diff options
| -rw-r--r-- | .gitattributes | 3 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 1477-0.txt | 7188 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 1477-0.zip | bin | 0 -> 150318 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 1477-h.zip | bin | 0 -> 154545 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 1477-h/1477-h.htm | 7504 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 1477.txt | 6819 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 1477.zip | bin | 0 -> 140668 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | LICENSE.txt | 11 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | README.md | 2 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/toypc10.txt | 7074 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/toypc10.zip | bin | 0 -> 138622 bytes |
11 files changed, 28601 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/1477-0.txt b/1477-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9250a17 --- /dev/null +++ b/1477-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7188 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Toys of Peace, by Saki + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: The Toys of Peace + + +Author: Saki + + + +Release Date: December 26, 2011 [eBook #1477] +This eText was first posted July 1998 +[Last updated: June 29, 2012] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TOYS OF PEACE*** + + +Transcribed from the 1919 John Lane edition by Jane Duff and David Price, +email ccx074@pglaf.org + + + + + + THE TOYS OF PEACE + AND OTHER PAPERS + + + * * * * * + + TO + THE 22ND ROYAL FUSILIERS + + * * * * * + + + + +Note + + +Thanks are due to the Editors of the _Morning Post_, the _Westminster +Gazette_, and the _Bystander_ for their amiability in allowing tales that +appeared in these journals to be reproduced in the present volume. + + R. R. + + + + +Contents + + PAGE +A Memoir of H. H. Munro ix +The Toys of Peace 3 +Louise 13 +Tea 21 +The Disappearance of Crispina Umberleigh 29 +The Wolves of Cernogratz 39 +Louis 49 +The Guests 59 +The Penance 67 +The Phantom Luncheon 79 +A Bread and Butter Miss 87 +Bertie’s Christmas Eve 97 +Forewarned 107 +The Interlopers 119 +Quail Seed 129 +Canossa 141 +The Threat 149 +Excepting Mrs. Pentherby 157 +Mark 167 +The Hedgehog 175 +The Mappined Life 185 +Fate 193 +The Bull 201 +Morlvera 209 +Shock Tactics 217 +The Seven Cream Jugs 227 +The Occasional Garden 237 +The Sheep 245 +The Oversight 255 +Hyacinth 265 +The Image of the Lost Soul 277 +The Purple of the Balkan Kings 281 +The Cupboard of the Yesterdays 287 +For the Duration of the War 295 + + + + +HECTOR HUGH MUNRO + + +“When peace comes,” wrote an officer of the 22nd Royal Fusiliers, the +regiment in which Munro was a private and in which he rose to the rank of +lance-sergeant, “Saki will give us the most wonderful of all the books +about the war.” But that book of the war will not be written; for Munro +has died for King and country. In this volume are his last tales. And +it is because these tales, brilliant and elusive as butterflies, hide, +rather than reveal, the character of the man who wrote them, give but a +suggestion of his tenderness and simplicity, of his iron will, of his +splendour in the grip of war, that it is my duty to write these pages +about him, now that he lies in the kind earth of France. It is but to do +what his choice of a pen-name makes me sure he himself would have done +for a friend. + + “Yon rising Moon that looks for us again, + How oft hereafter will she wax and wane; + How oft hereafter, rising, look for us! + Through this same Garden—and for _one_ in vain. + + “And when like her, O Saki, you shall pass + Among the Guests, star-scattered on the grass, + And in your joyous errand reach the spot + Where I made one—turn down an empty glass.” + +The first time that Munro used the name of Saki was, I believe, in 1890, +when he published in the _Westminster Gazette_ the second of the +political satires, which were afterwards collected in a volume, called +_Alice in Westminster_. It was, I think, because the wistful philosophy +of FitzGerald appealed to him, as it did to so many of his +contemporaries, that he chose a pen-name from his verses. He loved the +fleeting beauty of life. “There is one thing I care for and that is +youth,” he once said. And he always remained youthful. It was perfectly +natural for him, although he was then a man of forty, to celebrate the +coming in of a new year by seizing the hands of strangers and flying +round in a great here-we-go-round-the-mulberry-bush at Oxford Circus, +and, later in the year, to dance in the moonlight round a bonfire in the +country, invoking Apollo with entreaties for sunshine to waken the +flowers. His last tale, _For the Duration of the War_, written when he +was at the front, shows that his spirit remained youthful to the end. +But if he gloried in the beauty of life, he was conscious of its sadness. +Have we any book in which the joy and pain of life are so intimately +blended as they are in _The Unbearable Bassington_? Munro himself +laughed when he was looking through a collection of criticisms of that +novel, some of which emphasised its gaiety and others its poignancy, and +remarked that they would bewilder the people who read them. + +It is not my present purpose to write a biography of my friend. That is +a task which must be discharged later, and an account of his life will be +given in the first volume of the collected edition of his works, which it +is proposed to publish after the war. Nevertheless, before writing of +the transformation wrought in him by the war, it may be well to give a +brief outline of his career. + +Munro was born in 1870 in Burmah, where his father, the late Colonel C. +A. Munro, was stationed. At his christening he was named Hector Hugh. +He belonged to a family with traditions of the two services. His +paternal grandfather had been in the army, and his mother was a daughter +of Rear-Admiral Mercer. Mrs. Munro died when her children were very +young, and Hector, his elder brother and his sister were brought up by +their father’s sisters, two maiden ladies, who were devoted to the +children, but had old-fashioned Scottish ideas of discipline. Their home +was near Barnstaple, a lonely house in a garden shut in by high stone +walls with meadows beyond. The three children had no companions, and +were thrown on their own resources for amusement. One of their +diversions was to produce a newspaper. All through his childhood Hector +professed violent Tory opinions, and at a very early age he began to take +an interest in politics and to read any books or papers dealing with them +that came his way. He loved, above all, the woodlands and the wild +things in them, especially the birds. His delicate health caused his +aunts somewhat to temper their severity in his case, but I fancy they +must have had some difficulty in curbing his high spirits; for he was a +thoroughly human boy and up to every sort of prank. He was sent for a +time to a private school at Exmouth, and when he left it did lessons at +home with his sister’s governess. Later he was sent to Bedford College. + +When school-days were over and Colonel Munro had returned to England for +good, Hector and his sister were taken abroad by their father. They +lived in Normandy and then in Dresden, where the first German words that +Hector learnt were the names of birds, sometimes picked up from strangers +in the zoological gardens. Then came a strenuous series of visits to +German and Austrian cities, which Colonel Munro arranged as much for the +education as the pleasure of his son and daughter. Museums and +picture-galleries were visited everywhere. Hector amused himself by +counting up the number of St. Sebastians in each gallery and making bets +with his sister as to which would have the most. Berlin won with +eighteen. The impression made on Munro by this tour is to be seen in his +books, and in the present volume there are two tales, _The Interlopers_ +and _The Wolves of Cernogratz_, which seem to have been inspired by the +memory of some romantic castle in the heart of Europe. A short play, +_Karl Ludwig’s Window_, which will be published later, is based on an +idea given by a visit to a castle near Prague. + +After a long visit to Davos, Colonel Munro returned with his family to +England and settled in North Devon, where he devoted himself during the +next two years to directing the studies of his son and daughter. Then +came another long visit to Davos, after which Hector left England and +joined the Burmese Mounted Police. He once told me of the feeling of +loneliness he experienced when he first arrived in Burmah, using almost +the same words in which he described Bassington’s sense of isolation in +the colony to which he was sent. That account of the young Englishman +looking enviously at a native boy and girl, racing wildly along in the +joy of youth and companionship, is one of the rare instances of +autobiography in Munro’s works. He was unable to support the Burmese +climate and, after having fever seven times in eleven months, was forced +to return to England. He remained at home for a year and hunted +regularly with his sister during the winter. He then came to London with +the intention of making a literary career for himself. His talent was +recognised by Sir Francis Gould, to whom a friend had given him an +introduction, and he soon began to write for the _Westminster Gazette_. +Two years after he settled in London the publication of the political +satires, based on _Alice in Wonderland_, brought him into prominence as a +wit and a writer to be counted with. Mr. Balfour was his chief butt in +these pieces. He was still, as he always remained, a Conservative, but +he held at the time that Mr. Balfour’s leadership was a weakness to the +party. + +In 1902 Munro went to the Balkans for the _Morning Post_, and later he +became the correspondent of that paper in St. Petersburg, where he was +during the revolution of 1905. + +He left St. Petersburg to represent the _Morning Post_ in Paris, and +returned to London in 1908, where the agreeable life of a man of letters +with a brilliant reputation awaited him. He had a lodging in Mortimer +Street and lived exceedingly simply. It was his custom to pass the +morning in a dressing-gown writing. His writing-pad was usually propped +up with a book to make it slant and he wrote slowly in a very clear hand, +rarely erasing a word or making a correction. His air and the movement +of his hand gave one the impression that he was drawing and not writing. +He almost always lunched at a Lyons bread-shop, partly because it was +economical and partly because, as he said, he got exactly the sort of +luncheon he liked. He cared nothing for money. He had to earn his +living, but he was content as long as he had enough money to supply his +needs. When a friend once suggested a profitable field for his writings, +he dismissed the idea by saying that he was not interested in the public +for which it was proposed that he should write. He loved his art, and, +by refusing to adopt a style that might have appealed to wider circles, +he made himself a place in our literature which, in the opinion of many, +will be lasting. Almost every day he played cards, either in the late +afternoon or in the evening, at the Cocoa Tree Club. The sight of the +wealth of others did not excite his envy. I remember his coming home +from a ball and relating that he had sat at supper next a millionairess, +whose doctor had prescribed a diet of milk-puddings. “I had a hearty +supper,” he said gleefully, “and for all her millions she was unable to +eat anything.” + +Munro was exceedingly generous. He would share his last sovereign with a +friend, and nothing pleased him better than to entertain his friends at +dinner in a club or restaurant. Nothing angered him more than meanness +in others. I remember the indignation with which he spoke of a rich +woman who had refused to give adequate help to a poor person, who stood +in need of it. + +This even life in town, occasionally varied by a visit to a country +house, was rudely disturbed by the shock of war. Munro was in the House +of Commons when Sir Edward Grey made his statement on the position that +this country was to take up. He told me that the strain of listening to +that speech was so great that he found himself in a sweat. He described +the slowness with which the Minister developed his argument and the way +in which he stopped to put on his eye-glasses to read a memorandum and +then took them off to continue, holding the House in suspense. That +night we dined at a chop-house in the Strand with two friends. On our +way Munro insisted on walking at a tremendous pace, and at dinner, when +he ordered cheese and the waiter asked whether he wanted butter, he said +peremptorily: “Cheese, no butter; there’s a war on.” A day or two later +he was condemning himself for the slackness of the years in London and +hiring a horse to take exercise, to which he was little addicted, in the +Park. He was determined to fight. Nothing else was to have been +expected of the man who wrote _When William Came_, a novel in which he +used his supreme gift of irony to rouse his fellow-countrymen from their +torpor and to stir them to take measures for the defence of the country. +_Punch_ declared that there had been no such conversational fireworks +since Wilde, in reviewing this book, but Munro was more gratified by a +word of encouragement sent him by Lord Roberts, after he had read the +book, than by all the praise of the critics. He was over military age +and he was not robust. In the first weeks of the war there seemed little +chance of his being able to become a soldier. “And I have always looked +forward to the romance of a European war,” he said. + +There still hangs in his room in Mortimer Street an old Flemish picture, +which he had picked up somewhere, of horsemen in doublets and plumed +hats, fighting beneath the walls of a city. It was, I think, the only +painting in his possession. Perhaps it was this picture that represented +to him the romance of which he spoke; but he did not hide from himself +the terrible side of war. Happily thoughts about war can be given in his +own words. The following piece appeared in the first edition of the +_Morning Post_ of April 23, 1915, under the title, _An Old Love_— + + “‘I know nothing about war,’ a boy of nineteen said to me two days + ago, ‘except, of course, that I’ve heard of its horrors; yet, + somehow, in spite of the horrors, there seems to be something in it + different to anything else in the world, something a little bit + finer.’ + + “He spoke wistfully, as one who feared that to him war would always + be an unreal, distant, second-hand thing, to be read about in special + editions, and peeped at through the medium of cinematograph shows. + He felt that the thing that was a little bit finer than anything else + in the world would never come into his life. + + “Nearly every red-blooded human boy has had war, in some shape or + form, for his first love; if his blood has remained red and he has + kept some of his boyishness in after life, that first love will never + have been forgotten. No one could really forget those wonderful + leaden cavalry soldiers; the horses were as sleek and prancing as + though they had never left the parade-ground, and the uniforms were + correspondingly spick and span, but the amount of campaigning and + fighting they got through was prodigious. There are other + unforgettable memories for those who had brothers to play with and + fight with, of sieges and ambushes and pitched encounters, of the + slaying of an entire garrison without quarter, or of chivalrous, + punctilious courtesy to a defeated enemy. Then there was the slow + unfolding of the long romance of actual war, particularly of European + war, ghastly, devastating, heartrending in its effect, and yet + somehow captivating to the imagination. The Thirty Years’ War was + one of the most hideously cruel wars ever waged, but, in conjunction + with the subsequent campaigns of the Great Louis, it throws a glamour + over the scene of the present struggle. The thrill that those + far-off things call forth in us may be ethically indefensible, but it + comes in the first place from something too deep to be driven out; + the magic region of the Low Countries is beckoning to us again, as it + beckoned to our forefathers, who went campaigning there almost from + force of habit. + + “One must admit that we have in these Islands a variant from the + red-blooded type. One or two young men have assured me that they are + not in the least interested in the war—‘I’m not at all patriotic, you + know,’ they announce, as one might announce that one was not a + vegetable or did not use a safety-razor. There are others whom I + have met within the recent harrowing days who had no place for the + war crisis in their thoughts and conversations; they would talk by + the hour about chamber-music, Greek folk-dances, Florentine art, and + the difficulty of getting genuine old oak furniture, but the national + honour and the national danger were topics that bored them. One felt + that the war would affect them chiefly as involving a possible + shortage in the supply of eau-de-Cologne or by debarring them from + visiting some favourite art treasure at a Munich gallery. It is + inconceivable that these persons were ever boys, they have certainly + not grown up into men; one cannot call them womanish—the women of our + race are made of different stuff. They belong to no sex and it seems + a pity that they should belong to any nation; other nations probably + have similar encumbrances, but we seem to have more of them than we + either desire or deserve. + + “There are other men among us who are patriotic, one supposes, but + with a patriotism that one cannot understand; it must be judged by a + standard that we should never care to set up. It seems to place a + huckstering interpretation on honour, to display sacred things in a + shop window, marked in plain figures. ‘If we remained neutral,’ as a + leading London morning paper once pleaded, ‘we should be, from the + commercial point of view, in precisely the same position as the + United States. We should be able to trade with all the belligerents + (so far as war allows of trade with them); we should be able to + capture the bulk of their trade in neutral markets; we should keep + our expenditure down; we should keep out of debt; we should have + healthy finances.’ + + “A question was buzzing in my head by the time I had finished reading + those alluring arguments: + + “Some men of noble stock were made; + Some glory in the murder-blade: + Some praise a science or an art, + But I like honourable trade. + + “The poet has given a satiric meaning to the last word but one in + those lines; perhaps that is why they flashed so readily to the mind. + + “One remembers with some feeling of relief the spectacle last August + of boys and youths marching and shouting through the streets in + semi-disciplined mobs, waving the flags of France and Britain. There + is perhaps nothing very patriotic in shouting and flag-waving, but it + is the only way these youngsters had of showing their feelings.” + +When at last Munro managed to enlist in the 2nd King Edward’s Horse, he +was supremely happy. He put on a trooper’s uniform with the exaltation +of a novice assuming the religious habit. But after a few months he +found that he was not strong enough for life in a cavalry regiment and he +arranged to exchange into the 22nd Royal Fusiliers. He chafed at the +long months of training in England and longed to get to the front, but +military discipline was to him something sacred and, whether in England +or in France, he did his utmost to conform himself to it and to force +others to do the same. One of his comrades told me that at the front +they would sometimes put their packs on a passing lorry; it was against +orders, and Munro refused to lighten the strain of a long march in this +way, although the straps of the pack galled his shoulders. + +Twice he was offered a commission, but he refused to take one. He +distrusted his ability to be a good officer and also he desired to go on +fighting side by side with his comrades, one of whom, now an officer and +a prisoner in Germany, had been his friend before the war. I was told by +a man of his company that one day a General was conducted along the +trenches by the Colonel commanding the regiment and recognised Munro, +whom he had met at dinner-parties in London. “What on earth are you +doing here?” he asked, and said that he had a job to be done at the rear +which would be the very thing for him. Munro excused himself from +accepting it. Another opportunity of less arduous work was offered him. +Men who could speak German were ordered to report: interpreters were +wanted to deal with prisoners. Munro reported, but urged that it had +taken him two years to get out to the front and that he desired to remain +there. He was allowed to do as he wished. And his gaiety never left +him. Those who were with him speak of the tales with which he amused +them. He even founded a club in one place at which they were stationed, +and called it the Back Kitchen Club, because the members met in the +kitchen of a peasant’s cottage. + +When he came home on leave, it was evident that the strain of military +life was telling on him. He was thin and his face was haggard. But the +spiritual change wrought in him by the war was greater than the physical. +He told me that he could never come back to the old life in London. And +he wrote asking me to find out from a person in Russia whether it would +be possible to acquire land in Siberia to till and to hunt, and whether a +couple of Yakutsk lads could be got as servants. It was the love of the +woodlands and the wild things in them, that he had felt as a child, +returning. The dross had been burnt up in the flame of war. + +Munro fell in the Beaumont-Hamel action in November 1916. On the 12th he +and his comrades were at Beldancourt. At one o’clock in the morning of +the 14th they went to Mailly. As the men were crossing No-Man’s-Land to +occupy trenches evacuated by the enemy, Munro was shot through the head. + +“Poor Saki! What an admiration we all had for him,” wrote the officer in +command of the 22nd Royal Fusiliers. “I always quoted him as one of the +heroes of the war. I saw daily the appalling discomforts he so +cheerfully endured. He flatly refused to take a commission or in any way +to allow me to try to make him more comfortable. General Vaughan told +him that a brain like his was wasted as a private soldier. He just +smiled. He was absolutely splendid. What courage! The men simply loved +him.” + + ROTHAY REYNOLDS, + +_September 1918_. + + + + +THE TOYS OF PEACE + + +“Harvey,” said Eleanor Bope, handing her brother a cutting from a London +morning paper of the 19th of March, “just read this about children’s +toys, please; it exactly carries out some of our ideas about influence +and upbringing.” + +“In the view of the National Peace Council,” ran the extract, “there are +grave objections to presenting our boys with regiments of fighting men, +batteries of guns, and squadrons of ‘Dreadnoughts.’ Boys, the Council +admits, naturally love fighting and all the panoply of war . . . but that +is no reason for encouraging, and perhaps giving permanent form to, their +primitive instincts. At the Children’s Welfare Exhibition, which opens +at Olympia in three weeks’ time, the Peace Council will make an +alternative suggestion to parents in the shape of an exhibition of ‘peace +toys.’ In front of a specially-painted representation of the Peace +Palace at The Hague will be grouped, not miniature soldiers but miniature +civilians, not guns but ploughs and the tools of industry . . . It is +hoped that manufacturers may take a hint from the exhibit, which will +bear fruit in the toy shops.” + +“The idea is certainly an interesting and very well-meaning one,” said +Harvey; “whether it would succeed well in practice—” + +“We must try,” interrupted his sister; “you are coming down to us at +Easter, and you always bring the boys some toys, so that will be an +excellent opportunity for you to inaugurate the new experiment. Go about +in the shops and buy any little toys and models that have special bearing +on civilian life in its more peaceful aspects. Of course you must +explain the toys to the children and interest them in the new idea. I +regret to say that the ‘Siege of Adrianople’ toy, that their Aunt Susan +sent them, didn’t need any explanation; they knew all the uniforms and +flags, and even the names of the respective commanders, and when I heard +them one day using what seemed to be the most objectionable language they +said it was Bulgarian words of command; of course it _may_ have been, but +at any rate I took the toy away from them. Now I shall expect your +Easter gifts to give quite a new impulse and direction to the children’s +minds; Eric is not eleven yet, and Bertie is only nine-and-a-half, so +they are really at a most impressionable age.” + +“There is primitive instinct to be taken into consideration, you know,” +said Harvey doubtfully, “and hereditary tendencies as well. One of their +great-uncles fought in the most intolerant fashion at Inkerman—he was +specially mentioned in dispatches, I believe—and their great-grandfather +smashed all his Whig neighbours’ hot houses when the great Reform Bill +was passed. Still, as you say, they are at an impressionable age. I +will do my best.” + +On Easter Saturday Harvey Bope unpacked a large, promising-looking red +cardboard box under the expectant eyes of his nephews. “Your uncle has +brought you the newest thing in toys,” Eleanor had said impressively, and +youthful anticipation had been anxiously divided between Albanian +soldiery and a Somali camel-corps. Eric was hotly in favour of the +latter contingency. “There would be Arabs on horseback,” he whispered; +“the Albanians have got jolly uniforms, and they fight all day long, and +all night, too, when there’s a moon, but the country’s rocky, so they’ve +got no cavalry.” + +A quantity of crinkly paper shavings was the first thing that met the +view when the lid was removed; the most exiting toys always began like +that. Harvey pushed back the top layer and drew forth a square, rather +featureless building. + +“It’s a fort!” exclaimed Bertie. + +“It isn’t, it’s the palace of the Mpret of Albania,” said Eric, immensely +proud of his knowledge of the exotic title; “it’s got no windows, you +see, so that passers-by can’t fire in at the Royal Family.” + +“It’s a municipal dust-bin,” said Harvey hurriedly; “you see all the +refuse and litter of a town is collected there, instead of lying about +and injuring the health of the citizens.” + +In an awful silence he disinterred a little lead figure of a man in black +clothes. + +“That,” he said, “is a distinguished civilian, John Stuart Mill. He was +an authority on political economy.” + +“Why?” asked Bertie. + +“Well, he wanted to be; he thought it was a useful thing to be.” + +Bertie gave an expressive grunt, which conveyed his opinion that there +was no accounting for tastes. + +Another square building came out, this time with windows and chimneys. + +“A model of the Manchester branch of the Young Women’s Christian +Association,” said Harvey. + +“Are there any lions?” asked Eric hopefully. He had been reading Roman +history and thought that where you found Christians you might reasonably +expect to find a few lions. + +“There are no lions,” said Harvey. “Here is another civilian, Robert +Raikes, the founder of Sunday schools, and here is a model of a municipal +wash-house. These little round things are loaves baked in a sanitary +bakehouse. That lead figure is a sanitary inspector, this one is a +district councillor, and this one is an official of the Local Government +Board.” + +“What does he do?” asked Eric wearily. + +“He sees to things connected with his Department,” said Harvey. “This +box with a slit in it is a ballot-box. Votes are put into it at election +times.” + +“What is put into it at other times?” asked Bertie. + +“Nothing. And here are some tools of industry, a wheelbarrow and a hoe, +and I think these are meant for hop-poles. This is a model beehive, and +that is a ventilator, for ventilating sewers. This seems to be another +municipal dust-bin—no, it is a model of a school of art and public +library. This little lead figure is Mrs. Hemans, a poetess, and this is +Rowland Hill, who introduced the system of penny postage. This is Sir +John Herschel, the eminent astrologer.” + +“Are we to play with these civilian figures?” asked Eric. + +“Of course,” said Harvey, “these are toys; they are meant to be played +with.” + +“But how?” + +It was rather a poser. “You might make two of them contest a seat in +Parliament,” said Harvey, “an have an election—” + +“With rotten eggs, and free fights, and ever so many broken heads!” +exclaimed Eric. + +“And noses all bleeding and everybody drunk as can be,” echoed Bertie, +who had carefully studied one of Hogarth’s pictures. + +“Nothing of the kind,” said Harvey, “nothing in the least like that. +Votes will be put in the ballot-box, and the Mayor will count them—and he +will say which has received the most votes, and then the two candidates +will thank him for presiding, and each will say that the contest has been +conducted throughout in the pleasantest and most straightforward fashion, +and they part with expressions of mutual esteem. There’s a jolly game +for you boys to play. I never had such toys when I was young.” + +“I don’t think we’ll play with them just now,” said Eric, with an entire +absence of the enthusiasm that his uncle had shown; “I think perhaps we +ought to do a little of our holiday task. It’s history this time; we’ve +got to learn up something about the Bourbon period in France.” + +“The Bourbon period,” said Harvey, with some disapproval in his voice. + +“We’ve got to know something about Louis the Fourteenth,” continued Eric; +“I’ve learnt the names of all the principal battles already.” + +This would never do. “There were, of course, some battles fought during +his reign,” said Harvey, “but I fancy the accounts of them were much +exaggerated; news was very unreliable in those days, and there were +practically no war correspondents, so generals and commanders could +magnify every little skirmish they engaged in till they reached the +proportions of decisive battles. Louis was really famous, now, as a +landscape gardener; the way he laid out Versailles was so much admired +that it was copied all over Europe.” + +“Do you know anything about Madame Du Barry?” asked Eric; “didn’t she +have her head chopped off?” + +“She was another great lover of gardening,” said Harvey, evasively; “in +fact, I believe the well known rose Du Barry was named after her, and now +I think you had better play for a little and leave your lessons till +later.” + +Harvey retreated to the library and spent some thirty or forty minutes in +wondering whether it would be possible to compile a history, for use in +elementary schools, in which there should be no prominent mention of +battles, massacres, murderous intrigues, and violent deaths. The York +and Lancaster period and the Napoleonic era would, he admitted to +himself, present considerable difficulties, and the Thirty Years’ War +would entail something of a gap if you left it out altogether. Still, it +would be something gained if, at a highly impressionable age, children +could be got to fix their attention on the invention of calico printing +instead of the Spanish Armada or the Battle of Waterloo. + +It was time, he thought, to go back to the boys’ room, and see how they +were getting on with their peace toys. As he stood outside the door he +could hear Eric’s voice raised in command; Bertie chimed in now and again +with a helpful suggestion. + +“That is Louis the Fourteenth,” Eric was saying, “that one in +knee-breeches, that Uncle said invented Sunday schools. It isn’t a bit +like him, but it’ll have to do.” + +“We’ll give him a purple coat from my paintbox by and by,” said Bertie. + +“Yes, an’ red heels. That is Madame de Maintenon, that one he called +Mrs. Hemans. She begs Louis not to go on this expedition, but he turns a +deaf ear. He takes Marshal Saxe with him, and we must pretend that they +have thousands of men with them. The watchword is _Qui vive_? and the +answer is _L’état c’est moi_—that was one of his favourite remarks, you +know. They land at Manchester in the dead of the night, and a Jacobite +conspirator gives them the keys of the fortress.” + +Peeping in through the doorway Harvey observed that the municipal +dust-bin had been pierced with holes to accommodate the muzzles of +imaginary cannon, and now represented the principal fortified position in +Manchester; John Stuart Mill had been dipped in red ink, and apparently +stood for Marshal Saxe. + +“Louis orders his troops to surround the Young Women’s Christian +Association and seize the lot of them. ‘Once back at the Louvre and the +girls are mine,’ he exclaims. We must use Mrs. Hemans again for one of +the girls; she says ‘Never,’ and stabs Marshal Saxe to the heart.” + +“He bleeds dreadfully,” exclaimed Bertie, splashing red ink liberally +over the façade of the Association building. + +“The soldiers rush in and avenge his death with the utmost savagery. A +hundred girls are killed”—here Bertie emptied the remainder of the red +ink over the devoted building—“and the surviving five hundred are dragged +off to the French ships. ‘I have lost a Marshal,’ says Louis, ‘but I do +not go back empty-handed.’” + +Harvey stole away from the room, and sought out his sister. + +“Eleanor,” he said, “the experiment—” + +“Yes?” + +“Has failed. We have begun too late.” + + + + +LOUISE + + +“The tea will be quite cold, you’d better ring for some more,” said the +Dowager Lady Beanford. + +Susan Lady Beanford was a vigorous old woman who had coquetted with +imaginary ill-health for the greater part of a lifetime; Clovis Sangrail +irreverently declared that she had caught a chill at the Coronation of +Queen Victoria and had never let it go again. Her sister, Jane +Thropplestance, who was some years her junior, was chiefly remarkable for +being the most absent-minded woman in Middlesex. + +“I’ve really been unusually clever this afternoon,” she remarked gaily, +as she rang for the tea. “I’ve called on all the people I meant to call +on; and I’ve done all the shopping that I set out to do. I even +remembered to try and match that silk for you at Harrod’s, but I’d +forgotten to bring the pattern with me, so it was no use. I really think +that was the only important thing I forgot during the whole afternoon. +Quite wonderful for me, isn’t it?” + +“What have you done with Louise?” asked her sister. “Didn’t you take her +out with you? You said you were going to.” + +“Good gracious,” exclaimed Jane, “what have I done with Louise? I must +have left her somewhere.” + +“But where?” + +“That’s just it. Where have I left her? I can’t remember if the +Carrywoods were at home or if I just left cards. If there were at home I +may have left Louise there to play bridge. I’ll go and telephone to Lord +Carrywood and find out.” + +“Is that you, Lord Carrywood?” she queried over the telephone; “it’s me, +Jane Thropplestance. I want to know, have you seen Louise?” + +“‘Louise,’” came the answer, “it’s been my fate to see it three times. +At first, I must admit, I wasn’t impressed by it, but the music grows on +one after a bit. Still, I don’t think I want to see it again just at +present. Were you going to offer me a seat in your box?” + +“Not the opera ‘Louise’—my niece, Louise Thropplestance. I thought I +might have left her at your house.” + +“You left cards on us this afternoon, I understand, but I don’t think you +left a niece. The footman would have been sure to have mentioned it if +you had. Is it going to be a fashion to leave nieces on people as well +as cards? I hope not; some of these houses in Berkeley-square have +practically no accommodation for that sort of thing.” + +“She’s not at the Carrywoods’,” announced Jane, returning to her tea; +“now I come to think of it, perhaps I left her at the silk counter at +Selfridge’s. I may have told her to wait there a moment while I went to +look at the silks in a better light, and I may easily have forgotten +about her when I found I hadn’t your pattern with me. In that case she’s +still sitting there. She wouldn’t move unless she was told to; Louise +has no initiative.” + +“You said you tried to match the silk at Harrod’s,” interjected the +dowager. + +“Did I? Perhaps it was Harrod’s. I really don’t remember. It was one +of those places where every one is so kind and sympathetic and devoted +that one almost hates to take even a reel of cotton away from such +pleasant surroundings.” + +“I think you might have taken Louise away. I don’t like the idea of her +being there among a lot of strangers. Supposing some unprincipled person +was to get into conversation with her.” + +“Impossible. Louise has no conversation. I’ve never discovered a single +topic on which she’d anything to say beyond ‘Do you think so? I dare say +you’re right.’ I really thought her reticence about the fall of the +Ribot Ministry was ridiculous, considering how much her dear mother used +to visit Paris. This bread and butter is cut far too thin; it crumbles +away long before you can get it to your mouth. One feels so absurd, +snapping at one’s food in mid-air, like a trout leaping at may-fly.” + +“I am rather surprised,” said the dowager, “that you can sit there making +a hearty tea when you’ve just lost a favourite niece.” + +“You talk as if I’d lost her in a churchyard sense, instead of having +temporarily mislaid her. I’m sure to remember presently where I left +her.” + +“You didn’t visit any place of devotion, did you? If you’ve left her +mooning about Westminster Abbey or St. Peter’s, Eaton Square, without +being able to give any satisfactory reason why she’s there, she’ll be +seized under the Cat and Mouse Act and sent to Reginald McKenna.” + +“That would be extremely awkward,” said Jane, meeting an irresolute piece +of bread and butter halfway; “we hardly know the McKennas, and it would +be very tiresome having to telephone to some unsympathetic private +secretary, describing Louise to him and asking to have her sent back in +time for dinner. Fortunately, I didn’t go to any place of devotion, +though I did get mixed up with a Salvation Army procession. It was quite +interesting to be at close quarters with them, they’re so absolutely +different to what they used to be when I first remember them in the +’eighties. They used to go about then unkempt and dishevelled, in a sort +of smiling rage with the world, and now they’re spruce and jaunty and +flamboyantly decorative, like a geranium bed with religious convictions. +Laura Kettleway was going on about them in the lift of the Dover Street +Tube the other day, saying what a lot of good work they did, and what a +loss it would have been if they’d never existed. ‘If they had never +existed,’ I said, ‘Granville Barker would have been certain to have +invented something that looked exactly like them.’ If you say things +like that, quite loud, in a Tube lift, they always sound like epigrams.” + +“I think you ought to do something about Louise,” said the dowager. + +“I’m trying to think whether she was with me when I called on Ada +Spelvexit. I rather enjoyed myself there. Ada was trying, as usual, to +ram that odious Koriatoffski woman down my throat, knowing perfectly well +that I detest her, and in an unguarded moment she said: ‘She’s leaving +her present house and going to Lower Seymour Street.’ ‘I dare say she +will, if she stays there long enough,’ I said. Ada didn’t see it for +about three minutes, and then she was positively uncivil. No, I am +certain I didn’t leave Louise there.” + +“If you could manage to remember where you _did_ leave her, it would be +more to the point than these negative assurances,” said Lady Beanford; +“so far, all we know is that she is not at the Carrywoods’, or Ada +Spelvexit’s, or Westminster Abbey.” + +“That narrows the search down a bit,” said Jane hopefully; “I rather +fancy she must have been with me when I went to Mornay’s. I know I went +to Mornay’s, because I remember meeting that delightful Malcolm +What’s-his-name there—you know whom I mean. That’s the great advantage +of people having unusual first names, you needn’t try and remember what +their other name is. Of course I know one or two other Malcolms, but +none that could possibly be described as delightful. He gave me two +tickets for the Happy Sunday Evenings in Sloane Square. I’ve probably +left them at Mornay’s, but still it was awfully kind of him to give them +to me.” + +“Do you think you left Louise there?” + +“I might telephone and ask. Oh, Robert, before you clear the tea-things +away I wish you’d ring up Mornay’s, in Regent Street, and ask if I left +two theatre tickets and one niece in their shop this afternoon.” + +“A niece, ma’am?” asked the footman. + +“Yes, Miss Louise didn’t come home with me, and I’m not sure where I left +her.” + +“Miss Louise has been upstairs all the afternoon, ma’am, reading to the +second kitchenmaid, who has the neuralgia. I took up tea to Miss Louise +at a quarter to five o’clock, ma’am.” + +“Of course, how silly of me. I remember now, I asked her to read the +_Faerie Queene_ to poor Emma, to try to send her to sleep. I always get +some one to read the _Faerie Queene_ to me when I have neuralgia, and it +usually sends me to sleep. Louise doesn’t seem to have been successful, +but one can’t say she hasn’t tried. I expect after the first hour or so +the kitchenmaid would rather have been left alone with her neuralgia, but +of course Louise wouldn’t leave off till some one told her to. Anyhow, +you can ring up Mornay’s, Robert, and ask whether I left two theatre +tickets there. Except for your silk, Susan, those seem to be the only +things I’ve forgotten this afternoon. Quite wonderful for me.” + + + + +TEA + + +James Cushat-Prinkly was a young man who had always had a settled +conviction that one of these days he would marry; up to the age of +thirty-four he had done nothing to justify that conviction. He liked and +admired a great many women collectively and dispassionately without +singling out one for especial matrimonial consideration, just as one +might admire the Alps without feeling that one wanted any particular peak +as one’s own private property. His lack of initiative in this matter +aroused a certain amount of impatience among the sentimentally-minded +women-folk of his home circle; his mother, his sisters, an +aunt-in-residence, and two or three intimate matronly friends regarded +his dilatory approach to the married state with a disapproval that was +far from being inarticulate. His most innocent flirtations were watched +with the straining eagerness which a group of unexercised terriers +concentrates on the slightest movements of a human being who may be +reasonably considered likely to take them for a walk. No decent-souled +mortal can long resist the pleading of several pairs of walk-beseeching +dog-eyes; James Cushat-Prinkly was not sufficiently obstinate or +indifferent to home influences to disregard the obviously expressed wish +of his family that he should become enamoured of some nice marriageable +girl, and when his Uncle Jules departed this life and bequeathed him a +comfortable little legacy it really seemed the correct thing to do to set +about discovering some one to share it with him. The process of +discovery was carried on more by the force of suggestion and the weight +of public opinion than by any initiative of his own; a clear working +majority of his female relatives and the aforesaid matronly friends had +pitched on Joan Sebastable as the most suitable young woman in his range +of acquaintance to whom he might propose marriage, and James became +gradually accustomed to the idea that he and Joan would go together +through the prescribed stages of congratulations, present-receiving, +Norwegian or Mediterranean hotels, and eventual domesticity. It was +necessary, however to ask the lady what she thought about the matter; the +family had so far conducted and directed the flirtation with ability and +discretion, but the actual proposal would have to be an individual +effort. + +Cushat-Prinkly walked across the Park towards the Sebastable residence in +a frame of mind that was moderately complacent. As the thing was going +to be done he was glad to feel that he was going to get it settled and +off his mind that afternoon. Proposing marriage, even to a nice girl +like Joan, was a rather irksome business, but one could not have a +honeymoon in Minorca and a subsequent life of married happiness without +such preliminary. He wondered what Minorca was really like as a place to +stop in; in his mind’s eye it was an island in perpetual half-mourning, +with black or white Minorca hens running all over it. Probably it would +not be a bit like that when one came to examine it. People who had been +in Russia had told him that they did not remember having seen any Muscovy +ducks there, so it was possible that there would be no Minorca fowls on +the island. + +His Mediterranean musings were interrupted by the sound of a clock +striking the half-hour. Half-past four. A frown of dissatisfaction +settled on his face. He would arrive at the Sebastable mansion just at +the hour of afternoon tea. Joan would be seated at a low table, spread +with an array of silver kettles and cream-jugs and delicate porcelain +tea-cups, behind which her voice would tinkle pleasantly in a series of +little friendly questions about weak or strong tea, how much, if any, +sugar, milk, cream, and so forth. “Is it one lump? I forgot. You do +take milk, don’t you? Would you like some more hot water, if it’s too +strong?” + +Cushat-Prinkly had read of such things in scores of novels, and hundreds +of actual experiences had told him that they were true to life. +Thousands of women, at this solemn afternoon hour, were sitting behind +dainty porcelain and silver fittings, with their voices tinkling +pleasantly in a cascade of solicitous little questions. Cushat-Prinkly +detested the whole system of afternoon tea. According to his theory of +life a woman should lie on a divan or couch, talking with incomparable +charm or looking unutterable thoughts, or merely silent as a thing to be +looked on, and from behind a silken curtain a small Nubian page should +silently bring in a tray with cups and dainties, to be accepted silently, +as a matter of course, without drawn-out chatter about cream and sugar +and hot water. If one’s soul was really enslaved at one’s mistress’s +feet how could one talk coherently about weakened tea? Cushat-Prinkly +had never expounded his views on the subject to his mother; all her life +she had been accustomed to tinkle pleasantly at tea-time behind dainty +porcelain and silver, and if he had spoken to her about divans and Nubian +pages she would have urged him to take a week’s holiday at the seaside. +Now, as he passed through a tangle of small streets that led indirectly +to the elegant Mayfair terrace for which he was bound, a horror at the +idea of confronting Joan Sebastable at her tea-table seized on him. A +momentary deliverance presented itself; on one floor of a narrow little +house at the noisier end of Esquimault Street lived Rhoda Ellam, a sort +of remote cousin, who made a living by creating hats out of costly +materials. The hats really looked as if they had come from Paris; the +cheques she got for them unfortunately never looked as if they were going +to Paris. However, Rhoda appeared to find life amusing and to have a +fairly good time in spite of her straitened circumstances. +Cushat-Prinkly decided to climb up to her floor and defer by half-an-hour +or so the important business which lay before him; by spinning out his +visit he could contrive to reach the Sebastable mansion after the last +vestiges of dainty porcelain had been cleared away. + +Rhoda welcomed him into a room that seemed to do duty as workshop, +sitting-room, and kitchen combined, and to be wonderfully clean and +comfortable at the same time. + +“I’m having a picnic meal,” she announced. “There’s caviare in that jar +at your elbow. Begin on that brown bread-and-butter while I cut some +more. Find yourself a cup; the teapot is behind you. Now tell me about +hundreds of things.” + +She made no other allusion to food, but talked amusingly and made her +visitor talk amusingly too. At the same time she cut the +bread-and-butter with a masterly skill and produced red pepper and sliced +lemon, where so many women would merely have produced reasons and regrets +for not having any. Cushat-Prinkly found that he was enjoying an +excellent tea without having to answer as many questions about it as a +Minister for Agriculture might be called on to reply to during an +outbreak of cattle plague. + +“And now tell me why you have come to see me,” said Rhoda suddenly. “You +arouse not merely my curiosity but my business instincts. I hope you’ve +come about hats. I heard that you had come into a legacy the other day, +and, of course, it struck me that it would be a beautiful and desirable +thing for you to celebrate the event by buying brilliantly expensive hats +for all your sisters. They may not have said anything about it, but I +feel sure the same idea has occurred to them. Of course, with Goodwood +on us, I am rather rushed just now, but in my business we’re accustomed +to that; we live in a series of rushes—like the infant Moses.” + +“I didn’t come about hats,” said her visitor. “In fact, I don’t think I +really came about anything. I was passing and I just thought I’d look in +and see you. Since I’ve been sitting talking to you, however, a rather +important idea has occurred to me. If you’ll forget Goodwood for a +moment and listen to me, I’ll tell you what it is.” + +Some forty minutes later James Cushat-Prinkly returned to the bosom of +his family, bearing an important piece of news. + +“I’m engaged to be married,” he announced. + +A rapturous outbreak of congratulation and self-applause broke out. + +“Ah, we knew! We saw it coming! We foretold it weeks ago!” + +“I’ll bet you didn’t,” said Cushat-Prinkly. “If any one had told me at +lunch-time to-day that I was going to ask Rhoda Ellam to marry me and +that she was going to accept me I would have laughed at the idea.” + +The romantic suddenness of the affair in some measure compensated James’s +women-folk for the ruthless negation of all their patient effort and +skilled diplomacy. It was rather trying to have to deflect their +enthusiasm at a moment’s notice from Joan Sebastable to Rhoda Ellam; but, +after all, it was James’s wife who was in question, and his tastes had +some claim to be considered. + +On a September afternoon of the same year, after the honeymoon in Minorca +had ended, Cushat-Prinkly came into the drawing-room of his new house in +Granchester Square. Rhoda was seated at a low table, behind a service of +dainty porcelain and gleaming silver. There was a pleasant tinkling note +in her voice as she handed him a cup. + +“You like it weaker than that, don’t you? Shall I put some more hot +water to it? No?” + + + + +THE DISAPPEARANCE OF CRISPINA UMBERLEIGH + + +In a first-class carriage of a train speeding Balkanward across the flat, +green Hungarian plain two Britons sat in friendly, fitful converse. They +had first foregathered in the cold grey dawn at the frontier line, where +the presiding eagle takes on an extra head and Teuton lands pass from +Hohenzollern to Habsburg keeping—and where a probing official beak +requires to delve in polite and perhaps perfunctory, but always tiresome, +manner into the baggage of sleep-hungry passengers. After a day’s break +of their journey at Vienna the travellers had again foregathered at the +trainside and paid one another the compliment of settling instinctively +into the same carriage. The elder of the two had the appearance and +manner of a diplomat; in point of fact he was the well-connected +foster-brother of a wine business. The other was certainly a journalist. +Neither man was talkative and each was grateful to the other for not +being talkative. That is why from time to time they talked. + +One topic of conversation naturally thrust itself forward in front of all +others. In Vienna the previous day they had learned of the mysterious +vanishing of a world-famous picture from the walls of the Louvre. + +“A dramatic disappearance of that sort is sure to produce a crop of +imitations,” said the Journalist. + +“It has had a lot of anticipations, for the matter of that,” said the +Wine-brother. + +“Oh, of course there have been thefts from the Louvre before.” + +“I was thinking of the spiriting away of human beings rather than +pictures. In particular I was thinking of the case of my aunt, Crispina +Umberleigh.” + +“I remember hearing something of the affair,” said the Journalist, “but I +was away from England at the time. I never quite knew what was supposed +to have happened.” + +“You may hear what really happened if you will respect it as a +confidence,” said the Wine Merchant. “In the first place I may say that +the disappearance of Mrs. Umberleigh was not regarded by the family +entirely as a bereavement. My uncle, Edward Umberleigh, was not by any +means a weak-kneed individual, in fact in the world of politics he had to +be reckoned with more or less as a strong man, but he was unmistakably +dominated by Crispina; indeed I never met any human being who was not +frozen into subjection when brought into prolonged contact with her. +Some people are born to command; Crispina Mrs. Umberleigh was born to +legislate, codify, administrate, censor, license, ban, execute, and sit +in judgement generally. If she was not born with that destiny she +adopted it at an early age. From the kitchen regions upwards every one +in the household came under her despotic sway and stayed there with the +submissiveness of molluscs involved in a glacial epoch. As a nephew on a +footing of only occasional visits she affected me merely as an epidemic, +disagreeable while it lasted, but without any permanent effect; but her +own sons and daughters stood in mortal awe of her; their studies, +friendships, diet, amusements, religious observances, and way of doing +their hair were all regulated and ordained according to the august lady’s +will and pleasure. This will help you to understand the sensation of +stupefaction which was caused in the family when she unobtrusively and +inexplicably vanished. It was as though St. Paul’s Cathedral or the +Piccadilly Hotel had disappeared in the night, leaving nothing but an +open space to mark where it had stood. As far as was known nothing was +troubling her; in fact there was much before her to make life +particularly well worth living. The youngest boy had come back from +school with an unsatisfactory report, and she was to have sat in +judgement on him the very afternoon of the day she disappeared—if it had +been he who had vanished in a hurry one could have supplied the motive. +Then she was in the middle of a newspaper correspondence with a rural +dean in which she had already proved him guilty of heresy, inconsistency, +and unworthy quibbling, and no ordinary consideration would have induced +her to discontinue the controversy. Of course the matter was put in the +hands of the police, but as far as possible it was kept out of the +papers, and the generally accepted explanation of her withdrawal from her +social circle was that she had gone into a nursing home.” + +“And what was the immediate effect on the home circle?” asked the +Journalist. + +“All the girls bought themselves bicycles; the feminine cycling craze was +still in existence, and Crispina had rigidly vetoed any participation in +it among the members of her household. The youngest boy let himself go +to such an extent during his next term that it had to be his last as far +as that particular establishment was concerned. The elder boys +propounded a theory that their mother might be wandering somewhere +abroad, and searched for her assiduously, chiefly, it must be admitted, +in a class of Montmartre resort where it was extremely improbable that +she would be found.” + +“And all this while couldn’t your uncle get hold of the least clue?” + +“As a matter of fact he had received some information, though of course I +did not know of it at the time. He got a message one day telling him +that his wife had been kidnapped and smuggled out of the country; she was +said to be hidden away, in one of the islands off the coast of Norway I +think it was, in comfortable surroundings and well cared for. And with +the information came a demand for money; a lump sum of £2000 was to be +paid yearly. Failing this she would be immediately restored to her +family.” + +The Journalist was silent for a moment, and them began to laugh quietly. + +“It was certainly an inverted form of holding to ransom,” he said. + +“If you had known my aunt,” said the Wine Merchant, “you would have +wondered that they didn’t put the figure higher.” + +“I realise the temptation. Did your uncle succumb to it?” + +“Well, you see, he had to think of others as well as himself. For the +family to have gone back into the Crispina thraldom after having tasted +the delights of liberty would have been a tragedy, and there were even +wider considerations to be taken into account. Since his bereavement he +had unconsciously taken up a far bolder and more initiatory line in +public affairs, and his popularity and influence had increased +correspondingly. From being merely a strong man in the political world +he began to be spoken of as _the_ strong man. All this he knew would be +jeopardised if he once more dropped into the social position of the +husband of Mrs. Umberleigh. He was a rich man, and the £2000 a year, +though not exactly a fleabite, did not seem an extravagant price to pay +for the boarding-out of Crispina. Of course, he had severe qualms of +conscience about the arrangement. Later on, when he took me into his +confidence, he told me that in paying the ransom, or hush-money as I +should have called it, he was partly influenced by the fear that if he +refused it the kidnappers might have vented their rage and disappointment +on their captive. It was better, he said, to think of her being well +cared for as a highly-valued paying-guest in one of the Lofoden Islands +than to have her struggling miserably home in a maimed and mutilated +condition. Anyway he paid the yearly instalment as punctually as one +pays a fire insurance, and with equal promptitude there would come an +acknowledgment of the money and a brief statement to the effect that +Crispina was in good health and fairly cheerful spirits. One report even +mentioned that she was busying herself with a scheme for proposed reforms +in Church management to be pressed on the local pastorate. Another spoke +of a rheumatic attack and a journey to a ‘cure’ on the mainland, and on +that occasion an additional eighty pounds was demanded and conceded. Of +course it was to the interest of the kidnappers to keep their charge in +good health, but the secrecy with which they managed to shroud their +arrangements argued a really wonderful organisation. If my uncle was +paying a rather high price, at least he could console himself with the +reflection that he was paying specialists’ fees.” + +“Meanwhile had the police given up all attempts to track the missing +lady?” asked the Journalist. + +“Not entirely; they came to my uncle from time to time to report on clues +which they thought might yield some elucidation as to her fate or +whereabouts, but I think they had their suspicions that he was possessed +of more information than he had put at their disposal. And then, after a +disappearance of more than eight years, Crispina returned with dramatic +suddenness to the home she had left so mysteriously.” + +“She had given her captors the slip?” + +“She had never been captured. Her wandering away had been caused by a +sudden and complete loss of memory. She usually dressed rather in the +style of a superior kind of charwoman, and it was not so very surprising +that she should have imagined that she was one; and still less that +people should accept her statement and help her to get work. She had +wandered as far afield as Birmingham, and found fairly steady employment +there, her energy and enthusiasm in putting people’s rooms in order +counterbalancing her obstinate and domineering characteristics. It was +the shock of being patronisingly addressed as ‘my good woman’ by a +curate, who was disputing with her where the stove should be placed in a +parish concert hall that led to the sudden restoration of her memory. ‘I +think you forget who you are speaking to,’ she observed crushingly, which +was rather unduly severe, considering she had only just remembered it +herself.” + +“But,” exclaimed the Journalist, “the Lofoden Island people! Who had +they got hold of?” + +“A purely mythical prisoner. It was an attempt in the first place by +some one who knew something of the domestic situation, probably a +discharged valet, to bluff a lump sum out of Edward Umberleigh before the +missing woman turned up; the subsequent yearly instalments were an +unlooked-for increment to the original haul. + +“Crispina found that the eight years’ interregnum had materially weakened +her ascendancy over her now grown-up offspring. Her husband, however, +never accomplished anything great in the political world after her +return; the strain of trying to account satisfactorily for an unspecified +expenditure of sixteen thousand pounds spread over eight years +sufficiently occupied his mental energies. Here is Belgrad and another +custom house.” + + + + +THE WOLVES OF CERNOGRATZ + + +“Are there any old legends attached to the castle?” asked Conrad of his +sister. Conrad was a prosperous Hamburg merchant, but he was the one +poetically-dispositioned member of an eminently practical family. + +The Baroness Gruebel shrugged her plump shoulders. + +“There are always legends hanging about these old places. They are not +difficult to invent and they cost nothing. In this case there is a story +that when any one dies in the castle all the dogs in the village and the +wild beasts in forest howl the night long. It would not be pleasant to +listen to, would it?” + +“It would be weird and romantic,” said the Hamburg merchant. + +“Anyhow, it isn’t true,” said the Baroness complacently; “since we bought +the place we have had proof that nothing of the sort happens. When the +old mother-in-law died last springtime we all listened, but there was no +howling. It is just a story that lends dignity to the place without +costing anything.” + +“The story is not as you have told it,” said Amalie, the grey old +governess. Every one turned and looked at her in astonishment. She was +wont to sit silent and prim and faded in her place at table, never +speaking unless some one spoke to her, and there were few who troubled +themselves to make conversation with her. To-day a sudden volubility had +descended on her; she continued to talk, rapidly and nervously, looking +straight in front of her and seeming to address no one in particular. + +“It is not when _any one_ dies in the castle that the howling is heard. +It was when one of the Cernogratz family died here that the wolves came +from far and near and howled at the edge of the forest just before the +death hour. There were only a few couple of wolves that had their lairs +in this part of the forest, but at such a time the keepers say there +would be scores of them, gliding about in the shadows and howling in +chorus, and the dogs of the castle and the village and all the farms +round would bay and howl in fear and anger at the wolf chorus, and as the +soul of the dying one left its body a tree would crash down in the park. +That is what happened when a Cernogratz died in his family castle. But +for a stranger dying here, of course no wolf would howl and no tree would +fall. Oh, no.” + +There was a note of defiance, almost of contempt, in her voice as she +said the last words. The well-fed, much-too-well dressed Baroness stared +angrily at the dowdy old woman who had come forth from her usual and +seemly position of effacement to speak so disrespectfully. + +“You seem to know quite a lot about the von Cernogratz legends, Fraulein +Schmidt,” she said sharply; “I did not know that family histories were +among the subjects you are supposed to be proficient in.” + +The answer to her taunt was even more unexpected and astonishing than the +conversational outbreak which had provoked it. + +“I am a von Cernogratz myself,” said the old woman, “that is why I know +the family history.” + +“You a von Cernogratz? You!” came in an incredulous chorus. + +“When we became very poor,” she explained, “and I had to go out and give +teaching lessons, I took another name; I thought it would be more in +keeping. But my grandfather spent much of his time as a boy in this +castle, and my father used to tell me many stories about it, and, of +course, I knew all the family legends and stories. When one has nothing +left to one but memories, one guards and dusts them with especial care. +I little thought when I took service with you that I should one day come +with you to the old home of my family. I could wish it had been anywhere +else.” + +There was silence when she finished speaking, and then the Baroness +turned the conversation to a less embarrassing topic than family +histories. But afterwards, when the old governess had slipped away +quietly to her duties, there arose a clamour of derision and disbelief. + +“It was an impertinence,” snapped out the Baron, his protruding eyes +taking on a scandalised expression; “fancy the woman talking like that at +our table. She almost told us we were nobodies, and I don’t believe a +word of it. She is just Schmidt and nothing more. She has been talking +to some of the peasants about the old Cernogratz family, and raked up +their history and their stories.” + +“She wants to make herself out of some consequence,” said the Baroness; +“she knows she will soon be past work and she wants to appeal to our +sympathies. Her grandfather, indeed!” + +The Baroness had the usual number of grandfathers, but she never, never +boasted about them. + +“I dare say her grandfather was a pantry boy or something of the sort in +the castle,” sniggered the Baron; “that part of the story may be true.” + +The merchant from Hamburg said nothing; he had seen tears in the old +woman’s eyes when she spoke of guarding her memories—or, being of an +imaginative disposition, he thought he had. + +“I shall give her notice to go as soon as the New Year festivities are +over,” said the Baroness; “till then I shall be too busy to manage +without her.” + +But she had to manage without her all the same, for in the cold biting +weather after Christmas, the old governess fell ill and kept to her room. + +“It is most provoking,” said the Baroness, as her guests sat round the +fire on one of the last evenings of the dying year; “all the time that +she has been with us I cannot remember that she was ever seriously ill, +too ill to go about and do her work, I mean. And now, when I have the +house full, and she could be useful in so many ways, she goes and breaks +down. One is sorry for her, of course, she looks so withered and +shrunken, but it is intensely annoying all the same.” + +“Most annoying,” agreed the banker’s wife, sympathetically; “it is the +intense cold, I expect, it breaks the old people up. It has been +unusually cold this year.” + +“The frost is the sharpest that has been known in December for many +years,” said the Baron. + +“And, of course, she is quite old,” said the Baroness; “I wish I had +given her notice some weeks ago, then she would have left before this +happened to her. Why, Wappi, what is the matter with you?” + +The small, woolly lapdog had leapt suddenly down from its cushion and +crept shivering under the sofa. At the same moment an outburst of angry +barking came from the dogs in the castle-yard, and other dogs could be +heard yapping and barking in the distance. + +“What is disturbing the animals?” asked the Baron. + +And then the humans, listening intently, heard the sound that had roused +the dogs to their demonstrations of fear and rage; heard a long-drawn +whining howl, rising and falling, seeming at one moment leagues away, at +others sweeping across the snow until it appeared to come from the foot +of the castle walls. All the starved, cold misery of a frozen world, all +the relentless hunger-fury of the wild, blended with other forlorn and +haunting melodies to which one could give no name, seemed concentrated in +that wailing cry. + +“Wolves!” cried the Baron. + +Their music broke forth in one raging burst, seeming to come from +everywhere. + +“Hundreds of wolves,” said the Hamburg merchant, who was a man of strong +imagination. + +Moved by some impulse which she could not have explained, the Baroness +left her guests and made her way to the narrow, cheerless room where the +old governess lay watching the hours of the dying year slip by. In spite +of the biting cold of the winter night, the window stood open. With a +scandalised exclamation on her lips, the Baroness rushed forward to close +it. + +“Leave it open,” said the old woman in a voice that for all its weakness +carried an air of command such as the Baroness had never heard before +from her lips. + +“But you will die of cold!” she expostulated. + +“I am dying in any case,” said the voice, “and I want to hear their +music. They have come from far and wide to sing the death-music of my +family. It is beautiful that they have come; I am the last von +Cernogratz that will die in our old castle, and they have come to sing to +me. Hark, how loud they are calling!” + +The cry of the wolves rose on the still winter air and floated round the +castle walls in long-drawn piercing wails; the old woman lay back on her +couch with a look of long-delayed happiness on her face. + +“Go away,” she said to the Baroness; “I am not lonely any more. I am one +of a great old family . . . ” + +“I think she is dying,” said the Baroness when she had rejoined her +guests; “I suppose we must send for a doctor. And that terrible howling! +Not for much money would I have such death-music.” + +“That music is not to be bought for any amount of money,” said Conrad. + +“Hark! What is that other sound?” asked the Baron, as a noise of +splitting and crashing was heard. + +It was a tree falling in the park. + +There was a moment of constrained silence, and then the banker’s wife +spoke. + +“It is the intense cold that is splitting the trees. It is also the cold +that has brought the wolves out in such numbers. It is many years since +we have had such a cold winter.” + +The Baroness eagerly agreed that the cold was responsible for these +things. It was the cold of the open window, too, which caused the heart +failure that made the doctor’s ministrations unnecessary for the old +Fraulein. But the notice in the newspapers looked very well— + + “On December 29th, at Schloss Cernogratz, Amalie von Cernogratz, for + many years the valued friend of Baron and Baroness Gruebel.” + + + + +LOUIS + + +“It would be jolly to spend Easter in Vienna this year,” said +Strudwarden, “and look up some of my old friends there. It’s about the +jolliest place I know of to be at for Easter—” + +“I thought we had made up our minds to spend Easter at Brighton,” +interrupted Lena Strudwarden, with an air of aggrieved surprise. + +“You mean that you had made up your mind that we should spend Easter +there,” said her husband; “we spent last Easter there, and Whitsuntide as +well, and the year before that we were at Worthing, and Brighton again +before that. I think it would be just as well to have a real change of +scene while we are about it.” + +“The journey to Vienna would be very expensive,” said Lena. + +“You are not often concerned about economy,” said Strudwarden, “and in +any case the trip of Vienna won’t cost a bit more than the rather +meaningless luncheon parties we usually give to quite meaningless +acquaintances at Brighton. To escape from all that set would be a +holiday in itself.” + +Strudwarden spoke feelingly; Lena Strudwarden maintained an equally +feeling silence on that particular subject. The set that she gathered +round her at Brighton and other South Coast resorts was composed of +individuals who might be dull and meaningless in themselves, but who +understood the art of flattering Mrs. Strudwarden. She had no intention +of foregoing their society and their homage and flinging herself among +unappreciative strangers in a foreign capital. + +“You must go to Vienna alone if you are bent on going,” she said; “I +couldn’t leave Louis behind, and a dog is always a fearful nuisance in a +foreign hotel, besides all the fuss and separation of the quarantine +restrictions when one comes back. Louis would die if he was parted from +me for even a week. You don’t know what that would mean to me.” + +Lena stooped down and kissed the nose of the diminutive brown Pomeranian +that lay, snug and irresponsive, beneath a shawl on her lap. + +“Look here,” said Strudwarden, “this eternal Louis business is getting to +be a ridiculous nuisance. Nothing can be done, no plans can be made, +without some veto connected with that animal’s whims or convenience being +imposed. If you were a priest in attendance on some African fetish you +couldn’t set up a more elaborate code of restrictions. I believe you’d +ask the Government to put off a General Election if you thought it would +interfere with Louis’s comfort in any way.” + +By way of answer to this tirade Mrs. Strudwarden stooped down again and +kissed the irresponsive brown nose. It was the action of a woman with a +beautifully meek nature, who would, however, send the whole world to the +stake sooner than yield an inch where she knew herself to be in the +right. + +“It isn’t as if you were in the least bit fond of animals,” went on +Strudwarden, with growing irritation; “when we are down at Kerryfield you +won’t stir a step to take the house dogs out, even if they’re dying for a +run, and I don’t think you’ve been in the stables twice in your life. +You laugh at what you call the fuss that’s being made over the +extermination of plumage birds, and you are quite indignant with me if I +interfere on behalf of an ill-treated, over-driven animal on the road. +And yet you insist on every one’s plans being made subservient to the +convenience of that stupid little morsel of fur and selfishness.” + +“You are prejudiced against my little Louis,” said Lena, with a world of +tender regret in her voice. + +“I’ve never had the chance of being anything else but prejudiced against +him,” said Strudwarden; “I know what a jolly responsive companion a +doggie can be, but I’ve never been allowed to put a finger near Louis. +You say he snaps at any one except you and your maid, and you snatched +him away from old Lady Peterby the other day, when she wanted to pet him, +for fear he would bury his teeth in her. All that I ever see of him is +the top of his unhealthy-looking little nose, peeping out from his basket +or from your muff, and I occasionally hear his wheezy little bark when +you take him for a walk up and down the corridor. You can’t expect one +to get extravagantly fond of a dog of that sort. One might as well work +up an affection for the cuckoo in a cuckoo-clock.” + +“He loves me,” said Lena, rising from the table, and bearing the +shawl-swathed Louis in her arms. “He loves only me, and perhaps that is +why I love him so much in return. I don’t care what you say against him, +I am not going to be separated from him. If you insist on going to +Vienna you must go alone, as far as I am concerned. I think it would be +much more sensible if you were to come to Brighton with Louis and me, but +of course you must please yourself.” + +“You must get rid of that dog,” said Strudwarden’s sister when Lena had +left the room; “it must be helped to some sudden and merciful end. Lena +is merely making use of it as an instrument for getting her own way on +dozens of occasions when she would otherwise be obliged to yield +gracefully to your wishes or to the general convenience. I am convinced +that she doesn’t care a brass button about the animal itself. When her +friends are buzzing round her at Brighton or anywhere else and the dog +would be in the way, it has to spend whole days alone with the maid, but +if you want Lena to go with you anywhere where she doesn’t want to go +instantly she trots out the excuse that she couldn’t be separated from +her dog. Have you ever come into a room unobserved and heard Lena +talking to her beloved pet? I never have. I believe she only fusses +over it when there’s some one present to notice her.” + +“I don’t mind admitting,” said Strudwarden, “that I’ve dwelt more than +once lately on the possibility of some fatal accident putting an end to +Louis’s existence. It’s not very easy, though, to arrange a fatality for +a creature that spends most of its time in a muff or asleep in a toy +kennel. I don’t think poison would be any good; it’s obviously horribly +over-fed, for I’ve seen Lena offer it dainties at table sometimes, but it +never seems to eat them.” + +“Lena will be away at church on Wednesday morning,” said Elsie +Strudwarden reflectively; “she can’t take Louis with her there, and she +is going on to the Dellings for lunch. That will give you several hours +in which to carry out your purpose. The maid will be flirting with the +chauffeur most of the time, and, anyhow, I can manage to keep her out of +the way on some pretext or other.” + +“That leaves the field clear,” said Strudwarden, “but unfortunately my +brain is equally a blank as far as any lethal project is concerned. The +little beast is so monstrously inactive; I can’t pretend that it leapt +into the bath and drowned itself, or that it took on the butcher’s +mastiff in unequal combat and got chewed up. In what possible guise +could death come to a confirmed basket-dweller? It would be too +suspicious if we invented a Suffragette raid and pretended that they +invaded Lena’s boudoir and threw a brick at him. We should have to do a +lot of other damage as well, which would be rather a nuisance, and the +servants would think it odd that they had seen nothing of the invaders.” + +“I have an idea,” said Elsie; “get a box with an air-tight lid, and bore +a small hole in it, just big enough to let in an indiarubber tube. Pop +Louis, kennel and all, into the box, shut it down, and put the other end +of the tube over the gas-bracket. There you have a perfect lethal +chamber. You can stand the kennel at the open window afterwards, to get +rid of the smell of gas, and all that Lena will find when she comes home +late in the afternoon will be a placidly defunct Louis.” + +“Novels have been written about women like you,” said Strudwarden; “you +have a perfectly criminal mind. Let’s come and look for a box.” + +Two mornings later the conspirators stood gazing guiltily at a stout +square box, connected with the gas-bracket by a length of indiarubber +tubing. + +“Not a sound,” said Elsie; “he never stirred; it must have been quite +painless. All the same I feel rather horrid now it’s done.” + +“The ghastly part has to come,” said Strudwarden, turning off the gas. +“We’ll lift the lid slowly, and let the gas out by degrees. Swing the +door to and fro to send a draught through the room.” + +Some minutes later, when the fumes had rushed off, he stooped down and +lifted out the little kennel with its grim burden. Elsie gave an +exclamation of terror. Louis sat at the door of his dwelling, head erect +and ears pricked, as coldly and defiantly inert as when they had put him +into his execution chamber. Strudwarden dropped the kennel with a jerk, +and stared for a long moment at the miracle-dog; then he went into a peal +of chattering laughter. + +It was certainly a wonderful imitation of a truculent-looking toy +Pomeranian, and the apparatus that gave forth a wheezy bark when you +pressed it had materially helped the imposition that Lena, and Lena’s +maid, had foisted on the household. For a woman who disliked animals, +but liked getting her own way under a halo of unselfishness, Mrs. +Strudwarden had managed rather well. + +“Louis is dead,” was the curt information that greeted Lena on her return +from her luncheon party. + +“Louis _dead_!” she exclaimed. + +“Yes, he flew at the butcher-boy and bit him, and he bit me, too, when I +tried to get him off, so I had to have him destroyed. You warned me that +he snapped, but you didn’t tell me that he was downright dangerous. I +shall have to pay the boy something heavy by way of compensation, so you +will have to go without those buckles that you wanted to have for Easter; +also I shall have to go to Vienna to consult Dr. Schroeder, who is a +specialist on dog-bites, and you will have to come too. I have sent what +remains of Louis to Rowland Ward to be stuffed; that will be my Easter +gift to you instead of the buckles. For Heaven’s sake, Lena, weep, if +you really feel it so much; anything would be better than standing there +staring as if you thought I had lost my reason.” + +Lena Strudwarden did not weep, but her attempt at laughing was an +unmistakable failure. + + + + +THE GUESTS + + +“The landscape seen from our windows is certainly charming,” said +Annabel; “those cherry orchards and green meadows, and the river winding +along the valley, and the church tower peeping out among the elms, they +all make a most effective picture. There’s something dreadfully sleepy +and languorous about it, though; stagnation seems to be the dominant +note. Nothing ever happens here; seedtime and harvest, an occasional +outbreak of measles or a mildly destructive thunderstorm, and a little +election excitement about once in five years, that is all that we have to +modify the monotony of our existence. Rather dreadful, isn’t it?” + +“On the contrary,” said Matilda, “I find it soothing and restful; but +then, you see, I’ve lived in countries where things do happen, ever so +many at a time, when you’re not ready for them happening all at once.” + +“That, of course, makes a difference,” said Annabel. + +“I have never forgotten,” said Matilda, “the occasion when the Bishop of +Bequar paid us an unexpected visit; he was on his way to lay the +foundation-stone of a mission-house or something of the sort.” + +“I thought that out there you were always prepared for emergency guests +turning up,” said Annabel. + +“I was quite prepared for half a dozen Bishops,” said Matilda, “but it +was rather disconcerting to find out after a little conversation that +this particular one was a distant cousin of mine, belonging to a branch +of the family that had quarrelled bitterly and offensively with our +branch about a Crown Derby dessert service; they got it, and we ought to +have got it, in some legacy, or else we got it and they thought they +ought to have it, I forget which; anyhow, I know they behaved +disgracefully. Now here was one of them turning up in the odour of +sanctity, so to speak, and claiming the traditional hospitality of the +East.” + +“It was rather trying, but you could have left your husband to do most of +the entertaining.” + +“My husband was fifty miles up-country, talking sense, or what he +imagined to be sense, to a village community that fancied one of their +leading men was a were-tiger.” + +“A what tiger?” + +“A were-tiger; you’ve heard of were-wolves, haven’t you, a mixture of +wolf and human being and demon? Well, in those parts they have +were-tigers, or think they have, and I must say that in this case, so far +as sworn and uncontested evidence went, they had every ground for +thinking so. However, as we gave up witchcraft prosecutions about three +hundred years ago, we don’t like to have other people keeping on our +discarded practices; it doesn’t seem respectful to our mental and moral +position.” + +“I hope you weren’t unkind to the Bishop,” said Annabel. + +“Well, of course he was my guest, so I had to be outwardly polite to him, +but he was tactless enough to rake up the incidents of the old quarrel, +and to try to make out that there was something to be said for the way +his side of the family had behaved; even if there was, which I don’t for +a moment admit, my house was not the place in which to say it. I didn’t +argue the matter, but I gave my cook a holiday to go and visit his aged +parents some ninety miles away. The emergency cook was not a specialist +in curries, in fact, I don’t think cooking in any shape or form could +have been one of his strong points. I believe he originally came to us +in the guise of a gardener, but as we never pretended to have anything +that could be considered a garden he was utilised as assistant goat-herd, +in which capacity, I understand, he gave every satisfaction. When the +Bishop heard that I had sent away the cook on a special and unnecessary +holiday he saw the inwardness of the manœuvre, and from that moment we +were scarcely on speaking terms. If you have ever had a Bishop with whom +you were not on speaking terms staying in your house, you will appreciate +the situation.” + +Annabel confessed that her life-story had never included such a +disturbing experience. + +“Then,” continued Matilda, “to make matters more complicated, the +Gwadlipichee overflowed its banks, a thing it did every now and then when +the rains were unduly prolonged, and the lower part of the house and all +the out-buildings were submerged. We managed to get the ponies loose in +time, and the syce swam the whole lot of them off to the nearest rising +ground. A goat or two, the chief goat-herd, the chief goat-herd’s wife, +and several of their babies came to anchorage in the verandah. All the +rest of the available space was filled up with wet, bedraggled-looking +hens and chickens; one never really knows how many fowls one possesses +till the servants’ quarters are flooded out. Of course, I had been +through something of the sort in previous floods, but never before had I +had a houseful of goats and babies and half-drowned hens, supplemented by +a Bishop with whom I was hardly on speaking terms.” + +“It must have been a trying experience,” commented Annabel. + +“More embarrassments were to follow. I wasn’t going to let a mere +ordinary flood wash out the memory of that Crown Derby dessert service, +and I intimated to the Bishop that his large bedroom, with a writing +table in it, and his small bath-room, with a sufficiency of cold-water +jars in it, was his share of the premises, and that space was rather +congested under the existing circumstances. However, at about three +o’clock in the afternoon, when he had awakened from his midday sleep, he +made a sudden incursion into the room that was normally the drawing-room, +but was now dining-room, store-house, saddle-room, and half a dozen other +temporary premises as well. From the condition of my guest’s costume he +seemed to think it might also serve as his dressing-room. + +“’I’m afraid there is nowhere for you to sit,’ I said coldly; ‘the +verandah is full of goats.’ + +“’There is a goat in my bedroom,’ he observed with equal coldness, and +more than a suspicion of sardonic reproach. + +“’Really,’ I said, ‘another survivor? I thought all the other goats were +done for.’ + +“‘This particular goat is quite done for,’ he said, ‘it is being devoured +by a leopard at the present moment. That is why I left the room; some +animals resent being watched while they are eating.’ + +“The leopard, of course, was easily explained; it had been hanging round +the goat sheds when the flood came, and had clambered up by the outside +staircase leading to the Bishop’s bath-room, thoughtfully bringing a goat +with it. Probably it found the bath-room too damp and shut-in for its +taste, and transferred its banqueting operations to the bedroom while the +Bishop was having his nap.” + +“What a frightful situation!” exclaimed Annabel; “fancy having a ravening +leopard in the house, with a flood all round you.” + +“Not in the least ravening,” said Matilda; “it was full of goat, had any +amount of water at its disposal if it felt thirsty, and probably had no +more immediate wish than a desire for uninterrupted sleep. Still, I +think any one will admit that it was an embarrassing predicament to have +your only available guest-room occupied by a leopard, the verandah choked +up with goats and babies and wet hens, and a Bishop with whom you were +scarcely on speaking terms planted down in your own sitting-room. I +really don’t know how I got through those crawling hours, and of course +mealtimes only made matters worse. The emergency cook had every excuse +for sending in watery soup and sloppy rice, and as neither the chief +goat-herd nor his wife were expert divers, the cellar could not be +reached. Fortunately the Gwadlipichee subsides as rapidly as it rises, +and just before dawn the syce came splashing back, with the ponies only +fetlock deep in water. Then there arose some awkwardness from the fact +that the Bishop wished to leave sooner than the leopard did, and as the +latter was ensconced in the midst of the former’s personal possessions +there was an obvious difficulty in altering the order of departure. I +pointed out to the Bishop that a leopard’s habits and tastes are not +those of an otter, and that it naturally preferred walking to wading; and +that in any case a meal of an entire goat, washed down with tub-water, +justified a certain amount of repose; if I had had guns fired to frighten +the animal away, as the Bishop suggested, it would probably merely have +left the bedroom to come into the already over-crowded drawing-room. +Altogether it was rather a relief when they both left. Now, perhaps, you +can understand my appreciation of a sleepy countryside where things don’t +happen.” + + + + +THE PENANCE + + +Octavian Ruttle was one of those lively cheerful individuals on whom +amiability had set its unmistakable stamp, and, like most of his kind, +his soul’s peace depended in large measure on the unstinted approval of +his fellows. In hunting to death a small tabby cat he had done a thing +of which he scarcely approved himself, and he was glad when the gardener +had hidden the body in its hastily dug grave under a lone oak-tree in the +meadow, the same tree that the hunted quarry had climbed as a last effort +towards safety. It had been a distasteful and seemingly ruthless deed, +but circumstances had demanded the doing of it. Octavian kept chickens; +at least he kept some of them; others vanished from his keeping, leaving +only a few bloodstained feathers to mark the manner of their going. The +tabby cat from the large grey house that stood with its back to the +meadow had been detected in many furtive visits to the hen-coups, and +after due negotiation with those in authority at the grey house a +sentence of death had been agreed on. “The children will mind, but they +need not know,” had been the last word on the matter. + +The children in question were a standing puzzle to Octavian; in the +course of a few months he considered that he should have known their +names, ages, the dates of their birthdays, and have been introduced to +their favourite toys. They remained however, as non-committal as the +long blank wall that shut them off from the meadow, a wall over which +their three heads sometimes appeared at odd moments. They had parents in +India—that much Octavian had learned in the neighbourhood; the children, +beyond grouping themselves garment-wise into sexes, a girl and two boys, +carried their life-story no further on his behoof. And now it seemed he +was engaged in something which touched them closely, but must be hidden +from their knowledge. + +The poor helpless chickens had gone one by one to their doom, so it was +meet that their destroyer should come to a violent end; yet Octavian felt +some qualms when his share of the violence was ended. The little cat, +headed off from its wonted tracks of safety, had raced unfriended from +shelter to shelter, and its end had been rather piteous. Octavian walked +through the long grass of the meadow with a step less jaunty than usual. +And as he passed beneath the shadow of the high blank wall he glanced up +and became aware that his hunting had had undesired witnesses. Three +white set faces were looking down at him, and if ever an artist wanted a +threefold study of cold human hate, impotent yet unyielding, raging yet +masked in stillness, he would have found it in the triple gaze that met +Octavian’s eye. + +“I’m sorry, but it had to be done,” said Octavian, with genuine apology +in his voice. + +“Beast!” + +The answer came from three throats with startling intensity. + +Octavian felt that the blank wall would not be more impervious to his +explanations than the bunch of human hostility that peered over its +coping; he wisely decided to withhold his peace overtures till a more +hopeful occasion. + +Two days later he ransacked the best sweet shop in the neighbouring +market town for a box of chocolates that by its size and contents should +fitly atone for the dismal deed done under the oak tree in the meadow. +The two first specimens that were shown him he hastily rejected; one had +a group of chickens pictured on its lid, the other bore the portrait of a +tabby kitten. A third sample was more simply bedecked with a spray of +painted poppies, and Octavian hailed the flowers of forgetfulness as a +happy omen. He felt distinctly more at ease with his surroundings when +the imposing package had been sent across to the grey house, and a +message returned to say that it had been duly given to the children. The +next morning he sauntered with purposeful steps past the long blank wall +on his way to the chicken-run and piggery that stood at the bottom of the +meadow. The three children were perched at their accustomed look-out, +and their range of sight did not seem to concern itself with Octavian’s +presence. As he became depressingly aware of the aloofness of their gaze +he also noted a strange variegation in the herbage at his feet; the +greensward for a considerable space around was strewn and speckled with a +chocolate-coloured hail, enlivened here and there with gay tinsel-like +wrappings or the glistening mauve of crystallised violets. It was as +though the fairy paradise of a greedyminded child had taken shape and +substance in the vegetation of the meadow. Octavian’s bloodmoney had +been flung back at him in scorn. + +To increase his discomfiture the march of events tended to shift the +blame of ravaged chicken-coops from the supposed culprit who had already +paid full forfeit; the young chicks were still carried off, and it seemed +highly probable that the cat had only haunted the chicken-run to prey on +the rats which harboured there. Through the flowing channels of servant +talk the children learned of this belated revision of verdict, and +Octavian one day picked up a sheet of copy-book paper on which was +painstakingly written: “Beast. Rats eated your chickens.” More ardently +than ever did he wish for an opportunity for sloughing off the disgrace +that enwrapped him, and earning some happier nickname from his three +unsparing judges. + +And one day a chance inspiration came to him. Olivia, his two-year-old +daughter, was accustomed to spend the hour from high noon till one +o’clock with her father while the nursemaid gobbled and digested her +dinner and novelette. About the same time the blank wall was usually +enlivened by the presence of its three small wardens. Octavian, with +seeming carelessness of purpose, brought Olivia well within hail of the +watchers and noted with hidden delight the growing interest that dawned +in that hitherto sternly hostile quarter. His little Olivia, with her +sleepy placid ways, was going to succeed where he, with his anxious +well-meant overtures, had so signally failed. He brought her a large +yellow dahlia, which she grasped tightly in one hand and regarded with a +stare of benevolent boredom, such as one might bestow on amateur +classical dancing performed in aid of a deserving charity. Then he +turned shyly to the group perched on the wall and asked with affected +carelessness, “Do you like flowers?” Three solemn nods rewarded his +venture. + +“Which sorts do you like best?” he asked, this time with a distinct +betrayal of eagerness in his voice. + +“Those with all the colours, over there.” Three chubby arms pointed to a +distant tangle of sweet-pea. Child-like, they had asked for what lay +farthest from hand, but Octavian trotted off gleefully to obey their +welcome behest. He pulled and plucked with unsparing hand, and brought +every variety of tint that he could see into his bunch that was rapidly +becoming a bundle. Then he turned to retrace his steps, and found the +blank wall blanker and more deserted than ever, while the foreground was +void of all trace of Olivia. Far down the meadow three children were +pushing a go-cart at the utmost speed they could muster in the direction +of the piggeries; it was Olivia’s go-cart and Olivia sat in it, somewhat +bumped and shaken by the pace at which she was being driven, but +apparently retaining her wonted composure of mind. Octavian stared for a +moment at the rapidly moving group, and then started in hot pursuit, +shedding as he ran sprays of blossom from the mass of sweet-pea that he +still clutched in his hands. Fast as he ran the children had reached the +piggery before he could overtake them, and he arrived just in time to see +Olivia, wondering but unprotesting, hauled and pushed up to the roof of +the nearest sty. They were old buildings in some need of repair, and the +rickety roof would certainly not have borne Octavian’s weight if he had +attempted to follow his daughter and her captors on their new vantage +ground. + +“What are you going to do with her?” he panted. There was no mistaking +the grim trend of mischief in those flushed by sternly composed young +faces. + +“Hang her in chains over a slow fire,” said one of the boys. Evidently +they had been reading English history. + +“Frow her down the pigs will d’vour her, every bit ’cept the palms of her +hands,” said the other boy. It was also evident that they had studied +Biblical history. + +The last proposal was the one which most alarmed Octavian, since it might +be carried into effect at a moment’s notice; there had been cases, he +remembered, of pigs eating babies. + +“You surely wouldn’t treat my poor little Olivia in that way?” he +pleaded. + +“You killed our little cat,” came in stern reminder from three throats. + +“I’m sorry I did,” said Octavian, and if there is a standard measurement +in truths Octavian’s statement was assuredly a large nine. + +“We shall be very sorry when we’ve killed Olivia,” said the girl, “but we +can’t be sorry till we’ve done it.” + +The inexorable child-logic rose like an unyielding rampart before +Octavian’s scared pleadings. Before he could think of any fresh line of +appeal his energies were called out in another direction. Olivia had +slid off the roof and fallen with a soft, unctuous splash into a morass +of muck and decaying straw. Octavian scrambled hastily over the pigsty +wall to her rescue, and at once found himself in a quagmire that engulfed +his feet. Olivia, after the first shock of surprise at her sudden drop +through the air, had been mildly pleased at finding herself in close and +unstinted contact with the sticky element that oozed around her, but as +she began to sink gently into the bed of slime a feeling dawned on her +that she was not after all very happy, and she began to cry in the +tentative fashion of the normally good child. Octavian, battling with +the quagmire, which seemed to have learned the rare art of giving way at +all points without yielding an inch, saw his daughter slowly disappearing +in the engulfing slush, her smeared face further distorted with the +contortions of whimpering wonder, while from their perch on the pigsty +roof the three children looked down with the cold unpitying detachment of +the Parcæ Sisters. + +“I can’t reach her in time,” gasped Octavian, “she’ll be choked in the +muck. Won’t you help her?” + +“No one helped our cat,” came the inevitable reminder. + +“I’ll do anything to show you how sorry I am about that,” cried Octavian, +with a further desperate flounder, which carried him scarcely two inches +forward. + +“Will you stand in a white sheet by the grave?” + +“Yes,” screamed Octavian. + +“Holding a candle?” + +“An’ saying ‘I’m a miserable Beast’?” + +Octavian agreed to both suggestions. + +“For a long, long time?” + +“For half an hour,” said Octavian. There was an anxious ring in his +voice as he named the time-limit; was there not the precedent of a German +king who did open-air penance for several days and nights at +Christmas-time clad only in his shirt? Fortunately the children did not +appear to have read German history, and half an hour seemed long and +goodly in their eyes. + +“All right,” came with threefold solemnity from the roof, and a moment +later a short ladder had been laboriously pushed across to Octavian, who +lost no time in propping it against the low pigsty wall. Scrambling +gingerly along its rungs he was able to lean across the morass that +separated him from his slowly foundering offspring and extract her like +an unwilling cork from it’s slushy embrace. A few minutes later he was +listening to the shrill and repeated assurances of the nursemaid that her +previous experience of filthy spectacles had been on a notably smaller +scale. + +That same evening when twilight was deepening into darkness Octavian took +up his position as penitent under the lone oak-tree, having first +carefully undressed the part. Clad in a zephyr shirt, which on this +occasion thoroughly merited its name, he held in one hand a lighted +candle and in the other a watch, into which the soul of a dead plumber +seemed to have passed. A box of matches lay at his feet and was resorted +to on the fairly frequent occasions when the candle succumbed to the +night breezes. The house loomed inscrutable in the middle distance, but +as Octavian conscientiously repeated the formula of his penance he felt +certain that three pairs of solemn eyes were watching his moth-shared +vigil. + +And the next morning his eyes were gladdened by a sheet of copy-book +paper lying beside the blank wall, on which was written the message +“Un-Beast.” + + + + +THE PHANTOM LUNCHEON + + +“The Smithly-Dubbs are in Town,” said Sir James. “I wish you would show +them some attention. Ask them to lunch with you at the Ritz or +somewhere.” + +“From the little I’ve seen of the Smithly-Dubbs I don’t thing I want to +cultivate their acquaintance,” said Lady Drakmanton. + +“They always work for us at election times,” said her husband; “I don’t +suppose they influence very many votes, but they have an uncle who is on +one of my ward committees, and another uncle speaks sometimes at some of +our less important meetings. Those sort of people expect some return in +the shape of hospitality.” + +“Expect it!” exclaimed Lady Drakmanton; “the Misses Smithly-Dubb do more +than that; they almost demand it. They belong to my club, and hang about +the lobby just about lunch-time, all three of them, with their tongues +hanging out of their mouths and the six-course look in their eyes. If I +were to breathe the word ‘lunch’ they would hustle me into a taxi and +scream ‘Ritz’ or ‘Dieudonne’s’ to the driver before I knew what was +happening.” + +“All the same, I think you ought to ask them to a meal of some sort,” +persisted Sir James. + +“I consider that showing hospitality to the Smithly-Dubbs is carrying +Free Food principles to a regrettable extreme,” said Lady Drakmanton; +“I’ve entertained the Joneses and the Browns and the Snapheimers and the +Lubrikoffs, and heaps of others whose names I forget, but I don’t see why +I should inflict the society of the Misses Smithly-Dubb on myself for a +solid hour. Imagine it, sixty minutes, more or less, of unrelenting +gobble and gabble. Why can’t _you_ take them on, Milly?” she asked, +turning hopefully to her sister. + +“I don’t know them,” said Milly hastily. + +“All the better; you can pass yourself off as me. People say that we are +so alike that they can hardly tell us apart, and I’ve only spoken to +these tiresome young women about twice in my life, at committee-rooms, +and bowed to them in the club. Any of the club page-boys will point them +out to you; they’re always to be found lolling about the hall just before +lunch-time.” + +“My dear Betty, don’t be absurd,” protested Milly; “I’ve got some people +lunching with me at the Carlton to-morrow, and I’m leaving Town the day +afterwards.” + +“What time is your lunch to-morrow?” asked Lady Drakmanton reflectively. + +“Two o’clock,” said Milly. + +“Good,” said her sister; “the Smithly-Dubbs shall lunch with me +to-morrow. It shall be rather an amusing lunch-party. At least, I shall +be amused.” + +The last two remarks she made to herself. Other people did not always +appreciate her ideas of humour. Sir James never did. + +The next day Lady Drakmanton made some marked variations in her usual +toilet effects. She dressed her hair in an unaccustomed manner, and put +on a hat that added to the transformation of her appearance. When she +had made one or two minor alterations she was sufficiently unlike her +usual smart self to produce some hesitation in the greeting which the +Misses Smithly-Dubb bestowed on her in the club-lobby. She responded, +however, with a readiness which set their doubts at rest. + +“What is the Carlton like for lunching in?” she asked breezily. + +The restaurant received an enthusiastic recommendation from the three +sisters. + +“Let’s go and lunch there, shall we?” she suggested, and in a few +minutes’ time the Smithly-Dubb mind was contemplating at close quarters a +happy vista of baked meats and approved vintage. + +“Are you going to start with caviare? I am,” confided Lady Drakmanton, +and the Smithly-Dubbs started with caviare. The subsequent dishes were +chosen in the same ambitious spirit, and by the time they had arrived at +the wild duck course it was beginning to be a rather expensive lunch. + +The conversation hardly kept pace with the brilliancy of the menu. +Repeated references on the part of the guests to the local political +conditions and prospects in Sir James’s constituency were met with vague +“ahs” and “indeeds” from Lady Drakmanton, who might have been expected to +be specially interested. + +“I think when the Insurance Act is a little better understood it will +lose some of its present unpopularity,” hazarded Cecilia Smithly-Dubb. + +“Will it? I dare say. I’m afraid politics don’t interest me very much,” +said Lady Drakmanton. + +The three Miss Smithly-Dubbs put down their cups of Turkish coffee and +stared. Then they broke into protesting giggles. + +“Of course, you’re joking,” they said. + +“Not me,” was the disconcerting answer; “I can’t make head or tail of +these bothering old politics. Never could, and never want to. I’ve +quite enough to do to manage my own affairs, and that’s a fact.” + +“But,” exclaimed Amanda Smithly-Dubb, with a squeal of bewilderment +breaking into her voice, “I was told you spoke so informingly about the +Insurance Act at one of our social evenings.” + +It was Lady Drakmanton who stared now. “Do you know,” she said, with a +scared look around her, “rather a dreadful thing is happening. I’m +suffering from a complete loss of memory. I can’t even think who I am. +I remember meeting you somewhere, and I remember you asking me to come +and lunch with you here, and that I accepted your kind invitation. +Beyond that my mind is a positive blank.” + +The scared look was transferred with intensified poignancy to the faces +of her companions. + +“_You_ asked _us_ to lunch,” they exclaimed hurriedly. That seemed a +more immediately important point to clear up than the question of +identity. + +“Oh, no,” said the vanishing hostess, “_that_ I do remember about. You +insisted on my coming here because the feeding was so good, and I must +say it comes up to all you said about it. A very nice lunch it’s been. +What I’m worrying about is who on earth am I? I haven’t the faintest +notion?” + +“You are Lady Drakmanton,” exclaimed the three sisters in chorus. + +“Now, don’t make fun of me,” she replied, crossly, “I happen to know her +quite well by sight, and she isn’t a bit like me. And it’s an odd thing +you should have mentioned her, for it so happens she’s just come into the +room. That lady in black, with the yellow plume in her hat, there over +by the door.” + +The Smithly-Dubbs looked in the indicated direction, and the uneasiness +in their eyes deepened into horror. In outward appearance the lady who +had just entered the room certainly came rather nearer to their +recollection of their Member’s wife than the individual who was sitting +at table with them. + +“Who _are_ you, then, if that is Lady Drakmanton?” they asked in +panic-stricken bewilderment. + +“That is just what I don’t know,” was the answer; “and you don’t seem to +know much better than I do.” + +“You came up to us in the club—” + +“In what club?” + +“The New Didactic, in Calais Street.” + +“The New Didactic!” exclaimed Lady Drakmanton with an air of returning +illumination; “thank you so much. Of course, I remember now who I am. +I’m Ellen Niggle, of the Ladies’ Brasspolishing Guild. The Club employs +me to come now and then and see to the polishing of the brass fittings. +That’s how I came to know Lady Drakmanton by sight; she’s very often in +the Club. And you are the ladies who so kindly asked me out to lunch. +Funny how it should all have slipped my memory, all of a sudden. The +unaccustomed good food and wine must have been too much for me; for the +moment I really couldn’t call to mind who I was. Good gracious,” she +broke off suddenly, “it’s ten past two; I should be at a polishing job in +Whitehall. I must scuttle off like a giddy rabbit. Thanking you ever +so.” + +She left the room with a scuttle sufficiently suggestive of the animal +she had mentioned, but the giddiness was all on the side of her +involuntary hostesses. The restaurant seemed to be spinning round them; +and the bill when it appeared did nothing to restore their composure. +They were as nearly in tears as it is permissible to be during the +luncheon hour in a really good restaurant. Financially speaking, they +were well able to afford the luxury of an elaborate lunch, but their +ideas on the subject of entertaining differed very sharply, according to +the circumstances of whether they were dispensing or receiving +hospitality. To have fed themselves liberally at their own expense was, +perhaps, an extravagance to be deplored, but, at any rate, they had had +something for their money; to have drawn an unknown and socially +unremunerative Ellen Niggle into the net of their hospitality was a +catastrophe that they could not contemplate with any degree of calmness. + +The Smithly-Dubbs never quite recovered from their unnerving experience. +They have given up politics and taken to doing good. + + + + +A BREAD AND BUTTER MISS + + +“Starling Chatter and Oakhill have both dropped back in the betting,” +said Bertie van Tahn, throwing the morning paper across the breakfast +table. + +“That leaves Nursery Tea practically favourite,” said Odo Finsberry. + +“Nursery Tea and Pipeclay are at the top of the betting at present,” said +Bertie, “but that French horse, Le Five O’Clock, seems to be fancied as +much as anything. Then there is Whitebait, and the Polish horse with a +name like some one trying to stifle a sneeze in church; they both seem to +have a lot of support.” + +“It’s the most open Derby there’s been for years,” said Odo. + +“It’s simply no good trying to pick the winner on form,” said Bertie; +“one must just trust to luck and inspiration.” + +“The question is whether to trust to one’s own inspiration, or somebody +else’s. _Sporting Swank_ gives Count Palatine to win, and Le Five +O’Clock for a place.” + +“Count Palatine—that adds another to our list of perplexities. Good +morning, Sir Lulworth; have you a fancy for the Derby by any chance?” + +“I don’t usually take much interest in turf matters,” said Sir Lulworth, +who had just made his appearance, “but I always like to have a bet on the +Guineas and the Derby. This year, I confess, it’s rather difficult to +pick out anything that seems markedly better than anything else. What do +you think of Snow Bunting?” + +“Snow Bunting?” said Odo, with a groan, “there’s another of them. +Surely, Snow Bunting has no earthly chance?” + +“My housekeeper’s nephew, who is a shoeing-smith in the mounted section +of the Church Lads’ Brigade, and an authority on horseflesh, expects him +to be among the first three.” + +“The nephews of housekeepers are invariably optimists,” said Bertie; +“it’s a kind of natural reaction against the professional pessimism of +their aunts.” + +“We don’t seem to get much further in our search for the probable +winner,” said Mrs. de Claux; “the more I listen to you experts the more +hopelessly befogged I get.” + +“It’s all very well to blame us,” said Bertie to his hostess; “you +haven’t produced anything in the way of an inspiration.” + +“My inspiration consisted in asking you down for Derby week,” retorted +Mrs. de Claux; “I thought you and Odo between you might throw some light +on the question of the moment.” + +Further recriminations were cut short by the arrival of Lola Pevensey, +who floated into the room with an air of gracious apology. + +“So sorry to be so late,” she observed, making a rapid tour of inspection +of the breakfast dishes. + +“Did you have a good night?” asked her hostess with perfunctory +solicitude. + +“Quite, thank you,” said Lola; “I dreamt a most remarkable dream.” + +A flutter, indicative of general boredom; went round the table. Other +people’s dreams are about as universally interesting as accounts of other +people’s gardens, or chickens, or children. + +“I dreamt about the winner of the Derby,” said Lola. + +A swift reaction of attentive interest set in. + +“Do tell us what you dreamt,” came in a chorus. + +“The really remarkable thing about it is that I’ve dreamt it two nights +running,” said Lola, finally deciding between the allurements of sausages +and kedgeree; “that is why I thought it worth mentioning. You know, when +I dream things two or three nights in succession, it always means +something; I have special powers in that way. For instance, I once +dreamed three times that a winged lion was flying through the sky and one +of his wings dropped off, and he came to the ground with a crash; just +afterwards the Campanile at Venice fell down. The winged lion is the +symbol of Venice, you know,” she added for the enlightenment of those who +might not be versed in Italian heraldry. “Then,” she continued, “just +before the murder of the King and Queen of Servia I had a vivid dream of +two crowned figures walking into a slaughter-house by the banks of a big +river, which I took to be the Danube; and only the other day—” + +“Do tell us what you’ve dreamt about the Derby,” interrupted Odo +impatiently. + +“Well, I saw the finish of the race as clearly as anything; and one horse +won easily, almost in a canter, and everybody cried out ‘Bread and Butter +wins! Good old Bread and Butter.’ I heard the name distinctly, and I’ve +had the same dream two nights running.” + +“Bread and Butter,” said Mrs. de Claux, “now, whatever horse can that +point to? Why—of course; Nursery Tea!” + +She looked round with the triumphant smile of a successful unraveller of +mystery. + +“How about Le Five O’Clock?” interposed Sir Lulworth. + +“It would fit either of them equally well,” said Odo; “can you remember +any details about the jockey’s colours? That might help us.” + +“I seem to remember a glimpse of lemon sleeves or cap, but I can’t be +sure,” said Lola, after due reflection. + +“There isn’t a lemon jacket or cap in the race,” said Bertie, referring +to a list of starters and jockeys; “can’t you remember anything about the +appearance of the horse? If it were a thick-set animal, this bread and +butter would typify Nursery Tea; and if it were thin, of course, it would +mean Le Five O’Clock.” + +“That seems sound enough,” said Mrs. de Claux; “do think, Lola dear, +whether the horse in your dream was thin or stoutly built.” + +“I can’t remember that it was one or the other,” said Lola; “one wouldn’t +notice such a detail in the excitement of a finish.” + +“But this was a symbolic animal,” said Sir Lulworth; “if it were to +typify thick or thin bread and butter surely it ought to have been either +as bulky and tubby as a shire cart-horse; or as thin as a heraldic +leopard.” + +“I’m afraid you are rather a careless dreamer,” said Bertie resentfully. + +“Of course, at the moment of dreaming I thought I was witnessing a real +race, not the portent of one,” said Lola; “otherwise I should have +particularly noticed all helpful details.” + +“The Derby isn’t run till to-morrow,” said Mrs. de Claux; “do you think +you are likely to have the same dream again to-night? If so; you can fix +your attention on the important detail of the animal’s appearance.” + +“I’m afraid I shan’t sleep at all to-night,” said Lola pathetically; +“every fifth night I suffer from insomnia, and it’s due to-night.” + +“It’s most provoking,” said Bertie; “of course, we can back both horses, +but it would be much more satisfactory to have all our money on the +winner. Can’t you take a sleeping-draught, or something?” + +“Oakleaves, soaked in warm water and put under the bed, are recommended +by some,” said Mrs. de Claux. + +“A glass of Benedictine, with a drop of eau-de-Cologne—” said Sir +Lulworth. + +“I have tried every known remedy,” said Lola, with dignity; “I’ve been a +martyr to insomnia for years.” + +“But now we are being martyrs to it,” said Odo sulkily; “I particularly +want to land a big coup over this race.” + +“I don’t have insomnia for my own amusement,” snapped Lola. + +“Let us hope for the best,” said Mrs. de Claux soothingly; “to-night may +prove an exception to the fifth-night rule.” + +But when breakfast time came round again Lola reported a blank night as +far as visions were concerned. + +“I don’t suppose I had as much as ten minutes’ sleep, and, certainly, no +dreams.” + +“I’m so sorry, for your sake in the first place, and ours as well,” said +her hostess; “do you think you could induce a short nap after breakfast? +It would be so good for you—and you _might_ dream something. There would +still be time for us to get our bets on.” + +“I’ll try if you like,” said Lola; “it sounds rather like a small child +being sent to bed in disgrace.” + +“I’ll come and read the _Encyclopædia Britannica_ to you if you think it +will make you sleep any sooner,” said Bertie obligingly. + +Rain was falling too steadily to permit of outdoor amusement, and the +party suffered considerably during the next two hours from the absolute +quiet that was enforced all over the house in order to give Lola every +chance of achieving slumber. Even the click of billiard balls was +considered a possible factor of disturbance, and the canaries were +carried down to the gardener’s lodge, while the cuckoo clock in the hall +was muffled under several layers of rugs. A notice, “Please do not Knock +or Ring,” was posted on the front door at Bertie’s suggestion, and guests +and servants spoke in tragic whispers as though the dread presence of +death or sickness had invaded the house. The precautions proved of no +avail: Lola added a sleepless morning to a wakeful night, and the bets of +the party had to be impartially divided between Nursery Tea and the +French Colt. + +“So provoking to have to split out bets,” said Mrs. de Claux, as her +guests gathered in the hall later in the day, waiting for the result of +the race. + +“I did my best for you,” said Lola, feeling that she was not getting her +due share of gratitude; “I told you what I had seen in my dreams, a brown +horse, called Bread and Butter, winning easily from all the rest.” + +“What?” screamed Bertie, jumping up from his sea, “a _brown_ horse! +Miserable woman, you never said a word about it’s being a brown horse.” + +“Didn’t I?” faltered Lola; “I thought I told you it was a brown horse. +It was certainly brown in both dreams. But I don’t see what the colour +has got to do with it. Nursery Tea and Le Five O’Clock are both +chestnuts.” + +“Merciful Heaven! Doesn’t brown bread and butter with a sprinkling of +lemon in the colours suggest anything to you?” raged Bertie. + +A slow, cumulative groan broke from the assembly as the meaning of his +words gradually dawned on his hearers. + +For the second time that day Lola retired to the seclusion of her room; +she could not face the universal looks of reproach directed at her when +Whitebait was announced winner at the comfortable price of fourteen to +one. + + + + +BERTIE’S CHRISTMAS EVE + + +It was Christmas Eve, and the family circle of Luke Steffink, Esq., was +aglow with the amiability and random mirth which the occasion demanded. +A long and lavish dinner had been partaken of, waits had been round and +sung carols; the house-party had regaled itself with more caroling on its +own account, and there had been romping which, even in a pulpit +reference, could not have been condemned as ragging. In the midst of the +general glow, however, there was one black unkindled cinder. + +Bertie Steffink, nephew of the aforementioned Luke, had early in life +adopted the profession of ne’er-do-weel; his father had been something of +the kind before him. At the age of eighteen Bertie had commenced that +round of visits to our Colonial possessions, so seemly and desirable in +the case of a Prince of the Blood, so suggestive of insincerity in a +young man of the middle-class. He had gone to grow tea in Ceylon and +fruit in British Columbia, and to help sheep to grow wool in Australia. +At the age of twenty he had just returned from some similar errand in +Canada, from which it may be gathered that the trial he gave to these +various experiments was of the summary drum-head nature. Luke Steffink, +who fulfilled the troubled role of guardian and deputy-parent to Bertie, +deplored the persistent manifestation of the homing instinct on his +nephew’s part, and his solemn thanks earlier in the day for the blessing +of reporting a united family had no reference to Bertie’s return. + +Arrangements had been promptly made for packing the youth off to a +distant corner of Rhodesia, whence return would be a difficult matter; +the journey to this uninviting destination was imminent, in fact a more +careful and willing traveller would have already begun to think about his +packing. Hence Bertie was in no mood to share in the festive spirit +which displayed itself around him, and resentment smouldered within him +at the eager, self-absorbed discussion of social plans for the coming +months which he heard on all sides. Beyond depressing his uncle and the +family circle generally by singing “Say au revoir, and not good-bye,” he +had taken no part in the evening’s conviviality. + +Eleven o’clock had struck some half-hour ago, and the elder Steffinks +began to throw out suggestions leading up to that process which they +called retiring for the night. + +“Come, Teddie, it’s time you were in your little bed, you know,” said +Luke Steffink to his thirteen-year-old son. + +“That’s where we all ought to be,” said Mrs. Steffink. + +“There wouldn’t be room,” said Bertie. + +The remark was considered to border on the scandalous; everybody ate +raisins and almonds with the nervous industry of sheep feeding during +threatening weather. + +“In Russia,” said Horace Bordenby, who was staying in the house as a +Christmas guest, “I’ve read that the peasants believe that if you go into +a cow-house or stable at midnight on Christmas Eve you will hear the +animals talk. They’re supposed to have the gift of speech at that one +moment of the year.” + +“Oh, _do_ let’s _all_ go down to the cow-house and listen to what they’ve +got to say!” exclaimed Beryl, to whom anything was thrilling and amusing +if you did it in a troop. + +Mrs. Steffink made a laughing protest, but gave a virtual consent by +saying, “We must all wrap up well, then.” The idea seemed a +scatterbrained one to her, and almost heathenish, but if afforded an +opportunity for “throwing the young people together,” and as such she +welcomed it. Mr. Horace Bordenby was a young man with quite substantial +prospects, and he had danced with Beryl at a local subscription ball a +sufficient number of times to warrant the authorised inquiry on the part +of the neighbours whether “there was anything in it.” Though Mrs. +Steffink would not have put it in so many words, she shared the idea of +the Russian peasantry that on this night the beast might speak. + +The cow-house stood at the junction of the garden with a small paddock, +an isolated survival, in a suburban neighbourhood; of what had once been +a small farm. Luke Steffink was complacently proud of his cow-house and +his two cows; he felt that they gave him a stamp of solidity which no +number of Wyandottes or Orpingtons could impart. They even seemed to +link him in a sort of inconsequent way with those patriarchs who derived +importance from their floating capital of flocks and herbs, he-asses and +she-asses. It had been an anxious and momentous occasion when he had had +to decide definitely between “the Byre” and “the Ranch” for the naming of +his villa residence. A December midnight was hardly the moment he would +have chosen for showing his farm-building to visitors, but since it was a +fine night, and the young people were anxious for an excuse for a mild +frolic, Luke consented to chaperon the expedition. The servants had long +since gone to bed, so the house was left in charge of Bertie, who +scornfully declined to stir out on the pretext of listening to bovine +conversation. + +“We must go quietly,” said Luke, as he headed the procession of giggling +young folk, brought up in the rear by the shawled and hooded figure of +Mrs. Steffink; “I’ve always laid stress on keeping this a quiet and +orderly neighbourhood.” + +It was a few minutes to midnight when the party reached the cow-house and +made its way in by the light of Luke’s stable lantern. For a moment +every one stood in silence, almost with a feeling of being in church. + +“Daisy—the one lying down—is by a shorthorn bull out of a Guernsey cow,” +announced Luke in a hushed voice, which was in keeping with the foregoing +impression. + +“Is she?” said Bordenby, rather as if he had expected her to be by +Rembrandt. + +“Myrtle is—” + +Myrtle’s family history was cut short by a little scream from the women +of the party. + +The cow-house door had closed noiselessly behind them and the key had +turned gratingly in the lock; then they heard Bertie’s voice pleasantly +wishing them good-night and his footsteps retreating along the garden +path. + +Luke Steffink strode to the window; it was a small square opening of the +old-fashioned sort, with iron bars let into the stonework. + +“Unlock the door this instant,” he shouted, with as much air of menacing +authority as a hen might assume when screaming through the bars of a coop +at a marauding hawk. In reply to his summons the hall-door closed with a +defiant bang. + +A neighbouring clock struck the hour of midnight. If the cows had +received the gift of human speech at that moment they would not have been +able to make themselves heard. Seven or eight other voices were engaged +in describing Bertie’s present conduct and his general character at a +high pressure of excitement and indignation. + +In the course of half an hour or so everything that it was permissible to +say about Bertie had been said some dozens of times, and other topics +began to come to the front—the extreme mustiness of the cow-house, the +possibility of it catching fire, and the probability of it being a Rowton +House for the vagrant rats of the neighbourhood. And still no sign of +deliverance came to the unwilling vigil-keepers. + +Towards one o’clock the sound of rather boisterous and undisciplined +carol-singing approached rapidly, and came to a sudden anchorage, +apparently just outside the garden-gate. A motor-load of youthful +“bloods,” in a high state of conviviality, had made a temporary halt for +repairs; the stoppage, however, did not extend to the vocal efforts of +the party, and the watchers in the cow-shed were treated to a highly +unauthorised rendering of “Good King Wenceslas,” in which the adjective +“good” appeared to be very carelessly applied. + +The noise had the effect of bringing Bertie out into the garden, but he +utterly ignored the pale, angry faces peering out at the cow-house +window, and concentrated his attention on the revellers outside the gate. + +“Wassail, you chaps!” he shouted. + +“Wassail, old sport!” they shouted back; “we’d jolly well drink y’r +health, only we’ve nothing to drink it in.” + +“Come and wassail inside,” said Bertie hospitably; “I’m all alone, and +there’s heap’s of ‘wet’.” + +They were total strangers, but his touch of kindness made them instantly +his kin. In another moment the unauthorised version of King Wenceslas, +which, like many other scandals, grew worse on repetition, went echoing +up the garden path; two of the revellers gave an impromptu performance on +the way by executing the staircase waltz up the terraces of what Luke +Steffink, hitherto with some justification, called his rock-garden. The +rock part of it was still there when the waltz had been accorded its +third encore. Luke, more than ever like a cooped hen behind the +cow-house bars, was in a position to realise the feelings of +concert-goers unable to countermand the call for an encore which they +neither desire or deserve. + +The hall door closed with a bang on Bertie’s guests, and the sounds of +merriment became faint and muffled to the weary watchers at the other end +of the garden. Presently two ominous pops, in quick succession, made +themselves distinctly heard. + +“They’ve got at the champagne!” exclaimed Mrs. Steffink. + +“Perhaps it’s the sparkling Moselle,” said Luke hopefully. + +Three or four more pops were heard. + +“The champagne _and_ the sparkling Moselle,” said Mrs. Steffink. + +Luke uncorked an expletive which, like brandy in a temperance household, +was only used on rare emergencies. Mr. Horace Bordenby had been making +use of similar expressions under his breath for a considerable time past. +The experiment of “throwing the young people together” had been prolonged +beyond a point when it was likely to produce any romantic result. + +Some forty minutes later the hall door opened and disgorged a crowd that +had thrown off any restraint of shyness that might have influenced its +earlier actions. Its vocal efforts in the direction of carol singing +were now supplemented by instrumental music; a Christmas-tree that had +been prepared for the children of the gardener and other household +retainers had yielded a rich spoil of tin trumpets, rattles, and drums. +The life-story of King Wenceslas had been dropped, Luke was thankful to +notice, but it was intensely irritating for the chilled prisoners in the +cow-house to be told that it was a hot time in the old town to-night, +together with some accurate but entirely superfluous information as to +the imminence of Christmas morning. Judging by the protests which began +to be shouted from the upper windows of neighbouring houses the +sentiments prevailing in the cow-house were heartily echoed in other +quarters. + +The revellers found their car, and, what was more remarkable, managed to +drive off in it, with a parting fanfare of tin trumpets. The lively beat +of a drum disclosed the fact that the master of the revels remained on +the scene. + +“Bertie!” came in an angry, imploring chorus of shouts and screams from +the cow-house window. + +“Hullo,” cried the owner of the name, turning his rather errant steps in +the direction of the summons; “are you people still there? Must have +heard everything cows got to say by this time. If you haven’t, no use +waiting. After all, it’s a Russian legend, and Russian Chrismush Eve not +due for ’nother fortnight. Better come out.” + +After one or two ineffectual attempts he managed to pitch the key of the +cow-house door in through the window. Then, lifting his voice in the +strains of “I’m afraid to go home in the dark,” with a lusty drum +accompaniment, he led the way back to the house. The hurried procession +of the released that followed in his steps came in for a good deal of the +adverse comment that his exuberant display had evoked. + +It was the happiest Christmas Eve he had ever spent. To quote his own +words, he had a rotten Christmas. + + + + +FOREWARNED + + +Alethia Debchance sat in a corner of an otherwise empty railway carriage, +more or less at ease as regarded body, but in some trepidation as to +mind. She had embarked on a social adventure of no little magnitude as +compared with the accustomed seclusion and stagnation of her past life. +At the age of twenty-eight she could look back on nothing more eventful +than the daily round of her existence in her aunt’s house at +Webblehinton, a hamlet four and a half miles distant from a country town +and about a quarter of a century removed from modern times. Their +neighbours had been elderly and few, not much given to social +intercourse, but helpful or politely sympathetic in times of illness. +Newspapers of the ordinary kind were a rarity; those that Alethia saw +regularly were devoted exclusively either to religion or to poultry, and +the world of politics was to her an unheeded unexplored region. Her +ideas on life in general had been acquired through the medium of popular +respectable novel-writers, and modified or emphasised by such knowledge +as her aunt, the vicar, and her aunt’s housekeeper had put at her +disposal. And now, in her twenty-ninth year, her aunt’s death had left +her, well provided for as regards income, but somewhat isolated in the +matter of kith and kin and human companionship. She had some cousins who +were on terms of friendly, though infrequent, correspondence with her, +but as they lived permanently in Ceylon, a locality about which she knew +little, beyond the assurance contained in the missionary hymn that the +human element there was vile, they were not of much immediate use to her. +Other cousins she also possessed, more distant as regards relationship, +but not quite so geographically remote, seeing that they lived somewhere +in the Midlands. She could hardly remember ever having met them, but +once or twice in the course of the last three or four years they had +expressed a polite wish that she should pay them a visit; they had +probably not been unduly depressed by the fact that her aunt’s failing +health had prevented her from accepting their invitation. The note of +condolence that had arrived on the occasion of her aunt’s death had +included a vague hope that Alethia would find time in the near future to +spend a few days with her cousins, and after much deliberation and many +hesitations she had written to propose herself as a guest for a definite +date some weeks ahead. The family, she reflected with relief, was not a +large one; the two daughters were married and away, there was only old +Mrs. Bludward and her son Robert at home. Mrs. Bludward was something of +an invalid, and Robert was a young man who had been at Oxford and was +going into Parliament. Further than that Alethia’s information did not +go; her imagination, founded on her extensive knowledge of the people one +met in novels, had to supply the gaps. The mother was not difficult to +place; she would either be an ultra-amiable old lady, bearing her feeble +health with uncomplaining fortitude, and having a kind word for the +gardener’s boy and a sunny smile for the chance visitor, or else she +would be cold and peevish, with eyes that pierced you like a gimlet, and +an unreasoning idolatry of her son. Alethia’s imagination rather +inclined her to the latter view. Robert was more of a problem. There +were three dominant types of manhood to be taken into consideration in +working out his classification; there was Hugo, who was strong, good, and +beautiful, a rare type and not very often met with; there was Sir Jasper, +who was utterly vile and absolutely unscrupulous, and there was Nevil, +who was not really bad at heart, but had a weak mouth and usually +required the life-work of two good women to keep him from ultimate +disaster. It was probable, Alethia considered, that Robert came into the +last category, in which case she was certain to enjoy the companionship +of one or two excellent women, and might possibly catch glimpses of +undesirable adventuresses or come face to face with reckless +admiration-seeking married women. It was altogether an exciting +prospect, this sudden venture into an unexplored world of unknown human +beings, and Alethia rather wished that she could have taken the vicar +with her; she was not, however, rich or important enough to travel with a +chaplain, as the Marquis of Moystoncleugh always did in the novel she had +just been reading, so she recognised that such a proceeding was out of +the question. + +The train which carried Alethia towards her destination was a local one, +with the wayside station habit strongly developed. At most of the +stations no one seemed to want to get into the train or to leave it, but +at one there were several market folk on the platform, and two men, of +the farmer or small cattle-dealer class, entered Alethia’s carriage. +Apparently they had just foregathered, after a day’s business, and their +conversation consisted of a rapid exchange of short friendly inquiries as +to health, family, stock, and so forth, and some grumbling remarks on the +weather. Suddenly, however, their talk took a dramatically interesting +turn, and Alethia listened with wide-eyed attention. + +“What do you think of Mister Robert Bludward, eh?” + +There was a certain scornful ring in his question. + +“Robert Bludward? An out-an’-out rotter, that’s what he is. Ought to be +ashamed to look any decent man in the face. Send him to Parliament to +represent us—not much! He’d rob a poor man of his last shilling, he +would.” + +“Ah, that he would. Tells a pack of lies to get our votes, that’s all +that he’s after, damn him. Did you see the way the _Argus_ showed him up +this week? Properly exposed him, hip and thigh, I tell you.” + +And so on they ran, in their withering indictment. There could be no +doubt that it was Alethia’s cousin and prospective host to whom they were +referring; the allusion to a Parliamentary candidature settled that. +What could Robert Bludward have done, what manner of man could he be, +that people should speak of him with such obvious reprobation? + +“He was hissed down at Shoalford yesterday,” said one of the speakers. + +Hissed! Had it come to that? There was something dramatically biblical +in the idea of Robert Bludward’s neighbours and acquaintances hissing him +for very scorn. Lord Hereward Stranglath had been hissed, now Alethia +came to think of it, in the eighth chapter of _Matterby Towers_, while in +the act of opening a Wesleyan bazaar, because he was suspected (unjustly +as it turned out afterwards) of having beaten the German governess to +death. And in _Tainted Guineas_ Roper Squenderby had been deservedly +hissed, on the steps of the Jockey Club, for having handed a rival owner +a forged telegram, containing false news of his mother’s death, just +before the start for an important race, thereby ensuring the withdrawal +of his rival’s horse. In placid Saxon-blooded England people did not +demonstrate their feelings lightly and without some strong compelling +cause. What manner of evildoer was Robert Bludward? + +The train stopped at another small station, and the two men got out. One +of them left behind him a copy of the _Argus_, the local paper to which +he had made reference. Alethia pounced on it, in the expectation of +finding a cultured literary endorsement of the censure which these rough +farming men had expressed in their homely, honest way. She had not far +to look; “Mr. Robert Bludward, Swanker,” was the title of one of the +principal articles in the paper. She did not exactly know what a swanker +was, probably it referred to some unspeakable form of cruelty, but she +read enough in the first few sentences of the article to discover that +her cousin Robert, the man at whose house she was about to stay, was an +unscrupulous, unprincipled character, of a low order of intelligence, yet +cunning withal, and that he and his associates were responsible for most +of the misery, disease, poverty, and ignorance with which the country was +afflicted; never, except in one or two of the denunciatory Psalms, which +she had always supposed to have be written in a spirit of exaggerated +Oriental imagery, had she read such an indictment of a human being. And +this monster was going to meet her at Derrelton Station in a few short +minutes. She would know him at once; he would have the dark beetling +brows, the quick, furtive glance, the sneering, unsavoury smile that +always characterised the Sir Jaspers of this world. It was too late to +escape; she must force herself to meet him with outward calm. + +It was a considerable shock to her to find that Robert was fair, with a +snub nose, merry eye, and rather a schoolboy manner. “A serpent in +duckling’s plumage,” was her private comment; merciful chance had +revealed him to her in his true colours. + +As they drove away from the station a dissipated-looking man of the +labouring class waved his hat in friendly salute. “Good luck to you, Mr. +Bludward,” he shouted; “you’ll come out on top! We’ll break old +Chobham’s neck for him.” + +“Who was that man?” asked Alethia quickly. + +“Oh, one of my supporters,” laughed Robert; “a bit of a poacher and a bit +of a pub-loafer, but he’s on the right side.” + +So these were the sort of associates that Robert Bludward consorted with, +thought Alethia. + +“Who is the person he referred to as old Chobham?” she asked. + +“Sir John Chobham, the man who is opposing me,” answered Robert; “that is +his house away there among the trees on the right.” + +So there was an upright man, possibly a very Hugo in character, who was +thwarting and defying the evildoer in his nefarious career, and there was +a dastardly plot afoot to break his neck! Possibly the attempt would be +made within the next few hours. He must certainly be warned. Alethia +remembered how Lady Sylvia Broomgate, in _Nightshade Court_, had +pretended to be bolted with by her horse up to the front door of a +threatened county magnate, and had whispered a warning in his ear which +saved him from being the victim of foul murder. She wondered if there +was a quiet pony in the stables on which she would be allowed to ride out +alone. The chances were that she would be watched. Robert would come +spurring after her and seize her bridle just as she was turning in at Sir +John’s gates. + +A group of men that they passed in a village street gave them no very +friendly looks, and Alethia thought she heard a furtive hiss; a moment +later they came upon an errand boy riding a bicycle. He had the frank +open countenance, neatly brushed hair and tidy clothes that betoken a +clear conscience and a good mother. He stared straight at the occupants +of the car, and, after he had passed them, sang in his clear, boyish +voice: + +“We’ll hang Bobby Bludward on the sour apple tree.” + +Robert merely laughed. That was how he took the scorn and condemnation +of his fellow-men. He had goaded them to desperation with his shameless +depravity till they spoke openly of putting him to a violent death, and +he laughed. + +Mrs. Bludward proved to be of the type that Alethia had suspected, +thin-lipped, cold-eyed, and obviously devoted to her worthless son. From +her no help was to be expected. Alethia locked her door that night, and +placed such ramparts of furniture against it that the maid had great +difficulty in breaking in with the early tea in the morning. + +After breakfast Alethia, on the pretext of going to look at an outlying +rose-garden, slipped away to the village through which they had passed on +the previous evening. She remembered that Robert had pointed out to her +a public reading-room, and here she considered it possible that she might +meet Sir John Chobham, or some one who knew him well and would carry a +message to him. The room was empty when she entered it; a _Graphic_ +twelve days old, a yet older copy of _Punch_, and one or two local papers +lay upon the central table; the other tables were stacked for the most +part with chess and draughts-boards, and wooden boxes of chessmen and +dominoes. Listlessly she picked up one of the papers, the _Sentinel_, +and glanced at its contents. Suddenly she started, and began to read +with breathless attention a prominently printed article, headed “A Little +Limelight on Sir John Chobham.” The colour ebbed away from her face, a +look of frightened despair crept into her eyes. Never, in any novel that +she had read, had a defenceless young woman been confronted with a +situation like this. Sir John, the Hugo of her imagination, was, if +anything, rather more depraved and despicable than Robert Bludward. He +was mean, evasive, callously indifferent to his country’s interests, a +cheat, a man who habitually broke his word, and who was responsible, with +his associates, for most of the poverty, misery, crime, and national +degradation with which the country was afflicted. He was also a +candidate for Parliament, it seemed, and as there was only one seat in +this particular locality, it was obvious that the success of either +Robert or Sir John would mean a check to the ambitions of the other, +hence, no doubt, the rivalry and enmity between these otherwise kindred +souls. One was seeking to have his enemy done to death, the other was +apparently trying to stir up his supporters to an act of “Lynch law”. +All this in order that there might be an unopposed election, that one or +other of the candidates might go into Parliament with honeyed eloquence +on his lips and blood on his heart. Were men really so vile? + +“I must go back to Webblehinton at once,” Alethia informed her astonished +hostess at lunch time; “I have had a telegram. A friend is very +seriously ill and I have been sent for.” + +It was dreadful to have to concoct lies, but it would be more dreadful to +have to spend another night under that roof. + +Alethia reads novels now with even greater appreciation than before. She +has been herself in the world outside Webblehinton, the world where the +great dramas of sin and villainy are played unceasingly. She had come +unscathed through it, but what might have happened if she had gone +unsuspectingly to visit Sir John Chobham and warn him of his danger? +What indeed! She had been saved by the fearless outspokenness of the +local Press. + + + + +THE INTERLOPERS + + +In a forest of mixed growth somewhere on the eastern spurs of the +Karpathians, a man stood one winter night watching and listening, as +though he waited for some beast of the woods to come within the range of +his vision, and, later, of his rifle. But the game for whose presence he +kept so keen an outlook was none that figured in the sportsman’s calendar +as lawful and proper for the chase; Ulrich von Gradwitz patrolled the +dark forest in quest of a human enemy. + +The forest lands of Gradwitz were of wide extent and well stocked with +game; the narrow strip of precipitous woodland that lay on its outskirt +was not remarkable for the game it harboured or the shooting it afforded, +but it was the most jealously guarded of all its owner’s territorial +possessions. A famous law suit, in the days of his grandfather, had +wrested it from the illegal possession of a neighbouring family of petty +landowners; the dispossessed party had never acquiesced in the judgment +of the Courts, and a long series of poaching affrays and similar scandals +had embittered the relationships between the families for three +generations. The neighbour feud had grown into a personal one since +Ulrich had come to be head of his family; if there was a man in the world +whom he detested and wished ill to it was Georg Znaeym, the inheritor of +the quarrel and the tireless game-snatcher and raider of the disputed +border-forest. The feud might, perhaps, have died down or been +compromised if the personal ill-will of the two men had not stood in the +way; as boys they had thirsted for one another’s blood, as men each +prayed that misfortune might fall on the other, and this wind-scourged +winter night Ulrich had banded together his foresters to watch the dark +forest, not in quest of four-footed quarry, but to keep a look-out for +the prowling thieves whom he suspected of being afoot from across the +land boundary. The roebuck, which usually kept in the sheltered hollows +during a storm-wind, were running like driven things to-night, and there +was movement and unrest among the creatures that were wont to sleep +through the dark hours. Assuredly there was a disturbing element in the +forest, and Ulrich could guess the quarter from whence it came. + +He strayed away by himself from the watchers whom he had placed in ambush +on the crest of the hill, and wandered far down the steep slopes amid the +wild tangle of undergrowth, peering through the tree trunks and listening +through the whistling and skirling of the wind and the restless beating +of the branches for sight and sound of the marauders. If only on this +wild night, in this dark, lone spot, he might come across Georg Znaeym, +man to man, with none to witness—that was the wish that was uppermost in +his thoughts. And as he stepped round the trunk of a huge beech he came +face to face with the man he sought. + +The two enemies stood glaring at one another for a long silent moment. +Each had a rifle in his hand, each had hate in his heart and murder +uppermost in his mind. The chance had come to give full play to the +passions of a lifetime. But a man who has been brought up under the code +of a restraining civilisation cannot easily nerve himself to shoot down +his neighbour in cold blood and without word spoken, except for an +offence against his hearth and honour. And before the moment of +hesitation had given way to action a deed of Nature’s own violence +overwhelmed them both. A fierce shriek of the storm had been answered by +a splitting crash over their heads, and ere they could leap aside a mass +of falling beech tree had thundered down on them. Ulrich von Gradwitz +found himself stretched on the ground, one arm numb beneath him and the +other held almost as helplessly in a tight tangle of forked branches, +while both legs were pinned beneath the fallen mass. His heavy +shooting-boots had saved his feet from being crushed to pieces, but if +his fractures were not as serious as they might have been, at least it +was evident that he could not move from his present position till some +one came to release him. The descending twig had slashed the skin of his +face, and he had to wink away some drops of blood from his eyelashes +before he could take in a general view of the disaster. At his side, so +near that under ordinary circumstances he could almost have touched him, +lay Georg Znaeym, alive and struggling, but obviously as helplessly +pinioned down as himself. All round them lay a thick-strewn wreckage of +splintered branches and broken twigs. + +Relief at being alive and exasperation at his captive plight brought a +strange medley of pious thank-offerings and sharp curses to Ulrich’s +lips. Georg, who was nearly blinded with the blood which trickled across +his eyes, stopped his struggling for a moment to listen, and then gave a +short, snarling laugh. + +“So you’re not killed, as you ought to be, but you’re caught, anyway,” he +cried; “caught fast. Ho, what a jest, Ulrich von Gradwitz snared in his +stolen forest. There’s real justice for you!” + +And he laughed again, mockingly and savagely. + +“I’m caught in my own forest-land,” retorted Ulrich. “When my men come +to release us you will wish, perhaps, that you were in a better plight +than caught poaching on a neighbour’s land, shame on you.” + +Georg was silent for a moment; then he answered quietly: + +“Are you sure that your men will find much to release? I have men, too, +in the forest to-night, close behind me, and _they_ will be here first +and do the releasing. When they drag me out from under these damned +branches it won’t need much clumsiness on their part to roll this mass of +trunk right over on the top of you. Your men will find you dead under a +fallen beech tree. For form’s sake I shall send my condolences to your +family.” + +“It is a useful hint,” said Ulrich fiercely. “My men had orders to +follow in ten minutes time, seven of which must have gone by already, and +when they get me out—I will remember the hint. Only as you will have met +your death poaching on my lands I don’t think I can decently send any +message of condolence to your family.” + +“Good,” snarled Georg, “good. We fight this quarrel out to the death, +you and I and our foresters, with no cursed interlopers to come between +us. Death and damnation to you, Ulrich von Gradwitz.” + +“The same to you, Georg Znaeym, forest-thief, game-snatcher.” + +Both men spoke with the bitterness of possible defeat before them, for +each knew that it might be long before his men would seek him out or find +him; it was a bare matter of chance which party would arrive first on the +scene. + +Both had now given up the useless struggle to free themselves from the +mass of wood that held them down; Ulrich limited his endeavours to an +effort to bring his one partially free arm near enough to his outer +coat-pocket to draw out his wine-flask. Even when he had accomplished +that operation it was long before he could manage the unscrewing of the +stopper or get any of the liquid down his throat. But what a Heaven-sent +draught it seemed! It was an open winter, and little snow had fallen as +yet, hence the captives suffered less from the cold than might have been +the case at that season of the year; nevertheless, the wine was warming +and reviving to the wounded man, and he looked across with something like +a throb of pity to where his enemy lay, just keeping the groans of pain +and weariness from crossing his lips. + +“Could you reach this flask if I threw it over to you?” asked Ulrich +suddenly; “there is good wine in it, and one may as well be as +comfortable as one can. Let us drink, even if to-night one of us dies.” + +“No, I can scarcely see anything; there is so much blood caked round my +eyes,” said Georg, “and in any case I don’t drink wine with an enemy.” + +Ulrich was silent for a few minutes, and lay listening to the weary +screeching of the wind. An idea was slowly forming and growing in his +brain, an idea that gained strength every time that he looked across at +the man who was fighting so grimly against pain and exhaustion. In the +pain and languor that Ulrich himself was feeling the old fierce hatred +seemed to be dying down. + +“Neighbour,” he said presently, “do as you please if your men come first. +It was a fair compact. But as for me, I’ve changed my mind. If my men +are the first to come you shall be the first to be helped, as though you +were my guest. We have quarrelled like devils all our lives over this +stupid strip of forest, where the trees can’t even stand upright in a +breath of wind. Lying here to-night thinking I’ve come to think we’ve +been rather fools; there are better things in life than getting the +better of a boundary dispute. Neighbour, if you will help me to bury the +old quarrel I—I will ask you to be my friend.” + +Georg Znaeym was silent for so long that Ulrich thought, perhaps, he had +fainted with the pain of his injuries. Then he spoke slowly and in +jerks. + +“How the whole region would stare and gabble if we rode into the +market-square together. No one living can remember seeing a Znaeym and a +von Gradwitz talking to one another in friendship. And what peace there +would be among the forester folk if we ended our feud to-night. And if +we choose to make peace among our people there is none other to +interfere, no interlopers from outside . . . You would come and keep the +Sylvester night beneath my roof, and I would come and feast on some high +day at your castle . . . I would never fire a shot on your land, save +when you invited me as a guest; and you should come and shoot with me +down in the marshes where the wildfowl are. In all the countryside there +are none that could hinder if we willed to make peace. I never thought +to have wanted to do other than hate you all my life, but I think I have +changed my mind about things too, this last half-hour. And you offered +me your wine-flask . . . Ulrich von Gradwitz, I will be your friend.” + +For a space both men were silent, turning over in their minds the +wonderful changes that this dramatic reconciliation would bring about. +In the cold, gloomy forest, with the wind tearing in fitful gusts through +the naked branches and whistling round the tree-trunks, they lay and +waited for the help that would now bring release and succour to both +parties. And each prayed a private prayer that his men might be the +first to arrive, so that he might be the first to show honourable +attention to the enemy that had become a friend. + +Presently, as the wind dropped for a moment, Ulrich broke silence. + +“Let’s shout for help,” he said, “in this lull our voices may +carry a little way.” + +“They won’t carry far through the trees and undergrowth,” said Georg, +“but we can try. Together, then.” + +The two raised their voices in a prolonged hunting call. + +“Together again,” said Ulrich a few minutes later, after listening in +vain for an answering halloo. + +“I heard nothing but the pestilential wind,” said Georg hoarsely. + +There was silence again for some minutes, and then Ulrich gave a joyful +cry. + +“I can see figures coming through the wood. They are following in the +way I came down the hillside.” + +Both men raised their voices in as loud a shout as they could muster. + +“They hear us! They’ve stopped. Now they see us. They’re running down +the hill towards us,” cried Ulrich. + +“How many of them are there?” asked Georg. + +“I can’t see distinctly,” said Ulrich; “nine or ten,” + +“Then they are yours,” said Georg; “I had only seven out with me.” + +“They are making all the speed they can, brave lads,” said Ulrich gladly. + +“Are they your men?” asked Georg. “Are they your men?” he repeated +impatiently as Ulrich did not answer. + +“No,” said Ulrich with a laugh, the idiotic chattering laugh of a man +unstrung with hideous fear. + +“Who are they?” asked Georg quickly, straining his eyes to see what the +other would gladly not have seen. + +“_Wolves_.” + + + + +QUAIL SEED + + +“The outlook is not encouraging for us smaller businesses,” said Mr. +Scarrick to the artist and his sister, who had taken rooms over his +suburban grocery store. “These big concerns are offering all sorts of +attractions to the shopping public which we couldn’t afford to imitate, +even on a small scale—reading-rooms and play-rooms and gramophones and +Heaven knows what. People don’t care to buy half a pound of sugar +nowadays unless they can listen to Harry Lauder and have the latest +Australian cricket scores ticked off before their eyes. With the big +Christmas stock we’ve got in we ought to keep half a dozen assistants +hard at work, but as it is my nephew Jimmy and myself can pretty well +attend to it ourselves. It’s a nice stock of goods, too, if I could only +run it off in a few weeks time, but there’s no chance of that—not unless +the London line was to get snowed up for a fortnight before Christmas. I +did have a sort of idea of engaging Miss Luffcombe to give recitations +during afternoons; she made a great hit at the Post Office entertainment +with her rendering of ‘Little Beatrice’s Resolve’.” + +“Anything less likely to make your shop a fashionable shopping centre I +can’t imagine,” said the artist, with a very genuine shudder; “if I were +trying to decide between the merits of Carlsbad plums and confected figs +as a winter dessert it would infuriate me to have my train of thought +entangled with little Beatrice’s resolve to be an Angel of Light or a +girl scout. No,” he continued, “the desire to get something thrown in +for nothing is a ruling passion with the feminine shopper, but you can’t +afford to pander effectively to it. Why not appeal to another instinct; +which dominates not only the woman shopper but the male shopper—in fact, +the entire human race?” + +“What is that instinct, sir?” said the grocer. + + * * * * * + +Mrs. Greyes and Miss Fritten had missed the 2.18 to Town, and as there +was not another train till 3.12 they thought that they might as well make +their grocery purchases at Scarrick’s. It would not be sensational, they +agreed, but it would still be shopping. + +For some minutes they had the shop almost to themselves, as far as +customers were concerned, but while they were debating the respective +virtues and blemishes of two competing brands of anchovy paste they were +startled by an order, given across the counter, for six pomegranates and +a packet of quail seed. Neither commodity was in general demand in that +neighbourhood. Equally unusual was the style and appearance of the +customer; about sixteen years old, with dark olive skin, large dusky +eyes, and thick, low-growing, blue-black hair, he might have made his +living as an artist’s model. As a matter of fact he did. The bowl of +beaten brass that he produced for the reception of his purchases was +distinctly the most astonishing variation on the string bag or marketing +basket of suburban civilisation that his fellow-shoppers had ever seen. +He threw a gold piece, apparently of some exotic currency, across the +counter, and did not seem disposed to wait for any change that might be +forthcoming. + +“The wine and figs were not paid for yesterday,” he said; “keep what is +over of the money for our future purchases.” + +“A very strange-looking boy?” said Mrs. Greyes interrogatively to the +grocer as soon as his customer had left. + +“A foreigner, I believe,” said Mr. Scarrick, with a shortness that was +entirely out of keeping with his usually communicative manner. + +“I wish for a pound and a half of the best coffee you have,” said an +authoritative voice a moment or two later. The speaker was a tall, +authoritative-looking man of rather outlandish aspect, remarkable among +other things for a full black beard, worn in a style more in vogue in +early Assyria than in a London suburb of the present day. + +“Has a dark-faced boy been here buying pomegranates?” he asked suddenly, +as the coffee was being weighed out to him. + +The two ladies almost jumped on hearing the grocer reply with an +unblushing negative. + +“We have a few pomegranates in stock,” he continued, “but there has been +no demand for them.” + +“My servant will fetch the coffee as usual,” said the purchaser, +producing a coin from a wonderful metal-work purse. As an apparent +afterthought he fired out the question: “Have you, perhaps, any quail +seed?” + +“No,” said the grocer, without hesitation, “we don’t stock it.” + +“What will he deny next?” asked Mrs. Greyes under her breath. What made +it seem so much worse was the fact that Mr. Scarrick had quite recently +presided at a lecture on Savonarola. + +Turning up the deep astrachan collar of his long coat, the stranger swept +out of the shop, with the air, Miss Fritten afterwards described it, of a +Satrap proroguing a Sanhedrim. Whether such a pleasant function ever +fell to a Satrap’s lot she was not quite certain, but the simile +faithfully conveyed her meaning to a large circle of acquaintances. + +“Don’t let’s bother about the 3.12,” said Mrs. Greyes; “let’s go and talk +this over at Laura Lipping’s. It’s her day.” + +When the dark-faced boy arrived at the shop next day with his brass +marketing bowl there was quite a fair gathering of customers, most of +whom seemed to be spinning out their purchasing operations with the air +of people who had very little to do with their time. In a voice that was +heard all over the shop, perhaps because everybody was intently +listening, he asked for a pound of honey and a packet of quail seed. + +“More quail seed!” said Miss Fritten. “Those quails must be voracious, +or else it isn’t quail seed at all.” + +“I believe it’s opium, and the bearded man is a detective,” said Mrs. +Greyes brilliantly. + +“I don’t,” said Laura Lipping; “I’m sure it’s something to do with the +Portuguese Throne.” + +“More likely to be a Persian intrigue on behalf of the ex-Shah,” said +Miss Fritten; “the bearded man belongs to the Government Party. The +quail-seed is a countersign, of course; Persia is almost next door to +Palestine, and quails come into the Old Testament, you know.” + +“Only as a miracle,” said her well-informed younger sister; “I’ve thought +all along it was part of a love intrigue.” + +The boy who had so much interest and speculation centred on him was on +the point of departing with his purchases when he was waylaid by Jimmy, +the nephew-apprentice, who, from his post at the cheese and bacon +counter, commanded a good view of the street. + +“We have some very fine Jaffa oranges,” he said hurriedly, pointing to a +corner where they were stored, behind a high rampart of biscuit tins. +There was evidently more in the remark than met the ear. The boy flew at +the oranges with the enthusiasm of a ferret finding a rabbit family at +home after a long day of fruitless subterranean research. Almost at the +same moment the bearded stranger stalked into the shop, and flung an +order for a pound of dates and a tin of the best Smyrna halva across the +counter. The most adventurous housewife in the locality had never heard +of halva, but Mr. Scarrick was apparently able to produce the best Smyrna +variety of it without a moment’s hesitation. + +“We might be living in the Arabian Nights,” said Miss Fritten, excitedly. + +“Hush! Listen,” beseeched Mrs. Greyes. + +“Has the dark-faced boy, of whom I spoke yesterday, been here to-day?” +asked the stranger. + +“We’ve had rather more people than usual in the shop to-day,” said Mr. +Scarrick, “but I can’t recall a boy such as you describe.” + +Mrs. Greyes and Miss Fritten looked round triumphantly at their friends. +It was, of course, deplorable that any one should treat the truth as an +article temporarily and excusably out of stock, but they felt gratified +that the vivid accounts they had given of Mr. Scarrick’s traffic in +falsehoods should receive confirmation at first hand. + +“I shall never again be able to believe what he tells me about the +absence of colouring matter in the jam,” whispered an aunt of Mrs. Greyes +tragically. + +The mysterious stranger took his departure; Laura Lipping distinctly saw +a snarl of baffled rage reveal itself behind his heavy moustache and +upturned astrachan collar. After a cautious interval the seeker after +oranges emerged from behind the biscuit tins, having apparently failed to +find any individual orange that satisfied his requirements. He, too, +took his departure, and the shop was slowly emptied of its parcel and +gossip laden customers. It was Emily Yorling’s “day”, and most of the +shoppers made their way to her drawing-room. To go direct from a +shopping expedition to a tea party was what was known locally as “living +in a whirl”. + +Two extra assistants had been engaged for the following afternoon, and +their services were in brisk demand; the shop was crowded. People bought +and bought, and never seemed to get to the end of their lists. Mr. +Scarrick had never had so little difficulty in persuading customers to +embark on new experiences in grocery wares. Even those women whose +purchases were of modest proportions dawdled over them as though they had +brutal, drunken husbands to go home to. The afternoon had dragged +uneventfully on, and there was a distinct buzz of unpent excitement when +a dark-eyed boy carrying a brass bowl entered the shop. The excitement +seemed to have communicated itself to Mr. Scarrick; abruptly deserting a +lady who was making insincere inquiries about the home life of the Bombay +duck, he intercepted the newcomer on his way to the accustomed counter +and informed him, amid a deathlike hush, that he had run out of quail +seed. + +The boy looked nervously round the shop, and turned hesitatingly to go. +He was again intercepted, this time by the nephew, who darted out from +behind his counter and said something about a better line of oranges. +The boy’s hesitation vanished; he almost scuttled into the obscurity of +the orange corner. There was an expectant turn of public attention +towards the door, and the tall, bearded stranger made a really effective +entrance. The aunt of Mrs. Greyes declared afterwards that she found +herself sub-consciously repeating “The Assyrian came down like a wolf on +the fold” under her breath, and she was generally believed. + +The newcomer, too, was stopped before he reached the counter, but not by +Mr. Scarrick or his assistant. A heavily veiled lady, whom no one had +hitherto noticed, rose languidly from a seat and greeted him in a clear, +penetrating voice. + +“Your Excellency does his shopping himself?” she said. + +“I order the things myself,” he explained; “I find it difficult to make +my servants understand.” + +In a lower, but still perfectly audible, voice the veiled lady gave him a +piece of casual information. + +“They have some excellent Jaffa oranges here.” Then with a tinkling +laugh she passed out of the shop. + +The man glared all round the shop, and then, fixing his eyes +instinctively on the barrier of biscuit tins, demanded loudly of the +grocer: “You have, perhaps, some good Jaffa oranges?” + +Every one expected an instant denial on the part of Mr. Scarrick of any +such possession. Before he could answer, however, the boy had broken +forth from his sanctuary. Holding his empty brass bowl before him he +passed out into the street. His face was variously described afterwards +as masked with studied indifference, overspread with ghastly pallor, and +blazing with defiance. Some said that his teeth chattered, others that +he went out whistling the Persian National Hymn. There was no mistaking, +however, the effect produced by the encounter on the man who had seemed +to force it. If a rabid dog or a rattlesnake had suddenly thrust its +companionship on him he could scarcely have displayed a greater access of +terror. His air of authority and assertiveness had gone, his masterful +stride had given way to a furtive pacing to and fro, as of an animal +seeking an outlet for escape. In a dazed perfunctory manner, always with +his eyes turning to watch the shop entrance, he gave a few random orders, +which the grocer made a show of entering in his book. Now and then he +walked out into the street, looked anxiously in all directions, and +hurried back to keep up his pretence of shopping. From one of these +sorties he did not return; he had dashed away into the dusk, and neither +he nor the dark-faced boy nor the veiled lady were seen again by the +expectant crowds that continued to throng the Scarrick establishment for +days to come. + + * * * * * + +“I can never thank you and your sister sufficiently,” said the grocer. + +“We enjoyed the fun of it,” said the artist modestly, “and as for the +model, it was a welcome variation on posing for hours for ‘The Lost +Hylas’.” + +“At any rate,” said the grocer, “I insist on paying for the hire of the +black beard.” + + + + +CANOSSA + + +Demosthenes Platterbaff, the eminent Unrest Inducer, stood on his trial +for a serious offence, and the eyes of the political world were focussed +on the jury. The offence, it should be stated, was serious for the +Government rather than for the prisoner. He had blown up the Albert Hall +on the eve of the great Liberal Federation Tango Tea, the occasion on +which the Chancellor of the Exchequer was expected to propound his new +theory: “Do partridges spread infectious diseases?” Platterbaff had +chosen his time well; the Tango Tea had been hurriedly postponed, but +there were other political fixtures which could not be put off under any +circumstances. The day after the trial there was to be a by-election at +Nemesis-on-Hand, and it had been openly announced in the division that if +Platterbaff were languishing in gaol on polling day the Government +candidate would be “outed” to a certainty. Unfortunately, there could be +no doubt or misconception as to Platterbaff’s guilt. He had not only +pleaded guilty, but had expressed his intention of repeating his escapade +in other directions as soon as circumstances permitted; throughout the +trial he was busy examining a small model of the Free Trade Hall in +Manchester. The jury could not possibly find that the prisoner had not +deliberately and intentionally blown up the Albert Hall; the question +was: Could they find any extenuating circumstances which would permit of +an acquittal? Of course any sentence which the law might feel compelled +to inflict would be followed by an immediate pardon, but it was highly +desirable, from the Government’s point of view, that the necessity for +such an exercise of clemency should not arise. A headlong pardon, on the +eve of a bye-election, with threats of a heavy voting defection if it +were withheld or even delayed, would not necessarily be a surrender, but +it would look like one. Opponents would be only too ready to attribute +ungenerous motives. Hence the anxiety in the crowded Court, and in the +little groups gathered round the tape-machines in Whitehall and Downing +Street and other affected centres. + +The jury returned from considering their verdict; there was a flutter, an +excited murmur, a deathlike hush. The foreman delivered his message: + +“The jury find the prisoner guilty of blowing up the Albert Hall. The +jury wish to add a rider drawing attention to the fact that a by-election +is pending in the Parliamentary division of Nemesis-on-Hand.” + +“That, of course,” said the Government Prosecutor, springing to his feet, +“is equivalent to an acquittal?” + +“I hardly think so,” said the Judge, coldly; “I feel obliged to sentence +the prisoner to a week’s imprisonment.” + +“And may the Lord have mercy on the poll,” a Junior Counsel exclaimed +irreverently. + +It was a scandalous sentence, but then the Judge was not on the +Ministerial side in politics. + +The verdict and sentence were made known to the public at twenty minutes +past five in the afternoon; at half-past five a dense crowd was massed +outside the Prime Minister’s residence lustily singing, to the air of +“Trelawney”: + + “And should our Hero rot in gaol, + For e’en a single day, + There’s Fifteen Hundred Voting Men + Will vote the other way.” + +“Fifteen hundred,” said the Prime Minister, with a shudder; “it’s too +horrible to think of. Our majority last time was only a thousand and +seven.” + +“The poll opens at eight to-morrow morning,” said the Chief Organiser; +“we must have him out by 7 a.m.” + +“Seven-thirty,” amended the Prime Minister; “we must avoid any appearance +of precipitancy.” + +“Not later than seven-thirty, then,” said the Chief Organiser; “I have +promised the agent down there that he shall be able to display posters +announcing ‘Platterbaff is Out,’ before the poll opens. He said it was +our only chance of getting a telegram ‘Radprop is In’ to-night.” + +At half-past seven the next morning the Prime Minister and the Chief +Organiser sat at breakfast, making a perfunctory meal, and awaiting the +return of the Home Secretary, who had gone in person to superintend the +releasing of Platterbaff. Despite the earliness of the hour a small +crowd had gathered in the street outside, and the horrible menacing +Trelawney refrain of the “Fifteen Hundred Voting Men” came in a steady, +monotonous chant. + +“They will cheer presently when they hear the news,” said the Prime +Minister hopefully; “hark! They are booing some one now! That must be +McKenna.” + +The Home Secretary entered the room a moment later, disaster written on +his face. + +“He won’t go!” he exclaimed. + +“Won’t go? Won’t leave gaol?” + +“He won’t go unless he has a brass band. He says he never has left +prison without a brass band to play him out, and he’s not going to go +without one now.” + +“But surely that sort of thing is provided by his supporters and +admirers?” said the Prime Minister; “we can hardly be supposed to supply +a released prisoner with a brass band. How on earth could we defend it +on the Estimates?” + +“His supporters say it is up to us to provide the music,” said the Home +Secretary; “they say we put him in prison, and it’s our affair to see +that he leaves it in a respectable manner. Anyway, he won’t go unless he +has a band.” + +The telephone squealed shrilly; it was a trunk call from Nemesis. + +“Poll opens in five minutes. Is Platterbaff out yet? In Heaven’s name, +why—” + +The Chief Organiser rang off. + +“This is not a moment for standing on dignity,” he observed bluntly; +“musicians must be supplied at once. Platterbaff must have his band.” + +“Where are you going to find the musicians?” asked the Home Secretary +wearily; “we can’t employ a military band, in fact, I don’t think he’d +have one if we offered it, and there ain’t any others. There’s a +musicians’ strike on, I suppose you know.” + +“Can’t you get a strike permit?” asked the Organiser. + +“I’ll try,” said the Home Secretary, and went to the telephone. + +Eight o’clock struck. The crowd outside chanted with an increasing +volume of sound: + + “Will vote the other way.” + +A telegram was brought in. It was from the central committee rooms at +Nemesis. “Losing twenty votes per minute,” was its brief message. + +Ten o’clock struck. The Prime Minister, the Home Secretary, the Chief +Organiser, and several earnest helpful friends were gathered in the inner +gateway of the prison, talking volubly to Demosthenes Platterbaff, who +stood with folded arms and squarely planted feet, silent in their midst. +Golden-tongued legislators whose eloquence had swayed the Marconi Inquiry +Committee, or at any rate the greater part of it, expended their arts of +oratory in vain on this stubborn unyielding man. Without a band he would +not go; and they had no band. + +A quarter past ten, half-past. A constant stream of telegraph boys +poured in through the prison gates. + +“Yamley’s factory hands just voted you can guess how,” ran a despairing +message, and the others were all of the same tenour. Nemesis was going +the way of Reading. + +“Have you any band instruments of an easy nature to play?” demanded the +Chief Organiser of the Prison Governor; “drums, cymbals, those sort of +things?” + +“The warders have a private band of their own,” said the Governor, “but +of course I couldn’t allow the men themselves—” + +“Lend us the instruments,” said the Chief Organiser. + +One of the earnest helpful friends was a skilled performer on the cornet, +the Cabinet Ministers were able to clash cymbals more or less in tune, +and the Chief Organiser has some knowledge of the drum. + +“What tune would you prefer?” he asked Platterbaff. + +“The popular song of the moment,” replied the Agitator after a moment’s +reflection. + +It was a tune they had all heard hundreds of times, so there was no +difficulty in turning out a passable imitation of it. To the improvised +strains of “I didn’t want to do it” the prisoner strode forth to freedom. +The word of the song had reference, it was understood, to the +incarcerating Government and not to the destroyer of the Albert Hall. + +The seat was lost, after all, by a narrow majority. The local Trade +Unionists took offence at the fact of Cabinet Ministers having personally +acted as strike-breakers, and even the release of Platterbaff failed to +pacify them. + +The seat was lost, but Ministers had scored a moral victory. They had +shown that they knew when and how to yield. + + + + +THE THREAT + + +Sir Lulworth Quayne sat in the lounge of his favourite restaurant, the +Gallus Bankiva, discussing the weaknesses of the world with his nephew, +who had lately returned from a much-enlivened exile in the wilds of +Mexico. It was that blessed season of the year when the asparagus and +the plover’s egg are abroad in the land, and the oyster has not yet +withdrawn into it’s summer entrenchments, and Sir Lulworth and his nephew +were in that enlightened after-dinner mood when politics are seen in +their right perspective, even the politics of Mexico. + +“Most of the revolutions that take place in this country nowadays,” said +Sir Lulworth, “are the product of moments of legislative panic. Take, +for instance, one of the most dramatic reforms that has been carried +through Parliament in the lifetime of this generation. It happened +shortly after the coal strike, of unblessed memory. To you, who have +been plunged up to the neck in events of a more tangled and tumbled +description, the things I am going to tell you of may seem of secondary +interest, but after all we had to live in the midst of them.” + +Sir Lulworth interrupted himself for a moment to say a few kind words to +the liqueur brandy he had just tasted, and them resumed his narrative. + +“Whether one sympathises with the agitation for female suffrage or not +one has to admit that its promoters showed tireless energy and +considerable enterprise in devising and putting into action new methods +for accomplishing their ends. As a rule they were a nuisance and a +weariness to the flesh, but there were times when they verged on the +picturesque. There was the famous occasion when they enlivened and +diversified the customary pageantry of the Royal progress to open +Parliament by letting loose thousands of parrots, which had been +carefully trained to scream ‘Votes for women,’ and which circled round +his Majesty’s coach in a clamorous cloud of green, and grey and scarlet. +It was really rather a striking episode from the spectacular point of +view; unfortunately, however, for its devisers, the secret of their +intentions had not been well kept, and their opponents let loose at the +same moment a rival swarm of parrots, which screeched ‘I _don’t_ think’ +and other hostile cries, thereby robbing the demonstration of the +unanimity which alone could have made it politically impressive. In the +process of recapture the birds learned a quantity of additional language +which unfitted them for further service in the Suffragette cause; some of +the green ones were secured by ardent Home Rule propagandists and trained +to disturb the serenity of Orange meetings by pessimistic reflections on +Sir Edward Carson’s destination in the life to come. In fact, the bird +in politics is a factor that seems to have come to stay; quite recently, +at a political gathering held in a dimly-lighted place of worship, the +congregation gave a respectful hearing for nearly ten minutes to a +jackdaw from Wapping, under the impression that they were listening to +the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who was late in arriving.” + +“But the Suffragettes,” interrupted the nephew; “what did they do next?” + +“After the bird fiasco,” said Sir Lulworth, “the militant section made a +demonstration of a more aggressive nature; they assembled in force on the +opening day of the Royal Academy Exhibition and destroyed some three or +four hundred of the pictures. This proved an even worse failure than the +parrot business; every one agreed that there were always far too many +pictures in the Academy Exhibition, and the drastic weeding out of a few +hundred canvases was regarded as a positive improvement. Moreover, from +the artists’ point of view it was realised that the outrage constituted a +sort of compensation for those whose works were persistently ‘skied’, +since out of sight meant also out of reach. Altogether it was one of the +most successful and popular exhibitions that the Academy had held for +many years. Then the fair agitators fell back on some of their earlier +methods; they wrote sweetly argumentative plays to prove that they ought +to have the vote, they smashed windows to show that they must have the +vote, and they kicked Cabinet Ministers to demonstrate that they’d better +have the vote, and still the coldly reasoned or unreasoned reply was that +they’d better not. Their plight might have been summed up in a +perversion of Gilbert’s lines— + + “Twenty voteless millions we, + Voteless all against our will, + Twenty years hence we shall be + Twenty voteless millions still.” + +And of course the great idea for their master-stroke of strategy came +from a masculine source. Lena Dubarri, who was the captain-general of +their thinking department, met Waldo Orpington in the Mall one afternoon, +just at a time when the fortunes of the Cause were at their lowest ebb. +Waldo Orpington is a frivolous little fool who chirrups at drawing-room +concerts and can recognise bits from different composers without +referring to the programme, but all the same he occasionally has ideas. +He didn’t care a twopenny fiddlestring about the Cause, but he rather +enjoyed the idea of having his finger in the political pie. Also it is +possible, though I should think highly improbable, that he admired Lena +Dubarri. Anyhow, when Lena gave a rather gloomy account of the existing +state of things in the Suffragette World, Waldo was not merely +sympathetic but ready with a practical suggestion. Turning his gaze +westward along the Mall, towards the setting sun and Buckingham Palace, +he was silent for a moment, and then said significantly, ‘You have +expended your energies and enterprise on labours of destruction; why has +it never occurred to you to attempt something far more terrific?’ + +“‘What do you mean?’ she asked him eagerly. + +“‘Create.’ + +“‘Do you mean create disturbances? We’ve been doing nothing else for +months,’ she said. + +“Waldo shook his head, and continued to look westward along the Mall. +He’s rather good at acting in an amateur sort of fashion. Lena followed +his gaze, and then turned to him with a puzzled look of inquiry. + +“‘Exactly,’ said Waldo, in answer to her look. + +“‘But—how can we create?’ she asked; ‘it’s been done already.’ + +“‘Do it _again_,’ said Waldo, ‘and again and again—’ + +“Before he could finish the sentence she had kissed him. She declared +afterwards that he was the first man she had ever kissed, and he declared +that she was the first woman who had ever kissed him in the Mall, so they +both secured a record of a kind. + +“Within the next day or two a new departure was noticeable in Suffragette +tactics. They gave up worrying Ministers and Parliament and took to +worrying their own sympathisers and supporters—for funds. The ballot-box +was temporarily forgotten in the cult of the collecting-box. The +daughters of the horseleech were not more persistent in their demands, +the financiers of the tottering _ancien régime_ were not more desperate +in their expedients for raising money than the Suffragist workers of all +sections at this juncture, and in one way and another, by fair means and +normal, they really got together a very useful sum. What they were going +to do with it no one seemed to know, not even those who were most active +in collecting work. The secret on this occasion had been well kept. +Certain transactions that leaked out from time to time only added to the +mystery of the situation. + +“‘Don’t you long to know what we are going to do with our treasure +hoard?’ Lena asked the Prime Minister one day when she happened to sit +next to him at a whist drive at the Chinese Embassy. + +“‘I was hoping you were going to try a little personal bribery,’ he +responded banteringly, but some genuine anxiety and curiosity lay behind +the lightness of his chaff; ‘of course I know,’ he added, ‘that you have +been buying up building sites in commanding situations in and around the +Metropolis. Two or three, I’m told, are on the road to Brighton, and +another near Ascot. You don’t mean to fortify them, do you?’ + +“‘Something more insidious than that,’ she said; ‘you could prevent us +from building forts; you can’t prevent us from erecting an exact replica +of the Victoria Memorial on each of those sites. They’re all private +property, with no building restrictions attached.’ + +“‘Which memorial?’ he asked; ‘not the one in front of Buckingham Palace? +Surely not that one?’ + +“‘That one,’ she said. + +“‘My dear lady,’ he cried, ‘you can’t be serious. It is a beautiful and +imposing work of art—at any rate one is getting accustomed to it, and +even if one doesn’t happen to admire it one can always look in another +direction. But imagine what life would be like if one saw that erection +confronting one wherever one went. Imagine the effect on people with +tired, harassed nerves who saw it three times on the way to Brighton and +three times on the way back. Imagine seeing it dominate the landscape at +Ascot, and trying to keep your eye off it on the Sandwich golf links. +What have your countrymen done to deserve such a thing?’ + +“‘They have refused us the vote,’ said Lena bitterly. + +“The Prime Minister always declared himself an opponent of anything +savouring of panic legislation, but he brought a Bill into Parliament +forthwith and successfully appealed to both Houses to pass it through all +its stages within the week. And that is how we got one of the most +glorious measures of the century.” + +“A measure conferring the vote on women?” asked the nephew. + +“Oh dear, no. An Act which made it a penal offence to erect +commemorative statuary anywhere within three miles of a public highway.” + + + + +EXCEPTING MRS. PENTHERBY + + +It was Reggie Bruttle’s own idea for converting what had threatened to be +an albino elephant into a beast of burden that should help him along the +stony road of his finances. “The Limes,” which had come to him by +inheritance without any accompanying provision for its upkeep, was one of +those pretentious, unaccommodating mansions which none but a man of +wealth could afford to live in, and which not one wealthy man in a +hundred would choose on its merits. It might easily languish in the +estate market for years, set round with noticeboards proclaiming it, in +the eyes of a sceptical world, to be an eminently desirable residence. + +Reggie’s scheme was to turn it into the headquarters of a prolonged +country-house party, in session during the months from October till the +end of March—a party consisting of young or youngish people of both +sexes, too poor to be able to do much hunting or shooting on a serious +scale, but keen on getting their fill of golf, bridge, dancing, and +occasional theatre-going. No one was to be on the footing of a paying +guest, but every one was to rank as a paying host; a committee would look +after the catering and expenditure, and an informal sub-committee would +make itself useful in helping forward the amusement side of the scheme. + +As it was only an experiment, there was to be a general agreement on the +part of those involved in it to be as lenient and mutually helpful to one +another as possible. Already a promising nucleus, including one or two +young married couples, had been got together, and the thing seemed to be +fairly launched. + +“With good management and a little unobtrusive hard work, I think the +thing ought to be a success,” said Reggie, and Reggie was one of those +people who are painstaking first and optimistic afterwards. + +“There is one rock on which you will unfailingly come to grief, manage +you never so wisely,” said Major Dagberry, cheerfully; “the women will +quarrel. Mind you,” continued this prophet of disaster, “I don’t say +that some of the men won’t quarrel too, probably they will; but the women +are bound to. You can’t prevent it; it’s in the nature of the sex. The +hand that rocks the cradle rocks the world, in a volcanic sense. A woman +will endure discomforts, and make sacrifices, and go without things to an +heroic extent, but the one luxury she will not go without is her +quarrels. No matter where she may be, or how transient her appearance on +a scene, she will instal her feminine feuds as assuredly as a Frenchman +would concoct soup in the waste of the Arctic regions. At the +commencement of a sea voyage, before the male traveller knows half a +dozen of his fellow passengers by sight, the average woman will have +started a couple of enmities, and laid in material for one or two +more—provided, of course, that there are sufficient women aboard to +permit quarrelling in the plural. If there’s no one else she will +quarrel with the stewardess. This experiment of yours is to run for six +months; in less than five weeks there will be war to the knife declaring +itself in half a dozen different directions.” + +“Oh, come, there are only eight women in the party; they won’t pick +quarrels quite so soon as that,” protested Reggie. + +“They won’t all originate quarrels, perhaps,” conceded the Major, “but +they will all take sides, and just as Christmas is upon you, with its +conventions of peace and good will, you will find yourself in for a +glacial epoch of cold, unforgiving hostility, with an occasional Etna +flare of open warfare. You can’t help it, old boy; but, at any rate, you +can’t say you were not warned.” + +The first five weeks of the venture falsified Major Dagberry’s prediction +and justified Reggie’s optimism. There were, of course, occasional small +bickerings, and the existence of certain jealousies might be detected +below the surface of everyday intercourse; but, on the whole, the +women-folk got on remarkably well together. There was, however, a +notable exception. It had not taken five weeks for Mrs. Pentherby to get +herself cordially disliked by the members of her own sex; five days had +been amply sufficient. Most of the women declared that they had detested +her the moment they set eyes on her; but that was probably an +afterthought. + +With the menfolk she got on well enough, without being of the type of +woman who can only bask in male society; neither was she lacking in the +general qualities which make an individual useful and desirable as a +member of a co-operative community. She did not try to “get the better +of” her fellow-hosts by snatching little advantages or cleverly evading +her just contributions; she was not inclined to be boring or snobbish in +the way of personal reminiscence. She played a fair game of bridge, and +her card-room manners were irreproachable. But wherever she came in +contact with her own sex the light of battle kindled at once; her talent +of arousing animosity seemed to border on positive genius. + +Whether the object of her attentions was thick-skinned or sensitive, +quick-tempered or good-natured, Mrs. Pentherby managed to achieve the +same effect. She exposed little weaknesses, she prodded sore places, she +snubbed enthusiasms, she was generally right in a matter of argument, or, +if wrong, she somehow contrived to make her adversary appear foolish and +opinionated. She did, and said, horrible things in a matter-of-fact +innocent way, and she did, and said, matter-of-fact innocent things in a +horrible way. In short, the unanimous feminine verdict on her was that +she was objectionable. + +There was no question of taking sides, as the Major had anticipated; in +fact, dislike of Mrs. Pentherby was almost a bond of union between the +other women, and more than one threatening disagreement had been rapidly +dissipated by her obvious and malicious attempts to inflame and extend +it; and the most irritating thing about her was her successful assumption +of unruffled composure at moments when the tempers of her adversaries +were with difficulty kept under control. She made her most scathing +remarks in the tone of a tube conductor announcing that the next station +is Brompton Road—the measured, listless tone of one who knows he is +right, but is utterly indifferent to the fact that he proclaims. + +On one occasion Mrs. Val Gwepton, who was not blessed with the most +reposeful of temperaments, fairly let herself go, and gave Mrs. Pentherby +a vivid and truthful _résumé_ of her opinion of her. The object of this +unpent storm of accumulated animosity waited patiently for a lull, and +then remarked quietly to the angry little woman— + +“And now, my dear Mrs. Gwepton, let me tell you something that I’ve been +wanting to say for the last two or three minutes, only you wouldn’t give +me a chance; you’ve got a hairpin dropping out on the left side. You +thin-haired women always find it difficult to keep your hairpins in.” + +“What can one do with a woman like that?” Mrs. Val demanded afterwards of +a sympathising audience. + +Of course, Reggie received numerous hints as to the unpopularity of this +jarring personality. His sister-in-law openly tackled him on the subject +of her many enormities. Reggie listened with the attenuated regret that +one bestows on an earthquake disaster in Bolivia or a crop failure in +Eastern Turkestan, events which seem so distant that one can almost +persuade oneself they haven’t happened. + +“That woman has got some hold over him,” opined his sister-in-law, +darkly; “either she is helping him to finance the show, and presumes on +the fact, or else, which Heaven forbid, he’s got some queer infatuation +for her. Men do take the most extraordinary fancies.” + +Matters never came exactly to a crisis. Mrs. Pentherby, as a source of +personal offence, spread herself over so wide an area that no one woman +of the party felt impelled to rise up and declare that she absolutely +refused to stay another week in the same house with her. What is +everybody’s tragedy is nobody’s tragedy. There was ever a certain +consolation in comparing notes as to specific acts of offence. Reggie’s +sister-in-law had the added interest of trying to discover the secret +bond which blunted his condemnation of Mrs. Pentherby’s long catalogue of +misdeeds. There was little to go on from his manner towards her in +public, but he remained obstinately unimpressed by anything that was said +against her in private. + +With the one exception of Mrs. Pentherby’s unpopularity, the house-party +scheme was a success on its first trial, and there was no difficulty +about reconstructing it on the same lines for another winter session. It +so happened that most of the women of the party, and two or three of the +men, would not be available on this occasion, but Reggie had laid his +plans well ahead and booked plenty of “fresh blood” for the departure. +It would be, if any thing, rather a larger party than before. + +“I’m so sorry I can’t join this winter,” said Reggie’s sister-in-law, +“but we must go to our cousins in Ireland; we’ve put them off so often. +What a shame! You’ll have none of the same women this time.” + +“Excepting Mrs. Pentherby,” said Reggie, demurely. + +“Mrs. Pentherby! _Surely_, Reggie, you’re not going to be so idiotic as +to have that woman again! She’ll set all the women’s backs up just as +she did this time. What _is_ this mysterious hold she’s go over you?” + +“She’s invaluable,” said Reggie; “she’s my official quarreller.” + +“Your—what did you say?” gasped his sister-in-law. + +“I introduced her into the house-party for the express purpose of +concentrating the feuds and quarrelling that would otherwise have broken +out in all directions among the womenkind. I didn’t need the advice and +warning of sundry friends to foresee that we shouldn’t get through six +months of close companionship without a certain amount of pecking and +sparring, so I thought the best thing was to localise and sterilise it in +one process. Of course, I made it well worth the lady’s while, and as +she didn’t know any of you from Adam, and you don’t even know her real +name, she didn’t mind getting herself disliked in a useful cause.” + +“You mean to say she was in the know all the time?” + +“Of course she was, and so were one or two of the men, so she was able to +have a good laugh with us behind the scenes when she’d done anything +particularly outrageous. And she really enjoyed herself. You see, she’s +in the position of poor relation in a rather pugnacious family, and her +life has been largely spent in smoothing over other people’s quarrels. +You can imagine the welcome relief of being able to go about saying and +doing perfectly exasperating things to a whole houseful of women—and all +in the cause of peace.” + +“I think you are the most odious person in the whole world,” said +Reggie’s sister-in-law. Which was not strictly true; more than anybody, +more than ever she disliked Mrs. Pentherby. It was impossible to +calculate how many quarrels that woman had done her out of. + + + + +MARK + + +Augustus Mellowkent was a novelist with a future; that is to say, a +limited but increasing number of people read his books, and there seemed +good reason to suppose that if he steadily continued to turn out novels +year by year a progressively increasing circle of readers would acquire +the Mellowkent habit, and demand his works from the libraries and +bookstalls. At the instigation of his publisher he had discarded the +baptismal Augustus and taken the front name of Mark. + +“Women like a name that suggests some one strong and silent, able but +unwilling to answer questions. Augustus merely suggests idle splendour, +but such a name as Mark Mellowkent, besides being alliterative, conjures +up a vision of some one strong and beautiful and good, a sort of blend of +Georges Carpentier and the Reverend What’s-his-name.” + +One morning in December Augustus sat in his writing-room, at work on the +third chapter of his eighth novel. He had described at some length, for +the benefit of those who could not imagine it, what a rectory garden +looks like in July; he was now engaged in describing at greater length +the feelings of a young girl, daughter of a long line of rectors and +archdeacons, when she discovers for the first time that the postman is +attractive. + +“Their eyes met, for a brief moment, as he handed her two circulars and +the fat wrapper-bound bulk of the _East Essex News_. Their eyes met, for +the merest fraction of a second, yet nothing could ever be quite the same +again. Cost what it might she felt that she must speak, must break the +intolerable, unreal silence that had fallen on them. ‘How is your +mother’s rheumatism?’ she said.” + +The author’s labours were cut short by the sudden intrusion of a +maidservant. + +“A gentleman to see you, sir,” said the maid, handing a card with the +name Caiaphas Dwelf inscribed on it; “says it’s important.” + +Mellowkent hesitated and yielded; the importance of the visitor’s mission +was probably illusory, but he had never met any one with the name +Caiaphas before. It would be at least a new experience. + +Mr. Dwelf was a man of indefinite age; his high, narrow forehead, cold +grey eyes, and determined manner bespoke an unflinching purpose. He had +a large book under his arm, and there seemed every probability that he +had left a package of similar volumes in the hall. He took a seat before +it had been offered him, placed the book on the table, and began to +address Mellowkent in the manner of an “open letter.” + +“You are a literary man, the author of several well-known books—” + +“I am engaged on a book at the present moment—rather busily engaged,” +said Mellowkent, pointedly. + +“Exactly,” said the intruder; “time with you is a commodity of +considerable importance. Minutes, even, have their value.” + +“They have,” agreed Mellowkent, looking at his watch. + +“That,” said Caiaphas, “is why this book that I am introducing to your +notice is not a book that you can afford to be without. _Right Here_ is +indispensable for the writing man; it is no ordinary encyclopædia, or I +should not trouble to show it to you. It is an inexhaustible mine of +concise information—” + +“On a shelf at my elbow,” said the author, “I have a row of reference +books that supply me with all the information I am likely to require.” + +“Here,” persisted the would-be salesman, “you have it all in one compact +volume. No matter what the subject may be which you wish to look up, or +the fact you desire to verify, _Right Here_ gives you all that you want +to know in the briefest and most enlightening form. Historical +reference, for instance; career of John Huss, let us say. Here we are: +‘Huss, John, celebrated religious reformer. Born 1369, burned at +Constance 1415. The Emperor Sigismund universally blamed.’” + +“If he had been burnt in these days every one would have suspected the +Suffragettes,” observed Mellowkent. + +“Poultry-keeping, now,” resumed Caiaphas, “that’s a subject that might +crop up in a novel dealing with English country life. Here we have all +about it: ‘The Leghorn as egg-producer. Lack of maternal instinct in the +Minorca. Gapes in chickens, its cause and cure. Ducklings for the early +market, how fattened.’ There, you see, there it all is, nothing +lacking.” + +“Except the maternal instinct in the Minorca, and that you could hardly +be expected to supply.” + +“Sporting records, that’s important, too; now how many men, sporting men +even, are there who can say off-hand what horse won the Derby in any +particular year? Now it’s just a little thing of that sort—” + +“My dear sir,” interrupted Mellowkent, “there are at least four men in my +club who can not only tell me what horse won in any given year, but what +horse ought to have won and why it didn’t. If your book could supply a +method for protecting one from information of that sort it would do more +than anything you have yet claimed for it.” + +“Geography,” said Caiaphas, imperturbably; “that’s a thing that a busy +man, writing at high pressure, may easily make a slip over. Only the +other day a well-known author made the Volga flow into the Black Sea +instead of the Caspian; now, with this book—” + +“On a polished rose-wood stand behind you there reposes a reliable and +up-to-date atlas,” said Mellowkent; “and now I must really ask you to be +going.” + +“An atlas,” said Caiaphas, “gives merely the chart of the river’s course, +and indicates the principal towns that it passes. Now _Right Here_ gives +you the scenery, traffic, ferry-boat charges, the prevalent types of +fish, boatmen’s slang terms, and hours of sailing of the principal river +steamers. If gives you—” + +Mellowkent sat and watched the hard-featured, resolute, pitiless +salesman, as he sat doggedly in the chair wherein he had installed +himself, unflinchingly extolling the merits of his undesired wares. A +spirit of wistful emulation took possession of the author; why could he +not live up to the cold stern name he had adopted? Why must he sit here +weakly and listen to this weary, unconvincing tirade, why could he not be +Mark Mellowkent for a few brief moments, and meet this man on level +terms? + +A sudden inspiration flashed across his. + +“Have you read my last book, _The Cageless Linnet_?” he asked. + +“I don’t read novels,” said Caiaphas tersely. + +“Oh, but you ought to read this one, every one ought to,” exclaimed +Mellowkent, fishing the book down from a shelf; “published at six +shillings, you can have it at four-and-six. There is a bit in chapter +five that I feel sure you would like, where Emma is alone in the birch +copse waiting for Harold Huntingdon—that is the man her family want her +to marry. She really wants to marry him, too, but she does not discover +that till chapter fifteen. Listen: ‘Far as the eye could stretch rolled +the mauve and purple billows of heather, lit up here and there with the +glowing yellow of gorse and broom, and edged round with the delicate +greys and silver and green of the young birch trees. Tiny blue and brown +butterflies fluttered above the fronds of heather, revelling in the +sunlight, and overhead the larks were singing as only larks can sing. It +was a day when all Nature—” + +“In _Right Here_ you have full information on all branches of Nature +study,” broke in the bookagent, with a tired note sounding in his voice +for the first time; “forestry, insect life, bird migration, reclamation +of waste lands. As I was saying, no man who has to deal with the varied +interests of life—” + +“I wonder if you would care for one of my earlier books, _The Reluctance +of Lady Cullumpton_,” said Mellowkent, hunting again through the +bookshelf; “some people consider it my best novel. Ah, here it is. I +see there are one or two spots on the cover, so I won’t ask more than +three-and-ninepence for it. Do let me read you how it opens: + +“‘Beatrice Lady Cullumpton entered the long, dimly-lit drawing-room, her +eyes blazing with a hope that she guessed to be groundless, her lips +trembling with a fear that she could not disguise. In her hand she +carried a small fan, a fragile toy of lace and satinwood. Something +snapped as she entered the room; she had crushed the fan into a dozen +pieces.’ + +“There, what do you think of that for an opening? It tells you at once +that there’s something afoot.” + +“I don’t read novels,” said Caiaphas sullenly. + +“But just think what a resource they are,” exclaimed the author, “on long +winter evenings, or perhaps when you are laid up with a strained ankle—a +thing that might happen to any one; or if you were staying in a +house-party with persistent wet weather and a stupid hostess and +insufferably dull fellow-guests, you would just make an excuse that you +had letters to write, go to your room, light a cigarette, and for +three-and-ninepence you could plunge into the society of Beatrice Lady +Cullumpton and her set. No one ought to travel without one or two of my +novels in their luggage as a stand-by. A friend of mine said only the +other day that he would as soon think of going into the tropics without +quinine as of going on a visit without a couple of Mark Mellowkents in +his kit-bag. Perhaps sensation is more in your line. I wonder if I’ve +got a copy of _The Python’s Kiss_.” + +Caiaphas did not wait to be tempted with selections from that thrilling +work of fiction. With a muttered remark about having no time to waste on +monkey-talk, he gathered up his slighted volume and departed. He made no +audible reply to Mellowkent’s cheerful “Good morning,” but the latter +fancied that a look of respectful hatred flickered in the cold grey eyes. + + + + +THE HEDGEHOG + + +A “Mixed Double” of young people were contesting a game of lawn tennis at +the Rectory garden party; for the past five-and-twenty years at least +mixed doubles of young people had done exactly the same thing on exactly +the same spot at about the same time of year. The young people changed +and made way for others in the course of time, but very little else +seemed to alter. The present players were sufficiently conscious of the +social nature of the occasion to be concerned about their clothes and +appearance, and sufficiently sport-loving to be keen on the game. Both +their efforts and their appearance came under the fourfold scrutiny of a +quartet of ladies sitting as official spectators on a bench immediately +commanding the court. It was one of the accepted conditions of the +Rectory garden party that four ladies, who usually knew very little about +tennis and a great deal about the players, should sit at that particular +spot and watch the game. It had also come to be almost a tradition that +two ladies should be amiable, and that the other two should be Mrs. Dole +and Mrs. Hatch-Mallard. + +“What a singularly unbecoming way Eva Jonelet has taken to doing her hair +in,” said Mrs. Hatch-Mallard; “it’s ugly hair at the best of times, but +she needn’t make it look ridiculous as well. Some one ought to tell +her.” + +Eva Jonelet’s hair might have escaped Mrs. Hatch-Mallard’s condemnation +if she could have forgotten the more glaring fact that Eva was Mrs. +Dole’s favourite niece. It would, perhaps, have been a more comfortable +arrangement if Mrs. Hatch-Mallard and Mrs. Dole could have been asked to +the Rectory on separate occasions, but there was only one garden party in +the course of the year, and neither lady could have been omitted from the +list of invitations without hopelessly wrecking the social peace of the +parish. + +“How pretty the yew trees look at this time of year,” interposed a lady +with a soft, silvery voice that suggested a chinchilla muff painted by +Whistler. + +“What do you mean by this time of year?” demanded Mrs. Hatch-Mallard. +“Yew trees look beautiful at all times of the year. That is their great +charm.” + +“Yew trees never look anything but hideous under any circumstances or at +any time of year,” said Mrs. Dole, with the slow, emphatic relish of one +who contradicts for the pleasure of the thing. “They are only fit for +graveyards and cemeteries.” + +Mrs. Hatch-Mallard gave a sardonic snort, which, being translated, meant +that there were some people who were better fitted for cemeteries than +for garden parties. + +“What is the score, please?” asked the lady with the chinchilla voice. + +The desired information was given her by a young gentleman in spotless +white flannels, whose general toilet effect suggested solicitude rather +than anxiety. + +“What an odious young cub Bertie Dykson has become!” pronounced Mrs. +Dole, remembering suddenly that Bertie was a favourite with Mrs. +Hatch-Mallard. “The young men of to-day are not what they used to be +twenty years ago.” + +“Of course not,” said Mrs. Hatch-Mallard; “twenty years ago Bertie Dykson +was just two years old, and you must expect some difference in appearance +and manner and conversation between those two periods.” + +“Do you know,” said Mrs. Dole, confidentially, “I shouldn’t be surprised +if that was intended to be clever.” + +“Have you any one interesting coming to stay with you, Mrs. Norbury?” +asked the chinchilla voice, hastily; “you generally have a house party at +this time of year.” + +“I’ve got a most interesting woman coming,” said Mrs. Norbury, who had +been mutely struggling for some chance to turn the conversation into a +safe channel; “an old acquaintance of mine, Ada Bleek—” + +“What an ugly name,” said Mrs. Hatch-Mallard. + +“She’s descended from the de la Bliques, an old Huguenot family of +Touraine, you know.” + +“There weren’t any Huguenots in Touraine,” said Mrs. Hatch-Mallard, who +thought she might safely dispute any fact that was three hundred years +old. + +“Well, anyhow, she’s coming to stay with me,” continued Mrs. Norbury, +bringing her story quickly down to the present day, “she arrives this +evening, and she’s highly clairvoyante, a seventh daughter of a seventh +daughter, you now, and all that sort of thing.” + +“How very interesting,” said the chinchilla voice; “Exwood is just the +right place for her to come to, isn’t it? There are supposed to be +several ghosts there.” + +“That is why she was so anxious to come,” said Mrs. Norbury; “she put off +another engagement in order to accept my invitation. She’s had visions +and dreams, and all those sort of things, that have come true in a most +marvellous manner, but she’s never actually seen a ghost, and she’s +longing to have that experience. She belongs to that Research Society, +you know.” + +“I expect she’ll see the unhappy Lady Cullumpton, the most famous of all +the Exwood ghosts,” said Mrs. Dole; “my ancestor, you know, Sir Gervase +Cullumpton, murdered his young bride in a fit of jealousy while they were +on a visit to Exwood. He strangled her in the stables with a stirrup +leather, just after they had come in from riding, and she is seen +sometimes at dusk going about the lawns and the stable yard, in a long +green habit, moaning and trying to get the thong from round her throat. +I shall be most interested to hear if your friend sees—” + +“I don’t know why she should be expected to see a trashy, traditional +apparition like the so-called Cullumpton ghost, that is only vouched for +by housemaids and tipsy stable-boys, when my uncle, who was the owner of +Exwood, committed suicide there under the most tragical circumstances, +and most certainly haunts the place.” + +“Mrs. Hatch-Mallard has evidently never read _Popple’s County History_,” +said Mrs. Dole icily, “or she would know that the Cullumpton ghost has a +wealth of evidence behind it—” + +“Oh, Popple!” exclaimed Mrs. Hatch-Mallard scornfully; “any rubbishy old +story is good enough for him. Popple, indeed! Now my uncle’s ghost was +seen by a Rural Dean, who was also a Justice of the Peace. I should +think that would be good enough testimony for any one. Mrs. Norbury, I +shall take it as a deliberate personal affront if your clairvoyante +friend sees any other ghost except that of my uncle.” + +“I daresay she won’t see anything at all; she never has yet, you know,” +said Mrs. Norbury hopefully. + +“It was a most unfortunate topic for me to have broached,” she lamented +afterwards to the owner of the chinchilla voice; “Exwood belongs to Mrs. +Hatch-Mallard, and we’ve only got it on a short lease. A nephew of hers +has been wanting to live there for some time, and if we offend her in any +way she’ll refuse to renew the lease. I sometimes think these +garden-parties are a mistake.” + +The Norburys played bridge for the next three nights till nearly one +o’clock; they did not care for the game, but it reduced the time at their +guest’s disposal for undesirable ghostly visitations. + +“Miss Bleek is not likely to be in a frame of mind to see ghosts,” said +Hugo Norbury, “if she goes to bed with her brain awhirl with royal spades +and no trumps and grand slams.” + +“I’ve talked to her for hours about Mrs. Hatch-Mallard’s uncle,” said his +wife, “and pointed out the exact spot where he killed himself, and +invented all sorts of impressive details, and I’ve found an old portrait +of Lord John Russell and put it in her room, and told her that it’s +supposed to be a picture of the uncle in middle age. If Ada does see a +ghost at all it certainly ought to be old Hatch-Mallard’s. At any rate, +we’ve done our best.” + +The precautions were in vain. On the third morning of her stay Ada Bleek +came down late to breakfast, her eyes looking very tired, but ablaze with +excitement, her hair done anyhow, and a large brown volume hugged under +her arm. + +“At last I’ve seen something supernatural!” she exclaimed, and gave Mrs. +Norbury a fervent kiss, as though in gratitude for the opportunity +afforded her. + +“A ghost!” cried Mrs. Norbury, “not really!” + +“Really and unmistakably!” + +“Was it an oldish man in the dress of about fifty years ago?” asked Mrs. +Norbury hopefully. + +“Nothing of the sort,” said Ada; “it was a white hedgehog.” + +“A white hedgehog!” exclaimed both the Norburys, in tones of disconcerted +astonishment. + +“A huge white hedgehog with baleful yellow eyes,” said Ada; “I was lying +half asleep in bed when suddenly I felt a sensation as of something +sinister and unaccountable passing through the room. I sat up and looked +round, and there, under the window, I saw an evil, creeping thing, a sort +of monstrous hedgehog, of a dirty white colour, with black, loathsome +claws that clicked and scraped along the floor, and narrow, yellow eyes +of indescribable evil. It slithered along for a yard or two, always +looking at me with its cruel, hideous eyes, then, when it reached the +second window, which was open it clambered up the sill and vanished. I +got up at once and went to the window; there wasn’t a sign of it +anywhere. Of course, I knew it must be something from another world, but +it was not till I turned up Popple’s chapter on local traditions that I +realised what I had seen.” + +She turned eagerly to the large brown volume and read: “’Nicholas +Herison, an old miser, was hung at Batchford in 1763 for the murder of a +farm lad who had accidentally discovered his secret hoard. His ghost is +supposed to traverse the countryside, appearing sometimes as a white owl, +sometimes as a huge white hedgehog.” + +“I expect you read the Popple story overnight, and that made you _think_ +you saw a hedgehog when you were only half awake,” said Mrs. Norbury, +hazarding a conjecture that probably came very near the truth. + +Ada scouted the possibility of such a solution of her apparition. + +“This must be hushed up,” said Mrs. Norbury quickly; “the servants—” + +“Hushed up!” exclaimed Ada, indignantly; “I’m writing a long report on it +for the Research Society.” + +It was then that Hugo Norbury, who is not naturally a man of brilliant +resource, had one of the really useful inspirations of his life. + +“It was very wicked of us, Miss Bleek,” he said, “but it would be a shame +to let it go further. That white hedgehog is an old joke of ours; +stuffed albino hedgehog, you know, that my father brought home from +Jamaica, where they grow to enormous size. We hide it in the room with a +string on it, run one end of the string through the window; then we pull +if from below and it comes scraping along the floor, just as you’ve +described, and finally jerks out of the window. Taken in heaps of +people; they all read up Popple and think it’s old Harry Nicholson’s +ghost; we always stop them from writing to the papers about it, though. +That would be carrying matters too far.” + +Mrs. Hatch-Mallard renewed the lease in due course, but Ada Bleek has +never renewed her friendship. + + + + +THE MAPPINED LIFE + + +“These Mappin Terraces at the Zoological Gardens are a great improvement +on the old style of wild-beast cage,” said Mrs. James Gurtleberry, +putting down an illustrated paper; “they give one the illusion of seeing +the animals in their natural surroundings. I wonder how much of the +illusion is passed on to the animals?” + +“That would depend on the animal,” said her niece; “a jungle-fowl, for +instance, would no doubt think its lawful jungle surroundings were +faithfully reproduced if you gave it a sufficiency of wives, a goodly +variety of seed food and ants’ eggs, a commodious bank of loose earth to +dust itself in, a convenient roosting tree, and a rival or two to make +matters interesting. Of course there ought to be jungle-cats and birds +of prey and other agencies of sudden death to add to the illusion of +liberty, but the bird’s own imagination is capable of inventing +those—look how a domestic fowl will squawk an alarm note if a rook or +wood pigeon passes over its run when it has chickens.” + +“You think, then, they really do have a sort of illusion, if you give +them space enough—” + +“In a few cases only. Nothing will make me believe that an acre or so of +concrete enclosure will make up to a wolf or a tiger-cat for the range of +night prowling that would belong to it in a wild state. Think of the +dictionary of sound and scent and recollection that unfolds before a real +wild beast as it comes out from its lair every evening, with the +knowledge that in a few minutes it will be hieing along to some distant +hunting ground where all the joy and fury of the chase awaits it; think +of the crowded sensations of the brain when every rustle, every cry, +every bent twig, and every whiff across the nostrils means something, +something to do with life and death and dinner. Imagine the satisfaction +of stealing down to your own particular drinking spot, choosing your own +particular tree to scrape your claws on, finding your own particular bed +of dried grass to roll on. Then, in the place of all that, put a +concrete promenade, which will be of exactly the same dimensions whether +you race or crawl across it, coated with stale, unvarying scents and +surrounded with cries and noises that have ceased to have the least +meaning or interest. As a substitute for a narrow cage the new +enclosures are excellent, but I should think they are a poor imitation of +a life of liberty.” + +“It’s rather depressing to think that,” said Mrs. Gurtleberry; “they look +so spacious and so natural, but I suppose a good deal of what seems +natural to us would be meaningless to a wild animal.” + +“That is where our superior powers of self-deception come in,” said the +niece; “we are able to live our unreal, stupid little lives on our +particular Mappin terrace, and persuade ourselves that we really are +untrammelled men and women leading a reasonable existence in a reasonable +sphere.” + +“But good gracious,” exclaimed the aunt, bouncing into an attitude of +scandalised defence, “we are leading reasonable existences! What on +earth do you mean by trammels? We are merely trammelled by the ordinary +decent conventions of civilised society.” + +“We are trammelled,” said the niece, calmly and pitilessly, “by +restrictions of income and opportunity, and above all by lack of +initiative. To some people a restricted income doesn’t matter a bit, in +fact it often seems to help as a means for getting a lot of reality out +of life; I am sure there are men and women who do their shopping in +little back streets of Paris, buying four carrots and a shred of beef for +their daily sustenance, who lead a perfectly real and eventful existence. +Lack of initiative is the thing that really cripples one, and that is +where you and I and Uncle James are so hopelessly shut in. We are just +so many animals stuck down on a Mappin terrace, with this difference in +our disfavour, that the animals are there to be looked at, while nobody +wants to look at us. As a matter of fact there would be nothing to look +at. We get colds in winter and hay fever in summer, and if a wasp +happens to sting one of us, well, that is the wasp’s initiative, not +ours; all we do is to wait for the swelling to go down. Whenever we do +climb into local fame and notice, it is by indirect methods; if it +happens to be a good flowering year for magnolias the neighbourhood +observes: ‘Have you seen the Gurtleberry’s magnolia? It is a perfect +mass of flowers,’ and we go about telling people that there are +fifty-seven blossoms as against thirty-nine the previous year.” + +“In Coronation year there were as many as sixty,” put in the aunt, “your +uncle has kept a record for the last eight years.” + +“Doesn’t it ever strike you,” continued the niece relentlessly, “that if +we moved away from here or were blotted out of existence our local claim +to fame would pass on automatically to whoever happened to take the house +and garden? People would say to one another, ‘Have you seen the +Smith-Jenkins’ magnolia? It is a perfect mass of flowers,’ or else +‘Smith-Jenkins tells me there won’t be a single blossom on their magnolia +this year; the east winds have turned all the buds black.’ Now if, when +we had gone, people still associated our names with the magnolia tree, no +matter who temporarily possessed it, if they said, ‘Ah, that’s the tree +on which the Gurtleberrys hung their cook because she sent up the wrong +kind of sauce with the asparagus,’ that would be something really due to +our own initiative, apart from anything east winds or magnolia vitality +might have to say in the matter.” + +“We should never do such a thing,” said the aunt. + +The niece gave a reluctant sigh. + +“I can’t imagine it,” she admitted. “Of course,” she continued, “there +are heaps of ways of leading a real existence without committing +sensational deeds of violence. It’s the dreadful little everyday acts of +pretended importance that give the Mappin stamp to our life. It would be +entertaining, if it wasn’t so pathetically tragic, to hear Uncle James +fuss in here in the morning and announce, ‘I must just go down into the +town and find out what the men there are saying about Mexico. Matters +are beginning to look serious there.’ Then he patters away into the +town, and talks in a highly serious voice to the tobacconist, +incidentally buying an ounce of tobacco; perhaps he meets one or two +others of the world’s thinkers and talks to them in a highly serious +voice, then he patters back here and announces with increased importance, +‘I’ve just been talking to some men in the town about the condition of +affairs in Mexico. They agree with the view that I have formed, that +things there will have to get worse before they get better.’ Of course +nobody in the town cared in the least little bit what his views about +Mexico were or whether he had any. The tobacconist wasn’t even fluttered +at his buying the ounce of tobacco; he knows that he purchases the same +quantity of the same sort of tobacco every week. Uncle James might just +as well have lain on his back in the garden and chattered to the lilac +tree about the habits of caterpillars.” + +“I really will not listen to such things about your uncle,” protested +Mrs. James Gurtleberry angrily. + +“My own case is just as bad and just as tragic,” said the niece, +dispassionately; “nearly everything about me is conventional +make-believe. I’m not a good dancer, and no one could honestly call me +good-looking, but when I go to one of our dull little local dances I’m +conventionally supposed to ‘have a heavenly time,’ to attract the ardent +homage of the local cavaliers, and to go home with my head awhirl with +pleasurable recollections. As a matter of fact, I’ve merely put in some +hours of indifferent dancing, drunk some badly-made claret cup, and +listened to an enormous amount of laborious light conversation. A +moonlight hen-stealing raid with the merry-eyed curate would be +infinitely more exciting; imagine the pleasure of carrying off all those +white minorcas that the Chibfords are always bragging about. When we had +disposed of them we could give the proceeds to a charity, so there would +be nothing really wrong about it. But nothing of that sort lies within +the Mappined limits of my life. One of these days somebody dull and +decorous and undistinguished will ‘make himself agreeable’ to me at a +tennis party, as the saying is, and all the dull old gossips of the +neighbourhood will begin to ask when we are to be engaged, and at last we +shall be engaged, and people will give us butter-dishes and +blotting-cases and framed pictures of young women feeding swans. Hullo, +Uncle, are you going out?” + +“I’m just going down to the town,” announced Mr. James Gurtleberry, with +an air of some importance: “I want to hear what people are saying about +Albania. Affairs there are beginning to take on a very serious look. +It’s my opinion that we haven’t seen the worst of things yet.” + +In this he was probably right, but there was nothing in the immediate or +prospective condition of Albania to warrant Mrs. Gurtleberry in bursting +into tears. + + + + +FATE + + +Rex Dillot was nearly twenty-four, almost good-looking and quite +penniless. His mother was supposed to make him some sort of an allowance +out of what her creditors allowed her, and Rex occasionally strayed into +the ranks of those who earn fitful salaries as secretaries or companions +to people who are unable to cope unaided with their correspondence or +their leisure. For a few months he had been assistant editor and +business manager of a paper devoted to fancy mice, but the devotion had +been all on one side, and the paper disappeared with a certain abruptness +from club reading-rooms and other haunts where it had made a gratuitous +appearance. Still, Rex lived with some air of comfort and well-being, as +one can live if one is born with a genius for that sort of thing, and a +kindly Providence usually arranged that his week-end invitations +coincided with the dates on which his one white dinner-waistcoat was in a +laundry-returned condition of dazzling cleanness. He played most games +badly, and was shrewd enough to recognise the fact, but he had developed +a marvellously accurate judgement in estimating the play and chances of +other people, whether in a golf match, billiard handicap, or croquet +tournament. By dint of parading his opinion of such and such a player’s +superiority with a sufficient degree of youthful assertiveness he usually +succeeded in provoking a wager at liberal odds, and he looked to his +week-end winnings to carry him through the financial embarrassments of +his mid-week existence. The trouble was, as he confided to Clovis +Sangrail, that he never had enough available or even prospective cash at +his command to enable him to fix the wager at a figure really worth +winning. + +“Some day,” he said, “I shall come across a really safe thing, a bet that +simply can’t go astray, and then I shall put it up for all I’m worth, or +rather for a good deal more than I’m worth if you sold me up to the last +button.” + +“It would be awkward if it didn’t happen to come off,” said Clovis. + +“It would be more than awkward,” said Rex; “it would be a tragedy. All +the same, it would be extremely amusing to bring it off. Fancy awaking +in the morning with about three hundred pounds standing to one’s credit. +I should go and clear out my hostess’s pigeon-loft before breakfast out +of sheer good-temper.” + +“Your hostess of the moment mightn’t have a pigeon-loft,” said Clovis. + +“I always choose hostesses that have,” said Rex; “a pigeon-loft is +indicative of a careless, extravagant, genial disposition, such as I like +to see around me. People who strew corn broadcast for a lot of feathered +inanities that just sit about cooing and giving each other the glad eye +in a Louis Quatorze manner are pretty certain to do you well.” + +“Young Strinnit is coming down this afternoon,” said Clovis reflectively; +“I dare say you won’t find it difficult to get him to back himself at +billiards. He plays a pretty useful game, but he’s not quite as good as +he fancies he is.” + +“I know one member of the party who can walk round him,” said Rex softly, +an alert look coming into his eyes; “that cadaverous-looking Major who +arrived last night. I’ve seen him play at St. Moritz. If I could get +Strinnit to lay odds on himself against the Major the money would be safe +in my pocket. This looks like the good thing I’ve been watching and +praying for.” + +“Don’t be rash,” counselled Clovis, “Strinnit may play up to his +self-imagined form once in a blue moon.” + +“I intend to be rash,” said Rex quietly, and the look on his face +corroborated his words. + +“Are you all going to flock to the billiard-room?” asked Teresa +Thundleford, after dinner, with an air of some disapproval and a good +deal of annoyance. “I can’t see what particular amusement you find in +watching two men prodding little ivory balls about on a table.” + +“Oh, well,” said her hostess, “it’s a way of passing the time, you know.” + +“A very poor way, to my mind,” said Mrs. Thundleford; “now I was going to +have shown all of you the photographs I took in Venice last summer.” + +“You showed them to us last night,” said Mrs. Cuvering hastily. + +“Those were the ones I took in Florence. These are quite a different +lot.” + +“Oh, well, some time to-morrow we can look at them. You can leave them +down in the drawing-room, and then every one can have a look.” + +“I should prefer to show them when you are all gathered together, as I +have quite a lot of explanatory remarks to make, about Venetian art and +architecture, on the same lines as my remarks last night on the +Florentine galleries. Also, there are some verses of mine that I should +like to read you, on the rebuilding of the Campanile. But, of course, if +you all prefer to watch Major Latton and Mr. Strinnit knocking balls +about on a table—” + +“They are both supposed to be first-rate players,” said the hostess. + +“I have yet to learn that my verses and my art _causerie_ are of +second-rate quality,” said Mrs. Thundleford with acerbity. “However, as +you all seem bent on watching a silly game, there’s no more to be said. +I shall go upstairs and finish some writing. Later on, perhaps, I will +come down and join you.” + +To one, at least, of the onlookers the game was anything but silly. It +was absorbing, exciting, exasperating, nerve-stretching, and finally it +grew to be tragic. The Major with the St. Moritz reputation was playing +a long way below his form, young Strinnit was playing slightly above his, +and had all the luck of the game as well. From the very start the balls +seemed possessed by a demon of contrariness; they trundled about +complacently for one player, they would go nowhere for the other. + +“A hundred and seventy, seventy-four,” sang out the youth who was +marking. In a game of two hundred and fifty up it was an enormous lead +to hold. Clovis watched the flush of excitement die away from Dillot’s +face, and a hard white look take its place. + +“How much have you go on?” whispered Clovis. The other whispered the sum +through dry, shaking lips. It was more than he or any one connected with +him could pay; he had done what he had said he would do. He had been +rash. + +“Two hundred and six, ninety-eight.” + +Rex heard a clock strike ten somewhere in the hall, then another +somewhere else, and another, and another; the house seemed full of +striking clocks. Then in the distance the stable clock chimed in. In +another hour they would all be striking eleven, and he would be listening +to them as a disgraced outcast, unable to pay, even in part, the wager he +had challenged. + +“Two hundred and eighteen, a hundred and three.” The game was as good as +over. Rex was as good as done for. He longed desperately for the +ceiling to fall in, for the house to catch fire, for anything to happen +that would put an end to that horrible rolling to and fro of red and +white ivory that was jostling him nearer and nearer to his doom. + +“Two hundred and twenty-eight, a hundred and seven.” + +Rex opened his cigarette-case; it was empty. That at least gave him a +pretext to slip away from the room for the purpose of refilling it; he +would spare himself the drawn-out torture of watching that hopeless game +played out to the bitter end. He backed away from the circle of absorbed +watchers and made his way up a short stairway to a long, silent corridor +of bedrooms, each with a guests’ name written in a little square on the +door. In the hush that reigned in this part of the house he could still +hear the hateful click-click of the balls; if he waited for a few minutes +longer he would hear the little outbreak of clapping and buzz of +congratulation that would hail Strinnit’s victory. On the alert tension +of his nerves there broke another sound, the aggressive, wrath-inducing +breathing of one who sleeps in heavy after-dinner slumber. The sound +came from a room just at his elbow; the card on the door bore the +announcement “Mrs. Thundleford.” The door was just slightly ajar; Rex +pushed it open an inch or two more and looked in. The august Teresa had +fallen asleep over an illustrated guide to Florentine art-galleries; at +her side, somewhat dangerously near the edge of the table, was a +reading-lamp. If Fate had been decently kind to him, thought Rex, +bitterly, that lamp would have been knocked over by the sleeper and would +have given them something to think of besides billiard matches. + +There are occasions when one must take one’s Fate in one’s hands. Rex +took the lamp in his. + +“Two hundred and thirty-seven, one hundred and fifteen.” Strinnit was at +the table, and the balls lay in good position for him; he had a choice of +two fairly easy shots, a choice which he was never to decide. A sudden +hurricane of shrieks and a rush of stumbling feet sent every one flocking +to the door. The Dillot boy crashed into the room, carrying in his arms +the vociferous and somewhat dishevelled Teresa Thundleford; her clothing +was certainly not a mass of flames, as the more excitable members of the +party afterwards declared, but the edge of her skirt and part of the +table-cover in which she had been hastily wrapped were alight in a +flickering, half-hearted manner. Rex flung his struggling burden on the +billiard table, and for one breathless minute the work of beating out the +sparks with rugs and cushions and playing on them with soda-water syphons +engrossed the energies of the entire company. + +“It was lucky I was passing when it happened,” panted Rex; “some one had +better see to the room, I think the carpet is alight.” + +As a matter of fact the promptitude and energy of the rescuer had +prevented any great damage being done, either to the victim or her +surroundings. The billiard table had suffered most, and had to be laid +up for repairs; perhaps it was not the best place to have chosen for the +scene of salvage operations; but then, as Clovis remarked, when one is +rushing about with a blazing woman in one’s arms one can’t stop to think +out exactly where one is going to put her. + + + + +THE BULL + + +Tom Yorkfield had always regarded his half-brother, Laurence, with a lazy +instinct of dislike, toned down, as years went on, to a tolerant feeling +of indifference. There was nothing very tangible to dislike him for; he +was just a blood-relation, with whom Tom had no single taste or interest +in common, and with whom, at the same time, he had had no occasion for +quarrel. Laurence had left the farm early in life, and had lived for a +few years on a small sum of money left him by his mother; he had taken up +painting as a profession, and was reported to be doing fairly well at it, +well enough, at any rate, to keep body and soul together. He specialised +in painting animals, and he was successful in finding a certain number of +people to buy his pictures. Tom felt a comforting sense of assured +superiority in contrasting his position with that of his half-brother; +Laurence was an artist-chap, just that and nothing more, though you might +make it sound more important by calling him an animal painter; Tom was a +farmer, not in a very big way, it was true, but the Helsery farm had been +in the family for some generations, and it had a good reputation for the +stock raised on it. Tom had done his best, with the little capital at +his command, to maintain and improve the standard of his small herd of +cattle, and in Clover Fairy he had bred a bull which was something rather +better than any that his immediate neighbours could show. It would not +have made a sensation in the judging-ring at an important cattle show, +but it was as vigorous, shapely, and healthy a young animal as any small +practical farmer could wish to possess. At the King’s Head on market +days Clover Fairy was very highly spoken of, and Yorkfield used to +declare that he would not part with him for a hundred pounds; a hundred +pounds is a lot of money in the small farming line, and probably anything +over eighty would have tempted him. + +It was with some especial pleasure that Tom took advantage of one of +Laurence’s rare visits to the farm to lead him down to the enclosure +where Clover Fairy kept solitary state—the grass widower of a grazing +harem. Tom felt some of his old dislike for his half-brother reviving; +the artist was becoming more languid in his manner, more unsuitably +turned-out in attire, and he seemed inclined to impart a slightly +patronising tone to his conversation. He took no heed of a flourishing +potato crop, but waxed enthusiastic over a clump of yellow-flowering weed +that stood in a corner by a gateway, which was rather galling to the +owner of a really very well weeded farm; again, when he might have been +duly complimentary about a group of fat, black-faced lambs, that simply +cried aloud for admiration, he became eloquent over the foliage tints of +an oak copse on the hill opposite. But now he was being taken to inspect +the crowning pride and glory of Helsery; however grudging he might be in +his praises, however backward and niggardly with his congratulations, he +would have to see and acknowledge the many excellences of that +redoubtable animal. Some weeks ago, while on a business journey to +Taunton, Tom had been invited by his half-brother to visit a studio in +that town, where Laurence was exhibiting one of his pictures, a large +canvas representing a bull standing knee-deep in some marshy ground; it +had been good of its kind, no doubt, and Laurence had seemed inordinately +pleased with it; “the best thing I’ve done yet,” he had said over and +over again, and Tom had generously agreed that it was fairly life-like. +Now, the man of pigments was going to be shown a real picture, a living +model of strength and comeliness, a thing to feast the eyes on, a picture +that exhibited new pose and action with every shifting minute, instead of +standing glued into one unvarying attitude between the four walls of a +frame. Tom unfastened a stout wooden door and led the way into a +straw-bedded yard. + +“Is he quiet?” asked the artist, as a young bull with a curly red coat +came inquiringly towards them. + +“He’s playful at times,” said Tom, leaving his half-brother to wonder +whether the bull’s ideas of play were of the catch-as-catch-can order. +Laurence made one or two perfunctory comments on the animal’s appearance +and asked a question or so as to his age and such-like details; then he +coolly turned the talk into another channel. + +“Do you remember the picture I showed you at Taunton?” he asked. + +“Yes,” grunted Tom; “a white-faced bull standing in some slush. Don’t +admire those Herefords much myself; bulky-looking brutes, don’t seem to +have much life in them. Daresay they’re easier to paint that way; now, +this young beggar is on the move all the time, aren’t you, Fairy?” + +“I’ve sold that picture,” said Laurence, with considerable complacency in +his voice. + +“Have you?” said Tom; “glad to hear it, I’m sure. Hope you’re pleased +with what you’ve got for it.” + +“I got three hundred pounds for it,” said Laurence. + +Tom turned towards him with a slowly rising flush of anger in his face. +Three hundred pounds! Under the most favourable market conditions that +he could imagine his prized Clover Fairy would hardly fetch a hundred, +yet here was a piece of varnished canvas, painted by his half-brother, +selling for three times that sum. It was a cruel insult that went home +with all the more force because it emphasised the triumph of the +patronising, self-satisfied Laurence. The young farmer had meant to put +his relative just a little out of conceit with himself by displaying the +jewel of his possessions, and now the tables were turned, and his valued +beast was made to look cheap and insignificant beside the price paid for +a mere picture. It was so monstrously unjust; the painting would never +be anything more than a dexterous piece of counterfeit life, while Clover +Fairy was the real thing, a monarch in his little world, a personality in +the countryside. After he was dead, even, he would still be something of +a personality; his descendants would graze in those valley meadows and +hillside pastures, they would fill stall and byre and milking-shed, their +good red coats would speckle the landscape and crowd the market-place; +men would note a promising heifer or a well-proportioned steer, and say: +“Ah, that one comes of good old Clover Fairy’s stock.” All that time the +picture would be hanging, lifeless and unchanging, beneath its dust and +varnish, a chattel that ceased to mean anything if you chose to turn it +with its back to the wall. These thoughts chased themselves angrily +through Tom Yorkfield’s mind, but he could not put them into words. When +he gave tongue to his feelings he put matters bluntly and harshly. + +“Some soft-witted fools may like to throw away three hundred pounds on a +bit of paintwork; can’t say as I envy them their taste. I’d rather have +the real thing than a picture of it.” + +He nodded towards the young bull, that was alternately staring at them +with nose held high and lowering its horns with a half-playful, +half-impatient shake of the head. + +Laurence laughed a laugh of irritating, indulgent amusement. + +“I don’t think the purchaser of my bit of paintwork, as you call it, need +worry about having thrown his money away. As I get to be better known +and recognised my pictures will go up in value. That particular one will +probably fetch four hundred in a sale-room five or six years hence; +pictures aren’t a bad investment if you know enough to pick out the work +of the right men. Now you can’t say your precious bull is going to get +more valuable the longer you keep him; he’ll have his little day, and +then, if you go on keeping him, he’ll come down at last to a few +shillingsworth of hoofs and hide, just at a time, perhaps, when my bull +is being bought for a big sum for some important picture gallery.” + +It was too much. The united force of truth and slander and insult put +over heavy a strain on Tom Yorkfield’s powers of restraint. In his right +hand he held a useful oak cudgel, with his left he made a grab at the +loose collar of Laurence’s canary-coloured silk shirt. Laurence was not +a fighting man; the fear of physical violence threw him off his balance +as completely as overmastering indignation had thrown Tom off his, and +thus it came to pass that Clover Fairy was regaled with the unprecedented +sight of a human being scudding and squawking across the enclosure, like +the hen that would persist in trying to establish a nesting-place in the +manger. In another crowded happy moment the bull was trying to jerk +Laurence over his left shoulder, to prod him in the ribs while still in +the air, and to kneel on him when he reached the ground. It was only the +vigorous intervention of Tom that induced him to relinquish the last item +of his programme. + +Tom devotedly and ungrudgingly nursed his half brother to a complete +recovery from his injuries, which consisted of nothing more serious than +a dislocated shoulder, a broken rib or two, and a little nervous +prostration. After all, there was no further occasion for rancour in the +young farmer’s mind; Laurence’s bull might sell for three hundred, or for +six hundred, and be admired by thousands in some big picture gallery, but +it would never toss a man over one shoulder and catch him a jab in the +ribs before he had fallen on the other side. That was Clover Fairy’s +noteworthy achievement, which could never be taken away from him. + +Laurence continues to be popular as an animal artist, but his subjects +are always kittens or fawns or lambkins—never bulls. + + + + +MORLVERA + + +The Olympic Toy Emporium occupied a conspicuous frontage in an important +West End street. It was happily named Toy Emporium, because one would +never have dreamed of according it the familiar and yet pulse-quickening +name of toyshop. There was an air of cold splendour and elaborate +failure about the wares that were set out in its ample windows; they were +the sort of toys that a tired shop-assistant displays and explains at +Christmas time to exclamatory parents and bored, silent children. The +animal toys looked more like natural history models than the comfortable, +sympathetic companions that one would wish, at a certain age, to take to +bed with one, and to smuggle into the bath-room. The mechanical toys +incessantly did things that no one could want a toy to do more than a +half a dozen times in its lifetime; it was a merciful reflection that in +any right-minded nursery the lifetime would certainly be short. + +Prominent among the elegantly-dressed dolls that filled an entire section +of the window frontage was a large hobble-skirted lady in a confection of +peach-coloured velvet, elaborately set off with leopard skin accessories, +if one may use such a conveniently comprehensive word in describing an +intricate feminine toilette. She lacked nothing that is to be found in a +carefully detailed fashion-plate—in fact, she might be said to have +something more than the average fashion-plate female possesses; in place +of a vacant, expressionless stare she had character in her face. It must +be admitted that it was bad character, cold, hostile, inquisitorial, with +a sinister lowering of one eyebrow and a merciless hardness about the +corners of the mouth. One might have imagined histories about her by the +hour, histories in which unworthy ambition, the desire for money, and an +entire absence of all decent feeling would play a conspicuous part. + +As a matter of fact, she was not without her judges and biographers, even +in this shop-window stage of her career. Emmeline, aged ten, and Bert, +aged seven, had halted on the way from their obscure back street to the +minnow-stocked water of St. James’s Park, and were critically examining +the hobble-skirted doll, and dissecting her character in no very tolerant +spirit. There is probably a latent enmity between the necessarily +under-clad and the unnecessarily overdressed, but a little kindness and +good fellowship on the part of the latter will often change the sentiment +to admiring devotion; if the lady in peach-coloured velvet and leopard +skin had worn a pleasant expression in addition to her other elaborate +furnishings, Emmeline at least might have respected and even loved her. +As it was, she gave her a horrible reputation, based chiefly on a +secondhand knowledge of gilded depravity derived from the conversation of +those who were skilled in the art of novelette reading; Bert filled in a +few damaging details from his own limited imagination. + +“She’s a bad lot, that one is,” declared Emmeline, after a long +unfriendly stare; “’er ’usbind ’ates ’er.” + +“’E knocks ’er abart,” said Bert, with enthusiasm. + +“No, ’e don’t, cos ’e’s dead; she poisoned ’im slow and gradual, so that +nobody didn’t know. Now she wants to marry a lord, with ’eaps and ’eaps +of money. ’E’s got a wife already, but she’s going to poison ’er, too.” + +“She’s a bad lot,” said Bert with growing hostility. + +“’Er mother ’ates her, and she’s afraid of ’er, too, cos she’s got a +serkestic tongue; always talking serkesms, she is. She’s greedy, too; if +there’s fish going, she eats ’er own share and ’er little girl’s as well, +though the little girl is dellikit.” + +“She ’ad a little boy once,” said Bert, “but she pushed ’im into the +water when nobody wasn’t looking.” + +“No she didn’t,” said Emmeline, “she sent ’im away to be kep’ by poor +people, so ’er ’usbind wouldn’t know where ’e was. They ill-treat ’im +somethink cruel.” + +“Wot’s ’er nime?” asked Bert, thinking that it was time that so +interesting a personality should be labelled. + +“’Er nime?” said Emmeline, thinking hard, “’er nime’s Morlvera.” It was +as near as she could get to the name of an adventuress who figured +prominently in a cinema drama. There was silence for a moment while the +possibilities of the name were turned over in the children’s minds. + +“Those clothes she’s got on ain’t paid for, and never won’t be,” said +Emmeline; “she thinks she’ll get the rich lord to pay for ’em, but ’e +won’t. ’E’s given ’er jools, ’underds of pounds’ worth.” + +“’E won’t pay for the clothes,” said Bert, with conviction. Evidently +there was some limit to the weak good nature of wealthy lords. + +At that moment a motor carriage with liveried servants drew up at the +emporium entrance; a large lady, with a penetrating and rather hurried +manner of talking, stepped out, followed slowly and sulkily by a small +boy, who had a very black scowl on his face and a very white sailor suit +over the rest of him. The lady was continuing an argument which had +probably commenced in Portman Square. + +“Now, Victor, you are to come in and buy a nice doll for your cousin +Bertha. She gave you a beautiful box of soldiers on your birthday, and +you must give her a present on hers.” + +“Bertha is a fat little fool,” said Victor, in a voice that was as loud +as his mother’s and had more assurance in it. + +“Victor, you are not to say such things. Bertha is not a fool, and she +is not in the least fat. You are to come in and choose a doll for her.” + +The couple passed into the shop, out of view and hearing of the two +back-street children. + +“My, he is in a wicked temper,” exclaimed Emmeline, but both she and Bert +were inclined to side with him against the absent Bertha, who was +doubtless as fat and foolish as he had described her to be. + +“I want to see some dolls,” said the mother of Victor to the nearest +assistant; “it’s for a little girl of eleven.” + +“A fat little girl of eleven,” added Victor by way of supplementary +information. + +“Victor, if you say such rude things about your cousin, you shall go to +bed the moment we get home, without having any tea.” + +“This is one of the newest things we have in dolls,” said the assistant, +removing a hobble-skirted figure in peach-coloured velvet from the +window; “leopard skin toque and stole, the latest fashion. You won’t get +anything newer than that anywhere. It’s an exclusive design.” + +“Look!” whispered Emmeline outside; “they’ve bin and took Morlvera.” + +There was a mingling of excitement and a certain sense of bereavement in +her mind; she would have liked to gaze at that embodiment of overdressed +depravity for just a little longer. + +“I ’spect she’s going away in a kerridge to marry the rich lord,” +hazarded Bert. + +“She’s up to no good,” said Emmeline vaguely. + +Inside the shop the purchase of the doll had been decided on. + +“It’s a beautiful doll, and Bertha will be delighted with it,” asserted +the mother of Victor loudly. + +“Oh, very well,” said Victor sulkily; “you needn’t have it stuck into a +box and wait an hour while it’s being done up into a parcel. I’ll take +it as it is, and we can go round to Manchester Square and give it to +Bertha, and get the thing done with. That will save me the trouble of +writing: ‘For dear Bertha, with Victor’s love,’ on a bit of paper.” + +“Very well,” said his mother, “we can go to Manchester Square on our way +home. You must wish her many happy returns of to-morrow, and give her +the doll.” + +“I won’t let the little beast kiss me,” stipulated Victor. + +His mother said nothing; Victor had not been half as troublesome as she +had anticipated. When he chose he could really be dreadfully naughty. + +Emmeline and Bert were just moving away from the window when Morlvera +made her exit from the shop, very carefully in Victor’s arms. A look of +sinister triumph seemed to glow in her hard, inquisitorial face. As for +Victor, a certain scornful serenity had replaced the earlier scowls; he +had evidently accepted defeat with a contemptuous good grace. + +The tall lady gave a direction to the footman and settled herself in the +carriage. The little figure in the white sailor suit clambered in beside +her, still carefully holding the elegantly garbed doll. + +The car had to be backed a few yards in the process of turning. Very +stealthily, very gently, very mercilessly Victor sent Morlvera flying +over his shoulder, so that she fell into the road just behind the +retrogressing wheel. With a soft, pleasant-sounding scrunch the car went +over the prostrate form, then it moved forward again with another +scrunch. The carriage moved off and left Bert and Emmeline gazing in +scared delight at a sorry mess of petrol-smeared velvet, sawdust, and +leopard skin, which was all that remained of the hateful Morlvera. They +gave a shrill cheer, and then raced away shuddering from the scene of so +much rapidly enacted tragedy. + +Later that afternoon, when they were engaged in the pursuit of minnows by +the waterside in St. James’s Park, Emmeline said in a solemn undertone to +Bert— + +“I’ve bin finking. Do you know oo ’e was? ’E was ’er little boy wot +she’d sent away to live wiv poor folks. ’E come back and done that.” + + + + +SHOCK TACTICS + + +On a late spring afternoon Ella McCarthy sat on a green-painted chair in +Kensington Gardens, staring listlessly at an uninteresting stretch of +park landscape, that blossomed suddenly into tropical radiance as an +expected figure appeared in the middle distance. + +“Hullo, Bertie!” she exclaimed sedately, when the figure arrived at the +painted chair that was the nearest neighbour to her own, and dropped into +it eagerly, yet with a certain due regard for the set of its trousers; +“hasn’t it been a perfect spring afternoon?” + +The statement was a distinct untruth as far as Ella’s own feelings were +concerned; until the arrival of Bertie the afternoon had been anything +but perfect. + +Bertie made a suitable reply, in which a questioning note seemed to +hover. + +“Thank you ever so much for those lovely handkerchiefs,” said Ella, +answering the unspoken question; “they were just what I’ve been wanting. +There’s only one thing spoilt my pleasure in your gift,” she added, with +a pout. + +“What was that?” asked Bertie anxiously, fearful that perhaps he had +chosen a size of handkerchief that was not within the correct feminine +limit. + +“I should have liked to have written and thanked you for them as soon as +I got them,” said Ella, and Bertie’s sky clouded at once. + +“You know what mother is,” he protested; “she opens all my letters, and +if she found I’d been giving presents to any one there’d have been +something to talk about for the next fortnight.” + +“Surely, at the age of twenty—” began Ella. + +“I’m not twenty till September,” interrupted Bertie. + +“At the age of nineteen years and eight months,” persisted Ella, “you +might be allowed to keep your correspondence private to yourself.” + +“I ought to be, but things aren’t always what they ought to be. Mother +opens every letter that comes into the house, whoever it’s for. My +sisters and I have made rows about it time and again, but she goes on +doing it.” + +“I’d find some way to stop her if I were in your place,” said Ella +valiantly, and Bertie felt that the glamour of his anxiously deliberated +present had faded away in the disagreeable restriction that hedged round +its acknowledgment. + +“Is anything the matter?” asked Bertie’s friend Clovis when they met that +evening at the swimming-bath. + +“Why do you ask?” said Bertie. + +“When you wear a look of tragic gloom in a swimming-bath,” said Clovis, +“it’s especially noticeable from the fact that you’re wearing very little +else. Didn’t she like the handkerchiefs?” + +Bertie explained the situation. + +“It is rather galling, you know,” he added, “when a girl has a lot of +things she wants to write to you and can’t send a letter except by some +roundabout, underhand way.” + +“One never realises one’s blessings while one enjoys them,” said Clovis; +“now I have to spend a considerable amount of ingenuity inventing excuses +for not having written to people.” + +“It’s not a joking matter,” said Bertie resentfully: “you wouldn’t find +it funny if your mother opened all your letters.” + +“The funny thing to me is that you should let her do it.” + +“I can’t stop it. I’ve argued about it—” + +“You haven’t used the right kind of argument, I expect. Now, if every +time one of your letters was opened you lay on your back on the +dining-table during dinner and had a fit, or roused the entire family in +the middle of the night to hear you recite one of Blake’s ‘Poems of +Innocence,’ you would get a far more respectful hearing for future +protests. People yield more consideration to a mutilated mealtime or a +broken night’s rest, than ever they would to a broken heart.” + +“Oh, dry up,” said Bertie crossly, inconsistently splashing Clovis from +head to foot as he plunged into the water. + +It was a day or two after the conversation in the swimming-bath that a +letter addressed to Bertie Heasant slid into the letter-box at his home, +and thence into the hands of his mother. Mrs. Heasant was one of those +empty-minded individuals to whom other people’s affairs are perpetually +interesting. The more private they are intended to be the more acute is +the interest they arouse. She would have opened this particular letter +in any case; the fact that it was marked “private,” and diffused a +delicate but penetrating aroma merely caused her to open it with headlong +haste rather than matter-of-course deliberation. The harvest of +sensation that rewarded her was beyond all expectations. + + “Bertie, carissimo,” it began, “I wonder if you will have the nerve + to do it: it will take some nerve, too. Don’t forget the jewels. + They are a detail, but details interest me. + + “Yours as ever, + “CLOTILDE.” + + “Your mother must not know of my existence. If questioned swear you + never heard of me.” + +For years Mrs. Heasant had searched Bertie’s correspondence diligently +for traces of possible dissipation or youthful entanglements, and at last +the suspicions that had stimulated her inquisitorial zeal were justified +by this one splendid haul. That any one wearing the exotic name +“Clotilde” should write to Bertie under the incriminating announcement +“as ever” was sufficiently electrifying, without the astounding allusion +to the jewels. Mrs. Heasant could recall novels and dramas wherein +jewels played an exciting and commanding role, and here, under her own +roof, before her very eyes as it were, her own son was carrying on an +intrigue in which jewels were merely an interesting detail. Bertie was +not due home for another hour, but his sisters were available for the +immediate unburdening of a scandal-laden mind. + +“Bertie is in the toils of an adventuress,” she screamed; “her name is +Clotilde,” she added, as if she thought they had better know the worst at +once. There are occasions when more harm than good is done by shielding +young girls from a knowledge of the more deplorable realities of life. + +By the time Bertie arrived his mother had discussed every possible and +improbable conjecture as to his guilty secret; the girls limited +themselves to the opinion that their brother had been weak rather than +wicked. + +“Who is Clotilde?” was the question that confronted Bertie almost before +he had got into the hall. His denial of any knowledge of such a person +was met with an outburst of bitter laughter. + +“How well you have learned your lesson!” exclaimed Mrs. Heasant. But +satire gave way to furious indignation when she realised that Bertie did +not intend to throw any further light on her discovery. + +“You shan’t have any dinner till you’ve confessed everything,” she +stormed. + +Bertie’s reply took the form of hastily collecting material for an +impromptu banquet from the larder and locking himself into his bedroom. +His mother made frequent visits to the locked door and shouted a +succession of interrogations with the persistence of one who thinks that +if you ask a question often enough an answer will eventually result. +Bertie did nothing to encourage the supposition. An hour had passed in +fruitless one-sided palaver when another letter addressed to Bertie and +marked “private” made its appearance in the letter-box. Mrs. Heasant +pounced on it with the enthusiasm of a cat that has missed its mouse and +to whom a second has been unexpectedly vouchsafed. If she hoped for +further disclosures assuredly she was not disappointed. + + “So you have really done it!” the letter abruptly commenced; “Poor + Dagmar. Now she is done for I almost pity her. You did it very + well, you wicked boy, the servants all think it was suicide, and + there will be no fuss. Better not touch the jewels till after the + inquest. + + “CLOTILDE.” + +Anything that Mrs. Heasant had previously done in the way of outcry was +easily surpassed as she raced upstairs and beat frantically at her son’s +door. + +“Miserable boy, what have you done to Dagmar?” + +“It’s Dagmar now, is it?” he snapped; “it will be Geraldine next.” + +“That it should come to this, after all my efforts to keep you at home of +an evening,” sobbed Mrs. Heasant; “it’s no use you trying to hide things +from me; Clotilde’s letter betrays everything.” + +“Does it betray who she is?” asked Bertie; “I’ve heard so much about her, +I should like to know something about her home-life. Seriously, if you +go on like this I shall fetch a doctor; I’ve often enough been preached +at about nothing, but I’ve never had an imaginary harem dragged into the +discussion.” + +“Are these letters imaginary?” screamed Mrs. Heasant; “what about the +jewels, and Dagmar, and the theory of suicide?” + +No solution of these problems was forthcoming through the bedroom door, +but the last post of the evening produced another letter for Bertie, and +its contents brought Mrs. Heasant that enlightenment which had already +dawned on her son. + + “DEAR BERTIE,” it ran; “I hope I haven’t distracted your brain with + the spoof letters I’ve been sending in the name of a fictitious + Clotilde. You told me the other day that the servants, or somebody + at your home, tampered with your letters, so I thought I would give + any one that opened them something exciting to read. The shock might + do them good. + + “Yours, + “CLOVIS SANGRAIL.” + +Mrs. Heasant knew Clovis slightly, and was rather afraid of him. It was +not difficult to read between the lines of his successful hoax. In a +chastened mood she rapped once more at Bertie’s door. + +“A letter from Mr. Sangrail. It’s all been a stupid hoax. He wrote +those other letters. Why, where are you going?” + +Bertie had opened the door; he had on his hat and overcoat. + +“I’m going for a doctor to come and see if anything’s the matter with +you. Of course it was all a hoax, but no person in his right mind could +have believed all that rubbish about murder and suicide and jewels. +You’ve been making enough noise to bring the house down for the last hour +or two.” + +“But what was I to think of those letters?” whimpered Mrs. Heasant. + +“I should have known what to think of them,” said Bertie; “if you choose +to excite yourself over other people’s correspondence it’s your own +fault. Anyhow, I’m going for a doctor.” + +It was Bertie’s great opportunity, and he knew it. His mother was +conscious of the fact that she would look rather ridiculous if the story +got about. She was willing to pay hush-money. + +“I’ll never open your letters again,” she promised. And Clovis has no +more devoted slave than Bertie Heasant. + + + + +THE SEVEN CREAM JUGS + + +“I suppose we shall never see Wilfred Pigeoncote here now that he has +become heir to the baronetcy and to a lot of money,” observed Mrs. Peter +Pigeoncote regretfully to her husband. + +“Well, we can hardly expect to,” he replied, “seeing that we always +choked him off from coming to see us when he was a prospective nobody. I +don’t think I’ve set eyes on him since he was a boy of twelve.” + +“There was a reason for not wanting to encourage his acquaintanceship,” +said Mrs. Peter. “With that notorious failing of his he was not the sort +of person one wanted in one’s house.” + +“Well, the failing still exists, doesn’t it?” said her husband; “or do +you suppose a reform of character is entailed along with the estate?” + +“Oh, of course, there is still that drawback,” admitted the wife, “but +one would like to make the acquaintance of the future head of the family, +if only out of mere curiosity. Besides, cynicism apart, his being rich +will make a difference in the way people will look at his failing. When +a man is absolutely wealthy, not merely well-to-do, all suspicion of +sordid motive naturally disappears; the thing becomes merely a tiresome +malady.” + +Wilfrid Pigeoncote had suddenly become heir to his uncle, Sir Wilfrid +Pigeoncote, on the death of his cousin, Major Wilfrid Pigeoncote, who had +succumbed to the after-effects of a polo accident. (A Wilfrid Pigeoncote +had covered himself with honours in the course of Marlborough’s +campaigns, and the name Wilfrid had been a baptismal weakness in the +family ever since.) The new heir to the family dignity and estates was a +young man of about five-and-twenty, who was known more by reputation than +by person to a wide circle of cousins and kinsfolk. And the reputation +was an unpleasant one. The numerous other Wilfrids in the family were +distinguished one from another chiefly by the names of their residences +or professions, as Wilfrid of Hubbledown, and young Wilfrid the Gunner, +but this particular scion was known by the ignominious and expressive +label of Wilfrid the Snatcher. From his late schooldays onward he had +been possessed by an acute and obstinate form of kleptomania; he had the +acquisitive instinct of the collector without any of the collector’s +discrimination. Anything that was smaller and more portable than a +sideboard, and above the value of ninepence, had an irresistible +attraction for him, provided that it fulfilled the necessary condition of +belonging to some one else. On the rare occasions when he was included +in a country-house party, it was usual and almost necessary for his host, +or some member of the family, to make a friendly inquisition through his +baggage on the eve of his departure, to see if he had packed up “by +mistake” any one else’s property. The search usually produced a large +and varied yield. + +“This is funny,” said Peter Pigeoncote to his wife, some half-hour after +their conversation; “here’s a telegram from Wilfrid, saying he’s passing +through here in his motor, and would like to stop and pay us his +respects. Can stay for the night if it doesn’t inconvenience us. Signed +‘Wilfrid Pigeoncote.’ Must be the Snatcher; none of the others have a +motor. I suppose he’s bringing us a present for the silver wedding.” + +“Good gracious!” said Mrs. Peter, as a thought struck her; “this is +rather an awkward time to have a person with his failing in the house. +All those silver presents set out in the drawing-room, and others coming +by every post; I hardly know what we’ve got and what are still to come. +We can’t lock them all up; he’s sure to want to see them.” + +“We must keep a sharp look-out, that’s all,” said Peter reassuringly. + +“But these practised kleptomaniacs are so clever,” said his wife, +apprehensively, “and it will be so awkward if he suspects that we are +watching him.” + +Awkwardness was indeed the prevailing note that evening when the passing +traveller was being entertained. The talk flitted nervously and +hurriedly from one impersonal topic to another. The guest had none of +the furtive, half-apologetic air that his cousins had rather expected to +find; he was polite, well-assured, and, perhaps, just a little inclined +to “put on side”. His hosts, on the other hand, wore an uneasy manner +that might have been the hallmark of conscious depravity. In the +drawing-room, after dinner, their nervousness and awkwardness increased. + +“Oh, we haven’t shown you the silver-wedding presents,” said Mrs. Peter, +suddenly, as though struck by a brilliant idea for entertaining the +guest; “here they all are. Such nice, useful gifts. A few duplicates, +of course.” + +“Seven cream jugs,” put in Peter. + +“Yes, isn’t it annoying,” went on Mrs. Peter; “seven of them. We feel +that we must live on cream for the rest of our lives. Of course, some of +them can be changed.” + +Wilfrid occupied himself chiefly with such of the gifts as were of +antique interest, carrying one or two of them over to the lamp to examine +their marks. The anxiety of his hosts at these moments resembled the +solicitude of a cat whose newly born kittens are being handed round for +inspection. + +“Let me see; did you give me back the mustard-pot? This is its place +here,” piped Mrs. Peter. + +“Sorry. I put it down by the claret-jug,” said Wilfrid, busy with +another object. + +“Oh, just let me have the sugar-sifter again,” asked Mrs. Peter, dogged +determination showing through her nervousness; “I must label it who it +comes from before I forget.” + +Vigilance was not completely crowned with a sense of victory. After they +had said “Good-night” to their visitor, Mrs. Peter expressed her +conviction that he had taken something. + +“I fancy, by his manner, that there was something up,” corroborated her +husband; “do you miss anything?” + +Mrs. Peters hastily counted the array of gifts. + +“I can only make it thirty-four, and I think it should be thirty-five,” +she announced; “I can’t remember if thirty-five includes the Archdeacon’s +cruet-stand that hasn’t arrived yet.” + +“How on earth are we to know?” said Peter. “The mean pig hasn’t brought +us a present, and I’m hanged if he shall carry one off.” + +“To-morrow, when he’s having his bath,” said Mrs. Peter excitedly, “he’s +sure to leave his keys somewhere, and we can go through his portmanteau. +It’s the only thing to do.” + +On the morrow an alert watch was kept by the conspirators behind +half-closed doors, and when Wilfrid, clad in a gorgeous bath-robe, had +made his way to the bath-room, there was a swift and furtive rush by two +excited individuals towards the principal guest-chamber. Mrs. Peter kept +guard outside, while her husband first made a hurried and successful +search for the keys, and then plunged at the portmanteau with the air of +a disagreeably conscientious Customs official. The quest was a brief +one; a silver cream jug lay embedded in the folds of some zephyr shirts. + +“The cunning brute,” said Mrs. Peters; “he took a cream jug because there +were so many; he thought one wouldn’t be missed. Quick, fly down with it +and put it back among the others.” + +Wilfrid was late in coming down to breakfast, and his manner showed +plainly that something was amiss. + +“It’s an unpleasant thing to have to say,” he blurted out presently, “but +I’m afraid you must have a thief among your servants. Something’s been +taken out of my portmanteau. It was a little present from my mother and +myself for your silver wedding. I should have given it to you last night +after dinner, only it happened to be a cream jug, and you seemed annoyed +at having so many duplicates, so I felt rather awkward about giving you +another. I thought I’d get it changed for something else, and now it’s +gone.” + +“Did you say it was from your _mother_ and yourself?” asked Mr. and Mrs. +Peter almost in unison. The Snatcher had been an orphan these many +years. + +“Yes, my mother’s at Cairo just now, and she wrote to me at Dresden to +try and get you something quaint and pretty in the old silver line, and I +pitched on this cream jug.” + +Both the Pigeoncotes had turned deadly pale. The mention of Dresden had +thrown a sudden light on the situation. It was Wilfrid the Attache, a +very superior young man, who rarely came within their social horizon, +whom they had been entertaining unawares in the supposed character of +Wilfrid the Snatcher. Lady Ernestine Pigeoncote, his mother, moved in +circles which were entirely beyond their compass or ambitions, and the +son would probably one day be an Ambassador. And they had rifled and +despoiled his portmanteau! Husband and wife looked blankly and +desperately at one another. It was Mrs. Peter who arrived first at an +inspiration. + +“How dreadful to think there are thieves in the house! We keep the +drawing-room locked up at night, of course, but anything might be carried +off while we are at breakfast.” + +She rose and went out hurriedly, as though to assure herself that the +drawing-room was not being stripped of its silverware, and returned a +moment later, bearing a cream jug in her hands. + +“There are eight cream jugs now, instead of seven,” she cried; “this one +wasn’t there before. What a curious trick of memory, Mr. Wilfrid! You +must have slipped downstairs with it last night and put it there before +we locked up, and forgotten all about having done it in the morning.” + +“One’s mind often plays one little tricks like that,” said Mr. Peter, +with desperate heartiness. “Only the other day I went into the town to +pay a bill, and went in again next day, having clean forgotten that I’d—” + +“It is certainly the jug I bought for you,” said Wilfrid, looking closely +at it; “it was in my portmanteau when I got my bath-robe out this +morning, before going to my bath, and it was not there when I unlocked +the portmanteau on my return. Some one had taken it while I was away +from the room.” + +The Pigeoncotes had turned paler than ever. Mrs. Peter had a final +inspiration. + +“Get me my smelling-salts, dear,” she said to her husband; “I think +they’re in the dressing-room.” + +Peter dashed out of the room with glad relief; he had lived so long +during the last few minutes that a golden wedding seemed within +measurable distance. + +Mrs. Peter turned to her guest with confidential coyness. + +“A diplomat like you will know how to treat this as if it hadn’t +happened. Peter’s little weakness; it runs in the family.” + +“Good Lord! Do you mean to say he’s a kleptomaniac, like Cousin +Snatcher?” + +“Oh, not exactly,” said Mrs. Peter, anxious to whitewash her husband a +little greyer than she was painting him. “He would never touch anything +he found lying about, but he can’t resist making a raid on things that +are locked up. The doctors have a special name for it. He must have +pounced on your portmanteau the moment you went to your bath, and taken +the first thing he came across. Of course, he had no motive for taking a +cream jug; we’ve already got _seven_, as you know—not, of course, that we +don’t value the kind of gift you and your mother—hush here’s Peter +coming.” + +Mrs. Peter broke off in some confusion, and tripped out to meet her +husband in the hall. + +“It’s all right,” she whispered to him; “I’ve explained everything. +Don’t say anything more about it.” + +“Brave little woman,” said Peter, with a gasp of relief; “I could never +have done it.” + + * * * * * + +Diplomatic reticence does not necessarily extend to family affairs. +Peter Pigeoncote was never able to understand why Mrs. Consuelo van +Bullyon, who stayed with them in the spring, always carried two very +obvious jewel-cases with her to the bath-room, explaining them to any one +she chanced to meet in the corridor as her manicure and face-massage set. + + + + +THE OCCASIONAL GARDEN + + +“Don’t talk to me about town gardens,” said Elinor Rapsley; “which means, +of course, that I want you to listen to me for an hour or so while I talk +about nothing else. ‘What a nice-sized garden you’ve got,’ people said +to us when we first moved here. What I suppose they meant to say was +what a nice-sized site for a garden we’d got. As a matter of fact, the +size is all against it; it’s too large to be ignored altogether and +treated as a yard, and it’s too small to keep giraffes in. You see, if +we could keep giraffes or reindeer or some other species of browsing +animal there we could explain the general absence of vegetation by a +reference to the fauna of the garden: ‘You can’t have wapiti _and_ Darwin +tulips, you know, so we didn’t put down any bulbs last year.’ As it is, +we haven’t got the wapiti, and the Darwin tulips haven’t survived the +fact that most of the cats of the neighbourhood hold a parliament in the +centre of the tulip bed; that rather forlorn looking strip that we +intended to be a border of alternating geranium and spiræa has been +utilised by the cat-parliament as a division lobby. Snap divisions seem +to have been rather frequent of late, far more frequent than the geranium +blooms are likely to be. I shouldn’t object so much to ordinary cats, +but I do complain of having a congress of vegetarian cats in my garden; +they must be vegetarians, my dear, because, whatever ravages they may +commit among the sweet pea seedlings, they never seem to touch the +sparrows; there are always just as many adult sparrows in the garden on +Saturday as there were on Monday, not to mention newly-fledged additions. +There seems to have been an irreconcilable difference of opinion between +sparrows and Providence since the beginning of time as to whether a +crocus looks best standing upright with its roots in the earth or in a +recumbent posture with its stem neatly severed; the sparrows always have +the last word in the matter, at least in our garden they do. I fancy +that Providence must have originally intended to bring in an amending +Act, or whatever it’s called, providing either for a less destructive +sparrow or a more indestructible crocus. The one consoling point about +our garden is that it’s not visible from the drawing-room or the +smoking-room, so unless people are dinning or lunching with us they can’t +spy out the nakedness of the land. That is why I am so furious with +Gwenda Pottingdon, who has practically forced herself on me for lunch on +Wednesday next; she heard me offer the Paulcote girl lunch if she was up +shopping on that day, and, of course, she asked if she might come too. +She is only coming to gloat over my bedraggled and flowerless borders and +to sing the praises of her own detestably over-cultivated garden. I’m +sick of being told that it’s the envy of the neighbourhood; it’s like +everything else that belongs to her—her car, her dinner-parties, even her +headaches, they are all superlative; no one else ever had anything like +them. When her eldest child was confirmed it was such a sensational +event, according to her account of it, that one almost expected questions +to be asked about it in the House of Commons, and now she’s coming on +purpose to stare at my few miserable pansies and the gaps in my sweet-pea +border, and to give me a glowing, full-length description of the rare and +sumptuous blooms in her rose-garden.” + +“My dear Elinor,” said the Baroness, “you would save yourself all this +heart-burning and a lot of gardener’s bills, not to mention sparrow +anxieties, simply by paying an annual subscription to the O.O.S.A.” + +“Never heard of it,” said Elinor; “what is it?” + +“The Occasional-Oasis Supply Association,” said the Baroness; “it exists +to meet cases exactly like yours, cases of backyards that are of no +practical use for gardening purposes, but are required to blossom into +decorative scenic backgrounds at stated intervals, when a luncheon or +dinner-party is contemplated. Supposing, for instance, you have people +coming to lunch at one-thirty; you just ring up the Association at about +ten o’clock the same morning, and say ‘lunch garden’. That is all the +trouble you have to take. By twelve forty-five your yard is carpeted +with a strip of velvety turf, with a hedge of lilac or red may, or +whatever happens to be in season, as a background, one or two cherry +trees in blossom, and clumps of heavily-flowered rhododendrons filling in +the odd corners; in the foreground you have a blaze of carnations or +Shirley poppies, or tiger lilies in full bloom. As soon as the lunch is +over and your guests have departed the garden departs also, and all the +cats in Christendom can sit in council in your yard without causing you a +moment’s anxiety. If you have a bishop or an antiquary or something of +that sort coming to lunch you just mention the fact when you are ordering +the garden, and you get an old-world pleasaunce, with clipped yew hedges +and a sun-dial and hollyhocks, and perhaps a mulberry tree, and borders +of sweet-williams and Canterbury bells, and an old-fashioned beehive or +two tucked away in a corner. Those are the ordinary lines of supply that +the Oasis Association undertakes, but by paying a few guineas a year +extra you are entitled to its emergency E.O.N. service.” + +“What on earth is an E.O.N. service?” + +“It’s just a conventional signal to indicate special cases like the +incursion of Gwenda Pottingdon. It means you’ve got some one coming to +lunch or dinner whose garden is alleged to be ‘the envy of the +neighbourhood.’” + +“Yes,” exclaimed Elinor, with some excitement, “and what happens then?” + +“Something that sounds like a miracle out of the Arabian Nights. Your +backyard becomes voluptuous with pomegranate and almond trees, lemon +groves, and hedges of flowering cactus, dazzling banks of azaleas, +marble-basined fountains, in which chestnut-and-white pond-herons step +daintily amid exotic water-lilies, while golden pheasants strut about on +alabaster terraces. The whole effect rather suggests the idea that +Providence and Norman Wilkinson have dropped mutual jealousies and +collaborated to produce a background for an open-air Russian Ballet; in +point of fact, it is merely the background to your luncheon party. If +there is any kick left in Gwenda Pottingdon, or whoever your E.O.N. guest +of the moment may be, just mention carelessly that your climbing putella +is the only one in England, since the one at Chatsworth died last winter. +There isn’t such a thing as a climbing putella, but Gwenda Pottingdon and +her kind don’t usually know one flower from another without prompting.” + +“Quick,” said Elinor, “the address of the Association.” + +Gwenda Pottingdon did not enjoy her lunch. It was a simple yet elegant +meal, excellently cooked and daintily served, but the piquant sauce of +her own conversation was notably lacking. She had prepared a long +succession of eulogistic comments on the wonders of her town garden, with +its unrivalled effects of horticultural magnificence, and, behold, her +theme was shut in on every side by the luxuriant hedge of Siberian +berberis that formed a glowing background to Elinor’s bewildering +fragment of fairyland. The pomegranate and lemon trees, the terraced +fountain, where golden carp slithered and wriggled amid the roots of +gorgeous-hued irises, the banked masses of exotic blooms, the pagoda-like +enclosure, where Japanese sand-badgers disported themselves, all these +contributed to take away Gwenda’s appetite and moderate her desire to +talk about gardening matters. + +“I can’t say I admire the climbing putella,” she observed shortly, “and +anyway it’s not the only one of its kind in England; I happen to know of +one in Hampshire. How gardening is going out of fashion; I suppose +people haven’t the time for it nowadays.” + +Altogether it was quite one of Elinor’s most successful luncheon parties. + +It was distinctly an unforeseen catastrophe that Gwenda should have burst +in on the household four days later at lunch-time and made her way +unbidden into the dining-room. + +“I thought I must tell you that my Elaine has had a water-colour sketch +accepted by the Latent Talent Art Guild; it’s to be exhibited at their +summer exhibition at the Hackney Gallery. It will be the sensation of +the moment in the art world—Hullo, what on earth has happened to your +garden? It’s not there!” + +“Suffragettes,” said Elinor promptly; “didn’t you hear about it? They +broke in and made hay of the whole thing in about ten minutes. I was so +heart-broken at the havoc that I had the whole place cleared out; I shall +have it laid out again on rather more elaborate lines.” + +“That,” she said to the Baroness afterwards “is what I call having an +emergency brain.” + + + + +THE SHEEP + + +The enemy had declared “no trumps.” Rupert played out his ace and king +of clubs and cleared the adversary of that suit; then the Sheep, whom the +Fates had inflicted on him for a partner, took the third round with the +queen of clubs, and, having no other club to lead back, opened another +suit. The enemy won the remainder of the tricks—and the rubber. + +“I had four more clubs to play; we only wanted the odd trick to win the +rubber,” said Rupert. + +“But I hadn’t another club to lead you,” exclaimed the Sheep, with his +ready, defensive smile. + +“It didn’t occur to you to throw your queen away on my king and leave me +with the command of the suit,” said Rupert, with polite bitterness. + +“I suppose I ought to have—I wasn’t certain what to do. I’m awfully +sorry,” said the Sheep. + +Being awfully and uselessly sorry formed a large part of his occupation +in life. If a similar situation had arisen in a subsequent hand he would +have blundered just as certainly, and he would have been just as +irritatingly apologetic. + +Rupert stared gloomily across at him as he sat smiling and fumbling with +his cards. Many men who have good brains for business do not possess the +rudiments of a card-brain, and Rupert would not have judged and condemned +his prospective brother-in-law on the evidence of his bridge play alone. +The tragic part of it was that he smiled and fumbled through life just as +fatuously and apologetically as he did at the card-table. And behind the +defensive smile and the well-worn expressions of regret there shone a +scarcely believable but quite obvious self-satisfaction. Every sheep of +the pasture probably imagines that in an emergency it could become +terrible as an army with banners—one has only to watch how they stamp +their feet and stiffen their necks when a minor object of suspicion comes +into view and behaves meekly. And probably the majority of human sheep +see themselves in imagination taking great parts in the world’s more +impressive dramas, forming swift, unerring decisions in moments of +crisis, cowing mutinies, allaying panics, brave, strong, simple, but, in +spite of their natural modesty, always slightly spectacular. + +“Why in the name of all that is unnecessary and perverse should Kathleen +choose this man for her future husband?” was the question that Rupert +asked himself ruefully. There was young Malcolm Athling, as +nice-looking, decent, level-headed a fellow as any one could wish to +meet, obviously her very devoted admirer, and yet she must throw herself +away on this pale-eyed, weak-mouthed embodiment of self-approving +ineptitude. If it had been merely Kathleen’s own affair Rupert would +have shrugged his shoulders and philosophically hoped that she might make +the best of an undeniably bad bargain. But Rupert had no heir; his own +boy lay underground somewhere on the Indian frontier, in goodly company. +And the property would pass in due course to Kathleen and Kathleen’s +husband. The Sheep would live there in the beloved old home, rearing up +other little Sheep, fatuous and rabbit-faced and self-satisfied like +himself, to dwell in the land and possess it. It was not a soothing +prospect. + +Towards dusk on the afternoon following the bridge experience Rupert and +the Sheep made their way homeward after a day’s mixed shooting. The +Sheep’s cartridge bag was nearly empty, but his game bag showed no signs +of over-crowding. The birds he had shot at had seemed for the most part +as impervious to death or damage as the hero of a melodrama. And for +each failure to drop his bird he had some explanation or apology ready on +his lips. Now he was striding along in front of his host, chattering +happily over his shoulder, but obviously on the look-out for some belated +rabbit or woodpigeon that might haply be secured as an eleventh-hour +addition to his bag. As they passed the edge of a small copse a large +bird rose from the ground and flew slowly towards the trees, offering an +easy shot to the oncoming sportsmen. The Sheep banged forth with both +barrels, and gave an exultant cry. + +“Horray! I’ve shot a thundering big hawk!” + +“To be exact, you’ve shot a honey-buzzard. That is the hen bird of one +of the few pairs of honey-buzzards breeding in the United Kingdom. We’ve +kept them under the strictest preservation for the last four years; every +game-keeper and village gun loafer for twenty miles round has been warned +and bribed and threatened to respect their sanctity, and egg-snatching +agents have been carefully guarded against during the breeding season. +Hundreds of lovers of rare birds have delighted in seeing their +snap-shotted portraits in _Country Life_, and now you’ve reduced the hen +bird to a lump of broken feathers.” + +Rupert spoke quietly and evenly, but for a moment or two a gleam of +positive hatred shone in his eyes. + +“I say, I’m so sorry,” said the Sheep, with his apologetic smile. “Of +course I remember hearing about the buzzards, but somehow I didn’t +connect this bird with them. And it was such an east shot—” + +“Yes,” said Rupert; “that was the trouble.” + +Kathleen found him in the gun-room smoothing out the feathers of the dead +bird. She had already been told of the catastrophe. + +“What a horrid misfortune,” she said sympathetically. + +“It was my dear Robbie who first discovered them, the last time he was +home on leave. Don’t you remember how excited he was about them? Let’s +go and have some tea.” + +Both bridge and shooting were given a rest for the next two or three +weeks. Death, who enters into no compacts with party whips, had forced a +Parliamentary vacancy on the neighbourhood at the least convenient +season, and the local partisans on either side found themselves immersed +in the discomforts of a mid-winter election. Rupert took his politics +seriously and keenly. He belonged to that type of strangely but rather +happily constituted individuals which these islands seem to produce in a +fair plenty; men and women who for no personal profit or gain go forth +from their comfortable firesides or club card-rooms to hunt to and fro in +the mud and rain and wind for the capture or tracking of a stray vote +here and there on their party’s behalf—not because they think they ought +to, but because they want to. And his energies were welcome enough on +this occasion, for the seat was a closely disputed possession, and its +loss or retention would count for much in the present position of the +Parliamentary game. With Kathleen to help him, he had worked his corner +of the constituency with tireless, well-directed zeal, taking his share +of the dull routine work as well as of the livelier episodes. The +talking part of the campaign wound up on the eve of the poll with a +meeting in a centre where more undecided votes were supposed to be +concentrated than anywhere else in the division. A good final meeting +here would mean everything. And the speakers, local and imported, left +nothing undone to improve the occasion. Rupert was down for the +unimportant task of moving the complimentary vote to the chairman which +should close the proceedings. + +“I’m so hoarse,” he protested, when the moment arrived; “I don’t believe +I can make my voice heard beyond the platform.” + +“Let me do it,” said the Sheep; “I’m rather good at that sort of thing.” + +The chairman was popular with all parties, and the Sheep’s opening words +of complimentary recognition received a round of applause. The orator +smiled expansively on his listeners and seized the opportunity to add a +few words of political wisdom on his own account. People looked at the +clock or began to grope for umbrellas and discarded neckwraps. Then, in +the midst of a string of meaningless platitudes, the Sheep delivered +himself of one of those blundering remarks which travel from one end of a +constituency to the other in half an hour, and are seized on by the other +side as being more potent on their behalf than a ton of election +literature. There was a general shuffling and muttering across the +length and breadth of the hall, and a few hisses made themselves heard. +The Sheep tried to whittle down his remark, and the chairman +unhesitatingly threw him over in his speech of thanks, but the damage was +done. + +“I’m afraid I lost touch with the audience rather over that remark,” said +the Sheep afterwards, with his apologetic smile abnormally developed. + +“You lost us the election,” said the chairman, and he proved a true +prophet. + +A month or so of winter sport seemed a desirable pick-me-up after the +strenuous work and crowning discomfiture of the election. Rupert and +Kathleen hied them away to a small Alpine resort that was just coming +into prominence, and thither the Sheep followed them in due course, in +his role of husband-elect. The wedding had been fixed for the end of +March. + +It was a winter of early and unseasonable thaws, and the far end of the +local lake, at a spot where swift currents flowed into it, was decorated +with notices, written in three languages, warning skaters not to venture +over certain unsafe patches. The folly of approaching too near these +danger spots seemed to have a natural fascination for the Sheep. + +“I don’t see what possible danger there can be,” he protested, with his +inevitable smile, when Rupert beckoned him away from the proscribed area; +“the milk that I put out on my window-sill last night was frozen an inch +deep.” + +“It hadn’t got a strong current flowing through it,” said Rupert; “in any +case, there is not much sense in hovering round a doubtful piece of ice +when there are acres of good ice to skate over. The secretary of the +ice-committee has warned you once already.” + +A few minutes later Rupert heard a loud squeal of fear, and saw a dark +spot blotting the smoothness of the lake’s frozen surface. The Sheep was +struggling helplessly in an ice-hole of his own making. Rupert gave one +loud curse, and then dashed full tilt for the shore; outside a low stable +building on the lake’s edge he remembered having seen a ladder. If he +could slide it across the ice-hole before the Sheep went under the rescue +would be comparatively simple work. Other skaters were dashing up from a +distance, and, with the ladder’s help, they could get him out of his +death-trap without having to trust themselves on the margin of rotten +ice. Rupert sprang on to the surface of lumpy, frozen snow, and +staggered to where the ladder lay. He had already lifted it when the +rattle of a chain and a furious outburst of growls burst on his hearing, +and he was dashed to the ground by a mass of white and tawny fur. A +sturdy young yard-dog, frantic with the pleasure of performing his first +piece of active guardian service, was ramping and snarling over him, +rendering the task of regaining his feet or securing the ladder a matter +of considerable difficulty. When he had at last succeeded in both +efforts he was just by a hair’s-breadth too late to be of any use. The +Sheep had definitely disappeared under the ice-rift. + +Kathleen Athling and her husband stay the greater part of the year with +Rupert, and a small Robbie stands in some danger of being idolised by a +devoted uncle. But for twelve months of the year Rupert’s most +inseparable and valued companion is a sturdy tawny and white yard-dog. + + + + +THE OVERSIGHT + + +“It’s like a Chinese puzzle,” said Lady Prowche resentfully, staring at a +scribbled list of names that spread over two or three loose sheets of +notepaper on her writing-table. Most of the names had a pencil mark +running through them. + +“What is like a Chinese puzzle?” asked Lena Luddleford briskly; she +rather prided herself on being able to grapple with the minor problems of +life. + +“Getting people suitably sorted together. Sir Richard likes me to have a +house party about this time of year, and gives me a free hand as to whom +I should invite; all he asks is that it should be a peaceable party, with +no friction or unpleasantness.” + +“That seems reasonable enough,” said Lena. + +“Not only reasonable, my dear, but necessary. Sir Richard has his +literary work to think of; you can’t expect a man to concentrate on the +tribal disputes of Central Asian clansmen when he’s got social feuds +blazing under his own roof.” + +“But why should they blaze? Why should there be feuds at all within the +compass of a house party?” + +“Exactly; why should they blaze or why should they exist?” echoed Lady +Prowche; “the point is that they always do. We have been unlucky; +persistently unlucky, now that I come to look back on things. We have +always got people of violently opposed views under one roof, and the +result has been not merely unpleasantness but explosion.” + +“Do you mean people who disagree on matters of political opinion and +religious views?” asked Lena. + +“No, not that. The broader lines of political or religious difference +don’t matter. You can have Church of England and Unitarian and Buddhist +under the same roof without courting disaster; the only Buddhist I ever +had down here quarrelled with everybody, but that was on account of his +naturally squabblesome temperament; it had nothing to do with his +religion. And I’ve always found that people can differ profoundly about +politics and meet on perfectly good terms at breakfast. Now, Miss Larbor +Jones, who was staying here last year, worships Lloyd George as a sort of +wingless angel, while Mrs. Walters, who was down here at the same time, +privately considers him to be—an antelope, let us say.” + +“An antelope?” + +“Well, not an antelope exactly, but something with horns and hoofs and +tail.” + +“Oh, I see.” + +“Still, that didn’t prevent them from being the chummiest of mortals on +the tennis court and in the billiard-room. They did quarrel finally, +about a lead in a doubled hand of no-trumps, but that of course is a +thing that no account of judicious guest-grouping could prevent. Mrs. +Walters had got king, knave, ten, and seven of clubs—” + +“You were saying that there were other lines of demarcation that caused +the bother,” interrupted Lena. + +“Exactly. It is the minor differences and side-issues that give so much +trouble,” said Lady Prowche; “not to my dying day shall I forget last +year’s upheaval over the Suffragette question. Laura Henniseed left the +house in a state of speechless indignation, but before she had reached +that state she had used language that would not have been tolerated in +the Austrian Reichsrath. Intensive bear-gardening was Sir Richard’s +description of the whole affair, and I don’t think he exaggerated.” + +“Of course the Suffragette question is a burning one, and lets loose the +most dreadful ill-feeling,” said Lena; “but one can generally find out +beforehand what people’s opinions—” + +“My dear, the year before it was worse. It was Christian Science. +Selina Goobie is a sort of High Priestess of the Cult, and she put down +all opposition with a high hand. Then one evening, after dinner, Clovis +Sangrail put a wasp down her back, to see if her theory about the +non-existence of pain could be depended on in an emergency. The wasp was +small, but very efficient, and it had been soured in temper by being kept +in a paper cage all the afternoon. Wasps don’t stand confinement well, +at least this one didn’t. I don’t think I ever realised till that moment +what the word ‘invective’ could be made to mean. I sometimes wake in the +night and think I still hear Selina describing Clovis’s conduct and +general character. That was the year that Sir Richard was writing his +volume on ‘Domestic Life in Tartary.’ The critics all blamed it for a +lack of concentration.” + +“He’s engaged on a very important work this year, isn’t he?” asked Lena. + +“‘Land-tenure in Turkestan,’” said Lady Prowche; “he is just at work on +the final chapters and they require all the concentration he can give +them. That is why I am so very anxious not to have any unfortunate +disturbance this year. I have taken every precaution I can think of to +bring non-conflicting and harmonious elements together; the only two +people I am not quite easy about are the Atkinson man and Marcus Popham. +They are the two who will be down here longest together, and if they are +going to fall foul of one another about any burning question, well, there +will be more unpleasantness.” + +“Can’t you find out anything about them? About their opinions, I mean.” + +“Anything? My dear Lena, there’s scarcely anything that I haven’t found +out about them. They’re both of them moderate Liberal, Evangelical, +mildly opposed to female suffrage, they approve of the Falconer Report, +and the Stewards’ decision about Craganour. Thank goodness in this +country we don’t fly into violent passions about Wagner and Brahms and +things of that sort. There is only one thorny subject that I haven’t +been able to make sure about, the only stone that I have left unturned. +Are they unanimously anti-vivisectionist or do they both uphold the +necessity for scientific experiment? There has been a lot of +correspondence on the subject in our local newspapers of late, and the +vicar is certain to preach a sermon about it; vicars are dreadfully +provocative at times. Now, if you could only find out for me whether +these two men are divergently for or against—” + +“I!” exclaimed Lena; “how am I to find out? I don’t know either of them +to speak to.” + +“Still you might discover, in some roundabout way. Write to them, under +as assumed name of course, for subscriptions to one or other cause—or, +better still, send a stamped type-written reply postcard, with a request +for a declaration for or against vivisection; people who would hesitate +to commit themselves to a subscription will cheerfully write Yes or No on +a prepaid postcard. If you can’t manage it that way, try and meet them +at some one’s house and get into argument on the subject. I think Milly +occasionally has one or other of them at her at-homes; you might have the +luck to meet both of them there the same evening. Only it must be done +soon. My invitations ought to go out by Wednesday or Thursday at the +latest, and to-day is Friday. + +“Milly’s at-homes are not very amusing, as a rule,” said Lena, “and one +never gets a chance of talking uninterruptedly to any one for a couple of +minutes at a time; Milly is one of those restless hostesses who always +seem to be trying to see how you look in different parts of the room, in +fresh grouping effects. Even if I got to speak to Popham or Atkinson I +couldn’t plunge into a topic like vivisection straight away. No, I think +the postcard scheme would be more hopeful and decidedly less tiresome. +How would it be best to word them?” + +“Oh, something like this: ‘Are you in favour of experiments on living +animals for the purpose of scientific research—Yes or No?’ That is quite +simple and unmistakable. If they don’t answer it will at least be an +indication that they are indifferent about the subject, and that is all I +want to know.” + +“All right,” said Lena, “I’ll get my brother-in-law to let me have them +addressed to his office, and he can telephone the result of the +plebiscite direct to you.” + +“Thank you ever so much,” said Lady Prowche gratefully, “and be sure to +get the cards sent off as soon as possible.” + +On the following Tuesday the voice of an office clerk, speaking through +the telephone, informed Lady Prowche that the postcard poll showed +unanimous hostility to experiments on living animals. + +Lady Prowche thanked the office clerk, and in a louder and more fervent +voice she thanked Heaven. The two invitations, already sealed and +addressed, were immediately dispatched; in due course they were both +accepted. The house party of the halcyon hours, as the prospective +hostess called it, was auspiciously launched. + +Lena Luddleford was not included among the guests, having previously +committed herself to another invitation. At the opening day of a cricket +festival, however, she ran across Lady Prowche, who had motored over from +the other side of the county. She wore the air of one who is not +interested in cricket and not particularly interested in life. She shook +hands limply with Lena, and remarked that it was a beastly day. + +“The party, how has it gone off?” asked Lena quickly. + +“Don’t speak of it!” was the tragical answer; “why do I always have such +rotten luck?” + +“But what has happened?” + +“It has been awful. Hyænas could not have behaved with greater savagery. +Sir Richard said so, and he has been in countries where hyænas live, so +he ought to know. They actually came to blows!” + +“Blows?” + +“Blows and curses. It really might have been a scene from one of +Hogarth’s pictures. I never felt so humiliated in my life. What the +servants must have thought!” + +“But who were the offenders?” + +“Oh, naturally the very two that we took all the trouble about.” + +“I thought they agreed on every subject that one could violently disagree +about—religion, politics, vivisection, the Derby decision, the Falconer +Report; what else was there left to quarrel about?” + +“My dear, we were fools not to have thought of it. One of them was +Pro-Greek and the other Pro-Bulgar.” + + + + +HYACINTH + + +“The new fashion of introducing the candidate’s children into an election +contest is a pretty one,” said Mrs. Panstreppon; “it takes away something +from the acerbity of party warfare, and it makes an interesting +experience for children to look back on in after years. Still, if you +will listen to my advice, Matilda, you will not take Hyacinth with you +down to Luffbridge on election day.” + +“Not take Hyacinth!” exclaimed his mother; “but why not? Jutterly is +bringing his three children, and they are going to drive a pair of Nubian +donkeys about the town, to emphasise the fact that their father has been +appointed Colonial Secretary. We are making the demand for a strong Navy +a special feature in _our_ campaign, and it will be particularly +appropriate to have Hyacinth dressed in his sailor suit. He’ll look +heavenly.” + +“The question is, not how he’ll look, but how he’ll behave. He’s a +delightful child, of course, but there is a strain of unbridled pugnacity +in him that breaks out at times in a really alarming fashion. You may +have forgotten the affair of the little Gaffin children; I haven’t.” + +“I was in India at the time, and I’ve only a vague recollection of what +happened; he was very naughty, I know.” + +“He was in his goat-carriage, and met the Gaffins in their perambulator, +and he drove the goat full tilt at them and sent the perambulator +spinning. Little Jacky Gaffin was pinned down under the wreckage, and +while the nurse had her hands full with the goat Hyacinth was laying into +Jacky’s legs with his belt like a small fury.” + +“I’m not defending him,” said Matilda, “but they must have done something +to annoy him.” + +“Nothing intentionally, but some one had unfortunately told him that they +were half French—their mother was a Duboc, you know—and he had been +having a history lesson that morning, and had just heard of the final +loss of Calais by the English, and was furious about it. He said he’d +teach the little toads to go snatching towns from us, but we didn’t know +at the time that he was referring to the Gaffins. I told him afterwards +that all bad feeling between the two nations had died out long ago, and +that anyhow the Gaffins were only half French, and he said that it was +only the French half of Jacky that he had been hitting; the rest had been +buried under the perambulator. If the loss of Calais unloosed such fury +in him, I tremble to think what the possible loss of the election might +entail.” + +“All that happened when he was eight; he’s older now and knows better.” + +“Children with Hyacinth’s temperament don’t know better as they grow +older; they merely know more.” + +“Nonsense. He will enjoy the fun of the election, and in any case he’ll +be tired out by the time the poll is declared, and the new sailor suit +that I’ve had made for him is just in the right shade of blue for our +election colours, and it will exactly match the blue of his eyes. He +will be a perfectly charming note of colour.” + +“There is such a thing as letting one’s æsthetic sense override one’s +moral sense,” said Mrs. Panstreppon. “I believe you would have condoned +the South Sea Bubble and the persecution of the Albigenses if they had +been carried out in effective colour schemes. However, if anything +unfortunate should happen down at Luffbridge, don’t say it wasn’t +foreseen by one member of the family.” + +The election was keenly but decorously contested. The newly-appointed +Colonial Secretary was personally popular, while the Government to which +he adhered was distinctly unpopular, and there was some expectancy that +the majority of four hundred, obtained at the last election, would be +altogether wiped out. Both sides were hopeful, but neither could feel +confident. The children were a great success; the little Jutterlys drove +their chubby donkeys solemnly up and down the main streets, displaying +posters which advocated the claims of their father on the broad general +grounds that he was their father, while as for Hyacinth, his conduct +might have served as a model for any seraph-child that had strayed +unwittingly on to the scene of an electoral contest. Of his own accord, +and under the delighted eyes of half a dozen camera operators, he had +gone up to the Jutterly children and presented them with a packet of +butterscotch; “we needn’t be enemies because we’re wearing the opposite +colours,” he said with engaging friendliness, and the occupants of the +donkey-cart accepted his offering with polite solemnity. The grown-up +members of both political camps were delighted at the incident—with the +exception of Mrs. Panstreppon, who shuddered. + +“Never was Clytemnestra’s kiss sweeter than on the night she slew me,” +she quoted, but made the quotation to herself. + +The last hour of the poll was a period of unremitting labour for both +parties; it was generally estimated that not more than a dozen votes +separated the candidates, and every effort was made to bring up +obstinately wavering electors. It was with a feeling of relaxation and +relief that every one heard the clocks strike the hour for the close of +the poll. Exclamations broke out from the tired workers, and corks flew +out from bottles. + +“Well, if we haven’t won; we’ve done our level best.” “It has been a +clean straight fight, with no rancour.” “The children were quite a +charming feature, weren’t they?” + +The children? It suddenly occurred to everybody that they had seen +nothing of the children for the last hour. What had become of the three +little Jutterlys and their donkey-cart, and, for the matter of that, what +had become of Hyacinth. Hurried, anxious embassies went backwards and +forwards between the respective party headquarters and the various +committee-rooms, but there was blank ignorance everywhere as to the +whereabouts of the children. Every one had been too busy in the closing +moments of the poll to bestow a thought on them. Then there came a +telephone call at the Unionist Women’s Committee-rooms, and the voice of +Hyacinth was heard demanding when the poll would be declared. + +“Where are you, and where are the Jutterly children?” asked his mother. + +“I’ve just finished having high-tea at a pastry-cook’s,” came the answer, +“and they let me telephone. I’ve had a poached egg and a sausage roll +and four meringues.” + +“You’ll be ill. Are the little Jutterlys with you?” + +“Rather not. They’re in a pigstye.” + +“A pigstye? Why? What pigstye?” + +“Near the Crawleigh Road. I met them driving about a back road, and told +them they were to have tea with me, and put their donkeys in a yard that +I knew of. Then I took them to see an old sow that had got ten little +pigs. I got the sow into the outer stye by giving her bits of bread, +while the Jutterlys went in to look at the litter, then I bolted the door +and left them there.” + +“You wicked boy, do you mean to say you’ve left those poor children there +alone in the pigstye?” + +“They’re not alone, they’ve got ten little pigs in with them; they’re +jolly well crowded. They were pretty mad at being shut in, but not half +as mad as the old sow is at being shut out from her young ones. If she +gets in while they’re there she’ll bite them into mincemeat. I can get +them out by letting a short ladder down through the top window, and +that’s what I’m going to do _if we win_. If their blighted father gets +in, I’m just going to open the door for the sow, and let her do what she +dashed well likes to them. That’s why I want to know when the poll will +be declared.” + +Here the narrator rang off. A wild stampede and a frantic sending-off of +messengers took place at the other end of the telephone. Nearly all the +workers on either side had disappeared to their various club-rooms and +public-house bars to await the declaration of the poll, but enough local +information could be secured to determine the scene of Hyacinth’s +exploit. Mr. John Ball had a stable yard down near the Crawleigh Road, +up a short lane, and his sow was known to have a litter of ten young +ones. Thither went in headlong haste both the candidates, Hyacinth’s +mother, his aunt (Mrs. Panstreppon), and two or three hurriedly-summoned +friends. The two Nubian donkeys, contentedly munching at bundles of hay, +met their gaze as they entered the yard. The hoarse savage grunting of +an enraged animal and the shriller note of thirteen young voices, three +of them human, guided them to the stye, in the outer yard of which a huge +Yorkshire sow kept up a ceaseless raging patrol before a closed door. +Reclining on the broad ledge of an open window, from which point of +vantage he could reach down and shoot the bolt of the door, was Hyacinth, +his blue sailor-suit somewhat the worse of wear, and his angel smile +exchanged for a look of demoniacal determination. + +“If any of you come a step nearer,” he shouted, “the sow will be inside +in half a jiffy.” + +A storm of threatening, arguing, entreating expostulation broke from the +baffled rescue party, but it made no more impression on Hyacinth than the +squealing tempest that raged within the stye. + +“If Jutterly heads the poll I’m going to let the sow in. I’ll teach the +blighters to win elections from us.” + +“He means it,” said Mrs. Panstreppon; “I feared the worst when I saw that +butterscotch incident.” + +“It’s all right, my little man,” said Jutterly, with the duplicity to +which even a Colonial Secretary can sometimes stoop, “your father has +been elected by a large majority.” + +“Liar!” retorted Hyacinth, with the directness of speech that is not +merely excusable, but almost obligatory, in the political profession; +“the votes aren’t counted yet. You won’t gammon me as to the result, +either. A boy that I’ve palled with is going to fire a gun when the poll +is declared; two shots if we’ve won, one shot if we haven’t.” + +The situation began to look critical. “Drug the sow,” whispered +Hyacinth’s father. + +Some one went off in the motor to the nearest chemist’s shop and returned +presently with two large pieces of bread, liberally dosed with narcotic. +The bread was thrown deftly and unostentatiously into the stye, but +Hyacinth saw through the manœuvre. He set up a piercing imitation of a +small pig in Purgatory, and the infuriated mother ramped round and round +the stye; the pieces of bread were trampled into slush. + +At any moment now the poll might be declared. Jutterly flew back to the +Town Hall, where the votes were being counted. His agent met him with a +smile of hope. + +“You’re eleven ahead at present, and only about eighty more to be +counted; you’re just going to squeak through.” + +“I mustn’t squeak through,” exclaimed Jutterly, hoarsely. “You must +object to every doubtful vote on our side that can possibly be +disallowed. I must _not_ have the majority.” + +Then was seen the unprecedented sight of a party agent challenging the +votes on his own side with a captiousness that his opponents would have +hesitated to display. One or two votes that would have certainly passed +muster under ordinary circumstances were disallowed, but even so Jutterly +was six ahead with only thirty more to be counted. + +To the watchers by the stye the moments seemed intolerable. As a last +resort some one had been sent for a gun with which to shoot the sow, +though Hyacinth would probably draw the bolt the moment such a weapon was +brought into the yard. Nearly all the men were away from their homes, +however, on election night, and the messenger had evidently gone far +afield in his search. It must be a matter of minutes now to the +declaration of the poll. + +A sudden roar of shouting and cheering was heard from the direction of +the Town Hall. Hyacinth’s father clutched a pitchfork and prepared to +dash into the stye in the forlorn hope of being in time. + +A shot rang out in the evening air. Hyacinth stooped down from his perch +and put his finger on the bolt. The sow pressed furiously against the +door. + +“Bang,” came another shot. + +Hyacinth wriggled back, and sent a short ladder down through the window +of the inner stye. + +“Now you can come up, you unclean little blighters,” he sang out; “my +daddy’s got in, not yours. Hurry up, I can’t keep the sow waiting much +longer. And don’t you jolly well come butting into any election again +where I’m on the job.” + +In the reaction that set in after the deliverance furious recrimination +were indulged in by the lately opposed candidates, their women folk, +agents, and party helpers. A recount was demanded, but failed to +establish the fact that the Colonial Secretary had obtained a majority. +Altogether the election left a legacy of soreness behind it, apart from +any that was experienced by Hyacinth in person. + +“It is the last time I shall let him go to an election,” exclaimed his +mother. + +“There I think you are going to extremes,” said Mrs. Panstreppon; “if +there should be a general election in Mexico I think you might safely let +him go there, but I doubt whether our English politics are suited to the +rough and tumble of an angel-child.” + + + + +THE IMAGE OF THE LOST SOUL + + +There were a number of carved stone figures placed at intervals along the +parapets of the old Cathedral; some of them represented angels, others +kings and bishops, and nearly all were in attitudes of pious exaltation +and composure. But one figure, low down on the cold north side of the +building, had neither crown, mitre, not nimbus, and its face was hard and +bitter and downcast; it must be a demon, declared the fat blue pigeons +that roosted and sunned themselves all day on the ledges of the parapet; +but the old belfry jackdaw, who was an authority on ecclesiastical +architecture, said it was a lost soul. And there the matter rested. + +One autumn day there fluttered on to the Cathedral roof a slender, +sweet-voiced bird that had wandered away from the bare fields and +thinning hedgerows in search of a winter roosting-place. It tried to +rest its tired feet under the shade of a great angel-wing or to nestle in +the sculptured folds of a kingly robe, but the fat pigeons hustled it +away from wherever it settled, and the noisy sparrow-folk drove it off +the ledges. No respectable bird sang with so much feeling, they cheeped +one to another, and the wanderer had to move on. + +Only the effigy of the Lost Soul offered a place of refuge. The pigeons +did not consider it safe to perch on a projection that leaned so much out +of the perpendicular, and was, besides, too much in the shadow. The +figure did not cross its hands in the pious attitude of the other graven +dignitaries, but its arms were folded as in defiance and their angle made +a snug resting-place for the little bird. Every evening it crept +trustfully into its corner against the stone breast of the image, and the +darkling eyes seemed to keep watch over its slumbers. The lonely bird +grew to love its lonely protector, and during the day it would sit from +time to time on some rainshoot or other abutment and trill forth its +sweetest music in grateful thanks for its nightly shelter. And, it may +have been the work of wind and weather, or some other influence, but the +wild drawn face seemed gradually to lose some of its hardness and +unhappiness. Every day, through the long monotonous hours, the song of +his little guest would come up in snatches to the lonely watcher, and at +evening, when the vesper-bell was ringing and the great grey bats slid +out of their hiding-places in the belfry roof, the bright-eyed bird would +return, twitter a few sleepy notes, and nestle into the arms that were +waiting for him. Those were happy days for the Dark Image. Only the +great bell of the Cathedral rang out daily its mocking message, “After +joy . . . sorrow.” + +The folk in the verger’s lodge noticed a little brown bird flitting about +the Cathedral precincts, and admired its beautiful singing. “But it is a +pity,” said they, “that all that warbling should be lost and wasted far +out of hearing up on the parapet.” They were poor, but they understood +the principles of political economy. So they caught the bird and put it +in a little wicker cage outside the lodge door. + +That night the little songster was missing from its accustomed haunt, and +the Dark Image knew more than ever the bitterness of loneliness. Perhaps +his little friend had been killed by a prowling cat or hurt by a stone. +Perhaps . . . perhaps he had flown elsewhere. But when morning came +there floated up to him, through the noise and bustle of the Cathedral +world, a faint heart-aching message from the prisoner in the wicker cage +far below. And every day, at high noon, when the fat pigeons were +stupefied into silence after their midday meal and the sparrows were +washing themselves in the street-puddles, the song of the little bird +came up to the parapets—a song of hunger and longing and hopelessness, a +cry that could never be answered. The pigeons remarked, between +mealtimes, that the figure leaned forward more than ever out of the +perpendicular. + +One day no song came up from the little wicker cage. It was the coldest +day of the winter, and the pigeons and sparrows on the Cathedral roof +looked anxiously on all sides for the scraps of food which they were +dependent on in hard weather. + +“Have the lodge-folk thrown out anything on to the dust-heap?” inquired +one pigeon of another which was peering over the edge of the north +parapet. + +“Only a little dead bird,” was the answer. + +There was a crackling sound in the night on the Cathedral roof and a +noise as of falling masonry. The belfry jackdaw said the frost was +affecting the fabric, and as he had experienced many frosts it must have +been so. In the morning it was seen that the Figure of the Lost Soul had +toppled from its cornice and lay now in a broken mass on the dust-heap +outside the verger’s lodge. + +“It is just as well,” cooed the fat pigeons, after they had peered at the +matter for some minutes; “now we shall have a nice angel put up there. +Certainly they will put an angel there.” + +“After joy . . . sorrow,” rang out the great bell. + + + + +THE PURPLE OF THE BALKAN KINGS + + +Luitpold Wolkenstein, financier and diplomat on a small, obtrusive, +self-important scale, sat in his favoured cafe in the world-wise Habsburg +capital, confronted with the _Neue Freie Presse_ and the cup of +cream-topped coffee and attendant glass of water that a sleek-headed +piccolo had just brought him. For years longer than a dog’s lifetime +sleek-headed piccolos had placed the _Neue Freie Presse_ and a cup of +cream-topped coffee on his table; for years he had sat at the same spot, +under the dust-coated, stuffed eagle, that had once been a living, +soaring bird on the Styrian mountains, and was now made monstrous and +symbolical with a second head grafted on to its neck and a gilt crown +planted on either dusty skull. To-day Luitpold Wolkenstein read no more +than the first article in his paper, but read it again and again. + +“The Turkish fortress of Kirk Kilisseh has fallen . . . The Serbs, it is +officially announced, have taken Kumanovo . . . The fortress of Kirk +Kilisseh lost, Kumanovo taken by the Serbs, these are tiding for +Constantinople resembling something out of Shakspeare’s tragedies of the +kings . . . The neighbourhood of Adrianople and the Eastern region, +where the great battle is now in progress, will not reveal merely the +future of Turkey, but also what position and what influence the Balkan +States are to have in the world.” + +For years longer than a dog’s lifetime Luitpold Wolkenstein had disposed +of the pretensions and strivings of the Balkan States over the cup of +cream-topped coffee that sleek-headed piccolos had brought him. Never +travelling further eastward than the horse-fair at Temesvar, never +inviting personal risk in an encounter with anything more potentially +desperate than a hare or partridge, he had constituted himself the +critical appraiser and arbiter of the military and national prowess of +the small countries that fringed the Dual Monarchy on its Danube border. +And his judgment had been one of unsparing contempt for small-scale +efforts, of unquestioning respect for the big battalions and full purses. +Over the whole scene of the Balkan territories and their troubled +histories had loomed the commanding magic of the words “the Great +Powers”—even more imposing in their Teutonic rendering, “Die +Grossmächte.” + +Worshipping power and force and money-mastery as an elderly nerve-ridden +woman might worship youthful physical energy, the comfortable, +plump-bodied cafe-oracle had jested and gibed at the ambitions of the +Balkan kinglets and their peoples, had unloosed against them that battery +of strange lip-sounds that a Viennese employs almost as an auxiliary +language to express the thoughts when his thoughts are not complimentary. +British travellers had visited the Balkan lands and reported high things +of the Bulgarians and their future, Russian officers had taken peeps at +their army and confessed “this is a thing to be reckoned with, and it is +not we who have created it, they have done it by themselves.” But over +his cups of coffee and his hour-long games of dominoes the oracle had +laughed and wagged his head and distilled the worldly wisdom of his +castle. The Grossmächte had not succeeded in stifling the roll of the +war-drum, that was true; the big battalions of the Ottoman Empire would +have to do some talking, and then the big purses and big threatenings of +the Powers would speak and the last word would be with them. In +imagination Luitpold heard the onward tramp of the red-fezzed bayonet +bearers echoing through the Balkan passes, saw the little sheepskin-clad +mannikins driven back to their villages, saw the augustly chiding +spokesman of the Powers dictating, adjusting, restoring, settling things +once again in their allotted places, sweeping up the dust of conflict, +and now his ears had to listen to the war-drum rolling in quite another +direction, had to listen to the tramp of battalions that were bigger and +bolder and better skilled in war-craft than he had deemed possible in +that quarter; his eyes had to read in the columns of his accustomed +newspaper a warning to the Grossmächte that they had something new to +learn, something new to reckon with, much that was time-honoured to +relinquish. “The Great Powers will have not little difficulty in +persuading the Balkan States of the inviolability of the principle that +Europe cannot permit any fresh partition of territory in the East without +her approval. Even now, while the campaign is still undecided, there are +rumours of a project of fiscal unity, extending over the entire Balkan +lands, and further of a constitutional union in imitation of the German +Empire. That is perhaps only a political straw blown by the storm, but +it is not possible to dismiss the reflection that the Balkan States +leagued together command a military strength with which the Great Powers +will have to reckon . . . The people who have poured out their blood on +the battlefields and sacrificed the available armed men of an entire +generation in order to encompass a union with their kinsfolk will not +remain any longer in an attitude of dependence on the Great Powers or on +Russia, but will go their own ways . . . The blood that has been poured +forth to-day gives for the first time a genuine tone to the purple of the +Balkan Kings. The Great Powers cannot overlook the fact that a people +that has tasted victory will not let itself be driven back again within +its former limits. Turkey has lost to-day not only Kirk Kilisseh and +Kumanovo, but Macedonia also.” + +Luitpold Wolkenstein drank his coffee, but the flavour had somehow gone +out of it. His world, his pompous, imposing, dictating world, had +suddenly rolled up into narrower dimensions. The big purses and the big +threats had been pushed unceremoniously on one side; a force that he +could not fathom, could not comprehend, had made itself rudely felt. The +august Cæsars of Mammon and armament had looked down frowningly on the +combat, and those about to die had not saluted, had no intention of +saluting. A lesson was being imposed on unwilling learners, a lesson of +respect for certain fundamental principles, and it was not the small +struggling States who were being taught the lesson. + +Luitpold Wolkenstein did not wait for the quorum of domino players to +arrive. They would all have read the article in the _Freie Presse_. And +there are moments when an oracle finds its greatest salvation in +withdrawing itself from the area of human questioning. + + + + +THE CUPBOARD OF THE YESTERDAYS + + +“War is a cruelly destructive thing,” said the Wanderer, dropping his +newspaper to the floor and staring reflectively into space. + +“Ah, yes, indeed,” said the Merchant, responding readily to what seemed +like a safe platitude; “when one thinks of the loss of life and limb, the +desolated homesteads, the ruined—” + +“I wasn’t thinking of anything of the sort,” said the Wanderer; “I was +thinking of the tendency that modern war has to destroy and banish the +very elements of picturesqueness and excitement that are its chief excuse +and charm. It is like a fire that flares up brilliantly for a while and +then leaves everything blacker and bleaker than before. After every +important war in South-East Europe in recent times there has been a +shrinking of the area of chronically disturbed territory, a stiffening of +frontier lines, an intrusion of civilised monotony. And imagine what may +happen at the conclusion of this war if the Turk should really be driven +out of Europe.” + +“Well, it would be a gain to the cause of good government, I suppose,” +said the Merchant. + +“But have you counted the loss?” said the other. “The Balkans have long +been the last surviving shred of happy hunting-ground for the +adventurous, a playground for passions that are fast becoming atrophied +for want of exercise. In old bygone days we had the wars in the Low +Countries always at our doors, as it were; there was no need to go far +afield into malaria-stricken wilds if one wanted a life of boot and +saddle and licence to kill and be killed. Those who wished to see life +had a decent opportunity for seeing death at the same time.” + +“It is scarcely right to talk of killing and bloodshed in that way,” said +the Merchant reprovingly; “one must remember that all men are brothers.” + +“One must also remember that a large percentage of them are younger +brothers; instead of going into bankruptcy, which is the usual tendency +of the younger brother nowadays, they gave their families a fair chance +of going into mourning. Every bullet finds a billet, according to a +rather optimistic proverb, and you must admit that nowadays it is +becoming increasingly difficult to find billets for a lot of young +gentlemen who would have adorned, and probably thoroughly enjoyed, one of +the old-time happy-go-lucky wars. But that is not exactly the burden of +my complaint. The Balkan lands are especially interesting to us in these +rapidly-moving days because they afford us the last remaining glimpse of +a vanishing period of European history. When I was a child one of the +earliest events of the outside world that forced itself coherently under +my notice was a war in the Balkans; I remember a sunburnt, soldierly man +putting little pin-flags in a war-map, red flags for the Turkish forces +and yellow flags for the Russians. It seemed a magical region, with its +mountain passes and frozen rivers and grim battlefields, its drifting +snows, and prowling wolves; there was a great stretch of water that bore +the sinister but engaging name of the Black Sea—nothing that I ever +learned before or after in a geography lesson made the same impression on +me as that strange-named inland sea, and I don’t think its magic has ever +faded out of my imagination. And there was a battle called Plevna that +went on and on with varying fortunes for what seemed like a great part of +a lifetime; I remember the day of wrath and mourning when the little red +flag had to be taken away from Plevna—like other maturer judges, I was +backing the wrong horse, at any rate the losing horse. And now to-day we +are putting little pin-flags again into maps of the Balkan region, and +the passions are being turned loose once more in their playground.” + +“The war will be localised,” said the Merchant vaguely; “at least every +one hopes so.” + +“It couldn’t wish for a better locality,” said the Wanderer; “there is a +charm about those countries that you find nowhere else in Europe, the +charm of uncertainty and landslide, and the little dramatic happenings +that make all the difference between the ordinary and the desirable.” + +“Life is held very cheap in those parts,” said the Merchant. + +“To a certain extent, yes,” said the Wanderer. “I remember a man at +Sofia who used to teach me Bulgarian in a rather inefficient manner, +interspersed with a lot of quite wearisome gossip. I never knew what his +personal history was, but that was only because I didn’t listen; he told +it to me many times. After I left Bulgaria he used to send me Sofia +newspapers from time to time. I felt that he would be rather tiresome if +I ever went there again. And then I heard afterwards that some men came +in one day from Heaven knows where, just as things do happen in the +Balkans, and murdered him in the open street, and went away as quietly as +they had come. You will not understand it, but to me there was something +rather piquant in the idea of such a thing happening to such a man; after +his dullness and his long-winded small-talk it seemed a sort of brilliant +_esprit d’esalier_ on his part to meet with an end of such ruthlessly +planned and executed violence.” + +The Merchant shook his head; the piquancy of the incident was not within +striking distance of his comprehension. + +“I should have been shocked at hearing such a thing about any one I had +known,” he said. + +“The present war,” continued his companion, without stopping to discuss +two hopelessly divergent points of view, “may be the beginning of the end +of much that has hitherto survived the resistless creeping-in of +civilisation. If the Balkan lands are to be finally parcelled out +between the competing Christian Kingdoms and the haphazard rule of the +Turk banished to beyond the Sea of Marmora, the old order, or disorder if +you like, will have received its death-blow. Something of its spirit +will linger perhaps for a while in the old charmed regions where it bore +sway; the Greek villagers will doubtless be restless and turbulent and +unhappy where the Bulgars rule, and the Bulgars will certainly be +restless and turbulent and unhappy under Greek administration, and the +rival flocks of the Exarchate and Patriarchate will make themselves +intensely disagreeable to one another wherever the opportunity offers; +the habits of a lifetime, of several lifetimes, are not laid aside all at +once. And the Albanians, of course, we shall have with us still, a +troubled Moslem pool left by the receding wave of Islam in Europe. But +the old atmosphere will have changed, the glamour will have gone; the +dust of formality and bureaucratic neatness will slowly settle down over +the time-honoured landmarks; the Sanjak of Novi Bazar, the Muersteg +Agreement, the Komitadje bands, the Vilayet of Adrianople, all those +familiar outlandish names and things and places, that we have known so +long as part and parcel of the Balkan Question, will have passed away +into the cupboard of yesterdays, as completely as the Hansa League and +the wars of the Guises. + +“They were the heritage that history handed down to us, spoiled and +diminished no doubt, in comparison with yet earlier days that we never +knew, but still something to thrill and enliven one little corner of our +Continent, something to help us to conjure up in our imagination the days +when the Turk was thundering at the gates of Vienna. And what shall we +have to hand down to our children? Think of what their news from the +Balkans will be in the course of another ten or fifteen years. Socialist +Congress at Uskub, election riot at Monastir, great dock strike at +Salonika, visit of the Y.M.C.A. to Varna. Varna—on the coast of that +enchanted sea! They will drive out to some suburb to tea, and write home +about it as the Bexhill of the East. + +“War is a wickedly destructive thing.” + +“Still, you must admit—” began the Merchant. But the Wanderer was not in +the mood to admit anything. He rose impatiently and walked to where the +tape-machine was busy with the news from Adrianople. + + + + +FOR THE DURATION OF THE WAR + + +The Rev. Wilfrid Gaspilton, in one of those clerical migrations +inconsequent-seeming to the lay mind, had removed from the moderately +fashionable parish of St. Luke’s, Kensingate, to the immoderately rural +parish of St. Chuddocks, somewhere in Yondershire. There were doubtless +substantial advantages connected with the move, but there were certainly +some very obvious drawbacks. Neither the migratory clergyman nor his +wife were able to adapt themselves naturally and comfortably to the +conditions of country life. Beryl, Mrs. Gaspilton, had always looked +indulgently on the country as a place where people of irreproachable +income and hospitable instincts cultivated tennis-lawns and rose-gardens +and Jacobean pleasaunces, wherein selected gatherings of interested +week-end guests might disport themselves. Mrs. Gaspilton considered +herself as distinctly an interesting personality, and from a limited +standpoint she was doubtless right. She had indolent dark eyes and a +comfortable chin, which belied the slightly plaintive inflection which +she threw into her voice at suitable intervals. She was tolerably well +satisfied with the smaller advantages of life, but she regretted that +Fate had not seen its way to reserve for her some of the ampler successes +for which she felt herself well qualified. She would have liked to be +the centre of a literary, slightly political salon, where discerning +satellites might have recognised the breadth of her outlook on human +affairs and the undoubted smallness of her feet. As it was, Destiny had +chosen for her that she should be the wife of a rector, and had now +further decreed that a country rectory should be the background to her +existence. She rapidly made up her mind that her surroundings did not +call for exploration; Noah had predicted the Flood, but no one expected +him to swim about in it. Digging in a wet garden or trudging through +muddy lanes were exertions which she did not propose to undertake. As +long as the garden produced asparagus and carnations at pleasingly +frequent intervals Mrs. Gaspilton was content to approve of its expense +and otherwise ignore its existence. She would fold herself up, so to +speak, in an elegant, indolent little world of her own, enjoying the +minor recreations of being gently rude to the doctor’s wife and +continuing the leisurely production of her one literary effort, _The +Forbidden Horsepond_, a translation of Baptiste Leopoy’s _L’Abreuvoir +interdit_. It was a labour which had already been so long drawn-out that +it seemed probable that Baptiste Lepoy would drop out of vogue before her +translation of his temporarily famous novel was finished. However, the +languid prosecution of the work had invested Mrs. Gaspilton with a +certain literary dignity, even in Kensingate circles, and would place her +on a pinnacle in St. Chuddocks, where hardly any one read French, and +assuredly no one had heard of _L’Abreuvoir interdit_. + +The Rector’s wife might be content to turn her back complacently on the +country; it was the Rector’s tragedy that the country turned its back on +him. With the best intention in the world and the immortal example of +Gilbert White before him, the Rev. Wilfrid found himself as bored and ill +at ease in his new surroundings as Charles II would have been at a modern +Wesleyan Conference. The birds that hopped across his lawn hopped across +it as though it were their lawn, and not his, and gave him plainly to +understand that in their eyes he was infinitely less interesting than a +garden worm or the rectory cat. The hedgeside and meadow flowers were +equally uninspiring; the lesser celandine seemed particularly unworthy of +the attention that English poets had bestowed on it, and the Rector knew +that he would be utterly miserable if left alone for a quarter of an hour +in its company. With the human inhabitants of his parish he was no +better off; to know them was merely to know their ailments, and the +ailments were almost invariably rheumatism. Some, of course, had other +bodily infirmities, but they always had rheumatism as well. The Rector +had not yet grasped the fact that in rural cottage life not to have +rheumatism is as glaring an omission as not to have been presented at +Court would be in more ambitious circles. And with all this death of +local interest there was Beryl shutting herself off with her ridiculous +labours on _The Forbidden Horsepond_. + +“I don’t see why you should suppose that any one wants to read Baptiste +Lepoy in English,” the Reverend Wilfrid remarked to his wife one morning, +finding her surrounded with her usual elegant litter of dictionaries, +fountain pens, and scribbling paper; “hardly any one bothers to read him +now in France.” + +“My dear,” said Beryl, with an intonation of gentle weariness, “haven’t +two or three leading London publishers told me they wondered no one had +ever translated _L’Abreuvoir interdit_, and begged me—” + +“Publishers always clamour for the books that no one has ever written, +and turn a cold shoulder on them as soon as they’re written. If St. Paul +were living now they would pester him to write an Epistle to the +Esquimaux, but no London publisher would dream of reading his Epistle to +the Ephesians.” + +“Is there any asparagus in the garden?” asked Beryl; “because I’ve told +cook—” + +“Not anywhere in the garden,” snapped the Rector, “but there’s no doubt +plenty in the asparagus-bed, which is the usual place for it.” + +And he walked away into the region of fruit trees and vegetable beds to +exchange irritation for boredom. It was there, among the gooseberry +bushes and beneath the medlar trees, that the temptation to the +perpetration of a great literary fraud came to him. + +Some weeks later the _Bi-Monthly Review_ gave to the world, under the +guarantee of the Rev. Wilfrid Gaspilton, some fragments of Persian verse, +alleged to have been unearthed and translated by a nephew who was at +present campaigning somewhere in the Tigris valley. The Rev. Wilfrid +possessed a host of nephews, and it was of course, quite possible that +one or more of them might be in military employ in Mesopotamia, though no +one could call to mind any particular nephew who could have been +suspected of being a Persian scholar. + +The verses were attributed to one Ghurab, a hunter, or, according to +other accounts, warden of the royal fishponds, who lived, in some +unspecified century, in the neighbourhood of Karmanshah. They breathed a +spirit of comfortable, even-tempered satire and philosophy, disclosing a +mockery that did not trouble to be bitter, a joy in life that was not +passionate to the verge of being troublesome. + + “A Mouse that prayed for Allah’s aid + Blasphemed when no such aid befell: + A Cat, who feasted on that mouse, + Thought Allah managed vastly well. + + Pray not for aid to One who made + A set of never-changing Laws, + But in your need remember well + He gave you speed, or guile—or claws. + + Some laud a life of mild content: + Content may fall, as well as Pride. + The Frog who hugged his lowly Ditch + Was much disgruntled when it dried. + + ‘You are not on the Road to Hell,’ + You tell me with fanatic glee: + Vain boaster, what shall that avail + If Hell is on the road to thee? + + A Poet praised the Evening Star, + Another praised the Parrot’s hue: + A Merchant praised his merchandise, + And he, at least, praised what he knew.” + +It was this verse which gave the critics and commentators some clue as to +the probable date of the composition; the parrot, they reminded the +public, was in high vogue as a type of elegance in the days of Hafiz of +Shiraz; in the quatrains of Omar it makes no appearance. + +The next verse, it was pointed out, would apply to the political +conditions of the present day as strikingly as to the region and era for +which it was written— + + “A Sultan dreamed day-long of Peace, + The while his Rivals’ armies grew: + They changed his Day-dreams into sleep + —The Peace, methinks, he never knew.” + +Woman appeared little, and wine not at all in the verse of the +hunter-poet, but there was at least one contribution to the +love-philosophy of the East— + + “O Moon-faced Charmer, and Star-drownèd Eyes, + And cheeks of soft delight, exhaling musk, + They tell me that thy charm will fade; ah well, + The Rose itself grows hue-less in the Dusk.” + +Finally, there was a recognition of the Inevitable, a chill breath +blowing across the poet’s comfortable estimate of life— + + “There is a sadness in each Dawn, + A sadness that you cannot rede: + The joyous Day brings in its train + The Feast, the Loved One, and the Steed. + + Ah, there shall come a Dawn at last + That brings no life-stir to your ken, + A long, cold Dawn without a Day, + And ye shall rede its sadness then.” + +The verses of Ghurab came on the public at a moment when a comfortable, +slightly quizzical philosophy was certain to be welcome, and their +reception was enthusiastic. Elderly colonels, who had outlived the love +of truth, wrote to the papers to say that they had been familiar with the +works of Ghurab in Afghanistan, and Aden, and other suitable localities a +quarter of a century ago. A Ghurab-of-Karmanshah Club sprang into +existence, the members of which alluded to each other as Brother +Ghurabians on the slightest provocation. And to the flood of inquiries, +criticisms, and requests for information, which naturally poured in on +the discoverer, or rather the discloser, of this long-hidden poet, the +Rev. Wilfrid made one effectual reply: Military considerations forbade +any disclosures which might throw unnecessary light on his nephew’s +movements. + +After the war the Rector’s position will be one of unthinkable +embarrassment, but for the moment, at any rate, he has driven _The +Forbidden Horsepond_ out of the field. + + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TOYS OF PEACE*** + + +******* This file should be named 1477-0.txt or 1477-0.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/4/7/1477 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +http://www.gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at http://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/pglaf. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at http://www.gutenberg.org/about/contact + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit http://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/donate + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. +To donate, please visit: +http://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + diff --git a/1477-0.zip b/1477-0.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..e30b3b2 --- /dev/null +++ b/1477-0.zip diff --git a/1477-h.zip b/1477-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..00ed186 --- /dev/null +++ b/1477-h.zip diff --git a/1477-h/1477-h.htm b/1477-h/1477-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ac8b80b --- /dev/null +++ b/1477-h/1477-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,7504 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=US-ASCII" /> +<title>The Toys of Peace, by Saki</title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + P { margin-top: .75em; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + P.gutsumm { margin-left: 5%;} + P.poetry {margin-left: 3%; } + .GutSmall { font-size: 0.7em; } + H1, H2 { + text-align: center; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + } + H3, H4, H5 { + text-align: center; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; + } + BODY{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + table { border-collapse: collapse; } +table {margin-left:auto; margin-right:auto;} + td { vertical-align: top; border: 1px solid black;} + td p { margin: 0.2em; } + .blkquot {margin-left: 4em; margin-right: 4em;} /* block indent */ + + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + + .pagenum {position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: small; + text-align: right; + font-weight: normal; + color: gray; + } + img { border: none; } + img.dc { float: left; width: 50px; height: 50px; } + div.gapspace { height: 0.8em; } + div.gapline { height: 0.8em; width: 100%; border-top: 1px solid;} + div.gapmediumline { height: 0.3em; width: 40%; margin-left:30%; + border-top: 1px solid; } + div.gapshortdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 20%; + margin-left: 40%; border-top: 1px solid; + border-bottom: 1px solid; } + div.gapdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 50%; + margin-left: 25%; border-top: 1px solid; + border-bottom: 1px solid;} + div.gapshortline { height: 0.3em; width: 20%; margin-left:40%; + border-top: 1px solid; } + .citation {vertical-align: super; + font-size: .8em; + text-decoration: none;} + img.floatleft { float: left; + margin-right: 1em; + margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.5em; } + img.floatright { float: right; + margin-left: 1em; margin-top: 0.5em; + margin-bottom: 0.5em; } + img.clearcenter {display: block; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; margin-top: 0.5em; + margin-bottom: 0.5em} + --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> +</head> +<body> +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Toys of Peace, by Saki + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: The Toys of Peace + + +Author: Saki + + + +Release Date: December 26, 2011 [eBook #1477] +This eText was first posted July 1998 +[Last updated: June 29, 2012] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TOYS OF PEACE*** +</pre> +<p>Transcribed from the 1919 John Lane edition by Jane Duff and +David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org</p> +<h1>THE TOYS OF PEACE<br /> +<span class="GutSmall">AND OTHER PAPERS</span></h1> +<div class="gapdoubleline"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center">TO<br /> +THE 22<span class="smcap">nd</span> ROYAL FUSILIERS</p> +<div class="gapline"> </div> +<h2>Note</h2> +<p>Thanks are due to the Editors of the <i>Morning Post</i>, the +<i>Westminster Gazette</i>, and the <i>Bystander</i> for their +amiability in allowing tales that appeared in these journals to +be reproduced in the present volume.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">R. R.</p> +<h2>Contents</h2> +<table> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span +class="GutSmall">PAGE</span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>A Memoir of H. H. Munro</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#pageix">ix</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>The Toys of Peace</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page3">3</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Louise</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page13">13</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Tea</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page21">21</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>The Disappearance of Crispina Umberleigh</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page29">29</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>The Wolves of Cernogratz</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page39">39</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Louis</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page49">49</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>The Guests</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page59">59</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>The Penance</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page67">67</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>The Phantom Luncheon</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page79">79</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>A Bread and Butter Miss</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page87">87</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Bertie’s Christmas Eve</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page97">97</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Forewarned</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page107">107</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>The Interlopers</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page119">119</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Quail Seed</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page129">129</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Canossa</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page141">141</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>The Threat</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page149">149</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Excepting Mrs. Pentherby</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page157">157</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Mark</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page167">167</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>The Hedgehog</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page175">175</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>The Mappined Life</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page185">185</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Fate</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page193">193</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>The Bull</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page201">201</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Morlvera</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page209">209</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Shock Tactics</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page217">217</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>The Seven Cream Jugs</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page227">227</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>The Occasional Garden</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page237">237</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>The Sheep</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page245">245</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>The Oversight</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page255">255</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Hyacinth</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page265">265</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>The Image of the Lost Soul</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page277">277</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>The Purple of the Balkan Kings</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page281">281</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>The Cupboard of the Yesterdays</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page287">287</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>For the Duration of the War</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page295">295</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +<h2><a name="pageix"></a><span class="pagenum">p. ix</span>HECTOR +HUGH MUNRO</h2> +<p>“When peace comes,” wrote an officer of the 22nd +Royal Fusiliers, the regiment in which Munro was a private and in +which he rose to the rank of lance-sergeant, “Saki will +give us the most wonderful of all the books about the +war.” But that book of the war will not be written; +for Munro has died for King and country. In this volume are +his last tales. And it is because these tales, brilliant +and elusive as butterflies, hide, rather than reveal, the +character of the man who wrote them, give but a suggestion of his +tenderness and simplicity, of his iron will, of his splendour in +the grip of war, that it is my duty to write these pages about +him, now that he lies in the kind earth of France. It is +but to do what his choice of a pen-name makes me sure he himself +would have done for a friend.</p> +<blockquote><p>“Yon rising Moon that looks for us again,<br +/> +How oft hereafter will she wax and wane;<br /> +How oft hereafter, rising, look for us!<br /> +Through this same Garden—and for <i>one</i> in vain.</p> +<p>“And when like her, O Saki, you shall pass<br /> +Among the Guests, star-scattered on the grass,<br /> +And in your joyous errand reach the spot<br /> +Where I made one—turn down an empty glass.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p><a name="pagex"></a><span class="pagenum">p. x</span>The first +time that Munro used the name of Saki was, I believe, in 1890, +when he published in the <i>Westminster Gazette</i> the second of +the political satires, which were afterwards collected in a +volume, called <i>Alice in Westminster</i>. It was, I +think, because the wistful philosophy of FitzGerald appealed to +him, as it did to so many of his contemporaries, that he chose a +pen-name from his verses. He loved the fleeting beauty of +life. “There is one thing I care for and that is +youth,” he once said. And he always remained +youthful. It was perfectly natural for him, although he was +then a man of forty, to celebrate the coming in of a new year by +seizing the hands of strangers and flying round in a great +here-we-go-round-the-mulberry-bush at Oxford Circus, and, later +in the year, to dance in the moonlight round a bonfire in the +country, invoking Apollo with entreaties for sunshine to waken +the flowers. His last tale, <i>For the Duration of the +War</i>, written when he was at the front, shows that his spirit +remained youthful to the end. But if he gloried in the +beauty of life, he was conscious of its sadness. Have we +any book in which the joy and pain of life are so intimately +blended as they are in <i>The Unbearable Bassington</i>? +Munro himself laughed when he was looking through a collection of +criticisms of that novel, some of <a name="pagexi"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. xi</span>which emphasised its gaiety and +others its poignancy, and remarked that they would bewilder the +people who read them.</p> +<p>It is not my present purpose to write a biography of my +friend. That is a task which must be discharged later, and +an account of his life will be given in the first volume of the +collected edition of his works, which it is proposed to publish +after the war. Nevertheless, before writing of the +transformation wrought in him by the war, it may be well to give +a brief outline of his career.</p> +<p>Munro was born in 1870 in Burmah, where his father, the late +Colonel C. A. Munro, was stationed. At his christening he +was named Hector Hugh. He belonged to a family with +traditions of the two services. His paternal grandfather +had been in the army, and his mother was a daughter of +Rear-Admiral Mercer. Mrs. Munro died when her children were +very young, and Hector, his elder brother and his sister were +brought up by their father’s sisters, two maiden ladies, +who were devoted to the children, but had old-fashioned Scottish +ideas of discipline. Their home was near Barnstaple, a +lonely house in a garden shut in by high stone walls with meadows +beyond. The three children had no companions, and were +thrown on their own resources for amusement. One of their +diversions was to <a name="pagexii"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +xii</span>produce a newspaper. All through his childhood +Hector professed violent Tory opinions, and at a very early age +he began to take an interest in politics and to read any books or +papers dealing with them that came his way. He loved, above +all, the woodlands and the wild things in them, especially the +birds. His delicate health caused his aunts somewhat to +temper their severity in his case, but I fancy they must have had +some difficulty in curbing his high spirits; for he was a +thoroughly human boy and up to every sort of prank. He was +sent for a time to a private school at Exmouth, and when he left +it did lessons at home with his sister’s governess. +Later he was sent to Bedford College.</p> +<p>When school-days were over and Colonel Munro had returned to +England for good, Hector and his sister were taken abroad by +their father. They lived in Normandy and then in Dresden, +where the first German words that Hector learnt were the names of +birds, sometimes picked up from strangers in the zoological +gardens. Then came a strenuous series of visits to German +and Austrian cities, which Colonel Munro arranged as much for the +education as the pleasure of his son and daughter. Museums +and picture-galleries were visited everywhere. Hector +amused himself by counting up the number of St. Sebastians in +each gallery and making bets <a name="pagexiii"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. xiii</span>with his sister as to which would +have the most. Berlin won with eighteen. The +impression made on Munro by this tour is to be seen in his books, +and in the present volume there are two tales, <i>The +Interlopers</i> and <i>The Wolves of Cernogratz</i>, which seem +to have been inspired by the memory of some romantic castle in +the heart of Europe. A short play, <i>Karl Ludwig’s +Window</i>, which will be published later, is based on an idea +given by a visit to a castle near Prague.</p> +<p>After a long visit to Davos, Colonel Munro returned with his +family to England and settled in North Devon, where he devoted +himself during the next two years to directing the studies of his +son and daughter. Then came another long visit to Davos, +after which Hector left England and joined the Burmese Mounted +Police. He once told me of the feeling of loneliness he +experienced when he first arrived in Burmah, using almost the +same words in which he described Bassington’s sense of +isolation in the colony to which he was sent. That account +of the young Englishman looking enviously at a native boy and +girl, racing wildly along in the joy of youth and companionship, +is one of the rare instances of autobiography in Munro’s +works. He was unable to support the Burmese climate and, +after having fever seven times in eleven months, <a +name="pagexiv"></a><span class="pagenum">p. xiv</span>was forced +to return to England. He remained at home for a year and +hunted regularly with his sister during the winter. He then +came to London with the intention of making a literary career for +himself. His talent was recognised by Sir Francis Gould, to +whom a friend had given him an introduction, and he soon began to +write for the <i>Westminster Gazette</i>. Two years after +he settled in London the publication of the political satires, +based on <i>Alice in Wonderland</i>, brought him into prominence +as a wit and a writer to be counted with. Mr. Balfour was +his chief butt in these pieces. He was still, as he always +remained, a Conservative, but he held at the time that Mr. +Balfour’s leadership was a weakness to the party.</p> +<p>In 1902 Munro went to the Balkans for the <i>Morning Post</i>, +and later he became the correspondent of that paper in St. +Petersburg, where he was during the revolution of 1905.</p> +<p>He left St. Petersburg to represent the <i>Morning Post</i> in +Paris, and returned to London in 1908, where the agreeable life +of a man of letters with a brilliant reputation awaited +him. He had a lodging in Mortimer Street and lived +exceedingly simply. It was his custom to pass the morning +in a dressing-gown writing. His writing-pad was usually +propped up with a book to make it slant and he wrote slowly <a +name="pagexv"></a><span class="pagenum">p. xv</span>in a very +clear hand, rarely erasing a word or making a correction. +His air and the movement of his hand gave one the impression that +he was drawing and not writing. He almost always lunched at +a Lyons bread-shop, partly because it was economical and partly +because, as he said, he got exactly the sort of luncheon he +liked. He cared nothing for money. He had to earn his +living, but he was content as long as he had enough money to +supply his needs. When a friend once suggested a profitable +field for his writings, he dismissed the idea by saying that he +was not interested in the public for which it was proposed that +he should write. He loved his art, and, by refusing to +adopt a style that might have appealed to wider circles, he made +himself a place in our literature which, in the opinion of many, +will be lasting. Almost every day he played cards, either +in the late afternoon or in the evening, at the Cocoa Tree +Club. The sight of the wealth of others did not excite his +envy. I remember his coming home from a ball and relating +that he had sat at supper next a millionairess, whose doctor had +prescribed a diet of milk-puddings. “I had a hearty +supper,” he said gleefully, “and for all her millions +she was unable to eat anything.”</p> +<p>Munro was exceedingly generous. He would share his last +sovereign with a friend, and nothing <a name="pagexvi"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. xvi</span>pleased him better than to entertain +his friends at dinner in a club or restaurant. Nothing +angered him more than meanness in others. I remember the +indignation with which he spoke of a rich woman who had refused +to give adequate help to a poor person, who stood in need of +it.</p> +<p>This even life in town, occasionally varied by a visit to a +country house, was rudely disturbed by the shock of war. +Munro was in the House of Commons when Sir Edward Grey made his +statement on the position that this country was to take up. +He told me that the strain of listening to that speech was so +great that he found himself in a sweat. He described the +slowness with which the Minister developed his argument and the +way in which he stopped to put on his eye-glasses to read a +memorandum and then took them off to continue, holding the House +in suspense. That night we dined at a chop-house in the +Strand with two friends. On our way Munro insisted on +walking at a tremendous pace, and at dinner, when he ordered +cheese and the waiter asked whether he wanted butter, he said +peremptorily: “Cheese, no butter; there’s a war +on.” A day or two later he was condemning himself for +the slackness of the years in London and hiring a horse to take +exercise, to which he was little addicted, in the Park. He +was determined to fight. <a name="pagexvii"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. xvii</span>Nothing else was to have been +expected of the man who wrote <i>When William Came</i>, a novel +in which he used his supreme gift of irony to rouse his +fellow-countrymen from their torpor and to stir them to take +measures for the defence of the country. <i>Punch</i> +declared that there had been no such conversational fireworks +since Wilde, in reviewing this book, but Munro was more gratified +by a word of encouragement sent him by Lord Roberts, after he had +read the book, than by all the praise of the critics. He +was over military age and he was not robust. In the first +weeks of the war there seemed little chance of his being able to +become a soldier. “And I have always looked forward +to the romance of a European war,” he said.</p> +<p>There still hangs in his room in Mortimer Street an old +Flemish picture, which he had picked up somewhere, of horsemen in +doublets and plumed hats, fighting beneath the walls of a +city. It was, I think, the only painting in his +possession. Perhaps it was this picture that represented to +him the romance of which he spoke; but he did not hide from +himself the terrible side of war. Happily thoughts about +war can be given in his own words. The following piece +appeared in the first edition of the <i>Morning Post</i> of April +23, 1915, under the title, <i>An Old Love</i>—</p> +<blockquote><p><a name="pagexviii"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +xviii</span>“‘I know nothing about war,’ a boy +of nineteen said to me two days ago, ‘except, of course, +that I’ve heard of its horrors; yet, somehow, in spite of +the horrors, there seems to be something in it different to +anything else in the world, something a little bit +finer.’</p> +<p>“He spoke wistfully, as one who feared that to him war +would always be an unreal, distant, second-hand thing, to be read +about in special editions, and peeped at through the medium of +cinematograph shows. He felt that the thing that was a +little bit finer than anything else in the world would never come +into his life.</p> +<p>“Nearly every red-blooded human boy has had war, in some +shape or form, for his first love; if his blood has remained red +and he has kept some of his boyishness in after life, that first +love will never have been forgotten. No one could really +forget those wonderful leaden cavalry soldiers; the horses were +as sleek and prancing as though they had never left the +parade-ground, and the uniforms were correspondingly spick and +span, but the amount of campaigning and fighting they got through +was prodigious. There are other unforgettable memories for +those who had brothers to play with and fight with, of sieges and +ambushes and pitched encounters, of the slaying of an entire +garrison without <a name="pagexix"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +xix</span>quarter, or of chivalrous, punctilious courtesy to a +defeated enemy. Then there was the slow unfolding of the +long romance of actual war, particularly of European war, +ghastly, devastating, heartrending in its effect, and yet somehow +captivating to the imagination. The Thirty Years’ War +was one of the most hideously cruel wars ever waged, but, in +conjunction with the subsequent campaigns of the Great Louis, it +throws a glamour over the scene of the present struggle. +The thrill that those far-off things call forth in us may be +ethically indefensible, but it comes in the first place from +something too deep to be driven out; the magic region of the Low +Countries is beckoning to us again, as it beckoned to our +forefathers, who went campaigning there almost from force of +habit.</p> +<p>“One must admit that we have in these Islands a variant +from the red-blooded type. One or two young men have +assured me that they are not in the least interested in the +war—‘I’m not at all patriotic, you know,’ +they announce, as one might announce that one was not a vegetable +or did not use a safety-razor. There are others whom I have +met within the recent harrowing days who had no place for the war +crisis in their thoughts and conversations; they would talk by +the hour about chamber-music, Greek folk-dances, Florentine art, +and the difficulty of <a name="pagexx"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. xx</span>getting genuine old oak furniture, +but the national honour and the national danger were topics that +bored them. One felt that the war would affect them chiefly +as involving a possible shortage in the supply of eau-de-Cologne +or by debarring them from visiting some favourite art treasure at +a Munich gallery. It is inconceivable that these persons +were ever boys, they have certainly not grown up into men; one +cannot call them womanish—the women of our race are made of +different stuff. They belong to no sex and it seems a pity +that they should belong to any nation; other nations probably +have similar encumbrances, but we seem to have more of them than +we either desire or deserve.</p> +<p>“There are other men among us who are patriotic, one +supposes, but with a patriotism that one cannot understand; it +must be judged by a standard that we should never care to set +up. It seems to place a huckstering interpretation on +honour, to display sacred things in a shop window, marked in +plain figures. ‘If we remained neutral,’ as a +leading London morning paper once pleaded, ‘we should be, +from the commercial point of view, in precisely the same position +as the United States. We should be able to trade with all +the belligerents (so far as war allows of trade with them); we +should be able to capture the bulk of their trade in neutral <a +name="pagexxi"></a><span class="pagenum">p. xxi</span>markets; we +should keep our expenditure down; we should keep out of debt; we +should have healthy finances.’</p> +<p>“A question was buzzing in my head by the time I had +finished reading those alluring arguments:</p> +<p>“Some men of noble stock were made;<br /> +Some glory in the murder-blade:<br /> +Some praise a science or an art,<br /> +But I like honourable trade.</p> +<p>“The poet has given a satiric meaning to the last word +but one in those lines; perhaps that is why they flashed so +readily to the mind.</p> +<p>“One remembers with some feeling of relief the spectacle +last August of boys and youths marching and shouting through the +streets in semi-disciplined mobs, waving the flags of France and +Britain. There is perhaps nothing very patriotic in +shouting and flag-waving, but it is the only way these youngsters +had of showing their feelings.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>When at last Munro managed to enlist in the 2nd King +Edward’s Horse, he was supremely happy. He put on a +trooper’s uniform with the exaltation of a novice assuming +the religious habit. But after a few months he found that +he was not strong enough for life in a cavalry regiment and he +arranged to exchange into the 22nd Royal Fusiliers. He <a +name="pagexxii"></a><span class="pagenum">p. xxii</span>chafed at +the long months of training in England and longed to get to the +front, but military discipline was to him something sacred and, +whether in England or in France, he did his utmost to conform +himself to it and to force others to do the same. One of +his comrades told me that at the front they would sometimes put +their packs on a passing lorry; it was against orders, and Munro +refused to lighten the strain of a long march in this way, +although the straps of the pack galled his shoulders.</p> +<p>Twice he was offered a commission, but he refused to take +one. He distrusted his ability to be a good officer and +also he desired to go on fighting side by side with his comrades, +one of whom, now an officer and a prisoner in Germany, had been +his friend before the war. I was told by a man of his +company that one day a General was conducted along the trenches +by the Colonel commanding the regiment and recognised Munro, whom +he had met at dinner-parties in London. “What on +earth are you doing here?” he asked, and said that he had a +job to be done at the rear which would be the very thing for +him. Munro excused himself from accepting it. Another +opportunity of less arduous work was offered him. Men who +could speak German were ordered to report: interpreters were +wanted to deal with prisoners. Munro reported, <a +name="pagexxiii"></a><span class="pagenum">p. xxiii</span>but +urged that it had taken him two years to get out to the front and +that he desired to remain there. He was allowed to do as he +wished. And his gaiety never left him. Those who were +with him speak of the tales with which he amused them. He +even founded a club in one place at which they were stationed, +and called it the Back Kitchen Club, because the members met in +the kitchen of a peasant’s cottage.</p> +<p>When he came home on leave, it was evident that the strain of +military life was telling on him. He was thin and his face +was haggard. But the spiritual change wrought in him by the +war was greater than the physical. He told me that he could +never come back to the old life in London. And he wrote +asking me to find out from a person in Russia whether it would be +possible to acquire land in Siberia to till and to hunt, and +whether a couple of Yakutsk lads could be got as servants. +It was the love of the woodlands and the wild things in them, +that he had felt as a child, returning. The dross had been +burnt up in the flame of war.</p> +<p>Munro fell in the Beaumont-Hamel action in November +1916. On the 12th he and his comrades were at +Beldancourt. At one o’clock in the morning of the +14th they went to Mailly. As the men were crossing +No-Man’s-Land to occupy trenches evacuated <a +name="pagexxiv"></a><span class="pagenum">p. xxiv</span>by the +enemy, Munro was shot through the head.</p> +<p>“Poor Saki! What an admiration we all had for +him,” wrote the officer in command of the 22nd Royal +Fusiliers. “I always quoted him as one of the heroes +of the war. I saw daily the appalling discomforts he so +cheerfully endured. He flatly refused to take a commission +or in any way to allow me to try to make him more +comfortable. General Vaughan told him that a brain like his +was wasted as a private soldier. He just smiled. He +was absolutely splendid. What courage! The men simply +loved him.”</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><span class="smcap">Rothay +Reynolds</span>,</p> +<p><i>September 1918</i>.</p> +<h2><a name="page3"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 3</span>THE TOYS +OF PEACE</h2> +<p>“Harvey,” said Eleanor Bope, handing her brother a +cutting from a London morning paper of the 19th of March, +“just read this about children’s toys, please; it +exactly carries out some of our ideas about influence and +upbringing.”</p> +<p>“In the view of the National Peace Council,” ran +the extract, “there are grave objections to presenting our +boys with regiments of fighting men, batteries of guns, and +squadrons of ‘Dreadnoughts.’ Boys, the Council +admits, naturally love fighting and all the panoply of war . . . +but that is no reason for encouraging, and perhaps giving +permanent form to, their primitive instincts. At the +Children’s Welfare Exhibition, which opens at Olympia in +three weeks’ time, the Peace Council will make an +alternative suggestion to parents in the shape of an exhibition +of ‘peace toys.’ In front of a +specially-painted representation of the Peace Palace at The Hague +will be grouped, not miniature soldiers but miniature civilians, +not guns but ploughs and the tools of industry . . . It is +hoped that manufacturers may take a hint from the exhibit, which +will bear fruit in the toy shops.”</p> +<p>“The idea is certainly an interesting and very +well-meaning one,” said Harvey; “whether it would +succeed well in practice—”</p> +<p>“We must try,” interrupted his sister; “you +are coming down to us at Easter, and you always bring the boys +some toys, so that will be an excellent opportunity for you to +inaugurate the new experiment. Go about in the shops and +buy any little toys and models that have special bearing on +civilian life in its more peaceful aspects. Of course you +must explain the toys to the children and interest them in the +new idea. I regret to say that the ‘Siege of +Adrianople’ toy, that their Aunt Susan sent them, +didn’t need any explanation; they knew all the uniforms and +flags, and even the names of the respective commanders, and when +I heard them one day using what seemed to be the most +objectionable language they said it was Bulgarian words of +command; of course it <i>may</i> have been, but at any rate I +took the toy away from them. Now I shall expect your Easter +gifts to give quite a new impulse and direction to the +children’s minds; Eric is not eleven yet, and Bertie is +only nine-and-a-half, so they are really at a most impressionable +age.”</p> +<p>“There is primitive instinct to be taken into +consideration, you know,” said Harvey doubtfully, +“and hereditary tendencies as well. One of their +great-uncles fought in the most intolerant fashion at +Inkerman—he was specially mentioned in dispatches, I +believe—and their great-grandfather smashed all his Whig +neighbours’ hot houses when the great Reform Bill was +passed. Still, as you say, they are at an impressionable +age. I will do my best.”</p> +<p>On Easter Saturday Harvey Bope unpacked a large, +promising-looking red cardboard box under the expectant eyes of +his nephews. “Your uncle has brought you the newest +thing in toys,” Eleanor had said impressively, and youthful +anticipation had been anxiously divided between Albanian soldiery +and a Somali camel-corps. Eric was hotly in favour of the +latter contingency. “There would be Arabs on +horseback,” he whispered; “the Albanians have got +jolly uniforms, and they fight all day long, and all night, too, +when there’s a moon, but the country’s rocky, so +they’ve got no cavalry.”</p> +<p>A quantity of crinkly paper shavings was the first thing that +met the view when the lid was removed; the most exiting toys +always began like that. Harvey pushed back the top layer +and drew forth a square, rather featureless building.</p> +<p>“It’s a fort!” exclaimed Bertie.</p> +<p>“It isn’t, it’s the palace of the Mpret of +Albania,” said Eric, immensely proud of his knowledge of +the exotic title; “it’s got no windows, you see, so +that passers-by can’t fire in at the Royal +Family.”</p> +<p>“It’s a municipal dust-bin,” said Harvey +hurriedly; “you see all the refuse and litter of a town is +collected there, instead of lying about and injuring the health +of the citizens.”</p> +<p>In an awful silence he disinterred a little lead figure of a +man in black clothes.</p> +<p>“That,” he said, “is a distinguished +civilian, John Stuart Mill. He was an authority on +political economy.”</p> +<p>“Why?” asked Bertie.</p> +<p>“Well, he wanted to be; he thought it was a useful thing +to be.”</p> +<p>Bertie gave an expressive grunt, which conveyed his opinion +that there was no accounting for tastes.</p> +<p>Another square building came out, this time with windows and +chimneys.</p> +<p>“A model of the Manchester branch of the Young +Women’s Christian Association,” said Harvey.</p> +<p>“Are there any lions?” asked Eric hopefully. +He had been reading Roman history and thought that where you +found Christians you might reasonably expect to find a few +lions.</p> +<p>“There are no lions,” said Harvey. +“Here is another civilian, Robert Raikes, the founder of +Sunday schools, and here is a model of a municipal +wash-house. These little round things are loaves baked in a +sanitary bakehouse. That lead figure is a sanitary +inspector, this one is a district councillor, and this one is an +official of the Local Government Board.”</p> +<p>“What does he do?” asked Eric wearily.</p> +<p>“He sees to things connected with his Department,” +said Harvey. “This box with a slit in it is a +ballot-box. Votes are put into it at election +times.”</p> +<p>“What is put into it at other times?” asked +Bertie.</p> +<p>“Nothing. And here are some tools of industry, a +wheelbarrow and a hoe, and I think these are meant for +hop-poles. This is a model beehive, and that is a +ventilator, for ventilating sewers. This seems to be +another municipal dust-bin—no, it is a model of a school of +art and public library. This little lead figure is Mrs. +Hemans, a poetess, and this is Rowland Hill, who introduced the +system of penny postage. This is Sir John Herschel, the +eminent astrologer.”</p> +<p>“Are we to play with these civilian figures?” +asked Eric.</p> +<p>“Of course,” said Harvey, “these are toys; +they are meant to be played with.”</p> +<p>“But how?”</p> +<p>It was rather a poser. “You might make two of them +contest a seat in Parliament,” said Harvey, “an have +an election—”</p> +<p>“With rotten eggs, and free fights, and ever so many +broken heads!” exclaimed Eric.</p> +<p>“And noses all bleeding and everybody drunk as can +be,” echoed Bertie, who had carefully studied one of +Hogarth’s pictures.</p> +<p>“Nothing of the kind,” said Harvey, “nothing +in the least like that. Votes will be put in the +ballot-box, and the Mayor will count them—and he will say +which has received the most votes, and then the two candidates +will thank him for presiding, and each will say that the contest +has been conducted throughout in the pleasantest and most +straightforward fashion, and they part with expressions of mutual +esteem. There’s a jolly game for you boys to +play. I never had such toys when I was young.”</p> +<p>“I don’t think we’ll play with them just +now,” said Eric, with an entire absence of the enthusiasm +that his uncle had shown; “I think perhaps we ought to do a +little of our holiday task. It’s history this time; +we’ve got to learn up something about the Bourbon period in +France.”</p> +<p>“The Bourbon period,” said Harvey, with some +disapproval in his voice.</p> +<p>“We’ve got to know something about Louis the +Fourteenth,” continued Eric; “I’ve learnt the +names of all the principal battles already.”</p> +<p>This would never do. “There were, of course, some +battles fought during his reign,” said Harvey, “but I +fancy the accounts of them were much exaggerated; news was very +unreliable in those days, and there were practically no war +correspondents, so generals and commanders could magnify every +little skirmish they engaged in till they reached the proportions +of decisive battles. Louis was really famous, now, as a +landscape gardener; the way he laid out Versailles was so much +admired that it was copied all over Europe.”</p> +<p>“Do you know anything about Madame Du Barry?” +asked Eric; “didn’t she have her head chopped +off?”</p> +<p>“She was another great lover of gardening,” said +Harvey, evasively; “in fact, I believe the well known rose +Du Barry was named after her, and now I think you had better play +for a little and leave your lessons till later.”</p> +<p>Harvey retreated to the library and spent some thirty or forty +minutes in wondering whether it would be possible to compile a +history, for use in elementary schools, in which there should be +no prominent mention of battles, massacres, murderous intrigues, +and violent deaths. The York and Lancaster period and the +Napoleonic era would, he admitted to himself, present +considerable difficulties, and the Thirty Years’ War would +entail something of a gap if you left it out altogether. +Still, it would be something gained if, at a highly +impressionable age, children could be got to fix their attention +on the invention of calico printing instead of the Spanish Armada +or the Battle of Waterloo.</p> +<p>It was time, he thought, to go back to the boys’ room, +and see how they were getting on with their peace toys. As +he stood outside the door he could hear Eric’s voice raised +in command; Bertie chimed in now and again with a helpful +suggestion.</p> +<p>“That is Louis the Fourteenth,” Eric was saying, +“that one in knee-breeches, that Uncle said invented Sunday +schools. It isn’t a bit like him, but it’ll +have to do.”</p> +<p>“We’ll give him a purple coat from my paintbox by +and by,” said Bertie.</p> +<p>“Yes, an’ red heels. That is Madame de +Maintenon, that one he called Mrs. Hemans. She begs Louis +not to go on this expedition, but he turns a deaf ear. He +takes Marshal Saxe with him, and we must pretend that they have +thousands of men with them. The watchword is <i>Qui +vive</i>? and the answer is <i>L’état c’est +moi</i>—that was one of his favourite remarks, you +know. They land at Manchester in the dead of the night, and +a Jacobite conspirator gives them the keys of the +fortress.”</p> +<p>Peeping in through the doorway Harvey observed that the +municipal dust-bin had been pierced with holes to accommodate the +muzzles of imaginary cannon, and now represented the principal +fortified position in Manchester; John Stuart Mill had been +dipped in red ink, and apparently stood for Marshal Saxe.</p> +<p>“Louis orders his troops to surround the Young +Women’s Christian Association and seize the lot of +them. ‘Once back at the Louvre and the girls are +mine,’ he exclaims. We must use Mrs. Hemans again for +one of the girls; she says ‘Never,’ and stabs Marshal +Saxe to the heart.”</p> +<p>“He bleeds dreadfully,” exclaimed Bertie, +splashing red ink liberally over the façade of the +Association building.</p> +<p>“The soldiers rush in and avenge his death with the +utmost savagery. A hundred girls are +killed”—here Bertie emptied the remainder of the red +ink over the devoted building—“and the surviving five +hundred are dragged off to the French ships. ‘I have +lost a Marshal,’ says Louis, ‘but I do not go back +empty-handed.’”</p> +<p>Harvey stole away from the room, and sought out his +sister.</p> +<p>“Eleanor,” he said, “the +experiment—”</p> +<p>“Yes?”</p> +<p>“Has failed. We have begun too late.”</p> +<h2><a name="page13"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +13</span>LOUISE</h2> +<p>“The tea will be quite cold, you’d better ring for +some more,” said the Dowager Lady Beanford.</p> +<p>Susan Lady Beanford was a vigorous old woman who had coquetted +with imaginary ill-health for the greater part of a lifetime; +Clovis Sangrail irreverently declared that she had caught a chill +at the Coronation of Queen Victoria and had never let it go +again. Her sister, Jane Thropplestance, who was some years +her junior, was chiefly remarkable for being the most +absent-minded woman in Middlesex.</p> +<p>“I’ve really been unusually clever this +afternoon,” she remarked gaily, as she rang for the +tea. “I’ve called on all the people I meant to +call on; and I’ve done all the shopping that I set out to +do. I even remembered to try and match that silk for you at +Harrod’s, but I’d forgotten to bring the pattern with +me, so it was no use. I really think that was the only +important thing I forgot during the whole afternoon. Quite +wonderful for me, isn’t it?”</p> +<p>“What have you done with Louise?” asked her +sister. “Didn’t you take her out with +you? You said you were going to.”</p> +<p>“Good gracious,” exclaimed Jane, “what have +I done with Louise? I must have left her +somewhere.”</p> +<p>“But where?”</p> +<p>“That’s just it. Where have I left +her? I can’t remember if the Carrywoods were at home +or if I just left cards. If there were at home I may have +left Louise there to play bridge. I’ll go and +telephone to Lord Carrywood and find out.”</p> +<p>“Is that you, Lord Carrywood?” she queried over +the telephone; “it’s me, Jane Thropplestance. I +want to know, have you seen Louise?”</p> +<p>“‘Louise,’” came the answer, +“it’s been my fate to see it three times. At +first, I must admit, I wasn’t impressed by it, but the +music grows on one after a bit. Still, I don’t think +I want to see it again just at present. Were you going to +offer me a seat in your box?”</p> +<p>“Not the opera ‘Louise’—my niece, +Louise Thropplestance. I thought I might have left her at +your house.”</p> +<p>“You left cards on us this afternoon, I understand, but +I don’t think you left a niece. The footman would +have been sure to have mentioned it if you had. Is it going +to be a fashion to leave nieces on people as well as cards? +I hope not; some of these houses in Berkeley-square have +practically no accommodation for that sort of thing.”</p> +<p>“She’s not at the Carrywoods’,” +announced Jane, returning to her tea; “now I come to think +of it, perhaps I left her at the silk counter at +Selfridge’s. I may have told her to wait there a +moment while I went to look at the silks in a better light, and I +may easily have forgotten about her when I found I hadn’t +your pattern with me. In that case she’s still +sitting there. She wouldn’t move unless she was told +to; Louise has no initiative.”</p> +<p>“You said you tried to match the silk at +Harrod’s,” interjected the dowager.</p> +<p>“Did I? Perhaps it was Harrod’s. I +really don’t remember. It was one of those places +where every one is so kind and sympathetic and devoted that one +almost hates to take even a reel of cotton away from such +pleasant surroundings.”</p> +<p>“I think you might have taken Louise away. I +don’t like the idea of her being there among a lot of +strangers. Supposing some unprincipled person was to get +into conversation with her.”</p> +<p>“Impossible. Louise has no conversation. +I’ve never discovered a single topic on which she’d +anything to say beyond ‘Do you think so? I dare say +you’re right.’ I really thought her reticence +about the fall of the Ribot Ministry was ridiculous, considering +how much her dear mother used to visit Paris. This bread +and butter is cut far too thin; it crumbles away long before you +can get it to your mouth. One feels so absurd, snapping at +one’s food in mid-air, like a trout leaping at +may-fly.”</p> +<p>“I am rather surprised,” said the dowager, +“that you can sit there making a hearty tea when +you’ve just lost a favourite niece.”</p> +<p>“You talk as if I’d lost her in a churchyard +sense, instead of having temporarily mislaid her. I’m +sure to remember presently where I left her.”</p> +<p>“You didn’t visit any place of devotion, did +you? If you’ve left her mooning about Westminster +Abbey or St. Peter’s, Eaton Square, without being able to +give any satisfactory reason why she’s there, she’ll +be seized under the Cat and Mouse Act and sent to Reginald +McKenna.”</p> +<p>“That would be extremely awkward,” said Jane, +meeting an irresolute piece of bread and butter halfway; +“we hardly know the McKennas, and it would be very tiresome +having to telephone to some unsympathetic private secretary, +describing Louise to him and asking to have her sent back in time +for dinner. Fortunately, I didn’t go to any place of +devotion, though I did get mixed up with a Salvation Army +procession. It was quite interesting to be at close +quarters with them, they’re so absolutely different to what +they used to be when I first remember them in the +’eighties. They used to go about then unkempt and +dishevelled, in a sort of smiling rage with the world, and now +they’re spruce and jaunty and flamboyantly decorative, like +a geranium bed with religious convictions. Laura Kettleway +was going on about them in the lift of the Dover Street Tube the +other day, saying what a lot of good work they did, and what a +loss it would have been if they’d never existed. +‘If they had never existed,’ I said, ‘Granville +Barker would have been certain to have invented something that +looked exactly like them.’ If you say things like +that, quite loud, in a Tube lift, they always sound like +epigrams.”</p> +<p>“I think you ought to do something about Louise,” +said the dowager.</p> +<p>“I’m trying to think whether she was with me when +I called on Ada Spelvexit. I rather enjoyed myself +there. Ada was trying, as usual, to ram that odious +Koriatoffski woman down my throat, knowing perfectly well that I +detest her, and in an unguarded moment she said: +‘She’s leaving her present house and going to Lower +Seymour Street.’ ‘I dare say she will, if she +stays there long enough,’ I said. Ada didn’t +see it for about three minutes, and then she was positively +uncivil. No, I am certain I didn’t leave Louise +there.”</p> +<p>“If you could manage to remember where you <i>did</i> +leave her, it would be more to the point than these negative +assurances,” said Lady Beanford; “so far, all we know +is that she is not at the Carrywoods’, or Ada +Spelvexit’s, or Westminster Abbey.”</p> +<p>“That narrows the search down a bit,” said Jane +hopefully; “I rather fancy she must have been with me when +I went to Mornay’s. I know I went to Mornay’s, +because I remember meeting that delightful Malcolm +What’s-his-name there—you know whom I mean. +That’s the great advantage of people having unusual first +names, you needn’t try and remember what their other name +is. Of course I know one or two other Malcolms, but none +that could possibly be described as delightful. He gave me +two tickets for the Happy Sunday Evenings in Sloane Square. +I’ve probably left them at Mornay’s, but still it was +awfully kind of him to give them to me.”</p> +<p>“Do you think you left Louise there?”</p> +<p>“I might telephone and ask. Oh, Robert, before you +clear the tea-things away I wish you’d ring up +Mornay’s, in Regent Street, and ask if I left two theatre +tickets and one niece in their shop this afternoon.”</p> +<p>“A niece, ma’am?” asked the footman.</p> +<p>“Yes, Miss Louise didn’t come home with me, and +I’m not sure where I left her.”</p> +<p>“Miss Louise has been upstairs all the afternoon, +ma’am, reading to the second kitchenmaid, who has the +neuralgia. I took up tea to Miss Louise at a quarter to +five o’clock, ma’am.”</p> +<p>“Of course, how silly of me. I remember now, I +asked her to read the <i>Faerie Queene</i> to poor Emma, to try +to send her to sleep. I always get some one to read the +<i>Faerie Queene</i> to me when I have neuralgia, and it usually +sends me to sleep. Louise doesn’t seem to have been +successful, but one can’t say she hasn’t tried. +I expect after the first hour or so the kitchenmaid would rather +have been left alone with her neuralgia, but of course Louise +wouldn’t leave off till some one told her to. Anyhow, +you can ring up Mornay’s, Robert, and ask whether I left +two theatre tickets there. Except for your silk, Susan, +those seem to be the only things I’ve forgotten this +afternoon. Quite wonderful for me.”</p> +<h2><a name="page21"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +21</span>TEA</h2> +<p>James Cushat-Prinkly was a young man who had always had a +settled conviction that one of these days he would marry; up to +the age of thirty-four he had done nothing to justify that +conviction. He liked and admired a great many women +collectively and dispassionately without singling out one for +especial matrimonial consideration, just as one might admire the +Alps without feeling that one wanted any particular peak as +one’s own private property. His lack of initiative in +this matter aroused a certain amount of impatience among the +sentimentally-minded women-folk of his home circle; his mother, +his sisters, an aunt-in-residence, and two or three intimate +matronly friends regarded his dilatory approach to the married +state with a disapproval that was far from being +inarticulate. His most innocent flirtations were watched +with the straining eagerness which a group of unexercised +terriers concentrates on the slightest movements of a human being +who may be reasonably considered likely to take them for a +walk. No decent-souled mortal can long resist the pleading +of several pairs of walk-beseeching dog-eyes; James +Cushat-Prinkly was not sufficiently obstinate or indifferent to +home influences to disregard the obviously expressed wish of his +family that he should become enamoured of some nice marriageable +girl, and when his Uncle Jules departed this life and bequeathed +him a comfortable little legacy it really seemed the correct +thing to do to set about discovering some one to share it with +him. The process of discovery was carried on more by the +force of suggestion and the weight of public opinion than by any +initiative of his own; a clear working majority of his female +relatives and the aforesaid matronly friends had pitched on Joan +Sebastable as the most suitable young woman in his range of +acquaintance to whom he might propose marriage, and James became +gradually accustomed to the idea that he and Joan would go +together through the prescribed stages of congratulations, +present-receiving, Norwegian or Mediterranean hotels, and +eventual domesticity. It was necessary, however to ask the +lady what she thought about the matter; the family had so far +conducted and directed the flirtation with ability and +discretion, but the actual proposal would have to be an +individual effort.</p> +<p>Cushat-Prinkly walked across the Park towards the Sebastable +residence in a frame of mind that was moderately +complacent. As the thing was going to be done he was glad +to feel that he was going to get it settled and off his mind that +afternoon. Proposing marriage, even to a nice girl like +Joan, was a rather irksome business, but one could not have a +honeymoon in Minorca and a subsequent life of married happiness +without such preliminary. He wondered what Minorca was +really like as a place to stop in; in his mind’s eye it was +an island in perpetual half-mourning, with black or white Minorca +hens running all over it. Probably it would not be a bit +like that when one came to examine it. People who had been +in Russia had told him that they did not remember having seen any +Muscovy ducks there, so it was possible that there would be no +Minorca fowls on the island.</p> +<p>His Mediterranean musings were interrupted by the sound of a +clock striking the half-hour. Half-past four. A frown +of dissatisfaction settled on his face. He would arrive at +the Sebastable mansion just at the hour of afternoon tea. +Joan would be seated at a low table, spread with an array of +silver kettles and cream-jugs and delicate porcelain tea-cups, +behind which her voice would tinkle pleasantly in a series of +little friendly questions about weak or strong tea, how much, if +any, sugar, milk, cream, and so forth. “Is it one +lump? I forgot. You do take milk, don’t +you? Would you like some more hot water, if it’s too +strong?”</p> +<p>Cushat-Prinkly had read of such things in scores of novels, +and hundreds of actual experiences had told him that they were +true to life. Thousands of women, at this solemn afternoon +hour, were sitting behind dainty porcelain and silver fittings, +with their voices tinkling pleasantly in a cascade of solicitous +little questions. Cushat-Prinkly detested the whole system +of afternoon tea. According to his theory of life a woman +should lie on a divan or couch, talking with incomparable charm +or looking unutterable thoughts, or merely silent as a thing to +be looked on, and from behind a silken curtain a small Nubian +page should silently bring in a tray with cups and dainties, to +be accepted silently, as a matter of course, without drawn-out +chatter about cream and sugar and hot water. If one’s +soul was really enslaved at one’s mistress’s feet how +could one talk coherently about weakened tea? +Cushat-Prinkly had never expounded his views on the subject to +his mother; all her life she had been accustomed to tinkle +pleasantly at tea-time behind dainty porcelain and silver, and if +he had spoken to her about divans and Nubian pages she would have +urged him to take a week’s holiday at the seaside. +Now, as he passed through a tangle of small streets that led +indirectly to the elegant Mayfair terrace for which he was bound, +a horror at the idea of confronting Joan Sebastable at her +tea-table seized on him. A momentary deliverance presented +itself; on one floor of a narrow little house at the noisier end +of Esquimault Street lived Rhoda Ellam, a sort of remote cousin, +who made a living by creating hats out of costly materials. +The hats really looked as if they had come from Paris; the +cheques she got for them unfortunately never looked as if they +were going to Paris. However, Rhoda appeared to find life +amusing and to have a fairly good time in spite of her straitened +circumstances. Cushat-Prinkly decided to climb up to her +floor and defer by half-an-hour or so the important business +which lay before him; by spinning out his visit he could contrive +to reach the Sebastable mansion after the last vestiges of dainty +porcelain had been cleared away.</p> +<p>Rhoda welcomed him into a room that seemed to do duty as +workshop, sitting-room, and kitchen combined, and to be +wonderfully clean and comfortable at the same time.</p> +<p>“I’m having a picnic meal,” she +announced. “There’s caviare in that jar at your +elbow. Begin on that brown bread-and-butter while I cut +some more. Find yourself a cup; the teapot is behind +you. Now tell me about hundreds of things.”</p> +<p>She made no other allusion to food, but talked amusingly and +made her visitor talk amusingly too. At the same time she +cut the bread-and-butter with a masterly skill and produced red +pepper and sliced lemon, where so many women would merely have +produced reasons and regrets for not having any. +Cushat-Prinkly found that he was enjoying an excellent tea +without having to answer as many questions about it as a Minister +for Agriculture might be called on to reply to during an outbreak +of cattle plague.</p> +<p>“And now tell me why you have come to see me,” +said Rhoda suddenly. “You arouse not merely my +curiosity but my business instincts. I hope you’ve +come about hats. I heard that you had come into a legacy +the other day, and, of course, it struck me that it would be a +beautiful and desirable thing for you to celebrate the event by +buying brilliantly expensive hats for all your sisters. +They may not have said anything about it, but I feel sure the +same idea has occurred to them. Of course, with Goodwood on +us, I am rather rushed just now, but in my business we’re +accustomed to that; we live in a series of rushes—like the +infant Moses.”</p> +<p>“I didn’t come about hats,” said her +visitor. “In fact, I don’t think I really came +about anything. I was passing and I just thought I’d +look in and see you. Since I’ve been sitting talking +to you, however, a rather important idea has occurred to +me. If you’ll forget Goodwood for a moment and listen +to me, I’ll tell you what it is.”</p> +<p>Some forty minutes later James Cushat-Prinkly returned to the +bosom of his family, bearing an important piece of news.</p> +<p>“I’m engaged to be married,” he +announced.</p> +<p>A rapturous outbreak of congratulation and self-applause broke +out.</p> +<p>“Ah, we knew! We saw it coming! We foretold +it weeks ago!”</p> +<p>“I’ll bet you didn’t,” said +Cushat-Prinkly. “If any one had told me at lunch-time +to-day that I was going to ask Rhoda Ellam to marry me and that +she was going to accept me I would have laughed at the +idea.”</p> +<p>The romantic suddenness of the affair in some measure +compensated James’s women-folk for the ruthless negation of +all their patient effort and skilled diplomacy. It was +rather trying to have to deflect their enthusiasm at a +moment’s notice from Joan Sebastable to Rhoda Ellam; but, +after all, it was James’s wife who was in question, and his +tastes had some claim to be considered.</p> +<p>On a September afternoon of the same year, after the honeymoon +in Minorca had ended, Cushat-Prinkly came into the drawing-room +of his new house in Granchester Square. Rhoda was seated at +a low table, behind a service of dainty porcelain and gleaming +silver. There was a pleasant tinkling note in her voice as +she handed him a cup.</p> +<p>“You like it weaker than that, don’t you? +Shall I put some more hot water to it? No?”</p> +<h2><a name="page29"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 29</span>THE +DISAPPEARANCE OF CRISPINA UMBERLEIGH</h2> +<p>In a first-class carriage of a train speeding Balkanward +across the flat, green Hungarian plain two Britons sat in +friendly, fitful converse. They had first foregathered in +the cold grey dawn at the frontier line, where the presiding +eagle takes on an extra head and Teuton lands pass from +Hohenzollern to Habsburg keeping—and where a probing +official beak requires to delve in polite and perhaps +perfunctory, but always tiresome, manner into the baggage of +sleep-hungry passengers. After a day’s break of their +journey at Vienna the travellers had again foregathered at the +trainside and paid one another the compliment of settling +instinctively into the same carriage. The elder of the two +had the appearance and manner of a diplomat; in point of fact he +was the well-connected foster-brother of a wine business. +The other was certainly a journalist. Neither man was +talkative and each was grateful to the other for not being +talkative. That is why from time to time they talked.</p> +<p>One topic of conversation naturally thrust itself forward in +front of all others. In Vienna the previous day they had +learned of the mysterious vanishing of a world-famous picture +from the walls of the Louvre.</p> +<p>“A dramatic disappearance of that sort is sure to +produce a crop of imitations,” said the Journalist.</p> +<p>“It has had a lot of anticipations, for the matter of +that,” said the Wine-brother.</p> +<p>“Oh, of course there have been thefts from the Louvre +before.”</p> +<p>“I was thinking of the spiriting away of human beings +rather than pictures. In particular I was thinking of the +case of my aunt, Crispina Umberleigh.”</p> +<p>“I remember hearing something of the affair,” said +the Journalist, “but I was away from England at the +time. I never quite knew what was supposed to have +happened.”</p> +<p>“You may hear what really happened if you will respect +it as a confidence,” said the Wine Merchant. +“In the first place I may say that the disappearance of +Mrs. Umberleigh was not regarded by the family entirely as a +bereavement. My uncle, Edward Umberleigh, was not by any +means a weak-kneed individual, in fact in the world of politics +he had to be reckoned with more or less as a strong man, but he +was unmistakably dominated by Crispina; indeed I never met any +human being who was not frozen into subjection when brought into +prolonged contact with her. Some people are born to +command; Crispina Mrs. Umberleigh was born to legislate, codify, +administrate, censor, license, ban, execute, and sit in judgement +generally. If she was not born with that destiny she +adopted it at an early age. From the kitchen regions +upwards every one in the household came under her despotic sway +and stayed there with the submissiveness of molluscs involved in +a glacial epoch. As a nephew on a footing of only +occasional visits she affected me merely as an epidemic, +disagreeable while it lasted, but without any permanent effect; +but her own sons and daughters stood in mortal awe of her; their +studies, friendships, diet, amusements, religious observances, +and way of doing their hair were all regulated and ordained +according to the august lady’s will and pleasure. +This will help you to understand the sensation of stupefaction +which was caused in the family when she unobtrusively and +inexplicably vanished. It was as though St. Paul’s +Cathedral or the Piccadilly Hotel had disappeared in the night, +leaving nothing but an open space to mark where it had +stood. As far as was known nothing was troubling her; in +fact there was much before her to make life particularly well +worth living. The youngest boy had come back from school +with an unsatisfactory report, and she was to have sat in +judgement on him the very afternoon of the day she +disappeared—if it had been he who had vanished in a hurry +one could have supplied the motive. Then she was in the +middle of a newspaper correspondence with a rural dean in which +she had already proved him guilty of heresy, inconsistency, and +unworthy quibbling, and no ordinary consideration would have +induced her to discontinue the controversy. Of course the +matter was put in the hands of the police, but as far as possible +it was kept out of the papers, and the generally accepted +explanation of her withdrawal from her social circle was that she +had gone into a nursing home.”</p> +<p>“And what was the immediate effect on the home +circle?” asked the Journalist.</p> +<p>“All the girls bought themselves bicycles; the feminine +cycling craze was still in existence, and Crispina had rigidly +vetoed any participation in it among the members of her +household. The youngest boy let himself go to such an +extent during his next term that it had to be his last as far as +that particular establishment was concerned. The elder boys +propounded a theory that their mother might be wandering +somewhere abroad, and searched for her assiduously, chiefly, it +must be admitted, in a class of Montmartre resort where it was +extremely improbable that she would be found.”</p> +<p>“And all this while couldn’t your uncle get hold +of the least clue?”</p> +<p>“As a matter of fact he had received some information, +though of course I did not know of it at the time. He got a +message one day telling him that his wife had been kidnapped and +smuggled out of the country; she was said to be hidden away, in +one of the islands off the coast of Norway I think it was, in +comfortable surroundings and well cared for. And with the +information came a demand for money; a lump sum of £2000 +was to be paid yearly. Failing this she would be +immediately restored to her family.”</p> +<p>The Journalist was silent for a moment, and them began to +laugh quietly.</p> +<p>“It was certainly an inverted form of holding to +ransom,” he said.</p> +<p>“If you had known my aunt,” said the Wine +Merchant, “you would have wondered that they didn’t +put the figure higher.”</p> +<p>“I realise the temptation. Did your uncle succumb +to it?”</p> +<p>“Well, you see, he had to think of others as well as +himself. For the family to have gone back into the Crispina +thraldom after having tasted the delights of liberty would have +been a tragedy, and there were even wider considerations to be +taken into account. Since his bereavement he had +unconsciously taken up a far bolder and more initiatory line in +public affairs, and his popularity and influence had increased +correspondingly. From being merely a strong man in the +political world he began to be spoken of as <i>the</i> strong +man. All this he knew would be jeopardised if he once more +dropped into the social position of the husband of Mrs. +Umberleigh. He was a rich man, and the £2000 a year, +though not exactly a fleabite, did not seem an extravagant price +to pay for the boarding-out of Crispina. Of course, he had +severe qualms of conscience about the arrangement. Later +on, when he took me into his confidence, he told me that in +paying the ransom, or hush-money as I should have called it, he +was partly influenced by the fear that if he refused it the +kidnappers might have vented their rage and disappointment on +their captive. It was better, he said, to think of her +being well cared for as a highly-valued paying-guest in one of +the Lofoden Islands than to have her struggling miserably home in +a maimed and mutilated condition. Anyway he paid the yearly +instalment as punctually as one pays a fire insurance, and with +equal promptitude there would come an acknowledgment of the money +and a brief statement to the effect that Crispina was in good +health and fairly cheerful spirits. One report even +mentioned that she was busying herself with a scheme for proposed +reforms in Church management to be pressed on the local +pastorate. Another spoke of a rheumatic attack and a +journey to a ‘cure’ on the mainland, and on that +occasion an additional eighty pounds was demanded and +conceded. Of course it was to the interest of the +kidnappers to keep their charge in good health, but the secrecy +with which they managed to shroud their arrangements argued a +really wonderful organisation. If my uncle was paying a +rather high price, at least he could console himself with the +reflection that he was paying specialists’ fees.”</p> +<p>“Meanwhile had the police given up all attempts to track +the missing lady?” asked the Journalist.</p> +<p>“Not entirely; they came to my uncle from time to time +to report on clues which they thought might yield some +elucidation as to her fate or whereabouts, but I think they had +their suspicions that he was possessed of more information than +he had put at their disposal. And then, after a +disappearance of more than eight years, Crispina returned with +dramatic suddenness to the home she had left so +mysteriously.”</p> +<p>“She had given her captors the slip?”</p> +<p>“She had never been captured. Her wandering away +had been caused by a sudden and complete loss of memory. +She usually dressed rather in the style of a superior kind of +charwoman, and it was not so very surprising that she should have +imagined that she was one; and still less that people should +accept her statement and help her to get work. She had +wandered as far afield as Birmingham, and found fairly steady +employment there, her energy and enthusiasm in putting +people’s rooms in order counterbalancing her obstinate and +domineering characteristics. It was the shock of being +patronisingly addressed as ‘my good woman’ by a +curate, who was disputing with her where the stove should be +placed in a parish concert hall that led to the sudden +restoration of her memory. ‘I think you forget who +you are speaking to,’ she observed crushingly, which was +rather unduly severe, considering she had only just remembered it +herself.”</p> +<p>“But,” exclaimed the Journalist, “the +Lofoden Island people! Who had they got hold of?”</p> +<p>“A purely mythical prisoner. It was an attempt in +the first place by some one who knew something of the domestic +situation, probably a discharged valet, to bluff a lump sum out +of Edward Umberleigh before the missing woman turned up; the +subsequent yearly instalments were an unlooked-for increment to +the original haul.</p> +<p>“Crispina found that the eight years’ interregnum +had materially weakened her ascendancy over her now grown-up +offspring. Her husband, however, never accomplished +anything great in the political world after her return; the +strain of trying to account satisfactorily for an unspecified +expenditure of sixteen thousand pounds spread over eight years +sufficiently occupied his mental energies. Here is Belgrad +and another custom house.”</p> +<h2><a name="page39"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 39</span>THE +WOLVES OF CERNOGRATZ</h2> +<p>“Are there any old legends attached to the +castle?” asked Conrad of his sister. Conrad was a +prosperous Hamburg merchant, but he was the one +poetically-dispositioned member of an eminently practical +family.</p> +<p>The Baroness Gruebel shrugged her plump shoulders.</p> +<p>“There are always legends hanging about these old +places. They are not difficult to invent and they cost +nothing. In this case there is a story that when any one +dies in the castle all the dogs in the village and the wild +beasts in forest howl the night long. It would not be +pleasant to listen to, would it?”</p> +<p>“It would be weird and romantic,” said the Hamburg +merchant.</p> +<p>“Anyhow, it isn’t true,” said the Baroness +complacently; “since we bought the place we have had proof +that nothing of the sort happens. When the old +mother-in-law died last springtime we all listened, but there was +no howling. It is just a story that lends dignity to the +place without costing anything.”</p> +<p>“The story is not as you have told it,” said +Amalie, the grey old governess. Every one turned and looked +at her in astonishment. She was wont to sit silent and prim +and faded in her place at table, never speaking unless some one +spoke to her, and there were few who troubled themselves to make +conversation with her. To-day a sudden volubility had +descended on her; she continued to talk, rapidly and nervously, +looking straight in front of her and seeming to address no one in +particular.</p> +<p>“It is not when <i>any one</i> dies in the castle that +the howling is heard. It was when one of the Cernogratz +family died here that the wolves came from far and near and +howled at the edge of the forest just before the death +hour. There were only a few couple of wolves that had their +lairs in this part of the forest, but at such a time the keepers +say there would be scores of them, gliding about in the shadows +and howling in chorus, and the dogs of the castle and the village +and all the farms round would bay and howl in fear and anger at +the wolf chorus, and as the soul of the dying one left its body a +tree would crash down in the park. That is what happened +when a Cernogratz died in his family castle. But for a +stranger dying here, of course no wolf would howl and no tree +would fall. Oh, no.”</p> +<p>There was a note of defiance, almost of contempt, in her voice +as she said the last words. The well-fed, much-too-well +dressed Baroness stared angrily at the dowdy old woman who had +come forth from her usual and seemly position of effacement to +speak so disrespectfully.</p> +<p>“You seem to know quite a lot about the von Cernogratz +legends, Fraulein Schmidt,” she said sharply; “I did +not know that family histories were among the subjects you are +supposed to be proficient in.”</p> +<p>The answer to her taunt was even more unexpected and +astonishing than the conversational outbreak which had provoked +it.</p> +<p>“I am a von Cernogratz myself,” said the old +woman, “that is why I know the family history.”</p> +<p>“You a von Cernogratz? You!” came in an +incredulous chorus.</p> +<p>“When we became very poor,” she explained, +“and I had to go out and give teaching lessons, I took +another name; I thought it would be more in keeping. But my +grandfather spent much of his time as a boy in this castle, and +my father used to tell me many stories about it, and, of course, +I knew all the family legends and stories. When one has +nothing left to one but memories, one guards and dusts them with +especial care. I little thought when I took service with +you that I should one day come with you to the old home of my +family. I could wish it had been anywhere else.”</p> +<p>There was silence when she finished speaking, and then the +Baroness turned the conversation to a less embarrassing topic +than family histories. But afterwards, when the old +governess had slipped away quietly to her duties, there arose a +clamour of derision and disbelief.</p> +<p>“It was an impertinence,” snapped out the Baron, +his protruding eyes taking on a scandalised expression; +“fancy the woman talking like that at our table. She +almost told us we were nobodies, and I don’t believe a word +of it. She is just Schmidt and nothing more. She has +been talking to some of the peasants about the old Cernogratz +family, and raked up their history and their stories.”</p> +<p>“She wants to make herself out of some +consequence,” said the Baroness; “she knows she will +soon be past work and she wants to appeal to our +sympathies. Her grandfather, indeed!”</p> +<p>The Baroness had the usual number of grandfathers, but she +never, never boasted about them.</p> +<p>“I dare say her grandfather was a pantry boy or +something of the sort in the castle,” sniggered the Baron; +“that part of the story may be true.”</p> +<p>The merchant from Hamburg said nothing; he had seen tears in +the old woman’s eyes when she spoke of guarding her +memories—or, being of an imaginative disposition, he +thought he had.</p> +<p>“I shall give her notice to go as soon as the New Year +festivities are over,” said the Baroness; “till then +I shall be too busy to manage without her.”</p> +<p>But she had to manage without her all the same, for in the +cold biting weather after Christmas, the old governess fell ill +and kept to her room.</p> +<p>“It is most provoking,” said the Baroness, as her +guests sat round the fire on one of the last evenings of the +dying year; “all the time that she has been with us I +cannot remember that she was ever seriously ill, too ill to go +about and do her work, I mean. And now, when I have the +house full, and she could be useful in so many ways, she goes and +breaks down. One is sorry for her, of course, she looks so +withered and shrunken, but it is intensely annoying all the +same.”</p> +<p>“Most annoying,” agreed the banker’s wife, +sympathetically; “it is the intense cold, I expect, it +breaks the old people up. It has been unusually cold this +year.”</p> +<p>“The frost is the sharpest that has been known in +December for many years,” said the Baron.</p> +<p>“And, of course, she is quite old,” said the +Baroness; “I wish I had given her notice some weeks ago, +then she would have left before this happened to her. Why, +Wappi, what is the matter with you?”</p> +<p>The small, woolly lapdog had leapt suddenly down from its +cushion and crept shivering under the sofa. At the same +moment an outburst of angry barking came from the dogs in the +castle-yard, and other dogs could be heard yapping and barking in +the distance.</p> +<p>“What is disturbing the animals?” asked the +Baron.</p> +<p>And then the humans, listening intently, heard the sound that +had roused the dogs to their demonstrations of fear and rage; +heard a long-drawn whining howl, rising and falling, seeming at +one moment leagues away, at others sweeping across the snow until +it appeared to come from the foot of the castle walls. All +the starved, cold misery of a frozen world, all the relentless +hunger-fury of the wild, blended with other forlorn and haunting +melodies to which one could give no name, seemed concentrated in +that wailing cry.</p> +<p>“Wolves!” cried the Baron.</p> +<p>Their music broke forth in one raging burst, seeming to come +from everywhere.</p> +<p>“Hundreds of wolves,” said the Hamburg merchant, +who was a man of strong imagination.</p> +<p>Moved by some impulse which she could not have explained, the +Baroness left her guests and made her way to the narrow, +cheerless room where the old governess lay watching the hours of +the dying year slip by. In spite of the biting cold of the +winter night, the window stood open. With a scandalised +exclamation on her lips, the Baroness rushed forward to close +it.</p> +<p>“Leave it open,” said the old woman in a voice +that for all its weakness carried an air of command such as the +Baroness had never heard before from her lips.</p> +<p>“But you will die of cold!” she expostulated.</p> +<p>“I am dying in any case,” said the voice, +“and I want to hear their music. They have come from +far and wide to sing the death-music of my family. It is +beautiful that they have come; I am the last von Cernogratz that +will die in our old castle, and they have come to sing to +me. Hark, how loud they are calling!”</p> +<p>The cry of the wolves rose on the still winter air and floated +round the castle walls in long-drawn piercing wails; the old +woman lay back on her couch with a look of long-delayed happiness +on her face.</p> +<p>“Go away,” she said to the Baroness; “I am +not lonely any more. I am one of a great old family . . . +”</p> +<p>“I think she is dying,” said the Baroness when she +had rejoined her guests; “I suppose we must send for a +doctor. And that terrible howling! Not for much money +would I have such death-music.”</p> +<p>“That music is not to be bought for any amount of +money,” said Conrad.</p> +<p>“Hark! What is that other sound?” asked the +Baron, as a noise of splitting and crashing was heard.</p> +<p>It was a tree falling in the park.</p> +<p>There was a moment of constrained silence, and then the +banker’s wife spoke.</p> +<p>“It is the intense cold that is splitting the +trees. It is also the cold that has brought the wolves out +in such numbers. It is many years since we have had such a +cold winter.”</p> +<p>The Baroness eagerly agreed that the cold was responsible for +these things. It was the cold of the open window, too, +which caused the heart failure that made the doctor’s +ministrations unnecessary for the old Fraulein. But the +notice in the newspapers looked very well—</p> +<blockquote><p>“On December 29th, at Schloss Cernogratz, +Amalie von Cernogratz, for many years the valued friend of Baron +and Baroness Gruebel.”</p> +</blockquote> +<h2><a name="page49"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +49</span>LOUIS</h2> +<p>“It would be jolly to spend Easter in Vienna this +year,” said Strudwarden, “and look up some of my old +friends there. It’s about the jolliest place I know +of to be at for Easter—”</p> +<p>“I thought we had made up our minds to spend Easter at +Brighton,” interrupted Lena Strudwarden, with an air of +aggrieved surprise.</p> +<p>“You mean that you had made up your mind that we should +spend Easter there,” said her husband; “we spent last +Easter there, and Whitsuntide as well, and the year before that +we were at Worthing, and Brighton again before that. I +think it would be just as well to have a real change of scene +while we are about it.”</p> +<p>“The journey to Vienna would be very expensive,” +said Lena.</p> +<p>“You are not often concerned about economy,” said +Strudwarden, “and in any case the trip of Vienna +won’t cost a bit more than the rather meaningless luncheon +parties we usually give to quite meaningless acquaintances at +Brighton. To escape from all that set would be a holiday in +itself.”</p> +<p>Strudwarden spoke feelingly; Lena Strudwarden maintained an +equally feeling silence on that particular subject. The set +that she gathered round her at Brighton and other South Coast +resorts was composed of individuals who might be dull and +meaningless in themselves, but who understood the art of +flattering Mrs. Strudwarden. She had no intention of +foregoing their society and their homage and flinging herself +among unappreciative strangers in a foreign capital.</p> +<p>“You must go to Vienna alone if you are bent on +going,” she said; “I couldn’t leave Louis +behind, and a dog is always a fearful nuisance in a foreign +hotel, besides all the fuss and separation of the quarantine +restrictions when one comes back. Louis would die if he was +parted from me for even a week. You don’t know what +that would mean to me.”</p> +<p>Lena stooped down and kissed the nose of the diminutive brown +Pomeranian that lay, snug and irresponsive, beneath a shawl on +her lap.</p> +<p>“Look here,” said Strudwarden, “this eternal +Louis business is getting to be a ridiculous nuisance. +Nothing can be done, no plans can be made, without some veto +connected with that animal’s whims or convenience being +imposed. If you were a priest in attendance on some African +fetish you couldn’t set up a more elaborate code of +restrictions. I believe you’d ask the Government to +put off a General Election if you thought it would interfere with +Louis’s comfort in any way.”</p> +<p>By way of answer to this tirade Mrs. Strudwarden stooped down +again and kissed the irresponsive brown nose. It was the +action of a woman with a beautifully meek nature, who would, +however, send the whole world to the stake sooner than yield an +inch where she knew herself to be in the right.</p> +<p>“It isn’t as if you were in the least bit fond of +animals,” went on Strudwarden, with growing irritation; +“when we are down at Kerryfield you won’t stir a step +to take the house dogs out, even if they’re dying for a +run, and I don’t think you’ve been in the stables +twice in your life. You laugh at what you call the fuss +that’s being made over the extermination of plumage birds, +and you are quite indignant with me if I interfere on behalf of +an ill-treated, over-driven animal on the road. And yet you +insist on every one’s plans being made subservient to the +convenience of that stupid little morsel of fur and +selfishness.”</p> +<p>“You are prejudiced against my little Louis,” said +Lena, with a world of tender regret in her voice.</p> +<p>“I’ve never had the chance of being anything else +but prejudiced against him,” said Strudwarden; “I +know what a jolly responsive companion a doggie can be, but +I’ve never been allowed to put a finger near Louis. +You say he snaps at any one except you and your maid, and you +snatched him away from old Lady Peterby the other day, when she +wanted to pet him, for fear he would bury his teeth in her. +All that I ever see of him is the top of his unhealthy-looking +little nose, peeping out from his basket or from your muff, and I +occasionally hear his wheezy little bark when you take him for a +walk up and down the corridor. You can’t expect one +to get extravagantly fond of a dog of that sort. One might +as well work up an affection for the cuckoo in a +cuckoo-clock.”</p> +<p>“He loves me,” said Lena, rising from the table, +and bearing the shawl-swathed Louis in her arms. “He +loves only me, and perhaps that is why I love him so much in +return. I don’t care what you say against him, I am +not going to be separated from him. If you insist on going +to Vienna you must go alone, as far as I am concerned. I +think it would be much more sensible if you were to come to +Brighton with Louis and me, but of course you must please +yourself.”</p> +<p>“You must get rid of that dog,” said +Strudwarden’s sister when Lena had left the room; “it +must be helped to some sudden and merciful end. Lena is +merely making use of it as an instrument for getting her own way +on dozens of occasions when she would otherwise be obliged to +yield gracefully to your wishes or to the general +convenience. I am convinced that she doesn’t care a +brass button about the animal itself. When her friends are +buzzing round her at Brighton or anywhere else and the dog would +be in the way, it has to spend whole days alone with the maid, +but if you want Lena to go with you anywhere where she +doesn’t want to go instantly she trots out the excuse that +she couldn’t be separated from her dog. Have you ever +come into a room unobserved and heard Lena talking to her beloved +pet? I never have. I believe she only fusses over it +when there’s some one present to notice her.”</p> +<p>“I don’t mind admitting,” said Strudwarden, +“that I’ve dwelt more than once lately on the +possibility of some fatal accident putting an end to +Louis’s existence. It’s not very easy, though, +to arrange a fatality for a creature that spends most of its time +in a muff or asleep in a toy kennel. I don’t think +poison would be any good; it’s obviously horribly over-fed, +for I’ve seen Lena offer it dainties at table sometimes, +but it never seems to eat them.”</p> +<p>“Lena will be away at church on Wednesday +morning,” said Elsie Strudwarden reflectively; “she +can’t take Louis with her there, and she is going on to the +Dellings for lunch. That will give you several hours in +which to carry out your purpose. The maid will be flirting +with the chauffeur most of the time, and, anyhow, I can manage to +keep her out of the way on some pretext or other.”</p> +<p>“That leaves the field clear,” said Strudwarden, +“but unfortunately my brain is equally a blank as far as +any lethal project is concerned. The little beast is so +monstrously inactive; I can’t pretend that it leapt into +the bath and drowned itself, or that it took on the +butcher’s mastiff in unequal combat and got chewed +up. In what possible guise could death come to a confirmed +basket-dweller? It would be too suspicious if we invented a +Suffragette raid and pretended that they invaded Lena’s +boudoir and threw a brick at him. We should have to do a +lot of other damage as well, which would be rather a nuisance, +and the servants would think it odd that they had seen nothing of +the invaders.”</p> +<p>“I have an idea,” said Elsie; “get a box +with an air-tight lid, and bore a small hole in it, just big +enough to let in an indiarubber tube. Pop Louis, kennel and +all, into the box, shut it down, and put the other end of the +tube over the gas-bracket. There you have a perfect lethal +chamber. You can stand the kennel at the open window +afterwards, to get rid of the smell of gas, and all that Lena +will find when she comes home late in the afternoon will be a +placidly defunct Louis.”</p> +<p>“Novels have been written about women like you,” +said Strudwarden; “you have a perfectly criminal +mind. Let’s come and look for a box.”</p> +<p>Two mornings later the conspirators stood gazing guiltily at a +stout square box, connected with the gas-bracket by a length of +indiarubber tubing.</p> +<p>“Not a sound,” said Elsie; “he never +stirred; it must have been quite painless. All the same I +feel rather horrid now it’s done.”</p> +<p>“The ghastly part has to come,” said Strudwarden, +turning off the gas. “We’ll lift the lid +slowly, and let the gas out by degrees. Swing the door to +and fro to send a draught through the room.”</p> +<p>Some minutes later, when the fumes had rushed off, he stooped +down and lifted out the little kennel with its grim burden. +Elsie gave an exclamation of terror. Louis sat at the door +of his dwelling, head erect and ears pricked, as coldly and +defiantly inert as when they had put him into his execution +chamber. Strudwarden dropped the kennel with a jerk, and +stared for a long moment at the miracle-dog; then he went into a +peal of chattering laughter.</p> +<p>It was certainly a wonderful imitation of a truculent-looking +toy Pomeranian, and the apparatus that gave forth a wheezy bark +when you pressed it had materially helped the imposition that +Lena, and Lena’s maid, had foisted on the household. +For a woman who disliked animals, but liked getting her own way +under a halo of unselfishness, Mrs. Strudwarden had managed +rather well.</p> +<p>“Louis is dead,” was the curt information that +greeted Lena on her return from her luncheon party.</p> +<p>“Louis <i>dead</i>!” she exclaimed.</p> +<p>“Yes, he flew at the butcher-boy and bit him, and he bit +me, too, when I tried to get him off, so I had to have him +destroyed. You warned me that he snapped, but you +didn’t tell me that he was downright dangerous. I +shall have to pay the boy something heavy by way of compensation, +so you will have to go without those buckles that you wanted to +have for Easter; also I shall have to go to Vienna to consult Dr. +Schroeder, who is a specialist on dog-bites, and you will have to +come too. I have sent what remains of Louis to Rowland Ward +to be stuffed; that will be my Easter gift to you instead of the +buckles. For Heaven’s sake, Lena, weep, if you really +feel it so much; anything would be better than standing there +staring as if you thought I had lost my reason.”</p> +<p>Lena Strudwarden did not weep, but her attempt at laughing was +an unmistakable failure.</p> +<h2><a name="page59"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 59</span>THE +GUESTS</h2> +<p>“The landscape seen from our windows is certainly +charming,” said Annabel; “those cherry orchards and +green meadows, and the river winding along the valley, and the +church tower peeping out among the elms, they all make a most +effective picture. There’s something dreadfully +sleepy and languorous about it, though; stagnation seems to be +the dominant note. Nothing ever happens here; seedtime and +harvest, an occasional outbreak of measles or a mildly +destructive thunderstorm, and a little election excitement about +once in five years, that is all that we have to modify the +monotony of our existence. Rather dreadful, isn’t +it?”</p> +<p>“On the contrary,” said Matilda, “I find it +soothing and restful; but then, you see, I’ve lived in +countries where things do happen, ever so many at a time, when +you’re not ready for them happening all at once.”</p> +<p>“That, of course, makes a difference,” said +Annabel.</p> +<p>“I have never forgotten,” said Matilda, “the +occasion when the Bishop of Bequar paid us an unexpected visit; +he was on his way to lay the foundation-stone of a mission-house +or something of the sort.”</p> +<p>“I thought that out there you were always prepared for +emergency guests turning up,” said Annabel.</p> +<p>“I was quite prepared for half a dozen Bishops,” +said Matilda, “but it was rather disconcerting to find out +after a little conversation that this particular one was a +distant cousin of mine, belonging to a branch of the family that +had quarrelled bitterly and offensively with our branch about a +Crown Derby dessert service; they got it, and we ought to have +got it, in some legacy, or else we got it and they thought they +ought to have it, I forget which; anyhow, I know they behaved +disgracefully. Now here was one of them turning up in the +odour of sanctity, so to speak, and claiming the traditional +hospitality of the East.”</p> +<p>“It was rather trying, but you could have left your +husband to do most of the entertaining.”</p> +<p>“My husband was fifty miles up-country, talking sense, +or what he imagined to be sense, to a village community that +fancied one of their leading men was a were-tiger.”</p> +<p>“A what tiger?”</p> +<p>“A were-tiger; you’ve heard of were-wolves, +haven’t you, a mixture of wolf and human being and +demon? Well, in those parts they have were-tigers, or think +they have, and I must say that in this case, so far as sworn and +uncontested evidence went, they had every ground for thinking +so. However, as we gave up witchcraft prosecutions about +three hundred years ago, we don’t like to have other people +keeping on our discarded practices; it doesn’t seem +respectful to our mental and moral position.”</p> +<p>“I hope you weren’t unkind to the Bishop,” +said Annabel.</p> +<p>“Well, of course he was my guest, so I had to be +outwardly polite to him, but he was tactless enough to rake up +the incidents of the old quarrel, and to try to make out that +there was something to be said for the way his side of the family +had behaved; even if there was, which I don’t for a moment +admit, my house was not the place in which to say it. I +didn’t argue the matter, but I gave my cook a holiday to go +and visit his aged parents some ninety miles away. The +emergency cook was not a specialist in curries, in fact, I +don’t think cooking in any shape or form could have been +one of his strong points. I believe he originally came to +us in the guise of a gardener, but as we never pretended to have +anything that could be considered a garden he was utilised as +assistant goat-herd, in which capacity, I understand, he gave +every satisfaction. When the Bishop heard that I had sent +away the cook on a special and unnecessary holiday he saw the +inwardness of the manœuvre, and from that moment we were +scarcely on speaking terms. If you have ever had a Bishop +with whom you were not on speaking terms staying in your house, +you will appreciate the situation.”</p> +<p>Annabel confessed that her life-story had never included such +a disturbing experience.</p> +<p>“Then,” continued Matilda, “to make matters +more complicated, the Gwadlipichee overflowed its banks, a thing +it did every now and then when the rains were unduly prolonged, +and the lower part of the house and all the out-buildings were +submerged. We managed to get the ponies loose in time, and +the syce swam the whole lot of them off to the nearest rising +ground. A goat or two, the chief goat-herd, the chief +goat-herd’s wife, and several of their babies came to +anchorage in the verandah. All the rest of the available +space was filled up with wet, bedraggled-looking hens and +chickens; one never really knows how many fowls one possesses +till the servants’ quarters are flooded out. Of +course, I had been through something of the sort in previous +floods, but never before had I had a houseful of goats and babies +and half-drowned hens, supplemented by a Bishop with whom I was +hardly on speaking terms.”</p> +<p>“It must have been a trying experience,” commented +Annabel.</p> +<p>“More embarrassments were to follow. I +wasn’t going to let a mere ordinary flood wash out the +memory of that Crown Derby dessert service, and I intimated to +the Bishop that his large bedroom, with a writing table in it, +and his small bath-room, with a sufficiency of cold-water jars in +it, was his share of the premises, and that space was rather +congested under the existing circumstances. However, at +about three o’clock in the afternoon, when he had awakened +from his midday sleep, he made a sudden incursion into the room +that was normally the drawing-room, but was now dining-room, +store-house, saddle-room, and half a dozen other temporary +premises as well. From the condition of my guest’s +costume he seemed to think it might also serve as his +dressing-room.</p> +<p>“’I’m afraid there is nowhere for you to +sit,’ I said coldly; ‘the verandah is full of +goats.’</p> +<p>“’There is a goat in my bedroom,’ he +observed with equal coldness, and more than a suspicion of +sardonic reproach.</p> +<p>“’Really,’ I said, ‘another +survivor? I thought all the other goats were done +for.’</p> +<p>“‘This particular goat is quite done for,’ +he said, ‘it is being devoured by a leopard at the present +moment. That is why I left the room; some animals resent +being watched while they are eating.’</p> +<p>“The leopard, of course, was easily explained; it had +been hanging round the goat sheds when the flood came, and had +clambered up by the outside staircase leading to the +Bishop’s bath-room, thoughtfully bringing a goat with +it. Probably it found the bath-room too damp and shut-in +for its taste, and transferred its banqueting operations to the +bedroom while the Bishop was having his nap.”</p> +<p>“What a frightful situation!” exclaimed Annabel; +“fancy having a ravening leopard in the house, with a flood +all round you.”</p> +<p>“Not in the least ravening,” said Matilda; +“it was full of goat, had any amount of water at its +disposal if it felt thirsty, and probably had no more immediate +wish than a desire for uninterrupted sleep. Still, I think +any one will admit that it was an embarrassing predicament to +have your only available guest-room occupied by a leopard, the +verandah choked up with goats and babies and wet hens, and a +Bishop with whom you were scarcely on speaking terms planted down +in your own sitting-room. I really don’t know how I +got through those crawling hours, and of course mealtimes only +made matters worse. The emergency cook had every excuse for +sending in watery soup and sloppy rice, and as neither the chief +goat-herd nor his wife were expert divers, the cellar could not +be reached. Fortunately the Gwadlipichee subsides as +rapidly as it rises, and just before dawn the syce came splashing +back, with the ponies only fetlock deep in water. Then +there arose some awkwardness from the fact that the Bishop wished +to leave sooner than the leopard did, and as the latter was +ensconced in the midst of the former’s personal possessions +there was an obvious difficulty in altering the order of +departure. I pointed out to the Bishop that a +leopard’s habits and tastes are not those of an otter, and +that it naturally preferred walking to wading; and that in any +case a meal of an entire goat, washed down with tub-water, +justified a certain amount of repose; if I had had guns fired to +frighten the animal away, as the Bishop suggested, it would +probably merely have left the bedroom to come into the already +over-crowded drawing-room. Altogether it was rather a +relief when they both left. Now, perhaps, you can +understand my appreciation of a sleepy countryside where things +don’t happen.”</p> +<h2><a name="page67"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 67</span>THE +PENANCE</h2> +<p>Octavian Ruttle was one of those lively cheerful individuals +on whom amiability had set its unmistakable stamp, and, like most +of his kind, his soul’s peace depended in large measure on +the unstinted approval of his fellows. In hunting to death +a small tabby cat he had done a thing of which he scarcely +approved himself, and he was glad when the gardener had hidden +the body in its hastily dug grave under a lone oak-tree in the +meadow, the same tree that the hunted quarry had climbed as a +last effort towards safety. It had been a distasteful and +seemingly ruthless deed, but circumstances had demanded the doing +of it. Octavian kept chickens; at least he kept some of +them; others vanished from his keeping, leaving only a few +bloodstained feathers to mark the manner of their going. +The tabby cat from the large grey house that stood with its back +to the meadow had been detected in many furtive visits to the +hen-coups, and after due negotiation with those in authority at +the grey house a sentence of death had been agreed on. +“The children will mind, but they need not know,” had +been the last word on the matter.</p> +<p>The children in question were a standing puzzle to Octavian; +in the course of a few months he considered that he should have +known their names, ages, the dates of their birthdays, and have +been introduced to their favourite toys. They remained +however, as non-committal as the long blank wall that shut them +off from the meadow, a wall over which their three heads +sometimes appeared at odd moments. They had parents in +India—that much Octavian had learned in the neighbourhood; +the children, beyond grouping themselves garment-wise into sexes, +a girl and two boys, carried their life-story no further on his +behoof. And now it seemed he was engaged in something which +touched them closely, but must be hidden from their +knowledge.</p> +<p>The poor helpless chickens had gone one by one to their doom, +so it was meet that their destroyer should come to a violent end; +yet Octavian felt some qualms when his share of the violence was +ended. The little cat, headed off from its wonted tracks of +safety, had raced unfriended from shelter to shelter, and its end +had been rather piteous. Octavian walked through the long +grass of the meadow with a step less jaunty than usual. And +as he passed beneath the shadow of the high blank wall he glanced +up and became aware that his hunting had had undesired +witnesses. Three white set faces were looking down at him, +and if ever an artist wanted a threefold study of cold human +hate, impotent yet unyielding, raging yet masked in stillness, he +would have found it in the triple gaze that met Octavian’s +eye.</p> +<p>“I’m sorry, but it had to be done,” said +Octavian, with genuine apology in his voice.</p> +<p>“Beast!”</p> +<p>The answer came from three throats with startling +intensity.</p> +<p>Octavian felt that the blank wall would not be more impervious +to his explanations than the bunch of human hostility that peered +over its coping; he wisely decided to withhold his peace +overtures till a more hopeful occasion.</p> +<p>Two days later he ransacked the best sweet shop in the +neighbouring market town for a box of chocolates that by its size +and contents should fitly atone for the dismal deed done under +the oak tree in the meadow. The two first specimens that +were shown him he hastily rejected; one had a group of chickens +pictured on its lid, the other bore the portrait of a tabby +kitten. A third sample was more simply bedecked with a +spray of painted poppies, and Octavian hailed the flowers of +forgetfulness as a happy omen. He felt distinctly more at +ease with his surroundings when the imposing package had been +sent across to the grey house, and a message returned to say that +it had been duly given to the children. The next morning he +sauntered with purposeful steps past the long blank wall on his +way to the chicken-run and piggery that stood at the bottom of +the meadow. The three children were perched at their +accustomed look-out, and their range of sight did not seem to +concern itself with Octavian’s presence. As he became +depressingly aware of the aloofness of their gaze he also noted a +strange variegation in the herbage at his feet; the greensward +for a considerable space around was strewn and speckled with a +chocolate-coloured hail, enlivened here and there with gay +tinsel-like wrappings or the glistening mauve of crystallised +violets. It was as though the fairy paradise of a +greedyminded child had taken shape and substance in the +vegetation of the meadow. Octavian’s bloodmoney had +been flung back at him in scorn.</p> +<p>To increase his discomfiture the march of events tended to +shift the blame of ravaged chicken-coops from the supposed +culprit who had already paid full forfeit; the young chicks were +still carried off, and it seemed highly probable that the cat had +only haunted the chicken-run to prey on the rats which harboured +there. Through the flowing channels of servant talk the +children learned of this belated revision of verdict, and +Octavian one day picked up a sheet of copy-book paper on which +was painstakingly written: “Beast. Rats eated your +chickens.” More ardently than ever did he wish for an +opportunity for sloughing off the disgrace that enwrapped him, +and earning some happier nickname from his three unsparing +judges.</p> +<p>And one day a chance inspiration came to him. Olivia, +his two-year-old daughter, was accustomed to spend the hour from +high noon till one o’clock with her father while the +nursemaid gobbled and digested her dinner and novelette. +About the same time the blank wall was usually enlivened by the +presence of its three small wardens. Octavian, with seeming +carelessness of purpose, brought Olivia well within hail of the +watchers and noted with hidden delight the growing interest that +dawned in that hitherto sternly hostile quarter. His little +Olivia, with her sleepy placid ways, was going to succeed where +he, with his anxious well-meant overtures, had so signally +failed. He brought her a large yellow dahlia, which she +grasped tightly in one hand and regarded with a stare of +benevolent boredom, such as one might bestow on amateur classical +dancing performed in aid of a deserving charity. Then he +turned shyly to the group perched on the wall and asked with +affected carelessness, “Do you like flowers?” +Three solemn nods rewarded his venture.</p> +<p>“Which sorts do you like best?” he asked, this +time with a distinct betrayal of eagerness in his voice.</p> +<p>“Those with all the colours, over there.” +Three chubby arms pointed to a distant tangle of sweet-pea. +Child-like, they had asked for what lay farthest from hand, but +Octavian trotted off gleefully to obey their welcome +behest. He pulled and plucked with unsparing hand, and +brought every variety of tint that he could see into his bunch +that was rapidly becoming a bundle. Then he turned to +retrace his steps, and found the blank wall blanker and more +deserted than ever, while the foreground was void of all trace of +Olivia. Far down the meadow three children were pushing a +go-cart at the utmost speed they could muster in the direction of +the piggeries; it was Olivia’s go-cart and Olivia sat in +it, somewhat bumped and shaken by the pace at which she was being +driven, but apparently retaining her wonted composure of +mind. Octavian stared for a moment at the rapidly moving +group, and then started in hot pursuit, shedding as he ran sprays +of blossom from the mass of sweet-pea that he still clutched in +his hands. Fast as he ran the children had reached the +piggery before he could overtake them, and he arrived just in +time to see Olivia, wondering but unprotesting, hauled and pushed +up to the roof of the nearest sty. They were old buildings +in some need of repair, and the rickety roof would certainly not +have borne Octavian’s weight if he had attempted to follow +his daughter and her captors on their new vantage ground.</p> +<p>“What are you going to do with her?” he +panted. There was no mistaking the grim trend of mischief +in those flushed by sternly composed young faces.</p> +<p>“Hang her in chains over a slow fire,” said one of +the boys. Evidently they had been reading English +history.</p> +<p>“Frow her down the pigs will d’vour her, every bit +’cept the palms of her hands,” said the other +boy. It was also evident that they had studied Biblical +history.</p> +<p>The last proposal was the one which most alarmed Octavian, +since it might be carried into effect at a moment’s notice; +there had been cases, he remembered, of pigs eating babies.</p> +<p>“You surely wouldn’t treat my poor little Olivia +in that way?” he pleaded.</p> +<p>“You killed our little cat,” came in stern +reminder from three throats.</p> +<p>“I’m sorry I did,” said Octavian, and if +there is a standard measurement in truths Octavian’s +statement was assuredly a large nine.</p> +<p>“We shall be very sorry when we’ve killed +Olivia,” said the girl, “but we can’t be sorry +till we’ve done it.”</p> +<p>The inexorable child-logic rose like an unyielding rampart +before Octavian’s scared pleadings. Before he could +think of any fresh line of appeal his energies were called out in +another direction. Olivia had slid off the roof and fallen +with a soft, unctuous splash into a morass of muck and decaying +straw. Octavian scrambled hastily over the pigsty wall to +her rescue, and at once found himself in a quagmire that engulfed +his feet. Olivia, after the first shock of surprise at her +sudden drop through the air, had been mildly pleased at finding +herself in close and unstinted contact with the sticky element +that oozed around her, but as she began to sink gently into the +bed of slime a feeling dawned on her that she was not after all +very happy, and she began to cry in the tentative fashion of the +normally good child. Octavian, battling with the quagmire, +which seemed to have learned the rare art of giving way at all +points without yielding an inch, saw his daughter slowly +disappearing in the engulfing slush, her smeared face further +distorted with the contortions of whimpering wonder, while from +their perch on the pigsty roof the three children looked down +with the cold unpitying detachment of the Parcæ +Sisters.</p> +<p>“I can’t reach her in time,” gasped +Octavian, “she’ll be choked in the muck. +Won’t you help her?”</p> +<p>“No one helped our cat,” came the inevitable +reminder.</p> +<p>“I’ll do anything to show you how sorry I am about +that,” cried Octavian, with a further desperate flounder, +which carried him scarcely two inches forward.</p> +<p>“Will you stand in a white sheet by the +grave?”</p> +<p>“Yes,” screamed Octavian.</p> +<p>“Holding a candle?”</p> +<p>“An’ saying ‘I’m a miserable +Beast’?”</p> +<p>Octavian agreed to both suggestions.</p> +<p>“For a long, long time?”</p> +<p>“For half an hour,” said Octavian. There was +an anxious ring in his voice as he named the time-limit; was +there not the precedent of a German king who did open-air penance +for several days and nights at Christmas-time clad only in his +shirt? Fortunately the children did not appear to have read +German history, and half an hour seemed long and goodly in their +eyes.</p> +<p>“All right,” came with threefold solemnity from +the roof, and a moment later a short ladder had been laboriously +pushed across to Octavian, who lost no time in propping it +against the low pigsty wall. Scrambling gingerly along its +rungs he was able to lean across the morass that separated him +from his slowly foundering offspring and extract her like an +unwilling cork from it’s slushy embrace. A few +minutes later he was listening to the shrill and repeated +assurances of the nursemaid that her previous experience of +filthy spectacles had been on a notably smaller scale.</p> +<p>That same evening when twilight was deepening into darkness +Octavian took up his position as penitent under the lone +oak-tree, having first carefully undressed the part. Clad +in a zephyr shirt, which on this occasion thoroughly merited its +name, he held in one hand a lighted candle and in the other a +watch, into which the soul of a dead plumber seemed to have +passed. A box of matches lay at his feet and was resorted +to on the fairly frequent occasions when the candle succumbed to +the night breezes. The house loomed inscrutable in the +middle distance, but as Octavian conscientiously repeated the +formula of his penance he felt certain that three pairs of solemn +eyes were watching his moth-shared vigil.</p> +<p>And the next morning his eyes were gladdened by a sheet of +copy-book paper lying beside the blank wall, on which was written +the message “Un-Beast.”</p> +<h2><a name="page79"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 79</span>THE +PHANTOM LUNCHEON</h2> +<p>“The Smithly-Dubbs are in Town,” said Sir +James. “I wish you would show them some +attention. Ask them to lunch with you at the Ritz or +somewhere.”</p> +<p>“From the little I’ve seen of the Smithly-Dubbs I +don’t thing I want to cultivate their acquaintance,” +said Lady Drakmanton.</p> +<p>“They always work for us at election times,” said +her husband; “I don’t suppose they influence very +many votes, but they have an uncle who is on one of my ward +committees, and another uncle speaks sometimes at some of our +less important meetings. Those sort of people expect some +return in the shape of hospitality.”</p> +<p>“Expect it!” exclaimed Lady Drakmanton; “the +Misses Smithly-Dubb do more than that; they almost demand +it. They belong to my club, and hang about the lobby just +about lunch-time, all three of them, with their tongues hanging +out of their mouths and the six-course look in their eyes. +If I were to breathe the word ‘lunch’ they would +hustle me into a taxi and scream ‘Ritz’ or +‘Dieudonne’s’ to the driver before I knew what +was happening.”</p> +<p>“All the same, I think you ought to ask them to a meal +of some sort,” persisted Sir James.</p> +<p>“I consider that showing hospitality to the +Smithly-Dubbs is carrying Free Food principles to a regrettable +extreme,” said Lady Drakmanton; “I’ve +entertained the Joneses and the Browns and the Snapheimers and +the Lubrikoffs, and heaps of others whose names I forget, but I +don’t see why I should inflict the society of the Misses +Smithly-Dubb on myself for a solid hour. Imagine it, sixty +minutes, more or less, of unrelenting gobble and gabble. +Why can’t <i>you</i> take them on, Milly?” she asked, +turning hopefully to her sister.</p> +<p>“I don’t know them,” said Milly hastily.</p> +<p>“All the better; you can pass yourself off as me. +People say that we are so alike that they can hardly tell us +apart, and I’ve only spoken to these tiresome young women +about twice in my life, at committee-rooms, and bowed to them in +the club. Any of the club page-boys will point them out to +you; they’re always to be found lolling about the hall just +before lunch-time.”</p> +<p>“My dear Betty, don’t be absurd,” protested +Milly; “I’ve got some people lunching with me at the +Carlton to-morrow, and I’m leaving Town the day +afterwards.”</p> +<p>“What time is your lunch to-morrow?” asked Lady +Drakmanton reflectively.</p> +<p>“Two o’clock,” said Milly.</p> +<p>“Good,” said her sister; “the Smithly-Dubbs +shall lunch with me to-morrow. It shall be rather an +amusing lunch-party. At least, I shall be +amused.”</p> +<p>The last two remarks she made to herself. Other people +did not always appreciate her ideas of humour. Sir James +never did.</p> +<p>The next day Lady Drakmanton made some marked variations in +her usual toilet effects. She dressed her hair in an +unaccustomed manner, and put on a hat that added to the +transformation of her appearance. When she had made one or +two minor alterations she was sufficiently unlike her usual smart +self to produce some hesitation in the greeting which the Misses +Smithly-Dubb bestowed on her in the club-lobby. She +responded, however, with a readiness which set their doubts at +rest.</p> +<p>“What is the Carlton like for lunching in?” she +asked breezily.</p> +<p>The restaurant received an enthusiastic recommendation from +the three sisters.</p> +<p>“Let’s go and lunch there, shall we?” she +suggested, and in a few minutes’ time the Smithly-Dubb mind +was contemplating at close quarters a happy vista of baked meats +and approved vintage.</p> +<p>“Are you going to start with caviare? I am,” +confided Lady Drakmanton, and the Smithly-Dubbs started with +caviare. The subsequent dishes were chosen in the same +ambitious spirit, and by the time they had arrived at the wild +duck course it was beginning to be a rather expensive lunch.</p> +<p>The conversation hardly kept pace with the brilliancy of the +menu. Repeated references on the part of the guests to the +local political conditions and prospects in Sir James’s +constituency were met with vague “ahs” and +“indeeds” from Lady Drakmanton, who might have been +expected to be specially interested.</p> +<p>“I think when the Insurance Act is a little better +understood it will lose some of its present unpopularity,” +hazarded Cecilia Smithly-Dubb.</p> +<p>“Will it? I dare say. I’m afraid +politics don’t interest me very much,” said Lady +Drakmanton.</p> +<p>The three Miss Smithly-Dubbs put down their cups of Turkish +coffee and stared. Then they broke into protesting +giggles.</p> +<p>“Of course, you’re joking,” they said.</p> +<p>“Not me,” was the disconcerting answer; “I +can’t make head or tail of these bothering old +politics. Never could, and never want to. I’ve +quite enough to do to manage my own affairs, and that’s a +fact.”</p> +<p>“But,” exclaimed Amanda Smithly-Dubb, with a +squeal of bewilderment breaking into her voice, “I was told +you spoke so informingly about the Insurance Act at one of our +social evenings.”</p> +<p>It was Lady Drakmanton who stared now. “Do you +know,” she said, with a scared look around her, +“rather a dreadful thing is happening. I’m +suffering from a complete loss of memory. I can’t +even think who I am. I remember meeting you somewhere, and +I remember you asking me to come and lunch with you here, and +that I accepted your kind invitation. Beyond that my mind +is a positive blank.”</p> +<p>The scared look was transferred with intensified poignancy to +the faces of her companions.</p> +<p>“<i>You</i> asked <i>us</i> to lunch,” they +exclaimed hurriedly. That seemed a more immediately +important point to clear up than the question of identity.</p> +<p>“Oh, no,” said the vanishing hostess, +“<i>that</i> I do remember about. You insisted on my +coming here because the feeding was so good, and I must say it +comes up to all you said about it. A very nice lunch +it’s been. What I’m worrying about is who on +earth am I? I haven’t the faintest notion?”</p> +<p>“You are Lady Drakmanton,” exclaimed the three +sisters in chorus.</p> +<p>“Now, don’t make fun of me,” she replied, +crossly, “I happen to know her quite well by sight, and she +isn’t a bit like me. And it’s an odd thing you +should have mentioned her, for it so happens she’s just +come into the room. That lady in black, with the yellow +plume in her hat, there over by the door.”</p> +<p>The Smithly-Dubbs looked in the indicated direction, and the +uneasiness in their eyes deepened into horror. In outward +appearance the lady who had just entered the room certainly came +rather nearer to their recollection of their Member’s wife +than the individual who was sitting at table with them.</p> +<p>“Who <i>are</i> you, then, if that is Lady +Drakmanton?” they asked in panic-stricken bewilderment.</p> +<p>“That is just what I don’t know,” was the +answer; “and you don’t seem to know much better than +I do.”</p> +<p>“You came up to us in the club—”</p> +<p>“In what club?”</p> +<p>“The New Didactic, in Calais Street.”</p> +<p>“The New Didactic!” exclaimed Lady Drakmanton with +an air of returning illumination; “thank you so much. +Of course, I remember now who I am. I’m Ellen Niggle, +of the Ladies’ Brasspolishing Guild. The Club employs +me to come now and then and see to the polishing of the brass +fittings. That’s how I came to know Lady Drakmanton +by sight; she’s very often in the Club. And you are +the ladies who so kindly asked me out to lunch. Funny how +it should all have slipped my memory, all of a sudden. The +unaccustomed good food and wine must have been too much for me; +for the moment I really couldn’t call to mind who I +was. Good gracious,” she broke off suddenly, +“it’s ten past two; I should be at a polishing job in +Whitehall. I must scuttle off like a giddy rabbit. +Thanking you ever so.”</p> +<p>She left the room with a scuttle sufficiently suggestive of +the animal she had mentioned, but the giddiness was all on the +side of her involuntary hostesses. The restaurant seemed to +be spinning round them; and the bill when it appeared did nothing +to restore their composure. They were as nearly in tears as +it is permissible to be during the luncheon hour in a really good +restaurant. Financially speaking, they were well able to +afford the luxury of an elaborate lunch, but their ideas on the +subject of entertaining differed very sharply, according to the +circumstances of whether they were dispensing or receiving +hospitality. To have fed themselves liberally at their own +expense was, perhaps, an extravagance to be deplored, but, at any +rate, they had had something for their money; to have drawn an +unknown and socially unremunerative Ellen Niggle into the net of +their hospitality was a catastrophe that they could not +contemplate with any degree of calmness.</p> +<p>The Smithly-Dubbs never quite recovered from their unnerving +experience. They have given up politics and taken to doing +good.</p> +<h2><a name="page87"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 87</span>A +BREAD AND BUTTER MISS</h2> +<p>“Starling Chatter and Oakhill have both dropped back in +the betting,” said Bertie van Tahn, throwing the morning +paper across the breakfast table.</p> +<p>“That leaves Nursery Tea practically favourite,” +said Odo Finsberry.</p> +<p>“Nursery Tea and Pipeclay are at the top of the betting +at present,” said Bertie, “but that French horse, Le +Five O’Clock, seems to be fancied as much as +anything. Then there is Whitebait, and the Polish horse +with a name like some one trying to stifle a sneeze in church; +they both seem to have a lot of support.”</p> +<p>“It’s the most open Derby there’s been for +years,” said Odo.</p> +<p>“It’s simply no good trying to pick the winner on +form,” said Bertie; “one must just trust to luck and +inspiration.”</p> +<p>“The question is whether to trust to one’s own +inspiration, or somebody else’s. <i>Sporting +Swank</i> gives Count Palatine to win, and Le Five O’Clock +for a place.”</p> +<p>“Count Palatine—that adds another to our list of +perplexities. Good morning, Sir Lulworth; have you a fancy +for the Derby by any chance?”</p> +<p>“I don’t usually take much interest in turf +matters,” said Sir Lulworth, who had just made his +appearance, “but I always like to have a bet on the Guineas +and the Derby. This year, I confess, it’s rather +difficult to pick out anything that seems markedly better than +anything else. What do you think of Snow +Bunting?”</p> +<p>“Snow Bunting?” said Odo, with a groan, +“there’s another of them. Surely, Snow Bunting +has no earthly chance?”</p> +<p>“My housekeeper’s nephew, who is a shoeing-smith +in the mounted section of the Church Lads’ Brigade, and an +authority on horseflesh, expects him to be among the first +three.”</p> +<p>“The nephews of housekeepers are invariably +optimists,” said Bertie; “it’s a kind of +natural reaction against the professional pessimism of their +aunts.”</p> +<p>“We don’t seem to get much further in our search +for the probable winner,” said Mrs. de Claux; “the +more I listen to you experts the more hopelessly befogged I +get.”</p> +<p>“It’s all very well to blame us,” said +Bertie to his hostess; “you haven’t produced anything +in the way of an inspiration.”</p> +<p>“My inspiration consisted in asking you down for Derby +week,” retorted Mrs. de Claux; “I thought you and Odo +between you might throw some light on the question of the +moment.”</p> +<p>Further recriminations were cut short by the arrival of Lola +Pevensey, who floated into the room with an air of gracious +apology.</p> +<p>“So sorry to be so late,” she observed, making a +rapid tour of inspection of the breakfast dishes.</p> +<p>“Did you have a good night?” asked her hostess +with perfunctory solicitude.</p> +<p>“Quite, thank you,” said Lola; “I dreamt a +most remarkable dream.”</p> +<p>A flutter, indicative of general boredom; went round the +table. Other people’s dreams are about as universally +interesting as accounts of other people’s gardens, or +chickens, or children.</p> +<p>“I dreamt about the winner of the Derby,” said +Lola.</p> +<p>A swift reaction of attentive interest set in.</p> +<p>“Do tell us what you dreamt,” came in a +chorus.</p> +<p>“The really remarkable thing about it is that I’ve +dreamt it two nights running,” said Lola, finally deciding +between the allurements of sausages and kedgeree; “that is +why I thought it worth mentioning. You know, when I dream +things two or three nights in succession, it always means +something; I have special powers in that way. For instance, +I once dreamed three times that a winged lion was flying through +the sky and one of his wings dropped off, and he came to the +ground with a crash; just afterwards the Campanile at Venice fell +down. The winged lion is the symbol of Venice, you +know,” she added for the enlightenment of those who might +not be versed in Italian heraldry. “Then,” she +continued, “just before the murder of the King and Queen of +Servia I had a vivid dream of two crowned figures walking into a +slaughter-house by the banks of a big river, which I took to be +the Danube; and only the other day—”</p> +<p>“Do tell us what you’ve dreamt about the +Derby,” interrupted Odo impatiently.</p> +<p>“Well, I saw the finish of the race as clearly as +anything; and one horse won easily, almost in a canter, and +everybody cried out ‘Bread and Butter wins! Good old +Bread and Butter.’ I heard the name distinctly, and +I’ve had the same dream two nights running.”</p> +<p>“Bread and Butter,” said Mrs. de Claux, +“now, whatever horse can that point to? Why—of +course; Nursery Tea!”</p> +<p>She looked round with the triumphant smile of a successful +unraveller of mystery.</p> +<p>“How about Le Five O’Clock?” interposed Sir +Lulworth.</p> +<p>“It would fit either of them equally well,” said +Odo; “can you remember any details about the jockey’s +colours? That might help us.”</p> +<p>“I seem to remember a glimpse of lemon sleeves or cap, +but I can’t be sure,” said Lola, after due +reflection.</p> +<p>“There isn’t a lemon jacket or cap in the +race,” said Bertie, referring to a list of starters and +jockeys; “can’t you remember anything about the +appearance of the horse? If it were a thick-set animal, +this bread and butter would typify Nursery Tea; and if it were +thin, of course, it would mean Le Five O’Clock.”</p> +<p>“That seems sound enough,” said Mrs. de Claux; +“do think, Lola dear, whether the horse in your dream was +thin or stoutly built.”</p> +<p>“I can’t remember that it was one or the +other,” said Lola; “one wouldn’t notice such a +detail in the excitement of a finish.”</p> +<p>“But this was a symbolic animal,” said Sir +Lulworth; “if it were to typify thick or thin bread and +butter surely it ought to have been either as bulky and tubby as +a shire cart-horse; or as thin as a heraldic leopard.”</p> +<p>“I’m afraid you are rather a careless +dreamer,” said Bertie resentfully.</p> +<p>“Of course, at the moment of dreaming I thought I was +witnessing a real race, not the portent of one,” said Lola; +“otherwise I should have particularly noticed all helpful +details.”</p> +<p>“The Derby isn’t run till to-morrow,” said +Mrs. de Claux; “do you think you are likely to have the +same dream again to-night? If so; you can fix your +attention on the important detail of the animal’s +appearance.”</p> +<p>“I’m afraid I shan’t sleep at all +to-night,” said Lola pathetically; “every fifth night +I suffer from insomnia, and it’s due to-night.”</p> +<p>“It’s most provoking,” said Bertie; +“of course, we can back both horses, but it would be much +more satisfactory to have all our money on the winner. +Can’t you take a sleeping-draught, or something?”</p> +<p>“Oakleaves, soaked in warm water and put under the bed, +are recommended by some,” said Mrs. de Claux.</p> +<p>“A glass of Benedictine, with a drop of +eau-de-Cologne—” said Sir Lulworth.</p> +<p>“I have tried every known remedy,” said Lola, with +dignity; “I’ve been a martyr to insomnia for +years.”</p> +<p>“But now we are being martyrs to it,” said Odo +sulkily; “I particularly want to land a big coup over this +race.”</p> +<p>“I don’t have insomnia for my own +amusement,” snapped Lola.</p> +<p>“Let us hope for the best,” said Mrs. de Claux +soothingly; “to-night may prove an exception to the +fifth-night rule.”</p> +<p>But when breakfast time came round again Lola reported a blank +night as far as visions were concerned.</p> +<p>“I don’t suppose I had as much as ten +minutes’ sleep, and, certainly, no dreams.”</p> +<p>“I’m so sorry, for your sake in the first place, +and ours as well,” said her hostess; “do you think +you could induce a short nap after breakfast? It would be +so good for you—and you <i>might</i> dream something. +There would still be time for us to get our bets on.”</p> +<p>“I’ll try if you like,” said Lola; “it +sounds rather like a small child being sent to bed in +disgrace.”</p> +<p>“I’ll come and read the <i>Encyclopædia +Britannica</i> to you if you think it will make you sleep any +sooner,” said Bertie obligingly.</p> +<p>Rain was falling too steadily to permit of outdoor amusement, +and the party suffered considerably during the next two hours +from the absolute quiet that was enforced all over the house in +order to give Lola every chance of achieving slumber. Even +the click of billiard balls was considered a possible factor of +disturbance, and the canaries were carried down to the +gardener’s lodge, while the cuckoo clock in the hall was +muffled under several layers of rugs. A notice, +“Please do not Knock or Ring,” was posted on the +front door at Bertie’s suggestion, and guests and servants +spoke in tragic whispers as though the dread presence of death or +sickness had invaded the house. The precautions proved of +no avail: Lola added a sleepless morning to a wakeful night, and +the bets of the party had to be impartially divided between +Nursery Tea and the French Colt.</p> +<p>“So provoking to have to split out bets,” said +Mrs. de Claux, as her guests gathered in the hall later in the +day, waiting for the result of the race.</p> +<p>“I did my best for you,” said Lola, feeling that +she was not getting her due share of gratitude; “I told you +what I had seen in my dreams, a brown horse, called Bread and +Butter, winning easily from all the rest.”</p> +<p>“What?” screamed Bertie, jumping up from his sea, +“a <i>brown</i> horse! Miserable woman, you never +said a word about it’s being a brown horse.”</p> +<p>“Didn’t I?” faltered Lola; “I thought +I told you it was a brown horse. It was certainly brown in +both dreams. But I don’t see what the colour has got +to do with it. Nursery Tea and Le Five O’Clock are +both chestnuts.”</p> +<p>“Merciful Heaven! Doesn’t brown bread and +butter with a sprinkling of lemon in the colours suggest anything +to you?” raged Bertie.</p> +<p>A slow, cumulative groan broke from the assembly as the +meaning of his words gradually dawned on his hearers.</p> +<p>For the second time that day Lola retired to the seclusion of +her room; she could not face the universal looks of reproach +directed at her when Whitebait was announced winner at the +comfortable price of fourteen to one.</p> +<h2><a name="page97"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +97</span>BERTIE’S CHRISTMAS EVE</h2> +<p>It was Christmas Eve, and the family circle of Luke Steffink, +Esq., was aglow with the amiability and random mirth which the +occasion demanded. A long and lavish dinner had been +partaken of, waits had been round and sung carols; the +house-party had regaled itself with more caroling on its own +account, and there had been romping which, even in a pulpit +reference, could not have been condemned as ragging. In the +midst of the general glow, however, there was one black unkindled +cinder.</p> +<p>Bertie Steffink, nephew of the aforementioned Luke, had early +in life adopted the profession of ne’er-do-weel; his father +had been something of the kind before him. At the age of +eighteen Bertie had commenced that round of visits to our +Colonial possessions, so seemly and desirable in the case of a +Prince of the Blood, so suggestive of insincerity in a young man +of the middle-class. He had gone to grow tea in Ceylon and +fruit in British Columbia, and to help sheep to grow wool in +Australia. At the age of twenty he had just returned from +some similar errand in Canada, from which it may be gathered that +the trial he gave to these various experiments was of the summary +drum-head nature. Luke Steffink, who fulfilled the troubled +role of guardian and deputy-parent to Bertie, deplored the +persistent manifestation of the homing instinct on his +nephew’s part, and his solemn thanks earlier in the day for +the blessing of reporting a united family had no reference to +Bertie’s return.</p> +<p>Arrangements had been promptly made for packing the youth off +to a distant corner of Rhodesia, whence return would be a +difficult matter; the journey to this uninviting destination was +imminent, in fact a more careful and willing traveller would have +already begun to think about his packing. Hence Bertie was +in no mood to share in the festive spirit which displayed itself +around him, and resentment smouldered within him at the eager, +self-absorbed discussion of social plans for the coming months +which he heard on all sides. Beyond depressing his uncle +and the family circle generally by singing “Say au revoir, +and not good-bye,” he had taken no part in the +evening’s conviviality.</p> +<p>Eleven o’clock had struck some half-hour ago, and the +elder Steffinks began to throw out suggestions leading up to that +process which they called retiring for the night.</p> +<p>“Come, Teddie, it’s time you were in your little +bed, you know,” said Luke Steffink to his thirteen-year-old +son.</p> +<p>“That’s where we all ought to be,” said Mrs. +Steffink.</p> +<p>“There wouldn’t be room,” said Bertie.</p> +<p>The remark was considered to border on the scandalous; +everybody ate raisins and almonds with the nervous industry of +sheep feeding during threatening weather.</p> +<p>“In Russia,” said Horace Bordenby, who was staying +in the house as a Christmas guest, “I’ve read that +the peasants believe that if you go into a cow-house or stable at +midnight on Christmas Eve you will hear the animals talk. +They’re supposed to have the gift of speech at that one +moment of the year.”</p> +<p>“Oh, <i>do</i> let’s <i>all</i> go down to the +cow-house and listen to what they’ve got to say!” +exclaimed Beryl, to whom anything was thrilling and amusing if +you did it in a troop.</p> +<p>Mrs. Steffink made a laughing protest, but gave a virtual +consent by saying, “We must all wrap up well, +then.” The idea seemed a scatterbrained one to her, +and almost heathenish, but if afforded an opportunity for +“throwing the young people together,” and as such she +welcomed it. Mr. Horace Bordenby was a young man with quite +substantial prospects, and he had danced with Beryl at a local +subscription ball a sufficient number of times to warrant the +authorised inquiry on the part of the neighbours whether +“there was anything in it.” Though Mrs. +Steffink would not have put it in so many words, she shared the +idea of the Russian peasantry that on this night the beast might +speak.</p> +<p>The cow-house stood at the junction of the garden with a small +paddock, an isolated survival, in a suburban neighbourhood; of +what had once been a small farm. Luke Steffink was +complacently proud of his cow-house and his two cows; he felt +that they gave him a stamp of solidity which no number of +Wyandottes or Orpingtons could impart. They even seemed to +link him in a sort of inconsequent way with those patriarchs who +derived importance from their floating capital of flocks and +herbs, he-asses and she-asses. It had been an anxious and +momentous occasion when he had had to decide definitely between +“the Byre” and “the Ranch” for the naming +of his villa residence. A December midnight was hardly the +moment he would have chosen for showing his farm-building to +visitors, but since it was a fine night, and the young people +were anxious for an excuse for a mild frolic, Luke consented to +chaperon the expedition. The servants had long since gone +to bed, so the house was left in charge of Bertie, who scornfully +declined to stir out on the pretext of listening to bovine +conversation.</p> +<p>“We must go quietly,” said Luke, as he headed the +procession of giggling young folk, brought up in the rear by the +shawled and hooded figure of Mrs. Steffink; “I’ve +always laid stress on keeping this a quiet and orderly +neighbourhood.”</p> +<p>It was a few minutes to midnight when the party reached the +cow-house and made its way in by the light of Luke’s stable +lantern. For a moment every one stood in silence, almost +with a feeling of being in church.</p> +<p>“Daisy—the one lying down—is by a shorthorn +bull out of a Guernsey cow,” announced Luke in a hushed +voice, which was in keeping with the foregoing impression.</p> +<p>“Is she?” said Bordenby, rather as if he had +expected her to be by Rembrandt.</p> +<p>“Myrtle is—”</p> +<p>Myrtle’s family history was cut short by a little scream +from the women of the party.</p> +<p>The cow-house door had closed noiselessly behind them and the +key had turned gratingly in the lock; then they heard +Bertie’s voice pleasantly wishing them good-night and his +footsteps retreating along the garden path.</p> +<p>Luke Steffink strode to the window; it was a small square +opening of the old-fashioned sort, with iron bars let into the +stonework.</p> +<p>“Unlock the door this instant,” he shouted, with +as much air of menacing authority as a hen might assume when +screaming through the bars of a coop at a marauding hawk. +In reply to his summons the hall-door closed with a defiant +bang.</p> +<p>A neighbouring clock struck the hour of midnight. If the +cows had received the gift of human speech at that moment they +would not have been able to make themselves heard. Seven or +eight other voices were engaged in describing Bertie’s +present conduct and his general character at a high pressure of +excitement and indignation.</p> +<p>In the course of half an hour or so everything that it was +permissible to say about Bertie had been said some dozens of +times, and other topics began to come to the front—the +extreme mustiness of the cow-house, the possibility of it +catching fire, and the probability of it being a Rowton House for +the vagrant rats of the neighbourhood. And still no sign of +deliverance came to the unwilling vigil-keepers.</p> +<p>Towards one o’clock the sound of rather boisterous and +undisciplined carol-singing approached rapidly, and came to a +sudden anchorage, apparently just outside the garden-gate. +A motor-load of youthful “bloods,” in a high state of +conviviality, had made a temporary halt for repairs; the +stoppage, however, did not extend to the vocal efforts of the +party, and the watchers in the cow-shed were treated to a highly +unauthorised rendering of “Good King Wenceslas,” in +which the adjective “good” appeared to be very +carelessly applied.</p> +<p>The noise had the effect of bringing Bertie out into the +garden, but he utterly ignored the pale, angry faces peering out +at the cow-house window, and concentrated his attention on the +revellers outside the gate.</p> +<p>“Wassail, you chaps!” he shouted.</p> +<p>“Wassail, old sport!” they shouted back; +“we’d jolly well drink y’r health, only +we’ve nothing to drink it in.”</p> +<p>“Come and wassail inside,” said Bertie hospitably; +“I’m all alone, and there’s heap’s of +‘wet’.”</p> +<p>They were total strangers, but his touch of kindness made them +instantly his kin. In another moment the unauthorised +version of King Wenceslas, which, like many other scandals, grew +worse on repetition, went echoing up the garden path; two of the +revellers gave an impromptu performance on the way by executing +the staircase waltz up the terraces of what Luke Steffink, +hitherto with some justification, called his rock-garden. +The rock part of it was still there when the waltz had been +accorded its third encore. Luke, more than ever like a +cooped hen behind the cow-house bars, was in a position to +realise the feelings of concert-goers unable to countermand the +call for an encore which they neither desire or deserve.</p> +<p>The hall door closed with a bang on Bertie’s guests, and +the sounds of merriment became faint and muffled to the weary +watchers at the other end of the garden. Presently two +ominous pops, in quick succession, made themselves distinctly +heard.</p> +<p>“They’ve got at the champagne!” exclaimed +Mrs. Steffink.</p> +<p>“Perhaps it’s the sparkling Moselle,” said +Luke hopefully.</p> +<p>Three or four more pops were heard.</p> +<p>“The champagne <i>and</i> the sparkling Moselle,” +said Mrs. Steffink.</p> +<p>Luke uncorked an expletive which, like brandy in a temperance +household, was only used on rare emergencies. Mr. Horace +Bordenby had been making use of similar expressions under his +breath for a considerable time past. The experiment of +“throwing the young people together” had been +prolonged beyond a point when it was likely to produce any +romantic result.</p> +<p>Some forty minutes later the hall door opened and disgorged a +crowd that had thrown off any restraint of shyness that might +have influenced its earlier actions. Its vocal efforts in +the direction of carol singing were now supplemented by +instrumental music; a Christmas-tree that had been prepared for +the children of the gardener and other household retainers had +yielded a rich spoil of tin trumpets, rattles, and drums. +The life-story of King Wenceslas had been dropped, Luke was +thankful to notice, but it was intensely irritating for the +chilled prisoners in the cow-house to be told that it was a hot +time in the old town to-night, together with some accurate but +entirely superfluous information as to the imminence of Christmas +morning. Judging by the protests which began to be shouted +from the upper windows of neighbouring houses the sentiments +prevailing in the cow-house were heartily echoed in other +quarters.</p> +<p>The revellers found their car, and, what was more remarkable, +managed to drive off in it, with a parting fanfare of tin +trumpets. The lively beat of a drum disclosed the fact that +the master of the revels remained on the scene.</p> +<p>“Bertie!” came in an angry, imploring chorus of +shouts and screams from the cow-house window.</p> +<p>“Hullo,” cried the owner of the name, turning his +rather errant steps in the direction of the summons; “are +you people still there? Must have heard everything cows got +to say by this time. If you haven’t, no use +waiting. After all, it’s a Russian legend, and +Russian Chrismush Eve not due for ’nother fortnight. +Better come out.”</p> +<p>After one or two ineffectual attempts he managed to pitch the +key of the cow-house door in through the window. Then, +lifting his voice in the strains of “I’m afraid to go +home in the dark,” with a lusty drum accompaniment, he led +the way back to the house. The hurried procession of the +released that followed in his steps came in for a good deal of +the adverse comment that his exuberant display had evoked.</p> +<p>It was the happiest Christmas Eve he had ever spent. To +quote his own words, he had a rotten Christmas.</p> +<h2><a name="page107"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +107</span>FOREWARNED</h2> +<p>Alethia Debchance sat in a corner of an otherwise empty +railway carriage, more or less at ease as regarded body, but in +some trepidation as to mind. She had embarked on a social +adventure of no little magnitude as compared with the accustomed +seclusion and stagnation of her past life. At the age of +twenty-eight she could look back on nothing more eventful than +the daily round of her existence in her aunt’s house at +Webblehinton, a hamlet four and a half miles distant from a +country town and about a quarter of a century removed from modern +times. Their neighbours had been elderly and few, not much +given to social intercourse, but helpful or politely sympathetic +in times of illness. Newspapers of the ordinary kind were a +rarity; those that Alethia saw regularly were devoted exclusively +either to religion or to poultry, and the world of politics was +to her an unheeded unexplored region. Her ideas on life in +general had been acquired through the medium of popular +respectable novel-writers, and modified or emphasised by such +knowledge as her aunt, the vicar, and her aunt’s +housekeeper had put at her disposal. And now, in her +twenty-ninth year, her aunt’s death had left her, well +provided for as regards income, but somewhat isolated in the +matter of kith and kin and human companionship. She had +some cousins who were on terms of friendly, though infrequent, +correspondence with her, but as they lived permanently in Ceylon, +a locality about which she knew little, beyond the assurance +contained in the missionary hymn that the human element there was +vile, they were not of much immediate use to her. Other +cousins she also possessed, more distant as regards relationship, +but not quite so geographically remote, seeing that they lived +somewhere in the Midlands. She could hardly remember ever +having met them, but once or twice in the course of the last +three or four years they had expressed a polite wish that she +should pay them a visit; they had probably not been unduly +depressed by the fact that her aunt’s failing health had +prevented her from accepting their invitation. The note of +condolence that had arrived on the occasion of her aunt’s +death had included a vague hope that Alethia would find time in +the near future to spend a few days with her cousins, and after +much deliberation and many hesitations she had written to propose +herself as a guest for a definite date some weeks ahead. +The family, she reflected with relief, was not a large one; the +two daughters were married and away, there was only old Mrs. +Bludward and her son Robert at home. Mrs. Bludward was +something of an invalid, and Robert was a young man who had been +at Oxford and was going into Parliament. Further than that +Alethia’s information did not go; her imagination, founded +on her extensive knowledge of the people one met in novels, had +to supply the gaps. The mother was not difficult to place; +she would either be an ultra-amiable old lady, bearing her feeble +health with uncomplaining fortitude, and having a kind word for +the gardener’s boy and a sunny smile for the chance +visitor, or else she would be cold and peevish, with eyes that +pierced you like a gimlet, and an unreasoning idolatry of her +son. Alethia’s imagination rather inclined her to the +latter view. Robert was more of a problem. There were +three dominant types of manhood to be taken into consideration in +working out his classification; there was Hugo, who was strong, +good, and beautiful, a rare type and not very often met with; +there was Sir Jasper, who was utterly vile and absolutely +unscrupulous, and there was Nevil, who was not really bad at +heart, but had a weak mouth and usually required the life-work of +two good women to keep him from ultimate disaster. It was +probable, Alethia considered, that Robert came into the last +category, in which case she was certain to enjoy the +companionship of one or two excellent women, and might possibly +catch glimpses of undesirable adventuresses or come face to face +with reckless admiration-seeking married women. It was +altogether an exciting prospect, this sudden venture into an +unexplored world of unknown human beings, and Alethia rather +wished that she could have taken the vicar with her; she was not, +however, rich or important enough to travel with a chaplain, as +the Marquis of Moystoncleugh always did in the novel she had just +been reading, so she recognised that such a proceeding was out of +the question.</p> +<p>The train which carried Alethia towards her destination was a +local one, with the wayside station habit strongly +developed. At most of the stations no one seemed to want to +get into the train or to leave it, but at one there were several +market folk on the platform, and two men, of the farmer or small +cattle-dealer class, entered Alethia’s carriage. +Apparently they had just foregathered, after a day’s +business, and their conversation consisted of a rapid exchange of +short friendly inquiries as to health, family, stock, and so +forth, and some grumbling remarks on the weather. Suddenly, +however, their talk took a dramatically interesting turn, and +Alethia listened with wide-eyed attention.</p> +<p>“What do you think of Mister Robert Bludward, +eh?”</p> +<p>There was a certain scornful ring in his question.</p> +<p>“Robert Bludward? An out-an’-out rotter, +that’s what he is. Ought to be ashamed to look any +decent man in the face. Send him to Parliament to represent +us—not much! He’d rob a poor man of his last +shilling, he would.”</p> +<p>“Ah, that he would. Tells a pack of lies to get +our votes, that’s all that he’s after, damn +him. Did you see the way the <i>Argus</i> showed him up +this week? Properly exposed him, hip and thigh, I tell +you.”</p> +<p>And so on they ran, in their withering indictment. There +could be no doubt that it was Alethia’s cousin and +prospective host to whom they were referring; the allusion to a +Parliamentary candidature settled that. What could Robert +Bludward have done, what manner of man could he be, that people +should speak of him with such obvious reprobation?</p> +<p>“He was hissed down at Shoalford yesterday,” said +one of the speakers.</p> +<p>Hissed! Had it come to that? There was something +dramatically biblical in the idea of Robert Bludward’s +neighbours and acquaintances hissing him for very scorn. +Lord Hereward Stranglath had been hissed, now Alethia came to +think of it, in the eighth chapter of <i>Matterby Towers</i>, +while in the act of opening a Wesleyan bazaar, because he was +suspected (unjustly as it turned out afterwards) of having beaten +the German governess to death. And in <i>Tainted +Guineas</i> Roper Squenderby had been deservedly hissed, on the +steps of the Jockey Club, for having handed a rival owner a +forged telegram, containing false news of his mother’s +death, just before the start for an important race, thereby +ensuring the withdrawal of his rival’s horse. In +placid Saxon-blooded England people did not demonstrate their +feelings lightly and without some strong compelling cause. +What manner of evildoer was Robert Bludward?</p> +<p>The train stopped at another small station, and the two men +got out. One of them left behind him a copy of the +<i>Argus</i>, the local paper to which he had made +reference. Alethia pounced on it, in the expectation of +finding a cultured literary endorsement of the censure which +these rough farming men had expressed in their homely, honest +way. She had not far to look; “Mr. Robert Bludward, +Swanker,” was the title of one of the principal articles in +the paper. She did not exactly know what a swanker was, +probably it referred to some unspeakable form of cruelty, but she +read enough in the first few sentences of the article to discover +that her cousin Robert, the man at whose house she was about to +stay, was an unscrupulous, unprincipled character, of a low order +of intelligence, yet cunning withal, and that he and his +associates were responsible for most of the misery, disease, +poverty, and ignorance with which the country was afflicted; +never, except in one or two of the denunciatory Psalms, which she +had always supposed to have be written in a spirit of exaggerated +Oriental imagery, had she read such an indictment of a human +being. And this monster was going to meet her at Derrelton +Station in a few short minutes. She would know him at once; +he would have the dark beetling brows, the quick, furtive glance, +the sneering, unsavoury smile that always characterised the Sir +Jaspers of this world. It was too late to escape; she must +force herself to meet him with outward calm.</p> +<p>It was a considerable shock to her to find that Robert was +fair, with a snub nose, merry eye, and rather a schoolboy +manner. “A serpent in duckling’s +plumage,” was her private comment; merciful chance had +revealed him to her in his true colours.</p> +<p>As they drove away from the station a dissipated-looking man +of the labouring class waved his hat in friendly salute. +“Good luck to you, Mr. Bludward,” he shouted; +“you’ll come out on top! We’ll break old +Chobham’s neck for him.”</p> +<p>“Who was that man?” asked Alethia quickly.</p> +<p>“Oh, one of my supporters,” laughed Robert; +“a bit of a poacher and a bit of a pub-loafer, but +he’s on the right side.”</p> +<p>So these were the sort of associates that Robert Bludward +consorted with, thought Alethia.</p> +<p>“Who is the person he referred to as old Chobham?” +she asked.</p> +<p>“Sir John Chobham, the man who is opposing me,” +answered Robert; “that is his house away there among the +trees on the right.”</p> +<p>So there was an upright man, possibly a very Hugo in +character, who was thwarting and defying the evildoer in his +nefarious career, and there was a dastardly plot afoot to break +his neck! Possibly the attempt would be made within the +next few hours. He must certainly be warned. Alethia +remembered how Lady Sylvia Broomgate, in <i>Nightshade Court</i>, +had pretended to be bolted with by her horse up to the front door +of a threatened county magnate, and had whispered a warning in +his ear which saved him from being the victim of foul +murder. She wondered if there was a quiet pony in the +stables on which she would be allowed to ride out alone. +The chances were that she would be watched. Robert would +come spurring after her and seize her bridle just as she was +turning in at Sir John’s gates.</p> +<p>A group of men that they passed in a village street gave them +no very friendly looks, and Alethia thought she heard a furtive +hiss; a moment later they came upon an errand boy riding a +bicycle. He had the frank open countenance, neatly brushed +hair and tidy clothes that betoken a clear conscience and a good +mother. He stared straight at the occupants of the car, +and, after he had passed them, sang in his clear, boyish +voice:</p> +<p>“We’ll hang Bobby Bludward on the sour apple +tree.”</p> +<p>Robert merely laughed. That was how he took the scorn +and condemnation of his fellow-men. He had goaded them to +desperation with his shameless depravity till they spoke openly +of putting him to a violent death, and he laughed.</p> +<p>Mrs. Bludward proved to be of the type that Alethia had +suspected, thin-lipped, cold-eyed, and obviously devoted to her +worthless son. From her no help was to be expected. +Alethia locked her door that night, and placed such ramparts of +furniture against it that the maid had great difficulty in +breaking in with the early tea in the morning.</p> +<p>After breakfast Alethia, on the pretext of going to look at an +outlying rose-garden, slipped away to the village through which +they had passed on the previous evening. She remembered +that Robert had pointed out to her a public reading-room, and +here she considered it possible that she might meet Sir John +Chobham, or some one who knew him well and would carry a message +to him. The room was empty when she entered it; a +<i>Graphic</i> twelve days old, a yet older copy of <i>Punch</i>, +and one or two local papers lay upon the central table; the other +tables were stacked for the most part with chess and +draughts-boards, and wooden boxes of chessmen and dominoes. +Listlessly she picked up one of the papers, the <i>Sentinel</i>, +and glanced at its contents. Suddenly she started, and +began to read with breathless attention a prominently printed +article, headed “A Little Limelight on Sir John +Chobham.” The colour ebbed away from her face, a look +of frightened despair crept into her eyes. Never, in any +novel that she had read, had a defenceless young woman been +confronted with a situation like this. Sir John, the Hugo +of her imagination, was, if anything, rather more depraved and +despicable than Robert Bludward. He was mean, evasive, +callously indifferent to his country’s interests, a cheat, +a man who habitually broke his word, and who was responsible, +with his associates, for most of the poverty, misery, crime, and +national degradation with which the country was afflicted. +He was also a candidate for Parliament, it seemed, and as there +was only one seat in this particular locality, it was obvious +that the success of either Robert or Sir John would mean a check +to the ambitions of the other, hence, no doubt, the rivalry and +enmity between these otherwise kindred souls. One was +seeking to have his enemy done to death, the other was apparently +trying to stir up his supporters to an act of “Lynch +law”. All this in order that there might be an +unopposed election, that one or other of the candidates might go +into Parliament with honeyed eloquence on his lips and blood on +his heart. Were men really so vile?</p> +<p>“I must go back to Webblehinton at once,” Alethia +informed her astonished hostess at lunch time; “I have had +a telegram. A friend is very seriously ill and I have been +sent for.”</p> +<p>It was dreadful to have to concoct lies, but it would be more +dreadful to have to spend another night under that roof.</p> +<p>Alethia reads novels now with even greater appreciation than +before. She has been herself in the world outside +Webblehinton, the world where the great dramas of sin and +villainy are played unceasingly. She had come unscathed +through it, but what might have happened if she had gone +unsuspectingly to visit Sir John Chobham and warn him of his +danger? What indeed! She had been saved by the +fearless outspokenness of the local Press.</p> +<h2><a name="page119"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 119</span>THE +INTERLOPERS</h2> +<p>In a forest of mixed growth somewhere on the eastern spurs of +the Karpathians, a man stood one winter night watching and +listening, as though he waited for some beast of the woods to +come within the range of his vision, and, later, of his +rifle. But the game for whose presence he kept so keen an +outlook was none that figured in the sportsman’s calendar +as lawful and proper for the chase; Ulrich von Gradwitz patrolled +the dark forest in quest of a human enemy.</p> +<p>The forest lands of Gradwitz were of wide extent and well +stocked with game; the narrow strip of precipitous woodland that +lay on its outskirt was not remarkable for the game it harboured +or the shooting it afforded, but it was the most jealously +guarded of all its owner’s territorial possessions. A +famous law suit, in the days of his grandfather, had wrested it +from the illegal possession of a neighbouring family of petty +landowners; the dispossessed party had never acquiesced in the +judgment of the Courts, and a long series of poaching affrays and +similar scandals had embittered the relationships between the +families for three generations. The neighbour feud had +grown into a personal one since Ulrich had come to be head of his +family; if there was a man in the world whom he detested and +wished ill to it was Georg Znaeym, the inheritor of the quarrel +and the tireless game-snatcher and raider of the disputed +border-forest. The feud might, perhaps, have died down or +been compromised if the personal ill-will of the two men had not +stood in the way; as boys they had thirsted for one +another’s blood, as men each prayed that misfortune might +fall on the other, and this wind-scourged winter night Ulrich had +banded together his foresters to watch the dark forest, not in +quest of four-footed quarry, but to keep a look-out for the +prowling thieves whom he suspected of being afoot from across the +land boundary. The roebuck, which usually kept in the +sheltered hollows during a storm-wind, were running like driven +things to-night, and there was movement and unrest among the +creatures that were wont to sleep through the dark hours. +Assuredly there was a disturbing element in the forest, and +Ulrich could guess the quarter from whence it came.</p> +<p>He strayed away by himself from the watchers whom he had +placed in ambush on the crest of the hill, and wandered far down +the steep slopes amid the wild tangle of undergrowth, peering +through the tree trunks and listening through the whistling and +skirling of the wind and the restless beating of the branches for +sight and sound of the marauders. If only on this wild +night, in this dark, lone spot, he might come across Georg +Znaeym, man to man, with none to witness—that was the wish +that was uppermost in his thoughts. And as he stepped round +the trunk of a huge beech he came face to face with the man he +sought.</p> +<p>The two enemies stood glaring at one another for a long silent +moment. Each had a rifle in his hand, each had hate in his +heart and murder uppermost in his mind. The chance had come +to give full play to the passions of a lifetime. But a man +who has been brought up under the code of a restraining +civilisation cannot easily nerve himself to shoot down his +neighbour in cold blood and without word spoken, except for an +offence against his hearth and honour. And before the +moment of hesitation had given way to action a deed of +Nature’s own violence overwhelmed them both. A fierce +shriek of the storm had been answered by a splitting crash over +their heads, and ere they could leap aside a mass of falling +beech tree had thundered down on them. Ulrich von Gradwitz +found himself stretched on the ground, one arm numb beneath him +and the other held almost as helplessly in a tight tangle of +forked branches, while both legs were pinned beneath the fallen +mass. His heavy shooting-boots had saved his feet from +being crushed to pieces, but if his fractures were not as serious +as they might have been, at least it was evident that he could +not move from his present position till some one came to release +him. The descending twig had slashed the skin of his face, +and he had to wink away some drops of blood from his eyelashes +before he could take in a general view of the disaster. At +his side, so near that under ordinary circumstances he could +almost have touched him, lay Georg Znaeym, alive and struggling, +but obviously as helplessly pinioned down as himself. All +round them lay a thick-strewn wreckage of splintered branches and +broken twigs.</p> +<p>Relief at being alive and exasperation at his captive plight +brought a strange medley of pious thank-offerings and sharp +curses to Ulrich’s lips. Georg, who was nearly +blinded with the blood which trickled across his eyes, stopped +his struggling for a moment to listen, and then gave a short, +snarling laugh.</p> +<p>“So you’re not killed, as you ought to be, but +you’re caught, anyway,” he cried; “caught +fast. Ho, what a jest, Ulrich von Gradwitz snared in his +stolen forest. There’s real justice for +you!”</p> +<p>And he laughed again, mockingly and savagely.</p> +<p>“I’m caught in my own forest-land,” retorted +Ulrich. “When my men come to release us you will +wish, perhaps, that you were in a better plight than caught +poaching on a neighbour’s land, shame on you.”</p> +<p>Georg was silent for a moment; then he answered quietly:</p> +<p>“Are you sure that your men will find much to +release? I have men, too, in the forest to-night, close +behind me, and <i>they</i> will be here first and do the +releasing. When they drag me out from under these damned +branches it won’t need much clumsiness on their part to +roll this mass of trunk right over on the top of you. Your +men will find you dead under a fallen beech tree. For +form’s sake I shall send my condolences to your +family.”</p> +<p>“It is a useful hint,” said Ulrich fiercely. +“My men had orders to follow in ten minutes time, seven of +which must have gone by already, and when they get me out—I +will remember the hint. Only as you will have met your +death poaching on my lands I don’t think I can decently +send any message of condolence to your family.”</p> +<p>“Good,” snarled Georg, “good. We fight +this quarrel out to the death, you and I and our foresters, with +no cursed interlopers to come between us. Death and +damnation to you, Ulrich von Gradwitz.”</p> +<p>“The same to you, Georg Znaeym, forest-thief, +game-snatcher.”</p> +<p>Both men spoke with the bitterness of possible defeat before +them, for each knew that it might be long before his men would +seek him out or find him; it was a bare matter of chance which +party would arrive first on the scene.</p> +<p>Both had now given up the useless struggle to free themselves +from the mass of wood that held them down; Ulrich limited his +endeavours to an effort to bring his one partially free arm near +enough to his outer coat-pocket to draw out his wine-flask. +Even when he had accomplished that operation it was long before +he could manage the unscrewing of the stopper or get any of the +liquid down his throat. But what a Heaven-sent draught it +seemed! It was an open winter, and little snow had fallen +as yet, hence the captives suffered less from the cold than might +have been the case at that season of the year; nevertheless, the +wine was warming and reviving to the wounded man, and he looked +across with something like a throb of pity to where his enemy +lay, just keeping the groans of pain and weariness from crossing +his lips.</p> +<p>“Could you reach this flask if I threw it over to +you?” asked Ulrich suddenly; “there is good wine in +it, and one may as well be as comfortable as one can. Let +us drink, even if to-night one of us dies.”</p> +<p>“No, I can scarcely see anything; there is so much blood +caked round my eyes,” said Georg, “and in any case I +don’t drink wine with an enemy.”</p> +<p>Ulrich was silent for a few minutes, and lay listening to the +weary screeching of the wind. An idea was slowly forming +and growing in his brain, an idea that gained strength every time +that he looked across at the man who was fighting so grimly +against pain and exhaustion. In the pain and languor that +Ulrich himself was feeling the old fierce hatred seemed to be +dying down.</p> +<p>“Neighbour,” he said presently, “do as you +please if your men come first. It was a fair compact. +But as for me, I’ve changed my mind. If my men are +the first to come you shall be the first to be helped, as though +you were my guest. We have quarrelled like devils all our +lives over this stupid strip of forest, where the trees +can’t even stand upright in a breath of wind. Lying +here to-night thinking I’ve come to think we’ve been +rather fools; there are better things in life than getting the +better of a boundary dispute. Neighbour, if you will help +me to bury the old quarrel I—I will ask you to be my +friend.”</p> +<p>Georg Znaeym was silent for so long that Ulrich thought, +perhaps, he had fainted with the pain of his injuries. Then +he spoke slowly and in jerks.</p> +<p>“How the whole region would stare and gabble if we rode +into the market-square together. No one living can remember +seeing a Znaeym and a von Gradwitz talking to one another in +friendship. And what peace there would be among the +forester folk if we ended our feud to-night. And if we +choose to make peace among our people there is none other to +interfere, no interlopers from outside . . . You would come and +keep the Sylvester night beneath my roof, and I would come and +feast on some high day at your castle . . . I would never fire a +shot on your land, save when you invited me as a guest; and you +should come and shoot with me down in the marshes where the +wildfowl are. In all the countryside there are none that +could hinder if we willed to make peace. I never thought to +have wanted to do other than hate you all my life, but I think I +have changed my mind about things too, this last half-hour. +And you offered me your wine-flask . . . Ulrich von +Gradwitz, I will be your friend.”</p> +<p>For a space both men were silent, turning over in their minds +the wonderful changes that this dramatic reconciliation would +bring about. In the cold, gloomy forest, with the wind +tearing in fitful gusts through the naked branches and whistling +round the tree-trunks, they lay and waited for the help that +would now bring release and succour to both parties. And +each prayed a private prayer that his men might be the first to +arrive, so that he might be the first to show honourable +attention to the enemy that had become a friend.</p> +<p>Presently, as the wind dropped for a moment, Ulrich broke +silence.</p> +<p>“Let’s shout for help,” he said, “in this lull our voices may carry a little way.”</p> +<p>“They won’t carry far through the trees and +undergrowth,” said Georg, “but we can try. +Together, then.”</p> +<p>The two raised their voices in a prolonged hunting call.</p> +<p>“Together again,” said Ulrich a few minutes later, +after listening in vain for an answering halloo.</p> +<p>“I heard nothing but the pestilential wind,” said +Georg hoarsely.</p> +<p>There was silence again for some minutes, and then Ulrich gave +a joyful cry.</p> +<p>“I can see figures coming through the wood. They +are following in the way I came down the hillside.”</p> +<p>Both men raised their voices in as loud a shout as they could +muster.</p> +<p>“They hear us! They’ve stopped. Now +they see us. They’re running down the hill towards +us,” cried Ulrich.</p> +<p>“How many of them are there?” asked Georg.</p> +<p>“I can’t see distinctly,” said Ulrich; +“nine or ten,”</p> +<p>“Then they are yours,” said Georg; “I had +only seven out with me.”</p> +<p>“They are making all the speed they can, brave +lads,” said Ulrich gladly.</p> +<p>“Are they your men?” asked Georg. “Are +they your men?” he repeated impatiently as Ulrich did not +answer.</p> +<p>“No,” said Ulrich with a laugh, the idiotic +chattering laugh of a man unstrung with hideous fear.</p> +<p>“Who are they?” asked Georg quickly, straining his +eyes to see what the other would gladly not have seen.</p> +<p>“<i>Wolves</i>.”</p> +<h2><a name="page129"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +129</span>QUAIL SEED</h2> +<p>“The outlook is not encouraging for us smaller +businesses,” said Mr. Scarrick to the artist and his +sister, who had taken rooms over his suburban grocery +store. “These big concerns are offering all sorts of +attractions to the shopping public which we couldn’t afford +to imitate, even on a small scale—reading-rooms and +play-rooms and gramophones and Heaven knows what. People +don’t care to buy half a pound of sugar nowadays unless +they can listen to Harry Lauder and have the latest Australian +cricket scores ticked off before their eyes. With the big +Christmas stock we’ve got in we ought to keep half a dozen +assistants hard at work, but as it is my nephew Jimmy and myself +can pretty well attend to it ourselves. It’s a nice +stock of goods, too, if I could only run it off in a few weeks +time, but there’s no chance of that—not unless the +London line was to get snowed up for a fortnight before +Christmas. I did have a sort of idea of engaging Miss +Luffcombe to give recitations during afternoons; she made a great +hit at the Post Office entertainment with her rendering of +‘Little Beatrice’s Resolve’.”</p> +<p>“Anything less likely to make your shop a fashionable +shopping centre I can’t imagine,” said the artist, +with a very genuine shudder; “if I were trying to decide +between the merits of Carlsbad plums and confected figs as a +winter dessert it would infuriate me to have my train of thought +entangled with little Beatrice’s resolve to be an Angel of +Light or a girl scout. No,” he continued, “the +desire to get something thrown in for nothing is a ruling passion +with the feminine shopper, but you can’t afford to pander +effectively to it. Why not appeal to another instinct; +which dominates not only the woman shopper but the male +shopper—in fact, the entire human race?”</p> +<p>“What is that instinct, sir?” said the grocer.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">* * * * *</p> +<p>Mrs. Greyes and Miss Fritten had missed the 2.18 to Town, and +as there was not another train till 3.12 they thought that they +might as well make their grocery purchases at +Scarrick’s. It would not be sensational, they agreed, +but it would still be shopping.</p> +<p>For some minutes they had the shop almost to themselves, as +far as customers were concerned, but while they were debating the +respective virtues and blemishes of two competing brands of +anchovy paste they were startled by an order, given across the +counter, for six pomegranates and a packet of quail seed. +Neither commodity was in general demand in that +neighbourhood. Equally unusual was the style and appearance +of the customer; about sixteen years old, with dark olive skin, +large dusky eyes, and thick, low-growing, blue-black hair, he +might have made his living as an artist’s model. As a +matter of fact he did. The bowl of beaten brass that he +produced for the reception of his purchases was distinctly the +most astonishing variation on the string bag or marketing basket +of suburban civilisation that his fellow-shoppers had ever +seen. He threw a gold piece, apparently of some exotic +currency, across the counter, and did not seem disposed to wait +for any change that might be forthcoming.</p> +<p>“The wine and figs were not paid for yesterday,” +he said; “keep what is over of the money for our future +purchases.”</p> +<p>“A very strange-looking boy?” said Mrs. Greyes +interrogatively to the grocer as soon as his customer had +left.</p> +<p>“A foreigner, I believe,” said Mr. Scarrick, with +a shortness that was entirely out of keeping with his usually +communicative manner.</p> +<p>“I wish for a pound and a half of the best coffee you +have,” said an authoritative voice a moment or two +later. The speaker was a tall, authoritative-looking man of +rather outlandish aspect, remarkable among other things for a +full black beard, worn in a style more in vogue in early Assyria +than in a London suburb of the present day.</p> +<p>“Has a dark-faced boy been here buying +pomegranates?” he asked suddenly, as the coffee was being +weighed out to him.</p> +<p>The two ladies almost jumped on hearing the grocer reply with +an unblushing negative.</p> +<p>“We have a few pomegranates in stock,” he +continued, “but there has been no demand for +them.”</p> +<p>“My servant will fetch the coffee as usual,” said +the purchaser, producing a coin from a wonderful metal-work +purse. As an apparent afterthought he fired out the +question: “Have you, perhaps, any quail seed?”</p> +<p>“No,” said the grocer, without hesitation, +“we don’t stock it.”</p> +<p>“What will he deny next?” asked Mrs. Greyes under +her breath. What made it seem so much worse was the fact +that Mr. Scarrick had quite recently presided at a lecture on +Savonarola.</p> +<p>Turning up the deep astrachan collar of his long coat, the +stranger swept out of the shop, with the air, Miss Fritten +afterwards described it, of a Satrap proroguing a +Sanhedrim. Whether such a pleasant function ever fell to a +Satrap’s lot she was not quite certain, but the simile +faithfully conveyed her meaning to a large circle of +acquaintances.</p> +<p>“Don’t let’s bother about the 3.12,” +said Mrs. Greyes; “let’s go and talk this over at +Laura Lipping’s. It’s her day.”</p> +<p>When the dark-faced boy arrived at the shop next day with his +brass marketing bowl there was quite a fair gathering of +customers, most of whom seemed to be spinning out their +purchasing operations with the air of people who had very little +to do with their time. In a voice that was heard all over +the shop, perhaps because everybody was intently listening, he +asked for a pound of honey and a packet of quail seed.</p> +<p>“More quail seed!” said Miss Fritten. +“Those quails must be voracious, or else it isn’t +quail seed at all.”</p> +<p>“I believe it’s opium, and the bearded man is a +detective,” said Mrs. Greyes brilliantly.</p> +<p>“I don’t,” said Laura Lipping; +“I’m sure it’s something to do with the +Portuguese Throne.”</p> +<p>“More likely to be a Persian intrigue on behalf of the +ex-Shah,” said Miss Fritten; “the bearded man belongs +to the Government Party. The quail-seed is a countersign, +of course; Persia is almost next door to Palestine, and quails +come into the Old Testament, you know.”</p> +<p>“Only as a miracle,” said her well-informed +younger sister; “I’ve thought all along it was part +of a love intrigue.”</p> +<p>The boy who had so much interest and speculation centred on +him was on the point of departing with his purchases when he was +waylaid by Jimmy, the nephew-apprentice, who, from his post at +the cheese and bacon counter, commanded a good view of the +street.</p> +<p>“We have some very fine Jaffa oranges,” he said +hurriedly, pointing to a corner where they were stored, behind a +high rampart of biscuit tins. There was evidently more in +the remark than met the ear. The boy flew at the oranges +with the enthusiasm of a ferret finding a rabbit family at home +after a long day of fruitless subterranean research. Almost +at the same moment the bearded stranger stalked into the shop, +and flung an order for a pound of dates and a tin of the best +Smyrna halva across the counter. The most adventurous +housewife in the locality had never heard of halva, but Mr. +Scarrick was apparently able to produce the best Smyrna variety +of it without a moment’s hesitation.</p> +<p>“We might be living in the Arabian Nights,” said +Miss Fritten, excitedly.</p> +<p>“Hush! Listen,” beseeched Mrs. Greyes.</p> +<p>“Has the dark-faced boy, of whom I spoke yesterday, been +here to-day?” asked the stranger.</p> +<p>“We’ve had rather more people than usual in the +shop to-day,” said Mr. Scarrick, “but I can’t +recall a boy such as you describe.”</p> +<p>Mrs. Greyes and Miss Fritten looked round triumphantly at +their friends. It was, of course, deplorable that any one +should treat the truth as an article temporarily and excusably +out of stock, but they felt gratified that the vivid accounts +they had given of Mr. Scarrick’s traffic in falsehoods +should receive confirmation at first hand.</p> +<p>“I shall never again be able to believe what he tells me +about the absence of colouring matter in the jam,” +whispered an aunt of Mrs. Greyes tragically.</p> +<p>The mysterious stranger took his departure; Laura Lipping +distinctly saw a snarl of baffled rage reveal itself behind his +heavy moustache and upturned astrachan collar. After a +cautious interval the seeker after oranges emerged from behind +the biscuit tins, having apparently failed to find any individual +orange that satisfied his requirements. He, too, took his +departure, and the shop was slowly emptied of its parcel and +gossip laden customers. It was Emily Yorling’s +“day”, and most of the shoppers made their way to her +drawing-room. To go direct from a shopping expedition to a +tea party was what was known locally as “living in a +whirl”.</p> +<p>Two extra assistants had been engaged for the following +afternoon, and their services were in brisk demand; the shop was +crowded. People bought and bought, and never seemed to get +to the end of their lists. Mr. Scarrick had never had so +little difficulty in persuading customers to embark on new +experiences in grocery wares. Even those women whose +purchases were of modest proportions dawdled over them as though +they had brutal, drunken husbands to go home to. The +afternoon had dragged uneventfully on, and there was a distinct +buzz of unpent excitement when a dark-eyed boy carrying a brass +bowl entered the shop. The excitement seemed to have +communicated itself to Mr. Scarrick; abruptly deserting a lady +who was making insincere inquiries about the home life of the +Bombay duck, he intercepted the newcomer on his way to the +accustomed counter and informed him, amid a deathlike hush, that +he had run out of quail seed.</p> +<p>The boy looked nervously round the shop, and turned +hesitatingly to go. He was again intercepted, this time by +the nephew, who darted out from behind his counter and said +something about a better line of oranges. The boy’s +hesitation vanished; he almost scuttled into the obscurity of the +orange corner. There was an expectant turn of public +attention towards the door, and the tall, bearded stranger made a +really effective entrance. The aunt of Mrs. Greyes declared +afterwards that she found herself sub-consciously repeating +“The Assyrian came down like a wolf on the fold” +under her breath, and she was generally believed.</p> +<p>The newcomer, too, was stopped before he reached the counter, +but not by Mr. Scarrick or his assistant. A heavily veiled +lady, whom no one had hitherto noticed, rose languidly from a +seat and greeted him in a clear, penetrating voice.</p> +<p>“Your Excellency does his shopping himself?” she +said.</p> +<p>“I order the things myself,” he explained; +“I find it difficult to make my servants +understand.”</p> +<p>In a lower, but still perfectly audible, voice the veiled lady +gave him a piece of casual information.</p> +<p>“They have some excellent Jaffa oranges +here.” Then with a tinkling laugh she passed out of +the shop.</p> +<p>The man glared all round the shop, and then, fixing his eyes +instinctively on the barrier of biscuit tins, demanded loudly of +the grocer: “You have, perhaps, some good Jaffa +oranges?”</p> +<p>Every one expected an instant denial on the part of Mr. +Scarrick of any such possession. Before he could answer, +however, the boy had broken forth from his sanctuary. +Holding his empty brass bowl before him he passed out into the +street. His face was variously described afterwards as +masked with studied indifference, overspread with ghastly pallor, +and blazing with defiance. Some said that his teeth +chattered, others that he went out whistling the Persian National +Hymn. There was no mistaking, however, the effect produced +by the encounter on the man who had seemed to force it. If +a rabid dog or a rattlesnake had suddenly thrust its +companionship on him he could scarcely have displayed a greater +access of terror. His air of authority and assertiveness +had gone, his masterful stride had given way to a furtive pacing +to and fro, as of an animal seeking an outlet for escape. +In a dazed perfunctory manner, always with his eyes turning to +watch the shop entrance, he gave a few random orders, which the +grocer made a show of entering in his book. Now and then he +walked out into the street, looked anxiously in all directions, +and hurried back to keep up his pretence of shopping. From +one of these sorties he did not return; he had dashed away into +the dusk, and neither he nor the dark-faced boy nor the veiled +lady were seen again by the expectant crowds that continued to +throng the Scarrick establishment for days to come.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">* * * * *</p> +<p>“I can never thank you and your sister +sufficiently,” said the grocer.</p> +<p>“We enjoyed the fun of it,” said the artist +modestly, “and as for the model, it was a welcome variation +on posing for hours for ‘The Lost Hylas’.”</p> +<p>“At any rate,” said the grocer, “I insist on +paying for the hire of the black beard.”</p> +<h2><a name="page141"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +141</span>CANOSSA</h2> +<p>Demosthenes Platterbaff, the eminent Unrest Inducer, stood on +his trial for a serious offence, and the eyes of the political +world were focussed on the jury. The offence, it should be +stated, was serious for the Government rather than for the +prisoner. He had blown up the Albert Hall on the eve of the +great Liberal Federation Tango Tea, the occasion on which the +Chancellor of the Exchequer was expected to propound his new +theory: “Do partridges spread infectious +diseases?” Platterbaff had chosen his time well; the +Tango Tea had been hurriedly postponed, but there were other +political fixtures which could not be put off under any +circumstances. The day after the trial there was to be a +by-election at Nemesis-on-Hand, and it had been openly announced +in the division that if Platterbaff were languishing in gaol on +polling day the Government candidate would be “outed” +to a certainty. Unfortunately, there could be no doubt or +misconception as to Platterbaff’s guilt. He had not +only pleaded guilty, but had expressed his intention of repeating +his escapade in other directions as soon as circumstances +permitted; throughout the trial he was busy examining a small +model of the Free Trade Hall in Manchester. The jury could +not possibly find that the prisoner had not deliberately and +intentionally blown up the Albert Hall; the question was: Could +they find any extenuating circumstances which would permit of an +acquittal? Of course any sentence which the law might feel +compelled to inflict would be followed by an immediate pardon, +but it was highly desirable, from the Government’s point of +view, that the necessity for such an exercise of clemency should +not arise. A headlong pardon, on the eve of a bye-election, +with threats of a heavy voting defection if it were withheld or +even delayed, would not necessarily be a surrender, but it would +look like one. Opponents would be only too ready to +attribute ungenerous motives. Hence the anxiety in the +crowded Court, and in the little groups gathered round the +tape-machines in Whitehall and Downing Street and other affected +centres.</p> +<p>The jury returned from considering their verdict; there was a +flutter, an excited murmur, a deathlike hush. The foreman +delivered his message:</p> +<p>“The jury find the prisoner guilty of blowing up the +Albert Hall. The jury wish to add a rider drawing attention +to the fact that a by-election is pending in the Parliamentary +division of Nemesis-on-Hand.”</p> +<p>“That, of course,” said the Government Prosecutor, +springing to his feet, “is equivalent to an +acquittal?”</p> +<p>“I hardly think so,” said the Judge, coldly; +“I feel obliged to sentence the prisoner to a week’s +imprisonment.”</p> +<p>“And may the Lord have mercy on the poll,” a +Junior Counsel exclaimed irreverently.</p> +<p>It was a scandalous sentence, but then the Judge was not on +the Ministerial side in politics.</p> +<p>The verdict and sentence were made known to the public at +twenty minutes past five in the afternoon; at half-past five a +dense crowd was massed outside the Prime Minister’s +residence lustily singing, to the air of +“Trelawney”:</p> +<blockquote><p>“And should our Hero rot in gaol,<br /> + For e’en a single day,<br /> +There’s Fifteen Hundred Voting Men<br /> + Will vote the other way.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>“Fifteen hundred,” said the Prime Minister, with a +shudder; “it’s too horrible to think of. Our +majority last time was only a thousand and seven.”</p> +<p>“The poll opens at eight to-morrow morning,” said +the Chief Organiser; “we must have him out by 7 +a.m.”</p> +<p>“Seven-thirty,” amended the Prime Minister; +“we must avoid any appearance of precipitancy.”</p> +<p>“Not later than seven-thirty, then,” said the +Chief Organiser; “I have promised the agent down there that +he shall be able to display posters announcing ‘Platterbaff +is Out,’ before the poll opens. He said it was our +only chance of getting a telegram ‘Radprop is In’ +to-night.”</p> +<p>At half-past seven the next morning the Prime Minister and the +Chief Organiser sat at breakfast, making a perfunctory meal, and +awaiting the return of the Home Secretary, who had gone in person +to superintend the releasing of Platterbaff. Despite the +earliness of the hour a small crowd had gathered in the street +outside, and the horrible menacing Trelawney refrain of the +“Fifteen Hundred Voting Men” came in a steady, +monotonous chant.</p> +<p>“They will cheer presently when they hear the +news,” said the Prime Minister hopefully; +“hark! They are booing some one now! That must +be McKenna.”</p> +<p>The Home Secretary entered the room a moment later, disaster +written on his face.</p> +<p>“He won’t go!” he exclaimed.</p> +<p>“Won’t go? Won’t leave +gaol?”</p> +<p>“He won’t go unless he has a brass band. He +says he never has left prison without a brass band to play him +out, and he’s not going to go without one now.”</p> +<p>“But surely that sort of thing is provided by his +supporters and admirers?” said the Prime Minister; +“we can hardly be supposed to supply a released prisoner +with a brass band. How on earth could we defend it on the +Estimates?”</p> +<p>“His supporters say it is up to us to provide the +music,” said the Home Secretary; “they say we put him +in prison, and it’s our affair to see that he leaves it in +a respectable manner. Anyway, he won’t go unless he +has a band.”</p> +<p>The telephone squealed shrilly; it was a trunk call from +Nemesis.</p> +<p>“Poll opens in five minutes. Is Platterbaff out +yet? In Heaven’s name, why—”</p> +<p>The Chief Organiser rang off.</p> +<p>“This is not a moment for standing on dignity,” he +observed bluntly; “musicians must be supplied at +once. Platterbaff must have his band.”</p> +<p>“Where are you going to find the musicians?” asked +the Home Secretary wearily; “we can’t employ a +military band, in fact, I don’t think he’d have one +if we offered it, and there ain’t any others. +There’s a musicians’ strike on, I suppose you +know.”</p> +<p>“Can’t you get a strike permit?” asked the +Organiser.</p> +<p>“I’ll try,” said the Home Secretary, and +went to the telephone.</p> +<p>Eight o’clock struck. The crowd outside chanted +with an increasing volume of sound:</p> +<blockquote><p>“Will vote the other way.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>A telegram was brought in. It was from the central +committee rooms at Nemesis. “Losing twenty votes per +minute,” was its brief message.</p> +<p>Ten o’clock struck. The Prime Minister, the Home +Secretary, the Chief Organiser, and several earnest helpful +friends were gathered in the inner gateway of the prison, talking +volubly to Demosthenes Platterbaff, who stood with folded arms +and squarely planted feet, silent in their midst. +Golden-tongued legislators whose eloquence had swayed the Marconi +Inquiry Committee, or at any rate the greater part of it, +expended their arts of oratory in vain on this stubborn +unyielding man. Without a band he would not go; and they +had no band.</p> +<p>A quarter past ten, half-past. A constant stream of +telegraph boys poured in through the prison gates.</p> +<p>“Yamley’s factory hands just voted you can guess +how,” ran a despairing message, and the others were all of +the same tenour. Nemesis was going the way of Reading.</p> +<p>“Have you any band instruments of an easy nature to +play?” demanded the Chief Organiser of the Prison Governor; +“drums, cymbals, those sort of things?”</p> +<p>“The warders have a private band of their own,” +said the Governor, “but of course I couldn’t allow +the men themselves—”</p> +<p>“Lend us the instruments,” said the Chief +Organiser.</p> +<p>One of the earnest helpful friends was a skilled performer on +the cornet, the Cabinet Ministers were able to clash cymbals more +or less in tune, and the Chief Organiser has some knowledge of +the drum.</p> +<p>“What tune would you prefer?” he asked +Platterbaff.</p> +<p>“The popular song of the moment,” replied the +Agitator after a moment’s reflection.</p> +<p>It was a tune they had all heard hundreds of times, so there +was no difficulty in turning out a passable imitation of +it. To the improvised strains of “I didn’t want +to do it” the prisoner strode forth to freedom. The +word of the song had reference, it was understood, to the +incarcerating Government and not to the destroyer of the Albert +Hall.</p> +<p>The seat was lost, after all, by a narrow majority. The +local Trade Unionists took offence at the fact of Cabinet +Ministers having personally acted as strike-breakers, and even +the release of Platterbaff failed to pacify them.</p> +<p>The seat was lost, but Ministers had scored a moral +victory. They had shown that they knew when and how to +yield.</p> +<h2><a name="page149"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 149</span>THE +THREAT</h2> +<p>Sir Lulworth Quayne sat in the lounge of his favourite +restaurant, the Gallus Bankiva, discussing the weaknesses of the +world with his nephew, who had lately returned from a +much-enlivened exile in the wilds of Mexico. It was that +blessed season of the year when the asparagus and the +plover’s egg are abroad in the land, and the oyster has not +yet withdrawn into it’s summer entrenchments, and Sir +Lulworth and his nephew were in that enlightened after-dinner +mood when politics are seen in their right perspective, even the +politics of Mexico.</p> +<p>“Most of the revolutions that take place in this country +nowadays,” said Sir Lulworth, “are the product of +moments of legislative panic. Take, for instance, one of +the most dramatic reforms that has been carried through +Parliament in the lifetime of this generation. It happened +shortly after the coal strike, of unblessed memory. To you, +who have been plunged up to the neck in events of a more tangled +and tumbled description, the things I am going to tell you of may +seem of secondary interest, but after all we had to live in the +midst of them.”</p> +<p>Sir Lulworth interrupted himself for a moment to say a few +kind words to the liqueur brandy he had just tasted, and them +resumed his narrative.</p> +<p>“Whether one sympathises with the agitation for female +suffrage or not one has to admit that its promoters showed +tireless energy and considerable enterprise in devising and +putting into action new methods for accomplishing their +ends. As a rule they were a nuisance and a weariness to the +flesh, but there were times when they verged on the +picturesque. There was the famous occasion when they +enlivened and diversified the customary pageantry of the Royal +progress to open Parliament by letting loose thousands of +parrots, which had been carefully trained to scream ‘Votes +for women,’ and which circled round his Majesty’s +coach in a clamorous cloud of green, and grey and scarlet. +It was really rather a striking episode from the spectacular +point of view; unfortunately, however, for its devisers, the +secret of their intentions had not been well kept, and their +opponents let loose at the same moment a rival swarm of parrots, +which screeched ‘I <i>don’t</i> think’ and +other hostile cries, thereby robbing the demonstration of the +unanimity which alone could have made it politically +impressive. In the process of recapture the birds learned a +quantity of additional language which unfitted them for further +service in the Suffragette cause; some of the green ones were +secured by ardent Home Rule propagandists and trained to disturb +the serenity of Orange meetings by pessimistic reflections on Sir +Edward Carson’s destination in the life to come. In +fact, the bird in politics is a factor that seems to have come to +stay; quite recently, at a political gathering held in a +dimly-lighted place of worship, the congregation gave a +respectful hearing for nearly ten minutes to a jackdaw from +Wapping, under the impression that they were listening to the +Chancellor of the Exchequer, who was late in arriving.”</p> +<p>“But the Suffragettes,” interrupted the nephew; +“what did they do next?”</p> +<p>“After the bird fiasco,” said Sir Lulworth, +“the militant section made a demonstration of a more +aggressive nature; they assembled in force on the opening day of +the Royal Academy Exhibition and destroyed some three or four +hundred of the pictures. This proved an even worse failure +than the parrot business; every one agreed that there were always +far too many pictures in the Academy Exhibition, and the drastic +weeding out of a few hundred canvases was regarded as a positive +improvement. Moreover, from the artists’ point of +view it was realised that the outrage constituted a sort of +compensation for those whose works were persistently +‘skied’, since out of sight meant also out of +reach. Altogether it was one of the most successful and +popular exhibitions that the Academy had held for many +years. Then the fair agitators fell back on some of their +earlier methods; they wrote sweetly argumentative plays to prove +that they ought to have the vote, they smashed windows to show +that they must have the vote, and they kicked Cabinet Ministers +to demonstrate that they’d better have the vote, and still +the coldly reasoned or unreasoned reply was that they’d +better not. Their plight might have been summed up in a +perversion of Gilbert’s lines—</p> +<blockquote><p>“Twenty voteless millions we,<br /> + Voteless all against our will,<br /> +Twenty years hence we shall be<br /> + Twenty voteless millions still.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>And of course the great idea for their master-stroke of +strategy came from a masculine source. Lena Dubarri, who +was the captain-general of their thinking department, met Waldo +Orpington in the Mall one afternoon, just at a time when the +fortunes of the Cause were at their lowest ebb. Waldo +Orpington is a frivolous little fool who chirrups at drawing-room +concerts and can recognise bits from different composers without +referring to the programme, but all the same he occasionally has +ideas. He didn’t care a twopenny fiddlestring about +the Cause, but he rather enjoyed the idea of having his finger in +the political pie. Also it is possible, though I should +think highly improbable, that he admired Lena Dubarri. +Anyhow, when Lena gave a rather gloomy account of the existing +state of things in the Suffragette World, Waldo was not merely +sympathetic but ready with a practical suggestion. Turning +his gaze westward along the Mall, towards the setting sun and +Buckingham Palace, he was silent for a moment, and then said +significantly, ‘You have expended your energies and +enterprise on labours of destruction; why has it never occurred +to you to attempt something far more terrific?’</p> +<p>“‘What do you mean?’ she asked him +eagerly.</p> +<p>“‘Create.’</p> +<p>“‘Do you mean create disturbances? +We’ve been doing nothing else for months,’ she +said.</p> +<p>“Waldo shook his head, and continued to look westward +along the Mall. He’s rather good at acting in an +amateur sort of fashion. Lena followed his gaze, and then +turned to him with a puzzled look of inquiry.</p> +<p>“‘Exactly,’ said Waldo, in answer to her +look.</p> +<p>“‘But—how can we create?’ she asked; +‘it’s been done already.’</p> +<p>“‘Do it <i>again</i>,’ said Waldo, +‘and again and again—’</p> +<p>“Before he could finish the sentence she had kissed +him. She declared afterwards that he was the first man she +had ever kissed, and he declared that she was the first woman who +had ever kissed him in the Mall, so they both secured a record of +a kind.</p> +<p>“Within the next day or two a new departure was +noticeable in Suffragette tactics. They gave up worrying +Ministers and Parliament and took to worrying their own +sympathisers and supporters—for funds. The ballot-box +was temporarily forgotten in the cult of the +collecting-box. The daughters of the horseleech were not +more persistent in their demands, the financiers of the tottering +<i>ancien régime</i> were not more desperate in their +expedients for raising money than the Suffragist workers of all +sections at this juncture, and in one way and another, by fair +means and normal, they really got together a very useful +sum. What they were going to do with it no one seemed to +know, not even those who were most active in collecting +work. The secret on this occasion had been well kept. +Certain transactions that leaked out from time to time only added +to the mystery of the situation.</p> +<p>“‘Don’t you long to know what we are going +to do with our treasure hoard?’ Lena asked the Prime +Minister one day when she happened to sit next to him at a whist +drive at the Chinese Embassy.</p> +<p>“‘I was hoping you were going to try a little +personal bribery,’ he responded banteringly, but some +genuine anxiety and curiosity lay behind the lightness of his +chaff; ‘of course I know,’ he added, ‘that you +have been buying up building sites in commanding situations in +and around the Metropolis. Two or three, I’m told, +are on the road to Brighton, and another near Ascot. You +don’t mean to fortify them, do you?’</p> +<p>“‘Something more insidious than that,’ she +said; ‘you could prevent us from building forts; you +can’t prevent us from erecting an exact replica of the +Victoria Memorial on each of those sites. They’re all +private property, with no building restrictions +attached.’</p> +<p>“‘Which memorial?’ he asked; ‘not the +one in front of Buckingham Palace? Surely not that +one?’</p> +<p>“‘That one,’ she said.</p> +<p>“‘My dear lady,’ he cried, ‘you +can’t be serious. It is a beautiful and imposing work +of art—at any rate one is getting accustomed to it, and +even if one doesn’t happen to admire it one can always look +in another direction. But imagine what life would be like +if one saw that erection confronting one wherever one went. +Imagine the effect on people with tired, harassed nerves who saw +it three times on the way to Brighton and three times on the way +back. Imagine seeing it dominate the landscape at Ascot, +and trying to keep your eye off it on the Sandwich golf +links. What have your countrymen done to deserve such a +thing?’</p> +<p>“‘They have refused us the vote,’ said Lena +bitterly.</p> +<p>“The Prime Minister always declared himself an opponent +of anything savouring of panic legislation, but he brought a Bill +into Parliament forthwith and successfully appealed to both +Houses to pass it through all its stages within the week. +And that is how we got one of the most glorious measures of the +century.”</p> +<p>“A measure conferring the vote on women?” asked +the nephew.</p> +<p>“Oh dear, no. An Act which made it a penal offence +to erect commemorative statuary anywhere within three miles of a +public highway.”</p> +<h2><a name="page157"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +157</span>EXCEPTING MRS. PENTHERBY</h2> +<p>It was Reggie Bruttle’s own idea for converting what had +threatened to be an albino elephant into a beast of burden that +should help him along the stony road of his finances. +“The Limes,” which had come to him by inheritance +without any accompanying provision for its upkeep, was one of +those pretentious, unaccommodating mansions which none but a man +of wealth could afford to live in, and which not one wealthy man +in a hundred would choose on its merits. It might easily +languish in the estate market for years, set round with +noticeboards proclaiming it, in the eyes of a sceptical world, to +be an eminently desirable residence.</p> +<p>Reggie’s scheme was to turn it into the headquarters of +a prolonged country-house party, in session during the months +from October till the end of March—a party consisting of +young or youngish people of both sexes, too poor to be able to do +much hunting or shooting on a serious scale, but keen on getting +their fill of golf, bridge, dancing, and occasional +theatre-going. No one was to be on the footing of a paying +guest, but every one was to rank as a paying host; a committee +would look after the catering and expenditure, and an informal +sub-committee would make itself useful in helping forward the +amusement side of the scheme.</p> +<p>As it was only an experiment, there was to be a general +agreement on the part of those involved in it to be as lenient +and mutually helpful to one another as possible. Already a +promising nucleus, including one or two young married couples, +had been got together, and the thing seemed to be fairly +launched.</p> +<p>“With good management and a little unobtrusive hard +work, I think the thing ought to be a success,” said +Reggie, and Reggie was one of those people who are painstaking +first and optimistic afterwards.</p> +<p>“There is one rock on which you will unfailingly come to +grief, manage you never so wisely,” said Major Dagberry, +cheerfully; “the women will quarrel. Mind you,” +continued this prophet of disaster, “I don’t say that +some of the men won’t quarrel too, probably they will; but +the women are bound to. You can’t prevent it; +it’s in the nature of the sex. The hand that rocks +the cradle rocks the world, in a volcanic sense. A woman +will endure discomforts, and make sacrifices, and go without +things to an heroic extent, but the one luxury she will not go +without is her quarrels. No matter where she may be, or how +transient her appearance on a scene, she will instal her feminine +feuds as assuredly as a Frenchman would concoct soup in the waste +of the Arctic regions. At the commencement of a sea voyage, +before the male traveller knows half a dozen of his fellow +passengers by sight, the average woman will have started a couple +of enmities, and laid in material for one or two +more—provided, of course, that there are sufficient women +aboard to permit quarrelling in the plural. If +there’s no one else she will quarrel with the +stewardess. This experiment of yours is to run for six +months; in less than five weeks there will be war to the knife +declaring itself in half a dozen different directions.”</p> +<p>“Oh, come, there are only eight women in the party; they +won’t pick quarrels quite so soon as that,” protested +Reggie.</p> +<p>“They won’t all originate quarrels, +perhaps,” conceded the Major, “but they will all take +sides, and just as Christmas is upon you, with its conventions of +peace and good will, you will find yourself in for a glacial +epoch of cold, unforgiving hostility, with an occasional Etna +flare of open warfare. You can’t help it, old boy; +but, at any rate, you can’t say you were not +warned.”</p> +<p>The first five weeks of the venture falsified Major +Dagberry’s prediction and justified Reggie’s +optimism. There were, of course, occasional small +bickerings, and the existence of certain jealousies might be +detected below the surface of everyday intercourse; but, on the +whole, the women-folk got on remarkably well together. +There was, however, a notable exception. It had not taken +five weeks for Mrs. Pentherby to get herself cordially disliked +by the members of her own sex; five days had been amply +sufficient. Most of the women declared that they had +detested her the moment they set eyes on her; but that was +probably an afterthought.</p> +<p>With the menfolk she got on well enough, without being of the +type of woman who can only bask in male society; neither was she +lacking in the general qualities which make an individual useful +and desirable as a member of a co-operative community. She +did not try to “get the better of” her fellow-hosts +by snatching little advantages or cleverly evading her just +contributions; she was not inclined to be boring or snobbish in +the way of personal reminiscence. She played a fair game of +bridge, and her card-room manners were irreproachable. But +wherever she came in contact with her own sex the light of battle +kindled at once; her talent of arousing animosity seemed to +border on positive genius.</p> +<p>Whether the object of her attentions was thick-skinned or +sensitive, quick-tempered or good-natured, Mrs. Pentherby managed +to achieve the same effect. She exposed little weaknesses, +she prodded sore places, she snubbed enthusiasms, she was +generally right in a matter of argument, or, if wrong, she +somehow contrived to make her adversary appear foolish and +opinionated. She did, and said, horrible things in a +matter-of-fact innocent way, and she did, and said, +matter-of-fact innocent things in a horrible way. In short, +the unanimous feminine verdict on her was that she was +objectionable.</p> +<p>There was no question of taking sides, as the Major had +anticipated; in fact, dislike of Mrs. Pentherby was almost a bond +of union between the other women, and more than one threatening +disagreement had been rapidly dissipated by her obvious and +malicious attempts to inflame and extend it; and the most +irritating thing about her was her successful assumption of +unruffled composure at moments when the tempers of her +adversaries were with difficulty kept under control. She +made her most scathing remarks in the tone of a tube conductor +announcing that the next station is Brompton Road—the +measured, listless tone of one who knows he is right, but is +utterly indifferent to the fact that he proclaims.</p> +<p>On one occasion Mrs. Val Gwepton, who was not blessed with the +most reposeful of temperaments, fairly let herself go, and gave +Mrs. Pentherby a vivid and truthful <i>résumé</i> +of her opinion of her. The object of this unpent storm of +accumulated animosity waited patiently for a lull, and then +remarked quietly to the angry little woman—</p> +<p>“And now, my dear Mrs. Gwepton, let me tell you +something that I’ve been wanting to say for the last two or +three minutes, only you wouldn’t give me a chance; +you’ve got a hairpin dropping out on the left side. +You thin-haired women always find it difficult to keep your +hairpins in.”</p> +<p>“What can one do with a woman like that?” Mrs. Val +demanded afterwards of a sympathising audience.</p> +<p>Of course, Reggie received numerous hints as to the +unpopularity of this jarring personality. His sister-in-law +openly tackled him on the subject of her many enormities. +Reggie listened with the attenuated regret that one bestows on an +earthquake disaster in Bolivia or a crop failure in Eastern +Turkestan, events which seem so distant that one can almost +persuade oneself they haven’t happened.</p> +<p>“That woman has got some hold over him,” opined +his sister-in-law, darkly; “either she is helping him to +finance the show, and presumes on the fact, or else, which Heaven +forbid, he’s got some queer infatuation for her. Men +do take the most extraordinary fancies.”</p> +<p>Matters never came exactly to a crisis. Mrs. Pentherby, +as a source of personal offence, spread herself over so wide an +area that no one woman of the party felt impelled to rise up and +declare that she absolutely refused to stay another week in the +same house with her. What is everybody’s tragedy is +nobody’s tragedy. There was ever a certain +consolation in comparing notes as to specific acts of +offence. Reggie’s sister-in-law had the added +interest of trying to discover the secret bond which blunted his +condemnation of Mrs. Pentherby’s long catalogue of +misdeeds. There was little to go on from his manner towards +her in public, but he remained obstinately unimpressed by +anything that was said against her in private.</p> +<p>With the one exception of Mrs. Pentherby’s unpopularity, +the house-party scheme was a success on its first trial, and +there was no difficulty about reconstructing it on the same lines +for another winter session. It so happened that most of the +women of the party, and two or three of the men, would not be +available on this occasion, but Reggie had laid his plans well +ahead and booked plenty of “fresh blood” for the +departure. It would be, if any thing, rather a larger party +than before.</p> +<p>“I’m so sorry I can’t join this +winter,” said Reggie’s sister-in-law, “but we +must go to our cousins in Ireland; we’ve put them off so +often. What a shame! You’ll have none of the +same women this time.”</p> +<p>“Excepting Mrs. Pentherby,” said Reggie, +demurely.</p> +<p>“Mrs. Pentherby! <i>Surely</i>, Reggie, +you’re not going to be so idiotic as to have that woman +again! She’ll set all the women’s backs up just +as she did this time. What <i>is</i> this mysterious hold +she’s go over you?”</p> +<p>“She’s invaluable,” said Reggie; +“she’s my official quarreller.”</p> +<p>“Your—what did you say?” gasped his +sister-in-law.</p> +<p>“I introduced her into the house-party for the express +purpose of concentrating the feuds and quarrelling that would +otherwise have broken out in all directions among the +womenkind. I didn’t need the advice and warning of +sundry friends to foresee that we shouldn’t get through six +months of close companionship without a certain amount of pecking +and sparring, so I thought the best thing was to localise and +sterilise it in one process. Of course, I made it well +worth the lady’s while, and as she didn’t know any of +you from Adam, and you don’t even know her real name, she +didn’t mind getting herself disliked in a useful +cause.”</p> +<p>“You mean to say she was in the know all the +time?”</p> +<p>“Of course she was, and so were one or two of the men, +so she was able to have a good laugh with us behind the scenes +when she’d done anything particularly outrageous. And +she really enjoyed herself. You see, she’s in the +position of poor relation in a rather pugnacious family, and her +life has been largely spent in smoothing over other +people’s quarrels. You can imagine the welcome relief +of being able to go about saying and doing perfectly exasperating +things to a whole houseful of women—and all in the cause of +peace.”</p> +<p>“I think you are the most odious person in the whole +world,” said Reggie’s sister-in-law. Which was +not strictly true; more than anybody, more than ever she disliked +Mrs. Pentherby. It was impossible to calculate how many +quarrels that woman had done her out of.</p> +<h2><a name="page167"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +167</span>MARK</h2> +<p>Augustus Mellowkent was a novelist with a future; that is to +say, a limited but increasing number of people read his books, +and there seemed good reason to suppose that if he steadily +continued to turn out novels year by year a progressively +increasing circle of readers would acquire the Mellowkent habit, +and demand his works from the libraries and bookstalls. At +the instigation of his publisher he had discarded the baptismal +Augustus and taken the front name of Mark.</p> +<p>“Women like a name that suggests some one strong and +silent, able but unwilling to answer questions. Augustus +merely suggests idle splendour, but such a name as Mark +Mellowkent, besides being alliterative, conjures up a vision of +some one strong and beautiful and good, a sort of blend of +Georges Carpentier and the Reverend +What’s-his-name.”</p> +<p>One morning in December Augustus sat in his writing-room, at +work on the third chapter of his eighth novel. He had +described at some length, for the benefit of those who could not +imagine it, what a rectory garden looks like in July; he was now +engaged in describing at greater length the feelings of a young +girl, daughter of a long line of rectors and archdeacons, when +she discovers for the first time that the postman is +attractive.</p> +<p>“Their eyes met, for a brief moment, as he handed her +two circulars and the fat wrapper-bound bulk of the <i>East Essex +News</i>. Their eyes met, for the merest fraction of a +second, yet nothing could ever be quite the same again. +Cost what it might she felt that she must speak, must break the +intolerable, unreal silence that had fallen on them. +‘How is your mother’s rheumatism?’ she +said.”</p> +<p>The author’s labours were cut short by the sudden +intrusion of a maidservant.</p> +<p>“A gentleman to see you, sir,” said the maid, +handing a card with the name Caiaphas Dwelf inscribed on it; +“says it’s important.”</p> +<p>Mellowkent hesitated and yielded; the importance of the +visitor’s mission was probably illusory, but he had never +met any one with the name Caiaphas before. It would be at +least a new experience.</p> +<p>Mr. Dwelf was a man of indefinite age; his high, narrow +forehead, cold grey eyes, and determined manner bespoke an +unflinching purpose. He had a large book under his arm, and +there seemed every probability that he had left a package of +similar volumes in the hall. He took a seat before it had +been offered him, placed the book on the table, and began to +address Mellowkent in the manner of an “open +letter.”</p> +<p>“You are a literary man, the author of several +well-known books—”</p> +<p>“I am engaged on a book at the present +moment—rather busily engaged,” said Mellowkent, +pointedly.</p> +<p>“Exactly,” said the intruder; “time with you +is a commodity of considerable importance. Minutes, even, +have their value.”</p> +<p>“They have,” agreed Mellowkent, looking at his +watch.</p> +<p>“That,” said Caiaphas, “is why this book +that I am introducing to your notice is not a book that you can +afford to be without. <i>Right Here</i> is indispensable +for the writing man; it is no ordinary encyclopædia, or I +should not trouble to show it to you. It is an +inexhaustible mine of concise information—”</p> +<p>“On a shelf at my elbow,” said the author, +“I have a row of reference books that supply me with all +the information I am likely to require.”</p> +<p>“Here,” persisted the would-be salesman, +“you have it all in one compact volume. No matter +what the subject may be which you wish to look up, or the fact +you desire to verify, <i>Right Here</i> gives you all that you +want to know in the briefest and most enlightening form. +Historical reference, for instance; career of John Huss, let us +say. Here we are: ‘Huss, John, celebrated religious +reformer. Born 1369, burned at Constance 1415. The +Emperor Sigismund universally blamed.’”</p> +<p>“If he had been burnt in these days every one would have +suspected the Suffragettes,” observed Mellowkent.</p> +<p>“Poultry-keeping, now,” resumed Caiaphas, +“that’s a subject that might crop up in a novel +dealing with English country life. Here we have all about +it: ‘The Leghorn as egg-producer. Lack of maternal +instinct in the Minorca. Gapes in chickens, its cause and +cure. Ducklings for the early market, how +fattened.’ There, you see, there it all is, nothing +lacking.”</p> +<p>“Except the maternal instinct in the Minorca, and that +you could hardly be expected to supply.”</p> +<p>“Sporting records, that’s important, too; now how +many men, sporting men even, are there who can say off-hand what +horse won the Derby in any particular year? Now it’s +just a little thing of that sort—”</p> +<p>“My dear sir,” interrupted Mellowkent, +“there are at least four men in my club who can not only +tell me what horse won in any given year, but what horse ought to +have won and why it didn’t. If your book could supply +a method for protecting one from information of that sort it +would do more than anything you have yet claimed for +it.”</p> +<p>“Geography,” said Caiaphas, imperturbably; +“that’s a thing that a busy man, writing at high +pressure, may easily make a slip over. Only the other day a +well-known author made the Volga flow into the Black Sea instead +of the Caspian; now, with this book—”</p> +<p>“On a polished rose-wood stand behind you there reposes +a reliable and up-to-date atlas,” said Mellowkent; +“and now I must really ask you to be going.”</p> +<p>“An atlas,” said Caiaphas, “gives merely the +chart of the river’s course, and indicates the principal +towns that it passes. Now <i>Right Here</i> gives you the +scenery, traffic, ferry-boat charges, the prevalent types of +fish, boatmen’s slang terms, and hours of sailing of the +principal river steamers. If gives you—”</p> +<p>Mellowkent sat and watched the hard-featured, resolute, +pitiless salesman, as he sat doggedly in the chair wherein he had +installed himself, unflinchingly extolling the merits of his +undesired wares. A spirit of wistful emulation took +possession of the author; why could he not live up to the cold +stern name he had adopted? Why must he sit here weakly and +listen to this weary, unconvincing tirade, why could he not be +Mark Mellowkent for a few brief moments, and meet this man on +level terms?</p> +<p>A sudden inspiration flashed across his.</p> +<p>“Have you read my last book, <i>The Cageless +Linnet</i>?” he asked.</p> +<p>“I don’t read novels,” said Caiaphas +tersely.</p> +<p>“Oh, but you ought to read this one, every one ought +to,” exclaimed Mellowkent, fishing the book down from a +shelf; “published at six shillings, you can have it at +four-and-six. There is a bit in chapter five that I feel +sure you would like, where Emma is alone in the birch copse +waiting for Harold Huntingdon—that is the man her family +want her to marry. She really wants to marry him, too, but +she does not discover that till chapter fifteen. Listen: +‘Far as the eye could stretch rolled the mauve and purple +billows of heather, lit up here and there with the glowing yellow +of gorse and broom, and edged round with the delicate greys and +silver and green of the young birch trees. Tiny blue and +brown butterflies fluttered above the fronds of heather, +revelling in the sunlight, and overhead the larks were singing as +only larks can sing. It was a day when all +Nature—”</p> +<p>“In <i>Right Here</i> you have full information on all +branches of Nature study,” broke in the bookagent, with a +tired note sounding in his voice for the first time; +“forestry, insect life, bird migration, reclamation of +waste lands. As I was saying, no man who has to deal with +the varied interests of life—”</p> +<p>“I wonder if you would care for one of my earlier books, +<i>The Reluctance of Lady Cullumpton</i>,” said Mellowkent, +hunting again through the bookshelf; “some people consider +it my best novel. Ah, here it is. I see there are one +or two spots on the cover, so I won’t ask more than +three-and-ninepence for it. Do let me read you how it +opens:</p> +<p>“‘Beatrice Lady Cullumpton entered the long, +dimly-lit drawing-room, her eyes blazing with a hope that she +guessed to be groundless, her lips trembling with a fear that she +could not disguise. In her hand she carried a small fan, a +fragile toy of lace and satinwood. Something snapped as she +entered the room; she had crushed the fan into a dozen +pieces.’</p> +<p>“There, what do you think of that for an opening? +It tells you at once that there’s something +afoot.”</p> +<p>“I don’t read novels,” said Caiaphas +sullenly.</p> +<p>“But just think what a resource they are,” +exclaimed the author, “on long winter evenings, or perhaps +when you are laid up with a strained ankle—a thing that +might happen to any one; or if you were staying in a house-party +with persistent wet weather and a stupid hostess and insufferably +dull fellow-guests, you would just make an excuse that you had +letters to write, go to your room, light a cigarette, and for +three-and-ninepence you could plunge into the society of Beatrice +Lady Cullumpton and her set. No one ought to travel without +one or two of my novels in their luggage as a stand-by. A +friend of mine said only the other day that he would as soon +think of going into the tropics without quinine as of going on a +visit without a couple of Mark Mellowkents in his kit-bag. +Perhaps sensation is more in your line. I wonder if +I’ve got a copy of <i>The Python’s +Kiss</i>.”</p> +<p>Caiaphas did not wait to be tempted with selections from that +thrilling work of fiction. With a muttered remark about +having no time to waste on monkey-talk, he gathered up his +slighted volume and departed. He made no audible reply to +Mellowkent’s cheerful “Good morning,” but the +latter fancied that a look of respectful hatred flickered in the +cold grey eyes.</p> +<h2><a name="page175"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 175</span>THE +HEDGEHOG</h2> +<p>A “Mixed Double” of young people were contesting a +game of lawn tennis at the Rectory garden party; for the past +five-and-twenty years at least mixed doubles of young people had +done exactly the same thing on exactly the same spot at about the +same time of year. The young people changed and made way +for others in the course of time, but very little else seemed to +alter. The present players were sufficiently conscious of +the social nature of the occasion to be concerned about their +clothes and appearance, and sufficiently sport-loving to be keen +on the game. Both their efforts and their appearance came +under the fourfold scrutiny of a quartet of ladies sitting as +official spectators on a bench immediately commanding the +court. It was one of the accepted conditions of the Rectory +garden party that four ladies, who usually knew very little about +tennis and a great deal about the players, should sit at that +particular spot and watch the game. It had also come to be +almost a tradition that two ladies should be amiable, and that +the other two should be Mrs. Dole and Mrs. Hatch-Mallard.</p> +<p>“What a singularly unbecoming way Eva Jonelet has taken +to doing her hair in,” said Mrs. Hatch-Mallard; +“it’s ugly hair at the best of times, but she +needn’t make it look ridiculous as well. Some one +ought to tell her.”</p> +<p>Eva Jonelet’s hair might have escaped Mrs. +Hatch-Mallard’s condemnation if she could have forgotten +the more glaring fact that Eva was Mrs. Dole’s favourite +niece. It would, perhaps, have been a more comfortable +arrangement if Mrs. Hatch-Mallard and Mrs. Dole could have been +asked to the Rectory on separate occasions, but there was only +one garden party in the course of the year, and neither lady +could have been omitted from the list of invitations without +hopelessly wrecking the social peace of the parish.</p> +<p>“How pretty the yew trees look at this time of +year,” interposed a lady with a soft, silvery voice that +suggested a chinchilla muff painted by Whistler.</p> +<p>“What do you mean by this time of year?” demanded +Mrs. Hatch-Mallard. “Yew trees look beautiful at all +times of the year. That is their great charm.”</p> +<p>“Yew trees never look anything but hideous under any +circumstances or at any time of year,” said Mrs. Dole, with +the slow, emphatic relish of one who contradicts for the pleasure +of the thing. “They are only fit for graveyards and +cemeteries.”</p> +<p>Mrs. Hatch-Mallard gave a sardonic snort, which, being +translated, meant that there were some people who were better +fitted for cemeteries than for garden parties.</p> +<p>“What is the score, please?” asked the lady with +the chinchilla voice.</p> +<p>The desired information was given her by a young gentleman in +spotless white flannels, whose general toilet effect suggested +solicitude rather than anxiety.</p> +<p>“What an odious young cub Bertie Dykson has +become!” pronounced Mrs. Dole, remembering suddenly that +Bertie was a favourite with Mrs. Hatch-Mallard. “The +young men of to-day are not what they used to be twenty years +ago.”</p> +<p>“Of course not,” said Mrs. Hatch-Mallard; +“twenty years ago Bertie Dykson was just two years old, and +you must expect some difference in appearance and manner and +conversation between those two periods.”</p> +<p>“Do you know,” said Mrs. Dole, confidentially, +“I shouldn’t be surprised if that was intended to be +clever.”</p> +<p>“Have you any one interesting coming to stay with you, +Mrs. Norbury?” asked the chinchilla voice, hastily; +“you generally have a house party at this time of +year.”</p> +<p>“I’ve got a most interesting woman coming,” +said Mrs. Norbury, who had been mutely struggling for some chance +to turn the conversation into a safe channel; “an old +acquaintance of mine, Ada Bleek—”</p> +<p>“What an ugly name,” said Mrs. Hatch-Mallard.</p> +<p>“She’s descended from the de la Bliques, an old +Huguenot family of Touraine, you know.”</p> +<p>“There weren’t any Huguenots in Touraine,” +said Mrs. Hatch-Mallard, who thought she might safely dispute any +fact that was three hundred years old.</p> +<p>“Well, anyhow, she’s coming to stay with +me,” continued Mrs. Norbury, bringing her story quickly +down to the present day, “she arrives this evening, and +she’s highly clairvoyante, a seventh daughter of a seventh +daughter, you now, and all that sort of thing.”</p> +<p>“How very interesting,” said the chinchilla voice; +“Exwood is just the right place for her to come to, +isn’t it? There are supposed to be several ghosts +there.”</p> +<p>“That is why she was so anxious to come,” said +Mrs. Norbury; “she put off another engagement in order to +accept my invitation. She’s had visions and dreams, +and all those sort of things, that have come true in a most +marvellous manner, but she’s never actually seen a ghost, +and she’s longing to have that experience. She +belongs to that Research Society, you know.”</p> +<p>“I expect she’ll see the unhappy Lady Cullumpton, +the most famous of all the Exwood ghosts,” said Mrs. Dole; +“my ancestor, you know, Sir Gervase Cullumpton, murdered +his young bride in a fit of jealousy while they were on a visit +to Exwood. He strangled her in the stables with a stirrup +leather, just after they had come in from riding, and she is seen +sometimes at dusk going about the lawns and the stable yard, in a +long green habit, moaning and trying to get the thong from round +her throat. I shall be most interested to hear if your +friend sees—”</p> +<p>“I don’t know why she should be expected to see a +trashy, traditional apparition like the so-called Cullumpton +ghost, that is only vouched for by housemaids and tipsy +stable-boys, when my uncle, who was the owner of Exwood, +committed suicide there under the most tragical circumstances, +and most certainly haunts the place.”</p> +<p>“Mrs. Hatch-Mallard has evidently never read +<i>Popple’s County History</i>,” said Mrs. Dole +icily, “or she would know that the Cullumpton ghost has a +wealth of evidence behind it—”</p> +<p>“Oh, Popple!” exclaimed Mrs. Hatch-Mallard +scornfully; “any rubbishy old story is good enough for +him. Popple, indeed! Now my uncle’s ghost was +seen by a Rural Dean, who was also a Justice of the Peace. +I should think that would be good enough testimony for any +one. Mrs. Norbury, I shall take it as a deliberate personal +affront if your clairvoyante friend sees any other ghost except +that of my uncle.”</p> +<p>“I daresay she won’t see anything at all; she +never has yet, you know,” said Mrs. Norbury hopefully.</p> +<p>“It was a most unfortunate topic for me to have +broached,” she lamented afterwards to the owner of the +chinchilla voice; “Exwood belongs to Mrs. Hatch-Mallard, +and we’ve only got it on a short lease. A nephew of +hers has been wanting to live there for some time, and if we +offend her in any way she’ll refuse to renew the +lease. I sometimes think these garden-parties are a +mistake.”</p> +<p>The Norburys played bridge for the next three nights till +nearly one o’clock; they did not care for the game, but it +reduced the time at their guest’s disposal for undesirable +ghostly visitations.</p> +<p>“Miss Bleek is not likely to be in a frame of mind to +see ghosts,” said Hugo Norbury, “if she goes to bed +with her brain awhirl with royal spades and no trumps and grand +slams.”</p> +<p>“I’ve talked to her for hours about Mrs. +Hatch-Mallard’s uncle,” said his wife, “and +pointed out the exact spot where he killed himself, and invented +all sorts of impressive details, and I’ve found an old +portrait of Lord John Russell and put it in her room, and told +her that it’s supposed to be a picture of the uncle in +middle age. If Ada does see a ghost at all it certainly +ought to be old Hatch-Mallard’s. At any rate, +we’ve done our best.”</p> +<p>The precautions were in vain. On the third morning of +her stay Ada Bleek came down late to breakfast, her eyes looking +very tired, but ablaze with excitement, her hair done anyhow, and +a large brown volume hugged under her arm.</p> +<p>“At last I’ve seen something supernatural!” +she exclaimed, and gave Mrs. Norbury a fervent kiss, as though in +gratitude for the opportunity afforded her.</p> +<p>“A ghost!” cried Mrs. Norbury, “not +really!”</p> +<p>“Really and unmistakably!”</p> +<p>“Was it an oldish man in the dress of about fifty years +ago?” asked Mrs. Norbury hopefully.</p> +<p>“Nothing of the sort,” said Ada; “it was a +white hedgehog.”</p> +<p>“A white hedgehog!” exclaimed both the Norburys, +in tones of disconcerted astonishment.</p> +<p>“A huge white hedgehog with baleful yellow eyes,” +said Ada; “I was lying half asleep in bed when suddenly I +felt a sensation as of something sinister and unaccountable +passing through the room. I sat up and looked round, and +there, under the window, I saw an evil, creeping thing, a sort of +monstrous hedgehog, of a dirty white colour, with black, +loathsome claws that clicked and scraped along the floor, and +narrow, yellow eyes of indescribable evil. It slithered +along for a yard or two, always looking at me with its cruel, +hideous eyes, then, when it reached the second window, which was +open it clambered up the sill and vanished. I got up at +once and went to the window; there wasn’t a sign of it +anywhere. Of course, I knew it must be something from +another world, but it was not till I turned up Popple’s +chapter on local traditions that I realised what I had +seen.”</p> +<p>She turned eagerly to the large brown volume and read: +“’Nicholas Herison, an old miser, was hung at +Batchford in 1763 for the murder of a farm lad who had +accidentally discovered his secret hoard. His ghost is +supposed to traverse the countryside, appearing sometimes as a +white owl, sometimes as a huge white hedgehog.”</p> +<p>“I expect you read the Popple story overnight, and that +made you <i>think</i> you saw a hedgehog when you were only half +awake,” said Mrs. Norbury, hazarding a conjecture that +probably came very near the truth.</p> +<p>Ada scouted the possibility of such a solution of her +apparition.</p> +<p>“This must be hushed up,” said Mrs. Norbury +quickly; “the servants—”</p> +<p>“Hushed up!” exclaimed Ada, indignantly; +“I’m writing a long report on it for the Research +Society.”</p> +<p>It was then that Hugo Norbury, who is not naturally a man of +brilliant resource, had one of the really useful inspirations of +his life.</p> +<p>“It was very wicked of us, Miss Bleek,” he said, +“but it would be a shame to let it go further. That +white hedgehog is an old joke of ours; stuffed albino hedgehog, +you know, that my father brought home from Jamaica, where they +grow to enormous size. We hide it in the room with a string +on it, run one end of the string through the window; then we pull +if from below and it comes scraping along the floor, just as +you’ve described, and finally jerks out of the +window. Taken in heaps of people; they all read up Popple +and think it’s old Harry Nicholson’s ghost; we always +stop them from writing to the papers about it, though. That +would be carrying matters too far.”</p> +<p>Mrs. Hatch-Mallard renewed the lease in due course, but Ada +Bleek has never renewed her friendship.</p> +<h2><a name="page185"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 185</span>THE +MAPPINED LIFE</h2> +<p>“These Mappin Terraces at the Zoological Gardens are a +great improvement on the old style of wild-beast cage,” +said Mrs. James Gurtleberry, putting down an illustrated paper; +“they give one the illusion of seeing the animals in their +natural surroundings. I wonder how much of the illusion is +passed on to the animals?”</p> +<p>“That would depend on the animal,” said her niece; +“a jungle-fowl, for instance, would no doubt think its +lawful jungle surroundings were faithfully reproduced if you gave +it a sufficiency of wives, a goodly variety of seed food and +ants’ eggs, a commodious bank of loose earth to dust itself +in, a convenient roosting tree, and a rival or two to make +matters interesting. Of course there ought to be +jungle-cats and birds of prey and other agencies of sudden death +to add to the illusion of liberty, but the bird’s own +imagination is capable of inventing those—look how a +domestic fowl will squawk an alarm note if a rook or wood pigeon +passes over its run when it has chickens.”</p> +<p>“You think, then, they really do have a sort of +illusion, if you give them space enough—”</p> +<p>“In a few cases only. Nothing will make me believe +that an acre or so of concrete enclosure will make up to a wolf +or a tiger-cat for the range of night prowling that would belong +to it in a wild state. Think of the dictionary of sound and +scent and recollection that unfolds before a real wild beast as +it comes out from its lair every evening, with the knowledge that +in a few minutes it will be hieing along to some distant hunting +ground where all the joy and fury of the chase awaits it; think +of the crowded sensations of the brain when every rustle, every +cry, every bent twig, and every whiff across the nostrils means +something, something to do with life and death and dinner. +Imagine the satisfaction of stealing down to your own particular +drinking spot, choosing your own particular tree to scrape your +claws on, finding your own particular bed of dried grass to roll +on. Then, in the place of all that, put a concrete +promenade, which will be of exactly the same dimensions whether +you race or crawl across it, coated with stale, unvarying scents +and surrounded with cries and noises that have ceased to have the +least meaning or interest. As a substitute for a narrow +cage the new enclosures are excellent, but I should think they +are a poor imitation of a life of liberty.”</p> +<p>“It’s rather depressing to think that,” said +Mrs. Gurtleberry; “they look so spacious and so natural, +but I suppose a good deal of what seems natural to us would be +meaningless to a wild animal.”</p> +<p>“That is where our superior powers of self-deception +come in,” said the niece; “we are able to live our +unreal, stupid little lives on our particular Mappin terrace, and +persuade ourselves that we really are untrammelled men and women +leading a reasonable existence in a reasonable sphere.”</p> +<p>“But good gracious,” exclaimed the aunt, bouncing +into an attitude of scandalised defence, “we are leading +reasonable existences! What on earth do you mean by +trammels? We are merely trammelled by the ordinary decent +conventions of civilised society.”</p> +<p>“We are trammelled,” said the niece, calmly and +pitilessly, “by restrictions of income and opportunity, and +above all by lack of initiative. To some people a +restricted income doesn’t matter a bit, in fact it often +seems to help as a means for getting a lot of reality out of +life; I am sure there are men and women who do their shopping in +little back streets of Paris, buying four carrots and a shred of +beef for their daily sustenance, who lead a perfectly real and +eventful existence. Lack of initiative is the thing that +really cripples one, and that is where you and I and Uncle James +are so hopelessly shut in. We are just so many animals +stuck down on a Mappin terrace, with this difference in our +disfavour, that the animals are there to be looked at, while +nobody wants to look at us. As a matter of fact there would +be nothing to look at. We get colds in winter and hay fever +in summer, and if a wasp happens to sting one of us, well, that +is the wasp’s initiative, not ours; all we do is to wait +for the swelling to go down. Whenever we do climb into +local fame and notice, it is by indirect methods; if it happens +to be a good flowering year for magnolias the neighbourhood +observes: ‘Have you seen the Gurtleberry’s +magnolia? It is a perfect mass of flowers,’ and we go +about telling people that there are fifty-seven blossoms as +against thirty-nine the previous year.”</p> +<p>“In Coronation year there were as many as sixty,” +put in the aunt, “your uncle has kept a record for the last +eight years.”</p> +<p>“Doesn’t it ever strike you,” continued the +niece relentlessly, “that if we moved away from here or +were blotted out of existence our local claim to fame would pass +on automatically to whoever happened to take the house and +garden? People would say to one another, ‘Have you +seen the Smith-Jenkins’ magnolia? It is a perfect +mass of flowers,’ or else ‘Smith-Jenkins tells me +there won’t be a single blossom on their magnolia this +year; the east winds have turned all the buds black.’ +Now if, when we had gone, people still associated our names with +the magnolia tree, no matter who temporarily possessed it, if +they said, ‘Ah, that’s the tree on which the +Gurtleberrys hung their cook because she sent up the wrong kind +of sauce with the asparagus,’ that would be something +really due to our own initiative, apart from anything east winds +or magnolia vitality might have to say in the matter.”</p> +<p>“We should never do such a thing,” said the +aunt.</p> +<p>The niece gave a reluctant sigh.</p> +<p>“I can’t imagine it,” she admitted. +“Of course,” she continued, “there are heaps of +ways of leading a real existence without committing sensational +deeds of violence. It’s the dreadful little everyday +acts of pretended importance that give the Mappin stamp to our +life. It would be entertaining, if it wasn’t so +pathetically tragic, to hear Uncle James fuss in here in the +morning and announce, ‘I must just go down into the town +and find out what the men there are saying about Mexico. +Matters are beginning to look serious there.’ Then he +patters away into the town, and talks in a highly serious voice +to the tobacconist, incidentally buying an ounce of tobacco; +perhaps he meets one or two others of the world’s thinkers +and talks to them in a highly serious voice, then he patters back +here and announces with increased importance, ‘I’ve +just been talking to some men in the town about the condition of +affairs in Mexico. They agree with the view that I have +formed, that things there will have to get worse before they get +better.’ Of course nobody in the town cared in the +least little bit what his views about Mexico were or whether he +had any. The tobacconist wasn’t even fluttered at his +buying the ounce of tobacco; he knows that he purchases the same +quantity of the same sort of tobacco every week. Uncle +James might just as well have lain on his back in the garden and +chattered to the lilac tree about the habits of +caterpillars.”</p> +<p>“I really will not listen to such things about your +uncle,” protested Mrs. James Gurtleberry angrily.</p> +<p>“My own case is just as bad and just as tragic,” +said the niece, dispassionately; “nearly everything about +me is conventional make-believe. I’m not a good +dancer, and no one could honestly call me good-looking, but when +I go to one of our dull little local dances I’m +conventionally supposed to ‘have a heavenly time,’ to +attract the ardent homage of the local cavaliers, and to go home +with my head awhirl with pleasurable recollections. As a +matter of fact, I’ve merely put in some hours of +indifferent dancing, drunk some badly-made claret cup, and +listened to an enormous amount of laborious light +conversation. A moonlight hen-stealing raid with the +merry-eyed curate would be infinitely more exciting; imagine the +pleasure of carrying off all those white minorcas that the +Chibfords are always bragging about. When we had disposed +of them we could give the proceeds to a charity, so there would +be nothing really wrong about it. But nothing of that sort +lies within the Mappined limits of my life. One of these +days somebody dull and decorous and undistinguished will +‘make himself agreeable’ to me at a tennis party, as +the saying is, and all the dull old gossips of the neighbourhood +will begin to ask when we are to be engaged, and at last we shall +be engaged, and people will give us butter-dishes and +blotting-cases and framed pictures of young women feeding +swans. Hullo, Uncle, are you going out?”</p> +<p>“I’m just going down to the town,” announced +Mr. James Gurtleberry, with an air of some importance: “I +want to hear what people are saying about Albania. Affairs +there are beginning to take on a very serious look. +It’s my opinion that we haven’t seen the worst of +things yet.”</p> +<p>In this he was probably right, but there was nothing in the +immediate or prospective condition of Albania to warrant Mrs. +Gurtleberry in bursting into tears.</p> +<h2><a name="page193"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +193</span>FATE</h2> +<p>Rex Dillot was nearly twenty-four, almost good-looking and +quite penniless. His mother was supposed to make him some +sort of an allowance out of what her creditors allowed her, and +Rex occasionally strayed into the ranks of those who earn fitful +salaries as secretaries or companions to people who are unable to +cope unaided with their correspondence or their leisure. +For a few months he had been assistant editor and business +manager of a paper devoted to fancy mice, but the devotion had +been all on one side, and the paper disappeared with a certain +abruptness from club reading-rooms and other haunts where it had +made a gratuitous appearance. Still, Rex lived with some +air of comfort and well-being, as one can live if one is born +with a genius for that sort of thing, and a kindly Providence +usually arranged that his week-end invitations coincided with the +dates on which his one white dinner-waistcoat was in a +laundry-returned condition of dazzling cleanness. He played +most games badly, and was shrewd enough to recognise the fact, +but he had developed a marvellously accurate judgement in +estimating the play and chances of other people, whether in a +golf match, billiard handicap, or croquet tournament. By +dint of parading his opinion of such and such a player’s +superiority with a sufficient degree of youthful assertiveness he +usually succeeded in provoking a wager at liberal odds, and he +looked to his week-end winnings to carry him through the +financial embarrassments of his mid-week existence. The +trouble was, as he confided to Clovis Sangrail, that he never had +enough available or even prospective cash at his command to +enable him to fix the wager at a figure really worth winning.</p> +<p>“Some day,” he said, “I shall come across a +really safe thing, a bet that simply can’t go astray, and +then I shall put it up for all I’m worth, or rather for a +good deal more than I’m worth if you sold me up to the last +button.”</p> +<p>“It would be awkward if it didn’t happen to come +off,” said Clovis.</p> +<p>“It would be more than awkward,” said Rex; +“it would be a tragedy. All the same, it would be +extremely amusing to bring it off. Fancy awaking in the +morning with about three hundred pounds standing to one’s +credit. I should go and clear out my hostess’s +pigeon-loft before breakfast out of sheer good-temper.”</p> +<p>“Your hostess of the moment mightn’t have a +pigeon-loft,” said Clovis.</p> +<p>“I always choose hostesses that have,” said Rex; +“a pigeon-loft is indicative of a careless, extravagant, +genial disposition, such as I like to see around me. People +who strew corn broadcast for a lot of feathered inanities that +just sit about cooing and giving each other the glad eye in a +Louis Quatorze manner are pretty certain to do you +well.”</p> +<p>“Young Strinnit is coming down this afternoon,” +said Clovis reflectively; “I dare say you won’t find +it difficult to get him to back himself at billiards. He +plays a pretty useful game, but he’s not quite as good as +he fancies he is.”</p> +<p>“I know one member of the party who can walk round +him,” said Rex softly, an alert look coming into his eyes; +“that cadaverous-looking Major who arrived last +night. I’ve seen him play at St. Moritz. If I +could get Strinnit to lay odds on himself against the Major the +money would be safe in my pocket. This looks like the good +thing I’ve been watching and praying for.”</p> +<p>“Don’t be rash,” counselled Clovis, +“Strinnit may play up to his self-imagined form once in a +blue moon.”</p> +<p>“I intend to be rash,” said Rex quietly, and the +look on his face corroborated his words.</p> +<p>“Are you all going to flock to the billiard-room?” +asked Teresa Thundleford, after dinner, with an air of some +disapproval and a good deal of annoyance. “I +can’t see what particular amusement you find in watching +two men prodding little ivory balls about on a table.”</p> +<p>“Oh, well,” said her hostess, “it’s a +way of passing the time, you know.”</p> +<p>“A very poor way, to my mind,” said Mrs. +Thundleford; “now I was going to have shown all of you the +photographs I took in Venice last summer.”</p> +<p>“You showed them to us last night,” said Mrs. +Cuvering hastily.</p> +<p>“Those were the ones I took in Florence. These are +quite a different lot.”</p> +<p>“Oh, well, some time to-morrow we can look at +them. You can leave them down in the drawing-room, and then +every one can have a look.”</p> +<p>“I should prefer to show them when you are all gathered +together, as I have quite a lot of explanatory remarks to make, +about Venetian art and architecture, on the same lines as my +remarks last night on the Florentine galleries. Also, there +are some verses of mine that I should like to read you, on the +rebuilding of the Campanile. But, of course, if you all +prefer to watch Major Latton and Mr. Strinnit knocking balls +about on a table—”</p> +<p>“They are both supposed to be first-rate players,” +said the hostess.</p> +<p>“I have yet to learn that my verses and my art +<i>causerie</i> are of second-rate quality,” said Mrs. +Thundleford with acerbity. “However, as you all seem +bent on watching a silly game, there’s no more to be +said. I shall go upstairs and finish some writing. +Later on, perhaps, I will come down and join you.”</p> +<p>To one, at least, of the onlookers the game was anything but +silly. It was absorbing, exciting, exasperating, +nerve-stretching, and finally it grew to be tragic. The +Major with the St. Moritz reputation was playing a long way below +his form, young Strinnit was playing slightly above his, and had +all the luck of the game as well. From the very start the +balls seemed possessed by a demon of contrariness; they trundled +about complacently for one player, they would go nowhere for the +other.</p> +<p>“A hundred and seventy, seventy-four,” sang out +the youth who was marking. In a game of two hundred and +fifty up it was an enormous lead to hold. Clovis watched +the flush of excitement die away from Dillot’s face, and a +hard white look take its place.</p> +<p>“How much have you go on?” whispered Clovis. +The other whispered the sum through dry, shaking lips. It +was more than he or any one connected with him could pay; he had +done what he had said he would do. He had been rash.</p> +<p>“Two hundred and six, ninety-eight.”</p> +<p>Rex heard a clock strike ten somewhere in the hall, then +another somewhere else, and another, and another; the house +seemed full of striking clocks. Then in the distance the +stable clock chimed in. In another hour they would all be +striking eleven, and he would be listening to them as a disgraced +outcast, unable to pay, even in part, the wager he had +challenged.</p> +<p>“Two hundred and eighteen, a hundred and +three.” The game was as good as over. Rex was +as good as done for. He longed desperately for the ceiling +to fall in, for the house to catch fire, for anything to happen +that would put an end to that horrible rolling to and fro of red +and white ivory that was jostling him nearer and nearer to his +doom.</p> +<p>“Two hundred and twenty-eight, a hundred and +seven.”</p> +<p>Rex opened his cigarette-case; it was empty. That at +least gave him a pretext to slip away from the room for the +purpose of refilling it; he would spare himself the drawn-out +torture of watching that hopeless game played out to the bitter +end. He backed away from the circle of absorbed watchers +and made his way up a short stairway to a long, silent corridor +of bedrooms, each with a guests’ name written in a little +square on the door. In the hush that reigned in this part +of the house he could still hear the hateful click-click of the +balls; if he waited for a few minutes longer he would hear the +little outbreak of clapping and buzz of congratulation that would +hail Strinnit’s victory. On the alert tension of his +nerves there broke another sound, the aggressive, wrath-inducing +breathing of one who sleeps in heavy after-dinner slumber. +The sound came from a room just at his elbow; the card on the +door bore the announcement “Mrs. Thundleford.” +The door was just slightly ajar; Rex pushed it open an inch or +two more and looked in. The august Teresa had fallen asleep +over an illustrated guide to Florentine art-galleries; at her +side, somewhat dangerously near the edge of the table, was a +reading-lamp. If Fate had been decently kind to him, +thought Rex, bitterly, that lamp would have been knocked over by +the sleeper and would have given them something to think of +besides billiard matches.</p> +<p>There are occasions when one must take one’s Fate in +one’s hands. Rex took the lamp in his.</p> +<p>“Two hundred and thirty-seven, one hundred and +fifteen.” Strinnit was at the table, and the balls +lay in good position for him; he had a choice of two fairly easy +shots, a choice which he was never to decide. A sudden +hurricane of shrieks and a rush of stumbling feet sent every one +flocking to the door. The Dillot boy crashed into the room, +carrying in his arms the vociferous and somewhat dishevelled +Teresa Thundleford; her clothing was certainly not a mass of +flames, as the more excitable members of the party afterwards +declared, but the edge of her skirt and part of the table-cover +in which she had been hastily wrapped were alight in a +flickering, half-hearted manner. Rex flung his struggling +burden on the billiard table, and for one breathless minute the +work of beating out the sparks with rugs and cushions and playing +on them with soda-water syphons engrossed the energies of the +entire company.</p> +<p>“It was lucky I was passing when it happened,” +panted Rex; “some one had better see to the room, I think +the carpet is alight.”</p> +<p>As a matter of fact the promptitude and energy of the rescuer +had prevented any great damage being done, either to the victim +or her surroundings. The billiard table had suffered most, +and had to be laid up for repairs; perhaps it was not the best +place to have chosen for the scene of salvage operations; but +then, as Clovis remarked, when one is rushing about with a +blazing woman in one’s arms one can’t stop to think +out exactly where one is going to put her.</p> +<h2><a name="page201"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 201</span>THE +BULL</h2> +<p>Tom Yorkfield had always regarded his half-brother, Laurence, +with a lazy instinct of dislike, toned down, as years went on, to +a tolerant feeling of indifference. There was nothing very +tangible to dislike him for; he was just a blood-relation, with +whom Tom had no single taste or interest in common, and with +whom, at the same time, he had had no occasion for quarrel. +Laurence had left the farm early in life, and had lived for a few +years on a small sum of money left him by his mother; he had +taken up painting as a profession, and was reported to be doing +fairly well at it, well enough, at any rate, to keep body and +soul together. He specialised in painting animals, and he +was successful in finding a certain number of people to buy his +pictures. Tom felt a comforting sense of assured +superiority in contrasting his position with that of his +half-brother; Laurence was an artist-chap, just that and nothing +more, though you might make it sound more important by calling +him an animal painter; Tom was a farmer, not in a very big way, +it was true, but the Helsery farm had been in the family for some +generations, and it had a good reputation for the stock raised on +it. Tom had done his best, with the little capital at his +command, to maintain and improve the standard of his small herd +of cattle, and in Clover Fairy he had bred a bull which was +something rather better than any that his immediate neighbours +could show. It would not have made a sensation in the +judging-ring at an important cattle show, but it was as vigorous, +shapely, and healthy a young animal as any small practical farmer +could wish to possess. At the King’s Head on market +days Clover Fairy was very highly spoken of, and Yorkfield used +to declare that he would not part with him for a hundred pounds; +a hundred pounds is a lot of money in the small farming line, and +probably anything over eighty would have tempted him.</p> +<p>It was with some especial pleasure that Tom took advantage of +one of Laurence’s rare visits to the farm to lead him down +to the enclosure where Clover Fairy kept solitary state—the +grass widower of a grazing harem. Tom felt some of his old +dislike for his half-brother reviving; the artist was becoming +more languid in his manner, more unsuitably turned-out in attire, +and he seemed inclined to impart a slightly patronising tone to +his conversation. He took no heed of a flourishing potato +crop, but waxed enthusiastic over a clump of yellow-flowering +weed that stood in a corner by a gateway, which was rather +galling to the owner of a really very well weeded farm; again, +when he might have been duly complimentary about a group of fat, +black-faced lambs, that simply cried aloud for admiration, he +became eloquent over the foliage tints of an oak copse on the +hill opposite. But now he was being taken to inspect the +crowning pride and glory of Helsery; however grudging he might be +in his praises, however backward and niggardly with his +congratulations, he would have to see and acknowledge the many +excellences of that redoubtable animal. Some weeks ago, +while on a business journey to Taunton, Tom had been invited by +his half-brother to visit a studio in that town, where Laurence +was exhibiting one of his pictures, a large canvas representing a +bull standing knee-deep in some marshy ground; it had been good +of its kind, no doubt, and Laurence had seemed inordinately +pleased with it; “the best thing I’ve done +yet,” he had said over and over again, and Tom had +generously agreed that it was fairly life-like. Now, the +man of pigments was going to be shown a real picture, a living +model of strength and comeliness, a thing to feast the eyes on, a +picture that exhibited new pose and action with every shifting +minute, instead of standing glued into one unvarying attitude +between the four walls of a frame. Tom unfastened a stout +wooden door and led the way into a straw-bedded yard.</p> +<p>“Is he quiet?” asked the artist, as a young bull +with a curly red coat came inquiringly towards them.</p> +<p>“He’s playful at times,” said Tom, leaving +his half-brother to wonder whether the bull’s ideas of play +were of the catch-as-catch-can order. Laurence made one or +two perfunctory comments on the animal’s appearance and +asked a question or so as to his age and such-like details; then +he coolly turned the talk into another channel.</p> +<p>“Do you remember the picture I showed you at +Taunton?” he asked.</p> +<p>“Yes,” grunted Tom; “a white-faced bull +standing in some slush. Don’t admire those Herefords +much myself; bulky-looking brutes, don’t seem to have much +life in them. Daresay they’re easier to paint that +way; now, this young beggar is on the move all the time, +aren’t you, Fairy?”</p> +<p>“I’ve sold that picture,” said Laurence, +with considerable complacency in his voice.</p> +<p>“Have you?” said Tom; “glad to hear it, +I’m sure. Hope you’re pleased with what +you’ve got for it.”</p> +<p>“I got three hundred pounds for it,” said +Laurence.</p> +<p>Tom turned towards him with a slowly rising flush of anger in +his face. Three hundred pounds! Under the most +favourable market conditions that he could imagine his prized +Clover Fairy would hardly fetch a hundred, yet here was a piece +of varnished canvas, painted by his half-brother, selling for +three times that sum. It was a cruel insult that went home +with all the more force because it emphasised the triumph of the +patronising, self-satisfied Laurence. The young farmer had +meant to put his relative just a little out of conceit with +himself by displaying the jewel of his possessions, and now the +tables were turned, and his valued beast was made to look cheap +and insignificant beside the price paid for a mere picture. +It was so monstrously unjust; the painting would never be +anything more than a dexterous piece of counterfeit life, while +Clover Fairy was the real thing, a monarch in his little world, a +personality in the countryside. After he was dead, even, he +would still be something of a personality; his descendants would +graze in those valley meadows and hillside pastures, they would +fill stall and byre and milking-shed, their good red coats would +speckle the landscape and crowd the market-place; men would note +a promising heifer or a well-proportioned steer, and say: +“Ah, that one comes of good old Clover Fairy’s +stock.” All that time the picture would be hanging, +lifeless and unchanging, beneath its dust and varnish, a chattel +that ceased to mean anything if you chose to turn it with its +back to the wall. These thoughts chased themselves angrily +through Tom Yorkfield’s mind, but he could not put them +into words. When he gave tongue to his feelings he put +matters bluntly and harshly.</p> +<p>“Some soft-witted fools may like to throw away three +hundred pounds on a bit of paintwork; can’t say as I envy +them their taste. I’d rather have the real thing than +a picture of it.”</p> +<p>He nodded towards the young bull, that was alternately staring +at them with nose held high and lowering its horns with a +half-playful, half-impatient shake of the head.</p> +<p>Laurence laughed a laugh of irritating, indulgent +amusement.</p> +<p>“I don’t think the purchaser of my bit of +paintwork, as you call it, need worry about having thrown his +money away. As I get to be better known and recognised my +pictures will go up in value. That particular one will +probably fetch four hundred in a sale-room five or six years +hence; pictures aren’t a bad investment if you know enough +to pick out the work of the right men. Now you can’t +say your precious bull is going to get more valuable the longer +you keep him; he’ll have his little day, and then, if you +go on keeping him, he’ll come down at last to a few +shillingsworth of hoofs and hide, just at a time, perhaps, when +my bull is being bought for a big sum for some important picture +gallery.”</p> +<p>It was too much. The united force of truth and slander +and insult put over heavy a strain on Tom Yorkfield’s +powers of restraint. In his right hand he held a useful oak +cudgel, with his left he made a grab at the loose collar of +Laurence’s canary-coloured silk shirt. Laurence was +not a fighting man; the fear of physical violence threw him off +his balance as completely as overmastering indignation had thrown +Tom off his, and thus it came to pass that Clover Fairy was +regaled with the unprecedented sight of a human being scudding +and squawking across the enclosure, like the hen that would +persist in trying to establish a nesting-place in the +manger. In another crowded happy moment the bull was trying +to jerk Laurence over his left shoulder, to prod him in the ribs +while still in the air, and to kneel on him when he reached the +ground. It was only the vigorous intervention of Tom that +induced him to relinquish the last item of his programme.</p> +<p>Tom devotedly and ungrudgingly nursed his half brother to a +complete recovery from his injuries, which consisted of nothing +more serious than a dislocated shoulder, a broken rib or two, and +a little nervous prostration. After all, there was no +further occasion for rancour in the young farmer’s mind; +Laurence’s bull might sell for three hundred, or for six +hundred, and be admired by thousands in some big picture gallery, +but it would never toss a man over one shoulder and catch him a +jab in the ribs before he had fallen on the other side. +That was Clover Fairy’s noteworthy achievement, which could +never be taken away from him.</p> +<p>Laurence continues to be popular as an animal artist, but his +subjects are always kittens or fawns or lambkins—never +bulls.</p> +<h2><a name="page209"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +209</span>MORLVERA</h2> +<p>The Olympic Toy Emporium occupied a conspicuous frontage in an +important West End street. It was happily named Toy +Emporium, because one would never have dreamed of according it +the familiar and yet pulse-quickening name of toyshop. +There was an air of cold splendour and elaborate failure about +the wares that were set out in its ample windows; they were the +sort of toys that a tired shop-assistant displays and explains at +Christmas time to exclamatory parents and bored, silent +children. The animal toys looked more like natural history +models than the comfortable, sympathetic companions that one +would wish, at a certain age, to take to bed with one, and to +smuggle into the bath-room. The mechanical toys incessantly +did things that no one could want a toy to do more than a half a +dozen times in its lifetime; it was a merciful reflection that in +any right-minded nursery the lifetime would certainly be +short.</p> +<p>Prominent among the elegantly-dressed dolls that filled an +entire section of the window frontage was a large hobble-skirted +lady in a confection of peach-coloured velvet, elaborately set +off with leopard skin accessories, if one may use such a +conveniently comprehensive word in describing an intricate +feminine toilette. She lacked nothing that is to be found +in a carefully detailed fashion-plate—in fact, she might be +said to have something more than the average fashion-plate female +possesses; in place of a vacant, expressionless stare she had +character in her face. It must be admitted that it was bad +character, cold, hostile, inquisitorial, with a sinister lowering +of one eyebrow and a merciless hardness about the corners of the +mouth. One might have imagined histories about her by the +hour, histories in which unworthy ambition, the desire for money, +and an entire absence of all decent feeling would play a +conspicuous part.</p> +<p>As a matter of fact, she was not without her judges and +biographers, even in this shop-window stage of her career. +Emmeline, aged ten, and Bert, aged seven, had halted on the way +from their obscure back street to the minnow-stocked water of St. +James’s Park, and were critically examining the +hobble-skirted doll, and dissecting her character in no very +tolerant spirit. There is probably a latent enmity between +the necessarily under-clad and the unnecessarily overdressed, but +a little kindness and good fellowship on the part of the latter +will often change the sentiment to admiring devotion; if the lady +in peach-coloured velvet and leopard skin had worn a pleasant +expression in addition to her other elaborate furnishings, +Emmeline at least might have respected and even loved her. +As it was, she gave her a horrible reputation, based chiefly on a +secondhand knowledge of gilded depravity derived from the +conversation of those who were skilled in the art of novelette +reading; Bert filled in a few damaging details from his own +limited imagination.</p> +<p>“She’s a bad lot, that one is,” declared +Emmeline, after a long unfriendly stare; “’er +’usbind ’ates ’er.”</p> +<p>“’E knocks ’er abart,” said Bert, with +enthusiasm.</p> +<p>“No, ’e don’t, cos ’e’s dead; +she poisoned ’im slow and gradual, so that nobody +didn’t know. Now she wants to marry a lord, with +’eaps and ’eaps of money. ’E’s got +a wife already, but she’s going to poison ’er, +too.”</p> +<p>“She’s a bad lot,” said Bert with growing +hostility.</p> +<p>“’Er mother ’ates her, and she’s +afraid of ’er, too, cos she’s got a serkestic tongue; +always talking serkesms, she is. She’s greedy, too; +if there’s fish going, she eats ’er own share and +’er little girl’s as well, though the little girl is +dellikit.”</p> +<p>“She ’ad a little boy once,” said Bert, +“but she pushed ’im into the water when nobody +wasn’t looking.”</p> +<p>“No she didn’t,” said Emmeline, “she +sent ’im away to be kep’ by poor people, so ’er +’usbind wouldn’t know where ’e was. They +ill-treat ’im somethink cruel.”</p> +<p>“Wot’s ’er nime?” asked Bert, thinking +that it was time that so interesting a personality should be +labelled.</p> +<p>“’Er nime?” said Emmeline, thinking hard, +“’er nime’s Morlvera.” It was as +near as she could get to the name of an adventuress who figured +prominently in a cinema drama. There was silence for a +moment while the possibilities of the name were turned over in +the children’s minds.</p> +<p>“Those clothes she’s got on ain’t paid for, +and never won’t be,” said Emmeline; “she thinks +she’ll get the rich lord to pay for ’em, but ’e +won’t. ’E’s given ’er jools, +’underds of pounds’ worth.”</p> +<p>“’E won’t pay for the clothes,” said +Bert, with conviction. Evidently there was some limit to +the weak good nature of wealthy lords.</p> +<p>At that moment a motor carriage with liveried servants drew up +at the emporium entrance; a large lady, with a penetrating and +rather hurried manner of talking, stepped out, followed slowly +and sulkily by a small boy, who had a very black scowl on his +face and a very white sailor suit over the rest of him. The +lady was continuing an argument which had probably commenced in +Portman Square.</p> +<p>“Now, Victor, you are to come in and buy a nice doll for +your cousin Bertha. She gave you a beautiful box of +soldiers on your birthday, and you must give her a present on +hers.”</p> +<p>“Bertha is a fat little fool,” said Victor, in a +voice that was as loud as his mother’s and had more +assurance in it.</p> +<p>“Victor, you are not to say such things. Bertha is +not a fool, and she is not in the least fat. You are to +come in and choose a doll for her.”</p> +<p>The couple passed into the shop, out of view and hearing of +the two back-street children.</p> +<p>“My, he is in a wicked temper,” exclaimed +Emmeline, but both she and Bert were inclined to side with him +against the absent Bertha, who was doubtless as fat and foolish +as he had described her to be.</p> +<p>“I want to see some dolls,” said the mother of +Victor to the nearest assistant; “it’s for a little +girl of eleven.”</p> +<p>“A fat little girl of eleven,” added Victor by way +of supplementary information.</p> +<p>“Victor, if you say such rude things about your cousin, +you shall go to bed the moment we get home, without having any +tea.”</p> +<p>“This is one of the newest things we have in +dolls,” said the assistant, removing a hobble-skirted +figure in peach-coloured velvet from the window; “leopard +skin toque and stole, the latest fashion. You won’t +get anything newer than that anywhere. It’s an +exclusive design.”</p> +<p>“Look!” whispered Emmeline outside; +“they’ve bin and took Morlvera.”</p> +<p>There was a mingling of excitement and a certain sense of +bereavement in her mind; she would have liked to gaze at that +embodiment of overdressed depravity for just a little longer.</p> +<p>“I ’spect she’s going away in a kerridge to +marry the rich lord,” hazarded Bert.</p> +<p>“She’s up to no good,” said Emmeline +vaguely.</p> +<p>Inside the shop the purchase of the doll had been decided +on.</p> +<p>“It’s a beautiful doll, and Bertha will be +delighted with it,” asserted the mother of Victor +loudly.</p> +<p>“Oh, very well,” said Victor sulkily; “you +needn’t have it stuck into a box and wait an hour while +it’s being done up into a parcel. I’ll take it +as it is, and we can go round to Manchester Square and give it to +Bertha, and get the thing done with. That will save me the +trouble of writing: ‘For dear Bertha, with Victor’s +love,’ on a bit of paper.”</p> +<p>“Very well,” said his mother, “we can go to +Manchester Square on our way home. You must wish her many +happy returns of to-morrow, and give her the doll.”</p> +<p>“I won’t let the little beast kiss me,” +stipulated Victor.</p> +<p>His mother said nothing; Victor had not been half as +troublesome as she had anticipated. When he chose he could +really be dreadfully naughty.</p> +<p>Emmeline and Bert were just moving away from the window when +Morlvera made her exit from the shop, very carefully in +Victor’s arms. A look of sinister triumph seemed to +glow in her hard, inquisitorial face. As for Victor, a +certain scornful serenity had replaced the earlier scowls; he had +evidently accepted defeat with a contemptuous good grace.</p> +<p>The tall lady gave a direction to the footman and settled +herself in the carriage. The little figure in the white +sailor suit clambered in beside her, still carefully holding the +elegantly garbed doll.</p> +<p>The car had to be backed a few yards in the process of +turning. Very stealthily, very gently, very mercilessly +Victor sent Morlvera flying over his shoulder, so that she fell +into the road just behind the retrogressing wheel. With a +soft, pleasant-sounding scrunch the car went over the prostrate +form, then it moved forward again with another scrunch. The +carriage moved off and left Bert and Emmeline gazing in scared +delight at a sorry mess of petrol-smeared velvet, sawdust, and +leopard skin, which was all that remained of the hateful +Morlvera. They gave a shrill cheer, and then raced away +shuddering from the scene of so much rapidly enacted tragedy.</p> +<p>Later that afternoon, when they were engaged in the pursuit of +minnows by the waterside in St. James’s Park, Emmeline said +in a solemn undertone to Bert—</p> +<p>“I’ve bin finking. Do you know oo ’e +was? ’E was ’er little boy wot she’d sent +away to live wiv poor folks. ’E come back and done +that.”</p> +<h2><a name="page217"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +217</span>SHOCK TACTICS</h2> +<p>On a late spring afternoon Ella McCarthy sat on a +green-painted chair in Kensington Gardens, staring listlessly at +an uninteresting stretch of park landscape, that blossomed +suddenly into tropical radiance as an expected figure appeared in +the middle distance.</p> +<p>“Hullo, Bertie!” she exclaimed sedately, when the +figure arrived at the painted chair that was the nearest +neighbour to her own, and dropped into it eagerly, yet with a +certain due regard for the set of its trousers; +“hasn’t it been a perfect spring +afternoon?”</p> +<p>The statement was a distinct untruth as far as Ella’s +own feelings were concerned; until the arrival of Bertie the +afternoon had been anything but perfect.</p> +<p>Bertie made a suitable reply, in which a questioning note +seemed to hover.</p> +<p>“Thank you ever so much for those lovely +handkerchiefs,” said Ella, answering the unspoken question; +“they were just what I’ve been wanting. +There’s only one thing spoilt my pleasure in your +gift,” she added, with a pout.</p> +<p>“What was that?” asked Bertie anxiously, fearful +that perhaps he had chosen a size of handkerchief that was not +within the correct feminine limit.</p> +<p>“I should have liked to have written and thanked you for +them as soon as I got them,” said Ella, and Bertie’s +sky clouded at once.</p> +<p>“You know what mother is,” he protested; +“she opens all my letters, and if she found I’d been +giving presents to any one there’d have been something to +talk about for the next fortnight.”</p> +<p>“Surely, at the age of twenty—” began +Ella.</p> +<p>“I’m not twenty till September,” interrupted +Bertie.</p> +<p>“At the age of nineteen years and eight months,” +persisted Ella, “you might be allowed to keep your +correspondence private to yourself.”</p> +<p>“I ought to be, but things aren’t always what they +ought to be. Mother opens every letter that comes into the +house, whoever it’s for. My sisters and I have made +rows about it time and again, but she goes on doing +it.”</p> +<p>“I’d find some way to stop her if I were in your +place,” said Ella valiantly, and Bertie felt that the +glamour of his anxiously deliberated present had faded away in +the disagreeable restriction that hedged round its +acknowledgment.</p> +<p>“Is anything the matter?” asked Bertie’s +friend Clovis when they met that evening at the +swimming-bath.</p> +<p>“Why do you ask?” said Bertie.</p> +<p>“When you wear a look of tragic gloom in a +swimming-bath,” said Clovis, “it’s especially +noticeable from the fact that you’re wearing very little +else. Didn’t she like the handkerchiefs?”</p> +<p>Bertie explained the situation.</p> +<p>“It is rather galling, you know,” he added, +“when a girl has a lot of things she wants to write to you +and can’t send a letter except by some roundabout, +underhand way.”</p> +<p>“One never realises one’s blessings while one +enjoys them,” said Clovis; “now I have to spend a +considerable amount of ingenuity inventing excuses for not having +written to people.”</p> +<p>“It’s not a joking matter,” said Bertie +resentfully: “you wouldn’t find it funny if your +mother opened all your letters.”</p> +<p>“The funny thing to me is that you should let her do +it.”</p> +<p>“I can’t stop it. I’ve argued about +it—”</p> +<p>“You haven’t used the right kind of argument, I +expect. Now, if every time one of your letters was opened +you lay on your back on the dining-table during dinner and had a +fit, or roused the entire family in the middle of the night to +hear you recite one of Blake’s ‘Poems of +Innocence,’ you would get a far more respectful hearing for +future protests. People yield more consideration to a +mutilated mealtime or a broken night’s rest, than ever they +would to a broken heart.”</p> +<p>“Oh, dry up,” said Bertie crossly, inconsistently +splashing Clovis from head to foot as he plunged into the +water.</p> +<p>It was a day or two after the conversation in the +swimming-bath that a letter addressed to Bertie Heasant slid into +the letter-box at his home, and thence into the hands of his +mother. Mrs. Heasant was one of those empty-minded +individuals to whom other people’s affairs are perpetually +interesting. The more private they are intended to be the +more acute is the interest they arouse. She would have +opened this particular letter in any case; the fact that it was +marked “private,” and diffused a delicate but +penetrating aroma merely caused her to open it with headlong +haste rather than matter-of-course deliberation. The +harvest of sensation that rewarded her was beyond all +expectations.</p> +<blockquote><p>“Bertie, carissimo,” it began, +“I wonder if you will have the nerve to do it: it will take +some nerve, too. Don’t forget the jewels. They +are a detail, but details interest me.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">“Yours as ever,<br /> +“<span class="smcap">Clotilde</span>.”</p> +<p>“Your mother must not know of my existence. If +questioned swear you never heard of me.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>For years Mrs. Heasant had searched Bertie’s +correspondence diligently for traces of possible dissipation or +youthful entanglements, and at last the suspicions that had +stimulated her inquisitorial zeal were justified by this one +splendid haul. That any one wearing the exotic name +“Clotilde” should write to Bertie under the +incriminating announcement “as ever” was sufficiently +electrifying, without the astounding allusion to the +jewels. Mrs. Heasant could recall novels and dramas wherein +jewels played an exciting and commanding role, and here, under +her own roof, before her very eyes as it were, her own son was +carrying on an intrigue in which jewels were merely an +interesting detail. Bertie was not due home for another +hour, but his sisters were available for the immediate +unburdening of a scandal-laden mind.</p> +<p>“Bertie is in the toils of an adventuress,” she +screamed; “her name is Clotilde,” she added, as if +she thought they had better know the worst at once. There +are occasions when more harm than good is done by shielding young +girls from a knowledge of the more deplorable realities of +life.</p> +<p>By the time Bertie arrived his mother had discussed every +possible and improbable conjecture as to his guilty secret; the +girls limited themselves to the opinion that their brother had +been weak rather than wicked.</p> +<p>“Who is Clotilde?” was the question that +confronted Bertie almost before he had got into the hall. +His denial of any knowledge of such a person was met with an +outburst of bitter laughter.</p> +<p>“How well you have learned your lesson!” exclaimed +Mrs. Heasant. But satire gave way to furious indignation +when she realised that Bertie did not intend to throw any further +light on her discovery.</p> +<p>“You shan’t have any dinner till you’ve +confessed everything,” she stormed.</p> +<p>Bertie’s reply took the form of hastily collecting +material for an impromptu banquet from the larder and locking +himself into his bedroom. His mother made frequent visits +to the locked door and shouted a succession of interrogations +with the persistence of one who thinks that if you ask a question +often enough an answer will eventually result. Bertie did +nothing to encourage the supposition. An hour had passed in +fruitless one-sided palaver when another letter addressed to +Bertie and marked “private” made its appearance in +the letter-box. Mrs. Heasant pounced on it with the +enthusiasm of a cat that has missed its mouse and to whom a +second has been unexpectedly vouchsafed. If she hoped for +further disclosures assuredly she was not disappointed.</p> +<blockquote><p>“So you have really done it!” the +letter abruptly commenced; “Poor Dagmar. Now she is +done for I almost pity her. You did it very well, you +wicked boy, the servants all think it was suicide, and there will +be no fuss. Better not touch the jewels till after the +inquest.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">“<span +class="smcap">Clotilde</span>.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Anything that Mrs. Heasant had previously done in the way of +outcry was easily surpassed as she raced upstairs and beat +frantically at her son’s door.</p> +<p>“Miserable boy, what have you done to Dagmar?”</p> +<p>“It’s Dagmar now, is it?” he snapped; +“it will be Geraldine next.”</p> +<p>“That it should come to this, after all my efforts to +keep you at home of an evening,” sobbed Mrs. Heasant; +“it’s no use you trying to hide things from me; +Clotilde’s letter betrays everything.”</p> +<p>“Does it betray who she is?” asked Bertie; +“I’ve heard so much about her, I should like to know +something about her home-life. Seriously, if you go on like +this I shall fetch a doctor; I’ve often enough been +preached at about nothing, but I’ve never had an imaginary +harem dragged into the discussion.”</p> +<p>“Are these letters imaginary?” screamed Mrs. +Heasant; “what about the jewels, and Dagmar, and the theory +of suicide?”</p> +<p>No solution of these problems was forthcoming through the +bedroom door, but the last post of the evening produced another +letter for Bertie, and its contents brought Mrs. Heasant that +enlightenment which had already dawned on her son.</p> +<blockquote><p>“<span class="smcap">Dear +Bertie</span>,” it ran; “I hope I haven’t +distracted your brain with the spoof letters I’ve been +sending in the name of a fictitious Clotilde. You told me +the other day that the servants, or somebody at your home, +tampered with your letters, so I thought I would give any one +that opened them something exciting to read. The shock +might do them good.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">“Yours,<br /> +“<span class="smcap">Clovis Sangrail</span>.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Mrs. Heasant knew Clovis slightly, and was rather afraid of +him. It was not difficult to read between the lines of his +successful hoax. In a chastened mood she rapped once more +at Bertie’s door.</p> +<p>“A letter from Mr. Sangrail. It’s all been a +stupid hoax. He wrote those other letters. Why, where +are you going?”</p> +<p>Bertie had opened the door; he had on his hat and +overcoat.</p> +<p>“I’m going for a doctor to come and see if +anything’s the matter with you. Of course it was all +a hoax, but no person in his right mind could have believed all +that rubbish about murder and suicide and jewels. +You’ve been making enough noise to bring the house down for +the last hour or two.”</p> +<p>“But what was I to think of those letters?” +whimpered Mrs. Heasant.</p> +<p>“I should have known what to think of them,” said +Bertie; “if you choose to excite yourself over other +people’s correspondence it’s your own fault. +Anyhow, I’m going for a doctor.”</p> +<p>It was Bertie’s great opportunity, and he knew it. +His mother was conscious of the fact that she would look rather +ridiculous if the story got about. She was willing to pay +hush-money.</p> +<p>“I’ll never open your letters again,” she +promised. And Clovis has no more devoted slave than Bertie +Heasant.</p> +<h2><a name="page227"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 227</span>THE +SEVEN CREAM JUGS</h2> +<p>“I suppose we shall never see Wilfred Pigeoncote here +now that he has become heir to the baronetcy and to a lot of +money,” observed Mrs. Peter Pigeoncote regretfully to her +husband.</p> +<p>“Well, we can hardly expect to,” he replied, +“seeing that we always choked him off from coming to see us +when he was a prospective nobody. I don’t think +I’ve set eyes on him since he was a boy of +twelve.”</p> +<p>“There was a reason for not wanting to encourage his +acquaintanceship,” said Mrs. Peter. “With that +notorious failing of his he was not the sort of person one wanted +in one’s house.”</p> +<p>“Well, the failing still exists, doesn’t +it?” said her husband; “or do you suppose a reform of +character is entailed along with the estate?”</p> +<p>“Oh, of course, there is still that drawback,” +admitted the wife, “but one would like to make the +acquaintance of the future head of the family, if only out of +mere curiosity. Besides, cynicism apart, his being rich +will make a difference in the way people will look at his +failing. When a man is absolutely wealthy, not merely +well-to-do, all suspicion of sordid motive naturally disappears; +the thing becomes merely a tiresome malady.”</p> +<p>Wilfrid Pigeoncote had suddenly become heir to his uncle, Sir +Wilfrid Pigeoncote, on the death of his cousin, Major Wilfrid +Pigeoncote, who had succumbed to the after-effects of a polo +accident. (A Wilfrid Pigeoncote had covered himself with +honours in the course of Marlborough’s campaigns, and the +name Wilfrid had been a baptismal weakness in the family ever +since.) The new heir to the family dignity and estates was +a young man of about five-and-twenty, who was known more by +reputation than by person to a wide circle of cousins and +kinsfolk. And the reputation was an unpleasant one. +The numerous other Wilfrids in the family were distinguished one +from another chiefly by the names of their residences or +professions, as Wilfrid of Hubbledown, and young Wilfrid the +Gunner, but this particular scion was known by the ignominious +and expressive label of Wilfrid the Snatcher. From his late +schooldays onward he had been possessed by an acute and obstinate +form of kleptomania; he had the acquisitive instinct of the +collector without any of the collector’s +discrimination. Anything that was smaller and more portable +than a sideboard, and above the value of ninepence, had an +irresistible attraction for him, provided that it fulfilled the +necessary condition of belonging to some one else. On the +rare occasions when he was included in a country-house party, it +was usual and almost necessary for his host, or some member of +the family, to make a friendly inquisition through his baggage on +the eve of his departure, to see if he had packed up “by +mistake” any one else’s property. The search +usually produced a large and varied yield.</p> +<p>“This is funny,” said Peter Pigeoncote to his +wife, some half-hour after their conversation; +“here’s a telegram from Wilfrid, saying he’s +passing through here in his motor, and would like to stop and pay +us his respects. Can stay for the night if it doesn’t +inconvenience us. Signed ‘Wilfrid +Pigeoncote.’ Must be the Snatcher; none of the others +have a motor. I suppose he’s bringing us a present +for the silver wedding.”</p> +<p>“Good gracious!” said Mrs. Peter, as a thought +struck her; “this is rather an awkward time to have a +person with his failing in the house. All those silver +presents set out in the drawing-room, and others coming by every +post; I hardly know what we’ve got and what are still to +come. We can’t lock them all up; he’s sure to +want to see them.”</p> +<p>“We must keep a sharp look-out, that’s all,” +said Peter reassuringly.</p> +<p>“But these practised kleptomaniacs are so clever,” +said his wife, apprehensively, “and it will be so awkward +if he suspects that we are watching him.”</p> +<p>Awkwardness was indeed the prevailing note that evening when +the passing traveller was being entertained. The talk +flitted nervously and hurriedly from one impersonal topic to +another. The guest had none of the furtive, half-apologetic +air that his cousins had rather expected to find; he was polite, +well-assured, and, perhaps, just a little inclined to “put +on side”. His hosts, on the other hand, wore an +uneasy manner that might have been the hallmark of conscious +depravity. In the drawing-room, after dinner, their +nervousness and awkwardness increased.</p> +<p>“Oh, we haven’t shown you the silver-wedding +presents,” said Mrs. Peter, suddenly, as though struck by a +brilliant idea for entertaining the guest; “here they all +are. Such nice, useful gifts. A few duplicates, of +course.”</p> +<p>“Seven cream jugs,” put in Peter.</p> +<p>“Yes, isn’t it annoying,” went on Mrs. +Peter; “seven of them. We feel that we must live on +cream for the rest of our lives. Of course, some of them +can be changed.”</p> +<p>Wilfrid occupied himself chiefly with such of the gifts as +were of antique interest, carrying one or two of them over to the +lamp to examine their marks. The anxiety of his hosts at +these moments resembled the solicitude of a cat whose newly born +kittens are being handed round for inspection.</p> +<p>“Let me see; did you give me back the mustard-pot? +This is its place here,” piped Mrs. Peter.</p> +<p>“Sorry. I put it down by the claret-jug,” +said Wilfrid, busy with another object.</p> +<p>“Oh, just let me have the sugar-sifter again,” +asked Mrs. Peter, dogged determination showing through her +nervousness; “I must label it who it comes from before I +forget.”</p> +<p>Vigilance was not completely crowned with a sense of +victory. After they had said “Good-night” to +their visitor, Mrs. Peter expressed her conviction that he had +taken something.</p> +<p>“I fancy, by his manner, that there was something +up,” corroborated her husband; “do you miss +anything?”</p> +<p>Mrs. Peters hastily counted the array of gifts.</p> +<p>“I can only make it thirty-four, and I think it should +be thirty-five,” she announced; “I can’t +remember if thirty-five includes the Archdeacon’s +cruet-stand that hasn’t arrived yet.”</p> +<p>“How on earth are we to know?” said Peter. +“The mean pig hasn’t brought us a present, and +I’m hanged if he shall carry one off.”</p> +<p>“To-morrow, when he’s having his bath,” said +Mrs. Peter excitedly, “he’s sure to leave his keys +somewhere, and we can go through his portmanteau. +It’s the only thing to do.”</p> +<p>On the morrow an alert watch was kept by the conspirators +behind half-closed doors, and when Wilfrid, clad in a gorgeous +bath-robe, had made his way to the bath-room, there was a swift +and furtive rush by two excited individuals towards the principal +guest-chamber. Mrs. Peter kept guard outside, while her +husband first made a hurried and successful search for the keys, +and then plunged at the portmanteau with the air of a +disagreeably conscientious Customs official. The quest was +a brief one; a silver cream jug lay embedded in the folds of some +zephyr shirts.</p> +<p>“The cunning brute,” said Mrs. Peters; “he +took a cream jug because there were so many; he thought one +wouldn’t be missed. Quick, fly down with it and put +it back among the others.”</p> +<p>Wilfrid was late in coming down to breakfast, and his manner +showed plainly that something was amiss.</p> +<p>“It’s an unpleasant thing to have to say,” +he blurted out presently, “but I’m afraid you must +have a thief among your servants. Something’s been +taken out of my portmanteau. It was a little present from +my mother and myself for your silver wedding. I should have +given it to you last night after dinner, only it happened to be a +cream jug, and you seemed annoyed at having so many duplicates, +so I felt rather awkward about giving you another. I +thought I’d get it changed for something else, and now +it’s gone.”</p> +<p>“Did you say it was from your <i>mother</i> and +yourself?” asked Mr. and Mrs. Peter almost in unison. +The Snatcher had been an orphan these many years.</p> +<p>“Yes, my mother’s at Cairo just now, and she wrote +to me at Dresden to try and get you something quaint and pretty +in the old silver line, and I pitched on this cream +jug.”</p> +<p>Both the Pigeoncotes had turned deadly pale. The mention +of Dresden had thrown a sudden light on the situation. It +was Wilfrid the Attache, a very superior young man, who rarely +came within their social horizon, whom they had been entertaining +unawares in the supposed character of Wilfrid the Snatcher. +Lady Ernestine Pigeoncote, his mother, moved in circles which +were entirely beyond their compass or ambitions, and the son +would probably one day be an Ambassador. And they had +rifled and despoiled his portmanteau! Husband and wife +looked blankly and desperately at one another. It was Mrs. +Peter who arrived first at an inspiration.</p> +<p>“How dreadful to think there are thieves in the +house! We keep the drawing-room locked up at night, of +course, but anything might be carried off while we are at +breakfast.”</p> +<p>She rose and went out hurriedly, as though to assure herself +that the drawing-room was not being stripped of its silverware, +and returned a moment later, bearing a cream jug in her +hands.</p> +<p>“There are eight cream jugs now, instead of +seven,” she cried; “this one wasn’t there +before. What a curious trick of memory, Mr. Wilfrid! +You must have slipped downstairs with it last night and put it +there before we locked up, and forgotten all about having done it +in the morning.”</p> +<p>“One’s mind often plays one little tricks like +that,” said Mr. Peter, with desperate heartiness. +“Only the other day I went into the town to pay a bill, and +went in again next day, having clean forgotten that +I’d—”</p> +<p>“It is certainly the jug I bought for you,” said +Wilfrid, looking closely at it; “it was in my portmanteau +when I got my bath-robe out this morning, before going to my +bath, and it was not there when I unlocked the portmanteau on my +return. Some one had taken it while I was away from the +room.”</p> +<p>The Pigeoncotes had turned paler than ever. Mrs. Peter +had a final inspiration.</p> +<p>“Get me my smelling-salts, dear,” she said to her +husband; “I think they’re in the +dressing-room.”</p> +<p>Peter dashed out of the room with glad relief; he had lived so +long during the last few minutes that a golden wedding seemed +within measurable distance.</p> +<p>Mrs. Peter turned to her guest with confidential coyness.</p> +<p>“A diplomat like you will know how to treat this as if +it hadn’t happened. Peter’s little weakness; it +runs in the family.”</p> +<p>“Good Lord! Do you mean to say he’s a +kleptomaniac, like Cousin Snatcher?”</p> +<p>“Oh, not exactly,” said Mrs. Peter, anxious to +whitewash her husband a little greyer than she was painting +him. “He would never touch anything he found lying +about, but he can’t resist making a raid on things that are +locked up. The doctors have a special name for it. He +must have pounced on your portmanteau the moment you went to your +bath, and taken the first thing he came across. Of course, +he had no motive for taking a cream jug; we’ve already got +<i>seven</i>, as you know—not, of course, that we +don’t value the kind of gift you and your mother—hush +here’s Peter coming.”</p> +<p>Mrs. Peter broke off in some confusion, and tripped out to +meet her husband in the hall.</p> +<p>“It’s all right,” she whispered to him; +“I’ve explained everything. Don’t say +anything more about it.”</p> +<p>“Brave little woman,” said Peter, with a gasp of +relief; “I could never have done it.”</p> +<p style="text-align: center">* * * * *</p> +<p>Diplomatic reticence does not necessarily extend to family +affairs. Peter Pigeoncote was never able to understand why +Mrs. Consuelo van Bullyon, who stayed with them in the spring, +always carried two very obvious jewel-cases with her to the +bath-room, explaining them to any one she chanced to meet in the +corridor as her manicure and face-massage set.</p> +<h2><a name="page237"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 237</span>THE +OCCASIONAL GARDEN</h2> +<p>“Don’t talk to me about town gardens,” said +Elinor Rapsley; “which means, of course, that I want you to +listen to me for an hour or so while I talk about nothing +else. ‘What a nice-sized garden you’ve +got,’ people said to us when we first moved here. +What I suppose they meant to say was what a nice-sized site for a +garden we’d got. As a matter of fact, the size is all +against it; it’s too large to be ignored altogether and +treated as a yard, and it’s too small to keep giraffes +in. You see, if we could keep giraffes or reindeer or some +other species of browsing animal there we could explain the +general absence of vegetation by a reference to the fauna of the +garden: ‘You can’t have wapiti <i>and</i> Darwin +tulips, you know, so we didn’t put down any bulbs last +year.’ As it is, we haven’t got the wapiti, and +the Darwin tulips haven’t survived the fact that most of +the cats of the neighbourhood hold a parliament in the centre of +the tulip bed; that rather forlorn looking strip that we intended +to be a border of alternating geranium and spiræa has been +utilised by the cat-parliament as a division lobby. Snap +divisions seem to have been rather frequent of late, far more +frequent than the geranium blooms are likely to be. I +shouldn’t object so much to ordinary cats, but I do +complain of having a congress of vegetarian cats in my garden; +they must be vegetarians, my dear, because, whatever ravages they +may commit among the sweet pea seedlings, they never seem to +touch the sparrows; there are always just as many adult sparrows +in the garden on Saturday as there were on Monday, not to mention +newly-fledged additions. There seems to have been an +irreconcilable difference of opinion between sparrows and +Providence since the beginning of time as to whether a crocus +looks best standing upright with its roots in the earth or in a +recumbent posture with its stem neatly severed; the sparrows +always have the last word in the matter, at least in our garden +they do. I fancy that Providence must have originally +intended to bring in an amending Act, or whatever it’s +called, providing either for a less destructive sparrow or a more +indestructible crocus. The one consoling point about our +garden is that it’s not visible from the drawing-room or +the smoking-room, so unless people are dinning or lunching with +us they can’t spy out the nakedness of the land. That +is why I am so furious with Gwenda Pottingdon, who has +practically forced herself on me for lunch on Wednesday next; she +heard me offer the Paulcote girl lunch if she was up shopping on +that day, and, of course, she asked if she might come too. +She is only coming to gloat over my bedraggled and flowerless +borders and to sing the praises of her own detestably +over-cultivated garden. I’m sick of being told that +it’s the envy of the neighbourhood; it’s like +everything else that belongs to her—her car, her +dinner-parties, even her headaches, they are all superlative; no +one else ever had anything like them. When her eldest child +was confirmed it was such a sensational event, according to her +account of it, that one almost expected questions to be asked +about it in the House of Commons, and now she’s coming on +purpose to stare at my few miserable pansies and the gaps in my +sweet-pea border, and to give me a glowing, full-length +description of the rare and sumptuous blooms in her +rose-garden.”</p> +<p>“My dear Elinor,” said the Baroness, “you +would save yourself all this heart-burning and a lot of +gardener’s bills, not to mention sparrow anxieties, simply +by paying an annual subscription to the O.O.S.A.”</p> +<p>“Never heard of it,” said Elinor; “what is +it?”</p> +<p>“The Occasional-Oasis Supply Association,” said +the Baroness; “it exists to meet cases exactly like yours, +cases of backyards that are of no practical use for gardening +purposes, but are required to blossom into decorative scenic +backgrounds at stated intervals, when a luncheon or dinner-party +is contemplated. Supposing, for instance, you have people +coming to lunch at one-thirty; you just ring up the Association +at about ten o’clock the same morning, and say ‘lunch +garden’. That is all the trouble you have to +take. By twelve forty-five your yard is carpeted with a +strip of velvety turf, with a hedge of lilac or red may, or +whatever happens to be in season, as a background, one or two +cherry trees in blossom, and clumps of heavily-flowered +rhododendrons filling in the odd corners; in the foreground you +have a blaze of carnations or Shirley poppies, or tiger lilies in +full bloom. As soon as the lunch is over and your guests +have departed the garden departs also, and all the cats in +Christendom can sit in council in your yard without causing you a +moment’s anxiety. If you have a bishop or an +antiquary or something of that sort coming to lunch you just +mention the fact when you are ordering the garden, and you get an +old-world pleasaunce, with clipped yew hedges and a sun-dial and +hollyhocks, and perhaps a mulberry tree, and borders of +sweet-williams and Canterbury bells, and an old-fashioned beehive +or two tucked away in a corner. Those are the ordinary +lines of supply that the Oasis Association undertakes, but by +paying a few guineas a year extra you are entitled to its +emergency E.O.N. service.”</p> +<p>“What on earth is an E.O.N. service?”</p> +<p>“It’s just a conventional signal to indicate +special cases like the incursion of Gwenda Pottingdon. It +means you’ve got some one coming to lunch or dinner whose +garden is alleged to be ‘the envy of the +neighbourhood.’”</p> +<p>“Yes,” exclaimed Elinor, with some excitement, +“and what happens then?”</p> +<p>“Something that sounds like a miracle out of the Arabian +Nights. Your backyard becomes voluptuous with pomegranate +and almond trees, lemon groves, and hedges of flowering cactus, +dazzling banks of azaleas, marble-basined fountains, in which +chestnut-and-white pond-herons step daintily amid exotic +water-lilies, while golden pheasants strut about on alabaster +terraces. The whole effect rather suggests the idea that +Providence and Norman Wilkinson have dropped mutual jealousies +and collaborated to produce a background for an open-air Russian +Ballet; in point of fact, it is merely the background to your +luncheon party. If there is any kick left in Gwenda +Pottingdon, or whoever your E.O.N. guest of the moment may be, +just mention carelessly that your climbing putella is the only +one in England, since the one at Chatsworth died last +winter. There isn’t such a thing as a climbing +putella, but Gwenda Pottingdon and her kind don’t usually +know one flower from another without prompting.”</p> +<p>“Quick,” said Elinor, “the address of the +Association.”</p> +<p>Gwenda Pottingdon did not enjoy her lunch. It was a +simple yet elegant meal, excellently cooked and daintily served, +but the piquant sauce of her own conversation was notably +lacking. She had prepared a long succession of eulogistic +comments on the wonders of her town garden, with its unrivalled +effects of horticultural magnificence, and, behold, her theme was +shut in on every side by the luxuriant hedge of Siberian berberis +that formed a glowing background to Elinor’s bewildering +fragment of fairyland. The pomegranate and lemon trees, the +terraced fountain, where golden carp slithered and wriggled amid +the roots of gorgeous-hued irises, the banked masses of exotic +blooms, the pagoda-like enclosure, where Japanese sand-badgers +disported themselves, all these contributed to take away +Gwenda’s appetite and moderate her desire to talk about +gardening matters.</p> +<p>“I can’t say I admire the climbing putella,” +she observed shortly, “and anyway it’s not the only +one of its kind in England; I happen to know of one in +Hampshire. How gardening is going out of fashion; I suppose +people haven’t the time for it nowadays.”</p> +<p>Altogether it was quite one of Elinor’s most successful +luncheon parties.</p> +<p>It was distinctly an unforeseen catastrophe that Gwenda should +have burst in on the household four days later at lunch-time and +made her way unbidden into the dining-room.</p> +<p>“I thought I must tell you that my Elaine has had a +water-colour sketch accepted by the Latent Talent Art Guild; +it’s to be exhibited at their summer exhibition at the +Hackney Gallery. It will be the sensation of the moment in +the art world—Hullo, what on earth has happened to your +garden? It’s not there!”</p> +<p>“Suffragettes,” said Elinor promptly; +“didn’t you hear about it? They broke in and +made hay of the whole thing in about ten minutes. I was so +heart-broken at the havoc that I had the whole place cleared out; +I shall have it laid out again on rather more elaborate +lines.”</p> +<p>“That,” she said to the Baroness afterwards +“is what I call having an emergency brain.”</p> +<h2><a name="page245"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 245</span>THE +SHEEP</h2> +<p>The enemy had declared “no trumps.” Rupert +played out his ace and king of clubs and cleared the adversary of +that suit; then the Sheep, whom the Fates had inflicted on him +for a partner, took the third round with the queen of clubs, and, +having no other club to lead back, opened another suit. The +enemy won the remainder of the tricks—and the rubber.</p> +<p>“I had four more clubs to play; we only wanted the odd +trick to win the rubber,” said Rupert.</p> +<p>“But I hadn’t another club to lead you,” +exclaimed the Sheep, with his ready, defensive smile.</p> +<p>“It didn’t occur to you to throw your queen away +on my king and leave me with the command of the suit,” said +Rupert, with polite bitterness.</p> +<p>“I suppose I ought to have—I wasn’t certain +what to do. I’m awfully sorry,” said the +Sheep.</p> +<p>Being awfully and uselessly sorry formed a large part of his +occupation in life. If a similar situation had arisen in a +subsequent hand he would have blundered just as certainly, and he +would have been just as irritatingly apologetic.</p> +<p>Rupert stared gloomily across at him as he sat smiling and +fumbling with his cards. Many men who have good brains for +business do not possess the rudiments of a card-brain, and Rupert +would not have judged and condemned his prospective +brother-in-law on the evidence of his bridge play alone. +The tragic part of it was that he smiled and fumbled through life +just as fatuously and apologetically as he did at the +card-table. And behind the defensive smile and the +well-worn expressions of regret there shone a scarcely believable +but quite obvious self-satisfaction. Every sheep of the +pasture probably imagines that in an emergency it could become +terrible as an army with banners—one has only to watch how +they stamp their feet and stiffen their necks when a minor object +of suspicion comes into view and behaves meekly. And +probably the majority of human sheep see themselves in +imagination taking great parts in the world’s more +impressive dramas, forming swift, unerring decisions in moments +of crisis, cowing mutinies, allaying panics, brave, strong, +simple, but, in spite of their natural modesty, always slightly +spectacular.</p> +<p>“Why in the name of all that is unnecessary and perverse +should Kathleen choose this man for her future husband?” +was the question that Rupert asked himself ruefully. There +was young Malcolm Athling, as nice-looking, decent, level-headed +a fellow as any one could wish to meet, obviously her very +devoted admirer, and yet she must throw herself away on this +pale-eyed, weak-mouthed embodiment of self-approving +ineptitude. If it had been merely Kathleen’s own +affair Rupert would have shrugged his shoulders and +philosophically hoped that she might make the best of an +undeniably bad bargain. But Rupert had no heir; his own boy +lay underground somewhere on the Indian frontier, in goodly +company. And the property would pass in due course to +Kathleen and Kathleen’s husband. The Sheep would live +there in the beloved old home, rearing up other little Sheep, +fatuous and rabbit-faced and self-satisfied like himself, to +dwell in the land and possess it. It was not a soothing +prospect.</p> +<p>Towards dusk on the afternoon following the bridge experience +Rupert and the Sheep made their way homeward after a day’s +mixed shooting. The Sheep’s cartridge bag was nearly +empty, but his game bag showed no signs of over-crowding. +The birds he had shot at had seemed for the most part as +impervious to death or damage as the hero of a melodrama. +And for each failure to drop his bird he had some explanation or +apology ready on his lips. Now he was striding along in +front of his host, chattering happily over his shoulder, but +obviously on the look-out for some belated rabbit or woodpigeon +that might haply be secured as an eleventh-hour addition to his +bag. As they passed the edge of a small copse a large bird +rose from the ground and flew slowly towards the trees, offering +an easy shot to the oncoming sportsmen. The Sheep banged +forth with both barrels, and gave an exultant cry.</p> +<p>“Horray! I’ve shot a thundering big +hawk!”</p> +<p>“To be exact, you’ve shot a honey-buzzard. +That is the hen bird of one of the few pairs of honey-buzzards +breeding in the United Kingdom. We’ve kept them under +the strictest preservation for the last four years; every +game-keeper and village gun loafer for twenty miles round has +been warned and bribed and threatened to respect their sanctity, +and egg-snatching agents have been carefully guarded against +during the breeding season. Hundreds of lovers of rare +birds have delighted in seeing their snap-shotted portraits in +<i>Country Life</i>, and now you’ve reduced the hen bird to +a lump of broken feathers.”</p> +<p>Rupert spoke quietly and evenly, but for a moment or two a +gleam of positive hatred shone in his eyes.</p> +<p>“I say, I’m so sorry,” said the Sheep, with +his apologetic smile. “Of course I remember hearing +about the buzzards, but somehow I didn’t connect this bird +with them. And it was such an east shot—”</p> +<p>“Yes,” said Rupert; “that was the +trouble.”</p> +<p>Kathleen found him in the gun-room smoothing out the feathers +of the dead bird. She had already been told of the +catastrophe.</p> +<p>“What a horrid misfortune,” she said +sympathetically.</p> +<p>“It was my dear Robbie who first discovered them, the +last time he was home on leave. Don’t you remember +how excited he was about them? Let’s go and have some +tea.”</p> +<p>Both bridge and shooting were given a rest for the next two or +three weeks. Death, who enters into no compacts with party +whips, had forced a Parliamentary vacancy on the neighbourhood at +the least convenient season, and the local partisans on either +side found themselves immersed in the discomforts of a mid-winter +election. Rupert took his politics seriously and +keenly. He belonged to that type of strangely but rather +happily constituted individuals which these islands seem to +produce in a fair plenty; men and women who for no personal +profit or gain go forth from their comfortable firesides or club +card-rooms to hunt to and fro in the mud and rain and wind for +the capture or tracking of a stray vote here and there on their +party’s behalf—not because they think they ought to, +but because they want to. And his energies were welcome +enough on this occasion, for the seat was a closely disputed +possession, and its loss or retention would count for much in the +present position of the Parliamentary game. With Kathleen +to help him, he had worked his corner of the constituency with +tireless, well-directed zeal, taking his share of the dull +routine work as well as of the livelier episodes. The +talking part of the campaign wound up on the eve of the poll with +a meeting in a centre where more undecided votes were supposed to +be concentrated than anywhere else in the division. A good +final meeting here would mean everything. And the speakers, +local and imported, left nothing undone to improve the +occasion. Rupert was down for the unimportant task of +moving the complimentary vote to the chairman which should close +the proceedings.</p> +<p>“I’m so hoarse,” he protested, when the +moment arrived; “I don’t believe I can make my voice +heard beyond the platform.”</p> +<p>“Let me do it,” said the Sheep; “I’m +rather good at that sort of thing.”</p> +<p>The chairman was popular with all parties, and the +Sheep’s opening words of complimentary recognition received +a round of applause. The orator smiled expansively on his +listeners and seized the opportunity to add a few words of +political wisdom on his own account. People looked at the +clock or began to grope for umbrellas and discarded +neckwraps. Then, in the midst of a string of meaningless +platitudes, the Sheep delivered himself of one of those +blundering remarks which travel from one end of a constituency to +the other in half an hour, and are seized on by the other side as +being more potent on their behalf than a ton of election +literature. There was a general shuffling and muttering +across the length and breadth of the hall, and a few hisses made +themselves heard. The Sheep tried to whittle down his +remark, and the chairman unhesitatingly threw him over in his +speech of thanks, but the damage was done.</p> +<p>“I’m afraid I lost touch with the audience rather +over that remark,” said the Sheep afterwards, with his +apologetic smile abnormally developed.</p> +<p>“You lost us the election,” said the chairman, and +he proved a true prophet.</p> +<p>A month or so of winter sport seemed a desirable pick-me-up +after the strenuous work and crowning discomfiture of the +election. Rupert and Kathleen hied them away to a small +Alpine resort that was just coming into prominence, and thither +the Sheep followed them in due course, in his role of +husband-elect. The wedding had been fixed for the end of +March.</p> +<p>It was a winter of early and unseasonable thaws, and the far +end of the local lake, at a spot where swift currents flowed into +it, was decorated with notices, written in three languages, +warning skaters not to venture over certain unsafe patches. +The folly of approaching too near these danger spots seemed to +have a natural fascination for the Sheep.</p> +<p>“I don’t see what possible danger there can +be,” he protested, with his inevitable smile, when Rupert +beckoned him away from the proscribed area; “the milk that +I put out on my window-sill last night was frozen an inch +deep.”</p> +<p>“It hadn’t got a strong current flowing through +it,” said Rupert; “in any case, there is not much +sense in hovering round a doubtful piece of ice when there are +acres of good ice to skate over. The secretary of the +ice-committee has warned you once already.”</p> +<p>A few minutes later Rupert heard a loud squeal of fear, and +saw a dark spot blotting the smoothness of the lake’s +frozen surface. The Sheep was struggling helplessly in an +ice-hole of his own making. Rupert gave one loud curse, and +then dashed full tilt for the shore; outside a low stable +building on the lake’s edge he remembered having seen a +ladder. If he could slide it across the ice-hole before the +Sheep went under the rescue would be comparatively simple +work. Other skaters were dashing up from a distance, and, +with the ladder’s help, they could get him out of his +death-trap without having to trust themselves on the margin of +rotten ice. Rupert sprang on to the surface of lumpy, +frozen snow, and staggered to where the ladder lay. He had +already lifted it when the rattle of a chain and a furious +outburst of growls burst on his hearing, and he was dashed to the +ground by a mass of white and tawny fur. A sturdy young +yard-dog, frantic with the pleasure of performing his first piece +of active guardian service, was ramping and snarling over him, +rendering the task of regaining his feet or securing the ladder a +matter of considerable difficulty. When he had at last +succeeded in both efforts he was just by a hair’s-breadth +too late to be of any use. The Sheep had definitely +disappeared under the ice-rift.</p> +<p>Kathleen Athling and her husband stay the greater part of the +year with Rupert, and a small Robbie stands in some danger of +being idolised by a devoted uncle. But for twelve months of +the year Rupert’s most inseparable and valued companion is +a sturdy tawny and white yard-dog.</p> +<h2><a name="page255"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 255</span>THE +OVERSIGHT</h2> +<p>“It’s like a Chinese puzzle,” said Lady +Prowche resentfully, staring at a scribbled list of names that +spread over two or three loose sheets of notepaper on her +writing-table. Most of the names had a pencil mark running +through them.</p> +<p>“What is like a Chinese puzzle?” asked Lena +Luddleford briskly; she rather prided herself on being able to +grapple with the minor problems of life.</p> +<p>“Getting people suitably sorted together. Sir +Richard likes me to have a house party about this time of year, +and gives me a free hand as to whom I should invite; all he asks +is that it should be a peaceable party, with no friction or +unpleasantness.”</p> +<p>“That seems reasonable enough,” said Lena.</p> +<p>“Not only reasonable, my dear, but necessary. Sir +Richard has his literary work to think of; you can’t expect +a man to concentrate on the tribal disputes of Central Asian +clansmen when he’s got social feuds blazing under his own +roof.”</p> +<p>“But why should they blaze? Why should there be +feuds at all within the compass of a house party?”</p> +<p>“Exactly; why should they blaze or why should they +exist?” echoed Lady Prowche; “the point is that they +always do. We have been unlucky; persistently unlucky, now +that I come to look back on things. We have always got +people of violently opposed views under one roof, and the result +has been not merely unpleasantness but explosion.”</p> +<p>“Do you mean people who disagree on matters of political +opinion and religious views?” asked Lena.</p> +<p>“No, not that. The broader lines of political or +religious difference don’t matter. You can have +Church of England and Unitarian and Buddhist under the same roof +without courting disaster; the only Buddhist I ever had down here +quarrelled with everybody, but that was on account of his +naturally squabblesome temperament; it had nothing to do with his +religion. And I’ve always found that people can +differ profoundly about politics and meet on perfectly good terms +at breakfast. Now, Miss Larbor Jones, who was staying here +last year, worships Lloyd George as a sort of wingless angel, +while Mrs. Walters, who was down here at the same time, privately +considers him to be—an antelope, let us say.”</p> +<p>“An antelope?”</p> +<p>“Well, not an antelope exactly, but something with horns +and hoofs and tail.”</p> +<p>“Oh, I see.”</p> +<p>“Still, that didn’t prevent them from being the +chummiest of mortals on the tennis court and in the +billiard-room. They did quarrel finally, about a lead in a +doubled hand of no-trumps, but that of course is a thing that no +account of judicious guest-grouping could prevent. Mrs. +Walters had got king, knave, ten, and seven of +clubs—”</p> +<p>“You were saying that there were other lines of +demarcation that caused the bother,” interrupted Lena.</p> +<p>“Exactly. It is the minor differences and +side-issues that give so much trouble,” said Lady Prowche; +“not to my dying day shall I forget last year’s +upheaval over the Suffragette question. Laura Henniseed +left the house in a state of speechless indignation, but before +she had reached that state she had used language that would not +have been tolerated in the Austrian Reichsrath. Intensive +bear-gardening was Sir Richard’s description of the whole +affair, and I don’t think he exaggerated.”</p> +<p>“Of course the Suffragette question is a burning one, +and lets loose the most dreadful ill-feeling,” said Lena; +“but one can generally find out beforehand what +people’s opinions—”</p> +<p>“My dear, the year before it was worse. It was +Christian Science. Selina Goobie is a sort of High +Priestess of the Cult, and she put down all opposition with a +high hand. Then one evening, after dinner, Clovis Sangrail +put a wasp down her back, to see if her theory about the +non-existence of pain could be depended on in an emergency. +The wasp was small, but very efficient, and it had been soured in +temper by being kept in a paper cage all the afternoon. +Wasps don’t stand confinement well, at least this one +didn’t. I don’t think I ever realised till that +moment what the word ‘invective’ could be made to +mean. I sometimes wake in the night and think I still hear +Selina describing Clovis’s conduct and general +character. That was the year that Sir Richard was writing +his volume on ‘Domestic Life in Tartary.’ The +critics all blamed it for a lack of concentration.”</p> +<p>“He’s engaged on a very important work this year, +isn’t he?” asked Lena.</p> +<p>“‘Land-tenure in Turkestan,’” said +Lady Prowche; “he is just at work on the final chapters and +they require all the concentration he can give them. That +is why I am so very anxious not to have any unfortunate +disturbance this year. I have taken every precaution I can +think of to bring non-conflicting and harmonious elements +together; the only two people I am not quite easy about are the +Atkinson man and Marcus Popham. They are the two who will +be down here longest together, and if they are going to fall foul +of one another about any burning question, well, there will be +more unpleasantness.”</p> +<p>“Can’t you find out anything about them? +About their opinions, I mean.”</p> +<p>“Anything? My dear Lena, there’s scarcely +anything that I haven’t found out about them. +They’re both of them moderate Liberal, Evangelical, mildly +opposed to female suffrage, they approve of the Falconer Report, +and the Stewards’ decision about Craganour. Thank +goodness in this country we don’t fly into violent passions +about Wagner and Brahms and things of that sort. There is +only one thorny subject that I haven’t been able to make +sure about, the only stone that I have left unturned. Are +they unanimously anti-vivisectionist or do they both uphold the +necessity for scientific experiment? There has been a lot +of correspondence on the subject in our local newspapers of late, +and the vicar is certain to preach a sermon about it; vicars are +dreadfully provocative at times. Now, if you could only +find out for me whether these two men are divergently for or +against—”</p> +<p>“I!” exclaimed Lena; “how am I to find +out? I don’t know either of them to speak +to.”</p> +<p>“Still you might discover, in some roundabout way. +Write to them, under as assumed name of course, for subscriptions +to one or other cause—or, better still, send a stamped +type-written reply postcard, with a request for a declaration for +or against vivisection; people who would hesitate to commit +themselves to a subscription will cheerfully write Yes or No on a +prepaid postcard. If you can’t manage it that way, +try and meet them at some one’s house and get into argument +on the subject. I think Milly occasionally has one or other +of them at her at-homes; you might have the luck to meet both of +them there the same evening. Only it must be done +soon. My invitations ought to go out by Wednesday or +Thursday at the latest, and to-day is Friday.</p> +<p>“Milly’s at-homes are not very amusing, as a +rule,” said Lena, “and one never gets a chance of +talking uninterruptedly to any one for a couple of minutes at a +time; Milly is one of those restless hostesses who always seem to +be trying to see how you look in different parts of the room, in +fresh grouping effects. Even if I got to speak to Popham or +Atkinson I couldn’t plunge into a topic like vivisection +straight away. No, I think the postcard scheme would be +more hopeful and decidedly less tiresome. How would it be +best to word them?”</p> +<p>“Oh, something like this: ‘Are you in favour of +experiments on living animals for the purpose of scientific +research—Yes or No?’ That is quite simple and +unmistakable. If they don’t answer it will at least +be an indication that they are indifferent about the subject, and +that is all I want to know.”</p> +<p>“All right,” said Lena, “I’ll get my +brother-in-law to let me have them addressed to his office, and +he can telephone the result of the plebiscite direct to +you.”</p> +<p>“Thank you ever so much,” said Lady Prowche +gratefully, “and be sure to get the cards sent off as soon +as possible.”</p> +<p>On the following Tuesday the voice of an office clerk, +speaking through the telephone, informed Lady Prowche that the +postcard poll showed unanimous hostility to experiments on living +animals.</p> +<p>Lady Prowche thanked the office clerk, and in a louder and +more fervent voice she thanked Heaven. The two invitations, +already sealed and addressed, were immediately dispatched; in due +course they were both accepted. The house party of the +halcyon hours, as the prospective hostess called it, was +auspiciously launched.</p> +<p>Lena Luddleford was not included among the guests, having +previously committed herself to another invitation. At the +opening day of a cricket festival, however, she ran across Lady +Prowche, who had motored over from the other side of the +county. She wore the air of one who is not interested in +cricket and not particularly interested in life. She shook +hands limply with Lena, and remarked that it was a beastly +day.</p> +<p>“The party, how has it gone off?” asked Lena +quickly.</p> +<p>“Don’t speak of it!” was the tragical +answer; “why do I always have such rotten luck?”</p> +<p>“But what has happened?”</p> +<p>“It has been awful. Hyænas could not have +behaved with greater savagery. Sir Richard said so, and he +has been in countries where hyænas live, so he ought to +know. They actually came to blows!”</p> +<p>“Blows?”</p> +<p>“Blows and curses. It really might have been a +scene from one of Hogarth’s pictures. I never felt so +humiliated in my life. What the servants must have +thought!”</p> +<p>“But who were the offenders?”</p> +<p>“Oh, naturally the very two that we took all the trouble +about.”</p> +<p>“I thought they agreed on every subject that one could +violently disagree about—religion, politics, vivisection, +the Derby decision, the Falconer Report; what else was there left +to quarrel about?”</p> +<p>“My dear, we were fools not to have thought of it. +One of them was Pro-Greek and the other Pro-Bulgar.”</p> +<h2><a name="page265"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +265</span>HYACINTH</h2> +<p>“The new fashion of introducing the candidate’s +children into an election contest is a pretty one,” said +Mrs. Panstreppon; “it takes away something from the +acerbity of party warfare, and it makes an interesting experience +for children to look back on in after years. Still, if you +will listen to my advice, Matilda, you will not take Hyacinth +with you down to Luffbridge on election day.”</p> +<p>“Not take Hyacinth!” exclaimed his mother; +“but why not? Jutterly is bringing his three +children, and they are going to drive a pair of Nubian donkeys +about the town, to emphasise the fact that their father has been +appointed Colonial Secretary. We are making the demand for +a strong Navy a special feature in <i>our</i> campaign, and it +will be particularly appropriate to have Hyacinth dressed in his +sailor suit. He’ll look heavenly.”</p> +<p>“The question is, not how he’ll look, but how +he’ll behave. He’s a delightful child, of +course, but there is a strain of unbridled pugnacity in him that +breaks out at times in a really alarming fashion. You may +have forgotten the affair of the little Gaffin children; I +haven’t.”</p> +<p>“I was in India at the time, and I’ve only a vague +recollection of what happened; he was very naughty, I +know.”</p> +<p>“He was in his goat-carriage, and met the Gaffins in +their perambulator, and he drove the goat full tilt at them and +sent the perambulator spinning. Little Jacky Gaffin was +pinned down under the wreckage, and while the nurse had her hands +full with the goat Hyacinth was laying into Jacky’s legs +with his belt like a small fury.”</p> +<p>“I’m not defending him,” said Matilda, +“but they must have done something to annoy him.”</p> +<p>“Nothing intentionally, but some one had unfortunately +told him that they were half French—their mother was a +Duboc, you know—and he had been having a history lesson +that morning, and had just heard of the final loss of Calais by +the English, and was furious about it. He said he’d +teach the little toads to go snatching towns from us, but we +didn’t know at the time that he was referring to the +Gaffins. I told him afterwards that all bad feeling between +the two nations had died out long ago, and that anyhow the +Gaffins were only half French, and he said that it was only the +French half of Jacky that he had been hitting; the rest had been +buried under the perambulator. If the loss of Calais +unloosed such fury in him, I tremble to think what the possible +loss of the election might entail.”</p> +<p>“All that happened when he was eight; he’s older +now and knows better.”</p> +<p>“Children with Hyacinth’s temperament don’t +know better as they grow older; they merely know more.”</p> +<p>“Nonsense. He will enjoy the fun of the election, +and in any case he’ll be tired out by the time the poll is +declared, and the new sailor suit that I’ve had made for +him is just in the right shade of blue for our election colours, +and it will exactly match the blue of his eyes. He will be +a perfectly charming note of colour.”</p> +<p>“There is such a thing as letting one’s +æsthetic sense override one’s moral sense,” +said Mrs. Panstreppon. “I believe you would have +condoned the South Sea Bubble and the persecution of the +Albigenses if they had been carried out in effective colour +schemes. However, if anything unfortunate should happen +down at Luffbridge, don’t say it wasn’t foreseen by +one member of the family.”</p> +<p>The election was keenly but decorously contested. The +newly-appointed Colonial Secretary was personally popular, while +the Government to which he adhered was distinctly unpopular, and +there was some expectancy that the majority of four hundred, +obtained at the last election, would be altogether wiped +out. Both sides were hopeful, but neither could feel +confident. The children were a great success; the little +Jutterlys drove their chubby donkeys solemnly up and down the +main streets, displaying posters which advocated the claims of +their father on the broad general grounds that he was their +father, while as for Hyacinth, his conduct might have served as a +model for any seraph-child that had strayed unwittingly on to the +scene of an electoral contest. Of his own accord, and under +the delighted eyes of half a dozen camera operators, he had gone +up to the Jutterly children and presented them with a packet of +butterscotch; “we needn’t be enemies because +we’re wearing the opposite colours,” he said with +engaging friendliness, and the occupants of the donkey-cart +accepted his offering with polite solemnity. The grown-up +members of both political camps were delighted at the +incident—with the exception of Mrs. Panstreppon, who +shuddered.</p> +<p>“Never was Clytemnestra’s kiss sweeter than on the +night she slew me,” she quoted, but made the quotation to +herself.</p> +<p>The last hour of the poll was a period of unremitting labour +for both parties; it was generally estimated that not more than a +dozen votes separated the candidates, and every effort was made +to bring up obstinately wavering electors. It was with a +feeling of relaxation and relief that every one heard the clocks +strike the hour for the close of the poll. Exclamations +broke out from the tired workers, and corks flew out from +bottles.</p> +<p>“Well, if we haven’t won; we’ve done our +level best.” “It has been a clean straight +fight, with no rancour.” “The children were +quite a charming feature, weren’t they?”</p> +<p>The children? It suddenly occurred to everybody that +they had seen nothing of the children for the last hour. +What had become of the three little Jutterlys and their +donkey-cart, and, for the matter of that, what had become of +Hyacinth. Hurried, anxious embassies went backwards and +forwards between the respective party headquarters and the +various committee-rooms, but there was blank ignorance everywhere +as to the whereabouts of the children. Every one had been +too busy in the closing moments of the poll to bestow a thought +on them. Then there came a telephone call at the Unionist +Women’s Committee-rooms, and the voice of Hyacinth was +heard demanding when the poll would be declared.</p> +<p>“Where are you, and where are the Jutterly +children?” asked his mother.</p> +<p>“I’ve just finished having high-tea at a +pastry-cook’s,” came the answer, “and they let +me telephone. I’ve had a poached egg and a sausage +roll and four meringues.”</p> +<p>“You’ll be ill. Are the little Jutterlys +with you?”</p> +<p>“Rather not. They’re in a +pigstye.”</p> +<p>“A pigstye? Why? What pigstye?”</p> +<p>“Near the Crawleigh Road. I met them driving about +a back road, and told them they were to have tea with me, and put +their donkeys in a yard that I knew of. Then I took them to +see an old sow that had got ten little pigs. I got the sow +into the outer stye by giving her bits of bread, while the +Jutterlys went in to look at the litter, then I bolted the door +and left them there.”</p> +<p>“You wicked boy, do you mean to say you’ve left +those poor children there alone in the pigstye?”</p> +<p>“They’re not alone, they’ve got ten little +pigs in with them; they’re jolly well crowded. They +were pretty mad at being shut in, but not half as mad as the old +sow is at being shut out from her young ones. If she gets +in while they’re there she’ll bite them into +mincemeat. I can get them out by letting a short ladder +down through the top window, and that’s what I’m +going to do <i>if we win</i>. If their blighted father gets +in, I’m just going to open the door for the sow, and let +her do what she dashed well likes to them. That’s why +I want to know when the poll will be declared.”</p> +<p>Here the narrator rang off. A wild stampede and a +frantic sending-off of messengers took place at the other end of +the telephone. Nearly all the workers on either side had +disappeared to their various club-rooms and public-house bars to +await the declaration of the poll, but enough local information +could be secured to determine the scene of Hyacinth’s +exploit. Mr. John Ball had a stable yard down near the +Crawleigh Road, up a short lane, and his sow was known to have a +litter of ten young ones. Thither went in headlong haste +both the candidates, Hyacinth’s mother, his aunt (Mrs. +Panstreppon), and two or three hurriedly-summoned friends. +The two Nubian donkeys, contentedly munching at bundles of hay, +met their gaze as they entered the yard. The hoarse savage +grunting of an enraged animal and the shriller note of thirteen +young voices, three of them human, guided them to the stye, in +the outer yard of which a huge Yorkshire sow kept up a ceaseless +raging patrol before a closed door. Reclining on the broad +ledge of an open window, from which point of vantage he could +reach down and shoot the bolt of the door, was Hyacinth, his blue +sailor-suit somewhat the worse of wear, and his angel smile +exchanged for a look of demoniacal determination.</p> +<p>“If any of you come a step nearer,” he shouted, +“the sow will be inside in half a jiffy.”</p> +<p>A storm of threatening, arguing, entreating expostulation +broke from the baffled rescue party, but it made no more +impression on Hyacinth than the squealing tempest that raged +within the stye.</p> +<p>“If Jutterly heads the poll I’m going to let the +sow in. I’ll teach the blighters to win elections +from us.”</p> +<p>“He means it,” said Mrs. Panstreppon; “I +feared the worst when I saw that butterscotch +incident.”</p> +<p>“It’s all right, my little man,” said +Jutterly, with the duplicity to which even a Colonial Secretary +can sometimes stoop, “your father has been elected by a +large majority.”</p> +<p>“Liar!” retorted Hyacinth, with the directness of +speech that is not merely excusable, but almost obligatory, in +the political profession; “the votes aren’t counted +yet. You won’t gammon me as to the result, +either. A boy that I’ve palled with is going to fire +a gun when the poll is declared; two shots if we’ve won, +one shot if we haven’t.”</p> +<p>The situation began to look critical. “Drug the +sow,” whispered Hyacinth’s father.</p> +<p>Some one went off in the motor to the nearest chemist’s +shop and returned presently with two large pieces of bread, +liberally dosed with narcotic. The bread was thrown deftly +and unostentatiously into the stye, but Hyacinth saw through the +manœuvre. He set up a piercing imitation of a small +pig in Purgatory, and the infuriated mother ramped round and +round the stye; the pieces of bread were trampled into slush.</p> +<p>At any moment now the poll might be declared. Jutterly +flew back to the Town Hall, where the votes were being +counted. His agent met him with a smile of hope.</p> +<p>“You’re eleven ahead at present, and only about +eighty more to be counted; you’re just going to squeak +through.”</p> +<p>“I mustn’t squeak through,” exclaimed +Jutterly, hoarsely. “You must object to every +doubtful vote on our side that can possibly be disallowed. +I must <i>not</i> have the majority.”</p> +<p>Then was seen the unprecedented sight of a party agent +challenging the votes on his own side with a captiousness that +his opponents would have hesitated to display. One or two +votes that would have certainly passed muster under ordinary +circumstances were disallowed, but even so Jutterly was six ahead +with only thirty more to be counted.</p> +<p>To the watchers by the stye the moments seemed +intolerable. As a last resort some one had been sent for a +gun with which to shoot the sow, though Hyacinth would probably +draw the bolt the moment such a weapon was brought into the +yard. Nearly all the men were away from their homes, +however, on election night, and the messenger had evidently gone +far afield in his search. It must be a matter of minutes +now to the declaration of the poll.</p> +<p>A sudden roar of shouting and cheering was heard from the +direction of the Town Hall. Hyacinth’s father +clutched a pitchfork and prepared to dash into the stye in the +forlorn hope of being in time.</p> +<p>A shot rang out in the evening air. Hyacinth stooped +down from his perch and put his finger on the bolt. The sow +pressed furiously against the door.</p> +<p>“Bang,” came another shot.</p> +<p>Hyacinth wriggled back, and sent a short ladder down through +the window of the inner stye.</p> +<p>“Now you can come up, you unclean little +blighters,” he sang out; “my daddy’s got in, +not yours. Hurry up, I can’t keep the sow waiting +much longer. And don’t you jolly well come butting +into any election again where I’m on the job.”</p> +<p>In the reaction that set in after the deliverance furious +recrimination were indulged in by the lately opposed candidates, +their women folk, agents, and party helpers. A recount was +demanded, but failed to establish the fact that the Colonial +Secretary had obtained a majority. Altogether the election +left a legacy of soreness behind it, apart from any that was +experienced by Hyacinth in person.</p> +<p>“It is the last time I shall let him go to an +election,” exclaimed his mother.</p> +<p>“There I think you are going to extremes,” said +Mrs. Panstreppon; “if there should be a general election in +Mexico I think you might safely let him go there, but I doubt +whether our English politics are suited to the rough and tumble +of an angel-child.”</p> +<h2><a name="page277"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 277</span>THE +IMAGE OF THE LOST SOUL</h2> +<p>There were a number of carved stone figures placed at +intervals along the parapets of the old Cathedral; some of them +represented angels, others kings and bishops, and nearly all were +in attitudes of pious exaltation and composure. But one +figure, low down on the cold north side of the building, had +neither crown, mitre, not nimbus, and its face was hard and +bitter and downcast; it must be a demon, declared the fat blue +pigeons that roosted and sunned themselves all day on the ledges +of the parapet; but the old belfry jackdaw, who was an authority +on ecclesiastical architecture, said it was a lost soul. +And there the matter rested.</p> +<p>One autumn day there fluttered on to the Cathedral roof a +slender, sweet-voiced bird that had wandered away from the bare +fields and thinning hedgerows in search of a winter +roosting-place. It tried to rest its tired feet under the +shade of a great angel-wing or to nestle in the sculptured folds +of a kingly robe, but the fat pigeons hustled it away from +wherever it settled, and the noisy sparrow-folk drove it off the +ledges. No respectable bird sang with so much feeling, they +cheeped one to another, and the wanderer had to move on.</p> +<p>Only the effigy of the Lost Soul offered a place of +refuge. The pigeons did not consider it safe to perch on a +projection that leaned so much out of the perpendicular, and was, +besides, too much in the shadow. The figure did not cross +its hands in the pious attitude of the other graven dignitaries, +but its arms were folded as in defiance and their angle made a +snug resting-place for the little bird. Every evening it +crept trustfully into its corner against the stone breast of the +image, and the darkling eyes seemed to keep watch over its +slumbers. The lonely bird grew to love its lonely +protector, and during the day it would sit from time to time on +some rainshoot or other abutment and trill forth its sweetest +music in grateful thanks for its nightly shelter. And, it +may have been the work of wind and weather, or some other +influence, but the wild drawn face seemed gradually to lose some +of its hardness and unhappiness. Every day, through the +long monotonous hours, the song of his little guest would come up +in snatches to the lonely watcher, and at evening, when the +vesper-bell was ringing and the great grey bats slid out of their +hiding-places in the belfry roof, the bright-eyed bird would +return, twitter a few sleepy notes, and nestle into the arms that +were waiting for him. Those were happy days for the Dark +Image. Only the great bell of the Cathedral rang out daily +its mocking message, “After joy . . . sorrow.”</p> +<p>The folk in the verger’s lodge noticed a little brown +bird flitting about the Cathedral precincts, and admired its +beautiful singing. “But it is a pity,” said +they, “that all that warbling should be lost and wasted far +out of hearing up on the parapet.” They were poor, +but they understood the principles of political economy. So +they caught the bird and put it in a little wicker cage outside +the lodge door.</p> +<p>That night the little songster was missing from its accustomed +haunt, and the Dark Image knew more than ever the bitterness of +loneliness. Perhaps his little friend had been killed by a +prowling cat or hurt by a stone. Perhaps . . . perhaps he +had flown elsewhere. But when morning came there floated up +to him, through the noise and bustle of the Cathedral world, a +faint heart-aching message from the prisoner in the wicker cage +far below. And every day, at high noon, when the fat +pigeons were stupefied into silence after their midday meal and +the sparrows were washing themselves in the street-puddles, the +song of the little bird came up to the parapets—a song of +hunger and longing and hopelessness, a cry that could never be +answered. The pigeons remarked, between mealtimes, that the +figure leaned forward more than ever out of the +perpendicular.</p> +<p>One day no song came up from the little wicker cage. It +was the coldest day of the winter, and the pigeons and sparrows +on the Cathedral roof looked anxiously on all sides for the +scraps of food which they were dependent on in hard weather.</p> +<p>“Have the lodge-folk thrown out anything on to the +dust-heap?” inquired one pigeon of another which was +peering over the edge of the north parapet.</p> +<p>“Only a little dead bird,” was the answer.</p> +<p>There was a crackling sound in the night on the Cathedral roof +and a noise as of falling masonry. The belfry jackdaw said +the frost was affecting the fabric, and as he had experienced +many frosts it must have been so. In the morning it was +seen that the Figure of the Lost Soul had toppled from its +cornice and lay now in a broken mass on the dust-heap outside the +verger’s lodge.</p> +<p>“It is just as well,” cooed the fat pigeons, after +they had peered at the matter for some minutes; “now we +shall have a nice angel put up there. Certainly they will +put an angel there.”</p> +<p>“After joy . . . sorrow,” rang out the great +bell.</p> +<h2><a name="page281"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 281</span>THE +PURPLE OF THE BALKAN KINGS</h2> +<p>Luitpold Wolkenstein, financier and diplomat on a small, +obtrusive, self-important scale, sat in his favoured cafe in the +world-wise Habsburg capital, confronted with the <i>Neue Freie +Presse</i> and the cup of cream-topped coffee and attendant glass +of water that a sleek-headed piccolo had just brought him. +For years longer than a dog’s lifetime sleek-headed +piccolos had placed the <i>Neue Freie Presse</i> and a cup of +cream-topped coffee on his table; for years he had sat at the +same spot, under the dust-coated, stuffed eagle, that had once +been a living, soaring bird on the Styrian mountains, and was now +made monstrous and symbolical with a second head grafted on to +its neck and a gilt crown planted on either dusty skull. +To-day Luitpold Wolkenstein read no more than the first article +in his paper, but read it again and again.</p> +<p>“The Turkish fortress of Kirk Kilisseh has fallen . . +. The Serbs, it is officially announced, have taken +Kumanovo . . . The fortress of Kirk Kilisseh lost, Kumanovo +taken by the Serbs, these are tiding for Constantinople +resembling something out of Shakspeare’s tragedies of the +kings . . . The neighbourhood of Adrianople and the Eastern +region, where the great battle is now in progress, will not +reveal merely the future of Turkey, but also what position and +what influence the Balkan States are to have in the +world.”</p> +<p>For years longer than a dog’s lifetime Luitpold +Wolkenstein had disposed of the pretensions and strivings of the +Balkan States over the cup of cream-topped coffee that +sleek-headed piccolos had brought him. Never travelling +further eastward than the horse-fair at Temesvar, never inviting +personal risk in an encounter with anything more potentially +desperate than a hare or partridge, he had constituted himself +the critical appraiser and arbiter of the military and national +prowess of the small countries that fringed the Dual Monarchy on +its Danube border. And his judgment had been one of +unsparing contempt for small-scale efforts, of unquestioning +respect for the big battalions and full purses. Over the +whole scene of the Balkan territories and their troubled +histories had loomed the commanding magic of the words “the +Great Powers”—even more imposing in their Teutonic +rendering, “Die Grossmächte.”</p> +<p>Worshipping power and force and money-mastery as an elderly +nerve-ridden woman might worship youthful physical energy, the +comfortable, plump-bodied cafe-oracle had jested and gibed at the +ambitions of the Balkan kinglets and their peoples, had unloosed +against them that battery of strange lip-sounds that a Viennese +employs almost as an auxiliary language to express the thoughts +when his thoughts are not complimentary. British travellers +had visited the Balkan lands and reported high things of the +Bulgarians and their future, Russian officers had taken peeps at +their army and confessed “this is a thing to be reckoned +with, and it is not we who have created it, they have done it by +themselves.” But over his cups of coffee and his +hour-long games of dominoes the oracle had laughed and wagged his +head and distilled the worldly wisdom of his castle. The +Grossmächte had not succeeded in stifling the roll of the +war-drum, that was true; the big battalions of the Ottoman Empire +would have to do some talking, and then the big purses and big +threatenings of the Powers would speak and the last word would be +with them. In imagination Luitpold heard the onward tramp +of the red-fezzed bayonet bearers echoing through the Balkan +passes, saw the little sheepskin-clad mannikins driven back to +their villages, saw the augustly chiding spokesman of the Powers +dictating, adjusting, restoring, settling things once again in +their allotted places, sweeping up the dust of conflict, and now +his ears had to listen to the war-drum rolling in quite another +direction, had to listen to the tramp of battalions that were +bigger and bolder and better skilled in war-craft than he had +deemed possible in that quarter; his eyes had to read in the +columns of his accustomed newspaper a warning to the +Grossmächte that they had something new to learn, something +new to reckon with, much that was time-honoured to +relinquish. “The Great Powers will have not little +difficulty in persuading the Balkan States of the inviolability +of the principle that Europe cannot permit any fresh partition of +territory in the East without her approval. Even now, while +the campaign is still undecided, there are rumours of a project +of fiscal unity, extending over the entire Balkan lands, and +further of a constitutional union in imitation of the German +Empire. That is perhaps only a political straw blown by the +storm, but it is not possible to dismiss the reflection that the +Balkan States leagued together command a military strength with +which the Great Powers will have to reckon . . . The people +who have poured out their blood on the battlefields and +sacrificed the available armed men of an entire generation in +order to encompass a union with their kinsfolk will not remain +any longer in an attitude of dependence on the Great Powers or on +Russia, but will go their own ways . . . The blood that has +been poured forth to-day gives for the first time a genuine tone +to the purple of the Balkan Kings. The Great Powers cannot +overlook the fact that a people that has tasted victory will not +let itself be driven back again within its former limits. +Turkey has lost to-day not only Kirk Kilisseh and Kumanovo, but +Macedonia also.”</p> +<p>Luitpold Wolkenstein drank his coffee, but the flavour had +somehow gone out of it. His world, his pompous, imposing, +dictating world, had suddenly rolled up into narrower +dimensions. The big purses and the big threats had been +pushed unceremoniously on one side; a force that he could not +fathom, could not comprehend, had made itself rudely felt. +The august Cæsars of Mammon and armament had looked down +frowningly on the combat, and those about to die had not saluted, +had no intention of saluting. A lesson was being imposed on +unwilling learners, a lesson of respect for certain fundamental +principles, and it was not the small struggling States who were +being taught the lesson.</p> +<p>Luitpold Wolkenstein did not wait for the quorum of domino +players to arrive. They would all have read the article in +the <i>Freie Presse</i>. And there are moments when an +oracle finds its greatest salvation in withdrawing itself from +the area of human questioning.</p> +<h2><a name="page287"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 287</span>THE +CUPBOARD OF THE YESTERDAYS</h2> +<p>“War is a cruelly destructive thing,” said the +Wanderer, dropping his newspaper to the floor and staring +reflectively into space.</p> +<p>“Ah, yes, indeed,” said the Merchant, responding +readily to what seemed like a safe platitude; “when one +thinks of the loss of life and limb, the desolated homesteads, +the ruined—”</p> +<p>“I wasn’t thinking of anything of the sort,” +said the Wanderer; “I was thinking of the tendency that +modern war has to destroy and banish the very elements of +picturesqueness and excitement that are its chief excuse and +charm. It is like a fire that flares up brilliantly for a +while and then leaves everything blacker and bleaker than +before. After every important war in South-East Europe in +recent times there has been a shrinking of the area of +chronically disturbed territory, a stiffening of frontier lines, +an intrusion of civilised monotony. And imagine what may +happen at the conclusion of this war if the Turk should really be +driven out of Europe.”</p> +<p>“Well, it would be a gain to the cause of good +government, I suppose,” said the Merchant.</p> +<p>“But have you counted the loss?” said the +other. “The Balkans have long been the last surviving +shred of happy hunting-ground for the adventurous, a playground +for passions that are fast becoming atrophied for want of +exercise. In old bygone days we had the wars in the Low +Countries always at our doors, as it were; there was no need to +go far afield into malaria-stricken wilds if one wanted a life of +boot and saddle and licence to kill and be killed. Those +who wished to see life had a decent opportunity for seeing death +at the same time.”</p> +<p>“It is scarcely right to talk of killing and bloodshed +in that way,” said the Merchant reprovingly; “one +must remember that all men are brothers.”</p> +<p>“One must also remember that a large percentage of them +are younger brothers; instead of going into bankruptcy, which is +the usual tendency of the younger brother nowadays, they gave +their families a fair chance of going into mourning. Every +bullet finds a billet, according to a rather optimistic proverb, +and you must admit that nowadays it is becoming increasingly +difficult to find billets for a lot of young gentlemen who would +have adorned, and probably thoroughly enjoyed, one of the +old-time happy-go-lucky wars. But that is not exactly the +burden of my complaint. The Balkan lands are especially +interesting to us in these rapidly-moving days because they +afford us the last remaining glimpse of a vanishing period of +European history. When I was a child one of the earliest +events of the outside world that forced itself coherently under +my notice was a war in the Balkans; I remember a sunburnt, +soldierly man putting little pin-flags in a war-map, red flags +for the Turkish forces and yellow flags for the Russians. +It seemed a magical region, with its mountain passes and frozen +rivers and grim battlefields, its drifting snows, and prowling +wolves; there was a great stretch of water that bore the sinister +but engaging name of the Black Sea—nothing that I ever +learned before or after in a geography lesson made the same +impression on me as that strange-named inland sea, and I +don’t think its magic has ever faded out of my +imagination. And there was a battle called Plevna that went +on and on with varying fortunes for what seemed like a great part +of a lifetime; I remember the day of wrath and mourning when the +little red flag had to be taken away from Plevna—like other +maturer judges, I was backing the wrong horse, at any rate the +losing horse. And now to-day we are putting little +pin-flags again into maps of the Balkan region, and the passions +are being turned loose once more in their playground.”</p> +<p>“The war will be localised,” said the Merchant +vaguely; “at least every one hopes so.”</p> +<p>“It couldn’t wish for a better locality,” +said the Wanderer; “there is a charm about those countries +that you find nowhere else in Europe, the charm of uncertainty +and landslide, and the little dramatic happenings that make all +the difference between the ordinary and the desirable.”</p> +<p>“Life is held very cheap in those parts,” said the +Merchant.</p> +<p>“To a certain extent, yes,” said the +Wanderer. “I remember a man at Sofia who used to +teach me Bulgarian in a rather inefficient manner, interspersed +with a lot of quite wearisome gossip. I never knew what his +personal history was, but that was only because I didn’t +listen; he told it to me many times. After I left Bulgaria +he used to send me Sofia newspapers from time to time. I +felt that he would be rather tiresome if I ever went there +again. And then I heard afterwards that some men came in +one day from Heaven knows where, just as things do happen in the +Balkans, and murdered him in the open street, and went away as +quietly as they had come. You will not understand it, but +to me there was something rather piquant in the idea of such a +thing happening to such a man; after his dullness and his +long-winded small-talk it seemed a sort of brilliant <i>esprit +d’esalier</i> on his part to meet with an end of such +ruthlessly planned and executed violence.”</p> +<p>The Merchant shook his head; the piquancy of the incident was +not within striking distance of his comprehension.</p> +<p>“I should have been shocked at hearing such a thing +about any one I had known,” he said.</p> +<p>“The present war,” continued his companion, +without stopping to discuss two hopelessly divergent points of +view, “may be the beginning of the end of much that has +hitherto survived the resistless creeping-in of +civilisation. If the Balkan lands are to be finally +parcelled out between the competing Christian Kingdoms and the +haphazard rule of the Turk banished to beyond the Sea of Marmora, +the old order, or disorder if you like, will have received its +death-blow. Something of its spirit will linger perhaps for +a while in the old charmed regions where it bore sway; the Greek +villagers will doubtless be restless and turbulent and unhappy +where the Bulgars rule, and the Bulgars will certainly be +restless and turbulent and unhappy under Greek administration, +and the rival flocks of the Exarchate and Patriarchate will make +themselves intensely disagreeable to one another wherever the +opportunity offers; the habits of a lifetime, of several +lifetimes, are not laid aside all at once. And the +Albanians, of course, we shall have with us still, a troubled +Moslem pool left by the receding wave of Islam in Europe. +But the old atmosphere will have changed, the glamour will have +gone; the dust of formality and bureaucratic neatness will slowly +settle down over the time-honoured landmarks; the Sanjak of Novi +Bazar, the Muersteg Agreement, the Komitadje bands, the Vilayet +of Adrianople, all those familiar outlandish names and things and +places, that we have known so long as part and parcel of the +Balkan Question, will have passed away into the cupboard of +yesterdays, as completely as the Hansa League and the wars of the +Guises.</p> +<p>“They were the heritage that history handed down to us, +spoiled and diminished no doubt, in comparison with yet earlier +days that we never knew, but still something to thrill and +enliven one little corner of our Continent, something to help us +to conjure up in our imagination the days when the Turk was +thundering at the gates of Vienna. And what shall we have +to hand down to our children? Think of what their news from +the Balkans will be in the course of another ten or fifteen +years. Socialist Congress at Uskub, election riot at +Monastir, great dock strike at Salonika, visit of the Y.M.C.A. to +Varna. Varna—on the coast of that enchanted +sea! They will drive out to some suburb to tea, and write +home about it as the Bexhill of the East.</p> +<p>“War is a wickedly destructive thing.”</p> +<p>“Still, you must admit—” began the +Merchant. But the Wanderer was not in the mood to admit +anything. He rose impatiently and walked to where the +tape-machine was busy with the news from Adrianople.</p> +<h2><a name="page295"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 295</span>FOR +THE DURATION OF THE WAR</h2> +<p>The Rev. Wilfrid Gaspilton, in one of those clerical +migrations inconsequent-seeming to the lay mind, had removed from +the moderately fashionable parish of St. Luke’s, +Kensingate, to the immoderately rural parish of St. Chuddocks, +somewhere in Yondershire. There were doubtless substantial +advantages connected with the move, but there were certainly some +very obvious drawbacks. Neither the migratory clergyman nor +his wife were able to adapt themselves naturally and comfortably +to the conditions of country life. Beryl, Mrs. Gaspilton, +had always looked indulgently on the country as a place where +people of irreproachable income and hospitable instincts +cultivated tennis-lawns and rose-gardens and Jacobean +pleasaunces, wherein selected gatherings of interested week-end +guests might disport themselves. Mrs. Gaspilton considered +herself as distinctly an interesting personality, and from a +limited standpoint she was doubtless right. She had +indolent dark eyes and a comfortable chin, which belied the +slightly plaintive inflection which she threw into her voice at +suitable intervals. She was tolerably well satisfied with +the smaller advantages of life, but she regretted that Fate had +not seen its way to reserve for her some of the ampler successes +for which she felt herself well qualified. She would have +liked to be the centre of a literary, slightly political salon, +where discerning satellites might have recognised the breadth of +her outlook on human affairs and the undoubted smallness of her +feet. As it was, Destiny had chosen for her that she should +be the wife of a rector, and had now further decreed that a +country rectory should be the background to her existence. +She rapidly made up her mind that her surroundings did not call +for exploration; Noah had predicted the Flood, but no one +expected him to swim about in it. Digging in a wet garden +or trudging through muddy lanes were exertions which she did not +propose to undertake. As long as the garden produced +asparagus and carnations at pleasingly frequent intervals Mrs. +Gaspilton was content to approve of its expense and otherwise +ignore its existence. She would fold herself up, so to +speak, in an elegant, indolent little world of her own, enjoying +the minor recreations of being gently rude to the doctor’s +wife and continuing the leisurely production of her one literary +effort, <i>The Forbidden Horsepond</i>, a translation of Baptiste +Leopoy’s <i>L’Abreuvoir interdit</i>. It was a +labour which had already been so long drawn-out that it seemed +probable that Baptiste Lepoy would drop out of vogue before her +translation of his temporarily famous novel was finished. +However, the languid prosecution of the work had invested Mrs. +Gaspilton with a certain literary dignity, even in Kensingate +circles, and would place her on a pinnacle in St. Chuddocks, +where hardly any one read French, and assuredly no one had heard +of <i>L’Abreuvoir interdit</i>.</p> +<p>The Rector’s wife might be content to turn her back +complacently on the country; it was the Rector’s tragedy +that the country turned its back on him. With the best +intention in the world and the immortal example of Gilbert White +before him, the Rev. Wilfrid found himself as bored and ill at +ease in his new surroundings as Charles II would have been at a +modern Wesleyan Conference. The birds that hopped across +his lawn hopped across it as though it were their lawn, and not +his, and gave him plainly to understand that in their eyes he was +infinitely less interesting than a garden worm or the rectory +cat. The hedgeside and meadow flowers were equally +uninspiring; the lesser celandine seemed particularly unworthy of +the attention that English poets had bestowed on it, and the +Rector knew that he would be utterly miserable if left alone for +a quarter of an hour in its company. With the human +inhabitants of his parish he was no better off; to know them was +merely to know their ailments, and the ailments were almost +invariably rheumatism. Some, of course, had other bodily +infirmities, but they always had rheumatism as well. The +Rector had not yet grasped the fact that in rural cottage life +not to have rheumatism is as glaring an omission as not to have +been presented at Court would be in more ambitious circles. +And with all this death of local interest there was Beryl +shutting herself off with her ridiculous labours on <i>The +Forbidden Horsepond</i>.</p> +<p>“I don’t see why you should suppose that any one +wants to read Baptiste Lepoy in English,” the Reverend +Wilfrid remarked to his wife one morning, finding her surrounded +with her usual elegant litter of dictionaries, fountain pens, and +scribbling paper; “hardly any one bothers to read him now +in France.”</p> +<p>“My dear,” said Beryl, with an intonation of +gentle weariness, “haven’t two or three leading +London publishers told me they wondered no one had ever +translated <i>L’Abreuvoir interdit</i>, and begged +me—”</p> +<p>“Publishers always clamour for the books that no one has +ever written, and turn a cold shoulder on them as soon as +they’re written. If St. Paul were living now they +would pester him to write an Epistle to the Esquimaux, but no +London publisher would dream of reading his Epistle to the +Ephesians.”</p> +<p>“Is there any asparagus in the garden?” asked +Beryl; “because I’ve told cook—”</p> +<p>“Not anywhere in the garden,” snapped the Rector, +“but there’s no doubt plenty in the asparagus-bed, +which is the usual place for it.”</p> +<p>And he walked away into the region of fruit trees and +vegetable beds to exchange irritation for boredom. It was +there, among the gooseberry bushes and beneath the medlar trees, +that the temptation to the perpetration of a great literary fraud +came to him.</p> +<p>Some weeks later the <i>Bi-Monthly Review</i> gave to the +world, under the guarantee of the Rev. Wilfrid Gaspilton, some +fragments of Persian verse, alleged to have been unearthed and +translated by a nephew who was at present campaigning somewhere +in the Tigris valley. The Rev. Wilfrid possessed a host of +nephews, and it was of course, quite possible that one or more of +them might be in military employ in Mesopotamia, though no one +could call to mind any particular nephew who could have been +suspected of being a Persian scholar.</p> +<p>The verses were attributed to one Ghurab, a hunter, or, +according to other accounts, warden of the royal fishponds, who +lived, in some unspecified century, in the neighbourhood of +Karmanshah. They breathed a spirit of comfortable, +even-tempered satire and philosophy, disclosing a mockery that +did not trouble to be bitter, a joy in life that was not +passionate to the verge of being troublesome.</p> +<blockquote><p>“A Mouse that prayed for Allah’s +aid<br /> + Blasphemed when no such aid befell:<br /> +A Cat, who feasted on that mouse,<br /> + Thought Allah managed vastly well.</p> +<p>Pray not for aid to One who made<br /> + A set of never-changing Laws,<br /> +But in your need remember well<br /> + He gave you speed, or guile—or claws.</p> +<p>Some laud a life of mild content:<br /> + Content may fall, as well as Pride.<br /> +The Frog who hugged his lowly Ditch<br /> + Was much disgruntled when it dried.</p> +<p>‘You are not on the Road to Hell,’<br /> + You tell me with fanatic glee:<br /> +Vain boaster, what shall that avail<br /> + If Hell is on the road to thee?</p> +<p>A Poet praised the Evening Star,<br /> + Another praised the Parrot’s hue:<br /> +A Merchant praised his merchandise,<br /> + And he, at least, praised what he knew.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>It was this verse which gave the critics and commentators some +clue as to the probable date of the composition; the parrot, they +reminded the public, was in high vogue as a type of elegance in +the days of Hafiz of Shiraz; in the quatrains of Omar it makes no +appearance.</p> +<p>The next verse, it was pointed out, would apply to the +political conditions of the present day as strikingly as to the +region and era for which it was written—</p> +<blockquote><p>“A Sultan dreamed day-long of Peace,<br /> + The while his Rivals’ armies grew:<br /> +They changed his Day-dreams into sleep<br /> + —The Peace, methinks, he never +knew.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Woman appeared little, and wine not at all in the verse of the +hunter-poet, but there was at least one contribution to the +love-philosophy of the East—</p> +<blockquote><p>“O Moon-faced Charmer, and +Star-drownèd Eyes,<br /> + And cheeks of soft delight, exhaling musk,<br /> +They tell me that thy charm will fade; ah well,<br /> + The Rose itself grows hue-less in the +Dusk.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Finally, there was a recognition of the Inevitable, a chill +breath blowing across the poet’s comfortable estimate of +life—</p> +<blockquote><p>“There is a sadness in each Dawn,<br /> + A sadness that you cannot rede:<br /> +The joyous Day brings in its train<br /> + The Feast, the Loved One, and the Steed.</p> +<p>Ah, there shall come a Dawn at last<br /> + That brings no life-stir to your ken,<br /> +A long, cold Dawn without a Day,<br /> + And ye shall rede its sadness then.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>The verses of Ghurab came on the public at a moment when a +comfortable, slightly quizzical philosophy was certain to be +welcome, and their reception was enthusiastic. Elderly +colonels, who had outlived the love of truth, wrote to the papers +to say that they had been familiar with the works of Ghurab in +Afghanistan, and Aden, and other suitable localities a quarter of +a century ago. A Ghurab-of-Karmanshah Club sprang into +existence, the members of which alluded to each other as Brother +Ghurabians on the slightest provocation. And to the flood +of inquiries, criticisms, and requests for information, which +naturally poured in on the discoverer, or rather the discloser, +of this long-hidden poet, the Rev. Wilfrid made one effectual +reply: Military considerations forbade any disclosures which +might throw unnecessary light on his nephew’s +movements.</p> +<p>After the war the Rector’s position will be one of +unthinkable embarrassment, but for the moment, at any rate, he +has driven <i>The Forbidden Horsepond</i> out of the field.</p> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TOYS OF PEACE***</p> +<pre> + + +***** This file should be named 1477-h.htm or 1477-h.zip****** + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/4/7/1477 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +http://www.gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at http://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/pglaf. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at http://www.gutenberg.org/about/contact + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit http://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/donate + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. +To donate, please visit: +http://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + +</pre></body> +</html> diff --git a/1477.txt b/1477.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..113fb42 --- /dev/null +++ b/1477.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6819 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Toys of Peace, by Saki + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: The Toys of Peace + + +Author: Saki + +Release Date: April 19, 2005 [eBook #1477] +[Last updated: June 29, 2012] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TOYS OF PEACE*** + + + + + + +Transcribed from the 1919 John Lane edition by Jane Duff and David Price, +email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk. + + + + + +THE TOYS OF PEACE + + +Contents: + +The Toys of Peace +Louise +Tea +The Disappearance of Crispina Umberleigh +The Wolves of Cernogratz +Louis +The Guests +The Penance +The Phantom Luncheon +A Bread and Butter Miss +Bertie's Christmas Eve +Forewarned +The Interlopers +Quail Seed +Canossa +The Threat +Excepting Mrs. Pentherby +Mark +The Hedgehog +The Mappined Life +Fate +The Bull +Morlvera +Shock Tactics +The Seven Cream Jugs +The Occasional Garden +The Sheep +The Oversight +Hyacinth +The Image of the Lost Soul +The Purple of the Balkan Kings +The Cupboard of the Yesterdays +For the Duration of the War + + + + +THE TOYS OF PEACE + + +"Harvey," said Eleanor Bope, handing her brother a cutting from a London +morning paper of the 19th of March, "just read this about children's +toys, please; it exactly carries out some of our ideas about influence +and upbringing." + +"In the view of the National Peace Council," ran the extract, "there are +grave objections to presenting our boys with regiments of fighting men, +batteries of guns, and squadrons of 'Dreadnoughts.' Boys, the Council +admits, naturally love fighting and all the panoply of war . . . but that +is no reason for encouraging, and perhaps giving permanent form to, their +primitive instincts. At the Children's Welfare Exhibition, which opens +at Olympia in three weeks' time, the Peace Council will make an +alternative suggestion to parents in the shape of an exhibition of 'peace +toys.' In front of a specially-painted representation of the Peace +Palace at The Hague will be grouped, not miniature soldiers but miniature +civilians, not guns but ploughs and the tools of industry . . . It is +hoped that manufacturers may take a hint from the exhibit, which will +bear fruit in the toy shops." + +"The idea is certainly an interesting and very well-meaning one," said +Harvey; "whether it would succeed well in practice--" + +"We must try," interrupted his sister; "you are coming down to us at +Easter, and you always bring the boys some toys, so that will be an +excellent opportunity for you to inaugurate the new experiment. Go about +in the shops and buy any little toys and models that have special bearing +on civilian life in its more peaceful aspects. Of course you must +explain the toys to the children and interest them in the new idea. I +regret to say that the 'Siege of Adrianople' toy, that their Aunt Susan +sent them, didn't need any explanation; they knew all the uniforms and +flags, and even the names of the respective commanders, and when I heard +them one day using what seemed to be the most objectionable language they +said it was Bulgarian words of command; of course it _may_ have been, but +at any rate I took the toy away from them. Now I shall expect your +Easter gifts to give quite a new impulse and direction to the children's +minds; Eric is not eleven yet, and Bertie is only nine-and-a-half, so +they are really at a most impressionable age." + +"There is primitive instinct to be taken into consideration, you know," +said Harvey doubtfully, "and hereditary tendencies as well. One of their +great-uncles fought in the most intolerant fashion at Inkerman--he was +specially mentioned in dispatches, I believe--and their great-grandfather +smashed all his Whig neighbours' hot houses when the great Reform Bill +was passed. Still, as you say, they are at an impressionable age. I +will do my best." + +On Easter Saturday Harvey Bope unpacked a large, promising-looking red +cardboard box under the expectant eyes of his nephews. "Your uncle has +brought you the newest thing in toys," Eleanor had said impressively, and +youthful anticipation had been anxiously divided between Albanian +soldiery and a Somali camel-corps. Eric was hotly in favour of the +latter contingency. "There would be Arabs on horseback," he whispered; +"the Albanians have got jolly uniforms, and they fight all day long, and +all night, too, when there's a moon, but the country's rocky, so they've +got no cavalry." + +A quantity of crinkly paper shavings was the first thing that met the +view when the lid was removed; the most exiting toys always began like +that. Harvey pushed back the top layer and drew forth a square, rather +featureless building. + +"It's a fort!" exclaimed Bertie. + +"It isn't, it's the palace of the Mpret of Albania," said Eric, immensely +proud of his knowledge of the exotic title; "it's got no windows, you +see, so that passers-by can't fire in at the Royal Family." + +"It's a municipal dust-bin," said Harvey hurriedly; "you see all the +refuse and litter of a town is collected there, instead of lying about +and injuring the health of the citizens." + +In an awful silence he disinterred a little lead figure of a man in black +clothes. + +"That," he said, "is a distinguished civilian, John Stuart Mill. He was +an authority on political economy." + +"Why?" asked Bertie. + +"Well, he wanted to be; he thought it was a useful thing to be." + +Bertie gave an expressive grunt, which conveyed his opinion that there +was no accounting for tastes. + +Another square building came out, this time with windows and chimneys. + +"A model of the Manchester branch of the Young Women's Christian +Association," said Harvey. + +"Are there any lions?" asked Eric hopefully. He had been reading Roman +history and thought that where you found Christians you might reasonably +expect to find a few lions. + +"There are no lions," said Harvey. "Here is another civilian, Robert +Raikes, the founder of Sunday schools, and here is a model of a municipal +wash-house. These little round things are loaves baked in a sanitary +bakehouse. That lead figure is a sanitary inspector, this one is a +district councillor, and this one is an official of the Local Government +Board." + +"What does he do?" asked Eric wearily. + +"He sees to things connected with his Department," said Harvey. "This +box with a slit in it is a ballot-box. Votes are put into it at election +times." + +"What is put into it at other times?" asked Bertie. + +"Nothing. And here are some tools of industry, a wheelbarrow and a hoe, +and I think these are meant for hop-poles. This is a model beehive, and +that is a ventilator, for ventilating sewers. This seems to be another +municipal dust-bin--no, it is a model of a school of art and public +library. This little lead figure is Mrs. Hemans, a poetess, and this is +Rowland Hill, who introduced the system of penny postage. This is Sir +John Herschel, the eminent astrologer." + +"Are we to play with these civilian figures?" asked Eric. + +"Of course," said Harvey, "these are toys; they are meant to be played +with." + +"But how?" + +It was rather a poser. "You might make two of them contest a seat in +Parliament," said Harvey, "an have an election--" + +"With rotten eggs, and free fights, and ever so many broken heads!" +exclaimed Eric. + +"And noses all bleeding and everybody drunk as can be," echoed Bertie, +who had carefully studied one of Hogarth's pictures. + +"Nothing of the kind," said Harvey, "nothing in the least like that. +Votes will be put in the ballot-box, and the Mayor will count them--and +he will say which has received the most votes, and then the two +candidates will thank him for presiding, and each will say that the +contest has been conducted throughout in the pleasantest and most +straightforward fashion, and they part with expressions of mutual esteem. +There's a jolly game for you boys to play. I never had such toys when I +was young." + +"I don't think we'll play with them just now," said Eric, with an entire +absence of the enthusiasm that his uncle had shown; "I think perhaps we +ought to do a little of our holiday task. It's history this time; we've +got to learn up something about the Bourbon period in France." + +"The Bourbon period," said Harvey, with some disapproval in his voice. + +"We've got to know something about Louis the Fourteenth," continued Eric; +"I've learnt the names of all the principal battles already." + +This would never do. "There were, of course, some battles fought during +his reign," said Harvey, "but I fancy the accounts of them were much +exaggerated; news was very unreliable in those days, and there were +practically no war correspondents, so generals and commanders could +magnify every little skirmish they engaged in till they reached the +proportions of decisive battles. Louis was really famous, now, as a +landscape gardener; the way he laid out Versailles was so much admired +that it was copied all over Europe." + +"Do you know anything about Madame Du Barry?" asked Eric; "didn't she +have her head chopped off?" + +"She was another great lover of gardening," said Harvey, evasively; "in +fact, I believe the well known rose Du Barry was named after her, and now +I think you had better play for a little and leave your lessons till +later." + +Harvey retreated to the library and spent some thirty or forty minutes in +wondering whether it would be possible to compile a history, for use in +elementary schools, in which there should be no prominent mention of +battles, massacres, murderous intrigues, and violent deaths. The York +and Lancaster period and the Napoleonic era would, he admitted to +himself, present considerable difficulties, and the Thirty Years' War +would entail something of a gap if you left it out altogether. Still, it +would be something gained if, at a highly impressionable age, children +could be got to fix their attention on the invention of calico printing +instead of the Spanish Armada or the Battle of Waterloo. + +It was time, he thought, to go back to the boys' room, and see how they +were getting on with their peace toys. As he stood outside the door he +could hear Eric's voice raised in command; Bertie chimed in now and again +with a helpful suggestion. + +"That is Louis the Fourteenth," Eric was saying, "that one in +knee-breeches, that Uncle said invented Sunday schools. It isn't a bit +like him, but it'll have to do." + +"We'll give him a purple coat from my paintbox by and by," said Bertie. + +"Yes, an' red heels. That is Madame de Maintenon, that one he called +Mrs. Hemans. She begs Louis not to go on this expedition, but he turns a +deaf ear. He takes Marshal Saxe with him, and we must pretend that they +have thousands of men with them. The watchword is _Qui vive_? and the +answer is _L'etat c'est moi_--that was one of his favourite remarks, you +know. They land at Manchester in the dead of the night, and a Jacobite +conspirator gives them the keys of the fortress." + +Peeping in through the doorway Harvey observed that the municipal dust- +bin had been pierced with holes to accommodate the muzzles of imaginary +cannon, and now represented the principal fortified position in +Manchester; John Stuart Mill had been dipped in red ink, and apparently +stood for Marshal Saxe. + +"Louis orders his troops to surround the Young Women's Christian +Association and seize the lot of them. 'Once back at the Louvre and the +girls are mine,' he exclaims. We must use Mrs. Hemans again for one of +the girls; she says 'Never,' and stabs Marshal Saxe to the heart." + +"He bleeds dreadfully," exclaimed Bertie, splashing red ink liberally +over the facade of the Association building. + +"The soldiers rush in and avenge his death with the utmost savagery. A +hundred girls are killed"--here Bertie emptied the remainder of the red +ink over the devoted building--"and the surviving five hundred are +dragged off to the French ships. 'I have lost a Marshal,' says Louis, +'but I do not go back empty-handed.'" + +Harvey stole away from the room, and sought out his sister. + +"Eleanor," he said, "the experiment--" + +"Yes?" + +"Has failed. We have begun too late." + + + + +LOUISE + + +"The tea will be quite cold, you'd better ring for some more," said the +Dowager Lady Beanford. + +Susan Lady Beanford was a vigorous old woman who had coquetted with +imaginary ill-health for the greater part of a lifetime; Clovis Sangrail +irreverently declared that she had caught a chill at the Coronation of +Queen Victoria and had never let it go again. Her sister, Jane +Thropplestance, who was some years her junior, was chiefly remarkable for +being the most absent-minded woman in Middlesex. + +"I've really been unusually clever this afternoon," she remarked gaily, +as she rang for the tea. "I've called on all the people I meant to call +on; and I've done all the shopping that I set out to do. I even +remembered to try and match that silk for you at Harrod's, but I'd +forgotten to bring the pattern with me, so it was no use. I really think +that was the only important thing I forgot during the whole afternoon. +Quite wonderful for me, isn't it?" + +"What have you done with Louise?" asked her sister. "Didn't you take her +out with you? You said you were going to." + +"Good gracious," exclaimed Jane, "what have I done with Louise? I must +have left her somewhere." + +"But where?" + +"That's just it. Where have I left her? I can't remember if the +Carrywoods were at home or if I just left cards. If there were at home I +may have left Louise there to play bridge. I'll go and telephone to Lord +Carrywood and find out." + +"Is that you, Lord Carrywood?" she queried over the telephone; "it's me, +Jane Thropplestance. I want to know, have you seen Louise?" + +"'Louise,'" came the answer, "it's been my fate to see it three times. At +first, I must admit, I wasn't impressed by it, but the music grows on one +after a bit. Still, I don't think I want to see it again just at +present. Were you going to offer me a seat in your box?" + +"Not the opera 'Louise'--my niece, Louise Thropplestance. I thought I +might have left her at your house." + +"You left cards on us this afternoon, I understand, but I don't think you +left a niece. The footman would have been sure to have mentioned it if +you had. Is it going to be a fashion to leave nieces on people as well +as cards? I hope not; some of these houses in Berkeley-square have +practically no accommodation for that sort of thing." + +"She's not at the Carrywoods'," announced Jane, returning to her tea; +"now I come to think of it, perhaps I left her at the silk counter at +Selfridge's. I may have told her to wait there a moment while I went to +look at the silks in a better light, and I may easily have forgotten +about her when Ifound I hadn't your pattern with me. In that case she's +still sitting there. She wouldn't move unless she was told to; Louise +has no initiative." + +"You said you tried to match the silk at Harrod's," interjected the +dowager. + +"Did I? Perhaps it was Harrod's. I really don't remember. It was one +of those places where every one is so kind and sympathetic and devoted +that one almost hates to take even a reel of cotton away from such +pleasant surroundings." + +"I think you might have taken Louise away. I don't like the idea of her +being there among a lot of strangers. Supposing some unprincipled person +was to get into conversation with her." + +"Impossible. Louise has no conversation. I've never discovered a single +topic on which she'd anything to say beyond 'Do you think so? I dare say +you're right.' I really thought her reticence about the fall of the +Ribot Ministry was ridiculous, considering how much her dear mother used +to visit Paris. This bread and butter is cut far too thin; it crumbles +away long before you can get it to your mouth. One feels so absurd, +snapping at one's food in mid-air, like a trout leaping at may-fly." + +"I am rather surprised," said the dowager, "that you can sit there making +a hearty tea when you've just lost a favourite niece." + +"You talk as if I'd lost her in a churchyard sense, instead of having +temporarily mislaid her. I'm sure to remember presently where I left +her." + +"You didn't visit any place of devotion, did you? If you've left her +mooning about Westminster Abbey or St. Peter's, Eaton Square, without +being able to give any satisfactory reason why she's there, she'll be +seized under the Cat and Mouse Act and sent to Reginald McKenna." + +"That would be extremely awkward," said Jane, meeting an irresolute piece +of bread and butter halfway; "we hardly know the McKennas, and it would +be very tiresome having to telephone to some unsympathetic private +secretary, describing Louise to him and asking to have her sent back in +time for dinner. Fortunately, I didn't go to any place of devotion, +though I did get mixed up with a Salvation Army procession. It was quite +interesting to be at close quarters with them, they're so absolutely +different to what they used to be when I first remember them in the +'eighties. They used to go about then unkempt and dishevelled, in a sort +of smiling rage with the world, and now they're spruce and jaunty and +flamboyantly decorative, like a geranium bed with religious convictions. +Laura Kettleway was going on about them in the lift of the Dover Street +Tube the other day, saying what a lot of good work they did, and what a +loss it would have been if they'd never existed. 'If they had never +existed,' I said, 'Granville Barker would have been certain to have +invented something that looked exactly like them.' If you say things +like that, quite loud, in a Tube lift, they always sound like epigrams." + +"I think you ought to do something about Louise," said the dowager. + +"I'm trying to think whether she was with me when I called on Ada +Spelvexit. I rather enjoyed myself there. Ada was trying, as usual, to +ram that odious Koriatoffski woman down my throat, knowing perfectly well +that I detest her, and in an unguarded moment she said: 'She's leaving +her present house and going to Lower Seymour Street.' 'I dare say she +will, if she stays there long enough,' I said. Ada didn't see it for +about three minutes, and then she was positively uncivil. No, I am +certain I didn't leave Louise there." + +"If you could manage to remember where you _did_ leave her, it would be +more to the point than these negative assurances," said Lady Beanford; +"so far, all we know is that she is not at the Carrywoods', or Ada +Spelvexit's, or Westminster Abbey." + +"That narrows the search down a bit," said Jane hopefully; "I rather +fancy she must have been with me when I went to Mornay's. I know I went +to Mornay's, because I remember meeting that delightful Malcolm What's- +his-name there--you know whom I mean. That's the great advantage of +people having unusual first names, you needn't try and remember what +their other name is. Of course I know one or two other Malcolms, but +none that could possibly be described as delightful. He gave me two +tickets for the Happy Sunday Evenings in Sloane Square. I've probably +left them at Mornay's, but still it was awfully kind of him to give them +to me." + +"Do you think you left Louise there?" + +"I might telephone and ask. Oh, Robert, before you clear the tea-things +away I wish you'd ring up Mornay's, in Regent Street, and ask if I left +two theatre tickets and one niece in their shop this afternoon." + +"A niece, ma'am?" asked the footman. + +"Yes, Miss Louise didn't come home with me, and I'm not sure where I left +her." + +"Miss Louise has been upstairs all the afternoon, ma'am, reading to the +second kitchenmaid, who has the neuralgia. I took up tea to Miss Louise +at a quarter to five o'clock, ma'am." + +"Of course, how silly of me. I remember now, I asked her to read the +_Faerie Queene_ to poor Emma, to try to send her to sleep. I always get +some one to read the _Faerie Queene_ to me when I have neuralgia, and it +usually sends me to sleep. Louise doesn't seem to have been successful, +but one can't say she hasn't tried. I expect after the first hour or so +the kitchenmaid would rather have been left alone with her neuralgia, but +of course Louise wouldn't leave off till some one told her to. Anyhow, +you can ring up Mornay's, Robert, and ask whether I left two theatre +tickets there. Except for your silk, Susan, those seem to be the only +things I've forgotten this afternoon. Quite wonderful for me." + + + + +TEA + + +James Cushat-Prinkly was a young man who had always had a settled +conviction that one of these days he would marry; up to the age of thirty- +four he had done nothing to justify that conviction. He liked and +admired a great many women collectively and dispassionately without +singling out one for especial matrimonial consideration, just as one +might admire the Alps without feeling that one wanted any particular peak +as one's own private property. His lack of initiative in this matter +aroused a certain amount of impatience among the sentimentally-minded +women-folk of his home circle; his mother, his sisters, an +aunt-in-residence, and two or three intimate matronly friends regarded +his dilatory approach to the married state with a disapproval that was +far from being inarticulate. His most innocent flirtations were watched +with the straining eagerness which a group of unexercised terriers +concentrates on the slightest movements of a human being who may be +reasonably considered likely to take them for a walk. No decent-souled +mortal can long resist the pleading of several pairs of walk-beseeching +dog-eyes; James Cushat-Prinkly was not sufficiently obstinate or +indifferent to home influences to disregard the obviously expressed wish +of his family that he should become enamoured of some nice marriageable +girl, and when his Uncle Jules departed this life and bequeathed him a +comfortable little legacy it really seemed the correct thing to do to set +about discovering some one to share it with him. The process of +discovery was carried on more by the force of suggestion and the weight +of public opinion than by any initiative of his own; a clear working +majority of his female relatives and the aforesaid matronly friends had +pitched on Joan Sebastable as the most suitable young woman in his range +of acquaintance to whom he might propose marriage, and James became +gradually accustomed to the idea that he and Joan would go together +through the prescribed stages of congratulations, present-receiving, +Norwegian or Mediterranean hotels, and eventual domesticity. It was +necessary, however to ask the lady what she thought about the matter; the +family had so far conducted and directed the flirtation with ability and +discretion, but the actual proposal would have to be an individual +effort. + +Cushat-Prinkly walked across the Park towards the Sebastable residence in +a frame of mind that was moderately complacent. As the thing was going +to be done he was glad to feel that he was going to get it settled and +off his mind that afternoon. Proposing marriage, even to a nice girl +like Joan, was a rather irksome business, but one could not have a +honeymoon in Minorca and a subsequent life of married happiness without +such preliminary. He wondered what Minorca was really like as a place to +stop in; in his mind's eye it was an island in perpetual half-mourning, +with black or white Minorca hens running all over it. Probably it would +not be a bit like that when one came to examine it. People who had been +in Russia had told him that they did not remember having seen any Muscovy +ducks there, so it was possible that there would be no Minorca fowls on +the island. + +His Mediterranean musings were interrupted by the sound of a clock +striking the half-hour. Half-past four. A frown of dissatisfaction +settled on his face. He would arrive at the Sebastable mansion just at +the hour of afternoon tea. Joan would be seated at a low table, spread +with an array of silver kettles and cream-jugs and delicate porcelain tea- +cups, behind which her voice would tinkle pleasantly in a series of +little friendly questions about weak or strong tea, how much, if any, +sugar, milk, cream, and so forth. "Is it one lump? I forgot. You do +take milk, don't you? Would you like some more hot water, if it's too +strong?" + +Cushat-Prinkly had read of such things in scores of novels, and hundreds +of actual experiences had told him that they were true to life. Thousands +of women, at this solemn afternoon hour, were sitting behind dainty +porcelain and silver fittings, with their voices tinkling pleasantly in a +cascade of solicitous little questions. Cushat-Prinkly detested the +whole system of afternoon tea. According to his theory of life a woman +should lie on a divan or couch, talking with incomparable charm or +looking unutterable thoughts, or merely silent as a thing to be looked +on, and from behind a silken curtain a small Nubian page should silently +bring in a tray with cups and dainties, to be accepted silently, as a +matter of course, without drawn-out chatter about cream and sugar and hot +water. If one's soul was really enslaved at one's mistress's feet how +could one talk coherently about weakened tea? Cushat-Prinkly had never +expounded his views on the subject to his mother; all her life she had +been accustomed to tinkle pleasantly at tea-time behind dainty porcelain +and silver, and if he had spoken to her about divans and Nubian pages she +would have urged him to take a week's holiday at the seaside. Now, as he +passed through a tangle of small streets that led indirectly to the +elegant Mayfair terrace for which he was bound, a horror at the idea of +confronting Joan Sebastable at her tea-table seized on him. A momentary +deliverance presented itself; on one floor of a narrow little house at +the noisier end of Esquimault Street lived Rhoda Ellam, a sort of remote +cousin, who made a living by creating hats out of costly materials. The +hats really looked as if they had come from Paris; the cheques she got +for them unfortunately never looked as if they were going to Paris. +However, Rhoda appeared to find life amusing and to have a fairly good +time in spite of her straitened circumstances. Cushat-Prinkly decided to +climb up to her floor and defer by half-an-hour or so the important +business which lay before him; by spinning out his visit he could +contrive to reach the Sebastable mansion after the last vestiges of +dainty porcelain had been cleared away. + +Rhoda welcomed him into a room that seemed to do duty as workshop, +sitting-room, and kitchen combined, and to be wonderfully clean and +comfortable at the same time. + +"I'm having a picnic meal," she announced. "There's caviare in that jar +at your elbow. Begin on that brown bread-and-butter while I cut some +more. Find yourself a cup; the teapot is behind you. Now tell me about +hundreds of things." + +She made no other allusion to food, but talked amusingly and made her +visitor talk amusingly too. At the same time she cut the +bread-and-butter with a masterly skill and produced red pepper and sliced +lemon, where so many women would merely have produced reasons and regrets +for not having any. Cushat-Prinkly found that he was enjoying an +excellent tea without having to answer as many questions about it as a +Minister for Agriculture might be called on to reply to during an +outbreak of cattle plague. + +"And now tell me why you have come to see me," said Rhoda suddenly. "You +arouse not merely my curiosity but my business instincts. I hope you've +come about hats. I heard that you had come into a legacy the other day, +and, of course, it struck me that it would be a beautiful and desirable +thing for you to celebrate the event by buying brilliantly expensive hats +for all your sisters. They may not have said anything about it, but I +feel sure the same idea has occurred to them. Of course, with Goodwood +on us, I am rather rushed just now, but in my business we're accustomed +to that; we live in a series of rushes--like the infant Moses." + +"I didn't come about hats," said her visitor. "In fact, I don't think I +really came about anything. I was passing and I just thought I'd look in +and see you. Since I've been sitting talking to you, however, rather +important idea has occurred to me. If you'll forget Goodwood for a +moment and listen to me, I'll tell you what it is." + +Some forty minutes later James Cushat-Prinkly returned to the bosom of +his family, bearing an important piece of news. + +"I'm engaged to be married," he announced. + +A rapturous outbreak of congratulation and self-applause broke out. + +"Ah, we knew! We saw it coming! We foretold it weeks ago!" + +"I'll bet you didn't," said Cushat-Prinkly. "If any one had told me at +lunch-time to-day that I was going to ask Rhoda Ellam to marry me and +that she was going to accept me I would have laughed at the idea." + +The romantic suddenness of the affair in some measure compensated James's +women-folk for the ruthless negation of all their patient effort and +skilled diplomacy. It was rather trying to have to deflect their +enthusiasm at a moment's notice from Joan Sebastable to Rhoda Ellam; but, +after all, it was James's wife who was in question, and his tastes had +some claim to be considered. + +On a September afternoon of the same year, after the honeymoon in Minorca +had ended, Cushat-Prinkly came into the drawing-room of his new house in +Granchester Square. Rhoda was seated at a low table, behind a service of +dainty porcelain and gleaming silver. There was a pleasant tinkling note +in her voice as she handed him a cup. + +"You like it weaker than that, don't you? Shall I put some more hot +water to it? No?" + + + + +THE DISAPPEARANCE OF CRISPINA UMBERLEIGH + + +In a first-class carriage of a train speeding Balkanward across the flat, +green Hungarian plain two Britons sat in friendly, fitful converse. They +had first foregathered in the cold grey dawn at the frontier line, where +the presiding eagle takes on an extra head and Teuton lands pass from +Hohenzollern to Habsburg keeping--and where a probing official beak +requires to delve in polite and perhaps perfunctory, but always tiresome, +manner into the baggage of sleep-hungry passengers. After a day's break +of their journey at Vienna the travellers had again foregathered at the +trainside and paid one another the compliment of settling instinctively +into the same carriage. The elder of the two had the appearance and +manner of a diplomat; in point of fact he was the well-connected foster- +brother of a wine business. The other was certainly a journalist. +Neither man was talkative and each was grateful to the other for not +being talkative. That is why from time to time they talked. + +One topic of conversation naturally thrust itself forward in front of all +others. In Vienna the previous day they had learned of the mysterious +vanishing of a world-famous picture from the walls of the Louvre. + +"A dramatic disappearance of that sort is sure to produce a crop of +imitations," said the Journalist. + +"It has had a lot of anticipations, for the matter of that," said the +Wine-brother. + +"Oh, of course there have been thefts from the Louvre before." + +"I was thinking of the spiriting away of human beings rather than +pictures. In particular I was thinking of the case of my aunt, Crispina +Umberleigh." + +"I remember hearing something of the affair," said the Journalist, "but I +was away from England at the time. I never quite knew what was supposed +to have happened." + +"You may hear what really happened if you will respect it as a +confidence," said the Wine Merchant. "In the first place I may say that +the disappearance of Mrs. Umberleigh was not regarded by the family +entirely as a bereavement. My uncle, Edward Umberleigh, was not by any +means a weak-kneed individual, in fact in the world of politics he had to +be reckoned with more or less as a strong man, but he was unmistakably +dominated by Crispina; indeed I never met any human being who was not +frozen into subjection when brought into prolonged contact with her. Some +people are born to command; Crispina Mrs. Umberleigh was born to +legislate, codify, administrate, censor, license, ban, execute, and sit +in judgement generally. If she was not born with that destiny she +adopted it at an early age. From the kitchen regions upwards every one +in the household came under her despotic sway and stayed there with the +submissiveness of molluscs involved in a glacial epoch. As a nephew on a +footing of only occasional visits she affected me merely as an epidemic, +disagreeable while it lasted, but without any permanent effect; but her +own sons and daughters stood in mortal awe of her; their studies, +friendships, diet, amusements, religious observances, and way of doing +their hair were all regulated and ordained according to the august lady's +will and pleasure. This will help you to understand the sensation of +stupefaction which was caused in the family when she unobtrusively and +inexplicably vanished. It was as though St. Paul's Cathedral or the +Piccadilly Hotel had disappeared in the night, leaving nothing but an +open space to mark where it had stood. As far as was known nothing was +troubling her; in fact there was much before her to make life +particularly well worth living. The youngest boy had come back from +school with an unsatisfactory report, and she was to have sat in +judgement on him the very afternoon of the day she disappeared--if it had +been he who had vanished in a hurry one could have supplied the motive. +Then she was in the middle of a newspaper correspondence with a rural +dean in which she had already proved him guilty of heresy, inconsistency, +and unworthy quibbling, and no ordinary consideration would have induced +her to discontinue the controversy. Of course the matter was put in the +hands of the police, but as far as possible it was kept out of the +papers, and the generally accepted explanation of her withdrawal from her +social circle was that she had gone into a nursing home." + +"And what was the immediate effect on the home circle?" asked the +Journalist. + +"All the girls bought themselves bicycles; the feminine cycling craze was +still in existence, and Crispina had rigidly vetoed any participation in +it among the members of her household. The youngest boy let himself go +to such an extent during his next term that it had to be his last as far +as that particular establishment was concerned. The elder boys +propounded a theory that their mother might be wandering somewhere +abroad, and searched for her assiduously, chiefly, it must be admitted, +in a class of Montmartre resort where it was extremely improbable that +she would be found." + +"And all this while couldn't your uncle get hold of the least clue?" + +"As a matter of fact he had received some information, though of course I +did not know of it at the time. He got a message one day telling him +that his wife had been kidnapped and smuggled out of the country; she was +said to be hidden away, in one of the islands off the coast of Norway I +think it was, in comfortable surroundings and well cared for. And with +the information came a demand for money; a lump sum of 2000 pounds was to +be paid yearly. Failing this she would be immediately restored to her +family." + +The Journalist was silent for a moment, and them began to laugh quietly. + +"It was certainly an inverted form of holding to ransom," he said. + +"If you had known my aunt," said the Wine Merchant, "you would have +wondered that they didn't put the figure higher." + +"I realise the temptation. Did your uncle succumb to it?" + +"Well, you see, he had to think of others as well as himself. For the +family to have gone back into the Crispina thraldom after having tasted +the delights of liberty would have been a tragedy, and there were even +wider considerations to be taken into account. Since his bereavement he +had unconsciously taken up a far bolder and more initiatory line in +public affairs, and his popularity and influence had increased +correspondingly. From being merely a strong man in the political world +he began to be spoken of as _the_ strong man. All this he knew would be +jeopardised if he once more dropped into the social position of the +husband of Mrs. Umberleigh. He was a rich man, and the 2000 pounds a +year, though not exactly a fleabite, did not seem an extravagant price to +pay for the boarding-out of Crispina. Of course, he had severe qualms of +conscience about the arrangement. Later on, when he took me into his +confidence, he told me that in paying the ransom, or hush-money as I +should have called it, he was partly influenced by the fear that if he +refused it the kidnappers might have vented their rage and disappointment +on their captive. It was better, he said, to think of her being well +cared for as a highly-valued paying-guest in one of the Lofoden Islands +than to have her struggling miserably home in a maimed and mutilated +condition. Anyway he paid the yearly instalment as punctually as one +pays a fire insurance, and with equal promptitude there would come an +acknowledgment of the money and a brief statement to the effect that +Crispina was in good health and fairly cheerful spirits. One report even +mentioned that she was busying herself with a scheme for proposed reforms +in Church management to be pressed on the local pastorate. Another spoke +of a rheumatic attack and a journey to a 'cure' on the mainland, and on +that occasion an additional eighty pounds was demanded and conceded. Of +course it was to the interest of the kidnappers to keep their charge in +good health, but the secrecy with which they managed to shroud their +arrangements argued a really wonderful organisation. If my uncle was +paying a rather high price, at least he could console himself with the +reflection that he was paying specialists' fees." + +"Meanwhile had the police given up all attempts to track the missing +lady?" asked the Journalist. + +"Not entirely; they came to my uncle from time to time to report on clues +which they thought might yield some elucidation as to her fate or +whereabouts, but I think they had their suspicions that he was possessed +of more information than he had put at their disposal. And then, after a +disappearance of more than eight years, Crispina returned with dramatic +suddenness to the home she had left so mysteriously." + +"She had given her captors the slip?" + +"She had never been captured. Her wandering away had been caused by a +sudden and complete loss of memory. She usually dressed rather in the +style of a superior kind of charwoman, and it was not so very surprising +that she should have imagined that she was one; and still less that +people should accept her statement and help her to get work. She had +wandered as far afield as Birmingham, and found fairly steady employment +there, her energy and enthusiasm in putting people's rooms in order +counterbalancing her obstinate and domineering characteristics. It was +the shock of being patronisingly addressed as 'my good woman' by a +curate, who was disputing with her where the stove should be placed in a +parish concert hall that led to the sudden restoration of her memory. 'I +think you forget who you are speaking to,' she observed crushingly, which +was rather unduly severe, considering she had only just remembered it +herself." + +"But," exclaimed the Journalist, "the Lofoden Island people! Who had +they got hold of?" + +"A purely mythical prisoner. It was an attempt in the first place by +some one who knew something of the domestic situation, probably a +discharged valet, to bluff a lump sum out of Edward Umberleigh before the +missing woman turned up; the subsequent yearly instalments were an +unlooked-for increment to the original haul. + +"Crispina found that the eight years' interregnum had materially weakened +her ascendancy over her now grown-up offspring. Her husband, however, +never accomplished anything great in the political world after her +return; the strain of trying to account satisfactorily for an unspecified +expenditure of sixteen thousand pounds spread over eight years +sufficiently occupied his mental energies. Here is Belgrad and another +custom house." + + + + +THE WOLVES OF CERNOGRATZ + + +"Are they any old legends attached to the castle?" asked Conrad of his +sister. Conrad was a prosperous Hamburg merchant, but he was the one +poetically-dispositioned member of an eminently practical family. + +The Baroness Gruebel shrugged her plump shoulders. + +"There are always legends hanging about these old places. They are not +difficult to invent and they cost nothing. In this case there is a story +that when any one dies in the castle all the dogs in the village and the +wild beasts in forest howl the night long. It would not be pleasant to +listen to, would it?" + +"It would be weird and romantic," said the Hamburg merchant. + +"Anyhow, it isn't true," said the Baroness complacently; "since we bought +the place we have had proof that nothing of the sort happens. When the +old mother-in-law died last springtime we all listened, but there was no +howling. It is just a story that lends dignity to the place without +costing anything." + +"The story is not as you have told it," said Amalie, the grey old +governess. Every one turned and looked at her in astonishment. She was +wont to sit silent and prim and faded in her place at table, never +speaking unless some one spoke to her, and there were few who troubled +themselves to make conversation with her. To-day a sudden volubility had +descended on her; she continued to talk, rapidly and nervously, looking +straight in front of her and seeming to address no one in particular. + +"It is not when _any one_ dies in the castle that the howling is heard. +It was when one of the Cernogratz family died here that the wolves came +from far and near and howled at the edge of the forest just before the +death hour. There were only a few couple of wolves that had their lairs +in this part of the forest, but at such a time the keepers say there +would be scores of them, gliding about in the shadows and howling in +chorus, and the dogs of the castle and the village and all the farms +round would bay and howl in fear and anger at the wolf chorus, and as the +soul of the dying one left its body a tree would crash down in the park. +That is what happened when a Cernogratz died in his family castle. But +for a stranger dying here, of course no wolf would howl and no tree would +fall. Oh, no." + +There was a note of defiance, almost of contempt, in her voice as she +said the last words. The well-fed, much-too-well dressed Baroness stared +angrily at the dowdy old woman who had come forth from her usual and +seemly position of effacement to speak so disrespectfully. + +"You seem to know quite a lot about the von Cernogratz legends, Fraulein +Schmidt," she said sharply; "I did not know that family histories were +among the subjects you are supposed to be proficient in." + +The answer to her taunt was even more unexpected and astonishing than the +conversational outbreak which had provoked it. + +"I am a von Cernogratz myself," said the old woman, "that is why I know +the family history." + +"You a von Cernogratz? You!" came in an incredulous chorus. + +"When we became very poor," she explained, "and I had to go out and give +teaching lessons, I took another name; I thought it would be more in +keeping. But my grandfather spent much of his time as a boy in this +castle, and my father used to tell me many stories about it, and, of +course, I knew all the family legends and stories. When one has nothing +left to one but memories, one guards and dusts them with especial care. I +little thought when I took service with you that I should one day come +with you to the old home of my family. I could wish it had been anywhere +else." + +There was silence when she finished speaking, and then the Baroness +turned the conversation to a less embarrassing topic than family +histories. But afterwards, when the old governess had slipped away +quietly to her duties, there arose a clamour of derision and disbelief. + +"It was an impertinence," snapped out the Baron, his protruding eyes +taking on a scandalised expression; "fancy the woman talking like that at +our table. She almost told us we were nobodies, and I don't believe a +word of it. She is just Schmidt and nothing more. She has been talking +to some of the peasants about the old Cernogratz family, and raked up +their history and their stories." + +"She wants to make herself out of some consequence," said the Baroness; +"she knows she will soon be past work and she wants to appeal to our +sympathies. Her grandfather, indeed!" + +The Baroness had the usual number of grandfathers, but she never, never +boasted about them. + +"I dare say her grandfather was a pantry boy or something of the sort in +the castle," sniggered the Baron; "that part of the story may be true." + +The merchant from Hamburg said nothing; he had seen tears in the old +woman's eyes when she spoke of guarding her memories--or, being of an +imaginative disposition, he thought he had. + +"I shall give her notice to go as soon as the New Year festivities are +over," said the Baroness; "till then I shall be too busy to manage +without her." + +But she had to manage without her all the same, for in the cold biting +weather after Christmas, the old governess fell ill and kept to her room. + +"It is most provoking," said the Baroness, as her guests sat round the +fire on one of the last evenings of the dying year; "all the time that +she has been with us I cannot remember that she was ever seriously ill, +too ill to go about and do her work, I mean. And now, when I have the +house full, and she could be useful in so many ways, she goes and breaks +down. One is sorry for her, of course, she looks so withered and +shrunken, but it is intensely annoying all the same." + +"Most annoying," agreed the banker's wife, sympathetically; "it is the +intense cold, I expect, it breaks the old people up. It has been +unusually cold this year." + +"The frost is the sharpest that has been known in December for many +years," said the Baron. + +"And, of course, she is quite old," said the Baroness; "I wish I had +given her notice some weeks ago, then she would have left before this +happened to her. Why, Wappi, what is the matter with you?" + +The small, woolly lapdog had leapt suddenly down from its cushion and +crept shivering under the sofa. At the same moment an outburst of angry +barking came from the dogs in the castle-yard, and other dogs could be +heard yapping and barking in the distance. + +"What is disturbing the animals?" asked the Baron. + +And then the humans, listening intently, heard the sound that had roused +the dogs to their demonstrations of fear and rage; heard a long-drawn +whining howl, rising and falling, seeming at one moment leagues away, at +others sweeping across the snow until it appeared to come from the foot +of the castle walls. All the starved, cold misery of a frozen world, all +the relentless hunger-fury of the wild, blended with other forlorn and +haunting melodies to which one could give no name, seemed concentrated in +that wailing cry. + +"Wolves!" cried the Baron. + +Their music broke forth in one raging burst, seeming to come from +everywhere. + +"Hundreds of wolves," said the Hamburg merchant, who was a man of strong +imagination. + +Moved by some impulse which she could not have explained, the Baroness +left her guests and made her way to the narrow, cheerless room where the +old governess lay watching the hours of the drying year slip by. In +spite of the biting cold of the winter night, the window stood open. With +a scandalised exclamation on her lips, the Baroness rushed forward to +close it. + +"Leave it open," said the old woman in a voice that for all its weakness +carried an air of command such as the Baroness had never heard before +from her lips. + +"But you will die of cold!" she expostulated. + +"I am dying in any case," said the voice, "and I want to hear their +music. They have come from far and wide to sing the death-music of my +family. It is beautiful that they have come; I am the last von +Cernogratz that will die in our old castle, and they have come to sing to +me. Hark, how loud they are calling!" + +The cry of the wolves rose on the still winter air and floated round the +castle walls in long-drawn piercing wails; the old woman lay back on her +couch with a look of long-delayed happiness on her face. + +"Go away," she said to the Baroness; "I am not lonely any more. I am one +of a great old family . . . " + +"I think she is dying," said the Baroness when she had rejoined her +guests; "I suppose we must send for a doctor. And that terrible howling! +Not for much money would I have such death-music." + +"That music is not to be bought for any amount of money," said Conrad. + +"Hark! What is that other sound?" asked the Baron, as a noise of +splitting and crashing was heard. + +It was a tree falling in the park. + +There was a moment of constrained silence, and then the banker's wife +spoke. + +"It is the intense cold that is splitting the trees. It is also the cold +that has brought the wolves out in such numbers. It is many years since +we have had such a cold winter." + +The Baroness eagerly agreed that the cold was responsible for these +things. It was the cold of the open window, too, which caused the heart +failure that made the doctor's ministrations unnecessary for the old +Fraulein. But the notice in the newspapers looked very well-- + + "On December 29th, at Schloss Cernogratz, Amalie von Cernogratz, for + many years the valued friend of Baron and Baroness Gruebel." + + + + +LOUIS + + +"It would be jolly to spend Easter in Vienna this year," said +Strudwarden, "and look up some of my old friends there. It's about the +jolliest place I know of to be at for Easter--" + +"I thought we had made up our minds to spend Easter at Brighton," +interrupted Lena Strudwarden, with an air of aggrieved surprise. + +"You mean that you had made up your mind that we should spend Easter +there," said her husband; "we spent last Easter there, and Whitsuntide as +well, and the year before that we were at Worthing, and Brighton again +before that. I think it would be just as well to have a real change of +scene while we are about it." + +"The journey to Vienna would be very expensive," said Lena. + +"You are not often concerned about economy," said Strudwarden, "and in +any case the trip of Vienna won't cost a bit more than the rather +meaningless luncheon parties we usually give to quite meaningless +acquaintances at Brighton. To escape from all that set would be a +holiday in itself." + +Strudwarden spoke feelingly; Lena Strudwarden maintained an equally +feeling silence on that particular subject. The set that she gathered +round her at Brighton and other South Coast resorts was composed of +individuals who might be dull and meaningless in themselves, but who +understood the art of flattering Mrs. Strudwarden. She had no intention +of foregoing their society and their homage and flinging herself among +unappreciative strangers in a foreign capital. + +"You must go to Vienna alone if you are bent on going," she said; "I +couldn't leave Louis behind, and a dog is always a fearful nuisance in a +foreign hotel, besides all the fuss and separation of the quarantine +restrictions when one comes back. Louis would die if he was parted from +me for even a week. You don't know what that would mean to me." + +Lena stooped down and kissed the nose of the diminutive brown Pomeranian +that lay, snug and irresponsive, beneath a shawl on her lap. + +"Look here," said Strudwarden, "this eternal Louis business is getting to +be a ridiculous nuisance. Nothing can be done, no plans can be made, +without some veto connected with that animal's whims or convenience being +imposed. If you were a priest in attendance on some African fetish you +couldn't set up a more elaborate code of restrictions. I believe you'd +ask the Government to put off a General Election if you thought it would +interfere with Louis's comfort in any way." + +By way of answer to this tirade Mrs. Strudwarden stooped down again and +kissed the irresponsive brown nose. It was the action of a woman with a +beautifully meek nature, who would, however, send the whole world to the +stake sooner than yield an inch where she knew herself to be in the +right. + +"It isn't as if you were in the least bit fond of animals," went on +Strudwarden, with growing irritation; "when we are down at Kerryfield you +won't stir a step to take the house dogs out, even if they're dying for a +run, and I don't think you've been in the stables twice in your life. You +laugh at what you call the fuss that's being made over the extermination +of plumage birds, and you are quite indignant with me if I interfere on +behalf of an ill-treated, over-driven animal on the road. And yet you +insist on every one's plans being made subservient to the convenience of +that stupid little morsel of fur and selfishness." + +"You are prejudiced against my little Louis," said Lena, with a world of +tender regret in her voice. + +"I've never had the chance of being anything else but prejudiced against +him," said Strudwarden; "I know what a jolly responsive companion a +doggie can be, but I've never been allowed to put a finger near Louis. +You say he snaps at any one except you and your maid, and you snatched +him away from old Lady Peterby the other day, when she wanted to pet him, +for fear he would bury his teeth in her. All that I ever see of him is +the top of his unhealthy-looking little nose, peeping out from his basket +or from your muff, and I occasionally hear his wheezy little bark when +you take him for a walk up and down the corridor. You can't expect one +to get extravagantly fond of a dog of that sort. One might as well work +up an affection for the cuckoo in a cuckoo-clock." + +"He loves me," said Lena, rising from the table, and bearing the shawl- +swathed Louis in her arms. "He loves only me, and perhaps that is why I +love him so much in return. I don't care what you say against him, I am +not going to be separated from him. If you insist on going to Vienna you +must go alone, as far as I am concerned. I think it would be much more +sensible if you were to come to Brighton with Louis and me, but of course +you must please yourself." + +"You must get rid of that dog," said Strudwarden's sister when Lena had +left the room; "it must be helped to some sudden and merciful end. Lena +is merely making use of it as an instrument for getting her own way on +dozens of occasions when she would otherwise be obliged to yield +gracefully to your wishes or to the general convenience. I am convinced +that she doesn't care a brass button about the animal itself. When her +friends are buzzing round her at Brighton or anywhere else and the dog +would be in the way, it has to spend whole days alone with the maid, but +if you want Lena to go with you anywhere where she doesn't want to go +instantly she trots out the excuse that she couldn't be separated from +her dog. Have you ever come into a room unobserved and heard Lena +talking to her beloved pet? I never have. I believe she only fusses +over it when there's some one present to notice her." + +"I don't mind admitting," said Strudwarden, "that I've dwelt more than +once lately on the possibility of some fatal accident putting an end to +Louis's existence. It's not very easy, though, to arrange a fatality for +a creature that spends most of its time in a muff or asleep in a toy +kennel. I don't think poison would be any good; it's obviously horribly +over-fed, for I've seen Lena offer it dainties at table sometimes, but it +never seems to eat them." + +"Lena will be away at church on Wednesday morning," said Elsie +Strudwarden reflectively; "she can't take Louis with her there, and she +is going on to the Dellings for lunch. That will give you several hours +in which to carry out your purpose. The maid will be flirting with the +chauffeur most of the time, and, anyhow, I can manage to keep her out of +the way on some pretext or other." + +"That leaves the field clear," said Strudwarden, "but unfortunately my +brain is equally a blank as far as any lethal project is concerned. The +little beast is so monstrously inactive; I can't pretend that it leapt +into the bath and drowned itself, or that it took on the butcher's +mastiff in unequal combat and got chewed up. In what possible guise +could death come to a confirmed basket-dweller? It would be too +suspicious if we invented a Suffragette raid and pretended that they +invaded Lena's boudoir and threw a brick at him. We should have to do a +lot of other damage as well, which would be rather a nuisance, and the +servants would think it odd that they had seen nothing of the invaders." + +"I have an idea," said Elsie; "get a box with an air-tight lid, and bore +a small hole in it, just big enough to let in an indiarubber tube. Pop +Louis, kennel and all, into the box, shut it down, and put the other end +of the tube over the gas-bracket. There you have a perfect lethal +chamber. You can stand the kennel at the open window afterwards, to get +rid of the smell of gas, and all that Lena will find when she comes home +late in the afternoon will be a placidly defunct Louis." + +"Novels have been written about women like you," said Strudwarden; "you +have a perfectly criminal mind. Let's come and look for a box." + +Two mornings later the conspirators stood gazing guiltily at a stout +square box, connected with the gas-bracket by a length of indiarubber +tubing. + +"Not a sound," said Elsie; "he never stirred; it must have been quite +painless. All the same I feel rather horrid now it's done." + +"The ghastly part has to come," said Strudwarden, turning off the gas. +"We'll lift the lid slowly, and let the gas out by degrees. Swing the +door to and fro to send a draught through the room." + +Some minutes later, when the fumes had rushed off, he stooped down and +lifted out the little kennel with its grim burden. Elsie gave an +exclamation of terror. Louis sat at the door of his dwelling, head erect +and ears pricked, as coldly and defiantly inert as when they had put him +into his execution chamber. Strudwarden dropped the kennel with a jerk, +and stared for a long moment at the miracle-dog; then he went into a peal +of chattering laughter. + +It was certainly a wonderful imitation of a truculent-looking toy +Pomeranian, and the apparatus that gave forth a wheezy bark when you +pressed it had materially helped the imposition that Lena, and Lena's +maid, had foisted on the household. For a woman who disliked animals, +but liked getting her own way under a halo of unselfishness, Mrs. +Strudwarden had managed rather well. + +"Louis is dead," was the curt information that greeted Lena on her return +from her luncheon party. + +"Louis _dead_!" she exclaimed. + +"Yes, he flew at the butcher-boy and bit him, and he bit me, too, when I +tried to get him off, so I had to have him destroyed. You warned me that +he snapped, but you didn't tell me that he was downright dangerous. I +shall have to pay the boy something heavy by way of compensation, so you +will have to go without those buckles that you wanted to have for Easter; +also I shall have to go to Vienna to consult Dr. Schroeder, who is a +specialist on dog-bites, and you will have to come too. I have sent what +remains of Louis to Rowland Ward to be stuffed; that will be my Easter +gift to you instead of the buckles. For Heaven's sake, Lena, weep, if +you really feel it so much; anything would be better than standing there +staring as if you thought I had lost my reason." + +Lena Strudwarden did not weep, but her attempt at laughing was an +unmistakable failure. + + + + +THEGUESTS + + +"The landscape seen from our windows is certainly charming," said +Annabel; "those cherry orchards and green meadows, and the river winding +along the valley, and the church tower peeping out among the elms, they +all make a most effective picture. There's something dreadfully sleepy +and languorous about it, though; stagnation seems to be the dominant +note. Nothing ever happens here; seedtime and harvest, an occasional +outbreak of measles or a mildly destructive thunderstorm, and a little +election excitement about once in five years, that is all that we have to +modify the monotony of our existence. Rather dreadful, isn't it?" + +"On the contrary," said Matilda, "I find it soothing and restful; but +then, you see, I've lived in countries where things do happen, ever so +many at a time, when you're not ready for them happening all at once." + +"That, of course, makes a difference," said Annabel. + +"I have never forgotten," said Matilda, "the occasion when the Bishop of +Bequar paid us an unexpected visit; he was on his way to lay the +foundation-stone of a mission-house or something of the sort." + +"I thought that out there you were always prepared for emergency guests +turning up," said Annabel. + +"I was quite prepared for half a dozen Bishops," said Matilda, "but it +was rather disconcerting to find out after a little conversation that +this particular one was a distant cousin of mine, belonging to a branch +of the family that had quarrelled bitterly and offensively with our +branch about a Crown Derby dessert service; they got it, and we ought to +have got it, in some legacy, or else we got it and they thought they +ought to have it, I forget which; anyhow, I know they behaved +disgracefully. Now here was one of them turning up in the odour of +sanctity, so to speak, and claiming the traditional hospitality of the +East." + +"It was rather trying, but you could have left your husband to do most of +the entertaining." + +"My husband was fifty miles up-country, talking sense, or what he +imagined to be sense, to a village community that fancied one of their +leading men was a were-tiger." + +"A what tiger?" + +"A were-tiger; you've heard of were-wolves, haven't you, a mixture of +wolf and human being and demon? Well, in those parts they have +were-tigers, or think they have, and I must say that in this case, so far +as sworn and uncontested evidence went, they had every ground for +thinking so. However, as we gave up witchcraft prosecutions about three +hundred years ago, we don't like to have other people keeping on our +discarded practices; it doesn't seem respectful to our mental and moral +position." + +"I hope you weren't unkind to the Bishop," said Annabel. + +"Well, of course he was my guest, so I had to be outwardly polite to him, +but he was tactless enough to rake up the incidents of the old quarrel, +and to try to make out that there was something to be said for the way +his side of the family had behaved; even if there was, which I don't for +a moment admit, my house was not the place in which to say it. I didn't +argue the matter, but I gave my cook a holiday to go and visit his aged +parents some ninety miles away. The emergency cook was not a specialist +in curries, in fact, I don't think cooking in any shape or form could +have been one of his strong points. I believe he originally came to us +in the guise of a gardener, but as we never pretended to have anything +that could be considered a garden he was utilised as assistant goat-herd, +in which capacity, I understand, he gave every satisfaction. When the +Bishop heard that I had sent away the cook on a special and unnecessary +holiday he saw the inwardness of the manoeuvre, and from that moment we +were scarcely on speaking terms. If you have ever had a Bishop with whom +you were not on speaking terms staying in your house, you will appreciate +the situation." + +Annabel confessed that her life-story had never included such a +disturbing experience. + +"Then," continued Matilda, "to make matters more complicated, the +Gwadlipichee overflowed its banks, a thing it did every now and then when +the rains were unduly prolonged, and the lower part of the house and all +the out-buildings were submerged. We managed to get the ponies loose in +time, and the syce swam the whole lot of them off to the nearest rising +ground. A goat or two, the chief goat-herd, the chief goat-herd's wife, +and several of their babies came to anchorage in the verandah. All the +rest of the available space was filled up with wet, bedraggled-looking +hens and chickens; one never really knows how many fowls one possesses +till the servants' quarters are flooded out. Of course, I had been +through something of the sort in previous floods, but never before had I +had a houseful of goats and babies and half-drowned hens, supplemented by +a Bishop with whom I was hardly on speaking terms." + +"It must have been a trying experience," commented Annabel. + +"More embarrassments were to follow. I wasn't going to let a mere +ordinary flood wash out the memory of that Crown Derby dessert service, +and I intimated to the Bishop that his large bedroom, with a writing +table in it, and his small bath-room, with a sufficiency of cold-water +jars in it, was his share of the premises, and that space was rather +congested under the existing circumstances. However, at about three +o'clock in the afternoon, when he had awakened from his midday sleep, he +made a sudden incursion into the room that was normally the drawing-room, +but was now dining-room, store-house, saddle-room, and half a dozen other +temporary premises as well. From the condition of my guest's costume he +seemed to think it might also serve as his dressing-room. + +"'I'm afraid there is nowhere for you to sit,' I said coldly; 'the +verandah is full of goats.' + +"'There is a goat in my bedroom,' he observed with equal coldness, and +more than a suspicion of sardonic reproach. + +"'Really,' I said, 'another survivor? I thought all the other goats were +done for.' + +"'This particular goat is quite done for,' he said, 'it is being devoured +by a leopard at the present moment. That is why I left the room; some +animals resent being watched while they are eating.' + +"The leopard, of course, was easily explained; it had been hanging round +the goat sheds when the flood came, and had clambered up by the outside +staircase leading to the Bishop's bath-room, thoughtfully bringing a goat +with it. Probably it found the bath-room too damp and shut-in for its +taste, and transferred its banqueting operations to the bedroom while the +Bishop was having his nap." + +"What a frightful situation!" exclaimed Annabel; "fancy having a ravening +leopard in the house, with a flood all round you." + +"Not in the least ravening," said Matilda; "it was full of goat, had any +amount of water at its disposal if it felt thirsty, and probably had no +more immediate wish than a desire for uninterrupted sleep. Still, I +think any one will admit that it was an embarrassing predicament to have +your only available guest-room occupied by a leopard, the verandah choked +up with goats and babies and wet hens, and a Bishop with whom you were +scarcely on speaking terms planted down in your own sitting-room. I +really don't know how I got through those crawling hours, and of course +mealtimes only made matters worse. The emergency cook had every excuse +for sending in watery soup and sloppy rice, and as neither the chief goat- +herd nor his wife were expert divers, the cellar could not be reached. +Fortunately the Gwadlipichee subsides as rapidly as it rises, and just +before dawn the syce came splashing back, with the ponies only fetlock +deep in water. Then there arose some awkwardness from the fact that the +Bishop wished to leave sooner than the leopard did, and as the latter was +ensconced in the midst of the former's personal possessions there was an +obvious difficulty in altering the order of departure. I pointed out to +the Bishop that a leopard's habits and tastes are not those of an otter, +and that it naturally preferred walking to wading; and that in any case a +meal of an entire goat, washed down with tub-water, justified a certain +amount of repose; if I had had guns fired to frighten the animal away, as +the Bishop suggested, it would probably merely have left the bedroom to +come into the already over-crowded drawing-room. Altogether it was +rather a relief when they both left. Now, perhaps, you can understand my +appreciation of a sleepy countryside where things don't happen." + + + + +THE PENANCE + + +Octavian Ruttle was one of those lively cheerful individuals on whom +amiability had set its unmistakable stamp, and, like most of his kind, +his soul's peace depended in large measure on the unstinted approval of +his fellows. In hunting to death a small tabby cat he had done a thing +of which he scarcely approved himself, and he was glad when the gardener +had hidden the body in its hastily dug grave under a lone oak-tree in the +meadow, the same tree that the hunted quarry had climbed as a last effort +towards safety. It had been a distasteful and seemingly ruthless deed, +but circumstances had demanded the doing of it. Octavian kept chickens; +at least he kept some of them; others vanished from his keeping, leaving +only a few bloodstained feathers to mark the manner of their going. The +tabby cat from the large grey house that stood with its back to the +meadow had been detected in many furtive visits to the hen-coups, and +after due negotiation with those in authority at the grey house a +sentence of death had been agreed on. "The children will mind, but they +need not know," had been the last word on the matter. + +The children in question were a standing puzzle to Octavian; in the +course of a few months he considered that he should have known their +names, ages, the dates of their birthdays, and have been introduced to +their favourite toys. They remained however, as non-committal as the +long blank wall that shut them off from the meadow, a wall over which +their three heads sometimes appeared at odd moments. They had parents in +India--that much Octavian had learned in the neighbourhood; the children, +beyond grouping themselves garment-wise into sexes, a girl and two boys, +carried their life-story no further on his behoof. And now it seemed he +was engaged in something which touched them closely, but must be hidden +from their knowledge. + +The poor helpless chickens had gone one by one to their doom, so it was +meet that their destroyer should come to a violent end; yet Octavian felt +some qualms when his share of the violence was ended. The little cat, +headed off from its wonted tracks of safety, had raced unfriended from +shelter to shelter, and its end had been rather piteous. Octavian walked +through the long grass of the meadow with a step less jaunty than usual. +And as he passed beneath the shadow of the high blank wall he glanced up +and became aware that his hunting had had undesired witnesses. Three +white set faces were looking down at him, and if ever an artist wanted a +threefold study of cold human hate, impotent yet unyielding, raging yet +masked in stillness, he would have found it in the triple gaze that met +Octavian's eye. + +"I'm sorry, but it had to be done," said Octavian, with genuine apology +in his voice. + +"Beast!" + +The answer came from three throats with startling intensity. + +Octavian felt that the blank wall would not be more impervious to his +explanations than the bunch of human hostility that peered over its +coping; he wisely decided to withhold his peace overtures till a more +hopeful occasion. + +Two days later he ransacked the best sweet shop in the neighbouring +market town for a box of chocolates that by its size and contents should +fitly atone for the dismal deed done under the oak tree in the meadow. +The two first specimens that were shown him he hastily rejected; one had +a group of chickens pictured on its lid, the other bore the portrait of a +tabby kitten. A third sample was more simply bedecked with a spray of +painted poppies, and Octavian hailed the flowers of forgetfulness as a +happy omen. He felt distinctly more at ease with his surroundings when +the imposing package had been sent across to the grey house, and a +message returned to say that it had been duly given to the children. The +next morning he sauntered with purposeful steps past the long blank wall +on his way to the chicken-run and piggery that stood at the bottom of the +meadow. The three children were perched at their accustomed look-out, +and their range of sight did not seem to concern itself with Octavian's +presence. As he became depressingly aware of the aloofness of their gaze +he also noted a strange variegation in the herbage at his feet; the +greensward for a considerable space around was strewn and speckled with a +chocolate-coloured hail, enlivened here and there with gay tinsel-like +wrappings or the glistening mauve of crystallised violets. It was as +though the fairy paradise of a greedyminded child had taken shape and +substance in the vegetation of the meadow. Octavian's bloodmoney had +been flung back at him in scorn. + +To increase his discomfiture the march of events tended to shift the +blame of ravaged chicken-coops from the supposed culprit who had already +paid full forfeit; the young chicks were still carried off, and it seemed +highly probable that the cat had only haunted the chicken-run to prey on +the rats which harboured there. Through the flowing channels of servant +talk the children learned of this belated revision of verdict, and +Octavian one day picked up a sheet of copy-book paper on which was +painstakingly written: "Beast. Rats eated your chickens." More ardently +than ever did he wish for an opportunity for sloughing off the disgrace +that enwrapped him, and earning some happier nickname from his three +unsparing judges. + +And one day a chance inspiration came to him. Olivia, his two-year-old +daughter, was accustomed to spend the hour from high noon till one +o'clock with her father while the nursemaid gobbled and digested her +dinner and novelette. About the same time the blank wall was usually +enlivened by the presence of its three small wardens. Octavian, with +seeming carelessness of purpose, brought Olivia well within hail of the +watchers and noted with hidden delight the growing interest that dawned +in that hitherto sternly hostile quarter. His little Olivia, with her +sleepy placid ways, was going to succeed where he, with his anxious well- +meant overtures, had so signally failed. He brought her a large yellow +dahlia, which she grasped tightly in one hand and regarded with a stare +of benevolent boredom, such as one might bestow on amateur classical +dancing performed in aid of a deserving charity. Then he turned shyly to +the group perched on the wall and asked with affected carelessness, "Do +you like flowers?" Three solemn nods rewarded his venture. + +"Which sorts do you like best?" he asked, this time with a distinct +betrayal of eagerness in his voice. + +"Those with all the colours, over there." Three chubby arms pointed to a +distant tangle of sweet-pea. Child-like, they had asked for what lay +farthest from hand, but Octavian trotted off gleefully to obey their +welcome behest. He pulled and plucked with unsparing hand, and brought +every variety of tint that he could see into his bunch that was rapidly +becoming a bundle. Then he turned to retrace his steps, and found the +blank wall blanker and more deserted than ever, while the foreground was +void of all trace of Olivia. Far down the meadow three children were +pushing a go-cart at the utmost speed they could muster in the direction +of the piggeries; it was Olivia's go-cart and Olivia sat in it, somewhat +bumped and shaken by the pace at which she was being driven, but +apparently retaining her wonted composure of mind. Octavian stared for a +moment at the rapidly moving group, and then started in hot pursuit, +shedding as he ran sprays of blossom from the mass of sweet-pea that he +still clutched in his hands. Fast as he ran the children had reached the +piggery before he could overtake them, and he arrived just in time to see +Olivia, wondering but unprotesting, hauled and pushed up to the roof of +the nearest sty. They were old buildings in some need of repair, and the +rickety roof would certainly not have borne Octavian's weight if he had +attempted to follow his daughter and her captors on their new vantage +ground. + +"What are you going to do with her?" he panted. There was no mistaking +the grim trend of mischief in those flushed by sternly composed young +faces. + +"Hang her in chains over a slow fire," said one of the boys. Evidently +they had been reading English history. + +"Frow her down the pigs will d'vour her, every bit 'cept the palms of her +hands," said the other boy. It was also evident that they had studied +Biblical history. + +The last proposal was the one which most alarmed Octavian, since it might +be carried into effect at a moment's notice; there had been cases, he +remembered, of pigs eating babies. + +"You surely wouldn't treat my poor little Olivia in that way?" he +pleaded. + +"You killed our little cat," came in stern reminder from three throats. + +"I'm sorry I did," said Octavian, and if there is a standard measurement +in truths Octavian's statement was assuredly a large nine. + +"We shall be very sorry when we've killed Olivia," said the girl, "but we +can't be sorry till we've done it." + +The inexorable child-logic rose like an unyielding rampart before +Octavian's scared pleadings. Before he could think of any fresh line of +appeal his energies were called out in another direction. Olivia had +slid off the roof and fallen with a soft, unctuous splash into a morass +of muck and decaying straw. Octavian scrambled hastily over the pigsty +wall to her rescue, and at once found himself in a quagmire that engulfed +his feet. Olivia, after the first shock of surprise at her sudden drop +through the air, had been mildly pleased at finding herself in close and +unstinted contact with the sticky element that oozed around her, but as +she began to sink gently into the bed of slime a feeling dawned on her +that she was not after all very happy, and she began to cry in the +tentative fashion of the normally good child. Octavian, battling with +the quagmire, which seemed to have learned the rare art of giving way at +all points without yielding an inch, saw his daughter slowly disappearing +in the engulfing slush, her smeared face further distorted with the +contortions of whimpering wonder, while from their perch on the pigsty +roof the three children looked down with the cold unpitying detachment of +the Parcae Sisters. + +"I can't reach her in time," gasped Octavian, "she'll be choked in the +muck. Won't you help her?" + +"No one helped our cat," came the inevitable reminder. + +"I'll do anything to show you how sorry I am about that," cried Octavian, +with a further desperate flounder, which carried him scarcely two inches +forward. + +"Will you stand in a white sheet by the grave?" + +"Yes," screamed Octavian. + +"Holding a candle?" + +"An' saying 'I'm a miserable Beast'?" + +Octavian agreed to both suggestions. + +"For a long, long time?" + +"For half an hour," said Octavian. There was an anxious ring in his +voice as he named the time-limit; was there not the precedent of a German +king who did open-air penance for several days and nights at Christmas- +time clad only in his shirt? Fortunately the children did not appear to +have read German history, and half an hour seemed long and goodly in +their eyes. + +"All right," came with threefold solemnity from the roof, and a moment +later a short ladder had been laboriously pushed across to Octavian, who +lost no time in propping it against the low pigsty wall. Scrambling +gingerly along its rungs he was able to lean across the morass that +separated him from his slowly foundering offspring and extract her like +an unwilling cork from it's slushy embrace. A few minutes later he was +listening to the shrill and repeated assurances of the nursemaid that her +previous experience of filthy spectacles had been on a notably smaller +scale. + +That same evening when twilight was deepening into darkness Octavian took +up his position as penitent under the lone oak-tree, having first +carefully undressed the part. Clad in a zephyr shirt, which on this +occasion thoroughly merited its name, he held in one hand a lighted +candle and in the other a watch, into which the soul of a dead plumber +seemed to have passed. A box of matches lay at his feet and was resorted +to on the fairly frequent occasions when the candle succumbed to the +night breezes. The house loomed inscrutable in the middle distance, but +as Octavian conscientiously repeated the formula of his penance he felt +certain that three pairs of solemn eyes were watching his moth-shared +vigil. + +And the next morning his eyes were gladdened by a sheet of copy-book +paper lying beside the blank wall, on which was written the message "Un- +Beast." + + + + +THE PHANTOM LUNCHEON + + +"The Smithly-Dubbs are in Town," said Sir James. "I wish you would show +them some attention. Ask them to lunch with you at the Ritz or +somewhere." + +"From the little I've seen of the Smithly-Dubbs I don't thing I want to +cultivate their acquaintance," said Lady Drakmanton. + +"They always work for us at election times," said her husband; "I don't +suppose they influence very many votes, but they have an uncle who is on +one of my ward committees, and another uncle speaks sometimes at some of +our less important meetings. Those sort of people expect some return in +the shape of hospitality." + +"Expect it!" exclaimed Lady Drakmanton; "the Misses Smithly-Dubb do more +than that; they almost demand it. They belong to my club, and hang about +the lobby just about lunch-time, all three of them, with their tongues +hanging out of their mouths and the six-course look in their eyes. If I +were to breathe the word 'lunch' they would hustle me into a taxi and +scream 'Ritz' or 'Dieudonne's' to the driver before I knew what was +happening." + +"All the same, I think you ought to ask them to a meal of some sort," +persisted Sir James. + +"I consider that showing hospitality to the Smithly-Dubbs is carrying +Free Food principles to a regrettable extreme," said Lady Drakmanton; +"I've entertained the Joneses and the Browns and the Snapheimers and the +Lubrikoffs, and heaps of others whose names I forget, but I don't see why +I should inflict the society of the Misses Smithly-Dubb on myself for a +solid hour. Imagine it, sixty minutes, more or less, of unrelenting +gobble and gabble. Why can't _you_ take them on, Milly?" she asked, +turning hopefully to her sister. + +"I don't know them," said Milly hastily. + +"All the better; you can pass yourself off as me. People say that we are +so alike that they can hardly tell us apart, and I've only spoken to +these tiresome young women about twice in my life, at committee-rooms, +and bowed to them in the club. Any of the club page-boys will point them +out to you; they're always to be found lolling about the hall just before +lunch-time." + +"My dear Betty, don't be absurd," protested Milly; "I've got some people +lunching with me at the Carlton to-morrow, and I'm leaving Town the day +afterwards." + +"What time is your lunch to-morrow?" asked Lady Drakmanton reflectively. + +"Two o'clock," said Milly. + +"Good," said her sister; "the Smithly-Dubbs shall lunch with me +to-morrow. It shall be rather an amusing lunch-party. At least, I shall +be amused." + +The last two remarks she made to herself. Other people did not always +appreciate her ideas of humour. Sir James never did. + +The next day Lady Drakmanton made some marked variations in her usual +toilet effects. She dressed her hair in an unaccustomed manner, and put +on a hat that added to the transformation of her appearance. When she +had made one or two minor alterations she was sufficiently unlike her +usual smart self to produce some hesitation in the greeting which the +Misses Smithly-Dubb bestowed on her in the club-lobby. She responded, +however, with a readiness which set their doubts at rest. + +"What is the Carlton like for lunching in?" she asked breezily. + +The restaurant received an enthusiastic recommendation from the three +sisters. + +"Let's go and lunch there, shall we?" she suggested, and in a few +minutes' time the Smithly-Dubb mind was contemplating at close quarters a +happy vista of baked meats and approved vintage. + +"Are you going to start with caviare? I am," confided Lady Drakmanton, +and the Smithly-Dubbs started with caviare. The subsequent dishes were +chosen in the same ambitious spirit, and by the time they had arrived at +the wild duck course it was beginning to be a rather expensive lunch. + +The conversation hardly kept pace with the brilliancy of the menu. +Repeated references on the part of the guests to the local political +conditions and prospects in Sir James's constituency were met with vague +"ahs" and "indeeds" from Lady Drakmanton, who might have been expected to +be specially interested. + +"I think when the Insurance Act is a little better understood it will +lose some of its present unpopularity," hazarded Cecilia Smithly-Dubb. + +"Will it? I dare say. I'm afraid politics don't interest me very much," +said Lady Drakmanton. + +The three Miss Smithly-Dubbs put down their cups of Turkish coffee and +stared. Then they broke into protesting giggles. + +"Of course, you're joking," they said. + +"Not me," was the disconcerting answer; "I can't make head or tail of +these bothering old politics. Never could, and never want to. I've +quite enough to do to manage my own affairs, and that's a fact." + +"But," exclaimed Amanda Smithly-Dubb, with a squeal of bewilderment +breaking into her voice, "I was told you spoke so informingly about the +Insurance Act at one of our social evenings." + +It was Lady Drakmanton who stared now. "Do you know," she said, with a +scared look around her, "rather a dreadful thing is happening. I'm +suffering from a complete loss of memory. I can't even think who I am. I +remember meeting you somewhere, and I remember you asking me to come and +lunch with you here, and that I accepted your kind invitation. Beyond +that my mind is a positive blank." + +The scared look was transferred with intensified poignancy to the faces +of her companions. + +"_You_ asked _us_ to lunch," they exclaimed hurriedly. That seemed a +more immediately important point to clear up than the question of +identity. + +"Oh, no," said the vanishing hostess, "_that_ I do remember about. You +insisted on my coming here because the feeding was so good, and I must +say it comes up to all you said about it. A very nice lunch it's been. +What I'm worrying about is who on earth am I? I haven't the faintest +notion?" + +"You are Lady Drakmanton," exclaimed the three sisters in chorus. + +"Now, don't make fun of me," she replied, crossly, "I happen to know her +quite well by sight, and she isn't a bit like me. And it's an odd thing +you should have mentioned her, for it so happens she's just come into the +room. That lady in black, with the yellow plume in her hat, there over +by the door." + +The Smithly-Dubbs looked in the indicated direction, and the uneasiness +in their eyes deepened into horror. In outward appearance the lady who +had just entered the room certainly came rather nearer to their +recollection of their Member's wife than the individual who was sitting +at table with them. + +"Who _are_ you, then, if that is Lady Drakmanton?" they asked in panic- +stricken bewilderment. + +"That is just what I don't know," was the answer; "and you don't seem to +know much better than I do." + +"You came up to us in the club--" + +"In what club?" + +"The New Didactic, in Calais Street." + +"The New Didactic!" exclaimed Lady Drakmanton with an air of returning +illumination; "thank you so much. Of course, I remember now who I am. +I'm Ellen Niggle, of the Ladies' Brasspolishing Guild. The Club employs +me to come now and then and see to the polishing of the brass fittings. +That's how I came to know Lady Drakmanton by sight; she's very often in +the Club. And you are the ladies who so kindly asked me out to lunch. +Funny how it should all have slipped my memory, all of a sudden. The +unaccustomed good food and wine must have been too much for me; for the +moment I really couldn't call to mind who I was. Good gracious," she +broke off suddenly, "it's ten past two; I should be at a polishing job in +Whitehall. I must scuttle off like a giddy rabbit. Thanking you ever +so." + +She left the room with a scuttle sufficiently suggestive of the animal +she had mentioned, but the giddiness was all on the side of her +involuntary hostesses. The restaurant seemed to be spinning round them; +and the bill when it appeared did nothing to restore their composure. +They were as nearly in tears as it is permissible to be during the +luncheon hour in a really good restaurant. Financially speaking, they +were well able to afford the luxury of an elaborate lunch, but their +ideas on the subject of entertaining differed very sharply, according to +the circumstances of whether they were dispensing or receiving +hospitality. To have fed themselves liberally at their own expense was, +perhaps, an extravagance to be deplored, but, at any rate, they had had +something for their money; to have drawn an unknown and socially +unremunerative Ellen Niggle into the net of their hospitality was a +catastrophe that they could not contemplate with any degree of calmness. + +The Smithly-Dubbs never quite recovered from their unnerving experience. +They have given up politics and taken to doing good. + + + + +A BREAD AND BUTTER MISS + + +"Starling Chatter and Oakhill have both dropped back in the betting," +said Bertie van Tahn, throwing the morning paper across the breakfast +table. + +"That leaves Nursery Tea practically favourite," said Odo Finsberry. + +"Nursery Tea and Pipeclay are at the top of the betting at present," said +Bertie, "but that French horse, Le Five O'Clock, seems to be fancied as +much as anything. Then there is Whitebait, and the Polish horse with a +name like some one trying to stifle a sneeze in church; they both seem to +have a lot of support." + +"It's the most open Derby there's been for years," said Odo. + +"It's simply no good trying to pick the winner on form," said Bertie; +"one must just trust to luck and inspiration." + +"The question is whether to trust to one's own inspiration, or somebody +else's. _Sporting Swank_ gives Count Palatine to win, and Le Five +O'Clock for a place." + +"Count Palatine--that adds another to our list of perplexities. Good +morning, Sir Lulworth; have you a fancy for the Derby by any chance?" + +"I don't usually take much interest in turf matters," said Sir Lulworth, +who had just made his appearance, "but I always like to have a bet on the +Guineas and the Derby. This year, I confess, it's rather difficult to +pick out anything that seems markedly better than anything else. What do +you think of Snow Bunting?" + +"Snow Bunting?" said Odo, with a groan, "there's another of them. Surely, +Snow Bunting has no earthly chance?" + +"My housekeeper's nephew, who is a shoeing-smith in the mounted section +of the Church Lads' Brigade, and an authority on horseflesh, expects him +to be among the first three." + +"The nephews of housekeepers are invariably optimists," said Bertie; +"it's a kind of natural reaction against the professional pessimism of +their aunts." + +"We don't seem to get much further in our search for the probable +winner," said Mrs. de Claux; "the more I listen to you experts the more +hopelessly befogged I get." + +"It's all very well to blame us," said Bertie to his hostess; "you +haven't produced anything in the way of an inspiration." + +"My inspiration consisted in asking you down for Derby week," retorted +Mrs. de Claux; "I thought you and Odo between you might throw some light +on the question of the moment." + +Further recriminations were cut short by the arrival of Lola Pevensey, +who floated into the room with an air of gracious apology. + +"So sorry to be so late," she observed, making a rapid tour of inspection +of the breakfast dishes. + +"Did you have a good night?" asked her hostess with perfunctory +solicitude. + +"Quite, thank you," said Lola; "I dreamt a most remarkable dream." + +A flutter, indicative of general boredom; went round the table. Other +people's dreams are about as universally interesting as accounts of other +people's gardens, or chickens, or children. + +"I dreamt about the winner of the Derby," said Lola. + +A swift reaction of attentive interest set in. + +"Do tell us what you dreamt," came in a chorus. + +"The really remarkable thing about it is that I've dreamt it two nights +running," said Lola, finally deciding between the allurements of sausages +and kedgeree; "that is why I thought it worth mentioning. You know, when +I dream things two or three nights in succession, it always means +something; I have special powers in that way. For instance, I once +dreamed three times that a winged lion was flying through the sky and one +of his wings dropped off, and he came to the ground with a crash; just +afterwards the Campanile at Venice fell down. The winged lion is the +symbol of Venice, you know," she added for the enlightenment of those who +might not be versed in Italian heraldry. "Then," she continued, "just +before the murder of the King and Queen of Servia I had a vivid dream of +two crowned figures walking into a slaughter-house by the banks of a big +river, which I took to be the Danube; and only the other day--" + +"Do tell us what you've dreamt about the Derby," interrupted Odo +impatiently. + +"Well, I saw the finish of the race as clearly as anything; and one horse +won easily, almost in a canter, and everybody cried out 'Bread and Butter +wins! Good old Bread and Butter.' I heard the name distinctly, and I've +had the same dream two nights running." + +"Bread and Butter," said Mrs. de Claux, "now, whatever horse can that +point to? Why--of course; Nursery Tea!" + +She looked round with the triumphant smile of a successful unraveller of +mystery. + +"How about Le Five O'Clock?" interposed Sir Lulworth. + +"It would fit either of them equally well," said Odo; "can you remember +any details about the jockey's colours? That might help us." + +"I seem to remember a glimpse of lemon sleeves or cap, but I can't be +sure," said Lola, after due reflection. + +"There isn't a lemon jacket or cap in the race," said Bertie, referring +to a list of starters and jockeys; "can't you remember anything about the +appearance of the horse? If it were a thick-set animal, this bread and +butter would typify Nursery Tea; and if it were thin, of course, it would +mean Le Five O'Clock." + +"That seems sound enough," said Mrs. de Claux; "do think, Lola dear, +whether the horse in your dream was thin or stoutly built." + +"I can't remember that it was one or the other," said Lola; "one wouldn't +notice such a detail in the excitement of a finish." + +"But this was a symbolic animal," said Sir Lulworth; "if it were to +typify thick or thin bread and butter surely it ought to have been either +as bulky and tubby as a shire cart-horse; or as thin as a heraldic +leopard." + +"I'm afraid you are rather a careless dreamer," said Bertie resentfully. + +"Of course, at the moment of dreaming I thought I was witnessing a real +race, not the portent of one," said Lola; "otherwise I should have +particularly noticed all helpful details." + +"The Derby isn't run till to-morrow," said Mrs. de Claux; "do you think +you are likely to have the same dream again to-night? If so; you can fix +your attention on the important detail of the animal's appearance." + +"I'm afraid I shan't sleep at all to-night," said Lola pathetically; +"every fifth night I suffer from insomnia, and it's due to-night." + +"It's most provoking," said Bertie; "of course, we can back both horses, +but it would be much more satisfactory to have all our money on the +winner. Can't you take a sleeping-draught, or something?" + +"Oakleaves, soaked in warm water and put under the bed, are recommended +by some," said Mrs. de Claux. + +"A glass of Benedictine, with a drop of eau-de-Cologne--" said Sir +Lulworth. + +"I have tried every known remedy," said Lola, with dignity; "I've been a +martyr to insomnia for years." + +"But now we are being martyrs to it," said Odo sulkily; "I particularly +want to land a big coup over this race." + +"I don't have insomnia for my own amusement," snapped Lola. + +"Let us hope for the best," said Mrs. de Claux soothingly; "to-night may +prove an exception to the fifth-night rule." + +But when breakfast time came round again Lola reported a blank night as +far as visions were concerned. + +"I don't suppose I had as much as ten minutes' sleep, and, certainly, no +dreams." + +"I'm so sorry, for your sake in the first place, and ours as well," said +her hostess; "do you think you could induce a short nap after breakfast? +It would be so good for you--and you _might_ dream something. There +would still be time for us to get our bets on." + +"I'll try if you like," said Lola; "it sounds rather like a small child +being sent to bed in disgrace." + +"I'll come and read the _Encyclopaedia Britannica_ to you if you think it +will make you sleep any sooner," said Bertie obligingly. + +Rain was falling too steadily to permit of outdoor amusement, and the +party suffered considerably during the next two hours from the absolute +quiet that was enforced all over the house in order to give Lola every +chance of achieving slumber. Even the click of billiard balls was +considered a possible factor of disturbance, and the canaries were +carried down to the gardener's lodge, while the cuckoo clock in the hall +was muffled under several layers of rugs. A notice, "Please do not Knock +or Ring," was posted on the front door at Bertie's suggestion, and guests +and servants spoke in tragic whispers as though the dread presence of +death or sickness had invaded the house. The precautions proved of no +avail: Lola added a sleepless morning to a wakeful night, and the bets of +the party had to be impartially divided between Nursery Tea and the +French Colt. + +"So provoking to have to split out bets," said Mrs. de Claux, as her +guests gathered in the hall later in the day, waiting for the result of +the race. + +"I did my best for you," said Lola, feeling that she was not getting her +due share of gratitude; "I told you what I had seen in my dreams, a brown +horse, called Bread and Butter, winning easily from all the rest." + +"What?" screamed Bertie, jumping up from his sea, "a _brown_ horse! +Miserable woman, you never said a word about it's being a brown horse." + +"Didn't I?" faltered Lola; "I thought I told you it was a brown horse. It +was certainly brown in both dreams. But I don't see what the colour has +got to do with it. Nursery Tea and Le Five O'Clock are both chestnuts." + +"Merciful Heaven! Doesn't brown bread and butter with a sprinkling of +lemon in the colours suggest anything to you?" raged Bertie. + +A slow, cumulative groan broke from the assembly as the meaning of his +words gradually dawned on his hearers. + +For the second time that day Lola retired to the seclusion of her room; +she could not face the universal looks of reproach directed at her when +Whitebait was announced winner at the comfortable price of fourteen to +one. + + + + +BERTIE'S CHRISTMAS EVE + + +It was Christmas Eve, and the family circle of Luke Steffink, Esq., was +aglow with the amiability and random mirth which the occasion demanded. A +long and lavish dinner had been partaken of, waits had been round and +sung carols; the house-party had regaled itself with more caroling on its +own account, and there had been romping which, even in a pulpit +reference, could not have been condemned as ragging. In the midst of the +general glow, however, there was one black unkindled cinder. + +Bertie Steffink, nephew of the aforementioned Luke, had early in life +adopted the profession of ne'er-do-weel; his father had been something of +the kind before him. At the age of eighteen Bertie had commenced that +round of visits to our Colonial possessions, so seemly and desirable in +the case of a Prince of the Blood, so suggestive of insincerity in a +young man of the middle-class. He had gone to grow tea in Ceylon and +fruit in British Columbia, and to help sheep to grow wool in Australia. +At the age of twenty he had just returned from some similar errand in +Canada, from which it may be gathered that the trial he gave to these +various experiments was of the summary drum-head nature. Luke Steffink, +who fulfilled the troubled role of guardian and deputy-parent to Bertie, +deplored the persistent manifestation of the homing instinct on his +nephew's part, and his solemn thanks earlier in the day for the blessing +of reporting a united family had no reference to Bertie's return. + +Arrangements had been promptly made for packing the youth off to a +distant corner of Rhodesia, whence return would be a difficult matter; +the journey to this uninviting destination was imminent, in fact a more +careful and willing traveller would have already begun to think about his +packing. Hence Bertie was in no mood to share in the festive spirit +which displayed itself around him, and resentment smouldered within him +at the eager, self-absorbed discussion of social plans for the coming +months which he heard on all sides. Beyond depressing his uncle and the +family circle generally by singing "Say au revoir, and not good-bye," he +had taken no part in the evening's conviviality. + +Eleven o'clock had struck some half-hour ago, and the elder Steffinks +began to throw out suggestions leading up to that process which they +called retiring for the night. + +"Come, Teddie, it's time you were in your little bed, you know," said +Luke Steffink to his thirteen-year-old son. + +"That's where we all ought to be," said Mrs. Steffink. + +"There wouldn't be room," said Bertie. + +The remark was considered to border on the scandalous; everybody ate +raisins and almonds with the nervous industry of sheep feeding during +threatening weather. + +"In Russia," said Horace Bordenby, who was staying in the house as a +Christmas guest, "I've read that the peasants believe that if you go into +a cow-house or stable at midnight on Christmas Eve you will hear the +animals talk. They're supposed to have the gift of speech at that one +moment of the year." + +"Oh, _do_ let's _all_ go down to the cow-house and listen to what they've +got to say!" exclaimed Beryl, to whom anything was thrilling and amusing +if you did it in a troop. + +Mrs. Steffink made a laughing protest, but gave a virtual consent by +saying, "We must all wrap up well, then." The idea seemed a +scatterbrained one to her, and almost heathenish, but if afforded an +opportunity for "throwing the young people together," and as such she +welcomed it. Mr. Horace Bordenby was a young man with quite substantial +prospects, and he had danced with Beryl at a local subscription ball a +sufficient number of times to warrant the authorised inquiry on the part +of the neighbours whether "there was anything in it." Though Mrs. +Steffink would not have put it in so many words, she shared the idea of +the Russian peasantry that on this night the beast might speak. + +The cow-house stood at the junction of the garden with a small paddock, +an isolated survival, in a suburban neighbourhood; of what had once been +a small farm. Luke Steffink was complacently proud of his cow-house and +his two cows; he felt that they gave him a stamp of solidity which no +number of Wyandottes or Orpingtons could impart. They even seemed to +link him in a sort of inconsequent way with those patriarchs who derived +importance from their floating capital of flocks and herbs, he-asses and +she-asses. It had been an anxious and momentous occasion when he had had +to decide definitely between "the Byre" and "the Ranch" for the naming of +his villa residence. A December midnight was hardly the moment he would +have chosen for showing his farm-building to visitors, but since it was a +fine night, and the young people were anxious for an excuse for a mild +frolic, Luke consented to chaperon the expedition. The servants had long +since gone to bed, so the house was left in charge of Bertie, who +scornfully declined to stir out on the pretext of listening to bovine +conversation. + +"We must go quietly," said Luke, as he headed the procession of giggling +young folk, brought up in the rear by the shawled and hooded figure of +Mrs. Steffink; "I've always laid stress on keeping this a quiet and +orderly neighbourhood." + +It was a few minutes to midnight when the party reached the cow-house and +made its way in by the light of Luke's stable lantern. For a moment +every one stood in silence, almost with a feeling of being in church. + +"Daisy--the one lying down--is by a shorthorn bull out of a Guernsey +cow," announced Luke in a hushed voice, which was in keeping with the +foregoing impression. + +"Is she?" said Bordenby, rather as if he had expected her to be by +Rembrandt. + +"Myrtle is--" + +Myrtle's family history was cut short by a little scream from the women +of the party. + +The cow-house door had closed noiselessly behind them and the key had +turned gratingly in the lock; then they heard Bertie's voice pleasantly +wishing them good-night and his footsteps retreating along the garden +path. + +Luke Steffink strode to the window; it was a small square opening of the +old-fashioned sort, with iron bars let into the stonework. + +"Unlock the door this instant," he shouted, with as much air of menacing +authority as a hen might assume when screaming through the bars of a coop +at a marauding hawk. In reply to his summons the hall-door closed with a +defiant bang. + +A neighbouring clock struck the hour of midnight. If the cows had +received the gift of human speech at that moment they would not have been +able to make themselves heard. Seven or eight other voices were engaged +in describing Bertie's present conduct and his general character at a +high pressure of excitement and indignation. + +In the course of half an hour or so everything that it was permissible to +say about Bertie had been said some dozens of times, and other topics +began to come to the front--the extreme mustiness of the cow-house, the +possibility of it catching fire, and the probability of it being a Rowton +House for the vagrant rats of the neighbourhood. And still no sign of +deliverance came to the unwilling vigil-keepers. + +Towards one o'clock the sound of rather boisterous and undisciplined +carol-singing approached rapidly, and came to a sudden anchorage, +apparently just outside the garden-gate. A motor-load of youthful +"bloods," in a high state of conviviality, had made a temporary halt for +repairs; the stoppage, however, did not extend to the vocal efforts of +the party, and the watchers in the cow-shed were treated to a highly +unauthorised rendering of "Good King Wenceslas," in which the adjective +"good" appeared to be very carelessly applied. + +The noise had the effect of bringing Bertie out into the garden, but he +utterly ignored the pale, angry faces peering out at the cow-house +window, and concentrated his attention on the revellers outside the gate. + +"Wassail, you chaps!" he shouted. + +"Wassail, old sport!" they shouted back; "we'd jolly well drink y'r +health, only we've nothing to drink it in." + +"Come and wassail inside," said Bertie hospitably; "I'm all alone, and +there's heap's of 'wet'." + +They were total strangers, but his touch of kindness made them instantly +his kin. In another moment the unauthorised version of King Wenceslas, +which, like many other scandals, grew worse on repetition, went echoing +up the garden path; two of the revellers gave an impromptu performance on +the way by executing the staircase waltz up the terraces of what Luke +Steffink, hitherto with some justification, called his rock-garden. The +rock part of it was still there when the waltz had been accorded its +third encore. Luke, more than ever like a cooped hen behind the +cow-house bars, was in a position to realise the feelings of +concert-goers unable to countermand the call for an encore which they +neither desire or deserve. + +The hall door closed with a bang on Bertie's guests, and the sounds of +merriment became faint and muffled to the weary watchers at the other end +of the garden. Presently two ominous pops, in quick succession, made +themselves distinctly heard. + +"They've got at the champagne!" exclaimed Mrs. Steffink. + +"Perhaps it's the sparkling Moselle," said Luke hopefully. + +Three or four more pops were heard. + +"The champagne _and_ the sparkling Moselle," said Mrs. Steffink. + +Luke uncorked an expletive which, like brandy in a temperance household, +was only used on rare emergencies. Mr. Horace Bordenby had been making +use of similar expressions under his breath for a considerable time past. +The experiment of "throwing the young people together" had been prolonged +beyond a point when it was likely to produce any romantic result. + +Some forty minutes later the hall door opened and disgorged a crowd that +had thrown off any restraint of shyness that might have influenced its +earlier actions. Its vocal efforts in the direction of carol singing +were now supplemented by instrumental music; a Christmas-tree that had +been prepared for the children of the gardener and other household +retainers had yielded a rich spoil of tin trumpets, rattles, and drums. +The life-story of King Wenceslas had been dropped, Luke was thankful to +notice, but it was intensely irritating for the chilled prisoners in the +cow-house to be told that it was a hot time in the old town to-night, +together with some accurate but entirely superfluous information as to +the imminence of Christmas morning. Judging by the protests which began +to be shouted from the upper windows of neighbouring houses the +sentiments prevailing in the cow-house were heartily echoed in other +quarters. + +The revellers found their car, and, what was more remarkable, managed to +drive off in it, with a parting fanfare of tin trumpets. The lively beat +of a drum disclosed the fact that the master of the revels remained on +the scene. + +"Bertie!" came in an angry, imploring chorus of shouts and screams from +the cow-house window. + +"Hullo," cried the owner of the name, turning his rather errant steps in +the direction of the summons; "are you people still there? Must have +heard everything cows got to say by this time. If you haven't, no use +waiting. After all, it's a Russian legend, and Russian Chrismush Eve not +due for 'nother fortnight. Better come out." + +After one or two ineffectual attempts he managed to pitch the key of the +cow-house door in through the window. Then, lifting his voice in the +strains of "I'm afraid to go home in the dark," with a lusty drum +accompaniment, he led the way back to the house. The hurried procession +of the released that followed in his steps came in for a good deal of the +adverse comment that his exuberant display had evoked. + +It was the happiest Christmas Eve he had ever spent. To quote his own +words, he had a rotten Christmas. + + + + +FOREWARNED + + +Alethia Debchance sat in a corner of an otherwise empty railway carriage, +more or less at ease as regarded body, but in some trepidation as to +mind. She had embarked on a social adventure of no little magnitude as +compared with the accustomed seclusion and stagnation of her past life. +At the age of twenty-eight she could look back on nothing more eventful +than the daily round of her existence in her aunt's house at +Webblehinton, a hamlet four and a half miles distant from a country town +and about a quarter of a century removed from modern times. Their +neighbours had been elderly and few, not much given to social +intercourse, but helpful or politely sympathetic in times of illness. +Newspapers of the ordinary kind were a rarity; those that Alethia saw +regularly were devoted exclusively either to religion or to poultry, and +the world of politics was to her an unheeded unexplored region. Her +ideas on life in general had been acquired through the medium of popular +respectable novel-writers, and modified or emphasised by such knowledge +as her aunt, the vicar, and her aunt's housekeeper had put at her +disposal. And now, in her twenty-ninth year, her aunt's death had left +her, well provided for as regards income, but somewhat isolated in the +matter of kith and kin and human companionship. She had some cousins who +were on terms of friendly, though infrequent, correspondence with her, +but as they lived permanently in Ceylon, a locality about which she knew +little, beyond the assurance contained in the missionary hymn that the +human element there was vile, they were not of much immediate use to her. +Other cousins she also possessed, more distant as regards relationship, +but not quite so geographically remote, seeing that they lived somewhere +in the Midlands. She could hardly remember ever having met them, but +once or twice in the course of the last three or four years they had +expressed a polite wish that she should pay them a visit; they had +probably not been unduly depressed by the fact that her aunt's failing +health had prevented her from accepting their invitation. The note of +condolence that had arrived on the occasion of her aunt's death had +included a vague hope that Alethia would find time in the near future to +spend a few days with her cousins, and after much deliberation and many +hesitations she had written to propose herself as a guest for a definite +date some week ahead. The family, she reflected with relief, was not a +large one; the two daughters were married and away, there was only old +Mrs. Bludward and her son Robert at home. Mrs. Bludward was something of +an invalid, and Robert was a young man who had been at Oxford and was +going into Parliament. Further than that Alethia's information did not +go; her imagination, founded on her extensive knowledge of the people one +met in novels, had to supply the gaps. The mother was not difficult to +place; she would either be an ultra-amiable old lady, bearing her feeble +health with uncomplaining fortitude, and having a kind word for the +gardener's boy and a sunny smile for the chance visitor, or else she +would be cold and peevish, with eyes that pierced you like a gimlet, and +a unreasoning idolatry of her son. Alethia's imagination rather inclined +her to the latter view. Robert was more of a problem. There were three +dominant types of manhood to be taken into consideration in working out +his classification; there was Hugo, who was strong, good, and beautiful, +a rare type and not very often met with; there was Sir Jasper, who was +utterly vile and absolutely unscrupulous, and there was Nevil, who was +not really bad at heart, but had a weak mouth and usually required the +life-work of two good women to keep him from ultimate disaster. It was +probable, Alethia considered, that Robert came into the last category, in +which case she was certain to enjoy the companionship of one or two +excellent women, and might possibly catch glimpses of undesirable +adventuresses or come face to face with reckless admiration-seeking +married women. It was altogether an exciting prospect, this sudden +venture into an unexplored world of unknown human beings, and Alethia +rather wished that she could have taken the vicar with her; she was not, +however, rich or important enough to travel with a chaplain, as the +Marquis of Moystoncleugh always did in the novel she had just been +reading, so she recognised that such a proceeding was out of the +question. + +The train which carried Alethia towards her destination was a local one, +with the wayside station habit strongly developed. At most of the +stations no one seemed to want to get into the train or to leave it, but +at one there were several market folk on the platform, and two men, of +the farmer or small cattle-dealer class, entered Alethia's carriage. +Apparently they had just foregathered, after a day's business, and their +conversation consisted of a rapid exchange of short friendly inquiries as +to health, family, stock, and so forth, and some grumbling remarks on the +weather. Suddenly, however, their talk took a dramatically interesting +turn, and Alethia listened with wide-eyed attention. + +"What do you think of Mister Robert Bludward, eh?" + +There was a certain scornful ring in his question. + +"Robert Bludward? An out-an'-out rotter, that's what he is. Ought to be +ashamed to look any decent man in the face. Send him to Parliament to +represent us--not much! He'd rob a poor man of his last shilling, he +would." + +"Ah, that he would. Tells a pack of lies to get our votes, that's all +that he's after, damn him. Did you see the way the _Argus_ showed him up +this week? Properly exposed him, hip and thigh, I tell you." + +And so on they ran, in their withering indictment. There could be no +doubt that it was Alethia's cousin and prospective host to whom they were +referring; the allusion to a Parliamentary candidature settled that. What +could Robert Bludward have done, what manner of man could he be, that +people should speak of him with such obvious reprobation? + +"He was hissed down at Shoalford yesterday," said one of the speakers. + +Hissed! Had it come to that? There was something dramatically biblical +in the idea of Robert Bludward's neighbours and acquaintances hissing him +for very scorn. Lord Hereward Stranglath had been hissed, now Alethia +came to think of it, in the eighth chapter of _Matterby Towers_, while in +the act of opening a Wesleyan bazaar, because he was suspected (unjustly +as it turned out afterwards) of having beaten the German governess to +death. And in _Tainted Guineas_ Roper Squenderby had been deservedly +hissed, on the steps of the Jockey Club, for having handed a rival owner +a forged telegram, containing false news of his mother's death, just +before the start for an important race, thereby ensuring the withdrawal +of his rival's horse. In placid Saxon-blooded England people did not +demonstrate their feelings lightly and without some strong compelling +cause. What manner of evildoer was Robert Bludward? + +The train stopped at another small station, and the two men got out. One +of them left behind him a copy of the _Argus_, the local paper to which +he had made reference. Alethia pounced on it, in the expectation of +finding a cultured literary endorsement of the censure which these rough +farming men had expressed in their homely, honest way. She had not far +to look; "Mr. Robert Bludward, Swanker," was the title of one of the +principal articles in the paper. She did not exactly know what a swanker +was, probably it referred to some unspeakable form of cruelty, but she +read enough in the first few sentences of the article to discover that +her cousin Robert, the man at whose house she was about to stay, was an +unscrupulous, unprincipled character, of a low order of intelligence, yet +cunning withal, and that he and his associates were responsible for most +of the misery, disease, poverty, and ignorance with which the country was +afflicted; never, except in one or two of the denunciatory Psalms, which +she had always supposed to have be written in a spirit of exaggerated +Oriental imagery, had she read such an indictment of a human being. And +this monster was going to meet her at Derrelton Station in a few short +minutes. She would know him at once; he would have the dark beetling +brows, the quick, furtive glance, the sneering, unsavoury smile that +always characterised the Sir Jaspers of this world. It was too late to +escape; she must force herself to meet him with outward calm. + +It was a considerable shock to her to find that Robert was fair, with a +snub nose, merry eye, and rather a schoolboy manner. "A serpent in +duckling's plumage," was her private comment; merciful chance had +revealed him to her in his true colours. + +As they drove away from the station a dissipated-looking man of the +labouring class waved his hat in friendly salute. "Good luck to you, Mr. +Bludward," he shouted; "you'll come out on top! We'll break old +Chobham's neck for him." + +"Who was that man?" asked Alethia quickly. + +"Oh, one of my supporters," laughed Robert; "a bit of a poacher and a bit +of a pub-loafer, but he's on the right side." + +So these were the sort of associates that Robert Bludward consorted with, +thought Alethia. + +"Who is the person he referred to as old Chobham?" she asked. + +"Sir John Chobham, the man who is opposing me," answered Robert; "that is +his house away there among the trees on the right." + +So there was an upright man, possibly a very Hugo in character, who was +thwarting and defying the evildoer in his nefarious career, and there was +a dastardly plot afoot to break his neck! Possibly the attempt would be +made within the next few hours. He must certainly be warned. Alethia +remembered how Lady Sylvia Broomgate, in _Nightshade Court_, had +pretended to be bolted with by her horse up to the front door of a +threatened county magnate, and had whispered a warning in his ear which +saved him from being the victim of foul murder. She wondered if there +was a quiet pony in the stables on which she would be allowed to ride out +alone. The chances were that she would be watched. Robert would come +spurring after her and seize her bridle just as she was turning in at Sir +John's gates. + +A group of men that they passed in a village street gave them no very +friendly looks, and Alethia thought she heard a furtive hiss; a moment +later they came upon an errand boy riding a bicycle. He had the frank +open countenance, neatly brushed hair and tidy clothes that betoken a +clear conscience and a good mother. He stared straight at the occupants +of the car, and, after he had passed them, sang in his clear, boyish +voice: + +"We'll hang Bobby Bludward on the sour apple tree." + +Robert merely laughed. That was how he took the scorn and condemnation +of his fellow-men. He had goaded them to desperation with his shameless +depravity till they spoke openly of putting him to a violent death, and +he laughed. + +Mrs. Bludward proved to be of the type that Alethia had suspected, thin- +lipped, cold-eyed, and obviously devoted to her worthless son. From her +no help was to be expected. Alethia locked her door that night, and +placed such ramparts of furniture against it that the maid had great +difficulty in breaking in with the early tea in the morning. + +After breakfast Alethia, on the pretext of going to look at an outlying +rose-garden, slipped away to the village through which they had passed on +the previous evening. She remembered that Robert had pointed out to her +a public reading-room, and here she considered it possible that she might +meet Sir John Chobham, or some one who knew him well and would carry a +message to him. The room was empty when she entered it; a _Graphic_ +twelve days old, a yet older copy of _Punch_, and one or two local papers +lay upon the central table; the other tables were stacked for the most +part with chess and draughts-boards, and wooden boxes of chessmen and +dominoes. Listlessly she picked up one of the papers, the _Sentinel_, +and glanced at its contents. Suddenly she started, and began to read +with breathless attention a prominently printed article, headed "A Little +Limelight on Sir John Chobham." The colour ebbed away from her face, a +look of frightened despair crept into her eyes. Never, in any novel that +she had read, had a defenceless young woman been confronted with a +situation like this. Sir John, the Hugo of her imagination, was, if +anything, rather more depraved and despicable than Robert Bludward. He +was mean, evasive, callously indifferent to his country's interests, a +cheat, a man who habitually broke his word, and who was responsible, with +his associates, for most of the poverty, misery, crime, and national +degradation with which the country was afflicted. He was also a +candidate for Parliament, it seemed, and as there was only one seat in +this particular locality, it was obvious that the success of either +Robert or Sir John would mean a check to the ambitions of the other, +hence, no doubt, the rivalry and enmity between these otherwise kindred +souls. One was seeking to have his enemy done to death, the other was +apparently trying to stir up his supporters to an act of "Lynch law". All +this in order that there might be an unopposed election, that one or +other of the candidates might go into Parliament with honeyed eloquence +on his lips and blood on his heart. Were men really so vile? + +"I must go back to Webblehinton at once," Alethia informed her astonished +hostess at lunch time; "I have had a telegram. A friend is very +seriously ill and I have been sent for." + +It was dreadful to have to concoct lies, but it would be more dreadful to +have to spend another night under that roof. + +Alethia reads novels now with even greater appreciation than before. She +has been herself in the world outside Webblehinton, the world where the +great dramas of sin and villainy are played unceasingly. She had come +unscathed through it, but what might have happened if she had gone +unsuspectingly to visit Sir John Chobham and warn him of his danger? What +indeed! She had been saved by the fearless outspokenness of the local +Press. + + + + +THE INTERLOPERS + + +In a forest of mixed growth somewhere on the eastern spurs of the +Karpathians, a man stood one winter night watching and listening, as +though he waited for some beast of the woods to come within the range of +his vision, and, later, of his rifle. But the game for whose presence he +kept so keen an outlook was none that figured in the sportsman's calendar +as lawful and proper for the chase; Ulrich von Gradwitz patrolled the +dark forest in quest of a human enemy. + +The forest lands of Gradwitz were of wide extent and well stocked with +game; the narrow strip of precipitous woodland that lay on its outskirt +was not remarkable for the game it harboured or the shooting it afforded, +but it was the most jealously guarded of all its owner's territorial +possessions. A famous law suit, in the days of his grandfather, had +wrested it from the illegal possession of a neighbouring family of petty +landowners; the dispossessed party had never acquiesced in the judgment +of the Courts, and a long series of poaching affrays and similar scandals +had embittered the relationships between the families for three +generations. The neighbour feud had grown into a personal one since +Ulrich had come to be head of his family; if there was a man in the world +whom he detested and wished ill to it was Georg Znaeym, the inheritor of +the quarrel and the tireless game-snatcher and raider of the disputed +border-forest. The feud might, perhaps, have died down or been +compromised if the personal ill-will of the two men had not stood in the +way; as boys they had thirsted for one another's blood, as men each +prayed that misfortune might fall on the other, and this wind-scourged +winter night Ulrich had banded together his foresters to watch the dark +forest, not in quest of four-footed quarry, but to keep a look-out for +the prowling thieves whom he suspected of being afoot from across the +land boundary. The roebuck, which usually kept in the sheltered hollows +during a storm-wind, were running like driven things to-night, and there +was movement and unrest among the creatures that were wont to sleep +through the dark hours. Assuredly there was a disturbing element in the +forest, and Ulrich could guess the quarter from whence it came. + +He strayed away by himself from the watchers whom he had placed in ambush +on the crest of the hill, and wandered far down the steep slopes amid the +wild tangle of undergrowth, peering through the tree trunks and listening +through the whistling and skirling of the wind and the restless beating +of the branches for sight and sound of the marauders. If only on this +wild night, in this dark, lone spot, he might come across Georg Znaeym, +man to man, with none to witness--that was the wish that was uppermost in +his thoughts. And as he stepped round the trunk of a huge beech he came +face to face with the man he sought. + +The two enemies stood glaring at one another for a long silent moment. +Each had a rifle in his hand, each had hate in his heart and murder +uppermost in his mind. The chance had come to give full play to the +passions of a lifetime. But a man who has been brought up under the code +of a restraining civilisation cannot easily nerve himself to shoot down +his neighbour in cold blood and without word spoken, except for an +offence against his hearth and honour. And before the moment of +hesitation had given way to action a deed of Nature's own violence +overwhelmed them both. A fierce shriek of the storm had been answered by +a splitting crash over their heads, and ere they could leap aside a mass +of falling beech tree had thundered down on them. Ulrich von Gradwitz +found himself stretched on the ground, one arm numb beneath him and the +other held almost as helplessly in a tight tangle of forked branches, +while both legs were pinned beneath the fallen mass. His heavy shooting- +boots had saved his feet from being crushed to pieces, but if his +fractures were not as serious as they might have been, at least it was +evident that he could not move from his present position till some one +came to release him. The descending twig had slashed the skin of his +face, and he had to wink away some drops of blood from his eyelashes +before he could take in a general view of the disaster. At his side, so +near that under ordinary circumstances he could almost have touched him, +lay Georg Znaeym, alive and struggling, but obviously as helplessly +pinioned down as himself. All round them lay a thick-strewn wreckage of +splintered branches and broken twigs. + +Relief at being alive and exasperation at his captive plight brought a +strange medley of pious thank-offerings and sharp curses to Ulrich's +lips. Georg, who was early blinded with the blood which trickled across +his eyes, stopped his struggling for a moment to listen, and then gave a +short, snarling laugh. + +"So you're not killed, as you ought to be, but you're caught, anyway," he +cried; "caught fast. Ho, what a jest, Ulrich von Gradwitz snared in his +stolen forest. There's real justice for you!" + +And he laughed again, mockingly and savagely. + +"I'm caught in my own forest-land," retorted Ulrich. "When my men come +to release us you will wish, perhaps, that you were in a better plight +than caught poaching on a neighbour's land, shame on you." + +Georg was silent for a moment; then he answered quietly: + +"Are you sure that your men will find much to release? I have men, too, +in the forest to-night, close behind me, and _they_ will be here first +and do the releasing. When they drag me out from under these damned +branches it won't need much clumsiness on their part to roll this mass of +trunk right over on the top of you. Your men will find you dead under a +fallen beech tree. For form's sake I shall send my condolences to your +family." + +"It is a useful hint," said Ulrich fiercely. "My men had orders to +follow in ten minutes time, seven of which must have gone by already, and +when they get me out--I will remember the hint. Only as you will have +met your death poaching on my lands I don't think I can decently send any +message of condolence to your family." + +"Good," snarled Georg, "good. We fight this quarrel out to the death, +you and I and our foresters, with no cursed interlopers to come between +us. Death and damnation to you, Ulrich von Gradwitz." + +"The same to you, Georg Znaeym, forest-thief, game-snatcher." + +Both men spoke with the bitterness of possible defeat before them, for +each knew that it might be long before his men would seek him out or find +him; it was a bare matter of chance which party would arrive first on the +scene. + +Both had now given up the useless struggle to free themselves from the +mass of wood that held them down; Ulrich limited his endeavours to an +effort to bring his one partially free arm near enough to his outer coat- +pocket to draw out his wine-flask. Even when he had accomplished that +operation it was long before he could manage the unscrewing of the +stopper or get any of the liquid down his throat. But what a Heaven-sent +draught it seemed! It was an open winter, and little snow had fallen as +yet, hence the captives suffered less from the cold than might have been +the case at that season of the year; nevertheless, the wine was warming +and reviving to the wounded man, and he looked across with something like +a throb of pity to where his enemy lay, just keeping the groans of pain +and weariness from crossing his lips. + +"Could you reach this flask if I threw it over to you?" asked Ulrich +suddenly; "there is good wine in it, and one may as well be as +comfortable as one can. Let us drink, even if to-night one of us dies." + +"No, I can scarcely see anything; there is so much blood caked round my +eyes," said Georg, "and in any case I don't drink wine with an enemy." + +Ulrich was silent for a few minutes, and lay listening to the weary +screeching of the wind. An idea was slowly forming and growing in his +brain, an idea that gained strength every time that he looked across at +the man who was fighting so grimly against pain and exhaustion. In the +pain and languor that Ulrich himself was feeling the old fierce hatred +seemed to be dying down. + +"Neighbour," he said presently, "do as you please if your men come first. +It was a fair compact. But as for me, I've changed my mind. If my men +are the first to come you shall be the first to be helped, as though you +were my guest. We have quarrelled like devils all our lives over this +stupid strip of forest, where the trees can't even stand upright in a +breath of wind. Lying here to-night thinking I've come to think we've +been rather fools; there are better things in life than getting the +better of a boundary dispute. Neighbour, if you will help me to bury the +old quarrel I--I will ask you to be my friend." + +Georg Znaeym was silent for so long that Ulrich thought, perhaps, he had +fainted with the pain of his injuries. Then he spoke slowly and in +jerks. + +"How the whole region would stare and gabble if we rode into the market- +square together. No one living can remember seeing a Znaeym and a von +Gradwitz talking to one another in friendship. And what peace there +would be among the forester folk if we ended our feud to-night. And if +we choose to make peace among our people there is none other to +interfere, no interlopers from outside . . . You would come and keep the +Sylvester night beneath my roof, and I would come and feast on some high +day at your castle . . . I would never fire a shot on your land, save +when you invited me as a guest; and you should come and shoot with me +down in the marshes where the wildfowl are. In all the countryside there +are none that could hinder if we willed to make peace. I never thought +to have wanted to do other than hate you all my life, but I think I have +changed my mind about things too, this last half-hour. And you offered +me your wine-flask . . . Ulrich von Gradwitz, I will be your friend." + +For a space both men were silent, turning over in their minds the +wonderful changes that this dramatic reconciliation would bring about. In +the cold, gloomy forest, with the wind tearing in fitful gusts through +the naked branches and whistling round the tree-trunks, they lay and +waited for the help that would now bring release and succour to both +parties. And each prayed a private prayer that his men might be the +first to arrive, so that he might be the first to show honourable +attention to the enemy that had become a friend. + +Presently, as the wind dropped for a moment, Ulrich broke silence. + +"Let's shout for help," he said, "in this lull our voices may +carry a little way." + +"They won't carry far through the trees and undergrowth," said Georg, +"but we can try. Together, then." + +The two raised their voices in a prolonged hunting call. + +"Together again," said Ulrich a few minutes later, after listening in +vain for an answering halloo. + +"I heard nothing but the pestilential wind," said Georg hoarsely. + +There was silence again for some minutes, and then Ulrich gave a joyful +cry. + +"I can see figures coming through the wood. They are following in the +way I came down the hillside." + +Both men raised their voices in as loud a shout as they could muster. + +"They hear us! They've stopped. Now they see us. They're running down +the hill towards us," cried Ulrich. + +"How many of them are there?" asked Georg. + +"I can't see distinctly," said Ulrich; "nine or ten," + +"Then they are yours," said Georg; "I had only seven out with me." + +"They are making all the speed they can, brave lads," said Ulrich gladly. + +"Are they your men?" asked Georg. "Are they your men?" he repeated +impatiently as Ulrich did not answer. + +"No," said Ulrich with a laugh, the idiotic chattering laugh of a man +unstrung with hideous fear. + +"Who are they?" asked Georg quickly, straining his eyes to see what the +other would gladly not have seen. + +"_Wolves_." + + + + +QUAIL SEED + + +"The outlook is not encouraging for us smaller businesses," said Mr. +Scarrick to the artist and his sister, who had taken rooms over his +suburban grocery store. "These big concerns are offering all sorts of +attractions to the shopping public which we couldn't afford to imitate, +even on a small scale--reading-rooms and play-rooms and gramophones and +Heaven knows what. People don't care to buy half a pound of sugar +nowadays unless they can listen to Harry Lauder and have the latest +Australian cricket scores ticked off before their eyes. With the big +Christmas stock we've got in we ought to keep half a dozen assistants +hard at work, but as it is my nephew Jimmy and myself can pretty well +attend to it ourselves. It's a nice stock of goods, too, if I could only +run it off in a few weeks time, but there's no chance of that--not unless +the London line was to get snowed up for a fortnight before Christmas. I +did have a sort of idea of engaging Miss Luffcombe to give recitations +during afternoons; she made a great hit at the Post Office entertainment +with her rendering of 'Little Beatrice's Resolve'." + +"Anything less likely to make your shop a fashionable shopping centre I +can't imagine," said the artist, with a very genuine shudder; "if I were +trying to decide between the merits of Carlsbad plums and confected figs +as a winter dessert it would infuriate me to have my train of thought +entangled with little Beatrice's resolve to be an Angel of Light or a +girl scout. No," he continued, "the desire to get something thrown in +for nothing is a ruling passion with the feminine shopper, but you can't +afford to pander effectively to it. Why not appeal to another instinct; +which dominates not only the woman shopper but the male shopper--in fact, +the entire human race?" + +"What is that instinct, sir?" said the grocer. + +* * * * * + +Mrs. Greyes and Miss Fritten had missed the 2.18 to Town, and as there +was not another train till 3.12 they thought that they might as well make +their grocery purchases at Scarrick's. It would not be sensational, they +agreed, but it would still be shopping. + +For some minutes they had the shop almost to themselves, as far as +customers were concerned, but while they were debating the respective +virtues and blemishes of two competing brands of anchovy paste they were +startled by an order, given across the counter, for six pomegranates and +a packet of quail seed. Neither commodity was in general demand in that +neighbourhood. Equally unusual was the style and appearance of the +customer; about sixteen years old, with dark olive skin, large dusky +eyes, and think, low-growing, blue-black hair, he might have made his +living as an artist's model. As a matter of fact he did. The bowl of +beaten brass that he produced for the reception of his purchases was +distinctly the most astonishing variation on the string bag or marketing +basket of suburban civilisation that his fellow-shoppers had ever seen. +He threw a gold piece, apparently of some exotic currency, across the +counter, and did not seem disposed to wait for any change that might be +forthcoming. + +"The wine and figs were not paid for yesterday," he said; "keep what is +over of the money for our future purchases." + +"A very strange-looking boy?" said Mrs. Greyes interrogatively to the +grocer as soon as his customer had left. + +"A foreigner, I believe," said Mr. Scarrick, with a shortness that was +entirely out of keeping with his usually communicative manner. + +"I wish for a pound and a half of the best coffee you have," said an +authoritative voice a moment or two later. The speaker was a tall, +authoritative-looking man of rather outlandish aspect, remarkable among +other things for a full black beard, worn in a style more in vogue in +early Assyria than in a London suburb of the present day. + +"Has a dark-faced boy been here buying pomegranates?" he asked suddenly, +as the coffee was being weighed out to him. + +The two ladies almost jumped on hearing the grocer reply with an +unblushing negative. + +"We have a few pomegranates in stock," he continued, "but there has been +no demand for them." + +"My servant will fetch the coffee as usual," said the purchaser, +producing a coin from a wonderful metal-work purse. As an apparent +afterthought he fired out the question: "Have you, perhaps, any quail +seed?" + +"No," said the grocer, without hesitation, "we don't stock it." + +"What will he deny next?" asked Mrs. Greyes under her breath. What made +it seem so much worse was the fact that Mr. Scarrick had quite recently +presided at a lecture on Savonarola. + +Turning up the deep astrachan collar of his long coat, the stranger swept +out of the shop, with the air, Miss Fritten afterwards described it, of a +Satrap proroguing a Sanhedrim. Whether such a pleasant function ever +fell to a Satrap's lot she was not quite certain, but the simile +faithfully conveyed her meaning to a large circle of acquaintances. + +"Don't let's bother about the 3.12," said Mrs. Greyes; "let's go and talk +this over at Laura Lipping's. It's her day." + +When the dark-faced boy arrived at the shop next day with his brass +marketing bowl there was quite a fair gathering of customers, most of +whom seemed to be spinning out their purchasing operations with the air +of people who had very little to do with their time. In a voice that was +heard all over the shop, perhaps because everybody was intently +listening, he asked for a pound of honey and a packet of quail seed. + +"More quail seed!" said Miss Fritten. "Those quails must be voracious, +or else it isn't quail seed at all." + +"I believe it's opium, and the bearded man is a detective," said Mrs. +Greyes brilliantly. + +"I don't," said Laura Lipping; "I'm sure it's something to do with the +Portuguese Throne." + +"More likely to be a Persian intrigue on behalf of the ex-Shah," said +Miss Fritten; "the bearded man belongs to the Government Party. The +quail-seed is a countersign, of course; Persia is almost next door to +Palestine, and quails come into the Old Testament, you know." + +"Only as a miracle," said her well-informed younger sister; "I've thought +all along it was part of a love intrigue." + +The boy who had so much interest and speculation centred on him was on +the point of departing with his purchases when he was waylaid by Jimmy, +the nephew-apprentice, who, from his post at the cheese and bacon +counter, commanded a good view of the street. + +"We have some very fine Jaffa oranges," he said hurriedly, pointing to a +corner where they were stored, behind a high rampart of biscuit tins. +There was evidently more in the remark than met the ear. The boy flew at +the oranges with the enthusiasm of a ferret finding a rabbit family at +home after a long day of fruitless subterranean research. Almost at the +same moment the bearded stranger stalked into the shop, and flung an +order for a pound of dates and a tin of the best Smyrna halva across the +counter. The most adventurous housewife in the locality had never heard +of halva, but Mr. Scarrick was apparently able to produce the best Smyrna +variety of it without a moment's hesitation. + +"We might be living in the Arabian Nights," said Miss Fritten, excitedly. + +"Hush! Listen," beseeched Mrs. Greyes. + +"Has the dark-faced boy, of whom I spoke yesterday, been here to-day?" +asked the stranger. + +"We've had rather more people than usual in the shop to-day," said Mr. +Scarrick, "but I can't recall a boy such as you describe." + +Mrs. Greyes and Miss Fritten looked round triumphantly at their friends. +It was, of course, deplorable that any one should treat the truth as an +article temporarily and excusably out of stock, but they felt gratified +that the vivid accounts they had given of Mr. Scarrick's traffic in +falsehoods should receive confirmation at first hand. + +"I shall never again be able to believe what he tells me about the +absence of colouring matter in the jam," whispered an aunt of Mrs. Greyes +tragically. + +The mysterious stranger took his departure; Laura Lipping distinctly saw +a snarl of baffled rage reveal itself behind his heavy moustache and +upturned astrachan collar. After a cautious interval the seeker after +oranges emerged from behind the biscuit tins, having apparently failed to +find any individual orange that satisfied his requirements. He, too, +took his departure, and the shop was slowly emptied of its parcel and +gossip laden customers. It was Emily Yorling's "day", and most of the +shoppers made their way to her drawing-room. To go direct from a +shopping expedition to a tea party was what was known locally as "living +in a whirl". + +Two extra assistants had been engaged for the following afternoon, and +their services were in brisk demand; the shop was crowded. People bought +and bought, and never seemed to get to the end of their lists. Mr. +Scarrick had never had so little difficulty in persuading customers to +embark on new experiences in grocery wares. Even those women whose +purchases were of modest proportions dawdled over them as though they had +brutal, drunken husbands to go home to. The afternoon had dragged +uneventfully on, and there was a distinct buzz of unpent excitement when +a dark-eyed boy carrying a brass bowl entered the shop. The excitement +seemed to have communicated itself to Mr. Scarrick; abruptly deserting a +lady who was making insincere inquiries about the home life of the Bombay +duck, he intercepted the newcomer on his way to the accustomed counter +and informed him, amid a deathlike hush, that he had run out of quail +seed. + +The boy looked nervously round the shop, and turned hesitatingly to go. +He was again intercepted, this time by the nephew, who darted out from +behind his counter and said something about a better line of oranges. The +boy's hesitation vanished; he almost scuttled into the obscurity of the +orange corner. There was an expectant turn of public attention towards +the door, and the tall, bearded stranger made a really effective +entrance. The aunt of Mrs. Greyes declared afterwards that she found +herself sub-consciously repeating "The Assyrian came down like a wolf on +the fold" under her breath, and she was generally believed. + +The newcomer, too, was stopped before he reached the counter, but not by +Mr. Scarrick or his assistant. A heavily veiled lady, whom no one had +hitherto noticed, rose languidly from a seat and greeted him in a clear, +penetrating voice. + +"Your Excellency does his shopping himself?" she said. + +"I order the things myself," he explained; "I find it difficult to make +my servants understand." + +In a lower, but still perfectly audible, voice the veiled lady gave him a +piece of casual information. + +"They have some excellent Jaffa oranges here." Then with a tinkling +laugh she passed out of the shop. + +The man glared all round the shop, and then, fixing his eyes +instinctively on the barrier of biscuit tins, demanded loudly of the +grocer: "You have, perhaps, some good Jaffa oranges?" + +Every one expected an instant denial on the part of Mr. Scarrick of any +such possession. Before he could answer, however, the boy had broken +forth from his sanctuary. Holding his empty brass bowl before him he +passed out into the street. His face was variously described afterwards +as masked with studied indifference, overspread with ghastly pallor, and +blazing with defiance. Some said that his teeth chattered, others that +he went out whistling the Persian National Hymn. There was no mistaking, +however, the effect produced by the encounter on the man who had seemed +to force it. If a rabid dog or a rattlesnake had suddenly thrust its +companionship on him he could scarcely have displayed a greater access of +terror. His air of authority and assertiveness had gone, his masterful +stride had given way to a furtive pacing to and fro, as of an animal +seeking an outlet for escape. In a dazed perfunctory manner, always with +his eyes turning to watch the shop entrance, he gave a few random orders, +which the grocer made a show of entering in his book. Now and then he +walked out into the street, looked anxiously in all directions, and +hurried back to keep up his pretence of shopping. From one of these +sorties he did not return; he had dashed away into the dusk, and neither +he nor the dark-faced boy nor the veiled lady were seen again by the +expectant crowds that continued to throng the Scarrick establishment for +days to come. + +* * * * * + +"I can never thank you and your sister sufficiently," said the grocer. + +"We enjoyed the fun of it," said the artist modestly, "and as for the +model, it was a welcome variation on posing for hours for 'The Lost +Hylas'." + +"At any rate," said the grocer, "I insist on paying for the hire of the +black beard." + + + + +CANOSSA + + +Demosthenes Platterbaff, the eminent Unrest Inducer, stood on his trial +for a serious offence, and the eyes of the political world were focussed +on the jury. The offence, it should be stated, was serious for the +Government rather than for the prisoner. He had blown up the Albert Hall +on the eve of the great Liberal Federation Tango Tea, the occasion on +which the Chancellor of the Exchequer was expected to propound his new +theory: "Do partridges spread infectious diseases?" Platterbaff had +chosen his time well; the Tango Tea had been hurriedly postponed, but +there were other political fixtures which could not be put off under any +circumstances. The day after the trial there was to be a by-election at +Nemesis-on-Hand, and it had been openly announced in the division that if +Platterbaff were languishing in gaol on polling day the Government +candidate would be "outed" to a certainty. Unfortunately, there could be +no doubt or misconception as to Platterbaff's guilt. He had not only +pleaded guilty, but had expressed his intention of repeating his escapade +in other directions as soon as circumstances permitted; throughout the +trial he was busy examining a small model of the Free Trade Hall in +Manchester. The jury could not possibly find that the prisoner had not +deliberately and intentionally blown up the Albert Hall; the question +was: Could they find any extenuating circumstances which would permit of +an acquittal? Of course any sentence which the law might feel compelled +to inflict would be followed by an immediate pardon, but it was highly +desirable, from the Government's point of view, that the necessity for +such an exercise of clemency should not arise. A headlong pardon, on the +eve of a bye-election, with threats of a heavy voting defection if it +were withheld or even delayed, would not necessarily be a surrender, but +it would look like one. Opponents would be only too ready to attribute +ungenerous motives. Hence the anxiety in the crowded Court, and in the +little groups gathered round the tape-machines in Whitehall and Downing +Street and other affected centres. + +The jury returned from considering their verdict; there was a flutter, an +excited murmur, a deathlike hush. The foreman delivered his message: + +"The jury find the prisoner guilty of blowing up the Albert Hall. The +jury wish to add a rider drawing attention to the fact that a by-election +is pending in the Parliamentary division of Nemesis-on-Hand." + +"That, of course," said the Government Prosecutor, springing to his feet, +"is equivalent to an acquittal?" + +"I hardly think so," said the Judge, coldly; "I feel obliged to sentence +the prisoner to a week's imprisonment." + +"And may the Lord have mercy on the poll," a Junior Counsel exclaimed +irreverently. + +It was a scandalous sentence, but then the Judge was not on the +Ministerial side in politics. + +The verdict and sentence were made known to the public at twenty minutes +past five in the afternoon; at half-past five a dense crowd was massed +outside the Prime Minister's residence lustily singing, to the air of +"Trelawney": + + "And should our Hero rot in gaol, + For e'en a single day, + There's Fifteen Hundred Voting Men + Will vote the other way." + +"Fifteen hundred," said the Prime Minister, with a shudder; "it's too +horrible to think of. Our majority last time was only a thousand and +seven." + +"The poll opens at eight to-morrow morning," said the Chief Organiser; +"we must have him out by 7 a.m." + +"Seven-thirty," amended the Prime Minister; "we must avoid any appearance +of precipitancy." + +"Not later than seven-thirty, then," said the Chief Organiser; "I have +promised the agent down there that he shall be able to display posters +announcing 'Platterbaff is Out,' before the poll opens. He said it was +our only chance of getting a telegram 'Radprop is In' to-night." + +At half-past seven the next morning the Prime Minister and the Chief +Organiser sat at breakfast, making a perfunctory meal, and awaiting the +return of the Home Secretary, who had gone in person to superintend the +releasing of Platterbaff. Despite the earliness of the hour a small +crowd had gathered in the street outside, and the horrible menacing +Trelawney refrain of the "Fifteen Hundred Voting Men" came in a steady, +monotonous chant. + +"They will cheer presently when they hear the news," said the Prime +Minister hopefully; "hark! They are booing some one now! That must be +McKenna." + +The Home Secretary entered the room a moment later, disaster written on +his face. + +"He won't go!" he exclaimed. + +"Won't go? Won't leave gaol?" + +"He won't go unless he has a brass band. He says he never has left +prison without a brass band to play him out, and he's not going to go +without one now." + +"But surely that sort of thing is provided by his supporters and +admirers?" said the Prime Minister; "we can hardly be supposed to supply +a released prisoner with a brass band. How on earth could we defend it +on the Estimates?" + +"His supporters say it is up to us to provide the music," said the Home +Secretary; "they say we put him in prison, and it's our affair to see +that he leaves it in a respectable manner. Anyway, he won't go unless he +has a band." + +The telephone squealed shrilly; it was a trunk call from Nemesis. + +"Poll opens in five minutes. Is Platterbaff out yet? In Heaven's name, +why--" + +The Chief Organiser rang off. + +"This is not a moment for standing on dignity," he observed bluntly; +"musicians must be supplied at once. Platterbaff must have his band." + +"Where are you going to find the musicians?" asked the Home Secretary +wearily; "we can't employ a military band, in fact, I don't think he'd +have one if we offered it, and there ain't any others. There's a +musicians' strike on, I suppose you know." + +"Can't you get a strike permit?" asked the Organiser. + +"I'll try," said the Home Secretary, and went to the telephone. + +Eight o'clock struck. The crowd outside chanted with an increasing +volume of sound: + + "Will vote the other way." + +A telegram was brought in. It was from the central committee rooms at +Nemesis. "Losing twenty votes per minute," was its brief message. + +Ten o'clock struck. The Prime Minister, the Home Secretary, the Chief +Organiser, and several earnest helpful friends were gathered in the inner +gateway of the prison, talking volubly to Demosthenes Platterbaff, who +stood with folded arms and squarely planted feet, silent in their midst. +Golden-tongued legislators whose eloquence had swayed the Marconi Inquiry +Committee, or at any rate the greater part of it, expended their arts of +oratory in vain on this stubborn unyielding man. Without a band he would +not go; and they had no band. + +A quarter past ten, half-past. A constant stream of telegraph boys +poured in through the prison gates. + +"Yamley's factory hands just voted you can guess how," ran a despairing +message, and the others were all of the same tenour. Nemesis was going +the way of Reading. + +"Have you any band instruments of an easy nature to play?" demanded the +Chief Organiser of the Prison Governor; "drums, cymbals, those sort of +things?" + +"The warders have a private band of their own," said the Governor, "but +of course I couldn't allow the men themselves--" + +"Lend us the instruments," said the Chief Organiser. + +One of the earnest helpful friends was a skilled performer on the cornet, +the Cabinet Ministers were able to clash cymbals more or less in tune, +and the Chief Organiser has some knowledge of the drum. + +"What tune would you prefer?" he asked Platterbaff. + +"The popular song of the moment," replied the Agitator after a moment's +reflection. + +It was a tune they had all heard hundreds of times, so there was no +difficulty in turning out a passable imitation of it. To the improvised +strains of "I didn't want to do it" the prisoner strode forth to freedom. +The word of the song had reference, it was understood, to the +incarcerating Government and not to the destroyer of the Albert Hall. + +The seat was lost, after all, by a narrow majority. The local Trade +Unionists took offence at the fact of Cabinet Ministers having personally +acted as strike-breakers, and even the release of Platterbaff failed to +pacify them. + +The seat was lost, but Ministers had scored a moral victory. They had +shown that they knew when and how to yield. + + + + +THE THREAT + + +Sir Lulworth Quayne sat in the lounge of his favourite restaurant, the +Gallus Bankiva, discussing the weaknesses of the world with his nephew, +who had lately returned from a much-enlivened exile in the wilds of +Mexico. It was that blessed season of the year when the asparagus and +the plover's egg are abroad in the land, and the oyster has not yet +withdrawn into it's summer entrenchments, and Sir Lulworth and his nephew +were in that enlightened after-dinner mood when politics are seen in +their right perspective, even the politics of Mexico. + +"Most of the revolutions that take place in this country nowadays," said +Sir Lulworth, "are the product of moments of legislative panic. Take, +for instance, one of the most dramatic reforms that has been carried +through Parliament in the lifetime of this generation. It happened +shortly after the coal strike, of unblessed memory. To you, who have +been plunged up to the neck in events of a more tangled and tumbled +description, the things I am going to tell you of may seem of secondary +interest, but after all we had to live in the midst of them." + +Sir Lulworth interrupted himself for a moment to say a few kind words to +the liqueur brandy he had just tasted, and them resumed his narrative. + +"Whether one sympathises with the agitation for female suffrage or not +one has to admit that its promoters showed tireless energy and +considerable enterprise in devising and putting into action new methods +for accomplishing their ends. As a rule they were a nuisance and a +weariness to the flesh, but there were times when they verged on the +picturesque. There was the famous occasion when they enlivened and +diversified the customary pageantry of the Royal progress to open +Parliament by letting loose thousands of parrots, which had been +carefully trained to scream 'Votes for women,' and which circled round +his Majesty's coach in a clamorous cloud of green, and grey and scarlet. +It was really rather a striking episode from the spectacular point of +view; unfortunately, however, for its devisers, the secret of their +intentions had not been well kept, and their opponents let loose at the +same moment a rival swarm of parrots, which screeched 'I _don't_ think' +and other hostile cries, thereby robbing the demonstration of the +unanimity which alone could have made it politically impressive. In the +process of recapture the birds learned a quantity of additional language +which unfitted them for further service in the Suffragette cause; some of +the green ones were secured by ardent Home Rule propagandists and trained +to disturb the serenity of Orange meetings by pessimistic reflections on +Sir Edward Carson's destination in the life to come. In fact, the bird +in politics is a factor that seems to have come to stay; quite recently, +at a political gathering held in a dimly-lighted place of worship, the +congregation gave a respectful hearing for nearly ten minutes to a +jackdaw from Wapping, under the impression that they were listening to +the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who was late in arriving." + +"But the Suffragettes," interrupted the nephew; "what did they do next?" + +"After the bird fiasco," said Sir Lulworth, "the militant section made a +demonstration of a more aggressive nature; they assembled in force on the +opening day of the Royal Academy Exhibition and destroyed some three or +four hundred of the pictures. This proved an even worse failure than the +parrot business; every one agreed that there was always far too many +pictures in the Academy Exhibition, and the drastic weeding out of a few +hundred canvases was regarded as a positive improvement. Moreover, from +the artists' point of view it was realised that the outrage constituted a +sort of compensation for those whose works were persistently 'skied', +since out of sight meant also out of reach. Altogether it was one of the +most successful and popular exhibitions that the Academy had held for +many years. Then the fair agitators fell back on some of their earlier +methods; they wrote sweetly argumentative plays to prove that they ought +to have the vote, they smashed windows to show that they must have the +vote, and they kicked Cabinet Ministers to demonstrate that they'd better +have the vote, and still the coldly reasoned or unreasoned reply was that +they'd better not. Their plight might have been summed up in a +perversion of Gilbert's lines-- + + "Twenty voteless millions we, + Voteless all against our will, + Twenty years hence we shall be + Twenty voteless millions still." + +And of course the great idea for their master-stroke of strategy came +from a masculine source. Lena Dubarri, who was the captain-general of +their thinking department, met Waldo Orpington in the Mall one afternoon, +just at a time when the fortunes of the Cause were at their lowest ebb. +Waldo Orpington is a frivolous little fool who chirrups at drawing-room +concerts and can recognise bits from different composers without +referring to the programme, but all the same he occasionally has ideas. +He didn't care a twopenny fiddlestring about the Cause, but he rather +enjoyed the idea of having his finger in the political pie. Also it is +possible, though I should think highly improbable, that he admired Lena +Dubarri. Anyhow, when Lena gave a rather gloomy account of the existing +state of things in the Suffragette World, Waldo was not merely +sympathetic but ready with a practical suggestion. Turning his gaze +westward along the Mall, towards the setting sun and Buckingham Palace, +he was silent for a moment, and then said significantly, 'You have +expended your energies and enterprise on labours of destruction; why has +it never occurred to you to attempt something far more terrific?' + +"'What do you mean?' she asked him eagerly. + +"'Create.' + +"'Do you mean create disturbances? We've been doing nothing else for +months,' she said. + +"Waldo shook his head, and continued to look westward along the Mall. +He's rather good at acting in an amateur sort of fashion. Lena followed +his gaze, and then turned to him with a puzzled look of inquiry. + +"'Exactly,' said Waldo, in answer to her look. + +"'But--how can we create?' she asked; 'it's been done already.' + +"'Do it _again_,' said Waldo, 'and again and again--' + +"Before he could finish the sentence she had kissed him. She declared +afterwards that he was the first man she had ever kissed, and he declared +that she was the first woman who had ever kissed him in the Mall, so they +both secured a record of a kind. + +"Within the next day or two a new departure was noticeable in Suffragette +tactics. They gave up worrying Ministers and Parliament and took to +worrying their own sympathisers and supporters--for funds. The ballot- +box was temporarily forgotten in the cult of the collecting-box. The +daughters of the horseleech were not more persistent in their demands, +the financiers of the tottering _ancien regime_ were not more desperate +in their expedients for raising money than the Suffragist workers of all +sections at this juncture, and in one way and another, by fair means and +normal, they really got together a very useful sum. What they were going +to do with it no one seemed to know, not even those who were most active +in collecting work. The secret on this occasion had been well kept. +Certain transactions that leaked out from time to time only added to the +mystery of the situation. + +"'Don't you long to know what we are going to do with our treasure +hoard?' Lena asked the Prime Minister one day when she happened to sit +next to him at a whist drive at the Chinese Embassy. + +"'I was hoping you were going to try a little personal bribery,' he +responded banteringly, but some genuine anxiety and curiosity lay behind +the lightness of his chaff; 'of course I know,' he added, 'that you have +been buying up building sites in commanding situations in and around the +Metropolis. Two or three, I'm told, are on the road to Brighton, and +another near Ascot. You don't mean to fortify them, do you?' + +"'Something more insidious than that,' she said; 'you could prevent us +from building forts; you can't prevent us from erecting an exact replica +of the Victoria Memorial on each of those sites. They're all private +property, with no building restrictions attached.' + +"'Which memorial?' he asked; 'not the one in front of Buckingham Palace? +Surely not that one?' + +"'That one,' she said. + +"'My dear lady,' he cried, 'you can't be serious. It is a beautiful and +imposing work of art--at any rate one is getting accustomed to it, and +even if one doesn't happen to admire it one can always look in another +direction. But imagine what life would be like if one saw that erection +confronting one wherever one went. Imagine the effect on people with +tired, harassed nerves who saw it three times on the way to Brighton and +three times on the way back. Imagine seeing it dominate the landscape at +Ascot, and trying to keep your eye off it on the Sandwich golf links. +What have your countrymen done to deserve such a thing?' + +"'They have refused us the vote,' said Lena bitterly. + +"The Prime Minister always declared himself an opponent of anything +savouring of panic legislation, but he brought a Bill into Parliament +forthwith and successfully appealed to both Houses to pass it through all +its stages within the week. And that is how we got one of the most +glorious measures of the century." + +"A measure conferring the vote on women?" asked the nephew. + +"Oh dear, no. An Act which made it a penal offence to erect +commemorative statuary anywhere within three miles of a public highway." + + + + +EXCEPTING MRS. PENTHERBY + + +It was Reggie Bruttle's own idea for converting what had threatened to be +an albino elephant into a beast of burden that should help him along the +stony road of his finances. "The Limes," which had come to him by +inheritance without any accompanying provision for its upkeep, was one of +those pretentious, unaccommodating mansions which none but a man of +wealth could afford to live in, and which not one wealthy man in a +hundred would choose on its merits. It might easily languish in the +estate market for years, set round with noticeboards proclaiming it, in +the eyes of a sceptical world, to be an eminently desirable residence. + +Reggie's scheme was to turn it into the headquarters of a prolonged +country-house party, in session during the months from October till the +end of March--a party consisting of young or youngish people of both +sexes, too poor to be able to do much hunting or shooting on a serious +scale, but keen on getting their fill of golf, bridge, dancing, and +occasional theatre-going. No one was to be on the footing of a paying +guest, but every one was to rank as a paying host; a committee would look +after the catering and expenditure, and an informal sub-committee would +make itself useful in helping forward the amusement side of the scheme. + +As it was only an experiment, there was to be a general agreement on the +part of those involved in it to be as lenient and mutually helpful to one +another as possible. Already a promising nucleus, including one or two +young married couples, had been got together, and the thing seemed to be +fairly launched. + +"With good management and a little unobtrusive hard work, I think the +thing ought to be a success," said Reggie, and Reggie was one of those +people who are painstaking first and optimistic afterwards. + +"There is one rock on which you will unfailingly come to grief, manage +you never so wisely," said Major Dagberry, cheerfully; "the women will +quarrel. Mind you," continued this prophet of disaster, "I don't say +that some of the men won't quarrel too, probably they will; but the women +are bound to. You can't prevent it; it's in the nature of the sex. The +hand that rocks the cradle rocks the world, in a volcanic sense. A woman +will endure discomforts, and make sacrifices, and go without things to an +heroic extent, but the one luxury she will not go without is her +quarrels. No matter where she may be, or how transient her appearance on +a scene, she will instal her feminine feuds as assuredly as a Frenchman +would concoct soup in the waste of the Arctic regions. At the +commencement of a sea voyage, before the male traveller knows half a +dozen of his fellow passengers by sight, the average woman will have +started a couple of enmities, and laid in material for one or two +more--provided, of course, that there are sufficient women aboard to +permit quarrelling in the plural. If there's no one else she will +quarrel with the stewardess. This experiment of yours is to run for six +months; in less than five weeks there will be war to the knife declaring +itself in half a dozen different directions." + +"Oh, come, there are only eight women in the party; they won't pick +quarrels quite so soon as that," protested Reggie. + +"They won't all originate quarrels, perhaps," conceded the Major, "but +they will all take sides, and just as Christmas is upon you, with its +conventions of peace and good will, you will find yourself in for a +glacial epoch of cold, unforgiving hostility, with an occasional Etna +flare of open warfare. You can't help it, old boy; but, at any rate, you +can't say you were not warned." + +The first five weeks of the venture falsified Major Dagberry's prediction +and justified Reggie's optimism. There were, of course, occasional small +bickerings, and the existence of certain jealousies might be detected +below the surface of everyday intercourse; but, on the whole, the women- +folk got on remarkably well together. There was, however, a notable +exception. It had not taken five weeks for Mrs. Pentherby to get herself +cordially disliked by the members of her own sex; five days had been +amply sufficient. Most of the women declared that they had detested her +the moment they set eyes on her; but that was probably an afterthought. + +With the menfolk she got on well enough, without being of the type of +woman who can only bask in male society; neither was she lacking in the +general qualities which make an individual useful and desirable as a +member of a co-operative community. She did not try to "get the better +of" her fellow-hosts by snatching little advantages or cleverly evading +her just contributions; she was not inclined to be boring or snobbish in +the way of personal reminiscence. She played a fair game of bridge, and +her card-room manners were irreproachable. But wherever she came in +contact with her own sex the light of battle kindled at once; her talent +of arousing animosity seemed to border on positive genius. + +Whether the object of her attentions was thick-skinned or sensitive, +quick-tempered or good-natured, Mrs. Pentherby managed to achieve the +same effect. She exposed little weaknesses, she prodded sore places, she +snubbed enthusiasms, she was generally right in a matter of argument, or, +if wrong, she somehow contrived to make her adversary appear foolish and +opinionated. She did, and said, horrible things in a matter-of-fact +innocent way, and she did, and said, matter-of-fact innocent things in a +horrible way. In short, the unanimous feminine verdict on her was that +she was objectionable. + +There was no question of taking sides, as the Major had anticipated; in +fact, dislike of Mrs. Pentherby was almost a bond of union between the +other women, and more than one threatening disagreement had been rapidly +dissipated by her obvious and malicious attempts to inflame and extend +it; and the most irritating thing about her was her successful assumption +of unruffled composure at moments when the tempers of her adversaries +were with difficulty kept under control. She made her most scathing +remarks in the tone of a tube conductor announcing that the next station +is Brompton Road--the measured, listless tone of one who knows he is +right, but is utterly indifferent to the fact that he proclaims. + +On one occasion Mrs. Val Gwepton, who was not blessed with the most +reposeful of temperaments, fairly let herself go, and gave Mrs. Pentherby +a vivid and truthful _resume_ of her opinion of her. The object of this +unpent storm of accumulated animosity waited patiently for a lull, and +then remarked quietly to the angry little woman-- + +"And now, my dear Mrs. Gwepton, let me tell you something that I've been +wanting to say for the last two or three minutes, only you wouldn't given +me a chance; you've got a hairpin dropping out on the left side. You +thin-haired women always find it difficult to keep your hairpins in." + +"What can one do with a woman like that?" Mrs. Val demanded afterwards of +a sympathising audience. + +Of course, Reggie received numerous hints as to the unpopularity of this +jarring personality. His sister-in-law openly tackled him on the subject +of her many enormities. Reggie listened with the attenuated regret that +one bestows on an earthquake disaster in Bolivia or a crop failure in +Eastern Turkestan, events which seem so distant that one can almost +persuade oneself they haven't happened. + +"That woman has got some hold over him," opined his sister-in-law, +darkly; "either she is helping him to finance the show, and presumes on +the fact, or else, which Heaven forbid, he's got some queer infatuation +for her. Men do take the most extraordinary fancies." + +Matters never came exactly to a crisis. Mrs. Pentherby, as a source of +personal offence, spread herself over so wide an area that no one woman +of the party felt impelled to rise up and declare that she absolutely +refused to stay another week in the same house with her. What is +everybody's tragedy is nobody's tragedy. There was ever a certain +consolation in comparing notes as to specific acts of offence. Reggie's +sister-in-law had the added interest of trying to discover the secret +bond which blunted his condemnation of Mrs. Pentherby's long catalogue of +misdeeds. There was little to go on from his manner towards her in +public, but he remained obstinately unimpressed by anything that was said +against her in private. + +With the one exception of Mrs. Pentherby's unpopularity, the house-party +scheme was a success on its first trial, and there was no difficulty +about reconstructing it on the same lines for another winter session. It +so happened that most of the women of the party, and two or three of the +men, would not be available on this occasion, but Reggie had laid his +plans well ahead and booked plenty of "fresh blood" for the departure. It +would be, if any thing, rather a larger party than before. + +"I'm so sorry I can't join this winter," said Reggie's sister-in-law, +"but we must go to our cousins in Ireland; we've put them off so often. +What a shame! You'll have none of the same women this time." + +"Excepting Mrs. Pentherby," said Reggie, demurely. + +"Mrs. Pentherby! _Surely_, Reggie, you're not going to be so idiotic as +to have that woman again! She'll set all the women's backs up just as +she did this time. What _is_ this mysterious hold she's go over you?" + +"She's invaluable," said Reggie; "she's my official quarreller." + +"Your--what did you say?" gasped his sister-in-law. + +"I introduced her into the house-party for the express purpose of +concentrating the feuds and quarrelling that would otherwise have broken +out in all directions among the womenkind. I didn't need the advice and +warning of sundry friends to foresee that we shouldn't get through six +months of close companionship without a certain amount of pecking and +sparring, so I thought the best thing was to localise and sterilise it in +one process. Of course, I made it well worth the lady's while, and as +she didn't know any of you from Adam, and you don't even know her real +name, she didn't mind getting herself disliked in a useful cause." + +"You mean to say she was in the know all the time?" + +"Of course she was, and so were one or two of the men, so she was able to +have a good laugh with us behind the scenes when she'd done anything +particularly outrageous. And she really enjoyed herself. You see, she's +in the position of poor relation in a rather pugnacious family, and her +life has been largely spent in smoothing over other people's quarrels. +You can imagine the welcome relief of being able to go about saying and +doing perfectly exasperating things to a whole houseful of women--and all +in the cause of peace." + +"I think you are the most odious person in the whole world," said +Reggie's sister-in-law. Which was not strictly true; more than anybody, +more than ever she disliked Mrs. Pentherby. It was impossible to +calculate how many quarrels that woman had done her out of. + + + + +MARK + + +Augustus Mellowkent was a novelist with a future; that is to say, a +limited but increasing number of people read his books, and there seemed +good reason to suppose that if he steadily continued to turn out novels +year by year a progressively increasing circle of readers would acquire +the Mellowkent habit, and demand his works from the libraries and +bookstalls. At the instigation of his publisher he had discarded the +baptismal Augustus and taken the front name of Mark. + +"Women like a name that suggests some one strong and silent, able but +unwilling to answer questions. Augustus merely suggests idle splendour, +but such a name as Mark Mellowkent, besides being alliterative, conjures +up a vision of some one strong and beautiful and good, a sort of blend of +Georges Carpentier and the Reverend What's-his-name." + +One morning in December Augustus sat in his writing-room, at work on the +third chapter of his eighth novel. He had described at some length, for +the benefit of those who could not imagine it, what a rectory garden +looks like in July; he was now engaged in describing at greater length +the feelings of a young girl, daughter of a long line of rectors and +archdeacons, when she discovers for the first time that the postman is +attractive. + +"Their eyes met, for a brief moment, as he handed her two circulars and +the fat wrapper-bound bulk of the _East Essex News_. Their eyes met, for +the merest fraction of a second, yet nothing could ever be quite the same +again. Cost what it might she felt that she must speak, must break the +intolerable, unreal silence that had fallen on them. 'How is your +mother's rheumatism?' she said." + +The author's labours were cut short by the sudden intrusion of a +maidservant. + +"A gentleman to see you, sir," said the maid, handing a card with the +name Caiaphas Dwelf inscribed on it; "says it's important." + +Mellowkent hesitated and yielded; the importance of the visitor's mission +was probably illusory, but he had never met any one with the name +Caiaphas before. It would be at least a new experience. + +Mr. Dwelf was a man of indefinite age; his high, narrow forehead, cold +grey eyes, and determined manner bespoke an unflinching purpose. He had +a large book under his arm, and there seemed every probability that he +had left a package of similar volumes in the hall. He took a seat before +it had been offered him, placed the book on the table, and began to +address Mellowkent in the manner of an "open letter." + +"You are a literary man, the author of several well-known books--" + +"I am engage on a book at the present moment--rather busily engaged," +said Mellowkent, pointedly. + +"Exactly," said the intruder; "time with you is a commodity of +considerable importance. Minutes, even, have their value." + +"They have," agreed Mellowkent, looking at his watch. + +"That," said Caiaphas, "is why this book that I am introducing to your +notice is not a book that you can afford to be without. _Right Here_ is +indispensable for the writing man; it is no ordinary encyclopaedia, or I +should not trouble to show it to you. It is an inexhaustible mine of +concise information--" + +"On a shelf at my elbow," said the author, "I have a row of reference +books that supply me with all the information I am likely to require." + +"Here," persisted the would-be salesman, "you have it all in one compact +volume. No matter what the subject may be which you wish to look up, or +the fact you desire to verify, _Right Here_ gives you all that you want +to know in the briefest and most enlightening form. Historical +reference, for instance; career of John Huss, let us say. Here we are: +'Huss, John, celebrated religious reformer. Born 1369, burned at +Constance 1415. The Emperor Sigismund universally blamed.'" + +"If he had been burnt in these days every one would have suspected the +Suffragettes," observed Mellowkent. + +"Poultry-keeping, now," resumed Caiaphas, "that's a subject that might +crop up in a novel dealing with English country life. Here we have all +about it: 'The Leghorn as egg-producer. Lack of maternal instinct in the +Minorca. Gapes in chickens, its cause and cure. Ducklings for the early +market, how fattened.' There, you see, there it all is, nothing +lacking." + +"Except the maternal instinct in the Minorca, and that you could hardly +be expected to supply." + +"Sporting records, that's important, too; now how many men, sporting men +even, are there who can say off-hand what horse won the Derby in any +particular year? Now it's just a little thing of that sort--" + +"My dear sir," interrupted Mellowkent, "there are at least four men in my +club who can not only tell me what horse won in any given year, but what +horse ought to have won and why it didn't. If your book could supply a +method for protecting one from information of that sort it would do more +than anything you have yet claimed for it." + +"Geography," said Caiaphas, imperturbably; "that's a thing that a busy +man, writing at high pressure, may easily make a slip over. Only the +other day a well-known author made the Volga flow into the Black Sea +instead of the Caspian; now, with this book--" + +"On a polished rose-wood stand behind you there reposes a reliable and up- +to-date atlas," said Mellowkent; "and now I must really ask you to be +going." + +"An atlas," said Caiaphas, "gives merely the chart of the river's course, +and indicates the principal towns that it passes. Now _Right Here_ gives +you the scenery, traffic, ferry-boat charges, the prevalent types of +fish, boatmen's slang terms, and hours of sailing of the principal river +steamers. If gives you--" + +Mellowkent sat and watched the hard-featured, resolute, pitiless +salesman, as he sat doggedly in the chair wherein he had installed +himself, unflinchingly extolling the merits of his undesired wares. A +spirit of wistful emulation took possession of the author; why could he +not live up to the cold stern name he had adopted? Why must he sit here +weakly and listen to this weary, unconvincing tirade, why could he not be +Mark Mellowkent for a few brief moments, and meet this man on level +terms? + +A sudden inspiration flashed across his. + +"Have you read my last book, _The Cageless Linnet_?" he asked. + +"I don't read novels," said Caiaphas tersely. + +"Oh, but you ought to read this one, every one ought to," exclaimed +Mellowkent, fishing the book down from a shelf; "published at six +shillings, you can have it at four-and-six. There is a bit in chapter +five that I feel sure you would like, where Emma is alone in the birch +copse waiting for Harold Huntingdon--that is the man her family want her +to marry. She really wants to marry him, too, but she does not discover +that till chapter fifteen. Listen: 'Far as the eye could stretch rolled +the mauve and purple billows of heather, lit up here and there with the +glowing yellow of gorse and broom, and edged round with the delicate +greys and silver and green of the young birch trees. Tiny blue and brown +butterflies fluttered above the fronds of heather, revelling in the +sunlight, and overhead the larks were singing as only larks can sing. It +was a day when all Nature--" + +"In _Right Here_ you have full information on all branches of Nature +study," broke in the bookagent, with a tired note sounding in his voice +for the first time; "forestry, insect life, bird migration, reclamation +of waste lands. As I was saying, no man who has to deal with the varied +interests of life--" + +"I wonder if you would care for one of my earlier books, _The Reluctance +of Lady Cullumpton_," said Mellowkent, hunting again through the +bookshelf; "some people consider it my best novel. Ah, here it is. I +see there are one or two spots on the cover, so I won't ask more than +three-and-ninepence for it. Do let me read you how it opens: + +"'Beatrice Lady Cullumpton entered the long, dimly-lit drawing-room, her +eyes blazing with a hope that she guessed to be groundless, her lips +trembling with a fear that she could not disguise. In her hand she +carried a small fan, a fragile toy of lace and satinwood. Something +snapped as she entered the room; she had crushed the fan into a dozen +pieces.' + +"There, what do you think of that for an opening? It tells you at once +that there's something afoot." + +"I don't read novels," said Caiaphas sullenly. + +"But just think what a resource they are," exclaimed the author, "on long +winter evenings, or perhaps when you are laid up with a strained ankle--a +thing that might happen to any one; or if you were staying in a house- +party with persistent wet weather and a stupid hostess and insufferably +dull fellow-guests, you would just make an excuse that you had letters to +write, go to your room, light a cigarette, and for three-and-ninepence +you could plunge into the society of Beatrice Lady Cullumpton and her +set. No one ought to travel without one or two of my novels in their +luggage as a stand-by. A friend of mine said only the other day that he +would as soon think of going into the tropics without quinine as of going +on a visit without a couple of Mark Mellowkents in his kit-bag. Perhaps +sensation is more in your line. I wonder if I've got a copy of _The +Python's Kiss_." + +Caiaphas did not wait to be tempted with selections from that thrilling +work of fiction. With a muttered remark about having no time to waste on +monkey-talk, he gathered up his slighted volume and departed. He made no +audible reply to Mellowkent's cheerful "Good morning," but the latter +fancied that a look of respectful hatred flickered in the cold grey eyes. + + + + +THE HEDGEHOG + + +A "Mixed Double" of young people were contesting a game of lawn tennis at +the Rectory garden party; for the past five-and-twenty years at least +mixed doubles of young people had done exactly the same thing on exactly +the same spot at about the same time of year. The young people changed +and made way for others in the course of time, but very little else +seemed to alter. The present players were sufficiently conscious of the +social nature of the occasion to be concerned about their clothes and +appearance, and sufficiently sport-loving to be keen on the game. Both +their efforts and their appearance came under the fourfold scrutiny of a +quartet of ladies sitting as official spectators on a bench immediately +commanding the court. It was one of the accepted conditions of the +Rectory garden party that four ladies, who usually knew very little about +tennis and a great deal about the players, should sit at that particular +spot and watch the game. It had also come to be almost a tradition that +two ladies should be amiable, and that the other two should be Mrs. Dole +and Mrs. Hatch-Mallard. + +"What a singularly unbecoming way Eva Jonelet has taken to doing her hair +in," said Mrs. Hatch-Mallard; "it's ugly hair at the best of times, but +she needn't make it look ridiculous as well. Some one ought to tell +her." + +Eva Jonelet's hair might have escaped Mrs. Hatch-Mallard's condemnation +if she could have forgotten the more glaring fact that Eva was Mrs. +Dole's favourite niece. It would, perhaps, have been a more comfortable +arrangement if Mrs. Hatch-Mallard and Mrs. Dole could have been asked to +the Rectory on separate occasions, but there was only one garden party in +the course of the year, and neither lady could have been omitted from the +list of invitations without hopelessly wrecking the social peace of the +parish. + +"How pretty the yew trees look at this time of year," interposed a lady +with a soft, silvery voice that suggested a chinchilla muff painted by +Whistler. + +"What do you mean by this time of year?" demanded Mrs. Hatch-Mallard. +"Yew trees look beautiful at all times of the year. That is their great +charm." + +"Yew trees never look anything but hideous under any circumstances or at +any time of year," said Mrs. Dole, with the slow, emphatic relish of one +who contradicts for the pleasure of the thing. "They are only fit for +graveyards and cemeteries." + +Mrs. Hatch-Mallard gave a sardonic snort, which, being translated, meant +that there were some people who were better fitted for cemeteries than +for garden parties. + +"What is the score, please?" asked the lady with the chinchilla voice. + +The desired information was given her by a young gentleman in spotless +white flannels, whose general toilet effect suggested solicitude rather +than anxiety. + +"What an odious young cub Bertie Dykson has become!" pronounced Mrs. +Dole, remembering suddenly that Bertie was a favourite with Mrs. Hatch- +Mallard. "The young men of to-day are not what they used to be twenty +years ago." + +"Of course not," said Mrs. Hatch-Mallard; "twenty years ago Bertie Dykson +was just two years old, and you must expect some difference in appearance +and manner and conversation between those two periods." + +"Do you know," said Mrs. Dole, confidentially, "I shouldn't be surprised +if that was intended to be clever." + +"Have you any one interesting coming to stay with you, Mrs. Norbury?" +asked the chinchilla voice, hastily; "you generally have a house party at +this time of year." + +"I've got a most interesting woman coming," said Mrs. Norbury, who had +been mutely struggling for some chance to turn the conversation into a +safe channel; "an old acquaintance of mine, Ada Bleek--" + +"What an ugly name," said Mrs. Hatch-Mallard. + +"She's descended from the de la Bliques, an old Huguenot family of +Touraine, you know." + +"There weren't any Huguenots in Touraine," said Mrs. Hatch-Mallard, who +thought she might safely dispute any fact that was three hundred years +old. + +"Well, anyhow, she's coming to stay with me," continued Mrs. Norbury, +bringing her story quickly down to the present day, "she arrives this +evening, and she's highly clairvoyante, a seventh daughter of a seventh +daughter, you now, and all that sort of thing." + +"How very interesting," said the chinchilla voice; "Exwood is just the +right place for her to come to, isn't it? There are supposed to be +several ghosts there." + +"That is why she was so anxious to come," said Mrs. Norbury; "she put off +another engagement in order to accept my invitation. She's had visions +and dreams, and all those sort of things, that have come true in a most +marvellous manner, but she's never actually seen a ghost, and she's +longing to have that experience. She belongs to that Research Society, +you know." + +"I expect she'll see the unhappy Lady Cullumpton, the most famous of all +the Exwood ghosts," said Mrs. Dole; "my ancestor, you know, Sir Gervase +Cullumpton, murdered his young bride in a fit of jealousy while they were +on a visit to Exwood. He strangled her in the stables with a stirrup +leather, just after they had come in from riding, and she is seen +sometimes at dusk going about the lawns and the stable yard, in a long +green habit, moaning and trying to get the thong from round her throat. I +shall be most interested to hear if your friend sees--" + +"I don't know why she should be expected to see a trashy, traditional +apparition like the so-called Cullumpton ghost, that is only vouched for +by housemaids and tipsy stable-boys, when my uncle, who was the owner of +Exwood, committed suicide there under the most tragical circumstances, +and most certainly haunts the place." + +"Mrs. Hatch-Mallard has evidently never read _Popple's County History_," +said Mrs. Dole icily, "or she would know that the Cullumpton ghost has a +wealth of evidence behind it--" + +"Oh, Popple!" exclaimed Mrs. Hatch-Mallard scornfully; "any rubbishy old +story is good enough for him. Popple, indeed! Now my uncle's ghost was +seen by a Rural Dean, who was also a Justice of the Peace. I should +think that would be good enough testimony for any one. Mrs. Norbury, I +shall take it as a deliberate personal affront if your clairvoyante +friend sees any other ghost except that of my uncle." + +"I daresay she won't see anything at all; she never has yet, you know," +said Mrs. Norbury hopefully. + +"It was a most unfortunate topic for me to have broached," she lamented +afterwards to the owner of the chinchilla voice; "Exwood belongs to Mrs. +Hatch-Mallard, and we've only got it on a short lease. A nephew of hers +has been wanting to live there for some time, and if we offend her in any +way she'll refuse to renew the lease. I sometimes think these garden- +parties are a mistake." + +The Norburys played bridge for the next three nights till nearly one +o'clock; they did not care for the game, but it reduced the time at their +guest's disposal for undesirable ghostly visitations. + +"Miss Bleek is not likely to be in a frame of mind to see ghosts," said +Hugo Norbury, "if she goes to bed with her brain awhirl with royal spades +and no trumps and grand slams." + +"I've talked to her for hours about Mrs. Hatch-Mallard's uncle," said his +wife, "and pointed out the exact spot where he killed himself, and +invented all sorts of impressive details, and I've found an old portrait +of Lord John Russell and put it in her room, and told her that it's +supposed to be a picture of the uncle in middle age. If Ada does see a +ghost at all it certainly ought to be old Hatch-Mallard's. At any rate, +we've done our best." + +The precautions were in vain. On the third morning of her stay Ada Bleek +came down late to breakfast, her eyes looking very tired, but ablaze with +excitement, her hair done anyhow, and a large brown volume hugged under +her arm. + +"At last I've seen something supernatural!" she exclaimed, and gave Mrs. +Norbury a fervent kiss, as though in gratitude for the opportunity +afforded her. + +"A ghost!" cried Mrs. Norbury, "not really!" + +"Really and unmistakably!" + +"Was it an oldish man in the dress of about fifty years ago?" asked Mrs. +Norbury hopefully. + +"Nothing of the sort," said Ada; "it was a white hedgehog." + +"A white hedgehog!" exclaimed both the Norburys, in tones of disconcerted +astonishment. + +"A huge white hedgehog with baleful yellow eyes," said Ada; "I was lying +half asleep in bed when suddenly I felt a sensation as of something +sinister and unaccountable passing through the room. I sat up and looked +round, and there, under the window, I saw an evil, creeping thing, a sort +of monstrous hedgehog, of a dirty white colour, with black, loathsome +claws that clicked and scraped along the floor, and narrow, yellow eyes +of indescribable evil. It slithered along for a yard or two, always +looking at me with its cruel, hideous eyes, then, when it reached the +second window, which was open it clambered up the sill and vanished. I +got up at once and went to the window; there wasn't a sign of it +anywhere. Of course, I knew it must be something from another world, but +it was not till I turned up Popple's chapter on local traditions that I +realised what I had seen." + +She turned eagerly to the large brown volume and read: "'Nicholas +Herison, an old miser, was hung at Batchford in 1763 for the murder of a +farm lad who had accidentally discovered his secret hoard. His ghost is +supposed to traverse the countryside, appearing sometimes as a white owl, +sometimes as a huge white hedgehog." + +"I expect you read the Popple story overnight, and that made you _think_ +you saw a hedgehog when you were only half awake," said Mrs. Norbury, +hazarding a conjecture that probably came very near the truth. + +Ada scouted the possibility of such a solution of her apparition. + +"This must be hushed up," said Mrs. Norbury quickly; "the servants--" + +"Hushed up!" exclaimed Ada, indignantly; "I'm writing a long report on it +for the Research Society." + +It was then that Hugo Norbury, who is not naturally a man of brilliant +resource, had one of the really useful inspirations of his life. + +"It was very wicked of us, Miss Bleek," he said, "but it would be a shame +to let it go further. That white hedgehog is an old joke of ours; +stuffed albino hedgehog, you know, that my father brought home from +Jamaica, where they grow to enormous size. We hide it in the room with a +string on it, run one end of the string through the window; then we pull +if from below and it comes scraping along the floor, just as you've +described, and finally jerks out of the window. Taken in heaps of +people; they all read up Popple and think it's old Harry Nicholson's +ghost; we always stop them from writing to the papers about it, though. +That would be carrying matters too far." + +Mrs. Hatch-Mallard renewed the lease in due course, but Ada Bleek has +never renewed her friendship. + + + + +THE MAPPINED LIFE + + +"These Mappin Terraces at the Zoological Gardens are a great improvement +on the old style of wild-beast cage," said Mrs. James Gurtleberry, +putting down an illustrated paper; "they give one the illusion of seeing +the animals in their natural surroundings. I wonder how much of the +illusion is passed on to the animals?" + +"That would depend on the animal," said her niece; "a jungle-fowl, for +instance, would no doubt think its lawful jungle surroundings were +faithfully reproduced if you gave it a sufficiency of wives, a goodly +variety of seed food and ants' eggs, a commodious bank of loose earth to +dust itself in, a convenient roosting tree, and a rival or two to make +matters interesting. Of course there ought to be jungle-cats and birds +of prey and other agencies of sudden death to add to the illusion of +liberty, but the bird's own imagination is capable of inventing +those--look how a domestic fowl will squawk an alarm note if a rook or +wood pigeon passes over its run when it has chickens." + +"You think, then, they really do have a sort of illusion, if you give +them space enough--" + +"In a few cases only. Nothing will make me believe that an acre or so of +concrete enclosure will make up to a wolf or a tiger-cat for the range of +night prowling that would belong to it in a wild state. Think of the +dictionary of sound and scent and recollection that unfolds before a real +wild beat as it comes out from its lair every evening, with the knowledge +that in a few minutes it will be hieing along to some distant hunting +ground where all the joy and fury of the chase awaits it; think of the +crowded sensations of the brain when every rustle, every cry, every bent +twig, and every whiff across the nostrils means something, something to +do with life and death and dinner. Imagine the satisfaction of stealing +down to your own particular drinking spot, choosing your own particular +tree to scrape your claws on, finding your own particular bed of dried +grass to roll on. Then, in the place of all that, put a concrete +promenade, which will be of exactly the same dimensions whether you race +or crawl across it, coated with stale, unvarying scents and surrounded +with cries and noises that have ceased to have the least meaning or +interest. As a substitute for a narrow cage the new enclosures are +excellent, but I should think they are a poor imitation of a life of +liberty." + +"It's rather depressing to think that," said Mrs. Gurtleberry; "they look +so spacious and so natural, but I suppose a good deal of what seems +natural to us would be meaningless to a wild animal." + +"That is where our superior powers of self-deception come in," said the +niece; "we are able to live our unreal, stupid little lives on our +particular Mappin terrace, and persuade ourselves that we really are +untrammelled men and women leading a reasonable existence in a reasonable +sphere." + +"But good gracious," exclaimed the aunt, bouncing into an attitude of +scandalised defence, "we are leading reasonable existences! What on +earth do you mean by trammels? We are merely trammelled by the ordinary +decent conventions of civilised society." + +"We are trammelled," said the niece, calmly and pitilessly, "by +restrictions of income and opportunity, and above all by lack of +initiative. To some people a restricted income doesn't matter a bit, in +fact it often seems to help as a means for getting a lot of reality out +of life; I am sure there are men and women who do their shopping in +little back streets of Paris, buying four carrots and a shred of beef for +their daily sustenance, who lead a perfectly real and eventful existence. +Lack of initiative is the thing that really cripples one, and that is +where you and I and Uncle James are so hopelessly shut in. We are just +so many animals stuck down on a Mappin terrace, with this difference in +our disfavour, that the animals are there to be looked at, while nobody +wants to look at us. As a matter of fact there would be nothing to look +at. We get colds in winter and hay fever in summer, and if a wasp +happens to sting one of us, well, that is the wasp's initiative, not +ours; all we do is to wait for the swelling to go down. Whenever we do +climb into local fame and notice, it is by indirect methods; if it +happens to be a good flowering year for magnolias the neighbourhood +observes: 'Have you seen the Gurtleberry's magnolia? It is a perfect +mass of flowers,' and we go about telling people that there are fifty- +seven blossoms as against thirty-nine the previous year." + +"In Coronation year there were as many as sixty," put in the aunt, "your +uncle has kept a record for the last eight years." + +"Doesn't it ever strike you," continued the niece relentlessly, "that if +we moved away from here or were blotted out of existence our local claim +to fame would pass on automatically to whoever happened to take the house +and garden? People would say to one another, 'Have you seen the Smith- +Jenkins' magnolia? It is a perfect mass of flowers,' or else +'Smith-Jenkins tells me there won't be a single blossom on their magnolia +this year; the east winds have turned all the buds black.' Now if, when +we had gone, people still associated our names with the magnolia tree, no +matter who temporarily possessed it, if they said, 'Ah, that's the tree +on which the Gurtleberrys hung their cook because she sent up the wrong +kind of sauce with the asparagus,' that would be something really due to +our own initiative, apart from anything east winds or magnolia vitality +might have to say in the matter." + +"We should never do such a thing," said the aunt. + +The niece gave a reluctant sigh. + +"I can't imagine it," she admitted. "Of course," she continued, "there +are heaps of ways of leading a real existence without committing +sensational deeds of violence. It's the dreadful little everyday acts of +pretended importance that give the Mappin stamp to our life. It would be +entertaining, if it wasn't so pathetically tragic, to hear Uncle James +fuss in here in the morning and announce, 'I must just go down into the +town and find out what the men there are saying about Mexico. Matters +are beginning to look serious there.' Then he patters away into the +town, and talks in a highly serious voice to the tobacconist, +incidentally buying an ounce of tobacco; perhaps he meets one or two +others of the world's thinkers and talks to them in a highly serious +voice, then he patters back here and announces with increased importance, +'I've just been talking to some men in the town about the condition of +affairs in Mexico. They agree with the view that I have formed, that +things there will have to get worse before they get better.' Of course +nobody in the town cared in the least little bit what his views about +Mexico were or whether he had any. The tobacconist wasn't even fluttered +at his buying the ounce of tobacco; he knows that he purchases the same +quantity of the same sort of tobacco every week. Uncle James might just +as well have lain on his back in the garden and chattered to the lilac +tree about the habits of caterpillars." + +"I really will not listen to such things about your uncle," protested +Mrs. James Gurtleberry angrily. + +"My own case is just as bad and just as tragic," said the niece, +dispassionately; "nearly everything about me is conventional +make-believe. I'm not a good dancer, and no one could honestly call me +good-looking, but when I go to one of our dull little local dances I'm +conventionally supposed to 'have a heavenly time,' to attract the ardent +homage of the local cavaliers, and to go home with my head awhirl with +pleasurable recollections. As a matter of fact, I've merely put in some +hours of indifferent dancing, drunk some badly-made claret cup, and +listened to an enormous amount of laborious light conversation. A +moonlight hen-stealing raid with the merry-eyed curate would be +infinitely more exciting; imagine the pleasure of carrying off all those +white minorcas that the Chibfords are always bragging about. When we had +disposed of them we could give the proceeds to a charity, so there would +be nothing really wrong about it. But nothing of that sort lies within +the Mappined limits of my life. One of these days somebody dull and +decorous and undistinguished will 'make himself agreeable' to me at a +tennis party, as the saying is, and all the dull old gossips of the +neighbourhood will begin to ask when we are to be engaged, and at last we +shall be engaged, and people will give us butter-dishes and +blotting-cases and framed pictures of young women feeding swans. Hullo, +Uncle, are you going out?" + +"I'm just going down to the town," announced Mr. James Gurtleberry, with +an air of some importance: "I want to hear what people are saying about +Albania. Affairs there are beginning to take on a very serious look. +It's my opinion that we haven't seen the worst of things yet." + +In this he was probably right, but there was nothing in the immediate or +prospective condition of Albania to warrant Mrs. Gurtleberry in bursting +into tears. + + + + +FATE + + +Rex Dillot was nearly twenty-four, almost good-looking and quite +penniless. His mother was supposed to make him some sort of an allowance +out of what her creditors allowed her, and Rex occasionally strayed into +the ranks of those who earn fitful salaries as secretaries or companions +to people who are unable to cope unaided with their correspondence or +their leisure. For a few months he had been assistant editor and +business manager of a paper devoted to fancy mice, but the devotion had +been all on one side, and the paper disappeared with a certain abruptness +from club reading-rooms and other haunts where it had made a gratuitous +appearance. Still, Rex lived with some air of comfort and well-being, as +one can live if one is born with a genius for that sort of thing, and a +kindly Providence usually arranged that his week-end invitations +coincided with the dates on which his one white dinner-waistcoat was in a +laundry-returned condition of dazzling cleanness. He played most games +badly, and was shrewd enough to recognise the fact, but he had developed +a marvellously accurate judgement in estimating the play and chances of +other people, whether in a golf match, billiard handicap, or croquet +tournament. By dint of parading his opinion of such and such a player's +superiority with a sufficient degree of youthful assertiveness he usually +succeeded in provoking a wager at liberal odds, and he looked to his week- +end winnings to carry him through the financial embarrassments of his mid- +week existence. The trouble was, as he confided to Clovis Sangrail, that +he never had enough available or even prospective cash at his command to +enable him to fix the wager at a figure really worth winning. + +"Some day," he said, "I shall come across a really safe thing, a bet that +simply can't go astray, and then I shall put it up for all I'm worth, or +rather for a good deal more than I'm worth if you sold me up to the last +button." + +"It would be awkward if it didn't happen to come off," said Clovis. + +"It would be more than awkward," said Rex; "it would be a tragedy. All +the same, it would be extremely amusing to bring it off. Fancy awaking +in the morning with about three hundred pounds standing to one's credit. +I should go and clear out my hostess's pigeon-loft before breakfast out +of sheer good-temper." + +"Your hostess of the moment mightn't have a pigeon-loft," said Clovis. + +"I always choose hostesses that have," said Rex; "a pigeon-loft is +indicative of a careless, extravagant, genial disposition, such as I like +to see around me. People who strew corn broadcast for a lot of feathered +inanities that just sit about cooing and giving each other the glad eye +in a Louis Quatorze manner are pretty certain to do you well." + +"Young Strinnit is coming down this afternoon," said Clovis reflectively; +"I dare say you won't find it difficult to get him to back himself at +billiards. He plays a pretty useful game, but he's not quite as good as +he fancies he is." + +"I know one member of the party who can walk round him," said Rex softly, +an alert look coming into his eyes; "that cadaverous-looking Major who +arrived last night. I've seen him play at St. Moritz. If I could get +Strinnit to lay odds on himself against the Major the money would be safe +in my pocket. This looks like the good thing I've been watching and +praying for." + +"Don't be rash," counselled Clovis, "Strinnit may play up to his self- +imagined form once in a blue moon." + +"I intend to be rash," said Rex quietly, and the look on his face +corroborated his words. + +"Are you all going to flock to the billiard-room?" asked Teresa +Thundleford, after dinner, with an air of some disapproval and a good +deal of annoyance. "I can't see what particular amusement you find in +watching two men prodding little ivory balls about on a table." + +"Oh, well," said her hostess, "it's a way of passing the time, you know." + +"A very poor way, to my mind," said Mrs. Thundleford; "now I was going to +have shown all of you the photographs I took in Venice last summer." + +"You showed them to us last night," said Mrs. Cuvering hastily. + +"Those were the ones I took in Florence. These are quite a different +lot." + +"Oh, well, some time to-morrow we can look at them. You can leave them +down in the drawing-room, and then every one can have a look." + +"I should prefer to show them when you are all gathered together, as I +have quite a lot of explanatory remarks to make, about Venetian art and +architecture, on the same lines as my remarks last night on the +Florentine galleries. Also, there are some verses of mine that I should +like to read you, on the rebuilding of the Campanile. But, of course, if +you all prefer to watch Major Latton and Mr. Strinnit knocking balls +about on a table--" + +"They are both supposed to be first-rate players," said the hostess. + +"I have yet to learn that my verses and my art _causerie_ are of second- +rate quality," said Mrs. Thundleford with acerbity. "However, as you all +seem bent on watching a silly game, there's no more to be said. I shall +go upstairs and finish some writing. Later on, perhaps, I will come down +and join you." + +To one, at least, of the onlookers the game was anything but silly. It +was absorbing, exciting, exasperating, nerve-stretching, and finally it +grew to be tragic. The Major with the St. Moritz reputation was playing +a long way below his form, young Strinnit was playing slightly above his, +and had all the luck of the game as well. From the very start the balls +seemed possessed by a demon of contrariness; they trundled about +complacently for one player, they would go nowhere for the other. + +"A hundred and seventy, seventy-four," sang out the youth who was +marking. In a game of two hundred and fifty up it was an enormous lead +to hold. Clovis watched the flush of excitement die away from Dillot's +face, and a hard white look take its place. + +"How much have you go on?" whispered Clovis. The other whispered the sum +through dry, shaking lips. It was more than he or any one connected with +him could pay; he had done what he had said he would do. He had been +rash. + +"Two hundred and six, ninety-eight." + +Rex heard a clock strike ten somewhere in the hall, then another +somewhere else, and another, and another; the house seemed full of +striking clocks. Then in the distance the stable clock chimed in. In +another hour they would all be striking eleven, and he would be listening +to them as a disgraced outcast, unable to pay, even in part, the wager he +had challenged. + +"Two hundred and eighteen, a hundred and three." The game was as good as +over. Rex was as good as done for. He longed desperately for the +ceiling to fall in, for the house to catch fire, for anything to happen +that would put an end to that horrible rolling to and fro of red and +white ivory that was jostling him nearer and nearer to his doom. + +"Two hundred and twenty-eight, a hundred and seven." + +Rex opened his cigarette-case; it was empty. That at least gave him a +pretext to slip away from the room for the purpose of refilling it; he +would spare himself the drawn-out torture of watching that hopeless game +played out to the bitter end. He backed away from the circle of absorbed +watchers and made his way up a short stairway to a long, silent corridor +of bedrooms, each with a guests' name written in a little square on the +door. In the hush that reigned in this part of the house he could still +hear the hateful click-click of the balls; if he waited for a few minutes +longer he would hear the little outbreak of clapping and buzz of +congratulation that would hail Strinnit's victory. On the alert tension +of his nerves there broke another sound, the aggressive, wrath-inducing +breathing of one who sleeps in heavy after-dinner slumber. The sound +came from a room just at his elbow; the card on the door bore the +announcement "Mrs. Thundleford." The door was just slightly ajar; Rex +pushed it open an inch or two more and looked in. The august Teresa had +fallen asleep over an illustrated guide to Florentine art-galleries; at +her side, somewhat dangerously near the edge of the table, was a reading- +lamp. If Fate had been decently kind to him, thought Rex, bitterly, that +lamp would have been knocked over by the sleeper and would have given +them something to think of besides billiard matches. + +There are occasions when one must take one's Fate in one's hands. Rex +took the lamp in his. + +"Two hundred and thirty-seven, one hundred and fifteen." Strinnit was at +the table, and the balls lay in good position for him; he had a choice of +two fairly easy shots, a choice which he was never to decide. A sudden +hurricane of shrieks and a rush of stumbling feet sent every one flocking +to the door. The Dillot boy crashed into the room, carrying in his arms +the vociferous and somewhat dishevelled Teresa Thundleford; her clothing +was certainly not a mass of flames, as the more excitable members of the +party afterwards declared, but the edge of her skirt and part of the +table-cover in which she had been hastily wrapped were alight in a +flickering, half-hearted manner. Rex flung his struggling burden on the +billiard table, and for one breathless minute the work of beating out the +sparks with rugs and cushions and playing on them with soda-water syphons +engrossed the energies of the entire company. + +"It was lucky I was passing when it happened," panted Rex; "some one had +better see to the room, I think the carpet is alight." + +As a matter of fact the promptitude and energy of the rescuer had +prevented any great damage being done, either to the victim or her +surroundings. The billiard table had suffered most, and had to be laid +up for repairs; perhaps it was not the best place to have chosen for the +scene of salvage operations; but then, as Clovis remarked, when one is +rushing about with a blazing woman in one's arms one can't stop to think +out exactly where one is going to put her. + + + + +THEBULL + + +Tom Yorkfield had always regarded his half-brother, Laurence, with a lazy +instinct of dislike, toned down, as years went on, to a tolerant feeling +of indifference. There was nothing very tangible to dislike him for; he +was just a blood-relation, with whom Tom had no single taste or interest +in common, and with whom, at the same time, he had had no occasion for +quarrel. Laurence had left the farm early in life, and had lived for a +few years on a small sum of money left him by his mother; he had taken up +painting as a profession, and was reported to be doing fairly well at it, +well enough, at any rate, to keep body and soul together. He specialised +in painting animals, and he was successful in finding a certain number of +people to buy his pictures. Tom felt a comforting sense of assured +superiority in contrasting his position with that of his half-brother; +Laurence was an artist-chap, just that and nothing more, though you might +make it sound more important by calling an animal painter; Tom was a +farmer, not in a very big way, it was true, but the Helsery farm had been +in the family for some generations, and it had a good reputation for the +stock raised on it. Tom had done his best, with the little capital at +his command, to maintain and improve the standard of his small herd of +cattle, and in Clover Fairy he had bred a bull which was something rather +better than any that his immediate neighbours could show. It would not +have made a sensation in the judging-ring at an important cattle show, +but it was as vigorous, shapely, and healthy a young animal as any small +practical farmer could wish to possess. At the King's Head on market +days Clover Fairy was very highly spoken of, and Yorkfield used to +declare that he would not part with him for a hundred pounds; a hundred +pounds is a lot of money in the small farming line, and probably anything +over eighty would have tempted him. + +It was with some especial pleasure that Tom took advantage of one of +Laurence's rare visits to the farm to lead him down to the enclosure +where Clover Fairy kept solitary state--the grass widower of a grazing +harem. Tom felt some of his old dislike for his half-brother reviving; +the artist was becoming more languid in his manner, more unsuitably +turned-out in attire, and he seemed inclined to impart a slightly +patronising tone to his conversation. He took no heed of a flourishing +potato crop, but waxed enthusiastic over a clump of yellow-flowering weed +that stood in a corner by a gateway, which was rather galling to the +owner of a really very well weeded farm; again, when he might have been +duly complimentary about a group of fat, black-faced lambs, that simply +cried aloud for admiration, he became eloquent over the foliage tints of +an oak copse on the hill opposite. But now he was being taken to inspect +the crowning pride and glory of Helsery; however grudging he might be in +his praises, however backward and niggardly with his congratulations, he +would have to see and acknowledge the many excellences of that +redoubtable animal. Some weeks ago, while on a business journey to +Taunton, Tom had been invited by his half-brother to visit a studio in +that town, where Laurence was exhibiting one of his pictures, a large +canvas representing a bull standing knee-deep in some marshy ground; it +had been good of its kind, no doubt, and Laurence had seemed inordinately +pleased with it; "the best thing I've done yet," he had said over and +over again, and Tom had generously agreed that it was fairly life-like. +Now, the man of pigments was going to be shown a real picture, a living +model of strength and comeliness, a thing to feast the eyes on, a picture +that exhibited new pose and action with every shifting minute, instead of +standing glued into one unvarying attitude between the four walls of a +frame. Tom unfastened a stout wooden door and led the way into a straw- +bedded yard. + +"Is he quiet?" asked the artist, as a young bull with a curly red coat +came inquiringly towards them. + +"He's playful at times," said Tom, leaving his half-brother to wonder +whether the bull's ideas of play were of the catch-as-catch-can order. +Laurence made one or two perfunctory comments on the animal's appearance +and asked a question or so as to his age and such-like details; then he +coolly turned the talk into another channel. + +"Do you remember the picture I showed you at Taunton?" he asked. + +"Yes," grunted Tom; "a white-faced bull standing in some slush. Don't +admire those Herefords much myself; bulky-looking brutes, don't seem to +have much life in them. Daresay they're easier to paint that way; now, +this young beggar is on the move all the time, aren't you, Fairy?" + +"I've sold that picture," said Laurence, with considerable complacency in +his voice. + +"Have you?" said Tom; "glad to hear it, I'm sure. Hope you're pleased +with what you've got for it." + +"I got three hundred pounds for it," said Laurence. + +Tom turned towards him with a slowly rising flush of anger in his face. +Three hundred pounds! Under the most favourable market conditions that +he could imagine his prized Clover Fairy would hardly fetch a hundred, +yet here was a piece of varnished canvas, painted by his half-brother, +selling for three times that sum. It was a cruel insult that went home +with all the more force because it emphasised the triumph of the +patronising, self-satisfied Laurence. The young farmer had meant to put +his relative just a little out of conceit with himself by displaying the +jewel of his possessions, and now the tables were turned, and his valued +beast was made to look cheap and insignificant beside the price paid for +a mere picture. It was so monstrously unjust; the painting would never +be anything more than a dexterous piece of counterfeit life, while Clover +Fairy was the real thing, a monarch in his little world, a personality in +the countryside. After he was dead, even, he would still be something of +a personality; his descendants would graze in those valley meadows and +hillside pastures, they would fill stall and byre and milking-shed, their +good red coats would speckle the landscape and crowd the market-place; +men would note a promising heifer or a well-proportioned steer, and say: +"Ah, that one comes of good old Clover Fairy's stock." All that time the +picture would be hanging, lifeless and unchanging, beneath its dust and +varnish, a chattel that ceased to mean anything if you chose to turn it +with its back to the wall. These thoughts chased themselves angrily +through Tom Yorkfield's mind, but he could not put them into words. When +he gave tongue to his feelings he put matters bluntly and harshly. + +"Some soft-witted fools may like to throw away three hundred pounds on a +bit of paintwork; can't say as I envy them their taste. I'd rather have +the real thing than a picture of it." + +He nodded towards the young bull, that was alternately staring at them +with nose held high and lowering its horns with a half-playful, +half-impatient shake of the head. + +Laurence laughed a laugh of irritating, indulgent amusement. + +"I don't think the purchaser of my bit of paintwork, as you call it, need +worry about having thrown his money away. As I get to be better known +and recognised my pictures will go up in value. That particular one will +probably fetch four hundred in a sale-room five or six years hence; +pictures aren't a bad investment if you know enough to pick out the work +of the right men. Now you can't say your precious bull is going to get +more valuable the longer you keep him; he'll have his little day, and +then, if you go on keeping him, he'll come down at last to a few +shillingsworth of hoofs and hide, just at a time, perhaps, when my bull +is being bought for a big sum for some important picture gallery." + +It was too much. The united force of truth and slander and insult put +over heavy a strain on Tom Yorkfield's powers of restraint. In his right +hand he held a useful oak cudgel, with his left he made a grab at the +loose collar of Laurence's canary-coloured silk shirt. Laurence was not +a fighting man; the fear of physical violence threw him off his balance +as completely as overmastering indignation had thrown Tom off his, and +thus it came to pass that Clover Fairy was regaled with the unprecedented +sight of a human being scudding and squawking across the enclosure, like +the hen that would persist in trying to establish a nesting-place in the +manger. In another crowded happy moment the bull was trying to jerk +Laurence over his left shoulder, to prod him in the ribs while still in +the air, and to kneel on him when he reached the ground. It was only the +vigorous intervention of Tom that induced him to relinquish the last item +of his programme. + +Tom devotedly and ungrudgingly nursed his half brother to a complete +recovery from his injuries, which consisted of nothing more serious than +a dislocated shoulder, a broken rib or two, and a little nervous +prostration. After all, there was no further occasion for rancour in the +young farmer's mind; Laurence's bull might sell for three hundred, or for +six hundred, and be admired by thousands in some big picture gallery, but +it would never toss a man over one shoulder and catch him a jab in the +ribs before he had fallen on the other side. That was Clover Fairy's +noteworthy achievement, which could never be taken away from him. + +Laurence continues to be popular as an animal artist, but his subjects +are always kittens or fawns or lambkins--never bulls. + + + + +MORLVERA + + +The Olympic Toy Emporium occupied a conspicuous frontage in an important +West End street. It was happily named Toy Emporium, because one would +never have dreamed of according it the familiar and yet pulse-quickening +name of toyshop. There was an air of cold splendour and elaborate +failure about the wares that were set out in its ample windows; they were +the sort of toys that a tired shop-assistant displays and explains at +Christmas time to exclamatory parents and bored, silent children. The +animal toys looked more like natural history models than the comfortable, +sympathetic companions that one would wish, at a certain age, to take to +bed with one, and to smuggle into the bath-room. The mechanical toys +incessantly did things that no one could want a toy to do more than a +half a dozen times in its lifetime; it was a merciful reflection that in +any right-minded nursery the lifetime would certainly be short. + +Prominent among the elegantly-dressed dolls that filled an entire section +of the window frontage was a large hobble-skirted lady in a confection of +peach-coloured velvet, elaborately set off with leopard skin accessories, +if one may use such a conveniently comprehensive word in describing an +intricate feminine toilette. She lacked nothing that is to be found in a +carefully detailed fashion-plate--in fact, she might be said to have +something more than the average fashion-plate female possesses; in place +of a vacant, expressionless stare she had character in her face. It must +be admitted that it was bad character, cold, hostile, inquisitorial, with +a sinister lowering of one eyebrow and a merciless hardness about the +corners of the mouth. One might have imagined histories about her by the +hour, histories in which unworthy ambition, the desire for money, and an +entire absence of all decent feeling would play a conspicuous part. + +As a matter of fact, she was not without her judges and biographers, even +in this shop-window stage of her career. Emmeline, aged ten, and Bert, +aged seven, had halted on the way from their obscure back street to the +minnow-stocked water of St. James's Park, and were critically examining +the hobble-skirted doll, and dissecting her character in no very tolerant +spirit. There is probably a latent enmity between the necessarily under- +clad and the unnecessarily overdressed, but a little kindness and good +fellowship on the part of the latter will often change the sentiment to +admiring devotion; if the lady in peach-coloured velvet and leopard skin +had worn a pleasant expression in addition to her other elaborate +furnishings, Emmeline at least might have respected and even loved her. +As it was, she gave her a horrible reputation, based chiefly on a +secondhand knowledge of gilded depravity derived from the conversation of +those who were skilled in the art of novelette reading; Bert filled in a +few damaging details from his own limited imagination. + +"She's a bad lot, that one is," declared Emmeline, after a long +unfriendly stare; "'er 'usbind 'ates 'er." + +"'E knocks 'er abart," said Bert, with enthusiasm. + +"No, 'e don't, cos 'e's dead; she poisoned 'im slow and gradual, so that +nobody didn't know. Now she wants to marry a lord, with 'eaps and 'eaps +of money. 'E's got a wife already, but she's going to poison 'er, too." + +"She's a bad lot," said Bert with growing hostility. + +"'Er mother 'ates her, and she's afraid of 'er, too, cos she's got a +serkestic tongue; always talking serkesms, she is. She's greedy, too; if +there's fish going, she eats 'er own share and 'er little girl's as well, +though the little girl is dellikit." + +"She 'ad a little boy once," said Bert, "but she pushed 'im into the +water when nobody wasn't looking." + +"No she didn't," said Emmeline, "she sent 'im away to be kep' by poor +people, so 'er 'usbind wouldn't know where 'e was. They ill-treat 'im +somethink cruel." + +"Wot's 'er nime?" asked Bert, thinking that it was time that so +interesting a personality should be labelled. + +"'Er nime?" said Emmeline, thinking hard, "'er nime's Morlvera." It was +as near as she could get to the name of an adventuress who figured +prominently in a cinema drama. There was silence for a moment while the +possibilities of the name were turned over in the children's minds. + +"Those clothes she's got on ain't paid for, and never won't be," said +Emmeline; "she thinks she'll get the rich lord to pay for 'em, but 'e +won't. 'E's given 'er jools, 'underds of pounds' worth." + +"'E won't pay for the clothes," said Bert, with conviction. Evidently +there was some limit to the weak good nature of wealthy lords. + +At that moment a motor carriage with liveried servants drew up at the +emporium entrance; a large lady, with a penetrating and rather hurried +manner of talking, stepped out, followed slowly and sulkily by a small +boy, who had a very black scowl on his face and a very white sailor suit +over the rest of him. The lady was continuing an argument which had +probably commenced in Portman Square. + +"Now, Victor, you are to come in and buy a nice doll for your cousin +Bertha. She gave you a beautiful box of soldiers on your birthday, and +you must give her a present on hers." + +"Bertha is a fat little fool," said Victor, in a voice that was as loud +as his mother's and had more assurance in it. + +"Victor, you are not to say such things. Bertha is not a fool, and she +is not in the least fat. You are to come in and choose a doll for her." + +The couple passed into the shop, out of view and hearing of the two back- +street children. + +"My, he is in a wicked temper," exclaimed Emmeline, but both she and Bert +were inclined to side with him against the absent Bertha, who was +doubtless as fat and foolish as he had described her to be. + +"I want to see some dolls," said the mother of Victor to the nearest +assistant; "it's for a little girl of eleven." + +"A fat little girl of eleven," added Victor by way of supplementary +information. + +"Victor, if you say such rude things about your cousin, you shall go to +bed the moment we get home, without having any tea." + +"This is one of the newest things we have in dolls," said the assistant, +removing a hobble-skirted figure in peach-coloured velvet from the +window; "leopard skin toque and stole, the latest fashion. You won't get +anything newer than that anywhere. It's an exclusive design." + +"Look!" whispered Emmeline outside; "they've bin and took Morlvera." + +There was a mingling of excitement and a certain sense of bereavement in +her mind; she would have liked to gaze at that embodiment of overdressed +depravity for just a little longer. + +"I 'spect she's going away in a kerridge to marry the rich lord," +hazarded Bert. + +"She's up to no good," said Emmeline vaguely. + +Inside the shop the purchase of the doll had been decided on. + +"It's a beautiful doll, and Bertha will be delighted with it," asserted +the mother of Victor loudly. + +"Oh, very well," said Victor sulkily; "you needn't have it stuck into a +box and wait an hour while it's being done up into a parcel. I'll take +it as it is, and we can go round to Manchester Square and give it to +Bertha, and get the thing done with. That will save me the trouble of +writing: 'For dear Bertha, with Victor's love,' on a bit of paper." + +"Very well," said his mother, "we can go to Manchester Square on our way +home. You must wish her many happy returns of to-morrow, and give her +the doll." + +"I won't let the little beast kiss me," stipulated Victor. + +His mother said nothing; Victor had not been half as troublesome as she +had anticipated. When he chose he could really be dreadfully naughty. + +Emmeline and Bert were just moving away from the window when Morlvera +made her exit from the shop, very carefully in Victor's arms. A look of +sinister triumph seemed to glow in her hard, inquisitorial face. As for +Victor, a certain scornful serenity had replaced the earlier scowls; he +had evidently accepted defeat with a contemptuous good grace. + +The tall lady gave a direction to the footman and settled herself in the +carriage. The little figure in the white sailor suit clambered in beside +her, still carefully holding the elegantly garbed doll. + +The car had to be backed a few yards in the process of turning. Very +stealthily, very gently, very mercilessly Victor sent Morlvera flying +over his shoulder, so that she fell into the road just behind the +retrogressing wheel. With a soft, pleasant-sounding scrunch the car went +over the prostrate form, then it moved forward again with another +scrunch. The carriage moved off and left Bert and Emmeline gazing in +scared delight at a sorry mess of petrol-smeared velvet, sawdust, and +leopard skin, which was all that remained of the hateful Morlvera. They +gave a shrill cheer, and then raced away shuddering from the scene of so +much rapidly enacted tragedy. + +Later that afternoon, when they were engaged in the pursuit of minnows by +the waterside in St. James's Park, Emmeline said in a solemn undertone to +Bert-- + +"I've bin finking. Do you know oo 'e was? 'E was 'er little boy wot +she'd sent away to live wiv poor folks. 'E come back and done that." + + + + +SHOCK TATICS + + +On a late spring afternoon Ella McCarthy sat on a green-painted chair in +Kensington Gardens, staring listlessly at an uninteresting stretch of +park landscape, that blossomed suddenly into tropical radiance as an +expected figure appeared in the middle distance. + +"Hullo, Bertie!" she exclaimed sedately, when the figure arrived at the +painted chair that was the nearest neighbour to her own, and dropped into +it eagerly, yet with a certain due regard for the set of its trousers; +"hasn't it been a perfect spring afternoon?" + +The statement was a distinct untruth as far as Ella's own feelings were +concerned; until the arrival of Bertie the afternoon had been anything +but perfect. + +Bertie made a suitable reply, in which a questioning note seemed to +hover. + +"Thank you ever so much for those lovely handkerchiefs," said Ella, +answering the unspoken question; "they were just what I've been wanting. +There's only one thing spoilt my pleasure in your gift," she added, with +a pout. + +"What was that?" asked Bertie anxiously, fearful that perhaps he had +chosen a size of handkerchief that was not within the correct feminine +limit. + +"I should have liked to have written and thanked you for them as soon as +I got them," said Ella, and Bertie's sky clouded at once. + +"You know what mother is," he protested; "she opens all my letters, and +if she found I'd been giving presents to any one there'd have been +something to talk about for the next fortnight." + +"Surely, at the age of twenty--" began Ella. + +"I'm not twenty till September," interrupted Bertie. + +"At the age of nineteen years and eight months," persisted Ella, "you +might be allowed to keep your correspondence private to yourself." + +"I ought to be, but things aren't always what they ought to be. Mother +opens every letter that comes into the house, whoever it's for. My +sisters and I have made rows about it time and again, but she goes on +doing it." + +"I'd find some way to stop her if I were in your place," said Ella +valiantly, and Bertie felt that the glamour of his anxiously deliberated +present had faded away in the disagreeable restriction that hedged round +its acknowledgment. + +"Is anything the matter?" asked Bertie's friend Clovis when they met that +evening at the swimming-bath. + +"Why do you ask?" said Bertie. + +"When you wear a look of tragic gloom in a swimming-bath," said Clovis, +"it's especially noticeable from the fact that you're wearing very little +else. Didn't she like the handkerchiefs?" + +Bertie explained the situation. + +"It is rather galling, you know," he added, "when a girl has a lot of +things she wants to write to you and can't send a letter except by some +roundabout, underhand way." + +"One never realises one's blessings while one enjoys them," said Clovis; +"now I have to spend a considerable amount of ingenuity inventing excuses +for not having written to people." + +"It's not a joking matter," said Bertie resentfully: "you wouldn't find +it funny if your mother opened all your letters." + +"The funny thing to me is that you should let her do it." + +"I can't stop it. I've argued about it--" + +"You haven't used the right kind of argument, I expect. Now, if every +time one of your letters was opened you lay on your back on the dining- +table during dinner and had a fit, or roused the entire family in the +middle of the night to hear you recite one of Blake's 'Poems of +Innocence,' you would get a far more respectful hearing for future +protests. People yield more consideration to a mutilated mealtime or a +broken night's rest, than ever they would to a broken heart." + +"Oh, dry up," said Bertie crossly, inconsistently splashing Clovis from +head to foot as he plunged into the water. + +It was a day or two after the conversation in the swimming-bath that a +letter addressed to Bertie Heasant slid into the letter-box at his home, +and thence into the hands of his mother. Mrs. Heasant was one of those +empty-minded individuals to whom other people's affairs are perpetually +interesting. The more private they are intended to be the more acute is +the interest they arouse. She would have opened this particular letter +in any case; the fact that it was marked "private," and diffused a +delicate but penetrating aroma merely caused her to open it with headlong +haste rather than matter-of-course deliberation. The harvest of +sensation that rewarded her was beyond all expectations. + + "Bertie, carissimo," it began, "I wonder if you will have the nerve to + do it: it will take some nerve, too. Don't forget the jewels. They + are a detail, but details interest me. + + "Yours as ever, Clotilde." + + "Your mother must not know of my existence. If questioned swear you + never heard of me." + +For years Mrs. Heasant had searched Bertie's correspondence diligently +for traces of possible dissipation or youthful entanglements, and at last +the suspicions that had stimulated her inquisitorial zeal were justified +by this one splendid haul. That any one wearing the exotic name +"Clotilde" should write to Bertie under the incriminating announcement +"as ever" was sufficiently electrifying, without the astounding allusion +to the jewels. Mrs. Heasant could recall novels and dramas wherein +jewels played an exciting and commanding role, and here, under her own +roof, before her very eyes as it were, her own son was carrying on an +intrigue in which jewels were merely an interesting detail. Bertie was +not due home for another hour, but his sisters were available for the +immediate unburdening of a scandal-laden mind. + +"Bertie is in the toils of an adventuress," she screamed; "her name is +Clotilde," she added, as if she thought they had better know the worst at +once. There are occasions when more harm than good is done by shielding +young girls from a knowledge of the more deplorable realities of life. + +By the time Bertie arrived his mother had discussed every possible and +improbable conjecture as to his guilty secret; the girls limited +themselves to the opinion that their brother had been weak rather than +wicked. + +"Who is Clotilde?" was the question that confronted Bertie almost before +he had got into the hall. His denial of any knowledge of such a person +was met with an outburst of bitter laughter. + +"How well you have learned your lesson!" exclaimed Mrs. Heasant. But +satire gave way to furious indignation when she realised that Bertie did +not intend to throw any further light on her discovery. + +"You shan't have any dinner till you've confessed everything," she +stormed. + +Bertie's reply took the form of hastily collecting material for an +impromptu banquet from the larder and locking himself into his bedroom. +His mother made frequent visits to the locked door and shouted a +succession of interrogations with the persistence of one who thinks that +if you ask a question often enough an answer will eventually result. +Bertie did nothing to encourage the supposition. An hour had passed in +fruitless one-sided palaver when another letter addressed to Bertie and +marked "private" made its appearance in the letter-box. Mrs. Heasant +pounced on it with the enthusiasm of a cat that has missed its mouse and +to whom a second has been unexpectedly vouchsafed. If she hoped for +further disclosures assuredly she was not disappointed. + + "So you have really done it!" the letter abruptly commenced; "Poor + Dagmar. Now she is done for I almost pity her. You did it very well, + you wicked boy, the servants all think it was suicide, and there will + be no fuss. Better not touch the jewels till after the inquest. + + "Clotilde." + +Anything that Mrs. Heasant had previously done in the way of outcry was +easily surpassed as she raced upstairs and beat frantically at her son's +door. + +"Miserable boy, what have you done to Dagmar?" + +"It's Dagmar now, is it?" he snapped; "it will be Geraldine next." + +"That it should come to this, after all my efforts to keep you at home of +an evening," sobbed Mrs. Heasant; "it's no use you trying to hide things +from me; Clotilde's letter betrays everything." + +"Does it betray who she is?" asked Bertie; "I've heard so much about her, +I should like to know something about her home-life. Seriously, if you +go on like this I shall fetch a doctor; I've often enough been preached +at about nothing, but I've never had an imaginary harem dragged into the +discussion." + +"Are these letters imaginary?" screamed Mrs. Heasant; "what about the +jewels, and Dagmar, and the theory of suicide?" + +No solution of these problems was forthcoming through the bedroom door, +but the last post of the evening produced another letter for Bertie, and +its contents brought Mrs. Heasant that enlightenment which had already +dawned on her son. + + "Dear Bertie," it ran; "I hope I haven't distracted your brain with + the spoof letters I've been sending in the name of a fictitious + Clotilde. You told me the other day that the servants, or somebody at + your home, tampered with your letters, so I thought I would give any + one that opened them something exciting to read. The shock might do + them good. + + "Yours, + + "Clovis Sangrail." + +Mrs. Heasant knew Clovis slightly, and was rather afraid of him. It was +not difficult to read between the lines of his successful hoax. In a +chastened mood she rapped once more at Bertie's door. + +"A letter from Mr. Sangrail. It's all been a stupid hoax. He wrote +those other letters. Why, where are you going?" + +Bertie had opened the door; he had on his hat and overcoat. + +"I'm going for a doctor to come and see if anything's the matter with +you. Of course it was all a hoax, but no person in his right mind could +have believed all that rubbish about murder and suicide and jewels. +You've been making enough noise to bring the house down for the last hour +or two." + +"But what was I to think of those letters?" whimpered Mrs. Heasant. + +"I should have known what to think of them," said Bertie; "if you choose +to excite yourself over other people's correspondence it's your own +fault. Anyhow, I'm going for a doctor." + +It was Bertie's great opportunity, and he knew it. His mother was +conscious of the fact that she would look rather ridiculous if the story +got about. She was willing to pay hush-money. + +"I'll never open your letters again," she promised. And Clovis has no +more devoted slave than Bertie Heasant. + + + + +THE SEVEN CREAM JUGS + + +"I suppose we shall never see Wilfred Pigeoncote here now that he has +become heir to the baronetcy and to a lot of money," observed Mrs. Peter +Pigeoncote regretfully to her husband. + +"Well, we can hardly expect to," he replied, "seeing that we always +choked him off from coming to see us when he was a prospective nobody. I +don't think I've set eyes on him since he was a boy of twelve." + +"There was a reason for not wanting to encourage his acquaintanceship," +said Mrs. Peter. "With that notorious failing of his he was not the sort +of person one wanted in one's house." + +"Well, the failing still exists, doesn't it?" said her husband; "or do +you suppose a reform of character is entailed along with the estate?" + +"Oh, of course, there is still that drawback," admitted the wife, "but +one would like to make the acquaintance of the future head of the family, +if only out of mere curiosity. Besides, cynicism apart, his being rich +will make a difference in the way people will look at his failing. When +a man is absolutely wealthy, not merely well-to-do, all suspicion of +sordid motive naturally disappears; the thing becomes merely a tiresome +malady." + +Wilfrid Pigeoncote had suddenly become heir to his uncle, Sir Wilfrid +Pigeoncote, on the death of his cousin, Major Wilfrid Pigeoncote, who had +succumbed to the after-effects of a polo accident. (A Wilfrid Pigeoncote +had covered himself with honours in the course of Marlborough's +campaigns, and the name Wilfrid had been a baptismal weakness in the +family ever since.) The new heir to the family dignity and estates was a +young man of about five-and-twenty, who was known more by reputation than +by person to a wide circle of cousins and kinsfolk. And the reputation +was an unpleasant one. The numerous other Wilfrids in the family were +distinguished one from another chiefly by the names of their residences +or professions, as Wilfrid of Hubbledown, and young Wilfrid the Gunner, +but this particular scion was known by the ignominious and expressive +label of Wilfrid the Snatcher. From his late schooldays onward he had +been possessed by an acute and obstinate form of kleptomania; he had the +acquisitive instinct of the collector without any of the collector's +discrimination. Anything that was smaller and more portable than a +sideboard, and above the value of ninepence, had an irresistible +attraction for him, provided that it fulfilled the necessary condition of +belonging to some one else. On the rare occasions when he was included +in a country-house party, it was usual and almost necessary for his host, +or some member of the family, to make a friendly inquisition through his +baggage on the eve of his departure, to see if he had packed up "by +mistake" any one else's property. The search usually produced a large +and varied yield. + +"This is funny," said Peter Pigeoncote to his wife, some half-hour after +their conversation; "here's a telegram from Wilfrid, saying he's passing +through here in his motor, and would like to stop and pay us his +respects. Can stay for the night if it doesn't inconvenience us. Signed +'Wilfrid Pigeoncote.' Must be the Snatcher; none of the others have a +motor. I suppose he's bringing us a present for the silver wedding." + +"Good gracious!" said Mrs. Peter, as a thought struck her; "this is +rather an awkward time to have a person with his failing in the house. +All those silver presents set out in the drawing-room, and others coming +by every post; I hardly know what we've got and what are still to come. +We can't lock them all up; he's sure to want to see them." + +"We must keep a sharp look-out, that's all," said Peter reassuringly. + +"But these practised kleptomaniacs are so clever," said his wife, +apprehensively, "and it will be so awkward if he suspects that we are +watching him." + +Awkwardness was indeed the prevailing note that evening when the passing +traveller was being entertained. The talk flitted nervously and +hurriedly from one impersonal topic to another. The guest had none of +the furtive, half-apologetic air that his cousins had rather expected to +find; he was polite, well-assured, and, perhaps, just a little inclined +to "put on side". His hosts, on the other hand, wore an uneasy manner +that might have been the hallmark of conscious depravity. In the drawing- +room, after dinner, their nervousness and awkwardness increased. + +"Oh, we haven't shown you the silver-wedding presents," said Mrs. Peter, +suddenly, as though struck by a brilliant idea for entertaining the +guest; "here they all are. Such nice, useful gifts. A few duplicates, +of course." + +"Seven cream jugs," put in Peter. + +"Yes, isn't it annoying," went on Mrs. Peter; "seven of them. We feel +that we must live on cream for the rest of our lives. Of course, some of +them can be changed." + +Wilfrid occupied himself chiefly with such of the gifts as were of +antique interest, carrying one or two of them over to the lamp to examine +their marks. The anxiety of his hosts at these moments resembled the +solicitude of a cat whose newly born kittens are being handed round for +inspection. + +"Let me see; did you give me back the mustard-pot? This is its place +here," piped Mrs. Peter. + +"Sorry. I put it down by the claret-jug," said Wilfrid, busy with +another object. + +"Oh, just let me have the sugar-sifter again," asked Mrs. Peter, dogged +determination showing through her nervousness; "I must label it who it +comes from before I forget." + +Vigilance was not completely crowned with a sense of victory. After they +had said "Good-night" to their visitor, Mrs. Peter expressed her +conviction that he had taken something. + +"I fancy, by his manner, that there was something up," corroborated her +husband; "do you miss anything?" + +Mrs. Peters hastily counted the array of gifts. + +"I can only make it thirty-four, and I think it should be thirty-five," +she announced; "I can't remember if thirty-five includes the Archdeacon's +cruet-stand that hasn't arrived yet." + +"How on earth are we to know?" said Peter. "The mean pig hasn't brought +us a present, and I'm hanged if he shall carry one off." + +"To-morrow, when's he having his bath," said Mrs. Peter excitedly, "he's +sure to leave his keys somewhere, and we can go through his portmanteau. +It's the only thing to do." + +On the morrow an alert watch was kept by the conspirators behind half- +closed doors, and when Wilfrid, clad in a gorgeous bath-robe, had made +his way to the bath-room, there was a swift and furtive rush by two +excited individuals towards the principal guest-chamber. Mrs. Peter kept +guard outside, while her husband first made a hurried and successful +search for the keys, and then plunged at the portmanteau with the air of +a disagreeably conscientious Customs official. The quest was a brief +one; a silver cream jug lay embedded in the folds of some zephyr shirts. + +"The cunning brute," said Mrs. Peters; "he took a cream jug because there +were so many; he thought one wouldn't be missed. Quick, fly down with it +and put it back among the others." + +Wilfrid was late in coming down to breakfast, and his manner showed +plainly that something was amiss. + +"It's an unpleasant thing to have to say," he blurted out presently, "but +I'm afraid you must have a thief among your servants. Something's been +taken out of my portmanteau. It was a little present from my mother and +myself for your silver wedding. I should have given it to you last night +after dinner, only it happened to be a cream jug, and you seemed annoyed +at having so many duplicates, so I felt rather awkward about giving you +another. I thought I'd get it changed for something else, and now it's +gone." + +"Did you say it was from your _mother_ and yourself?" asked Mr. and Mrs. +Peter almost in unison. The Snatcher had been an orphan these many +years. + +"Yes, my mother's at Cairo just now, and she wrote to me at Dresden to +try and get you something quaint and pretty in the old silver line, and I +pitched on this cream jug." + +Both the Pigeoncotes had turned deadly pale. The mention of Dresden had +thrown a sudden light on the situation. It was Wilfrid the Attache, a +very superior young man, who rarely came within their social horizon, +whom they had been entertaining unawares in the supposed character of +Wilfrid the Snatcher. Lady Ernestine Pigeoncote, his mother, moved in +circles which were entirely beyond their compass or ambitions, and the +son would probably one day be an Ambassador. And they had rifled and +despoiled his portmanteau! Husband and wife looked blankly and +desperately at one another. It was Mrs. Peter who arrived first at an +inspiration. + +"How dreadful to think there are thieves in the house! We keep the +drawing-room locked up at night, of course, but anything might be carried +off while we are at breakfast." + +She rose and went out hurriedly, as though to assure herself that the +drawing-room was not being stripped of its silverware, and returned a +moment later, bearing a cream jug in her hands. + +"There are eight cream jugs now, instead of seven," she cried; "this one +wasn't there before. What a curious trick of memory, Mr. Wilfrid! You +must have slipped downstairs with it last night and put it there before +we locked up, and forgotten all about having done it in the morning." + +"One's mind often plays one little tricks like that," said Mr. Peter, +with desperate heartiness. "Only the other day I went into the town to +pay a bill, and went in again next day, having clean forgotten that I'd--" + +"It is certainly the jug I bought for you," said Wilfrid, looking closely +at it; "it was in my portmanteau when I got my bath-robe out this +morning, before going to my bath, and it was not there when I unlocked +the portmanteau on my return. Some one had taken it while I was away +from the room." + +The Pigeoncotes had turned paler than ever. Mrs. Peter had a final +inspiration. + +"Get me my smelling-salts, dear," she said to her husband; "I think +they're in the dressing-room." + +Peter dashed out of the room with glad relief; he had lived so long +during the last few minutes that a golden wedding seemed within +measurable distance. + +Mrs. Peter turned to her guest with confidential coyness. + +"A diplomat like you will know how to treat this as if it hadn't +happened. Peter's little weakness; it runs in the family." + +"Good Lord! Do you mean to say he's a kleptomaniac, like Cousin +Snatcher?" + +"Oh, not exactly," said Mrs. Peter, anxious to whitewash her husband a +little greyer than she was painting him. "He would never touch anything +he found lying about, but he can't resist making a raid on things that +are locked up. The doctors have a special name for it. He must have +pounced on your portmanteau the moment you went to your bath, and taken +the first thing he came across. Of course, he had no motive for taking a +cream jug; we've already got _seven_, as you know--not, of course, that +we don't value the kind of gift you and your mother--hush here's Peter +coming." + +Mrs. Peter broke off in some confusion, and tripped out to meet her +husband in the hall. + +"It's all right," she whispered to him; "I've explained everything. Don't +say anything more about it." + +"Brave little woman," said Peter, with a gasp of relief; "I could never +have done it." + +* * * * * + +Diplomatic reticence does not necessarily extend to family affairs. Peter +Pigeoncote was never able to understand why Mrs. Consuelo van Bullyon, +who stayed with them in the spring, always carried two very obvious jewel- +cases with her to the bath-room, explaining them to any one she chanced +to meet in the corridor as her manicure and face-massage set. + + + + +THE OCCASIONAL GARDEN + + +"Don't talk to me about town gardens," said Elinor Rapsley; "which means, +of course, that I want you to listen to me for an hour or so while I talk +about nothing else. 'What a nice-sized garden you've got,' people said +to us when we first moved here. What I suppose they meant to say was +what a nice-sized site for a garden we'd got. As a matter of fact, the +size is all against it; it's too large to be ignored altogether and +treated as a yard, and it's too small to keep giraffes in. You see, if +we could keep giraffes or reindeer or some other species of browsing +animal there we could explain the general absence of vegetation by a +reference to the fauna of the garden: 'You can't have wapiti _and_ Darwin +tulips, you know, so we didn't put down any bulbs last year.' As it is, +we haven't got the wapiti, and the Darwin tulips haven't survived the +fact that most of the cats of the neighbourhood hold a parliament in the +centre of the tulip bed; that rather forlorn looking strip that we +intended to be a border of alternating geranium and spiraea has been +utilised by the cat-parliament as a division lobby. Snap divisions seem +to have been rather frequent of late, far more frequent than the geranium +blooms are likely to be. I shouldn't object so much to ordinary cats, +but I do complain of having a congress of vegetarian cats in my garden; +they must be vegetarians, my dear, because, whatever ravages they may +commit among the sweet pea seedlings, they never seem to touch the +sparrows; there are always just as many adult sparrows in the garden on +Saturday as there were on Monday, not to mention newly-fledged additions. +There seems to have been an irreconcilable difference of opinion between +sparrows and Providence since the beginning of time as to whether a +crocus looks best standing upright with its roots in the earth or in a +recumbent posture with its stem neatly severed; the sparrows always have +the last word in the matter, at least in our garden they do. I fancy +that Providence must have originally intended to bring in an amending +Act, or whatever it's called, providing either for a less destructive +sparrow or a more indestructible crocus. The one consoling point about +our garden is that it's not visible from the drawing-room or the smoking- +room, so unless people are dinning or lunching with us they can't spy out +the nakedness of the land. That is why I am so furious with Gwenda +Pottingdon, who has practically forced herself on me for lunch on +Wednesday next; she heard me offer the Paulcote girl lunch if she was up +shopping on that day, and, of course, she asked if she might come too. +She is only coming to gloat over my bedraggled and flowerless borders and +to sing the praises of her own detestably over-cultivated garden. I'm +sick of being told that it's the envy of the neighbourhood; it's like +everything else that belongs to her--her car, her dinner-parties, even +her headaches, they are all superlative; no one else ever had anything +like them. When her eldest child was confirmed it was such a sensational +event, according to her account of it, that one almost expected questions +to be asked about it in the House of Commons, and now she's coming on +purpose to stare at my few miserable pansies and the gaps in my sweet-pea +border, and to give me a glowing, full-length description of the rare and +sumptuous blooms in her rose-garden." + +"My dear Elinor," said the Baroness, "you would save yourself all this +heart-burning and a lot of gardener's bills, not to mention sparrow +anxieties, simply by paying an annual subscription to the O.O.S.A." + +"Never heard of it," said Elinor; "what is it?" + +"The Occasional-Oasis Supply Association," said the Baroness; "it exists +to meet cases exactly like yours, cases of backyards that are of no +practical use for gardening purposes, but are required to blossom into +decorative scenic backgrounds at stated intervals, when a luncheon or +dinner-party is contemplated. Supposing, for instance, you have people +coming to lunch at one-thirty; you just ring up the Association at about +ten o'clock the same morning, and say 'lunch garden'. That is all the +trouble you have to take. By twelve forty-five your yard is carpeted +with a strip of velvety turf, with a hedge of lilac or red may, or +whatever happens to be in season, as a background, one or two cherry +trees in blossom, and clumps of heavily-flowered rhododendrons filling in +the odd corners; in the foreground you have a blaze of carnations or +Shirley poppies, or tiger lilies in full bloom. As soon as the lunch is +over and your guests have departed the garden departs also, and all the +cats in Christendom can sit in council in your yard without causing you a +moment's anxiety. If you have a bishop or an antiquary or something of +that sort coming to lunch you just mention the fact when you are ordering +the garden, and you get an old-world pleasaunce, with clipped yew hedges +and a sun-dial and hollyhocks, and perhaps a mulberry tree, and borders +of sweet-williams and Canterbury bells, and an old-fashioned beehive or +two tucked away in a corner. Those are the ordinary lines of supply that +the Oasis Association undertakes, but by paying a few guineas a year +extra you are entitled to its emergency E.O.N. service." + +"What on earth is an E.O.N. service?" + +"It's just a conventional signal to indicate special cases like the +incursion of Gwenda Pottingdon. It means you've got some one coming to +lunch or dinner whose garden is alleged to be 'the envy of the +neighbourhood.'" + +"Yes," exclaimed Elinor, with some excitement, "and what happens then?" + +"Something that sounds like a miracle out of the Arabian Nights. Your +backyard becomes voluptuous with pomegranate and almond trees, lemon +groves, and hedges of flowering cactus, dazzling banks of azaleas, marble- +basined fountains, in which chestnut-and-white pond-herons step daintily +amid exotic water-lilies, while golden pheasants strut about on alabaster +terraces. The whole effect rather suggests the idea that Providence and +Norman Wilkinson have dropped mutual jealousies and collaborated to +produce a background for an open-air Russian Ballet; in point of fact, it +is merely the background to your luncheon party. If there is any kick +left in Gwenda Pottingdon, or whoever your E.O.N. guest of the moment may +be, just mention carelessly that your climbing putella is the only one in +England, since the one at Chatsworth died last winter. There isn't such +a thing as a climbing putella, but Gwenda Pottingdon and her kind don't +usually know one flower from another without prompting." + +"Quick," said Elinor, "the address of the Association." + +Gwenda Pottingdon did not enjoy her lunch. It was a simple yet elegant +meal, excellently cooked and daintily served, but the piquant sauce of +her own conversation was notably lacking. She had prepared a long +succession of eulogistic comments on the wonders of her town garden, with +its unrivalled effects of horticultural magnificence, and, behold, her +theme was shut in on every side by the luxuriant hedge of Siberian +berberis that formed a glowing background to Elinor's bewildering +fragment of fairyland. The pomegranate and lemon trees, the terraced +fountain, where golden carp slithered and wriggled amid the roots of +gorgeous-hued irises, the banked masses of exotic blooms, the pagoda-like +enclosure, where Japanese sand-badgers disported themselves, all these +contributed to take away Gwenda's appetite and moderate her desire to +talk about gardening matters. + +"I can't say I admire the climbing putella," she observed shortly, "and +anyway it's not the only one of its kind in England; I happen to know of +one in Hampshire. How gardening is going out of fashion; I suppose +people haven't the time for it nowadays." + +Altogether it was quite one of Elinor's most successful luncheon parties. + +It was distinctly an unforeseen catastrophe that Gwenda should have burst +in on the household four days later at lunch-time and made her way +unbidden into the dining-room. + +"I thought I must tell you that my Elaine has had a water-colour sketch +accepted by the Latent Talent Art Guild; it's to be exhibited at their +summer exhibition at the Hackney Gallery. It will be the sensation of +the moment in the art world--Hullo, what on earth has happened to your +garden? It's not there!" + +"Suffragettes," said Elinor promptly; "didn't you hear about it? They +broke in and made hay of the whole thing in about ten minutes. I was so +heart-broken at the havoc that I had the whole place cleared out; I shall +have it laid out again on rather more elaborate lines." + +"That," she said to the Baroness afterwards "is what I call having an +emergency brain." + + + + +THE SHEEP + + +The enemy had declared "no trumps." Rupert played out his ace and king +of clubs and cleared the adversary of that suit; then the Sheep, whom the +Fates had inflicted on him for a partner, took the third round with the +queen of clubs, and, having no other club to lead back, opened another +suit. The enemy won the remainder of the tricks--and the rubber. + +"I had four more clubs to play; we only wanted the odd trick to win the +rubber," said Rupert. + +"But I hadn't another club to lead you," exclaimed the Sheep, with his +ready, defensive smile. + +"It didn't occur to you to throw your queen away on my king and leave me +with the command of the suit," said Rupert, with polite bitterness. + +"I suppose I ought to have--I wasn't certain what to do. I'm awfully +sorry," said the Sheep. + +Being awfully and uselessly sorry formed a large part of his occupation +in life. If a similar situation had arisen in a subsequent hand he would +have blundered just as certainly, and he would have been just as +irritatingly apologetic. + +Rupert stared gloomily across at him as he sat smiling and fumbling with +his cards. Many men who have good brains for business do not possess the +rudiments of a card-brain, and Rupert would not have judged and condemned +his prospective brother-in-law on the evidence of his bridge play alone. +The tragic part of it was that he smiled and fumbled through life just as +fatuously and apologetically as he did at the card-table. And behind the +defensive smile and the well-worn expressions of regret there shone a +scarcely believable but quite obvious self-satisfaction. Every sheep of +the pasture probably imagines that in an emergency it could become +terrible as an army with banners--one has only to watch how they stamp +their feet and stiffen their necks when a minor object of suspicion comes +into view and behaves meekly. And probably the majority of human sheep +see themselves in imagination taking great parts in the world's more +impressive dramas, forming swift, unerring decisions in moments of +crisis, cowing mutinies, allaying panics, brave, strong, simple, but, in +spite of their natural modesty, always slightly spectacular. + +"Why in the name of all that is unnecessary and perverse should Kathleen +choose this man for her future husband?" was the question that Rupert +asked himself ruefully. There was young Malcolm Athling, as +nice-looking, decent, level-headed a fellow as any one could wish to +meet, obviously her very devoted admirer, and yet she must throw herself +away on this pale-eyed, weak-mouthed embodiment of self-approving +ineptitude. If it had been merely Kathleen's own affair Rupert would +have shrugged his shoulders and philosophically hoped that she might make +the best of an undeniably bad bargain. But Rupert had no heir; his own +boy lay underground somewhere on the Indian frontier, in goodly company. +And the property would pass in due curse to Kathleen and Kathleen's +husband. The Sheep would live there in the beloved old home, rearing up +other little Sheep, fatuous and rabbit-faced and self-satisfied like +himself, to dwell in the land and possess it. It was not a soothing +prospect. + +Towards dusk on the afternoon following the bridge experience Rupert and +the Sheep made their way homeward after a day's mixed shooting. The +Sheep's cartridge bag was nearly empty, but his game bag showed no signs +of over-crowding. The birds he had shot at had seemed for the most part +as impervious to death or damage as the hero of a melodrama. And for +each failure to drop his bird he had some explanation or apology ready on +his lips. Now he was striding along in front of his host, chattering +happily over his shoulder, but obviously on the look-out for some belated +rabbit or woodpigeon that might haply be secured as an eleventh-hour +addition to his bag. As they passed the edge of a small copse a large +bird rose from the ground and flew slowly towards the trees, offering an +easy shot to the oncoming sportsmen. The Sheep banged forth with both +barrels, and gave an exultant cry. + +"Horray! I've shot a thundering big hawk!" + +"To be exact, you've shot a honey-buzzard. That is the hen bird of one +of the few pairs of honey-buzzards breeding in the United Kingdom. We've +kept them under the strictest preservation for the last four years; every +game-keeper and village gun loafer for twenty miles round has been warned +and bribed and threatened to respect their sanctity, and egg-snatching +agents have been carefully guarded against during the breeding season. +Hundreds of lovers of rare birds have delighted in seeing their +snap-shotted portraits in _Country Life_, and now you've reduced the hen +bird to a lump of broken feathers." + +Rupert spoke quietly and evenly, but for a moment or two a gleam of +positive hatred shone in his eyes. + +"I say, I'm so sorry," said the Sheep, with his apologetic smile. "Of +course I remember hearing about the buzzards, but somehow I didn't +connect this bird with them. And it was such an east shot--" + +"Yes," said Rupert; "that was the trouble." + +Kathleen found him in the gun-room smoothing out the feathers of the dead +bird. She had already been told of the catastrophe. + +"What a horrid misfortune," she said sympathetically. + +"It was my dear Robbie who first discovered them, the last time he was +home on leave. Don't you remember how excited he was about them? Let's +go and have some tea." + +Both bridge and shooting were given a rest for the next two or three +weeks. Death, who enters into no compacts with party whips, had forced a +Parliamentary vacancy on the neighbourhood at the least convenient +season, and the local partisans on either side found themselves immersed +in the discomforts of a mid-winter election. Rupert took his politics +seriously and keenly. He belonged to that type of strangely but rather +happily constituted individuals which these islands seem to produce in a +fair plenty; men and women who for no personal profit or gain go forth +from their comfortable firesides or club card-rooms to hunt to and fro in +the mud and rain and wind for the capture or tracking of a stray vote +here and there on their party's behalf--not because they think they ought +to, but because they want to. And his energies were welcome enough on +this occasion, for the seat was a closely disputed possession, and its +loss or retention would count for much in the present position of the +Parliamentary game. With Kathleen to help him, he had worked his corner +of the constituency with tireless, well-directed zeal, taking his share +of the dull routine work as well as of the livelier episodes. The +talking part of the campaign wound up on the eve of the poll with a +meeting in a centre where more undecided votes were supposed to be +concentrated than anywhere else in the division. A good final meeting +here would mean everything. And the speakers, local and imported, left +nothing undone to improve the occasion. Rupert was down for the +unimportant task of moving the complimentary vote to the chairman which +should close the proceedings. + +"I'm so hoarse," he protested, when the moment arrived; "I don't believe +I can make my voice heard beyond the platform." + +"Let me do it," said the Sheep; "I'm rather good at that sort of thing." + +The chairman was popular with all parties, and the Sheep's opening words +of complimentary recognition received a round of applause. The orator +smiled expansively on his listeners and seized the opportunity to add a +few words of political wisdom on his own account. People looked at the +clock or began to grope for umbrellas and discarded neckwraps. Then, in +the midst of a string of meaningless platitudes, the Sheep delivered +himself of one of those blundering remarks which travel from one end of a +constituency to the other in half an hour, and are seized on by the other +side as being more potent on their behalf than a ton of election +literature. There was a general shuffling and muttering across the +length and breadth of the hall, and a few hisses made themselves heard. +The Sheep tried to whittle down his remark, and the chairman +unhesitatingly threw him over in his speech of thanks, but the damage was +done. + +"I'm afraid I lost touch with the audience rather over that remark," said +the Sheep afterwards, with his apologetic smile abnormally developed. + +"You lost us the election," said the chairman, and he proved a true +prophet. + +A month or so of winter sport seemed a desirable pick-me-up after the +strenuous work and crowning discomfiture of the election. Rupert and +Kathleen hied them away to a small Alpine resort that was just coming +into prominence, and thither the Sheep followed them in due course, in +his role of husband-elect. The wedding had been fixed for the end of +March. + +It was a winter of early and unseasonable thaws, and the far end of the +local lake, at a spot where swift currents flowed into it, was decorated +with notices, written in three languages, warning skaters not to venture +over certain unsafe patches. The folly of approaching too near these +danger spots seemed to have a natural fascination for the Sheep. + +"I don't see what possible danger there can be," he protested, with his +inevitable smile, when Rupert beckoned him away from the proscribed area; +"the milk that I put out on my window-sill last night was frozen an inch +deep." + +"It hadn't got a strong current flowing through it," said Rupert; "in any +case, there is not much sense in hovering round a doubtful piece of ice +when there are acres of good ice to skate over. The secretary of the ice- +committee has warned you once already." + +A few minutes later Rupert heard a loud squeal of fear, and saw a dark +spot blotting the smoothness of the lake's frozen surface. The Sheep was +struggling helplessly in an ice-hole of his own making. Rupert gave one +loud curse, and then dashed full tilt for the shore; outside a low stable +building on the lake's edge he remembered having seen a ladder. If he +could slide it across the ice-hole before the Sheep went under the rescue +would be comparatively simple work. Other skaters were dashing up from a +distance, and, with the ladder's help, they could get him out of his +death-trap without having to trust themselves on the margin of rotten +ice. Rupert sprang on to the surface of lumpy, frozen snow, and +staggered to where the ladder lay. He had already lifted it when the +rattle of a chain and a furious outburst of growls burst on his hearing, +and he was dashed to the ground by a mass of white and tawny fur. A +sturdy young yard-dog, frantic with the pleasure of performing his first +piece of actice guardian service, was ramping and snarling over him, +rendering the task of regaining his feet or securing the ladder a matter +of considerable difficulty. When he had at last succeeded in both +efforts he was just by a hair's-breadth too late to be of any use. The +Sheep had definitely disappeared under the ice-rift. + +Kathleen Athling and her husband stay the greater part of the year with +Rupert, and a small Robbie stands in some danger of being idolised by a +devoted uncle. But for twelve months of the year Rupert's most +inseparable and valued companion is a sturdy tawny and white yard-dog. + + + + +THE OVERSIGHT + + +"It's like a Chinese puzzle," said Lady Prowche resentfully, staring at a +scribbled list of names that spread over two or three loose sheets of +notepaper on her writing-table. Most of the names had a pencil mark +running through them. + +"What is like a Chinese puzzle?" asked Lena Luddleford briskly; she +rather prided herself on being able to grapple with the minor problems of +life. + +"Getting people suitably sorted together. Sir Richard likes me to have a +house party about this time of year, and gives me a free hand as to whom +I should invite; all he asks is that it should be a peaceable party, with +no friction or unpleasantness." + +"That seems reasonable enough," said Lena. + +"Not only reasonable, my dear, but necessary. Sir Richard has his +literary work to think of; you can't expect a man to concentrate on the +tribal disputes of Central Asian clansmen when he's got social feuds +blazing under his own roof." + +"But why should they blaze? Why should there be feuds at all within the +compass of a house party?" + +"Exactly; why should they blaze or why should they exist?" echoed Lady +Prowche; "the point is that they always do. We have been unlucky; +persistently unlucky, now that I come to look back on things. We have +always got people of violently opposed views under one roof, and the +result has been not merely unpleasantness but explosion." + +"Do you mean people who disagree on matters of political opinion and +religious views?" asked Lena. + +"No, not that. The broader lines of political or religious difference +don't matter. You can have Church of England and Unitarian and Buddhist +under the same roof without courting disaster; the only Buddhist I ever +had down here quarrelled with everybody, but that was on account of his +naturally squabblesome temperament; it had nothing to do with his +religion. And I've always found that people can differ profoundly about +politics and meet on perfectly good terms at breakfast. Now, Miss Larbor +Jones, who was staying here last year, worships Lloyd George as a sort of +wingless angel, while Mrs. Walters, who was down here at the same time, +privately considers him to be--an antelope, let us say." + +"An antelope?" + +"Well, not an antelope exactly, but something with horns and hoofs and +tail." + +"Oh, I see." + +"Still, that didn't prevent them from being the chummiest of mortals on +the tennis court and in the billiard-room. They did quarrel finally, +about a lead in a doubled hand of no-trumps, but that of course is a +thing that no account of judicious guest-grouping could prevent. Mrs. +Walters had got king, knave, ten, and seven of clubs--" + +"You were saying that there were other lines of demarcation that caused +the bother," interrupted Lena. + +"Exactly. It is the minor differences and side-issues that give so much +trouble," said Lady Prowche; "not to my dying day shall I forget last +year's upheaval over the Suffragette question. Laura Henniseed left the +house in a state of speechless indignation, but before she had reached +that state she had used language that would not have been tolerated in +the Austrian Reichsrath. Intensive bear-gardening was Sir Richard's +description of the whole affair, and I don't think he exaggerated." + +"Of course the Suffragette question is a burning one, and lets loose the +most dreadful ill-feeling," said Lena; "but one can generally find out +beforehand what people's opinions--" + +"My dear, the year before it was worse. It was Christian Science. Selina +Goobie is a sort of High Priestess of the Cult, and she put down all +opposition with a high hand. Then one evening, after dinner, Clovis +Sangrail put a wasp down her back, to see if her theory about the non- +existence of pain could be depended on in an emergency. The wasp was +small, but very efficient, and it had been soured in temper by being kept +in a paper cage all the afternoon. Wasps don't stand confinement well, +at least this one didn't. I don't think I ever realised till that moment +what the word 'invective' could be made to mean. I sometimes wake in the +night and think I still hear Selina describing Clovis's conduct and +general character. That was the year that Sir Richard was writing his +volume on 'Domestic Life in Tartary.' The critics all blamed it for a +lack of concentration." + +"He's engaged on a very important work this year, isn't he?" asked Lena. + +"'Land-tenure in Turkestan,'" said Lady Prowche; "he is just at work on +the final chapters and they require all the concentration he can give +them. That is why I am so very anxious not to have any unfortunate +disturbance this year. I have taken every precaution I can think of to +bring non-conflicting and harmonious elements together; the only two +people I am not quite easy about are the Atkinson man and Marcus Popham. +They are the two who will be down here longest together, and if they are +going to fall foul of one another about any burning question, well, there +will be more unpleasantness." + +"Can't you find out anything about them? About their opinions, I mean." + +"Anything? My dear Lena, there's scarcely anything that I haven't found +out about them. They're both of them moderate Liberal, Evangelical, +mildly opposed to female suffrage, they approve of the Falconer Report, +and the Stewards' decision about Craganour. Thank goodness in this +country we don't fly into violent passions about Wagner and Brahms and +things of that sort. There is only one thorny subject that I haven't +been able to make sure about, the only stone that I have left unturned. +Are they unanimously anti-vivisectionist or do they both uphold the +necessity for scientific experiment? There has been a lot of +correspondence on the subject in our local newspapers of late, and the +vicar is certain to preach a sermon about it; vicars are dreadfully +provocative at times. Now, if you could only find out for me whether +these two men are divergently for or against--" + +"I!" exclaimed Lena; "how am I to find out? I don't know either of them +to speak to." + +"Still you might discover, in some roundabout way. Write to them, under +as assumed name of course, for subscriptions to one or other cause--or, +better still, send a stamped type-written reply postcard, with a request +for a declaration for or against vivisection; people who would hesitate +to commit themselves to a subscription will cheerfully write Yes or No on +a prepaid postcard. If you can't manage it that way, try and meet them +at some one's house and get into argument on the subject. I think Milly +occasionally has one or other of them at her at-homes; you might have the +luck to meet both of them there the same evening. Only it must be done +soon. My invitations ought to go out by Wednesday or Thursday at the +latest, and to-day is Friday. + +"Milly's at-homes are not very amusing, as a rule," said Lena, "and one +never gets a chance of talking uninterruptedly to any one for a couple of +minutes at a time; Milly is one of those restless hostesses who always +seem to be trying to see how you look in different parts of the room, in +fresh grouping effects. Even if I got to speak to Popham or Atkinson I +couldn't plunge into a topic like vivisection straight away. No, I think +the postcard scheme would be more hopeful and decidedly less tiresome. +How would it be best to word them?" + +"Oh, something like this: 'Are you in favour of experiments on living +animals for the purpose of scientific research--Yes or No?' That is +quite simple and unmistakable. If they don't answer it will at least be +an indication that they are indifferent about the subject, and that is +all I want to know." + +"All right," said Lena, "I'll get my brother-in-law to let me have them +addressed to his office, and he can telephone the result of the +plebiscite direct to you." + +"Thank you ever so much," said Lady Prowche gratefully, "and be sure to +get the cards sent off as soon as possible." + +On the following Tuesday the voice of an office clerk, speaking through +the telephone, informed Lady Prowche that the postcard poll showed +unanimous hostility to experiments on living animals. + +Lady Prowche thanked the office clerk, and in a louder and more fervent +voice she thanked Heaven. The two invitations, already sealed and +addressed, were immediately dispatched; in due course they were both +accepted. The house party of the halcyon hours, as the prospective +hostess called it, was auspiciously launched. + +Lena Luddleford was not included among the guests, having previously +committed herself to another invitation. At the opening day of a cricket +festival, however, she ran across Lady Prowche, who had motored over from +the other side of the county. She wore the air of one who is not +interested in cricket and not particularly interested in life. She shook +hands limply with Lena, and remarked that it was a beastly day. + +"The party, how has it gone off?" asked Lena quickly. + +"Don't speak of it!" was the tragical answer; "why do I always have such +rotten luck?" + +"But what has happened?" + +"It has been awful. Hyaenas could not have behaved with greater +savagery. Sir Richard said so, and he has been in countries where hyaenas +live, so he ought to know. They actually came to blows!" + +"Blows?" + +"Blows and curses. It really might have been a scene from one of +Hogarth's pictures. I never felt so humiliated in my life. What the +servants must have thought!" + +"But who were the offenders?" + +"Oh, naturally the very two that we took all the trouble about." + +"I thought they agreed on every subject that one could violently disagree +about--religion, politics, vivisection, the Derby decision, the Falconer +Report; what else was there left to quarrel about?" + +"My dear, we were fools not to have thought of it. One of them was Pro- +Greek and the other Pro-Bulgar." + + + + +HYACINTH + + +"The new fashion of introducing the candidate's children into an election +contest is a pretty one," said Mrs. Panstreppon; "it takes away something +from the acerbity of party warfare, and it makes an interesting +experience for children to look back on in after years. Still, if you +will listen to my advice, Matilda, you will not take Hyacinth with you +down to Luffbridge on election day." + +"Not take Hyacinth!" exclaimed his mother; "but why not? Jutterly is +bringing his three children, and they are going to drive a pair of Nubian +donkeys about the town, to emphasise the fact that their father has been +appointed Colonial Secretary. We are making the demand for a strong Navy +a special feature in _our_ campaign, and it will be particularly +appropriate to have Hyacinth dressed in his sailor suit. He'll look +heavenly." + +"The question is, not how he'll look, but how he'll behave. He's a +delightful child, of course, but there is a strain of unbridled pugnacity +in him that breaks out at times in a really alarming fashion. You may +have forgotten the affair of the little Gaffin children; I haven't." + +"I was in India at the time, and I've only a vague recollection of what +happened; he was very naughty, I know." + +"He was in his goat-carriage, and met the Gaffins in their perambulator, +and he drove the goat full tilt at them and sent the perambulator +spinning. Little Jacky Gaffin was pinned down under the wreckage, and +while the nurse had her hands full with the goat Hyacinth was laying into +Jacky's legs with his belt like a small fury." + +"I'm not defending him," said Matilda, "but they must have done something +to annoy him." + +"Nothing intentionally, but some one had unfortunately told him that they +were half French--their mother was a Duboc, you know--and he had been +having a history lesson that morning, and had just heard of the final +loss of Calais by the English, and was furious about it. He said he'd +teach the little toads to go snatching towns from us, but we didn't know +at the time that he was referring to the Gaffins. I told him afterwards +that all bad feeling between the two nations had died out long ago, and +that anyhow the Gaffins were only half French, and he said that it was +only the French half of Jacky that he had been hitting; the rest had been +buried under the perambulator. If the loss of Calais unloosed such fury +in him, I tremble to think what the possible loss of the election might +entail." + +"All that happened when he was eight; he's older now and knows better." + +"Children with Hyacinth's temperament don't know better as they grow +older; they merely know more." + +"Nonsense. He will enjoy the fun of the election, and in any case he'll +be tired out by the time the poll is declared, and the new sailor suit +that I've had made for him is just in the right shade of blue for our +election colours, and it will exactly match the blue of his eyes. He +will be a perfectly charming note of colour." + +"There is such a thing as letting one's aesthetic sense override one's +moral sense," said Mrs. Panstreppon. "I believe you would have condoned +the South Sea Bubble and the persecution of the Albigenses if they had +been carried out in effective colour schemes. However, if anything +unfortunate should happen down at Luffbridge, don't say it wasn't +foreseen by one member of the family." + +The election was keenly but decorously contested. The newly-appointed +Colonial Secretary was personally popular, while the Government to which +he adhered was distinctly unpopular, and there was some expectancy that +the majority of four hundred, obtained at the last election, would be +altogether wiped out. Both sides were hopeful, but neither could feel +confident. The children were a great success; the little Jutterlys drove +their chubby donkeys solemnly up and down the main streets, displaying +posters which advocated the claims of their father on the broad general +grounds that he was their father, while as for Hyacinth, his conduct +might have served as a model for any seraph-child that had strayed +unwittingly on to the scene of an electoral contest. Of his own accord, +and under the delighted eyes of half a dozen camera operators, he had +gone up to the Jutterly children and presented them with a packet of +butterscotch; "we needn't be enemies because we're wearing the opposite +colours," he said with engaging friendliness, and the occupants of the +donkey-cart accepted his offering with polite solemnity. The grown-up +members of both political camps were delighted at the incident--with the +exception of Mrs. Panstreppon, who shuddered. + +"Never was Clytemnestra's kiss sweeter than on the night she slew me," +she quoted, but made the quotation to herself. + +The last hour of the poll was a period of unremitting labour for both +parties; it was generally estimated that not more than a dozen votes +separated the candidates, and every effort was made to bring up +obstinately wavering electors. It was with a feeling of relaxation and +relief that every one heard the clocks strike the hour for the close of +the poll. Exclamations broke out from the tired workers, and corks flew +out from bottles. + +"Well, if we haven't won; we've done our level best." "It has been a +clean straight fight, with no rancour." "The children were quite a +charming feature, weren't they?" + +The children? It suddenly occurred to everybody that they had seen +nothing of the children for the last hour. What had become of the three +little Jutterlys and their donkey-cart, and, for the matter of that, what +had become of Hyacinth. Hurried, anxious embassies went backwards and +forwards between the respective party headquarters and the various +committee-rooms, but there was blank ignorance everywhere as to the +whereabouts of the children. Every one had been too busy in the closing +moments of the poll to bestow a thought on them. Then there came a +telephone call at the Unionist Women's Committee-rooms, and the voice of +Hyacinth was heard demanding when the poll would be declared. + +"Where are you, and where are the Jutterly children?" asked his mother. + +"I've just finished having high-tea at a pastry-cook's," came the answer, +"and they let me telephone. I've had a poached egg and a sausage roll +and four meringues." + +"You'll be ill. Are the little Jutterlys with you?" + +"Rather not. They're in a pigstye." + +"A pigstye? Why? What pigstye?" + +"Near the Crawleigh Road. I met them driving about a back road, and told +them they were to have tea with me, and put their donkeys in a yard that +I knew of. Then I took them to see an old sow that had got ten little +pigs. I got the sow into the outer stye by giving her bits of bread, +while the Jutterlys went in to look at the litter, then I bolted the door +and left them there." + +"You wicked boy, do you mean to say you've left those poor children there +alone in the pigstye?" + +"They're not alone, they've got ten little pigs in with them; they're +jolly well crowded. They were pretty mad at being shut in, but not half +as mad as the old sow is at being shut out from her young ones. If she +gets in while they're there she'll bite them into mincemeat. I can get +them out by letting a short ladder down through the top window, and +that's what I'm going to do _if we win_. If their blighted father gets +in, I'm just going to open the door for the sow, and let her do what she +dashed well likes to them. That's why I want to know when the poll will +be declared." + +Here the narrator rang off. A wild stampede and a frantic sending-off of +messengers took place at the other end of the telephone. Nearly all the +workers on either side had disappeared to their various club-rooms and +public-house bars to await the declaration of the poll, but enough local +information could be secured to determine the scene of Hyacinth's +exploit. Mr. John Ball had a stable yard down near the Crawleigh Road, +up a short lane, and his sow was known to have a litter of ten young +ones. Thither went in headlong haste both the candidates, Hyacinth's +mother, his aunt (Mrs. Panstreppon), and two or three hurriedly-summoned +friends. The two Nubian donkeys, contentedly munching at bundles of hay, +met their gaze as they entered the yard. The hoarse savage grunting of +an enraged animal and the shriller note of thirteen young voices, three +of them human, guided them to the stye, in the outer yard of which a huge +Yorkshire sow kept up a ceaseless raging patrol before a closed door. +Reclining on the broad ledge of an open window, from which point of +vantage he could reach down and shoot the bolt of the door, was Hyacinth, +his blue sailor-suit somewhat the worse of wear, and his angel smile +exchanged for a look of demoniacal determination. + +"If any of you come a step nearer," he shouted, "the sow will be inside +in half a jiffy." + +A storm of threatening, arguing, entreating expostulation broke from the +baffled rescue party, but it made no more impression on Hyacinth than the +squealing tempest that raged within the stye. + +"If Jutterly heads the poll I'm going to let the sow in. I'll teach the +blighters to win elections from us." + +"He means it," said Mrs. Panstreppon; "I feared the worst when I saw that +butterscotch incident." + +"It's all right, my little man," said Jutterly, with the duplicity to +which even a Colonial Secretary can sometimes stoop, "your father has +been elected by a large majority." + +"Liar!" retorted Hyacinth, with the directness of speech that is not +merely excusable, but almost obligatory, in the political profession; +"the votes aren't counted yet. You won't gammon me as to the result, +either. A boy that I've palled with is going to fire a gun when the poll +is declared; two shots if we've won, one shot if we haven't." + +The situation began to look critical. "Drug the sow," whispered +Hyacinth's father. + +Some one went off in the motor to the nearest chemist's shop and returned +presently with two large pieces of bread, liberally dosed with narcotic. +The bread was thrown deftly and unostentatiously into the stye, but +Hyacinth saw through the manoeuvre. He set up a piercing imitation of a +small pig in Purgatory, and the infuriated mother ramped round and round +the stye; the pieces of bread were trampled into slush. + +At any moment now the poll might be declared. Jutterly flew back to the +Town Hall, where the votes were being counted. His agent met him with a +smile of hope. + +"You're eleven ahead at present, and only about eighty more to be +counted; you're just going to squeak through." + +"I mustn't squeak through," exclaimed Jutterly, hoarsely. "You must +object to every doubtful vote on our side that can possibly be +disallowed. I must _not_ have the majority." + +Then was seen the unprecedented sight of a party agent challenging the +votes on his own side with a captiousness that his opponents would have +hesitated to display. One or two votes that would have certainly passed +muster under ordinary circumstances were disallowed, but even so Jutterly +was six ahead with only thirty more to be counted. + +To the watchers by the stye the moments seemed intolerable. As a last +resort some one had been sent for a gun with which to shoot the sow, +though Hyacinth would probably draw the bolt the moment such a weapon was +brought into the yard. Nearly all the men were away from their homes, +however, on election night, and the messenger had evidently gone far +afield in his search. It must be a matter of minutes now to the +declaration of the poll. + +A sudden roar of shouting and cheering was heard from the direction of +the Town Hall. Hyacinth's father clutched a pitchfork and prepared to +dash into the stye in the forlorn hope of being in time. + +A shot rang out in the evening air. Hyacinth stooped down from his perch +and put his finger on the bolt. The sow pressed furiously against the +door. + +"Bang," came another shot. + +Hyacinth wriggled back, and sent a short ladder down through the window +of the inner stye. + +"Now you can come up, you unclean little blighters," he sang out; "my +daddy's got in, not yours. Hurry up, I can't keep the sow waiting much +longer. And don't you jolly well come butting into any election again +where I'm on the job." + +In the reaction that set in after the deliverance furious recrimination +were indulged in by the lately opposed candidates, their women folk, +agents, and party helpers. A recount was demanded, but failed to +establish the fact that the Colonial Secretary had obtained a majority. +Altogether the election left a legacy of soreness behind it, apart from +any that was experienced by Hyacinth in person. + +"It is the last time I shall let him go to an election," exclaimed his +mother. + +"There I think you are going to extremes," said Mrs. Panstreppon; "if +there should be a general election in Mexico I think you might safely let +him go there, but I doubt whether our English politics are suited to the +rough and tumble of an angel-child." + + + + +THE IMAGE OF THE LOST SOUL + + +There were a number of carved stone figures placed at intervals along the +parapets of the old Cathedral; some of them represented angels, others +kings and bishops, and nearly all were in attitudes of pious exaltation +and composure. But one figure, low down on the cold north side of the +building, had neither crown, mitre, not nimbus, and its face was hard and +bitter and downcast; it must be a demon, declared the fat blue pigeons +that roosted and sunned themselves all day on the ledges of the parapet; +but the old belfry jackdaw, who was an authority on ecclesiastical +architecture, said it was a lost soul. And there the matter rested. + +One autumn day there fluttered on to the Cathedral roof a slender, sweet- +voiced bird that had wandered away from the bare fields and thinning +hedgerows in search of a winter roosting-place. It tried to rest its +tired feet under the shade of a great angel-wing or to nestle in the +sculptured folds of a kingly robe, but the fat pigeons hustled it away +from wherever it settled, and the noisy sparrow-folk drove it off the +ledges. No respectable bird sang with so much feeling, they cheeped one +to another, and the wanderer had to move on. + +Only the effigy of the Lost Soul offered a place of refuge. The pigeons +did not consider it safe to perch on a projection that leaned so much out +of the perpendicular, and was, besides, too much in the shadow. The +figure did not cross its hands in the pious attitude of the other graven +dignitaries, but its arms were folded as in defiance and their angle made +a snug resting-place for the little bird. Every evening it crept +trustfully into its corner against the stone breast of the image, and the +darkling eyes seemed to keep watch over its slumbers. The lonely bird +grew to love its lonely protector, and during the day it would sit from +time to time on some rainshoot or other abutment and trill forth its +sweetest music in grateful thanks for its nightly shelter. And, it may +have been the work of wind and weather, or some other influence, but the +wild drawn face seemed gradually to lose some of its hardness and +unhappiness. Every day, through the long monotonous hours, the song of +his little guest would come up in snatches to the lonely watcher, and at +evening, when the vesper-bell was ringing and the great grey bats slid +out of their hiding-places in the belfry roof, the bright-eyed bird would +return, twitter a few sleepy notes, and nestle into the arms that were +waiting for him. Those were happy days for the Dark Image. Only the +great bell of the Cathedral rang out daily its mocking message, "After +joy . . . sorrow." + +The folk in the verger's lodge noticed a little brown bird flitting about +the Cathedral precincts, and admired its beautiful singing. "But it is a +pity," said they, "that all that warbling should be lost and wasted far +out of hearing up on the parapet." They were poor, but they understood +the principles of political economy. So they caught the bird and put it +in a little wicker cage outside the lodge door. + +That night the little songster was missing from its accustomed haunt, and +the Dark Image knew more than ever the bitterness of loneliness. Perhaps +his little friend had been killed by a prowling cat or hurt by a stone. +Perhaps . . . perhaps he had flown elsewhere. But when morning came +there floated up to him, through the noise and bustle of the Cathedral +world, a faint heart-aching message from the prisoner in the wicker cage +far below. And every day, at high noon, when the fat pigeons were +stupefied into silence after their midday meal and the sparrows were +washing themselves in the street-puddles, the song of the little bird +came up to the parapets--a song of hunger and longing and hopelessness, a +cry that could never be answered. The pigeons remarked, between +mealtimes, that the figure leaned forward more than ever out of the +perpendicular. + +One day no song came up from the little wicker cage. It was the coldest +day of the winter, and the pigeons and sparrows on the Cathedral roof +looked anxiously on all sides for the scraps of food which they were +dependent on in hard weather. + +"Have the lodge-folk thrown out anything on to the dust-heap?" inquired +one pigeon of another which was peering over the edge of the north +parapet. + +"Only a little dead bird," was the answer. + +There was a crackling sound in the night on the Cathedral roof and a +noise as of falling masonry. The belfry jackdaw said the frost was +affecting the fabric, and as he had experienced many frosts it must have +been so. In the morning it was seen that the Figure of the Lost Soul had +toppled from its cornice and lay now in a broken mass on the dust-heap +outside the verger's lodge. + +"It is just as well," cooed the fat pigeons, after they had peered at the +matter for some minutes; "now we shall have a nice angel put up there. +Certainly they will put an angel there." + +"After joy . . . sorrow," rang out the great bell. + + + + +THE PURPLE OF THE BALKAN KINGS + + +Luitpold Wolkenstein, financier and diplomat on a small, obtrusive, self- +important scale, sat in his favoured cafe in the world-wise Habsburg +capital, confronted with the _Neue Freie Presse_ and the cup of cream- +topped coffee and attendant glass of water that a sleek-headed piccolo +had just brought him. For years longer than a dog's lifetime +sleek-headed piccolos had placed the _Neue Freie Presse_ and a cup of +cream-topped coffee on his table; for years he had sat at the same spot, +under the dust-coated, stuffed eagle, that had once been a living, +soaring bird on the Styrian mountains, and was now made monstrous and +symbolical with a second head grafted on to its neck and a gilt crown +planted on either dusty skull. To-day Luitpold Wolkenstein read no more +than the first article in his paper, but read it again and again. + +"The Turkish fortress of Kirk Kilisseh has fallen . . . The Serbs, it is +officially announced, have taken Kumanovo . . . The fortress of Kirk +Kilisseh lost, Kumanovo taken by the Serbs, these are tiding for +Constantinople resembling something out of Shakspeare's tragedies of the +kings . . . The neighbourhood of Adrianople and the Eastern region, +where the great battle is now in progress, will not reveal merely the +future of Turkey, but also what position and what influence the Balkan +States are to have in the world." + +For years longer than a dog's lifetime Luitpold Wolkenstein had disposed +of the pretensions and strivings of the Balkan States over the cup of +cream-topped coffee that sleek-headed piccolos had brought him. Never +travelling further eastward than the horse-fair at Temesvar, never +inviting personal risk in an encounter with anything more potentially +desperate than a hare or partridge, he had constituted himself the +critical appraiser and arbiter of the military and national prowess of +the small countries that fringed the Dual Monarchy on its Danube border. +And his judgment had been one of unsparing contempt for small-scale +efforts, of unquestioning respect for the big battalions and full purses. +Over the whole scene of the Balkan territories and their troubled +histories had loomed the commanding magic of the words "the Great +Powers"--even more imposing in their Teutonic rendering, "Die +Grossmachte." + +Worshipping power and force and money-mastery as an elderly nerve-ridden +woman might worship youthful physical energy, the comfortable, +plump-bodied cafe-oracle had jested and gibed at the ambitions of the +Balkan kinglets and their peoples, had unloosed against them that battery +of strange lip-sounds that a Viennese employs almost as an auxiliary +language to express the thoughts when his thoughts are not complimentary. +British travellers had visited the Balkan lands and reported high things +of the Bulgarians and their future, Russian officers had taken peeps at +their army and confessed "this is a thing to be reckoned with, and it is +not we who have created it, they have done it by themselves." But over +his cups of coffee and his hour-long games of dominoes the oracle had +laughed and wagged his head and distilled the worldly wisdom of his +castle. The Grossmachte had not succeeded in stifling the roll of the +war-drum, that was true; the big battalions of the Ottoman Empire would +have to do some talking, and then the big purses and big threatenings of +the Powers would speak and the last word would be with them. In +imagination Luitpold heard the onward tramp of the red-fezzed bayonet +bearers echoing through the Balkan passes, saw the little sheepskin-clad +mannikins driven back to their villages, saw the augustly chiding +spokesman of the Powers dictating, adjusting, restoring, settling things +once again in their allotted places, sweeping up the dust of conflict, +and now his ears had to listen to the war-drum rolling in quite another +direction, had to listen to the tramp of battalions that were bigger and +bolder and better skilled in war-craft than he had deemed possible in +that quarter; his eyes had to read in the columns of his accustomed +newspaper a warning to the Grossmachte that they had something new to +learn, something new to reckon with, much that was time-honoured to +relinquish. "The Great Powers will have not little difficulty in +persuading the Balkan States of the inviolability of the principle that +Europe cannot permit any fresh partition of territory in the East without +her approval. Even now, while the campaign is still undecided, there are +rumours of a project of fiscal unity, extending over the entire Balkan +lands, and further of a constitutional union in imitation of the German +Empire. That is perhaps only a political straw blown by the storm, but +it is not possible to dismiss the reflection that the Balkan States +leagued together command a military strength with which the Great Powers +will have to reckon . . . The people who have poured out their blood on +the battlefields and sacrificed the available armed men of an entire +generation in order to encompass a union with their kinsfolk will not +remain any longer in an attitude of dependence on the Great Powers or on +Russia, but will go their own ways . . . The blood that has been poured +forth to-day gives for the first time a genuine tone to the purple of the +Balkan Kings. The Great Powers cannot overlook the fact that a people +that has tasted victory will not let itself be driven back again within +its former limits. Turkey has lost to-day not only Kirk Kilisseh and +Kumanovo, but Macedonia also." + +Luitpold Wolkenstein drank his coffee, but the flavour had somehow gone +out of it. His world, his pompous, imposing, dictating world, had +suddenly rolled up into narrower dimensions. The big purses and the big +threats had been pushed unceremoniously on one side; a force that he +could not fathom, could not comprehend, had made itself rudely felt. The +august Caesars of Mammon and armament had looked down frowningly on the +combat, and those about to die had not saluted, had no intention of +saluting. A lesson was being imposed on unwilling learners, a lesson of +respect for certain fundamental principles, and it was not the small +struggling States who were being taught the lesson. + +Luitpold Wolkenstein did not wait for the quorum of domino players to +arrive. They would all have read the article in the _Freie Presse_. And +there are moments when an oracle finds its greatest salvation in +withdrawing itself from the area of human questioning. + + + + +THE CUPBOARD OF THE YESTERDAYS + + +"War is a cruelly destructive thing," said the Wanderer, dropping his +newspaper to the floor and staring reflectively into space. + +"Ah, yes, indeed," said the Merchant, responding readily to what seemed +like a safe platitude; "when one thinks of the loss of life and limb, the +desolated homesteads, the ruined--" + +"I wasn't thinking of anything of the sort," said the Wanderer; "I was +thinking of the tendency that modern war has to destroy and banish the +very elements of picturesqueness and excitement that are its chief excuse +and charm. It is like a fire that flares up brilliantly for a while and +then leaves everything blacker and bleaker than before. After every +important war in South-East Europe in recent times there has been a +shrinking of the area of chronically disturbed territory, a stiffening +of frontier lines, an intrusion of civilised monotony. And imagine what +may happen at the conclusion of this war if the Turk should really be +driven out of Europe." + +"Well, it would be a gain to the cause of good government, I suppose," +said the Merchant. + +"But have you counted the loss?" said the other. "The Balkans have long +been the last surviving shred of happy hunting-ground for the +adventurous, a playground for passions that are fast becoming atrophied +for want of exercise. In old bygone days we had the wars in the Low +Countries always at our doors, as it were; there was no need to go far +afield into malaria-stricken wilds if one wanted a life of boot and +saddle and licence to kill and be killed. Those who wished to see life +had a decent opportunity for seeing death at the same time." + +"It is scarcely right to talk of killing and bloodshed in that way," said +the Merchant reprovingly; "one must remember that all men are brothers." + +"One must also remember that a large percentage of them are younger +brothers; instead of going into bankruptcy, which is the usual tendency +of the younger brother nowadays, they gave their families a fair chance +of going into mourning. Every bullet finds a billet, according to a +rather optimistic proverb, and you must admit that nowadays it is +becoming increasingly difficult to find billets for a lot of young +gentlemen who would have adorned, and probably thoroughly enjoyed, one of +the old-time happy-go-lucky wars. But that is not exactly the burden of +my complaint. The Balkan lands are especially interesting to us in these +rapidly-moving days because they afford us the last remaining glimpse of +a vanishing period of European history. When I was a child one of the +earliest events of the outside world that forced itself coherently under +my notice was a war in the Balkans; I remember a sunburnt, soldierly man +putting little pin-flags in a war-map, red flags for the Turkish forces +and yellow flags for the Russians. It seemed a magical region, with its +mountain passes and frozen rivers and grim battlefields, its drifting +snows, and prowling wolves; there was a great stretch of water that bore +the sinister but engaging name of the Black Sea--nothing that I ever +learned before or after in a geography lesson made the same impression on +me as that strange-named inland sea, and I don't think its magic has ever +faded out of my imagination. And there was a battle called Plevna that +went on and on with varying fortunes for what seemed like a great part of +a lifetime; I remember the day of wrath and mourning when the little red +flag had to be taken away from Plevna--like other maturer judges, I was +backing the wrong horse, at any rate the losing horse. And now to-day we +are putting little pin-flags again into maps of the Balkan region, and +the passions are being turned loose once more in their playground." + +"The war will be localised," said the Merchant vaguely; "at least every +one hopes so." + +"It couldn't wish for a better locality," said the Wanderer; "there is a +charm about those countries that you find nowhere else in Europe, the +charm of uncertainty and landslide, and the little dramatic happenings +that make all the difference between the ordinary and the desirable." + +"Life is held very cheap in those parts," said the Merchant. + +"To a certain extent, yes," said the Wanderer. "I remember a man at +Sofia who used to teach me Bulgarian in a rather inefficient manner, +interspersed with a lot of quite wearisome gossip. I never knew what his +personal history was, but that was only because I didn't listen; he told +it to me many times. After I left Bulgaria he used to send me Sofia +newspapers from time to time. I felt that he would be rather tiresome if +I ever went there again. And then I heard afterwards that some men came +in one day from Heaven knows where, just as things do happen in the +Balkans, and murdered him in the open street, and went away as quietly as +they had come. You will not understand it, but to me there was something +rather piquant in the idea of such a thing happening to such a man; after +his dullness and his long-winded small-talk it seemed a sort of brilliant +_esprit d'esalier_ on his part to meet with an end of such ruthlessly +planned and executed violence." + +The Merchant shook his head; the piquancy of the incident was not within +striking distance of his comprehension. + +"I should have been shocked at hearing such a thing about any one I had +known," he said. + +"The present war," continued his companion, without stopping to discuss +two hopelessly divergent points of view, "may be the beginning of the end +of much that has hitherto survived the resistless creeping-in of +civilisation. If the Balkan lands are to be finally parcelled out +between the competing Christian Kingdoms and the haphazard rule of the +Turk banished to beyond the Sea of Marmora, the old order, or disorder if +you like, will have received its death-blow. Something of its spirit +will linger perhaps for a while in the old charmed regions where it bore +sway; the Greek villagers will doubtless be restless and turbulent and +unhappy where the Bulgars rule, and the Bulgars will certainly be +restless and turbulent and unhappy under Greek administration, and the +rival flocks of the Exarchate and Patriarchate will make themselves +intensely disagreeable to one another wherever the opportunity offers; +the habits of a lifetime, of several lifetimes, are not laid aside all at +once. And the Albanians, of course, we shall have with us still, a +troubled Moslem pool left by the receding wave of Islam in Europe. But +the old atmosphere will have changed, the glamour will have gone; the +dust of formality and bureaucratic neatness will slowly settle down over +the time-honoured landmarks; the Sanjak of Novi Bazar, the Muersteg +Agreement, the Komitadje bands, the Vilayet of Adrianople, all those +familiar outlandish names and things and places, that we have known so +long as part and parcel of the Balkan Question, will have passed away +into the cupboard of yesterdays, as completely as the Hansa League and +the wars of the Guises. + +"They were the heritage that history handed down to us, spoiled and +diminished no doubt, in comparison with yet earlier days that we never +knew, but still something to thrill and enliven one little corner of our +Continent, something to help us to conjure up in our imagination the days +when the Turk was thundering at the gates of Vienna. And what shall we +have to hand down to our children? Think of what their news from the +Balkans will be in the course of another ten or fifteen years. Socialist +Congress at Uskub, election riot at Monastir, great dock strike at +Salonika, visit of the Y.M.C.A. to Varna. Varna--on the coast of that +enchanted sea! They will drive out to some suburb to tea, and write home +about it as the Bexhill of the East. + +"War is a wickedly destructive thing." + +"Still, you must admit--" began the Merchant. But the Wanderer was not +in the mood to admit anything. He rose impatiently and walked to where +the tape-machine was busy with the news from Adrianople. + + + + +FOR THE DURATION OF THE WAR + + +The Rev. Wilfrid Gaspilton, in one of those clerical migrations +inconsequent-seeming to the lay mind, had removed from the moderately +fashionable parish of St. Luke's, Kensingate, to the immoderately rural +parish of St. Chuddocks, somewhere in Yondershire. There were doubtless +substantial advantages connected with the move, but there were certainly +some very obvious drawbacks. Neither the migratory clergyman nor his +wife were able to adapt themselves naturally and comfortably to the +conditions of country life. Beryl, Mrs. Gaspilton, had always looked +indulgently on the country as a place where people of irreproachable +income and hospitable instincts cultivated tennis-lawns and rose-gardens +and Jacobean pleasaunces, wherein selected gatherings of interested week- +end guests might disport themselves. Mrs. Gaspilton considered herself +as distinctly an interesting personality, and from a limited standpoint +she was doubtless right. She had indolent dark eyes and a comfortable +chin, which belied the slightly plaintive inflection which she threw into +her voice at suitable intervals. She was tolerably well satisfied with +the smaller advantages of life, but she regretted that Fate had not seen +its way to reserve for her some of the ampler successes for which she +felt herself well qualified. She would have liked to be the centre of a +literary, slightly political salon, where discerning satellites might +have recognised the breadth of her outlook on human affairs and the +undoubted smallness of her feet. As it was, Destiny had chosen for her +that she should be the wife of a rector, and had now further decreed that +a country rectory should be the background to her existence. She rapidly +made up her mind that her surroundings did not call for exploration; Noah +had predicted the Flood, but no one expected him to swim about in it. +Digging in a wet garden or trudging through muddy lanes were exertions +which she did not propose to undertake. As long as the garden produced +asparagus and carnations at pleasingly frequent intervals Mrs. Gaspilton +was content to approve of its expense and otherwise ignore its existence. +She would fold herself up, so to speak, in an elegant, indolent little +world of her own, enjoying the minor recreations of being gently rude to +the doctor's wife and continuing the leisurely production of her one +literary effort, _The Forbidden Horsepond_, a translation of Baptiste +Leopoy's _L'Abreuvoir interdit_. It was a labour which had already been +so long drawn-out that it seemed probable that Baptiste Lepoy would drop +out of vogue before her translation of his temporarily famous novel was +finished. However, the languid prosecution of the work had invested Mrs. +Gaspilton with a certain literary dignity, even in Kensingate circles, +and would place her on a pinnacle in St. Chuddocks, where hardly any one +read French, and assuredly no one had heard of _L'Abreuvoir interdit_. + +The Rector's wife might be content to turn her back complacently on the +country; it was the Rector's tragedy that the country turned its back on +him. With the best intention in the world and the immortal example of +Gilbert White before him, the Rev. Wilfrid found himself as bored and ill +at ease in his new surroundings as Charles II would have been at a modern +Wesleyan Conference. The birds that hopped across his lawn hopped across +it as though it were their lawn, and not his, and gave him plainly to +understand that in their eyes he was infinitely less interesting than a +garden worm or the rectory cat. The hedgeside and meadow flowers were +equally uninspiring; the lesser celandine seemed particularly unworthy of +the attention that English poets had bestowed on it, and the Rector knew +that he would be utterly miserable if left alone for a quarter of an hour +in its company. With the human inhabitants of his parish he was no +better off; to know them was merely to know their ailments, and the +ailments were almost invariably rheumatism. Some, of course, had other +bodily infirmities, but they always had rheumatism as well. The Rector +had not yet grasped the fact that in rural cottage life not to have +rheumatism is as glaring an omission as not to have been presented at +Court would be in more ambitious circles. And with all this death of +local interest there was Beryl shutting herself off with her ridiculous +labours on _The Forbidden Horsepond_. + +"I don't see why you should suppose that any one wants to read Baptiste +Lepoy in English," the Reverend Wilfrid remarked to his wife one morning, +finding her surrounded with her usual elegant litter of dictionaries, +fountain pens, and scribbling paper; "hardly any one bothers to read him +now in France." + +"My dear," said Beryl, with an intonation of gentle weariness, "haven't +two or three leading London publishers told me they wondered no one had +ever translated _L'Abreuvoir interdit_, and begged me--" + +"Publishers always clamour for the books that no one has ever written, +and turn a cold shoulder on them as soon as they're written. If St. Paul +were living now they would pester him to write an Epistle to the +Esquimaux, but no London publisher would dream of reading his Epistle to +the Ephesians." + +"Is there any asparagus in the garden?" asked Beryl; "because I've told +cook--" + +"Not anywhere in the garden," snapped the Rector, "but there's no doubt +plenty in the asparagus-bed, which is the usual place for it." + +And he walked away into the region of fruit trees and vegetable beds to +exchange irritation for boredom. It was there, among the gooseberry +bushes and beneath the medlar trees, that the temptation to the +perpetration of a great literary fraud came to him. + +Some weeks later the _Bi-Monthly Review_ gave to the world, under the +guarantee of the Rev. Wilfrid Gaspilton, some fragments of Persian verse, +alleged to have been unearthed and translated by a nephew who was at +present campaigning somewhere in the Tigris valley. The Rev. Wilfrid +possessed a host of nephews, and it was of course, quite possible that +one or more of them might be in military employ in Mesopotamia, though no +one could call to mind any particular nephew who could have been +suspected of being a Persian scholar. + +The verses were attributed to one Ghurab, a hunter, or, according to +other accounts, warden of the royal fishponds, who lived, in some +unspecified century, in the neighbourhood of Karmanshah. They breathed a +spirit of comfortable, even-tempered satire and philosophy, disclosing a +mockery that did not trouble to be bitter, a joy in life that was not +passionate to the verge of being troublesome. + + "A Mouse that prayed for Allah's aid + Blasphemed when no such aid befell: + A Cat, who feasted on that mouse, + Thought Allah managed vastly well. + + Pray not for aid to One who made + A set of never-changing Laws, + But in your need remember well + He gave you speed, or guile--or claws. + + Some laud a life of mild content: + Content may fall, as well as Pride. + The Frog who hugged his lowly Ditch + Was much disgruntled when it dried. + + 'You are not on the Road to Hell,' + You tell me with fanatic glee: + Vain boaster, what shall that avail + If Hell is on the road to thee? + + A Poet praised the Evening Star, + Another praised the Parrot's hue: + A Merchant praised his merchandise, + And he, at least, praised what he knew." + +It was this verse which gave the critics and commentators some clue as to +the probable date of the composition; the parrot, they reminded the +public, was in high vogue as a type of elegance in the days of Hafiz of +Shiraz; in the quatrains of Omar it makes no appearance. + +The next verse, it was pointed out, would apply to the political +conditions of the present day as strikingly as to the region and era for +which it was written-- + + "A Sultan dreamed day-long of Peace, + The while his Rivals' armies grew: + They changed his Day-dreams into sleep + --The Peace, methinks, he never knew." + +Woman appeared little, and wine not at all in the verse of the hunter- +poet, but there was at least one contribution to the love-philosophy of +the East-- + + "O Moon-faced Charmer, and Star-drowned Eyes, + And cheeks of soft delight, exhaling musk, + They tell me that thy charm will fade; ah well, + The Rose itself grows hue-less in the Dusk." + +Finally, there was a recognition of the Inevitable, a chill breath +blowing across the poet's comfortable estimate of life-- + + "There is a sadness in each Dawn, + A sadness that you cannot rede: + The joyous Day brings in its train + The Feast, the Loved One, and the Steed. + + Ah, there shall come a Dawn at last + That brings no life-stir to your ken, + A long, cold Dawn without a Day, + And ye shall rede its sadness then." + +The verses of Ghurab came on the public at a moment when a comfortable, +slightly quizzical philosophy was certain to be welcome, and their +reception was enthusiastic. Elderly colonels, who had outlived the love +of truth, wrote to the papers to say that they had been familiar with the +works of Ghurab in Afghanistan, and Aden, and other suitable localities a +quarter of a century ago. A Ghurab-of-Karmanshah Club sprang into +existence, the members of which alluded to each other as Brother +Ghurabians on the slightest provocation. And to the flood of inquiries, +criticisms, and requests for information, which naturally poured in on +the discoverer, or rather the discloser, of this long-hidden poet, the +Rev. Wilfrid made one effectual reply: Military considerations forbade +any disclosures which might throw unnecessary light on his nephew's +movements. + +After the war the Rector's position will be one of unthinkable +embarrassment, but for the moment, at any rate, he has driven _The +Forbidden Horsepond_ out of the field. + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TOYS OF PEACE*** + + +******* This file should be named 1477.txt or 1477.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/4/7/1477 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +https://gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at https://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/pglaf. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at https://www.gutenberg.org/about/contact + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit https://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/donate + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including including checks, online payments and credit card +donations. To donate, please visit: +https://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + https://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + diff --git a/1477.zip b/1477.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..9eb09b2 --- /dev/null +++ b/1477.zip diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..25889ef --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #1477 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1477) diff --git a/old/toypc10.txt b/old/toypc10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..70f3723 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/toypc10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7074 @@ +Project Gutenberg Etext of Toys of Peace by H.H. Munro ("Saki") +#3 in our series by H.H. Munro ("Saki") + + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check +the copyright laws for your country before posting these files!! + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an +electronic path open for the next readers. Do not remove this. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**Etexts Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*These Etexts Prepared By Hundreds of Volunteers and Donations* + +Information on contacting Project Gutenberg to get Etexts, and +further information is included below. We need your donations. + + +The Toys of Peace + +by H.H. Munro ("Saki") + +October, 1998 [Etext #1477] + + +Project Gutenberg Etext of Toys of Peace by H.H. Munro ("Saki") +*****This file should be named toypc10.txt or toypc10.zip****** + +Corrected EDITIONS of our etexts get a new NUMBER, toypc11.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, toypc10a.txt + + +This etext was prepared from the 1919 John Lane edition by Jane +Duff. Second proofing David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk + +Project Gutenberg Etexts are usually created from multiple editions, +all of which are in the Public Domain in the United States, unless a +copyright notice is included. Therefore, we do NOT keep these books +in compliance with any particular paper edition, usually otherwise. + + +We are now trying to release all our books one month in advance +of the official release dates, for time for better editing. + +Please note: neither this list nor its contents are final till +midnight of the last day of the month of any such announcement. +The official release date of all Project Gutenberg Etexts is at +Midnight, Central Time, of the last day of the stated month. A +preliminary version may often be posted for suggestion, comment +and editing by those who wish to do so. To be sure you have an +up to date first edition [xxxxx10x.xxx] please check file sizes +in the first week of the next month. Since our ftp program has +a bug in it that scrambles the date [tried to fix and failed] a +look at the file size will have to do, but we will try to see a +new copy has at least one byte more or less. + + +Information about Project Gutenberg (one page) + +We produce about two million dollars for each hour we work. The +fifty hours is one conservative estimate for how long it we take +to get any etext selected, entered, proofread, edited, copyright +searched and analyzed, the copyright letters written, etc. This +projected audience is one hundred million readers. If our value +per text is nominally estimated at one dollar then we produce $2 +million dollars per hour this year as we release thirty-two text +files per month, or 384 more Etexts in 1998 for a total of 1500+ +If these reach just 10% of the computerized population, then the +total should reach over 150 billion Etexts given away. + +The Goal of Project Gutenberg is to Give Away One Trillion Etext +Files by the December 31, 2001. [10,000 x 100,000,000=Trillion] +This is ten thousand titles each to one hundred million readers, +which is only 10% of the present number of computer users. 2001 +should have at least twice as many computer users as that, so it +will require us reaching less than 5% of the users in 2001. + + +We need your donations more than ever! + + +All donations should be made to "Project Gutenberg/CMU": and are +tax deductible to the extent allowable by law. (CMU = Carnegie- +Mellon University). + +For these and other matters, please mail to: + +Project Gutenberg +P. O. Box 2782 +Champaign, IL 61825 + +When all other email fails try our Executive Director: +Michael S. Hart <hart@pobox.com> + +We would prefer to send you this information by email +(Internet, Bitnet, Compuserve, ATTMAIL or MCImail). + +****** +If you have an FTP program (or emulator), please +FTP directly to the Project Gutenberg archives: +[Mac users, do NOT point and click. . .type] + +ftp uiarchive.cso.uiuc.edu +login: anonymous +password: your@login +cd etext/etext90 through /etext96 +or cd etext/articles [get suggest gut for more information] +dir [to see files] +get or mget [to get files. . .set bin for zip files] +GET INDEX?00.GUT +for a list of books +and +GET NEW GUT for general information +and +MGET GUT* for newsletters. + +**Information prepared by the Project Gutenberg legal advisor** +(Three Pages) + + +***START**THE SMALL PRINT!**FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS**START*** +Why is this "Small Print!" statement here? You know: lawyers. +They tell us you might sue us if there is something wrong with +your copy of this etext, even if you got it for free from +someone other than us, and even if what's wrong is not our +fault. So, among other things, this "Small Print!" statement +disclaims most of our liability to you. It also tells you how +you can distribute copies of this etext if you want to. + +*BEFORE!* YOU USE OR READ THIS ETEXT +By using or reading any part of this PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm +etext, you indicate that you understand, agree to and accept +this "Small Print!" statement. If you do not, you can receive +a refund of the money (if any) you paid for this etext by +sending a request within 30 days of receiving it to the person +you got it from. If you received this etext on a physical +medium (such as a disk), you must return it with your request. + +ABOUT PROJECT GUTENBERG-TM ETEXTS +This PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm etext, like most PROJECT GUTENBERG- +tm etexts, is a "public domain" work distributed by Professor +Michael S. Hart through the Project Gutenberg Association at +Carnegie-Mellon University (the "Project"). Among other +things, this means that no one owns a United States copyright +on or for this work, so the Project (and you!) can copy and +distribute it in the United States without permission and +without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, set forth +below, apply if you wish to copy and distribute this etext +under the Project's "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark. + +To create these etexts, the Project expends considerable +efforts to identify, transcribe and proofread public domain +works. Despite these efforts, the Project's etexts and any +medium they may be on may contain "Defects". Among other +things, Defects may take the form of incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other +intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged +disk or other etext medium, a computer virus, or computer +codes that damage or cannot be read by your equipment. + +LIMITED WARRANTY; DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES +But for the "Right of Replacement or Refund" described below, +[1] the Project (and any other party you may receive this +etext from as a PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm etext) disclaims all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including +legal fees, and [2] YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE OR +UNDER STRICT LIABILITY, OR FOR BREACH OF WARRANTY OR CONTRACT, +INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE +OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES, EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE +POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES. + +If you discover a Defect in this etext within 90 days of +receiving it, you can receive a refund of the money (if any) +you paid for it by sending an explanatory note within that +time to the person you received it from. If you received it +on a physical medium, you must return it with your note, and +such person may choose to alternatively give you a replacement +copy. If you received it electronically, such person may +choose to alternatively give you a second opportunity to +receive it electronically. + +THIS ETEXT IS OTHERWISE PROVIDED TO YOU "AS-IS". NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, ARE MADE TO YOU AS +TO THE ETEXT OR ANY MEDIUM IT MAY BE ON, INCLUDING BUT NOT +LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A +PARTICULAR PURPOSE. + +Some states do not allow disclaimers of implied warranties or +the exclusion or limitation of consequential damages, so the +above disclaimers and exclusions may not apply to you, and you +may have other legal rights. + +INDEMNITY +You will indemnify and hold the Project, its directors, +officers, members and agents harmless from all liability, cost +and expense, including legal fees, that arise directly or +indirectly from any of the following that you do or cause: +[1] distribution of this etext, [2] alteration, modification, +or addition to the etext, or [3] any Defect. + +DISTRIBUTION UNDER "PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm" +You may distribute copies of this etext electronically, or by +disk, book or any other medium if you either delete this +"Small Print!" and all other references to Project Gutenberg, +or: + +[1] Only give exact copies of it. Among other things, this + requires that you do not remove, alter or modify the + etext or this "small print!" statement. You may however, + if you wish, distribute this etext in machine readable + binary, compressed, mark-up, or proprietary form, + including any form resulting from conversion by word pro- + cessing or hypertext software, but only so long as + *EITHER*: + + [*] The etext, when displayed, is clearly readable, and + does *not* contain characters other than those + intended by the author of the work, although tilde + (~), asterisk (*) and underline (_) characters may + be used to convey punctuation intended by the + author, and additional characters may be used to + indicate hypertext links; OR + + [*] The etext may be readily converted by the reader at + no expense into plain ASCII, EBCDIC or equivalent + form by the program that displays the etext (as is + the case, for instance, with most word processors); + OR + + [*] You provide, or agree to also provide on request at + no additional cost, fee or expense, a copy of the + etext in its original plain ASCII form (or in EBCDIC + or other equivalent proprietary form). + +[2] Honor the etext refund and replacement provisions of this + "Small Print!" statement. + +[3] Pay a trademark license fee to the Project of 20% of the + net profits you derive calculated using the method you + already use to calculate your applicable taxes. If you + don't derive profits, no royalty is due. Royalties are + payable to "Project Gutenberg Association/Carnegie-Mellon + University" within the 60 days following each + date you prepare (or were legally required to prepare) + your annual (or equivalent periodic) tax return. + +WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU DON'T HAVE TO? +The Project gratefully accepts contributions in money, time, +scanning machines, OCR software, public domain etexts, royalty +free copyright licenses, and every other sort of contribution +you can think of. Money should be paid to "Project Gutenberg +Association / Carnegie-Mellon University". + +*END*THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END* + + + + + +This etext was prepared from the 1919 John Lane edition by Jane +Duff. Second proofing David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk + + + + + +The Toys of Peace + + + + +Contents: + +The Toys of Peace +Louise +Tea +The Disappearance of Crispina Umberleigh +The Wolves of Cernogratz +Louis +The Guests +The Penance +The Phantom Luncheon +A Bread and Butter Miss +Bertie's Christmas Eve +Forewarned +The Interlopers +Quail Seed +Canossa +The Threat +Excepting Mrs. Pentherby +Mark +The Hedgehog +The Mappined Life +Fate +The Bull +Morlvera +Shock Tactics +The Seven Cream Jugs +The Occasional Garden +The Sheep +The Oversight +Hyacinth +The Image of the Lost Soul +The Purple of the Balkan Kings +The Cupboard of the Yesterdays +For the Duration of the War + + + + +THE TOYS OF PEACE + + + +"Harvey," said Eleanor Bope, handing her brother a cutting from a +London morning paper of the 19th of March, "just read this about +children's toys, please; it exactly carries out some of our ideas +about influence and upbringing." + +"In the view of the National Peace Council," ran the extract, "there +are grave objections to presenting our boys with regiments of +fighting men, batteries of guns, and squadrons of 'Dreadnoughts.' +Boys, the Council admits, naturally love fighting and all the +panoply of war . . . but that is no reason for encouraging, and +perhaps giving permanent form to, their primitive instincts. At the +Children's Welfare Exhibition, which opens at Olympia in three +weeks' time, the Peace Council will make an alternative suggestion +to parents in the shape of an exhibition of 'peace toys.' In front +of a specially-painted representation of the Peace Palace at The +Hague will be grouped, not miniature soldiers but miniature +civilians, not guns but ploughs and the tools of industry . . . It +is hoped that manufacturers may take a hint from the exhibit, which +will bear fruit in the toy shops." + +"The idea is certainly an interesting and very well-meaning one," +said Harvey; "whether it would succeed well in practice--" + +"We must try," interrupted his sister; "you are coming down to us at +Easter, and you always bring the boys some toys, so that will be an +excellent opportunity for you to inaugurate the new experiment. Go +about in the shops and buy any little toys and models that have +special bearing on civilian life in its more peaceful aspects. Of +course you must explain the toys to the children and interest them +in the new idea. I regret to say that the 'Siege of Adrianople' +toy, that their Aunt Susan sent them, didn't need any explanation; +they knew all the uniforms and flags, and even the names of the +respective commanders, and when I heard them one day using what +seemed to be the most objectionable language they said it was +Bulgarian words of command; of course it MAY have been, but at any +rate I took the toy away from them. Now I shall expect your Easter +gifts to give quite a new impulse and direction to the children's +minds; Eric is not eleven yet, and Bertie is only nine-and-a-half, +so they are really at a most impressionable age." + +"There is primitive instinct to be taken into consideration, you +know," said Henry doubtfully, "and hereditary tendencies as well. +One of their great-uncles fought in the most intolerant fashion at +Inkerman--he was specially mentioned in dispatches, I believe--and +their great-grandfather smashed all his Whig neighbours' hot houses +when the great Reform Bill was passed. Still, as you say, they are +at an impressionable age. I will do my best." + +On Easter Saturday Harvey Bope unpacked a large, promising-looking +red cardboard box under the expectant eyes of his nephews. "Your +uncle has brought you the newest thing in toys," Eleanor had said +impressively, and youthful anticipation had been anxiously divided +between Albanian soldiery and a Somali camel-corps. Eric was hotly +in favour of the latter contingency. "There would be Arabs on +horseback," he whispered; "the Albanians have got jolly uniforms, +and they fight all day long, and all night, too, when there's a +moon, but the country's rocky, so they've got no cavalry." + +A quantity of crinkly paper shavings was the first thing that met +the view when the lid was removed; the most exiting toys always +began like that. Harvey pushed back the top layer and drew forth a +square, rather featureless building. + +"It's a fort!" exclaimed Bertie. + +"It isn't, it's the palace of the Mpret of Albania," said Eric, +immensely proud of his knowledge of the exotic title; "it's got no +windows, you see, so that passers-by can't fire in at the Royal +Family." + +"It's a municipal dust-bin," said Harvey hurriedly; "you see all the +refuse and litter of a town is collected there, instead of lying +about and injuring the health of the citizens." + +In an awful silence he disinterred a little lead figure of a man in +black clothes. + +"That," he said, "is a distinguished civilian, John Stuart Mill. He +was an authority on political economy." + +"Why?" asked Bertie. + +"Well, he wanted to be; he thought it was a useful thing to be." + +Bertie gave an expressive grunt, which conveyed his opinion that +there was no accounting for tastes. + +Another square building came out, this time with windows and +chimneys. + +"A model of the Manchester branch of the Young Women's Christian +Association," said Harvey. + +"Are there any lions?" asked Eric hopefully. He had been reading +Roman history and thought that where you found Christians you might +reasonably expect to find a few lions. + +"There are no lions," said Harvey. "Here is another civilian, +Robert Raikes, the founder of Sunday schools, and here is a model of +a municipal wash-house. These little round things are loaves backed +in a sanitary bakehouse. That lead figure is a sanitary inspector, +this one is a district councillor, and this one is an official of +the Local Government Board." + +"What does he do?" asked Eric wearily. + +"He sees to things connected with his Department," said Harvey. +"This box with a slit in it is a ballot-box. Votes are put into it +at election times." + +"What is put into it at other times?" asked Bertie. + +"Nothing. And here are some tools of industry, a wheelbarrow and a +hoe, and I think these are meant for hop-poles. This is a model +beehive, and that is a ventilator, for ventilating sewers. This +seems to be another municipal dust-bin--no, it is a model of a +school of art and public library. This little lead figure is Mrs. +Hemans, a poetess, and this is Rowland Hill, who introduced the +system of penny postage. This is Sir John Herschel, the eminent +astrologer." + +"Are we to play with these civilian figures?" asked Eric. + +"Of course," said Harvey, "these are toys; they are meant to be +played with." + +"But how?" + +It was rather a poser. "You might make two of them contest a seat +in Parliament," said Harvey, "an have an election--" + +"With rotten eggs, and free fights, and ever so many broken heads!" +exclaimed Eric. + +"And noses all bleeding and everybody drunk as can be," echoed +Bertie, who had carefully studied one of Hogarth's pictures. + +"Nothing of the kind," said Harvey, "nothing in the least like that. +Votes will be put in the ballot-box, and the Mayor will count them-- +and he will say which has received the most votes, and then the two +candidates will thank him for presiding, and each will say that the +contest has been conducted throughout in the pleasantest and most +straightforward fashion, and they part with expressions of mutual +esteem. There's a jolly game for you boys to play. I never had +such toys when I was young." + +"I don't think we'll play with them just now," said Eric, with an +entire absence of the enthusiasm that his uncle had shown; "I think +perhaps we ought to do a little of our holiday task. It's history +this time; we've got to learn up something about the Bourbon period +in France." + +"The Bourbon period," said Harvey, with some disapproval in his +voice. + +"We've got to know something about Louis the Fourteenth," continued +Eric; "I've learnt the names of all the principal battles already." + +This would never do. "There were, of course, some battles fought +during his reign," said Harvey, "but I fancy the accounts of them +were much exaggerated; news was very unreliable in those days, and +there were practically no war correspondents, so generals and +commanders could magnify every little skirmish they engaged in till +they reached the proportions of decisive battles. Louis was really +famous, now, as a landscape gardener; the way he laid out Versailles +was so much admired that it was copied all over Europe." + +"Do you know anything about Madame Du Barry?" asked Eric; "didn't +she have her head chopped off?" + +"She was another great lover of gardening," said Harvey, evasively; +"in fact, I believe the well known rose Du Barry was named after +her, and now I think you had better play for a little and leave your +lessons till later." + +Harvey retreated to the library and spent some thirty or forty +minutes in wondering whether it would be possible to compile a +history, for use in elementary schools, in which there should be no +prominent mention of battles, massacres, murderous intrigues, and +violent deaths. The York and Lancaster period and the Napoleonic +era would, he admitted to himself, present considerable +difficulties, and the Thirty Years' War would entail something of a +gap if you left it out altogether. Still, it would be something +gained if, at a highly impressionable age, children could be got to +fix their attention on the invention of calico printing instead of +the Spanish Armada or the Battle of Waterloo. + +It was time, he thought, to go back to the boys' room, and see how +they were getting on with their peace toys. As he stood outside the +door he could hear Eric's voice raised in command; Bertie chimed in +now and again with a helpful suggestion. + +"That is Louis the Fourteenth," Eric was saying, "that one in knee- +breeches, that Uncle said invented Sunday schools. It isn't a bit +like him, but it'll have to do." + +"We'll give him a purple coat from my paintbox by and by," said +Bertie. + +"Yes, an' red heels. That is Madame de Maintenon, that one he +called Mrs. Hemans. She begs Louis not to go on this expedition, +but he turns a deaf ear. He takes Marshal Saxe with him, and we +must pretend that they have thousands of men with them. The +watchword is Qui vive? and the answer is L'etat c'est moi--that was +one of his favourite remarks, you know. They land at Manchester in +the dead of the night, and a Jacobite conspirator gives them the +keys of the fortress." + +Peeping in through the doorway Harvey observed that the municipal +dustbin had been pierced with holes to accommodate the muzzles of +imaginary cannon, and now represented the principal fortified +position in Manchester; John Stuart Mill had been dipped in red ink, +and apparently stood for Marshal Saxe. + +"Louis orders his troops to surround the Young Women's Christian +Association and seize the lot of them. 'Once back at the Louvre and +the girls are mine,' he exclaims. We must use Mrs. Hemans again for +one of the girls; she says 'Never,' and stabs Marshal Saxe to the +heart." + +"He bleeds dreadfully," exclaimed Bertie, splashing red ink +liberally over the facade of the Association building. + +"The soldiers rush in and avenge his death with the utmost savagery. +A hundred girls are killed"--here Bertie emptied the remainder of +the red ink over the devoted building--"and the surviving five +hundred are dragged off to the French ships. 'I have lost a +Marshal,' says Louis, 'but I do not go back empty-handed.'" + +Harvey stole away from the room, and sought out his sister. + +"Eleanor," he said, "the experiment--" + +"Yes?" + +"Has failed. We have begun too late." + + + +LOUISE + + + +"The tea will be quite cold, you'd better ring for some more," said +the Dowager Lady Beanford. + +Susan Lady Beanford was a vigorous old woman who had coquetted with +imaginary ill-health for the greater part of a lifetime; Clovis +Sangrail irreverently declared that she had caught a chill at the +Coronation of Queen Victoria and had never let it go again. Her +sister, Jane Thropplestance, who was some years her junior, was +chiefly remarkable for being the most absent-minded woman in +Middlesex. + +"I've really been unusually clever this afternoon," she remarked +gaily, as she rang for the tea. "I've called on all the people I +meant to call on; and I've done all the shopping that I set out to +do. I even remembered to try and match that silk for you at +Harrod's, but I'd forgotten to bring the pattern with me, so it was +no use. I really think that was the only important thing I forgot +during the whole afternoon. Quite wonderful for me, isn't it?" + +"What have you done with Louise?" asked her sister. "Didn't you +take her out with you? You said you were going to." + +"Good gracious," exclaimed Jane, "what have I done with Louise? I +must have left her somewhere." + +"But where?" + +"That's just it. Where have I left her? I can't remember if the +Carrywoods were at home or if I just left cards. If there were at +home I may have left Louise there to play bridge. I'll go and +telephone to Lord Carrywood and find out." + +"Is that you, Lord Carrywood?" she queried over the telephone; "it's +me, Jane Thropplestance. I want to know, have you seen Louise?" + +"'Louise,'" came the answer, "it's been my fate to see it three +times. At first, I must admit, I wasn't impressed by it, but the +music grows on one after a bit. Still, I don't think I want to see +it again just at present. Were you going to offer me a seat in your +box?" + +"Not the opera 'Louise'--my niece, Louise Thropplestance. I thought +I might have left her at your house." + +"You left cards on us this afternoon, I understand, but I don't +think you left a niece. The footman would have been sure to have +mentioned it if you had. Is it going to be a fashion to leave +nieces on people as well as cards? I hope not; some of these houses +in Berkeley-square have practically no accommodation for that sort +of thing." + +"She's not at the Carrywoods'," announced Jane, returning to her +tea; "now I come to think of it, perhaps I left her at the silk +counter at Selfridge's. I may have told her to wait there a moment +while I went to look at the silks in a better light, and I may +easily have forgotten about her when I found I hadn't your pattern +with me. In that case she's still sitting there. She wouldn't move +unless she was told to; Louise has no initiative." + +"You said you tried to match the silk at Harrod's," interjected the +dowager. + +"Did I? Perhaps it was Harrod's. I really don't remember. It was +one of those places where every one is so kind and sympathetic and +devoted that one almost hates to take even a reel of cotton away +from such pleasant surroundings." + +"I think you might have taken Louise away. I don't like the idea of +her being there among a lot of strangers. Supposing some +unprincipled person was to get into conversation with her." + +"Impossible. Louise has no conversation. I've never discovered a +single topic on which she'd anything to say beyond 'Do you think so? +I dare say you're right.' I really thought her reticence about the +fall of the Ribot Ministry was ridiculous, considering how much her +dear mother used to visit Paris. This bread and butter is cut far +too thin; it crumbles away long before you can get it to your mouth. +One feels so absurd, snapping at one's food in mid-air, like a trout +leaping at may-fly." + +"I am rather surprised," said the dowager, "that you can sit there +making a hearty tea when you've just lost a favourite niece." + +"You talk as if I'd lost her in a churchyard sense, instead of +having temporarily mislaid her. I'm sure to remember presently +where I left her." + +"You didn't visit any place of devotion, did you? If you've left +her mooning about Westminster Abbey or St. Peter's, Eaton Square, +without being able to give any satisfactory reason why she's there, +she'll be seized under the Cat and Mouse Act and sent to Reginald +McKenna." + +"That would be extremely awkward," said Jane, meeting an irresolute +piece of bread and butter halfway; "we hardly know the McKennas, and +it would be very tiresome having to telephone to some unsympathetic +private secretary, describing Louise to him and asking to have her +sent back in time for dinner. Fortunately, I didn't go to any place +of devotion, though I did get mixed up with a Salvation Army +procession. It was quite interesting to be at close quarters with +them, they're so absolutely different to what they used to be when I +first remember them in the 'eighties. They used to go about then +unkempt and dishevelled, in a sort of smiling rage with the world, +and now they're spruce and jaunty and flamboyantly decorative, like +a geranium bed with religious convictions. Laura Kettleway was +going on about them in the lift of the Dover Street Tube the other +day, saying what a lot of good work they did, and what a loss it +would have been if they'd never existed. 'If they had never +existed,' I said, 'Granville Barker would have been certain to have +invented something that looked exactly like them.' If you say +things like that, quite loud, in a Tube lift, they always sound like +epigrams." + +"I think you ought to do something about Louise," said the dowager. + +"I'm trying to think whether she was with me when I called on Ada +Spelvexit. I rather enjoyed myself there. Ada was trying, as +usual, to ram that odious Koriatoffski woman down my throat, knowing +perfectly well that I detest her, and in an unguarded moment she +said: 'She's leaving her present house and going to Lower Seymour +Street.' 'I dare say she will, if she stays there long enough,' I +said. Ada didn't see it for about three minutes, and then she was +positively uncivil. No, I am certain I didn't leave Louise there." + +"If you could manage to remember where you DID leave her, it would +be more to the point than these negative assurances," said Lady +Beanford; "so far, all we know is that she is not at the +Carrywoods', or Ada Spelvexit's, or Westminster Abbey." + +"That narrows the search down a bit," said Jane hopefully; "I rather +fancy she must have been with me when I went to Mornay's. I know I +went to Mornay's, because I remember meeting that delightful Malcolm +What's-his-name there--you know whom I mean. That's the great +advantage of people having unusual first names, you needn't try and +remember what their other name is. Of course I know one or two +other Malcolms, but none that could possibly be described as +delightful. He gave me two tickets for the Happy Sunday Evenings in +Sloane Square. I've probably left them at Mornay's, but still it +was awfully kind of him to give them to me." + +"Do you think you left Louise there?" + +"I might telephone and ask. Oh, Robert, before you clear the tea- +things away I wish you'd ring up Mornay's, in Regent Street, and ask +if I left two theatre tickets and one niece in their shop this +afternoon." + +"A niece, ma'am?" asked the footman. + +"Yes, Miss Louise didn't come home with me, and I'm not sure where I +left her." + +"Miss Louise has been upstairs all the afternoon, ma'am, reading to +the second kitchenmaid, who has the neuralgia. I took up tea to +Miss Louise at a quarter to five o'clock, ma'am." + +"Of course, how silly of me. I remember now, I asked her to read +the Faerie Queene to poor Emma, to try to send her to sleep. I +always get some one to read the Faerie Queene to me when I have +neuralgia, and it usually sends me to sleep. Louise doesn't seem to +have been successful, but one can't say she hasn't tried. I expect +after the first hour or so the kitchenmaid would rather have been +left alone with her neuralgia, but of course Louise wouldn't leave +off till some one told her to. Anyhow, you can ring up Mornay's, +Robert, and ask whether I left two theatre tickets there. Except +for your silk, Susan, those seem to be the only things I've +forgotten this afternoon. Quite wonderful for me." + + + +TEA + + + +James Cushat-Prinkly was a young man who had always had a settled +conviction that one of these days he would marry; up to the age of +thirty-four he had done nothing to justify that conviction. He +liked and admired a great many women collectively and +dispassionately without singling out one for especial matrimonial +consideration, just as one might admire the Alps without feeling +that one wanted any particular peak as one's own private property. +His lack of initiative in this matter aroused a certain amount of +impatience among the sentimentally-minded women-folk of his home +circle; his mother, his sisters, an aunt-in-residence, and two or +three intimate matronly friends regarded his dilatory approach to +the married state with a disapproval that was far from being +inarticulate. His most innocent flirtations were watched with the +straining eagerness which a group of unexercised terriers +concentrates on the slightest movements of a human being who may be +reasonably considered likely to take them for a walk. No decent- +souled mortal can long resist the pleading of several pairs of walk- +beseeching dog-eyes; James Cushat-Prinkly was not sufficiently +obstinate or indifferent to home influences to disregard the +obviously expressed wish of his family that he should become +enamoured of some nice marriageable girl, and when his Uncle Jules +departed this life and bequeathed him a comfortable little legacy it +really seemed the correct thing to do to set about discovering some +one to share it with him. The process of discovery was carried on +more by the force of suggestion and the weight of public opinion +than by any initiative of his own; a clear working majority of his +female relatives and the aforesaid matronly friends had pitched on +Joan Sebastable as the most suitable young woman in his range of +acquaintance to whom he might propose marriage, and James became +gradually accustomed to the idea that he and Joan would go together +through the prescribed stages of congratulations, present-receiving, +Norwegian or Mediterranean hotels, and eventual domesticity. It was +necessary, however to ask the lady what she thought about the +matter; the family had so far conducted and directed the flirtation +with ability and discretion, but the actual proposal would have to +be an individual effort. + +Cushat-Prinkly walked across the Park towards the Sebastable +residence in a frame of mind that was moderately complacent. As the +thing was going to be done he was glad to feel that he was going to +get it settled and off his mind that afternoon. Proposing marriage, +even to a nice girl like Joan, was a rather irksome business, but +one could not have a honeymoon in Minorca and a subsequent life of +married happiness without such preliminary. He wondered what +Minorca was really like as a place to stop in; in his mind's eye it +was an island in perpetual half-mourning, with black or white +Minorca hens running all over it. Probably it would not be a bit +like that when one came to examine it. People who had been in +Russia had told him that they did not remember having seen any +Muscovy ducks there, so it was possible that there would be no +Minorca fowls on the island. + +His Mediterranean musings were interrupted by the sound of a clock +striking the half-hour. Half-past four. A frown of dissatisfaction +settled on his face. He would arrive at the Sebastable mansion just +at the hour of afternoon tea. Joan would be seated at a low table, +spread with an array of silver kettles and cream-jugs and delicate +porcelain tea-cups, behind which her voice would tinkle pleasantly +in a series of little friendly questions about weak or strong tea, +how much, if any, sugar, milk, cream, and so forth. "Is it one +lump? I forgot. You do take milk, don't you? Would you like some +more hot water, if it's too strong?" + +Cushat-Prinkly had read of such things in scores of novels, and +hundreds of actual experiences had told him that they were true to +life. Thousands of women, at this solemn afternoon hour, were +sitting behind dainty porcelain and silver fittings, with their +voices tinkling pleasantly in a cascade of solicitous little +questions. Cushat-Prinkly detested the whole system of afternoon +tea. According to his theory of life a woman should lie on a divan +or couch, talking with incomparable charm or looking unutterable +thoughts, or merely silent as a thing to be looked on, and from +behind a silken curtain a small Nubian page should silently bring in +a tray with cups and dainties, to be accepted silently, as a matter +of course, without drawn-out chatter about cream and sugar and hot +water. If one's soul was really enslaved at one's mistress's feet +how could one talk coherently about weakened tea? Cushat-Prinkly +had never expounded his views on the subject to his mother; all her +life she had been accustomed to tinkle pleasantly at tea-time behind +dainty porcelain and silver, and if he had spoken to her about +divans and Nubian pages she would have urged him to take a week's +holiday at the seaside. Now, as he passed through a tangle of small +streets that led indirectly to the elegant Mayfair terrace for which +he was bound, a horror at the idea of confronting Joan Sebastable at +her tea-table seized on him. A momentary deliverance presented +itself; on one floor of a narrow little house at the noisier end of +Esquimault Street lived Rhoda Ellam, a sort of remote cousin, who +made a living by creating hats out of costly materials. The hats +really looked as if they had come from Paris; the cheques she got +for them unfortunately never looked as if they were going to Paris. +However, Rhoda appeared to find life amusing and to have a fairly +good time in spite of her straitened circumstances. Cushat-Prinkly +decided to climb up to her floor and defer by half-an-hour or so the +important business which lay before him; by spinning out his visit +he could contrive to reach the Sebastable mansion after the last +vestiges of dainty porcelain had been cleared away. + +Rhoda welcomed him into a room that seemed to do duty as workshop, +sitting-room, and kitchen combined, and to be wonderfully clean and +comfortable at the same time. + +"I'm having a picnic meal," she announced. "There's caviare in that +jar at your elbow. Begin on that brown bread-and-butter while I cut +some more. Find yourself a cup; the teapot is behind you. Now tell +me about hundreds of things." + +She made no other allusion to food, but talked amusingly and made +her visitor talk amusingly too. At the same time she cut the bread- +and-butter with a masterly skill and produced red pepper and sliced +lemon, where so many women would merely have produced reasons and +regrets for not having any. Cushat-Prinkly found that he was +enjoying an excellent tea without having to answer as many questions +about it as a Minister for Agriculture might be called on to reply +to during an outbreak of cattle plague. + +"And now tell me why you have come to see me," said Rhoda suddenly. +"You arouse not merely my curiosity but my business instincts. I +hope you've come about hats. I heard that you had come into a +legacy the other day, and, of course, it struck me that it would be +a beautiful and desirable thing for you to celebrate the event by +buying brilliantly expensive hats for all your sisters. They may +not have said anything about it, but I feel sure the same idea has +occurred to them. Of course, with Goodwood on us, I am rather +rushed just now, but in my business we're accustomed to that; we +live in a series of rushes--like the infant Moses." + +"I didn't come about hats," said her visitor. "In fact, I don't +think I really came about anything. I was passing and I just +thought I'd look in and see you. Since I've been sitting talking to +you, however, rather important idea has occurred to me. If you'll +forget Goodwood for a moment and listen to me, I'll tell you what it +is." + +Some forty minutes later James Cushat-Prinkly returned to the bosom +of his family, bearing an important piece of news. + +"I'm engaged to be married," he announced. + +A rapturous outbreak of congratulation and self-applause broke out. + +"Ah, we knew! We saw it coming! We foretold it weeks ago!" + +"I'll bet you didn't," said Cushat-Prinkly. "If any one had told me +at lunch-time to-day that I was going to ask Rhoda Ellam to marry me +and that she was going to accept me I would have laughed at the +idea." + +The romantic suddenness of the affair in some measure compensated +James's women-folk for the ruthless negation of all their patient +effort and skilled diplomacy. It was rather trying to have to +deflect their enthusiasm at a moment's notice from Joan Sebastable +to Rhoda Ellam; but, after all, it was James's wife who was in +question, and his tastes had some claim to be considered. + +On a September afternoon of the same year, after the honeymoon in +Minorca had ended, Cushat-Prinkly came into the drawing-room of his +new house in Granchester Square. Rhoda was seated at a low table, +behind a service of dainty porcelain and gleaming silver. There was +a pleasant tinkling note in her voice as she handed him a cup. + +"You like it weaker than that, don't you? Shall I put some more hot +water to it? No?" + + + +THE DISAPPEARANCE OF CRISPINA UMBERLEIGH + + + +In a first-class carriage of a train speeding Balkanward across the +flat, green Hungarian plain two Britons sat in friendly, fitful +converse. They had first foregathered in the cold grey dawn at the +frontier line, where the presiding eagle takes on an extra head and +Teuton lands pass from Hohenzollern to Habsburg keeping--and where a +probing official beak requires to delve in polite and perhaps +perfunctory, but always tiresome, manner into the baggage of sleep- +hungry passengers. After a day's break of their journey at Vienna +the travellers had again foregathered at the trainside and paid one +another the compliment of settling instinctively into the same +carriage. The elder of the two had the appearance and manner of a +diplomat; in point of fact he was the well-connected foster-brother +of a wine business. The other was certainly a journalist. Neither +man was talkative and each was grateful to the other for not being +talkative. That is why from time to time they talked. + +One topic of conversation naturally thrust itself forward in front +of all others. In Vienna the previous day they had learned of the +mysterious vanishing of a world-famous picture from the walls of the +Louvre. + +"A dramatic disappearance of that sort is sure to produce a crop of +imitations," said the Journalist. + +"It has had a lot of anticipations, for the matter of that," said +the Wine-brother. + +"Oh, of course there have been thefts from the Louvre before." + +"I was thinking of the spiriting away of human beings rather than +pictures. In particular I was thinking of the case of my aunt, +Crispina Umberleigh." + +"I remember hearing something of the affair," said the Journalist, +"but I was away from England at the time. I never quite knew what +was supposed to have happened." + +"You may hear what really happened if you will respect it as a +confidence," said the Wine Merchant. "In the first place I may say +that the disappearance of Mrs. Umberleigh was not regarded by the +family entirely as a bereavement. My uncle, Edward Umberleigh, was +not by any means a weak-kneed individual, in fact in the world of +politics he had to be reckoned with more or less as a strong man, +but he was unmistakably dominated by Crispina; indeed I never met +any human being who was not frozen into subjection when brought into +prolonged contact with her. Some people are born to command; +Crispina Mrs. Umberleigh was born to legislate, codify, +administrate, censor, license, ban, execute, and sit in judgement +generally. If she was not born with that destiny she adopted it at +an early age. From the kitchen regions upwards every one in the +household came under her despotic sway and stayed there with the +submissiveness of molluscs involved in a glacial epoch. As a nephew +on a footing of only occasional visits she affected me merely as an +epidemic, disagreeable while it lasted, but without any permanent +effect; but her own sons and daughters stood in mortal awe of her; +their studies, friendships, diet, amusements, religious observances, +and way of doing their hair were all regulated and ordained +according to the august lady's will and pleasure. This will help +you to understand the sensation of stupefaction which was caused in +the family when she unobtrusively and inexplicably vanished. It was +as though St. Paul's Cathedral or the Piccadilly Hotel had +disappeared in the night, leaving nothing but an open space to mark +where it had stood. As far as was known nothing was troubling her; +in fact there was much before her to make life particularly well +worth living. The youngest boy had come back from school with an +unsatisfactory report, and she was to have sat in judgement on him +the very afternoon of the day she disappeared--if it had been he who +had vanished in a hurry one could have supplied the motive. Then +she was in the middle of a newspaper correspondence with a rural +dean in which she had already proved him guilty of heresy, +inconsistency, and unworthy quibbling, and no ordinary consideration +would have induced her to discontinue the controversy. Of course +the matter was put in the hands of the police, but as far as +possible it was kept out of the papers, and the generally accepted +explanation of her withdrawal from her social circle was that she +had gone into a nursing home." + +"And what was the immediate effect on the home circle?" asked the +Journalist. + +"All the girls bought themselves bicycles; the feminine cycling +craze was still in existence, and Crispina had rigidly vetoed any +participation in it among the members of her household. The +youngest boy let himself go to such an extent during his next term +that it had to be his last as far as that particular establishment +was concerned. The elder boys propounded a theory that their mother +might be wandering somewhere abroad, and searched for her +assiduously, chiefly, it must be admitted, in a class of Montmartre +resort where it was extremely improbable that she would be found." + +"And all this while couldn't your uncle get hold of the least clue?" + +"As a matter of fact he had received some information, though of +course I did not know of it at the time. He got a message one day +telling him that his wife had been kidnapped and smuggled out of the +country; she was said to be hidden away, in one of the islands off +the coast of Norway I think it was, in comfortable surroundings and +well cared for. And with the information came a demand for money; a +lump sum of 2000 pounds was to be paid yearly. Failing this she +would be immediately restored to her family." + +The Journalist was silent for a moment, and them began to laugh +quietly. + +"It was certainly an inverted form of holding to ransom," he said. + +"If you had known my aunt," said the Wine Merchant, "you would have +wondered that they didn't put the figure higher." + +"I realise the temptation. Did your uncle succumb to it?" + +"Well, you see, he had to think of others as well as himself. For +the family to have gone back into the Crispina thraldom after having +tasted the delights of liberty would have been a tragedy, and there +were even wider considerations to be taken into account. Since his +bereavement he had unconsciously taken up a far bolder and more +initiatory line in public affairs, and his popularity and influence +had increased correspondingly. From being merely a strong man in +the political world he began to be spoken of as the strong man. All +this he knew would be jeopardised if he once more dropped into the +social position of the husband of Mrs. Umberleigh. He was a rich +man, and the 2000 pounds a year, though not exactly a fleabite, did +not seem an extravagant price to pay for the boarding-out of +Crispina. Of course, he had severe qualms of conscience about the +arrangement. Later on, when he took me into his confidence, he told +me that in paying the ransom, or hush-money as I should have called +it, he was partly influenced by the fear that if he refused it the +kidnappers might have vented their rage and disappointment on their +captive. It was better, he said, to think of her being well cared +for as a highly-valued paying-guest in one of the Lofoden Islands +than to have her struggling miserably home in a maimed and mutilated +condition. Anyway he paid the yearly instalment as punctually as +one pays a fire insurance, and with equal promptitude there would +come an acknowledgment of the money and a brief statement to the +effect that Crispina was in good health and fairly cheerful spirits. +One report even mentioned that she was busying herself with a scheme +for proposed reforms in Church management to be pressed on the local +pastorate. Another spoke of a rheumatic attack and a journey to a +'cure' on the mainland, and on that occasion an additional eighty +pounds was demanded and conceded. Of course it was to the interest +of the kidnappers to keep their charge in good health, but the +secrecy with which they managed to shroud their arrangements argued +a really wonderful organisation. If my uncle was paying a rather +high price, at least he could console himself with the reflection +that he was paying specialists' fees." + +"Meanwhile had the police given up all attempts to track the missing +lady?" asked the Journalist. + +"Not entirely; they came to my uncle from time to time to report on +clues which they thought might yield some elucidation as to her fate +or whereabouts, but I think they had their suspicions that he was +possessed of more information than he had put at their disposal. +And then, after a disappearance of more than eight years, Crispina +returned with dramatic suddenness to the home she had left so +mysteriously." + +"She had given her captors the slip?" + +"She had never been captured. Her wandering away had been caused by +a sudden and complete loss of memory. She usually dressed rather in +the style of a superior kind of charwoman, and it was not so very +surprising that she should have imagined that she was one; and still +less that people should accept her statement and help her to get +work. She had wandered as far afield as Birmingham, and found +fairly steady employment there, her energy and enthusiasm in putting +people's rooms in order counterbalancing her obstinate and +domineering characteristics. It was the shock of being +patronisingly addressed as 'my good woman' by a curate, who was +disputing with her where the stove should be placed in a parish +concert hall that led to the sudden restoration of her memory. 'I +think you forget who you are speaking to,' she observed crushingly, +which was rather unduly severe, considering she had only just +remembered it herself." + +"But," exclaimed the Journalist, "the Lofoden Island people! Who +had they got hold of?" + +"A purely mythical prisoner. It was an attempt in the first place +by some one who knew something of the domestic situation, probably a +discharged valet, to bluff a lump sum out of Edward Umberleigh +before the missing woman turned up; the subsequent yearly +instalments were an unlooked-for increment to the original haul. + +"Crispina found that the eight years' interregnum had materially +weakened her ascendancy over her now grown-up offspring. Her +husband, however, never accomplished anything great in the political +world after her return; the strain of trying to account +satisfactorily for an unspecified expenditure of sixteen thousand +pounds spread over eight years sufficiently occupied his mental +energies. Here is Belgrad and another custom house." + + + +THE WOLVES OF CERNOGRATZ + + + +"Are they any old legends attached to the castle?" asked Conrad of +his sister. Conrad was a prosperous Hamburg merchant, but he was +the one poetically-dispositioned member of an eminently practical +family. + +The Baroness Gruebel shrugged her plump shoulders. + +"There are always legends hanging about these old places. They are +not difficult to invent and they cost nothing. In this case there +is a story that when any one dies in the castle all the dogs in the +village and the wild beasts in forest howl the night long. It would +not be pleasant to listen to, would it?" + +"It would be weird and romantic," said the Hamburg merchant. + +"Anyhow, it isn't true," said the Baroness complacently; "since we +bought the place we have had proof that nothing of the sort happens. +When the old mother-in-law died last springtime we all listened, but +there was no howling. It is just a story that lends dignity to the +place without costing anything." + +"The story is not as you have told it," said Amalie, the grey old +governess. Every one turned and looked at her in astonishment. She +was wont to sit silent and prim and faded in her place at table, +never speaking unless some one spoke to her, and there were few who +troubled themselves to make conversation with her. To-day a sudden +volubility had descended on her; she continued to talk, rapidly and +nervously, looking straight in front of her and seeming to address +no one in particular. + +"It is not when any one dies in the castle that the howling is +heard. It was when one of the Cernogratz family died here that the +wolves came from far and near and howled at the edge of the forest +just before the death hour. There were only a few couple of wolves +that had their lairs in this part of the forest, but at such a time +the keepers say there would be scores of them, gliding about in the +shadows and howling in chorus, and the dogs of the castle and the +village and all the farms round would bay and howl in fear and anger +at the wolf chorus, and as the soul of the dying one left its body a +tree would crash down in the park. That is what happened when a +Cernogratz died in his family castle. But for a stranger dying +here, of course no wolf would howl and no tree would fall. Oh, no." + +There was a note of defiance, almost of contempt, in her voice as +she said the last words. The well-fed, much-too-well dressed +Baroness stared angrily at the dowdy old woman who had come forth +from her usual and seemly position of effacement to speak so +disrespectfully. + +"You seem to know quite a lot about the von Cernogratz legends, +Fraulein Schmidt," she said sharply; "I did not know that family +histories were among the subjects you are supposed to be proficient +in." + +The answer to her taunt was even more unexpected and astonishing +than the conversational outbreak which had provoked it. + +"I am a von Cernogratz myself," said the old woman, "that is why I +know the family history." + +"You a von Cernogratz? You!" came in an incredulous chorus. + +"When we became very poor," she explained, "and I had to go out and +give teaching lessons, I took another name; I thought it would be +more in keeping. But my grandfather spent much of his time as a boy +in this castle, and my father used to tell me many stories about it, +and, of course, I knew all the family legends and stories. When one +has nothing left to one but memories, one guards and dusts them with +especial care. I little thought when I took service with you that I +should one day come with you to the old home of my family. I could +wish it had been anywhere else." + +There was silence when she finished speaking, and then the Baroness +turned the conversation to a less embarrassing topic than family +histories. But afterwards, when the old governess had slipped away +quietly to her duties, there arose a clamour of derision and +disbelief. + +"It was an impertinence," snapped out the Baron, his protruding eyes +taking on a scandalised expression; "fancy the woman talking like +that at our table. She almost told us we were nobodies, and I don't +believe a word of it. She is just Schmidt and nothing more. She +has been talking to some of the peasants about the old Cernogratz +family, and raked up their history and their stories." + +"She wants to make herself out of some consequence," said the +Baroness; "she knows she will soon be past work and she wants to +appeal to our sympathies. Her grandfather, indeed!" + +The Baroness had the usual number of grandfathers, but she never, +never boasted about them. + +"I dare say her grandfather was a pantry boy or something of the +sort in the castle," sniggered the Baron; "that part of the story +may be true." + +The merchant from Hamburg said nothing; he had seen tears in the old +woman's eyes when she spoke of guarding her memories--or, being of +an imaginative disposition, he thought he had. + +"I shall give her notice to go as soon as the New Year festivities +are over," said the Baroness; "till then I shall be too busy to +manage without her." + +But she had to manage without her all the same, for in the cold +biting weather after Christmas, the old governess fell ill and kept +to her room. + +"It is most provoking," said the Baroness, as her guests sat round +the fire on one of the last evenings of the dying year; "all the +time that she has been with us I cannot remember that she was ever +seriously ill, too ill to go about and do her work, I mean. And +now, when I have the house full, and she could be useful in so many +ways, she goes and breaks down. One is sorry for her, of course, +she looks so withered and shrunken, but it is intensely annoying all +the same." + +"Most annoying," agreed the banker's wife, sympathetically; "it is +the intense cold, I expect, it breaks the old people up. It has +been unusually cold this year." + +"The frost is the sharpest that has been known in December for many +years," said the Baron. + +"And, of course, she is quite old," said the Baroness; "I wish I had +given her notice some weeks ago, then she would have left before +this happened to her. Why, Wappi, what is the matter with you?" + +The small, woolly lapdog had leapt suddenly down from its cushion +and crept shivering under the sofa. At the same moment an outburst +of angry barking came from the dogs in the castle-yard, and other +dogs could be heard yapping and barking in the distance. + +"What is disturbing the animals?" asked the Baron. + +And then the humans, listening intently, heard the sound that had +roused the dogs to their demonstrations of fear and rage; heard a +long-drawn whining howl, rising and falling, seeming at one moment +leagues away, at others sweeping across the snow until it appeared +to come from the foot of the castle walls. All the starved, cold +misery of a frozen world, all the relentless hunger-fury of the +wild, blended with other forlorn and haunting melodies to which one +could give no name, seemed concentrated in that wailing cry. + +"Wolves!" cried the Baron. + +Their music broke forth in one raging burst, seeming to come from +everywhere. + +"Hundreds of wolves," said the Hamburg merchant, who was a man of +strong imagination. + +Moved by some impulse which she could not have explained, the +Baroness left her guests and made her way to the narrow, cheerless +room where the old governess lay watching the hours of the drying +year slip by. In spite of the biting cold of the winter night, the +window stood open. With a scandalised exclamation on her lips, the +Baroness rushed forward to close it. + +"Leave it open," said the old woman in a voice that for all its +weakness carried an air of command such as the Baroness had never +heard before from her lips. + +"But you will die of cold!" she expostulated. + +"I am dying in any case," said the voice, "and I want to hear their +music. They have come from far and wide to sing the death-music of +my family. It is beautiful that they have come; I am the last von +Cernogratz that will die in our old castle, and they have come to +sing to me. Hark, how loud they are calling!" + +The cry of the wolves rose on the still winter air and floated round +the castle walls in long-drawn piercing wails; the old woman lay +back on her couch with a look of long-delayed happiness on her face. + +"Go away," she said to the Baroness; "I am not lonely any more. I +am one of a great old family . . . " + +"I think she is dying," said the Baroness when she had rejoined her +guests; "I suppose we must send for a doctor. And that terrible +howling! Not for much money would I have such death-music." + +"That music is not to be bought for any amount of money," said +Conrad. + +"Hark! What is that other sound?" asked the Baron, as a noise of +splitting and crashing was heard. + +It was a tree falling in the park. + +There was a moment of constrained silence, and then the banker's +wife spoke. + +"It is the intense cold that is splitting the trees. It is also the +cold that has brought the wolves out in such numbers. It is many +years since we have had such a cold winter." + +The Baroness eagerly agreed that the cold was responsible for these +things. It was the cold of the open window, too, which caused the +heart failure that made the doctor's ministrations unnecessary for +the old Fraulein. But the notice in the newspapers looked very well +- + +"On December 29th, at Schloss Cernogratz, Amalie von Cernogratz, for +many years the valued friend of Baron and Baroness Gruebel." + + + +LOUIS + + + +"It would be jolly to spend Easter in Vienna this year," said +Strudwarden, "and look up some of my old friends there. It's about +the jolliest place I know of to be at for Easter--" + +"I thought we had made up our minds to spend Easter at Brighton," +interrupted Lena Strudwarden, with an air of aggrieved surprise. + +"You mean that you had made up your mind that we should spend Easter +there," said her husband; "we spent last Easter there, and +Whitsuntide as well, and the year before that we were at Worthing, +and Brighton again before that. I think it would be just as well to +have a real change of scene while we are about it." + +"The journey to Vienna would be very expensive," said Lena. + +"You are not often concerned about economy," said Strudwarden, "and +in any case the trip of Vienna won't cost a bit more than the rather +meaningless luncheon parties we usually give to quite meaningless +acquaintances at Brighton. To escape from all that set would be a +holiday in itself." + +Strudwarden spoke feelingly; Lena Strudwarden maintained an equally +feeling silence on that particular subject. The set that she +gathered round her at Brighton and other South Coast resorts was +composed of individuals who might be dull and meaningless in +themselves, but who understood the art of flattering Mrs. +Strudwarden. She had no intention of foregoing their society and +their homage and flinging herself among unappreciative strangers in +a foreign capital. + +"You must go to Vienna alone if you are bent on going," she said; "I +couldn't leave Louis behind, and a dog is always a fearful nuisance +in a foreign hotel, besides all the fuss and separation of the +quarantine restrictions when one comes back. Louis would die if he +was parted from me for even a week. You don't know what that would +mean to me." + +Lena stooped down and kissed the nose of the diminutive brown +Pomeranian that lay, snug and irresponsive, beneath a shawl on her +lap. + +"Look here," said Strudwarden, "this eternal Louis business is +getting to be a ridiculous nuisance. Nothing can be done, no plans +can be made, without some veto connected with that animal's whims or +convenience being imposed. If you were a priest in attendance on +some African fetish you couldn't set up a more elaborate code of +restrictions. I believe you'd ask the Government to put off a +General Election if you thought it would interfere with Louis's +comfort in any way." + +By way of answer to this tirade Mrs. Strudwarden stooped down again +and kissed the irresponsive brown nose. It was the action of a +woman with a beautifully meek nature, who would, however, send the +whole world to the stake sooner than yield an inch where she knew +herself to be in the right. + +"It isn't as if you were in the least bit fond of animals," went on +Strudwarden, with growing irritation; "when we are down at +Kerryfield you won't stir a step to take the house dogs out, even if +they're dying for a run, and I don't think you've been in the +stables twice in your life. You laugh at what you call the fuss +that's being made over the extermination of plumage birds, and you +are quite indignant with me if I interfere on behalf of an ill- +treated, over-driven animal on the road. And yet you insist on +every one's plans being made subservient to the convenience of that +stupid little morsel of fur and selfishness." + +"You are prejudiced against my little Louis," said Lena, with a +world of tender regret in her voice. + +"I've never had the chance of being anything else but prejudiced +against him," said Strudwarden; "I know what a jolly responsive +companion a doggie can be, but I've never been allowed to put a +finger near Louis. You say he snaps at any one except you and your +maid, and you snatched him away from old Lady Peterby the other day, +when she wanted to pet him, for fear he would bury his teeth in her. +All that I ever see of him is the top of his unhealthy-looking +little nose, peeping out from his basket or from your muff, and I +occasionally hear his wheezy little bark when you take him for a +walk up and down the corridor. You can't expect one to get +extravagantly fond of a dog of that sort. One might as well work up +an affection for the cuckoo in a cuckoo-clock." + +"He loves me," said Lena, rising from the table, and bearing the +shawl-swathed Louis in her arms. "He loves only me, and perhaps +that is why I love him so much in return. I don't care what you say +against him, I am not going to be separated from him. If you insist +on going to Vienna you must go alone, as far as I am concerned. I +think it would be much more sensible if you were to come to Brighton +with Louis and me, but of course you must please yourself." + +"You must get rid of that dog," said Strudwarden's sister when Lena +had left the room; "it must be helped to some sudden and merciful +end. Lena is merely making use of it as an instrument for getting +her own way on dozens of occasions when she would otherwise be +obliged to yield gracefully to your wishes or to the general +convenience. I am convinced that she doesn't care a brass button +about the animal itself. When her friends are buzzing round her at +Brighton or anywhere else and the dog would be in the way, it has to +spend whole days alone with the maid, but if you want Lena to go +with you anywhere where she doesn't want to go instantly she trots +out the excuse that she couldn't be separated from her dog. Have +you ever come into a room unobserved and heard Lena talking to her +beloved pet? I never have. I believe she only fusses over it when +there's some one present to notice her." + +"I don't mind admitting," said Strudwarden, "that I've dwelt more +than once lately on the possibility of some fatal accident putting +an end to Louis's existence. It's not very easy, though, to arrange +a fatality for a creature that spends most of its time in a muff or +asleep in a toy kennel. I don't think poison would be any good; +it's obviously horribly over-fed, for I've seen Lena offer it +dainties at table sometimes, but it never seems to eat them." + +"Lena will be away at church on Wednesday morning," said Elsie +Strudwarden reflectively; "she can't take Louis with her there, and +she is going on to the Dellings for lunch. That will give you +several hours in which to carry out your purpose. The maid will be +flirting with the chauffeur most of the time, and, anyhow, I can +manage to keep her out of the way on some pretext or other." + +"That leaves the field clear," said Strudwarden, "but unfortunately +my brain is equally a blank as far as any lethal project is +concerned. The little beast is so monstrously inactive; I can't +pretend that it leapt into the bath and drowned itself, or that it +took on the butcher's mastiff in unequal combat and got chewed up. +In what possible guise could death come to a confirmed basket- +dweller? It would be too suspicious if we invented a Suffragette +raid and pretended that they invaded Lena's boudoir and threw a +brick at him. We should have to do a lot of other damage as well, +which would be rather a nuisance, and the servants would think it +odd that they had seen nothing of the invaders." + +"I have an idea," said Elsie; "get a box with an air-tight lid, and +bore a small hole in it, just big enough to let in an indiarubber +tube. Pop Louis, kennel and all, into the box, shut it down, and +put the other end of the tube over the gas-bracket. There you have +a perfect lethal chamber. You can stand the kennel at the open +window afterwards, to get rid of the smell of gas, and all that Lena +will find when she comes home late in the afternoon will be a +placidly defunct Louis." + +"Novels have been written about women like you," said Strudwarden; +"you have a perfectly criminal mind. Let's come and look for a +box." + +Two mornings later the conspirators stood gazing guiltily at a stout +square box, connected with the gas-bracket by a length of +indiarubber tubing. + +"Not a sound," said Elsie; "he never stirred; it must have been +quite painless. All the same I feel rather horrid now it's done." + +"The ghastly part has to come," said Strudwarden, turning off the +gas. "We'll lift the lid slowly, and let the gas out by degrees. +Swing the door to and fro to send a draught through the room." + +Some minutes later, when the fumes had rushed off, he stooped down +and lifted out the little kennel with its grim burden. Elsie gave +an exclamation of terror. Louis sat at the door of his dwelling, +head erect and ears pricked, as coldly and defiantly inert as when +they had put him into his execution chamber. Strudwarden dropped +the kennel with a jerk, and stared for a long moment at the miracle- +dog; then he went into a peal of chattering laughter. + +It was certainly a wonderful imitation of a truculent-looking toy +Pomeranian, and the apparatus that gave forth a wheezy bark when you +pressed it had materially helped the imposition that Lena, and +Lena's maid, had foisted on the household. For a woman who disliked +animals, but liked getting her own way under a halo of +unselfishness, Mrs. Strudwarden had managed rather well. + +"Louis is dead," was the curt information that greeted Lena on her +return from her luncheon party. + +"Louis DEAD!" she exclaimed. + +"Yes, he flew at the butcher-boy and bit him, and he bit me, too, +when I tried to get him off, so I had to have him destroyed. You +warned me that he snapped, but you didn't tell me that he was +downright dangerous. I shall have to pay the boy something heavy by +way of compensation, so you will have to go without those buckles +that you wanted to have for Easter; also I shall have to go to +Vienna to consult Dr. Schroeder, who is a specialist on dog-bites, +and you will have to come too. I have sent what remains of Louis to +Rowland Ward to be stuffed; that will be my Easter gift to you +instead of the buckles. For Heaven's sake, Lena, weep, if you +really feel it so much; anything would be better than standing there +staring as if you thought I had lost my reason." + +Lena Strudwarden did not weep, but her attempt at laughing was an +unmistakable failure. + + + +THE GUESTS + + + +"The landscape seen from our windows is certainly charming," said +Annabel; "those cherry orchards and green meadows, and the river +winding along the valley, and the church tower peeping out among the +elms, they all make a most effective picture. There's something +dreadfully sleepy and languorous about it, though; stagnation seems +to be the dominant note. Nothing ever happens here; seedtime and +harvest, an occasional outbreak of measles or a mildly destructive +thunderstorm, and a little election excitement about once in five +years, that is all that we have to modify the monotony of our +existence. Rather dreadful, isn't it?" + +"On the contrary," said Matilda, "I find it soothing and restful; +but then, you see, I've lived in countries where things do happen, +ever so many at a time, when you're not ready for them happening all +at once." + +"That, of course, makes a difference," said Annabel. + +"I have never forgotten," said Matilda, "the occasion when the +Bishop of Bequar paid us an unexpected visit; he was on his way to +lay the foundation-stone of a mission-house or something of the +sort." + +"I thought that out there you were always prepared for emergency +guests turning up," said Annabel. + +"I was quite prepared for half a dozen Bishops," said Matilda, "but +it was rather disconcerting to find out after a little conversation +that this particular one was a distant cousin of mine, belonging to +a branch of the family that had quarrelled bitterly and offensively +with our branch about a Crown Derby dessert service; they got it, +and we ought to have got it, in some legacy, or else we got it and +they thought they ought to have it, I forget which; anyhow, I know +they behaved disgracefully. Now here was one of them turning up in +the odour of sanctity, so to speak, and claiming the traditional +hospitality of the East." + +"It was rather trying, but you could have left your husband to do +most of the entertaining." + +"My husband was fifty miles up-country, talking sense, or what he +imagined to be sense, to a village community that fancied one of +their leading men was a were-tiger." + +"A what tiger?" + +"A were-tiger; you've heard of were-wolves, haven't you, a mixture +of wolf and human being and demon? Well, in those parts they have +were-tigers, or think they have, and I must say that in this case, +so far as sworn and uncontested evidence went, they had every ground +for thinking so. However, as we gave up witchcraft prosecutions +about three hundred years ago, we don't like to have other people +keeping on our discarded practices; it doesn't seem respectful to +our mental and moral position." + +"I hope you weren't unkind to the Bishop," said Annabel. + +"Well, of course he was my guest, so I had to be outwardly polite to +him, but he was tactless enough to rake up the incidents of the old +quarrel, and to try to make out that there was something to be said +for the way his side of the family had behaved; even if there was, +which I don't for a moment admit, my house was not the place in +which to say it. I didn't argue the matter, but I gave my cook a +holiday to go and visit his aged parents some ninety miles away. +The emergency cook was not a specialist in curries, in fact, I don't +think cooking in any shape or form could have been one of his strong +points. I believe he originally came to us in the guise of a +gardener, but as we never pretended to have anything that could be +considered a garden he was utilised as assistant goatherd, in which +capacity, I understand, he gave every satisfaction. When the Bishop +heard that I had sent away the cook on a special and unnecessary +holiday he saw the inwardness of the manoeuvre, and from that moment +we were scarcely on speaking terms. If you have ever had a Bishop +with whom you were not on speaking terms staying in your house, you +will appreciate the situation." + +Annabel confessed that her life-story had never included such a +disturbing experience. + +"Then," continued Matilda, "to make matters more complicated, the +Gwadlipichee overflowed its banks, a thing it did every now and then +when the rains were unduly prolonged, and the lower part of the +house and all the out-buildings were submerged. We managed to get +the ponies loose in time, and the syce swam the whole lot of them +off to the nearest rising ground. A goat or two, the chief goat- +herd, the chief goat-herd's wife, and several of their babies came +to anchorage in the verandah. All the rest of the available space +was filled up with wet, bedraggled-looking hens and chickens; one +never really knows how many fowls one possesses till the servants' +quarters are flooded out. Of course, I had been through something +of the sort in previous floods, but never before had I had a +houseful of goats and babies and half-drowned hens, supplemented by +a Bishop with whom I was hardly on speaking terms." + +"It must have been a trying experience," commented Annabel. + +"More embarrassments were to follow. I wasn't going to let a mere +ordinary flood wash out the memory of that Crown Derby dessert +service, and I intimated to the Bishop that his large bedroom, with +a writing table in it, and his small bath-room, with a sufficiency +of cold-water jars in it, was his share of the premises, and that +space was rather congested under the existing circumstances. +However, at about three o'clock in the afternoon, when he had +awakened from his midday sleep, he made a sudden incursion into the +room that was normally the drawing-room, but was now dining-room, +store-house, saddle-room, and half a dozen other temporary premises +as well. From the condition of my guest's costume he seemed to +think it might also serve as his dressing-room. + +"'I'm afraid there is nowhere for you to sit,' I said coldly; 'the +verandah is full of goats.' + +"'There is a goat in my bedroom,' he observed with equal coldness, +and more than a suspicion of sardonic reproach. + +"'Really,' I said, 'another survivor? I thought all the other goats +were done for.' + +"'This particular goat is quite done for,' he said, 'it is being +devoured by a leopard at the present moment. That is why I left the +room; some animals resent being watched while they are eating.' + +"The leopard, of course, was easily explained; it had been hanging +round the goat sheds when the flood came, and had clambered up by +the outside staircase leading to the Bishop's bath-room, +thoughtfully bringing a goat with it. Probably it found the bath- +room too damp and shut-in for its taste, and transferred its +banqueting operations to the bedroom while the Bishop was having his +nap." + +"What a frightful situation!" exclaimed Annabel; "fancy having a +ravening leopard in the house, with a flood all round you." + +"Not in the least ravening," said Matilda; "it was full of goat, had +any amount of water at its disposal if it felt thirsty, and probably +had no more immediate wish than a desire for uninterrupted sleep. +Still, I think any one will admit that it was an embarrassing +predicament to have your only available guest-room occupied by a +leopard, the verandah choked up with goats and babies and wet hens, +and a Bishop with whom you were scarcely on speaking terms planted +down in your own sitting-room. I really don't know how I got +through those crawling hours, and of course mealtimes only made +matters worse. The emergency cook had every excuse for sending in +watery soup and sloppy rice, and as neither the chief goat-herd nor +his wife were expert divers, the cellar could not be reached. +Fortunately the Gwadlipichee subsides as rapidly as it rises, and +just before dawn the syce came splashing back, with the ponies only +fetlock deep in water. Then there arose some awkwardness from the +fact that the Bishop wished to leave sooner than the leopard did, +and as the latter was ensconced in the midst of the former's +personal possessions there was an obvious difficulty in altering the +order of departure. I pointed out to the Bishop that a leopard's +habits and tastes are not those of an otter, and that it naturally +preferred walking to wading; and that in any case a meal of an +entire goat, washed down with tub-water, justified a certain amount +of repose; if I had had guns fired to frighten the animal away, as +the Bishop suggested, it would probably merely have left the bedroom +to come into the already over-crowded drawing-room. Altogether it +was rather a relief when they both left. Now, perhaps, you can +understand my appreciation of a sleepy countryside where things +don't happen." + + + +THE PENANCE + + + +Octavian Ruttle was one of those lively cheerful individuals on whom +amiability had set its unmistakable stamp, and, like most of his +kind, his soul's peace depended in large measure on the unstinted +approval of his fellows. In hunting to death a small tabby cat he +had done a thing of which he scarcely approved himself, and he was +glad when the gardener had hidden the body in its hastily dug grave +under a lone oak-tree in the meadow, the same tree that the hunted +quarry had climbed as a last effort towards safety. It had been a +distasteful and seemingly ruthless deed, but circumstances had +demanded the doing of it. Octavian kept chickens; at least he kept +some of them; others vanished from his keeping, leaving only a few +bloodstained feathers to mark the manner of their going. The tabby +cat from the large grey house that stood with its back to the meadow +had been detected in many furtive visits to the hen-coups, and after +due negotiation with those in authority at the grey house a sentence +of death had been agreed on. "The children will mind, but they need +not know," had been the last word on the matter. + +The children in question were a standing puzzle to Octavian; in the +course of a few months he considered that he should have known their +names, ages, the dates of their birthdays, and have been introduced +to their favourite toys. They remained however, as non-committal as +the long blank wall that shut them off from the meadow, a wall over +which their three heads sometimes appeared at odd moments. They had +parents in India--that much Octavian had learned in the +neighbourhood; the children, beyond grouping themselves garment-wise +into sexes, a girl and two boys, carried their lifestory no further +on his behoof. And now it seemed he was engaged in something which +touched them closely, but must be hidden from their knowledge. + +The poor helpless chickens had gone one by one to their doom, so it +was meet that their destroyer should come to a violent end; yet +Octavian felt some qualms when his share of the violence was ended. +The little cat, headed off from its wonted tracks of safety, had +raced unfriended from shelter to shelter, and its end had been +rather piteous. Octavian walked through the long grass of the +meadow with a step less jaunty than usual. And as he passed beneath +the shadow of the high blank wall he glanced up and became aware +that his hunting had had undesired witnesses. Three white set faces +were looking down at him, and if ever an artist wanted a threefold +study of cold human hate, impotent yet unyielding, raging yet masked +in stillness, he would have found it in the triple gaze that met +Octavian's eye. + +"I'm sorry, but it had to be done," said Octavian, with genuine +apology in his voice. + +"Beast!" + +The answer came from three throats with startling intensity. + +Octavian felt that the blank wall would not be more impervious to +his explanations than the bunch of human hostility that peered over +its coping; he wisely decided to withhold his peace overtures till a +more hopeful occasion. + +Two days later he ransacked the best sweet shop in the neighbouring +market town for a box of chocolates that by its size and contents +should fitly atone for the dismal deed done under the oak tree in +the meadow. The two first specimens that were shown him he hastily +rejected; one had a group of chickens pictured on its lid, the other +bore the portrait of a tabby kitten. A third sample was more simply +bedecked with a spray of painted poppies, and Octavian hailed the +flowers of forgetfulness as a happy omen. He felt distinctly more +at ease with his surroundings when the imposing package had been +sent across to the grey house, and a message returned to say that it +had been duly given to the children. The next morning he sauntered +with purposeful steps past the long blank wall on his way to the +chicken-run and piggery that stood at the bottom of the meadow. The +three children were perched at their accustomed look-out, and their +range of sight did not seem to concern itself with Octavian's +presence. As he became depressingly aware of the aloofness of their +gaze he also noted a strange variegation in the herbage at his feet; +the greensward for a considerable space around was strewn and +speckled with a chocolate-coloured hail, enlivened here and there +with gay tinsel-like wrappings or the glistening mauve of +crystallised violets. It was as though the fairy paradise of a +greedyminded child had taken shape and substance in the vegetation +of the meadow. Octavian's bloodmoney had been flung back at him in +scorn. + +To increase his discomfiture the march of events tended to shift the +blame of ravaged chicken-coops from the supposed culprit who had +already paid full forfeit; the young chicks were still carried off, +and it seemed highly probable that the cat had only haunted the +chicken-run to prey on the rats which harboured there. Through the +flowing channels of servant talk the children learned of this +belated revision of verdict, and Octavian one day picked up a sheet +of copy-book paper on which was painstakingly written: "Beast. +Rats eated your chickens." More ardently than ever did he wish for +an opportunity for sloughing off the disgrace that enwrapped him, +and earning some happier nickname from his three unsparing judges. + +And one day a chance inspiration came to him. Olivia, his two-year- +old daughter, was accustomed to spend the hour from high noon till +one o'clock with her father while the nursemaid gobbled and digested +her dinner and novelette. About the same time the blank wall was +usually enlivened by the presence of its three small wardens. +Octavian, with seeming carelessness of purpose, brought Olivia well +within hail of the watchers and noted with hidden delight the +growing interest that dawned in that hitherto sternly hostile +quarter. His little Olivia, with her sleepy placid ways, was going +to succeed where he, with his anxious well-meant overtures, had so +signally failed. He brought her a large yellow dahlia, which she +grasped tightly in one hand and regarded with a stare of benevolent +boredom, such as one might bestow on amateur classical dancing +performed in aid of a deserving charity. Then he turned shyly to +the group perched on the wall and asked with affected carelessness, +"Do you like flowers?" Three solemn nods rewarded his venture. + +"Which sorts do you like best?" he asked, this time with a distinct +betrayal of eagerness in his voice. + +"Those with all the colours, over there." Three chubby arms pointed +to a distant tangle of sweetpea. Child-like, they had asked for +what lay farthest from hand, but Octavian trotted off gleefully to +obey their welcome behest. He pulled and plucked with unsparing +hand, and brought every variety of tint that he could see into his +bunch that was rapidly becoming a bundle. Then he turned to retrace +his steps, and found the blank wall blanker and more deserted than +ever, while the foreground was void of all trace of Olivia. Far +down the meadow three children were pushing a go-cart at the utmost +speed they could muster in the direction of the piggeries; it was +Olivia's go-cart and Olivia sat in it, somewhat bumped and shaken by +the pace at which she was being driven, but apparently retaining her +wonted composure of mind. Octavian stared for a moment at the +rapidly moving group, and then started in hot pursuit, shedding as +he ran sprays of blossom from the mass of sweet-pea that he still +clutched in his hands. Fast as he ran the children had reached the +piggery before he could overtake them, and he arrived just in time +to see Olivia, wondering but unprotesting, hauled and pushed up to +the roof of the nearest sty. They were old buildings in some need +of repair, and the rickety roof would certainly not have borne +Octavian's weight if he had attempted to follow his daughter and her +captors on their new vantage ground. + +"What are you going to do with her?" he panted. There was no +mistaking the grim trend of mischief in those flushed by sternly +composed young faces. + +"Hang her in chains over a slow fire," said one of the boys. +Evidently they had been reading English history. + +"Frow her down the pigs will d'vour her, every bit 'cept the palms +of her hands," said the other boy. It was also evident that they +had studied Biblical history. + +The last proposal was the one which most alarmed Octavian, since it +might be carried into effect at a moment's notice; there had been +cases, he remembered, of pigs eating babies. + +"You surely wouldn't treat my poor little Olivia in that way?" he +pleaded. + +"You killed our little cat," came in stern reminder from three +throats. + +"I'm sorry I did," said Octavian, and if there is a standard +measurement in truths Octavian's statement was assuredly a large +nine. + +"We shall be very sorry when we've killed Olivia," said the girl, +"but we can't be sorry till we've done it." + +The inexorable child-logic rose like an unyielding rampart before +Octavian's scared pleadings. Before he could think of any fresh +line of appeal his energies were called out in another direction. +Olivia had slid off the roof and fallen with a soft, unctuous splash +into a morass of muck and decaying straw. Octavian scrambled +hastily over the pigsty wall to her rescue, and at once found +himself in a quagmire that engulfed his feet. Olivia, after the +first shock of surprise at her sudden drop through the air, had been +mildly pleased at finding herself in close and unstinted contact +with the sticky element that oozed around her, but as she began to +sink gently into the bed of slime a feeling dawned on her that she +was not after all very happy, and she began to cry in the tentative +fashion of the normally good child. Octavian, battling with the +quagmire, which seemed to have learned the rare art of giving way at +all points without yielding an inch, saw his daughter slowly +disappearing in the engulfing slush, her smeared face further +distorted with the contortions of whimpering wonder, while from +their perch on the pigsty roof the three children looked down with +the cold unpitying detachment of the Parcae Sisters. + +"I can't reach her in time," gasped Octavian, "she'll be choked in +the muck. Won't you help her?" + +"No one helped our cat," came the inevitable reminder. + +"I'll do anything to show you how sorry I am about that," cried +Octavian, with a further desperate flounder, which carried him +scarcely two inches forward. + +"Will you stand in a white sheet by the grave?" + +"Yes," screamed Octavian. + +"Holding a candle?" + +"An' saying 'I'm a miserable Beast'?" + +Octavian agreed to both suggestions. + +"For a long, long time?" + +"For half an hour," said Octavian. There was an anxious ring in his +voice as he named the time-limit; was there not the precedent of a +German king who did open-air penance for several days and nights at +Christmas-time clad only in his shirt? Fortunately the children did +not appear to have read German history, and half an hour seemed long +and goodly in their eyes. + +"All right," came with threefold solemnity from the roof, and a +moment later a short ladder had been laboriously pushed across to +Octavian, who lost no time in propping it against the low pigsty +wall. Scrambling gingerly along its rungs he was able to lean +across the morass that separated him from his slowly foundering +offspring and extract her like an unwilling cork from it's slushy +embrace. A few minutes later he was listening to the shrill and +repeated assurances of the nursemaid that her previous experience of +filthy spectacles had been on a notably smaller scale. + +That same evening when twilight was deepening into darkness Octavian +took up his position as penitent under the lone oak-tree, having +first carefully undressed the part. Clad in a zephyr shirt, which +on this occasion thoroughly merited its name, he held in one hand a +lighted candle and in the other a watch, into which the soul of a +dead plumber seemed to have passed. A box of matches lay at his +feet and was resorted to on the fairly frequent occasions when the +candle succumbed to the night breezes. The house loomed inscrutable +in the middle distance, but as Octavian conscientiously repeated the +formula of his penance he felt certain that three pairs of solemn +eyes were watching his moth-shared vigil. + +And the next morning his eyes were gladdened by a sheet of copy-book +paper lying beside the blank wall, on which was written the message +"Un-Beast." + + + +THE PHANTOM LUNCHEON + + + +"The Smithly-Dubbs are in Town," said Sir James. "I wish you would +show them some attention. Ask them to lunch with you at the Ritz or +somewhere." + +"From the little I've seen of the Smithly-Dubbs I don't thing I want +to cultivate their acquaintance," said Lady Drakmanton. + +"They always work for us at election times," said her husband; "I +don't suppose they influence very many votes, but they have an uncle +who is on one of my ward committees, and another uncle speaks +sometimes at some of our less important meetings. Those sort of +people expect some return in the shape of hospitality." + +"Expect it!" exclaimed Lady Drakmanton; "the Misses Smithly-Dubb do +more than that; they almost demand it. They belong to my club, and +hang about the lobby just about lunch-time, all three of them, with +their tongues hanging out of their mouths and the six-course look in +their eyes. If I were to breathe the word 'lunch' they would hustle +me into a taxi and scream 'Ritz' or 'Dieudonne's' to the driver +before I knew what was happening." + +"All the same, I think you ought to ask them to a meal of some +sort," persisted Sir James. + +"I consider that showing hospitality to the Smithly-Dubbs is +carrying Free Food principles to a regrettable extreme," said Lady +Drakmanton; "I've entertained the Joneses and the Browns and the +Snapheimers and the Lubrikoffs, and heaps of others whose names I +forget, but I don't see why I should inflict the society of the +Misses Smithly-Dubb on myself for a solid hour. Imagine it, sixty +minutes, more or less, of unrelenting gobble and gabble. Why can't +YOU take them on, Milly?" she asked, turning hopefully to her +sister. + +"I don't know them," said Milly hastily. + +"All the better; you can pass yourself off as me. People say that +we are so alike that they can hardly tell us apart, and I've only +spoken to these tiresome young women about twice in my life, at +committee-rooms, and bowed to them in the club. Any of the club +page-boys will point them out to you; they're always to be found +lolling about the hall just before lunch-time." + +"My dear Betty, don't be absurd," protested Milly; "I've got some +people lunching with me at the Carlton to-morrow, and I'm leaving +Town the day afterwards." + +"What time is your lunch to-morrow?" asked Lady Drakmanton +reflectively. + +"Two o'clock," said Milly. + +"Good," said her sister; "the Smithly-Dubbs shall lunch with me to- +morrow. It shall be rather an amusing lunch-party. At least, I +shall be amused." + +The last two remarks she made to herself. Other people did not +always appreciate her ideas of humour. Sir James never did. + +The next day Lady Drakmanton made some marked variations in her +usual toilet effects. She dressed her hair in an unaccustomed +manner, and put on a hat that added to the transformation of her +appearance. When she had made one or two minor alterations she was +sufficiently unlike her usual smart self to produce some hesitation +in the greeting which the Misses Smithly-Dubb bestowed on her in the +club-lobby. She responded, however, with a readiness which set +their doubts at rest. + +"What is the Carlton like for lunching in?" she asked breezily. + +The restaurant received an enthusiastic recommendation from the +three sisters. + +"Let's go and lunch there, shall we?" she suggested, and in a few +minutes' time the Smithly-Dubb mind was contemplating at close +quarters a happy vista of baked meats and approved vintage. + +"Are you going to start with caviare? I am," confided Lady +Drakmanton, and the Smithly-Dubbs started with caviare. The +subsequent dishes were chosen in the same ambitious spirit, and by +the time they had arrived at the wild duck course it was beginning +to be a rather expensive lunch. + +The conversation hardly kept pace with the brilliancy of the menu. +Repeated references on the part of the guests to the local political +conditions and prospects in Sir James's constituency were met with +vague "ahs" and "indeeds" from Lady Drakmanton, who might have been +expected to be specially interested. + +"I think when the Insurance Act is a little better understood it +will lose some of its present unpopularity," hazarded Cecilia +Smithly-Dubb. + +"Will it? I dare say. I'm afraid politics don't interest me very +much," said Lady Drakmanton. + +The three Miss Smithly-Dubbs put down their cups of Turkish coffee +and stared. Then they broke into protesting giggles. + +"Of course, you're joking," they said. + +"Not me," was the disconcerting answer; "I can't make head or tail +of these bothering old politics. Never could, and never want to. +I've quite enough to do to manage my own affairs, and that's a +fact." + +"But," exclaimed Amanda Smithly-Dubb, with a squeal of bewilderment +breaking into her voice, "I was told you spoke so informingly about +the Insurance Act at one of our social evenings." + +It was Lady Drakmanton who stared now. "Do you know," she said, +with a scared look around her, "rather a dreadful thing is +happening. I'm suffering from a complete loss of memory. I can't +even think who I am. I remember meeting you somewhere, and I +remember you asking me to come and lunch with you here, and that I +accepted your kind invitation. Beyond that my mind is a positive +blank." + +The scared look was transferred with intensified poignancy to the +faces of her companions. + +"YOU asked US to lunch," they exclaimed hurriedly. That seemed a +more immediately important point to clear up than the question of +identity. + +"Oh, no," said the vanishing hostess, "THAT I do remember about. +You insisted on my coming here because the feeding was so good, and +I must say it comes up to all you said about it. A very nice lunch +it's been. What I'm worrying about is who on earth am I? I haven't +the faintest notion?" + +"You are Lady Drakmanton," exclaimed the three sisters in chorus. + +"Now, don't make fun of me," she replied, crossly, "I happen to know +her quite well by sight, and she isn't a bit like me. And it's an +odd thing you should have mentioned her, for it so happens she's +just come into the room. That lady in black, with the yellow plume +in her hat, there over by the door." + +The Smithly-Dubbs looked in the indicated direction, and the +uneasiness in their eyes deepened into horror. In outward +appearance the lady who had just entered the room certainly came +rather nearer to their recollection of their Member's wife than the +individual who was sitting at table with them. + +"Who ARE you, then, if that is Lady Drakmanton?" they asked in +panic-stricken bewilderment. + +"That is just what I don't know," was the answer; "and you don't +seem to know much better than I do." + +"You came up to us in the club--" + +"In what club?" + +"The New Didactic, in Calais Street." + +"The New Didactic!" exclaimed Lady Drakmanton with an air of +returning illumination; "thank you so much. Of course, I remember +now who I am. I'm Ellen Niggle, of the Ladies' Brasspolishing +Guild. The Club employs me to come now and then and see to the +polishing of the brass fittings. That's how I came to know Lady +Drakmanton by sight; she's very often in the Club. And you are the +ladies who so kindly asked me out to lunch. Funny how it should all +have slipped my memory, all of a sudden. The unaccustomed good food +and wine must have been too much for me; for the moment I really +couldn't call to mind who I was. Good gracious," she broke off +suddenly, "it's ten past two; I should be at a polishing job in +Whitehall. I must scuttle off like a giddy rabbit. Thanking you +ever so." + +She left the room with a scuttle sufficiently suggestive of the +animal she had mentioned, but the giddiness was all on the side of +her involuntary hostesses. The restaurant seemed to be spinning +round them; and the bill when it appeared did nothing to restore +their composure. They were as nearly in tears as it is permissible +to be during the luncheon hour in a really good restaurant. +Financially speaking, they were well able to afford the luxury of an +elaborate lunch, but their ideas on the subject of entertaining +differed very sharply, according to the circumstances of whether +they were dispensing or receiving hospitality. To have fed +themselves liberally at their own expense was, perhaps, an +extravagance to be deplored, but, at any rate, they had had +something for their money; to have drawn an unknown and socially +unremunerative Ellen Niggle into the net of their hospitality was a +catastrophe that they could not contemplate with any degree of +calmness. + +The Smithly-Dubbs never quite recovered from their unnerving +experience. They have given up politics and taken to doing good. + + + +A BREAD AND BUTTER MISS + + + +"Starling Chatter and Oakhill have both dropped back in the +betting," said Bertie van Tahn, throwing the morning paper across +the breakfast table. + +"That leaves Nursery Tea practically favourite," said Odo Finsberry. + +"Nursery Tea and Pipeclay are at the top of the betting at present," +said Bertie, "but that French horse, Le Five O'Clock, seems to be +fancied as much as anything. Then there is Whitebait, and the +Polish horse with a name like some one trying to stifle a sneeze in +church; they both seem to have a lot of support." + +"It's the most open Derby there's been for years," said Odo. + +"It's simply no good trying to pick the winner on form," said +Bertie; "one must just trust to luck and inspiration." + +"The question is whether to trust to one's own inspiration, or +somebody else's. Sporting Swank gives Count Palatine to win, and Le +Five O'Clock for a place." + +"Count Palatine--that adds another to our list of perplexities. +Good morning, Sir Lulworth; have you a fancy for the Derby by any +chance?" + +"I don't usually take much interest in turf matters," said Sir +Lulworth, who had just made his appearance, "but I always like to +have a bet on the Guineas and the Derby. This year, I confess, it's +rather difficult to pick out anything that seems markedly better +than anything else. What do you think of Snow Bunting?" + +"Snow Bunting?" said Odo, with a groan, "there's another of them. +Surely, Snow Bunting has no earthly chance?" + +"My housekeeper's nephew, who is a shoeing-smith in the mounted +section of the Church Lads' Brigade, and an authority on horseflesh, +expects him to be among the first three." + +"The nephews of housekeepers are invariably optimists," said Bertie; +"it's a kind of natural reaction against the professional pessimism +of their aunts." + +"We don't seem to get much further in our search for the probable +winner," said Mrs. de Claux; "the more I listen to you experts the +more hopelessly befogged I get." + +"It's all very well to blame us," said Bertie to his hostess; "you +haven't produced anything in the way of an inspiration." + +"My inspiration consisted in asking you down for Derby week," +retorted Mrs. de Claux; "I thought you and Odo between you might +throw some light on the question of the moment." + +Further recriminations were cut short by the arrival of Lola +Pevensey, who floated into the room with an air of gracious apology. + +"So sorry to be so late," she observed, making a rapid tour of +inspection of the breakfast dishes. + +"Did you have a good night?" asked her hostess with perfunctory +solicitude. + +"Quite, thank you," said Lola; "I dreamt a most remarkable dream." + +A flutter, indicative of general boredom; went round the table. +Other people's dreams are about as universally interesting as +accounts of other people's gardens, or chickens, or children. + +"I dreamt about the winner of the Derby," said Lola. + +A swift reaction of attentive interest set in. + +"Do tell us what you dreamt," came in a chorus. + +"The really remarkable thing about it is that I've dreamt it two +nights running," said Lola, finally deciding between the allurements +of sausages and kedgeree; "that is why I thought it worth +mentioning. You know, when I dream things two or three nights in +succession, it always means something; I have special powers in that +way. For instance, I once dreamed three times that a winged lion +was flying through the sky and one of his wings dropped off, and he +came to the ground with a crash; just afterwards the Campanile at +Venice fell down. The winged lion is the symbol of Venice, you +know," she added for the enlightenment of those who might not be +versed in Italian heraldry. "Then," she continued, "just before the +murder of the King and Queen of Servia I had a vivid dream of two +crowned figures walking into a slaughter-house by the banks of a big +river, which I took to be the Danube; and only the other day--" + +"Do tell us what you've dreamt about the Derby," interrupted Odo +impatiently. + +"Well, I saw the finish of the race as clearly as anything; and one +horse won easily, almost in a canter, and everybody cried out 'Bread +and Butter wins! Good old Bread and Butter.' I heard the name +distinctly, and I've had the same dream two nights running." + +"Bread and Butter," said Mrs. de Claux, "now, whatever horse can +that point to? Why--of course; Nursery Tea!" + +She looked round with the triumphant smile of a successful +unraveller of mystery. + +"How about Le Five O'Clock?" interposed Sir Lulworth. + +"It would fit either of them equally well," said Odo; "can you +remember any details about the jockey's colours? That might help +us." + +"I seem to remember a glimpse of lemon sleeves or cap, but I can't +be sure," said Lola, after due reflection. + +"There isn't a lemon jacket or cap in the race," said Bertie, +referring to a list of starters and jockeys; "can't you remember +anything about the appearance of the horse? If it were a thick-set +animal, this bread and butter would typify Nursery Tea; and if it +were thin, of course, it would mean Le Five O'Clock." + +"That seems sound enough," said Mrs. de Claux; "do think, Lola dear, +whether the horse in your dream was thin or stoutly built." + +"I can't remember that it was one or the other," said Lola; "one +wouldn't notice such a detail in the excitement of a finish." + +"But this was a symbolic animal," said Sir Lulworth; "if it were to +typify thick or thin bread and butter surely it ought to have been +either as bulky and tubby as a shire cart-horse; or as thin as a +heraldic leopard." + +"I'm afraid you are rather a careless dreamer," said Bertie +resentfully. + +"Of course, at the moment of dreaming I thought I was witnessing a +real race, not the portent of one," said Lola; "otherwise I should +have particularly noticed all helpful details." + +"The Derby isn't run till to-morrow," said Mrs. de Claux; "do you +think you are likely to have the same dream again to-night? If so; +you can fix your attention on the important detail of the animal's +appearance." + +"I'm afraid I shan't sleep at all to-night," said Lola pathetically; +"every fifth night I suffer from insomnia, and it's due to-night." + +"It's most provoking," said Bertie; "of course, we can back both +horses, but it would be much more satisfactory to have all our money +on the winner. Can't you take a sleeping-draught, or something?" + +"Oakleaves, soaked in warm water and put under the bed, are +recommended by some," said Mrs. de Claux. + +"A glass of Benedictine, with a drop of eau-de-Cologne--" said Sir +Lulworth. + +"I have tried every known remedy," said Lola, with dignity; "I've +been a martyr to insomnia for years." + +"But now we are being martyrs to it," said Odo sulkily; "I +particularly want to land a big coup over this race." + +"I don't have insomnia for my own amusement," snapped Lola. + +"Let us hope for the best," said Mrs. de Claux soothingly; "to-night +may prove an exception to the fifth-night rule." + +But when breakfast time came round again Lola reported a blank night +as far as visions were concerned. + +"I don't suppose I had as much as ten minutes' sleep, and, +certainly, no dreams." + +"I'm so sorry, for your sake in the first place, and ours as well," +said her hostess; "do you think you could induce a short nap after +breakfast? It would be so good for you--and you MIGHT dream +something. There would still be time for us to get our bets on." + +"I'll try if you like," said Lola; "it sounds rather like a small +child being sent to bed in disgrace." + +"I'll come and read the Encyclopaedia Britannica to you if you think +it will make you sleep any sooner," said Bertie obligingly. + +Rain was falling too steadily to permit of outdoor amusement, and +the party suffered considerably during the next two hours from the +absolute quiet that was enforced all over the house in order to give +Lola every chance of achieving slumber. Even the click of billiard +balls was considered a possible factor of disturbance, and the +canaries were carried down to the gardener's lodge, while the cuckoo +clock in the hall was muffled under several layers of rugs. A +notice, "Please do not Knock or Ring," was posted on the front door +at Bertie's suggestion, and guests and servants spoke in tragic +whispers as though the dread presence of death or sickness had +invaded the house. The precautions proved of no avail: Lola added +a sleepless morning to a wakeful night, and the bets of the party +had to be impartially divided between Nursery Tea and the French +Colt. + +"So provoking to have to split out bets," said Mrs. de Claux, as her +guests gathered in the hall later in the day, waiting for the result +of the race. + +"I did my best for you," said Lola, feeling that she was not getting +her due share of gratitude; "I told you what I had seen in my +dreams, a brown horse, called Bread and Butter, winning easily from +all the rest." + +"What?" screamed Bertie, jumping up from his sea, "a brown horse! +Miserable woman, you never said a word about it's being a brown +horse." + +"Didn't I?" faltered Lola; "I thought I told you it was a brown +horse. It was certainly brown in both dreams. But I don't see what +the colour has got to do with it. Nursery Tea and Le Five O'Clock +are both chestnuts." + +"Merciful Heaven! Doesn't brown bread and butter with a sprinkling +of lemon in the colours suggest anything to you?" raged Bertie. + +A slow, cumulative groan broke from the assembly as the meaning of +his words gradually dawned on his hearers. + +For the second time that day Lola retired to the seclusion of her +room; she could not face the universal looks of reproach directed at +her when Whitebait was announced winner at the comfortable price of +fourteen to one. + + + +BERTIE'S CHRISTMAS EVE + + + +It was Christmas Eve, and the family circle of Luke Steffink, Esq., +was aglow with the amiability and random mirth which the occasion +demanded. A long and lavish dinner had been partaken of, waits had +been round and sung carols; the house-party had regaled itself with +more caroling on its own account, and there had been romping which, +even in a pulpit reference, could not have been condemned as +ragging. In the midst of the general glow, however, there was one +black unkindled cinder. + +Bertie Steffink, nephew of the aforementioned Luke, had early in +life adopted the profession of ne'er-do-weel; his father had been +something of the kind before him. At the age of eighteen Bertie had +commenced that round of visits to our Colonial possessions, so +seemly and desirable in the case of a Prince of the Blood, so +suggestive of insincerity in a young man of the middle-class. He +had gone to grow tea in Ceylon and fruit in British Columbia, and to +help sheep to grow wool in Australia. At the age of twenty he had +just returned from some similar errand in Canada, from which it may +be gathered that the trial he gave to these various experiments was +of the summary drum-head nature. Luke Steffink, who fulfilled the +troubled role of guardian and deputy-parent to Bertie, deplored the +persistent manifestation of the homing instinct on his nephew's +part, and his solemn thanks earlier in the day for the blessing of +reporting a united family had no reference to Bertie's return. + +Arrangements had been promptly made for packing the youth off to a +distant corner of Rhodesia, whence return would be a difficult +matter; the journey to this uninviting destination was imminent, in +fact a more careful and willing traveller would have already begun +to think about his packing. Hence Bertie was in no mood to share in +the festive spirit which displayed itself around him, and resentment +smouldered within him at the eager, self-absorbed discussion of +social plans for the coming months which he heard on all sides. +Beyond depressing his uncle and the family circle generally by +singing "Say au revoir, and not good-bye," he had taken no part in +the evening's conviviality. + +Eleven o'clock had struck some half-hour ago, and the elder +Steffinks began to throw out suggestions leading up to that process +which they called retiring for the night. + +"Come, Teddie, it's time you were in your little bed, you know," +said Luke Steffink to his thirteen-year-old son. + +"That's where we all ought to be," said Mrs. Steffink. + +"There wouldn't be room," said Bertie. + +The remark was considered to border on the scandalous; everybody ate +raisins and almonds with the nervous industry of sheep feeding +during threatening weather. + +"In Russia," said Horace Bordenby, who was staying in the house as a +Christmas guest, "I've read that the peasants believe that if you go +into a cow-house or stable at midnight on Christmas Eve you will +hear the animals talk. They're supposed to have the gift of speech +at that one moment of the year." + +"Oh, DO let's ALL go down to the cow-house and listen to what +they've got to say!" exclaimed Beryl, to whom anything was thrilling +and amusing if you did it in a troop. + +Mrs. Steffink made a laughing protest, but gave a virtual consent by +saying, "We must all wrap up well, then." The idea seemed a +scatterbrained one to her, and almost heathenish, but if afforded an +opportunity for "throwing the young people together," and as such +she welcomed it. Mr. Horace Bordenby was a young man with quite +substantial prospects, and he had danced with Beryl at a local +subscription ball a sufficient number of times to warrant the +authorised inquiry on the part of the neighbours whether "there was +anything in it." Though Mrs. Steffink would not have put it in so +many words, she shared the idea of the Russian peasantry that on +this night the beast might speak. + +The cow-house stood at the junction of the garden with a small +paddock, an isolated survival, in a suburban neighbourhood; of what +had once been a small farm. Luke Steffink was complacently proud of +his cow-house and his two cows; he felt that they gave him a stamp +of solidity which no number of Wyandottes or Orpingtons could +impart. They even seemed to link him in a sort of inconsequent way +with those patriarchs who derived importance from their floating +capital of flocks and herbs, he-asses and she-asses. It had been an +anxious and momentous occasion when he had had to decide definitely +between "the Byre" and "the Ranch" for the naming of his villa +residence. A December midnight was hardly the moment he would have +chosen for showing his farm-building to visitors, but since it was a +fine night, and the young people were anxious for an excuse for a +mild frolic, Luke consented to chaperon the expedition. The +servants had long since gone to bed, so the house was left in charge +of Bertie, who scornfully declined to stir out on the pretext of +listening to bovine conversation. + +"We must go quietly," said Luke, as he headed the procession of +giggling young folk, brought up in the rear by the shawled and +hooded figure of Mrs. Steffink; "I've always laid stress on keeping +this a quiet and orderly neighbourhood." + +It was a few minutes to midnight when the party reached the cow- +house and made its way in by the light of Luke's stable lantern. +For a moment every one stood in silence, almost with a feeling of +being in church. + +"Daisy--the one lying down--is by a shorthorn bull out of a Guernsey +cow," announced Luke in a hushed voice, which was in keeping with +the foregoing impression. + +"Is she?" said Bordenby, rather as if he had expected her to be by +Rembrandt. + +"Myrtle is--" + +Myrtle's family history was cut short by a little scream from the +women of the party. + +The cow-house door had closed noiselessly behind them and the key +had turned gratingly in the lock; then they heard Bertie's voice +pleasantly wishing them good-night and his footsteps retreating +along the garden path. + +Luke Steffink strode to the window; it was a small square opening of +the old-fashioned sort, with iron bars let into the stonework. + +"Unlock the door this instant," he shouted, with as much air of +menacing authority as a hen might assume when screaming through the +bars of a coop at a marauding hawk. In reply to his summons the +hall-door closed with a defiant bang. + +A neighbouring clock struck the hour of midnight. If the cows had +received the gift of human speech at that moment they would not have +been able to make themselves heard. Seven or eight other voices +were engaged in describing Bertie's present conduct and his general +character at a high pressure of excitement and indignation. + +In the course of half an hour or so everything that it was +permissible to say about Bertie had been said some dozens of times, +and other topics began to come to the front--the extreme mustiness +of the cow-house, the possibility of it catching fire, and the +probability of it being a Rowton House for the vagrant rats of the +neighbourhood. And still no sign of deliverance came to the +unwilling vigil-keepers. + +Towards one o'clock the sound of rather boisterous and undisciplined +carol-singing approached rapidly, and came to a sudden anchorage, +apparently just outside the garden-gate. A motor-load of youthful +"bloods," in a high state of conviviality, had made a temporary halt +for repairs; the stoppage, however, did not extend to the vocal +efforts of the party, and the watchers in the cow-shed were treated +to a highly unauthorised rendering of "Good King Wenceslas," in +which the adjective "good" appeared to be very carelessly applied. + +The noise had the effect of bringing Bertie out into the garden, but +he utterly ignored the pale, angry faces peering out at the cow- +house window, and concentrated his attention on the revellers +outside the gate. + +"Wassail, you chaps!" he shouted. + +"Wassail, old sport!" they shouted back; "we'd jolly well drink y'r +health, only we've nothing to drink it in." + +"Come and wassail inside," said Bertie hospitably; "I'm all alone, +and there's heap's of 'wet'." + +They were total strangers, but his touch of kindness made them +instantly his kin. In another moment the unauthorised version of +King Wenceslas, which, like many other scandals, grew worse on +repetition, went echoing up the garden path; two of the revellers +gave an impromptu performance on the way by executing the staircase +waltz up the terraces of what Luke Steffink, hitherto with some +justification, called his rock-garden. The rock part of it was +still there when the waltz had been accorded its third encore. +Luke, more than ever like a cooped hen behind the cow-house bars, +was in a position to realise the feelings of concert-goers unable to +countermand the call for an encore which they neither desire or +deserve. + +The hall door closed with a bang on Bertie's guests, and the sounds +of merriment became faint and muffled to the weary watchers at the +other end of the garden. Presently two ominous pops, in quick +succession, made themselves distinctly heard. + +"They've got at the champagne!" exclaimed Mrs. Steffink. + +"Perhaps it's the sparkling Moselle," said Luke hopefully. + +Three or four more pops were heard. + +"The champagne and the sparkling Moselle," said Mrs. Steffink. + +Luke uncorked an expletive which, like brandy in a temperance +household, was only used on rare emergencies. Mr. Horace Bordenby +had been making use of similar expressions under his breath for a +considerable time past. The experiment of "throwing the young +people together" had been prolonged beyond a point when it was +likely to produce any romantic result. + +Some forty minutes later the hall door opened and disgorged a crowd +that had thrown off any restraint of shyness that might have +influenced its earlier actions. Its vocal efforts in the direction +of carol singing were now supplemented by instrumental music; a +Christmas-tree that had been prepared for the children of the +gardener and other household retainers had yielded a rich spoil of +tin trumpets, rattles, and drums. The life-story of King Wenceslas +had been dropped, Luke was thankful to notice, but it was intensely +irritating for the chilled prisoners in the cow-house to be told +that it was a hot time in the old town to-night, together with some +accurate but entirely superfluous information as to the imminence of +Christmas morning. Judging by the protests which began to be +shouted from the upper windows of neighbouring houses the sentiments +prevailing in the cow-house were heartily echoed in other quarters. + +The revellers found their car, and, what was more remarkable, +managed to drive off in it, with a parting fanfare of tin trumpets. +The lively beat of a drum disclosed the fact that the master of the +revels remained on the scene. + +"Bertie!" came in an angry, imploring chorus of shouts and screams +from the cow-house window. + +"Hullo," cried the owner of the name, turning his rather errant +steps in the direction of the summons; "are you people still there? +Must have heard everything cows got to say by this time. If you +haven't, no use waiting. After all, it's a Russian legend, and +Russian Chrismush Eve not due for 'nother fortnight. Better come +out." + +After one or two ineffectual attempts he managed to pitch the key of +the cow-house door in through the window. Then, lifting his voice +in the strains of "I'm afraid to go home in the dark," with a lusty +drum accompaniment, he led the way back to the house. The hurried +procession of the released that followed in his steps came in for a +good deal of the adverse comment that his exuberant display had +evoked. + +It was the happiest Christmas Eve he had ever spent. To quote his +own words, he had a rotten Christmas. + + + +FOREWARNED + + + +Alethia Debchance sat in a corner of an otherwise empty railway +carriage, more or less at ease as regarded body, but in some +trepidation as to mind. She had embarked on a social adventure of +no little magnitude as compared with the accustomed seclusion and +stagnation of her past life. At the age of twenty-eight she could +look back on nothing more eventful than the daily round of her +existence in her aunt's house at Webblehinton, a hamlet four and a +half miles distant from a country town and about a quarter of a +century removed from modern times. Their neighbours had been +elderly and few, not much given to social intercourse, but helpful +or politely sympathetic in times of illness. Newspapers of the +ordinary kind were a rarity; those that Alethia saw regularly were +devoted exclusively either to religion or to poultry, and the world +of politics was to her an unheeded unexplored region. Her ideas on +life in general had been acquired through the medium of popular +respectable novel-writers, and modified or emphasised by such +knowledge as her aunt, the vicar, and her aunt's housekeeper had put +at her disposal. And now, in her twenty-ninth year, her aunt's +death had left her, well provided for as regards income, but +somewhat isolated in the matter of kith and kin and human +companionship. She had some cousins who were on terms of friendly, +though infrequent, correspondence with her, but as they lived +permanently in Ceylon, a locality about which she knew little, +beyond the assurance contained in the missionary hymn that the human +element there was vile, they were not of much immediate use to her. +Other cousins she also possessed, more distant as regards +relationship, but not quite so geographically remote, seeing that +they lived somewhere in the Midlands. She could hardly remember +ever having met them, but once or twice in the course of the last +three or four years they had expressed a polite wish that she should +pay them a visit; they had probably not been unduly depressed by the +fact that her aunt's failing health had prevented her from accepting +their invitation. The note of condolence that had arrived on the +occasion of her aunt's death had included a vague hope that Alethia +would find time in the near future to spend a few days with her +cousins, and after much deliberation and many hesitations she had +written to propose herself as a guest for a definite date some week +ahead. The family, she reflected with relief, was not a large one; +the two daughters were married and away, there was only old Mrs. +Bludward and her son Robert at home. Mrs. Bludward was something of +an invalid, and Robert was a young man who had been at Oxford and +was going into Parliament. Further than that Alethia's information +did not go; her imagination, founded on her extensive knowledge of +the people one met in novels, had to supply the gaps. The mother +was not difficult to place; she would either be an ultra-amiable old +lady, bearing her feeble health with uncomplaining fortitude, and +having a kind word for the gardener's boy and a sunny smile for the +chance visitor, or else she would be cold and peevish, with eyes +that pierced you like a gimlet, and a unreasoning idolatry of her +son. Alethia's imagination rather inclined her to the latter view. +Robert was more of a problem. There were three dominant types of +manhood to be taken into consideration in working out his +classification; there was Hugo, who was strong, good, and beautiful, +a rare type and not very often met with; there was Sir Jasper, who +was utterly vile and absolutely unscrupulous, and there was Nevil, +who was not really bad at heart, but had a weak mouth and usually +required the life-work of two good women to keep him from ultimate +disaster. It was probable, Alethia considered, that Robert came +into the last category, in which case she was certain to enjoy the +companionship of one or two excellent women, and might possibly +catch glimpses of undesirable adventuresses or come face to face +with reckless admiration-seeking married women. It was altogether +an exciting prospect, this sudden venture into an unexplored world +of unknown human beings, and Alethia rather wished that she could +have taken the vicar with her; she was not, however, rich or +important enough to travel with a chaplain, as the Marquis of +Moystoncleugh always did in the novel she had just been reading, so +she recognised that such a proceeding was out of the question. + +The train which carried Alethia towards her destination was a local +one, with the wayside station habit strongly developed. At most of +the stations no one seemed to want to get into the train or to leave +it, but at one there were several market folk on the platform, and +two men, of the farmer or small cattle-dealer class, entered +Alethia's carriage. Apparently they had just foregathered, after a +day's business, and their conversation consisted of a rapid exchange +of short friendly inquiries as to health, family, stock, and so +forth, and some grumbling remarks on the weather. Suddenly, +however, their talk took a dramatically interesting turn, and +Alethia listened with wide-eyed attention. + +"What do you think of Mister Robert Bludward, eh?" + +There was a certain scornful ring in his question. + +"Robert Bludward? An out-an'-out rotter, that's what he is. Ought +to be ashamed to look any decent man in the face. Send him to +Parliament to represent us--not much! He'd rob a poor man of his +last shilling, he would." + +"Ah, that he would. Tells a pack of lies to get our votes, that's +all that he's after, damn him. Did you see the way the Argus showed +him up this week? Properly exposed him, hip and thigh, I tell you." + +And so on they ran, in their withering indictment. There could be +no doubt that it was Alethia's cousin and prospective host to whom +they were referring; the allusion to a Parliamentary candidature +settled that. What could Robert Bludward have done, what manner of +man could he be, that people should speak of him with such obvious +reprobation? + +"He was hissed down at Shoalford yesterday," said one of the +speakers. + +Hissed! Had it come to that? There was something dramatically +biblical in the idea of Robert Bludward's neighbours and +acquaintances hissing him for very scorn. Lord Hereward Stranglath +had been hissed, now Alethia came to think of it, in the eighth +chapter of Matterby Towers, while in the act of opening a Wesleyan +bazaar, because he was suspected (unjustly as it turned out +afterwards) of having beaten the German governess to death. And in +Tainted Guineas Roper Squenderby had been deservedly hissed, on the +steps of the Jockey Club, for having handed a rival owner a forged +telegram, containing false news of his mother's death, just before +the start for an important race, thereby ensuring the withdrawal of +his rival's horse. In placid Saxon-blooded England people did not +demonstrate their feelings lightly and without some strong +compelling cause. What manner of evildoer was Robert Bludward? + +The train stopped at another small station, and the two men got out. +One of them left behind him a copy of the Argus, the local paper to +which he had made reference. Alethia pounced on it, in the +expectation of finding a cultured literary endorsement of the +censure which these rough farming men had expressed in their homely, +honest way. She had not far to look; "Mr. Robert Bludward, +Swanker," was the title of one of the principal articles in the +paper. She did not exactly know what a swanker was, probably it +referred to some unspeakable form of cruelty, but she read enough in +the first few sentences of the article to discover that her cousin +Robert, the man at whose house she was about to stay, was an +unscrupulous, unprincipled character, of a low order of +intelligence, yet cunning withal, and that he and his associates +were responsible for most of the misery, disease, poverty, and +ignorance with which the country was afflicted; never, except in one +or two of the denunciatory Psalms, which she had always supposed to +have be written in a spirit of exaggerated Oriental imagery, had she +read such an indictment of a human being. And this monster was +going to meet her at Derrelton Station in a few short minutes. She +would know him at once; he would have the dark beetling brows, the +quick, furtive glance, the sneering, unsavoury smile that always +characterised the Sir Jaspers of this world. It was too late to +escape; she must force herself to meet him with outward calm. + +It was a considerable shock to her to find that Robert was fair, +with a snub nose, merry eye, and rather a schoolboy manner. "A +serpent in duckling's plumage," was her private comment; merciful +chance had revealed him to her in his true colours. + +As they drove away from the station a dissipated-looking man of the +labouring class waved his hat in friendly salute. "Good luck to +you, Mr. Bludward," he shouted; "you'll come out on top! We'll +break old Chobham's neck for him." + +"Who was that man?" asked Alethia quickly. + +"Oh, one of my supporters," laughed Robert; "a bit of a poacher and +a bit of a pub-loafer, but he's on the right side." + +So these were the sort of associates that Robert Bludward consorted +with, thought Alethia. + +"Who is the person he referred to as old Chobham?" she asked. + +"Sir John Chobham, the man who is opposing me," answered Robert; +"that is his house away there among the trees on the right." + +So there was an upright man, possibly a very Hugo in character, who +was thwarting and defying the evildoer in his nefarious career, and +there was a dastardly plot afoot to break his neck! Possibly the +attempt would be made within the next few hours. He must certainly +be warned. Alethia remembered how Lady Sylvia Broomgate, in +Nightshade Court, had pretended to be bolted with by her horse up to +the front door of a threatened county magnate, and had whispered a +warning in his ear which saved him from being the victim of foul +murder. She wondered if there was a quiet pony in the stables on +which she would be allowed to ride out alone. The chances were that +she would be watched. Robert would come spurring after her and +seize her bridle just as she was turning in at Sir John's gates. + +A group of men that they passed in a village street gave them no +very friendly looks, and Alethia thought she heard a furtive hiss; a +moment later they came upon an errand boy riding a bicycle. He had +the frank open countenance, neatly brushed hair and tidy clothes +that betoken a clear conscience and a good mother. He stared +straight at the occupants of the car, and, after he had passed them, +sang in his clear, boyish voice: + +"We'll hang Bobby Bludward on the sour apple tree." + +Robert merely laughed. That was how he took the scorn and +condemnation of his fellow-men. He had goaded them to desperation +with his shameless depravity till they spoke openly of putting him +to a violent death, and he laughed. + +Mrs. Bludward proved to be of the type that Alethia had suspected, +thin-lipped, cold-eyed, and obviously devoted to her worthless son. +From her no help was to be expected. Alethia locked her door that +night, and placed such ramparts of furniture against it that the +maid had great difficulty in breaking in with the early tea in the +morning. + +After breakfast Alethia, on the pretext of going to look at an +outlying rose-garden, slipped away to the village through which they +had passed on the previous evening. She remembered that Robert had +pointed out to her a public reading-room, and here she considered it +possible that she might meet Sir John Chobham, or some one who knew +him well and would carry a message to him. The room was empty when +she entered it; a Graphic twelve days old, a yet older copy of +Punch, and one or two local papers lay upon the central table; the +other tables were stacked for the most part with chess and draughts- +boards, and wooden boxes of chessmen and dominoes. Listlessly she +picked up one of the papers, the Sentinel, and glanced at its +contents. Suddenly she started, and began to read with breathless +attention a prominently printed article, headed "A Little Limelight +on Sir John Chobham." The colour ebbed away from her face, a look +of frightened despair crept into her eyes. Never, in any novel that +she had read, had a defenceless young woman been confronted with a +situation like this. Sir John, the Hugo of her imagination, was, if +anything, rather more depraved and despicable than Robert Bludward. +He was mean, evasive, callously indifferent to his country's +interests, a cheat, a man who habitually broke his word, and who was +responsible, with his associates, for most of the poverty, misery, +crime, and national degradation with which the country was +afflicted. He was also a candidate for Parliament, it seemed, and +as there was only one seat in this particular locality, it was +obvious that the success of either Robert or Sir John would mean a +check to the ambitions of the other, hence, no doubt, the rivalry +and enmity between these otherwise kindred souls. One was seeking +to have his enemy done to death, the other was apparently trying to +stir up his supporters to an act of "Lynch law". All this in order +that there might be an unopposed election, that one or other of the +candidates might go into Parliament with honeyed eloquence on his +lips and blood on his heart. Were men really so vile? + +"I must go back to Webblehinton at once," Alethia informed her +astonished hostess at lunch time; "I have had a telegram. A friend +is very seriously ill and I have been sent for." + +It was dreadful to have to concoct lies, but it would be more +dreadful to have to spend another night under that roof. + +Alethia reads novels now with even greater appreciation than before. +She has been herself in the world outside Webblehinton, the world +where the great dramas of sin and villainy are played unceasingly. +She had come unscathed through it, but what might have happened if +she had gone unsuspectingly to visit Sir John Chobham and warn him +of his danger? What indeed! She had been saved by the fearless +outspokenness of the local Press. + + + +THE INTERLOPERS + + + +In a forest of mixed growth somewhere on the eastern spurs of the +Karpathians, a man stood one winter night watching and listening, as +though he waited for some beast of the woods to come within the +range of his vision, and, later, of his rifle. But the game for +whose presence he kept so keen an outlook was none that figured in +the sportsman's calendar as lawful and proper for the chase; Ulrich +von Gradwitz patrolled the dark forest in quest of a human enemy. + +The forest lands of Gradwitz were of wide extent and well stocked +with game; the narrow strip of precipitous woodland that lay on its +outskirt was not remarkable for the game it harboured or the +shooting it afforded, but it was the most jealously guarded of all +its owner's territorial possessions. A famous law suit, in the days +of his grandfather, had wrested it from the illegal possession of a +neighbouring family of petty landowners; the dispossessed party had +never acquiesced in the judgment of the Courts, and a long series of +poaching affrays and similar scandals had embittered the +relationships between the families for three generations. The +neighbour feud had grown into a personal one since Ulrich had come +to be head of his family; if there was a man in the world whom he +detested and wished ill to it was Georg Znaeym, the inheritor of the +quarrel and the tireless game-snatcher and raider of the disputed +border-forest. The feud might, perhaps, have died down or been +compromised if the personal ill-will of the two men had not stood in +the way; as boys they had thirsted for one another's blood, as men +each prayed that misfortune might fall on the other, and this wind- +scourged winter night Ulrich had banded together his foresters to +watch the dark forest, not in quest of four-footed quarry, but to +keep a look-out for the prowling thieves whom he suspected of being +afoot from across the land boundary. The roebuck, which usually +kept in the sheltered hollows during a storm-wind, were running like +driven things to-night, and there was movement and unrest among the +creatures that were wont to sleep through the dark hours. Assuredly +there was a disturbing element in the forest, and Ulrich could guess +the quarter from whence it came. + +He strayed away by himself from the watchers whom he had placed in +ambush on the crest of the hill, and wandered far down the steep +slopes amid the wild tangle of undergrowth, peering through the tree +trunks and listening through the whistling and skirling of the wind +and the restless beating of the branches for sight and sound of the +marauders. If only on this wild night, in this dark, lone spot, he +might come across Georg Znaeym, man to man, with none to witness-- +that was the wish that was uppermost in his thoughts. And as he +stepped round the trunk of a huge beech he came face to face with +the man he sought. + +The two enemies stood glaring at one another for a long silent +moment. Each had a rifle in his hand, each had hate in his heart +and murder uppermost in his mind. The chance had come to give full +play to the passions of a lifetime. But a man who has been brought +up under the code of a restraining civilisation cannot easily nerve +himself to shoot down his neighbour in cold blood and without word +spoken, except for an offence against his hearth and honour. And +before the moment of hesitation had given way to action a deed of +Nature's own violence overwhelmed them both. A fierce shriek of the +storm had been answered by a splitting crash over their heads, and +ere they could leap aside a mass of falling beech tree had thundered +down on them. Ulrich von Gradwitz found himself stretched on the +ground, one arm numb beneath him and the other held almost as +helplessly in a tight tangle of forked branches, while both legs +were pinned beneath the fallen mass. His heavy shooting-boots had +saved his feet from being crushed to pieces, but if his fractures +were not as serious as they might have been, at least it was evident +that he could not move from his present position till some one came +to release him. The descending twig had slashed the skin of his +face, and he had to wink away some drops of blood from his eyelashes +before he could take in a general view of the disaster. At his +side, so near that under ordinary circumstances he could almost have +touched him, lay Georg Znaeym, alive and struggling, but obviously +as helplessly pinioned down as himself. All round them lay a thick- +strewn wreckage of splintered branches and broken twigs. + +Relief at being alive and exasperation at his captive plight brought +a strange medley of pious thank-offerings and sharp curses to +Ulrich's lips. Georg, who was early blinded with the blood which +trickled across his eyes, stopped his struggling for a moment to +listen, and then gave a short, snarling laugh. + +"So you're not killed, as you ought to be, but you're caught, +anyway," he cried; "caught fast. Ho, what a jest, Ulrich von +Gradwitz snared in his stolen forest. There's real justice for +you!" + +And he laughed again, mockingly and savagely. + +"I'm caught in my own forest-land," retorted Ulrich. "When my men +come to release us you will wish, perhaps, that you were in a better +plight than caught poaching on a neighbour's land, shame on you." + +Georg was silent for a moment; then he answered quietly: + +"Are you sure that your men will find much to release? I have men, +too, in the forest to-night, close behind me, and THEY will be here +first and do the releasing. When they drag me out from under these +damned branches it won't need much clumsiness on their part to roll +this mass of trunk right over on the top of you. Your men will find +you dead under a fallen beech tree. For form's sake I shall send my +condolences to your family." + +"It is a useful hint," said Ulrich fiercely. "My men had orders to +follow in ten minutes time, seven of which must have gone by +already, and when they get me out--I will remember the hint. Only +as you will have met your death poaching on my lands I don't think I +can decently send any message of condolence to your family." + +"Good," snarled Georg, "good. We fight this quarrel out to the +death, you and I and our foresters, with no cursed interlopers to +come between us. Death and damnation to you, Ulrich von Gradwitz." + +"The same to you, Georg Znaeym, forest-thief, game-snatcher." + +Both men spoke with the bitterness of possible defeat before them, +for each knew that it might be long before his men would seek him +out or find him; it was a bare matter of chance which party would +arrive first on the scene. + +Both had now given up the useless struggle to free themselves from +the mass of wood that held them down; Ulrich limited his endeavours +to an effort to bring his one partially free arm near enough to his +outer coat-pocket to draw out his wine-flask. Even when he had +accomplished that operation it was long before he could manage the +unscrewing of the stopper or get any of the liquid down his throat. +But what a Heaven-sent draught it seemed! It was an open winter, +and little snow had fallen as yet, hence the captives suffered less +from the cold than might have been the case at that season of the +year; nevertheless, the wine was warming and reviving to the wounded +man, and he looked across with something like a throb of pity to +where his enemy lay, just keeping the groans of pain and weariness +from crossing his lips. + +"Could you reach this flask if I threw it over to you?" asked Ulrich +suddenly; "there is good wine in it, and one may as well be as +comfortable as one can. Let us drink, even if to-night one of us +dies." + +"No, I can scarcely see anything; there is so much blood caked round +my eyes," said Georg, "and in any case I don't drink wine with an +enemy." + +Ulrich was silent for a few minutes, and lay listening to the weary +screeching of the wind. An idea was slowly forming and growing in +his brain, an idea that gained strength every time that he looked +across at the man who was fighting so grimly against pain and +exhaustion. In the pain and languor that Ulrich himself was feeling +the old fierce hatred seemed to be dying down. + +"Neighbour," he said presently, "do as you please if your men come +first. It was a fair compact. But as for me, I've changed my mind. +If my men are the first to come you shall be the first to be helped, +as though you were my guest. We have quarrelled like devils all our +lives over this stupid strip of forest, where the trees can't even +stand upright in a breath of wind. Lying here to-night thinking +I've come to think we've been rather fools; there are better things +in life than getting the better of a boundary dispute. Neighbour, +if you will help me to bury the old quarrel I--I will ask you to be +my friend." + +Georg Znaeym was silent for so long that Ulrich thought, perhaps, he +had fainted with the pain of his injuries. Then he spoke slowly and +in jerks. + +"How the whole region would stare and gabble if we rode into the +market-square together. No one living can remember seeing a Znaeym +and a von Gradwitz talking to one another in friendship. And what +peace there would be among the forester folk if we ended our feud +to-night. And if we choose to make peace among our people there is +none other to interfere, no interlopers from outside . . . You would +come and keep the Sylvester night beneath my roof, and I would come +and feast on some high day at your castle . . . I would never fire a +shot on your land, save when you invited me as a guest; and you +should come and shoot with me down in the marshes where the wildfowl +are. In all the countryside there are none that could hinder if we +willed to make peace. I never thought to have wanted to do other +than hate you all my life, but I think I have changed my mind about +things too, this last half-hour. And you offered me your wineflask +. . . Ulrich von Gradwitz, I will be your friend." + +For a space both men were silent, turning over in their minds the +wonderful changes that this dramatic reconciliation would bring +about. In the cold, gloomy forest, with the wind tearing in fitful +gusts through the naked branches and whistling round the tree- +trunks, they lay and waited for the help that would now bring +release and succour to both parties. And each prayed a private +prayer that his men might be the first to arrive, so that he might +be the first to show honourable attention to the enemy that had +become a friend. + +Presently, as the wind dropped for a moment, Ulrich broke silence. + +"Let's shout for help," he said; he said; "in this lull our voices +may carry a little way." + +"They won't carry far through the trees and undergrowth," said +Georg, "but we can try. Together, then." + +The two raised their voices in a prolonged hunting call. + +"Together again," said Ulrich a few minutes later, after listening +in vain for an answering halloo. + +"I heard nothing but the pestilential wind," said Georg hoarsely. + +There was silence again for some minutes, and then Ulrich gave a +joyful cry. + +"I can see figures coming through the wood. They are following in +the way I came down the hillside." + +Both men raised their voices in as loud a shout as they could +muster. + +"They hear us! They've stopped. Now they see us. They're running +down the hill towards us," cried Ulrich. + +"How many of them are there?" asked Georg. + +"I can't see distinctly," said Ulrich; "nine or ten," + +"Then they are yours," said Georg; "I had only seven out with me." + +"They are making all the speed they can, brave lads," said Ulrich +gladly. + +"Are they your men?" asked Georg. "Are they your men?" he repeated +impatiently as Ulrich did not answer. + +"No," said Ulrich with a laugh, the idiotic chattering laugh of a +man unstrung with hideous fear. + +"Who are they?" asked Georg quickly, straining his eyes to see what +the other would gladly not have seen. + +"Wolves." + + + +QUAIL SEED + + + +"The outlook is not encouraging for us smaller businesses," said Mr. +Scarrick to the artist and his sister, who had taken rooms over his +suburban grocery store. "These big concerns are offering all sorts +of attractions to the shopping public which we couldn't afford to +imitate, even on a small scale--reading-rooms and play-rooms and +gramophones and Heaven knows what. People don't care to buy half a +pound of sugar nowadays unless they can listen to Harry Lauder and +have the latest Australian cricket scores ticked off before their +eyes. With the big Christmas stock we've got in we ought to keep +half a dozen assistants hard at work, but as it is my nephew Jimmy +and myself can pretty well attend to it ourselves. It's a nice +stock of goods, too, if I could only run it off in a few weeks time, +but there's no chance of that--not unless the London line was to get +snowed up for a fortnight before Christmas. I did have a sort of +idea of engaging Miss Luffcombe to give recitations during +afternoons; she made a great hit at the Post Office entertainment +with her rendering of 'Little Beatrice's Resolve'." + +"Anything less likely to make your shop a fashionable shopping +centre I can't imagine," said the artist, with a very genuine +shudder; "if I were trying to decide between the merits of Carlsbad +plums and confected figs as a winter dessert it would infuriate me +to have my train of thought entangled with little Beatrice's resolve +to be an Angel of Light or a girl scout. No," he continued, "the +desire to get something thrown in for nothing is a ruling passion +with the feminine shopper, but you can't afford to pander +effectively to it. Why not appeal to another instinct; which +dominates not only the woman shopper but the male shopper--in fact, +the entire human race?" + +"What is that instinct, sir?" said the grocer. + +* * * + +Mrs. Greyes and Miss Fritten had missed the 2.18 to Town, and as +there was not another train till 3.12 they thought that they might +as well make their grocery purchases at Scarrick's. It would not be +sensational, they agreed, but it would still be shopping. + +For some minutes they had the shop almost to themselves, as far as +customers were concerned, but while they were debating the +respective virtues and blemishes of two competing brands of anchovy +paste they were startled by an order, given across the counter, for +six pomegranates and a packet of quail seed. Neither commodity was +in general demand in that neighbourhood. Equally unusual was the +style and appearance of the customer; about sixteen years old, with +dark olive skin, large dusky eyes, and think, low-growing, blue- +black hair, he might have made his living as an artist's model. As +a matter of fact he did. The bowl of beaten brass that he produced +for the reception of his purchases was distinctly the most +astonishing variation on the string bag or marketing basket of +suburban civilisation that his fellow-shoppers had ever seen. He +threw a gold piece, apparently of some exotic currency, across the +counter, and did not seem disposed to wait for any change that might +be forthcoming. + +"The wine and figs were not paid for yesterday," he said; "keep what +is over of the money for our future purchases." + +"A very strange-looking boy?" said Mrs. Greyes interrogatively to +the grocer as soon as his customer had left. + +"A foreigner, I believe," said Mr. Scarrick, with a shortness that +was entirely out of keeping with his usually communicative manner. + +"I wish for a pound and a half of the best coffee you have," said an +authoritative voice a moment or two later. The speaker was a tall, +authoritative-looking man of rather outlandish aspect, remarkable +among other things for a full black beard, worn in a style more in +vogue in early Assyria than in a London suburb of the present day. + +"Has a dark-faced boy been here buying pomegranates?" he asked +suddenly, as the coffee was being weighed out to him. + +The two ladies almost jumped on hearing the grocer reply with an +unblushing negative. + +"We have a few pomegranates in stock," he continued, "but there has +been no demand for them." + +"My servant will fetch the coffee as usual," said the purchaser, +producing a coin from a wonderful metal-work purse. As an apparent +afterthought he fired out the question: "Have you, perhaps, any +quail seed?" + +"No," said the grocer, without hesitation, "we don't stock it." + +"What will he deny next?" asked Mrs. Greyes under her breath. What +made it seem so much worse was the fact that Mr. Scarrick had quite +recently presided at a lecture on Savonarola. + +Turning up the deep astrachan collar of his long coat, the stranger +swept out of the shop, with the air, Miss Fritten afterwards +described it, of a Satrap proroguing a Sanhedrim. Whether such a +pleasant function ever fell to a Satrap's lot she was not quite +certain, but the simile faithfully conveyed her meaning to a large +circle of acquaintances. + +"Don't let's bother about the 3.12," said Mrs. Greyes; "let's go and +talk this over at Laura Lipping's. It's her day." + +When the dark-faced boy arrived at the shop next day with his brass +marketing bowl there was quite a fair gathering of customers, most +of whom seemed to be spinning out their purchasing operations with +the air of people who had very little to do with their time. In a +voice that was heard all over the shop, perhaps because everybody +was intently listening, he asked for a pound of honey and a packet +of quail seed. + +"More quail seed!" said Miss Fritten. "Those quails must be +voracious, or else it isn't quail seed at all." + +"I believe it's opium, and the bearded man is a detective," said +Mrs. Greyes brilliantly. + +"I don't," said Laura Lipping; "I'm sure it's something to do with +the Portuguese Throne." + +"More likely to be a Persian intrigue on behalf of the ex-Shah," +said Miss Fritten; "the bearded man belongs to the Government Party. +The quail-seed is a countersign, of course; Persia is almost next +door to Palestine, and quails come into the Old Testament, you +know." + +"Only as a miracle," said her well-informed younger sister; "I've +thought all along it was part of a love intrigue." + +The boy who had so much interest and speculation centred on him was +on the point of departing with his purchases when he was waylaid by +Jimmy, the nephew-apprentice, who, from his post at the cheese and +bacon counter, commanded a good view of the street. + +"We have some very fine Jaffa oranges," he said hurriedly, pointing +to a corner where they were stored, behind a high rampart of biscuit +tins. There was evidently more in the remark than met the ear. The +boy flew at the oranges with the enthusiasm of a ferret finding a +rabbit family at home after a long day of fruitless subterranean +research. Almost at the same moment the bearded stranger stalked +into the shop, and flung an order for a pound of dates and a tin of +the best Smyrna halva across the counter. The most adventurous +housewife in the locality had never heard of halva, but Mr. Scarrick +was apparently able to produce the best Smyrna variety of it without +a moment's hesitation. + +"We might be living in the Arabian Nights," said Miss Fritten, +excitedly. + +"Hush! Listen," beseeched Mrs. Greyes. + +"Has the dark-faced boy, of whom I spoke yesterday, been here to- +day?" asked the stranger. + +"We've had rather more people than usual in the shop to-day," said +Mr. Scarrick, "but I can't recall a boy such as you describe." + +Mrs. Greyes and Miss Fritten looked round triumphantly at their +friends. It was, of course, deplorable that any one should treat +the truth as an article temporarily and excusably out of stock, but +they felt gratified that the vivid accounts they had given of Mr. +Scarrick's traffic in falsehoods should receive confirmation at +first hand. + +"I shall never again be able to believe what he tells me about the +absence of colouring matter in the jam," whispered an aunt of Mrs. +Greyes tragically. + +The mysterious stranger took his departure; Laura Lipping distinctly +saw a snarl of baffled rage reveal itself behind his heavy moustache +and upturned astrachan collar. After a cautious interval the seeker +after oranges emerged from behind the biscuit tins, having +apparently failed to find any individual orange that satisfied his +requirements. He, too, took his departure, and the shop was slowly +emptied of its parcel and gossip laden customers. It was Emily +Yorling's "day", and most of the shoppers made their way to her +drawing-room. To go direct from a shopping expedition to a tea +party was what was known locally as "living in a whirl". + +Two extra assistants had been engaged for the following afternoon, +and their services were in brisk demand; the shop was crowded. +People bought and bought, and never seemed to get to the end of +their lists. Mr. Scarrick had never had so little difficulty in +persuading customers to embark on new experiences in grocery wares. +Even those women whose purchases were of modest proportions dawdled +over them as though they had brutal, drunken husbands to go home to. +The afternoon had dragged uneventfully on, and there was a distinct +buzz of unpent excitement when a dark-eyed boy carrying a brass bowl +entered the shop. The excitement seemed to have communicated itself +to Mr. Scarrick; abruptly deserting a lady who was making insincere +inquiries about the home life of the Bombay duck, he intercepted the +newcomer on his way to the accustomed counter and informed him, amid +a deathlike hush, that he had run out of quail seed. + +The boy looked nervously round the shop, and turned hesitatingly to +go. He was again intercepted, this time by the nephew, who darted +out from behind his counter and said something about a better line +of oranges. The boy's hesitation vanished; he almost scuttled into +the obscurity of the orange corner. There was an expectant turn of +public attention towards the door, and the tall, bearded stranger +made a really effective entrance. The aunt of Mrs. Greyes declared +afterwards that she found herself sub-consciously repeating "The +Assyrian came down like a wolf on the fold" under her breath, and +she was generally believed. + +The newcomer, too, was stopped before he reached the counter, but +not by Mr. Scarrick or his assistant. A heavily veiled lady, whom +no one had hitherto noticed, rose languidly from a seat and greeted +him in a clear, penetrating voice. + +"Your Excellency does his shopping himself?" she said. + +"I order the things myself," he explained; "I find it difficult to +make my servants understand." + +In a lower, but still perfectly audible, voice the veiled lady gave +him a piece of casual information. + +"They have some excellent Jaffa oranges here." Then with a tinkling +laugh she passed out of the shop. + +The man glared all round the shop, and then, fixing his eyes +instinctively on the barrier of biscuit tins, demanded loudly of the +grocer: "You have, perhaps, some good Jaffa oranges?" + +Every one expected an instant denial on the part of Mr. Scarrick of +any such possession. Before he could answer, however, the boy had +broken forth from his sanctuary. Holding his empty brass bowl +before him he passed out into the street. His face was variously +described afterwards as masked with studied indifference, overspread +with ghastly pallor, and blazing with defiance. Some said that his +teeth chattered, others that he went out whistling the Persian +National Hymn. There was no mistaking, however, the effect produced +by the encounter on the man who had seemed to force it. If a rabid +dog or a rattlesnake had suddenly thrust its companionship on him he +could scarcely have displayed a greater access of terror. His air +of authority and assertiveness had gone, his masterful stride had +given way to a furtive pacing to and fro, as of an animal seeking an +outlet for escape. In a dazed perfunctory manner, always with his +eyes turning to watch the shop entrance, he gave a few random +orders, which the grocer made a show of entering in his book. Now +and then he walked out into the street, looked anxiously in all +directions, and hurried back to keep up his pretence of shopping. +From one of these sorties he did not return; he had dashed away into +the dusk, and neither he nor the dark-faced boy nor the veiled lady +were seen again by the expectant crowds that continued to throng the +Scarrick establishment for days to come. + +* * * + +"I can never thank you and your sister sufficiently," said the +grocer. + +"We enjoyed the fun of it," said the artist modestly, "and as for +the model, it was a welcome variation on posing for hours for 'The +Lost Hylas'." + +"At any rate," said the grocer, "I insist on paying for the hire of +the black beard." + + + +CANOSSA + + + +Demosthenes Platterbaff, the eminent Unrest Inducer, stood on his +trial for a serious offence, and the eyes of the political world +were focussed on the jury. The offence, it should be stated, was +serious for the Government rather than for the prisoner. He had +blown up the Albert Hall on the eve of the great Liberal Federation +Tango Tea, the occasion on which the Chancellor of the Exchequer was +expected to propound his new theory: "Do partridges spread +infectious diseases?" Platterbaff had chosen his time well; the +Tango Tea had been hurriedly postponed, but there were other +political fixtures which could not be put off under any +circumstances. The day after the trial there was to be a by- +election at Nemesis-on-Hand, and it had been openly announced in the +division that if Platterbaff were languishing in gaol on polling day +the Government candidate would be "outed" to a certainty. +Unfortunately, there could be no doubt or misconception as to +Platterbaff's guilt. He had not only pleaded guilty, but had +expressed his intention of repeating his escapade in other +directions as soon as circumstances permitted; throughout the trial +he was busy examining a small model of the Free Trade Hall in +Manchester. The jury could not possibly find that the prisoner had +not deliberately and intentionally blown up the Albert Hall; the +question was: Could they find any extenuating circumstances which +would permit of an acquittal? Of course any sentence which the law +might feel compelled to inflict would be followed by an immediate +pardon, but it was highly desirable, from the Government's point of +view, that the necessity for such an exercise of clemency should not +arise. A headlong pardon, on the eve of a bye-election, with +threats of a heavy voting defection if it were withheld or even +delayed, would not necessarily be a surrender, but it would look +like one. Opponents would be only too ready to attribute ungenerous +motives. Hence the anxiety in the crowded Court, and in the little +groups gathered round the tape-machines in Whitehall and Downing +Street and other affected centres. + +The jury returned from considering their verdict; there was a +flutter, an excited murmur, a death-like hush. The foreman +delivered his message: + +"The jury find the prisoner guilty of blowing up the Albert Hall. +The jury wish to add a rider drawing attention to the fact that a +by-election is pending in the Parliamentary division of Nemesis-on- +Hand." + +"That, of course," said the Government Prosecutor, springing to his +feet, "is equivalent to an acquittal?" + +"I hardly think so," said the Judge, coldly; "I feel obliged to +sentence the prisoner to a week's imprisonment." + +"And may the Lord have mercy on the poll," a Junior Counsel +exclaimed irreverently. + +It was a scandalous sentence, but then the Judge was not on the +Ministerial side in politics. + +The verdict and sentence were made known to the public at twenty +minutes past five in the afternoon; at half-past five a dense crowd +was massed outside the Prime Minister's residence lustily singing, +to the air of "Trelawney": + + +"And should our Hero rot in gaol, +For e'en a single day, +There's Fifteen Hundred Voting Men +Will vote the other way." + + +"Fifteen hundred," said the Prime Minister, with a shudder; "it's +too horrible to think of. Our majority last time was only a +thousand and seven." + +"The poll opens at eight to-morrow morning," said the Chief +Organiser; "we must have him out by 7 a.m." + +"Seven-thirty," amended the Prime Minister; "we must avoid any +appearance of precipitancy." + +"Not later than seven-thirty, then," said the Chief Organiser; "I +have promised the agent down there that he shall be able to display +posters announcing 'Platterbaff is Out,' before the poll opens. He +said it was our only chance of getting a telegram 'Radprop is In' +to-night." + +At half-past seven the next morning the Prime Minister and the Chief +Organiser sat at breakfast, making a perfunctory meal, and awaiting +the return of the Home Secretary, who had gone in person to +superintend the releasing of Platterbaff. Despite the earliness of +the hour a small crowd had gathered in the street outside, and the +horrible menacing Trelawney refrain of the "Fifteen Hundred Voting +Men" came in a steady, monotonous chant. + +"They will cheer presently when they hear the news," said the Prime +Minister hopefully; "hark! They are booing some one now! That must +be McKenna." + +The Home Secretary entered the room a moment later, disaster written +on his face. + +"He won't go!" he exclaimed. + +"Won't go? Won't leave gaol?" + +"He won't go unless he has a brass band. He says he never has left +prison without a brass band to play him out, and he's not going to +go without one now." + +"But surely that sort of thing is provided by his supporters and +admirers?" said the Prime Minister; "we can hardly be supposed to +supply a released prisoner with a brass band. How on earth could we +defend it on the Estimates?" + +"His supporters say it is up to us to provide the music," said the +Home Secretary; "they say we put him in prison, and it's our affair +to see that he leaves it in a respectable manner. Anyway, he won't +go unless he has a band." + +The telephone squealed shrilly; it was a trunk call from Nemesis. + +"Poll opens in five minutes. Is Platterbaff out yet? In Heaven's +name, why--" + +The Chief Organiser rang off. + +"This is not a moment for standing on dignity," he observed bluntly; +"musicians must be supplied at once. Platterbaff must have his +band." + +"Where are you going to find the musicians?" asked the Home +Secretary wearily; "we can't employ a military band, in fact, I +don't think he'd have one if we offered it, and there ain't any +others. There's a musicians' strike on, I suppose you know." + +"Can't you get a strike permit?" asked the Organiser. + +"I'll try," said the Home Secretary, and went to the telephone. + +Eight o'clock struck. The crowd outside chanted with an increasing +volume of sound: + + +"Will vote the other way." + + +A telegram was brought in. It was from the central committee rooms +at Nemesis. "Losing twenty votes per minute," was its brief +message. + +Ten o'clock struck. The Prime Minister, the Home Secretary, the +Chief Organiser, and several earnest helpful friends were gathered +in the inner gateway of the prison, talking volubly to Demosthenes +Platterbaff, who stood with folded arms and squarely planted feet, +silent in their midst. Golden-tongued legislators whose eloquence +had swayed the Marconi Inquiry Committee, or at any rate the greater +part of it, expended their arts of oratory in vain on this stubborn +unyielding man. Without a band he would not go; and they had no +band. + +A quarter past ten, half-past. A constant stream of telegraph boys +poured in through the prison gates. + +"Yamley's factory hands just voted you can guess how," ran a +despairing message, and the others were all of the same tenour. +Nemesis was going the way of Reading. + +"Have you any band instruments of an easy nature to play?" demanded +the Chief Organiser of the Prison Governor; "drums, cymbals, those +sort of things?" + +"The warders have a private band of their own," said the Governor, +"but of course I couldn't allow the men themselves--" + +"Lend us the instruments," said the Chief Organiser. + +One of the earnest helpful friends was a skilled performer on the +cornet, the Cabinet Ministers were able to clash cymbals more or +less in tune, and the Chief Organiser has some knowledge of the +drum. + +"What tune would you prefer?" he asked Platterbaff. + +"The popular song of the moment," replied the Agitator after a +moment's reflection. + +It was a tune they had all heard hundreds of times, so there was no +difficulty in turning out a passable imitation of it. To the +improvised strains of "I didn't want to do it" the prisoner strode +forth to freedom. The word of the song had reference, it was +understood, to the incarcerating Government and not to the destroyer +of the Albert Hall. + +The seat was lost, after all, by a narrow majority. The local Trade +Unionists took offence at the fact of Cabinet Ministers having +personally acted as strike-breakers, and even the release of +Platterbaff failed to pacify them. + +The seat was lost, but Ministers had scored a moral victory. They +had shown that they knew when and how to yield. + + + +THE THREAT + + + +Sir Lulworth Quayne sat in the lounge of his favourite restaurant, +the Gallus Bankiva, discussing the weaknesses of the world with his +nephew, who had lately returned from a much-enlivened exile in the +wilds of Mexico. It was that blessed season of the year when the +asparagus and the plover's egg are abroad in the land, and the +oyster has not yet withdrawn into it's summer entrenchments, and Sir +Lulworth and his nephew were in that enlightened after-dinner mood +when politics are seen in their right perspective, even the politics +of Mexico. + +"Most of the revolutions that take place in this country nowadays," +said Sir Lulworth, "are the product of moments of legislative panic. +Take, for instance, one of the most dramatic reforms that has been +carried through Parliament in the lifetime of this generation. It +happened shortly after the coal strike, of unblessed memory. To +you, who have been plunged up to the neck in events of a more +tangled and tumbled description, the things I am going to tell you +of may seem of secondary interest, but after all we had to live in +the midst of them." + +Sir Lulworth interrupted himself for a moment to say a few kind +words to the liqueur brandy he had just tasted, and them resumed his +narrative. + +"Whether one sympathises with the agitation for female suffrage or +not one has to admit that its promoters showed tireless energy and +considerable enterprise in devising and putting into action new +methods for accomplishing their ends. As a rule they were a +nuisance and a weariness to the flesh, but there were times when +they verged on the picturesque. There was the famous occasion when +they enlivened and diversified the customary pageantry of the Royal +progress to open Parliament by letting loose thousands of parrots, +which had been carefully trained to scream 'Votes for women,' and +which circled round his Majesty's coach in a clamorous cloud of +green, and grey and scarlet. It was really rather a striking +episode from the spectacular point of view; unfortunately, however, +for its devisers, the secret of their intentions had not been well +kept, and their opponents let loose at the same moment a rival swarm +of parrots, which screeched 'I DON'T think' and other hostile cries, +thereby robbing the demonstration of the unanimity which alone could +have made it politically impressive. In the process of recapture +the birds learned a quantity of additional language which unfitted +them for further service in the Suffragette cause; some of the green +ones were secured by ardent Home Rule propagandists and trained to +disturb the serenity of Orange meetings by pessimistic reflections +on Sir Edward Carson's destination in the life to come. In fact, +the bird in politics is a factor that seems to have come to stay; +quite recently, at a political gathering held in a dimly-lighted +place of worship, the congregation gave a respectful hearing for +nearly ten minutes to a jackdaw from Wapping, under the impression +that they were listening to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who was +late in arriving." + +"But the Suffragettes," interrupted the nephew; "what did they do +next?" + +"After the bird fiasco," said Sir Lulworth, "the militant section +made a demonstration of a more aggressive nature; they assembled in +force on the opening day of the Royal Academy Exhibition and +destroyed some three or four hundred of the pictures. This proved +an even worse failure than the parrot business; every one agreed +that there was always far too many pictures in the Academy +Exhibition, and the drastic weeding out of a few hundred canvases +was regarded as a positive improvement. Moreover, from the artists' +point of view it was realised that the outrage constituted a sort of +compensation for those whose works were persistently 'skied', since +out of sight meant also out of reach. Altogether it was one of the +most successful and popular exhibitions that the Academy had held +for many years. Then the fair agitators fell back on some of their +earlier methods; they wrote sweetly argumentative plays to prove +that they ought to have the vote, they smashed windows to show that +they must have the vote, and they kicked Cabinet Ministers to +demonstrate that they'd better have the vote, and still the coldly +reasoned or unreasoned reply was that they'd better not. Their +plight might have been summed up in a perversion of Gilbert's lines +- + + +"Twenty voteless millions we, +Voteless all against our will, +Twenty years hence we shall be +Twenty voteless millions still." + + +And of course the great idea for their master-stroke of strategy +came from a masculine source. Lena Dubarri, who was the captain- +general of their thinking department, met Waldo Orpington in the +Mall one afternoon, just at a time when the fortunes of the Cause +were at their lowest ebb. Waldo Orpington is a frivolous little +fool who chirrups at drawing-room concerts and can recognise bits +from different composers without referring to the programme, but all +the same he occasionally has ideas. He didn't care a twopenny +fiddlestring about the Cause, but he rather enjoyed the idea of +having his finger in the political pie. Also it is possible, though +I should think highly improbable, that he admired Lena Dubarri. +Anyhow, when Lena gave a rather gloomy account of the existing state +of things in the Suffragette World, Waldo was not merely sympathetic +but ready with a practical suggestion. Turning his gaze westward +along the Mall, towards the setting sun and Buckingham Palace, he +was silent for a moment, and then said significantly, 'You have +expended your energies and enterprise on labours of destruction; why +has it never occurred to you to attempt something far more +terrific?' + +"'What do you mean?' she asked him eagerly. + +"'Create.' + +"'Do you mean create disturbances? We've been doing nothing else +for months,' she said. + +"Waldo shook his head, and continued to look westward along the +Mall. He's rather good at acting in an amateur sort of fashion. +Lena followed his gaze, and then turned to him with a puzzled look +of inquiry. + +"'Exactly,' said Waldo, in answer to her look. + +"'But--how can we create?' she asked; 'it's been done already.' + +"'Do it AGAIN,' said Waldo, 'and again and again--' + +"Before he could finish the sentence she had kissed him. She +declared afterwards that he was the first man she had ever kissed, +and he declared that she was the first woman who had ever kissed him +in the Mall, so they both secured a record of a kind. + +"Within the next day or two a new departure was noticeable in +Suffragette tactics. They gave up worrying Ministers and Parliament +and took to worrying their own sympathisers and supporters--for +funds. The ballot-box was temporarily forgotten in the cult of the +collecting-box. The daughters of the horseleech were not more +persistent in their demands, the financiers of the tottering ancien +regime were not more desperate in their expedients for raising money +than the Suffragist workers of all sections at this juncture, and in +one way and another, by fair means and normal, they really got +together a very useful sum. What they were going to do with it no +one seemed to know, not even those who were most active in +collecting work. The secret on this occasion had been well kept. +Certain transactions that leaked out from time to time only added to +the mystery of the situation. + +"'Don't you long to know what we are going to do with our treasure +hoard?' Lena asked the Prime Minister one day when she happened to +sit next to him at a whist drive at the Chinese Embassy. + +"'I was hoping you were going to try a little personal bribery,' he +responded banteringly, but some genuine anxiety and curiosity lay +behind the lightness of his chaff; 'of course I know,' he added, +'that you have been buying up building sites in commanding +situations in and around the Metropolis. Two or three, I'm told, +are on the road to Brighton, and another near Ascot. You don't mean +to fortify them, do you?' + +"'Something more insidious than that,' she said; 'you could prevent +us from building forts; you can't prevent us from erecting an exact +replica of the Victoria Memorial on each of those sites. They're +all private property, with no building restrictions attached.' + +"'Which memorial?' he asked; 'not the one in front of Buckingham +Palace? Surely not that one?' + +"'That one,' she said. + +"'My dear lady,' he cried, 'you can't be serious. It is a beautiful +and imposing work of art--at any rate one is getting accustomed to +it, and even if one doesn't happen to admire it one can always look +in another direction. But imagine what life would be like if one +saw that erection confronting one wherever one went. Imagine the +effect on people with tired, harassed nerves who saw it three times +on the way to Brighton and three times on the way back. Imagine +seeing it dominate the landscape at Ascot, and trying to keep your +eye off it on the Sandwich golf links. What have your countrymen +done to deserve such a thing?' + +"'They have refused us the vote,' said Lena bitterly. + +"The Prime Minister always declared himself an opponent of anything +savouring of panic legislation, but he brought a Bill into +Parliament forthwith and successfully appealed to both Houses to +pass it through all its stages within the week. And that is how we +got one of the most glorious measures of the century." + +"A measure conferring the vote on women?" asked the nephew. + +"Oh dear, no. An Act which made it a penal offence to erect +commemorative statuary anywhere within three miles of a public +highway." + + + +EXCEPTING MRS. PENTHERBY + + + +It was Reggie Bruttle's own idea for converting what had threatened +to be an albino elephant into a beast of burden that should help him +along the stony road of his finances. "The Limes," which had come +to him by inheritance without any accompanying provision for its +upkeep, was one of those pretentious, unaccommodating mansions which +none but a man of wealth could afford to live in, and which not one +wealthy man in a hundred would choose on its merits. It might +easily languish in the estate market for years, set round with +noticeboards proclaiming it, in the eyes of a sceptical world, to be +an eminently desirable residence. + +Reggie's scheme was to turn it into the headquarters of a prolonged +country-house party, in session during the months from October till +the end of March--a party consisting of young or youngish people of +both sexes, too poor to be able to do much hunting or shooting on a +serious scale, but keen on getting their fill of golf, bridge, +dancing, and occasional theatre-going. No one was to be on the +footing of a paying guest, but every one was to rank as a paying +host; a committee would look after the catering and expenditure, and +an informal sub-committee would make itself useful in helping +forward the amusement side of the scheme. + +As it was only an experiment, there was to be a general agreement on +the part of those involved in it to be as lenient and mutually +helpful to one another as possible. Already a promising nucleus, +including one or two young married couples, had been got together, +and the thing seemed to be fairly launched. + +"With good management and a little unobtrusive hard work, I think +the thing ought to be a success," said Reggie, and Reggie was one of +those people who are painstaking first and optimistic afterwards. + +"There is one rock on which you will unfailingly come to grief, +manage you never so wisely," said Major Dagberry, cheerfully; "the +women will quarrel. Mind you," continued this prophet of disaster, +"I don't say that some of the men won't quarrel too, probably they +will; but the women are bound to. You can't prevent it; it's in the +nature of the sex. The hand that rocks the cradle rocks the world, +in a volcanic sense. A woman will endure discomforts, and make +sacrifices, and go without things to an heroic extent, but the one +luxury she will not go without is her quarrels. No matter where she +may be, or how transient her appearance on a scene, she will instal +her feminine feuds as assuredly as a Frenchman would concoct soup in +the waste of the Arctic regions. At the commencement of a sea +voyage, before the male traveller knows half a dozen of his fellow +passengers by sight, the average woman will have started a couple of +enmities, and laid in material for one or two more--provided, of +course, that there are sufficient women aboard to permit quarrelling +in the plural. If there's no one else she will quarrel with the +stewardess. This experiment of yours is to run for six months; in +less than five weeks there will be war to the knife declaring itself +in half a dozen different directions." + +"Oh, come, there are only eight women in the party; they won't pick +quarrels quite so soon as that," protested Reggie. + +"They won't all originate quarrels, perhaps," conceded the Major, +"but they will all take sides, and just as Christmas is upon you, +with its conventions of peace and good will, you will find yourself +in for a glacial epoch of cold, unforgiving hostility, with an +occasional Etna flare of open warfare. You can't help it, old boy; +but, at any rate, you can't say you were not warned." + +The first five weeks of the venture falsified Major Dagberry's +prediction and justified Reggie's optimism. There were, of course, +occasional small bickerings, and the existence of certain jealousies +might be detected below the surface of everyday intercourse; but, on +the whole, the womenfolk got on remarkably well together. There +was, however, a notable exception. It had not taken five weeks for +Mrs. Pentherby to get herself cordially disliked by the members of +her own sex; five days had been amply sufficient. Most of the women +declared that they had detested her the moment they set eyes on her; +but that was probably an afterthought. + +With the menfolk she got on well enough, without being of the type +of woman who can only bask in male society; neither was she lacking +in the general qualities which make an individual useful and +desirable as a member of a co-operative community. She did not try +to "get the better of" her fellow-hosts by snatching little +advantages or cleverly evading her just contributions; she was not +inclined to be boring or snobbish in the way of personal +reminiscence. She played a fair game of bridge, and her card-room +manners were irreproachable. But wherever she came in contact with +her own sex the light of battle kindled at once; her talent of +arousing animosity seemed to border on positive genius. + +Whether the object of her attentions was thick-skinned or sensitive, +quick-tempered or good-natured, Mrs. Pentherby managed to achieve +the same effect. She exposed little weaknesses, she prodded sore +places, she snubbed enthusiasms, she was generally right in a matter +of argument, or, if wrong, she somehow contrived to make her +adversary appear foolish and opinionated. She did, and said, +horrible things in a matter-of-fact innocent way, and she did, and +said, matter-of-fact innocent things in a horrible way. In short, +the unanimous feminine verdict on her was that she was +objectionable. + +There was no question of taking sides, as the Major had anticipated; +in fact, dislike of Mrs. Pentherby was almost a bond of union +between the other women, and more than one threatening disagreement +had been rapidly dissipated by her obvious and malicious attempts to +inflame and extend it; and the most irritating thing about her was +her successful assumption of unruffled composure at moments when the +tempers of her adversaries were with difficulty kept under control. +She made her most scathing remarks in the tone of a tube conductor +announcing that the next station is Brompton Road--the measured, +listless tone of one who knows he is right, but is utterly +indifferent to the fact that he proclaims. + +On one occasion Mrs. Val Gwepton, who was not blessed with the most +reposeful of temperaments, fairly let herself go, and gave Mrs. +Pentherby a vivid and truthful resume of her opinion of her. The +object of this unpent storm of accumulated animosity waited +patiently for a lull, and then remarked quietly to the angry little +woman - + +"And now, my dear Mrs. Gwepton, let me tell you something that I've +been wanting to say for the last two or three minutes, only you +wouldn't given me a chance; you've got a hairpin dropping out on the +left side. You thin-haired women always find it difficult to keep +your hairpins in." + +"What can one do with a woman like that?" Mrs. Val demanded +afterwards of a sympathising audience. + +Of course, Reggie received numerous hints as to the unpopularity of +this jarring personality. His sister-in-law openly tackled him on +the subject of her many enormities. Reggie listened with the +attenuated regret that one bestows on an earthquake disaster in +Bolivia or a crop failure in Eastern Turkestan, events which seem so +distant that one can almost persuade oneself they haven't happened. + +"That woman has got some hold over him," opined his sister-in-law, +darkly; "either she is helping him to finance the show, and presumes +on the fact, or else, which Heaven forbid, he's got some queer +infatuation for her. Men do take the most extraordinary fancies." + +Matters never came exactly to a crisis. Mrs. Pentherby, as a source +of personal offence, spread herself over so wide an area that no one +woman of the party felt impelled to rise up and declare that she +absolutely refused to stay another week in the same house with her. +What is everybody's tragedy is nobody's tragedy. There was ever a +certain consolation in comparing notes as to specific acts of +offence. Reggie's sister-in-law had the added interest of trying to +discover the secret bond which blunted his condemnation of Mrs. +Pentherby's long catalogue of misdeeds. There was little to go on +from his manner towards her in public, but he remained obstinately +unimpressed by anything that was said against her in private. + +With the one exception of Mrs. Pentherby's unpopularity, the house- +party scheme was a success on its first trial, and there was no +difficulty about reconstructing it on the same lines for another +winter session. It so happened that most of the women of the party, +and two or three of the men, would not be available on this +occasion, but Reggie had laid his plans well ahead and booked plenty +of "fresh blood" for the departure. It would be, if any thing, +rather a larger party than before. + +"I'm so sorry I can't join this winter," said Reggie's sister-in- +law, "but we must go to our cousins in Ireland; we've put them off +so often. What a shame! You'll have none of the same women this +time." + +"Excepting Mrs. Pentherby," said Reggie, demurely. + +"Mrs. Pentherby! SURELY, Reggie, you're not going to be so idiotic +as to have that woman again! She'll set all the women's backs up +just as she did this time. What IS this mysterious hold she's go +over you?" + +"She's invaluable," said Reggie; "she's my official quarreller." + +"Your--what did you say?" gasped his sister-in-law. + +"I introduced her into the house-party for the express purpose of +concentrating the feuds and quarrelling that would otherwise have +broken out in all directions among the womenkind. I didn't need the +advice and warning of sundry friends to foresee that we shouldn't +get through six months of close companionship without a certain +amount of pecking and sparring, so I thought the best thing was to +localise and sterilise it in one process. Of course, I made it well +worth the lady's while, and as she didn't know any of you from Adam, +and you don't even know her real name, she didn't mind getting +herself disliked in a useful cause." + +"You mean to say she was in the know all the time?" + +"Of course she was, and so were one or two of the men, so she was +able to have a good laugh with us behind the scenes when she'd done +anything particularly outrageous. And she really enjoyed herself. +You see, she's in the position of poor relation in a rather +pugnacious family, and her life has been largely spent in smoothing +over other people's quarrels. You can imagine the welcome relief of +being able to go about saying and doing perfectly exasperating +things to a whole houseful of women--and all in the cause of peace." + +"I think you are the most odious person in the whole world," said +Reggie's sister-in-law. Which was not strictly true; more than +anybody, more than ever she disliked Mrs. Pentherby. It was +impossible to calculate how many quarrels that woman had done her +out of. + + + +MARK + + + +Augustus Mellowkent was a novelist with a future; that is to say, a +limited but increasing number of people read his books, and there +seemed good reason to suppose that if he steadily continued to turn +out novels year by year a progressively increasing circle of readers +would acquire the Mellowkent habit, and demand his works from the +libraries and bookstalls. At the instigation of his publisher he +had discarded the baptismal Augustus and taken the front name of +Mark. + +"Women like a name that suggests some one strong and silent, able +but unwilling to answer questions. Augustus merely suggests idle +splendour, but such a name as Mark Mellowkent, besides being +alliterative, conjures up a vision of some one strong and beautiful +and good, a sort of blend of Georges Carpentier and the Reverend +What's-his-name." + +One morning in December Augustus sat in his writing-room, at work on +the third chapter of his eighth novel. He had described at some +length, for the benefit of those who could not imagine it, what a +rectory garden looks like in July; he was now engaged in describing +at greater length the feelings of a young girl, daughter of a long +line of rectors and archdeacons, when she discovers for the first +time that the postman is attractive. + +"Their eyes met, for a brief moment, as he handed her two circulars +and the fat wrapper-bound bulk of the East Essex News. Their eyes +met, for the merest fraction of a second, yet nothing could ever be +quite the same again. Cost what it might she felt that she must +speak, must break the intolerable, unreal silence that had fallen on +them. 'How is your mother's rheumatism?' she said." + +The author's labours were cut short by the sudden intrusion of a +maidservant. + +"A gentleman to see you, sir," said the maid, handing a card with +the name Caiaphas Dwelf inscribed on it; "says it's important." + +Mellowkent hesitated and yielded; the importance of the visitor's +mission was probably illusory, but he had never met any one with the +name Caiaphas before. It would be at least a new experience. + +Mr. Dwelf was a man of indefinite age; his high, narrow forehead, +cold grey eyes, and determined manner bespoke an unflinching +purpose. He had a large book under his arm, and there seemed every +probability that he had left a package of similar volumes in the +hall. He took a seat before it had been offered him, placed the +book on the table, and began to address Mellowkent in the manner of +an "open letter." + +"You are a literary man, the author of several well-known books--" + +"I am engage on a book at the present moment--rather busily +engaged," said Mellowkent, pointedly. + +"Exactly," said the intruder; "time with you is a commodity of +considerable importance. Minutes, even, have their value." + +"They have," agreed Mellowkent, looking at his watch. + +"That," said Caiaphas, "is why this book that I am introducing to +your notice is not a book that you can afford to be without. 'Right +Here' is indispensable for the writing man; it is no ordinary +encyclopaedia, or I should not trouble to show it to you. It is an +inexhaustible mine of concise information--" + +"On a shelf at my elbow," said the author, "I have a row of +reference books that supply me with all the information I am likely +to require." + +"Here," persisted the would-be salesman, "you have it all in one +compact volume. No matter what the subject may be which you wish to +look up, or the fact you desire to verify, 'Right Here' gives you +all that you want to know in the briefest and most enlightening +form. Historical reference, for instance; career of John Huss, let +us say. Here we are: 'Huss, John, celebrated religious reformer. +Born 1369, burned at Constance 1415. The Emperor Sigismund +universally blamed.'" + +"If he had been burnt in these days every one would have suspected +the Suffragettes," observed Mellowkent. + +"Poultry-keeping, now," resumed Caiaphas, "that's a subject that +might crop up in a novel dealing with English country life. Here we +have all about it: 'The Leghorn as egg-producer. Lack of maternal +instinct in the Minorca. Gapes in chickens, its cause and cure. +Ducklings for the early market, how fattened.' There, you see, +there it all is, nothing lacking." + +"Except the maternal instinct in the Minorca, and that you could +hardly be expected to supply." + +"Sporting records, that's important, too; now how many men, sporting +men even, are there who can say off-hand what horse won the Derby in +any particular year? Now it's just a little thing of that sort--" + +"My dear sir," interrupted Mellowkent, "there are at least four men +in my club who can not only tell me what horse won in any given +year, but what horse ought to have won and why it didn't. If your +book could supply a method for protecting one from information of +that sort it would do more than anything you have yet claimed for +it." + +"Geography," said Caiaphas, imperturbably; "that's a thing that a +busy man, writing at high pressure, may easily make a slip over. +Only the other day a well-known author made the Volga flow into the +Black Sea instead of the Caspian; now, with this book--" + +"On a polished rose-wood stand behind you there reposes a reliable +and up-to-date atlas," said Mellowkent; "and now I must really ask +you to be going." + +"An atlas," said Caiaphas, "gives merely the chart of the river's +course, and indicates the principal towns that it passes. Now Right +Here gives you the scenery, traffic, ferry-boat charges, the +prevalent types of fish, boatmen's slang terms, and hours of sailing +of the principal river steamers. If gives you--" + +Mellowkent sat and watched the hard-featured, resolute, pitiless +salesman, as he sat doggedly in the chair wherein he had installed +himself, unflinchingly extolling the merits of his undesired wares. +A spirit of wistful emulation took possession of the author; why +could he not live up to the cold stern name he had adopted? Why +must he sit here weakly and listen to this weary, unconvincing +tirade, why could he not be Mark Mellowkent for a few brief moments, +and meet this man on level terms? + +A sudden inspiration flashed across his. + +"Have you read my last book, The Cageless Linnet?" he asked. + +"I don't read novels," said Caiaphas tersely. + +"Oh, but you ought to read this one, every one ought to," exclaimed +Mellowkent, fishing the book down from a shelf; "published at six +shillings, you can have it at four-and-six. There is a bit in +chapter five that I feel sure you would like, where Emma is alone in +the birch copse waiting for Harold Huntingdon--that is the man her +family want her to marry. She really wants to marry him, too, but +she does not discover that till chapter fifteen. Listen: 'Far as +the eye could stretch rolled the mauve and purple billows of +heather, lit up here and there with the glowing yellow of gorse and +broom, and edged round with the delicate greys and silver and green +of the young birch trees. Tiny blue and brown butterflies fluttered +above the fronds of heather, revelling in the sunlight, and overhead +the larks were singing as only larks can sing. It was a day when +all Nature--" + +"In 'Right Here' you have full information on all branches of Nature +study," broke in the bookagent, with a tired note sounding in his +voice for the first time; "forestry, insect life, bird migration, +reclamation of waste lands. As I was saying, no man who has to deal +with the varied interests of life--" + +"I wonder if you would care for one of my earlier books, The +Reluctance of Lady Cullumpton," said Mellowkent, hunting again +through the bookshelf; "some people consider it my best novel. Ah, +here it is. I see there are one or two spots on the cover, so I +won't ask more than three-and-ninepence for it. Do let me read you +how it opens: + +"'Beatrice Lady Cullumpton entered the long, dimly-lit drawing-room, +her eyes blazing with a hope that she guessed to be groundless, her +lips trembling with a fear that she could not disguise. In her hand +she carried a small fan, a fragile toy of lace and satinwood. +Something snapped as she entered the room; she had crushed the fan +into a dozen pieces.' + +"There, what do you think of that for an opening? It tells you at +once that there's something afoot." + +"I don't read novels," said Caiaphas sullenly. + +"But just think what a resource they are," exclaimed the author, "on +long winter evenings, or perhaps when you are laid up with a +strained ankle--a thing that might happen to any one; or if you were +staying in a house-party with persistent wet weather and a stupid +hostess and insufferably dull fellow-guests, you would just make an +excuse that you had letters to write, go to your room, light a +cigarette, and for three-and-ninepence you could plunge into the +society of Beatrice Lady Cullumpton and her set. No one ought to +travel without one or two of my novels in their luggage as a stand- +by. A friend of mine said only the other day that he would as soon +think of going into the tropics without quinine as of going on a +visit without a couple of Mark Mellowkents in his kit-bag. Perhaps +sensation is more in your line. I wonder if I've got a copy of The +Python's Kiss." + +Caiaphas did not wait to be tempted with selections from that +thrilling work of fiction. With a muttered remark about having no +time to waste on monkey-talk, he gathered up his slighted volume and +departed. He made no audible reply to Mellowkent's cheerful "Good +morning," but the latter fancied that a look of respectful hatred +flickered in the cold grey eyes. + + + +THE HEDGEHOG + + + +A "Mixed Double" of young people were contesting a game of lawn +tennis at the Rectory garden party; for the past five-and-twenty +years at least mixed doubles of young people had done exactly the +same thing on exactly the same spot at about the same time of year. +The young people changed and made way for others in the course of +time, but very little else seemed to alter. The present players +were sufficiently conscious of the social nature of the occasion to +be concerned about their clothes and appearance, and sufficiently +sport-loving to be keen on the game. Both their efforts and their +appearance came under the fourfold scrutiny of a quartet of ladies +sitting as official spectators on a bench immediately commanding the +court. It was one of the accepted conditions of the Rectory garden +party that four ladies, who usually knew very little about tennis +and a great deal about the players, should sit at that particular +spot and watch the game. It had also come to be almost a tradition +that two ladies should be amiable, and that the other two should be +Mrs. Dole and Mrs. Hatch-Mallard. + +"What a singularly unbecoming way Eva Jonelet has taken to doing her +hair in," said Mrs. Hatch-Mallard; "it's ugly hair at the best of +times, but she needn't make it look ridiculous as well. Some one +ought to tell her." + +Eva Jonelet's hair might have escaped Mrs. Hatch-Mallard's +condemnation if she could have forgotten the more glaring fact that +Eva was Mrs. Dole's favourite niece. It would, perhaps, have been a +more comfortable arrangement if Mrs. Hatch-Mallard and Mrs. Dole +could have been asked to the Rectory on separate occasions, but +there was only one garden party in the course of the year, and +neither lady could have been omitted from the list of invitations +without hopelessly wrecking the social peace of the parish. + +"How pretty the yew trees look at this time of year," interposed a +lady with a soft, silvery voice that suggested a chinchilla muff +painted by Whistler. + +"What do you mean by this time of year?" demanded Mrs. Hatch- +Mallard. "Yew trees look beautiful at all times of the year. That +is their great charm." + +"Yew trees never look anything but hideous under any circumstances +or at any time of year," said Mrs. Dole, with the slow, emphatic +relish of one who contradicts for the pleasure of the thing. "They +are only fit for graveyards and cemeteries." + +Mrs. Hatch-Mallard gave a sardonic snort, which, being translated, +meant that there were some people who were better fitted for +cemeteries than for garden parties. + +"What is the score, please?" asked the lady with the chinchilla +voice. + +The desired information was given her by a young gentleman in +spotless white flannels, whose general toilet effect suggested +solicitude rather than anxiety. + +"What an odious young cub Bertie Dykson has become!" pronounced Mrs. +Dole, remembering suddenly that Bertie was a favourite with Mrs. +Hatch-Mallard. "The young men of to-day are not what they used to +be twenty years ago." + +"Of course not," said Mrs. Hatch-Mallard; "twenty years ago Bertie +Dykson was just two years old, and you must expect some difference +in appearance and manner and conversation between those two +periods." + +"Do you know," said Mrs. Dole, confidentially, "I shouldn't be +surprised if that was intended to be clever." + +"Have you any one interesting coming to stay with you, Mrs. +Norbury?" asked the chinchilla voice, hastily; "you generally have a +house party at this time of year." + +"I've got a most interesting woman coming," said Mrs. Norbury, who +had been mutely struggling for some chance to turn the conversation +into a safe channel; "an old acquaintance of mine, Ada Bleek--" + +"What an ugly name," said Mrs. Hatch-Mallard. + +"She's descended from the de la Bliques, an old Huguenot family of +Touraine, you know." + +"There weren't any Huguenots in Touraine," said Mrs. Hatch-Mallard, +who thought she might safely dispute any fact that was three hundred +years old. + +"Well, anyhow, she's coming to stay with me," continued Mrs. +Norbury, bringing her story quickly down to the present day, "she +arrives this evening, and she's highly clairvoyante, a seventh +daughter of a seventh daughter, you now, and all that sort of +thing." + +"How very interesting," said the chinchilla voice; "Exwood is just +the right place for her to come to, isn't it? There are supposed to +be several ghosts there." + +"That is why she was so anxious to come," said Mrs. Norbury; "she +put off another engagement in order to accept my invitation. She's +had visions and dreams, and all those sort of things, that have come +true in a most marvellous manner, but she's never actually seen a +ghost, and she's longing to have that experience. She belongs to +that Research Society, you know." + +"I expect she'll see the unhappy Lady Cullumpton, the most famous of +all the Exwood ghosts," said Mrs. Dole; "my ancestor, you know, Sir +Gervase Cullumpton, murdered his young bride in a fit of jealousy +while they were on a visit to Exwood. He strangled her in the +stables with a stirrup leather, just after they had come in from +riding, and she is seen sometimes at dusk going about the lawns and +the stable yard, in a long green habit, moaning and trying to get +the thong from round her throat. I shall be most interested to hear +if your friend sees--" + +"I don't know why she should be expected to see a trashy, +traditional apparition like the so-called Cullumpton ghost, that is +only vouched for by housemaids and tipsy stable-boys, when my uncle, +who was the owner of Exwood, committed suicide there under the most +tragical circumstances, and most certainly haunts the place." + +"Mrs. Hatch-Mallard has evidently never read Popple's County +History," said Mrs. Dole icily, "or she would know that the +Cullumpton ghost has a wealth of evidence behind it--" + +"Oh, Popple!" exclaimed Mrs. Hatch-Mallard scornfully; "any rubbishy +old story is good enough for him. Popple, indeed! Now my uncle's +ghost was seen by a Rural Dean, who was also a Justice of the Peace. +I should think that would be good enough testimony for any one. +Mrs. Norbury, I shall take it as a deliberate personal affront if +your clairvoyante friend sees any other ghost except that of my +uncle." + +"I daresay she won't see anything at all; she never has yet, you +know," said Mrs. Norbury hopefully. + +"It was a most unfortunate topic for me to have broached," she +lamented afterwards to the owner of the chinchilla voice; "Exwood +belongs to Mrs. Hatch-Mallard, and we've only got it on a short +lease. A nephew of hers has been wanting to live there for some +time, and if we offend her in any way she'll refuse to renew the +lease. I sometimes think these garden-parties are a mistake." + +The Norburys played bridge for the next three nights till nearly one +o'clock; they did not care for the game, but it reduced the time at +their guest's disposal for undesirable ghostly visitations. + +"Miss Bleek is not likely to be in a frame of mind to see ghosts," +said Hugo Norbury, "if she goes to bed with her brain awhirl with +royal spades and no trumps and grand slams." + +"I've talked to her for hours about Mrs. Hatch-Mallard's uncle," +said his wife, "and pointed out the exact spot where he killed +himself, and invented all sorts of impressive details, and I've +found an old portrait of Lord John Russell and put it in her room, +and told her that it's supposed to be a picture of the uncle in +middle age. If Ada does see a ghost at all it certainly ought to be +old Hatch-Mallard's. At any rate, we've done our best." + +The precautions were in vain. On the third morning of her stay Ada +Bleek came down late to breakfast, her eyes looking very tired, but +ablaze with excitement, her hair done anyhow, and a large brown +volume hugged under her arm. + +"At last I've seen something supernatural!" she exclaimed, and gave +Mrs. Norbury a fervent kiss, as though in gratitude for the +opportunity afforded her. + +"A ghost!" cried Mrs. Norbury, "not really!" + +"Really and unmistakably!" + +"Was it an oldish man in the dress of about fifty years ago?" asked +Mrs. Norbury hopefully. + +"Nothing of the sort," said Ada; "it was a white hedgehog." + +"A white hedgehog!" exclaimed both the Norburys, in tones of +disconcerted astonishment. + +"A huge white hedgehog with baleful yellow eyes," said Ada; "I was +lying half asleep in bed when suddenly I felt a sensation as of +something sinister and unaccountable passing through the room. I +sat up and looked round, and there, under the window, I saw an evil, +creeping thing, a sort of monstrous hedgehog, of a dirty white +colour, with black, loathsome claws that clicked and scraped along +the floor, and narrow, yellow eyes of indescribable evil. It +slithered along for a yard or two, always looking at me with its +cruel, hideous eyes, then, when it reached the second window, which +was open it clambered up the sill and vanished. I got up at once +and went to the window; there wasn't a sign of it anywhere. Of +course, I knew it must be something from another world, but it was +not till I turned up Popple's chapter on local traditions that I +realised what I had seen." + +She turned eagerly to the large brown volume and read: "'Nicholas +Herison, an old miser, was hung at Batchford in 1763 for the murder +of a farm lad who had accidentally discovered his secret hoard. His +ghost is supposed to traverse the countryside, appearing sometimes +as a white owl, sometimes as a huge white hedgehog." + +"I expect you read the Popple story overnight, and that made you +THINK you saw a hedgehog when you were only half awake," said Mrs. +Norbury, hazarding a conjecture that probably came very near the +truth. + +Ada scouted the possibility of such a solution of her apparition. + +"This must be hushed up," said Mrs. Norbury quickly; "the servants-- +" + +"Hushed up!" exclaimed Ada, indignantly; "I'm writing a long report +on it for the Research Society." + +It was then that Hugo Norbury, who is not naturally a man of +brilliant resource, had one of the really useful inspirations of his +life. + +"It was very wicked of us, Miss Bleek," he said, "but it would be a +shame to let it go further. That white hedgehog is an old joke of +ours; stuffed albino hedgehog, you know, that my father brought home +from Jamaica, where they grow to enormous size. We hide it in the +room with a string on it, run one end of the string through the +window; then we pull if from below and it comes scraping along the +floor, just as you've described, and finally jerks out of the +window. Taken in heaps of people; they all read up Popple and think +it's old Harry Nicholson's ghost; we always stop them from writing +to the papers about it, though. That would be carrying matters too +far." + +Mrs. Hatch-Mallard renewed the lease in due course, but Ada Bleek +has never renewed her friendship. + + + +THE MAPPINED LIFE + + + +"These Mappin Terraces at the Zoological Gardens are a great +improvement on the old style of wild-beast cage," said Mrs. James +Gurtleberry, putting down an illustrated paper; "they give one the +illusion of seeing the animals in their natural surroundings. I +wonder how much of the illusion is passed on to the animals?" + +"That would depend on the animal," said her niece; "a jungle-fowl, +for instance, would no doubt think its lawful jungle surroundings +were faithfully reproduced if you gave it a sufficiency of wives, a +goodly variety of seed food and ants' eggs, a commodious bank of +loose earth to dust itself in, a convenient roosting tree, and a +rival or two to make matters interesting. Of course there ought to +be jungle-cats and birds of prey and other agencies of sudden death +to add to the illusion of liberty, but the bird's own imagination is +capable of inventing those--look how a domestic fowl will squawk an +alarm note if a rook or wood pigeon passes over its run when it has +chickens." + +"You think, then, they really do have a sort of illusion, if you +give them space enough--" + +"In a few cases only. Nothing will make me believe that an acre or +so of concrete enclosure will make up to a wolf or a tiger-cat for +the range of night prowling that would belong to it in a wild state. +Think of the dictionary of sound and scent and recollection that +unfolds before a real wild beat as it comes out from its lair every +evening, with the knowledge that in a few minutes it will be hieing +along to some distant hunting ground where all the joy and fury of +the chase awaits it; think of the crowded sensations of the brain +when every rustle, every cry, every bent twig, and every whiff +across the nostrils means something, something to do with life and +death and dinner. Imagine the satisfaction of stealing down to your +own particular drinking spot, choosing your own particular tree to +scrape your claws on, finding your own particular bed of dried grass +to roll on. Then, in the place of all that, put a concrete +promenade, which will be of exactly the same dimensions whether you +race or crawl across it, coated with stale, unvarying scents and +surrounded with cries and noises that have ceased to have the least +meaning or interest. As a substitute for a narrow cage the new +enclosures are excellent, but I should think they are a poor +imitation of a life of liberty." + +"It's rather depressing to think that," said Mrs. Gurtleberry; "they +look so spacious and so natural, but I suppose a good deal of what +seems natural to us would be meaningless to a wild animal." + +"That is where our superior powers of self-deception come in," said +the niece; "we are able to live our unreal, stupid little lives on +our particular Mappin terrace, and persuade ourselves that we really +are untrammelled men and women leading a reasonable existence in a +reasonable sphere." + +"But good gracious," exclaimed the aunt, bouncing into an attitude +of scandalised defence, "we are leading reasonable existences! What +on earth do you mean by trammels? We are merely trammelled by the +ordinary decent conventions of civilised society." + +"We are trammelled," said the niece, calmly and pitilessly, "by +restrictions of income and opportunity, and above all by lack of +initiative. To some people a restricted income doesn't matter a +bit, in fact it often seems to help as a means for getting a lot of +reality out of life; I am sure there are men and women who do their +shopping in little back streets of Paris, buying four carrots and a +shred of beef for their daily sustenance, who lead a perfectly real +and eventful existence. Lack of initiative is the thing that really +cripples one, and that is where you and I and Uncle James are so +hopelessly shut in. We are just so many animals stuck down on a +Mappin terrace, with this difference in our disfavour, that the +animals are there to be looked at, while nobody wants to look at us. +As a matter of fact there would be nothing to look at. We get colds +in winter and hay fever in summer, and if a wasp happens to sting +one of us, well, that is the wasp's initiative, not ours; all we do +is to wait for the swelling to go down. Whenever we do climb into +local fame and notice, it is by indirect methods; if it happens to +be a good flowering year for magnolias the neighbourhood observes: +'Have you seen the Gurtleberry's magnolia? It is a perfect mass of +flowers,' and we go about telling people that there are fifty-seven +blossoms as against thirty-nine the previous year." + +"In Coronation year there were as many as sixty," put in the aunt, +"your uncle has kept a record for the last eight years." + +"Doesn't it ever strike you," continued the niece relentlessly, +"that if we moved away from here or were blotted out of existence +our local claim to fame would pass on automatically to whoever +happened to take the house and garden? People would say to one +another, 'Have you seen the Smith-Jenkins' magnolia? It is a +perfect mass of flowers,' or else 'Smith-Jenkins tells me there +won't be a single blossom on their magnolia this year; the east +winds have turned all the buds black.' Now if, when we had gone, +people still associated our names with the magnolia tree, no matter +who temporarily possessed it, if they said, 'Ah, that's the tree on +which the Gurtleberrys hung their cook because she sent up the wrong +kind of sauce with the asparagus,' that would be something really +due to our own initiative, apart from anything east winds or +magnolia vitality might have to say in the matter." + +"We should never do such a thing," said the aunt. + +The niece gave a reluctant sigh. + +"I can't imagine it," she admitted. "Of course," she continued, +"there are heaps of ways of leading a real existence without +committing sensational deeds of violence. It's the dreadful little +everyday acts of pretended importance that give the Mappin stamp to +our life. It would be entertaining, if it wasn't so pathetically +tragic, to hear Uncle James fuss in here in the morning and +announce, 'I must just go down into the town and find out what the +men there are saying about Mexico. Matters are beginning to look +serious there.' Then he patters away into the town, and talks in a +highly serious voice to the tobacconist, incidentally buying an +ounce of tobacco; perhaps he meets one or two others of the world's +thinkers and talks to them in a highly serious voice, then he +patters back here and announces with increased importance, 'I've +just been talking to some men in the town about the condition of +affairs in Mexico. They agree with the view that I have formed, +that things there will have to get worse before they get better.' +Of course nobody in the town cared in the least little bit what his +views about Mexico were or whether he had any. The tobacconist +wasn't even fluttered at his buying the ounce of tobacco; he knows +that he purchases the same quantity of the same sort of tobacco +every week. Uncle James might just as well have lain on his back in +the garden and chattered to the lilac tree about the habits of +caterpillars." + +"I really will not listen to such things about your uncle," +protested Mrs. James Gurtleberry angrily. + +"My own case is just as bad and just as tragic," said the niece, +dispassionately; "nearly everything about me is conventional make- +believe. I'm not a good dancer, and no one could honestly call me +good-looking, but when I go to one of our dull little local dances +I'm conventionally supposed to 'have a heavenly time,' to attract +the ardent homage of the local cavaliers, and to go home with my +head awhirl with pleasurable recollections. As a matter of fact, +I've merely put in some hours of indifferent dancing, drunk some +badly-made claret cup, and listened to an enormous amount of +laborious light conversation. A moonlight hen-stealing raid with +the merry-eyed curate would be infinitely more exciting; imagine the +pleasure of carrying off all those white minorcas that the Chibfords +are always bragging about. When we had disposed of them we could +give the proceeds to a charity, so there would be nothing really +wrong about it. But nothing of that sort lies within the Mappined +limits of my life. One of these days somebody dull and decorous and +undistinguished will 'make himself agreeable' to me at a tennis +party, as the saying is, and all the dull old gossips of the +neighbourhood will begin to ask when we are to be engaged, and at +last we shall be engaged, and people will give us butter-dishes and +blotting-cases and framed pictures of young women feeding swans. +Hullo, Uncle, are you going out?" + +"I'm just going down to the town," announced Mr. James Gurtleberry, +with an air of some importance: "I want to hear what people are +saying about Albania. Affairs there are beginning to take on a very +serious look. It's my opinion that we haven't seen the worst of +things yet." + +In this he was probably right, but there was nothing in the +immediate or prospective condition of Albania to warrant Mrs. +Gurtleberry in bursting into tears. + + + +FATE + + + +Rex Dillot was nearly twenty-four, almost good-looking and quite +penniless. His mother was supposed to make him some sort of an +allowance out of what her creditors allowed her, and Rex +occasionally strayed into the ranks of those who earn fitful +salaries as secretaries or companions to people who are unable to +cope unaided with their correspondence or their leisure. For a few +months he had been assistant editor and business manager of a paper +devoted to fancy mice, but the devotion had been all on one side, +and the paper disappeared with a certain abruptness from club +reading-rooms and other haunts where it had made a gratuitous +appearance. Still, Rex lived with some air of comfort and well- +being, as one can live if one is born with a genius for that sort of +thing, and a kindly Providence usually arranged that his week-end +invitations coincided with the dates on which his one white dinner- +waistcoat was in a laundry-returned condition of dazzling cleanness. +He played most games badly, and was shrewd enough to recognise the +fact, but he had developed a marvellously accurate judgement in +estimating the play and chances of other people, whether in a golf +match, billiard handicap, or croquet tournament. By dint of +parading his opinion of such and such a player's superiority with a +sufficient degree of youthful assertiveness he usually succeeded in +provoking a wager at liberal odds, and he looked to his week-end +winnings to carry him through the financial embarrassments of his +mid-week existence. The trouble was, as he confided to Clovis +Sangrail, that he never had enough available or even prospective +cash at his command to enable him to fix the wager at a figure +really worth winning. + +"Some day," he said, "I shall come across a really safe thing, a bet +that simply can't go astray, and then I shall put it up for all I'm +worth, or rather for a good deal more than I'm worth if you sold me +up to the last button." + +"It would be awkward if it didn't happen to come off," said Clovis. + +"It would be more than awkward," said Rex; "it would be a tragedy. +All the same, it would be extremely amusing to bring it off. Fancy +awaking in the morning with about three hundred pounds standing to +one's credit. I should go and clear out my hostess's pigeon-loft +before breakfast out of sheer good-temper." + +"Your hostess of the moment mightn't have a pigeon-loft," said +Clovis. + +"I always choose hostesses that have," said Rex; "a pigeon-loft is +indicative of a careless, extravagant, genial disposition, such as I +like to see around me. People who strew corn broadcast for a lot of +feathered inanities that just sit about cooing and giving each other +the glad eye in a Louis Quatorze manner are pretty certain to do you +well." + +"Young Strinnit is coming down this afternoon," said Clovis +reflectively; "I dare say you won't find it difficult to get him to +back himself at billiards. He plays a pretty useful game, but he's +not quite as good as he fancies he is." + +"I know one member of the party who can walk round him," said Rex +softly, an alert look coming into his eyes; "that cadaverous-looking +Major who arrived last night. I've seen him play at St. Moritz. If +I could get Strinnit to lay odds on himself against the Major the +money would be safe in my pocket. This looks like the good thing +I've been watching and praying for." + +"Don't be rash," counselled Clovis, "Strinnit may play up to his +self-imagined form once in a blue moon." + +"I intend to be rash," said Rex quietly, and the look on his face +corroborated his words. + +"Are you all going to flock to the billiard-room?" asked Teresa +Thundleford, after dinner, with an air of some disapproval and a +good deal of annoyance. "I can't see what particular amusement you +find in watching two men prodding little ivory balls about on a +table." + +"Oh, well," said her hostess, "it's a way of passing the time, you +know." + +"A very poor way, to my mind," said Mrs. Thundleford; "now I was +going to have shown all of you the photographs I took in Venice last +summer." + +"You showed them to us last night," said Mrs. Cuvering hastily. + +"Those were the ones I took in Florence. These are quite a +different lot." + +"Oh, well, some time to-morrow we can look at them. You can leave +them down in the drawing-room, and then every one can have a look." + +"I should prefer to show them when you are all gathered together, as +I have quite a lot of explanatory remarks to make, about Venetian +art and architecture, on the same lines as my remarks last night on +the Florentine galleries. Also, there are some verses of mine that +I should like to read you, on the rebuilding of the Campanile. But, +of course, if you all prefer to watch Major Latton and Mr. Strinnit +knocking balls about on a table--" + +"They are both supposed to be first-rate players," said the hostess. + +"I have yet to learn that my verses and my art causerie are of +second-rate quality," said Mrs. Thundleford with acerbity. +"However, as you all seem bent on watching a silly game, there's no +more to be said. I shall go upstairs and finish some writing. +Later on, perhaps, I will come down and join you." + +To one, at least, of the onlookers the game was anything but silly. +It was absorbing, exciting, exasperating, nerve-stretching, and +finally it grew to be tragic. The Major with the St. Moritz +reputation was playing a long way below his form, young Strinnit was +playing slightly above his, and had all the luck of the game as +well. From the very start the balls seemed possessed by a demon of +contrariness; they trundled about complacently for one player, they +would go nowhere for the other. + +"A hundred and seventy, seventy-four," sang out the youth who was +marking. In a game of two hundred and fifty up it was an enormous +lead to hold. Clovis watched the flush of excitement die away from +Dillot's face, and a hard white look take its place. + +"How much have you go on?" whispered Clovis. The other whispered +the sum through dry, shaking lips. It was more than he or any one +connected with him could pay; he had done what he had said he would +do. He had been rash. + +"Two hundred and six, ninety-eight." + +Rex heard a clock strike ten somewhere in the hall, then another +somewhere else, and another, and another; the house seemed full of +striking clocks. Then in the distance the stable clock chimed in. +In another hour they would all be striking eleven, and he would be +listening to them as a disgraced outcast, unable to pay, even in +part, the wager he had challenged. + +"Two hundred and eighteen, a hundred and three." The game was as +good as over. Rex was as good as done for. He longed desperately +for the ceiling to fall in, for the house to catch fire, for +anything to happen that would put an end to that horrible rolling to +and fro of red and white ivory that was jostling him nearer and +nearer to his doom. + +"Two hundred and twenty-eight, a hundred and seven." + +Rex opened his cigarette-case; it was empty. That at least gave him +a pretext to slip away from the room for the purpose of refilling +it; he would spare himself the drawn-out torture of watching that +hopeless game played out to the bitter end. He backed away from the +circle of absorbed watchers and made his way up a short stairway to +a long, silent corridor of bedrooms, each with a guests' name +written in a little square on the door. In the hush that reigned in +this part of the house he could still hear the hateful click-click +of the balls; if he waited for a few minutes longer he would hear +the little outbreak of clapping and buzz of congratulation that +would hail Strinnit's victory. On the alert tension of his nerves +there broke another sound, the aggressive, wrath-inducing breathing +of one who sleeps in heavy after-dinner slumber. The sound came +from a room just at his elbow; the card on the door bore the +announcement "Mrs. Thundleford." The door was just slightly ajar; +Rex pushed it open an inch or two more and looked in. The august +Teresa had fallen asleep over an illustrated guide to Florentine +art-galleries; at her side, somewhat dangerously near the edge of +the table, was a reading-lamp. If Fate had been decently kind to +him, thought Rex, bitterly, that lamp would have been knocked over +by the sleeper and would have given them something to think of +besides billiard matches. + +There are occasions when one must take one's Fate in one's hands. +Rex took the lamp in his. + +"Two hundred and thirty-seven, one hundred and fifteen." Strinnit +was at the table, and the balls lay in good position for him; he had +a choice of two fairly easy shots, a choice which he was never to +decide. A sudden hurricane of shrieks and a rush of stumbling feet +sent every one flocking to the door. The Dillot boy crashed into +the room, carrying in his arms the vociferous and somewhat +dishevelled Teresa Thundleford; her clothing was certainly not a +mass of flames, as the more excitable members of the party +afterwards declared, but the edge of her skirt and part of the +table-cover in which she had been hastily wrapped were alight in a +flickering, half-hearted manner. Rex flung his struggling burden on +the billiard table, and for one breathless minute the work of +beating out the sparks with rugs and cushions and playing on them +with soda-water syphons engrossed the energies of the entire +company. + +"It was lucky I was passing when it happened," panted Rex; "some one +had better see to the room, I think the carpet is alight." + +As a matter of fact the promptitude and energy of the rescuer had +prevented any great damage being done, either to the victim or her +surroundings. The billiard table had suffered most, and had to be +laid up for repairs; perhaps it was not the best place to have +chosen for the scene of salvage operations; but then, as Clovis +remarked, when one is rushing about with a blazing woman in one's +arms one can't stop to think out exactly where one is going to put +her. + + + +THE BULL + + + +Tom Yorkfield had always regarded his half-brother, Laurence, with a +lazy instinct of dislike, toned down, as years went on, to a +tolerant feeling of indifference. There was nothing very tangible +to dislike him for; he was just a blood-relation, with whom Tom had +no single taste or interest in common, and with whom, at the same +time, he had had no occasion for quarrel. Laurence had left the +farm early in life, and had lived for a few years on a small sum of +money left him by his mother; he had taken up painting as a +profession, and was reported to be doing fairly well at it, well +enough, at any rate, to keep body and soul together. He specialised +in painting animals, and he was successful in finding a certain +number of people to buy his pictures. Tom felt a comforting sense +of assured superiority in contrasting his position with that of his +half-brother; Laurence was an artist-chap, just that and nothing +more, though you might make it sound more important by calling an +animal painter; Tom was a farmer, not in a very big way, it was +true, but the Helsery farm had been in the family for some +generations, and it had a good reputation for the stock raised on +it. Tom had done his best, with the little capital at his command, +to maintain and improve the standard of his small herd of cattle, +and in Clover Fairy he had bred a bull which was something rather +better than any that his immediate neighbours could show. It would +not have made a sensation in the judging-ring at an important cattle +show, but it was as vigorous, shapely, and healthy a young animal as +any small practical farmer could wish to possess. At the King's +Head on market days Clover Fairy was very highly spoken of, and +Yorkfield used to declare that he would not part with him for a +hundred pounds; a hundred pounds is a lot of money in the small +farming line, and probably anything over eighty would have tempted +him. + +It was with some especial pleasure that Tom took advantage of one of +Laurence's rare visits to the farm to lead him down to the enclosure +where Clover Fairy kept solitary state--the grass widower of a +grazing harem. Tom felt some of his old dislike for his half- +brother reviving; the artist was becoming more languid in his +manner, more unsuitably turned-out in attire, and he seemed inclined +to impart a slightly patronising tone to his conversation. He took +no heed of a flourishing potato crop, but waxed enthusiastic over a +clump of yellow-flowering weed that stood in a corner by a gateway, +which was rather galling to the owner of a really very well weeded +farm; again, when he might have been duly complimentary about a +group of fat, black-faced lambs, that simply cried aloud for +admiration, he became eloquent over the foliage tints of an oak +copse on the hill opposite. But now he was being taken to inspect +the crowning pride and glory of Helsery; however grudging he might +be in his praises, however backward and niggardly with his +congratulations, he would have to see and acknowledge the many +excellences of that redoubtable animal. Some weeks ago, while on a +business journey to Taunton, Tom had been invited by his half- +brother to visit a studio in that town, where Laurence was +exhibiting one of his pictures, a large canvas representing a bull +standing knee-deep in some marshy ground; it had been good of its +kind, no doubt, and Laurence had seemed inordinately pleased with +it; "the best thing I've done yet," he had said over and over again, +and Tom had generously agreed that it was fairly life-like. Now, +the man of pigments was going to be shown a real picture, a living +model of strength and comeliness, a thing to feast the eyes on, a +picture that exhibited new pose and action with every shifting +minute, instead of standing glued into one unvarying attitude +between the four walls of a frame. Tom unfastened a stout wooden +door and led the way into a straw-bedded yard. + +"Is he quiet?" asked the artist, as a young bull with a curly red +coat came inquiringly towards them. + +"He's playful at times," said Tom, leaving his half-brother to +wonder whether the bull's ideas of play were of the catch-as-catch- +can order. Laurence made one or two perfunctory comments on the +animal's appearance and asked a question or so as to his age and +such-like details; then he coolly turned the talk into another +channel. + +"Do you remember the picture I showed you at Taunton?" he asked. + +"Yes," grunted Tom; "a white-faced bull standing in some slush. +Don't admire those Herefords much myself; bulky-looking brutes, +don't seem to have much life in them. Daresay they're easier to +paint that way; now, this young beggar is on the move all the time, +aren't you, Fairy?" + +"I've sold that picture," said Laurence, with considerable +complacency in his voice. + +"Have you?" said Tom; "glad to hear it, I'm sure. Hope you're +pleased with what you've got for it." + +"I got three hundred pounds for it," said Laurence. + +Tom turned towards him with a slowly rising flush of anger in his +face. Three hundred pounds! Under the most favourable market +conditions that he could imagine his prized Clover Fairy would +hardly fetch a hundred, yet here was a piece of varnished canvas, +painted by his half-brother, selling for three times that sum. It +was a cruel insult that went home with all the more force because it +emphasised the triumph of the patronising, self-satisfied Laurence. +The young farmer had meant to put his relative just a little out of +conceit with himself by displaying the jewel of his possessions, and +now the tables were turned, and his valued beast was made to look +cheap and insignificant beside the price paid for a mere picture. +It was so monstrously unjust; the painting would never be anything +more than a dexterous piece of counterfeit life, while Clover Fairy +was the real thing, a monarch in his little world, a personality in +the countryside. After he was dead, even, he would still be +something of a personality; his descendants would graze in those +valley meadows and hillside pastures, they would fill stall and byre +and milking-shed, their good red coats would speckle the landscape +and crowd the market-place; men would note a promising heifer or a +well-proportioned steer, and say: "Ah, that one comes of good old +Clover Fairy's stock." All that time the picture would be hanging, +lifeless and unchanging, beneath its dust and varnish, a chattel +that ceased to mean anything if you chose to turn it with its back +to the wall. These thoughts chased themselves angrily through Tom +Yorkfield's mind, but he could not put them into words. When he +gave tongue to his feelings he put matters bluntly and harshly. + +"Some soft-witted fools may like to throw away three hundred pounds +on a bit of paintwork; can't say as I envy them their taste. I'd +rather have the real thing than a picture of it." + +He nodded towards the young bull, that was alternately staring at +them with nose held high and lowering its horns with a half-playful, +half-impatient shake of the head. + +Laurence laughed a laugh of irritating, indulgent amusement. + +"I don't think the purchaser of my bit of paintwork, as you call it, +need worry about having thrown his money away. As I get to be +better known and recognised my pictures will go up in value. That +particular one will probably fetch four hundred in a sale-room five +or six years hence; pictures aren't a bad investment if you know +enough to pick out the work of the right men. Now you can't say +your precious bull is going to get more valuable the longer you keep +him; he'll have his little day, and then, if you go on keeping him, +he'll come down at last to a few shillingsworth of hoofs and hide, +just at a time, perhaps, when my bull is being bought for a big sum +for some important picture gallery." + +It was too much. The united force of truth and slander and insult +put over heavy a strain on Tom Yorkfield's powers of restraint. In +his right hand he held a useful oak cudgel, with his left he made a +grab at the loose collar of Laurence's canary-coloured silk shirt. +Laurence was not a fighting man; the fear of physical violence threw +him off his balance as completely as overmastering indignation had +thrown Tom off his, and thus it came to pass that Clover Fairy was +regaled with the unprecedented sight of a human being scudding and +squawking across the enclosure, like the hen that would persist in +trying to establish a nesting-place in the manger. In another +crowded happy moment the bull was trying to jerk Laurence over his +left shoulder, to prod him in the ribs while still in the air, and +to kneel on him when he reached the ground. It was only the +vigorous intervention of Tom that induced him to relinquish the last +item of his programme. + +Tom devotedly and ungrudgingly nursed his half brother to a complete +recovery from his injuries, which consisted of nothing more serious +than a dislocated shoulder, a broken rib or two, and a little +nervous prostration. After all, there was no further occasion for +rancour in the young farmer's mind; Laurence's bull might sell for +three hundred, or for six hundred, and be admired by thousands in +some big picture gallery, but it would never toss a man over one +shoulder and catch him a jab in the ribs before he had fallen on the +other side. That was Clover Fairy's noteworthy achievement, which +could never be taken away from him. + +Laurence continues to be popular as an animal artist, but his +subjects are always kittens or fawns or lambkins--never bulls. + + + +MORLVERA + + + +The Olympic Toy Emporium occupied a conspicuous frontage in an +important West End street. It was happily named Toy Emporium, +because one would never have dreamed of according it the familiar +and yet pulse-quickening name of toyshop. There was an air of cold +splendour and elaborate failure about the wares that were set out in +its ample windows; they were the sort of toys that a tired shop- +assistant displays and explains at Christmas time to exclamatory +parents and bored, silent children. The animal toys looked more +like natural history models than the comfortable, sympathetic +companions that one would wish, at a certain age, to take to bed +with one, and to smuggle into the bath-room. The mechanical toys +incessantly did things that no one could want a toy to do more than +a half a dozen times in its life-time; it was a merciful reflection +that in any right-minded nursery the lifetime would certainly be +short. + +Prominent among the elegantly-dressed dolls that filled an entire +section of the window frontage was a large hobble-skirted lady in a +confection of peach-coloured velvet, elaborately set off with +leopard skin accessories, if one may use such a conveniently +comprehensive word in describing an intricate feminine toilette. +She lacked nothing that is to be found in a carefully detailed +fashion-plate--in fact, she might be said to have something more +than the average fashion-plate female possesses; in place of a +vacant, expressionless stare she had character in her face. It must +be admitted that it was bad character, cold, hostile, inquisitorial, +with a sinister lowering of one eyebrow and a merciless hardness +about the corners of the mouth. One might have imagined histories +about her by the hour, histories in which unworthy ambition, the +desire for money, and an entire absence of all decent feeling would +play a conspicuous part. + +As a matter of fact, she was not without her judges and biographers, +even in this shop-window stage of her career. Emmeline, aged ten, +and Bert, aged seven, had halted on the way from their obscure back +street to the minnow-stocked water of St. James's Park, and were +critically examining the hobble-skirted doll, and dissecting her +character in no very tolerant spirit. There is probably a latent +enmity between the necessarily under-clad and the unnecessarily +over-dressed, but a little kindness and good fellowship on the part +of the latter will often change the sentiment to admiring devotion; +if the lady in peach-coloured velvet and leopard skin had worn a +pleasant expression in addition to her other elaborate furnishings, +Emmeline at least might have respected and even loved her. As it +was, she gave her a horrible reputation, based chiefly on a +secondhand knowledge of gilded depravity derived from the +conversation of those who were skilled in the art of novelette +reading; Bert filled in a few damaging details from his own limited +imagination. + +"She's a bad lot, that one is," declared Emmeline, after a long +unfriendly stare; "'er 'usbind 'ates 'er." + +"'E knocks 'er abart," said Bert, with enthusiasm. + +"No, 'e don't, cos 'e's dead; she poisoned 'im slow and gradual, so +that nobody didn't know. Now she wants to marry a lord, with 'eaps +and 'eaps of money. 'E's got a wife already, but she's going to +poison 'er, too." + +"She's a bad lot," said Bert with growing hostility. + +"'Er mother 'ates her, and she's afraid of 'er, too, cos she's got a +serkestic tongue; always talking serkesms, she is. She's greedy, +too; if there's fish going, she eats 'er own share and 'er little +girl's as well, though the little girl is dellikit." + +"She 'ad a little boy once," said Bert, "but she pushed 'im into the +water when nobody wasn't looking." + +"No she didn't," said Emmeline, "she sent 'im away to be kep' by +poor people, so 'er 'usbind wouldn't know where 'e was. They ill- +treat 'im somethink cruel." + +"Wot's 'er nime?" asked Bert, thinking that it was time that so +interesting a personality should be labelled. + +"'Er nime?" said Emmeline, thinking hard, "'er nime's Morlvera." It +was as near as she could get to the name of an adventuress who +figured prominently in a cinema drama. There was silence for a +moment while the possibilities of the name were turned over in the +children's minds. + +"Those clothes she's got on ain't paid for, and never won't be," +said Emmeline; "she thinks she'll get the rich lord to pay for 'em, +but 'e won't. 'E's given 'er jools, 'underds of pounds' worth." + +"'E won't pay for the clothes," said Bert, with conviction. +Evidently there was some limit to the weak good nature of wealthy +lords. + +At that moment a motor carriage with liveried servants drew up at +the emporium entrance; a large lady, with a penetrating and rather +hurried manner of talking, stepped out, followed slowly and sulkily +by a small boy, who had a very black scowl on his face and a very +white sailor suit over the rest of him. The lady was continuing an +argument which had probably commenced in Portman Square. + +"Now, Victor, you are to come in and buy a nice doll for your cousin +Bertha. She gave you a beautiful box of soldiers on your birthday, +and you must give her a present on hers." + +"Bertha is a fat little fool," said Victor, in a voice that was as +loud as his mother's and had more assurance in it. + +"Victor, you are not to say such things. Bertha is not a fool, and +she is not in the least fat. You are to come in and choose a doll +for her." + +The couple passed into the shop, out of view and hearing of the two +back-street children. + +"My, he is in a wicked temper," exclaimed Emmeline, but both she and +Bert were inclined to side with him against the absent Bertha, who +was doubtless as fat and foolish as he had described her to be. + +"I want to see some dolls," said the mother of Victor to the nearest +assistant; "it's for a little girl of eleven." + +"A fat little girl of eleven," added Victor by way of supplementary +information. + +"Victor, if you say such rude things about your cousin, you shall go +to bed the moment we get home, without having any tea." + +"This is one of the newest things we have in dolls," said the +assistant, removing a hobble-skirted figure in peach-coloured velvet +from the window; "leopard skin toque and stole, the latest fashion. +You won't get anything newer than that anywhere. It's an exclusive +design." + +"Look!" whispered Emmeline outside; "they've bin and took Morlvera." + +There was a mingling of excitement and a certain sense of +bereavement in her mind; she would have liked to gaze at that +embodiment of overdressed depravity for just a little longer. + +"I 'spect she's going away in a kerridge to marry the rich lord," +hazarded Bert. + +"She's up to no good," said Emmeline vaguely. + +Inside the shop the purchase of the doll had been decided on. + +"It's a beautiful doll, and Bertha will be delighted with it," +asserted the mother of Victor loudly. + +"Oh, very well," said Victor sulkily; "you needn't have it stuck +into a box and wait an hour while it's being done up into a parcel. +I'll take it as it is, and we can go round to Manchester Square and +give it to Bertha, and get the thing done with. That will save me +the trouble of writing: 'For dear Bertha, with Victor's love,' on a +bit of paper." + +"Very well," said his mother, "we can go to Manchester Square on our +way home. You must wish her many happy returns of to-morrow, and +give her the doll." + +"I won't let the little beast kiss me," stipulated Victor. + +His mother said nothing; Victor had not been half as troublesome as +she had anticipated. When he chose he could really be dreadfully +naughty. + +Emmeline and Bert were just moving away from the window when +Morlvera made her exit from the shop, very carefully in Victor's +arms. A look of sinister triumph seemed to glow in her hard, +inquisitorial face. As for Victor, a certain scornful serenity had +replaced the earlier scowls; he had evidently accepted defeat with a +contemptuous good grace. + +The tall lady gave a direction to the footman and settled herself in +the carriage. The little figure in the white sailor suit clambered +in beside her, still carefully holding the elegantly garbed doll. + +The car had to be backed a few yards in the process of turning. +Very stealthily, very gently, very mercilessly Victor sent Morlvera +flying over his shoulder, so that she fell into the road just behind +the retrogressing wheel. With a soft, pleasant-sounding scrunch the +car went over the prostrate form, then it moved forward again with +another scrunch. The carriage moved off and left Bert and Emmeline +gazing in scared delight at a sorry mess of petrol-smeared velvet, +sawdust, and leopard skin, which was all that remained of the +hateful Morlvera. They gave a shrill cheer, and then raced away +shuddering from the scene of so much rapidly enacted tragedy. + +Later that afternoon, when they were engaged in the pursuit of +minnows by the waterside in St. James's Park, Emmeline said in a +solemn undertone to Bert - + +"I've bin finking. Do you know oo 'e was? 'E was 'er little boy +wot she'd sent away to live wiv poor folks. 'E come back and done +that." + + + +SHOCK TATICS + + + +On a late spring afternoon Ella McCarthy sat on a green-painted +chair in Kensington Gardens, staring listlessly at an uninteresting +stretch of park landscape, that blossomed suddenly into tropical +radiance as an expected figure appeared in the middle distance. + +"Hullo, Bertie!" she exclaimed sedately, when the figure arrived at +the painted chair that was the nearest neighbour to her own, and +dropped into it eagerly, yet with a certain due regard for the set +of its trousers; "hasn't it been a perfect spring afternoon?" + +The statement was a distinct untruth as far as Ella's own feelings +were concerned; until the arrival of Bertie the afternoon had been +anything but perfect. + +Bertie made a suitable reply, in which a questioning note seemed to +hover. + +"Thank you ever so much for those lovely handkerchiefs," said Ella, +answering the unspoken question; "they were just what I've been +wanting. There's only one thing spoilt my pleasure in your gift," +she added, with a pout. + +"What was that?" asked Bertie anxiously, fearful that perhaps he had +chosen a size of handkerchief that was not within the correct +feminine limit. + +"I should have liked to have written and thanked you for them as +soon as I got them," said Ella, and Bertie's sky clouded at once. + +"You know what mother is," he protested; "she opens all my letters, +and if she found I'd been giving presents to any one there'd have +been something to talk about for the next fortnight." + +"Surely, at the age of twenty--" began Ella. + +"I'm not twenty till September," interrupted Bertie. + +"At the age of nineteen years and eight months," persisted Ella, +"you might be allowed to keep your correspondence private to +yourself." + +"I ought to be, but things aren't always what they ought to be. +Mother opens every letter that comes into the house, whoever it's +for. My sisters and I have made rows about it time and again, but +she goes on doing it." + +"I'd find some way to stop her if I were in your place," said Ella +valiantly, and Bertie felt that the glamour of his anxiously +deliberated present had faded away in the disagreeable restriction +that hedged round its acknowledgment. + +"Is anything the matter?" asked Bertie's friend Clovis when they met +that evening at the swimming-bath. + +"Why do you ask?" said Bertie. + +"When you wear a look of tragic gloom in a swimming-bath," said +Clovis, "it's especially noticeable from the fact that you're +wearing very little else. Didn't she like the handkerchiefs?" + +Bertie explained the situation. + +"It is rather galling, you know," he added, "when a girl has a lot +of things she wants to write to you and can't send a letter except +by some roundabout, underhand way." + +"One never realises one's blessings while one enjoys them," said +Clovis; "now I have to spend a considerable amount of ingenuity +inventing excuses for not having written to people." + +"It's not a joking matter," said Bertie resentfully: "you wouldn't +find it funny if your mother opened all your letters." + +"The funny thing to me is that you should let her do it." + +"I can't stop it. I've argued about it--" + +"You haven't used the right kind of argument, I expect. Now, if +every time one of your letters was opened you lay on your back on +the dining-table during dinner and had a fit, or roused the entire +family in the middle of the night to hear you recite one of Blake's +'Poems of Innocence,' you would get a far more respectful hearing +for future protests. People yield more consideration to a mutilated +mealtime or a broken night's rest, than ever they would to a broken +heart." + +"Oh, dry up," said Bertie crossly, inconsistently splashing Clovis +from head to foot as he plunged into the water. + +It was a day or two after the conversation in the swimming-bath that +a letter addressed to Bertie Heasant slid into the letter-box at his +home, and thence into the hands of his mother. Mrs. Heasant was one +of those empty-minded individuals to whom other people's affairs are +perpetually interesting. The more private they are intended to be +the more acute is the interest they arouse. She would have opened +this particular letter in any case; the fact that it was marked +"private," and diffused a delicate but penetrating aroma merely +caused her to open it with headlong haste rather than matter-of- +course deliberation. The harvest of sensation that rewarded her was +beyond all expectations. + + +"Bertie, carissimo," it began, "I wonder if you will have the nerve +to do it: it will take some nerve, too. Don't forget the jewels. +They are a detail, but details interest me. + +"Yours as ever, Clotilde." + +"Your mother must not know of my existence. If questioned swear you +never heard of me." + + +For years Mrs. Heasant had searched Bertie's correspondence +diligently for traces of possible dissipation or youthful +entanglements, and at last the suspicions that had stimulated her +inquisitorial zeal were justified by this one splendid haul. That +any one wearing the exotic name "Clotilde" should write to Bertie +under the incriminating announcement "as ever" was sufficiently +electrifying, without the astounding allusion to the jewels. Mrs. +Heasant could recall novels and dramas wherein jewels played an +exciting and commanding role, and here, under her own roof, before +her very eyes as it were, her own son was carrying on an intrigue in +which jewels were merely an interesting detail. Bertie was not due +home for another hour, but his sisters were available for the +immediate unburdening of a scandal-laden mind. + +"Bertie is in the toils of an adventuress," she screamed; "her name +is Clotilde," she added, as if she thought they had better know the +worst at once. There are occasions when more harm than good is done +by shielding young girls from a knowledge of the more deplorable +realities of life. + +By the time Bertie arrived his mother had discussed every possible +and improbable conjecture as to his guilty secret; the girls limited +themselves to the opinion that their brother had been weak rather +than wicked. + +"Who is Clotilde?" was the question that confronted Bertie almost +before he had got into the hall. His denial of any knowledge of +such a person was met with an outburst of bitter laughter. + +"How well you have learned your lesson!" exclaimed Mrs. Heasant. +But satire gave way to furious indignation when she realised that +Bertie did not intend to throw any further light on her discovery. + +"You shan't have any dinner till you've confessed everything," she +stormed. + +Bertie's reply took the form of hastily collecting material for an +impromptu banquet from the larder and locking himself into his +bedroom. His mother made frequent visits to the locked door and +shouted a succession of interrogations with the persistence of one +who thinks that if you ask a question often enough an answer will +eventually result. Bertie did nothing to encourage the supposition. +An hour had passed in fruitless one-sided palaver when another +letter addressed to Bertie and marked "private" made its appearance +in the letter-box. Mrs. Heasant pounced on it with the enthusiasm +of a cat that has missed its mouse and to whom a second has been +unexpectedly vouchsafed. If she hoped for further disclosures +assuredly she was not disappointed. + + +"So you have really done it!" the letter abruptly commenced; "Poor +Dagmar. Now she is done for I almost pity her. You did it very +well, you wicked boy, the servants all think it was suicide, and +there will be no fuss. Better not touch the jewels till after the +inquest. + +"Clotilde." + + +Anything that Mrs. Heasant had previously done in the way of outcry +was easily surpassed as she raced upstairs and beat frantically at +her son's door. + +"Miserable boy, what have you done to Dagmar?" + +"It's Dagmar now, is it?" he snapped; "it will be Geraldine next." + +"That it should come to this, after all my efforts to keep you at +home of an evening," sobbed Mrs. Heasant; "it's no use you trying to +hide things from me; Clotilde's letter betrays everything." + +"Does it betray who she is?" asked Bertie; "I've heard so much about +her, I should like to know something about her home-life. +Seriously, if you go on like this I shall fetch a doctor; I've often +enough been preached at about nothing, but I've never had an +imaginary harem dragged into the discussion." + +"Are these letters imaginary?" screamed Mrs. Heasant; "what about +the jewels, and Dagmar, and the theory of suicide?" + +No solution of these problems was forthcoming through the bedroom +door, but the last post of the evening produced another letter for +Bertie, and its contents brought Mrs. Heasant that enlightenment +which had already dawned on her son. + + +"Dear Bertie," it ran; "I hope I haven't distracted your brain with +the spoof letters I've been sending in the name of a fictitious +Clotilde. You told me the other day that the servants, or somebody +at your home, tampered with your letters, so I thought I would give +any one that opened them something exciting to read. The shock +might do them good. + +"Yours, +"Clovis Sangrail." + + +Mrs. Heasant knew Clovis slightly, and was rather afraid of him. It +was not difficult to read between the lines of his successful hoax. +In a chastened mood she rapped once more at Bertie's door. + +"A letter from Mr. Sangrail. It's all been a stupid hoax. He wrote +those other letters. Why, where are you going?" + +Bertie had opened the door; he had on his hat and overcoat. + +"I'm going for a doctor to come and see if anything's the matter +with you. Of course it was all a hoax, but no person in his right +mind could have believed all that rubbish about murder and suicide +and jewels. You've been making enough noise to bring the house down +for the last hour or two." + +"But what was I to think of those letters?" whimpered Mrs. Heasant. + +"I should have known what to think of them," said Bertie; "if you +choose to excite yourself over other people's correspondence it's +your own fault. Anyhow, I'm going for a doctor." + +It was Bertie's great opportunity, and he knew it. His mother was +conscious of the fact that she would look rather ridiculous if the +story got about. She was willing to pay hush-money. + +"I'll never open your letters again," she promised. And Clovis has +no more devoted slave than Bertie Heasant. + + + +THE SEVEN CREAM JUGS + + + +"I suppose we shall never see Wilfred Pigeoncote here now that he +has become heir to the baronetcy and to a lot of money," observed +Mrs. Peter Pigeoncote regretfully to her husband. + +"Well, we can hardly expect to," he replied, "seeing that we always +choked him off from coming to see us when he was a prospective +nobody. I don't think I've set eyes on him since he was a boy of +twelve." + +"There was a reason for not wanting to encourage his +acquaintanceship," said Mrs. Peter. "With that notorious failing of +his he was not the sort of person one wanted in one's house." + +"Well, the failing still exists, doesn't it?" said her husband; "or +do you suppose a reform of character is entailed along with the +estate?" + +"Oh, of course, there is still that drawback," admitted the wife, +"but one would like to make the acquaintance of the future head of +the family, if only out of mere curiosity. Besides, cynicism apart, +his being rich will make a difference in the way people will look at +his failing. When a man is absolutely wealthy, not merely well-to- +do, all suspicion of sordid motive naturally disappears; the thing +becomes merely a tiresome malady." + +Wilfrid Pigeoncote had suddenly become heir to his uncle, Sir +Wilfrid Pigeoncote, on the death of his cousin, Major Wilfrid +Pigeoncote, who had succumbed to the after-effects of a polo +accident. (A Wilfrid Pigeoncote had covered himself with honours in +the course of Marlborough's campaigns, and the name Wilfrid had been +a baptismal weakness in the family ever since.) The new heir to the +family dignity and estates was a young man of about five-and-twenty, +who was known more by reputation than by person to a wide circle of +cousins and kinsfolk. And the reputation was an unpleasant one. +The numerous other Wilfrids in the family were distinguished one +from another chiefly by the names of their residences or +professions, as Wilfrid of Hubbledown, and young Wilfrid the Gunner, +but this particular scion was known by the ignominious and +expressive label of Wilfrid the Snatcher. From his late schooldays +onward he had been possessed by an acute and obstinate form of +kleptomania; he had the acquisitive instinct of the collector +without any of the collector's discrimination. Anything that was +smaller and more portable than a sideboard, and above the value of +ninepence, had an irresistible attraction for him, provided that it +fulfilled the necessary condition of belonging to some one else. On +the rare occasions when he was included in a country-house party, it +was usual and almost necessary for his host, or some member of the +family, to make a friendly inquisition through his baggage on the +eve of his departure, to see if he had packed up "by mistake" any +one else's property. The search usually produced a large and varied +yield. + +"This is funny," said Peter Pigeoncote to his wife, some half-hour +after their conversation; "here's a telegram from Wilfrid, saying +he's passing through here in his motor, and would like to stop and +pay us his respects. Can stay for the night if it doesn't +inconvenience us. Signed 'Wilfrid Pigeoncote.' Must be the +Snatcher; none of the others have a motor. I suppose he's bringing +us a present for the silver wedding." + +"Good gracious!" said Mrs. Peter, as a thought struck her; "this is +rather an awkward time to have a person with his failing in the +house. All those silver presents set out in the drawing-room, and +others coming by every post; I hardly know what we've got and what +are still to come. We can't lock them all up; he's sure to want to +see them." + +"We must keep a sharp look-out, that's all," said Peter +reassuringly. + +"But these practised kleptomaniacs are so clever," said his wife, +apprehensively, "and it will be so awkward if he suspects that we +are watching him." + +Awkwardness was indeed the prevailing note that evening when the +passing traveller was being entertained. The talk flitted nervously +and hurriedly from one impersonal topic to another. The guest had +none of the furtive, half-apologetic air that his cousins had rather +expected to find; he was polite, well-assured, and, perhaps, just a +little inclined to "put on side". His hosts, on the other hand, +wore an uneasy manner that might have been the hallmark of conscious +depravity. In the drawing-room, after dinner, their nervousness and +awkwardness increased. + +"Oh, we haven't shown you the silver-wedding presents," said Mrs. +Peter, suddenly, as though struck by a brilliant idea for +entertaining the guest; "here they all are. Such nice, useful +gifts. A few duplicates, of course." + +"Seven cream jugs," put in Peter. + +"Yes, isn't it annoying," went on Mrs. Peter; "seven of them. We +feel that we must live on cream for the rest of our lives. Of +course, some of them can be changed." + +Wilfrid occupied himself chiefly with such of the gifts as were of +antique interest, carrying one or two of them over to the lamp to +examine their marks. The anxiety of his hosts at these moments +resembled the solicitude of a cat whose newly born kittens are being +handed round for inspection. + +"Let me see; did you give me back the mustard-pot? This is its +place here," piped Mrs. Peter. + +"Sorry. I put it down by the claret-jug," said Wilfrid, busy with +another object. + +"Oh, just let me have the sugar-sifter again," asked Mrs. Peter, +dogged determination showing through her nervousness; "I must label +it who it comes from before I forget." + +Vigilance was not completely crowned with a sense of victory. After +they had said "Good-night" to their visitor, Mrs. Peter expressed +her conviction that he had taken something. + +"I fancy, by his manner, that there was something up," corroborated +her husband; "do you miss anything?" + +Mrs. Peters hastily counted the array of gifts. + +"I can only make it thirty-four, and I think it should be thirty- +five," she announced; "I can't remember if thirty-five includes the +Archdeacon's cruet-stand that hasn't arrived yet." + +"How on earth are we to know?" said Peter. "The mean pig hasn't +brought us a present, and I'm hanged if he shall carry one off." + +"To-morrow, when's he having his bath," said Mrs. Peter excitedly, +"he's sure to leave his keys somewhere, and we can go through his +portmanteau. It's the only thing to do." + +On the morrow an alert watch was kept by the conspirators behind +half-closed doors, and when Wilfrid, clad in a gorgeous bath-robe, +had made his way to the bath-room, there was a swift and furtive +rush by two excited individuals towards the principal guest-chamber. +Mrs. Peter kept guard outside, while her husband first made a +hurried and successful search for the keys, and then plunged at the +portmanteau with the air of a disagreeably conscientious Customs +official. The quest was a brief one; a silver cream jug lay +embedded in the folds of some zephyr shirts. + +"The cunning brute," said Mrs. Peters; "he took a cream jug because +there were so many; he thought one wouldn't be missed. Quick, fly +down with it and put it back among the others." + +Wilfrid was late in coming down to breakfast, and his manner showed +plainly that something was amiss. + +"It's an unpleasant thing to have to say," he blurted out presently, +"but I'm afraid you must have a thief among your servants. +Something's been taken out of my portmanteau. It was a little +present from my mother and myself for your silver wedding. I should +have given it to you last night after dinner, only it happened to be +a cream jug, and you seemed annoyed at having so many duplicates, so +I felt rather awkward about giving you another. I thought I'd get +it changed for something else, and now it's gone." + +"Did you say it was from your MOTHER and yourself?" asked Mr. and +Mrs. Peter almost in unison. The Snatcher had been an orphan these +many years. + +"Yes, my mother's at Cairo just now, and she wrote to me at Dresden +to try and get you something quaint and pretty in the old silver +line, and I pitched on this cream jug." + +Both the Pigeoncotes had turned deadly pale. The mention of Dresden +had thrown a sudden light on the situation. It was Wilfrid the +Attache, a very superior young man, who rarely came within their +social horizon, whom they had been entertaining unawares in the +supposed character of Wilfrid the Snatcher. Lady Ernestine +Pigeoncote, his mother, moved in circles which were entirely beyond +their compass or ambitions, and the son would probably one day be an +Ambassador. And they had rifled and despoiled his portmanteau! +Husband and wife looked blankly and desperately at one another. It +was Mrs. Peter who arrived first at an inspiration. + +"How dreadful to think there are thieves in the house! We keep the +drawing-room locked up at night, of course, but anything might be +carried off while we are at breakfast." + +She rose and went out hurriedly, as though to assure herself that +the drawing-room was not being stripped of its silverware, and +returned a moment later, bearing a cream jug in her hands. + +"There are eight cream jugs now, instead of seven," she cried; "this +one wasn't there before. What a curious trick of memory, Mr. +Wilfrid! You must have slipped downstairs with it last night and +put it there before we locked up, and forgotten all about having +done it in the morning." + +"One's mind often plays one little tricks like that," said Mr. +Peter, with desperate heartiness. "Only the other day I went into +the town to pay a bill, and went in again next day, having clean +forgotten that I'd--" + +"It is certainly the jug I bought for you," said Wilfrid, looking +closely at it; "it was in my portmanteau when I got my bath-robe out +this morning, before going to my bath, and it was not there when I +unlocked the portmanteau on my return. Some one had taken it while +I was away from the room." + +The Pigeoncotes had turned paler than ever. Mrs. Peter had a final +inspiration. + +"Get me my smelling-salts, dear," she said to her husband; "I think +they're in the dressing-room." + +Peter dashed out of the room with glad relief; he had lived so long +during the last few minutes that a golden wedding seemed within +measurable distance. + +Mrs. Peter turned to her guest with confidential coyness. + +"A diplomat like you will know how to treat this as if it hadn't +happened. Peter's little weakness; it runs in the family." + +"Good Lord! Do you mean to say he's a kleptomaniac, like Cousin +Snatcher?" + +"Oh, not exactly," said Mrs. Peter, anxious to whitewash her husband +a little greyer than she was painting him. "He would never touch +anything he found lying about, but he can't resist making a raid on +things that are locked up. The doctors have a special name for it. +He must have pounced on your portmanteau the moment you went to your +bath, and taken the first thing he came across. Of course, he had +no motive for taking a cream jug; we've already got seven, as you +know--not, of course, that we don't value the kind of gift you and +your mother--hush here's Peter coming." + +Mrs. Peter broke off in some confusion, and tripped out to meet her +husband in the hall. + +"It's all right," she whispered to him; "I've explained everything. +Don't say anything more about it." + +"Brave little woman," said Peter, with a gasp of relief; "I could +never have done it." + +* * * + +Diplomatic reticence does not necessarily extend to family affairs. +Peter Pigeoncote was never able to understand why Mrs. Consuelo van +Bullyon, who stayed with them in the spring, always carried two very +obvious jewel-cases with her to the bath-room, explaining them to +any one she chanced to meet in the corridor as her manicure and +face-massage set. + + + +THE OCCASIONAL GARDEN + + + +"Don't talk to me about town gardens," said Elinor Rapsley; "which +means, of course, that I want you to listen to me for an hour or so +while I talk about nothing else. 'What a nice-sized garden you've +got,' people said to us when we first moved here. What I suppose +they meant to say was what a nice-sized site for a garden we'd got. +As a matter of fact, the size is all against it; it's too large to +be ignored altogether and treated as a yard, and it's too small to +keep giraffes in. You see, if we could keep giraffes or reindeer or +some other species of browsing animal there we could explain the +general absence of vegetation by a reference to the fauna of the +garden: 'You can't have wapiti AND Darwin tulips, you know, so we +didn't put down any bulbs last year.' As it is, we haven't got the +wapiti, and the Darwin tulips haven't survived the fact that most of +the cats of the neighbourhood hold a parliament in the centre of the +tulip bed; that rather forlorn looking strip that we intended to be +a border of alternating geranium and spiraea has been utilised by +the cat-parliament as a division lobby. Snap divisions seem to have +been rather frequent of late, far more frequent than the geranium +blooms are likely to be. I shouldn't object so much to ordinary +cats, but I do complain of having a congress of vegetarian cats in +my garden; they must be vegetarians, my dear, because, whatever +ravages they may commit among the sweet pea seedlings, they never +seem to touch the sparrows; there are always just as many adult +sparrows in the garden on Saturday as there were on Monday, not to +mention newly-fledged additions. There seems to have been an +irreconcilable difference of opinion between sparrows and Providence +since the beginning of time as to whether a crocus looks best +standing upright with its roots in the earth or in a recumbent +posture with its stem neatly severed; the sparrows always have the +last word in the matter, at least in our garden they do. I fancy +that Providence must have originally intended to bring in an +amending Act, or whatever it's called, providing either for a less +destructive sparrow or a more indestructible crocus. The one +consoling point about our garden is that it's not visible from the +drawing-room or the smoking-room, so unless people are dinning or +lunching with us they can't spy out the nakedness of the land. That +is why I am so furious with Gwenda Pottingdon, who has practically +forced herself on me for lunch on Wednesday next; she heard me offer +the Paulcote girl lunch if she was up shopping on that day, and, of +course, she asked if she might come too. She is only coming to +gloat over my bedraggled and flowerless borders and to sing the +praises of her own detestably over-cultivated garden. I'm sick of +being told that it's the envy of the neighbourhood; it's like +everything else that belongs to her--her car, her dinner-parties, +even her headaches, they are all superlative; no one else ever had +anything like them. When her eldest child was confirmed it was such +a sensational event, according to her account of it, that one almost +expected questions to be asked about it in the House of Commons, and +now she's coming on purpose to stare at my few miserable pansies and +the gaps in my sweet-pea border, and to give me a glowing, full- +length description of the rare and sumptuous blooms in her rose- +garden." + +"My dear Elinor," said the Baroness, "you would save yourself all +this heart-burning and a lot of gardener's bills, not to mention +sparrow anxieties, simply by paying an annual subscription to the +O.O.S.A." + +"Never heard of it," said Elinor; "what is it?" + +"The Occasional-Oasis Supply Association," said the Baroness; "it +exists to meet cases exactly like yours, cases of backyards that are +of no practical use for gardening purposes, but are required to +blossom into decorative scenic backgrounds at stated intervals, when +a luncheon or dinner-party is contemplated. Supposing, for +instance, you have people coming to lunch at one-thirty; you just +ring up the Association at about ten o'clock the same morning, and +say 'lunch garden'. That is all the trouble you have to take. By +twelve forty-five your yard is carpeted with a strip of velvety +turf, with a hedge of lilac or red may, or whatever happens to be in +season, as a background, one or two cherry trees in blossom, and +clumps of heavily-flowered rhododendrons filling in the odd corners; +in the foreground you have a blaze of carnations or Shirley poppies, +or tiger lilies in full bloom. As soon as the lunch is over and +your guests have departed the garden departs also, and all the cats +in Christendom can sit in council in your yard without causing you a +moment's anxiety. If you have a bishop or an antiquary or something +of that sort coming to lunch you just mention the fact when you are +ordering the garden, and you get an old-world pleasaunce, with +clipped yew hedges and a sun-dial and hollyhocks, and perhaps a +mulberry tree, and borders of sweet-williams and Canterbury bells, +and an old-fashioned beehive or two tucked away in a corner. Those +are the ordinary lines of supply that the Oasis Association +undertakes, but by paying a few guineas a year extra you are +entitled to its emergency E.O.N. service." + +"What on earth is an E.O.N. service?" + +"It's just a conventional signal to indicate special cases like the +incursion of Gwenda Pottingdon. It means you've got some one coming +to lunch or dinner whose garden is alleged to be 'the envy of the +neighbourhood.'" + +"Yes," exclaimed Elinor, with some excitement, "and what happens +then?" + +"Something that sounds like a miracle out of the Arabian Nights. +Your backyard becomes voluptuous with pomegranate and almond trees, +lemon groves, and hedges of flowering cactus, dazzling banks of +azaleas, marble-basined fountains, in which chestnut-and-white pond- +herons step daintily amid exotic water-lilies, while golden +pheasants strut about on alabaster terraces. The whole effect +rather suggests the idea that Providence and Norman Wilkinson have +dropped mutual jealousies and collaborated to produce a background +for an open-air Russian Ballet; in point of fact, it is merely the +background to your luncheon party. If there is any kick left in +Gwenda Pottingdon, or whoever your E.O.N. guest of the moment may +be, just mention carelessly that your climbing putella is the only +one in England, since the one at Chatsworth died last winter. There +isn't such a thing as a climbing putella, but Gwenda Pottingdon and +her kind don't usually know one flower from another without +prompting." + +"Quick," said Elinor, "the address of the Association." + +Gwenda Pottingdon did not enjoy her lunch. It was a simple yet +elegant meal, excellently cooked and daintily served, but the +piquant sauce of her own conversation was notably lacking. She had +prepared a long succession of eulogistic comments on the wonders of +her town garden, with its unrivalled effects of horticultural +magnificence, and, behold, her theme was shut in on every side by +the luxuriant hedge of Siberian berberis that formed a glowing +background to Elinor's bewildering fragment of fairyland. The +pomegranate and lemon trees, the terraced fountain, where golden +carp slithered and wriggled amid the roots of gorgeous-hued irises, +the banked masses of exotic blooms, the pagoda-like enclosure, where +Japanese sand-badgers disported themselves, all these contributed to +take away Gwenda's appetite and moderate her desire to talk about +gardening matters. + +"I can't say I admire the climbing putella," she observed shortly, +"and anyway it's not the only one of its kind in England; I happen +to know of one in Hampshire. How gardening is going out of fashion; +I suppose people haven't the time for it nowadays." + +Altogether it was quite one of Elinor's most successful luncheon +parties. + +It was distinctly an unforeseen catastrophe that Gwenda should have +burst in on the household four days later at lunch-time and made her +way unbidden into the dining-room. + +"I thought I must tell you that my Elaine has had a water-colour +sketch accepted by the Latent Talent Art Guild; it's to be exhibited +at their summer exhibition at the Hackney Gallery. It will be the +sensation of the moment in the art world--Hullo, what on earth has +happened to your garden? It's not there!" + +"Suffragettes," said Elinor promptly; "didn't you hear about it? +They broke in and made hay of the whole thing in about ten minutes. +I was so heart-broken at the havoc that I had the whole place +cleared out; I shall have it laid out again on rather more elaborate +lines." + +"That," she said to the Baroness afterwards "is what I call having +an emergency brain." + + + +THE SHEEP + + + +The enemy had declared "no trumps." Rupert played out his ace and +king of clubs and cleared the adversary of that suit; then the +Sheep, whom the Fates had inflicted on him for a partner, took the +third round with the queen of clubs, and, having no other club to +lead back, opened another suit. The enemy won the remainder of the +tricks--and the rubber. + +"I had four more clubs to play; we only wanted the odd trick to win +the rubber," said Rupert. + +"But I hadn't another club to lead you," exclaimed the Sheep, with +his ready, defensive smile. + +"It didn't occur to you to throw your queen away on my king and +leave me with the command of the suit," said Rupert, with polite +bitterness. + +"I suppose I ought to have--I wasn't certain what to do. I'm +awfully sorry," said the Sheep. + +Being awfully and uselessly sorry formed a large part of his +occupation in life. If a similar situation had arisen in a +subsequent hand he would have blundered just as certainly, and he +would have been just as irritatingly apologetic. + +Rupert stared gloomily across at him as he sat smiling and fumbling +with his cards. Many men who have good brains for business do not +possess the rudiments of a card-brain, and Rupert would not have +judged and condemned his prospective brother-in-law on the evidence +of his bridge play alone. The tragic part of it was that he smiled +and fumbled through life just as fatuously and apologetically as he +did at the card-table. And behind the defensive smile and the well- +worn expressions of regret there shone a scarcely believable but +quite obvious self-satisfaction. Every sheep of the pasture +probably imagines that in an emergency it could become terrible as +an army with banners--one has only to watch how they stamp their +feet and stiffen their necks when a minor object of suspicion comes +into view and behaves meekly. And probably the majority of human +sheep see themselves in imagination taking great parts in the +world's more impressive dramas, forming swift, unerring decisions in +moments of crisis, cowing mutinies, allaying panics, brave, strong, +simple, but, in spite of their natural modesty, always slightly +spectacular. + +"Why in the name of all that is unnecessary and perverse should +Kathleen choose this man for her future husband?" was the question +that Rupert asked himself ruefully. There was young Malcolm +Athling, as nice-looking, decent, level-headed a fellow as any one +could wish to meet, obviously her very devoted admirer, and yet she +must throw herself away on this pale-eyed, weak-mouthed embodiment +of self-approving ineptitude. If it had been merely Kathleen's own +affair Rupert would have shrugged his shoulders and philosophically +hoped that she might make the best of an undeniably bad bargain. +But Rupert had no heir; his own boy lay underground somewhere on the +Indian frontier, in goodly company. And the property would pass in +due curse to Kathleen and Kathleen's husband. The Sheep would live +there in the beloved old home, rearing up other little Sheep, +fatuous and rabbit-faced and self-satisfied like himself, to dwell +in the land and possess it. It was not a soothing prospect. + +Towards dusk on the afternoon following the bridge experience Rupert +and the Sheep made their way homeward after a day's mixed shooting. +The Sheep's cartridge bag was nearly empty, but his game bag showed +no signs of over-crowding. The birds he had shot at had seemed for +the most part as impervious to death or damage as the hero of a +melodrama. And for each failure to drop his bird he had some +explanation or apology ready on his lips. Now he was striding along +in front of his host, chattering happily over his shoulder, but +obviously on the look-out for some belated rabbit or woodpigeon that +might haply be secured as an eleventh-hour addition to his bag. As +they passed the edge of a small copse a large bird rose from the +ground and flew slowly towards the trees, offering an easy shot to +the oncoming sportsmen. The Sheep banged forth with both barrels, +and gave an exultant cry. + +"Horray! I've shot a thundering big hawk!" + +"To be exact, you've shot a honey-buzzard. That is the hen bird of +one of the few pairs of honey-buzzards breeding in the United +Kingdom. We've kept them under the strictest preservation for the +last four years; every game-keeper and village gun loafer for twenty +miles round has been warned and bribed and threatened to respect +their sanctity, and egg-snatching agents have been carefully guarded +against during the breeding season. Hundreds of lovers of rare +birds have delighted in seeing their snap-shotted portraits in +Country Life, and now you've reduced the hen bird to a lump of +broken feathers." + +Rupert spoke quietly and evenly, but for a moment or two a gleam of +positive hatred shone in his eyes. + +"I say, I'm so sorry," said the Sheep, with his apologetic smile. +"Of course I remember hearing about the buzzards, but somehow I +didn't connect this bird with them. And it was such an east shot--" + +"Yes," said Rupert; "that was the trouble." + +Kathleen found him in the gun-room smoothing out the feathers of the +dead bird. She had already been told of the catastrophe. + +"What a horrid misfortune," she said sympathetically. + +"It was my dear Robbie who first discovered them, the last time he +was home on leave. Don't you remember how excited he was about +them? Let's go and have some tea." + +Both bridge and shooting were given a rest for the next two or three +weeks. Death, who enters into no compacts with party whips, had +forced a Parliamentary vacancy on the neighbourhood at the least +convenient season, and the local partisans on either side found +themselves immersed in the discomforts of a mid-winter election. +Rupert took his politics seriously and keenly. He belonged to that +type of strangely but rather happily constituted individuals which +these islands seem to produce in a fair plenty; men and women who +for no personal profit or gain go forth from their comfortable +firesides or club card-rooms to hunt to and fro in the mud and rain +and wind for the capture or tracking of a stray vote here and there +on their party's behalf--not because they think they ought to, but +because they want to. And his energies were welcome enough on this +occasion, for the seat was a closely disputed possession, and its +loss or retention would count for much in the present position of +the Parliamentary game. With Kathleen to help him, he had worked +his corner of the constituency with tireless, well-directed zeal, +taking his share of the dull routine work as well as of the livelier +episodes. The talking part of the campaign wound up on the eve of +the poll with a meeting in a centre where more undecided votes were +supposed to be concentrated than anywhere else in the division. A +good final meeting here would mean everything. And the speakers, +local and imported, left nothing undone to improve the occasion. +Rupert was down for the unimportant task of moving the complimentary +vote to the chairman which should close the proceedings. + +"I'm so hoarse," he protested, when the moment arrived; "I don't +believe I can make my voice heard beyond the platform." + +"Let me do it," said the Sheep; "I'm rather good at that sort of +thing." + +The chairman was popular with all parties, and the Sheep's opening +words of complimentary recognition received a round of applause. +The orator smiled expansively on his listeners and seized the +opportunity to add a few words of political wisdom on his own +account. People looked at the clock or began to grope for umbrellas +and discarded neckwraps. Then, in the midst of a string of +meaningless platitudes, the Sheep delivered himself of one of those +blundering remarks which travel from one end of a constituency to +the other in half an hour, and are seized on by the other side as +being more potent on their behalf than a ton of election literature. +There was a general shuffling and muttering across the length and +breadth of the hall, and a few hisses made themselves heard. The +Sheep tried to whittle down his remark, and the chairman +unhesitatingly threw him over in his speech of thanks, but the +damage was done. + +"I'm afraid I lost touch with the audience rather over that remark," +said the Sheep afterwards, with his apologetic smile abnormally +developed. + +"You lost us the election," said the chairman, and he proved a true +prophet. + +A month or so of winter sport seemed a desirable pick-me-up after +the strenuous work and crowning discomfiture of the election. +Rupert and Kathleen hied them away to a small Alpine resort that was +just coming into prominence, and thither the Sheep followed them in +due course, in his role of husband-elect. The wedding had been +fixed for the end of March. + +It was a winter of early and unseasonable thaws, and the far end of +the local lake, at a spot where swift currents flowed into it, was +decorated with notices, written in three languages, warning skaters +not to venture over certain unsafe patches. The folly of +approaching too near these danger spots seemed to have a natural +fascination for the Sheep. + +"I don't see what possible danger there can be," he protested, with +his inevitable smile, when Rupert beckoned him away from the +proscribed area; "the milk that I put out on my window-sill last +night was frozen an inch deep." + +"It hadn't got a strong current flowing through it," said Rupert; +"in any case, there is not much sense in hovering round a doubtful +piece of ice when there are acres of good ice to skate over. The +secretary of the ice-committee has warned you once already." + +A few minutes later Rupert heard a loud squeal of fear, and saw a +dark spot blotting the smoothness of the lake's frozen surface. The +Sheep was struggling helplessly in an ice-hole of his own making. +Rupert gave one loud curse, and then dashed full tilt for the shore; +outside a low stable building on the lake's edge he remembered +having seen a ladder. If he could slide it across the ice-hole +before the Sheep went under the rescue would be comparatively simple +work. Other skaters were dashing up from a distance, and, with the +ladder's help, they could get him out of his death-trap without +having to trust themselves on the margin of rotten ice. Rupert +sprang on to the surface of lumpy, frozen snow, and staggered to +where the ladder lay. He had already lifted it when the rattle of a +chain and a furious outburst of growls burst on his hearing, and he +was dashed to the ground by a mass of white and tawny fur. A sturdy +young yard-dog, frantic with the pleasure of performing his first +piece of actice guardian service, was ramping and snarling over him, +rendering the task of regaining his feet or securing the ladder a +matter of considerable difficulty. When he had at last succeeded in +both efforts he was just by a hair's-breadth too late to be of any +use. The Sheep had definitely disappeared under the ice-rift. + +Kathleen Athling and her husband stay the greater part of the year +with Rupert, and a small Robbie stands in some danger of being +idolised by a devoted uncle. But for twelve months of the year +Rupert's most inseparable and valued companion is a sturdy tawny and +white yard-dog. + + + +THE OVERSIGHT + + + +"It's like a Chinese puzzle," said Lady Prowche resentfully, staring +at a scribbled list of names that spread over two or three loose +sheets of notepaper on her writing-table. Most of the names had a +pencil mark running through them. + +"What is like a Chinese puzzle?" asked Lena Luddleford briskly; she +rather prided herself on being able to grapple with the minor +problems of life. + +"Getting people suitably sorted together. Sir Richard likes me to +have a house party about this time of year, and gives me a free hand +as to whom I should invite; all he asks is that it should be a +peaceable party, with no friction or unpleasantness." + +"That seems reasonable enough," said Lena. + +"Not only reasonable, my dear, but necessary. Sir Richard has his +literary work to think of; you can't expect a man to concentrate on +the tribal disputes of Central Asian clansmen when he's got social +feuds blazing under his own roof." + +"But why should they blaze? Why should there be feuds at all within +the compass of a house party?" + +"Exactly; why should they blaze or why should they exist?" echoed +Lady Prowche; "the point is that they always do. We have been +unlucky; persistently unlucky, now that I come to look back on +things. We have always got people of violently opposed views under +one roof, and the result has been not merely unpleasantness but +explosion." + +"Do you mean people who disagree on matters of political opinion and +religious views?" asked Lena. + +"No, not that. The broader lines of political or religious +difference don't matter. You can have Church of England and +Unitarian and Buddhist under the same roof without courting +disaster; the only Buddhist I ever had down here quarrelled with +everybody, but that was on account of his naturally squabblesome +temperament; it had nothing to do with his religion. And I've +always found that people can differ profoundly about politics and +meet on perfectly good terms at breakfast. Now, Miss Larbor Jones, +who was staying here last year, worships Lloyd George as a sort of +wingless angel, while Mrs. Walters, who was down here at the same +time, privately considers him to be--an antelope, let us say." + +"An antelope?" + +"Well, not an antelope exactly, but something with horns and hoofs +and tail." + +"Oh, I see." + +"Still, that didn't prevent them from being the chummiest of mortals +on the tennis court and in the billiard-room. They did quarrel +finally, about a lead in a doubled hand of no-trumps, but that of +course is a thing that no account of judicious guest-grouping could +prevent. Mrs. Walters had got king, knave, ten, and seven of clubs- +-" + +"You were saying that there were other lines of demarcation that +caused the bother," interrupted Lena. + +"Exactly. It is the minor differences and side-issues that give so +much trouble," said Lady Prowche; "not to my dying day shall I +forget last year's upheaval over the Suffragette question. Laura +Henniseed left the house in a state of speechless indignation, but +before she had reached that state she had used language that would +not have been tolerated in the Austrian Reichsrath. Intensive bear- +gardening was Sir Richard's description of the whole affair, and I +don't think he exaggerated." + +"Of course the Suffragette question is a burning one, and lets loose +the most dreadful ill-feeling," said Lena; "but one can generally +find out beforehand what people's opinions--" + +"My dear, the year before it was worse. It was Christian Science. +Selina Goobie is a sort of High Priestess of the Cult, and she put +down all opposition with a high hand. Then one evening, after +dinner, Clovis Sangrail put a wasp down her back, to see if her +theory about the non-existence of pain could be depended on in an +emergency. The wasp was small, but very efficient, and it had been +soured in temper by being kept in a paper cage all the afternoon. +Wasps don't stand confinement well, at least this one didn't. I +don't think I ever realised till that moment what the word +'invective' could be made to mean. I sometimes wake in the night +and think I still hear Selina describing Clovis's conduct and +general character. That was the year that Sir Richard was writing +his volume on 'Domestic Life in Tartary.' The critics all blamed it +for a lack of concentration." + +"He's engaged on a very important work this year, isn't he?" asked +Lena. + +"'Land-tenure in Turkestan,'" said Lady Prowche; "he is just at work +on the final chapters and they require all the concentration he can +give them. That is why I am so very anxious not to have any +unfortunate disturbance this year. I have taken every precaution I +can think of to bring non-conflicting and harmonious elements +together; the only two people I am not quite easy about are the +Atkinson man and Marcus Popham. They are the two who will be down +here longest together, and if they are going to fall foul of one +another about any burning question, well, there will be more +unpleasantness." + +"Can't you find out anything about them? About their opinions, I +mean." + +"Anything? My dear Lena, there's scarcely anything that I haven't +found out about them. They're both of them moderate Liberal, +Evangelical, mildly opposed to female suffrage, they approve of the +Falconer Report, and the Stewards' decision about Craganour. Thank +goodness in this country we don't fly into violent passions about +Wagner and Brahms and things of that sort. There is only one thorny +subject that I haven't been able to make sure about, the only stone +that I have left unturned. Are they unanimously anti-vivisectionist +or do they both uphold the necessity for scientific experiment? +There has been a lot of correspondence on the subject in our local +newspapers of late, and the vicar is certain to preach a sermon +about it; vicars are dreadfully provocative at times. Now, if you +could only find out for me whether these two men are divergently for +or against--" + +"I!" exclaimed Lena; "how am I to find out? I don't know either of +them to speak to." + +"Still you might discover, in some roundabout way. Write to them, +under as assumed name of course, for subscriptions to one or other +cause--or, better still, send a stamped type-written reply postcard, +with a request for a declaration for or against vivisection; people +who would hesitate to commit themselves to a subscription will +cheerfully write Yes or No on a prepaid postcard. If you can't +manage it that way, try and meet them at some one's house and get +into argument on the subject. I think Milly occasionally has one or +other of them at her at-homes; you might have the luck to meet both +of them there the same evening. Only it must be done soon. My +invitations ought to go out by Wednesday or Thursday at the latest, +and to-day is Friday. + +"Milly's at-homes are not very amusing, as a rule," said Lena, "and +one never gets a chance of talking uninterruptedly to any one for a +couple of minutes at a time; Milly is one of those restless +hostesses who always seem to be trying to see how you look in +different parts of the room, in fresh grouping effects. Even if I +got to speak to Popham or Atkinson I couldn't plunge into a topic +like vivisection straight away. No, I think the postcard scheme +would be more hopeful and decidedly less tiresome. How would it be +best to word them?" + +"Oh, something like this: 'Are you in favour of experiments on +living animals for the purpose of scientific research--Yes or No?' +That is quite simple and unmistakable. If they don't answer it will +at least be an indication that they are indifferent about the +subject, and that is all I want to know." + +"All right," said Lena, "I'll get my brother-in-law to let me have +them addressed to his office, and he can telephone the result of the +plebiscite direct to you." + +"Thank you ever so much," said Lady Prowche gratefully, "and be sure +to get the cards sent off as soon as possible." + +On the following Tuesday the voice of an office clerk, speaking +through the telephone, informed Lady Prowche that the postcard poll +showed unanimous hostility to experiments on living animals. + +Lady Prowche thanked the office clerk, and in a louder and more +fervent voice she thanked Heaven. The two invitations, already +sealed and addressed, were immediately dispatched; in due course +they were both accepted. The house party of the halcyon hours, as +the prospective hostess called it, was auspiciously launched. + +Lena Luddleford was not included among the guests, having previously +committed herself to another invitation. At the opening day of a +cricket festival, however, she ran across Lady Prowche, who had +motored over from the other side of the county. She wore the air of +one who is not interested in cricket and not particularly interested +in life. She shook hands limply with Lena, and remarked that it was +a beastly day. + +"The party, how has it gone off?" asked Lena quickly. + +"Don't speak of it!" was the tragical answer; "why do I always have +such rotten luck?" + +"But what has happened?" + +"It has been awful. Hyaenas could not have behaved with greater +savagery. Sir Richard said so, and he has been in countries where +hyaenas live, so he ought to know. They actually came to blows!" + +"Blows?" + +"Blows and curses. It really might have been a scene from one of +Hogarth's pictures. I never felt so humiliated in my life. What +the servants must have thought!" + +"But who were the offenders?" + +"Oh, naturally the very two that we took all the trouble about." + +"I thought they agreed on every subject that one could violently +disagree about--religion, politics, vivisection, the Derby decision, +the Falconer Report; what else was there left to quarrel about?" + +"My dear, we were fools not to have thought of it. One of them was +Pro-Greek and the other Pro-Bulgar." + + + +HYACINTH + + + +"The new fashion of introducing the candidate's children into an +election contest is a pretty one," said Mrs. Panstreppon; "it takes +away something from the acerbity of party warfare, and it makes an +interesting experience for children to look back on in after years. +Still, if you will listen to my advice, Matilda, you will not take +Hyacinth with you down to Luffbridge on election day." + +"Not take Hyacinth!" exclaimed his mother; "but why not? Jutterly +is bringing his three children, and they are going to drive a pair +of Nubian donkeys about the town, to emphasise the fact that their +father has been appointed Colonial Secretary. We are making the +demand for a strong Navy a special feature in our campaign, and it +will be particularly appropriate to have Hyacinth dressed in his +sailor suit. He'll look heavenly." + +"The question is, not how he'll look, but how he'll behave. He's a +delightful child, of course, but there is a strain of unbridled +pugnacity in him that breaks out at times in a really alarming +fashion. You may have forgotten the affair of the little Gaffin +children; I haven't." + +"I was in India at the time, and I've only a vague recollection of +what happened; he was very naughty, I know." + +"He was in his goat-carriage, and met the Gaffins in their +perambulator, and he drove the goat full tilt at them and sent the +perambulator spinning. Little Jacky Gaffin was pinned down under +the wreckage, and while the nurse had her hands full with the goat +Hyacinth was laying into Jacky's legs with his belt like a small +fury." + +"I'm not defending him," said Matilda, "but they must have done +something to annoy him." + +"Nothing intentionally, but some one had unfortunately told him that +they were half French--their mother was a Duboc, you know--and he +had been having a history lesson that morning, and had just heard of +the final loss of Calais by the English, and was furious about it. +He said he'd teach the little toads to go snatching towns from us, +but we didn't know at the time that he was referring to the Gaffins. +I told him afterwards that all bad feeling between the two nations +had died out long ago, and that anyhow the Gaffins were only half +French, and he said that it was only the French half of Jacky that +he had been hitting; the rest had been buried under the +perambulator. If the loss of Calais unloosed such fury in him, I +tremble to think what the possible loss of the election might +entail." + +"All that happened when he was eight; he's older now and knows +better." + +"Children with Hyacinth's temperament don't know better as they grow +older; they merely know more." + +"Nonsense. He will enjoy the fun of the election, and in any case +he'll be tired out by the time the poll is declared, and the new +sailor suit that I've had made for him is just in the right shade of +blue for our election colours, and it will exactly match the blue of +his eyes. He will be a perfectly charming note of colour." + +"There is such a thing as letting one's aesthetic sense override +one's moral sense," said Mrs. Panstreppon. "I believe you would +have condoned the South Sea Bubble and the persecution of the +Albigenses if they had been carried out in effective colour schemes. +However, if anything unfortunate should happen down at Luffbridge, +don't say it wasn't foreseen by one member of the family." + +The election was keenly but decorously contested. The newly- +appointed Colonial Secretary was personally popular, while the +Government to which he adhered was distinctly unpopular, and there +was some expectancy that the majority of four hundred, obtained at +the last election, would be altogether wiped out. Both sides were +hopeful, but neither could feel confident. The children were a +great success; the little Jutterlys drove their chubby donkeys +solemnly up and down the main streets, displaying posters which +advocated the claims of their father on the broad general grounds +that he was their father, while as for Hyacinth, his conduct might +have served as a model for any seraph-child that had strayed +unwittingly on to the scene of an electoral contest. Of his own +accord, and under the delighted eyes of half a dozen camera +operators, he had gone up to the Jutterly children and presented +them with a packet of butterscotch; "we needn't be enemies because +we're wearing the opposite colours," he said with engaging +friendliness, and the occupants of the donkey-cart accepted his +offering with polite solemnity. The grown-up members of both +political camps were delighted at the incident--with the exception +of Mrs. Panstreppon, who shuddered. + +"Never was Clytemnestra's kiss sweeter than on the night she slew +me," she quoted, but made the quotation to herself. + +The last hour of the poll was a period of unremitting labour for +both parties; it was generally estimated that not more than a dozen +votes separated the candidates, and every effort was made to bring +up obstinately wavering electors. It was with a feeling of +relaxation and relief that every one heard the clocks strike the +hour for the close of the poll. Exclamations broke out from the +tired workers, and corks flew out from bottles. + +"Well, if we haven't won; we've done our level best." "It has been +a clean straight fight, with no rancour." "The children were quite +a charming feature, weren't they?" + +The children? It suddenly occurred to everybody that they had seen +nothing of the children for the last hour. What had become of the +three little Jutterlys and their donkey-cart, and, for the matter of +that, what had become of Hyacinth. Hurried, anxious embassies went +backwards and forwards between the respective party headquarters and +the various committee-rooms, but there was blank ignorance +everywhere as to the whereabouts of the children. Every one had +been too busy in the closing moments of the poll to bestow a thought +on them. Then there came a telephone call at the Unionist Women's +Committee-rooms, and the voice of Hyacinth was heard demanding when +the poll would be declared. + +"Where are you, and where are the Jutterly children?" asked his +mother. + +"I've just finished having high-tea at a pastry-cook's," came the +answer, "and they let me telephone. I've had a poached egg and a +sausage roll and four meringues." + +"You'll be ill. Are the little Jutterlys with you?" + +"Rather not. They're in a pigstye." + +"A pigstye? Why? What pigstye?" + +"Near the Crawleigh Road. I met them driving about a back road, and +told them they were to have tea with me, and put their donkeys in a +yard that I knew of. Then I took them to see an old sow that had +got ten little pigs. I got the sow into the outer stye by giving +her bits of bread, while the Jutterlys went in to look at the +litter, then I bolted the door and left them there." + +"You wicked boy, do you mean to say you've left those poor children +there alone in the pigstye?" + +"They're not alone, they've got ten little pigs in with them; +they're jolly well crowded. They were pretty mad at being shut in, +but not half as mad as the old sow is at being shut out from her +young ones. If she gets in while they're there she'll bite them +into mincemeat. I can get them out by letting a short ladder down +through the top window, and that's what I'm going to do IF WE WIN. +If their blighted father gets in, I'm just going to open the door +for the sow, and let her do what she dashed well likes to them. +That's why I want to know when the poll will be declared." + +Here the narrator rang off. A wild stampede and a frantic sending- +off of messengers took place at the other end of the telephone. +Nearly all the workers on either side had disappeared to their +various club-rooms and public-house bars to await the declaration of +the poll, but enough local information could be secured to determine +the scene of Hyacinth's exploit. Mr. John Ball had a stable yard +down near the Crawleigh Road, up a short lane, and his sow was known +to have a litter of ten young ones. Thither went in headlong haste +both the candidates, Hyacinth's mother, his aunt (Mrs. Panstreppon), +and two or three hurriedly-summoned friends. The two Nubian +donkeys, contentedly munching at bundles of hay, met their gaze as +they entered the yard. The hoarse savage grunting of an enraged +animal and the shriller note of thirteen young voices, three of them +human, guided them to the stye, in the outer yard of which a huge +Yorkshire sow kept up a ceaseless raging patrol before a closed +door. Reclining on the broad ledge of an open window, from which +point of vantage he could reach down and shoot the bolt of the door, +was Hyacinth, his blue sailor-suit somewhat the worse of wear, and +his angel smile exchanged for a look of demoniacal determination. + +"If any of you come a step nearer," he shouted, "the sow will be +inside in half a jiffy." + +A storm of threatening, arguing, entreating expostulation broke from +the baffled rescue party, but it made no more impression on Hyacinth +than the squealing tempest that raged within the stye. + +"If Jutterly heads the poll I'm going to let the sow in. I'll teach +the blighters to win elections from us." + +"He means it," said Mrs. Panstreppon; "I feared the worst when I saw +that butterscotch incident." + +"It's all right, my little man," said Jutterly, with the duplicity +to which even a Colonial Secretary can sometimes stoop, "your father +has been elected by a large majority." + +"Liar!" retorted Hyacinth, with the directness of speech that is not +merely excusable, but almost obligatory, in the political +profession; "the votes aren't counted yet. You won't gammon me as +to the result, either. A boy that I've palled with is going to fire +a gun when the poll is declared; two shots if we've won, one shot if +we haven't." + +The situation began to look critical. "Drug the sow," whispered +Hyacinth's father. + +Some one went off in the motor to the nearest chemist's shop and +returned presently with two large pieces of bread, liberally dosed +with narcotic. The bread was thrown deftly and unostentatiously +into the stye, but Hyacinth saw through the manoeuvre. He set up a +piercing imitation of a small pit in Purgatory, and the infuriated +mother ramped round and round the stye; the pieces of bread were +trampled into slush. + +At any moment now the poll might be declared. Jutterly flew back to +the Town Hall, where the votes were being counted. His agent met +him with a smile of hope. + +"You're eleven ahead at present, and only about eighty more to be +counted; you're just going to squeak through." + +"I mustn't squeak through," exclaimed Jutterly, hoarsely. "You must +object to every doubtful vote on our side that can possibly be +disallowed. I must NOT have the majority." + +Then was seen the unprecedented sight of a party agent challenging +the votes on his own side with a captiousness that his opponents +would have hesitated to display. One or two votes that would have +certainly passed muster under ordinary circumstances were +disallowed, but even so Jutterly was six ahead with only thirty more +to be counted. + +To the watchers by the stye the moments seemed intolerable. As a +last resort some one had been sent for a gun with which to shoot the +sow, though Hyacinth would probably draw the bolt the moment such a +weapon was brought into the yard. Nearly all the men were away from +their homes, however, on election night, and the messenger had +evidently gone far afield in his search. It must be a matter of +minutes now to the declaration of the poll. + +A sudden roar of shouting and cheering was heard from the direction +of the Town Hall. Hyacinth's father clutched a pitchfork and +prepared to dash into the stye in the forlorn hope of being in time. + +A shot rang out in the evening air. Hyacinth stooped down from his +perch and put his finger on the bolt. The sow pressed furiously +against the door. + +"Bang," came another shot. + +Hyacinth wriggled back, and sent a short ladder down through the +window of the inner stye. + +"Now you can come up, you unclean little blighters," he sang out; +"my daddy's got in, not yours. Hurry up, I can't keep the sow +waiting much longer. And don't you jolly well come butting into any +election again where I'm on the job." + +In the reaction that set in after the deliverance furious +recrimination were indulged in by the lately opposed candidates, +their women folk, agents, and party helpers. A recount was +demanded, but failed to establish the fact that the Colonial +Secretary had obtained a majority. Altogether the election left a +legacy of soreness behind it, apart from any that was experienced by +Hyacinth in person. + +"It is the last time I shall let him go to an election," exclaimed +his mother. + +"There I think you are going to extremes," said Mrs. Panstreppon; +"if there should be a general election in Mexico I think you might +safely let him go there, but I doubt whether our English politics +are suited to the rough and tumble of an angel-child." + + + +THE IMAGE OF THE LOST SOLE + + + +There were a number of carved stone figures placed at intervals +along the parapets of the old Cathedral; some of them represented +angels, others kings and bishops, and nearly all were in attitudes +of pious exaltation and composure. But one figure, low down on the +cold north side of the building, had neither crown, mitre, not +nimbus, and its face was hard and bitter and downcast; it must be a +demon, declared the fat blue pigeons that roosted and sunned +themselves all day on the ledges of the parapet; but the old belfry +jackdaw, who was an authority on ecclesiastical architecture, said +it was a lost soul. And there the matter rested. + +One autumn day there fluttered on to the Cathedral roof a slender, +sweet-voiced bird that had wandered away from the bare fields and +thinning hedgerows in search of a winter roosting-place. It tried +to rest its tired feet under the shade of a great angel-wing or to +nestle in the sculptured folds of a kingly robe, but the fat pigeons +hustled it away from wherever it settled, and the noisy sparrow-folk +drove it off the ledges. No respectable bird sang with so much +feeling, they cheeped one to another, and the wanderer had to move +on. + +Only the effigy of the Lost Soul offered a place of refuge. The +pigeons did not consider it safe to perch on a projection that +leaned so much out of the perpendicular, and was, besides, too much +in the shadow. The figure did not cross its hands in the pious +attitude of the other graven dignitaries, but its arms were folded +as in defiance and their angle made a snug resting-place for the +little bird. Every evening it crept trustfully into its corner +against the stone breast of the image, and the darkling eyes seemed +to keep watch over its slumbers. The lonely bird grew to love its +lonely protector, and during the day it would sit from time to time +on some rainshoot or other abutment and trill forth its sweetest +music in grateful thanks for its nightly shelter. And, it may have +been the work of wind and weather, or some other influence, but the +wild drawn face seemed gradually to lose some of its hardness and +unhappiness. Every day, through the long monotonous hours, the song +of his little guest would come up in snatches to the lonely watcher, +and at evening, when the vesper-bell was ringing and the great grey +bats slid out of their hiding-places in the belfry roof, the bright- +eyed bird would return, twitter a few sleepy notes, and nestle into +the arms that were waiting for him. Those were happy days for the +Dark Image. Only the great bell of the Cathedral rang out daily its +mocking message, "After joy . . . sorrow." + +The folk in the verger's lodge noticed a little brown bird flitting +about the Cathedral precincts, and admired its beautiful singing. +"But it is a pity," said they, "that all that warbling should be +lost and wasted far out of hearing up on the parapet." They were +poor, but they understood the principles of political economy. So +they caught the bird and put it in a little wicker cage outside the +lodge door. + +That night the little songster was missing from its accustomed +haunt, and the Dark Image knew more than ever the bitterness of +loneliness. Perhaps his little friend had been killed by a prowling +cat or hurt by a stone. Perhaps . . . perhaps he had flown +elsewhere. But when morning came there floated up to him, through +the noise and bustle of the Cathedral world, a faint heart-aching +message from the prisoner in the wicker cage far below. And every +day, at high noon, when the fat pigeons were stupefied into silence +after their midday meal and the sparrows were washing themselves in +the street-puddles, the song of the little bird came up to the +parapets--a song of hunger and longing and hopelessness, a cry that +could never be answered. The pigeons remarked, between mealtimes, +that the figure leaned forward more than ever out of the +perpendicular. + +One day no song came up from the little wicker cage. It was the +coldest day of the winter, and the pigeons and sparrows on the +Cathedral roof looked anxiously on all sides for the scraps of food +which they were dependent on in hard weather. + +"Have the lodge-folk thrown out anything on to the dust-heap?" +inquired one pigeon of another which was peering over the edge of +the north parapet. + +"Only a little dead bird," was the answer. + +There was a crackling sound in the night on the Cathedral roof and a +noise as of falling masonry. The belfry jackdaw said the frost was +affecting the fabric, and as he had experienced many frosts it must +have been so. In the morning it was seen that the Figure of the +Lost Soul had toppled from its cornice and lay now in a broken mass +on the dustheap outside the verger's lodge. + +"It is just as well," cooed the fat pigeons, after they had peered +at the matter for some minutes; "now we shall have a nice angel put +up there. Certainly they will put an angel there." + +"After joy . . . sorrow," rang out the great bell. + + + +THE PURPLE OF THE BALKAN KINGS + + + +Luitpold Wolkenstein, financier and diplomat on a small, obtrusive, +self-important scale, sat in his favoured cafe in the world-wise +Habsburg capital, confronted with the Neue Freie Presse and the cup +of cream-topped coffee and attendant glass of water that a sleek- +headed piccolo had just brought him. For years longer than a dog's +lifetime sleek-headed piccolos had placed the Neue Freie Presse and +a cup of cream-topped coffee on his table; for years he had sat at +the same spot, under the dust-coated, stuffed eagle, that had once +been a living, soaring bird on the Styrian mountains, and was now +made monstrous and symbolical with a second head grafted on to its +neck and a gilt crown planted on either dusty skull. To-day +Luitpold Wolkenstein read no more than the first article in his +paper, but read it again and again. + +"The Turkish fortress of Kirk Kilisseh has fallen . . . The Serbs, +it is officially announced, have taken Kumanovo . . . The fortress +of Kirk Kilisseh lost, Kumanovo taken by the Serbs, these are tiding +for Constantinople resembling something out of Shakspeare's +tragedies of the kings . . . The neighbourhood of Adrianople and +the Eastern region, where the great battle is now in progress, will +not reveal merely the future of Turkey, but also what position and +what influence the Balkan States are to have in the world." + +For years longer than a dog's lifetime Luitpold Wolkenstein had +disposed of the pretensions and strivings of the Balkan States over +the cup of cream-topped coffee that sleek-headed piccolos had +brought him. Never travelling further eastward than the horse-fair +at Temesvar, never inviting personal risk in an encounter with +anything more potentially desperate than a hare or partridge, he had +constituted himself the critical appraiser and arbiter of the +military and national prowess of the small countries that fringed +the Dual Monarchy on its Danube border. And his judgment had been +one of unsparing contempt for small-scale efforts, of unquestioning +respect for the big battalions and full purses. Over the whole +scene of the Balkan territories and their troubled histories had +loomed the commanding magic of the words "the Great Powers"--even +more imposing in their Teutonic rendering, "Die Grossmachte." + +Worshipping power and force and money-mastery as an elderly nerve- +ridden woman might worship youthful physical energy, the +comfortable, plump-bodied cafe-oracle had jested and gibed at the +ambitions of the Balkan kinglets and their peoples, had unloosed +against them that battery of strange lip-sounds that a Viennese +employs almost as an auxiliary language to express the thoughts when +his thoughts are not complimentary. British travellers had visited +the Balkan lands and reported high things of the Bulgarians and +their future, Russian officers had taken peeps at their army and +confessed "this is a thing to be reckoned with, and it is not we who +have created it, they have done it by themselves." But over his +cups of coffee and his hour-long games of dominoes the oracle had +laughed and wagged his head and distilled the worldly wisdom of his +castle. The Grossmachte had not succeeded in stifling the roll of +the war-drum, that was true; the big battalions of the Ottoman +Empire would have to do some talking, and then the big purses and +big threatenings of the Powers would speak and the last word would +be with them. In imagination Luitpold heard the onward tramp of the +red-fezzed bayonet bearers echoing through the Balkan passes, saw +the little sheepskin-clad mannikins driven back to their villages, +saw the augustly chiding spokesman of the Powers dictating, +adjusting, restoring, settling things once again in their allotted +places, sweeping up the dust of conflict, and now his ears had to +listen to the war-drum rolling in quite another direction, had to +listen to the tramp of battalions that were bigger and bolder and +better skilled in war-craft than he had deemed possible in that +quarter; his eyes had to read in the columns of his accustomed +newspaper a warning to the Grossmachte that they had something new +to learn, something new to reckon with, much that was time-honoured +to relinquish. "The Great Powers will have not little difficulty in +persuading the Balkan States of the inviolability of the principle +that Europe cannot permit any fresh partition of territory in the +East without her approval. Even now, while the campaign is still +undecided, there are rumours of a project of fiscal unity, extending +over the entire Balkan lands, and further of a constitutional union +in imitation of the German Empire. That is perhaps only a political +straw blown by the storm, but it is not possible to dismiss the +reflection that the Balkan States leagued together command a +military strength with which the Great Powers will have to reckon . +. . The people who have poured out their blood on the battlefields +and sacrificed the available armed men of an entire generation in +order to encompass a union with their kinsfolk will not remain any +longer in an attitude of dependence on the Great Powers or on +Russia, but will go their own ways . . . The blood that has been +poured forth to-day gives for the first time a genuine tone to the +purple of the Balkan Kings. The Great Powers cannot overlook the +fact that a people that has tasted victory will not let itself be +driven back again within its former limits. Turkey has lost to-day +not only Kirk Kilisseh and Kumanovo, but Macedonia also." + +Luitpold Wolkenstein drank his coffee, but the flavour had somehow +gone out of it. His world, his pompous, imposing, dictating world, +had suddenly rolled up into narrower dimensions. The big purses and +the big threats had been pushed unceremoniously on one side; a force +that he could not fathom, could not comprehend, had made itself +rudely felt. The august Caesars of Mammon and armament had looked +down frowningly on the combat, and those about to die had not +saluted, had no intention of saluting. A lesson was being imposed +on unwilling learners, a lesson of respect for certain fundamental +principles, and it was not the small struggling States who were +being taught the lesson. + +Luitpold Wolkenstein did not wait for the quorum of domino players +to arrive. They would all have read the article in the Freie +Presse. And there are moments when an oracle finds its greatest +salvation in withdrawing itself from the area of human questioning. + + + +THE CUPBOARD OF THE YESTERDAYS + + + +"War is a cruelly destructive thing," said the Wanderer, dropping +his newspaper to the floor and staring reflectively into space. + +"Ah, yes, indeed," said the Merchant, responding readily to what +seemed like a safe platitude; "when one thinks of the loss of life +and limb, the desolated homesteads, the ruined--" + +"I wasn't thinking of anything of the sort," said the Wanderer; "I +was thinking of the tendency that modern war has to destroy and +banish the very elements of picturesqueness and excitement that are +its chief excuse and charm. It is like a fire that flares up +brilliantly for a while and then leaves everything blacker and +bleaker than before. After every important war in South-East Europe +in recent times there has been a shrinking of the area of +chronically disturbed territory, a stiffening of the area of +chronically disturbed territory, a stiffening of frontier lines, an +intrusion of civilised monotony. And imagine what may happen at the +conclusion of this war if the Turk should really be driven out of +Europe." + +"Well, it would be a gain to the cause of good government, I +suppose," said the Merchant. + +"But have you counted the loss?" said the other. "The Balkans have +long been the last surviving shred of happy hunting-ground for the +adventurous, a playground for passions that are fast becoming +atrophied for want of exercise. In old bygone days we had the wars +in the Low Countries always at our doors, as it were; there was no +need to go far afield into malaria-stricken wilds if one wanted a +life of boot and saddle and licence to kill and be killed. Those +who wished to see life had a decent opportunity for seeing death at +the same time." + +"It is scarcely right to talk of killing and bloodshed in that way," +said the Merchant reprovingly; "one must remember that all men are +brothers." + +"One must also remember that a large percentage of them are younger +brothers; instead of going into bankruptcy, which is the usual +tendency of the younger brother nowadays, they gave their families a +fair chance of going into mourning. Every bullet finds a billet, +according to a rather optimistic proverb, and you must admit that +nowadays it is becoming increasingly difficult to find billets for a +lot of young gentlemen who would have adorned, and probably +thoroughly enjoyed, one of the old-time happy-go-lucky wars. But +that is not exactly the burden of my complaint. The Balkan lands +are especially interesting to us in these rapidly-moving days +because they afford us the last remaining glimpse of a vanishing +period of European history. When I was a child one of the earliest +events of the outside world that forced itself coherently under my +notice was a war in the Balkans; I remember a sunburnt, soldierly +man putting little pin-flags in a war-map, red flags for the Turkish +forces and yellow flags for the Russians. It seemed a magical +region, with its mountain passes and frozen rivers and grim +battlefields, its drifting snows, and prowling wolves; there was a +great stretch of water that bore the sinister but engaging name of +the Black Sea--nothing that I ever learned before or after in a +geography lesson made the same impression on me as that strange- +named inland sea, and I don't think its magic has ever faded out of +my imagination. And there was a battle called Plevna that went on +and on with varying fortunes for what seemed like a great part of a +lifetime; I remember the day of wrath and mourning when the little +red flag had to be taken away from Plevna--like other maturer +judges, I was backing the wrong horse, at any rate the losing horse. +And now to-day we are putting little pin-flags again into maps of +the Balkan region, and the passions are being turned loose once more +in their playground." + +"The war will be localised," said the Merchant vaguely; "at least +every one hopes so." + +"It couldn't wish for a better locality," said the Wanderer; "there +is a charm about those countries that you find nowhere else in +Europe, the charm of uncertainty and landslide, and the little +dramatic happenings that make all the difference between the +ordinary and the desirable." + +"Life is held very cheap in those parts," said the Merchant. + +"To a certain extent, yes," said the Wanderer. "I remember a man at +Sofia who used to teach me Bulgarian in a rather inefficient manner, +interspersed with a lot of quite wearisome gossip. I never knew +what his personal history was, but that was only because I didn't +listen; he told it to me many times. After I left Bulgaria he used +to send me Sofia newspapers from time to time. I felt that he would +be rather tiresome if I ever went there again. And then I heard +afterwards that some men came in one day from Heaven knows where, +just as things do happen in the Balkans, and murdered him in the +open street, and went away as quietly as they had come. You will +not understand it, but to me there was something rather piquant in +the idea of such a thing happening to such a man; after his dullness +and his long-winded small-talk it seemed a sort of brilliant esprit +d'esalier on his part to meet with an end of such ruthlessly planned +and executed violence." + +The Merchant shook his head; the piquancy of the incident was not +within striking distance of his comprehension. + +"I should have been shocked at hearing such a thing about any one I +had known," he said. + +"The present war," continued his companion, without stopping to +discuss two hopelessly divergent points of view, "may be the +beginning of the end of much that has hitherto survived the +resistless creeping-in of civilisation. If the Balkan lands are to +be finally parcelled out between the competing Christian Kingdoms +and the haphazard rule of the Turk banished to beyond the Sea of +Marmora, the old order, or disorder if you like, will have received +its death-blow. Something of its spirit will linger perhaps for a +while in the old charmed regions where it bore sway; the Greek +villagers will doubtless be restless and turbulent and unhappy where +the Bulgars rule, and the Bulgars will certainly be restless and +turbulent and unhappy under Greek administration, and the rival +flocks of the Exarchate and Patriarchate will make themselves +intensely disagreeable to one another wherever the opportunity +offers; the habits of a lifetime, of several lifetimes, are not laid +aside all at once. And the Albanians, of course, we shall have with +us still, a troubled Moslem pool left by the receding wave of Islam +in Europe. But the old atmosphere will have changed, the glamour +will have gone; the dust of formality and bureaucratic neatness will +slowly settle down over the time-honoured landmarks; the Sanjak of +Novi Bazar, the Muersteg Agreement, the Komitadje bands, the Vilayet +of Adrianople, all those familiar outlandish names and things and +places, that we have known so long as part and parcel of the Balkan +Question, will have passed away into the cupboard of yesterdays, as +completely as the Hansa League and the wars of the Guises. + +"They were the heritage that history handed down to us, spoiled and +diminished no doubt, in comparison with yet earlier days that we +never knew, but still something to thrill and enliven one little +corner of our Continent, something to help us to conjure up in our +imagination the days when the Turk was thundering at the gates of +Vienna. And what shall we have to hand down to our children? Think +of what their news from the Balkans will be in the course of another +ten or fifteen years. Socialist Congress at Uskub, election riot at +Monastir, great dock strike at Salonika, visit of the Y.M.C.A. to +Varna. Varna--on the coast of that enchanted sea! They will drive +out to some suburb to tea, and write home about it as the Bexhill of +the East. + +"War is a wickedly destructive thing." + +"Still, you must admit--" began the Merchant. But the Wanderer was +not in the mood to admit anything. He rose impatiently and walked +to where the tape-machine was busy with the news from Adrianople. + + + +FOR THE DURATION OF THE WAR + + + +The Rev. Wilfrid Gaspilton, in one of those clerical migrations +inconsequent-seeming to the lay mind, had removed from the +moderately fashionable parish of St. Luke's, Kensingate, to the +immoderately rural parish of St. Chuddocks, somewhere in +Yondershire. There were doubtless substantial advantages connected +with the move, but there were certainly some very obvious drawbacks. +Neither the migratory clergyman nor his wife were able to adapt +themselves naturally and comfortably to the conditions of country +life. Beryl, Mrs. Gaspilton, had always looked indulgently on the +country as a place where people of irreproachable income and +hospitable instincts cultivated tennis-lawns and rose-gardens and +Jacobean pleasaunces, wherein selected gatherings of interested +week-end guests might disport themselves. Mrs. Gaspilton considered +herself as distinctly an interesting personality, and from a limited +standpoint she was doubtless right. She had indolent dark eyes and +a comfortable chin, which belied the slightly plaintive inflection +which she threw into her voice at suitable intervals. She was +tolerably well satisfied with the smaller advantages of life, but +she regretted that Fate had not seen its way to reserve for her some +of the ampler successes for which she felt herself well qualified. +She would have liked to be the centre of a literary, slightly +political salon, where discerning satellites might have recognised +the breadth of her outlook on human affairs and the undoubted +smallness of her feet. As it was, Destiny had chosen for her that +she should be the wife of a rector, and had now further decreed that +a country rectory should be the background to her existence. She +rapidly made up her mind that her surroundings did not call for +exploration; Noah had predicted the Flood, but no one expected him +to swim about in it. Digging in a wet garden or trudging through +muddy lanes were exertions which she did not propose to undertake. +As long as the garden produced asparagus and carnations at +pleasingly frequent intervals Mrs. Gaspilton was content to approve +of its expense and otherwise ignore its existence. She would fold +herself up, so to speak, in an elegant, indolent little world of her +own, enjoying the minor recreations of being gently rude to the +doctor's wife and continuing the leisurely production of her one +literary effort, The Forbidden Horsepond, a translation of Baptiste +Leopoy's L'Abreuvoir interdit. It was a labour which had already +been so long drawn-out that it seemed probable that Baptiste Lepoy +would drop out of vogue before her translation of his temporarily +famous novel was finished. However, the languid prosecution of the +work had invested Mrs. Gaspilton with a certain literary dignity, +even in Kensingate circles, and would place her on a pinnacle in St. +Chuddocks, where hardly any one read French, and assuredly no one +had heard of L'Abreuvoir interdit. + +The Rector's wife might be content to turn her back complacently on +the country; it was the Rector's tragedy that the country turned its +back on him. With the best intention in the world and the immortal +example of Gilbert White before him, the Rev. Wilfrid found himself +as bored and ill at ease in his new surroundings as Charles II would +have been at a modern Wesleyan Conference. The birds that hopped +across his lawn hopped across it as though it were their lawn, and +not his, and gave him plainly to understand that in their eyes he +was infinitely less interesting than a garden worm or the rectory +cat. The hedgeside and meadow flowers were equally uninspiring; the +lesser celandine seemed particularly unworthy of the attention that +English poets had bestowed on it, and the Rector knew that he would +be utterly miserable if left alone for a quarter of an hour in its +company. With the human inhabitants of his parish he was no better +off; to know them was merely to know their ailments, and the +ailments were almost invariably rheumatism. Some, of course, had +other bodily infirmities, but they always had rheumatism as well. +The Rector had not yet grasped the fact that in rural cottage life +not to have rheumatism is as glaring an omission as not to have been +presented at Court would be in more ambitious circles. And with all +this death of local interest there was Beryl shutting herself off +with her ridiculous labours on The Forbidden Horsepond. + +"I don't see why you should suppose that any one wants to read +Baptiste Lepoy in English," the Reverend Wilfrid remarked to his +wife one morning, finding her surrounded with her usual elegant +litter of dictionaries, fountain pens, and scribbling paper; "hardly +any one bothers to read him now in France." + +"My dear," said Beryl, with an intonation of gentle weariness, +"haven't two or three leading London publishers told me they +wondered no one had ever translated L'Abreuvoir interdit, and begged +me--" + +"Publishers always clamour for the books that no one has ever +written, and turn a cold shoulder on them as soon as they're +written. If St. Paul were living now they would pester him to write +an Epistle to the Esquimaux, but no London publisher would dream of +reading his Epistle to the Ephesians." + +"Is there any asparagus in the garden?" asked Beryl; "because I've +told cook--" + +"Not anywhere in the garden," snapped the Rector, "but there's no +doubt plenty in the asparagus-bed, which is the usual place for it." + +And he walked away into the region of fruit trees and vegetable beds +to exchange irritation for boredom. It was there, among the +gooseberry bushes and beneath the medlar trees, that the temptation +to the perpetration of a great literary fraud came to him. + +Some weeks later the Bi-Monthly Review gave to the world, under the +guarantee of the Rev. Wilfrid Gaspilton, some fragments of Persian +verse, alleged to have been unearthed and translated by a nephew who +was at present campaigning somewhere in the Tigris valley. The Rev. +Wilfrid possessed a host of nephews, and it was of course, quite +possible that one or more of them might be in military employ in +Mesopotamia, though no one could call to mind any particular nephew +who could have been suspected of being a Persian scholar. + +The verses were attributed to one Ghurab, a hunter, or, according to +other accounts, warden of the royal fishponds, who lived, in some +unspecified century, in the neighbourhood of Karmanshah. They +breathed a spirit of comfortable, even-tempered satire and +philosophy, disclosing a mockery that did not trouble to be bitter, +a joy in life that was not passionate to the verge of being +troublesome. + + +"A Mouse that prayed for Allah's aid +Blasphemed when no such aid befell: +A Cat, who feasted on that mouse, +Thought Allah managed vastly well. + +Pray not for aid to One who made +A set of never-changing Laws, +But in your need remember well +He gave you speed, or guile--or claws. + +Some laud a life of mild content: +Content may fall, as well as Pride. +The Frog who hugged his lowly Ditch +Was much disgruntled when it dried. + +'You are not on the Road to Hell,' +You tell me with fanatic glee: +Vain boaster, what shall that avail +If Hell is on the road to thee? + +A Poet praised the Evening Star, +Another praised the Parrot's hue: +A Merchant praised his merchandise, +And he, at least, praised what he knew." + + +It was this verse which gave the critics and commentators some clue +as to the probable date of the composition; the parrot, they +reminded the public, was in high vogue as a type of elegance in the +days of Hafiz of Shiraz; in the quatrains of Omar it makes no +appearance. + +The next verse, it was pointed out, would apply to the political +conditions of the present day as strikingly as to the region and era +for which it was written - + + +"A Sultan dreamed day-long of Peace, +The while his Rivals' armies grew: +They changed his Day-dreams into sleep +- The Peace, methinks, he never knew." + + +Woman appeared little, and wine not at all in the verse of the +hunter-poet, but there was at least one contribution to the love- +philosophy of the East - + + +"O Moon-faced Charmer, and Star-drowned Eyes, +And cheeks of soft delight, exhaling musk, +They tell me that thy charm will fade; ah well, +The Rose itself grows hue-less in the Dusk." + + +Finally, there was a recognition of the Inevitable, a chill breath +blowing across the poet's comfortable estimate of life - + + +"There is a sadness in each Dawn, +A sadness that you cannot rede: +The joyous Day brings in its train +The Feast, the Loved One, and the Steed. + +Ah, there shall come a Dawn at last +That brings no life-stir to your ken, +A long, cold Dawn without a Day, +And ye shall rede its sadness then." + + +The verses of Ghurab came on the public at a moment when a +comfortable, slightly quizzical philosophy was certain to be +welcome, and their reception was enthusiastic. Elderly colonels, +who had outlived the love of truth, wrote to the papers to say that +they had been familiar with the works of Ghurab in Afghanistan, and +Aden, and other suitable localities a quarter of a century ago. A +Ghurab-of-Karmanshah Club sprang into existence, the members of +which alluded to each other as Brother Ghurabians on the slightest +provocation. And to the flood of inquiries, criticisms, and +requests for information, which naturally poured in on the +discoverer, or rather the discloser, of this long-hidden poet, the +Rev. Wilfrid made one effectual reply: Military considerations +forbade any disclosures which might throw unnecessary light on his +nephew's movements. + +After the war the Rector's position will be one of unthinkable +embarrassment, but for the moment, at any rate, he has driven The +Forbidden Horsepond out of the field. + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg Etext of Toys of Peace by H.H. Munro ("Saki") + diff --git a/old/toypc10.zip b/old/toypc10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..577e45d --- /dev/null +++ b/old/toypc10.zip |