad come in just after
+Henery Walker. ‘I see ’im with the tiger after ’im.’
+
+“‘Wot?’ ses Henery, staring at him.
+
+“‘I see it all, Henery,’ ses Bob Pretty, ‘and I see your pluck. It was
+all you could do to make up your mind to run from it. I believe if
+you’d ’ad a fork in your ‘and you’d ’ave made a fight for it.”
+
+“Everybody said ‘Bravo!’; but Henery Walker didn’t seem to like it at
+all. He sat still, looking at Bob Pretty, and at last ’e ses, ‘Where
+was you?’ ’e s,es.
+
+“‘Up another tree, Henery, where you couldn’t see me,’ ses Bob Pretty,
+smiling at ’im.
+
+“Henery Walker, wot was drinking some beer, choked a bit, and then ’e
+put the mug down and went straight off ’ome without saying a word to
+anybody. I knew ’e didn’t like Bob Pretty, but I couldn’t see why ’e
+should be cross about ’is speaking up for ’im as ’e had done, but Bob
+said as it was ’is modesty, and ’e thought more of ’im for it.
+
+“After that things got worse than ever; the wimmen and children stayed
+indoors and kept the doors shut, and the men never knew when they went
+out to work whether they’d come ’ome agin. They used to kiss their
+children afore they went out of a morning, and their wives too, some of
+’em; even men who’d been married for years did. And several more of ’em
+see the tiger while they was at work, and came running ’ome to tell
+about it.
+
+“The tiger ’ad been making free with Claybury pigs and such-like for
+pretty near a week, and nothing ’ad been done to try and catch it, and
+wot made Claybury men madder than anything else was folks at Wickham
+saying it was all a mistake, and the tiger ’adn’t escaped at all. Even
+parson, who’d been away for a holiday, said so, and Henery Walker told
+’is wife that if she ever set foot inside the church agin ’ed ask ’is
+old mother to come and live with ’em.
+
+“It was all very well for parson to talk, but the very night he come
+back Henery Walker’s pig went, and at the same time George Kettle lost
+five or six ducks.
+
+“He was a quiet man, was George, but when ’is temper was up ’e didn’t
+care for anything. Afore he came to Claybury ’e ’ad been in the
+Militia, and that evening at the ‘Cauliflower’ ’e turned up with a gun
+over ’is shoulder and made a speech, and asked who was game to go with
+’im and hunt the tiger. Bill Chambers, who was still grieving after ’is
+pig, said ’e would, then another man offered, until at last there was
+seventeen of ’em. Some of ’em ’ad scythes and some pitchforks, and one
+or two of ’em guns, and it was one o’ the finest sights I ever seed
+when George Kettle stood ’em in rows of four and marched ’em off.
+
+“They went straight up the road, then across Farmer Gill’s fields to
+get to Plashett’s wood, where they thought the tiger ’ud most likely
+be, and the nearer they got to the wood the slower they walked. The sun
+’ad just gone down and the wood looked very quiet and dark, but John
+Biggs, the blacksmith, and George Kettle walked in first and the others
+follered, keeping so close together that Sam Jones ’ad a few words over
+his shoulder with Bill Chambers about the way ’e was carrying ’is
+pitchfork.
+
+“Every now and then somebody ’ud say, ‘_Wot’s that!_’ and they’d all
+stop and crowd together and think the time ’ad come, but it ’adn’t, and
+then they’d go on agin, trembling, until they’d walked all round the
+wood without seeing anything but one or two rabbits. John Biggs and
+George Kettle wanted for to stay there till it was dark, but the others
+wouldn’t ’ear of it for fear of frightening their wives, and just as it
+was getting dark they all come tramp, tramp, back to the ‘Cauliflower’
+agin.
+
+“Smith stood ’em ’arf a pint apiece, and they was all outside ’ere
+fancying theirselves a bit for wot they’d done when we see old man
+Parsley coming along on two sticks as fast as ’e could come.
+
+“‘Are you brave lads a-looking for the tiger?’ he asks.
+
+“‘Yes,’ ses John Biggs.
+
+“‘Then ’urry up, for the sake of mercy,’ ses old Mr. Parsley, putting
+’is ’and on the table and going off into a fit of coughing; ‘it’s just
+gone into Bob Pretty’s cottage. I was passing and saw it.’
+
+“George Kettle snatches up ’is gun and shouts out to ’is men to come
+along. Some of ’em was for ’anging back at first, some because they
+didn’t like the tiger and some because they didn’t like Bob Pretty, but
+John Biggs drove ’em in front of ’im like a flock o’ sheep and then
+they gave a cheer and ran after George Kettle, full pelt up the road.
+
+“A few wimmen and children was at their doors as they passed, but they
+took fright and went indoors screaming. There was a lamp in Bob
+Pretty’s front room, but the door was closed and the ’ouse was silent
+as the grave.
+
+“George Kettle and the men with the guns went first, then came the
+pitchforks, and last of all the scythes. Just as George Kettle put ’is
+’and on the door he ’eard something moving inside, and the next moment
+the door opened and there stood Bob Pretty.
+
+“‘What the dickens!’ ’e ses, starting back as ’e see the guns and
+pitchforks pointing at ’im.
+
+“‘’Ave you killed it, Bob?’ ses George Kettle.
+
+“‘Killed _wot?_’ ses Bob Pretty. ‘Be careful o’ them guns. Take your
+fingers off the triggers.’
+
+“‘The tiger’s in your ’ouse, Bob,’ ses George Kettle, in a whisper.
+‘’Ave you on’y just come in?’
+
+“‘Look ’ere,’ ses Bob Pretty. ‘I don’t want any o’ your games. You go
+and play ’em somewhere else.’
+
+“‘It ain’t a game,’ ses John Biggs; ‘the tiger’s in your ’ouse and
+we’re going to kill it. Now, then, lads.’
+
+“They all went in in a ’eap, pushing Bob Pretty in front of ’em, till
+the room was full. Only one man with a scythe got in, and they wouldn’t
+’ave let ’im in if they’d known. It a’most made ’em forget the tiger
+for the time.
+
+“George Kettle opened the door wot led into the kitchen, and then ’e
+sprang back with such a shout that the man with the scythe tried to
+escape, taking Henery Walker along with ’im. George Kettle tried to
+speak, but couldn’t. All ’e could do was to point with ’is finger at
+Bob Pretty’s kitchen—_and Bob Pretty’s kitchen was for all the world
+like a pork-butcher’s shop_. There was joints o’ pork ’anging from the
+ceiling, two brine tubs as full as they could be, and quite a string of
+fowls and ducks all ready for market.
+
+“‘Wot d’ye mean by coming into my ’ouse?’ ses Bob Pretty, blustering.
+‘If you don’t clear out pretty quick, I’ll make you.’
+
+“Nobody answered ’im; they was all examining ’ands o’ pork and fowls
+and such-like.
+
+“‘There’s the tiger,’ ses Henery Walker, pointing at Bob Pretty;
+‘that’s wot old man Parsley meant.’
+
+“‘Somebody go and fetch Policeman White,’ ses a voice.
+
+“‘I wish they would,’ ses Bob Pretty. ‘I’ll ’ave the law on you all for
+breaking into my ’ouse like this, see if I don’t.’
+
+“‘Where’d you get all this pork from?’ ses the blacksmith.
+
+“‘And them ducks and hins?’ ses George Kettle.
+
+“‘That’s my bisness,’ ses Bob Pretty, staring ’em full in the face. ‘I
+just ’ad a excellent oppertunity offered me of going into the pork and
+poultry line and I took it. Now, all them as doesn’t want to buy any
+pork or fowls go out o’ my house.’
+
+“‘You’re a thief, Bob Pretty!’ says Henery Walker. ‘You stole it all.’
+
+“‘Take care wot you’re saying, Henery,’ ses Bob Pretty, ‘else I’ll make
+you prove your words.’
+
+“‘You stole my pig,’ ses Herbert Smith.
+
+“‘Oh, ’ave I?’ ses Bob, reaching down a ’and o’ pork. ‘Is that your
+pig?’ he ses.
+
+“‘It’s just about the size o’ my pore pig,’ ses Herbert Smith.
+
+“‘Very usual size, I call it,’ ses Bob Pretty; ‘and them ducks and hins
+very usual-looking hins and ducks, I call ’em, except that they don’t
+grow ’em so fat in these parts. It’s a fine thing when a man’s doing a
+honest bisness to ’ave these charges brought agin ’im. Dis’eartening, I
+call it. I don’t mind telling you that the tiger got in at my back
+winder the other night and took arf a pound o’ sausage, but you don’t
+’ear me complaining and going about calling other people thieves.’
+
+“‘Tiger be hanged,’ ses Henery Walker, who was almost certain that a
+loin o’ pork on the table was off ’is pig; ‘you’re the only tiger in
+these parts.’
+
+“Why, Henery,’ ses Bob Pretty, ‘wot are you a-thinkin’ of? Where’s your
+memory? Why, it’s on’y two or three days ago you see it and ’ad to get
+up a tree out of its way.’
+
+“He smiled and shook ’is ’ead at ’im, but Henery Walker on’y kept
+opening and shutting ’is mouth, and at last ’e went outside without
+saying a word.
+
+“‘And Sam Jones see it, too,’ ses Bob Pretty; ‘didn’t you, Sam?’
+
+“Sam didn’t answer ’im.
+
+“‘And Charlie Hall and Jack Minns and a lot more,’ ses Bob; ‘besides, I
+see it myself. I can believe my own eyes, I s’pose?’
+
+“‘We’ll have the law on you,’ ses Sam Jones.
+
+“‘As _you_ like,’ ses Bob Pretty; ‘but I tell you plain, I’ve got all
+the bills for this properly made out, upstairs. And there’s pretty near
+a dozen of you as’ll ’ave to go in the box and swear as you saw the
+tiger. Now, can I sell any of you a bit o’ pork afore you go? It’s
+delicious eating, and as soon as you taste it you’ll know it wasn’t
+grown in Claybury. Or a pair o’ ducks wot ’ave come from two ’undered
+miles off, and yet look as fresh as if they was on’y killed last
+night.’
+
+“George Kettle, whose ducks ’ad gone the night afore, went into the
+front room and walked up and down fighting for ’is breath, but it was
+all no good; nobody ever got the better o’ Bob Pretty. None of ’em
+could swear to their property, and even when it became known a month
+later that Bob Pretty and the tramp knew each other, nothing was done.
+But nobody ever ’eard any more of the tiger from that day to this.”
+
+
+
+
+A MIXED PROPOSAL
+
+
+Major Brill, late of the Fenshire Volunteers, stood in front of the
+small piece of glass in the hatstand, and with a firm and experienced
+hand gave his new silk hat a slight tilt over the right eye. Then he
+took his cane and a new pair of gloves, and with a military but squeaky
+tread, passed out into the road. It was a glorious day in early autumn,
+and the soft English landscape was looking its best, but despite the
+fact that there was nothing more alarming in sight than a few cows on
+the hillside a mile away, the Major paused at his gate, and his face
+took on an appearance of the greatest courage and resolution before
+proceeding. The road was dusty and quiet, except for the children
+playing at cottage doors, and so hot that the Major, heedless of the
+fact that he could not replace the hat at exactly the same angle, stood
+in the shade of a tree while he removed it and mopped his heated brow.
+
+He proceeded on his way more leisurely, overtaking, despite his lack of
+speed, another man who was walking still more slowly in the shade of
+the hedge.
+
+“Fine day, Halibut,” he said, briskly; “fine day.”
+
+“Beautiful,” said the other, making no attempt to keep pace with him.
+
+“Country wants rain, though,” cried the Major over his shoulder.
+
+Halibut assented, and walking slowly on, wondered vaguely what gaudy
+color it was that had attracted his eye. It dawned on him at length
+that it must be the Major’s tie, and he suddenly quickened his pace, by
+no means reassured as the man of war also quickened his.
+
+“Halloa, Brill!” he cried. “Half a moment.”
+
+The Major stopped and waited for his friend; Halibut eyed the tie
+uneasily—it was fearfully and wonderfully made—but said nothing.
+
+“Well?” said the Major, somewhat sharply.
+
+“Oh—I was going to ask you, Brill—Confound it! I’ve forgotten what I
+was going to say now. I daresay I shall soon think of it. You’re not in
+a hurry?”
+
+“Well, I am, rather,” said Brill. “Fact is— Is my hat on straight,
+Halibut?”
+
+The other assuring him that it was, the Major paused in his career, and
+gripping the brim with both hands, deliberately tilted it over the
+right eye again.
+
+“You were saying—” said Halibut, regarding this manoeuvre with secret
+disapproval.
+
+“Yes,” murmured the Major, “I was saying. Well, I don’t mind telling an
+old friend like you, Halibut, though it is a profound secret. Makes me
+rather particular about my dress just now. Women notice these things.
+I’m—sha’nt get much sympathy from a confirmed old bachelor like you—but
+I’m on my way to put a very momentous question.”
+
+“The devil you are!” said the other, blankly.
+
+“Sir!” said the astonished Major.
+
+“Not Mrs. Riddel?” said Halibut.
+
+“Certainly, sir,” said the Major, stiffly. “Why not?”
+
+“Only that I am going on the same errand,” said the confirmed bachelor,
+with desperate calmness.
+
+The Major looked at him, and for the first time noticed an unusual
+neatness and dressiness in his friend’s attire. His collar was higher
+than usual; his tie, of the whitest and finest silk, bore a pin he
+never remembered to have seen before; and for the first time since he
+had known him, the Major, with a strange sinking at the heart, saw that
+he wore spats.
+
+“This is extraordinary,” he said, briefly. “Well, good-day, Halibut.
+Can’t stop.”
+
+“Good-day,” said the other.
+
+The Major quickened his pace and shot ahead, and keeping in the shade
+of the hedge, ground his teeth as the civilian on the other side of the
+road slowly, but surely, gained on him.
+
+It became exciting. The Major was handicapped by his upright bearing
+and short military stride; the other, a simple child of the city, bent
+forward, swinging his arms and taking immense strides. At a by-lane
+they picked up three small boys, who, trotting in their rear, made it
+evident by their remarks that they considered themselves the privileged
+spectators of a foot-race. The Major could stand it no longer, and with
+a cut of his cane at the foremost boy, softly called a halt.
+
+“Well,” said Halibut, stopping.
+
+The man’s manner was suspicious, not to say offensive, and the other
+had much ado to speak him fair.
+
+“This is ridiculous,” he said, trying to smile. “We can’t walk in and
+propose in a duet. One of us must go to-day and the other to-morrow.”
+
+“Certainly,” said Halibut; “that’ll be the best plan.”
+
+“So childish,” said the Major, with a careless laugh, “two fellows
+walking in hot and tired and proposing to her.”
+
+“Absurd,” replied Halibut, and both men eyed each other carefully.
+
+“So, if I’m unsuccessful, old chap,” said the Major, in a voice which
+he strove to render natural and easy, “I will come straight back to
+your place and let you know, so as not to keep you in suspense.”
+
+“You’re very good,” said Halibut, with some emotion; “but I think I’ll
+take to-day, because I have every reason to believe that I have got one
+of my bilious attacks coming on to-morrow.”
+
+“Pooh! fancy, my dear fellow,” said the Major, heartily; “I never saw
+you look better in my life.”
+
+“That’s one of the chief signs,” replied Halibut, shaking his head.
+“I’m afraid I must go to-day.”
+
+“I really cannot waive my right on account of your bilious attack,”
+said the Major haughtily.
+
+“Your _right?_” said Halibut, with spirit.
+
+“My right!” repeated the other. “I should have been there before you if
+you had not stopped me in the first place.”
+
+“But I started first,” said Halibut.
+
+“Prove it,” exclaimed the Major, warmly.
+
+The other shrugged his shoulders.
+
+“I shall certainly not give way,” he said, calmly. “This is a matter in
+which my whole future is concerned. It seems very odd, not to say
+inconvenient, that you should have chosen the same day as myself,
+Brill, for such an errand—very odd.”
+
+“It’s quite an accident,” asseverated the Major; “as a matter of fact,
+Halibut, I nearly went yesterday. That alone gives me, I think, some
+claim to precedence.”
+
+“Just so,” said Halibut, slowly; “it constitutes an excellent claim.”
+
+The Major regarded him with moistening eyes. This was generous and
+noble. His opinion of Halibut rose. “And now you have been so frank
+with me,” said the latter, “it is only fair that you should know I
+started out with the same intention three days ago and found her out.
+So far as claims go, I think mine leads.”
+
+“Pure matter of opinion,” said the disgusted Major; “it really seems as
+though we want an arbitrator. Well, we’ll have to make our call
+together, I suppose, but I’ll take care not to give you any
+opportunity, Halibut, so don’t cherish any delusions on that point.
+Even _you_ wouldn’t have the hardihood to propose before a third party,
+I should think; but if you do, I give you fair warning that I shall
+begin, too.”
+
+“This is most unseemly,” said Halibut. “We’d better both go home and
+leave it for another day.”
+
+“When do you propose going, then?” asked the Major.
+
+“Really, I haven’t made up my mind,” replied the other.
+
+The Major shrugged his shoulders.
+
+“It won’t do, Halibut,” he said, grimly; “it won’t do. I’m too old a
+soldier to be caught that way.”
+
+There was a long pause. The Major mopped his brow again. “I’ve got it,”
+he said at last.
+
+Halibut looked at him curiously.
+
+“We must play for first proposal,” said the Major, firmly. “We’re
+pretty evenly matched.”
+
+“Chess?” gasped the other, a whole world of protest in his tones.
+
+“Chess,” repeated the Major.
+
+“It is hardly respectful,” demurred Halibut. “What do you think the
+lady would do if she heard of it?”
+
+“Laugh,” replied the Major, with conviction.
+
+“I believe she would,” said the other, brightening. “I believe she
+would.”
+
+“You agree, then?”
+
+“With conditions.”
+
+“Conditions?” repeated the Major.
+
+“One game,” said Halibut, speaking very slowly and distinctly; “and if
+the winner is refused, the loser not to propose until he gives him
+permission.”
+
+“What the deuce for?” inquired the other, suspiciously.
+
+“Suppose I win,” replied Halibut, with suspicious glibness, “and was so
+upset that I had one of my bilious attacks come on, where should I be?
+Why, I might have to break off in the middle and go home. A fellow
+can’t propose when everything in the room is going round and round.”
+
+“I don’t think you ought to contemplate marriage, Halibut,” remarked
+the Major, very seriously and gently.
+
+“Thanks,” said Halibut, dryly.
+
+“Very well,” said the Major, “I agree to the conditions. Better come to
+my place and we’ll decide it now. If we look sharp, the winner may be
+able to know his fate to-day, after all.”
+
+Halibut assenting, they walked back together. The feverish joy of the
+gambler showed in the Major’s eye as they drew their chairs up to the
+little antique chess table and began to place their pieces ready for
+the fray. Then a thought struck him, and he crossed over to the
+sideboard.
+
+“If you’re feeling a bit off colour, Halibut,” he said, kindly, “you’d
+better have a little brandy to pull yourself together. I don’t wish to
+take a mean advantage.”
+
+“You’re very good,” said the other, as he eyed the noble measure of
+liquid poured out by his generous adversary.
+
+“And now to business,” said the Major, as he drew himself a little soda
+from a siphon.
+
+“Now to business,” repeated Halibut, rising and placing his glass on
+the mantel-piece.
+
+The Major struggled fiercely with his feelings, but, despite himself, a
+guilty blush lent colour to the other’s unfounded suspicions.
+
+“Remember the conditions,” said Halibut, impressively.
+
+“Here’s my hand on it,” said the other, reaching over.
+
+Halibut took it, and, his thoughts being at the moment far away, gave
+it a tender, respectful squeeze. The Major stared and coughed. It was
+suggestive of practice.
+
+If the history of the duel is ever written, it will be found not
+unworthy of being reckoned with the most famous combats of ancient
+times. Piece after piece was removed from the board, and the Major
+drank glass after glass of soda to cool his heated brain. At the second
+glass Halibut took an empty tumbler and helped himself. Suddenly there
+was a singing in the Major’s ears, and a voice, a hateful, triumphant
+voice, said,
+
+“Checkmate!”
+
+Then did his gaze wander from knight to bishop and bishop to castle in
+a vain search for succour. There was his king defied by a bishop—a
+bishop which had been hobnobbing with pawns in one corner of the board,
+and which he could have sworn he had captured and removed full twenty
+minutes before. He mentioned this impression to Halibut.
+
+“That was the other one,” said his foe. “I thought you had forgotten
+this. I have been watching and hoping so for the last half-hour.”
+
+There was no disguising the coarse satisfaction of the man. He had
+watched and hoped. Not beaten him, so the Major told himself, in fair
+play, but by taking a mean and pitiful advantage of a pure oversight. A
+sheer oversight. He admitted it.
+
+Halibut rose with a sigh of relief, and the Major, mechanically
+sweeping up the pieces, dropped them one by one into the box.
+
+“Plenty of time,” said the victor, glancing at the clock. “I shall go
+now, but I should like a wash first.”
+
+The Major rose, and in his capacity of host led the way upstairs to his
+room, and poured fresh water for his foe. Halibut washed himself
+delicately, carefully trimming his hair and beard, and anxiously
+consulting the Major as to the set of his coat in the back, after he
+had donned it again.
+
+His toilet completed, he gave a satisfied glance in the glass, and then
+followed the man of war sedately down stairs. At the hall he paused,
+and busied himself with the clothes-brush and hat-pad, modestly
+informing his glaring friend that he could not afford to throw any
+chances away, and then took his departure.
+
+The Major sat up late that night waiting for news, but none came, and
+by breakfast-time next morning his thirst for information became almost
+uncontrollable. He toyed with a chop and allowed his coffee to get
+cold. Then he clapped on his hat and set off to Halibut’s to know the
+worst.
+
+“Well?” he inquired, as he followed the other into his dining-room.
+
+“I went,” said Halibut, waving him to a chair.
+
+“Am I to congratulate you?”
+
+“Well, I don’t know,” was the reply; “perhaps not just yet.”
+
+“What do you mean by that?” said the Major, irascibly.
+
+“Well, as a matter of fact,” said Halibut, “she refused me, but so
+nicely and so gently that I scarcely minded it. In fact, at first I
+hardly realized that she had refused me.”
+
+The Major rose, and regarding his poor friend kindly, shook and patted
+him lightly on the shoulder.
+
+“She’s a splendid woman,” said Halibut. “Ornament to her sex,” remarked
+the Major.
+
+“So considerate,” murmured the bereaved one.
+
+“Good women always are,” said the Major, decisively. “I don’t think I’d
+better worry her to-day, Halibut, do you?”
+
+“No, I don’t,” said Halibut, stiffly.
+
+“I’ll try my luck to-morrow,” said the Major.
+
+“I beg your pardon,” said Halibut.
+
+“Eh?” said the Major, trying to look puzzled.
+
+“You are forgetting the conditions of the game,” replied Halibut. “You
+have to obtain my permission first.”
+
+“Why, my dear fellow,” said the Major, with a boisterous laugh. “I
+wouldn’t insult you by questioning your generosity in such a case. No,
+no, Halibut, old fellow, I know you too well.”
+
+He spoke with feeling, but there was an anxious note in his voice.
+
+“We must abide by the conditions,” said Halibut, slowly; “and I must
+inform you, Brill, that I intend to renew the attack myself.”
+
+“Then, sir,” said the Major, fuming, “you compel me to say—putting all
+modesty aside—that I believe the reason Mrs. Riddel would have nothing
+to do with you was because she thought _somebody else_ might make a
+similar offer.”
+
+“That’s what I thought,” said Halibut, simply; “but you see now that
+you have so unaccountably—so far as Mrs. Riddel is concerned—dropped
+out of the running, perhaps, if I am gently persistent, she’ll take
+me.”
+
+The Major rose and glared at him.
+
+“If you don’t take care, old chap,” said Halibut, tenderly, “you’ll
+burst something.”
+
+“Gently persistent,” repeated the Major, staring at him; “gently
+persistent.”
+
+“Remember Bruce and his spider,” smiled the other.
+
+“You are _not_ going to propose to that poor woman nine times?” roared
+his incensed friend.
+
+“I hope that it will not be necessary,” was the reply; “but if it is, I
+can assure you, my dear Brill, that I’m not going to be outclassed by a
+mere spider.”
+
+“But think of her feelings!” gasped the Major.
+
+“I have,” was the reply; “and I’m sure she’ll thank me for it
+afterward. You see, Brill, you and I are the only eligibles in the
+place, and now you are out of it, she’s sure to take me sooner or
+later.”
+
+“And pray how long am I to wait?” demanded the Major, controlling
+himself with difficulty.
+
+“I can’t say,” said Halibut; “but I don’t think it’s any good your
+waiting at all, because if I see any signs that Mrs. Riddel is waiting
+for you I may just give her a hint of the hopelessness of it.”
+
+“You’re a perfect Mephistopheles, sir!” bawled the indignant Major.
+Halibut bowed.
+
+“Strategy, my dear Brill,” he said, smiling; “strategy. Now why waste
+your time? Why not make some other woman happy? Why not try her
+companion, Miss Philpotts? I’m sure any little assistance—”
+
+The Major’s attitude was so alarming that the sentence was never
+finished, and a second later the speaker found himself alone, watching
+his irate friend hurrying frantically down the path, knocking the
+blooms off the geraniums with his cane as he went. He saw no more of
+him for several weeks, the Major preferring to cherish his resentment
+in the privacy of his house. The Major also refrained from seeing the
+widow, having a wholesome dread as to what effect the contemplation of
+her charms might have upon his plighted word.
+
+He met her at last by chance. Mrs. Riddel bowed coldly and would have
+passed on, but the Major had already stopped, and was making wild and
+unmerited statements about the weather.
+
+“It is seasonable,” she said, simply.
+
+The Major agreed with her, and with a strong-effort regained his
+composure.
+
+“I was just going to turn back,” he said, untruthfully; “may I walk
+with you?”
+
+“I am not going far,” was the reply.
+
+With soldierly courage the Major took this as permission; with feminine
+precision Mrs. Riddel walked about fifty yards and then stopped. “I
+told you I wasn’t going far,” she said sweetly, as she held out her
+hand. “Goodby.”
+
+“I wanted to ask you something,” said the Major, turning with her. “I
+can’t think what it was.
+
+They walked on very slowly, the Major’s heart beating rapidly as he
+told himself that the lady’s coldness was due to his neglect of the
+past few weeks, and his wrath against Halibut rose to still greater
+heights as he saw the cruel position in which that schemer had placed
+him. Then he made a sudden resolution. There was no condition as to
+secrecy, and, first turning the conversation on to indoor amusements,
+he told the astonished Mrs. Riddel the full particulars of the fatal
+game. Mrs. Riddel said that she would never forgive them; it was the
+most preposterous thing she had ever heard of. And she demanded hotly
+whether she was to spend the rest of her life in refusing Mr. Halibut.
+
+“Do you play high as a rule?” she inquired, scornfully.
+
+“Sixpence a game,” replied the Major, simply.
+
+The corners of Mrs. Riddel’s mouth relaxed, and her fine eyes began to
+water; then she turned her head away and laughed. “It was very foolish
+of us, I admit,” said the Major, ruefully, “and very wrong. I shouldn’t
+have told you, only I couldn’t explain my apparent neglect without.”
+
+“Apparent neglect?” repeated the widow, somewhat haughtily.
+
+“Well, put it down to a guilty conscience,” said the Major; “it seems
+years to me since I have seen you.”
+
+“Remember the conditions, Major Brill,” said Mrs. Riddel, with
+severity.
+
+“I shall not transgress them,” replied the Major, seriously.
+
+Mrs. Riddel gave her head a toss, and regarded him from the corner of
+her eyes.
+
+“I am very angry with you, indeed,” she said, severely. The Major
+apologized again. “For losing,” added the lady, looking straight before
+her.
+
+Major Brill caught his breath and his knees trembled beneath him. He
+made a half-hearted attempt to seize her hand, and then remembering his
+position, sighed deeply and looked straight before him. They walked on
+in silence.
+
+“I think,” said his companion at last, “that, if you like, you can get
+back at cribbage what you lost at chess. That is, of course, if you
+really want to.”
+
+“He wouldn’t play,” said the Major, shaking his head.
+
+“No, but I will,” said Mrs. Riddel, with a smile. “I think I’ve got a
+plan.”
+
+She blushed charmingly, and then, in modest alarm at her boldness,
+dropped her voice almost to a whisper. The Major gazed at her in
+speechless admiration and threw back his head in ecstasy. “Come round
+to-morrow afternoon,” said Mrs. Riddel, pausing at the end of the lane.
+“Mr. Halibut shall be there, too, and it shall be done under his very
+eyes.”
+
+Until that time came the Major sat at home carefully rehearsing his
+part, and it was with an air of complacent virtue that he met the
+somewhat astonished gaze of the persistent Halibut next day. It was a
+bright afternoon, but they sat indoors, and Mrs. Riddel, after an
+animated description of a game at cribbage with Miss Philpotts the
+night before, got the cards out and challenged Halibut to a game.
+
+They played two, both of which the diplomatic Halibut lost; then Mrs.
+Riddel, dismissing him as incompetent, sat drumming on the table with
+her fingers, and at length challenged the Major. She lost the first
+game easily, and began the second badly. Finally, after hastily
+glancing at a new hand, she flung the cards petulantly on the table,
+face downward.
+
+“Would you like my hand, Major Brill?” she demanded, with a blush.
+
+“Better than anything in the world,” cried the Major, eagerly.
+
+Halibut started, and Miss Philpotts nearly had an accident with her
+crochet hook. The only person who kept cool was Mrs. Riddel, and it was
+quite clear to the beholders that she had realized neither the
+ambiguity of her question nor the meaning of her opponent’s reply.
+
+“Well, you may have it,” she said, brightly.
+
+Before Miss Philpotts could lay down her work, before Mr. Halibut could
+interpose, the Major took possession of Mrs. Riddel’s small white hand
+and raised it gallantly to his lips. Mrs. Riddel, with a faint scream
+which was a perfect revelation to the companion, snatched her hand
+away. “I meant my hand of cards,” she said, breathlessly.
+
+“Really, Brill, really,” said Halibut, stepping forward fussily.
+
+“Oh!” said the Major, blankly; “cards!”
+
+“That’s what I meant, of course,” said Mrs. Riddel, recovering herself
+with a laugh. “I had no idea still—if you prefer—-” The Major took her
+hand again, and Miss Philpotts set Mr. Halibut an example—which he did
+not follow—by gazing meditatively out of the window. Finally she
+gathered up her work and quitted the room. Mrs. Riddel smiled over at
+Mr. Halibut and nodded toward the Major.
+
+[Illustration: “Don’t you think Major Brill is somewhat hasty in his
+conclusions?”]
+
+“Don’t you think Major Brill is somewhat hasty in his conclusions?” she
+inquired, softly.
+
+“I’ll tell Major Brill what I think of him when I get him alone,” said
+the injured gentleman, sourly.
+
+
+
+
+AN ADULTERATION ACT
+
+
+Dr. Frank Carson had been dreaming tantalizing dreams of cooling,
+effervescent beverages. Over and over again in his dreams he had risen
+from his bed, and tripping lightly down to the surgery in his pajamas,
+mixed himself something long and cool and fizzy, without being able to
+bring the dream to a satisfactory termination.
+
+With a sudden start he awoke. The thirst was still upon him; the
+materials for quenching it, just down one flight of stairs. He would
+have smacked his lips at the prospect if they had been moist enough to
+smack; as it was, he pushed down the bedclothes, and throwing one leg
+out of bed-became firmly convinced that he was still dreaming.
+
+For the atmosphere was stifling and odorous, and the ceiling descended
+in an odd bulging curve to within a couple of feet of his head. Still
+half asleep, he raised his fist and prodded at it in astonishment—a
+feeling which gave way to one of stupefaction as the ceiling took
+another shape and swore distinctly.
+
+“I _must_ be dreaming,” mused the doctor; “even the ceiling seems
+alive.”
+
+He prodded it again-regarding it closely this time. The ceiling at once
+rose to greater altitudes, and at the same moment an old face with
+bushy whiskers crawled under the edge of it, and asked him profanely
+what he meant by it. It also asked him whether he wanted something for
+himself, because, if so, he was going the right way to work.
+
+“Where am I?” demanded the bewildered doctor. “_Mary! Mary!_”
+
+He started up in bed, and brought his head in sudden violent contact
+with the ceiling. Then, before the indignant ceiling could carry out
+its threat of a moment before, he slipped out of bed and stood on a
+floor which was in its place one moment and somewhere else the next.
+
+In the smell of bilge-water, tar, and the foetid atmosphere generally
+his clouded brain awoke to the fact that he was on board ship, but
+resolutely declined to inform him how he got there. He looked down in
+disgust at the ragged clothes which he had on in lieu of the usual
+pajamas; and then, as events slowly pieced themselves together in his
+mind, remembered, as the last thing that he could remember, that he had
+warned his friend Harry Thomson, solicitor, that if he had any more to
+drink it would not be good for him.
+
+He wondered dimly as he stood whether Thomson was there too, and
+walking unsteadily round the forecastle, roused the sleepers, one by
+one, and asked them whether they were Harry Thomson, all answering with
+much fluency in the negative, until he came to one man who for some
+time made no answer at all.
+
+The doctor shook him first and then punched him. Then he shook him
+again and gave him little scientific slaps, until at length Harry
+Thomson, in a far-away voice, said that he was all right.
+
+“Well, I’m glad I’m not alone,” said the doctor, selfishly. “_Harry!
+Harry! Wake up!_”
+
+“All ri’!” said the sleeper; “I’m all ri’!”
+
+The doctor shook him again, and then rolled him backward and forward in
+his bunk. Under this gentle treatment the solicitor’s faculties were
+somewhat brightened, and, half opening his eyes, he punched viciously
+at the disturber of his peace, until threatening voices from the gloom
+promised to murder both of them.
+
+“Where are we?” demanded the doctor, of a deep voice from the other
+side of the forecastle which had been particularly threatening.
+
+“Barque _Stella_, o’ course,” was the reply. “Where’d you think you
+was?”
+
+The doctor gripped the edge of his friend’s bunk and tried to think;
+then, a feeling of nausea overcoming all others, he clambered hurriedly
+up the forecastle ladder and lurched to the side of the vessel.
+
+He leaned there for some time without moving, a light breeze cooling
+his fevered brow, and a small schooner some little distance from them
+playing seesaw, as he closed his eyes to the heaving blue sea. Land was
+conspicuous by its absence, and with a groan he turned and looked about
+him—at the white scrubbed deck, the snowy canvas towering aloft on
+lazily creaking spars, and the steersman leaning against the wheel
+regarding the officer who stood near by.
+
+Dr. Carson, feeling a little better, walked sternly aft, the officer
+turning round and glancing in surprise at his rags as he approached.
+
+“I beg your pardon,” began the doctor, in superior tones.
+
+“And what the devil do you want?” demanded the second officer; “who
+told you to come along here?”
+
+“I want to know what this means,” said the doctor, fiercely. “How dare
+you kidnap us on your beastly bilge-tank?”
+
+“Man’s mad,” murmured the astonished second officer.
+
+“Insufferable outrage!” continued the doctor. “Take us back to
+Melbourne at once.”
+
+“You get for’ard,” said the other sharply; “get for’ard, and don’t let
+me have any more of your lip.”
+
+“I want to see the captain of this ship,” cried the doctor; “go and
+fetch him at once.”
+
+[Illustration: He saw another tatterdemalion coming toward him.]
+
+The second officer gazed at him, limp with astonishment, and then
+turned to the steersman, as though unable to believe his ears. The
+steersman pointed in front of him, and the other gave a cry of surprise
+and rage as he saw another tatterdemalion coming with uncertain steps
+toward him.
+
+“Carson,” said the new arrival, feebly; and coming closer to his
+friend, clung to him miserably.
+
+“I’m just having it out with ’em, Thomson,” said the doctor,
+energetically. “My friend here is a solicitor. Tell him what’ll happen
+if they don’t take us back, Harry.”
+
+“You seem to be unaware, my good fellow,” said the solicitor, covering
+a large hole in the leg of his trousers with his hand, “of the very
+dangerous situation in which you have placed yourselves. We have no
+desire to be harsh with you—”
+
+“Not at all,” acquiesced the doctor, nodding at the second officer.
+
+“At the same time,” continued Mr. Thomson—“at the—” He let go his
+friend’s arm and staggered away; the doctor gazed after him
+sympathetically.
+
+“His digestion is not all it should be,” he said to the second officer,
+confidentially.
+
+“If you don’t get for’ard in two twos,” said that gentleman,
+explosively, “I’ll knock your heads off.”
+
+The doctor gazed at him in haughty disdain, and taking the limp Thomson
+by the arm, led him slowly away.
+
+“How did we get here?” asked Mr. Harry Thomson, feebly.
+
+The doctor shook his head.
+
+“How did we get these disgusting clothes on?” continued his friend.
+
+The doctor shook his head again. “The last thing I can remember,
+Harry,” he said, slowly, “was imploring you not to drink any more.”
+
+“I didn’t hear you,” said the solicitor, crustily; “your speech was
+very indistinct last night.”
+
+“Seemed so to you, I dare say,” said the other.
+
+Mr. Thomson shook his arm off, and clinging to the mainmast, leaned his
+cheek against it and closed his eyes. He opened them again at the sound
+of voices, and drew himself up as he saw the second officer coming
+along with a stern-visaged man of about fifty.
+
+“Are you the master of this vessel?” inquired the doctor, stepping to
+his friend’s side.
+
+“What the blazes has that got to do with you?” demanded the skipper.
+“Look here, my lads; don’t you play any of your little games on me,
+because they won’t do. You’re both of you as drunk as owls.”
+
+“Defamation of character,” said the solicitor, feebly, to his friend.
+
+“Allow me,” said the doctor, with his best manner, “to inquire what all
+this means. I am Dr. Frank Carson, of Melbourne; this gentleman is my
+friend Mr. Thomson, of the same place, solicitor.”
+
+“_What?_” roared the skipper, the veins in his forehead standing out.
+“Doctor! Solicitor! Why, you damned rascals, you shipped with me as
+cook and A. B.”
+
+“There’s some mistake,” said the doctor. “I’m afraid I shall have to
+ask you to take us back. I hope you haven’t come far.”
+
+“Take those scarecrows away,” cried the skipper, hoarsely; “take them
+away before I do them a mischief. I’ll have the law of somebody for
+shipping two useless lubbers as seamen. Look to me like pickpockets.”
+
+“You shall answer for this,” said Carson, foaming; “we’re professional
+men, and we’re not going to be abused by a bargee.”
+
+“Let him talk,” said Mr. Thomson, hurriedly drawing his friend away
+from the irate skipper. “Let him talk.”
+
+“I’ll put you both in quod when we get to Hong-kong,” said the skipper.
+“Meantime, no work, no food; d’ye hear? Start and cook the breakfast,
+Mr. Doctor; and you. Mr. Lawyer, turn to and ask the boy to teach you
+an A. B’s duties.”
+
+He walked back to the cabin; and the new cook was slowly pushed toward
+the galley by the second officer, the new A. B., under the same gentle
+guidance, being conducted back to the forecastle.
+
+Fortunately for the new seamen the weather continued fine, but the heat
+of the galley was declared by the new cook to be insupportable. From
+the other hands they learned that they had been shipped with several
+others by a resourceful boarding-house master. The other hands, being
+men of plain speech, also said that they were brought aboard in a state
+of beastly and enviable intoxication, and chaffed crudely when the
+doctor attributed their apparent state of intoxication to drugs.
+
+[Illustration: “You say you’re a doctor?”]
+
+“You say you’re a doctor?” said the oldest seaman.
+
+“I am,” said Carson, fiercely.
+
+“Wot sort of a doctor are you, if you don’t know when your licker’s
+been played with, then?” asked the old man, as a grin passed slowly
+from mouth to mouth.
+
+“I suppose it is because I drink so seldom,” said the doctor, loftily.
+“I hardly know the taste of liquor myself, while as for my friend Mr.
+Thomson, you might almost call him a teetotaler.
+
+“Next door to one,” said the solicitor, who was sewing a patch on his
+trousers, as he looked up approvingly.
+
+“You _might_ call ’im a sailor, if you liked,” said another seaman,
+“but that wouldn’t make him one. All I can say is I never ’ad enough
+time or money to get in the state you was both in when you come
+aboard.”
+
+If the forecastle was incredulous, the cabin was worse. The officers at
+first took but little notice of them, but feeling their torn and
+tattered appearance was against them, they put on so many airs and
+graces to counteract this that flesh and blood could not endure it
+quietly. The cook would allude to his friend as Mr. Thomson, while the
+A. B. would persist in referring, with a most affected utterance, to
+Dr. Carson.
+
+“Cook!” bawled the skipper one day when they were about a week out.
+
+Dr. Carson, who was peeling potatoes, stepped slowly out of the galley
+and went toward him.
+
+“You say ‘Sir,’ when you’re spoken to,” said the skipper, fiercely.
+
+The doctor sneered.
+
+“My — if you sneer at me, I’ll knock your head off!” said the other,
+with a wicked look.
+
+“When you get back to Melbourne,” said the doctor, quietly, “you’ll
+hear more of this.”
+
+“You’re a couple of pickpockets aping the gentleman,” said the skipper,
+and he turned to the mate. “Mr. Mackenzie, what do these two
+ragamuffins look like?”
+
+“Pickpockets,” said the mate, dutifully.
+
+“It’s a very handy thing,” said the old man, jeeringly, “to have a
+doctor aboard. First time I’ve carried a surgeon.”
+
+Mr. Mackenzie guffawed loudly.
+
+“And a solicitor,” said the skipper, gazing darkly at the hapless Harry
+Thomson, who was cleaning brasswork. “Handy in case of disputes. He’s a
+real sea lawyer. _Cook!_”
+
+“Sir?” said the doctor, quietly.
+
+“Go down and tidy my cabin, and see you do it well.”
+
+The doctor went below without a word, and worked like a housemaid. When
+he came on deck again, his face wore a smile almost of happiness, and
+his hand caressed one trousers pocket as though it concealed a hidden
+weapon.
+
+For the following three or four days the two unfortunates were worked
+unceasingly. Mr. Thomson complained bitterly, but the cook wore a
+sphinx-like smile and tried to comfort him.
+
+“It won’t be for long, Harry,” he said, consolingly.
+
+The solicitor sniffed. “I could write tract after tract on temperance,”
+he said, bitterly. “I wonder what our poor wives are thinking? I expect
+they have put us down as dead.”
+
+“Crying their eyes out,” said the doctor, wistfully; “but they’ll dry
+them precious quick when we get back, and ask all sorts of questions.
+What are you going to say, Harry?”
+
+“The truth,” said the solicitor, virtuously.
+
+“So am I,” said his friend; “but mind, we must both tell the same tale,
+whatever it is. Halloa! what’s the matter?”
+
+“It’s the skipper,” said the boy, who had just run up; “he wants to see
+you at once. He’s dying.”
+
+He caught hold of the doctor by the sleeve; but Carson, in his most
+professional manner, declined to be hurried. He went leisurely down the
+companion-ladder, and met with a careless glance the concerned faces of
+the mate and second officer.
+
+“Come to the skipper at once,” said the mate.
+
+“Does he want to see me?” said the doctor, languidly, as he entered the
+cabin.
+
+The skipper was lying doubled up in his bunk, his face twisted with
+pain. “Doctor,” he panted, “give me something quick. There’s the
+medicine-chest.”
+
+“Do you want some food, sir?” inquired the other, respectfully.
+
+“Food be damned!” said the sufferer. “I want physic. There’s the
+medicine-chest.” The doctor took it up and held it out to him. “I don’t
+want the lot,” moaned the skipper.
+
+“I want you to give me something for red-hot corkscrews in the inside.”
+
+“I beg your pardon,” said the doctor, humbly; “I’m only the cook.”
+
+“If you—don’t—prescribe for me at once,” said the skipper, “I’ll put
+you in irons.”
+
+The doctor shook his head. “I shipped as cook,” he said, slowly.
+
+“Give me something, for Heaven’s sake!” said the skipper, humbly. “I’m
+dying.” The doctor pondered.
+
+“If you dinna treat him at once, I’ll break your skull,” said the mate,
+persuasively.
+
+The doctor regarded him scornfully, and turned to the writhing skipper.
+
+“My fee is half a guinea a visit,” he said, softly; “five shillings if
+you come to me.”
+
+“I’ll have half a guinea’s worth,” said the agonized skipper.
+
+The doctor took his wrist, and calmly drew the second officer’s watch
+from its owner’s pocket. Then he inspected the sick man’s tongue, and
+shaking his head, selected a powder from the chest.
+
+“You mustn’t mind its being nasty,” he said. “Where’s a spoon?”
+
+He looked round for one, but the skipper took the powder from his hand,
+and licked it from the paper as though it had been sherbet.
+
+“For mercy’s sake don’t say it’s cholera,” he gasped.
+
+“I won’t say anything,” said the doctor. “Where did you say the money
+was?”
+
+The skipper pointed to his trousers, and Mr. Mackenzie, his national
+spirit rising in hot rage, took out the agreed amount and handed it to
+the physician.
+
+“Am I in danger?” said the skipper.
+
+“There’s always danger,” said the doctor, in his best bedside manner.
+“Have you made your will?”
+
+The other, turning pale, shook his head. “Perhaps you’d like to see a
+solicitor?” said Carson, in winning tones.
+
+“I’m not bad enough for that,” said the skipper, stoutly.
+
+“You must stay here and nurse the skipper, Mr. Mackenzie,” said Carson,
+turning to the mate; “and be good enough not to make that snuffling
+noise; it’s worrying to an invalid.”
+
+“Snuffling noise?” repeated the horror-struck mate.
+
+“Yes; you’ve got an unpleasant habit of snuffling,” said the doctor;
+“it sometimes. I worries me meant to speak to you about it before. You
+mustn’t do it here. If you want to snuffle, go and snuffle on deck.”
+
+The frenzied outburst of the mate was interrupted by the skipper.
+“Don’t make that noise in my cabin, Mr. Mackenzie,” he said, severely.
+
+Both mates withdrew in dudgeon, and Carson, after arranging the
+sufferer’s bedclothes, quitted the cabin and sought his friend. Mr.
+Thomson was at first incredulous, but his eyes glistened brightly at
+the sight of the half-sovereign.
+
+“Better hide it,” he said, apprehensively; “the skipper’ll have it back
+when he gets well; it’s the only coin we’ve got.”
+
+“He won’t get well,” said Dr. Carson, easily; “not till we get to
+Hong-kong, that is.”
+
+“What’s the matter with him?” whispered the solicitor.
+
+The doctor, evading his eye, pulled a long face and shook his head. “It
+may be the cooking,” he said, slowly. “I’m not a good cook, I admit. It
+might be something got into the food from the medicine-chest. I
+shouldn’t be at all surprised if the mates are taken bad too.”
+
+And indeed at that very moment the boy came rushing to the galley
+again, bawling out that Mr. Mackenzie was lying flat on his stomach in
+his bunk, punching the air with his fists and rending it with his
+language. The second officer appeared on deck as he finished his tale,
+and glancing forward, called out loudly for the cook.
+
+“You’re wanted, Frank,” said the solicitor.
+
+“When he calls me doctor, I’ll go,” said the other, stiffly.
+
+“_Cook!_” bawled the second officer. “_Cook!_ COOK!”
+
+He came running forward, his face red and angry, and his fist doubled.
+“Didn’t you hear me calling you?” he demanded, fiercely.
+
+“I’ve been promoted,” said Carson, sweetly. “I’m ship’s surgeon now.”
+
+“Come down below at once, or I’ll take you there by the scruff of your
+neck,” vociferated the other.
+
+“You’re not big enough, little man,” said the doctor, still smiling.
+“Well, well, lead the way, and we’ll see what we can do.”
+
+He followed the speechless second officer below, and found the boy’s
+description of the first officer’s state as moonlight unto sunlight, as
+water unto wine. Even the second officer was appalled at the spectacle,
+and ventured a protest.
+
+“Gie me something at once,” yelled Mr. Mackenzie.
+
+“Do you wish me to undertake your case?” inquired the doctor, suavely.
+
+Mr. Mackenzie said that he did, in seven long, abusive, and wicked
+sentences.
+
+“My fee is half a guinea,” said the doctor, softly, “poor people who
+cannot afford more, mates and the like, I sometimes treat for less.”
+
+“I’ll die first,” howled the mate; “you won’t get any money out of me.”
+
+“Very good,” said the doctor, and rose to depart.
+
+“Bring him back, Rogers,” yelled the mate; “don’t let him go.”
+
+But the second officer, with a strange awesome look in his eyes, was
+leaning back in his seat, tightly gripping the edge of the table in
+both hands.
+
+“Come, come,” said the doctor, cheerily—“what’s this? You mustn’t be
+ill, Rogers. I want you to nurse these other two.”
+
+The other rose slowly to his feet and eyed him with lack-lustre eyes.
+“Tell the third officer to take charge,” he said, slowly; “and if he’s
+to be nurse as well, he’s got his hands full.”
+
+The doctor sent the boy to apprise the third officer of his
+responsibilities, and then stood watching the extraordinary and
+snakelike convolutions of Mr. Mackenzie.
+
+“How much—did—ye say?” hissed the latter.
+
+“Poor people,” repeated the doctor, with relish, “five shillings a
+visit; very poor people, half a crown.”
+
+“I’ll have half a crown’s worth,” moaned the miserable mate.
+
+“Mr. Mackenzie,” said a faint voice from the skipper’s cabin.
+
+“Sir?” yelled the mate, who was in torment.
+
+“Don’t answer me like that, sir,” said the skipper, sharply. “Will you
+please to remember that I’m ill, and can’t bear that horrible noise
+you’re making?”
+
+“I’m—ill—too,” gasped the mate.
+
+“Ill? Nonsense!” said the skipper, severely. “We can’t both be ill. How
+about the ship?”
+
+There was no reply, but from another cabin the voice of Mr. Rogers was
+heard calling wildly for medical aid, and offering impossible sums in
+exchange for it. The doctor went from cabin to cabin, and, first
+collecting his fees, administered sundry potions to the sufferers; and
+then, in his capacity of cook, went forward and made an unsavory mess
+he called gruel, which he insisted upon their eating.
+
+Thanks to his skill, the invalids were freed from the more violent of
+their pains, but this freedom was followed by a weakness so alarming
+that they could hardly raise their heads from their pillows—a state of
+things which excited the intense envy of the third officer, who, owing
+to his responsibilities, might just as well have been without one.
+
+In this state of weakness, and with the fear of impending dissolution
+before his eyes, the skipper sent for Mr. Harry Thomson, and after some
+comparisons between lawyers and sharks, in which stress was laid upon
+certain redeeming features of the latter, paid a guinea and made his
+will. His example, save in the amount of the fee, was followed by the
+mate; but Mr. Rogers, being approached tentatively by the doctor in his
+friend’s behalf, shook his head and thanked his stars he had nothing to
+leave. He had enjoyed his money, he said.
+
+They mended slowly as they approached Hong-kong, though a fit of temper
+on Mr. Mackenzie’s part, during which he threw out ominous hints about
+having his money back, led to a regrettable relapse in his case. He was
+still in bed when they came to anchor in the harbour; but the skipper
+and his second officer were able to go above and exchange
+congratulations from adjoining deck-chairs.
+
+“You are sure it wasn’t cholera?” asked the harbour-master’s deputy,
+who had boarded them in his launch, after he had heard the story.
+
+“Positive,” said Carson.
+
+“Very fortunate thing they had you on board,” said the deputy—“very
+fortunate.”
+
+The doctor bowed.
+
+“Seems so odd, the three of them being down with it,” said the other;
+“looks as though it’s infectious, doesn’t it?”
+
+“I don’t think so,” said the doctor, accepting with alacrity an offer
+to go ashore in the launch and change into some decent clothes. “I
+think I know what it was.”
+
+[Illustration: The second officer leaned forward.]
+
+The captain of the _Stella_ pricked up his ears, and the second officer
+leaned forward with parted lips. Carson, accompanied by the deputy and
+the solicitor, walked toward the launch.
+
+“What was it?” cried the skipper, anxiously.
+
+“I think that you ate something that disagreed with you,” replied the
+doctor, grinning meaningly. “Good-by, captain.”
+
+The master of the _Stella_ made no reply, but rising feebly, tottered
+to the side, and shook his fist at the launch as it headed for the
+shore. Doctor Carson, who had had a pious upbringing, kissed his hand
+in return.
+
+
+
+
+A GOLDEN VENTURE
+
+
+The elders of the Tidger family sat at breakfast—Mrs. Tidger with knees
+wide apart and the youngest Tidger nestling in the valley of
+print-dress which lay between, and Mr. Tidger bearing on one moleskin
+knee a small copy of himself in a red flannel frock and a slipper. The
+larger Tidger children took the solids of their breakfast up and down
+the stone-flagged court outside, coming in occasionally to gulp
+draughts of very weak tea from a gallipot or two which stood on the
+table, and to wheedle Mr. Tidger out of any small piece of bloater
+which he felt generous enough to bestow.
+
+“Peg away, Ann,” said Mr. Tidger, heartily.
+
+His wife’s elder sister shook her head, and passing the remains of her
+slice to one of her small nephews, leaned back in her chair. “No
+appetite, Tidger,” she said, slowly.
+
+“You should go in for carpentering,” said Mr. Tidger, in justification
+of the huge crust he was carving into mouthfuls with his pocket-knife.
+“Seems to me I can’t eat enough sometimes. Hullo, who’s the letter
+for?”
+
+He took it from the postman, who stood at the door amid a bevy of
+Tidgers who had followed him up the court, and slowly read the address.
+
+“‘Mrs. Ann Pullen,’” he said, handing it over to his sister-in-law;
+“nice writing, too.”
+
+Mrs. Pullen broke the envelope, and after a somewhat lengthy search for
+her pocket, fumbled therein for her spectacles. She then searched the
+mantelpiece, the chest of drawers, and the dresser, and finally ran
+them to earth on the copper.
+
+She was not a good scholar, and it took her some time to read the
+letter, a proceeding which she punctuated with such “Ohs” and “Ahs” and
+gaspings and “God bless my souls” as nearly drove the carpenter and his
+wife, who were leaning forward impatiently, to the verge of
+desperation.
+
+“Who’s it from?” asked Mr. Tidger for the third time.
+
+“I don’t know,” said Mrs. Pullen. “Good gracious, who ever would ha’
+thought it!”
+
+“Thought what, Ann?” demanded the carpenter, feverishly.
+
+“Why don’t people write their names plain?” demanded his sister-in-law,
+impatiently. “It’s got a printed name up in the corner; perhaps that’s
+it. Well, I never did—I don’t know whether I’m standing on my head or
+my heels.”
+
+“You’re sitting down, that’s what you’re a-doing,” said the carpenter,
+regarding her somewhat unfavourably.
+
+“Perhaps it’s a take-in,” said Mrs. Pullen, her lips trembling. “I’ve
+heard o’ such things. If it is, I shall never get over it—never.”
+
+“Get—over—what?” asked the carpenter.
+
+“It don’t look like a take-in,” soliloquized Mrs. Pullen, “and I
+shouldn’t think anybody’d go to all that trouble and spend a penny to
+take in a poor thing like me.”
+
+Mr. Tidger, throwing politeness to the winds, leaped forward, and
+snatching the letter from her, read it with feverish haste, tempered by
+a defective education.
+
+“It’s a take-in, Ann,” he said, his voice trembling; “it must be.”
+
+“What is?” asked Mrs. Tidger, impatiently.
+
+“Looks like it,” said Mrs. Pullen, feebly.
+
+“What is it?” screamed Mrs. Tidger, wrought beyond all endurance.
+
+Her husband turned and regarded her with much severity, but Mrs.
+Tidger’s gaze was the stronger, and after a vain attempt to meet it, he
+handed her the letter.
+
+Mrs. Tidger read it through hastily, and then snatching the baby from
+her lap, held it out with both arms to her husband, and jumping up,
+kissed her sister heartily, patting her on the back in her excitement
+until she coughed with the pain of it.
+
+“You don’t think it’s a take-in, Polly?” she inquired.
+
+“Take-in?” said her sister; “of course it ain’t. Lawyers don’t play
+jokes; their time’s too valuable. No, you’re an heiress all right, Ann,
+and I wish you joy. I couldn’t be more pleased if it was myself.”
+
+She kissed her again, and going to pat her back once more, discovered
+that she had sunk down sufficiently low in her chair to obtain the
+protection of its back.
+
+“Two thousand pounds,” said Mrs. Pullen, in an awestruck voice.
+
+“Ten hundered pounds twice over,” said the carpenter, mouthing it
+slowly; “twenty hundered pounds.”
+
+He got up from the table, and instinctively realizing that he could not
+do full justice to his feelings with the baby in his arms, laid it on
+the teatray in a puddle of cold tea and stood looking hard at the
+heiress.
+
+“I was housekeeper to her eleven years ago,” said Mrs. Pullen. “I
+wonder what she left it to me for?”
+
+“Didn’t know what to do with it, I should think,” said the carpenter,
+still staring openmouthed.
+
+“Tidger, I’m ashamed of you,” said his wife, snatching her infant to
+her bosom. “I expect you was very good to her, Ann.”
+
+“I never ’ad no luck,” said the impenitent carpenter. “Nobody ever left
+me no money. Nobody ever left me so much as a fi-pun note.”
+
+He stared round disdainfully at his poor belongings, and drawing on his
+coat, took his bag from a corner, and hoisting it on his shoulder,
+started to his work. He scattered the news as he went, and it ran up
+and down the little main street of Thatcham, and thence to the outlying
+lanes and cottages. Within a couple of hours it was common property,
+and the fortunate legatee was presented with a congratulatory address
+every time she ventured near the door.
+
+It is an old adage that money makes friends; the carpenter was
+surprised to find that the mere fact of his having a moneyed relation
+had the same effect, and that men to whom he had hitherto shown a
+certain amount of respect due to their position now sought his company.
+They stood him beer at the “Bell,” and walked by his side through the
+street. When they took to dropping in of an evening to smoke a pipe the
+carpenter was radiant with happiness.
+
+“You don’t seem to see beyond the end of your nose, Tidger,” said the
+wife of his bosom after they had retired one evening.
+
+“H’m?” said the startled carpenter.
+
+“What do you think old Miller, the dealer, comes here for?” demanded
+his wife.
+
+“Smoke his pipe,” replied her husband, confidently.
+
+“And old Wiggett?” persisted Mrs. Tidger.
+
+“Smoke _his_ pipe,” was the reply. “Why, what’s the matter, Polly?”
+
+Mrs. Tidger sniffed derisively. “You men are all alike,” she snapped.
+“What do you think Ann wears that pink bodice for?”
+
+“I never noticed she ’ad a pink bodice, Polly,” said the carpenter.
+
+“No? That’s what I say. You men never notice anything,” said his wife.
+“If you don’t send them two old fools off, I will.”
+
+“Don’t you like ’em to see Ann wearing pink?” inquired the mystified
+Tidger.
+
+Mrs. Tidger bit her lip and shook her head at him scornfully. “In plain
+English, Tidger, as plain as I can speak it,”—she said, severely,
+“they’re after Ann and ’er bit o’ money.”
+
+Mr. Tidger gazed at her open-mouthed, and taking advantage of that
+fact, blew out the candle to hide his discomposure. “What!” he said,
+blankly, “at ’er time o’ life?”
+
+“Watch ’em to-morrer,” said his wife.
+
+The carpenter acted upon his instructions, and his ire rose as he
+noticed the assiduous attention paid by his two friends to the
+frivolous Mrs. Pullen. Mr. Wiggett, a sharp-featured little man, was
+doing most of the talking, while his rival, a stout, clean-shaven man
+with a slow, oxlike eye, looked on stolidly. Mr. Miller was seldom in a
+hurry, and lost many a bargain through his slowness—a fact which
+sometimes so painfully affected the individual who had outdistanced him
+that he would offer to let him have it at a still lower figure.
+
+[Illustration: “You get younger than ever, Mrs. Pullen.”]
+
+“You get younger than ever, Mrs. Pullen,” said Wiggett, the
+conversation having turned upon ages.
+
+“Young ain’t the word for it,” said Miller, with a praiseworthy
+determination not to be left behind.
+
+“No; it’s age as you’re thinking of, Mr. Wiggett,” said the carpenter,
+slowly; “none of us gets younger, do we, Ann?”
+
+“Some of us keeps young in our ways,” said Mrs. Pullen, somewhat
+shortly.
+
+“How old should you say Ann is now?” persisted the watchful Tidger.
+
+Mr. Wiggett shook his head. “I should say she’s about fifteen years
+younger nor me,” he said, slowly, “and I’m as lively as a cricket.”
+
+“She’s fifty-five,” said the carpenter.
+
+“That makes you seventy, Wiggett,” said Mr. Miller, pointedly. “I
+thought you was more than that. You look it.”
+
+Mr. Wiggett coughed sourly. “I’m fifty-nine,” he growled. “Nothing’ll
+make me believe as Mrs. Pullen’s fifty-five, nor anywhere near it.”
+
+“Ho!” said the carpenter, on his mettle—“ho! Why, my wife here was the
+sixth child, and she—- He caught a gleam in the sixth child’s eye, and
+expressed her age with a cough. The others waited politely until he had
+finished, and Mr. Tidger, noticing this, coughed again.
+
+“And she—” prompted Mr. Miller, displaying a polite interest.
+
+“She ain’t so young as she was,” said the carpenter.
+
+“Cares of a family,” said Mr. Wiggett, plumping boldly. “I always
+thought Mrs. Pullen was younger than her.”
+
+“So did I,” said Mr. Miller, “much younger.”
+
+Mr. Wiggett eyed him sharply. It was rather hard to have Miller hiding
+his lack of invention by participating in his compliments and even
+improving upon them. It was the way he dealt at market-listening to
+other dealers’ accounts of their wares, and adding to them for his own.
+
+“I was noticing you the other day, ma’am,” continued Mr. Wiggett. “I
+see you going up the road with a step free and easy as a young girl’s.”
+
+“She allus walks like that,” said Mr. Miller, in a tone of surprised
+reproof.
+
+“It’s in the family,” said the carpenter, who had been uneasily
+watching his wife’s face.
+
+“Both of you seem to notice a lot,” said Mrs. Tidger; “much more than
+you used to.”
+
+Mr. Tidger, who was of a nervous and sensitive disposition, coughed
+again.
+
+“You ought to take something for that cough,” said Mr. Wiggett,
+considerately.
+
+“Gin and beer,” said Mr. Miller, with the air of a specialist.
+
+“Bed’s the best thing for it,” said Mrs. Tidger, whose temper was
+beginning to show signs of getting out of hand.
+
+Mr. Tidger rose and looked awkwardly at his visitors; Mr. Wiggett got
+up, and pretending to notice the time, said he must be going, and
+looked at Mr. Miller. That gentleman, who was apparently deep in some
+knotty problem, was gazing at the floor, and oblivious for the time to
+his surroundings.
+
+“Come along,” said Wiggett, with feigned heartiness, slapping him on
+the back.
+
+Mr. Miller, looking for a moment as though he would like to return the
+compliment, came back to everyday life, and bidding the company
+good-night, stepped to the door, accompanied by his rival. It was
+immediately shut with some violence.
+
+“They seem in a hurry,” said Wiggett. “I don’t think I shall go there
+again.”
+
+“I don’t think I shall,” said Mr. Miller.
+
+After this neither of them was surprised to meet there again the next
+night, and indeed for several nights. The carpenter and his wife, who
+did not want the money to go out of the family, and were also afraid of
+offending Mrs. Pullen, were at their wits’ end what to do. Ultimately
+it was resolved that Tidger, in as delicate a manner as possible, was
+to hint to her that they were after her money. He was so vague and so
+delicate that Mrs. Pullen misunderstood him, and fancying that he was
+trying to borrow half a crown, made him a present of five shillings.
+
+It was evident to the slower-going Mr. Miller that his rival’s tongue
+was giving him an advantage which only the ever-watchful presence of
+the carpenter and his wife prevented him from pushing to the fullest
+advantage. In these circumstances he sat for two hours after breakfast
+one morning in deep cogitation, and after six pipes got up with a
+twinkle in his slow eyes which his brother dealers had got to regard as
+a danger signal.
+
+He had only the glimmering of an idea at first, but after a couple of
+pints at the “Bell” everything took shape, and he cast his eyes about
+for an assistant. They fell upon a man named Smith, and the dealer,
+after some thought, took up his glass and went over to him.
+
+“I want you to do something for me,” he remarked, in a mysterious
+voice.
+
+“Ah, I’ve been wanting to see you,” said Smith, who was also a dealer
+in a small way. “One o’ them hins I bought off you last week is dead.”
+
+“I’ll give you another for it,” said Miller.
+
+“And the others are so forgetful,” continued Mr. Smith.
+
+“Forgetful?” repeated the other.
+
+“Forget to lay, like,” said Mr. Smith, musingly.
+
+“Never mind about them,” said Mr. Miller, with some animation. “I want
+you to do something for me. If it comes off all right, I’ll give you a
+dozen hins and a couple of decentish-sized pigs.”
+
+Mr. Smith called a halt. “Decentish-sized” was vague.
+
+“Take your pick,” said Mr. Miller. “You know Mrs. Pullen’s got two
+thousand pounds—”
+
+“Wiggett’s going to have it,” said the other; “he as good as told me
+so.”
+
+“He’s after her money,” said the other, sadly. “Look ’ere, Smith, I
+want you to tell him she’s lost it all. Say that Tidger told you, but
+you wasn’t to tell anybody else. Wiggett’ll believe you.”
+
+Mr. Smith turned upon him a face all wrinkles, lit by one eye. “I want
+the hins and the pigs first,” he said, firmly.
+
+Mr. Miller, shocked at his grasping spirit, stared at him mournfully.
+
+“And twenty pounds the day you marry Mrs. Pullen,” continued Mr. Smith.
+
+Mr. Miller, leading him up and down the sawdust floor, besought him to
+listen to reason, and Mr. Smith allowed the better feelings of our
+common human nature to prevail to the extent of reducing his demands to
+half a dozen fowls on account, and all the rest on the day of the
+marriage. Then, with the delightful feeling that he wouldn’t do any
+work for a week, he went out to drop poison into the ears of Mr.
+Wiggett.
+
+“Lost all her money!” said the startled Mr. Wiggett. “How?”
+
+“I don’t know how,” said his friend. “Tidger told me, but made me
+promise not to tell a soul. But I couldn’t help telling you, Wiggett,
+’cause I know what you’re after.”
+
+“Do me a favour,” said the little man.
+
+“I will,” said the other.
+
+“Keep it from Miller as long as possible. If you hear any one else
+talking of it, tell ’em to keep it from him. If he marries her I’ll
+give you a couple of pints.”
+
+Mr. Smith promised faithfully, and both the Tidgers and Mrs. Pullen
+were surprised to find that Mr. Miller was the only visitor that
+evening. He spoke but little, and that little in a slow, ponderous
+voice intended for Mrs. Pullen’s ear alone. He spoke disparagingly of
+money, and shook his head slowly at the temptations it brought in its
+train. Give him a crust, he said, and somebody to halve it with—a
+home-made crust baked by a wife. It was a pretty picture, but somewhat
+spoiled by Mrs. Tidger suggesting that, though he had spoken of halving
+the crust, he had said nothing about the beer.
+
+“Half of my beer wouldn’t be much,” said the dealer, slowly.
+
+“Not the half you would give your wife wouldn’t,” retorted Mrs. Tidger.
+
+The dealer sighed and looked mournfully at Mrs. Pullen. The lady sighed
+in return, and finding that her admirer’s stock of conversation seemed
+to be exhausted, coyly suggested a game of draughts. The dealer
+assented with eagerness, and declining the offer of a glass of beer by
+explaining that he had had one the day before yesterday, sat down and
+lost seven games right off. He gave up at the seventh game, and pushing
+back his chair, said that he thought Mrs. Pullen was the most wonderful
+draught-player he had ever seen, and took no notice when Mrs. Tidger,
+in a dry voice charged with subtle meaning, said that she thought he
+was.
+
+“Draughts come natural to some people,” said Mrs. Pullen, modestly.
+“It’s as easy as kissing your fingers.”
+
+Mr. Miller looked doubtful; then he put his great fingers to his lips
+by way of experiment, and let them fall unmistakably in the widow’s
+direction. Mrs. Pullen looked down and nearly blushed. The carpenter
+and his wife eyed each other in indignant consternation.
+
+“That’s easy enough,” said the dealer, and repeated the offense.
+
+Mrs. Pullen got up in some confusion, and began to put the
+draught-board away. One of the pieces fell on the floor, and as they
+both stooped to recover it their heads bumped. It was nothing to the
+dealer’s, but Mrs. Pullen rubbed hers and sat down with her eyes
+watering. Mr. Miller took out his handkerchief, and going to the
+scullery, dipped it into water and held it to her head.
+
+“Is it better?” he inquired.
+
+“A little better,” said the victim, with a shiver.
+
+Mr. Miller, in his emotion, was squeezing the handkerchief hard, and a
+cold stream was running down her neck.
+
+“Thank you. It’s all right now.”
+
+The dealer replaced the handkerchief, and sat for some time regarding
+her earnestly. Then the carpenter and his wife displaying manifest
+signs of impatience, he took his departure, after first inviting
+himself for another game of draughts the following night.
+
+He walked home with the air of a conqueror, and thought exultingly that
+the two thousand pounds were his. It was a deal after his own heart,
+and not the least satisfactory part about it was the way he had got the
+better of Wiggett.
+
+He completed his scheme the following day after a short interview with
+the useful Smith. By the afternoon Wiggett found that his exclusive
+information was common property, and all Thatcham was marvelling at the
+fortitude with which Mrs. Pullen was bearing the loss of her fortune.
+With a view of being out of the way when the denial was published, Mr.
+Miller, after loudly expressing in public his sympathy for Mrs. Pullen
+and his admiration of her qualities, drove over with some pigs to a
+neighbouring village, returning to Thatcham in the early evening. Then
+hurriedly putting his horse up he made his way to the carpenter’s.
+
+The Tidgers were at home when he entered, and Mrs. Pullen flushed
+faintly as he shook hands.
+
+“I was coming in before,” he said, impressively, “after what I heard
+this afternoon, but I had to drive over to Thorpe.”
+
+“You ’eard it?” inquired the carpenter, in an incredulous voice.
+
+“Certainly,” said the dealer, “and very sorry I was. Sorry for one
+thing, but glad for another.”
+
+The carpenter opened his mouth and seemed about to speak. Then he
+checked himself suddenly and gazed with interest at the ingenuous
+dealer.
+
+“I’m glad,” said Mr. Miller, slowly, as he nodded at a friend of Mrs.
+Tidger’s who had just come in with a long face, “because now that Mrs.
+Pullen is poor, I can say to her what I couldn’t say while she was
+rich.”
+
+Again the astonished carpenter was about to speak, but the dealer
+hastily checked him with his hand.
+
+“One at a time,” he said. “Mrs. Pullen, I was very sorry to hear this
+afternoon, for your sake, that you had lost all your money. What I
+wanted to say to you now, now that you are poor, was to ask you to be
+Mrs. Miller. What d’ye say?”
+
+Mrs. Pullen, touched at so much goodness, wept softly and said, “Yes.”
+The triumphant Miller took out his handkerchief—the same that he had
+used the previous night, for he was not an extravagant man—and tenderly
+wiped her eyes.
+
+“Well, I’m blowed!” said the staring carpenter.
+
+“I’ve got a nice little ’ouse,” continued the wily Mr. Miller. “It’s a
+poor place, but nice, and we’ll play draughts every evening. When shall
+it be?”
+
+“When you like,” said Mrs. Pullen, in a faint voice.
+
+“I’ll put the banns up to-morrow,” said the dealer.
+
+Mrs. Tidger’s lady friend giggled at so much haste, but Mrs. Tidger,
+who felt that she had misjudged him, was touched.
+
+“It does you credit, Mr. Miller,” she said, warmly.
+
+“No, no,” said the dealer; and then Mr. Tidger got up, and crossing the
+room, solemnly shook hands with him.
+
+“Money or no money, she’ll make a good wife,” he said.
+
+“I’m glad you’re pleased,” said the dealer, wondering at this
+cordiality.
+
+“I don’t deny I thought you was after her money,” continued the
+carpenter, solemnly. “My missus thought so, too.”
+
+Mr. Miller shook his head, and said he thought they would have known
+him better.
+
+“Of course it is a great loss,” said the carpenter. “Money is money.”
+
+“That’s all it is, though,” said the slightly mystified Mr. Miller.
+
+“What I can’t understand is,” continued the carpenter, “’ow the news
+got about. Why, the neighbours knew of it a couple of hours before we
+did.”
+
+The dealer hid a grin. Then he looked a bit bewildered again.
+
+“I assure you,” said the carpenter, “it was known in the town at least
+a couple of hours before we got the letter.”
+
+Mr. Miller waited a minute to get perfect control over his features.
+“Letter?” he repeated, faintly.
+
+“The letter from the lawyers,” said the carpenter.
+
+Mr. Miller was silent again. His features were getting tiresome. He
+eyed the door furtively.
+
+“What-was-in-the letter?” he asked.
+
+“Short and sweet,” said the carpenter, with bitterness. “Said it was
+all a mistake, because they’d been and found another will. People
+shouldn’t make such mistakes.”
+
+“We’re all liable to make mistakes,” said Miller, thinking he saw an
+opening.
+
+“Yes, we made a mistake when we thought you was after Ann’s money,”
+assented the carpenter. “I’m sure I thought you’d be the last man in
+the world to be pleased to hear that she’d lost it. One thing is,
+you’ve got enough for both.”
+
+Mr. Miller made no reply, but in a dazed way strove to realize the full
+measure of the misfortune which had befallen him. The neighbour, with
+the anxiety of her sex to be the first with a bit of news, had already
+taken her departure. He thought of Wiggett walking the earth a free
+man, and of Smith with a three-months’ bill for twenty pounds. His
+pride as a dealer was shattered beyond repair, and emerging from a
+species of mist, he became conscious that the carpenter was addressing
+him.
+
+[Illustration: “We’ll leave you two young things alone.”]
+
+“We’ll leave you two young things alone for a bit,” said Mr. Tidger,
+heartily. “We’re going out. When you’re tired o’ courting you can play
+draughts, and Ann will show you one or two of ’er moves. So long.”
+
+
+
+
+THREE AT TABLE
+
+
+The talk in the coffee-room had been of ghosts and apparitions, and
+nearly everybody present had contributed his mite to the stock of
+information upon a hazy and somewhat thread-bare subject. Opinions
+ranged from rank incredulity to childlike faith, one believer going so
+far as to denounce unbelief as impious, with a reference to the Witch
+of Endor, which was somewhat marred by being complicated in an
+inexplicable fashion with the story of Jonah.
+
+“Talking of Jonah,” he said solemnly, with a happy disregard of the
+fact that he had declined to answer several eager questions put to him
+on the subject, “look at the strange tales sailors tell us.”
+
+“I wouldn’t advise you to believe all those,” said a bluff,
+clean-shaven man, who had been listening without speaking much. “You
+see when a sailor gets ashore he’s expected to have something to tell,
+and his friends would be rather disappointed if he had not.”
+
+“It’s a well-known fact,” interrupted the first speaker firmly, “that
+sailors are very prone to see visions.”
+
+“They are,” said the other dryly, “they generally see them in pairs,
+and the shock to the nervous system frequently causes headache next
+morning.”
+
+“You never saw anything yourself?” suggested an unbeliever.
+
+“Man and boy,” said the other, “I’ve been at sea thirty years, and the
+only unpleasant incident of that kind occurred in a quiet English
+countryside.”
+
+“And that?” said another man.
+
+“I was a young man at the time,” said the narrator, drawing at his pipe
+and glancing good-humouredly at the company. “I had just come back from
+China, and my own people being away I went down into the country to
+invite myself to stay with an uncle. When I got down to the place I
+found it closed and the family in the South of France; but as they were
+due back in a couple of days I decided to put up at the Royal George, a
+very decent inn, and await their return.
+
+“The first day I passed well enough; but in the evening the dulness of
+the rambling old place, in which I was the only visitor, began to weigh
+upon my spirits, and the next morning after a late breakfast I set out
+with the intention of having a brisk day’s walk.
+
+“I started off in excellent spirits, for the day was bright and frosty,
+with a powdering of snow on the iron-bound roads and nipped hedges, and
+the country had to me all the charm of novelty. It was certainly flat,
+but there was plenty of timber, and the villages through which I passed
+were old and picturesque.
+
+“I lunched luxuriously on bread and cheese and beer in the bar of a
+small inn, and resolved to go a little further before turning back.
+When at length I found I had gone far enough, I turned up a lane at
+right angles to the road I was passing, and resolved to find my way
+back by another route. It is a long lane that has no turning, but this
+had several, each of which had turnings of its own, which generally
+led, as I found by trying two or three of them, into the open marshes.
+Then, tired of lanes, I resolved to rely upon the small compass which
+hung from my watch chain and go across country home.
+
+“I had got well into the marshes when a white fog, which had been for
+some time hovering round the edge of the ditches, began gradually to
+spread. There was no escaping it, but by aid of my compass I was saved
+from making a circular tour and fell instead into frozen ditches or
+stumbled over roots in the grass. I kept my course, however, until at
+four o’clock, when night was coming rapidly up to lend a hand to the
+fog, I was fain to confess myself lost.
+
+“The compass was now no good to me, and I wandered about miserably,
+occasionally giving a shout on the chance of being heard by some
+passing shepherd or farmhand. At length by great good luck I found my
+feet on a rough road driven through the marshes, and by walking slowly
+and tapping with my stick managed to keep to it. I had followed it for
+some distance when I heard footsteps approaching me.
+
+“We stopped as we met, and the new arrival, a sturdy-looking
+countryman, hearing of my plight, walked back with me for nearly a
+mile, and putting me on to a road gave me minute instructions how to
+reach a village some three miles distant.
+
+“I was so tired that three miles sounded like ten, and besides that, a
+little way off from the road I saw dimly a lighted window. I pointed it
+out, but my companion shuddered and looked round him uneasily.
+
+“‘You won’t get no good there,’ he said, hastily.
+
+“‘Why not?’ I asked.
+
+“‘There’s a something there, sir,’ he replied, ‘what ’tis I dunno, but
+the little ’un belonging to a gamekeeper as used to live in these parts
+see it, and it was never much good afterward. Some say as it’s a poor
+mad thing, others says as it’s a kind of animal; but whatever it is, it
+ain’t good to see.’
+
+“‘Well, I’ll keep on, then,’ I said. ‘Goodnight.’
+
+“He went back whistling cheerily until his footsteps died away in the
+distance, and I followed the road he had indicated until it divided
+into three, any one of which to a stranger might be said to lead
+straight on. I was now cold and tired, and having half made up my mind
+walked slowly back toward the house.
+
+“At first all I could see of it was the little patch of light at the
+window. I made for that until it disappeared suddenly, and I found
+myself walking into a tall hedge. I felt my way round this until I came
+to a small gate, and opening it cautiously, walked, not without some
+little nervousness, up a long path which led to the door. There was no
+light and no sound from within. Half repenting of my temerity I
+shortened my stick and knocked lightly upon the door.
+
+“I waited a couple of minutes and then knocked again, and my stick was
+still beating the door when it opened suddenly and a tall bony old
+woman, holding a candle, confronted me.
+
+“‘What do you want?’ she demanded gruffly.
+
+“‘I’ve lost my way,’ I said, civilly; ‘I want to get to Ashville.’
+
+“‘Don’t know it,’ said the old woman.
+
+“She was about to close the door when a man emerged from a room at the
+side of the hall and came toward us. An old man of great height and
+breadth of shoulder.
+
+“‘Ashville is fifteen miles distant,’ he said slowly.
+
+“‘If you will direct me to the nearest village, I shall be grateful,’ I
+remarked.
+
+“He made no reply, but exchanged a quick, furtive glance with the
+woman. She made a gesture of dissent.
+
+“‘The nearest place is three miles off,’ he said, turning to me and
+apparently trying to soften a naturally harsh voice; ‘if you will give
+me the pleasure of your company, I will make you as comfortable as I
+can.’
+
+“I hesitated. They were certainly a queer-looking couple, and the
+gloomy hall with the shadows thrown by the candle looked hardly more
+inviting than the darkness outside.
+
+“‘You are very kind,’ I murmured, irresolutely, ‘but—’
+
+“‘Come in,’ he said quickly; ‘shut the door, Anne.’
+
+“Almost before I knew it I was standing inside and the old woman,
+muttering to herself, had closed the door behind me. With a queer
+sensation of being trapped I followed my host into the room, and taking
+the proffered chair warmed my frozen fingers at the fire.
+
+“‘Dinner will soon be ready,’ said the old man, regarding me closely.
+‘If you will excuse me.’
+
+“I bowed and he left the room. A minute afterward I heard voices; his
+and the old woman’s, and, I fancied, a third. Before I had finished my
+inspection of the room he returned, and regarded me with the same
+strange look I had noticed before.
+
+“‘There will be three of us at dinner,’ he said, at length. ‘We two and
+my son.’
+
+“I bowed again, and secretly hoped that that look didn’t run in the
+family.
+
+“‘I suppose you don’t mind dining in the dark,’ he said, abruptly.
+
+“‘Not at all,’ I replied, hiding my surprise as well as I could, ‘but
+really I’m afraid I’m intruding. If you’ll allow me—’
+
+“He waved his huge gaunt hands. ‘We’re not going to lose you now we’ve
+got you,’ he said, with a dry laugh. ‘It’s seldom we have company, and
+now we’ve got you we’ll keep you. My son’s eyes are bad, and he can’t
+stand the light. Ah, here is Anne.’
+
+“As he spoke the old woman entered, and, eyeing me stealthily, began to
+lay the cloth, while my host, taking a chair the other side of the
+hearth, sat looking silently into the fire. The table set, the old
+woman brought in a pair of fowls ready carved in a dish, and placing
+three chairs, left the room. The old man hesitated a moment, and then,
+rising from his chair, placed a large screen in front of the fire and
+slowly extinguished the candles.
+
+“‘Blind man’s holiday,’ he said, with clumsy jocosity, and groping his
+way to the door opened it. Somebody came back into the room with him,
+and in a slow, uncertain fashion took a seat at the table, and the
+strangest voice I have ever heard broke a silence which was fast
+becoming oppressive.
+
+“‘A cold night,’ it said slowly.
+
+“I replied in the affirmative, and light or no light, fell to with an
+appetite which had only been sharpened by the snack in the middle of
+the day. It was somewhat difficult eating in the dark, and it was
+evident from the behaviour of my invisible companions that they were as
+unused to dining under such circumstances as I was. We ate in silence
+until the old woman blundered into the room with some sweets and put
+them with a crash upon the table.
+
+“‘Are you a stranger about here?’ inquired the curious voice again.
+
+“I replied in the affirmative, and murmured something about my luck in
+stumbling upon such a good dinner.
+
+“‘Stumbling is a very good word for it,’ said the voice grimly. ‘You
+have forgotten the port, father.’
+
+“‘So I have,’ said the old man, rising. ‘It’s a bottle of the
+“Celebrated” to-day; I will get it myself.’
+
+“He felt his way to the door, and closing it behind him, left me alone
+with my unseen neighbour. There was something so strange about the
+whole business that I must confess to more than a slight feeling of
+uneasiness.
+
+“My host seemed to be absent a long time. I heard the man opposite lay
+down his fork and spoon, and half fancied I could see a pair of wild
+eyes shining through the gloom like a cat’s.
+
+“With a growing sense of uneasiness I pushed my chair back. It caught
+the hearthrug, and in my efforts to disentangle it the screen fell over
+with a crash and in the flickering light of the fire I saw the face of
+the creature opposite. With a sharp catch of my breath I left my chair
+and stood with clenched fists beside it. Man or beast, which was it?
+The flame leaped up and then went out, and in the mere red glow of the
+fire it looked more devilish than before.
+
+“For a few moments we regarded each other in silence; then the door
+opened and the old man returned. He stood aghast as he saw the warm
+firelight, and then approaching the table mechanically put down a
+couple of bottles.
+
+“‘I beg your pardon,’ said I, reassured by his presence, ‘but I have
+accidentally overturned the screen. Allow me to replace it.’
+
+“‘No,’ said the old man, gently, ‘let it be.
+
+“‘We have had enough of the dark. I’ll give you a light.’
+
+“He struck a match and slowly lit the candles. Then—I saw that the man
+opposite had but the remnant of a face, a gaunt wolfish face in which
+one unquenched eye, the sole remaining feature, still glittered. I was
+greatly moved, some suspicion of the truth occurring to me.
+
+“‘My son was injured some years ago in a burning house,’ said the old
+man. ‘Since then we have lived a very retired life. When you came to
+the door we—’ his voice trembled, ‘that is-my son—’
+
+“‘I thought,” said the son simply, ‘that it would be better for me not
+to come to the dinner-table. But it happens to be my birthday, and my
+father would not hear of my dining alone, so we hit upon this foolish
+plan of dining in the dark. I’m sorry I startled you.’
+
+“‘I am sorry,’ said I, as I reached across the table and gripped his
+hand, ‘that I am such a fool; but it was only in the dark that you
+startled me.’
+
+“From a faint tinge in the old man’s cheek and a certain pleasant
+softening of the poor solitary eye in front of me I secretly
+congratulated myself upon this last remark.
+
+“‘We never see a friend,’ said the old man, apologetically, ‘and the
+temptation to have company was too much for us. Besides, I don’t know
+what else you could have done.’
+
+“‘Nothing else half so good, I’m sure,’ said I.
+
+“‘Come,’ said my host, with almost a sprightly air. ‘Now we know each
+other, draw our chairs to the fire and let’s keep this birthday in a
+proper fashion.’
+
+“He drew a small table to the fire for the glasses and produced a box
+of cigars, and placing a chair for the old servant, sternly bade her to
+sit down and drink. If the talk was not sparkling, it did not lack for
+vivacity, and we were soon as merry a party as I have ever seen. The
+night wore on so rapidly that we could hardly believe our ears when in
+a lull in the conversation a clock in the hall struck twelve.
+
+“‘A last toast before we retire,’ said my host, pitching the end of his
+cigar into the fire and turning to the small table.
+
+“We had drunk several before this, but there was something impressive
+in the old man’s manner as he rose and took up his glass. His tall
+figure seemed to get taller, and his voice rang as he gazed proudly at
+his disfigured son.
+
+“‘The health of the children my boy saved!’ he said, and drained his
+glass at a draught.”
+
+
+THE END.
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 12133 ***