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+Project Gutenberg Etext of Twelve Stories and a Dream

+by H. G. Wells, #17 in our series by H. G. Wells

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+Twelve Stories and a Dream

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+by H. G. Wells

+

+May, 1999  [Etext #1743]

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+Project Gutenberg Etext of Twelve Stories and a Dream

+by H. G. Wells, #17 in our series by H. G. Wells

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+

+TWELVE STORIES AND A DREAM

+

+BY H. G. WELLS

+

+

+CONTENTS

+

+1.  Filmer

+

+2.  The Magic Shop

+

+3.  The Valley of Spiders

+

+4.  The Truth About Pyecraft

+

+5.  Mr. Skelmersdale in Fairyland

+

+6.  The Story of the Inexperienced Ghost

+

+7.  Jimmy Goggles the God

+

+8.  The New Accelerator

+

+9.  Mr. Ledbetter's Vacation

+

+10.  The Stolen Body

+

+11.  Mr. Brisher's Treasure

+

+12.  Miss Winchelsea's Heart

+

+13.  A Dream of Armageddon

+

+

+

+

+1.  FILMER

+

+In truth the mastery of flying was the work of thousands of men--

+this man a suggestion and that an experiment, until at last only 

+one vigorous intellectual effort was needed to finish the work.

+But the inexorable injustice of the popular mind has decided

+that of all these thousands, one man, and that a man who never flew,

+should be chosen as the discoverer, just as it has chosen to 

+honour Watt as the discoverer of steam and Stephenson of the

+steam-engine. And surely of all honoured names none is so 

+grotesquely and tragically honoured as poor Filmer's, the timid,

+intellectual creature who solved the problem over which the world

+had hung perplexed and a little fearful for so many generations,

+the man who pressed the button that has changed peace and warfare

+and well-nigh every condition of human life and happiness. Never

+has that recurring wonder of the littleness of the scientific man

+in the face of the greatness of his science found such an amazing

+exemplification. Much concerning Filmer is, and must remain,

+profoundly obscure--Filmers attract no Boswells--but the essential

+facts and the concluding scene are clear enough, and there are

+letters, and notes, and casual allusions to piece the whole together.

+And this is the story one makes, putting this thing with that,

+of Filmer's life and death.

+

+The first authentic trace of Filmer on the page of history is

+a document in which he applies for admission as a paid student

+in physics to the Government laboratories at South Kensington,

+and therein he describes himself as the son of a "military bootmaker"

+("cobbler" in the vulgar tongue) of Dover, and lists his various

+examination proofs of a high proficiency in chemistry and

+mathematics. With a certain want of dignity he seeks to enhance

+these attainments by a profession of poverty and disadvantages,

+and he writes of the laboratory as the "gaol" of his ambitions,

+a slip which reinforces his claim to have devoted himself exclusively

+to the exact sciences. The document is endorsed in a manner that

+shows Filmer was admitted to this coveted opportunity; but until

+quite recently no traces of his success in the Government institution

+could be found.

+

+It has now, however, been shown that in spite of his professed zeal

+for research, Filmer, before he had held this scholarship a year,

+was tempted, by the possibility of a small increase in his immediate

+income, to abandon it in order to become one of the nine-pence-an-hour

+computers employed by a well-known Professor in his vicarious

+conduct of those extensive researches of his in solar physics--researches

+which are still a matter of perplexity to astronomers. Afterwards,

+for the space of seven years, save for the pass lists of the

+London University, in which he is seen to climb slowly to a double

+first class B.Sc., in mathematics and chemistry, there is no evidence

+of how Filmer passed his life. No one knows how or where he lived,

+though it seems highly probable that he continued to support

+himself by teaching while he prosecuted the studies necessary for

+this distinction. And then, oddly enough, one finds him mentioned

+in the correspondence of Arthur Hicks, the poet.

+

+"You remember Filmer," Hicks writes to his friend Vance; "well,

+HE hasn't altered a bit, the same hostile mumble and the nasty

+chin--how CAN a man contrive to be always three days from shaving?

+-- and a sort of furtive air of being engaged in sneaking in front

+of one; even his coat and that frayed collar of his show no further

+signs of the passing years. He was writing in the library and

+I sat down beside him in the name of God's charity, whereupon

+he deliberately insulted me by covering up his memoranda. It seems

+he has some brilliant research on hand that he suspects me of all

+people--with a Bodley Booklet a-printing!--of stealing. He has taken

+remarkable honours at the University--he went through them with

+a sort of hasty slobber, as though he feared I might interrupt him

+before he had told me all--and he spoke of taking his D.Sc. as one

+might speak of taking a cab. And he asked what I was doing--with

+a sort of comparative accent, and his arm was spread nervously,

+positively a protecting arm, over the paper that hid the precious

+idea--his one hopeful idea.

+

+"'Poetry,' he said, 'Poetry. And what do you profess to teach

+in it, Hicks?'

+

+"The thing's a Provincial professorling in the very act of budding,

+and I thank the Lord devoutly that but for the precious gift

+of indolence I also might have gone this way to D.Sc. and

+destruction . . ."

+

+A curious little vignette that I am inclined to think caught Filmer

+in or near the very birth of his discovery. Hicks was wrong in

+anticipating a provincial professorship for Filmer. Our next glimpse

+of him is lecturing on "rubber and rubber substitutes," to the

+Society of Arts--he had become manager to a great plastic-substance

+manufactory--and at that time, it is now known, he was a member

+of the Aeronautical Society, albeit he contributed nothing to the

+discussions of that body, preferring no doubt to mature his great

+conception without external assistance. And within two years

+of that paper before the Society of Arts he was hastily taking out

+a number of patents and proclaiming in various undignified ways

+the completion of the divergent inquiries which made his flying

+machine possible. The first definite statement to that effect

+appeared in a halfpenny evening paper through the agency of a man

+who lodged in the same house with Filmer. His final haste after

+his long laborious secret patience seems to have been due to

+a needless panic, Bootle, the notorious American scientific quack,

+having made an announcement that Filmer interpreted wrongly as

+an anticipation of his idea.

+

+Now what precisely was Filmer's idea? Really a very simple one.

+Before his time the pursuit of aeronautics had taken two divergent

+lines, and had developed on the one hand balloons--large apparatus

+lighter than air, easy in ascent, and comparatively safe in descent,

+but floating helplessly before any breeze that took them; and on

+the other, flying machines that flew only in theory--vast flat

+structures heavier than air, propelled and kept up by heavy engines

+and for the most part smashing at the first descent. But, neglecting

+the fact that the inevitable final collapse rendered them impossible,

+the weight of the flying machines gave them this theoretical

+advantage, that they could go through the air against a wind,

+a necessary condition if aerial navigation was to have any practical

+value. It is Filmer's particular merit that he perceived the way

+in which the contrasted and hitherto incompatible merits of balloon

+and heavy flying machine might be combined in one apparatus,

+which should be at choice either heavier or lighter than air.

+He took hints from the contractile bladders of fish and the pneumatic

+cavities of birds. He devised an arrangement of contractile

+and absolutely closed balloons which when expanded could lift

+the actual flying apparatus with ease, and when retracted by the

+complicated "musculature" he wove about them, were withdrawn

+almost completely into the frame; and he built the large framework

+which these balloons sustained, of hollow, rigid tubes, the air

+in which, by an ingenious contrivance, was automatically pumped

+out as the apparatus fell, and which then remained exhausted

+so long as the aeronaut desired. There were no wings or propellers

+to his machine, such as there had been to all previous aeroplanes,

+and the only engine required was the compact and powerful little

+appliance needed to contract the balloons. He perceived that such

+an apparatus as he had devised might rise with frame exhausted

+and balloons expanded to a considerable height, might then contract

+its balloons and let the air into its frame, and by an adjustment

+of its weights slide down the air in any desired direction. As it fell

+it would accumulate velocity and at the same time lose weight,

+and the momentum accumulated by its down-rush could be utilised

+by means of a shifting of its weights to drive it up in the air again

+as the balloons expanded. This conception, which is still the

+structural conception of all successful flying machines, needed,

+however, a vast amount of toil upon its details before it could

+actually be realised, and such toil Filmer--as he was accustomed

+to tell the numerous interviewers who crowded upon him in

+the heyday of his fame--"ungrudgingly and unsparingly gave."

+His particular difficulty was the elastic lining of the contractile

+balloon. He found he needed a new substance, and in the discovery

+and manufacture of that new substance he had, as he never failed

+to impress upon the interviewers, "performed a far more arduous

+work than even in the actual achievement of my seemingly greater

+discovery."

+

+But it must not be imagined that these interviews followed hard

+upon Filmer's proclamation of his invention. An interval of nearly

+five years elapsed during which he timidly remained at his rubber

+factory--he seems to have been entirely dependent on his small

+income from this source--making misdirected attempts to assure

+a quite indifferent public that he really HAD invented what he had

+invented. He occupied the greater part of his leisure in the

+composition of letters to the scientific and daily press, and

+so forth, stating precisely the net result of his contrivances,

+and demanding financial aid. That alone would have sufficed for

+the suppression of his letters. He spent such holidays as he could

+arrange in unsatisfactory interviews with the door-keepers of

+leading London papers--he was singularly not adapted for inspiring

+hall-porters with confidence--and he positively attempted to induce

+the War Office to take up his work with him. There remains a

+confidential letter from Major-General Volleyfire to the Earl of Frogs.

+"The man's a crank and a bounder to boot," says the Major-General

+in his bluff, sensible, army way, and so left it open for the Japanese

+to secure, as they subsequently did, the priority in this side

+of warfare--a priority they still to our great discomfort retain.

+

+And then by a stroke of luck the membrane Filmer had invented for his

+contractile balloon was discovered to be useful for the valves

+of a new oil-engine, and he obtained the means for making a trial

+model of his invention. He threw up his rubber factory appointment,

+desisted from all further writing, and, with a certain secrecy

+that seems to have been an inseparable characteristic of all his

+proceedings, set to work upon the apparatus. He seems to have

+directed the making of its parts and collected most of it in a room

+in Shoreditch, but its final putting together was done at Dymchurch,

+in Kent. He did not make the affair large enough to carry a man,

+but he made an extremely ingenious use of what were then called

+the Marconi rays to control its flight. The first flight of this

+first practicable flying machine took place over some fields

+near Burford Bridge, near Hythe, in Kent, and Filmer followed

+and controlled its flight upon a specially constructed motor tricycle.

+

+The flight was, considering all things, an amazing success.

+The apparatus was brought in a cart from Dymchurch to Burford Bridge,

+ascended there to a height of nearly three hundred feet, swooped

+thence very nearly back to Dymchurch, came about in its sweep,

+rose again, circled, and finally sank uninjured in a field behind

+the Burford Bridge Inn. At its descent a curious thing happened.

+Filmer got off his tricycle, scrambled over the intervening dyke,

+advanced perhaps twenty yards towards his triumph, threw out

+his arms in a strange gesticulation, and fell down in a dead faint.

+Every one could then recall the ghastliness of his features and

+all the evidences of extreme excitement they had observed throughout

+the trial, things they might otherwise have forgotten. Afterwards

+in the inn he had an unaccountable gust of hysterical weeping.

+

+Altogether there were not twenty witnesses of this affair, and 

+those for the most part uneducated men. The New Romney doctor

+saw the ascent but not the descent, his horse being frightened

+by the electrical apparatus on Filmer's tricycle and giving him

+a nasty spill. Two members of the Kent constabulary watched

+the affair from a cart in an unofficial spirit, and a grocer calling

+round the Marsh for orders and two lady cyclists seem almost

+to complete the list of educated people. There were two reporters

+present, one representing a Folkestone paper and the other being

+a fourth-class interviewer and "symposium" journalist, whose

+expenses down, Filmer, anxious as ever for adequate advertisement

+--and now quite realising the way in which adequate advertisement

+may be obtained--had paid. The latter was one of those writers

+who can throw a convincing air of unreality over the most credible

+events, and his half-facetious account of the affair appeared

+in the magazine page of a popular journal. But, happily for Filmer,

+this person's colloquial methods were more convincing. He went

+to offer some further screed upon the subject to Banghurst,

+the proprietor of the New Paper, and one of the ablest and most

+unscrupulous men in London journalism, and Banghurst instantly

+seized upon the situation. The interviewer vanishes from the narrative,

+no doubt very doubtfully remunerated, and Banghurst, Banghurst himself,

+double chin, grey twill suit, abdomen, voice, gestures and all,

+appears at Dymchurch, following his large, unrivalled journalistic nose.

+He had seen the whole thing at a glance, just what it was and

+what it might be.

+

+At his touch, as it were, Filmer's long-pent investigations exploded

+into fame. He instantly and most magnificently was a Boom. One turns

+over the files of the journals of the year 1907 with a quite incredulous

+recognition of how swift and flaming the boom of those days could be.

+The July papers know nothing of flying, see nothing in flying,

+state by a most effective silence that men never would, could or

+should fly. In August flying and Filmer and flying and parachutes

+and aerial tactics and the Japanese Government and Filmer and again

+flying, shouldered the war in Yunnan and the gold mines of

+Upper Greenland off the leading page. And Banghurst had given

+ten thousand pounds, and, further, Banghurst was giving five thousand

+pounds, and Banghurst had devoted his well-known, magnificent

+(but hitherto sterile) private laboratories and several acres of land

+near his private residence on the Surrey hills to the strenuous

+and violent completion--Banghurst fashion--of the life-size

+practicable flying machine. Meanwhile, in the sight of privileged

+multitudes in the walled-garden of the Banghurst town residence

+in Fulham, Filmer was exhibited at weekly garden parties putting

+the working model through its paces. At enormous initial cost,

+but with a final profit, the New Paper presented its readers

+with a beautiful photographic souvenir of the first of these occasions.

+

+Here again the correspondence of Arthur Hicks and his friend Vance

+comes to our aid.

+

+"I saw Filmer in his glory," he writes, with just the touch of envy

+natural to his position as a poet passe. "The man is brushed

+and shaved, dressed in the fashion of a Royal-Institution-Afternoon

+Lecturer, the very newest shape in frock-coats and long patent shoes,

+and altogether in a state of extraordinary streakiness between

+an owlish great man and a scared abashed self-conscious bounder

+cruelly exposed. He hasn't a touch of colour in the skin of his face,

+his head juts forward, and those queer little dark amber eyes of his

+watch furtively round him for his fame. His clothes fit perfectly

+and yet sit upon him as though he had bought them ready-made.

+He speaks in a mumble still, but he says, you perceive indistinctly,

+enormous self-assertive things, he backs into the rear of groups

+by instinct if Banghurst drops the line for a minute, and when

+he walks across Banghurst's lawn one perceives him a little out

+of breath and going jerky, and that his weak white hands are clenched.

+His is a state of tension--horrible tension. And he is the Greatest

+Discoverer of This or Any Age--the Greatest Discoverer of This

+or Any Age! What strikes one so forcibly about him is that he didn't

+somehow quite expect it ever, at any rate, not at all like this.

+Banghurst is about everywhere, the energetic M.C. of his great

+little catch, and I swear he will have every one down on his lawn

+there before he has finished with the engine; he had bagged

+the prime minister yesterday, and he, bless his heart! didn't look

+particularly outsize, on the very first occasion. Conceive it! Filmer!

+Our obscure unwashed Filmer, the Glory of British science!

+Duchesses crowd upon him, beautiful, bold peeresses say in their

+beautiful, clear loud voices--have you noticed how penetrating

+the great lady is becoming nowadays?--'Oh, Mr. Filmer, how DID

+you do it?'

+

+"Common men on the edge of things are too remote for the answer.

+One imagines something in the way of that interview, 'toil ungrudgingly

+and unsparingly given, Madam, and, perhaps--I don't know--but perhaps

+a little special aptitude.'"

+

+So far Hicks, and the photographic supplement to the New Paper is in

+sufficient harmony with the description. In one picture the machine

+swings down towards the river, and the tower of Fulham church

+appears below it through a gap in the elms, and in another, Filmer

+sits at his guiding batteries, and the great and beautiful of the earth

+stand around him, with Banghurst massed modestly but resolutely

+in the rear. The grouping is oddly apposite. Occluding much of

+Banghurst, and looking with a pensive, speculative expression

+at Filmer, stands the Lady Mary Elkinghorn, still beautiful,

+in spite of the breath of scandal and her eight-and-thirty years,

+the only person whose face does not admit a perception of the camera

+that was in the act of snapping them all.

+

+So much for the exterior facts of the story, but, after all,

+they are very exterior facts. About the real interest of the business

+one is necessarily very much in the dark. How was Filmer feeling

+at the time? How much was a certain unpleasant anticipation present

+inside that very new and fashionable frock-coat? He was in the

+halfpenny, penny, six-penny, and more expensive papers alike,

+and acknowledged by the whole world as "the Greatest Discoverer

+of This or Any Age." He had invented a practicable flying machine,

+and every day down among the Surrey hills the life-sized model

+was getting ready. And when it was ready, it followed as a clear

+inevitable consequence of his having invented and made it--everybody

+in the world, indeed, seemed to take it for granted; there wasn't

+a gap anywhere in that serried front of anticipation--that he would

+proudly and cheerfully get aboard it, ascend with it, and fly.

+

+But we know now pretty clearly that simple pride and cheerfulness

+in such an act were singularly out of harmony with Filmer's private

+constitution. It occurred to no one at the time, but there the fact is.

+We can guess with some confidence now that it must have been

+drifting about in his mind a great deal during the day, and, from

+a little note to his physician complaining of persistent insomnia,

+we have the soundest reason for supposing it dominated his nights,

+--the idea that it would be after all, in spite of his theoretical

+security, an abominably sickening, uncomfortable, and dangerous

+thing for him to flap about in nothingness a thousand feet or so

+in the air. It must have dawned upon him quite early in the period

+of being the Greatest Discoverer of This or Any Age, the vision

+of doing this and that with an extensive void below. Perhaps

+somewhen in his youth he had looked down a great height or fallen

+down in some excessively uncomfortable way; perhaps some habit of

+sleeping on the wrong side had resulted in that disagreeable falling

+nightmare one knows, and given him his horror; of the strength

+of that horror there remains now not a particle of doubt.

+

+Apparently he had never weighed this duty of flying in his earlier

+days of research; the machine had been his end, but now things

+were opening out beyond his end, and particularly this giddy whirl

+up above there. He was a Discoverer and he had Discovered.

+But he was not a Flying Man, and it was only now that he was beginning

+to perceive clearly that he was expected to fly. Yet, however much

+the thing was present in his mind he gave no expression to it until

+the very end, and meanwhile he went to and fro from Banghurst's

+magnificent laboratories, and was interviewed and lionised, and

+wore good clothes, and ate good food, and lived in an elegant flat,

+enjoying a very abundant feast of such good, coarse, wholesome

+Fame and Success as a man, starved for all his years as he had been

+starved, might be reasonably expected to enjoy.

+

+After a time, the weekly gatherings in Fulham ceased. The model

+had failed one day just for a moment to respond to Filmer's guidance,

+or he had been distracted by the compliments of an archbishop.

+At any rate, it suddenly dug its nose into the air just a little

+too steeply as the archbishop was sailing through a Latin quotation

+for all the world like an archbishop in a book, and it came down

+in the Fulham Road within three yards of a 'bus horse. It stood

+for a second perhaps, astonishing and in its attitude astonished,

+then it crumpled, shivered into pieces, and the 'bus horse was

+incidentally killed.

+

+Filmer lost the end of the archiepiscopal compliment. He stood up

+and stared as his invention swooped out of sight and reach of him.

+His long, white hands still gripped his useless apparatus.

+The archbishop followed his skyward stare with an apprehension

+unbecoming in an archbishop.

+

+Then came the crash and the shouts and uproar from the road

+to relieve Filmer's tension. "My God!" he whispered, and sat down.

+

+Every one else almost was staring to see where the machine had

+vanished, or rushing into the house.

+

+The making of the big machine progressed all the more rapidly

+for this. Over its making presided Filmer, always a little slow

+and very careful in his manner, always with a growing preoccupation

+in his mind. His care over the strength and soundness of the apparatus

+was prodigious. The slightest doubt, and he delayed everything

+until the doubtful part could be replaced. Wilkinson, his senior

+assistant, fumed at some of these delays, which, he insisted, were

+for the most part unnecessary. Banghurst magnified the patient

+certitude of Filmer in the New Paper, and reviled it bitterly

+to his wife, and MacAndrew, the second assistant, approved Filmer's

+wisdom. "We're not wanting a fiasco, man," said MacAndrew. "He's

+perfectly well advised."

+

+And whenever an opportunity arose Filmer would expound to Wilkinson

+and MacAndrew just exactly how every part of the flying machine

+was to be controlled and worked, so that in effect they would be

+just as capable, and even more capable, when at last the time came,

+of guiding it through the skies.

+

+Now I should imagine that if Filmer had seen fit at this stage

+to define just what he was feeling, and to take a definite line

+in the matter of his ascent, he might have escaped that painful

+ordeal quite easily. If he had had it clearly in his mind he could

+have done endless things. He would surely have found no difficulty

+with a specialist to demonstrate a weak heart, or something gastric

+or pulmonary, to stand in his way--that is the line I am astonished

+he did not take,--or he might, had he been man enough, have

+declared simply and finally that he did not intend to do the thing.

+But the fact is, though the dread was hugely present in his mind,

+the thing was by no means sharp and clear. I fancy that all through

+this period he kept telling himself that when the occasion came

+he would find himself equal to it. He was like a man just gripped

+by a great illness, who says he feels a little out of sorts, and expects

+to be better presently. Meanwhile he delayed the completion of

+the machine, and let the assumption that he was going to fly it

+take root and flourish exceedingly about him. He even accepted

+anticipatory compliments on his courage. And, barring this secret

+squeamishness, there can be no doubt he found all the praise and

+distinction and fuss he got a delightful and even intoxicating draught.

+

+The Lady Mary Elkinghorn made things a little more complicated

+for him.

+

+How THAT began was a subject of inexhaustible speculation to Hicks.

+Probably in the beginning she was just a little "nice" to him

+with that impartial partiality of hers, and it may be that to her eyes,

+standing out conspicuously as he did ruling his monster in the upper air,

+he had a distinction that Hicks was not disposed to find. And somehow

+they must have had a moment of sufficient isolation, and the great

+Discoverer a moment of sufficient courage for something just

+a little personal to be mumbled or blurted. However it began,

+there is no doubt that it did begin, and presently became quite

+perceptible to a world accustomed to find in the proceedings

+of the Lady Mary Elkinghorn a matter of entertainment. It complicated

+things, because the state of love in such a virgin mind as Filmer's

+would brace his resolution, if not sufficiently, at any rate

+considerably towards facing a danger he feared, and hampered him

+in such attempts at evasion as would otherwise be natural and congenial.

+

+It remains a matter for speculation just how the Lady Mary felt

+for Filmer and just what she thought of him. At thirty-eight one

+may have gathered much wisdom and still be not altogether wise,

+and the imagination still functions actively enough in creating

+glamours and effecting the impossible. He came before her eyes

+as a very central man, and that always counts, and he had powers,

+unique powers as it seemed, at any rate in the air. The performance

+with the model had just a touch of the quality of a potent incantation,

+and women have ever displayed an unreasonable disposition to imagine

+that when a man has powers he must necessarily have Power. Given

+so much, and what was not good in Filmer's manner and appearance

+became an added merit. He was modest, he hated display, but given

+an occasion where TRUE qualities are needed, then--then one would see!

+

+The late Mrs. Bampton thought it wise to convey to Lady Mary her opinion

+that Filmer, all things considered, was rather a "grub." "He's certainly

+not a sort of man I have ever met before," said the Lady Mary,

+with a quite unruffled serenity. And Mrs. Bampton, after a swift,

+imperceptible glance at that serenity, decided that so far as saying

+anything to Lady Mary went, she had done as much as could be expected

+of her. But she said a great deal to other people.

+

+And at last, without any undue haste or unseemliness, the day

+dawned, the great day, when Banghurst had promised his public--

+the world in fact--that flying should be finally attained and overcome.

+Filmer saw it dawn, watched even in the darkness before it dawned,

+watched its stars fade and the grey and pearly pinks give place

+at last to the clear blue sky of a sunny, cloudless day. He watched it

+from the window of his bedroom in the new-built wing of Banghurst's

+Tudor house. And as the stars were overwhelmed and the shapes and

+substances of things grew into being out of the amorphous dark,

+he must have seen more and more distinctly the festive preparations

+beyond the beech clumps near the green pavilion in the outer park,

+the three stands for the privileged spectators, the raw, new fencing

+of the enclosure, the sheds and workshops, the Venetian masts

+and fluttering flags that Banghurst had considered essential,

+black and limp in the breezeless dawn, and amidst all these things

+a great shape covered with tarpauling. A strange and terrible

+portent for humanity was that shape, a beginning that must surely

+spread and widen and change and dominate all the affairs of men,

+but to Filmer it is very doubtful whether it appeared in anything

+but a narrow and personal light. Several people heard him pacing

+in the small hours--for the vast place was packed with guests

+by a proprietor editor who, before all understood compression.

+And about five o'clock, if not before, Filmer left his room and

+wandered out of the sleeping house into the park, alive by that time

+with sunlight and birds and squirrels and the fallow deer. MacAndrew,

+who was also an early riser, met him near the machine, and they went

+and had a look at it together.

+

+It is doubtful if Filmer took any breakfast, in spite of the urgency

+of Banghurst. So soon as the guests began to be about in some number

+he seems to have retreated to his room. Thence about ten he went

+into the shrubbery, very probably because he had seen the Lady Mary

+Elkinghorn there. She was walking up and down, engaged in conversation

+with her old school friend, Mrs. Brewis-Craven, and although Filmer

+had never met the latter lady before, he joined them and walked

+beside them for some time. There were several silences in spite

+of the Lady Mary's brilliance. The situation was a difficult one,

+and Mrs. Brewis-Craven did not master its difficulty. "He struck me,"

+she said afterwards with a luminous self-contradiction, "as a very

+unhappy person who had something to say, and wanted before all things

+to be helped to say it. But how was one to help him when one didn't

+know what it was?"

+

+At half-past eleven the enclosures for the public in the outer park

+were crammed, there was an intermittent stream of equipages along

+the belt which circles the outer park, and the house party was dotted

+over the lawn and shrubbery and the corner of the inner park,

+in a series of brilliantly attired knots, all making for the

+flying machine. Filmer walked in a group of three with Banghurst,

+who was supremely and conspicuously happy, and Sir Theodore Hickle,

+the president of the Aeronautical Society. Mrs. Banghurst was close

+behind with the Lady Mary Elkinghorn, Georgina Hickle, and the Dean

+of Stays. Banghurst was large and copious in speech, and such

+interstices as he left were filled in by Hickle with complimentary

+remarks to Filmer. And Filmer walked between them saying not a word

+except by way of unavoidable reply. Behind, Mrs. Banghurst listened

+to the admirably suitable and shapely conversation of the Dean

+with that fluttered attention to the ampler clergy ten years

+of social ascent and ascendency had not cured in her; and the Lady Mary

+watched, no doubt with an entire confidence in the world's

+disillusionment, the drooping shoulders of the sort of man she had

+never met before.

+

+There was some cheering as the central party came into view of

+the enclosures, but it was not very unanimous nor invigorating cheering.

+They were within fifty yards of the apparatus when Filmer took

+a hasty glance over his shoulder to measure the distance of the ladies

+behind them, and decided to make the first remark he had initiated

+since the house had been left. His voice was just a little hoarse,

+and he cut in on Banghurst in mid-sentence on Progress.

+

+"I say, Banghurst," he said, and stopped.

+

+"Yes," said Banghurst.

+

+"I wish--" He moistened his lips. "I'm not feeling well."

+

+Banghurst stopped dead. "Eh?" he shouted.

+

+"A queer feeling." Filmer made to move on, but Banghurst was immovable.

+"I don't know. I may be better in a minute. If not--perhaps . . . 

+MacAndrew--"

+

+"You're not feeling WELL?" said Banghurst, and stared at his white face.

+

+"My dear!" he said, as Mrs. Banghurst came up with them, "Filmer

+says he isn't feeling WELL."

+

+"A little queer," exclaimed Filmer, avoiding the Lady Mary's eyes.

+"It may pass off--"

+

+There was a pause.

+

+It came to Filmer that he was the most isolated person in the world.

+

+"In any case," said Banghurst, "the ascent must be made. Perhaps

+if you were to sit down somewhere for a moment--"

+

+"It's the crowd, I think," said Filmer.

+

+There was a second pause. Banghurst's eye rested in scrutiny

+on Filmer, and then swept the sample of public in the enclosure.

+

+"It's unfortunate," said Sir Theodore Hickle; but still--I suppose--

+Your assistants--Of course, if you feel out of condition and disinclined--"

+

+"I don't think Mr. Filmer would permit THAT for a moment," said Lady Mary.

+

+"But if Mr. Filmer's nerve is run--It might even be dangerous for him

+to attempt--" Hickle coughed.

+

+"It's just because it's dangerous," began the Lady Mary, and felt

+she had made her point of view and Filmer's plain enough.

+

+Conflicting motives struggled for Filmer.

+

+"I feel I ought to go up," he said, regarding the ground. He looked

+up and met the Lady Mary's eyes. "I want to go up," he said, and

+smiled whitely at her. He turned towards Banghurst. "If I could

+just sit down somewhere for a moment out of the crowd and sun--"

+

+Banghurst, at least, was beginning to understand the case. "Come

+into my little room in the green pavilion," he said. "It's quite

+cool there." He took Filmer by the arm.

+

+Filmer turned his face to the Lady Mary Elkinghorn again. "I shall

+be all right in five minutes," he said. "I'm tremendously sorry--"

+

+The Lady Mary Elkinghorn smiled at him. "I couldn't think--" he

+said to Hickle, and obeyed the compulsion of Banghurst's pull.

+

+The rest remained watching the two recede.

+

+"He is so fragile," said the Lady Mary.

+

+"He's certainly a highly nervous type," said the Dean, whose weakness

+it was to regard the whole world, except married clergymen with

+enormous families, as "neurotic."

+

+"Of course," said Hickle, "it isn't absolutely necessary for him

+to go up because he has invented--"

+

+"How COULD he avoid it?" asked the Lady Mary, with the faintest

+shadow of scorn.

+

+"It's certainly most unfortunate if he's going to be ill now," said

+Mrs. Banghurst a little severely.

+

+"He's not going to be ill," said the Lady Mary, and certainly

+she had met Filmer's eye.

+

+"YOU'LL be all right," said Banghurst, as they went towards the pavilion.

+"All you want is a nip of brandy. It ought to be you, you know.

+You'll be--you'd get it rough, you know, if you let another man--"

+

+"Oh, I want to go," said Filmer. "I shall be all right. As a matter

+of fact I'm almost inclined NOW--. No! I think I'll have that nip

+of brandy first."

+

+Banghurst took him into the little room and routed out an empty

+decanter. He departed in search of a supply. He was gone perhaps

+five minutes.

+

+The history of those five minutes cannot be written. At intervals

+Filmer's face could be seen by the people on the easternmost

+of the stands erected for spectators, against the window pane

+peering out, and then it would recede and fade. Banghurst vanished

+shouting behind the grand stand, and presently the butler appeared

+going pavilionward with a tray.

+

+The apartment in which Filmer came to his last solution was a pleasant

+little room very simply furnished with green furniture and an old

+bureau--for Banghurst was simple in all his private ways. It was

+hung with little engravings after Morland and it had a shelf of books.

+But as it happened, Banghurst had left a rook rifle he sometimes

+played with on the top of the desk, and on the corner of the mantelshelf

+was a tin with three or four cartridges remaining in it. As Filmer

+went up and down that room wrestling with his intolerable dilemma

+he went first towards the neat little rifle athwart the blotting-pad

+and then towards the neat little red label 

+

+".22 LONG."

+

+The thing must have jumped into his mind in a moment.

+

+Nobody seems to have connected the report with him, though the gun,

+being fired in a confined space, must have sounded loud, and there

+were several people in the billiard-room, separated from him only

+by a lath-and-plaster partition. But directly Banghurst's butler

+opened the door and smelt the sour smell of the smoke, he knew,

+he says, what had happened. For the servants at least of Banghurst's

+household had guessed something of what was going on in Filmer's mind.

+

+All through that trying afternoon Banghurst behaved as he held

+a man should behave in the presence of hopeless disaster, and his guests

+for the most part succeeded in not insisting upon the fact--though

+to conceal their perception of it altogether was impossible--that

+Banghurst had been pretty elaborately and completely swindled

+by the deceased. The public in the enclosure, Hicks told me, dispersed

+"like a party that has been ducking a welsher," and there wasn't a soul

+in the train to London, it seems, who hadn't known all along that flying

+was a quite impossible thing for man. "But he might have tried it,"

+said many, "after carrying the thing so far."

+

+In the evening, when he was comparatively alone, Banghurst broke

+down and went on like a man of clay. I have been told he wept,

+which must have made an imposing scene, and he certainly said

+Filmer had ruined his life, and offered and sold the whole apparatus

+to MacAndrew for half-a-crown. "I've been thinking--" said MacAndrew

+at the conclusion of the bargain, and stopped.

+

+The next morning the name of Filmer was, for the first time, less

+conspicuous in the New Paper than in any other daily paper in the world.

+The rest of the world's instructors, with varying emphasis, according

+to their dignity and the degree of competition between themselves

+and the New Paper, proclaimed the "Entire Failure of the New Flying

+Machine," and "Suicide of the Impostor." But in the district of North

+Surrey the reception of the news was tempered by a perception of unusual

+aerial phenomena.

+

+Overnight Wilkinson and MacAndrew had fallen into violent argument

+on the exact motives of their principal's rash act.

+

+"The man was certainly a poor, cowardly body, but so far as his

+science went he was NO impostor," said MacAndrew, "and I'm prepared

+to give that proposition a very practical demonstration, Mr. Wilkinson,

+so soon as we've got the place a little more to ourselves. For I've

+no faith in all this publicity for experimental trials."

+

+And to that end, while all the world was reading of the certain

+failure of the new flying machine, MacAndrew was soaring and curvetting

+with great amplitude and dignity over the Epsom and Wimbledon divisions;

+and Banghurst, restored once more to hope and energy, and regardless

+of public security and the Board of Trade, was pursuing his gyrations

+and trying to attract his attention, on a motor car and in his pyjamas--

+he had caught sight of the ascent when pulling up the blind of his

+bedroom window--equipped, among other things, with a film camera

+that was subsequently discovered to be jammed.  And Filmer

+was lying on the billiard table in the green pavilion with a sheet

+about his body. 

+

+

+2.  THE MAGIC SHOP

+

+I had seen the Magic Shop from afar several times; I had passed

+it once or twice, a shop window of alluring little objects, magic

+balls, magic hens, wonderful cones, ventriloquist dolls, the material

+of the basket trick, packs of cards that LOOKED all right, and all

+that sort of thing, but never had I thought of going in until one day,

+almost without warning, Gip hauled me by my finger right up to

+the window, and so conducted himself that there was nothing for it

+but to take him in. I had not thought the place was there, to tell

+the truth--a modest-sized frontage in Regent Street, between

+the picture shop and the place where the chicks run about just

+out of patent incubators, but there it was sure enough. I had fancied

+it was down nearer the Circus, or round the corner in Oxford Street,

+or even in Holborn; always over the way and a little inaccessible

+it had been, with something of the mirage in its position; but here

+it was now quite indisputably, and the fat end of Gip's pointing

+finger made a noise upon the glass.

+

+"If I was rich," said Gip, dabbing a finger at the Disappearing Egg,

+"I'd buy myself that. And that"--which was The Crying Baby, Very Human

+--and that," which was a mystery, and called, so a neat card asserted,

+"Buy One and Astonish Your Friends."

+

+"Anything," said Gip, "will disappear under one of those cones.

+I have read about it in a book.

+

+"And there, dadda, is the Vanishing Halfpenny--, only they've put it

+this way up so's we can't see how it's done."

+

+Gip, dear boy, inherits his mother's breeding, and he did not propose

+to enter the shop or worry in any way; only, you know, quite unconsciously

+he lugged my finger doorward, and he made his interest clear.

+

+"That," he said, and pointed to the Magic Bottle.

+

+"If you had that?" I said; at which promising inquiry he looked up

+with a sudden radiance.

+

+"I could show it to Jessie," he said, thoughtful as ever of others.

+

+"It's less than a hundred days to your birthday, Gibbles," I said,

+and laid my hand on the door-handle.

+

+Gip made no answer, but his grip tightened on my finger, and so

+we came into the shop.

+

+It was no common shop this; it was a magic shop, and all the prancing

+precedence Gip would have taken in the matter of mere toys was wanting.

+He left the burthen of the conversation to me.

+

+It was a little, narrow shop, not very well lit, and the door-bell

+pinged again with a plaintive note as we closed it behind us.

+For a moment or so we were alone and could glance about us.

+There was a tiger in papier-mache on the glass case that covered

+the low counter--a grave, kind-eyed tiger that waggled his head

+in a methodical manner; there were several crystal spheres, a china

+hand holding magic cards, a stock of magic fish-bowls in various

+sizes, and an immodest magic hat that shamelessly displayed its springs.

+On the floor were magic mirrors; one to draw you out long and thin,

+one to swell your head and vanish your legs, and one to make you short

+and fat like a draught; and while we were laughing at these the shopman,

+as I suppose, came in.

+

+At any rate, there he was behind the counter--a curious, sallow,

+dark man, with one ear larger than the other and a chin like

+the toe-cap of a boot.

+

+"What can we have the pleasure?" he said, spreading his long,

+magic fingers on the glass case; and so with a start we were aware

+of him.

+

+"I want," I said, "to buy my little boy a few simple tricks."

+

+"Legerdemain?" he asked. "Mechanical? Domestic?"

+

+"Anything amusing?" said I.

+

+"Um!" said the shopman, and scratched his head for a moment as if

+thinking. Then, quite distinctly, he drew from his head a glass ball.

+"Something in this way?" he said, and held it out.

+

+The action was unexpected. I had seen the trick done at entertainments

+endless times before--it's part of the common stock of conjurers--

+but I had not expected it here.

+

+"That's good," I said, with a laugh.

+

+"Isn't it?" said the shopman.

+

+Gip stretched out his disengaged hand to take this object and found

+merely a blank palm.

+

+"It's in your pocket," said the shopman, and there it was!

+

+"How much will that be?" I asked.

+

+"We make no charge for glass balls," said the shopman politely.

+"We get them,"--he picked one out of his elbow as he spoke--"free."

+He produced another from the back of his neck, and laid it beside

+its predecessor on the counter. Gip regarded his glass ball sagely,

+then directed a look of inquiry at the two on the counter, and finally

+brought his round-eyed scrutiny to the shopman, who smiled.

+

+"You may have those too," said the shopman, "and, if you DON'T mind,

+one from my mouth. SO!"

+

+Gip counselled me mutely for a moment, and then in a profound silence

+put away the four balls, resumed my reassuring finger, and nerved

+himself for the next event.

+

+"We get all our smaller tricks in that way," the shopman remarked.

+

+I laughed in the manner of one who subscribes to a jest. "Instead

+of going to the wholesale shop," I said. "Of course, it's cheaper."

+

+"In a way," the shopman said. "Though we pay in the end. But not

+so heavily--as people suppose. . . . Our larger tricks, and our daily

+provisions and all the other things we want, we get out of that hat. . .

+And you know, sir, if you'll excuse my saying it, there ISN'T

+a wholesale shop, not for Genuine Magic goods, sir. I don't know

+if you noticed our inscription--the Genuine Magic shop." He drew

+a business-card from his cheek and handed it to me. "Genuine,"

+he said, with his finger on the word, and added, "There is absolutely

+no deception, sir."

+

+He seemed to be carrying out the joke pretty thoroughly, I thought.

+

+He turned to Gip with a smile of remarkable affability. "You, you know,

+are the Right Sort of Boy."

+

+I was surprised at his knowing that, because, in the interests

+of discipline, we keep it rather a secret even at home; but Gip

+received it in unflinching silence, keeping a steadfast eye on him.

+

+"It's only the Right Sort of Boy gets through that doorway."

+

+And, as if by way of illustration, there came a rattling at the door,

+and a squeaking little voice could be faintly heard. "Nyar! I WARN 'a

+go in there, dadda, I WARN 'a go in there. Ny-a-a-ah!" and then

+the accents of a down-trodden parent, urging consolations and

+propitiations. "It's locked, Edward," he said.

+

+"But it isn't," said I.

+

+"It is, sir," said the shopman, "always--for that sort of child,"

+and as he spoke we had a glimpse of the other youngster, a little,

+white face, pallid from sweet-eating and over-sapid food, and

+distorted by evil passions, a ruthless little egotist, pawing

+at the enchanted pane. "It's no good, sir," said the shopman,

+as I moved, with my natural helpfulness, doorward, and presently

+the spoilt child was carried off howling.

+

+"How do you manage that?" I said, breathing a little more freely.

+

+"Magic!" said the shopman, with a careless wave of the hand, and behold!

+sparks of coloured fire flew out of his fingers and vanished into

+the shadows of the shop.

+

+"You were saying," he said, addressing himself to Gip, "before

+you came in, that you would like one of our 'Buy One and Astonish

+your Friends' boxes?"

+

+Gip, after a gallant effort, said "Yes."

+

+"It's in your pocket."

+

+And leaning over the counter--he really had an extraordinarily

+long body--this amazing person produced the article in the customary

+conjurer's manner. "Paper," he said, and took a sheet out of

+the empty hat with the springs; "string," and behold his mouth was

+a string-box, from which he drew an unending thread, which when

+he had tied his parcel he bit off--and, it seemed to me, swallowed

+the ball of string. And then he lit a candle at the nose of one

+of the ventriloquist's dummies, stuck one of his fingers (which

+had become sealing-wax red) into the flame, and so sealed the parcel.

+"Then there was the Disappearing Egg," he remarked, and produced

+one from within my coat-breast and packed it, and also The Crying

+Baby, Very Human. I handed each parcel to Gip as it was ready,

+and he clasped them to his chest.

+

+He said very little, but his eyes were eloquent; the clutch of

+his arms was eloquent. He was the playground of unspeakable emotions.

+These, you know, were REAL Magics. Then, with a start, I discovered

+something moving about in my hat--something soft and jumpy. I whipped

+it off, and a ruffled pigeon--no doubt a confederate--dropped out

+and ran on the counter, and went, I fancy, into a cardboard box

+behind the papier-mache tiger.

+

+"Tut, tut!" said the shopman, dexterously relieving me of my headdress;

+"careless bird, and--as I live--nesting!"

+

+He shook my hat, and shook out into his extended hand two or three

+eggs, a large marble, a watch, about half-a-dozen of the inevitable

+glass balls, and then crumpled, crinkled paper, more and more and more,

+talking all the time of the way in which people neglect to brush

+their hats INSIDE as well as out, politely, of course, but with

+a certain personal application. "All sorts of things accumulate,

+sir. . . . Not YOU, of course, in particular. . . . Nearly every

+customer. . . . Astonishing what they carry about with them. . . ."

+The crumpled paper rose and billowed on the counter more and more

+and more, until he was nearly hidden from us, until he was altogether

+hidden, and still his voice went on and on. "We none of us know

+what the fair semblance of a human being may conceal, sir. Are we

+all then no better than brushed exteriors, whited sepulchres--"

+

+His voice stopped--exactly like when you hit a neighbour's gramophone

+with a well-aimed brick, the same instant silence, and the rustle

+of the paper stopped, and everything was still. . . .

+

+"Have you done with my hat?" I said, after an interval.

+

+There was no answer.

+

+I stared at Gip, and Gip stared at me, and there were our distortions

+in the magic mirrors, looking very rum, and grave, and quiet. . . .

+

+"I think we'll go now," I said. "Will you tell me how much all this

+comes to? . . . .

+

+"I say," I said, on a rather louder note, "I want the bill; and

+my hat, please."

+

+It might have been a sniff from behind the paper pile. . . .

+

+"Let's look behind the counter, Gip," I said. "He's making fun of us."

+

+I led Gip round the head-wagging tiger, and what do you think

+there was behind the counter? No one at all! Only my hat on the floor,

+and a common conjurer's lop-eared white rabbit lost in meditation,

+and looking as stupid and crumpled as only a conjurer's rabbit

+can do. I resumed my hat, and the rabbit lolloped a lollop or so

+out of my way.

+

+"Dadda!" said Gip, in a guilty whisper.

+

+"What is it, Gip?" said I.

+

+"I DO like this shop, dadda."

+

+"So should I," I said to myself, "if the counter wouldn't suddenly

+extend itself to shut one off from the door." But I didn't call

+Gip's attention to that. "Pussy!" he said, with a hand out to

+the rabbit as it came lolloping past us; "Pussy, do Gip a magic!"

+and his eyes followed it as it squeezed through a door I had

+certainly not remarked a moment before. Then this door opened wider,

+and the man with one ear larger than the other appeared again.

+He was smiling still, but his eye met mine with something between

+amusement and defiance. "You'd like to see our show-room, sir," he

+said, with an innocent suavity. Gip tugged my finger forward. I

+glanced at the counter and met the shopman's eye again. I was

+beginning to think the magic just a little too genuine. "We haven't

+VERY much time," I said. But somehow we were inside the show-room

+before I could finish that.

+

+"All goods of the same quality," said the shopman, rubbing his

+flexible hands together, "and that is the Best. Nothing in the place

+that isn't genuine Magic, and warranted thoroughly rum. Excuse me, sir!"

+

+I felt him pull at something that clung to my coat-sleeve, and then

+I saw he held a little, wriggling red demon by the tail--the little

+creature bit and fought and tried to get at his hand--and in a moment

+he tossed it carelessly behind a counter. No doubt the thing was

+only an image of twisted indiarubber, but for the moment--! And his

+gesture was exactly that of a man who handles some petty biting bit

+of vermin. I glanced at Gip, but Gip was looking at a magic rocking-

+horse. I was glad he hadn't seen the thing. "I say," I said, in an

+undertone, and indicating Gip and the red demon with my eyes, "you

+haven't many things like THAT about, have you?"

+

+"None of ours! Probably brought it with you," said the shopman--

+also in an undertone, and with a more dazzling smile than ever.

+"Astonishing what people WILL carry about with them unawares!"

+And then to Gip, "Do you see anything you fancy here?"

+

+There were many things that Gip fancied there.

+

+He turned to this astonishing tradesman with mingled confidence

+and respect. "Is that a Magic Sword?" he said.

+

+"A Magic Toy Sword. It neither bends, breaks, nor cuts the fingers.

+It renders the bearer invincible in battle against any one under

+eighteen. Half-a-crown to seven and sixpence, according to size. These

+panoplies on cards are for juvenile knights-errant and very useful--

+shield of safety, sandals of swiftness, helmet of invisibility."

+

+"Oh, daddy!" gasped Gip.

+

+I tried to find out what they cost, but the shopman did not heed me.

+He had got Gip now; he had got him away from my finger; he had

+embarked upon the exposition of all his confounded stock, and nothing

+was going to stop him. Presently I saw with a qualm of distrust

+and something very like jealousy that Gip had hold of this person's

+finger as usually he has hold of mine. No doubt the fellow was

+interesting, I thought, and had an interestingly faked lot of stuff,

+really GOOD faked stuff, still--

+

+I wandered after them, saying very little, but keeping an eye

+on this prestidigital fellow. After all, Gip was enjoying it.

+And no doubt when the time came to go we should be able to go

+quite easily.

+

+It was a long, rambling place, that show-room, a gallery broken up

+by stands and stalls and pillars, with archways leading off to other

+departments, in which the queerest-looking assistants loafed and

+stared at one, and with perplexing mirrors and curtains. So perplexing,

+indeed, were these that I was presently unable to make out the door

+by which we had come.

+

+The shopman showed Gip magic trains that ran without steam or clockwork,

+just as you set the signals, and then some very, very valuable boxes

+of soldiers that all came alive directly you took off the lid

+and said--. I myself haven't a very quick ear and it was a tongue-

+twisting sound, but Gip--he has his mother's ear--got it in no time.

+"Bravo!" said the shopman, putting the men back into the box

+unceremoniously and handing it to Gip. "Now," said the shopman, and in

+a moment Gip had made them all alive again.

+

+"You'll take that box?" asked the shopman.

+

+"We'll take that box," said I, "unless you charge its full value.

+In which case it would need a Trust Magnate--"

+

+"Dear heart! NO!" and the shopman swept the little men back again,

+shut the lid, waved the box in the air, and there it was, in brown

+paper, tied up and--WITH GIP'S FULL NAME AND ADDRESS ON THE PAPER!

+

+The shopman laughed at my amazement.

+

+"This is the genuine magic," he said. "The real thing."

+

+"It's a little too genuine for my taste," I said again.

+

+After that he fell to showing Gip tricks, odd tricks, and still

+odder the way they were done. He explained them, he turned them

+inside out, and there was the dear little chap nodding his busy bit

+of a head in the sagest manner.

+

+I did not attend as well as I might. "Hey, presto!" said the Magic

+Shopman, and then would come the clear, small "Hey, presto!"

+of the boy. But I was distracted by other things. It was being

+borne in upon me just how tremendously rum this place was; it was,

+so to speak, inundated by a sense of rumness. There was something

+a little rum about the fixtures even, about the ceiling, about the

+floor, about the casually distributed chairs. I had a queer feeling

+that whenever I wasn't looking at them straight they went askew, and

+moved about, and played a noiseless puss-in-the-corner behind my back.

+And the cornice had a serpentine design with masks--masks altogether

+too expressive for proper plaster.

+

+Then abruptly my attention was caught by one of the odd-looking

+assistants. He was some way off and evidently unaware of my presence--

+I saw a sort of three-quarter length of him over a pile of toys

+and through an arch--and, you know, he was leaning against a pillar

+in an idle sort of way doing the most horrid things with his features!

+The particular horrid thing he did was with his nose. He did it

+just as though he was idle and wanted to amuse himself. First of all

+it was a short, blobby nose, and then suddenly he shot it out

+like a telescope, and then out it flew and became thinner and thinner

+until it was like a long, red, flexible whip. Like a thing in

+a nightmare it was! He flourished it about and flung it forth

+as a fly-fisher flings his line.

+

+My instant thought was that Gip mustn't see him. I turned about,

+and there was Gip quite preoccupied with the shopman, and thinking

+no evil. They were whispering together and looking at me. Gip was

+standing on a little stool, and the shopman was holding a sort of

+big drum in his hand.

+

+"Hide and seek, dadda!" cried Gip. "You're He!"

+

+And before I could do anything to prevent it, the shopman had clapped

+the big drum over him.  I saw what was up directly. "Take that off,"

+I cried, "this instant! You'll frighten the boy. Take it off!"

+

+The shopman with the unequal ears did so without a word, and held

+the big cylinder towards me to show its emptiness. And the little

+stool was vacant! In that instant my boy had utterly disappeared? . . .

+

+You know, perhaps, that sinister something that comes like a hand

+out of the unseen and grips your heart about. You know it takes

+your common self away and leaves you tense and deliberate, neither

+slow nor hasty, neither angry nor afraid. So it was with me.

+

+I came up to this grinning shopman and kicked his stool aside.

+

+"Stop this folly!" I said. "Where is my boy?"

+

+"You see," he said, still displaying the drum's interior, "there is

+no deception---"

+

+I put out my hand to grip him, and he eluded me by a dexterous

+movement. I snatched again, and he turned from me and pushed open

+a door to escape. "Stop!" I said, and he laughed, receding. I leapt

+after him--into utter darkness.

+

+THUD!

+

+"Lor' bless my 'eart! I didn't see you coming, sir!"

+

+I was in Regent Street, and I had collided with a decent-looking

+working man; and a yard away, perhaps, and looking a little

+perplexed with himself, was Gip. There was some sort of apology,

+and then Gip had turned and come to me with a bright little smile,

+as though for a moment he had missed me.

+

+And he was carrying four parcels in his arm!

+

+He secured immediate possession of my finger.

+

+For the second I was rather at a loss. I stared round to see

+the door of the magic shop, and, behold, it was not there!

+There was no door, no shop, nothing, only the common pilaster

+between the shop where they sell pictures and the window with

+the chicks! . . .

+

+I did the only thing possible in that mental tumult; I walked straight

+to the kerbstone and held up my umbrella for a cab.

+

+"'Ansoms," said Gip, in a note of culminating exultation.

+

+I helped him in, recalled my address with an effort, and got in also.

+Something unusual proclaimed itself in my tail-coat pocket, and

+I felt and discovered a glass ball. With a petulant expression

+I flung it into the street.

+

+Gip said nothing.

+

+For a space neither of us spoke.

+

+"Dada!" said Gip, at last, "that WAS a proper shop!"

+

+I came round with that to the problem of just how the whole thing

+had seemed to him. He looked completely undamaged--so far, good;

+he was neither scared nor unhinged, he was simply tremendously

+satisfied with the afternoon's entertainment, and there in his arms

+were the four parcels.

+

+Confound it! what could be in them?

+

+"Um!" I said. "Little boys can't go to shops like that every day."

+

+He received this with his usual stoicism, and for a moment I was sorry

+I was his father and not his mother, and so couldn't suddenly there,

+coram publico, in our hansom, kiss him. After all, I thought,

+the thing wasn't so very bad.

+

+But it was only when we opened the parcels that I really began to be

+reassured. Three of them contained boxes of soldiers, quite ordinary

+lead soldiers, but of so good a quality as to make Gip altogether

+forget that originally these parcels had been Magic Tricks of the only

+genuine sort, and the fourth contained a kitten, a little living

+white kitten, in excellent health and appetite and temper.

+

+I saw this unpacking with a sort of provisional relief. I hung about

+in the nursery for quite an unconscionable time. . . .

+

+That happened six months ago. And now I am beginning to believe

+it is all right. The kitten had only the magic natural to all kittens,

+and the soldiers seem as steady a company as any colonel could

+desire. And Gip--?

+

+The intelligent parent will understand that I have to go cautiously

+with Gip.

+

+But I went so far as this one day. I said, "How would you like

+your soldiers to come alive, Gip, and march about by themselves?"

+

+"Mine do," said Gip. "I just have to say a word I know before

+I open the lid."

+

+"Then they march about alone?"

+

+"Oh, QUITE, dadda. I shouldn't like them if they didn't do that."

+

+I displayed no unbecoming surprise, and since then I have taken

+occasion to drop in upon him once or twice, unannounced, when

+the soldiers were about, but so far I have never discovered them

+performing in anything like a magical manner.

+

+It's so difficult to tell.

+

+There's also a question of finance. I have an incurable habit of

+paying bills. I have been up and down Regent Street several times,

+looking for that shop. I am inclined to think, indeed, that in that

+matter honour is satisfied, and that, since Gip's name and address

+are known to them, I may very well leave it to these people,

+whoever they may be, to send in their bill in their own time.

+

+

+3.  THE VALLEY OF SPIDERS

+

+Towards mid-day the three pursuers came abruptly round a bend in

+the torrent bed upon the sight of a very broad and spacious valley.

+The difficult and winding trench of pebbles along which they had

+tracked the fugitives for so long, expanded to a broad slope,

+and with a common impulse the three men left the trail, and rode

+to a little eminence set with olive-dun trees, and there halted,

+the two others, as became them, a little behind the man with

+the silver-studded bridle.

+

+For a space they scanned the great expanse below them with eager eyes.

+It spread remoter and remoter, with only a few clusters of sere

+thorn bushes here and there, and the dim suggestions of some now

+waterless ravine, to break its desolation of yellow grass. Its purple

+distances melted at last into the bluish slopes of the further hills--

+hills it might be of a greener kind--and above them invisibly

+supported, and seeming indeed to hang in the blue, were the snowclad

+summits of mountains that grew larger and bolder to the north-westward

+as the sides of the valley drew together. And westward the valley

+opened until a distant darkness under the sky told where the forests

+began. But the three men looked neither east nor west, but only

+steadfastly across the valley.

+

+The gaunt man with the scarred lip was the first to speak. "Nowhere,"

+he said, with a sigh of disappointment in his voice. "But after all,

+they had a full day's start."

+

+"They don't know we are after them," said the little man on the white

+horse.

+

+"SHE would know," said the leader bitterly, as if speaking to himself.

+

+"Even then they can't go fast. They've got no beast but the mule,

+and all to-day the girl's foot has been bleeding---"

+

+The man with the silver bridle flashed a quick intensity of rage

+on him. "Do you think I haven't seen that?" he snarled.

+

+"It helps, anyhow," whispered the little man to himself.

+

+The gaunt man with the scarred lip stared impassively. "They can't

+be over the valley," he said. "If we ride hard--"

+

+He glanced at the white horse and paused.

+

+"Curse all white horses!" said the man with the silver bridle,

+and turned to scan the beast his curse included.

+

+The little man looked down between the mclancholy ears of his steed.

+

+"I did my best," he said.

+

+The two others stared again across the valley for a space. The gaunt

+man passed the back of his hand across the scarred lip.

+

+"Come up!" said the man who owned the silver bridle, suddenly.

+The little man started and jerked his rein, and the horse hoofs

+of the three made a multitudinous faint pattering upon the withered

+grass as they turned back towards the trail. . . .

+

+They rode cautiously down the long slope before them, and so came

+through a waste of prickly, twisted bushes and strange dry shapes

+of horny branches that grew amongst the rocks, into the levels below.

+And there the trail grew faint, for the soil was scanty, and the only

+herbage was this scorched dead straw that lay upon the ground.

+Still, by hard scanning, by leaning beside the horses' necks and

+pausing ever and again, even these white men could contrive to follow

+after their prey.

+

+There were trodden places, bent and broken blades of the coarse

+grass, and ever and again the sufficient intimation of a footmark.

+And once the leader saw a brown smear of blood where the half-caste

+girl may have trod. And at that under his breath he cursed her for

+a fool.

+

+The gaunt man checked his leader's tracking, and the little man

+on the white horse rode behind, a man lost in a dream. They rode

+one after another, the man with the silver bridle led the way,

+and they spoke never a word. After a time it came to the little man

+on the white horse that the world was very still. He started out

+of his dream. Besides the little noises of their horses and equipment,

+the whole great valley kept the brooding quiet of a painted scene.

+

+Before him went his master and his fellow, each intently leaning

+forward to the left, each impassively moving with the paces of his

+horse; their shadows went before them--still, noiseless, tapering

+attendants; and nearer a crouched cool shape was his own. He looked

+about him. What was it had gone? Then he remembered the reverberation

+from the banks of the gorge and the perpetual accompaniment of

+shifting, jostling pebbles. And, moreover--? There was no breeze.

+That was it! What a vast, still place it was, a monotonous afternoon

+slumber. And the sky open and blank, except for a sombre veil of haze

+that had gathered in the upper valley.

+

+He straightened his back, fretted with his bridle, puckered his lips

+to whistle, and simply sighed. He turned in his saddle for a time,

+and stared at the throat of the mountain gorge out of which they

+had come. Blank! Blank slopes on either side, with never a sign

+of a decent beast or tree--much less a man. What a land it was!

+What a wilderness! He dropped again into his former pose.

+

+It filled him with a momentary pleasure to see a wry stick of purple

+black flash out into the form of a snake, and vanish amidst the brown.

+After all, the infernal valley WAS alive. And then, to rejoice him

+still more, came a little breath across his face, a whisper that

+came and went, the faintest inclination of a stiff black-antlered

+bush upon a little crest, the first intimations of a possible breeze.

+Idly he wetted his finger, and held it up.

+

+He pulled up sharply to avoid a collision with the gaunt man, who

+had stopped at fault upon the trail. Just at that guilty moment

+he caught his master's eye looking towards him.

+

+For a time he forced an interest in the tracking. Then, as they rode

+on again, he studied his master's shadow and hat and shoulder,

+appearing and disappearing behind the gaunt man's nearer contours.

+They had ridden four days out of the very limits of the world into

+this desolate place, short of water, with nothing but a strip

+of dried meat under their saddles, over rocks and mountains,

+where surely none but these fugitives had ever been before--for THAT!

+

+And all this was for a girl, a mere wilful child! And the man

+had whole cityfuls of people to do his basest bidding--girls, women!

+Why in the name of passionate folly THIS one in particular? asked

+the little man, and scowled at the world, and licked his parched lips

+with a blackened tongue. It was the way of the master, and that

+was all he knew. Just because she sought to evade him. . . .

+

+His eye caught a whole row of high plumed canes bending in unison,

+and then the tails of silk that hung before his neck flapped and fell.

+The breeze was growing stronger. Somehow it took the stiff stillness

+out of things--and that was well.

+

+"Hullo!" said the gaunt man.

+

+All three stopped abruptly.

+

+"What?" asked the master. "What?"

+

+"Over there," said the gaunt man, pointing up the valley.

+

+"What?"

+

+"Something coming towards us."

+

+And as he spoke a yellow animal crested a rise and came bearing

+down upon them. It was a big wild dog, coming before the wind,

+tongue out, at a steady pace, and running with such an intensity

+of purpose that he did not seem to see the horsemen he approached.

+He ran with his nose up, following, it was plain, neither scent

+nor quarry. As he drew nearer the little man felt for his sword.

+"He's mad," said the gaunt rider.

+

+"Shout!" said the little man, and shouted.

+

+The dog came on. Then when the little man's blade was already out,

+it swerved aside and went panting by them and past. The eyes of

+the little man followed its flight. "There was no foam," he said.

+For a space the man with the silver-studded bridle stared up

+the valley. "Oh, come on!" he cried at last. "What does it matter?"

+and jerked his horse into movement again.

+

+The little man left the insoluble mystery of a dog that fled from

+nothing but the wind, and lapsed into profound musings on human

+character. "Come on!" he whispered to himself. "Why should it be

+given to one man to say 'Come on!' with that stupendous violence

+of effect. Always, all his life, the man with the silver bridle

+has been saying that. If _I_ said it--!" thought the little man.

+But people marvelled when the master was disobeyed even in the wildest

+things. This half-caste girl seemed to him, seemed to every one,

+mad--blasphemous almost. The little man, by way of comparison,

+reflected on the gaunt rider with the scarred lip, as stalwart as

+his master, as brave and, indeed, perhaps braver, and yet for him

+there was obedience, nothing but to give obedience duly and stoutly. . .

+

+Certain sensations of the hands and knees called the little man back

+to more immediate things. He became aware of something. He rode up

+beside his gaunt fellow. "Do you notice the horses?" he said in an

+undertone.

+

+The gaunt face looked interrogation.

+

+"They don't like this wind," said the little man, and dropped behind

+as the man with the silver bridle turned upon him.

+

+"It's all right," said the gaunt-faced man.

+

+They rode on again for a space in silence. The foremost two rode

+downcast upon the trail, the hindmost man watched the haze that

+crept down the vastness of the valley, nearer and nearer, and noted

+how the wind grew in strength moment by moment. Far away on the left

+he saw a line of dark bulks--wild hog perhaps, galloping down

+the valley, but of that he said nothing, nor did he remark again upon

+the uneasiness of the horses.

+

+And then he saw first one and then a second great white ball,

+a great shining white ball like a gigantic head of thistle-down,

+that drove before the wind athwart the path. These balls soared

+high in the air, and dropped and rose again and caught for a moment,

+and hurried on and passed, but at the sight of them the restlessness

+of the horses increased.

+

+Then presently he saw that more of these drifting globes--and then

+soon very many more--were hurrying towards him down the valley.

+

+They became aware of a squealing. Athwart the path a huge boar rushed,

+turning his head but for one instant to glance at them, and then

+hurling on down the valley again. And at that, all three stopped

+and sat in their saddles, staring into the thickening haze that

+was coming upon them.

+

+"If it were not for this thistle-down--" began the leader.

+

+But now a big globe came drifting past within a score of yards

+of them. It was really not an even sphere at all, but a vast, soft,

+ragged, filmy thing, a sheet gathered by the corners, an aerial

+jelly-fish, as it were, but rolling over and over as it advanced,

+and trailing long, cobwebby threads and streamers that floated

+in its wake.

+

+"It isn't thistle-down," said the little man.

+

+"I don't like the stuff," said the gaunt man.

+

+And they looked at one another.

+

+"Curse it!" cried the leader. "The air's full of it up there.

+If it keeps on at this pace long, it will stop us altogether."

+

+An instinctive feeling, such as lines out a herd of deer at the

+approach of some ambiguous thing, prompted them to turn their horses

+to the wind, ride forward for a few paces, and stare at that advancing

+multitude of floating masses. They came on before the wind with a sort

+of smooth swiftness, rising and falling noiselessly, sinking to earth,

+rebounding high, soaring--all with a perfect unanimity, with a still,

+deliberate assurance.

+

+Right and left of the horsemen the pioneers of this strange army

+passed. At one that rolled along the ground, breaking shapelessly

+and trailing out reluctantly into long grappling ribbons and bands,

+all three horses began to shy and dance. The master was seized

+with a sudden unreasonable impatience. He cursed the drifting globes

+roundly. "Get on!" he cried; "get on! What do these things matter?

+How CAN they matter? Back to the trail!" He fell swearing at his horse

+and sawed the bit across its mouth.

+

+He shouted aloud with rage. "I will follow that trail, I tell you!"

+he cried. "Where is the trail?"

+

+He gripped the bridle of his prancing horse and searched amidst

+the grass. A long and clinging thread fell across his face, a grey

+streamer dropped about his bridle-arm, some big, active thing

+with many legs ran down the back of his head. He looked up to discover

+one of those grey masses anchored as it were above him by these things

+and flapping out ends as a sail flaps when a boat comes, about--

+but noiselessly.

+

+He had an impression of many eyes, of a dense crew of squat bodies,

+of long, many-jointed limbs hauling at their mooring ropes to bring

+the thing down upon him. For a space he stared up, reining in his

+prancing horse with the instinct born of years of horsemanship.

+Then the flat of a sword smote his back, and a blade flashed overhead

+and cut the drifting balloon of spider-web free, and the whole mass

+lifted softly and drove clear and away.

+

+"Spiders!" cried the voice of the gaunt man. "The things are full

+of big spiders! Look, my lord!"

+

+The man with the silver bridle still followed the mass that drove away.

+

+"Look, my lord!"

+

+The master found himself staring down at a red, smashed thing

+on the ground that, in spite of partial obliteration, could still

+wriggle unavailing legs. Then when the gaunt man pointed to another

+mass that bore down upon them, he drew his sword hastily. Up the

+valley now it was like a fog bank torn to rags. He tried to grasp the

+situation.

+

+"Ride for it!" the little man was shouting. "Ride for it down the

+valley."

+

+What happened then was like the confusion of a battle. The man

+with the silver bridle saw the little man go past him slashing

+furiously at imaginary cobwebs, saw him cannon into the horse

+of the gaunt man and hurl it and its rider to earth. His own horse

+went a dozen paces before he could rein it in. Then he looked up

+to avoid imaginary dangers, and then back again to see a horse

+rolling on the ground, the gaunt man standing and slashing over it

+at a rent and fluttering mass of grey that streamed and wrapped

+about them both. And thick and fast as thistle-down on waste land

+on a windy day in July, the cobweb masses were coming on.

+

+The little man had dismounted, but he dared not release his horse.

+He was endeavouring to lug the struggling brute back with the strength

+of one arm, while with the other he slashed aimlessly, The tentacles

+of a second grey mass had entangled themselves with the struggle,

+and this second grey mass came to its moorings, and slowly sank.

+

+The master set his teeth, gripped his bridle, lowered his head,

+and spurred his horse forward. The horse on the ground rolled over,

+there were blood and moving shapes upon the flanks, and the gaunt man,

+suddenly leaving it, ran forward towards his master, perhaps ten paces.

+His legs were swathed and encumbered with grey; he made ineffectual

+movements with his sword. Grey streamers waved from him; there was

+a thin veil of grey across his face. With his left hand he beat at

+something on his body, and suddenly he stumbled and fell. He struggled

+to rise, and fell again, and suddenly, horribly, began to howl,

+"Oh--ohoo, ohooh!"

+

+The master could see the great spiders upon him, and others upon

+the ground.

+

+As he strove to force his horse nearer to this gesticulating,

+screaming grey object that struggled up and down, there came a

+clatter of hoofs, and the little man, in act of mounting, swordless,

+balanced on his belly athwart the white horse, and clutching its mane,

+whirled past. And again a clinging thread of grey gossamer swept

+across the master's face. All about him, and over him, it seemed

+this drifting, noiseless cobweb circled and drew nearer him. . . .

+

+To the day of his death he never knew just how the event of that moment

+happened. Did he, indeed, turn his horse, or did it really of its

+own accord stampede after its fellow? Suffice it that in another

+second he was galloping full tilt down the valley with his sword

+whirling furiously overhead. And all about him on the quickening

+breeze, the spiders' airships, their air bundles and air sheets,

+seemed to him to hurry in a conscious pursuit.

+

+Clatter, clatter, thud, thud--the man with the silver bridle rode,

+heedless of his direction, with his fearful face looking up now right,

+now left, and his sword arm ready to slash. And a few hundred yards

+ahead of him, with a tail of torn cobweb trailing behind him, rode

+the little man on the white horse, still but imperfectly in the saddle.

+The reeds bent before them, the wind blew fresh and strong, over his

+shoulder the master could see the webs hurrying to overtake. . . .

+

+He was so intent to escape the spiders' webs that only as his horse

+gathered together for a leap did he realise the ravine ahead. And then

+he reaIised it only to misunderstand and interfere. He was leaning

+forward on his horse's neck and sat up and back all too late.

+

+But if in his excitement he had failed to leap, at any rate he had

+not forgotten how to fall. He was horseman again in mid-air.

+He came off clear with a mere bruise upon his shoulder, and his horse

+rolled, kicking spasmodic legs, and lay still. But the master's sword

+drove its point into the hard soil, and snapped clean across, as

+though Chance refused him any longer as her Knight, and the splintered

+end missed his face by an inch or so.

+

+He was on his feet in a moment, breathlessly scanning the onrushing

+spider-webs. For a moment he was minded to run, and then thought

+of the ravine, and turned back. He ran aside once to dodge one drifting

+terror, and then he was swiftly clambering down the precipitous sides,

+and out of the touch of the gale.

+

+There under the lee of the dry torrent's steeper banks he might

+crouch, and watch these strange, grey masses pass and pass in safety

+till the wind fell, and it became possible to escape. And there

+for a long time he crouched, watching the strange, grey, ragged

+masses trail their streamers across his narrowed sky.

+

+Once a stray spider fell into the ravine close beside him--a full

+foot it measured from leg to leg, and its body was half a man's hand--

+and after he had watched its monstrous alacrity of search and escape

+for a little while, and tempted it to bite his broken sword, he lifted

+up his iron-heeled boot and smashed it into a pulp. He swore as he did

+so, and for a time sought up and down for another.

+

+Then presently, when he was surer these spider swarms could not

+drop into the ravine, he found a place where he could sit down,

+and sat and fell into deep thought and began after his manner

+to gnaw his knuckles and bite his nails. And from this he was moved

+by the coming of the man with the white horse.

+

+He heard him long before he saw him, as a clattering of hoofs,

+stumbling footsteps, and a reassuring voice. Then the little man

+appeared, a rueful figure, still with a tail of white cobweb trailing

+behind him. They approached each other without speaking, without

+a salutation. The little man was fatigued and shamed to the pitch

+of hopeless bitterness, and came to a stop at last, face to face with

+his seated master. The latter winced a little under his dependant's

+eye. "Well?" he said at last, with no pretence of authority.

+

+"You left him?"

+

+"My horse bolted."

+

+"I know. So did mine."

+

+He laughed at his master mirthlessly.

+

+"I say my horse bolted," said the man who once had a silver-studded

+bridle.

+

+"Cowards both," said the little man.

+

+The other gnawed his knuckle through some meditative moments,

+with his eye on his inferior.

+

+"Don't call me a coward," he said at length.

+

+"You are a coward like myself."

+

+"A coward possibly. There is a limit beyond which every man must fear.

+That I have learnt at last. But not like yourself. That is where

+the difference comes in."

+

+"I never could have dreamt you would have left him. He saved

+your life two minutes before. . . . Why are you our lord?"

+

+The master gnawed his knuckles again, and his countenance was dark.

+

+"No man calls me a coward," he said. "No. A broken sword is better

+than none. . . . One spavined white horse cannot be expected to carry

+two men a four days' journey. I hate white horses, but this time

+it cannot be helped. You begin to understand me? . . . I perceive

+that you are minded, on the strength of what you have seen and fancy,

+to taint my reputation. It is men of your sort who unmake kings.

+Besides which--I never liked you."

+

+"My lord!" said the little man.

+

+"No," said the master. "NO!"

+

+He stood up sharply as the little man moved. For a minute perhaps

+they faced one another. Overhead the spiders' balls went driving.

+There was a quick movement among the pebbles; a running of feet,

+a cry of despair, a gasp and a blow. . . .

+

+Towards nightfall the wind fell. The sun set in a calm serenity,

+and the man who had once possessed the silver bridle came at last

+very cautiously and by an easy slope out of the ravine again; but now

+he led the white horse that once belonged to the little man.

+He would have gone back to his horse to get his silver-mounted

+bridle again, but he feared night and a quickening breeze might

+still find him in the valley, and besides he disliked greatly

+to think he might discover his horse all swathed in cobwebs

+and perhaps unpleasantly eaten.

+

+And as he thought of those cobwebs and of all the dangers he

+had been through, and the manner in which he had been preserved

+that day, his hand sought a little reliquary that hung about his neck,

+and he clasped it for a moment with heartfelt gratitude. As he did so

+his eyes went across the valley.

+

+"I was hot with passion," he said, "and now she has met her reward.

+They also, no doubt--"

+

+And behold! Far away out of the wooded slopes across the valley,

+but in the clearness of the sunset distinct and unmistakable,

+he saw a little spire of smoke.

+

+At that his expression of serene resignation changed to an amazed

+anger. Smoke? He turned the head of the white horse about, and

+hesitated. And as he did so a little rustle of air went through the

+grass about him. Far away upon some reeds swayed a tattered sheet of

+grey. He looked at the cobwebs; he looked at the smoke.

+

+"Perhaps, after all, it is not them," he said at last.

+

+But he knew better.

+

+After he had stared at the smoke for some time, he mounted the white

+horse.

+

+As he rode, he picked his way amidst stranded masses of web. For some

+reason there were many dead spiders on the ground, and those that

+lived feasted guiltily on their fellows. At the sound of his horse's

+hoofs they fled.

+

+Their time had passed. From the ground without either a wind to carry

+them or a winding sheet ready, these things, for all their poison,

+could do him little evil.  He flicked with his belt at those

+he fancied came too near. Once, where a number ran together over

+a bare place, he was minded to dismount and trample them with his boots,

+but this impulse he overcame. Ever and again he turned in his saddle,

+and looked back at the smoke.

+

+"Spiders," he muttered over and over again. "Spiders! Well, well. . . .

+The next time I must spin a web."

+

+

+4.  THE TRUTH ABOUT PYECRAFT

+

+He sits not a dozen yards away. If I glance over my shoulder

+I can see him. And if I catch his eye--and usually I catch his eye--

+it meets me with an expression.

+

+It is mainly an imploring look--and yet with suspicion in it.

+

+Confound his suspicion! If I wanted to tell on him I should have told

+long ago. I don't tell and I don't tell, and he ought to feel at his

+ease. As if anything so gross and fat as he could feel at ease! Who

+would believe me if I did tell?

+

+Poor old Pyecraft! Great, uneasy jelly of substance! The fattest

+clubman in London.

+

+He sits at one of the little club tables in the huge bay by the fire,

+stuffing. What is he stuffing? I glance judiciously and catch him

+biting at a round of hot buttered tea-cake, with his eyes on me.

+Confound him!--with his eyes on me!

+

+That settles it, Pyecraft! Since you WILL be abject, since you WILL

+behave as though I was not a man of honour, here, right under your

+embedded eyes, I write the thing down--the plain truth about Pyecraft.

+The man I helped, the man I shielded, and who has requited me

+by making my club unendurable, absolutely unendurable, with his

+liquid appeal, with the perpetual "don't tell" of his looks.

+

+And, besides, why does he keep on eternally eating?

+

+Well, here goes for the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the

+truth!

+

+Pyecraft--. I made the acquaintance of Pyecraft in this very smoking-

+room. I was a young, nervous new member, and he saw it. I was sitting

+all alone, wishing I knew more of the members, and suddenly he came,

+a great rolling front of chins and abdomina, towards me, and grunted

+and sat down in a chair close by me and wheezed for a space,

+and scraped for a space with a match and lit a cigar, and then

+addressed me. I forget what he said--something about the matches

+not lighting properly, and afterwards as he talked he kept stopping

+the waiters one by one as they went by, and telling them about

+the matches in that thin, fluty voice he has. But, anyhow, it was

+in some such way we began our talking.

+

+He talked about various things and came round to games. And thence

+to my figure and complexion. "YOU ought to be a good cricketer,"

+he said. I suppose I am slender, slender to what some people would

+call lean, and I suppose I am rather dark, still--I am not ashamed

+of having a Hindu great-grandmother, but, for all that, I don't want

+casual strangers to see through me at a glance to HER. So that

+I was set against Pyecraft from the beginning.

+

+But he only talked about me in order to get to himself.

+

+"I expect," he said, "you take no more exercise than I do, and

+probably you eat no less." (Like all excessively obese people

+he fancied he ate nothing.) "Yet,"--and he smiled an oblique smile--

+"we differ."

+

+And then he began to talk about his fatness and his fatness;

+all he did for his fatness and all he was going to do for his fatness;

+what people had advised him to do for his fatness and what he had

+heard of people doing for fatness similar to his. "A priori," he said,

+"one would think a question of nutrition could be answered by dietary

+and a question of assimilation by drugs." It was stifling. It was

+dumpling talk. It made me feel swelled to hear him.

+

+One stands that sort of thing once in a way at a club, but a time

+came when I fancied I was standing too much. He took to me altogether

+too conspicuously. I could never go into the smoking-room but

+he would come wallowing towards me, and sometimes he came and

+gormandised round and about me while I had my lunch. He seemed

+at times almost to be clinging to me. He was a bore, but not so

+fearful a bore as to be limited to me; and from the first there

+was something in his manner--almost as though he knew, almost as

+though he penetrated to the fact that I MIGHT--that there was a remote,

+exceptional chance in me that no one else presented.

+

+"I'd give anything to get it down," he would say--"anything,"

+and peer at me over his vast cheeks and pant.

+

+Poor old Pyecraft! He has just gonged, no doubt to order another

+buttered tea-cake!

+

+He came to the actual thing one day. "Our Pharmacopoeia," he said,

+"our Western Pharmacopoeia, is anything but the last word of medical

+science. In the East, I've been told--"

+

+He stopped and stared at me. It was like being at an aquarium.

+

+I was quite suddenly angry with him. "Look here," I said, "who told

+you about my great-grandmother's recipes?"

+

+"Well," he fenced.

+

+"Every time we've met for a week," I said, "and we've met pretty

+often--you've given me a broad hint or so about that little secret

+of mine."

+

+"Well," he said, "now the cat's out of the bag, I'll admit, yes,

+it is so. I had it--"

+

+"From Pattison?"

+

+"Indirectly," he said, which I believe was lying, "yes."

+

+"Pattison," I said, "took that stuff at his own risk."

+

+He pursed his mouth and bowed.

+

+"My great-grandmother's recipes," I said, "are queer things to handle.

+My father was near making me promise--"

+

+"He didn't?"

+

+"No. But he warned me. He himself used one--once."

+

+"Ah! . . . But do you think--? Suppose--suppose there did happen

+to be one--"

+

+"The things are curious documents," I said.

+

+"Even the smell of 'em. . . . No!"

+

+But after going so far Pyecraft was resolved I should go farther.

+I was always a little afraid if I tried his patience too much he would

+fall on me suddenly and smother me. I own I was weak. But I was

+also annoyed with Pyecraft. I had got to that state of feeling

+for him that disposed me to say, "Well, TAKE the risk!" The little

+affair of Pattison to which I have alluded was a different matter

+altogether. What it was doesn't concern us now, but I knew, anyhow,

+that the particular recipe I used then was safe. The rest I didn't

+know so much about, and, on the whole, I was inclined to doubt

+their safety pretty completely.

+

+Yet even if Pyecraft got poisoned--

+

+I must confess the poisoning of Pyecraft struck me as an immense

+undertaking.

+

+That evening I took that queer, odd-scented sandalwood box out of

+my safe and turned the rustling skins over. The gentleman who wrote

+the recipes for my great-grandmother evidently had a weakness for skins

+of a miscellaneous origin, and his handwriting was cramped to the last

+degree. Some of the things are quite unreadable to me--though my family,

+with its Indian Civil Service associations, has kept up a knowledge

+of Hindustani from generation to generation--and none are absolutely

+plain sailing. But I found the one that I knew was there soon enough,

+and sat on the floor by my safe for some time looking at it.

+

+"Look here," said I to Pyecraft next day, and snatched the slip away

+from his eager grasp.

+

+"So far as I--can make it out, this is a recipe for Loss of Weight.

+("Ah!" said Pyecraft.) I'm not absolutely sure, but I think it's that.

+And if you take my advice you'll leave it alone. Because, you know--

+I blacken my blood in your interest, Pyecraft--my ancestors on

+that side were, so far as I can gather, a jolly queer lot. See?"

+

+"Let me try it," said Pyecraft.

+

+I leant back in my chair. My imagination made one mighty effort

+and fell flat within me. "What in Heaven's name, Pyecraft," I asked,

+"do you think you'll look like when you get thin?"

+

+He was impervious to reason. I made him promise never to say a word

+to me about his disgusting fatness again whatever happened--never,

+and then I handed him that little piece of skin.

+

+"It's nasty stuff," I said.

+

+"No matter," he said, and took it.

+

+He goggled at it. "But--but--" he said.

+

+He had just discovered that it wasn't English.

+

+"To the best of my ability," I said, "I will do you a translation."

+

+I did my best. After that we didn't speak for a fortnight. Whenever he

+approached me I frowned and motioned him away, and he respected

+our compact, but at the end of a fortnight he was as fat as ever.

+And then he got a word in.

+

+"I must speak," he said. "It isn't fair. There's something wrong.

+It's done me no good. You're not doing your great-grandmother justice."

+

+"Where's the recipe?"

+

+He produced it gingerly from his pocket-book.

+

+I ran my eye over the items. "Was the egg addled?" I asked.

+

+"No. Ought it to have been?"

+

+"That," I said, "goes without saying in all my poor dear

+great-grandmother's

+recipes. When condition or quality is not specified you must get

+the worst. She was drastic or nothing. . . . And there's one or two

+possible alternatives to some of these other things. You got FRESH

+rattlesnake venom."

+

+"I got a rattlesnake from Jamrach's. It cost--it cost--"

+

+"That's your affair, anyhow. This last item--"

+

+"I know a man who--"

+

+"Yes. H'm. Well, I'll write the alternatives down. So far as I know

+the language, the spelling of this recipe is particularly atrocious.

+By-the-bye, dog here probably means pariah dog."

+

+For a month after that I saw Pyecraft constantly at the club and

+as fat and anxious as ever. He kept our treaty, but at times he broke

+the spirit of it by shaking his head despondently. Then one day

+in the cloakroom he said, "Your great-grandmother--"

+

+"Not a word against her," I said; and he held his peace.

+

+I could have fancied he had desisted, and I saw him one day talking

+to three new members about his fatness as though he was in search

+of other recipes. And then, quite unexpectedly, his telegram came.

+

+"Mr. Formalyn!" bawled a page-boy under my nose, and I took the telegram

+and opened it at once.

+

+"For Heaven's sake come.--Pyecraft."

+

+"H'm," said I, and to tell the truth I was so pleased at the

+rehabilitation of my great grandmother's reputation this evidently

+promised that I made a most excellent lunch.

+

+I got Pyecraft's address from the hall porter. Pyecraft inhabited the

+upper half of a house in Bloomsbury, and I went there so soon as I

+had done my coffee and Trappistine. I did not wait to finish my cigar.

+

+"Mr. Pyecraft?" said I, at the front door.

+

+They believed he was ill; he hadn't been out for two days.

+

+"He expects me," said I, and they sent me up.

+

+I rang the bell at the lattice-door upon the landing.

+

+"He shouldn't have tried it, anyhow," I said to myself. "A man who

+eats like a pig ought to look like a pig."

+

+An obviously worthy woman, with an anxious face and a carelessly

+placed cap, came and surveyed me through the lattice.

+

+I gave my name and she let me in in a dubious fashion.

+

+"Well?" said I, as we stood together inside Pyecraft's piece of the

+landing.

+

+"'E said you was to come in if you came," she said, and regarded me,

+making no motion to show me anywhere. And then, confidentially,

+"'E's locked in, sir." 

+

+"Locked in?"

+

+"Locked himself in yesterday morning and 'asn't let any one in since,

+sir. And ever and again SWEARING. Oh, my!"

+

+I stared at the door she indicated by her glances.

+

+"In there?" I said.

+

+"Yes, sir."

+

+"What's up?"

+

+She shook her head sadly, "'E keeps on calling for vittles, sir.

+'EAVY vittles 'e wants. I get 'im what I can. Pork 'e's 'ad,

+sooit puddin', sossiges, noo bread. Everythink like that. Left outside,

+if you please, and me go away. 'E's eatin', sir, somethink AWFUL."

+

+There came a piping bawl from inside the door: "That Formalyn?"

+

+"That you, Pyecraft?" I shouted, and went and banged the door.

+

+"Tell her to go away."

+

+I did.

+

+Then I could hear a curious pattering upon the door, almost like

+some one feeling for the handle in the dark, and Pyecraft's familiar

+grunts.

+

+"It's all right," I said, "she's gone."

+

+But for a long time the door didn't open.

+

+I heard the key turn. Then Pyecraft's voice said, "Come in."

+

+I turned the handle and opened the door. Naturally I expected to see

+Pyecraft.

+

+Well, you know, he wasn't there!

+

+I never had such a shock in my life. There was his sitting-room

+in a state of untidy disorder, plates and dishes among the books

+and writing things, and several chairs overturned, but Pyecraft--

+

+"It's all right, o' man; shut the door," he said, and then I

+discovered him.

+

+There he was right up close to the cornice in the corner by the door,

+as though some one had glued him to the ceiling. His face was anxious

+and angry. He panted and gesticulated. "Shut the door," he said.

+"If that woman gets hold of it--"

+

+I shut the door, and went and stood away from him and stared.

+

+"If anything gives way and you tumble down," I said, "you'll break

+your neck, Pyecraft."

+

+"I wish I could," he wheezed.

+

+"A man of your age and weight getting up to kiddish gymnastics--"

+

+"Don't," he said, and looked agonised.

+

+"I'll tell you," he said, and gesticulated.

+

+"How the deuce," said I, "are you holding on up there?"

+

+And then abruptly I realised that he was not holding on at all,

+that he was floating up there--just as a gas-filled bladder might

+have floated in the same position. He began a struggle to thrust

+himself away from the ceiling and to clamber down the wall to me.

+"It's that prescription," he panted, as he did so. "Your great-gran--"

+

+He took hold of a framed engraving rather carelessly as he spoke

+and it gave way, and he flew back to the ceiling again, while

+the picture smashed onto the sofa. Bump he went against the ceiling,

+and I knew then why he was all over white on the more salient curves

+and angles of his person. He tried again more carefully, coming

+down by way of the mantel.

+

+It was really a most extraordinary spectacle, that great, fat,

+apoplectic-looking man upside down and trying to get from the ceiling

+to the floor. "That prescription," he said. "Too successful."

+

+"How?"

+

+"Loss of weight--almost complete."

+

+And then, of course, I understood.

+

+"By Jove, Pyecraft," said I, "what you wanted was a cure for fatness!

+But you always called it weight. You would call it weight."

+

+Somehow I was extremely delighted. I quite liked Pyecraft for the time.

+"Let me help you!" I said, and took his hand and pulled him down.

+He kicked about, trying to get a foothold somewhere. It was very like

+holding a flag on a windy day.

+

+"That table," he said, pointing, "is solid mahogany and very heavy.

+If you can put me under that---"

+

+I did, and there he wallowed about like a captive balloon, while

+I stood on his hearthrug and talked to him.

+

+I lit a cigar. "Tell me," I said, "what happened?"

+

+"I took it," he said.

+

+"How did it taste?"

+

+"Oh, BEASTLY!"

+

+I should fancy they all did. Whether one regards the ingredients

+or the probable compound or the possible results, almost all of

+my great-grandmother's remedies appear to me at least to be

+extraordinarily uninviting. For my own part--

+

+"I took a little sip first."

+

+"Yes?"

+

+"And as I felt lighter and better after an hour, I decided to take

+the draught."

+

+"My dear Pyecraft!"

+

+"I held my nose," he explained. "And then I kept on getting lighter

+and lighter--and helpless, you know."

+

+He gave way to a sudden burst of passion. "What the goodness am I

+to DO?" he said.

+

+"There's one thing pretty evident," I said, "that you mustn't do.

+If you go out of doors, you'll go up and up." I waved an arm upward.

+"They'd have to send Santos-Dumont after you to bring you down again."

+

+"I suppose it will wear off?"

+

+I shook my head. "I don't think you can count on that," I said.

+

+And then there was another burst of passion, and he kicked out

+at adjacent chairs and banged the floor. He behaved just as I should

+have expected a great, fat, self-indulgent man to behave under trying

+circumstances--that is to say, very badly. He spoke of me and

+my great-grandmother with an utter want of discretion.

+

+"I never asked you to take the stuff," I said.

+

+And generously disregarding the insults he was putting upon me,

+I sat down in his armchair and began to talk to him in a sober,

+friendly fashion.

+

+I pointed out to him that this was a trouble he had brought upon

+himself, and that it had almost an air of poetical justice. He had

+eaten too much. This he disputed, and for a time we argued the point.

+

+He became noisy and violent, so I desisted from this aspect

+of his lesson. "And then," said I, "you committed the sin of euphuism.

+You called it not Fat, which is just and inglorious, but Weight. You--"

+

+He interrupted to say he recognised all that. What was he to DO?

+

+I suggested he should adapt himself to his new conditions. So we

+came to the really sensible part of the business. I suggested that

+it would not be difficult for him to learn to walk about on the ceiling

+with his hands--

+

+"I can't sleep," he said.

+

+But that was no great difficulty. It was quite possible, I pointed out,

+to make a shake-up under a wire mattress, fasten the under things

+on with tapes, and have a blanket, sheet, and coverlet to button

+at the side. He would have to confide in his housekeeper, I said;

+and after some squabbling he agreed to that. (Afterwards it was

+quite delightful to see the beautifully matter-of-fact way with which

+the good lady took all these amazing inversions.) He could have

+a library ladder in his room, and all his meals could be laid on

+the top of his bookcase. We also hit on an ingenious device by which

+he could get to the floor whenever he wanted, which was simply to put

+the British Encyclopaedia (tenth edition) on the top of his open

+shelves. He just pulled out a couple of volumes and held on, and down

+he came. And we agreed there must be iron staples along the skirting,

+so that he could cling to those whenever he wanted to get about the

+room on the lower level.

+

+As we got on with the thing I found myself almost keenly interested.

+It was I who called in the housekeeper and broke matters to her,

+and it was I chiefly who fixed up the inverted bed. In fact, I spent

+two whole days at his flat. I am a handy, interfering sort of man

+with a screw-driver, and I made all sorts of ingenious adaptations

+for him--ran a wire to bring his bells within reach, turned all

+his electric lights up instead of down, and so on. The whole affair

+was extremely curious and interesting to me, and it was delightful

+to think of Pyecraft like some great, fat blow-fly, crawling about

+on his ceiling and clambering round the lintels of his doors

+from one room to another, and never, never, never coming to

+the club any more. . . .

+

+Then, you know, my fatal ingenuity got the better of me. I was

+sitting by his fire drinking his whisky, and he was up in his

+favourite corner by the cornice, tacking a Turkey carpet to the

+ceiling, when the idea struck me. "By Jove, Pyecraft!" I said, "all

+this is totally unnecessary."

+

+And before I could calculate the complete consequences of my notion

+I blurted it out. "Lead underclothing," said I, and the mischief was

+done.

+

+Pyecraft received the thing almost in tears. "To be right ways up

+again--" he said.  I gave him the whole secret before I saw where

+it would take me. "Buy sheet lead," I said, "stamp it into discs.

+Sew 'em all over your underclothes until you have enough. Have

+lead-soled boots, carry a bag of solid lead, and the thing is done!

+Instead of being a prisoner here you may go abroad again, Pyecraft;

+you may travel--"

+

+A still happier idea came to me. "You need never fear a shipwreck.

+All you need do is just slip off some or all of your clothes, take the

+necessary amount of luggage in your hand, and float up in the air--"

+

+In his emotion he dropped the tack-hammer within an ace of my head.

+"By Jove!" he said, "I shall be able to come back to the club again."

+

+The thing pulled me up short. "By Jove!" I said faintly. "Yes.

+Of course--you will."

+

+He did. He does. There he sits behind me now, stuffing--as I live!--

+a third go of buttered tea-cake. And no one in the whole world knows--

+except his housekeeper and me--that he weighs practically nothing;

+that he is a mere boring mass of assimilatory matter, mere clouds

+in clothing, niente, nefas, the most inconsiderable of men. There

+he sits watching until I have done this writing. Then, if he can,

+he will waylay me. He will come billowing up to me. . . .

+

+He will tell me over again all about it, how it feels, how it

+doesn't feel, how he sometimes hopes it is passing off a little.

+And always somewhere in that fat, abundant discourse he will say,

+"The secret's keeping, eh? If any one knew of it--I should be

+so ashamed. . . . Makes a fellow look such a fool, you know.

+Crawling about on a ceiling and all that. . . ."

+

+And now to elude Pyecraft, occupying, as he does, an admirable

+strategic position between me and the door.

+

+

+5.  MR. SKELMERSDALE IN FAIRYLAND

+

+"There's a man in that shop," said the Doctor, "who has been in

+Fairyland."

+

+"Nonsense!" I said, and stared back at the shop. It was the usual

+village shop, post-office, telegraph wire on its brow, zinc pans and

+brushes outside, boots, shirtings, and potted meats in the window.

+"Tell me about it," I said, after a pause.

+

+"_I_ don't know," said the Doctor. "He's an ordinary sort of lout--

+Skelmersdale is his name. But everybody about here believes it

+like Bible truth."

+

+I reverted presently to the topic.

+

+"I know nothing about it," said the Doctor, "and I don't WANT to know.

+I attended him for a broken finger--Married and Single cricket match--

+and that's when I struck the nonsense. That's all. But it shows you

+the sort of stuff I have to deal with, anyhow, eh? Nice to get

+modern sanitary ideas into a people like this!"

+

+"Very," I said in a mildly sympathetic tone, and he went on to tell

+me about that business of the Bonham drain. Things of that kind,

+I observe, are apt to weigh on the minds of Medical Officers of Health.

+I was as sympathetic as I knew how, and when he called the Bonham

+people "asses," I said they were "thundering asses," but even that

+did not allay him.

+

+Afterwards, later in the summer, an urgent desire to seclude myself,

+while finishing my chapter on Spiritual Pathology--it was really,

+I believe, stiffer to write than it is to read--took me to Bignor.

+I lodged at a farmhouse, and presently found myself outside that

+little general shop again, in search of tobacco. "Skelmersdale,"

+said I to myself at the sight of it, and went in.

+

+I was served by a short, but shapely, young man, with a fair downy

+complexion, good, small teeth, blue eyes, and a languid manner.

+I scrutinised him curiously. Except for a touch of melancholy

+in his expression, he was nothing out of the common. He was in the

+shirt-sleeves and tucked-up apron of his trade, and a pencil was

+thrust behind his inoffensive ear. Athwart his black waistcoat was

+a gold chain, from which dangled a bent guinea.

+

+"Nothing more to-day, sir?" he inquired. He leant forward over

+my bill as he spoke.

+

+"Are you Mr. Skelmersdale?" said I.

+

+"I am, sir," he said, without looking up.

+

+"Is it true that you have been in Fairyland?"

+

+He looked up at me for a moment with wrinkled brows, with an aggrieved,

+exasperated face. "O SHUT it! " he said, and, after a moment

+of hostility, eye to eye, he went on adding up my bill. "Four,

+six and a half," he said, after a pause. "Thank you, Sir."

+

+So, unpropitiously, my acquaintance with Mr. Skelmersdale began.

+

+Well, I got from that to confidence--through a series of toilsome

+efforts. I picked him up again in the Village Room, where of a night

+I went to play billiards after my supper, and mitigate the extreme

+seclusion from my kind that was so helpful to work during the day.

+I contrived to play with him and afterwards to talk with him. I found

+the one subject to avoid was Fairyland. On everything else he was

+open and amiable in a commonplace sort of way, but on that he had

+been worried--it was a manifest taboo. Only once in the room did

+I hear the slightest allusion to his experience in his presence,

+and that was by a cross-grained farm hand who was losing to him.

+Skelmersdale had run a break into double figures, which, by the Bignor

+standards, was uncommonly good play. "Steady on!" said his adversary.

+"None of your fairy flukes!"

+

+Skelmersdale stared at him for a moment, cue in hand, then flung

+it down and walked out of the room.

+

+"Why can't you leave 'im alone?" said a respectable elder who had

+been enjoying the game, and in the general murmur of disapproval

+the grin of satisfied wit faded from the ploughboy's face.

+

+I scented my opportunity. "What's this joke," said I, "about Fairyland?"

+

+"'Tain't no joke about Fairyland, not to young Skelmersdale," said

+the respectable elder, drinking.  A little man with rosy cheeks was

+more communicative. "They DO say, sir," he said, "that they took him

+into Aldington Knoll an' kep' him there a matter of three weeks."

+

+And with that the gathering was well under weigh. Once one sheep

+had started, others were ready enough to follow, and in a little time

+I had at least the exterior aspect of the Skelmersdale affair.

+Formerly, before he came to Bignor, he had been in that very similar

+little shop at Aldington Corner, and there whatever it was did happen

+had taken place. The story was clear that he had stayed out late

+one night on the Knoll and vanished for three weeks from the sight

+of men, and had returned with "his cuffs as clean as when he started,"

+and his pockets full of dust and ashes. He returned in a state of

+moody wretchedness that only slowly passed away, and for many days he

+would give no account of where it was he had been. The girl he was

+engaged to at Clapton Hill tried to get it out of him, and threw him

+over partly because he refused, and partly because, as she said, he

+fairly gave her the "'ump." And then when, some time after, he let out

+to some one carelessly that he had been in Fairyland and wanted to go

+back, and when the thing spread and the simple badinage of the

+countryside came into play, he threw up his situation abruptly, and

+came to Bignor to get out of the fuss. But as to what had happened in

+Fairyland none of these people knew. There the gathering in the Village

+Room went to pieces like a pack at fault. One said this, and another

+said that.

+

+Their air in dealing with this marvel was ostensibly critical and

+sceptical, but I could see a considerable amount of belief showing

+through their guarded qualifications. I took a line of intelligent

+interest, tinged with a reasonable doubt of the whole story.

+

+"If Fairyland's inside Aldington Knoll," I said, "why don't you dig it

+out?"

+

+"That's what I says," said the young ploughboy.

+

+"There's a-many have tried to dig on Aldington Knoll," said the

+respectable elder, solemnly, "one time and another. But there's

+none as goes about to-day to tell what they got by digging."

+

+The unanimity of vague belief that surrounded me was rather impressive;

+I felt there must surely be SOMETHING at the root of so much conviction,

+and the already pretty keen curiosity I felt about the real facts

+of the case was distinctly whetted. If these real facts were to be

+got from any one, they were to be got from Skelmersdale himself;

+and I set myself, therefore, still more assiduously to efface

+the first bad impression I had made and win his confidence to the pitch

+of voluntary speech. In that endeavour I had a social advantage.

+Being a person of affability and no apparent employment, and wearing

+tweeds and knickerbockers, I was naturally classed as an artist

+in Bignor, and in the remarkable code of social precedence prevalent

+in Bignor an artist ranks considerably higher than a grocer's assistant.

+Skelmersdale, like too many of his class, is something of a snob;

+he had told me to "shut it," only under sudden, excessive provocation,

+and with, I am certain, a subsequent repentance; he was, I knew,

+quite glad to be seen walking about the village with me. In due course,

+he accepted the proposal of a pipe and whisky in my rooms readily

+enough, and there, scenting by some happy instinct that there

+was trouble of the heart in this, and knowing that confidences beget

+confidences, I plied him with much of interest and suggestion from

+my real and fictitious past. And it was after the third whisky

+of the third visit of that sort, if I remember rightly, that a propos

+of some artless expansion of a little affair that had touched and

+left me in my teens, that he did at last, of his own free will

+and motion, break the ice. "It was like that with me," he said,

+"over there at Aldington. It's just that that's so rum. First I didn't

+care a bit and it was all her, and afterwards, when it was too late,

+it was, in a manner of speaking, all me."

+

+I forbore to jump upon this allusion, and so he presently threw out

+another, and in a little while he was making it as plain as daylight

+that the one thing he wanted to talk about now was this Fairyland

+adventure he had sat tight upon for so long. You see, I'd done

+the trick with him, and from being just another half-incredulous,

+would-be facetious stranger, I had, by all my wealth of shameless

+self-exposure, become the possible confidant. He had been bitten

+by the desire to show that he, too, had lived and felt many things,

+and the fever was upon him.

+

+He was certainly confoundedly allusive at first, and my eagerness

+to clear him up with a few precise questions was only equalled

+and controlled by my anxiety not to get to this sort of thing too soon.

+But in another meeting or so the basis of confidence was complete;

+and from first to last I think I got most of the items and aspects--

+indeed, I got quite a number of times over almost everything that

+Mr. Skelmersdale, with his very limited powers of narration, will

+ever be able to tell. And so I come to the story of his adventure,

+and I piece it all together again. Whether it really happened,

+whether he imagined it or dreamt it, or fell upon it in some strange

+hallucinatory trance, I do not profess to say. But that he invented

+it I will not for one moment entertain. The man simply and honestly

+believes the thing happened as he says it happened; he is transparently

+incapable of any lie so elaborate and sustained, and in the belief

+of the simple, yet often keenly penetrating, rustic minds about him

+I find a very strong confirmation of his sincerity. He believes--

+and nobody can produce any positive fact to falsify his belief.

+As for me, with this much of endorsement, I transmit his story--

+I am a little old now to justify or explain.

+

+He says he went to sleep on Aldington Knoll about ten o'clock one

+night--it was quite possibly Midsummer night, though he has never

+thought of the date, and he cannot be sure within a week or so--

+and it was a fine night and windless, with a rising moon. I have been

+at the pains to visit this Knoll thrice since his story grew up

+under my persuasions, and once I went there in the twilight summer

+moonrise on what was, perhaps, a similar night to that of his adventure.

+Jupiter was great and splendid above the moon, and in the north

+and northwest the sky was green and vividly bright over the sunken

+sun. The Knoll stands out bare and bleak under the sky, but surrounded

+at a little distance by dark thickets, and as I went up towards it

+there was a mighty starting and scampering of ghostly or quite

+invisible rabbits. Just over the crown of the Knoll, but nowhere else,

+was a multitudinous thin trumpeting of midges. The Knoll is, I believe,

+an artificial mound, the tumulus of some great prehistoric chieftain,

+and surely no man ever chose a more spacious prospect for a sepulchre.

+Eastward one sees along the hills to Hythe, and thence across

+the Channel to where, thirty miles and more perhaps, away, the great

+white lights by Gris Nez and Boulogne wink and pass and shine.

+Westward lies the whole tumbled valley of the Weald, visible as far

+as Hindhead and Leith Hill, and the valley of the Stour opens

+the Downs in the north to interminable hills beyond Wye. All

+Romney Marsh lies southward at one's feet, Dymchurch and Romney

+and Lydd, Hastings and its hill are in the middle distance, and

+the hills multiply vaguely far beyond where Eastbourne rolls up

+to Beachy Head.

+

+And out upon all this it was that Skelmersdale wandered, being troubled

+in his earlier love affair, and as he says, "not caring WHERE he went."

+And there he sat down to think it over, and so, sulking and grieving,

+was overtaken by sleep. And so he fell into the fairies' power.

+

+The quarrel that had upset him was some trivial matter enough

+between himself and the girl at Clapton Hill to whom he was engaged.

+She was a farmer's daughter, said Skelmersdale, and "very respectable,"

+and no doubt an excellent match for him; but both girl and lover

+were very young and with just that mutual jealousy, that intolerantly

+keen edge of criticism, that irrational hunger for a beautiful

+perfection, that life and wisdom do presently and most mercifully

+dull. What the precise matter of quarrel was I have no idea. She may

+have said she liked men in gaiters when he hadn't any gaiters on,

+or he may have said he liked her better in a different sort of hat,

+but however it began, it got by a series of clumsy stages to bitterness

+and tears. She no doubt got tearful and smeary, and he grew dusty

+and drooping, and she parted with invidious comparisons, grave doubts

+whether she ever had REALLY cared for him, and a clear certainty

+she would never care again. And with this sort of thing upon his mind

+he came out upon Aldington Knoll grieving, and presently, after

+a long interval, perhaps, quite inexplicably, fell asleep.

+

+He woke to find himself on a softer turf than ever he had slept

+on before, and under the shade of very dark trees that completely

+hid the sky. Always, indeed, in Fairyland the sky is hidden, it seems.

+Except for one night when the fairies were dancing, Mr. Skelmersdale,

+during all his time with them, never saw a star. And of that night

+I am in doubt whether he was in Fairyland proper or out where the rings

+and rushes are, in those low meadows near the railway line at Smeeth.

+

+But it was light under these trees for all that, and on the leaves

+and amidst the turf shone a multitude of glow-worms, very bright

+and fine. Mr. Skelmersdale's first impression was that he was SMALL,

+and the next that quite a number of people still smaller were standing

+all about him. For some reason, he says, he was neither surprised

+nor frightened, but sat up quite deliberately and rubbed the sleep

+out of his eyes. And there all about him stood the smiling elves

+who had caught him sleeping under their privileges and had brought

+him into Fairyland.

+

+What these elves were like I have failed to gather, so vague

+and imperfect is his vocabulary, and so unobservant of all minor

+detail does he seem to have been. They were clothed in something

+very light and beautiful, that was neither wool, nor silk, nor leaves,

+nor the petals of flowers. They stood all about him as he sat and waked,

+and down the glade towards him, down a glow-worm avenue and fronted

+by a star, came at once that Fairy Lady who is the chief personage

+of his memory and tale. Of her I gathered more. She was clothed in

+filmy green, and about her little waist was a broad silver girdle. Her

+hair waved back from her forehead on either side; there were curls not

+too wayward and yet astray, and on her brow was a little tiara,

+set with a single star. Her sleeves were some sort of open sleeves

+that gave little glimpses of her arms; her throat, I think, was

+a little displayed, because he speaks of the beauty of her neck

+and chin. There was a necklace of coral about her white throat,

+and in her breast a coral-coloured flower. She had the soft lines

+of a little child in her chin and cheeks and throat. And her eyes,

+I gather, were of a kindled brown, very soft and straight and sweet

+under her level brows. You see by these particulars how greatly

+this lady must have loomed in Mr. Skelmersdale's picture. Certain

+things he tried to express and could not express; "the way she moved,"

+he said several times; and I fancy a sort of demure joyousness

+radiated from this Lady.

+

+And it was in the company of this delightful person, as the guest

+and chosen companion of this delightful person, that Mr. Skelmersdale

+set out to be taken into the intimacies of Fairyland. She welcomed

+him gladly and a little warmly--I suspect a pressure of his hand

+in both of hers and a lit face to his. After all, ten years ago

+young Skelmersdale may have been a very comely youth. And once

+she took his arm, and once, I think, she led him by the hand adown

+the glade that the glow-worms lit.

+

+Just how things chanced and happened there is no telling from

+Mr. Skelmersdale's disarticulated skeleton of description. He gives

+little unsatisfactory glimpses of strange corners and doings, of places

+where there were many fairies together, of "toadstool things that

+shone pink," of fairy food, of which he could only say "you should

+have tasted it!" and of fairy music, "like a little musical box,"

+that came out of nodding flowers. There was a great open place

+where fairies rode and raced on "things," but what Mr. Skelmersdale

+meant by "these here things they rode," there is no telling. Larvae,

+perhaps, or crickets, or the little beetles that elude us so abundantly.

+There was a place where water splashed and gigantic king-cups grew,

+and there in the hotter times the fairies bathed together. There were

+games being played and dancing and much elvish love-making, too,

+I think, among the moss-branch thickets. There can be no doubt that

+the Fairy Lady made love to Mr. Skelmersdale, and no doubt either

+that this young man set himself to resist her. A time came, indeed,

+when she sat on a bank beside him, in a quiet, secluded place

+"all smelling of vi'lets," and talked to him of love.

+

+"When her voice went low and she whispered," said Mr. Skelmersdale,

+"and laid 'er 'and on my 'and, you know, and came close with a soft,

+warm friendly way she 'ad, it was as much as I could do to keep my

+'ead."

+

+It seems he kept his head to a certain limited unfortunate extent.

+He saw "'ow the wind was blowing," he says, and so, sitting there

+in a place all smelling of violets, with the touch of this lovely

+Fairy Lady about him, Mr. Skelmersdale broke it to her gently--

+that he was engaged!

+

+She had told him she loved him dearly, that he was a sweet human lad

+for her, and whatever he would ask of her he should have--even

+his heart's desire.

+

+And Mr. Skelmersdale, who, I fancy, tried hard to avoid looking

+at her little lips as they just dropped apart and came together,

+led up to the more intimate question by saying he would like enough

+capital to start a little shop. He'd just like to feel, he said,

+he had money enough to do that. I imagine a little surprise in those

+brown eyes he talked about, but she seemed sympathetic for all that,

+and she asked him many questions about the little shop, "laughing like"

+all the time. So he got to the complete statement of his affianced

+position, and told her all about Millie.

+

+"All?" said I.

+

+"Everything," said Mr. Skelmersdale, "just who she was, and where

+she lived, and everything about her. I sort of felt I 'ad to all

+the time, I did."

+

+"'Whatever you want you shall have,' said the Fairy Lady. 'That's as

+good as done. You SHALL feel you have the money just as you wish.

+And now, you know--YOU MUST KISS ME.'"

+

+And Mr. Skelmersdale pretended not to hear the latter part of her

+remark, and said she was very kind. That he really didn't deserve she

+should be so kind. And--

+

+The Fairy Lady suddenly came quite close to him and whispered, "Kiss

+me!"

+

+"And," said Mr. Skelmersdale, "like a fool, I did."

+

+There are kisses and kisses, I am told, and this must have been quite

+the other sort from Millie's resonant signals of regard. There was

+something magic in that kiss; assuredly it marked a turning point.

+At any rate, this is one of the passages that he thought sufficiently

+important to describe most at length. I have tried to get it right,

+I have tried to disentangle it from the hints and gestures through

+which it came to me, but I have no doubt that it was all different

+from my telling and far finer and sweeter, in the soft filtered light

+and the subtly stirring silences of the fairy glades. The Fairy Lady

+asked him more about Millie, and was she very lovely, and so on--

+a great many times. As to Millie's loveliness, I conceive him

+answering that she was "all right." And then, or on some such

+occasion, the Fairy Lady told him she had fallen in love with him

+as he slept in the moonlight, and so he had been brought into

+Fairyland, and she had thought, not knowing of Millie, that perhaps

+he might chance to love her. "But now you know you can't," she said,

+"so you must stop with me just a little while, and then you must

+go back to Millie." She told him that, and you know Skelmersdale

+was already in love with her, but the pure inertia of his mind kept

+him in the way he was going. I imagine him sitting in a sort

+of stupefaction amidst all these glowing beautiful things, answering

+about his Millie and the little shop he projected and the need

+of a horse and cart. . . . And that absurd state of affairs must

+have gone on for days and days. I see this little lady, hovering

+about him and trying to amuse him, too dainty to understand his

+complexity and too tender to let him go. And he, you know, hypnotised

+as it were by his earthly position, went his way with her hither

+and thither, blind to everything in Fairyland but this wonderful

+intimacy that had come to him. It is hard, it is impossible, to give

+in print the effect of her radiant sweetness shining through the jungle

+of poor Skelmersdale's rough and broken sentences. To me, at least,

+she shone clear amidst the muddle of his story like a glow-worm

+in a tangle of weeds.

+

+There must have been many days of things while all this was happening--

+and once, I say, they danced under the moonlight in the fairy rings

+that stud the meadows near Smeeth--but at last it all came to an end.

+She led him into a great cavernous place, lit by a red nightlight

+sort of thing, where there were coffers piled on coffers, and cups

+and golden boxes, and a great heap of what certainly seemed to all

+Mr. Skelmersdale's senses--coined gold. There were little gnomes

+amidst this wealth, who saluted her at her coming, and stood aside.

+And suddenly she turned on him there with brightly shining eyes.

+

+"And now," she said, "you have been kind to stay with me so long,

+and it is time I let you go. You must go back to your Millie. You must

+go back to your Millie, and here--just as I promised you--they will

+give you gold."

+

+"She choked like," said Mr. Skelmersdale. "At that, I had a sort

+of feeling--" (he touched his breastbone) "as though I was fainting

+here. I felt pale, you know, and shivering, and even then--I 'adn't

+a thing to say."

+

+He paused. "Yes," I said.

+

+The scene was beyond his describing. But I know that she kissed

+him good-bye.

+

+"And you said nothing?"

+

+"Nothing," he said. "I stood like a stuffed calf. She just looked

+back once, you know, and stood smiling like and crying--I could

+see the shine of her eyes--and then she was gone, and there was

+all these little fellows bustling about me, stuffing my 'ands and

+my pockets and the back of my collar and everywhere with gold."

+

+And then it was, when the Fairy Lady had vanished, that Mr. Skelmersdale

+really understood and knew. He suddenly began plucking out the gold

+they were thrusting upon him, and shouting out at them to prevent

+their giving him more. "'I don't WANT yer gold,' I said. 'I 'aven't

+done yet. I'm not going. I want to speak to that Fairy Lady again.'

+I started off to go after her and they held me back. Yes, stuck

+their little 'ands against my middle and shoved me back. They kept

+giving me more and more gold until it was running all down my

+trouser legs and dropping out of my 'ands. 'I don't WANT yer gold,'

+I says to them, 'I want just to speak to the Fairy Lady again.'"

+

+"And did you?"

+

+"It came to a tussle."

+

+"Before you saw her?"

+

+"I didn't see her. When I got out from them she wasn't anywhere

+to be seen."

+

+So he ran in search of her out of this red-lit cave, down a long

+grotto, seeking her, and thence he came out in a great and desolate

+place athwart which a swarm of will-o'-the-wisps were flying to and fro.

+And about him elves were dancing in derision, and the little gnomes

+came out of the cave after him, carrying gold in handfuls and casting

+it after him, shouting, "Fairy love and fairy gold! Fairy love and

+fairy gold!"

+

+And when he heard these words, came a great fear that it was all over,

+and he lifted up his voice and called to her by her name, and suddenly

+set himself to run down the slope from the mouth of the cavern,

+through a place of thorns and briers, calling after her very loudly

+and often. The elves danced about him unheeded, pinching him

+and pricking him, and the will-o'-the-wisps circled round him

+and dashed into his face, and the gnomes pursued him shouting and

+pelting him with fairy gold. As he ran with all this strange rout

+about him and distracting him, suddenly he was knee-deep in a swamp,

+and suddenly he was amidst thick twisted roots, and he caught his foot

+in one and stumbled and fell. . . .

+

+He fell and he rolled over, and in that instant he found himself

+sprawling upon Aldington Knoll, all lonely under the stars.

+

+He sat up sharply at once, he says, and found he was very stiff

+and cold, and his clothes were damp with dew. The first pallor

+of dawn and a chilly wind were coming up together. He could have

+believed the whole thing a strangely vivid dream until he thrust

+his hand into his side pocket and found it stuffed with ashes.

+Then he knew for certain it was fairy gold they had given him.

+He could feel all their pinches and pricks still, though there was

+never a bruise upon him. And in that manner, and so suddenly,

+Mr. Skelmersdale came out of Fairyland back into this world of men.

+Even then he fancied the thing was but the matter of a night until

+he returned to the shop at Aldington Corner and discovered amidst

+their astonishment that he had been away three weeks.

+

+"Lor'! the trouble I 'ad!" said Mr. Skelmersdale.

+

+"How?"

+

+"Explaining. I suppose you've never had anything like that to explain."

+

+"Never," I said, and he expatiated for a time on the behaviour of

+this person and that. One name he avoided for a space.

+

+"And Millie?" said I at last.

+

+"I didn't seem to care a bit for seeing Millie," he said.

+

+"I expect she seemed changed?"

+

+"Every one was changed. Changed for good. Every one seemed big,

+you know, and coarse. And their voices seemed loud. Why, the sun,

+when it rose in the morning, fair hit me in the eye!"

+

+"And Millie?"

+

+"I didn't want to see Millie."

+

+"And when you did?"

+

+"I came up against her Sunday, coming out of church. 'Where you been?'

+she said, and I saw there was a row. _I_ didn't care if there was.

+I seemed to forget about her even while she was there a-talking

+to me. She was just nothing. I couldn't make out whatever I 'ad seen

+in 'er ever, or what there could 'ave been. Sometimes when she

+wasn't about, I did get back a little, but never when she was there.

+Then it was always the other came up and blotted her out. . . .

+Anyow, it didn't break her heart."

+

+"Married?" I asked.

+

+"Married 'er cousin," said Mr. Skelmersdale, and reflected on the

+pattern of the tablecloth for a space.

+

+When he spoke again it was clear that his former sweetheart had clean

+vanished from his mind, and that the talk had brought back the Fairy

+Lady triumphant in his heart. He talked of her--soon he was letting

+out the oddest things, queer love secrets it would be treachery to

+repeat. I think, indeed, that was the queerest thing in the whole

+affair, to hear that neat little grocer man after his story was done,

+with a glass of whisky beside him and a cigar between his fingers,

+witnessing, with sorrow still, though now, indeed, with a time-blunted

+anguish, of the inappeasable hunger of the heart that presently

+came upon him. "I couldn't eat," he said, "I couldn't sleep. I made

+mistakes in orders and got mixed with change. There she was day

+and night, drawing me and drawing me. Oh, I wanted her. Lord! how

+I wanted her! I was up there, most evenings I was up there on the Knoll,

+often even when it rained. I used to walk over the Knoll and round it

+and round it, calling for them to let me in. Shouting. Near blubbering

+I was at times. Daft I was and miserable. I kept on saying it was all

+a mistake. And every Sunday afternoon I went up there, wet and fine,

+though I knew as well as you do it wasn't no good by day. And I've

+tried to go to sleep there."

+

+He stopped sharply and decided to drink some whisky.

+

+"I've tried to go to sleep there," he said, and I could swear his lips

+trembled. "I've tried to go to sleep there, often and often. And,

+you know, I couldn't, sir--never. I've thought if I could go to sleep

+there, there might be something. But I've sat up there and laid up

+there, and I couldn't--not for thinking and longing. It's the

+longing. . . . I've tried--"

+

+He blew, drank up the rest of his whisky spasmodically, stood up

+suddenly and buttoned his jacket, staring closely and critically

+at the cheap oleographs beside the mantel meanwhile. The little

+black notebook in which he recorded the orders of his daily round

+projected stiffly from his breast pocket. When all the buttons were

+quite done, he patted his chest and turned on me suddenly. "Well,"

+he said, "I must be going."

+

+There was something in his eyes and manner that was too difficult

+for him to express in words. "One gets talking," he said at last

+at the door, and smiled wanly, and so vanished from my eyes.

+And that is the tale of Mr. Skelmersdale in Fairyland just as

+he told it to me.

+

+

+6.  THE STORY OF THE INEXPERIENCED GHOST

+

+The scene amidst which Clayton told his last story comes back very

+vividly to my mind. There he sat, for the greater part of the time,

+in the corner of the authentic settle by the spacious open fire, and

+Sanderson sat beside him smoking the Broseley clay that bore his name.

+There was Evans, and that marvel among actors, Wish, who is also a

+modest man. We had all come down to the Mermaid Club that Saturday

+morning, except Clayton, who had slept there overnight--which indeed

+gave him the opening of his story. We had golfed until golfing was

+invisible; we had dined, and we were in that mood of tranquil

+kindliness when men will suffer a story. When Clayton began to tell

+one, we naturally supposed he was lying. It may be that indeed he was

+lying--of that the reader will speedily be able to judge as well as I.

+He began, it is true, with an air of matter-of-fact anecdote, but

+that we thought was only the incurable artifice of the man.

+

+"I say!" he remarked, after a long consideration of the upward

+rain of sparks from the log that Sanderson had thumped, "you know

+I was alone here last night?"

+

+"Except for the domestics," said Wish.

+

+"Who sleep in the other wing," said Clayton. "Yes. Well--" He pulled

+at his cigar for some little time as though he still hesitated about

+his confidence. Then he said, quite quietly, "I caught a ghost!"

+

+"Caught a ghost, did you?" said Sanderson. "Where is it?"

+

+And Evans, who admires Clayton immensely and has been four weeks

+in America, shouted, "CAUGHT a ghost, did you, Clayton? I'm glad

+of it! Tell us all about it right now."

+

+Clayton said he would in a minute, and asked him to shut the door.

+

+He looked apologetically at me. "There's no eavesdropping of course,

+but we don't want to upset our very excellent service with any rumours

+of ghosts in the place. There's too much shadow and oak panelling

+to trifle with that. And this, you know, wasn't a regular ghost.

+I don't think it will come again--ever."

+

+"You mean to say you didn't keep it?" said Sanderson.

+

+"I hadn't the heart to," said Clayton.

+

+And Sanderson said he was surprised.

+

+We laughed, and Clayton looked aggrieved. "I know," he said, with

+the flicker of a smile, "but the fact is it really WAS a ghost,

+and I'm as sure of it as I am that I am talking to you now. I'm not

+joking. I mean what I say."

+

+Sanderson drew deeply at his pipe, with one reddish eye on Clayton,

+and then emitted a thin jet of smoke more eloquent than many words.

+

+Clayton ignored the comment. "It is the strangest thing that has

+ever happened in my life. You know, I never believed in ghosts

+or anything of the sort, before, ever; and then, you know, I bag

+one in a corner; and the whole business is in my hands."

+

+He meditated still more profoundly, and produced and began to pierce

+a second cigar with a curious little stabber he affected.

+

+"You talked to it?" asked Wish.

+

+"For the space, probably, of an hour."

+

+"Chatty?" I said, joining the party of the sceptics.

+

+"The poor devil was in trouble," said Clayton, bowed over his cigar-end

+and with the very faintest note of reproof.

+

+"Sobbing?" some one asked.

+

+Clayton heaved a realistic sigh at the memory. "Good Lord!" he said;

+"yes." And then, "Poor fellow! yes."

+

+"Where did you strike it?" asked Evans, in his best American accent.

+

+"I never realised," said Clayton, ignoring him, "the poor sort of

+thing a ghost might be," and he hung us up again for a time, while

+he sought for matches in his pocket and lit and warmed to his cigar.

+

+"I took an advantage," he reflected at last.

+

+We were none of us in a hurry. "A character," he said, "remains

+just the same character for all that it's been disembodied. That's

+a thing we too often forget. People with a certain strength or

+fixity of purpose may have ghosts of a certain strength and fixity

+of purpose--most haunting ghosts, you know, must be as one-idea'd

+as monomaniacs and as obstinate as mules to come back again and again.

+This poor creature wasn't." He suddenly looked up rather queerly, and

+his eye went round the room. "I say it," he said, "in all kindliness,

+but that is the plain truth of the case. Even at the first glance

+he struck me as weak."

+

+He punctuated with the help of his cigar.

+

+"I came upon him, you know, in the long passage. His back was towards

+me and I saw him first. Right off I knew him for a ghost. He was

+transparent and whitish; clean through his chest I could see the glimmer

+of the little window at the end. And not only his physique but

+his attitude struck me as being weak. He looked, you know, as though

+he didn't know in the slightest whatever he meant to do. One hand

+was on the panelling and the other fluttered to his mouth. Like--SO!"

+

+"What sort of physique?" said Sanderson.

+

+"Lean. You know that sort of young man's neck that has two great

+flutings down the back, here and here--so! And a little, meanish head

+with scrubby hair--And rather bad ears. Shoulders bad, narrower

+than the hips; turn-down collar, ready-made short jacket, trousers

+baggy and a little frayed at the heels. That's how he took me.

+I came very quietly up the staircase. I did not carry a light,

+you know--the candles are on the landing table and there is that lamp--

+and I was in my list slippers, and I saw him as I came up. I stopped

+dead at that--taking him in. I wasn't a bit afraid. I think that

+in most of these affairs one is never nearly so afraid or excited

+as one imagines one would be. I was surprised and interested.

+I thought, 'Good Lord! Here's a ghost at last! And I haven't believed

+for a moment in ghosts during the last five-and-twenty years.'"

+

+"Um," said Wish.

+

+"I suppose I wasn't on the landing a moment before he found out I

+was there. He turned on me sharply, and I saw the face of an immature

+young man, a weak nose, a scrubby little moustache, a feeble chin.

+So for an instant we stood--he looking over his shoulder at me

+and regarded one another. Then he seemed to remember his high calling.

+He turned round, drew himself up, projected his face, raised his arms,

+spread his hands in approved ghost fashion--came towards me.

+As he did so his little jaw dropped, and he emitted a faint, drawn-out

+'Boo.' No, it wasn't--not a bit dreadful. I'd dined. I'd had a bottle

+of champagne, and being all alone, perhaps two or three--perhaps

+even four or five--whiskies, so I was as solid as rocks and no more

+frightened than if I'd been assailed by a frog. 'Boo!' I said.

+'Nonsense. You don't belong to THIS place. What are you doing here?'

+

+"I could see him wince. 'Boo-oo,' he said.

+

+"'Boo--be hanged! Are you a member?' I said; and just to show

+I didn't care a pin for him I stepped through a corner of him and

+made to light my candle. 'Are you a member?' I repeated, looking

+at him sideways.

+

+"He moved a little so as to stand clear of me, and his bearing

+became crestfallen. 'No,' he said, in answer to the persistent

+interrogation of my eye; 'I'm not a member--I'm a ghost.'

+

+"'Well, that doesn't give you the run of the Mermaid Club. Is there

+any one you want to see, or anything of that sort?' and doing it as

+steadily as possible for fear that he should mistake the carelessness

+of whisky for the distraction of fear, I got my candle alight.

+I turned on him, holding it. 'What are you doing here?' I said.

+

+"He had dropped his hands and stopped his booing, and there he stood,

+abashed and awkward, the ghost of a weak, silly, aimless young man.

+'I'm haunting,' he said.

+

+"'You haven't any business to,' I said in a quiet voice.

+

+"'I'm a ghost,' he said, as if in defence.

+

+"'That may be, but you haven't any business to haunt here. This is

+a respectable private club; people often stop here with nursemaids

+and children, and, going about in the careless way you do, some poor

+little mite could easily come upon you and be scared out of her wits.

+I suppose you didn't think of that?'

+

+"'No, sir,' he said, 'I didn't.'

+

+"'You should have done. You haven't any claim on the place, have you?

+Weren't murdered here, or anything of that sort?'

+

+"'None, sir; but I thought as it was old and oak-panelled--'

+

+"'That's NO excuse.' I regarded him firmly. 'Your coming here is

+a mistake,' I said, in a tone of friendly superiority. I feigned

+to see if I had my matches, and then looked up at him frankly.

+'If I were you I wouldn't wait for cock-crow--I'd vanish right away.'

+

+"He looked embarrassed. 'The fact IS, sir--' he began.

+

+"'I'd vanish,' I said, driving it home.

+

+"'The fact is, sir, that--somehow--I can't.'

+

+"'You CAN'T?'

+

+"'No, sir. There's something I've forgotten. I've been hanging

+about here since midnight last night, hiding in the cupboards

+of the empty bedrooms and things like that. I'm flurried. I've never

+come haunting before, and it seems to put me out.'

+

+"'Put you out?'

+

+"'Yes, sir. I've tried to do it several times, and it doesn't come off.

+There's some little thing has slipped me, and I can't get back.'

+

+"That, you know, rather bowled me over. He looked at me in such

+an abject way that for the life of me I couldn't keep up quite

+the high, hectoring vein I had adopted. 'That's queer,' I said,

+and as I spoke I fancied I heard some one moving about down below.

+'Come into my room and tell me more about it,' I said. 'I didn't,

+of course, understand this,' and I tried to take him by the arm.

+But, of course, you might as well have tried to take hold of a puff

+of smoke! I had forgotten my number, I think; anyhow, I remember

+going into several bedrooms--it was lucky I was the only soul

+in that wing--until I saw my traps. 'Here we are,' I said, and sat

+down in the arm-chair; 'sit down and tell me all about it. It seems

+to me you have got yourself into a jolly awkward position, old chap.'

+

+"Well, he said he wouldn't sit down! he'd prefer to flit up and down

+the room if it was all the same to me. And so he did, and in a little

+while we were deep in a long and serious talk. And presently,

+you know, something of those whiskies and sodas evaporated out of me,

+and I began to realise just a little what a thundering rum and weird

+business it was that I was in. There he was, semi-transparent--

+the proper conventional phantom, and noiseless except for his ghost

+of a voice--flitting to and fro in that nice, clean, chintz-hung

+old bedroom. You could see the gleam of the copper candlesticks

+through him, and the lights on the brass fender, and the corners

+of the framed engravings on the wall,--and there he was telling me

+all about this wretched little life of his that had recently ended

+on earth. He hadn't a particularly honest face, you know, but being

+transparent, of course, he couldn't avoid telling the truth."

+

+"Eh?" said Wish, suddenly sitting up in his chair.

+

+"What?" said Clayton.

+

+"Being transparent--couldn't avoid telling the truth--I don't see it,"

+said Wish.

+

+"_I_ don't see it," said Clayton, with inimitable assurance. "But

+it IS so, I can assure you nevertheless. I don't believe he got once

+a nail's breadth off the Bible truth. He told me how he had been

+killed--he went down into a London basement with a candle to look

+for a leakage of gas--and described himself as a senior English

+master in a London private school when that release occurred."

+

+"Poor wretch!" said I.

+

+"That's what I thought, and the more he talked the more I thought it.

+There he was, purposeless in life and purposeless out of it. He talked

+of his father and mother and his schoolmaster, and all who had ever

+been anything to him in the world, meanly. He had been too sensitive,

+too nervous; none of them had ever valued him properly or understood

+him, he said. He had never had a real friend in the world,

+I think; he had never had a success. He had shirked games and failed

+examinations. 'It's like that with some people,' he said; 'whenever

+I got into the examination-room or anywhere everything seemed to go.'

+Engaged to be married of course--to another over-sensitive person, I

+suppose--when the indiscretion with the gas escape ended his affairs.

+'And where are you now?' I asked. 'Not in--?'

+

+"He wasn't clear on that point at all. The impression he gave me was

+of a sort of vague, intermediate state, a special reserve for souls

+too non-existent for anything so positive as either sin or virtue.

+_I_ don't know. He was much too egotistical and unobservant to give

+me any clear idea of the kind of place, kind of country, there is on

+the Other Side of Things. Wherever he was, he seems to have fallen in

+with a set of kindred spirits: ghosts of weak Cockney young men,

+who were on a footing of Christian names, and among these there was

+certainly a lot of talk about 'going haunting' and things like that.

+Yes--going haunting! They seemed to think 'haunting' a tremendous

+adventure, and most of them funked it all the time. And so primed,

+you know, he had come."

+

+"But really!" said Wish to the fire.

+

+"These are the impressions he gave me, anyhow," said Clayton, modestly.

+"I may, of course, have been in a rather uncritical state, but that

+was the sort of background he gave to himself. He kept flitting up and

+down, with his thin voice going talking, talking about his wretched

+self, and never a word of clear, firm statement from first to last.

+He was thinner and sillier and more pointless than if he had been

+real and alive. Only then, you know, he would not have been in my

+bedroom here--if he HAD been alive. I should have kicked him out."

+

+"Of course," said Evans, "there ARE poor mortals like that."

+

+"And there's just as much chance of their having ghosts as the rest

+of us," I admitted.

+

+"What gave a sort of point to him, you know, was the fact that

+he did seem within limits to have found himself out. The mess he had

+made of haunting had depressed him terribly. He had been told

+it would be a 'lark'; he had come expecting it to be a 'lark,'

+and here it was, nothing but another failure added to his record!

+He proclaimed himself an utter out-and-out failure. He said, and

+I can quite believe it, that he had never tried to do anything all

+his life that he hadn't made a perfect mess of--and through all

+the wastes of eternity he never would. If he had had sympathy,

+perhaps--. He paused at that, and stood regarding me. He remarked that,

+strange as it might seem to me, nobody, not any one, ever, had given

+him the amount of sympathy I was doing now. I could see what he wanted

+straight away, and I determined to head him off at once. I may be a

+brute, you know, but being the Only Real Friend, the recipient of the

+confidences of one of these egotistical weaklings, ghost or body, is

+beyond my physical endurance. I got up briskly. 'Don't you brood on

+these things too much,' I said. 'The thing you've got to do is to get

+out of this get out of this--sharp. You pull yourself together and

+TRY.' 'I can't,' he said. 'You try,' I said, and try he did."

+

+"Try!" said Sanderson. "HOW?"

+

+"Passes," said Clayton.

+

+"Passes?"

+

+"Complicated series of gestures and passes with the hands. That's

+how he had come in and that's how he had to get out again. Lord!

+what a business I had!"

+

+"But how could ANY series of passes--?" I began.

+

+"My dear man," said Clayton, turning on me and putting a great

+emphasis on certain words, "you want EVERYTHING clear. _I_ don't

+know HOW. All I know is that you DO--that HE did, anyhow, at least.

+After a fearful time, you know, he got his passes right and suddenly

+disappeared."

+

+"Did you," said Sanderson, slowly, "observe the passes?"

+

+"Yes," said Clayton, and seemed to think. "It was tremendously queer,"

+he said. "There we were, I and this thin vague ghost, in that silent

+room, in this silent, empty inn, in this silent little Friday-night

+town. Not a sound except our voices and a faint panting he made when

+he swung. There was the bedroom candle, and one candle on the dressing-

+table alight, that was all--sometimes one or other would flare up into

+a tall, lean, astonished flame for a space. And queer things happened.

+'I can't,' he said; 'I shall never--!' And suddenly he sat down on

+a little chair at the foot of the bed and began to sob and sob.

+Lord! what a harrowing, whimpering thing he seemed!

+

+"'You pull yourself together,' I said, and tried to pat him on the

+back, and . . . my confounded hand went through him! By that time,

+you know, I wasn't nearly so--massive as I had been on the landing.

+I got the queerness of it full. I remember snatching back my hand out

+of him, as it were, with a little thrill, and walking over to the

+dressing-table. 'You pull yourself together,' I said to him, 'and

+try.' And in order to encourage and help him I began to try as well."

+

+"What!" said Sanderson, "the passes?"

+

+"Yes, the passes."

+

+"But--" I said, moved by an idea that eluded me for a space.

+

+"This is interesting," said Sanderson, with his finger in his pipe-

+bowl. "You mean to say this ghost of yours gave away--"

+

+"Did his level best to give away the whole confounded barrier? YES."

+

+"He didn't," said Wish; "he couldn't. Or you'd have gone there too."

+

+"That's precisely it," I said, finding my elusive idea put into words

+for me.

+

+"That IS precisely it," said Clayton, with thoughtful eyes upon the

+fire.

+

+For just a little while there was silence.

+

+"And at last he did it?" said Sanderson.

+

+"At last he did it. I had to keep him up to it hard, but he did it

+at last--rather suddenly. He despaired, we had a scene, and then

+he got up abruptly and asked me to go through the whole performance,

+slowly, so that he might see. 'I believe,' he said, 'if I could SEE

+I should spot what was wrong at once.' And he did. '_I_ know,'

+he said. 'What do you know?' said I. '_I_ know,' he repeated.

+Then he said, peevishly, 'I CAN'T do it if you look at me--I really

+CAN'T; it's been that, partly, all along. I'm such a nervous fellow

+that you put me out.' Well, we had a bit of an argument. Naturally

+I wanted to see; but he was as obstinate as a mule, and suddenly

+I had come over as tired as a dog--he tired me out. 'All right,'

+I said, '_I_ won't look at you,' and turned towards the mirror,

+on the wardrobe, by the bed.

+

+He started off very fast. I tried to follow him by looking in

+the looking-glass, to see just what it was had hung. Round went

+his arms and his hands, so, and so, and so, and then with a rush

+came to the last gesture of all--you stand erect and open out your

+arms--and so, don't you know, he stood. And then he didn't! He didn't!

+He wasn't! I wheeled round from the looking-glass to him. There was

+nothingl I was alone, with the flaring candles and a staggering mind.

+What had happened? Had anything happened? Had I been dreaming? . . .

+And then, with an absurd note of finality about it, the clock upon

+the landing discovered the moment was ripe for striking ONE. So!--Ping!

+And I was as grave and sober as a judge, with all my champagne and

+whisky gone into the vast serene. Feeling queer, you know--confoundedly

+QUEER! Queer! Good Lord!"

+

+He regarded his cigar-ash for a moment. "That's all that happened," he

+said.

+

+"And then you went to bed?" asked Evans.

+

+"What else was there to do?"

+

+I looked Wish in the eye. We wanted to scoff, and there was something,

+something perhaps in Clayton's voice and manner, that hampered our

+desire.

+

+"And about these passes?" said Sanderson.

+

+"I believe I could do them now."

+

+"Oh!" said Sanderson, and produced a penknife and set himself to grub

+the dottel out of the bowl of his clay.

+

+"Why don't you do them now?" said Sanderson, shutting his pen-knife

+with a click.

+

+"That's what I'm going to do," said Clayton.

+

+"They won't work," said Evans.

+

+"If they do--" I suggested.

+

+"You know, I'd rather you didn't," said Wish, stretching out his legs.

+

+"Why?" asked Evans.

+

+"I'd rather he didn't," said Wish.

+

+"But he hasn't got 'em right," said Sanderson, plugging too much

+tobacco in his pipe.

+

+"All the same, I'd rather he didn't," said Wish.

+

+We argued with Wish. He said that for Clayton to go through those

+gestures was like mocking a serious matter. "But you don't believe--?"

+I said. Wish glanced at Clayton, who was staring into the fire, weighing

+something in his mind. "I do--more than half, anyhow, I do," said Wish.

+

+"Clayton," said I, "you're too good a liar for us. Most of it was

+all right. But that disappearance . . . happened to be convincing.

+Tell us, it's a tale of cock and bull."

+

+He stood up without heeding me, took the middle of the hearthrug,

+and faced me. For a moment he regarded his feet thoughtfully, and

+then for all the rest of the time his eyes were on the opposite wall,

+with an intent expression. He raised his two hands slowly to the level

+of his eyes and so began. . . .

+

+Now, Sanderson is a Freemason, a member of the lodge of the Four Kings,

+which devotes itself so ably to the study and elucidation of all the

+mysteries of Masonry past and present, and among the students of this

+lodge Sanderson is by no means the least. He followed Clayton's motions

+with a singular interest in his reddish eye. "That's not bad," he said,

+when it was done. "You really do, you know, put things together,

+Clayton, in a most amazing fashion. But there's one little detail out."

+

+"I know," said Clayton. "I believe I could tell you which."

+

+"Well?"

+

+"This," said Clayton, and did a queer little twist and writhing

+and thrust of the hands.

+

+"Yes."

+

+"That, you know, was what HE couldn't get right," said Clayton.

+"But how do YOU--?"

+

+"Most of this business, and particularly how you invented it, I don't

+understand at all," said Sanderson, "but just that phase--I do."

+He reflected. "These happen to be a series of gestures--connected

+with a certain branch of esoteric Masonry. Probably you know.

+Or else--HOW?" He reflected still further. "I do not see I can do

+any harm in telling you just the proper twist. After all, if you know,

+you know; if you don't, you don't."

+

+"I know nothing," said Clayton, "except what the poor devil let

+out last night."

+

+"Well, anyhow," said Sanderson, and placed his churchwarden very

+carefully upon the shelf over the fireplace. Then very rapidly he

+gesticulated with his hands.

+

+"So?" said Clayton, repeating.

+

+"So," said Sanderson, and took his pipe in hand again.

+

+"Ah, NOW," said Clayton, "I can do the whole thing--right."

+

+He stood up before the waning fire and smiled at us all. But I think

+there was just a little hesitation in his smile. "If I begin--"

+he said.

+

+"I wouldn't begin," said Wish.

+

+"It's all right!" said Evans. "Matter is indestructible. You don't

+think any jiggery-pokery of this sort is going to snatch Clayton

+into the world of shades. Not it! You may try, Clayton, so far as

+I'm concerned, until your arms drop off at the wrists."

+

+"I don't believe that," said Wish, and stood up and put his arm

+on Clayton's shoulder. "You've made me half believe in that story

+somehow, and I don't want to see the thing done!"

+

+"Goodness!" said I, "here's Wish frightened!"

+

+"I am," said Wish, with real or admirably feigned intensity. "I

+believe that if he goes through these motions right he'll GO."

+

+"He'll not do anything of the sort," I cried. "There's only one way

+out of this world for men, and Clayton is thirty years from that.

+Besides . . . And such a ghost! Do you think--?"

+

+Wish interrupted me by moving. He walked out from among our chairs

+and stopped beside the tole and stood there. "Clayton," he said,

+"you're a fool."

+

+Clayton, with a humorous light in his eyes, smiled back at him.

+"Wish," he said, "is right and all you others are wrong. I shall go.

+I shall get to the end of these passes, and as the last swish whistles

+through the air, Presto!--this hearthrug will be vacant, the room

+will be blank amazement, and a respectably dressed gentleman of

+fifteen stone will plump into the world of shades. I'm certain.

+So will you be. I decline to argue further. Let the thing be tried."

+

+"NO," said Wish, and made a step and ceased, and Clayton raised

+his hands once more to repeat the spirit's passing.

+

+By that time, you know, we were all in a state of tension--largely

+because of the behaviour of Wish. We sat all of us with our eyes on

+Clayton--I, at least, with a sort of tight, stiff feeling about me

+as though from the back of my skull to the middle of my thighs my

+body had been changed to steel. And there, with a gravity that was

+imperturbably serene, Clayton bowed and swayed and waved his hands

+and arms before us. As he drew towards the end one piled up, one

+tingled in one's teeth. The last gesture, I have said, was to swing

+the arms out wide open, with the face held up. And when at last he

+swung out to this closing gesture I ceased even to breathe. It was

+ridiculous, of course, but you know that ghost-story feeling. It was

+after dinner, in a queer, old shadowy house. Would he, after all--?

+

+There he stood for one stupendous moment, with his arms open and his

+upturned face, assured and bright, in the glare of the hanging lamp.

+We hung through that moment as if it were an age, and then came from

+all of us something that was half a sigh of infinite relief and half a

+reassuring "NO!" For visibly--he wasn't going. It was all nonsense.

+He had told an idle story, and carried it almost to conviction, that

+was all! . . . And then in that moment the face of Clayton, changed.

+

+It changed. It changed as a lit house changes when its lights are

+suddenly extinguished. His eyes were suddenly eyes that were fixed,

+his smile was frozen on his lips, and he stood there still. He stood

+there, very gently swaying.

+

+That moment, too, was an age. And then, you know, chairs were scraping,

+things were falling, and we were all moving. His knees seemed to give,

+and he fell forward, and Evans rose and caught him in his arms. . . .

+

+It stunned us all. For a minute I suppose no one said a coherent

+thing. We believed it, yet could not believe it. . . . I came out

+of a muddled stupefaction to find myself kneeling beside him,

+and his vest and shirt were torn open, and Sanderson's hand lay

+on his heart. . . .

+

+Well--the simple fact before us could very well wait our convenience;

+there was no hurry for us to comprehend. It lay there for an hour;

+it lies athwart my memory, black and amazing still, to this day.

+Clayton had, indeed, passed into the world that lies so near to

+and so far from our own, and he had gone thither by the only road

+that mortal man may take. But whether he did indeed pass there

+by that poor ghost's incantation, or whether he was stricken suddenly

+by apoplexy in the midst of an idle tale--as the coroner's jury would

+have us believe--is no matter for my judging; it is just one of those

+inexplicable riddles that must remain unsolved until the final solution

+of all things shall come. All I certainly know is that, in the very

+moment, in the very instant, of concluding those passes, he changed,

+and staggered, and fell down before us--dead!

+

+

+7.  JIMMY GOGGLES THE GOD

+

+"It isn't every one who's been a god," said the sunburnt man. "But

+it's happened to me. Among other things."

+

+I intimated my sense of his condescension.

+

+"It don't leave much for ambition, does it?" said the sunburnt man.

+

+"I was one of those men who were saved from the Ocean Pioneer.

+Gummy! how time flies! It's twenty years ago. I doubt if you'll

+remember anything of the Ocean Pioneer?"

+

+The name was familiar, and I tried to recall when and where I had

+read it. The Ocean Pioneer? "Something about gold dust," I said

+vaguely, "but the precise--"

+

+"That's it," he said. "In a beastly little channel she hadn't no

+business in--dodging pirates. It was before they'd put the kybosh

+on that business. And there'd been volcanoes or something and all

+the rocks was wrong. There's places about by Soona where you fair

+have to follow the rocks about to see where they're going next.

+Down she went in twenty fathoms before you could have dealt for whist,

+with fifty thousand pounds worth of gold aboard, it was said,

+in one form or another."

+

+"Survivors?"

+

+"Three."

+

+"I remember the case now," I said. "There was something about salvage--"

+

+But at the word salvage the sunburnt man exploded into language so

+extraordinarily horrible that I stopped aghast. He came down to more

+ordinary swearing, and pulled himself up abruptly. "Excuse me,"

+he said, "but--salvage!"

+

+He leant over towards me. "I was in that job," he said. "Tried to make

+myself a rich man, and got made a god instead. I've got my feelings--

+

+"It ain't all jam being a god," said the sunburnt man, and for some

+time conversed by means of such pithy but unprogressive axioms.

+At last he took up his tale again.

+

+"There was me," said the sunburnt man, "and a seaman named Jacobs,

+and Always, the mate of the Ocean Pioneer. And him it was that set

+the whole thing going. I remember him now, when we was in the

+jolly-boat, suggesting it all to our minds just by one sentence.

+He was a wonderful hand at suggesting things. 'There was forty

+thousand pounds,' he said, 'on that ship, and it's for me to say

+just where she went down.' It didn't need much brains to tumble

+to that. And he was the leader from the first to the last. He got

+hold of the Sanderses and their brig; they were brothers, and

+the brig was the Pride of Banya, and he it was bought the diving-dress--

+a second-hand one with a compressed air apparatus instead of pumping.

+He'd have done the diving too, if it hadn't made him sick going down.

+And the salvage people were mucking about with a chart he'd cooked up,

+as solemn as could be, at Starr Race, a hundred and twenty miles away.

+

+"I can tell you we was a happy lot aboard that brig, jokes and drink

+and bright hopes all the time. It all seemed so neat and clean

+and straightforward, and what rough chaps call a 'cert.' And we

+used to speculate how the other blessed lot, the proper salvagers,

+who'd started two days before us, were getting on, until our sides

+fairly ached. We all messed together in the Sanderses' cabin--it

+was a curious crew, all officers and no men--and there stood the

+diving-dress waiting its turn. Young Sanders was a humorous sort of

+chap, and there certainly was something funny in the confounded

+thing's great fat head and its stare, and he made us see it too.

+'Jimmie Goggles,' he used to call it, and talk to it like a Christian.

+Asked if he was married, and how Mrs. Goggles was, and all the little

+Goggleses. Fit to make you split. And every blessed day all of us

+used to drink the health of Jimmy Goggles in rum, and unscrew his eye

+and pour a glass of rum in him, until, instead of that nasty

+mackintosheriness, he smelt as nice in his inside as a cask of rum.

+It was jolly times we had in those days, I can tell you--little

+suspecting, poor chaps! what was a-coming.

+

+"We weren't going to throw away our chances by any blessed hurry,

+you know, and we spent a whole day sounding our way towards where

+the Ocean Pioneer had gone down, right between two chunks of ropy

+grey rock--lava rocks that rose nearly out of the water. We had

+to lay off about half a mile to get a safe anchorage, and there was

+a thundering row who should stop on board. And there she lay just

+as she had gone down, so that you could see the top of the masts

+that was still standing perfectly distinctly. The row ending in

+all coming in the boat. I went down in the diving-dress on Friday

+morning directly it was light.

+

+"What a surprise it was! I can see it all now quite distinctly.

+It was a queer-looking place, and the light was just coming. People

+over here think every blessed place in the tropics is a flat shore

+and palm trees and surf, bless 'em! This place, for instance,

+wasn't a bit that way. Not common rocks they were, undermined

+by waves; but great curved banks like ironwork cinder heaps,

+with green slime below, and thorny shrubs and things just waving

+upon them here and there, and the water glassy calm and clear,

+and showing you a kind of dirty grey-black shine, with huge flaring

+red-brown weeds spreading motionless, and crawling and darting

+things going through it. And far away beyond the ditches and pools

+and the heaps was a forest on the mountain flank, growing again after

+the fires and cinder showers of the last eruption. And the other way

+forest, too, and a kind of broken--what is it?--ambytheatre of black

+and rusty cinders rising out of it all, and the sea in a kind of bay

+in the middle.

+

+"The dawn, I say, was just coming, and there wasn't much colour

+about things, and not a human being but ourselves anywhere in sight

+up or down the channel. Except the Pride of Banya, lying out beyond

+a lump of rocks towards the line of the sea.

+

+"Not a human being in sight," he repeated, and paused.

+

+"I don't know where they came from, not a bit. And we were feeling

+so safe that we were all alone that poor young Sanders was a-singing.

+I was in Jimmy Goggles, all except the helmet. 'Easy,' says Always,

+'there's her mast.' And after I'd had just one squint over the gunwale,

+I caught up the bogey and almost tipped out as old Sanders brought

+the boat round. When the windows were screwed and everything was

+all right, I shut the valve from the air belt in order to help

+my sinking, and jumped overboard, feet foremost--for we hadn't

+a ladder. I left the boat pitching, and all of them staring down

+into the water after me, as my head sank down into the weeds and

+blackness that lay about the mast. I suppose nobody, not the most

+cautious chap in the world, would have bothered about a lookout

+at such a desolate place. It stunk of solitude.

+

+"Of course you must understand that I was a greenhorn at diving.

+None of us were divers. We'd had to muck about with the thing to get

+the way of it, and this was the first time I'd been deep. It feels

+damnable. Your ears hurt beastly. I don't know if you've ever hurt

+yourself yawning or sneezing, but it takes you like that, only ten

+times worse. And a pain over the eyebrows here--splitting--and a

+feeling like influenza in the head. And it isn't all heaven in your

+lungs and things. And going down feels like the beginning of a lift,

+only it keeps on. And you can't turn your head to see what's above you,

+and you can't get a fair squint at what's happening to your feet

+without bending down something painful. And being deep it was dark,

+let alone the blackness of the ashes and mud that formed the bottom.

+It was like going down out of the dawn back into the night, so to speak.

+

+"The mast came up like a ghost out of the black, and then a lot of

+fishes, and then a lot of flapping red seaweed, and then whack I came

+with a kind of dull bang on the deck of the Ocean Pioneer, and the

+fishes that had been feeding on the dead rose about me like a swarm of

+flies from road stuff in summer time. I turned on the compressed air

+again--for the suit was a bit thick and mackintoshery after all, in

+spite of the rum--and stood recovering myself. It struck coolish down

+there, and that helped take off the stuffiness a bit.

+

+"When I began to feel easier, I started looking about me. It was

+an extraordinary sight. Even the light was extraordinary, a kind

+of reddy-coloured twilight, on account of the streamers of seaweed

+that floated up on either side of the ship. And far overhead just

+a moony, deep green-blue. The deck of the ship, except for a slight

+list to starboard, was level, and lay all dark and long between

+the weeds, clear except where the masts had snapped when she rolled,

+and vanishing into black night towards the forecastle. There wasn't

+any dead on the decks, most were in the weeds alongside, I suppose;

+but afterwards I found two skeletons lying in the passengers' cabins,

+where death had come to them. It was curious to stand on that deck

+and recognise it all, bit by bit; a place against the rail where I'd

+been fond of smoking by starlight, and the corner where an old chap

+from Sydney used to flirt with a widow we had aboard. A comfortable

+couple they'd been, only a month ago, and now you couldn't have

+got a meal for a baby crab off either of them.

+

+"I've always had a bit of a philosophical turn, and I dare say I

+spent the best part of five minutes in such thoughts before I went

+below to find where the blessed dust was stored. It was slow work

+hunting, feeling it was for the most part, pitchy dark, with confusing

+blue gleams down the companion. And there were things moving about,

+a dab at my glass once, and once a pinch at my leg. Crabs, I expect.

+I kicked a lot of loose stuff that puzzled me, and stooped and

+picked up something all knobs and spikes. What do you think?

+Backbone! But I never had any particular feeling for bones. We

+had talked the affair over pretty thoroughly, and Always knew just

+where the stuff was stowed. I found it that trip. I lifted a box

+one end an inch or more."

+

+He broke off in his story. "I've lifted it," he said, "as near as

+that! Forty thousand pounds worth of pure gold! Gold! I shouted

+inside my helmet as a kind of cheer and hurt my ears. I was getting

+confounded stuffy and tired by this time--I must have been down

+twenty-five minutes or more--and I thought this was good enough.

+I went up the companion again, and as my eyes came up flush with

+the deck, a thundering great crab gave a kind of hysterical jump

+and went scuttling off sideways. Quite a start it gave me. I stood

+up clear on deck and shut the valve behind the helmet to let the air

+accumulate to carry me up again--I noticed a kind of whacking

+from above, as though they were hitting the water with an oar,

+but I didn't look up. I fancied they were signalling me to come up.

+

+"And then something shot down by me--something heavy, and stood

+a-quiver in the planks. I looked, and there was a long knife I'd

+seen young Sanders handling. Thinks I, he's dropped it, and I was

+still calling him this kind of fool and that--for it might have hurt

+me serious--when I began to lift and drive up towards the daylight.

+Just about the level of the top spars of the Ocean Pioneer, whack!

+I came against something sinking down, and a boot knocked in front

+of my helmet. Then something else, struggling frightful. It was

+a big weight atop of me, whatever it was, and moving and twisting

+about. I'd have thought it a big octopus, or some such thing, if it

+hadn't been for the boot. But octopuses don't wear boots. It was

+all in a moment, of course. I felt myself sinking down again, and

+I threw my arms about to keep steady, and the whole lot rolled

+free of me and shot down as I went up--"

+

+He paused.

+

+"I saw young Sanders's face, over a naked black shoulder, and a spear

+driven clean through his neck, and out of his mouth and neck what

+looked like spirts of pink smoke in the water. And down they went

+clutching one another, and turning over, and both too far gone

+to leave go. And in another second my helmet came a whack, fit

+to split, against the niggers' canoe. It was niggers! Two canoes full.

+

+"It was lively times, I tell you! Overboard came Always with three

+spears in him. There was the legs of three or four black chaps

+kicking about me in the water. I couldn't see much, but I saw

+the game was up at a glance, gave my valve a tremendous twist,

+and went bubbling down again after poor Always, in as awful a state

+of scare and astonishment as you can well imagine. I passed young

+Sanders and the nigger going up again and struggling still a bit,

+and in another moment I was standing in the dim again on the deck

+of the Ocean Pioneer.

+

+"'Gummy,' thinks I, 'here's a fix!' Niggers? At first I couldn't see

+anything for it but Stifle below or Stabs above. I didn't properly

+understand how much air there was to last me, but I didn't feel like

+standing very much more of it down below. I was hot and frightfully

+heady--quite apart from the blue funk I was in. We'd never repined

+with these beastly natives, filthy Papuan beasts. It wasn't any good,

+coming up where I was, but I had to do something. On the spur

+of the moment, I clambered over the side of the brig and landed

+among the weeds, and set off through the darkness as fast as I could.

+I just stopped once and knelt, and twisted back my head in the helmet

+and had a look up. It was a most extraordinary bright green-blue above,

+and the two canoes and the boat floating there very small and distant

+like a kind of twisted H. And it made me feel sick to squint up at it,

+and think what the pitching and swaying of the three meant.

+

+"It was just about the most horrible ten minutes I ever had, blundering

+about in that darkness, pressure something awful, like being buried

+in sand, pain across the chest, sick with funk, and breathing nothing

+as it seemed but the smell of rum and mackintosh. Gummy! After a bit,

+I found myself going up a steepish sort of slope. I had another

+squint to see if anything was visible of the canoes and boats,

+and then kept on. I stopped with my head a foot from the surface,

+and tried to see where I was going, but, of course, nothing was

+to be seen but the reflection of the bottom. Then out I dashed like

+knocking my head through a mirror. Directly I got my eyes out of

+the water, I saw I'd come up a kind of beach near the forest. I had a

+look round, but the natives and the brig were both hidden by a big,

+hummucky heap of twisted lava, the born fool in me suggested a run

+for the woods. I didn't take the helmet off, but eased open one of

+the windows, and, after a bit of a pant, went on out of the water.

+You'd hardly imagine how clean and light the air tasted.

+

+"Of course, with four inches of lead in your boot soles, and your

+head in a copper knob the size of a football, and been thirty-five

+minutes under water, you don't break any records running. I ran like

+a ploughboy going to work. And half way to the trees I saw a dozen

+niggers or more, coming out in a gaping, astonished sort of way

+to meet me.

+

+"I just stopped dead, and cursed myself for all the fools out of

+London. I had about as much chance of cutting back to the water as

+a turned turtle. I just screwed up my window again to leave my hands

+free, and waited for them. There wasn't anything else for me to do.

+

+"But they didn't come on very much. I began to suspect why. 'Jimmy

+Goggles,' I says, 'it's your beauty does it.' I was inclined to be a

+little light-headed, I think, with all these dangers about and the

+change in the pressure of the blessed air. 'Who're ye staring at?' I

+said, as if the savages could hear me. 'What d'ye take me for? I'm

+hanged if I don't give you something to stare at,' I said, and with

+that I screwed up the escape valve and turned on the compressed air

+from the belt, until I was swelled out like a blown frog. Regular

+imposing it must have been. I'm blessed if they'd come on a step;

+and presently one and then another went down on their hands and knees.

+They didn't know what to make of me, and they was doing the extra

+polite, which was very wise and reasonable of them. I had half a mind

+to edge back seaward and cut and run, but it seemed too hopeless. A

+step back and they'd have been after me. And out of sheer desperation

+I began to march towards them up the beach, with slow, heavy steps,

+and waving my blown-out arms about, in a dignified manner. And inside

+of me I was singing as small as a tomtit.

+

+"But there's nothing like a striking appearance to help a man over a

+difficulty,--I've found that before and since. People like ourselves,

+who're up to diving-dresses by the time we're seven, can scarcely

+imagine the effect of one on a simple-minded savage. One or two

+of these niggers cut and run, the others started in a great hurry

+trying to knock their brains out on the ground. And on I went as

+slow and solemn and silly-looking and artful as a jobbing plumber.

+It was evident they took me for something immense.

+

+"Then up jumped one and began pointing, making extraordinary gestures

+to me as he did so, and all the others began sharing their attention

+between me and something out at sea. 'What's the matter now?' I said.

+I turned slowly on account of my dignity, and there I saw, coming

+round a point, the poor old Pride of Banya towed by a couple of canoes.

+The sight fairly made me sick. But they evidently expected some

+recognition, so I waved my arms in a striking sort of non-committal

+manner. And then I turned and stalked on towards the trees again.

+At that time I was praying like mad, I remember, over and over again:

+'Lord help me through with it! Lord help me through with it!' It's

+only fools who know nothing of dangers can afford to laugh at praying.

+

+"But these niggers weren't going to let me walk through and away

+like that. They started a kind of bowing dance about me, and sort of

+pressed me to take a pathway that lay through the trees. It was

+clear to me they didn't take me for a British citizen, whatever

+else they thought of me, and for my own part I was never less anxious

+to own up to the old country.

+

+"You'd hardly believe it, perhaps, unless you're familiar with

+savages, but these poor misguided, ignorant creatures took me

+straight to their kind of joss place to present me to the blessed

+old black stone there. By this time I was beginning to sort of realise

+the depth of their ignorance, and directly I set eyes on this deity

+I took my cue. I started a baritone howl, 'wow-wow,' very long

+on one note, and began waving my arms about a lot, and then very

+slowly and ceremoniously turned their image over on its side and

+sat down on it. I wanted to sit down badly, for diving-dresses ain't

+much wear in the tropics. Or, to put it different like, they're

+a sight too much. It took away their breath, I could see, my sitting

+on their joss, but in less time than a minute they made up their

+minds and were hard at work worshipping me. And I can tell you

+I felt a bit relieved to see things turning out so well, in spite

+of the weight on my shoulders and feet.

+

+"But what made me anxious was what the chaps in the canoes might

+think when they came back. If they'd seen me in the boat before

+I went down, and without the helmet on--for they might have been

+spying and hiding since over night--they would very likely take

+a different view from the others. I was in a deuce of a stew about

+that for hours, as it seemed, until the shindy of the arrival began.

+

+"But they took it down--the whole blessed village took it down.

+At the cost of sitting up stiff and stern, as much like those sitting

+Egyptian images one sees as I could manage, for pretty nearly

+twelve hours, I should guess at least, on end, I got over it. You'd

+hardly think what it meant in that heat and stink. I don't think

+any of them dreamt of the man inside. I was just a wonderful leathery

+great joss that had come up with luck out of the water. But the fatigue!

+the heat! the beastly closeness! the mackintosheriness and the rum!

+and the fuss! They lit a stinking fire on a kind of lava slab there

+was before me, and brought in a lot of gory muck--the worst parts

+of what they were feasting on outside, the Beasts--and burnt it

+all in my honour. I was getting a bit hungry, but I understand now

+how gods manage to do without eating, what with the smell of burnt

+offerings about them. And they brought in a lot of the stuff they'd

+got off the brig and, among other stuff, what I was a bit relieved

+to see, the kind of pneumatic pump that was used for the compressed

+air affair, and then a lot of chaps and girls came in and danced

+about me something disgraceful. It's extraordinary the different ways

+different people have of showing respect. If I'd had a hatchet handy

+I'd have gone for the lot of them--they made me feel that wild.

+All this time I sat as stiff as company, not knowing anything better

+to do. And at last, when nightfall came, and the wattle joss-house

+place got a bit too shadowy for their taste--all these here savages

+are afraid of the dark, you know--and I started a sort of 'Moo' noise,

+they built big bonfires outside and left me alone in peace in the

+darkness of my hut, free to unscrew my windows a bit and think

+things over, and feel just as bad as I liked. And, Lord! I was sick.

+

+"I was weak and hungry, and my mind kept on behaving like a beetle

+on a pin, tremendous activity and nothing done at the end of it.

+Come round just where it was before. There was sorrowing for the other

+chaps, beastly drunkards certainly, but not deserving such a fate,

+and young Sanders with the spear through his neck wouldn't go out

+of my mind. There was the treasure down there in the Ocean Pioneer,

+and how one might get it and hide it somewhere safer, and get away

+and come back for it. And there was the puzzle where to get anything

+to eat. I tell you I was fair rambling. I was afraid to ask by signs

+for food, for fear of behaving too human, and so there I sat and

+hungered until very near the dawn. Then the village got a bit quiet,

+and I couldn't stand it any longer, and I went out and got some stuff

+like artichokes in a bowl and some sour milk. What was left of these

+I put away among the other offerings, just to give them a hint

+of my tastes. And in the morning they came to worship, and found

+me sitting up stiff and respectable on their previous god, just as

+they'd left me overnight. I'd got my back against the central pillar

+of the hut, and, practically, I was asleep. And that's how I became

+a god among the heathen--a false god no doubt, and blasphemous,

+but one can't always pick and choose.

+

+"Now, I don't want to crack myself up as a god beyond my merits,

+but I must confess that while I was god to these people they was

+extraordinary successful. I don't say there's anything in it,

+mind you. They won a battle with another tribe--I got a lot of

+offerings I didn't want through it--they had wonderful fishing,

+and their crop of pourra was exceptional fine. And they counted

+the capture of the brig among the benefits I brought 'em. I must

+say I don't think that was a poor record for a perfectly new hand.

+And, though perhaps you'd scarcely credit it, I was the tribal god

+of those beastly savages for pretty nearly four months. . . .

+

+"What else could I do, man? But I didn't wear that diving-dress

+all the time. I made 'em rig me up a sort of holy of holies, and

+a deuce of a time I had too, making them understand what it was

+I wanted them to do. That indeed was the great difficulty--making

+them understand my wishes. I couldn't let myself down by talking their

+lingo badly--even if I'd been able to speak at all--and I couldn't

+go flapping a lot of gestures at them. So I drew pictures in sand

+and sat down beside them and hooted like one o'clock. Sometimes

+they did the things I wanted all right, and sometimes they did them

+all wrong. They was always very willing, certainly. All the while

+I was puzzling how I was to get the confounded business settled.

+Every night before the dawn I used to march out in full rig and go off

+to a place where I could see the channel in which the Ocean Pioneer

+lay sunk, and once even, one moonlight night, I tried to walk out

+to her, but the weeds and rocks and dark clean beat me. I didn't get

+back till full day, and then I found all those silly niggers out on

+the beach praying their sea-god to return to them. I was that vexed

+and tired, messing and tumbling about, and coming up and going down

+again, I could have punched their silly heads all round when they

+started rejoicing. I'm hanged if I like so much ceremony.

+

+"And then came the missionary. That missionary! It was in the afternoon,

+and I was sitting in state in my outer temple place, sitting on

+that old black stone of theirs when he came. I heard a row outside

+and jabbering, and then his voice speaking to an interpreter.

+'They worship stocks and stones,' he said, and I knew what was up,

+in a flash. I had one of my windows out for comfort, and I sang out

+straight away on the spur of the moment. 'Stocks and stones!' I says.

+'You come inside,' I says, 'and I'll punch your blooming head.'

+There was a kind of silence and more jabbering, and in he came,

+Bible in hand, after the manner of them--a little sandy chap in specks

+and a pith helmet. I flatter myself that me sitting there in

+the shadows, with my copper head and my big goggles, struck him

+a bit of a heap at first. 'Well,' I says, 'how's the trade in calico?'

+for I don't hold with missionaries.

+

+"I had a lark with that missionary. He was a raw hand, and quite

+outclassed with a man like me. He gasped out who was I, and I told

+him to read the inscription at my feet if he wanted to know. Down

+he goes to read, and his interpreter, being of course as superstitious

+as any of them, took it as an act of worship and plumped down like

+a shot. All my people gave a howl of triumph, and there wasn't

+any more business to be done in my village after that journey,

+not by the likes of him.

+

+"But, of course, I was a fool to choke him off like that. If I'd had

+any sense I should have told him straight away of the treasure

+and taken him into Co. I've no doubt he'd have come into Co. A child,

+with a few hours to think it over, could have seen the connection

+between my diving-dress and the loss of the Ocean Pioneer. A week

+after he left I went out one morning and saw the Motherhood, the

+salver's ship from Starr Race, towing up the channel and sounding.

+The whole blessed game was up, and all my trouble thrown away. Gummy!

+How wild I felt! And guying it in that stinking silly dress! Four

+months!"

+

+The sunburnt man's story degenerated again. "Think of it," he said,

+when he emerged to linguistic purity once more. "Forty thousand

+pounds worth of gold."

+

+"Did the little missionary come back?" I asked.

+

+"Oh, yes! Bless him! And he pledged his reputation there was a man

+inside the god, and started out to see as much with tremendous

+ceremony. But there wasn't--he got sold again. I always did hate

+scenes and explanations, and long before he came I was out of it

+all--going home to Banya along the coast, hiding in bushes by day,

+and thieving food from the villages by night. Only weapon, a spear.

+No clothes, no money. Nothing. My face was my fortune, as the saying

+is. And just a squeak of eight thousand pounds of gold--fifth share.

+But the natives cut up rusty, thank goodness, because they thought

+it was him had driven their luck away."

+

+

+8.  THE NEW ACCELERATOR

+

+Certainly, if ever a man found a guinea when he was looking for a pin

+it is my good friend Professor Gibberne. I have heard before of

+investigators overshooting the mark, but never quite to the extent

+that he has done. He has really, this time at any rate, without any

+touch of exaggeration in the phrase, found something to revolutionise

+human life. And that when he was simply seeking an all-round nervous

+stimulant to bring languid people up to the stresses of these pushful

+days. I have tasted the stuff now several times, and I cannot do

+better than describe the effect the thing had on me. That there are

+astonishing experiences in store for all in search of new sensations

+will become apparent enough.

+

+Professor Gibberne, as many people know, is my neighbour in Folkestone.

+Unless my memory plays me a trick, his portrait at various ages

+has already appeared in The Strand Magazine--I think late in 1899;

+but I am unable to look it up because I have lent that volume to

+some one who has never sent it back. The reader may, perhaps,

+recall the high forehead and the singularly long black eyebrows

+that give such a Mephistophelian touch to his face. He occupies one

+of those pleasant little detached houses in the mixed style that

+make the western end of the Upper Sandgate Road so interesting.

+His is the one with the Flemish gables and the Moorish portico,

+and it is in the little room with the mullioned bay window that

+he works when he is down here, and in which of an evening we have

+so often smoked and talked together. He is a mighty jester, but,

+besides, he likes to talk to me about his work; he is one of those

+men who find a help and stimulus in talking, and so I have been

+able to follow the conception of the New Accelerator right up from

+a very early stage. Of course, the greater portion of his experimental

+work is not done in Folkestone, but in Gower Street, in the fine

+new laboratory next to the hospital that he has been the first to use.

+

+As every one knows, or at least as all intelligent people know,

+the special department in which Gibberne has gained so great

+and deserved a reputation among physiologists is the action of drugs

+upon the nervous system. Upon soporifics, sedatives, and anaesthetics

+he is, I am told, unequalled. He is also a chemist of considerable

+eminence, and I suppose in the subtle and complex jungle of riddles

+that centres about the ganglion cell and the axis fibre there are

+little cleared places of his making, little glades of illumination,

+that, until he sees fit to publish his results, are still inaccessible

+to every other living man. And in the last few years he has been

+particularly assiduous upon this question of nervous stimulants,

+and already, before the discovery of the New Accelerator, very

+successful with them. Medical science has to thank him for at least

+three distinct and absolutely safe invigorators of unrivalled value

+to practising men. In cases of exhaustion the preparation known

+as Gibberne's B Syrup has, I suppose, saved more lives already

+than any lifeboat round the coast.

+

+"But none of these little things begin to satisfy me yet," he told

+me nearly a year ago. "Either they increase the central energy

+without affecting the nerves or they simply increase the available

+energy by lowering the nervous conductivity; and all of them are

+unequal and local in their operation. One wakes up the heart and

+viscera and leaves the brain stupefied, one gets at the brain

+champagne fashion and does nothing good for the solar plexus, and

+what I want--and what, if it's an earthly possibility, I mean to have--

+is a stimulant that stimulates all round, that wakes you up for

+a time from the crown of your head to the tip of your great toe,

+and makes you go two--or even three--to everybody else's one. Eh?

+That's the thing I'm after."

+

+"It would tire a man," I said.

+

+"Not a doubt of it. And you'd eat double or treble--and all that.

+But just think what the thing would mean. Imagine yourself with

+a little phial like this"--he held up a little bottle of green glass

+and marked his points with it--"and in this precious phial is

+the power to think twice as fast, move twice as quickly, do twice

+as much work in a given time as you could otherwise do."

+

+"But is such a thing possible?"

+

+"I believe so. If it isn't, I've wasted my time for a year. These

+various preparations of the hypophosphites, for example, seem

+to show that something of the sort . . . Even if it was only one

+and a half times as fast it would do."

+

+"It WOULD do," I said.

+

+"If you were a statesman in a corner, for example, time rushing up

+against you, something urgent to be done, eh?"

+

+"He could dose his private secretary," I said.

+

+"And gain--double time. And think if YOU, for example, wanted

+to finish a book."

+

+"Usually," I said, "I wish I'd never begun 'em."

+

+"Or a doctor, driven to death, wants to sit down and think out

+a case. Or a barrister--or a man cramming for an examination."

+

+"Worth a guinea a drop," said I, "and more to men like that."

+

+"And in a duel, again," said Gibberne, "where it all depends on

+your quickness in pulling the trigger."

+

+"Or in fencing," I echoed.

+

+"You see," said Gibberne, "if I get it as an all-round thing it will

+really do you no harm at all--except perhaps to an infinitesimal

+degree it brings you nearer old age. You will just have lived twice

+to other people's once--"

+

+"I suppose," I meditated, "in a duel--it would be fair?"

+

+"That's a question for the seconds," said Gibberne.

+

+I harked back further. "And you really think such a thing IS

+possible?" I said.

+

+"As possible," said Gibberne, and glanced at something that went

+throbbing by the window, "as a motor-bus. As a matter of fact--"

+

+He paused and smiled at me deeply, and tapped slowly on the edge

+of his desk with the green phial. "I think I know the stuff. . . . 

+Already I've got something coming." The nervous smile upon his

+face betrayed the gravity of his revelation. He rarely talked of

+his actual experimental work unless things were very near the end.

+"And it may be, it may be--I shouldn't be surprised--it may even

+do the thing at a greater rate than twice."

+

+"It will be rather a big thing," I hazarded.

+

+"It will be, I think, rather a big thing."

+

+But I don't think he quite knew what a big thing it was to be, for

+all that.

+

+I remember we had several talks about the stuff after that. "The New

+Accelerator" he called it, and his tone about it grew more confident

+on each occasion. Sometimes he talked nervously of unexpected

+physiological results its use might have, and then he would get

+a little unhappy; at others he was frankly mercenary, and we debated

+long and anxiously how the preparation might be turned to commercial

+account. "It's a good thing," said Gibberne, "a tremendous thing.

+I know I'm giving the world something, and I think it only reasonable

+we should expect the world to pay. The dignity of science is all

+very well, but I think somehow I must have the monopoly of the stuff

+for, say, ten years. I don't see why ALL the fun in life should go

+to the dealers in ham."

+

+My own interest in the coming drug certainly did not wane in the time.

+I have always had a queer little twist towards metaphysics in my

+mind. I have always been given to paradoxes about space and time,

+and it seemed to me that Gibberne was really preparing no less

+than the absolute acceleration of life. Suppose a man repeatedly

+dosed with such a preparation: he would live an active and record

+life indeed, but he would be an adult at eleven, middle-aged at

+twenty-five, and by thirty well on the road to senile decay. It seemed

+to me that so far Gibberne was only going to do for any one who

+took his drug exactly what Nature has done for the Jews and Orientals,

+who are men in their teens and aged by fifty, and quicker in thought

+and act than we are all the time. The marvel of drugs has always

+been great to my mind; you can madden a man, calm a man, make him

+incredibly strong and alert or a helpless log, quicken this passion

+and allay that, all by means of drugs, and here was a new miracle

+to be added to this strange armoury of phials the doctors use!

+But Gibberne was far too eager upon his technical points to enter

+very keenly into my aspect of the question.

+

+It was the 7th or 8th of August when he told me the distillation

+that would decide his failure or success for a time was going forward

+as we talked, and it was on the 10th that he told me the thing was

+done and the New Accelerator a tangible reality in the world. I met

+him as I was going up the Sandgate Hill towards Folkestone--I think

+I was going to get my hair cut, and he came hurrying down to meet

+me--I suppose he was coming to my house to tell me at once of his

+success. I remember that his eyes were unusually bright and his face

+flushed, and I noted even then the swift alacrity of his step.

+

+"It's done," he cried, and gripped my hand, speaking very fast;

+"it's more than done. Come up to my house and see."

+

+"Really?"

+

+"Really!" he shouted. "Incredibly! Come up and see."

+

+"And it does--twice?

+

+"It does more, much more. It scares me. Come up and see the stuff.

+Taste it! Try it! It's the most amazing stuff on earth." He gripped

+my arm and, walking at such a pace that he forced me into a trot,

+went shouting with me up the hill. A whole char-a-banc-ful of people

+turned and stared at us in unison after the manner of people in

+chars-a-banc. It was one of those hot, clear days that Folkestone

+sees so much of, every colour incredibly bright and every outline

+hard. There was a breeze, of course, but not so much breeze as

+sufficed under these conditions to keep me cool and dry. I panted for

+mercy.

+

+"I'm not walking fast, am I?" cried Gibberne, and slackened his pace

+to a quick march.

+

+"You've been taking some of this stuff," I puffed.

+

+"No," he said. "At the utmost a drop of water that stood in a beaker

+from which I had washed out the last traces of the stuff. I took

+some last night, you know. But that is ancient history, now."

+

+"And it goes twice?" I said, nearing his doorway in a grateful

+perspiration.

+

+"It goes a thousand times, many thousand times!" cried Gibberne, with

+a dramatic gesture, flinging open his Early English carved oak gate.

+

+"Phew!" said I, and followed him to the door.

+

+"I don't know how many times it goes," he said, with his latch-key

+in his hand.

+

+"And you--"

+

+"It throws all sorts of light on nervous physiology, it kicks the theory

+of vision into a perfectly new shape! . . . Heaven knows how many

+thousand times. We'll try all that after--The thing is to try the stuff

+now."

+

+"Try the stuff?" I said, as we went along the passage.

+

+"Rather," said Gibberne, turning on me in his study. "There it is

+in that little green phial there! Unless you happen to be afraid?"

+

+I am a careful man by nature, and only theoretically adventurous.

+I WAS afraid. But on the other hand there is pride.

+

+"Well," I haggled. "You say you've tried it?"

+

+"I've tried it," he said, "and I don't look hurt by it, do I?

+I don't even look livery and I FEEL--"

+

+I sat down. "Give me the potion," I said. "If the worst comes to

+the worst it will save having my hair cut, and that I think is one

+of the most hateful duties of a civilised man. How do you take the

+mixture?"

+

+"With water," said Gibberne, whacking down a carafe.

+

+He stood up in front of his desk and regarded me in his easy chair;

+his manner was suddenly affected by a touch of the Harley Street

+specialist. "It's rum stuff, you know," he said.

+

+I made a gesture with my hand.

+

+"I must warn you in the first place as soon as you've got it down

+to shut your eyes, and open them very cautiously in a minute or so's

+time. One still sees. The sense of vision is a question of length

+of vibration, and not of multitude of impacts; but there's a kind

+of shock to the retina, a nasty giddy confusion just at the time,

+if the eyes are open. Keep 'em shut."

+

+"Shut," I said. "Good!"

+

+"And the next thing is, keep still. Don't begin to whack about.

+You may fetch something a nasty rap if you do. Remember you will

+be going several thousand times faster than you ever did before,

+heart, lungs, muscles, brain--everything--and you will hit hard

+without knowing it. You won't know it, you know. You'll feel just

+as you do now. Only everything in the world will seem to be going

+ever so many thousand times slower than it ever went before. That's

+what makes it so deuced queer."

+

+"Lor'," I said. "And you mean--"

+

+"You'll see," said he, and took up a little measure. He glanced

+at the material on his desk. "Glasses," he said, "water. All here.

+Mustn't take too much for the first attempt."

+

+The little phial glucked out its precious contents.

+

+"Don't forget what I told you," he said, turning the contents of

+the measure into a glass in the manner of an Italian waiter measuring

+whisky. "Sit with the eyes tightly shut and in absolute stillness

+for two minutes," he said. "Then you will hear me speak."

+

+He added an inch or so of water to the little dose in each glass.

+

+"By-the-by," he said, "don't put your glass down. Keep it in your

+hand and rest your hand on your knee. Yes--so. And now--"

+

+He raised his glass.

+

+"The New Accelerator," I said.

+

+"The New Accelerator," he answered, and we touched glasses and

+drank, and instantly I closed my eyes.

+

+You know that blank non-existence into which one drops when one

+has taken "gas." For an indefinite interval it was like that. Then

+I heard Gibberne telling me to wake up, and I stirred and opened

+my eyes. There he stood as he had been standing, glass still

+in hand. It was empty, that was all the difference.

+

+"Well?" said I.

+

+"Nothing out of the way?"

+

+"Nothing. A slight feeling of exhilaration, perhaps. Nothing more."

+

+"Sounds?"

+

+"Things are still," I said. "By Jove! yes! They ARE still. Except the

+sort of faint pat, patter, like rain falling on different things.

+What is it?"

+

+"Analysed sounds," I think he said, but I am not sure. He glanced

+at the window. "Have you ever seen a curtain before a window fixed

+in that way before?"

+

+I followed his eyes, and there was the end of the curtain, frozen,

+as it were, corner high, in the act of flapping briskly in the breeze.

+

+"No," said I; "that's odd."

+

+"And here," he said, and opened the hand that held the glass. Naturally

+I winced, expecting the glass to smash. But so far from smashing

+it did not even seem to stir; it hung in mid-air--motionless.

+

+"Roughly speaking," said Gibberne, "an object in these latitudes

+falls 16 feet in the first second. This glass is falling 16 feet in

+a second now. Only, you see, it hasn't been falling yet for the

+hundredth part of a second. That gives you some idea of the pace

+of my Accelerator." And he waved his hand round and round, over and

+under the slowly sinking glass. Finally, he took it by the bottom,

+pulled it down, and placed it very carefully on the table. "Eh?"

+he said to me, and laughed.

+

+"That seems all right," I said, and began very gingerly to raise

+myself from my chair. I felt perfectly well, very light and

+comfortable, and quite confident in my mind. I was going fast all

+over. My heart, for example, was beating a thousand times a second,

+but that caused me no discomfort at all. I looked out of the window.

+An immovable cyclist, head down and with a frozen puff of dust

+behind his driving-wheel, scorched to overtake a galloping char-a-banc

+that did not stir. I gaped in amazement at this incredible spectacle.

+"Gibberne," I cried, "how long will this confounded stuff last?"

+

+"Heaven knows!" he answered. "Last time I took it I went to bed

+and slept it off. I tell you, I was frightened. It must have lasted

+some minutes, I think--it seemed like hours. But after a bit it

+slows down rather suddenly, I believe."

+

+I was proud to observe that I did not feel frightened--I suppose

+because there were two of us. "Why shouldn't we go out?" I asked.

+

+"Why not?"

+

+"They'll see us."

+

+"Not they. Goodness, no! Why, we shall be going a thousand times

+faster than the quickest conjuring trick that was ever done. Come

+along! Which way shall we go? Window, or door?"

+

+And out by the window we went.

+

+Assuredly of all the strange experiences that I have ever had,

+or imagined, or read of other people having or imagining, that little

+raid I made with Gibberne on the Folkestone Leas, under the influence

+of the New Accelerator, was the strangest and maddest of all.

+We went out by his gate into the road, and there we made a minute

+examination of the statuesque passing traffic. The tops of the wheels

+and some of the legs of the horses of this char-a-banc, the end

+of the whip-lash and the lower jaw of the conductor--who was just

+beginning to yawn--were perceptibly in motion, but all the rest

+of the lumbering conveyance seemed still. And quite noiseless except

+for a faint rattling that came from one man's throat! And as parts

+of this frozen edifice there were a driver, you know, and a conductor,

+and eleven people! The effect as we walked about the thing began

+by being madly queer, and ended by being disagreeable. There they

+were, people like ourselves and yet not like ourselves, frozen

+in careless attitudes, caught in mid-gesture. A girl and a man

+smiled at one another, a leering smile that threatened to last

+for evermore; a woman in a floppy capelline rested her arm on

+the rail and stared at Gibberne's house with the unwinking stare

+of eternity; a man stroked his moustache like a figure of wax,

+and another stretched a tiresome stiff hand with extended fingers

+towards his loosened hat. We stared at them, we laughed at them,

+we made faces at them, and then a sort of disgust of them came upon

+us, and we turned away and walked round in front of the cyclist

+towards the Leas.

+

+"Goodness!" cried Gibberne, suddenly; "look there!"

+

+He pointed, and there at the tip of his finger and sliding down the

+air with wings flapping slowly and at the speed of an exceptionally

+languid snail--was a bee.

+

+And so we came out upon the Leas. There the thing seemed madder

+than ever. The band was playing in the upper stand, though all

+the sound it made for us was a low-pitched, wheezy rattle, a sort of

+prolonged last sigh that passed at times into a sound like the slow,

+muffled ticking of some monstrous clock. Frozen people stood erect,

+strange, silent, self-conscious-looking dummies hung unstably in

+mid-stride, promenading upon the grass. I passed close to a little

+poodle dog suspended in the act of leaping, and watched the slow

+movement of his legs as he sank to earth. "Lord, look here!" cried

+Gibberne, and we halted for a moment before a magnificent person

+in white faint-striped flannels, white shoes, and a Panama hat,

+who turned back to wink at two gaily dressed ladies he had passed.

+A wink, studied with such leisurely deliberation as we could afford,

+is an unattractive thing. It loses any quality of alert gaiety,

+and one remarks that the winking eye does not completely close,

+that under its drooping lid appears the lower edge of an eyeball

+and a little line of white. "Heaven give me memory," said I,

+"and I will never wink again."

+

+"Or smile," said Gibberne, with his eye on the lady's answering teeth.

+

+"It's infernally hot, somehow," said I. "Let's go slower."

+

+"Oh, come along!" said Gibberne.

+

+We picked our way among the bath-chairs in the path. Many of

+the people sitting in the chairs seemed almost natural in their

+passive poses, but the contorted scarlet of the bandsmen was not

+a restful thing to see. A purple-faced little gentleman was frozen

+in the midst of a violent struggle to refold his newspaper against

+the wind; there were many evidences that all these people in their

+sluggish way were exposed to a considerable breeze, a breeze that

+had no existence so far as our sensations went. We came out and

+walked a little way from the crowd, and turned and regarded it.

+To see all that multitude changed, to a picture, smitten rigid,

+as it were, into the semblance of realistic wax, was impossibly

+wonderful. It was absurd, of course; but it filled me with an irrational,

+an exultant sense of superior advantage. Consider the wonder of it!

+All that I had said, and thought, and done since the stuff had begun

+to work in my veins had happened, so far as those people, so far

+as the world in general went, in the twinkling of an eye. "The

+New Accelerator--" I began, but Gibberne interrupted me.

+

+"There's that infernal old woman!" he said.

+

+"What old woman?"

+

+"Lives next door to me," said Gibberne. "Has a lapdog that yaps.

+Gods! The temptation is strong!"

+

+There is something very boyish and impulsive about Gibberne at times.

+Before I could expostulate with him he had dashed forward, snatched

+the unfortunate animal out of visible existence, and was running

+violently with it towards the cliff of the Leas. It was most

+extraordinary. The little brute, you know, didn't bark or wriggle or

+make the slightest sign of vitality. It kept quite stiffly in an

+attitude of somnolent repose, and Gibberne held it by the neck. It

+was like running about with a dog of wood. "Gibberne," I cried, "put

+it down!" Then I said something else. "If you run like that,

+Gibberne," I cried, "you'll set your clothes on fire. Your linen

+trousers are going brown as it is!"

+

+He clapped his hand on his thigh and stood hesitating on the verge.

+"Gibberne," I cried, coming up, "put it down. This heat is too much!

+It's our running so! Two or three miles a second! Friction of the air!"

+

+"What?" he said, glancing at the dog.

+

+"Friction of the air," I shouted. "Friction of the air. Going too

+fast. Like meteorites and things. Too hot. And, Gibberne! Gibberne!

+I'm all over pricking and a sort of perspiration. You can see people

+stirring slightly. I believe the stuff's working off! Put that dog

+down."

+

+"Eh?" he said.

+

+"It's working off," I repeated. "We're too hot and the stuff's

+working off! I'm wet through."

+

+He stared at me. Then at the band, the wheezy rattle of whose

+performance was certainly going faster. Then with a tremendous sweep

+of the arm he hurled the dog away from him and it went spinning

+upward, still inanimate, and hung at last over the grouped parasols

+of a knot of chattering people. Gibberne was gripping my elbow.

+"By Jove!" he cried. "I believe--it is! A sort of hot pricking

+and--yes. That man's moving his pocket-handkerchief! Perceptibly.

+We must get out of this sharp."

+

+But we could not get out of it sharply enough. Luckily, perhaps!

+For we might have run, and if we had run we should, I believe,

+have burst into flames. Almost certainly we should have burst into

+flames! You know we had neither of us thought of that. . . . But

+before we could even begin to run the action of the drug had ceased.

+It was the business of a minute fraction of a second. The effect of

+the New Accelerator passed like the drawing of a curtain, vanished in

+the movement of a hand. I heard Gibberne's voice in infinite alarm.

+"Sit down," he said, and flop, down upon the turf at the edge of the

+Leas I sat--scorching as I sat. There is a patch of burnt grass

+there still where I sat down. The whole stagnation seemed to wake

+up as I did so, the disarticulated vibration of the band rushed

+together into a blast of music, the promenaders put their feet down

+and walked their ways, the papers and flags began flapping, smiles

+passed into words, the winker finished his wink and went on his

+way complacently, and all the seated people moved and spoke.

+

+The whole world had come alive again, was going as fast as we were,

+or rather we were going no faster than the rest of the world. It was

+like slowing down as one comes into a railway station. Everything

+seemed to spin round for a second or two, I had the most transient

+feeling of nausea, and that was all. And the little dog which had

+seemed to hang for a moment when the force of Gibberne's arm was

+expended fell with a swift acceleration clean through a lady's parasol!

+

+That was the saving of us. Unless it was for one corpulent old

+gentleman in a bath-chair, who certainly did start at the sight of

+us and afterwards regarded us at intervals with a darkly suspicious

+eye, and, finally, I believe, said something to his nurse about us,

+I doubt if a solitary person remarked our sudden appearance among

+them. Plop! We must have appeared abruptly. We ceased to smoulder

+almost at once, though the turf beneath me was uncomfortably hot. The

+attention of every one--including even the Amusements' Association

+band, which on this occasion, for the only time in its history,

+got out of tune--was arrested by the amazing fact, and the still

+more amazing yapping and uproar caused by the fact that a respectable,

+over-fed lap-dog sleeping quietly to the east of the bandstand

+should suddenly fall through the parasol of a lady on the west--in

+a slightly singed condition due to the extreme velocity of its

+movements through the air. In these absurd days, too, when we are

+all trying to be as psychic, and silly, and superstitious as possible!

+People got up and trod on other people, chairs were overturned,

+the Leas policeman ran. How the matter settled itself I do not

+know--we were much too anxious to disentangle ourselves from

+the affair and get out of range of the eye of the old gentleman

+in the bath-chair to make minute inquiries. As soon as we were

+sufficiently cool and sufficiently recovered from our giddiness

+and nausea and confusion of mind to do so we stood up and, skirting

+the crowd, directed our steps back along the road below the Metropole

+towards Gibberne's house. But amidst the din I heard very distinctly

+the gentleman who had been sitting beside the lady of the ruptured

+sunshade using quite unjustifiable threats and language to one of

+those chair-attendants who have "Inspector" written on their caps.

+"If you didn't throw the dog," he said, "who DID?"

+

+The sudden return of movement and familiar noises, and our natural

+anxiety about ourselves (our clothe's were still dreadfully hot,

+and the fronts of the thighs of Gibberne's white trousers were

+scorched a drabbish brown), prevented the minute observations

+I should have liked to make on all these things. Indeed, I really

+made no observations of any scientific value on that return. The bee,

+of course, had gone. I looked for that cyclist, but he was already

+out of sight as we came into the Upper Sandgate Road or hidden

+from us by traffic; the char-a-banc, however, with its people now

+all alive and stirring, was clattering along at a spanking pace

+almost abreast of the nearer church.

+

+We noted, however, that the window-sill on which we had stepped

+in getting out of the house was slightly singed, and that the

+impressions of our feet on the gravel of the path were unusually deep.

+

+So it was I had my first experience of the New Accelerator. Practically

+we had been running about and saying and doing all sorts of things

+in the space of a second or so of time. We had lived half an hour

+while the band had played, perhaps, two bars. But the effect it

+had upon us was that the whole world had stopped for our convenient

+inspection. Considering all things, and particularly considering our

+rashness in venturing out of the house, the experience might certainly

+have been much more disagreeable than it was. It showed, no doubt,

+that Gibberne has still much to learn before his preparation is

+a manageable convenience, but its practicability it certainly

+demonstrated beyond all cavil.

+

+Since that adventure he has been steadily bringing its use under

+control, and I have several times, and without the slightest bad

+result, taken measured doses under his direction; though I must

+confess I have not yet ventured abroad again while under its influence.

+I may mention, for example, that this story has been written at one

+sitting and without interruption, except for the nibbling of some

+chocolate, by its means. I began at 6.25, and my watch is now very

+nearly at the minute past the half-hour. The convenience of securing

+a long, uninterrupted spell of work in the midst of a day full

+of engagements cannot be exaggerated. Gibberne is now working

+at the quantitative handling of his preparation, with especial reference

+to its distinctive effects upon different types of constitution.

+He then hopes to find a Retarder with which to dilute its present

+rather excessive potency. The Retarder will, of course, have the

+reverse effect to the Accelerator; used alone it should enable

+the patient to spread a few seconds over many hours of ordinary

+time,--and so to maintain an apathetic inaction, a glacier-like

+absence of alacrity, amidst the most animated or irritating

+surroundings. The two things together must necessarily work an entire

+revolution in civilised existence. It is the beginning of our escape

+from that Time Garment of which Carlyle speaks. While this Accelerator

+will enable us to concentrate ourselves with tremendous impact

+upon any moment or occasion that demands our utmost sense and vigour,

+the Retarder will enable us to pass in passive tranquillity through

+infinite hardship and tedium. Perhaps I am a little optimistic

+about the Retarder, which has indeed still to be discovered, but

+about the Accelerator there is no possible sort of doubt whatever.

+Its appearance upon the market in a convenient, controllable,

+and assimilable form is a matter of the next few months. It will be

+obtainable of all chemists and druggists, in small green bottles,

+at a high but, considering its extraordinary qualities, by no means

+excessive price. Gibberne's Nervous Accelerator it will be called,

+and he hopes to be able to supply it in three strengths: one in 200,

+one in 900, and one in 2000, distinguished by yellow, pink, and

+white labels respectively.

+

+No doubt its use renders a great number of very extraordinary things

+possible; for, of course, the most remarkable and, possibly, even

+criminal proceedings may be effected with impunity by thus dodging,

+as it were, into the interstices of time. Like all potent preparations

+it will be liable to abuse. We have, however, discussed this aspect

+of the question very thoroughly, and we have decided that this

+is purely a matter of medical jurisprudence and altogether outside

+our province. We shall manufacture and sell the Accelerator, and,

+as for the consequences--we shall see.

+

+

+9.  MR. LEDBETTER'S VACATION

+

+My friend, Mr. Ledbetter, is a round-faced little man, whose natural

+mildness of eye is gigantically exaggerated when you catch the beam

+through his glasses, and whose deep, deliberate voice irritates

+irritable people. A certain elaborate clearness of enunciation has

+come with him to his present vicarage from his scholastic days, an

+elaborate clearness of enunciation and a certain nervous determination

+to be firm and correct upon all issues, important and unimportant

+alike. He is a sacerdotalist and a chess player, and suspected by many

+of the secret practice of the higher mathematics--creditable rather

+than interesting things. His conversation is copious and given

+much to needless detail. By many, indeed, his intercourse is

+condemned, to put it plainly, as "boring," and such have even done

+me the compliment to wonder why I countenance him. But, on the other

+hand, there is a large faction who marvel at his countenancing

+such a dishevelled, discreditable acquaintance as myself. Few appear

+to regard our friendship with equanimity. But that is because they

+do not know of the link that binds us, of my amiable connection

+via Jamaica with Mr. Ledbetter's past.

+

+About that past he displays an anxious modesty. "I do not KNOW what

+I should do if it became known," he says; and repeats, impressively,

+"I do not know WHAT I should do." As a matter of fact, I doubt if

+he would do anything except get very red about the ears. But that

+will appear later; nor will I tell here of our first encounter,

+since, as a general rule--though I am prone to break it--the end

+of a story should come after, rather than before, the beginning.

+And the beginning of the story goes a long way back; indeed, it is

+now nearly twenty years since Fate, by a series of complicated and

+startling manoeuvres, brought Mr. Ledbetter, so to speak, into my

+hands.

+

+In those days I was living in Jamaica, and Mr. Ledbetter was a

+schoolmaster in England. He was in orders, and already recognisably

+the same man that he is to-day: the same rotundity of visage,

+the same or similar glasses, and the same faint shadow of surprise

+in his resting expression. He was, of course, dishevelled when

+I saw him, and his collar less of a collar than a wet bandage,

+and that may have helped to bridge the natural gulf between us--but

+of that, as I say, later.

+

+The business began at Hithergate-on-Sea, and simultaneously with

+Mr. Ledbetter's summer vacation. Thither he came for a greatly

+needed rest, with a bright brown portmanteau marked "F. W. L.",

+a new white-and-black straw hat, and two pairs of white flannel

+trousers. He was naturally exhilarated at his release from school--

+for he was not very fond of the boys he taught. After dinner he

+fell into a discussion with a talkative person established in the

+boarding-house to which, acting on the advice of his aunt, he had

+resorted. This talkative person was the only other man in the house.

+Their discussion concerned the melancholy disappearance of wonder

+and adventure in these latter days, the prevalence of globe-trotting,

+the abolition of distance by steam and electricity, the vulgarity

+of advertisement, the degradation of men by civilisation, and many

+such things. Particularly was the talkative person eloquent on

+the decay of human courage through security, a security Mr. Ledbetter

+rather thoughtlessly joined him in deploring. Mr. Ledbetter, in the

+first delight of emancipation from "duty," and being anxious, perhaps,

+to establish a reputation for manly conviviality, partook, rather

+more freely than was advisable, of the excellent whisky the talkative

+person produced. But he did not become intoxicated, he insists.

+

+He was simply eloquent beyond his sober wont, and with the finer

+edge gone from his judgment. And after that long talk of the brave

+old days that were past forever, he went out into moonlit Hithergate--

+alone and up the cliff road where the villas cluster together.

+

+He had bewailed, and now as he walked up the silent road he still

+bewailed, the fate that had called him to such an uneventful life

+as a pedagogue's. What a prosaic existence he led, so stagnant,

+so colourless! Secure, methodical, year in year out, what call was

+there for bravery? He thought enviously of those roving, mediaeval

+days, so near and so remote, of quests and spies and condottieri

+and many a risky blade-drawing business. And suddenly came a doubt,

+a strange doubt, springing out of some chance thought of tortures,

+and destructive altogether of the position he had assumed that evening.

+

+Was he--Mr. Ledbetter--really, after all, so brave as he assumed?

+Would he really be so pleased to have railways, policemen, and

+security vanish suddenly from the earth?

+

+The talkative man had spoken enviously of crime. "The burglar,"

+he said, "is the only true adventurer left on earth. Think of his

+single-handed fight against the whole civilised world!" And Mr.

+Ledbetter had echoed his envy. "They DO have some fun out of life,"

+Mr. Ledbetter had said. "And about the only people who do. Just

+think how it must feel to wire a lawn!" And he had laughed wickedly.

+Now, in this franker intimacy of self-communion he found himself

+instituting a comparison between his own brand of courage and that of

+the habitual criminal. He tried to meet these insidious questionings

+with blank assertion. "I could do all that," said Mr. Ledbetter.

+"I long to do all that. Only I do not give way to my criminal impulses.

+My moral courage restrains me." But he doubted even while he told

+himself these things.

+

+"Mr. Ledbetter passed a large villa standing by itself. Conveniently

+situated above a quiet, practicable balcony was a window, gaping

+black, wide open. At the time he scarcely marked it, but the picture

+of it came with him, wove into his thoughts. He figured himself

+climbing up that balcony, crouching--plunging into that dark,

+mysterious interior. "Bah! You would not dare," said the Spirit

+of Doubt. "My duty to my fellow-men forbids," said Mr. Ledbetter's

+self-respect.

+

+It was nearly eleven, and the little seaside town was already very

+still. The whole world slumbered under the moonlight. Only one

+warm oblong of window-blind far down the road spoke of waking life.

+He turned and came back slowly towards the villa of the open window.

+He stood for a time outside the gate, a battlefield of motives.

+"Let us put things to the test," said Doubt. "For the satisfaction

+of these intolerable doubts, show that you dare go into that house.

+Commit a burglary in blank. That, at any rate, is no crime." Very

+softly he opened and shut the gate and slipped into the shadow

+of the shrubbery. "This is foolish," said Mr. Ledbetter's caution.

+"I expected that," said Doubt. His heart was beating fast, but he

+was certainly not afraid. He was NOT afraid. He remained in that

+shadow for some considerable time.

+

+The ascent of the balcony, it was evident, would have to be done

+in a rush, for it was all in clear moonlight, and visible from

+the gate into the avenue. A trellis thinly set with young, ambitious

+climbing roses made the ascent ridiculously easy. There, in that

+black shadow by the stone vase of flowers, one might crouch and

+take a closer view of this gaping breach in the domestic defences,

+the open window. For a while Mr. Ledbetter was as still as the night,

+and then that insidious whisky tipped the balance. He dashed forward.

+He went up the trellis with quick, convulsive movements, swung his

+legs over the parapet of the balcony, and dropped panting in the

+shadow even as he had designed. He was trembling violently, short

+of breath, and his heart pumped noisily, but his mood was exultation.

+He could have shouted to find he was so little afraid.

+

+A happy line that he had learnt from Wills's "Mephistopheles" came

+into his mind as he crouched there. "I feel like a cat on the tiles,"

+he whispered to himself. It was far better than he had expected--

+this adventurous exhilaration. He was sorry for all poor men to whom

+burglary was unknown. Nothing happened. He was quite safe. And

+he was acting in the bravest manner!

+

+And now for the window, to make the burglary complete! Must he dare do

+that? Its position above the front door defined it as a landing or

+passage, and there were no looking-glasses or any bedroom signs about

+it, or any other window on the first floor, to suggest the possibility

+of a sleeper within. For a time he listened under the ledge, then

+raised his eyes above the sill and peered in. Close at hand, on

+a pedestal, and a little startling at first, was a nearly life-size

+gesticulating bronze. He ducked, and after some time he peered

+again. Beyond was a broad landing, faintly gleaming; a flimsy fabric

+of bead curtain, very black and sharp, against a further window; a

+broad staircase, plunging into a gulf of darkness below; and another

+ascending to the second floor. He glanced behind him, but the

+stillness of the night was unbroken. "Crime," he whispered, "crime,"

+and scrambled softly and swiftly over the sill into the house. His

+feet fell noiselessly on a mat of skin. He was a burglar indeed!

+

+He crouched for a time, all ears and peering eyes. Outside was

+a scampering and rustling, and for a moment he repented of his

+enterprise. A short "miaow," a spitting, and a rush into silence,

+spoke reassuringly of cats. His courage grew. He stood up. Every

+one was abed, it seemed. So easy is it to commit a burglary, if one

+is so minded. He was glad he had put it to the test. He determined

+to take some petty trophy, just to prove his freedom from any abject

+fear of the law, and depart the way he had come.

+

+He peered about him, and suddenly the critical spirit arose again.

+Burglars did far more than such mere elementary entrance as this:

+they went into rooms, they forced safes. Well--he was not afraid.

+He could not force safes, because that would be a stupid want

+of consideration for his hosts. But he would go into rooms--he would

+go upstairs. More: he told himself that he was perfectly secure;

+an empty house could not be more reassuringly still. He had to clench

+his hands, nevertheless, and summon all his resolution before he

+began very softly to ascend the dim staircase, pausing for several

+seconds between each step. Above was a square landing with one

+open and several closed doors; and all the house was still. For

+a moment he stood wondering what would happen if some sleeper

+woke suddenly and emerged. The open door showed a moonlit bedroom,

+the coverlet white and undisturbed. Into this room he crept in three

+interminable minutes and took a piece of soap for his plunder--

+his trophy. He turned to descend even more softly than he had

+ascended. It was as easy as--

+

+Hist! . . .

+

+Footsteps! On the gravel outside the house--and then the noise of a

+latchkey, the yawn and bang of a door, and the spitting of a match

+in the hall below. Mr. Ledbetter stood petrified by the sudden

+discovery of the folly upon which he had come. "How on earth am

+I to get out of this?" said Mr. Ledbetter.

+

+The hall grew bright with a candle flame, some heavy object bumped

+against the umbrella-stand, and feet were ascending the staircase. In

+a flash Mr. Ledbetter realised that his retreat was closed. He stood

+for a moment, a pitiful figure of penitent confusion. "My goodness!

+What a FOOL I have been!" he whispered, and then darted swiftly

+across the shadowy landing into the empty bedroom from which he

+had just come. He stood listening--quivering. The footsteps reached

+the first-floor landing.

+

+Horrible thought! This was possibly the latecomer's room! Not a moment

+was to be lost! Mr. Ledbetter stooped beside the bed, thanked Heaven

+for a valance, and crawled within its protection not ten seconds

+too soon. He became motionless on hands and knees. The advancing

+candle-light appeared through the thinner stitches of the fabric, the

+shadows ran wildly about, and became rigid as the candle was put down.

+

+"Lord, what a day!" said the newcomer, blowing noisily, and it seemed

+he deposited some heavy burthen on what Mr. Ledbetter, judging

+by the feet, decided to be a writing-table. The unseen then went

+to the door and locked it, examined the fastenings of the windows

+carefully and pulled down the blinds, and returning sat down upon

+the bed with startling ponderosity.

+

+"WHAT a day!" he said. "Good Lord!" and blew again, and Mr. Ledbetter

+inclined to believe that the person was mopping his face. His boots

+were good stout boots; the shadows of his legs upon the valance

+suggested a formidable stoutness of aspect. After a time he removed

+some upper garments--a coat and waistcoat, Mr. Ledbetter inferred--

+and casting them over the rail of the bed remained breathing less

+noisily, and as it seemed cooling from a considerable temperature.

+At intervals he muttered to himself, and once he laughed softly. And

+Mr. Ledbetter muttered to himself, but he did not laugh. "Of all the

+foolish things," said Mr. Ledbetter. "What on earth am I to do now?"

+

+His outlook was necessarily limited. The minute apertures between

+the stitches of the fabric of the valance admitted a certain amount

+of light, but permitted no peeping. The shadows upon this curtain,

+save for those sharply defined legs, were enigmatical, and intermingled

+confusingly with the florid patterning of the chintz. Beneath the edge

+of the valance a strip of carpet was visible, and, by cautiously

+depressing his eye, Mr. Ledbetter found that this strip broadened

+until the whole area of the floor came into view. The carpet was

+a luxurious one, the room spacious, and, to judge by the castors

+and so forth of the furniture, well equipped.

+

+What he should do he found it difficult to imagine. To wait until

+this person had gone to bed, and then, when he seemed to be sleeping,

+to creep to the door, unlock it, and bolt headlong for that balcony

+seemed the only possible thing to do. Would it be possible to jump

+from the balcony? The danger of it! When he thought of the chances

+against him, Mr. Ledbetter despaired. He was within an ace of thrusting

+forth his head beside the gentleman's legs, coughing if necessary

+to attract his attention, and then, smiling, apologising and explaining

+his unfortunate intrusion by a few well-chosen sentences. But he

+found these sentences hard to choose. "No doubt, sir, my appearance

+is peculiar," or, "I trust, sir, you will pardon my somewhat ambiguous

+appearance from beneath you," was about as much as he could get.

+

+Grave possibilities forced themselves on his attention. Suppose

+they did not believe him, what would they do to him? Would his

+unblemished high character count for nothing? Technically he was

+a burglar, beyond dispute. Following out this train of thought,

+he was composing a lucid apology for "this technical crime I have

+committed," to be delivered before sentence in the dock, when

+the stout gentleman got up and began walking about the room. He

+locked and unlocked drawers, and Mr. Ledbetter had a transient hope

+that he might be undressing. But, no! He seated himself at the

+writing-table, and began to write and then tear up documents.

+Presently the smell of burning cream-laid paper mingled with the odour

+of cigars in Mr. Ledbetter's nostrils.

+

+"The position I had assumed," said Mr. Ledbetter when he told me of

+these things, "was in many respects an ill-advised one. A transverse

+bar beneath the bed depressed my head unduly, and threw a

+disproportionate share of my weight upon my hands. After a time, I

+experienced what is called, I believe, a crick in the neck. The

+pressure of my hands on the coarsely-stitched carpet speedily became

+painful. My knees, too, were painful, my trousers being drawn tightly

+over them. At that time I wore rather higher collars than I do now--two

+and a half inches, in fact--and I discovered what I had not remarked

+before, that the edge of the one I wore was frayed slightly under

+the chin. But much worse than these things was an itching of my face,

+which I could only relieve by violent grimacing--I tried to raise

+my hand, but the rustle of the sleeve alarmed me. After a time

+I had to desist from this relief also, because--happily in time--

+I discovered that my facial contortions were shifting my glasses

+down my nose. Their fall would, of course, have exposed me, and as it

+was they came to rest in an oblique position of by no means stable

+equilibrium. In addition I had a slight cold, and an intermittent

+desire to sneeze or sniff caused me inconvenience. In fact, quite

+apart from the extreme anxiety of my position, my physical discomfort

+became in a short time very considerable indeed. But I had to stay

+there motionless, nevertheless."

+

+After an interminable time, there began a chinking sound. This

+deepened into a rhythm: chink, chink, chink--twenty-five chinks--

+a rap on the writing-table, and a grunt from the owner of the stout

+legs. It dawned upon Mr. Ledbetter that this chinking was the chinking

+of gold. He became incredulously curious as it went on. His curiosity

+grew. Already, if that was the case, this extraordinary man must

+have counted some hundreds of pounds. At last Mr. Ledbetter could

+resist it no longer, and he began very cautiously to fold his arms

+and lower his head to the level of the floor, in the hope of peeping

+under the valance. He moved his feet, and one made a slight scraping

+on the floor. Suddenly the chinking ceased. Mr. Ledbetter became

+rigid. After a while the chinking was resumed. Then it ceased again,

+and everything was still, except Mr. Ledbetter's heart--that organ

+seemed to him to be beating like a drum.

+

+The stillness continued. Mr. Ledbetter's head was now on the floor,

+and he could see the stout legs as far as the shins. They were

+quite still. The feet were resting on the toes and drawn back,

+as it seemed, under the chair of the owner. Everything was quite

+still, everything continued still. A wild hope came to Mr. Ledbetter

+that the unknown was in a fit or suddenly dead, with his head upon

+the writing-table. . . .

+

+The stillness continued. What had happened? The desire to peep

+became irresistible. Very cautiously Mr. Ledbetter shifted his hand

+forward, projected a pioneer finger, and began to lift the valance

+immediately next his eye. Nothing broke the stillness. He saw now

+the stranger's knees, saw the back of the writing-table, and then--

+he was staring at the barrel of a heavy revolver pointed over

+the writing-table at his head.

+

+"Come out of that, you scoundrel!" said the voice of the stout

+gentleman in a tone of quiet concentration. "Come out. This side,

+and now. None of your hanky-panky--come right out, now."

+

+Mr. Ledbetter came right out, a little reluctantly perhaps, but

+without any hanky-panky, and at once, even as he was told.

+

+"Kneel," said the stout gentleman. "and hold up your hands."

+

+The valance dropped again behind Mr. Ledbetter, and he rose from

+all-fours and held up his hands. "Dressed like a parson," said

+the stout gentleman. "I'm blest if he isn't! A little chap, too!

+You SCOUNDREL! What the deuce possessed you to come here to-night?

+What the deuce possessed you to get under my bed?"

+

+He did not appear to require an answer, but proceeded at once to

+several very objectionable remarks upon Mr. Ledbetter's personal

+appearance. He was not a very big man, but he looked strong to Mr.

+Ledbetter: he was as stout as his legs had promised, he had rather

+delicately-chiselled small features distributed over a considerable

+area of whitish face, and quite a number of chins. And the note

+of his voice had a sort of whispering undertone.

+

+"What the deuce, I say, possessed you to get under my bed?"

+

+Mr. Ledbetter, by an effort, smiled a wan propitiatory smile. He

+coughed. "I can quite understand--" he said.

+

+"Why! What on earth? It's SOAP! No!--you scoundrel. Don't you move

+that hand."

+

+"It's soap," said Mr. Ledbetter. "From your washstand. No doubt it--"

+

+"Don't talk," said the stout man. "I see it's soap. Of all incredible

+things."

+

+"If I might explain--"

+

+"Don't explain. It's sure to be a lie, and there's no time for

+explanations. What was I going to ask you? Ah! Have you any mates?"

+

+"In a few minutes, if you--"

+

+"Have you any mates? Curse you. If you start any soapy palaver

+I'll shoot. Have you any mates?"

+

+"No," said Mr. Ledbetter.

+

+"I suppose it's a lie," said the stout man. "But you'll pay for it

+if it is. Why the deuce didn't you floor me when I came upstairs?

+You won't get a chance to now, anyhow. Fancy getting under the bed!

+I reckon it's a fair cop, anyhow, so far as you are concerned."

+

+"I don't see how I could prove an alibi," remarked Mr. Ledbetter,

+trying to show by his conversation that he was an educated man.

+There was a pause. Mr. Ledbetter perceived that on a chair beside

+his captor was a large black bag on a heap of crumpled papers,

+and that there were torn and burnt papers on the table. And in front

+of these, and arranged methodically along the edge were rows and

+rows of little yellow rouleaux--a hundred times more gold than Mr.

+Ledbetter had seen in all his life before. The light of two candles,

+in silver candlesticks, fell upon these. The pause continued. "It is

+rather fatiguing holding up my hands like this," said Mr. Ledbetter,

+with a deprecatory smile.

+

+"That's all right," said the fat man. "But what to do with you

+I don't exactly know."

+

+"I know my position is ambiguous."

+

+"Lord!" said the fat man, "ambiguous! And goes about with his own

+soap, and wears a thundering great clerical collar. You ARE a blooming

+burglar, you are--if ever there was one!"

+

+"To be strictly accurate," said Mr. Ledbetter, and suddenly his

+glasses slipped off and clattered against his vest buttons.

+

+The fat man changed countenance, a flash of savage resolution

+crossed his face, and something in the revolver clicked. He put

+his other hand to the weapon. And then he looked at Mr. Ledbetter,

+and his eye went down to the dropped pince-nez.

+

+"Full-cock now, anyhow," said the fat man, after a pause, and his

+breath seemed to catch. "But I'll tell you, you've never been so

+near death before. Lord! I'M almost glad. If it hadn't been that

+the revolver wasn't cocked you'd be lying dead there now."

+

+Mr. Ledbetter said nothing, but he felt that the room was swaying.

+

+"A miss is as good as a mile. It's lucky for both of us it wasn't.

+Lord!" He blew noisily. "There's no need for you to go pale-green

+for a little thing like that."

+

+"If I can assure you, sir--" said Mr. Ledbetter, with an effort.

+

+"There's only one thing to do. If I call in the police, I'm bust--

+a little game I've got on is bust. That won't do. If I tie you up

+and leave you again, the thing may be out to-morrow. Tomorrow's

+Sunday, and Monday's Bank Holiday--I've counted on three clear

+days. Shooting you's murder--and hanging; and besides, it will bust

+the whole blooming kernooze. I'm hanged if I can think what to do--

+I'm hanged if I can."

+

+"Will you permit me--"

+

+"You gas as much as if you were a real parson, I'm blessed if you

+don't. Of all the burglars you are the--Well! No!--I WON'T permit

+you. There isn't time. If you start off jawing again, I'll shoot

+right in your stomach. See? But I know now-I know now! What we're

+going to do first, my man, is an examination for concealed arms--

+an examination for concealed arms. And look here! When I tell you

+to do a thing, don't start off at a gabble--do it brisk."

+

+And with many elaborate precautions, and always pointing the pistol

+at Mr. Ledbetter's head, the stout man stood him up and searched

+him for weapons. "Why, you ARE a burglar!" he said "You're a perfect

+amateur. You haven't even a pistol-pocket in the back of your

+breeches. No, you don't! Shut up, now."

+

+So soon as the issue was decided, the stout man made Mr. Ledbetter

+take off his coat and roll up his shirt-sleeves, and, with the revolver

+at one ear, proceed with the packing his appearance had interrupted.

+From the stout man's point of view that was evidently the only

+possible arrangement, for if he had packed, he would have had

+to put down the revolver. So that even the gold on the table was

+handled by Mr. Ledbetter. This nocturnal packing was peculiar.

+The stout man's idea was evidently to distribute the weight of

+the gold as unostentatiously as possible through his luggage. It was

+by no means an inconsiderable weight. There was, Mr. Ledbetter says,

+altogether nearly L18,000 in gold in the black bag and on the table.

+There were also many little rolls of L5 bank-notes. Each rouleau

+of L25 was wrapped by Mr. Ledbetter in paper. These rouleaux were

+then put neatly in cigar boxes and distributed between a travelling

+trunk, a Gladstone bag, and a hatbox. About L600 went in a tobacco

+tin in a dressing-bag. L10 in gold and a number of L5 notes the stout

+man pocketed. Occasionally he objurgated Mr. Ledbetter's clumsiness,

+and urged him to hurry, and several times he appealed to Mr.

+Ledbetter's watch for information.

+

+Mr. Ledbetter strapped the trunk and bag, and returned the stout man

+the keys. It was then ten minutes to twelve, and until the stroke of

+midnight the stout man made him sit on the Gladstone bag, while he

+sat at a reasonably safe distance on the trunk and held the revolver

+handy and waited. He appeared to be now in a less aggressive mood,

+and having watched Mr. Ledbetter for some time, he offered a few

+remarks.

+

+"From your accent I judge you are a man of some education," he said,

+lighting a cigar. "No--DON'T begin that explanation of yours. I know

+it will be long-winded from your face, and I am much too old a liar

+to be interested in other men's lying. You are, I say, a person

+of education. You do well to dress as a curate. Even among educated

+people you might pass as a curate."

+

+"I AM a curate," said Mr. Ledbetter, "or, at least--"

+

+"You are trying to be. I know. But you didn't ought to burgle.

+You are not the man to burgle. You are, if I may say it--the thing

+will have been pointed out to you before--a coward."

+

+"Do you know," said Mr. Ledbetter, trying to get a final opening,

+"it was that very question--"

+

+The stout man waved him into silence.

+

+"You waste your education in burglary. You should do one of two

+things. Either you should forge or you should embezzle. For my

+own part, I embezzle. Yes; I embezzle. What do you think a man

+could be doing with all this gold but that? Ah! Listen! Midnight! . . .

+Ten. Eleven. Twelve. There is something very impressive to me

+in that slow beating of the hours. Time--space; what mysteries

+they are! What mysteries. . . . It's time for us to be moving.

+Stand up!"

+

+And then kindly, but firmly, he induced Mr. Ledbetter to sling the

+dressing bag over his back by a string across his chest, to shoulder

+the trunk, and, overruling a gasping protest, to take the Gladstone

+bag in his disengaged hand. So encumbered, Mr. Ledbetter struggled

+perilously downstairs. The stout gentleman followed with an overcoat,

+the hatbox, and the revolver, making derogatory remarks about Mr.

+Ledbetter's strength, and assisting him at the turnings of the stairs.

+

+"The back door," he directed, and Mr. Ledbetter staggered through

+a conservatory, leaving a wake of smashed flower-pots behind him.

+"Never mind the crockery," said the stout man; "it's good for trade.

+We wait here until a quarter past. You can put those things down. You

+have!"

+

+Mr. Ledbetter collapsed panting on the trunk. "Last night," he gasped,

+"I was asleep in my little room, and I no more dreamt--"

+

+"There's no need for you to incriminate yourself," said the stout

+gentleman, looking at the lock of the revolver. He began to hum.

+Mr. Ledbetter made to speak, and thought better of it.

+

+There presently came the sound of a bell, and Mr. Ledbetter was

+taken to the back door and instructed to open it. A fair-haired man

+in yachting costume entered. At the sight of Mr. Ledbetter he started

+violently and clapped his hand behind him. Then he saw the stout

+man. "Bingham!" he cried, "who's this?"

+

+"Only a little philanthropic do of mine--burglar I'm trying to reform.

+Caught him under my bed just now. He's all right. He's a frightful

+ass. He'll be useful to carry some of our things."

+

+The newcomer seemed inclined to resent Mr. Ledbetter's presence

+at first, but the stout man reassured him.

+

+"He's quite alone. There's not a gang in the world would own him.

+No!--don't start talking, for goodness' sake."

+

+They went out into the darkness of the garden with the trunk still

+bowing Mr. Ledbetter's shoulders. The man in the yachting costume

+walked in front with the Gladstone bag and a pistol; then came

+Mr. Ledbetter like Atlas; Mr. Bingham followed with the hat-box,

+coat, and revolver as before. The house was one of those that have

+their gardens right up to the cliff. At the cliff was a steep wooden

+stairway, descending to a bathing tent dimly visible on the beach.

+Below was a boat pulled up, and a silent little man with a black face

+stood beside it. "A few moments' explanation," said Mr. Ledbetter;

+"I can assure you--" Somebody kicked him, and he said no more.

+

+They made him wade to the boat, carrying the trunk, they pulled

+him aboard by the shoulders and hair, they called him no better

+name than "scoundrel" and "burglar" all that night. But they spoke

+in undertones so that the general public was happily unaware of his

+ignominy. They hauled him aboard a yacht manned by strange,

+unsympathetic Orientals, and partly they thrust him and partly he

+fell down a gangway into a noisome, dark place, where he was to

+remain many days--how many he does not know, because he lost count

+among other things when he was seasick. They fed him on biscuits and

+incomprehensible words; they gave him water to drink mixed with

+unwished-for rum. And there were cockroaches where they put him,

+night and day there were cockroaches, and in the night-time there

+were rats. The Orientals emptied his pockets and took his watch--

+but Mr. Bingham, being appealed to, took that himself. And five or

+six times the five Lascars--if they were Lascars--and the Chinaman

+and the negro who constituted the crew, fished him out and took him

+aft to Bingham and his friend to play cribbage and euchre and three-

+anded whist, and to listen to their stories and boastings in an

+interested manner.

+

+Then these principals would talk to him as men talk to those who

+have lived a life of crime. Explanations they would never permit,

+though they made it abundantly clear to him that he was the rummiest

+burglar they had ever set eyes on. They said as much again and again.

+The fair man was of a taciturn disposition and irascible at play;

+but Mr. Bingham, now that the evident anxiety of his departure

+from England was assuaged, displayed a vein of genial philosophy.

+He enlarged upon the mystery of space and time, and quoted Kant

+and Hegel--or, at least, he said he did. Several times Mr. Ledbetter

+got as far as: "My position under your bed, you know--," but then

+he always had to cut, or pass the whisky, or do some such intervening

+thing. After his third failure, the fair man got quite to look for

+this opening, and whenever Mr. Ledbetter began after that, he would

+roar with laughter and hit him violently on the back. "Same old start,

+same old story; good old burglar!" the fair-haired man would say.

+

+So Mr. Ledbetter suffered for many days, twenty perhaps; and one

+evening he was taken, together with some tinned provisions, over

+the side and put ashore on a rocky little island with a spring.

+Mr. Bingham came in the boat with him, giving him good advice

+all the way, and waving his last attempts at an explanation aside.

+

+"I am really NOT a burglar," said Mr. Ledbetter.

+

+"You never will be," said Mr. Bingham. "You'll never make a burglar.

+I'm glad you are beginning to see it. In choosing a profession

+a man must study his temperament. If you don't, sooner or later

+you will fail. Compare myself, for example. All my life I have

+been in banks--I have got on in banks. I have even been a bank

+manager. But was I happy? No. Why wasn't I happy? Because it did

+not suit my temperament. I am too adventurous--too versatile.

+Practically I have thrown it over. I do not suppose I shall ever

+manage a bank again. They would be glad to get me, no doubt;

+but I have learnt the lesson of my temperament--at last. . . .

+No! I shall never manage a bank again.

+

+"Now, your temperament unfits you for crime--just as mine unfits

+me for respectability. I know you better than I did, and now I do

+not even recommend forgery. Go back to respectable courses, my man.

+YOUR lay is the philanthropic lay--that is your lay. With that voice--

+the Association for the Promotion of Snivelling among the Young--

+something in that line. You think it over.

+

+"The island we are approaching has no name apparently--at least,

+there is none on the chart. You might think out a name for it while

+you are there--while you are thinking about all these things. It has

+quite drinkable water, I understand. It is one of the Grenadines--

+one of the Windward Islands. Yonder, dim and blue, are others of

+the Grenadines. There are quantities of Grenadines, but the majority

+are out of sight. I have often wondered what these islands are

+for--now, you see, I am wiser. This one at least is for you. Sooner

+or later some simple native will come along and take you off.

+Say what you like about us then--abuse us, if you like--we shan't

+care a solitary Grenadine! And here--here is half a sovereign's

+worth of silver. Do not waste that in foolish dissipation when

+you return to civilisation. Properly used, it may give you a fresh

+start in life. And do not--Don't beach her, you beggars, he can

+wade!--Do not waste the precious solitude before you in foolish

+thoughts. Properly used, it may be a turning-point in your career.

+Waste neither money nor time. You will die rich. I'm sorry, but

+I must ask you to carry your tucker to land in your arms. No; it's

+not deep. Curse that explanation of yours! There's not time.

+No, no, no! I won't listen. Overboard you go!"

+

+And the falling night found Mr. Ledbetter--the Mr. Ledbetter who

+had complained that adventure was dead--sitting beside his cans

+of food, his chin resting upon his drawn-up knees, staring through

+his glasses in dismal mildness over the shining, vacant sea.

+

+He was picked up in the course of three days by a negro fisherman

+and taken to St. Vincent's, and from St. Vincent's he got, by

+the expenditure of his last coins, to Kingston, in Jamaica. And there

+he might have foundered. Even nowadays he is not a man of affairs,

+and then he was a singularly helpless person. He had not the remotest

+idea what he ought to do. The only thing he seems to have done was

+to visit all the ministers of religion he could find in the place

+to borrow a passage home. But he was much too dirty and incoherent--

+and his story far too incredible for them. I met him quite by chance.

+It was close upon sunset, and I was walking out after my siesta

+on the road to Dunn's Battery, when I met him--I was rather bored,

+and with a whole evening on my hands--luckily for him. He was trudging

+dismally towards the town. His woebegone face and the quasi-clerical

+cut of his dust-stained, filthy costume caught my humour. Our eyes met.

+He hesitated. "Sir," he said, with a catching of the breath, "could

+you spare a few minutes for what I fear will seem an incredible story?"

+

+"Incredible!" I said.

+

+"Quite," he answered eagerly. "No one will believe it, alter it

+though I may. Yet I can assure you, sir--"

+

+He stopped hopelessly. The man's tone tickled me. He seemed an odd

+character. "I am," he said, "one of the most unfortunate beings alive."

+

+"Among other things, you haven't dined?" I said, struck with an idea.

+

+"I have not," he said solemnly, "for many days."

+

+"You'll tell it better after that," I said; and without more ado led

+the way to a low place I knew, where such a costume as his was

+unlikely to give offence. And there--with certain omissions which

+he subsequently supplied--I got his story. At first I was incredulous,

+but as the wine warmed him, and the faint suggestion of cringing

+which his misfortunes had added to his manner disappeared, I began

+to believe. At last, I was so far convinced of his sincerity that

+I got him a bed for the night, and next day verified the banker's

+reference he gave me through my Jamaica banker. And that done, I took

+him shopping for underwear and such like equipments of a gentleman

+at large. Presently came the verified reference. His astonishing

+story was true. I will not amplify our subsequent proceedings.

+He started for England in three days' time.

+

+"I do not know how I can possibly thank you enough," began the letter

+he wrote me from England, "for all your kindness to a total stranger,"

+and proceeded for some time in a similar strain. "Had it not been

+for your generous assistance, I could certainly never have returned

+in time for the resumption of my scholastic duties, and my few

+minutes of reckless folly would, perhaps, have proved my ruin.

+As it is, I am entangled in a tissue of lies and evasions, of the most

+complicated sort, to account for my sunburnt appearance and my

+whereabouts. I have rather carelessly told two or three different

+stories, not realising the trouble this would mean for me in the end.

+The truth I dare not tell. I have consulted a number of law-books

+in the British Museum, and there is not the slightest doubt that

+I have connived at and abetted and aided a felony. That scoundrel

+Bingham was the Hithergate bank manager, I find, and guilty of

+the most flagrant embezzlement. Please, please burn this letter

+when read--I trust you implicitly. The worst of it is, neither my aunt

+nor her friend who kept the boarding-house at which I was staying

+seem altogether to believe a guarded statement I have made them

+practically of what actually happened. They suspect me of some

+discreditable adventure, but what sort of discreditable adventure

+they suspect me of, I do not know. My aunt says she would forgive me

+if I told her everything. I have--I have told her MORE than everything,

+and still she is not satisfied. It would never do to let them know

+the truth of the case, of course, and so I represent myself as having

+been waylaid and gagged upon the beach. My aunt wants to know

+WHY they waylaid and gagged me, why they took me away in their yacht.

+I do not know. Can you suggest any reason? I can think of nothing.

+If, when you wrote, you could write on TWO sheets so that I could

+show her one, and on that one if you could show clearly that I really

+WAS in Jamaica this summer, and had come there by being removed

+from a ship, it would be of great service to me. It would certainly

+add to the load of my obligation to you--a load that I fear I can

+never fully repay. Although if gratitude . . ." And so forth.

+At the end he repeated his request for me to burn the letter.

+

+So the remarkable story of Mr. Ledbetter's Vacation ends. That breach

+with his aunt was not of long duration. The old lady had forgiven him

+before she died.

+

+

+10.  THE STOLEN BODY

+

+Mr. Bessel was the senior partner in the firm of Bessel, Hart,

+and Brown, of St. Paul's Churchyard, and for many years he was

+well known among those interested in psychical research as a

+liberal-minded and conscientious investigator. He was an unmarried

+man, and instead of living in the suburbs, after the fashion of

+his class, he occupied rooms in the Albany, near Piccadilly. He

+was particularly interested in the questions of thought transference

+and of apparitions of the living, and in November, 1896, he commenced

+a series of experiments in conjunction with Mr. Vincey, of Staple Inn,

+in order to test the alleged possibility of projecting an apparition

+of one's self by force of will through space.

+

+Their experiments were conducted in the following manner: At a pre-

+arranged hour Mr. Bessel shut himself in one of his rooms in the

+Albany and Mr. Vincey in his sitting-room in Staple Inn, and each then

+fixed his mind as resolutely as possible on the other. Mr. Bessel

+had acquired the art of self-hypnotism, and, so far as he could,

+he attempted first to hypnotise himself and then to project himself

+as a "phantom of the living" across the intervening space of nearly

+two miles into Mr. Vincey's apartment. On several evenings this

+was tried without any satisfactory result, but on the fifth or sixth

+occasion Mr. Vincey did actually see or imagine he saw an apparition

+of Mr. Bessel standing in his room. He states that the appearance,

+although brief, was very vivid and real. He noticed that Mr. Bessel's

+face was white and his expression anxious, and, moreover, that

+his hair was disordered. For a moment Mr. Vincey, in spite of his

+state of expectation, was too surprised to speak or move, and in that

+moment it seemed to him as though the figure glanced over its shoulder

+and incontinently vanished.

+

+It had been arranged that an attempt should be made to photograph

+any phantasm seen, but Mr. Vincey had not the instant presence

+of mind to snap the camera that lay ready on the table beside him,

+and when he did so he was too late. Greatly elated, however, even

+by this partial success, he made a note of the exact time, and

+at once took a cab to the Albany to inform Mr. Bessel of this result.

+

+He was surprised to find Mr. Bessel's outer door standing open

+to the night, and the inner apartments lit and in an extraordinary

+disorder. An empty champagne magnum lay smashed upon the floor;

+its neck had been broken off against the inkpot on the bureau

+and lay beside it. An octagonal occasional table, which carried

+a bronze statuette and a number of choice books, had been rudely

+overturned, and down the primrose paper of the wall inky fingers had

+been drawn, as it seemed for the mere pleasure of defilement. One of

+the delicate chintz curtains had been violently torn from its rings

+and thrust upon the fire, so that the smell of its smouldering

+filled the room. Indeed the whole place was disarranged in the

+strangest fashion. For a few minutes Mr. Vincey, who had entered

+sure of finding Mr. Bessel in his easy chair awaiting him, could

+scarcely believe his eyes, and stood staring helplessly at these

+unanticipated things.

+

+Then, full of a vague sense of calamity, he sought the porter at

+the entrance lodge. "Where is Mr. Bessel?" he asked. "Do you know

+that all the furniture is broken in Mr. Bessel's room?" The porter

+said nothing, but, obeying his gestures, came at once to Mr. Bessel's

+apartment to see the state of affairs. "This settles it," he said,

+surveying the lunatic confusion. "I didn't know of this. Mr. Bessel's

+gone off. He's mad!"

+

+He then proceeded to tell Mr. Vincey that about half an hour

+previously, that is to say, at about the time of Mr. Bessel's

+apparition in Mr. Vincey's rooms, the missing gentleman had rushed

+out of the gates of the Albany into Vigo Street, hatless and with

+disordered hair, and had vanished into the direction of Bond Street.

+"And as he went past me," said the porter, "he laughed--a sort of

+gasping laugh, with his mouth open and his eyes glaring--I tell you,

+sir, he fair scared me!--like this."

+

+According to his imitation it was anything but a pleasant laugh.

+"He waved his hand, with all his fingers crooked and clawing--like

+that. And he said, in a sort of fierce whisper, 'LIFE!' Just that

+one word, 'LIFE!'"

+

+"Dear me," said Mr. Vincey. "Tut, tut," and "Dear me!" He could

+think of nothing else to say. He was naturally very much surprised.

+He turned from the room to the porter and from the porter to the

+room in the gravest perplexity. Beyond his suggestion that probably

+Mr. Bessel would come back presently and explain what had happened,

+their conversation was unable to proceed. "It might be a sudden

+toothache," said the porter, "a very sudden and violent toothache,

+jumping on him suddenly-like and driving him wild. I've broken

+things myself before now in such a case . . ." He thought. "If it was,

+why should he say 'LIFE' to me as he went past?"

+

+Mr. Vincey did not know. Mr. Bessel did not return, and at last

+Mr. Vincey, having done some more helpless staring, and having

+addressed a note of brief inquiry and left it in a conspicuous

+position on the bureau, returned in a very perplexed frame of mind

+to his own premises in Staple Inn. This affair had given him a shock.

+He was at a loss to account for Mr. Bessel's conduct on any sane

+hypothesis. He tried to read, but he could not do so; he went for

+a short walk, and was so preoccupied that he narrowly escaped

+a cab at the top of Chancery Lane; and at last--a full hour before

+his usual time--he went to bed. For a considerable time he could not

+sleep because of his memory of the silent confusion of Mr. Bessel's

+apartment, and when at length he did attain an uneasy slumber it was

+at once disturbed by a very vivid and distressing dream of Mr. Bessel.

+

+He saw Mr. Bessel gesticulating wildly, and with his face white

+and contorted. And, inexplicably mingled with his appearance,

+suggested perhaps by his gestures, was an intense fear, an urgency

+to act. He even believes that he heard the voice of his fellow

+experimenter calling distressfully to him, though at the time he

+considered this to be an illusion. The vivid impression remained

+though Mr. Vincey awoke. For a space he lay awake and trembling

+in the darkness, possessed with that vague, unaccountable terror of

+unknown possibilities that comes out of dreams upon even the bravest

+men. But at last he roused himself, and turned over and went to sleep

+again, only for the dream to return with enhanced vividness.

+

+He awoke with such a strong conviction that Mr. Bessel was in

+overwhelming distress and need of help that sleep was no longer

+possible. He was persuaded that his friend had rushed out to some dire

+calamity. For a time he lay reasoning vainly against this belief, but

+at last he gave way to it. He arose, against all reason, lit his gas,

+and dressed, and set out through the deserted streets--deserted, save

+for a noiseless policeman or so and the early news carts--towards Vigo

+Street to inquire if Mr. Bessel had returned.

+

+But he never got there. As he was going down Long Acre some

+unaccountable impulse turned him aside out of that street towards

+Covent Garden, which was just waking to its nocturnal activities. He

+saw the market in front of him--a queer effect of glowing yellow

+lights and busy black figures. He became aware of a shouting, and

+perceived a figure turn the corner by the hotel and run swiftly towards

+him. He knew at once that it was Mr. Bessel. But it was Mr. Bessel

+transfigured. He was hatless and dishevelled, his collar was torn open,

+he grasped a bone-handled walking-cane near the ferrule end, and his

+mouth was pulled awry. And he ran, with agile strides, very rapidly.

+Their encounter was the affair of an instant. "Bessel!" cried Vincey.

+

+The running man gave no sign of recognition either of Mr. Vincey

+or of his own name. Instead, he cut at his friend savagely with

+the stick, hitting him in the face within an inch of the eye.

+Mr. Vincey, stunned and astonished, staggered back, lost his footing,

+and fell heavily on the pavement. It seemed to him that Mr. Bessel

+leapt over him as he fell. When he looked again Mr. Bessel had

+vanished, and a policeman and a number of garden porters and salesmen

+were rushing past towards Long Acre in hot pursuit.

+

+With the assistance of several passers-by--for the whole street

+was speedily alive with running people--Mr. Vincey struggled to

+his feet. He at once became the centre of a crowd greedy to see

+his injury.  A multitude of voices competed to reassure him of his

+safety, and then to tell him of the behaviour of the madman, as

+they regarded Mr. Bessel. He had suddenly appeared in the middle

+of the market screaming "LIFE! LIFE!" striking left and right with a

+blood-stained walking-stick, and dancing and shouting with laughter

+at each successful blow. A lad and two women had broken heads,

+and he had smashed a man's wrist; a little child had been knocked

+insensible, and for a time he had driven every one before him,

+so furious and resolute had his behaviour been. Then he made a raid

+upon a coffee stall, hurled its paraffin flare through the window

+of the post office, and fled laughing, after stunning the foremost

+of the two policemen who had the pluck to charge him.

+

+Mr. Vincey's first impulse was naturally to join in the pursuit

+of his friend, in order if possible to save him from the violence

+of the indignant people. But his action was slow, the blow had

+half stunned him, and while this was still no more than a resolution

+came the news, shouted through the crowd, that Mr. Bessel had eluded

+his pursuers. At first Mr. Vincey could scarcely credit this, but

+the universality of the report, and presently the dignified return

+of two futile policemen, convinced him. After some aimless inquiries

+he returned towards Staple Inn, padding a handkerchief to a now

+very painful nose.

+

+He was angry and astonished and perplexed. It appeared to him

+indisputable that Mr. Bessel must have gone violently mad in the midst

+of his experiment in thought transference, but why that should make

+him appear with a sad white face in Mr. Vincey's dreams seemed

+a problem beyond solution. He racked his brains in vain to explain

+this. It seemed to him at last that not simply Mr. Bessel, but

+the order of things must be insane. But he could think of nothing

+to do. He shut himself carefully into his room, lit his fire--it was

+a gas fire with asbestos bricks--and, fearing fresh dreams if he

+went to bed, remained bathing his injured face, or holding up books

+in a vain attempt to read, until dawn. Throughout that vigil he had

+a curious persuasion that Mr. Bessel was endeavouring to speak

+to him, but he would not let himself attend to any such belief.

+

+About dawn, his physical fatigue asserted itself, and he went to bed

+and slept at last in spite of dreaming. He rose late, unrested

+and anxious, and in considerable facial pain. The morning papers

+had no news of Mr. Bessel's aberration--it had come too late for them.

+Mr. Vincey's perplexities, to which the fever of his bruise added

+fresh irritation, became at last intolerable, and, after a fruitless

+visit to the Albany, he went down to St. Paul's Churchyard to Mr. Hart,

+Mr. Bessel's partner, and, so far as Mr. Vincey knew, his nearest

+friend.

+

+He was surprised to learn that Mr. Hart, although he knew nothing

+of the outbreak, had also been disturbed by a vision, the very

+vision that Mr. Vincey had seen--Mr. Bessel, white and dishevelled,

+pleading earnestly by his gestures for help. That was his impression

+of the import of his signs. "I was just going to look him up in the

+Albany when you arrived," said Mr. Hart. "I was so sure of something

+being wrong with him."

+

+As the outcome of their consultation the two gentlemen decided

+to inquire at Scotland Yard for news of their missing friend.

+"He is bound to be laid by the heels," said Mr. Hart. "He can't go

+on at that pace for long." But the police authorities had not laid

+Mr. Bessel by the heels. They confirmed Mr. Vincey's overnight

+experiences and added fresh circumstances, some of an even graver

+character than those he knew--a list of smashed glass along the upper

+half of Tottenham Court Road, an attack upon a policeman in Hampstead

+Road, and an atrocious assault upon a woman. All these outrages were

+committed between half-past twelve and a quarter to two in the morning,

+and between those hours--and, indeed, from the very moment of Mr.

+Bessel's first rush from his rooms at half-past nine in the evening--

+they could trace the deepening violence of his fantastic career. For

+the last hour, at least from before one, that is, until a quarter to

+two, he had run amuck through London, eluding with amazing agility

+every effort to stop or capture him.

+

+But after a quarter to two he had vanished. Up to that hour witnesses

+were multitudinous. Dozens of people had seen him, fled from him or

+pursued him, and then things suddenly came to an end. At a quarter to

+two he had been seen running down the Euston Road towards Baker Street,

+flourishing a can of burning colza oil and jerking splashes of flame

+therefrom at the windows of the houses he passed. But none of

+the policemen on Euston Road beyond the Waxwork Exhibition, nor

+any of those in the side streets down which he must have passed

+had he left the Euston Road, had seen anything of him. Abruptly he

+disappeared. Nothing of his subsequent doings came to light in spite

+of the keenest inquiry.

+

+Here was a fresh astonishment for Mr. Vincey. He had found considerable

+comfort in Mr. Hart's conviction: "He is bound to be laid by the heels

+before long," and in that assurance he had been able to suspend

+his mental perplexities. But any fresh development seemed destined

+to add new impossibilities to a pile already heaped beyond the powers

+of his acceptance. He found himself doubting whether his memory

+might not have played him some grotesque trick, debating whether any

+of these things could possibly have happened; and in the afternoon he

+hunted up Mr. Hart again to share the intolerable weight on his mind.

+He found Mr. Hart engaged with a well-known private detective,

+but as that gentleman accomplished nothing in this case, we need

+not enlarge upon his proceedings.

+

+All that day Mr. Bessel's whereabouts eluded an unceasingly active

+inquiry, and all that night. And all that day there was a persuasion

+in the back of Vincey's mind that Mr. Bessel sought his attention,

+and all through the night Mr. Bessel with a tear-stained face

+of anguish pursued him through his dreams. And whenever he saw

+Mr. Bessel in his dreams he also saw a number of other faces, vague

+but malignant, that seemed to be pursuing Mr. Bessel.

+

+It was on the following day, Sunday, that Mr. Vincey recalled certain

+remarkable stories of Mrs. Bullock, the medium, who was then attracting

+attention for the first time in London. He determined to consult her.

+She was staying at the house of that well-known inquirer, Dr. Wilson

+Paget, and Mr. Vincey, although he had never met that gentleman before,

+repaired to him forthwith with the intention of invoking her help.

+But scarcely had he mentioned the name of Bessel when Doctor Paget

+interrupted him. "Last night--just at the end," he said, "we had

+a communication."

+

+He left the room, and returned with a slate on which were certain

+words written in a handwriting, shaky indeed, but indisputably

+the handwriting of Mr. Bessel!

+

+"How did you get this?" said Mr. Vincey. "Do you mean--?"

+

+"We got it last night," said Doctor Paget. With numerous interruptions

+from Mr. Vincey, he proceeded to explain how the writing had been

+obtained. It appears that in her seances, Mrs. Bullock passes into

+a condition of trance, her eyes rolling up in a strange way under

+her eyelids, and her body becoming rigid. She then begins to talk

+very rapidly, usually in voices other than her own. At the same time

+one or both of her hands may become active, and if slates and pencils

+are provided they will then write messages simultaneously with

+and quite independently of the flow of words from her mouth. By many

+she is considered an even more remarkable medium than the celebrated

+Mrs. Piper. It was one of these messages, the one written by her

+left hand, that Mr. Vincey now had before him. It consisted of eight

+words written disconnectedly: "George Bessel . . . trial excavn. . . .

+Baker Street . . . help . . . starvation." Curiously enough, neither

+Doctor Paget nor the two other inquirers who were present had heard

+of the disappearance of Mr. Bessel--the news of it appeared only

+in the evening papers of Saturday--and they had put the message

+aside with many others of a vague and enigmatical sort that

+Mrs. Bullock has from time to time delivered.

+

+When Doctor Paget heard Mr. Vincey's story, he gave himself at once

+with great energy to the pursuit of this clue to the discovery of

+Mr. Bessel. It would serve no useful purpose here to describe the

+inquiries of Mr. Vincey and himself; suffice it that the clue was a

+genuine one, and that Mr. Bessel was actually discovered by its aid.

+

+He was found at the bottom of a detached shaft which had been sunk

+and abandoned at the commencement of the work for the new electric

+railway near Baker Street Station. His arm and leg and two ribs were

+broken. The shaft is protected by a hoarding nearly 20 feet high, and

+over this, incredible as it seems, Mr. Bessel, a stout, middle-aged

+gentleman, must have scrambled in order to fall down the shaft.

+He was saturated in colza oil, and the smashed tin lay beside him,

+but luckily the flame had been extinguished by his fall. And his

+madness had passed from him altogether. But he was, of course,

+terribly enfeebled, and at the sight of his rescuers he gave way

+to hysterical weeping.

+

+In view of the deplorable state of his flat, he was taken to the

+house of Dr. Hatton in Upper Baker Street. Here he was subjected to a

+sedative treatment, and anything that might recall the violent crisis

+through which he had passed was carefully avoided. But on the second

+day he volunteered a statement.

+

+Since that occasion Mr. Bessel has several times repeated this

+statement--to myself among other people--varying the details as

+the narrator of real experiences always does, but never by any

+chance contradicting himself in any particular. And the statement

+he makes is in substance as follows.

+

+In order to understand it clearly it is necessary to go back to his

+experiments with Mr. Vincey before his remarkable attack. Mr. Bessel's

+first attempts at self-projection, in his experiments with Mr. Vincey,

+were, as the reader will remember, unsuccessful. But through all

+of them he was concentrating all his power and will upon getting

+out of the body--"willing it with all my might," he says. At last,

+almost against expectation, came success. And Mr. Bessel asserts that

+he, being alive, did actually, by an effort of will, leave his body

+and pass into some place or state outside this world.

+

+The release was, he asserts, instantaneous. "At one moment I was

+seated in my chair, with my eyes tightly shut, my hands gripping

+the arms of the chair, doing all I could to concentrate my mind

+on Vincey, and then I perceived myself outside my body--saw my body

+near me, but certainly not containing me, with the hands relaxing

+and the head drooping forward on the breast."

+

+Nothing shakes him in his assurance of that release. He describes

+in a quiet, matter-of-fact way the new sensation he experienced.

+He felt he had become impalpable--so much he had expected, but

+he had not expected to find himself enormously large. So, however,

+it would seem he became. "I was a great cloud--if I may express it

+that way--anchored to my body. It appeared to me, at first, as if

+I had discovered a greater self of which the conscious being in my

+brain was only a little part. I saw the Albany and Piccadilly and

+Regent Street and all the rooms and places in the houses, very minute

+and very bright and distinct, spread out below me like a little

+city seen from a balloon. Every now and then vague shapes like

+drifting wreaths of smoke made the vision a little indistinct, but

+at first I paid little heed to them. The thing that astonished me

+most, and which astonishes me still, is that I saw quite distinctly

+the insides of the houses as well as the streets, saw little people

+dining and talking in the private houses, men and women dining,

+playing billiards, and drinking in restaurants and hotels, and several

+places of entertainment crammed with people. It was like watching

+the affairs of a glass hive."

+

+Such were Mr. Bessel's exact words as I took them down when he told

+me the story. Quite forgetful of Mr. Vincey, he remained for a space

+observing these things. Impelled by curiosity, he says, he stooped

+down, and, with the shadowy arm he found himself possessed of,

+attempted to touch a man walking along Vigo Street. But he could

+not do so, though his finger seemed to pass through the man. Something

+prevented his doing this, but what it was he finds it hard to describe.

+He compares the obstacle to a sheet of glass.

+

+"I felt as a kitten may feel," he said, "when it goes for the first

+time to pat its reflection in a mirror." Again and again, on the

+occasion when I heard him tell this story, Mr. Bessel returned to that

+comparison of the sheet of glass. Yet it was not altogether a precise

+comparison, because, as the reader will speedily see, there were

+interruptions of this generally impermeable resistance, means of

+getting through the barrier to the material world again. But,

+naturally, there is a very great difficulty in expressing these

+unprecedented impressions in the language of everyday experience.

+

+A thing that impressed him instantly, and which weighed upon him

+throughout all this experience, was the stillness of this place--he

+was in a world without sound.

+

+At first Mr. Bessel's mental state was an unemotional wonder.

+His thought chiefly concerned itself with where he might be. He was

+out of the body--out of his material body, at any rate--but that

+was not all. He believes, and I for one believe also, that he was

+somewhere out of space, as we understand it, altogether. By a strenuous

+effort of will he had passed out of his body into a world beyond

+this world, a world undreamt of, yet lying so close to it and so

+strangely situated with regard to it that all things on this earth

+are clearly visible both from without and from within in this other

+world about us. For a long time, as it seemed to him, this realisation

+occupied his mind to the exclusion of all other matters, and then

+he recalled the engagement with Mr. Vincey, to which this astonishing

+experience was, after all, but a prelude.

+

+He turned his mind to locomotion in this new body in which he found

+himself. For a time he was unable to shift himself from his attachment

+to his earthly carcass. For a time this new strange cloud body

+of his simply swayed, contracted, expanded, coiled, and writhed

+with his efforts to free himself, and then quite suddenly the link

+that bound him snapped. For a moment everything was hidden by

+what appeared to be whirling spheres of dark vapour, and then

+through a momentary gap he saw his drooping body collapse limply,

+saw his lifeless head drop sideways, and found he was driving along

+like a huge cloud in a strange place of shadowy clouds that had

+the luminous intricacy of London spread like a model below.

+

+But now he was aware that the fluctuating vapour about him was

+something more than vapour, and the temerarious excitement of his first

+essay was shot with fear. For he perceived, at first indistinctly,

+and then suddenly very clearly, that he was surrounded by FACES!

+that each roll and coil of the seeming cloud-stuff was a face.

+And such faces! Faces of thin shadow, faces of gaseous tenuity.

+Faces like those faces that glare with intolerable strangeness

+upon the sleeper in the evil hours of his dreams. Evil, greedy eyes

+that were full of a covetous curiosity, faces with knit brows and

+snarling, smiling lips; their vague hands clutched at Mr. Bessel

+as he passed, and the rest of their bodies was but an elusive streak

+of trailing darkness. Never a word they said, never a sound from

+the mouths that seemed to gibber. All about him they pressed in that

+dreamy silence, passing freely through the dim mistiness that was

+his body, gathering ever more numerously about him. And the shadowy

+Mr. Bessel, now suddenly fear-stricken, drove through the silent,

+active multitude of eyes and clutching hands.

+

+So inhuman were these faces, so malignant their staring eyes,

+and shadowy, clawing gestures, that it did not occur to Mr. Bessel

+to attempt intercourse with these drifting creatures. Idiot phantoms,

+they seemed, children of vain desire, beings unborn and forbidden

+the boon of being, whose only expressions and gestures told of

+the envy and craving for life that was their one link with existence.

+

+It says much for his resolution that, amidst the swarming cloud

+of these noiseless spirits of evil, he could still think of Mr. Vincey.

+He made a violent effort of will and found himself, he knew not how,

+stooping towards Staple Inn, saw Vincey sitting attentive and alert

+in his arm-chair by the fire.

+

+And clustering also about him, as they clustered ever about all

+that lives and breathes, was another multitude of these vain voiceless

+shadows, longing, desiring, seeking some loophole into life.

+

+For a space Mr. Bessel sought ineffectually to attract his friend's

+attention. He tried to get in front of his eyes, to move the objects

+in his room, to touch him. But Mr. Vincey remained unaffected,

+ignorant of the being that was so close to his own. The strange

+something that Mr. Bessel has compared to a sheet of glass separated

+them impermeably.

+

+And at last Mr. Bessel did a desperate thing. I have told how that

+in some strange way he could see not only the outside of a man

+as we see him, but within. He extended his shadowy hand and thrust

+his vague black fingers, as it seemed, through the heedless brain.

+

+Then, suddenly, Mr. Vincey started like a man who recalls his attention

+from wandering thoughts, and it seemed to Mr. Bessel that a little

+dark-red body situated in the middle of Mr. Vincey's brain swelled

+and glowed as he did so. Since that experience he has been shown

+anatomical figures of the brain, and he knows now that this is

+that useless structure, as doctors call it, the pineal eye. For,

+strange as it will seem to many, we have, deep in our brains--where

+it cannot possibly see any earthly light--an eye! At the time this,

+with the rest of the internal anatomy of the brain, was quite new

+to him. At the sight of its changed appearance, however, he thrust

+forth his finger, and, rather fearful still of the consequences,

+touched this little spot. And instantly Mr. Vincey started, and

+Mr. Bessel knew that he was seen.

+

+And at that instant it came to Mr. Bessel that evil had happened

+to his body, and behold! a great wind blew through all that world

+of shadows and tore him away. So strong was this persuasion that

+he thought no more of Mr. Vincey, but turned about forthwith, and all

+the countless faces drove back with him like leaves before a gale.

+But he returned too late. In an instant he saw the body that he had

+left inert and collapsed--lying, indeed, like the body of a man

+just dead--had arisen, had arisen by virtue of some strength and

+will beyond his own. It stood with staring eyes, stretching its limbs

+in dubious fashion.

+

+For a moment he watched it in wild dismay, and then he stooped

+towards it. But the pane of glass had closed against him again,

+and he was foiled. He beat himself passionately against this, and

+all about him the spirits of evil grinned and pointed and mocked.

+He gave way to furious anger. He compares himself to a bird that

+has fluttered heedlessly into a room and is beating at the window-

+pane that holds it back from freedom.

+

+And behold! the little body that had once been his was now dancing

+with delight. He saw it shouting, though he could not hear its shouts;

+he saw the violence of its movements grow. He watched it fling

+his cherished furniture about in the mad delight of existence,

+rend his books apart, smash bottles, drink heedlessly from the jagged

+fragments, leap and smite in a passionate acceptance of living.

+He watched these actions in paralysed astonishment. Then once more

+he hurled himself against the impassable barrier, and then with all

+that crew of mocking ghosts about him, hurried back in dire confusion

+to Vincey to tell him of the outrage that had come upon him.

+

+But the brain of Vincey was now closed against apparitions, and

+the disembodied Mr. Bessel pursued him in vain as he hurried out

+into Holborn to call a cab. Foiled and terror-stricken, Mr. Bessel

+swept back again, to find his desecrated body whooping in a glorious

+frenzy down the Burlington Arcade. . . .

+

+And now the attentive reader begins to understand Mr. Bessel's

+interpretation of the first part of this strange story. The being

+whose frantic rush through London had inflicted so much injury

+and disaster had indeed Mr. Bessel's body, but it was not Mr. Bessel.

+It was an evil spirit out of that strange world beyond existence,

+into which Mr. Bessel had so rashly ventured. For twenty hours it held

+possession of him, and for all those twenty hours the dispossessed

+spirit-body of Mr. Bessel was going to and fro in that unheard-of

+middle world of shadows seeking help in vain. He spent many hours

+beating at the minds of Mr. Vincey and of his friend Mr. Hart.

+Each, as we know, he roused by his efforts. But the language that

+might convey his situation to these helpers across the gulf he did

+not know; his feeble fingers groped vainly and powerlessly in their

+brains. Once, indeed, as we have already told, he was able to turn

+Mr. Vincey aside from his path so that he encountered the stolen

+body in its career, but he could not make him understand the thing

+that had happened: he was unable to draw any help from that

+encounter. . . .

+

+All through those hours the persuasion was overwhelming in Mr. Bessel's

+mind that presently his body would be killed by its furious tenant,

+and he would have to remain in this shadow-land for evermore.

+So that those long hours were a growing agony of fear. And ever

+as he hurried to and fro in his ineffectual excitement, innumerable

+spirits of that world about him mobbed him and confused his mind.

+And ever an envious applauding multitude poured after their successful

+fellow as he went upon his glorious career.

+

+For that, it would seem, must be the life of these bodiless things

+of this world that is the shadow of our world. Ever they watch,

+coveting a way into a mortal body, in order that they may descend,

+as furies and frenzies, as violent lusts and mad, strange impulses,

+rejoicing in the body they have won. For Mr. Bessel was not the only

+human soul in that place. Witness the fact that he met first one,

+and afterwards several shadows of men, men like himself, it seemed,

+who had lost their bodies even it may be as he had lost his, and

+wandered, despairingly, in that lost world that is neither life

+nor death. They could not speak because that world is silent, yet

+he knew them for men because of their dim human bodies, and because

+of the sadness of their faces.

+

+But how they had come into that world he could not tell, nor where

+the bodies they had lost might be, whether they still raved about

+the earth, or whether they were closed forever in death against

+return. That they were the spirits of the dead neither he nor I

+believe. But Doctor Wilson Paget thinks they are the rational souls

+of men who are lost in madness on the earth.

+

+At last Mr. Bessel chanced upon a place where a little crowd of such

+disembodied silent creatures was gathered, and thrusting through them

+he saw below a brightly-lit room, and four or five quiet gentlemen

+and a woman, a stoutish woman dressed in black bombazine and sitting

+awkwardly in a chair with her head thrown back. He knew her from

+her portraits to be Mrs. Bullock, the medium. And he perceived

+that tracts and structures in her brain glowed and stirred as he had

+seen the pineal eye in the brain of Mr. Vincey glow. The light was

+very fitful; sometimes it was a broad illumination, and sometimes

+merely a faint twilight spot, and it shifted slowly about her brain.

+She kept on talking and writing with one hand. And Mr. Bessel saw

+that the crowding shadows of men about him, and a great multitude

+of the shadow spirits of that shadowland, were all striving and

+thrusting to touch the lighted regions of her brain. As one gained

+her brain or another was thrust away, her voice and the writing of

+her hand changed. So that what she said was disorderly and confused

+for the most part; now a fragment of one soul's message, and now

+a fragment of another's, and now she babbled the insane fancies

+of the spirits of vain desire. Then Mr. Bessel understood that she

+spoke for the spirit that had touch of her, and he began to struggle

+very furiously towards her. But he was on the outside of the crowd

+and at that time he could not reach her, and at last, growing anxious,

+he went away to find what had happened meanwhile to his body. For a

+long time he went to and fro seeking it in vain and fearing that it

+must have been killed, and then he found it at the bottom of the shaft

+in Baker Street, writhing furiously and cursing with pain. Its leg and

+an arm and two ribs had been broken by its fall. Moreover, the evil

+spirit was angry because his time had been so short and because of the

+painmaking violent movements and casting his body about.

+

+And at that Mr. Bessel returned with redoubled earnestness to the

+room where the seance was going on, and so soon as he had thrust

+himself within sight of the place he saw one of the men who stood

+about the medium looking at his watch as if he meant that the seance

+should presently end. At that a great number of the shadows who had

+been striving turned away with gestures of despair. But the thought

+that the seance was almost over only made Mr. Bessel the more

+earnest, and he struggled so stoutly with his will against the others

+that presently he gained the woman's brain. It chanced that just

+at that moment it glowed very brightly, and in that instant she wrote

+the message that Doctor Wilson Paget preserved. And then the other

+shadows and the cloud of evil spirits about him had thrust Mr. Bessel

+away from her, and for all the rest of the seance he could regain

+her no more.

+

+So he went back and watched through the long hours at the bottom

+of the shaft where the evil spirit lay in the stolen body it had

+maimed, writhing and cursing, and weeping and groaning, and learning

+the lesson of pain. And towards dawn the thing he had waited for

+happened, the brain glowed brightly and the evil spirit came out,

+and Mr. Bessel entered the body he had feared he should never enter

+again. As he did so, the silence--the brooding silence--ended;

+he heard the tumult of traffic and the voices of people overhead,

+and that strange world that is the shadow of our world--the dark

+and silent shadows of ineffectual desire and the shadows of lost

+men--vanished clean away.

+

+He lay there for the space of about three hours before he was found.

+And in spite of the pain and suffering of his wounds, and of the dim

+damp place in which he lay; in spite of the tears--wrung from him

+by his physical distress--his heart was full of gladness to know

+that he was nevertheless back once more in the kindly world of men.

+

+

+11.  MR. BRISHER'S TREASURE

+

+"You can't be TOO careful WHO you marry," said Mr. Brisher, and

+pulled thoughtfully with a fat-wristed hand at the lank moustache

+that hides his want of chin.

+

+"That's why--" I ventured.

+

+"Yes," said Mr. Brisher, with a solemn light in his bleary, blue-grey

+eyes, moving his head expressively and breathing alcohol INTIMATELY

+at me. "There's lots as 'ave 'ad a try at me--many as I could name

+in this town--but none 'ave done it--none."

+

+I surveyed the flushed countenance, the equatorial expansion,

+the masterly carelessness of his attire, and heaved a sigh to think

+that by reason of the unworthiness of women he must needs be the last

+of his race.

+

+"I was a smart young chap when I was younger," said Mr. Brisher.

+"I 'ad my work cut out. But I was very careful--very. And I got

+through . . ."

+

+He leant over the taproom table and thought visibly on the subject

+of my trustworthiness. I was relieved at last by his confidence.

+

+"I was engaged once," he said at last, with a reminiscent eye on

+the shuv-a'penny board.

+

+"So near as that?"

+

+He looked at me. "So near as that. Fact is--" He looked about him,

+brought his face close to mine, lowered his voice, and fenced off an

+unsympathetic world with a grimy hand. "If she ain't dead or married

+to some one else or anything--I'm engaged still. Now." He confirmed

+this statement with nods and facial contortions. "STILL," he said,

+ending the pantomime, and broke into a reckless smile at my surprise.

+"ME!"

+

+"Run away," he explained further, with coruscating eyebrows.

+"Come 'ome.

+

+"That ain't all.

+

+"You'd 'ardly believe it," he said, "but I found a treasure. Found

+a regular treasure."

+

+I fancied this was irony, and did not, perhaps, greet it with proper

+surprise. "Yes," he said, "I found a treasure. And come 'ome. I tell

+you I could surprise you with things that has happened to me."

+And for some time he was content to repeat that he had found

+a treasure--and left it.

+

+I made no vulgar clamour for a story, but I became attentive to Mr.

+Brisher's bodily needs, and presently I led him back to the deserted

+lady.

+

+"She was a nice girl," he said--a little sadly, I thought. "AND

+respectable."

+

+He raised his eyebrows and tightened his mouth to express extreme

+respectability--beyond the likes of us elderly men.

+

+"It was a long way from 'ere. Essex, in fact. Near Colchester.

+It was when I was up in London--in the buildin' trade. I was a smart

+young chap then, I can tell you. Slim. 'Ad best clo'es 's good

+as anybody. 'At--SILK 'at, mind you." Mr. Brisher's hand shot above

+his head towards the infinite to indicate it silk hat of the highest.

+"Umbrella--nice umbrella with a 'orn 'andle. Savin's. Very careful

+I was. . . ."

+

+He was pensive for a little while, thinking, as we must all come

+to think sooner or later, of the vanished brightness of youth.

+But he refrained, as one may do in taprooms, from the obvious moral.

+

+"I got to know 'er through a chap what was engaged to 'er sister.

+She was stopping in London for a bit with an aunt that 'ad a 'am

+an' beef shop. This aunt was very particular--they was all very

+particular people, all 'er people was--and wouldn't let 'er sister

+go out with this feller except 'er other sister, MY girl that is,

+went with them. So 'e brought me into it, sort of to ease the crowding.

+We used to go walks in Battersea Park of a Sunday afternoon. Me in

+my topper, and 'im in 'is; and the girl's--well--stylish. There wasn't

+many in Battersea Park 'ad the larf of us. She wasn't what you'd

+call pretty, but a nicer girl I never met. _I _ liked 'er from

+the start, and, well--though I say it who shouldn't--she liked me.

+You know 'ow it is, I dessay?"

+

+I pretended I did.

+

+"And when this chap married 'er sister--'im and me was great

+friends--what must 'e do but arst me down to Colchester, close by

+where She lived. Naturally I was introjuced to 'er people, and well,

+very soon, her and me was engaged."

+

+He repeated "engaged."

+

+"She lived at 'ome with 'er father and mother, quite the lady, in a

+very nice little 'ouse with a garden--and remarkable respectable

+people they was. Rich you might call 'em a'most. They owned their

+own 'ouse--got it out of the Building Society, and cheap because

+the chap who had it before was a burglar and in prison--and they 'ad

+a bit of free'old land, and some cottages and money 'nvested--all

+nice and tight: they was what you'd call snug and warm. I tell you,

+I was On. Furniture too. Why! They 'ad a pianner. Jane--'er name

+was Jane--used to play it Sundays, and very nice she played too.

+There wasn't 'ardly a 'im toon in the book she COULDN'T play . . .

+

+"Many's the evenin' we've met and sung 'ims there, me and 'er

+and the family.

+

+"'Er father was quite a leadin' man in chapel. You should ha' seen

+him Sundays, interruptin' the minister and givin' out 'ims. He had

+gold spectacles, I remember, and used to look over 'em at you while

+he sang hearty--he was always great on singing 'earty to the Lord--

+and when HE got out o' toon 'arf the people went after 'im--always.

+'E was that sort of man. And to walk be'ind 'im in 'is nice black

+clo'es--'is 'at was a brimmer--made one regular proud to be engaged

+to such a father-in-law. And when the summer came I went down there

+and stopped a fortnight.

+

+"Now, you know there was a sort of Itch," said Mr. Brisher. "We wanted

+to marry, me and Jane did, and get things settled. But 'E said I 'ad

+to get a proper position first. Consequently there was a Itch.

+Consequently, when I went down there, I was anxious to show that

+I was a good useful sort of chap like. Show I could do pretty nearly

+everything like. See?"

+

+I made a sympathetic noise.

+

+"And down at the bottom of their garden was a bit of wild part like.

+So I says to 'im, 'Why don't you 'ave a rockery 'ere?' I says.

+'It 'ud look nice.'

+

+"'Too much expense,' he says.

+

+"'Not a penny,' says I. 'I'm a dab at rockeries. Lemme make you one.'

+You see, I'd 'elped my brother make a rockery in the beer garden

+be'ind 'is tap, so I knew 'ow to do it to rights. 'Lemme make you

+one,' I says. 'It's 'olidays, but I'm that sort of chap, I 'ate doing

+nothing,' I says. 'I'll make you one to rights.' And the long and

+the short of it was, he said I might.

+

+"And that's 'ow I come on the treasure."

+

+"What treasure?" I asked.

+

+"Why!" said Mr. Brisher, "the treasure I'm telling you about, what's

+the reason why I never married."

+

+"What!--a treasure--dug up?"

+

+"Yes--buried wealth--treasure trove. Come out of the ground. What

+I kept on saying--regular treasure. . . ." He looked at me with

+unusual disrespect.

+

+"It wasn't more than a foot deep, not the top of it," he said.

+"I'd 'ardly got thirsty like, before I come on the corner."

+

+"Go on," I said. "I didn't understand."

+

+"Why! Directly I 'it the box I knew it was treasure. A sort of instinct

+told me. Something seemed to shout inside of me--'Now's your chance--

+lie low.' It's lucky I knew the laws of treasure trove or I'd 'ave been

+shoutin' there and then. I daresay you know--"

+

+"Crown bags it," I said, "all but one per cent. Go on. It's a shame.

+What did you do?"

+

+"Uncovered the top of the box. There wasn't anybody in the garden

+or about like. Jane was 'elping 'er mother do the 'ouse. I WAS

+excited--I tell you. I tried the lock and then gave a whack at

+the hinges. Open it came. Silver coins--full! Shining. It made me

+tremble to see 'em. And jest then--I'm blessed if the dustman didn't

+come round the back of the 'ouse. It pretty nearly gave me 'eart

+disease to think what a fool I was to 'ave that money showing. And

+directly after I 'eard the chap next door--'e was 'olidaying, too--

+I 'eard him watering 'is beans. If only 'e'd looked over the fence!"

+

+"What did you do?"

+

+"Kicked the lid on again and covered it up like a shot, and went

+on digging about a yard away from it--like mad. And my face, so

+to speak, was laughing on its own account till I had it hid. I tell

+you I was regular scared like at my luck. I jest thought that it

+'ad to be kep' close and that was all. 'Treasure,' I kep' whisperin'

+to myself, 'Treasure' and ''undreds of pounds, 'undreds, 'undreds

+of pounds.' Whispering to myself like, and digging like blazes. It

+seemed to me the box was regular sticking out and showing, like your

+legs do under the sheets in bed, and I went and put all the earth

+I'd got out of my 'ole for the rockery slap on top of it. I WAS

+in a sweat. And in the midst of it all out toddles 'er father.

+He didn't say anything to me, jest stood behind me and stared,

+but Jane tole me afterwards when he went indoors, 'e says, 'That

+there jackanapes of yours, Jane'--he always called me a jackanapes

+some'ow--'knows 'ow to put 'is back into it after all.' Seemed quite

+impressed by it, 'e did."

+

+"How long was the box?" I asked, suddenly.

+

+"'Ow long?" said Mr. Brisher.

+

+"Yes--in length?"

+

+"Oh! 'bout so-by-so." Mr. Brisher indicated a moderate-sized trunk.

+

+"FULL?" said I.

+

+"Full up of silver coins--'arf-crowns, I believe."

+

+"Why!" I cried, "that would mean--hundreds of pounds."

+

+"Thousands," said Mr. Brisher, in a sort of sad calm. "I calc'lated it

+out."

+

+"But how did they get there?"

+

+"All I know is what I found. What I thought at the time was this.

+The chap who'd owned the 'ouse before 'er father 'd been a regular

+slap-up burglar. What you'd call a 'igh-class criminal. Used to drive

+'is trap--like Peace did." Mr. Brisher meditated on the difficulties

+of narration and embarked on a complicated parenthesis. "I don't

+know if I told you it'd been a burglar's 'ouse before it was my girl's

+father's, and I knew 'e'd robbed a mail train once, I did know that.

+It seemed to me--"

+

+"That's very likely," I said. "But what did you do?"

+

+"Sweated," said Mr. Brisher. "Regular run orf me. All that morning,"

+said Mr. Brisher, "I was at it, pretending to make that rockery

+and wondering what I should do. I'd 'ave told 'er father p'r'aps,

+only I was doubtful of 'is honesty--I was afraid he might rob me of

+it like, and give it up to the authorities--and besides, considering

+I was marrying into the family, I thought it would be nicer like

+if it came through me. Put me on a better footing, so to speak.

+Well, I 'ad three days before me left of my 'olidays, so there

+wasn't no hurry, so I covered it up and went on digging, and tried

+to puzzle out 'ow I was to make sure of it. Only I couldn't.

+

+"I thought," said Mr. Brisher, "AND I thought. Once I got regular

+doubtful whether I'd seen it or not, and went down to it and 'ad it

+uncovered again, just as her ma came out to 'ang up a bit of washin'

+she'd done. Jumps again! Afterwards I was just thinking I'd 'ave

+another go at it, when Jane comes to tell me dinner was ready.

+'You'll want it,' she said, 'seeing all the 'ole you've dug.'

+

+"I was in a regular daze all dinner, wondering whether that chap

+next door wasn't over the fence and filling 'is pockets. But in

+the afternoon I got easier in my mind--it seemed to me it must 'ave

+been there so long it was pretty sure to stop a bit longer--and

+I tried to get up a bit of a discussion to dror out the old man

+and see what 'E thought of treasure trove."

+

+Mr. Brisher paused, and affected amusement at the memory.

+

+"The old man was a scorcher," he said; "a regular scorcher."

+

+"What!" said I; "did he--?"

+

+"It was like this," explained Mr. Brisher, laying a friendly hand

+on my arm and breathing into my face to calm me. "Just to dror

+'im out, I told a story of a chap I said I knew--pretendin', you

+know--who'd found a sovring in a novercoat 'e'd borrowed. I said

+'e stuck to it, but I said I wasn't sure whether that was right

+or not. And then the old man began. Lor'! 'e DID let me 'ave it!"

+Mr. Brisher affected an insincere amusement. "'E was, well--what you

+might call a rare 'and at Snacks. Said that was the sort of friend

+'e'd naturally expect me to 'ave. Said 'e'd naturally expect that

+from the friend of a out-of-work loafer who took up with daughters

+who didn't belong to 'im. There! I couldn't tell you 'ARF 'e said.

+'E went on most outrageous. I stood up to 'im about it, just to dror

+'im out. 'Wouldn't you stick to a 'arf-sov', not if you found it in

+the street?' I says. 'Certainly not,' 'e says; 'certainly I wouldn't.'

+'What! not if you found it as a sort of treasure?' 'Young man,'

+'e says, 'there's 'i'er 'thority than mine--Render unto Caesar'--

+what is it? Yes. Well, he fetched up that. A rare 'and at 'itting

+you over the 'ed with the Bible, was the old man. And so he went on.

+'E got to such Snacks about me at last I couldn't stand it. I'd

+promised Jane not to answer 'im back, but it got a bit TOO thick.

+I--I give it 'im . . ."

+

+Mr. Brisher, by means of enigmatical facework, tried to make me

+think he had had the best of that argument, but I knew better.

+

+"I went out in a 'uff at last. But not before I was pretty sure I

+'ad to lift that treasure by myself. The only thing that kep' me up

+was thinking 'ow I'd take it out of 'im when I 'ad the cash."

+

+There was a lengthy pause.

+

+"Now, you'd 'ardly believe it, but all them three days I never

+'ad a chance at the blessed treasure, never got out not even

+a 'arf-crown. There was always a Somethink--always.

+

+"'Stonishing thing it isn't thought of more," said Mr. Brisher.

+"Finding treasure's no great shakes. It's gettin' it. I don't

+suppose I slep' a wink any of those nights, thinking where I was

+to take it, what I was to do with it, 'ow I was to explain it.

+It made me regular ill. And days I was that dull, it made Jane

+regular 'uffy. 'You ain't the same chap you was in London,' she

+says, several times. I tried to lay it on 'er father and 'is Snacks,

+but bless you, she knew better. What must she 'ave but that I'd

+got another girl on my mind! Said I wasn't True. Well, we had

+a bit of a row. But I was that set on the Treasure, I didn't seem

+to mind a bit Anything she said.

+

+"Well, at last I got a sort of plan. I was always a bit good at

+planning, though carrying out isn't so much in my line. I thought it

+all out and settled on a plan. First, I was going to take all my

+pockets full of these 'ere 'arf-crowns--see?--and afterwards as I

+shall tell.

+

+"Well, I got to that state I couldn't think of getting at the Treasure

+again in the daytime, so I waited until the night before I had to go,

+and then, when everything was still, up I gets and slips down

+to the back door, meaning to get my pockets full. What must I do

+in the scullery but fall over a pail! Up gets 'er father with a gun--'e

+was a light sleeper was 'er father, and very suspicious and there

+was me: 'ad to explain I'd come down to the pump for a drink because

+my water-bottle was bad. 'E didn't let me off a Snack or two over

+that bit, you lay a bob."

+

+"And you mean to say--" I began.

+

+"Wait a bit," said Mr. Brisher. "I say, I'd made my plan. That put

+the kybosh on one bit, but it didn't 'urt the general scheme not a bit.

+I went and I finished that rockery next day, as though there wasn't

+a Snack in the world; cemented over the stones, I did, dabbed

+it green and everythink. I put a dab of green just to show where

+the box was. They all came and looked at it, and sai 'ow nice

+it was--even 'e was a bit softer like to see it, and all he said was,

+"It's a pity you can't always work like that, then you might get

+something definite to do," he says.

+

+"'Yes,' I says--I couldn't 'elp it--'I put a lot in that rockery,'

+I says, like that. See? 'I put a lot in that rockery'--meaning--"

+

+"I see," said I--for Mr. Brisher is apt to overelaborate his jokes.

+

+"_'E_ didn't," said Mr. Brisher. "Not then, anyhow.

+

+"Ar'ever--after all that was over, off I set for London. . . .

+Orf I set for London."

+

+Pause.

+

+"On'y I wasn't going to no London," said Mr. Brisher, with sudden

+animation, and thrusting his face into mine. "No fear! What do YOU

+think?

+

+"I didn't go no further than Colchester--not a yard.

+

+"I'd left the spade just where I could find it. I'd got everything

+planned and right. I 'ired a little trap in Colchester, and pretended

+I wanted to go to Ipswich and stop the night, and come back next

+day, and the chap I 'ired it from made me leave two sovrings on it

+right away, and off I set.

+

+"I didn't go to no Ipswich neither.

+

+"Midnight the 'orse and trap was 'itched by the little road that ran

+by the cottage where 'e lived--not sixty yards off, it wasn't--and

+I was at it like a good 'un. It was jest the night for such

+games--overcast--but a trifle too 'ot, and all round the sky there

+was summer lightning and presently a thunderstorm. Down it came.

+First big drops in a sort of fizzle, then 'ail. I kep'on. I whacked

+at it--I didn't dream the old man would 'ear. I didn't even trouble

+to go quiet with the spade, and the thunder and lightning and 'ail

+seemed to excite me like. I shouldn't wonder if I was singing. I got

+so 'ard at it I clean forgot the thunder and the 'orse and trap. I

+precious soon got the box showing, and started to lift it . . . ."

+

+"Heavy?" I said.

+

+"I couldn't no more lift it than fly. I WAS sick. I'd never thought

+of that I got regular wild--I tell you, I cursed. I got sort of

+outrageous. I didn't think of dividing it like for the minute,

+and even then I couldn't 'ave took money about loose in a trap.

+I hoisted one end sort of wild like, and over the whole show went

+with a tremenjous noise. Perfeck smash of silver. And then right

+on the heels of that, Flash! Lightning like the day! and there was

+the back door open and the old man coming down the garden with

+'is blooming old gun. He wasn't not a 'undred yards away!

+

+"I tell you I was that upset--I didn't think what I was doing.

+I never stopped-not even to fill my pockets. I went over the fence

+like a shot, and ran like one o'clock for the trap, cussing and

+swearing as I went. I WAS in a state. . . .

+

+"And will you believe me, when I got to the place where I'd left

+the 'orse and trap, they'd gone. Orf! When I saw that I 'adn't

+a cuss left for it. I jest danced on the grass, and when I'd danced

+enough I started off to London. . . . I was done."

+

+Mr. Brisher was pensive for an interval. "I was done," he repeated,

+very bitterly.

+

+"Well?" I said.

+

+"That's all," said Mr. Brisher.

+

+"You didn't go back?"

+

+"No fear. I'd 'ad enough of THAT blooming treasure, any'ow for a bit.

+Besides, I didn't know what was done to chaps who tried to collar

+a treasure trove. I started off for London there and then. . . ."

+

+"And you never went back?"

+

+"Never."

+

+"But about Jane? Did you write?"

+

+"Three times, fishing like. And no answer. We'd parted in a bit

+of a 'uff on account of 'er being jealous. So that I couldn't make

+out for certain what it meant.

+

+"I didn't know what to do. I didn't even know whether the old man

+knew it was me. I sort of kep' an eye open on papers to see when he'd

+give up that treasure to the Crown, as I hadn't a doubt 'e would,

+considering 'ow respectable he'd always been."

+

+"And did he?"

+

+Mr. Brisher pursed his mouth and moved his head slowly from side

+to side. "Not 'IM," he said.

+

+"Jane was a nice girl," he said, "a thorough nice girl mind you,

+if jealous, and there's no knowing I mightn't 'ave gone back to 'er

+after a bit. I thought if he didn't give up the treasure I might 'ave

+a sort of 'old on 'im. . . . Well, one day I looks as usual under

+Colchester--and there I saw 'is name. What for, d'yer think?"

+

+I could not guess.

+

+Mr. Brisher's voice sank to a whisper, and once more he spoke behind

+his hand. His manner was suddenly suffused with a positive joy.

+"Issuing counterfeit coins," he said. "Counterfeit coins!"

+

+"You don't mean to say--?"

+

+"Yes-It. Bad. Quite a long case they made of it. But they got 'im,

+though he dodged tremenjous. Traced 'is 'aving passed, oh!--nearly

+a dozen bad 'arf-crowns."

+

+"And you didn't--?"

+

+"No fear. And it didn't do 'IM much good to say it was treasure trove."

+

+

+12.  MISS WINCHELSEA'S HEART

+

+Miss Winchelsea was going to Rome. The matter had filled her mind

+for a month or more, and had overflowed so abundantly into her

+conversation that quite a number of people who were not going to Rome,

+and who were not likely to go to Rome, had made it a personal

+grievance against her. Some indeed had attempted quite unavailingly

+to convince her that Rome was not nearly such a desirable place

+as it was reported to be, and others had gone so far as to suggest

+behind her back that she was dreadfully "stuck up" about "that Rome

+of hers." And little Lily Hardhurst had told her friend Mr. Binns

+that so far as she was concerned Miss Winchelsea might "go to her

+old Rome and stop there; SHE (Miss Lily Hardhurst) wouldn't grieve."

+And the way in which Miss Winchelsea put herself upon terms of personal

+tenderness with Horace and Benvenuto Cellini and Raphael and Shelley

+and Keats--if she had been Shelley's widow she could not have professed

+a keener interest in his grave--was a matter of universal astonishment.

+Her dress was a triumph of tactful discretion, sensible, but not too

+"touristy"--Miss Winchelsea, had a great dread of being "touristy"--

+and her Baedeker was carried in a cover of grey to hide its glaring

+red. She made a prim and pleasant little figure on the Charing Cross

+platform, in spite of her swelling pride, when at last the great

+day dawned, and she could start for Rome. The day was bright,

+the Channel passage would be pleasant, and all the omens promised

+well. There was the gayest sense of adventure in this unprecedented

+departure.

+

+She was going with two friends who had been fellow-students with her

+at the training college, nice honest girls both, though not so good

+at history and literature as Miss Winchelsea. They both looked up

+to her immensely, though physically they had to look down, and she

+anticipated some pleasant times to be spent in "stirring them up"

+to her own pitch of aesthetic and historical enthusiasm. They had

+secured seats already, and welcomed her effusively at the carriage

+door. In the instant criticism of the encounter she noted that Fanny

+had a slightly "touristy" leather strap, and that Helen had succumbed

+to a serge jacket with side pockets, into which her hands were thrust.

+But they were much too happy with themselves and the expedition

+for their friend to attempt any hint at the moment about these things.

+As soon as the first ecstasies were over--Fanny's enthusiasm was

+a little noisy and crude, and consisted mainly in emphatic repetitions

+of "Just FANCY! we're going to Rome, my dear!--Rome!"--they gave

+their attention to their fellow-travellers. Helen was anxious to

+secure a compartment to themselves, and, in order to discourage

+intruders, got out and planted herself firmly on the step. Miss

+Winchelsea peeped out over her shoulder, and made sly little remarks

+about the accumulating people on the platform, at which Fanny laughed

+gleefully.

+

+They were travelling with one of Mr. Thomas Gunn's parties--fourteen

+days in Rome for fourteen pounds. They did not belong to the personally

+conducted party of course--Miss Winchelsea had seen to that--but

+they travelled with it because of the convenience of that arrangement.

+The people were the oddest mixture, and wonderfully amusing.

+There was a vociferous red-faced polyglot personal conductor in

+a pepper-and-salt suit, very long in the arms and legs and very

+active. He shouted proclamations. When he wanted to speak to people he

+stretched out an arm and held them until his purpose was accomplished.

+One hand was full of papers, tickets, counterfoils of tourists.

+The people of the personally conducted party were, it seemed,

+of two sorts; people the conductor wanted and could not find,

+and people he did not want and who followed him in a steadily

+growing tail up and down the platform. These people seemed, indeed,

+to think that their one chance of reaching Rome lay in keeping

+close to him. Three little old ladies were particularly energetic

+in his pursuit, and at last maddened him to the pitch of clapping

+them into a carriage and daring them to emerge again. For the rest

+of the time, one, two, or three of their heads protruded from

+the window wailing enquiries about "a little wickerwork box"

+whenever he drew near. There was a very stout man with a very stout

+wife in shiny black; there was a little old man like an aged hostler.

+

+"What CAN such people want in Rome?" asked Miss Winchelsea. "What

+can it mean to them?" There was a very tall curate in a very small

+straw hat, and a very short curate encumbered by a long camera

+stand. The contrast amused Fanny very much. Once they heard some

+one calling for "Snooks." "I always thought that name was invented

+by novelists," said Miss Winchelsea. "Fancy! Snooks. I wonder which

+IS Mr. Snooks." Finally they picked out a very stout and resolute

+little man in a large check suit. "If he isn't Snooks, he ought

+to be," said Miss Winchelsea.

+

+Presently the conductor discovered Helen's attempt at a corner

+in carriages. "Room for five," he bawled with a parallel translation

+on his fingers. A party of four together--mother, father, and two

+daughters--blundered in, all greatly excited. "It's all right, Ma,

+you let me," said one of the daughters, hitting her mother's bonnet

+with a handbag she struggled to put in the rack. Miss Winchelsea

+detested people who banged about and called their mother "Ma."

+A young man travelling alone followed. He was not at all "touristy"

+in his costume, Miss Winchelsea observed; his Gladstone bag was

+of good pleasant leather with labels reminiscent of Luxembourg and

+Ostend, and his boots, though brown, were not vulgar. He carried

+an overcoat on his arm. Before these people had properly settled

+in their places, came an inspection of tickets and a slamming

+of doors, and behold! they were gliding out of Charing Cross

+station on their way to Rome.

+

+"Fancy!" cried Fanny, "we are going to Rome, my dear! Rome! I don't

+seem to believe it, even now."

+

+Miss Winchelsea suppressed Fanny's emotions with a little smile,

+and the lady who was called "Ma" explained to people in general

+why they had "cut it so close" at the station. The two daughters

+called her "Ma" several times, toned her down in a tactless effective

+way, and drove her at last to the muttered inventory of a basket

+of travelling requisites. Presently she looked up. "Lor'!" she said,

+"I didn't bring THEM!" Both the daughters said "Oh, Ma!" but what

+"them" was did not appear. Presently Fanny produced Hare's Walks

+in Rome, a sort of mitigated guide-book very popular among Roman

+visitors; and the father of the two daughters began to examine

+his books of tickets minutely, apparently in a search after English

+words. When he had looked at the tickets for a long time right way up,

+he turned them upside down. Then he produced a fountain pen and

+dated them with considerable care. The young man, having completed

+an unostentatious survey of his fellow travellers, produced a book and

+fell to reading. When Helen and Fanny were looking out of the window

+at Chiselhurst--the place interested Fanny because the poor dear

+Empress of the French used to live there--Miss Winchelsea took

+the opportunity to observe the book the young man held. It was not

+a guide-book, but a little thin volume of poetry--BOUND. She glanced

+at his face--it seemed a refined pleasant face to her hasty glance.

+He wore a little gilt pince-nez. "Do you think she lives there

+now?" said Fanny, and Miss Winchelsea's inspection came to an end.

+

+For the rest of the journey Miss Winchelsea talked little, and what

+she said was as pleasant and as stamped with refinement as she

+could make it. Her voice was always low and clear and pleasant,

+and she took care that on this occasion it was particularly low and

+clear and pleasant. As they came under the white cliffs the young

+man put his book of poetry away, and when at last the train stopped

+beside the boat, he displayed a graceful alacrity with the impedimenta

+of Miss Winchelsea and her friends. Miss Winchelsea hated nonsense,

+but she was pleased to see the young man perceived at once that

+they were ladies, and helped them without any violent geniality;

+and how nicely he showed that his civilities were to be no excuse

+for further intrusions. None of her little party had been out

+of England before, and they were all excited and a little nervous

+at the Channel passage. They stood in a little group in a good place

+near the middle of the boat--the young man had taken Miss Winchelsea's

+carry-all there and had told her it was a good place--and they watched

+the white shores of Albion recede and quoted Shakespeare and made

+quiet fun of their fellow travellers in the English way.

+

+They were particularly amused at the precautions the bigger-sized

+people had taken against the little waves--cut lemons and flasks

+prevailed, one lady lay full-length in a deck chair with a handkerchief

+over her face, and a very broad resolute man in a bright brown

+"touristy" suit walked all the way from England to France along

+the deck, with his legs as widely apart as Providence permitted. These

+were all excellent precautions, and, nobody was ill. The personally

+conducted party pursued the conductor about the deck with enquiries

+in a manner that suggested to Helen's mind the rather vulgar image

+of hens with a piece of bacon peel, until at last he went into hiding

+below. And the young man with the thin volume of poetry stood

+at the stern watching England receding, looking rather lonely

+and sad to Miss Winchelsea's eye.

+

+And then came Calais and tumultuous novelties, and the young man

+had not forgotten Miss Winchelsea's hold-all and the other little

+things. All three girls, though they had passed government examinations

+in French to any extent, were stricken with a dumb shame of their

+accents, and the young man was very useful. And he did not intrude.

+He put them in a comfortable carriage and raised his hat and went

+away. Miss Winchelsea thanked him in her best manner--a pleasing,

+cultivated manner--and Fanny said he was "nice" almost before he

+was out of earshot. "I wonder what he can be," said Helen. "He's

+going to Italy, because I noticed green tickets in his book."

+Miss Winchelsea almost told them of the poetry, and decided not

+to do so. And presently the carriage windows seized hold upon them

+and the young man was forgotten. It made them feel that they were

+doing an educated sort of thing to travel through a country whose

+commonest advertisements were in idiomatic French, and Miss Winchelsea

+made unpatriotic comparisons because there were weedy little sign-board

+advertisements by the rail side instead of the broad hoardings that

+deface the landscape in our land. But the north of France is really

+uninteresting country, and after a time Fanny reverted to Hare's Walks

+and Helen initiated lunch. Miss Winchelsea awoke out of a happy

+reverie; she had been trying to realise, she said, that she was

+actually going to Rome, but she perceived at Helen's suggestion

+that she was hungry, and they lunched out of their baskets very

+cheerfully. In the afternoon they were tired and silent until Helen

+made tea. Miss Winchelsea might have dozed, only she knew Fanny

+slept with her mouth open; and as their fellow passengers were

+two rather nice critical-looking ladies of uncertain age--who knew

+French well enough to talk it--she employed herself in keeping Fanny

+awake. The rhythm of the train became insistent, and the streaming

+landscape outside became at last quite painful to the eye. They were

+already dreadfully tired of travelling before their night's stoppage

+came.

+

+The stoppage for the night was brightened by the appearance of

+the young man, and his manners were all that could be desired and

+his French quite serviceable. His coupons availed for the same hotel

+as theirs, and by chance as it seemed he sat next Miss Winchelsea

+at the table d'hote. In spite of her enthusiasm for Rome, she had

+thought out some such possibility very thoroughly, and when he

+ventured to make a remark upon the tediousness of travelling--he

+let the soup and fish go by before he did this--she did not simply

+assent to his proposition, but responded with another. They were

+soon comparing their journeys, and Helen and Fanny were cruelly

+overlooked in the conversation. It was to be the same journey,

+they found; one day for the galleries at Florence--"from what I

+hear," said the young man, "it is barely enough,"--and the rest

+at Rome. He talked of Rome very pleasantly; he was evidently quite

+well read, and he quoted Horace about Soracte. Miss Winchelsea had

+"done" that book of Horace for her matriculation, and was delighted

+to cap his quotation. It gave a sort of tone to things, this

+incident--a touch of refinement to mere chatting. Fanny expressed

+a few emotions, and Helen interpolated a few sensible remarks, but

+the bulk of the talk on the girls' side naturally fell to Miss

+Winchelsea.

+

+Before they reached Rome this young man was tacitly of their party.

+They did not know his name nor what he was, but it seemed he taught,

+and Miss Winchelsea had a shrewd idea he was an extension lecturer.

+At any rate he was something of that sort, something gentlemanly

+and refined without being opulent and impossible. She tried once

+or twice to ascertain whether he came from Oxford or Cambridge,

+but he missed her timid importunities. She tried to get him to make

+remarks about those places to see if he would say "come up" to them

+instead of "go down"--she knew that was how you told a 'Varsity man.

+He used the word "'Varsity"--not university--in quite the proper way.

+

+They saw as much of Mr. Ruskin's Florence as the brief time permitted;

+he met them in the Pitti Gallery and went round with them, chatting

+brightly, and evidently very grateful for their recognition. He knew

+a great deal about art, and all four enjoyed the morning immensely.

+It was fine to go round recognising old favourites and finding

+new beauties, especially while so many people fumbled helplessly

+with Baedeker. Nor was he a bit of a prig, Miss Winchelsea said,

+and indeed she detested prigs. He had a distinct undertone of humour,

+and was funny, for example, without being vulgar, at the expense of

+the quaint work of Beato Angelico. He had a grave seriousness beneath

+it all, and was quick to seize the moral lessons of the pictures.

+Fanny went softly among these masterpieces; she admitted "she knew

+so little about them," and she confessed that to her they were "all

+beautiful." Fanny's "beautiful" inclined to be a little monotonous,

+Miss Winchelsea thought. She had been quite glad when the last

+sunny Alp had vanished, because of the staccato of Fanny's admiration.

+Helen said little, but Miss Winchelsea had found her a little wanting

+on the aesthetic side in the old days and was not surprised; sometimes

+she laughed at the young man's hesitating delicate little jests and

+sometimes she didn't, and sometimes she seemed quite lost to the art

+about them in the contemplation of the dresses of the other visitors.

+

+At Rome the young man was with them intermittently. A rather

+"touristy" friend of his took him away at times. He complained

+comically to Miss Winchelsea. "I have only two short weeks in Rome,"

+he said, "and my friend Leonard wants to spend a whole day at Tivoli,

+looking at a waterfall."

+

+"What is your friend Leonard?" asked Miss Winchelsea abruptly.

+

+"He's the most enthusiastic pedestrian I ever met," the young man

+replied, amusingly, but a little unsatisfactorily, Miss Winchelsea

+thought. They had some glorious times, and Fanny could not think

+what they would have done without him. Miss Winchelsea's interest

+and Fanny's enormous capacity for admiration were insatiable. They

+never flagged--through pictures and sculpture galleries, immense

+crowded churches, ruins and museums, Judas trees and prickly pears,

+wine carts and palaces, they admired their way unflinchingly. They

+never saw a stone pine or a eucalyptus but they named and admired it;

+they never glimpsed Soracte but they exclaimed. Their common ways

+were made wonderful by imaginative play. "Here Caesar may have

+walked," they would say. "Raphael may have seen Soracte from this

+very point." They happened on the tomb of Bibulus. "Old Bibulus,"

+said the young man. "The oldest monument of Republican Rome!"

+said Miss Winchelsea.

+

+"I'm dreadfully stupid," said Fanny, "but who WAS Bibulus?"

+

+There was a curious little pause.

+

+"Wasn't he the person who built the wall?" said Helen.

+

+The young man glanced quickly at her and laughed. "That was Balbus,"

+he said. Helen reddened, but neither he nor Miss Winchelsea threw

+any light upon Fanny's ignorance about Bibulus.

+

+Helen was more taciturn than the other three, but then she was

+always taciturn, and usually she took care of the tram tickets

+and things like that, or kept her eye on them if the young man took

+them, and told him where they were when he wanted them. Glorious times

+they had, these young people, in that pale brown cleanly city of

+memories that was once the world. Their only sorrow was the shortness

+of the time. They said indeed that the electric trams and the '70

+buildings, and that criminal advertisement that glares upon the Forum,

+outraged their aesthetic feelings unspeakably; but that was only part

+of the fun. And indeed Rome is such a wonderful place that it made

+Miss Winchelsea forget some of her most carefully prepared enthusiasms

+at times, and Helen, taken unawares, would suddenly admit the beauty

+of unexpected things. Yet Fanny and Helen would have liked a shop

+window or so in the English quarter if Miss Winchelsea's uncompromising

+hostility to all other English visitors had not rendered that district

+impossible.

+

+The intellectual and aesthetic fellowship of Miss Winchelsea and

+the scholarly young man passed insensibly towards a deeper feeling.

+The exuberant Fanny did her best to keep pace with their recondite

+admiration by playing her "beautiful," with vigour, and saying "Oh!

+LET'S go," with enormous appetite whenever a new place of interest

+was mentioned. But Helen developed a certain want of sympathy

+towards the end, that disappointed Miss Winchelsea a little. She

+refused to "see anything" in the face of Beatrice Cenci--Shelley's

+Beatrice Cenci!--in the Barberini gallery; and one day, when they

+were deploring the electric trams, she said rather snappishly that

+"people must get about somehow, and it's better than torturing

+horses up these horrid little hills." She spoke of the Seven Hills

+of Rome as "horrid little hills!"

+

+And the day they went on the Palatine--though Miss Winchelsea

+did not know of this--she remarked suddenly to Fanny, "Don't hurry

+like that, my dear; THEY don't want us to overtake them. And we

+don't say the right things for them when we DO get near."

+

+"I wasn't trying to overtake them," said Fanny, slackening her

+excessive pace; "I wasn't indeed." And for a minute she was short of

+breath.

+

+But Miss Winchelsea had come upon happiness. It was only when she

+came to look back across an intervening tragedy that she quite

+realised how happy she had been, pacing among the cypress-shadowed

+ruins, and exchanging the very highest class of information the human

+mind can possess, the most refined impressions it is possible

+to convey. Insensibly emotion crept into their intercourse, sunning

+itself openly and pleasantly at last when Helen's modernity was not

+too near. Insensibly their interest drifted from the wonderful

+associations about them to their more intimate and personal feelings.

+In a tentative way information was supplied; she spoke allusively

+of her school, of her examination successes, of her gladness that

+the days of "Cram" were over. He made it quite clear that he also

+was a teacher. They spoke of the greatness of their calling, of the

+necessity of sympathy to face its irksome details, of a certain

+loneliness they sometimes felt.

+

+That was in the Colosseum, and it was as far as they got that day,

+because Helen returned with Fanny--she had taken her into the upper

+galleries. Yet the private dreams of Miss Winchelsea, already vivid

+and concrete enough, became now realistic in the highest degree.

+She figured that pleasant young man, lecturing in the most edifying

+way to his students, herself modestly prominent as his intellectual

+mate and helper; she figured a refined little home, with two bureaus,

+with white shelves of high-class books, and autotypes of the pictures

+of Rossetti and Burne-Jones, with Morris's wall papers and flowers in

+pots of beaten copper. Indeed she figured many things. On the Pincio

+the two had a few precious moments together, while Helen marched

+Fanny off to see the muro Torto, and he spoke at once plainly. He

+said he hoped their friendship was only beginning, that he already

+found her company very precious to him, that indeed it was more than

+that.

+

+He became nervous, thrusting at his glasses with trembling fingers

+as though he fancied his emotions made them unstable. "I should

+of course," he said, "tell you things about myself. I know it is

+rather unusual my speaking to you like this. Only our meeting has

+been so accidental--or providential--and I am snatching at things.

+I came to Rome expecting a lonely tour . . . and I have been so very

+happy, so very happy. Quite recently I found myself in a position--

+I have dared to think--. And--"

+

+He glanced over his shoulder and stopped. He said "Damn!" quite

+distinctly--and she did not condemn him for that manly lapse into

+profanity. She looked and saw his friend Leonard advancing. He drew

+nearer; he raised his hat to Miss Winchelsea, and his smile was

+almost a grin. "I've been looking for you everywhere, Snooks," he

+said. "You promised to be on the Piazza steps half an hour ago."

+

+Snooks! The name struck Miss Winchelsea like a blow in the face.

+She did not hear his reply. She thought afterwards that Leonard

+must have considered her the vaguest-minded person. To this day

+she is not sure whether she was introduced to Leonard or not, nor

+what she said to him. A sort of mental paralysis was upon her.

+Of all offensive surnames--Snooks!

+

+Helen and Fanny were returning, there were civilities, and the young

+men were receding. By a great effort she controlled herself to face

+the enquiring eyes of her friends. All that afternoon she lived

+the life of a heroine under the indescribable outrage of that name,

+chatting, observing, with "Snooks" gnawing at her heart. From the

+moment that it first rang upon her ears, the dream of her happiness

+was prostrate in the dust. All the refinement she had figured was

+ruined and defaced by that cognomen's unavoidable vulgarity.

+

+What was that refined little home to her now, spite of autotypes,

+Morris papers, and bureaus? Athwart it in letters of fire ran an

+incredible inscription: "Mrs. Snooks." That may seem a little thing to

+the reader, but consider the delicate refinement of Miss Winchelsea's

+mind. Be as refined as you can and then think of writing yourself

+down:--"Snooks." She conceived herself being addressed as Mrs. Snooks

+by all the people she liked least, conceived the patronymic touched

+with a vague quality of insult. She figured a card of grey and silver

+bearing "Winchelsea," triumphantly effaced by an arrow, Cupid's arrow,

+in favour of "Snooks." Degrading confession of feminine weakness! She

+imagined the terrible rejoicings of certain girl friends, of certain

+grocer cousins from whom her growing refinement had long since

+estranged her. How they would make it sprawl across the envelope

+that would bring their sarcastic congratulations. Would even his

+pleasant company compensate her for that? "It is impossible,"

+she muttered; "impossible! SNOOKS!"

+

+She was sorry for him, but not so sorry as she was for herself.

+For him she had a touch of indignation. To be so nice, so refined,

+while all the time he was "Snooks," to hide under a pretentious

+gentility of demeanour the badge sinister of his surname seemed

+a sort of treachery. To put it in the language of sentimental science

+she felt he had "led her on."

+

+There were of course moments of terrible vacillation, a period even

+when something almost like passion bid her throw refinement to

+the winds. And there was something in her, an unexpurgated vestige

+of vulgarity, that made a strenuous attempt at proving that Snooks

+was not so very bad a name after all. Any hovering hesitation flew

+before Fanny's manner, when Fanny came with an air of catastrophe to

+tell that she also knew the horror. Fanny's voice fell to a whisper

+when she said SNOOKS. Miss Winchelsea would not give him any answer

+when at last, in the Borghese, she could have a minute with him;

+but she promised him a note.

+

+She handed him that note in the little book of poetry he had lent

+her, the little book that had first drawn them together. Her refusal

+was ambiguous, allusive. She could no more tell him why she rejected

+him than she could have told a cripple of his hump. He too must

+feel something of the unspeakable quality of his name. Indeed he

+had avoided a dozen chances of telling it, she now perceived. So she

+spoke of "obstacles she could not reveal"--"reasons why the thing he

+spoke of was impossible." She addressed the note with a shiver, "E. K.

+Snooks."

+

+Things were worse than she had dreaded; he asked her to explain.

+How COULD she explain? Those last two days in Rome were dreadful.

+She was haunted by his air of astonished perplexity. She knew she

+had given him intimate hopes, she had not the courage to examine

+her mind thoroughly for the extent of her encouragement. She knew

+he must think her the most changeable of beings. Now that she was

+in full retreat, she would not even perceive his hints of a possible

+correspondence. But in that matter he did a thing that seemed to her

+at once delicate and romantic. He made a go-between of Fanny.

+Fanny could not keep the secret, and came and told her that night

+under a transparent pretext of needed advice. "Mr. Snooks," said

+Fanny, "wants to write to me. Fancy! I had no idea. But should I let

+him?" They talked it over long and earnestly, and Miss Winchelsea was

+careful to keep the veil over her heart. She was already repenting his

+disregarded hints. Why should she not hear of him sometimes--painful

+though his name must be to her? Miss Winchelsea decided it might

+be permitted, and Fanny kissed her good-night with unusual emotion.

+After she had gone Miss Winchelsea sat for a long time at the window

+of her little room. It was moonlight, and down the street a man

+sang "Santa Lucia" with almost heart-dissolving tenderness. . . .

+She sat very still.

+

+She breathed a word very softly to herself. The word was "SNOOKS."

+Then she got up with a profound sigh, and went to bed. The next morning

+he said to her meaningly, "I shall hear of you through your friend."

+

+Mr. Snooks saw them off from Rome with that pathetic interrogative

+perplexity still on his face, and if it had not been for Helen

+he would have retained Miss Winchelsea's hold-all in his hand

+as a sort of encyclopaedic keepsake. On their way back to England

+Miss Winchelsea on six separate occasions made Fanny promise

+to write to her the longest of long letters. Fanny, it seemed, would

+be quite near Mr. Snooks. Her new school--she was always going

+to new schools--would be only five miles from Steely Bank, and

+it was in the Steely Bank Polytechnic, and one or two first-class

+schools, that Mr. Snooks did his teaching. He might even see her

+at times. They could not talk much of him--she and Fanny always

+spoke of "him," never of Mr. Snooks,--because Helen was apt to say

+unsympathetic things about him. Her nature had coarsened very much,

+Miss Winchelsea perceived, since the old Training College days;

+she had become hard and cynical. She thought he had a weak face,

+mistaking refinement for weakness as people of her stamp are apt

+to do, and when she heard his name was Snooks, she said she had

+expected something of the sort. Miss Winchelsea was careful to spare

+her own feelings after that, but Fanny was less circumspect.

+

+The girls parted in London, and Miss Winchelsea returned, with

+a new interest in life, to the Girls' High School in which she had

+been an increasingly valuable assistant for the last three years.

+Her new interest in life was Fanny as a correspondent, and to give her

+a lead she wrote her a lengthy descriptive letter within a fortnight

+of her return. Fanny answered, very disappointingly. Fanny indeed

+had no literary gift, but it was new to Miss Winchelsea to find

+herself deploring the want of gifts in a friend. That letter was

+even criticised aloud in the safe solitude of Miss Winchelsea's

+study, and her criticism, spoken with great bitterness, was "Twaddle!"

+It was full of just the things Miss Winchelsea's letter had been

+full of, particulars of the school. And of Mr. Snooks, only this

+much: "I have had a letter from Mr. Snooks, and he has been over

+to see me on two Saturday afternoons running. He talked about Rome

+and you; we both talked about you. Your ears must have burnt, my

+dear. . . ."

+

+Miss Winchelsea repressed a desire to demand more explicit information,

+and wrote the sweetest long letter again. "Tell me all about yourself,

+dear. That journey has quite refreshed our ancient friendship,

+and I do so want to keep in touch with you." About Mr. Snooks she

+simply wrote on the fifth page that she was glad Fanny had seen

+him, and that if he SHOULD ask after her, she was to be remembered

+to him VERY KINDLY (underlined). And Fanny replied most obtusely

+in the key of that "ancient friendship," reminding Miss Winchelsea

+of a dozen foolish things of those old schoolgirl days at the training

+college, and saying not a word about Mr. Snooks!

+

+For nearly a week Miss Winchelsea was so angry at the failure

+of Fanny as a go-between that she could not write to her. And then

+she wrote less effusively, and in her letter she asked point-blank,

+"Have you seen Mr. Snooks?" Fanny's letter was unexpectedly

+satisfactory. "I HAVE seen Mr. Snooks," she wrote, and having once

+named him she kept on about him; it was all Snooks--Snooks this and

+Snooks that. He was to give a public lecture, said Fanny, among other

+things. Yet Miss Winchelsea, after the first glow of gratification,

+still found this letter a little unsatisfactory. Fanny did not report

+Mr. Snooks as saying anything about Miss Winchelsea, nor as looking

+a little white and worn, as he ought to have been doing. And behold!

+before she had replied, came a second letter from Fanny on the same

+theme, quite a gushing letter, and covering six sheets with her loose

+feminine hand.

+

+And about this second letter was a rather odd little thing that

+Miss Winchelsea only noticed as she re-read it the third time.

+Fanny's natural femininity had prevailed even against the round

+and clear traditions of the training college; she was one of those

+she-creatures born to make all her m's and n's and u's and r's and e's

+alike, and to leave her o's and a's open and her i's undotted. So that

+it was only after an elaborate comparison of word with word that Miss

+Winchelsea felt assured Mr. Snooks was not really "Mr. Snooks"

+at all! In Fanny's first letter of gush he was Mr. "Snooks," in her

+second the spelling was changed to Mr. "Senoks." Miss Winchelsea's

+hand positively trembled as she turned the sheet over--it meant

+so much to her. For it had already begun to seem to her that even

+the name of Mrs. Snooks might be avoided at too great a price,

+and suddenly--this possibility! She turned over the six sheets,

+all dappled with that critical name, and everywhere the first letter

+had the form of an E! For a time she walked the room with a hand

+pressed upon her heart.

+

+She spent a whole day pondering this change, weighing a letter

+of inquiry that should be at once discreet and effectual, weighing

+too what action she should take after the answer came. She was

+resolved that if this altered spelling was anything more than

+a quaint fancy of Fanny's, she would write forthwith to Mr. Snooks.

+She had now reached a stage when the minor refinements of behaviour

+disappear. Her excuse remained uninvented, but she had the subject

+of her letter clear in her mind, even to the hint that "circumstances

+in my life have changed very greatly since we talked together." But

+she never gave that hint. There came a third letter from that fitful

+correspondent Fanny. The first line proclaimed her "the happiest

+girl alive."

+

+Miss Winchelsea crushed the letter in her hand--the rest unread--and

+sat with her face suddenly very still. She had received it just before

+morning school, and had opened it when the junior mathematicians were

+well under way. Presently she resumed reading with an appearance of

+great calm. But after the first sheet she went on reading the third

+without discovering the error:--"told him frankly I did not like his

+name," the third sheet began. "He told me he did not like it himself

+--you know that sort of sudden frank way he has"--Miss Winchelsea

+did know. "So I said 'Couldn't you change it?' He didn't see it

+at first. Well, you know, dear, he had told me what it really meant;

+it means Sevenoaks, only it has got down to Snooks--both Snooks

+and Noaks, dreadfully vulgar surnames though they be, are really

+worn forms of Sevenoaks. So I said--even I have my bright ideas

+at times--'if it got down from Sevenoaks to Snooks, why not get it

+back from Snooks to Sevenoaks?' And the long and the short of it

+is, dear, he couldn't refuse me, and he changed his spelling there

+and then to Senoks for the bills of the new lecture. And afterwards,

+when we are married, we shall put in the apostrophe and make it

+Se'noks. Wasn't it kind of him to mind that fancy of mine, when

+many men would have taken offence? But it is just like him all over;

+he is as kind as he is clever. Because he knew as well as I did

+that I would have had him in spite of it, had he been ten times

+Snooks. But he did it all the same."

+

+The class was startled by the sound of paper being viciously torn,

+and looked up to see Miss Winchelsea white in the face, and with

+some very small pieces of paper clenched in one hand. For a few

+seconds they stared at her stare, and then her expression changed

+back to a more familiar one. "Has any one finished number three?" she

+asked in an even tone. She remained calm after that. But impositions

+ruled high that day. And she spent two laborious evenings writing

+letters of various sorts to Fanny, before she found a decent

+congratulatory vein. Her reason struggled hopelessly against the

+persuasion that Fanny had behaved in an exceedingly treacherous manner.

+

+One may be extremely refined and still capable of a very sore heart.

+Certainly Miss Winchelsea's heart was very sore. She had moods

+of sexual hostility, in which she generalised uncharitably about

+mankind. "He forgot himself with me," she said. "But Fanny is pink

+and pretty and soft and a fool--a very excellent match for a Man."

+And by way of a wedding present she sent Fanny a gracefully bound

+volume of poetry by George Meredith, and Fanny wrote back a grossly

+happy letter to say that it was "ALL beautiful." Miss Winchelsea

+hoped that some day Mr. Senoks might take up that slim book and

+think for a moment of the donor. Fanny wrote several times before

+and about her marriage, pursuing that fond legend of their "ancient

+friendship," and giving her happiness in the fullest detail. And

+Miss Winchelsea wrote to Helen for the first time after the Roman

+journey, saying nothing about the marriage, but expressing very

+cordial feelings.

+

+They had been in Rome at Easter, and Fanny was married in the

+August vacation. She wrote a garrulous letter to Miss Winchelsea,

+describing her home-coming, and the astonishing arrangements

+of their "teeny weeny" little house. Mr. Se'noks was now beginning

+to assume a refinement in Miss Winchelsea's memory out of all

+proportion to the facts of the case, and she tried in vain to imagine

+his cultured greatness in a "teeny weeny" little house. "Am busy

+enamelling a cosey corner," said Fanny, sprawling to the end of her

+third sheet, "so excuse more." Miss Winchelsea answered in her

+best style, gently poking fun at Fanny's arrangements and hoping

+intensely that Mr. Sen'oks might see the letter. Only this hope

+enabled her to write at all, answering not only that letter but

+one in November and one at Christmas.

+

+The two latter communications contained urgent invitations for her

+to come to Steely Bank on a Visit during the Christmas holidays.

+She tried to think that HE had told her to ask that, but it was

+too much like Fanny's opulent good-nature. She could not but believe

+that he must be sick of his blunder by this time; and she had more

+than a hope that he would presently write her a letter beginning

+"Dear Friend." Something subtly tragic in the separation was

+a great support to her, a sad misunderstanding. To have been jilted

+would have been intolerable. But he never wrote that letter beginning

+"Dear Friend."

+

+For two years Miss Winchelsea could not go to see her friends,

+in spite of the reiterated invitations of Mrs. Sevenoaks--it became

+full Sevenoaks in the second year. Then one day near the Easter

+rest she felt lonely and without a soul to understand her in the

+world, and her mind ran once more on what is called Platonic

+friendship. Fanny was clearly happy and busy in her new sphere

+of domesticity, but no doubt HE had his lonely hours. Did he ever

+think of those days in Rome--gone now beyond recalling? No one

+had understood her as he had done; no one in all the world. It

+would be a sort of melancholy pleasure to talk to him again, and

+what harm could it do? Why should she deny herself? That night

+she wrote a sonnet, all but the last two lines of the octave--which

+would not come, and the next day she composed a graceful little note

+to tell Fanny she was coming down.

+

+And so she saw him again.

+

+Even at the first encounter it was evident he had changed; he seemed

+stouter and less nervous, and it speedily appeared that his

+conversation had already lost much of its old delicacy. There even

+seemed a justification for Helen's description of weakness in his

+face--in certain lights it WAS weak. He seemed busy and preoccupied

+about his affairs, and almost under the impression that Miss Winchelsea

+had come for the sake of Fanny. He discussed his dinner with Fanny

+in an intelligent way. They only had one good long talk together,

+and that came to nothing. He did not refer to Rome, and spent some

+time abusing a man who had stolen an idea he had had for a text-book.

+It did not seem a very wonderful idea to Miss Winchelsea. She

+discovered he had forgotten the names of more than half the painters

+whose work they had rejoiced over in Florence.

+

+It was a sadly disappointing week, and Miss Winchelsea was glad

+when it came to an end. Under various excuses she avoided visiting

+them again. After a time the visitor's room was occupied by their

+two little boys, and Fanny's invitations ceased. The intimacy of

+her letters had long since faded away.

+

+

+13.  A DREAM OF ARMAGEDDON

+

+The man with the white face entered the carriage at Rugby. He moved

+slowly in spite of the urgency of his porter, and even while he was

+still on the platform I noted how ill he seemed. He dropped into

+the corner over against me with a sigh, made an incomplete attempt

+to arrange his travelling shawl, and became motionless, with his

+eyes staring vacantly. Presently he was moved by a sense of my

+observation, looked up at me, and put out a spiritless hand for

+his newspaper. Then he glanced again in my direction.

+

+I feigned to read. I feared I had unwittingly embarrassed him,

+and in a moment I was surprised to find him speaking.

+

+"I beg your pardon?" said I.

+

+"That book," he repeated, pointing a lean finger, "is about dreams."

+

+"Obviously," I answered, for it was Fortnum-Roscoe's Dream States,

+and the title was on the cover. He hung silent for a space as if

+he sought words. "Yes," he said at last, "but they tell you nothing."

+I did not catch his meaning for a second.

+

+"They don't know," he added.

+

+I looked a little more attentively at his face.

+

+"There are dreams," he said, "and dreams."

+

+That sort of proposition I never dispute.

+

+"I suppose--" he hesitated. "Do you ever dream? I mean vividly."

+

+"I dream very little," I answered. "I doubt if I have three vivid

+dreams in a year."

+

+"Ah!" he said, and seemed for a moment to collect his thoughts.

+

+"Your dreams don't mix with your memories?" he asked abruptly.

+"You don't find yourself in doubt; did this happen or did it not?"

+

+"Hardly ever. Except just for a momentary hesitation now and then.

+I suppose few people do."

+

+"Does HE say--" he indicated the book.

+

+"Says it happens at times and gives the usual explanation about

+intensity of impression and the like to account for its not happening

+as a rule. I suppose you know something of these theories--"

+

+"Very little--except that they are wrong."

+

+His emaciated hand played with the strap of the window for a time.

+I prepared to resume reading, and that seemed to precipitate his

+next remark. He leant forward almost as though he would touch me.

+

+"Isn't there something called consecutive dreaming--that goes on

+night after night?"

+

+"I believe there is. There are cases given in most books on mental

+trouble."

+

+"Mental trouble! Yes. I dare say there are. It's the right place

+for them. But what I mean--" He looked at his bony knuckles.

+"Is that sort of thing always dreaming? IS it dreaming? Or is it

+something else? Mightn't it be something else?"

+

+I should have snubbed his persistent conversation but for the drawn

+anxiety of his face. I remember now the look of his faded eyes

+and the lids red-stained--perhaps you know that look.

+

+"I'm not just arguing about a matter of opinion," he said. "The

+thing's killing me."

+

+"Dreams?"

+

+"If you call them dreams. Night after night. Vivid!--so vivid . . .

+this--" (he indicated the landscape that went streaming by the

+window) "seems unreal in comparison! I can scarcely remember who I am,

+what business I am on. . . ."

+

+He paused. "Even now--"

+

+"The dream is always the same--do you mean?" I asked.

+

+"It's over."

+

+"You mean?"

+

+"I died."

+

+"Died?"

+

+"Smashed and killed, and now, so much of me as that dream was,

+is dead. Dead for ever. I dreamt I was another man, you know, living

+in a different part of the world and in a different time. I dreamt

+that night after night. Night after night I woke into that other

+life. Fresh scenes and fresh happenings--until I came upon the last--"

+

+"When you died?"

+

+"When I died."

+

+"And since then--"

+

+"No," he said. "Thank God! That was the end of the dream. . . ."

+

+It was clear I was in for this dream. And after all, I had an hour

+before me, the light was fading fast, and Fortnum-Roscoe has

+a dreary way with him. "Living in a different time," I said:

+"do you mean in some different age?"

+

+"Yes."

+

+"Past?"

+

+"No, to come--to come."

+

+"The year three thousand, for example?"

+

+"I don't know what year it was. I did when I was asleep, when I was

+dreaming, that is, but not now--not now that I am awake. There's

+a lot of things I have forgotten since I woke out of these dreams,

+though I knew them at the time when I was--I suppose it was dreaming.

+They called the year differently from our way of calling the year. . . .

+What DID they call it?" He put his hand to his forehead. "No," said

+he, "I forget."

+

+He sat smiling weakly. For a moment I feared he did not mean to tell

+me his dream. As a rule I hate people who tell their dreams, but

+this struck me differently. I proffered assistance even. "It began--"

+I suggested.

+

+"It was vivid from the first. I seemed to wake up in it suddenly.

+And it's curious that in these dreams I am speaking of I never

+remembered this life I am living now. It seemed as if the dream

+life was enough while it lasted. Perhaps--But I will tell you how

+I find myself when I do my best to recall it all. I don't remember

+anything dearly until I found myself sitting in a sort of loggia

+looking out over the sea. I had been dozing, and suddenly I woke

+up--fresh and vivid--not a bit dream-like--because the girl had

+stopped fanning me."

+

+"The girl?"

+

+"Yes, the girl. You must not interrupt or you will put me out."

+

+He stopped abruptly. "You won't think I'm mad?" he said.

+

+"No," I answered; "you've been dreaming. Tell me your dream."

+

+"I woke up, I say, because the girl had stopped fanning me. I was

+not surprised to find myself there or anything of that sort, you

+understand. I did not feel I had fallen into it suddenly. I simply

+took it up at that point. Whatever memory I had of THIS life,

+this nineteenth-century life, faded as I woke, vanished like

+a dream. I knew all about myself, knew that my name was no longer

+Cooper but Hedon, and all about my position in the world. I've

+forgotten a lot since I woke--there's a want of connection--but

+it was all quite clear and matter of fact then."

+

+He hesitated again, gripping the window strap, putting his face

+forward and looking up at me appealingly.

+

+"This seems bosh to you?"

+

+"No, no!" I cried. "Go on. Tell me what this loggia was like."

+

+"It was not really a loggia--I don't know what to call it. It faced

+south. It was small. It was all in shadow except the semicircle

+above the balcony that showed the sky and sea and the corner where

+the girl stood. I was on a couch--it was a metal couch with light

+striped cushions-and the girl was leaning over the balcony with

+her back to me. The light of the sunrise fell on her ear and cheek.

+Her pretty white neck and the little curls that nestled there,

+and her white shoulder were in the sun, and all the grace of her

+body was in the cool blue shadow. She was dressed--how can I describe

+it? It was easy and flowing. And altogether there she stood, so that

+it came to me how beautiful and desirable she was, as though I had

+never seen her before. And when at last I sighed and raised myself

+upon my arm she turned her face to me--"

+

+He stopped.

+

+"I have lived three-and-fifty years in this world. I have had mother,

+sisters, friends, wife, and daughters--all their faces, the play

+of their faces, I know. But the face of this girl--it is much more

+real to me. I can bring it back into memory so that I see it

+again--I could draw it or paint it. And after all--"

+

+He stopped--but I said nothing.

+

+"The face of a dream--the face of a dream. She was beautiful. Not

+that beauty which is terrible, cold, and worshipful, like the beauty

+of a saint; nor that beauty that stirs fierce passions; but a sort

+of radiation, sweet lips that softened into smiles, and grave grey

+eyes. And she moved gracefully, she seemed to have part with all

+pleasant and gracious things--"

+

+He stopped, and his face was downcast and hidden. Then he looked up

+at me and went on, making no further attempt to disguise his absolute

+belief in the reality of his story.

+

+"You see, I had thrown up my plans and ambitions, thrown up all

+I had ever worked for or desired for her sake. I had been a master

+man away there in the north, with influence and property and a great

+reputation, but none of it had seemed worth having beside her.

+I had come to the place, this city of sunny pleasures, with her,

+and left all those things to wreck and ruin just to save a remnant

+at least of my life. While I had been in love with her before I knew

+that she had any care for me, before I had imagined that she would

+dare--that we should dare, all my life had seemed vain and hollow,

+dust and ashes. It WAS dust and ashes. Night after night and through

+the long days I had longed and desired--my soul had beaten against

+the thing forbidden!

+

+"But it is impossible for one man to tell another just these things.

+It's emotion, it's a tint, a light that comes and goes. Only while

+it's there, everything changes, everything. The thing is I came

+away and left them in their Crisis to do what they could."

+

+"Left whom?" I asked, puzzled.

+

+"The people up in the north there. You see--in this dream, anyhow--

+I had been a big man, the sort of man men come to trust in, to group

+themselves about. Millions of men who had never seen me were ready

+to do things and risk things because of their confidence in me.

+I had been playing that game for years, that big laborious game,

+that vague, monstrous political game amidst intrigues and betrayals,

+speech and agitation. It was a vast weltering world, and at last

+I had a sort of leadership against the Gang--you know it was called

+the Gang--a sort of compromise of scoundrelly projects and base

+ambitions and vast public emotional stupidities and catchwords--

+the Gang that kept the world noisy and blind year by year, and all

+the while that it was drifting, drifting towards infinite disaster.

+But I can't expect you to understand the shades and complications

+of the year--the year something or other ahead. I had it all down

+to the smallest details--in my dream. I suppose I had been dreaming

+of it before I awoke, and the fading outline of some queer new

+development I had imagined still hung about me as I rubbed my eyes.

+It was some grubby affair that made me thank God for the sunlight.

+I sat up on the couch and remained looking at the woman and rejoicing--

+rejoicing that I had come away out of all that tumult and folly

+and violence before it was too late. After all, I thought, this

+is life--love and beauty, desire and delight, are they not worth

+all those dismal struggles for vague, gigantic ends? And I blamed

+myself for having ever sought to be a leader when I might have

+given my days to love. But then, thought I, if I had not spent

+my early days sternly and austerely, I might have wasted myself

+upon vain and worthless women, and at the thought all my being

+went out in love and tenderness to my dear mistress, my dear lady,

+who had come at last and compelled me--compelled me by her invincible

+charm for me--to lay that life aside.

+

+"'You are worth it,' I said, speaking without intending her to hear;

+'you are worth it, my dearest one; worth pride and praise and all

+things. Love! to have YOU is worth them all together.' And at

+the murmur of my voice she turned about.

+

+"'Come and see,' she cried--I can hear her now--'come and see

+the sunrise upon Monte Solaro.'

+

+"I remember how I sprang to my feet and joined her at the balcony.

+She put a white hand upon my shoulder and pointed towards great

+masses of limestone, flushing, as it were, into life. I looked.

+But first I noted the sunlight on her face caressing the lines

+of her cheeks and neck. How can I describe to you the scene we had

+before us? We were at Capri--"

+

+"I have been there," I said. "I have clambered up Monte Solaro

+and drunk vero Capri--muddy stuff like cider--at the summit."

+

+"Ah!" said the man with the white face; "then perhaps you can tell

+me--you will know if this was indeed Capri. For in this life I have

+never been there. Let me describe it. We were in a little room,

+one of a vast multitude of little rooms, very cool and sunny, hollowed

+out of the limestone of a sort of cape, very high above the sea.

+The whole island, you know, was one enormous hotel, complex beyond

+explaining, and on the other side there were miles of floating hotels,

+and huge floating stages to which the flying machines came. They

+called it a pleasure city. Of course, there was none of that in your

+time rather, I should say, IS none of that NOW. Of course. Now!--yes.

+

+"Well, this room of ours was at the extremity of the cape, so that

+one could see east and west. Eastward was a great cliff--a thousand

+feet high perhaps--coldly grey except for one bright edge of gold,

+and beyond it the Isle of the Sirens, and a falling coast that

+faded and passed into the hot sunrise. And when one turned to

+the west, distinct and near was a little bay, a little beach still

+in shadow. And out of that shadow rose Solaro straight and tall,

+flushed and golden crested, like a beauty throned, and the white

+moon was floating behind her in the sky. And before us from east to

+west stretched the many-tinted sea all dotted with little sailing

+boats.

+

+"To the eastward, of course, these little boats were grey and very

+minute and clear, but to the westward they were little boats of gold--

+shining gold--almost like little flames. And just below us was

+a rock with an arch worn through it. The blue sea-water broke

+to green and foam all round the rock, and a galley came gliding

+out of the arch."

+

+"I know that rock," I said. "I was nearly drowned there. It is called

+the Faraglioni."

+

+"I Faraglioni? Yes, she called it that," answered the man with

+the white face. "There was some story--but that--"

+

+He put his hand to his forehead again. "No," he said, "I forget

+that story."

+

+"Well, that is the first thing I remember, the first dream I had,

+that little shaded room and the beautiful air and sky and that

+dear lady of mine, with her shining arms and her graceful robe,

+and how we sat and talked in half whispers to one another. We talked

+in whispers not because there was any one to hear, but because there

+was still such a freshness of mind between us that our thoughts were

+a little frightened, I think, to find themselves at last in words.

+And so they went softly.

+

+"Presently we were hungry and we went from our apartment, going

+by a strange passage with a moving floor, until we came to the great

+breakfast room--there was a fountain and music. A pleasant and

+joyful place it was, with its sunlight and splashing, and the murmur

+of plucked strings. And we sat and ate and smiled at one another,

+and I would not heed a man who was watching me from a table near by.

+

+"And afterwards we went on to the dancing-hall. But I cannot

+describe that hall. The place was enormous--larger than any building

+you have ever seen--and in one place there was the old gate of Capri,

+caught into the wall of a gallery high overhead. Light girders,

+stems and threads of gold, burst from the pillars like fountains,

+streamed like an Aurora across the roof and interlaced, like--

+like conjuring tricks. All about the great circle for the dancers

+there were beautiful figures, strange dragons, and intricate and

+wonderful grotesques bearing lights. The place was inundated

+with artificial light that shamed the newborn day. And as we went

+through the throng the people turned about and looked at us, for

+all through the world my name and face were known, and how I had

+suddenly thrown up pride and struggle to come to this place. And

+they looked also at the lady beside me, though half the story of how

+at last she had come to me was unknown or mistold. And few of the

+men who were there, I know, but judged me a happy man, in spite

+of all the shame and dishonour that had come upon my name.

+

+"The air was full of music, full of harmonious scents, full of

+the rhythm of beautiful motions. Thousands of beautiful people

+swarmed about the hall, crowded the galleries, sat in a myriad

+recesses; they were dressed in splendid colours and crowned

+with flowers; thousands danced about the great circle beneath

+the white images of the ancient gods, and glorious processions

+of youths and maidens came and went. We two danced, not the dreary

+monotonies of your days--of this time, I mean--but dances that were

+beautiful, intoxicating. And even now I can see my lady dancing--

+dancing joyously. She danced, you know, with a serious face; she

+danced with a serious dignity, and yet she was smiling at me and

+caressing me--smiling and caressing with her eyes.

+

+"The music was different," he murmured. "It went--I cannot describe

+it; but it was infinitely richer and more varied than any music

+that has ever come to me awake.

+

+"And then--it was when we had done dancing--a man came to speak to

+me. He was a lean, resolute man, very soberly clad for that place,

+and already I had marked his face watching me in the breakfasting

+hall, and afterwards as we went along the passage I had avoided his

+eye. But now, as we sat in a little alcove, smiling at the pleasure

+of all the people who went to and fro across the shining floor, he

+came and touched me, and spoke to me so that I was forced to listen.

+And he asked that he might speak to me for a little time apart.

+

+"'No,' I said. 'I have no secrets from this lady. What do you want

+to tell me?'

+

+"He said it was a trivial matter, or at least a dry matter, for

+a lady to hear.

+

+"'Perhaps for me to hear,' said I.

+

+"He glanced at her, as though almost he would appeal to her. Then he

+asked me suddenly if I had heard of a great and avenging declaration

+that Evesham had made. Now, Evesham had always before been the man

+next to myself in the leadership of that great party in the north.

+He was a forcible, hard and tactless man, and only I had been able

+to control and soften him. It was on his account even more than

+my own, I think, that the others had been so dismayed at my retreat.

+So this question about what he had done reawakened my old interest

+in the life I had put aside just for a moment.

+

+"'I have taken no heed of any news for many days,' I said. 'What

+has Evesham been saying?'

+

+"And with that the man began, nothing loath, and I must confess

+even I was struck by Evesham's reckless folly in the wild and

+threatening words he had used. And this messenger they had sent

+to me not only told me of Evesham's speech, but went on to ask

+counsel and to point out what need they had of me. While he talked,

+my lady sat a little forward and watched his face and mine.

+

+"My old habits of scheming and organising reasserted themselves.

+I could even see myself suddenly returning to the north, and all

+the dramatic effect of it. All that this man said witnessed to

+the disorder of the party indeed, but not to its damage. I should

+go back stronger than I had come. And then I thought of my lady.

+You see--how can I tell you? There were certain peculiarities of our

+relationship--as things are I need not tell you about that--which

+would render her presence with me impossible. I should have had

+to leave her; indeed, I should have had to renounce her clearly

+and openly, if I was to do all that I could do in the north. And

+the man knew THAT, even as he talked to her and me, knew it as well

+as she did, that my steps to duty were--first, separation, then

+abandonment. At the touch of that thought my dream of a return

+was shattered. I turned on the man suddenly, as he was imagining

+his eloquence was gaining ground with me.

+

+"'What have I to do with these things now?' I said. 'I have done

+with them. Do you think I am coquetting with your people in coming

+here?'

+

+"'No,' he said; 'but--'

+

+"'Why cannot you leave me alone? I have done with these things.

+I have ceased to be anything but a private man.'

+

+"'Yes,' he answered. 'But have you thought?--this talk of war,

+these reckless challenges, these wild aggressions--'

+

+"I stood up.

+

+"'No,' I cried. 'I won't hear you. I took count of all those things,

+I weighed them--and I have come away.'

+

+"He seemed to consider the possibility of persistence. He looked

+from me to where the lady sat regarding us.

+

+"'War,' he said, as if he were speaking to himself, and then turned

+slowly from me and walked away.   I stood, caught in the whirl of

+thoughts his appeal had set going.

+

+"I heard my lady's voice.

+

+"'Dear,' she said; 'but if they have need of you--'

+

+"She did not finish her sentence, she let it rest there. I turned

+to her sweet face, and the balance of my mood swayed and reeled.

+

+"'They want me only to do the thing they dare not do themselves,' I

+said. 'If they distrust Evesham they must settle with him themselves.'

+

+"She looked at me doubtfully.

+

+"'But war--' she said.

+

+"I saw a doubt on her face that I had seen before, a doubt of herself

+and me, the first shadow of the discovery that, seen strongly and

+completely, must drive us apart for ever.

+

+"Now, I was an older mind than hers, and I could sway her to this

+belief or that.

+

+"'My dear one,' I said, 'you must not trouble over these things.

+There will be no war. Certainly there will be no war. The age

+of wars is past. Trust me to know the justice of this case. They

+have no right upon me, dearest, and no one has a right upon me.

+I have been free to choose my life, and I have chosen this.'

+

+"'But WAR--' she said.

+

+"I sat down beside her. I put an arm behind her and took her hand

+in mine. I set myself to drive that doubt away--I set myself to fill

+her mind with pleasant things again. I lied to her, and in lying

+to her I lied also to myself. And she was only too ready to believe

+me, only too ready to forget.

+

+"Very soon the shadow had gone again, and we were hastening to our

+bathing-place in the Grotta del Bovo Marino, where it was our custom

+to bathe every day. We swam and splashed one another, and in that

+buoyant water I seemed to become something lighter and stronger

+than a man. And at last we came out dripping and rejoicing and raced

+among the rocks. And then I put on a dry bathing-dress, and we sat

+to bask in the sun, and presently I nodded, resting my head against

+her knee, and she put her hand upon my hair and stroked it softly

+and I dozed. And behold! as it were with the snapping of the string

+of a violin, I was awakening, and I was in my own bed in Liverpool,

+in the life of to-day.

+

+"Only for a time I could not believe that all these vivid moments

+had been no more than the substance of a dream.

+

+"In truth, I could not believe it a dream for all the sobering

+reality of things about me. I bathed and dressed as it were by habit,

+and as I shaved I argued why I of all men should leave the woman

+I loved to go back to fantastic politics in the hard and strenuous

+north. Even if Evesham did force the world back to war, what was

+that to me? I was a man, with the heart of a man, and why should

+I feel the responsibility of a deity for the way the world might go?

+

+"You know that is not quite the way I think about affairs, about

+my real affairs. I am a solicitor, you know, with a point of view.

+

+"The vision was so real, you must understand, so utterly unlike

+a dream that I kept perpetually recalling little irrelevant details;

+even the ornament of a book-cover that lay on my wife's sewing-machine

+in the breakfast-room recalled with the utmost vividness the gilt

+line that ran about the seat in the alcove where I had talked with

+the messenger from my deserted party. Have you ever heard of

+a dream that had a quality like that?"

+

+"Like--?"

+

+"So that afterwards you remembered little details you had forgotten."

+

+I thought. I had never noticed the point before, but he was right.

+

+"Never," I said. "That is what you never seem to do with dreams."

+

+"No," he answered. "But that is just what I did. I am a solicitor,

+you must understand, in Liverpool, and I could not help wondering

+what the clients and business people I found myself talking to in

+my office would think if I told them suddenly I was in love with a

+girl who would be born a couple of hundred years or so hence, and

+worried about the politics of my great-great-great-grandchildren.

+I was chiefly busy that day negotiating a ninety-nine-year building

+lease. It was a private builder in a hurry, and we wanted to tie him

+in every possible way. I had an interview with him, and he showed a

+certain want of temper that sent me to bed still irritated. That night

+I had no dream. Nor did I dream the next night, at least, to remember.

+

+"Something of that intense reality of conviction vanished. I began

+to feel sure it WAS a dream. And then it came again.

+

+"When the dream came again, nearly four days later, it was very

+different. I think it certain that four days had also elapsed in

+the dream. Many things had happened in the north, and the shadow

+of them was back again between us, and this time it was not so

+easily dispelled. I began, I know, with moody musings. Why, inspite

+of all, should I go back, go back for all the rest of my days to toil

+and stress, insults and perpetual dissatisfaction, simply to save

+hundreds of millions of common people, whom I did not love, whom

+too often I could do no other than despise, from the stress and

+anguish of war and infinite misrule? And after all I might fail.

+THEY all sought their own narrow ends, and why should not I--why

+should not I also live as a man? And out of such thoughts her voice

+summoned me, and I lifted my eyes.

+

+"I found myself awake and walking. We had come out above the Pleasure

+City, we were near the summit of Monte Solaro and looking towards the

+bay. It was the late afternoon and very clear. Far away to the left

+Ischia hung in a golden haze between sea. and sky, and Naples was

+coldly white against the hills, and before us was Vesuvius with a

+tall and slender streamer feathering at last towards the south, and

+the ruins of Torre dell' Annunziata and Castellamare glittering and

+near."

+

+I interrupted suddenly: "You have been to Capri, of course?"

+

+"Only in this dream," he said, "only in this dream. All across

+the bay beyond Sorrento were the floating palaces of the Pleasure City

+moored and chained. And northward were the broad floating stages

+that received the aeroplanes. Aeroplanes fell out of the sky every

+afternoon, each bringing its thousands of pleasure-seekers from

+the uttermost parts of the earth to Capri and its delights. All

+these things, I say, stretched below.

+

+"But we noticed them only incidentally because of an unusual sight

+that evening had to show. Five war aeroplanes that had long slumbered

+useless in the distant arsenals of the Rhinemouth were manoeuvring

+now in the eastward sky. Evesham had astonished the world by

+producing them and others, and sending them to circle here and

+there. It was the threat material in the great game of bluff he was

+playing, and it had taken even me by surprise. He was one of those

+incredibly stupid energetic people who seem sent by Heaven to create

+disasters. His energy to the first glance seemed so wonderfully

+like capacity! But he had no imagination, no invention, only a stupid,

+vast, driving force of will, and a mad faith in his stupid idiot

+'luck' to pull him through. I remember how we stood out upon

+the headland watching the squadron circling far away, and how

+I weighed the full meaning of the sight, seeing clearly the way

+things must go. And then even it was not too late. I might have

+gone back, I think, and saved the world. The people of the north

+would follow me, I knew, granted only that in one thing I respected

+their moral standards. The east and south would trust me as they would

+trust no other northern man. And I knew I had only to put it to her

+and she would have let me go. . . . Not because she did not love me!

+

+"Only I did not want to go; my will was all the other way about.

+I had so newly thrown off the incubus of responsibility: I was still

+so fresh a renegade from duty that the daylight clearness of what

+I OUGHT to do had no power at all to touch my will. My will was

+to live, to gather pleasures and make my dear lady happy. But

+though this sense of vast neglected duties had no power to draw

+me, it could make me silent and preoccupied, it robbed the days I had

+spent of half their brightness and roused me into dark meditations

+in the silence of the night. And as I stood and watched Evesham's

+aeroplanes sweep to and fro--those birds of infinite ill omen--she

+stood beside me watching me, perceiving the trouble indeed, but not

+perceiving it clearly her eyes questioning my face, her expression

+shaded with perplexity. Her face was grey because the sunset was

+fading out of the sky. It was no fault of hers that she held me.

+She had asked me to go from her, and again in the night time and

+with tears she had asked me to go.

+

+"At last it was the sense of her that roused me from my mood. I

+turned upon her suddenly and challenged her to race down the mountain

+slopes. 'No,' she said, as if I jarred with her gravity, but I was

+resolved to end that gravity, and made her run--no one can be very

+grey and sad who is out of breath--and when she stumbled I ran with

+my hand beneath her arm. We ran down past a couple of men, who turned

+back staring in astonishment at my behaviour--they must have

+recognised my face. And halfway down the slope came a tumult in the

+air, clang-clank, clang-clank, and we stopped, and presently over the

+hill-crest those war things came flying one behind the other."

+

+The man seemed hesitating on the verge of a description.

+

+"What were they like?" I asked.

+

+"They had never fought," he said. "They were just like our ironclads

+are nowadays; they had never fought. No one knew what they might

+do, with excited men inside them; few even cared to speculate.

+They were great driving things shaped like spearheads without a shaft,

+with a propeller in the place of the shaft."

+

+"Steel?"

+

+"Not steel."

+

+"Aluminium?"

+

+"No, no, nothing of that sort. An alloy that was very common--as

+common as brass, for example. It was called--let me see--." He

+squeezed his forehead with the fingers of one hand. "I am forgetting

+everything," he said.

+

+"And they carried guns?"

+

+"Little guns, firing high explosive shells. They fired the guns

+backwards, out of the base of the leaf, so to speak, and rammed

+with the beak. That was the theory, you know, but they had never

+been fought. No one could tell exactly what was going to happen.

+And meanwhile I suppose it was very fine to go whirling through

+the air like a flight of young swallows, swift and easy. I guess

+the captains tried not to think too clearly what the real thing

+would be like. And these flying war machines, you know, were only

+one sort of the endless war contrivances that had been invented

+and had fallen into abeyance during the long peace. There were

+all sorts of these things that people were routing out and furbishing

+up; infernal things, silly things; things that had never been tried;

+big engines, terrible explosives, great guns. You know the silly way

+of these ingenious sort of men who make these things; they turn 'em

+out as beavers build dams, and with no more sense of the rivers

+they're going to divert and the lands they're going to flood!

+

+"As we went down the winding stepway to our hotel again, in the

+twilight, I foresaw it all: I saw how clearly and inevitably things

+were driving for war in Evesham's silly, violent hands, and I had some

+inkling of what war was bound to be under these new conditions. And

+even then, though I knew it was drawing near the limit of my

+opportunity, I could find no will to go back."

+

+He sighed.

+

+"That was my last chance.

+

+"We didn't go into the city until the sky was full of stars, so we

+walked out upon the high terrace, to and fro, and--she counselled

+me to go back.

+

+"'My dearest,' she said, and her sweet face looked up to me,

+'this is Death. This life you lead is Death. Go back to them,

+go back to your duty--.'

+

+"She began to weep, saying, between her sobs, and clinging to my arm

+as she said it, 'Go back--Go back.'

+

+"Then suddenly she fell mute, and, glancing down at her face, I read

+in an instant the thing she had thought to do. It was one of those

+moments when one SEES.

+

+"'No!' I said.

+

+"'No?' she asked, in surprise, and I think a little fearful at

+the answer to her thought.

+

+"'Nothing,' I said, 'shall send me back. Nothing! I have chosen.

+Love, I have chosen, and the world must go. Whatever happens

+I will live this life--I will live for YOU! It--nothing shall turn

+me aside; nothing, my dear one. Even if you died--even if you died--'

+

+"'Yes,' she murmured, softly.

+

+"'Then--I also would die.'

+

+"And before she could speak again I began to talk, talking eloquently--

+as I COULD do in that life--talking to exalt love, to make the life

+we were living seem heroic and glorious; and the thing I was

+deserting something hard and enormously ignoble that it was a fine

+thing to set aside. I bent all my mind to throw that glamour upon it,

+seeking not only to convert her but myself to that. We talked, and

+she clung to me, torn too between all that she deemed noble and all

+that she knew was sweet. And at last I did make it heroic, made

+all the thickening disaster of the world only a sort of glorious

+setting to our unparalleled love, and we two poor foolish souls

+strutted there at last, clad in that splendid delusion, drunken

+rather with that glorious delusion, under the still stars.

+

+"And so my moment passed.

+

+"It was my last chance. Even as we went to and fro there, the leaders

+of the south and east were gathering their resolve, and the hot

+answer that shattered Evesham's bluffing for ever, took shape

+and waited. And all over Asia, and the ocean, and the south, the air

+and the wires were throbbing with their warnings to prepare--prepare.

+

+"No one living, you know, knew what war was; no one could imagine,

+with all these new inventions, what horror war might bring. I believe

+most people still believed it would be a matter of bright uniforms

+and shouting charges and triumphs and flags and bands--in a time when

+half the world drew its food supply from regions ten thousand miles

+away--."

+

+The man with the white face paused. I glanced at him, and his face

+was intent on the floor of the carriage. A little railway station,

+a string of loaded trucks, a signal-box, and the back of a cottage,

+shot by the carriage window, and a bridge passed with a clap

+of noise, echoing the tumult of the train.

+

+"After that," he said, "I dreamt often. For three weeks of nights

+that dream was my life. And the worst of it was there were nights

+when I could not dream, when I lay tossing on a bed in THIS

+accursed life; and THERE--somewhere lost to me--things were

+happening--momentous, terrible things. . . . I lived at nights--my days,

+my waking days, this life I am living now, became a faded, far-away

+dream, a drab setting, the cover of the book."

+

+He thought.

+

+"I could tell you all, tell you every little thing in the dream,

+but as to what I did in the daytime--no. I could not tell--I do not

+remember. My memory--my memory has gone. The business of life

+slips from me--"

+

+He leant forward, and pressed his hands upon his eyes. For a long

+time he said nothing.

+

+"And then?" said I.

+

+"The war burst like a hurricane."

+

+He stared before him at unspeakable things.

+

+"And then?" I urged again.

+

+"One touch of unreality," he said, in the low tone of a man who

+speaks to himself, "and they would have been nightmares. But they

+were not nightmares--they were not nightmares. NO!"

+

+He was silent for so long that it dawned upon me that there was

+a danger of losing the rest of the story. But he went on talking

+again in the same tone of questioning self-communion.

+

+"What was there to do but flight? I had not thought the war would

+touch Capri--I had seemed to see Capri as being out of it all,

+as the contrast to it all; but two nights after the whole place

+was shouting and bawling, every woman almost and every other man

+wore a badge--Evesham's badge--and there was no music but a jangling

+war-song over and over again, and everywhere men enlisting, and in

+the dancing halls they were drilling. The whole island was awhirl

+with rumours; it was said, again and again, that fighting had begun.

+I had not expected this. I had seen so little of the life of pleasure

+that I had failed to reckon with this violence of the amateurs.

+And as for me, I was out of it. I was like a man who might have

+prevented the firing of a magazine. The time had gone. I was no one;

+the vainest stripling with a badge counted for more than I. The crowd

+jostled us and bawled in our ears; that accursed song deafened us;

+a woman shrieked at my lady because no badge was on her, and we

+two went back to our own place again, ruffled and insulted--

+my lady white and silent, and I aquiver with rage. So furious was I,

+I could have quarrelled with her if I could have found one shade

+of accusation in her eyes.

+

+"All my magnificence had gone from me. I walked up and down our rock

+cell, and outside was the darkling sea and a light to the southward

+that flared and passed and came again.

+

+"'We must get out of this place,' I said over and over. 'I have

+made my choice, and I will have no hand in these troubles. I will

+have nothing of this war. We have taken our lives out of all these

+things. This is no refuge for us. Let us go.'

+

+"And the next day we were already in flight from the war that covered

+the world.

+

+"And all the rest was Flight--all the rest was Flight."

+

+He mused darkly.

+

+"How much was there of it?"

+

+He made no answer.

+

+"How many days?"

+

+His face was white and drawn and his hands were clenched. He took

+no heed of my curiosity.

+

+I tried to draw him back to his story with questions.

+

+"Where did you go?" I said.

+

+"When?"

+

+"When you left Capri."

+

+"Southwest," he said, and glanced at me for a second. "We went

+in a boat."

+

+"But I should have thought an aeroplane?"

+

+"They had been seized."

+

+I questioned him no more. Presently I thought he was beginning

+again. He broke out in an argumentative monotone:

+

+"But why should it be? If, indeed, this battle, this slaughter and

+stress IS life, why have we this craving for pleasure and beauty?

+If there IS no refuge, if there is no place of peace, and if all

+our dreams of quiet places are a folly and a snare, why have we

+such dreams? Surely it was no ignoble cravings, no base intentions,

+had brought us to this; it was Love had isolated us. Love had come

+to me with her eyes and robed in her beauty, more glorious than all

+else in life, in the very shape and colour of life, and summoned me

+away. I had silenced all the voices, I had answered all the questions--

+I had come to her. And suddenly there was nothing but War and Death!"

+

+I had an inspiration. "After all," I said, "it could have been only a

+dream."

+

+"A dream!" he cried, flaming upon me, "a dream--when even now--"

+

+For the first time he became animated. A faint flush crept into

+his cheek. He raised his open hand and clenched it, and dropped

+it to his knee. He spoke, looking away from me, and for all the rest

+of the time he looked away. "We are but phantoms," he said, "and

+the phantoms of phantoms, desires like cloud shadows and wills

+of straw that eddy in the wind; the days pass, use and wont carry

+us through as a train carries the shadow of its lights, so be it!

+But one thing is real and certain, one thing is no dreamstuff,

+but eternal and enduring. It is the centre of my life, and all

+other things about it are subordinate or altogether vain. I loved

+her, that woman of a dream. And she and I are dead together!

+

+"A dream! How can it be a dream, when it drenched a living life

+with unappeasable sorrow, when it makes all that I have lived for

+and cared for, worthless and unmeaning?

+

+"Until that very moment when she was killed I believed we had still

+a chance of getting away," he said. "All through the night and

+morning that we sailed across the sea from Capri to Salerno,

+we talked of escape. We were full of hope, and it clung about us

+to the end, hope for the life together we should lead, out of

+it all, out of the battle and struggle, the wild and empty passions,

+the empty arbitrary 'thou shalt' and 'thou shalt not' of the world.

+We were uplifted, as though our quest was a holy thing, as though

+love for one another was a mission. . . .

+

+"Even when from our boat we saw the fair face of that great rock

+Capri--already scarred and gashed by the gun emplacements and

+hiding-places that were to make it a fastness--we reckoned nothing

+of the imminent slaughter, though the fury of preparation hung about

+in puffs and clouds of dust at a hundred points amidst the grey;

+but, indeed, I made a text of that and talked. There, you know,

+was the rock, still beautiful, for all its scars, with its countless

+windows and arches and ways, tier upon tier, for a thousand feet,

+a vast carving of grey, broken by vine-clad terraces, and lemon

+and orange groves, and masses of agave and prickly pear, and puffs

+of almond blossom. And out under the archway that is built over

+the Piccola Marina other boats were coming; and as we came round

+the cape and within sight of the mainland, another little string of

+boats came into view, driving before the wind towards the southwest.

+In a little while a multitude had come out, the remoter just little

+specks of ultramarine in the shadow of the eastward cliff.

+

+"'It is love and reason,' I said, 'fleeing from all this madness, of

+war.'

+

+"And though we presently saw a squadron of aeroplanes flying across

+the southern sky we did not heed it. There it was--a line of little

+dots in the sky--and then more, dotting the southeastern horizon,

+and then still more, until all that quarter of the sky was stippled

+with blue specks. Now they were all thin little strokes of blue,

+and now one and now a multitude would heel and catch the sun

+and become short flashes of light. They came rising and falling

+and growing larger, like some huge flight of gulls or rooks,

+or such-like birds moving with a marvellous uniformity, and ever

+as they drew nearer they spread over a greater width of sky.

+The southward wing flung itself in an arrow-headed cloud athwart

+the sun. And then suddenly they swept round to the eastward and

+streamed eastward, growing smaller and smaller and clearer and

+clearer again until they vanished from the sky. And after that we

+noted to the northward and very high Evesham's fighting machines

+hanging high over Naples like an evening swarm of gnats.

+

+"It seemed to have no more to do with us than a flight of birds.

+

+"Even the mutter of guns far away in the southeast seemed to us

+to signify nothing. . . .

+

+"Each day, each dream after that, we were still exalted, still

+seeking that refuge where we might live and love. Fatigue had

+come upon us, pain and many distresses. For though we were dusty

+and stained by our toilsome tramping, and half starved and with the

+horror of the dead men we had seen and the flight of the peasants--

+for very soon a gust of fighting swept up the peninsula--with these

+things haunting our minds it still resulted only in a deepening

+resolution to escape. O, but she was brave and patient! She who had

+never faced hardship and exposure had courage for herself--and me.

+We went to and fro seeking an outlet, over a country all commandeered

+and ransacked by the gathering hosts of war. Always we went on foot.

+At first there were other fugitives, but we did not mingle with them.

+Some escaped northward, some were caught in the torrent of peasantry

+that swept along the main roads; many gave themselves into the hands

+of the soldiery and were sent northward. Many of the men were

+impressed. But we kept away from these things; we had brought no

+money to bribe a passage north, and I feared for my lady at the hands

+of these conscript crowds. We had landed at Salerno, and we had

+been turned back from Cava, and we had tried to cross towards

+Taranto by a pass over Mount Alburno, but we had been driven back

+for want of food, and so we had come down among the marshes by Paestum,

+where those great temples stand alone. I had some vague idea that

+by Paestum it might be possible to find a boat or something, and take

+once more to sea. And there it was the battle overtook us.

+

+"A sort of soul-blindness had me. Plainly I could see that we were

+being hemmed in; that the great net of that giant Warfare had us in

+its toils. Many times we had seen the levies that had come down from

+the north going to and fro, and had come upon them in the distance

+amidst the mountains making ways for the ammunition and preparing

+the mounting of the guns. Once we fancied they had fired at us,

+taking us for spies--at any rate a shot had gone shuddering over us.

+Several times we had hidden in woods from hovering aeroplanes.

+

+"But all these things do not matter now, these nights of flight

+and pain. . . . We were in an open place near those great temples

+at Paestum, at last, on a blank stony place dotted with spiky

+bushes, empty and desolate and so flat that a grove of eucalyptus

+far away showed to the feet of its stems. How I can see it! My lady

+was sitting down under a bush, resting a little, for she was very

+weak and weary, and I was standing up watching to see if I could

+tell the distance of the firing that came and went. They were still,

+you know, fighting far from each other, with those terrible new

+weapons that had never before been used: guns that would carry

+beyond sight, and aeroplanes that would do--What THEY would do

+no man could foretell.

+

+"I knew that we were between the two armies, and that they drew

+together. I knew we were in danger, and that we could not stop there

+and rest!

+

+"Though all these things were in my mind, they were in the background.

+They seemed to be affairs beyond our concern. Chiefly, I was thinking

+of my lady. An aching distress filled me. For the first time she

+had owned herself beaten and had fallen a-weeping. Behind me

+I could hear her sobbing, but I would not turn round to her because

+I knew she had need of weeping, and had held herself so far and

+so long for me. It was well, I thought, that she would weep and

+rest and then we would toil on again, for I had no inkling of the thing

+that hung so near. Even now I can see her as she sat there, her

+lovely hair upon her shoulder, can mark again the deepening hollow

+of her cheek.

+

+"'If we had parted,' she said, "if I had let you go.'

+

+"'No,' said I. 'Even now, I do not repent. I will not repent;

+I made my choice, and I will hold on to the end."

+

+"And then--

+

+"Overhead in the sky something flashed and burst, and all about

+us I heard the bullets making a noise like a handful of peas

+suddenly thrown. They chipped the stones about us, and whirled

+fragments from the bricks and passed. . . ."

+

+He put his hand to his mouth, and then moistened his lips.

+

+"At the flash I had turned about. . . .

+

+"You know--she stood up--

+

+"She stood up; you know, and moved a step towards me--

+

+"As though she wanted to reach me--

+

+"And she had been shot through the heart."

+

+He stopped and stared at me. I felt all that foolish incapacity

+an Englishman feels on such occasions. I met his eyes for a moment,

+and then stared out of the window. For a long space we kept silence.

+When at last I looked at him he was sitting back in his corner,

+his arms folded, and his teeth gnawing at his knuckles.

+

+He bit his nail suddenly, and stared at it.

+

+"I carried her," he said, "towards the temples, in my arms--as though

+it mattered. I don't know why. They seemed a sort of sanctuary, you

+know, they had lasted so long, I suppose.

+

+"She must have died almost instantly. Only--I talked to her--all the

+way."

+

+Silence again.

+

+"I have seen those temples," I said abruptly, and indeed he had brought

+those still, sunlit arcades of worn sandstone very vividly before me.

+

+"It was the brown one, the big brown one. I sat down on a fallen pillar

+and held her in my arms. . . . Silent after the first babble was over.

+And after a little while the lizards came out and ran about again,

+as though nothing unusual was going on, as though nothing had

+changed. . . . It was tremendously still there, the sun high, and the

+shadows still; even the shadows of the weeds upon the entablature were

+still--in spite of the thudding and banging that went all about the sky.

+

+"I seem to remember that the aeroplanes came up out of the south,

+and that the battle went away to the west. One aeroplane was struck,

+and overset and fell. I remember that--though it didn't interest me

+in the least. It didn't seem to signify. It was like a wounded gull,

+you know--flapping for a time in the water. I could see it down

+the aisle of the temple--a black thing in the bright blue water.

+

+"Three or four times shells burst about the beach, and then that

+ceased. Each time that happened all the lizards scuttled in and hid

+for a space. That was all the mischief done, except that once a stray

+bullet gashed the stone hard by--made just a fresh bright surface.

+

+"As the shadows grew longer, the stillness seemed greater.

+

+"The curious thing," he remarked, with the manner of a man who

+makes a trivial conversation, "is that I didn't THINK--I didn't

+think at all. I sat with her in my arms amidst the stones--in a sort

+of lethargy--stagnant.

+

+"And I don't remember waking up. I don't remember dressing that day.

+I know I found myself in my office, with my letters all slit open

+in front of me, and how I was struck by the absurdity of being

+there, seeing that in reality I was sitting, stunned, in that Paestum

+temple with a dead woman in my arms. I read my letters like a machine.

+I have forgotten what they were about."

+

+He stopped, and there was a long silence.

+

+Suddenly I perceived that we were running down the incline from

+Chalk Farm to Euston. I started at this passing of time. I turned

+on him with a brutal question, with the tone of Now or never.

+

+"And did you dream again?"

+

+"Yes."

+

+He seemed to force himself to finish. His voice was very low.

+

+"Once more, and as it were only for a few instants. I seemed

+to have suddenly awakened out of a great apathy, to have risen

+into a sitting position, and the body lay there on the stones beside

+me. A gaunt body. Not her, you know. So soon--it was not her. . . .

+

+"I may have heard voices. I do not know. Only I knew clearly that

+men were coming into the solitude and that that was a last outrage.

+

+"I stood up and walked through the temple, and then there came into

+sight--first one man with a yellow face, dressed in a uniform

+of dirty white, trimmed with blue, and then several, climbing

+to the crest of the old wall of the vanished city, and crouching

+there. They were little bright figures in the sunlight, and there

+they hung, weapon in hand, peering cautiously before them.

+

+"And further away I saw others and then more at another point

+in the wall. It was a long lax line of men in open order.

+

+"Presently the man I had first seen stood up and shouted a command,

+and his men came tumbling down the wall and into the high weeds

+towards the temple. He scrambled down with them and led them.

+He came facing towards me, and when he saw me he stopped.

+

+"At first I had watched these men with a mere curiosity, but when

+I had seen they meant to come to the temple I was moved to forbid

+them. I shouted to the officer.

+

+"'You must not come here,' I cried, '_I_ am here. I am here with my

+dead.'

+

+"He stared, and then shouted a question back to me in some unknown

+tongue.

+

+"I repeated what I had said.

+

+"He shouted again, and I folded my arms and stood still. Presently

+he spoke to his men and came forward. He carried a drawn sword.

+

+"I signed to him to keep away, but he continued to advance. I told

+him again very patiently and clearly: 'You must not come here.

+These are old temples and I am here with my dead.'

+

+"Presently he was so close I could see his face clearly. It was

+a narrow face, with dull grey eyes, and a black moustache. He had

+a scar on his upper lip, and he was dirty and unshaven. He kept

+shouting unintelligible things, questions perhaps, at me.

+

+"I know now that he was afraid of me, but at the time that did not

+occur to me. As I tried to explain to him he interrupted me in

+imperious tones, bidding me, I suppose, stand aside.

+

+"He made to go past me, And I caught hold of him.

+

+"I saw his face change at my grip.

+

+"'You fool,' I cried. 'Don't you know? She is dead!'

+

+"He started back. He looked at me with cruel eyes. I saw a sort

+of exultant resolve leap into them--delight. Then, suddenly,

+with a scowl, he swept his sword back--SO--and thrust."

+

+He stopped abruptly. I became aware of a change in the rhythm

+of the train. The brakes lifted their voices and the carriage

+jarred and jerked. This present world insisted upon itself, became

+clamorous. I saw through the steamy window huge electric lights

+glaring down from tall masts upon a fog, saw rows of stationary

+empty carriages passing by, and then a signal-box, hoisting its

+constellation of green and red into the murky London twilight marched

+after them. I looked again at his drawn features.

+

+"He ran me through the heart. It was with a sort of astonishment--

+no fear, no pain--but just amazement, that I felt it pierce me,

+felt the sword drive home into my body. It didn't hurt, you know.

+It didn't hurt at all."

+

+The yellow platform lights came into the field of view, passing

+first rapidly, then slowly, and at last stopping with a jerk.

+Dim shapes of men passed to and fro without.

+

+"Euston!" cried a voice.

+

+"Do you mean--?"

+

+"There was no pain, no sting or smart. Amazement and then darkness

+sweeping over everything. The hot, brutal face before me, the face

+of the man who had killed me, seemed to recede. It swept out of

+existence--"

+

+"Euston!" clamoured the voices outside; "Euston!"

+

+The carriage door opened, admitting a flood of sound, and a porter

+stood regarding us. The sounds of doors slamming, and the hoof-clatter

+of cab-horses, and behind these things the featureless remote roar

+of the London cobble-stones, came to my ears. A truckload of lighted

+lamps blazed along the platform.

+

+"A darkness, a flood of darkness that opened and spread and blotted

+out all things."

+

+"Any luggage, sir?" said the porter.

+

+"And that was the end?" I asked.

+

+He seemed to hesitate. Then, almost inaudibly, he answered, "No."

+

+"You mean?"

+

+"I couldn't get to her. She was there on the other side of the Temple--

+And then--"

+

+"Yes," I insisted. "Yes?"

+

+"Nightmares," he cried; "nightmares indeed! My God! Great birds

+that fought and tore."

+

+

+

+

+

+End of the Project Gutenberg etext of Twelve Stories and a Dream by H.G.

+Wells

+

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+<h1>Project Gutenberg Etext of Twelve Stories and a Dream
+by H. G. Wells</h1>
+<h2>#17 in our series by H. G. Wells</h2>
+
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+Twelve Stories and a Dream
+
+by H. G. Wells
+
+May, 1999  [Etext #1743]
+
+Etext scanned by Aaron Cannon, formatted and proofed by
+Stephanie Johnson
+</pre>
+<p></p>
+<p></p>
+<p>
+  TWELVE STORIES AND A DREAM</p>
+<p>BY H. G. WELLS</p>
+<p>
+  CONTENTS</p>
+<p>1. Filmer</p>
+<p>2. The Magic Shop</p>
+<p>3. The Valley of Spiders</p>
+<p>4. The Truth About Pyecraft</p>
+<p>5. Mr. Skelmersdale in Fairyland</p>
+<p>6. The Story of the Inexperienced Ghost</p>
+<p>7. Jimmy Goggles the God</p>
+<p>8. The New Accelerator</p>
+<p>9. Mr. Ledbetter's Vacation</p>
+<p>10. The Stolen Body</p>
+<p>11. Mr. Brisher's Treasure</p>
+<p>12. Miss Winchelsea's Heart</p>
+<p>13. A Dream of Armageddon</p>
+<p></p>
+<p>
+  1. FILMER</p>
+<p>In truth the mastery of flying was the work of thousands of men-- this man 
+  a suggestion and that an experiment, until at last only one vigorous intellectual 
+  effort was needed to finish the work. But the inexorable injustice of the popular 
+  mind has decided that of all these thousands, one man, and that a man who never 
+  flew, should be chosen as the discoverer, just as it has chosen to honour Watt 
+  as the discoverer of steam and Stephenson of the steam-engine. And surely of 
+  all honoured names none is so grotesquely and tragically honoured as poor Filmer's, 
+  the timid, intellectual creature who solved the problem over which the world 
+  had hung perplexed and a little fearful for so many generations, the man who 
+  pressed the button that has changed peace and warfare and well-nigh every condition 
+  of human life and happiness. Never has that recurring wonder of the littleness 
+  of the scientific man in the face of the greatness of his science found such 
+  an amazing exemplification. Much concerning Filmer is, and must remain, profoundly 
+  obscure--Filmers attract no Boswells--but the essential facts and the concluding 
+  scene are clear enough, and there are letters, and notes, and casual allusions 
+  to piece the whole together. And this is the story one makes, putting this thing 
+  with that, of Filmer's life and death. </p>
+<p>The first authentic trace of Filmer on the page of history is
+  a document in which he applies for admission as a paid student
+  in physics to the Government laboratories at South Kensington,
+  and therein he describes himself as the son of a &quot;military bootmaker&quot;
+  (&quot;cobbler&quot; in the vulgar tongue) of Dover, and lists his various
+  examination proofs of a high proficiency in chemistry and
+  mathematics. With a certain want of dignity he seeks to enhance
+  these attainments by a profession of poverty and disadvantages,
+  and he writes of the laboratory as the &quot;gaol&quot; of his ambitions,
+  a slip which reinforces his claim to have devoted himself exclusively
+  to the exact sciences. The document is endorsed in a manner that
+  shows Filmer was admitted to this coveted opportunity; but until
+  quite recently no traces of his success in the Government institution
+  could be found.</p>
+<p>It has now, however, been shown that in spite of his professed zeal
+  for research, Filmer, before he had held this scholarship a year,
+  was tempted, by the possibility of a small increase in his immediate
+  income, to abandon it in order to become one of the nine-pence-an-hour
+  computers employed by a well-known Professor in his vicarious
+  conduct of those extensive researches of his in solar physics--researches
+  which are still a matter of perplexity to astronomers. Afterwards,
+  for the space of seven years, save for the pass lists of the
+  London University, in which he is seen to climb slowly to a double
+  first class B.Sc., in mathematics and chemistry, there is no evidence
+  of how Filmer passed his life. No one knows how or where he lived,
+  though it seems highly probable that he continued to support
+  himself by teaching while he prosecuted the studies necessary for
+  this distinction. And then, oddly enough, one finds him mentioned
+  in the correspondence of Arthur Hicks, the poet.</p>
+<p>&quot;You remember Filmer,&quot; Hicks writes to his friend Vance; &quot;well,
+  HE hasn't altered a bit, the same hostile mumble and the nasty
+  chin--how CAN a man contrive to be always three days from shaving?
+  -- and a sort of furtive air of being engaged in sneaking in front
+  of one; even his coat and that frayed collar of his show no further
+  signs of the passing years. He was writing in the library and
+  I sat down beside him in the name of God's charity, whereupon
+  he deliberately insulted me by covering up his memoranda. It seems
+  he has some brilliant research on hand that he suspects me of all
+  people--with a Bodley Booklet a-printing!--of stealing. He has taken
+  remarkable honours at the University--he went through them with
+  a sort of hasty slobber, as though he feared I might interrupt him
+  before he had told me all--and he spoke of taking his D.Sc. as one
+  might speak of taking a cab. And he asked what I was doing--with
+  a sort of comparative accent, and his arm was spread nervously,
+  positively a protecting arm, over the paper that hid the precious
+  idea--his one hopeful idea.</p>
+<p>&quot;'Poetry,' he said, 'Poetry. And what do you profess to teach
+  in it, Hicks?'</p>
+<p>&quot;The thing's a Provincial professorling in the very act of budding,
+  and I thank the Lord devoutly that but for the precious gift
+  of indolence I also might have gone this way to D.Sc. and
+  destruction . . .&quot;</p>
+<p>A curious little vignette that I am inclined to think caught Filmer
+  in or near the very birth of his discovery. Hicks was wrong in
+  anticipating a provincial professorship for Filmer. Our next glimpse
+  of him is lecturing on &quot;rubber and rubber substitutes,&quot; to the
+  Society of Arts--he had become manager to a great plastic-substance
+  manufactory--and at that time, it is now known, he was a member
+  of the Aeronautical Society, albeit he contributed nothing to the
+  discussions of that body, preferring no doubt to mature his great
+  conception without external assistance. And within two years
+  of that paper before the Society of Arts he was hastily taking out
+  a number of patents and proclaiming in various undignified ways
+  the completion of the divergent inquiries which made his flying
+  machine possible. The first definite statement to that effect
+  appeared in a halfpenny evening paper through the agency of a man
+  who lodged in the same house with Filmer. His final haste after
+  his long laborious secret patience seems to have been due to
+  a needless panic, Bootle, the notorious American scientific quack,
+  having made an announcement that Filmer interpreted wrongly as
+  an anticipation of his idea.</p>
+<p>Now what precisely was Filmer's idea? Really a very simple one.
+  Before his time the pursuit of aeronautics had taken two divergent
+  lines, and had developed on the one hand balloons--large apparatus
+  lighter than air, easy in ascent, and comparatively safe in descent,
+  but floating helplessly before any breeze that took them; and on
+  the other, flying machines that flew only in theory--vast flat
+  structures heavier than air, propelled and kept up by heavy engines
+  and for the most part smashing at the first descent. But, neglecting
+  the fact that the inevitable final collapse rendered them impossible,
+  the weight of the flying machines gave them this theoretical
+  advantage, that they could go through the air against a wind,
+  a necessary condition if aerial navigation was to have any practical
+  value. It is Filmer's particular merit that he perceived the way
+  in which the contrasted and hitherto incompatible merits of balloon
+  and heavy flying machine might be combined in one apparatus,
+  which should be at choice either heavier or lighter than air.
+  He took hints from the contractile bladders of fish and the pneumatic
+  cavities of birds. He devised an arrangement of contractile
+  and absolutely closed balloons which when expanded could lift
+  the actual flying apparatus with ease, and when retracted by the
+  complicated &quot;musculature&quot; he wove about them, were withdrawn
+  almost completely into the frame; and he built the large framework
+  which these balloons sustained, of hollow, rigid tubes, the air
+  in which, by an ingenious contrivance, was automatically pumped
+  out as the apparatus fell, and which then remained exhausted
+  so long as the aeronaut desired. There were no wings or propellers
+  to his machine, such as there had been to all previous aeroplanes,
+  and the only engine required was the compact and powerful little
+  appliance needed to contract the balloons. He perceived that such
+  an apparatus as he had devised might rise with frame exhausted
+  and balloons expanded to a considerable height, might then contract
+  its balloons and let the air into its frame, and by an adjustment
+  of its weights slide down the air in any desired direction. As it fell
+  it would accumulate velocity and at the same time lose weight,
+  and the momentum accumulated by its down-rush could be utilised
+  by means of a shifting of its weights to drive it up in the air again
+  as the balloons expanded. This conception, which is still the
+  structural conception of all successful flying machines, needed,
+  however, a vast amount of toil upon its details before it could
+  actually be realised, and such toil Filmer--as he was accustomed
+  to tell the numerous interviewers who crowded upon him in
+  the heyday of his fame--&quot;ungrudgingly and unsparingly gave.&quot;
+  His particular difficulty was the elastic lining of the contractile
+  balloon. He found he needed a new substance, and in the discovery
+  and manufacture of that new substance he had, as he never failed
+  to impress upon the interviewers, &quot;performed a far more arduous
+  work than even in the actual achievement of my seemingly greater
+  discovery.&quot;</p>
+<p>But it must not be imagined that these interviews followed hard
+  upon Filmer's proclamation of his invention. An interval of nearly
+  five years elapsed during which he timidly remained at his rubber
+  factory--he seems to have been entirely dependent on his small
+  income from this source--making misdirected attempts to assure
+  a quite indifferent public that he really HAD invented what he had
+  invented. He occupied the greater part of his leisure in the
+  composition of letters to the scientific and daily press, and
+  so forth, stating precisely the net result of his contrivances,
+  and demanding financial aid. That alone would have sufficed for
+  the suppression of his letters. He spent such holidays as he could
+  arrange in unsatisfactory interviews with the door-keepers of
+  leading London papers--he was singularly not adapted for inspiring
+  hall-porters with confidence--and he positively attempted to induce
+  the War Office to take up his work with him. There remains a
+  confidential letter from Major-General Volleyfire to the Earl of Frogs.
+  &quot;The man's a crank and a bounder to boot,&quot; says the Major-General
+  in his bluff, sensible, army way, and so left it open for the Japanese
+  to secure, as they subsequently did, the priority in this side
+  of warfare--a priority they still to our great discomfort retain.</p>
+<p>And then by a stroke of luck the membrane Filmer had invented for his
+  contractile balloon was discovered to be useful for the valves
+  of a new oil-engine, and he obtained the means for making a trial
+  model of his invention. He threw up his rubber factory appointment,
+  desisted from all further writing, and, with a certain secrecy
+  that seems to have been an inseparable characteristic of all his
+  proceedings, set to work upon the apparatus. He seems to have
+  directed the making of its parts and collected most of it in a room
+  in Shoreditch, but its final putting together was done at Dymchurch,
+  in Kent. He did not make the affair large enough to carry a man,
+  but he made an extremely ingenious use of what were then called
+  the Marconi rays to control its flight. The first flight of this
+  first practicable flying machine took place over some fields
+  near Burford Bridge, near Hythe, in Kent, and Filmer followed
+  and controlled its flight upon a specially constructed motor tricycle.</p>
+<p>The flight was, considering all things, an amazing success. The apparatus was 
+  brought in a cart from Dymchurch to Burford Bridge, ascended there to a height 
+  of nearly three hundred feet, swooped thence very nearly back to Dymchurch, 
+  came about in its sweep, rose again, circled, and finally sank uninjured in 
+  a field behind the Burford Bridge Inn. At its descent a curious thing happened. 
+  Filmer got off his tricycle, scrambled over the intervening dyke, advanced perhaps 
+  twenty yards towards his triumph, threw out his arms in a strange gesticulation, 
+  and fell down in a dead faint. Every one could then recall the ghastliness of 
+  his features and all the evidences of extreme excitement they had observed throughout 
+  the trial, things they might otherwise have forgotten. Afterwards in the inn 
+  he had an unaccountable gust of hysterical weeping. </p>
+<p>Altogether there were not twenty witnesses of this affair, and 
+  those for the most part uneducated men. The New Romney doctor
+  saw the ascent but not the descent, his horse being frightened
+  by the electrical apparatus on Filmer's tricycle and giving him
+  a nasty spill. Two members of the Kent constabulary watched
+  the affair from a cart in an unofficial spirit, and a grocer calling
+  round the Marsh for orders and two lady cyclists seem almost
+  to complete the list of educated people. There were two reporters
+  present, one representing a Folkestone paper and the other being
+  a fourth-class interviewer and &quot;symposium&quot; journalist, whose
+  expenses down, Filmer, anxious as ever for adequate advertisement
+  --and now quite realising the way in which adequate advertisement
+  may be obtained--had paid. The latter was one of those writers
+  who can throw a convincing air of unreality over the most credible
+  events, and his half-facetious account of the affair appeared
+  in the magazine page of a popular journal. But, happily for Filmer,
+  this person's colloquial methods were more convincing. He went
+  to offer some further screed upon the subject to Banghurst,
+  the proprietor of the New Paper, and one of the ablest and most
+  unscrupulous men in London journalism, and Banghurst instantly
+  seized upon the situation. The interviewer vanishes from the narrative,
+  no doubt very doubtfully remunerated, and Banghurst, Banghurst himself,
+  double chin, grey twill suit, abdomen, voice, gestures and all,
+  appears at Dymchurch, following his large, unrivalled journalistic nose.
+  He had seen the whole thing at a glance, just what it was and
+  what it might be.</p>
+<p>At his touch, as it were, Filmer's long-pent investigations exploded
+  into fame. He instantly and most magnificently was a Boom. One turns
+  over the files of the journals of the year 1907 with a quite incredulous
+  recognition of how swift and flaming the boom of those days could be.
+  The July papers know nothing of flying, see nothing in flying,
+  state by a most effective silence that men never would, could or
+  should fly. In August flying and Filmer and flying and parachutes
+  and aerial tactics and the Japanese Government and Filmer and again
+  flying, shouldered the war in Yunnan and the gold mines of
+  Upper Greenland off the leading page. And Banghurst had given
+  ten thousand pounds, and, further, Banghurst was giving five thousand
+  pounds, and Banghurst had devoted his well-known, magnificent
+  (but hitherto sterile) private laboratories and several acres of land
+  near his private residence on the Surrey hills to the strenuous
+  and violent completion--Banghurst fashion--of the life-size
+  practicable flying machine. Meanwhile, in the sight of privileged
+  multitudes in the walled-garden of the Banghurst town residence
+  in Fulham, Filmer was exhibited at weekly garden parties putting
+  the working model through its paces. At enormous initial cost,
+  but with a final profit, the New Paper presented its readers
+  with a beautiful photographic souvenir of the first of these occasions.</p>
+<p>Here again the correspondence of Arthur Hicks and his friend Vance
+  comes to our aid.</p>
+<p>&quot;I saw Filmer in his glory,&quot; he writes, with just the touch of envy
+  natural to his position as a poet passe. &quot;The man is brushed
+  and shaved, dressed in the fashion of a Royal-Institution-Afternoon
+  Lecturer, the very newest shape in frock-coats and long patent shoes,
+  and altogether in a state of extraordinary streakiness between
+  an owlish great man and a scared abashed self-conscious bounder
+  cruelly exposed. He hasn't a touch of colour in the skin of his face,
+  his head juts forward, and those queer little dark amber eyes of his
+  watch furtively round him for his fame. His clothes fit perfectly
+  and yet sit upon him as though he had bought them ready-made.
+  He speaks in a mumble still, but he says, you perceive indistinctly,
+  enormous self-assertive things, he backs into the rear of groups
+  by instinct if Banghurst drops the line for a minute, and when
+  he walks across Banghurst's lawn one perceives him a little out
+  of breath and going jerky, and that his weak white hands are clenched.
+  His is a state of tension--horrible tension. And he is the Greatest
+  Discoverer of This or Any Age--the Greatest Discoverer of This
+  or Any Age! What strikes one so forcibly about him is that he didn't
+  somehow quite expect it ever, at any rate, not at all like this.
+  Banghurst is about everywhere, the energetic M.C. of his great
+  little catch, and I swear he will have every one down on his lawn
+  there before he has finished with the engine; he had bagged
+  the prime minister yesterday, and he, bless his heart! didn't look
+  particularly outsize, on the very first occasion. Conceive it! Filmer!
+  Our obscure unwashed Filmer, the Glory of British science!
+  Duchesses crowd upon him, beautiful, bold peeresses say in their
+  beautiful, clear loud voices--have you noticed how penetrating
+  the great lady is becoming nowadays?--'Oh, Mr. Filmer, how DID
+  you do it?'</p>
+<p>&quot;Common men on the edge of things are too remote for the answer.
+  One imagines something in the way of that interview, 'toil ungrudgingly
+  and unsparingly given, Madam, and, perhaps--I don't know--but perhaps
+  a little special aptitude.'&quot;</p>
+<p>So far Hicks, and the photographic supplement to the New Paper is in
+  sufficient harmony with the description. In one picture the machine
+  swings down towards the river, and the tower of Fulham church
+  appears below it through a gap in the elms, and in another, Filmer
+  sits at his guiding batteries, and the great and beautiful of the earth
+  stand around him, with Banghurst massed modestly but resolutely
+  in the rear. The grouping is oddly apposite. Occluding much of
+  Banghurst, and looking with a pensive, speculative expression
+  at Filmer, stands the Lady Mary Elkinghorn, still beautiful,
+  in spite of the breath of scandal and her eight-and-thirty years,
+  the only person whose face does not admit a perception of the camera
+  that was in the act of snapping them all.</p>
+<p>So much for the exterior facts of the story, but, after all,
+  they are very exterior facts. About the real interest of the business
+  one is necessarily very much in the dark. How was Filmer feeling
+  at the time? How much was a certain unpleasant anticipation present
+  inside that very new and fashionable frock-coat? He was in the
+  halfpenny, penny, six-penny, and more expensive papers alike,
+  and acknowledged by the whole world as &quot;the Greatest Discoverer
+  of This or Any Age.&quot; He had invented a practicable flying machine,
+  and every day down among the Surrey hills the life-sized model
+  was getting ready. And when it was ready, it followed as a clear
+  inevitable consequence of his having invented and made it--everybody
+  in the world, indeed, seemed to take it for granted; there wasn't
+  a gap anywhere in that serried front of anticipation--that he would
+  proudly and cheerfully get aboard it, ascend with it, and fly.</p>
+<p>But we know now pretty clearly that simple pride and cheerfulness
+  in such an act were singularly out of harmony with Filmer's private
+  constitution. It occurred to no one at the time, but there the fact is.
+  We can guess with some confidence now that it must have been
+  drifting about in his mind a great deal during the day, and, from
+  a little note to his physician complaining of persistent insomnia,
+  we have the soundest reason for supposing it dominated his nights,
+  --the idea that it would be after all, in spite of his theoretical
+  security, an abominably sickening, uncomfortable, and dangerous
+  thing for him to flap about in nothingness a thousand feet or so
+  in the air. It must have dawned upon him quite early in the period
+  of being the Greatest Discoverer of This or Any Age, the vision
+  of doing this and that with an extensive void below. Perhaps
+  somewhen in his youth he had looked down a great height or fallen
+  down in some excessively uncomfortable way; perhaps some habit of
+  sleeping on the wrong side had resulted in that disagreeable falling
+  nightmare one knows, and given him his horror; of the strength
+  of that horror there remains now not a particle of doubt.</p>
+<p>Apparently he had never weighed this duty of flying in his earlier
+  days of research; the machine had been his end, but now things
+  were opening out beyond his end, and particularly this giddy whirl
+  up above there. He was a Discoverer and he had Discovered.
+  But he was not a Flying Man, and it was only now that he was beginning
+  to perceive clearly that he was expected to fly. Yet, however much
+  the thing was present in his mind he gave no expression to it until
+  the very end, and meanwhile he went to and fro from Banghurst's
+  magnificent laboratories, and was interviewed and lionised, and
+  wore good clothes, and ate good food, and lived in an elegant flat,
+  enjoying a very abundant feast of such good, coarse, wholesome
+  Fame and Success as a man, starved for all his years as he had been
+  starved, might be reasonably expected to enjoy.</p>
+<p>After a time, the weekly gatherings in Fulham ceased. The model
+  had failed one day just for a moment to respond to Filmer's guidance,
+  or he had been distracted by the compliments of an archbishop.
+  At any rate, it suddenly dug its nose into the air just a little
+  too steeply as the archbishop was sailing through a Latin quotation
+  for all the world like an archbishop in a book, and it came down
+  in the Fulham Road within three yards of a 'bus horse. It stood
+  for a second perhaps, astonishing and in its attitude astonished,
+  then it crumpled, shivered into pieces, and the 'bus horse was
+  incidentally killed.</p>
+<p>Filmer lost the end of the archiepiscopal compliment. He stood up
+  and stared as his invention swooped out of sight and reach of him.
+  His long, white hands still gripped his useless apparatus.
+  The archbishop followed his skyward stare with an apprehension
+  unbecoming in an archbishop.</p>
+<p>Then came the crash and the shouts and uproar from the road
+  to relieve Filmer's tension. &quot;My God!&quot; he whispered, and sat down.</p>
+<p>Every one else almost was staring to see where the machine had
+  vanished, or rushing into the house.</p>
+<p>The making of the big machine progressed all the more rapidly
+  for this. Over its making presided Filmer, always a little slow
+  and very careful in his manner, always with a growing preoccupation
+  in his mind. His care over the strength and soundness of the apparatus
+  was prodigious. The slightest doubt, and he delayed everything
+  until the doubtful part could be replaced. Wilkinson, his senior
+  assistant, fumed at some of these delays, which, he insisted, were
+  for the most part unnecessary. Banghurst magnified the patient
+  certitude of Filmer in the New Paper, and reviled it bitterly
+  to his wife, and MacAndrew, the second assistant, approved Filmer's
+  wisdom. &quot;We're not wanting a fiasco, man,&quot; said MacAndrew. &quot;He's
+  perfectly well advised.&quot;</p>
+<p>And whenever an opportunity arose Filmer would expound to Wilkinson
+  and MacAndrew just exactly how every part of the flying machine
+  was to be controlled and worked, so that in effect they would be
+  just as capable, and even more capable, when at last the time came,
+  of guiding it through the skies.</p>
+<p>Now I should imagine that if Filmer had seen fit at this stage
+  to define just what he was feeling, and to take a definite line
+  in the matter of his ascent, he might have escaped that painful
+  ordeal quite easily. If he had had it clearly in his mind he could
+  have done endless things. He would surely have found no difficulty
+  with a specialist to demonstrate a weak heart, or something gastric
+  or pulmonary, to stand in his way--that is the line I am astonished
+  he did not take,--or he might, had he been man enough, have
+  declared simply and finally that he did not intend to do the thing.
+  But the fact is, though the dread was hugely present in his mind,
+  the thing was by no means sharp and clear. I fancy that all through
+  this period he kept telling himself that when the occasion came
+  he would find himself equal to it. He was like a man just gripped
+  by a great illness, who says he feels a little out of sorts, and expects
+  to be better presently. Meanwhile he delayed the completion of
+  the machine, and let the assumption that he was going to fly it
+  take root and flourish exceedingly about him. He even accepted
+  anticipatory compliments on his courage. And, barring this secret
+  squeamishness, there can be no doubt he found all the praise and
+  distinction and fuss he got a delightful and even intoxicating draught.</p>
+<p>The Lady Mary Elkinghorn made things a little more complicated
+  for him.</p>
+<p>How THAT began was a subject of inexhaustible speculation to Hicks.
+  Probably in the beginning she was just a little &quot;nice&quot; to him
+  with that impartial partiality of hers, and it may be that to her eyes,
+  standing out conspicuously as he did ruling his monster in the upper air,
+  he had a distinction that Hicks was not disposed to find. And somehow
+  they must have had a moment of sufficient isolation, and the great
+  Discoverer a moment of sufficient courage for something just
+  a little personal to be mumbled or blurted. However it began,
+  there is no doubt that it did begin, and presently became quite
+  perceptible to a world accustomed to find in the proceedings
+  of the Lady Mary Elkinghorn a matter of entertainment. It complicated
+  things, because the state of love in such a virgin mind as Filmer's
+  would brace his resolution, if not sufficiently, at any rate
+  considerably towards facing a danger he feared, and hampered him
+  in such attempts at evasion as would otherwise be natural and congenial.</p>
+<p>It remains a matter for speculation just how the Lady Mary felt for Filmer 
+  and just what she thought of him. At thirty-eight one may have gathered much 
+  wisdom and still be not altogether wise, and the imagination still functions 
+  actively enough in creating glamours and effecting the impossible. He came before 
+  her eyes as a very central man, and that always counts, and he had powers, unique 
+  powers as it seemed, at any rate in the air. The performance with the model 
+  had just a touch of the quality of a potent incantation, and women have ever 
+  displayed an unreasonable disposition to imagine that when a man has powers 
+  he must necessarily have Power. Given so much, and what was not good in Filmer's 
+  manner and appearance became an added merit. He was modest, he hated display, 
+  but given an occasion where TRUE qualities are needed, then--then one would 
+  see!</p>
+<p>The late Mrs. Bampton thought it wise to convey to Lady Mary her opinion
+  that Filmer, all things considered, was rather a &quot;grub.&quot; &quot;He's 
+  certainly
+  not a sort of man I have ever met before,&quot; said the Lady Mary,
+  with a quite unruffled serenity. And Mrs. Bampton, after a swift,
+  imperceptible glance at that serenity, decided that so far as saying
+  anything to Lady Mary went, she had done as much as could be expected
+  of her. But she said a great deal to other people.</p>
+<p>And at last, without any undue haste or unseemliness, the day
+  dawned, the great day, when Banghurst had promised his public--
+  the world in fact--that flying should be finally attained and overcome.
+  Filmer saw it dawn, watched even in the darkness before it dawned,
+  watched its stars fade and the grey and pearly pinks give place
+  at last to the clear blue sky of a sunny, cloudless day. He watched it
+  from the window of his bedroom in the new-built wing of Banghurst's
+  Tudor house. And as the stars were overwhelmed and the shapes and
+  substances of things grew into being out of the amorphous dark,
+  he must have seen more and more distinctly the festive preparations
+  beyond the beech clumps near the green pavilion in the outer park,
+  the three stands for the privileged spectators, the raw, new fencing
+  of the enclosure, the sheds and workshops, the Venetian masts
+  and fluttering flags that Banghurst had considered essential,
+  black and limp in the breezeless dawn, and amidst all these things
+  a great shape covered with tarpauling. A strange and terrible
+  portent for humanity was that shape, a beginning that must surely
+  spread and widen and change and dominate all the affairs of men,
+  but to Filmer it is very doubtful whether it appeared in anything
+  but a narrow and personal light. Several people heard him pacing
+  in the small hours--for the vast place was packed with guests
+  by a proprietor editor who, before all understood compression.
+  And about five o'clock, if not before, Filmer left his room and
+  wandered out of the sleeping house into the park, alive by that time
+  with sunlight and birds and squirrels and the fallow deer. MacAndrew,
+  who was also an early riser, met him near the machine, and they went
+  and had a look at it together.</p>
+<p>It is doubtful if Filmer took any breakfast, in spite of the urgency
+  of Banghurst. So soon as the guests began to be about in some number
+  he seems to have retreated to his room. Thence about ten he went
+  into the shrubbery, very probably because he had seen the Lady Mary
+  Elkinghorn there. She was walking up and down, engaged in conversation
+  with her old school friend, Mrs. Brewis-Craven, and although Filmer
+  had never met the latter lady before, he joined them and walked
+  beside them for some time. There were several silences in spite
+  of the Lady Mary's brilliance. The situation was a difficult one,
+  and Mrs. Brewis-Craven did not master its difficulty. &quot;He struck me,&quot;
+  she said afterwards with a luminous self-contradiction, &quot;as a very
+  unhappy person who had something to say, and wanted before all things
+  to be helped to say it. But how was one to help him when one didn't
+  know what it was?&quot;</p>
+<p>At half-past eleven the enclosures for the public in the outer park
+  were crammed, there was an intermittent stream of equipages along
+  the belt which circles the outer park, and the house party was dotted
+  over the lawn and shrubbery and the corner of the inner park,
+  in a series of brilliantly attired knots, all making for the
+  flying machine. Filmer walked in a group of three with Banghurst,
+  who was supremely and conspicuously happy, and Sir Theodore Hickle,
+  the president of the Aeronautical Society. Mrs. Banghurst was close
+  behind with the Lady Mary Elkinghorn, Georgina Hickle, and the Dean
+  of Stays. Banghurst was large and copious in speech, and such
+  interstices as he left were filled in by Hickle with complimentary
+  remarks to Filmer. And Filmer walked between them saying not a word
+  except by way of unavoidable reply. Behind, Mrs. Banghurst listened
+  to the admirably suitable and shapely conversation of the Dean
+  with that fluttered attention to the ampler clergy ten years
+  of social ascent and ascendency had not cured in her; and the Lady Mary
+  watched, no doubt with an entire confidence in the world's
+  disillusionment, the drooping shoulders of the sort of man she had
+  never met before.</p>
+<p>There was some cheering as the central party came into view of
+  the enclosures, but it was not very unanimous nor invigorating cheering.
+  They were within fifty yards of the apparatus when Filmer took
+  a hasty glance over his shoulder to measure the distance of the ladies
+  behind them, and decided to make the first remark he had initiated
+  since the house had been left. His voice was just a little hoarse,
+  and he cut in on Banghurst in mid-sentence on Progress.</p>
+<p>&quot;I say, Banghurst,&quot; he said, and stopped.</p>
+<p>&quot;Yes,&quot; said Banghurst.</p>
+<p>&quot;I wish--&quot; He moistened his lips. &quot;I'm not feeling well.&quot;</p>
+<p>Banghurst stopped dead. &quot;Eh?&quot; he shouted.</p>
+<p>&quot;A queer feeling.&quot; Filmer made to move on, but Banghurst was immovable.
+  &quot;I don't know. I may be better in a minute. If not--perhaps . . . 
+  MacAndrew--&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;You're not feeling WELL?&quot; said Banghurst, and stared at his white 
+  face.</p>
+<p>&quot;My dear!&quot; he said, as Mrs. Banghurst came up with them, &quot;Filmer
+  says he isn't feeling WELL.&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;A little queer,&quot; exclaimed Filmer, avoiding the Lady Mary's eyes.
+  &quot;It may pass off--&quot;</p>
+<p>There was a pause.</p>
+<p>It came to Filmer that he was the most isolated person in the world.</p>
+<p>&quot;In any case,&quot; said Banghurst, &quot;the ascent must be made. Perhaps
+  if you were to sit down somewhere for a moment--&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;It's the crowd, I think,&quot; said Filmer.</p>
+<p>There was a second pause. Banghurst's eye rested in scrutiny
+  on Filmer, and then swept the sample of public in the enclosure.</p>
+<p>&quot;It's unfortunate,&quot; said Sir Theodore Hickle; but still--I suppose--
+  Your assistants--Of course, if you feel out of condition and disinclined--&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;I don't think Mr. Filmer would permit THAT for a moment,&quot; said Lady 
+  Mary.</p>
+<p>&quot;But if Mr. Filmer's nerve is run--It might even be dangerous for him
+  to attempt--&quot; Hickle coughed.</p>
+<p>&quot;It's just because it's dangerous,&quot; began the Lady Mary, and felt
+  she had made her point of view and Filmer's plain enough.</p>
+<p>Conflicting motives struggled for Filmer.</p>
+<p>&quot;I feel I ought to go up,&quot; he said, regarding the ground. He looked
+  up and met the Lady Mary's eyes. &quot;I want to go up,&quot; he said, and
+  smiled whitely at her. He turned towards Banghurst. &quot;If I could
+  just sit down somewhere for a moment out of the crowd and sun--&quot;</p>
+<p>Banghurst, at least, was beginning to understand the case. &quot;Come
+  into my little room in the green pavilion,&quot; he said. &quot;It's quite
+  cool there.&quot; He took Filmer by the arm.</p>
+<p>Filmer turned his face to the Lady Mary Elkinghorn again. &quot;I shall
+  be all right in five minutes,&quot; he said. &quot;I'm tremendously sorry--&quot;</p>
+<p>The Lady Mary Elkinghorn smiled at him. &quot;I couldn't think--&quot; he
+  said to Hickle, and obeyed the compulsion of Banghurst's pull.</p>
+<p>The rest remained watching the two recede.</p>
+<p>&quot;He is so fragile,&quot; said the Lady Mary.</p>
+<p>&quot;He's certainly a highly nervous type,&quot; said the Dean, whose weakness
+  it was to regard the whole world, except married clergymen with
+  enormous families, as &quot;neurotic.&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;Of course,&quot; said Hickle, &quot;it isn't absolutely necessary for 
+  him
+  to go up because he has invented--&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;How COULD he avoid it?&quot; asked the Lady Mary, with the faintest
+  shadow of scorn.</p>
+<p>&quot;It's certainly most unfortunate if he's going to be ill now,&quot; said
+  Mrs. Banghurst a little severely.</p>
+<p>&quot;He's not going to be ill,&quot; said the Lady Mary, and certainly
+  she had met Filmer's eye.</p>
+<p>&quot;YOU'LL be all right,&quot; said Banghurst, as they went towards the pavilion.
+  &quot;All you want is a nip of brandy. It ought to be you, you know.
+  You'll be--you'd get it rough, you know, if you let another man--&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;Oh, I want to go,&quot; said Filmer. &quot;I shall be all right. As a 
+  matter
+  of fact I'm almost inclined NOW--. No! I think I'll have that nip
+  of brandy first.&quot;</p>
+<p>Banghurst took him into the little room and routed out an empty
+  decanter. He departed in search of a supply. He was gone perhaps
+  five minutes.</p>
+<p>The history of those five minutes cannot be written. At intervals
+  Filmer's face could be seen by the people on the easternmost
+  of the stands erected for spectators, against the window pane
+  peering out, and then it would recede and fade. Banghurst vanished
+  shouting behind the grand stand, and presently the butler appeared
+  going pavilionward with a tray.</p>
+<p>The apartment in which Filmer came to his last solution was a pleasant
+  little room very simply furnished with green furniture and an old
+  bureau--for Banghurst was simple in all his private ways. It was
+  hung with little engravings after Morland and it had a shelf of books.
+  But as it happened, Banghurst had left a rook rifle he sometimes
+  played with on the top of the desk, and on the corner of the mantelshelf
+  was a tin with three or four cartridges remaining in it. As Filmer
+  went up and down that room wrestling with his intolerable dilemma
+  he went first towards the neat little rifle athwart the blotting-pad
+  and then towards the neat little red label </p>
+<p>&quot;.22 LONG.&quot;</p>
+<p>The thing must have jumped into his mind in a moment.</p>
+<p>Nobody seems to have connected the report with him, though the gun,
+  being fired in a confined space, must have sounded loud, and there
+  were several people in the billiard-room, separated from him only
+  by a lath-and-plaster partition. But directly Banghurst's butler
+  opened the door and smelt the sour smell of the smoke, he knew,
+  he says, what had happened. For the servants at least of Banghurst's
+  household had guessed something of what was going on in Filmer's mind.</p>
+<p>All through that trying afternoon Banghurst behaved as he held
+  a man should behave in the presence of hopeless disaster, and his guests
+  for the most part succeeded in not insisting upon the fact--though
+  to conceal their perception of it altogether was impossible--that
+  Banghurst had been pretty elaborately and completely swindled
+  by the deceased. The public in the enclosure, Hicks told me, dispersed
+  &quot;like a party that has been ducking a welsher,&quot; and there wasn't a 
+  soul
+  in the train to London, it seems, who hadn't known all along that flying
+  was a quite impossible thing for man. &quot;But he might have tried it,&quot;
+  said many, &quot;after carrying the thing so far.&quot;</p>
+<p>In the evening, when he was comparatively alone, Banghurst broke
+  down and went on like a man of clay. I have been told he wept,
+  which must have made an imposing scene, and he certainly said
+  Filmer had ruined his life, and offered and sold the whole apparatus
+  to MacAndrew for half-a-crown. &quot;I've been thinking--&quot; said MacAndrew
+  at the conclusion of the bargain, and stopped.</p>
+<p>The next morning the name of Filmer was, for the first time, less
+  conspicuous in the New Paper than in any other daily paper in the world.
+  The rest of the world's instructors, with varying emphasis, according
+  to their dignity and the degree of competition between themselves
+  and the New Paper, proclaimed the &quot;Entire Failure of the New Flying
+  Machine,&quot; and &quot;Suicide of the Impostor.&quot; But in the district 
+  of North
+  Surrey the reception of the news was tempered by a perception of unusual
+  aerial phenomena.</p>
+<p>Overnight Wilkinson and MacAndrew had fallen into violent argument
+  on the exact motives of their principal's rash act.</p>
+<p>&quot;The man was certainly a poor, cowardly body, but so far as his
+  science went he was NO impostor,&quot; said MacAndrew, &quot;and I'm prepared
+  to give that proposition a very practical demonstration, Mr. Wilkinson,
+  so soon as we've got the place a little more to ourselves. For I've
+  no faith in all this publicity for experimental trials.&quot;</p>
+<p>And to that end, while all the world was reading of the certain failure of 
+  the new flying machine, MacAndrew was soaring and curvetting with great amplitude 
+  and dignity over the Epsom and Wimbledon divisions; and Banghurst, restored 
+  once more to hope and energy, and regardless of public security and the Board 
+  of Trade, was pursuing his gyrations and trying to attract his attention, on 
+  a motor car and in his pyjamas-- he had caught sight of the ascent when pulling 
+  up the blind of his bedroom window--equipped, among other things, with a film 
+  camera that was subsequently discovered to be jammed. And Filmer was lying on 
+  the billiard table in the green pavilion with a sheet about his body. </p>
+<p>2. THE MAGIC SHOP</p>
+<p>I had seen the Magic Shop from afar several times; I had passed
+  it once or twice, a shop window of alluring little objects, magic
+  balls, magic hens, wonderful cones, ventriloquist dolls, the material
+  of the basket trick, packs of cards that LOOKED all right, and all
+  that sort of thing, but never had I thought of going in until one day,
+  almost without warning, Gip hauled me by my finger right up to
+  the window, and so conducted himself that there was nothing for it
+  but to take him in. I had not thought the place was there, to tell
+  the truth--a modest-sized frontage in Regent Street, between
+  the picture shop and the place where the chicks run about just
+  out of patent incubators, but there it was sure enough. I had fancied
+  it was down nearer the Circus, or round the corner in Oxford Street,
+  or even in Holborn; always over the way and a little inaccessible
+  it had been, with something of the mirage in its position; but here
+  it was now quite indisputably, and the fat end of Gip's pointing
+  finger made a noise upon the glass.</p>
+<p>&quot;If I was rich,&quot; said Gip, dabbing a finger at the Disappearing Egg,
+  &quot;I'd buy myself that. And that&quot;--which was The Crying Baby, Very Human
+  --and that,&quot; which was a mystery, and called, so a neat card asserted,
+  &quot;Buy One and Astonish Your Friends.&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;Anything,&quot; said Gip, &quot;will disappear under one of those cones.
+  I have read about it in a book.</p>
+<p>&quot;And there, dadda, is the Vanishing Halfpenny--, only they've put it
+  this way up so's we can't see how it's done.&quot;</p>
+<p>Gip, dear boy, inherits his mother's breeding, and he did not propose
+  to enter the shop or worry in any way; only, you know, quite unconsciously
+  he lugged my finger doorward, and he made his interest clear.</p>
+<p>&quot;That,&quot; he said, and pointed to the Magic Bottle.</p>
+<p>&quot;If you had that?&quot; I said; at which promising inquiry he looked up
+  with a sudden radiance.</p>
+<p>&quot;I could show it to Jessie,&quot; he said, thoughtful as ever of others.</p>
+<p>&quot;It's less than a hundred days to your birthday, Gibbles,&quot; I said,
+  and laid my hand on the door-handle.</p>
+<p>Gip made no answer, but his grip tightened on my finger, and so
+  we came into the shop.</p>
+<p>It was no common shop this; it was a magic shop, and all the prancing
+  precedence Gip would have taken in the matter of mere toys was wanting.
+  He left the burthen of the conversation to me.</p>
+<p>It was a little, narrow shop, not very well lit, and the door-bell
+  pinged again with a plaintive note as we closed it behind us.
+  For a moment or so we were alone and could glance about us.
+  There was a tiger in papier-mache on the glass case that covered
+  the low counter--a grave, kind-eyed tiger that waggled his head
+  in a methodical manner; there were several crystal spheres, a china
+  hand holding magic cards, a stock of magic fish-bowls in various
+  sizes, and an immodest magic hat that shamelessly displayed its springs.
+  On the floor were magic mirrors; one to draw you out long and thin,
+  one to swell your head and vanish your legs, and one to make you short
+  and fat like a draught; and while we were laughing at these the shopman,
+  as I suppose, came in.</p>
+<p>At any rate, there he was behind the counter--a curious, sallow,
+  dark man, with one ear larger than the other and a chin like
+  the toe-cap of a boot.</p>
+<p>&quot;What can we have the pleasure?&quot; he said, spreading his long,
+  magic fingers on the glass case; and so with a start we were aware
+  of him.</p>
+<p>&quot;I want,&quot; I said, &quot;to buy my little boy a few simple tricks.&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;Legerdemain?&quot; he asked. &quot;Mechanical? Domestic?&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;Anything amusing?&quot; said I.</p>
+<p>&quot;Um!&quot; said the shopman, and scratched his head for a moment as if
+  thinking. Then, quite distinctly, he drew from his head a glass ball.
+  &quot;Something in this way?&quot; he said, and held it out.</p>
+<p>The action was unexpected. I had seen the trick done at entertainments
+  endless times before--it's part of the common stock of conjurers--
+  but I had not expected it here.</p>
+<p>&quot;That's good,&quot; I said, with a laugh.</p>
+<p>&quot;Isn't it?&quot; said the shopman.</p>
+<p>Gip stretched out his disengaged hand to take this object and found
+  merely a blank palm.</p>
+<p>&quot;It's in your pocket,&quot; said the shopman, and there it was!</p>
+<p>&quot;How much will that be?&quot; I asked.</p>
+<p>&quot;We make no charge for glass balls,&quot; said the shopman politely.
+  &quot;We get them,&quot;--he picked one out of his elbow as he spoke--&quot;free.&quot;
+  He produced another from the back of his neck, and laid it beside
+  its predecessor on the counter. Gip regarded his glass ball sagely,
+  then directed a look of inquiry at the two on the counter, and finally
+  brought his round-eyed scrutiny to the shopman, who smiled.</p>
+<p>&quot;You may have those too,&quot; said the shopman, &quot;and, if you DON'T 
+  mind,
+  one from my mouth. SO!&quot;</p>
+<p>Gip counselled me mutely for a moment, and then in a profound silence
+  put away the four balls, resumed my reassuring finger, and nerved
+  himself for the next event.</p>
+<p>&quot;We get all our smaller tricks in that way,&quot; the shopman remarked.</p>
+<p>I laughed in the manner of one who subscribes to a jest. &quot;Instead
+  of going to the wholesale shop,&quot; I said. &quot;Of course, it's cheaper.&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;In a way,&quot; the shopman said. &quot;Though we pay in the end. But 
+  not
+  so heavily--as people suppose. . . . Our larger tricks, and our daily
+  provisions and all the other things we want, we get out of that hat. . .
+  And you know, sir, if you'll excuse my saying it, there ISN'T
+  a wholesale shop, not for Genuine Magic goods, sir. I don't know
+  if you noticed our inscription--the Genuine Magic shop.&quot; He drew
+  a business-card from his cheek and handed it to me. &quot;Genuine,&quot;
+  he said, with his finger on the word, and added, &quot;There is absolutely
+  no deception, sir.&quot;</p>
+<p>He seemed to be carrying out the joke pretty thoroughly, I thought.</p>
+<p>He turned to Gip with a smile of remarkable affability. &quot;You, you know,
+  are the Right Sort of Boy.&quot;</p>
+<p>I was surprised at his knowing that, because, in the interests
+  of discipline, we keep it rather a secret even at home; but Gip
+  received it in unflinching silence, keeping a steadfast eye on him.</p>
+<p>&quot;It's only the Right Sort of Boy gets through that doorway.&quot;</p>
+<p>And, as if by way of illustration, there came a rattling at the door,
+  and a squeaking little voice could be faintly heard. &quot;Nyar! I WARN 'a
+  go in there, dadda, I WARN 'a go in there. Ny-a-a-ah!&quot; and then
+  the accents of a down-trodden parent, urging consolations and
+  propitiations. &quot;It's locked, Edward,&quot; he said.</p>
+<p>&quot;But it isn't,&quot; said I.</p>
+<p>&quot;It is, sir,&quot; said the shopman, &quot;always--for that sort of child,&quot;
+  and as he spoke we had a glimpse of the other youngster, a little,
+  white face, pallid from sweet-eating and over-sapid food, and
+  distorted by evil passions, a ruthless little egotist, pawing
+  at the enchanted pane. &quot;It's no good, sir,&quot; said the shopman,
+  as I moved, with my natural helpfulness, doorward, and presently
+  the spoilt child was carried off howling.</p>
+<p>&quot;How do you manage that?&quot; I said, breathing a little more freely.</p>
+<p>&quot;Magic!&quot; said the shopman, with a careless wave of the hand, and 
+  behold!
+  sparks of coloured fire flew out of his fingers and vanished into
+  the shadows of the shop.</p>
+<p>&quot;You were saying,&quot; he said, addressing himself to Gip, &quot;before
+  you came in, that you would like one of our 'Buy One and Astonish
+  your Friends' boxes?&quot;</p>
+<p>Gip, after a gallant effort, said &quot;Yes.&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;It's in your pocket.&quot;</p>
+<p>And leaning over the counter--he really had an extraordinarily
+  long body--this amazing person produced the article in the customary
+  conjurer's manner. &quot;Paper,&quot; he said, and took a sheet out of
+  the empty hat with the springs; &quot;string,&quot; and behold his mouth was
+  a string-box, from which he drew an unending thread, which when
+  he had tied his parcel he bit off--and, it seemed to me, swallowed
+  the ball of string. And then he lit a candle at the nose of one
+  of the ventriloquist's dummies, stuck one of his fingers (which
+  had become sealing-wax red) into the flame, and so sealed the parcel.
+  &quot;Then there was the Disappearing Egg,&quot; he remarked, and produced
+  one from within my coat-breast and packed it, and also The Crying
+  Baby, Very Human. I handed each parcel to Gip as it was ready,
+  and he clasped them to his chest.</p>
+<p>He said very little, but his eyes were eloquent; the clutch of
+  his arms was eloquent. He was the playground of unspeakable emotions.
+  These, you know, were REAL Magics. Then, with a start, I discovered
+  something moving about in my hat--something soft and jumpy. I whipped
+  it off, and a ruffled pigeon--no doubt a confederate--dropped out
+  and ran on the counter, and went, I fancy, into a cardboard box
+  behind the papier-mache tiger.</p>
+<p>&quot;Tut, tut!&quot; said the shopman, dexterously relieving me of my headdress;
+  &quot;careless bird, and--as I live--nesting!&quot;</p>
+<p>He shook my hat, and shook out into his extended hand two or three
+  eggs, a large marble, a watch, about half-a-dozen of the inevitable
+  glass balls, and then crumpled, crinkled paper, more and more and more,
+  talking all the time of the way in which people neglect to brush
+  their hats INSIDE as well as out, politely, of course, but with
+  a certain personal application. &quot;All sorts of things accumulate,
+  sir. . . . Not YOU, of course, in particular. . . . Nearly every
+  customer. . . . Astonishing what they carry about with them. . . .&quot;
+  The crumpled paper rose and billowed on the counter more and more
+  and more, until he was nearly hidden from us, until he was altogether
+  hidden, and still his voice went on and on. &quot;We none of us know
+  what the fair semblance of a human being may conceal, sir. Are we
+  all then no better than brushed exteriors, whited sepulchres--&quot;</p>
+<p>His voice stopped--exactly like when you hit a neighbour's gramophone
+  with a well-aimed brick, the same instant silence, and the rustle
+  of the paper stopped, and everything was still. . . .</p>
+<p>&quot;Have you done with my hat?&quot; I said, after an interval.</p>
+<p>There was no answer.</p>
+<p>I stared at Gip, and Gip stared at me, and there were our distortions
+  in the magic mirrors, looking very rum, and grave, and quiet. . . .</p>
+<p>&quot;I think we'll go now,&quot; I said. &quot;Will you tell me how much all 
+  this
+  comes to? . . . .</p>
+<p>&quot;I say,&quot; I said, on a rather louder note, &quot;I want the bill; 
+  and
+  my hat, please.&quot;</p>
+<p>It might have been a sniff from behind the paper pile. . . .</p>
+<p>&quot;Let's look behind the counter, Gip,&quot; I said. &quot;He's making fun 
+  of us.&quot;</p>
+<p>I led Gip round the head-wagging tiger, and what do you think
+  there was behind the counter? No one at all! Only my hat on the floor,
+  and a common conjurer's lop-eared white rabbit lost in meditation,
+  and looking as stupid and crumpled as only a conjurer's rabbit
+  can do. I resumed my hat, and the rabbit lolloped a lollop or so
+  out of my way.</p>
+<p>&quot;Dadda!&quot; said Gip, in a guilty whisper.</p>
+<p>&quot;What is it, Gip?&quot; said I.</p>
+<p>&quot;I DO like this shop, dadda.&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;So should I,&quot; I said to myself, &quot;if the counter wouldn't suddenly
+  extend itself to shut one off from the door.&quot; But I didn't call
+  Gip's attention to that. &quot;Pussy!&quot; he said, with a hand out to
+  the rabbit as it came lolloping past us; &quot;Pussy, do Gip a magic!&quot;
+  and his eyes followed it as it squeezed through a door I had
+  certainly not remarked a moment before. Then this door opened wider,
+  and the man with one ear larger than the other appeared again.
+  He was smiling still, but his eye met mine with something between
+  amusement and defiance. &quot;You'd like to see our show-room, sir,&quot; he
+  said, with an innocent suavity. Gip tugged my finger forward. I
+  glanced at the counter and met the shopman's eye again. I was
+  beginning to think the magic just a little too genuine. &quot;We haven't
+  VERY much time,&quot; I said. But somehow we were inside the show-room
+  before I could finish that.</p>
+<p>&quot;All goods of the same quality,&quot; said the shopman, rubbing his
+  flexible hands together, &quot;and that is the Best. Nothing in the place
+  that isn't genuine Magic, and warranted thoroughly rum. Excuse me, sir!&quot;</p>
+<p>I felt him pull at something that clung to my coat-sleeve, and then
+  I saw he held a little, wriggling red demon by the tail--the little
+  creature bit and fought and tried to get at his hand--and in a moment
+  he tossed it carelessly behind a counter. No doubt the thing was
+  only an image of twisted indiarubber, but for the moment--! And his
+  gesture was exactly that of a man who handles some petty biting bit
+  of vermin. I glanced at Gip, but Gip was looking at a magic rocking-
+  horse. I was glad he hadn't seen the thing. &quot;I say,&quot; I said, in an
+  undertone, and indicating Gip and the red demon with my eyes, &quot;you
+  haven't many things like THAT about, have you?&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;None of ours! Probably brought it with you,&quot; said the shopman--
+  also in an undertone, and with a more dazzling smile than ever.
+  &quot;Astonishing what people WILL carry about with them unawares!&quot;
+  And then to Gip, &quot;Do you see anything you fancy here?&quot;</p>
+<p>There were many things that Gip fancied there.</p>
+<p>He turned to this astonishing tradesman with mingled confidence
+  and respect. &quot;Is that a Magic Sword?&quot; he said.</p>
+<p>&quot;A Magic Toy Sword. It neither bends, breaks, nor cuts the fingers.
+  It renders the bearer invincible in battle against any one under
+  eighteen. Half-a-crown to seven and sixpence, according to size. These
+  panoplies on cards are for juvenile knights-errant and very useful--
+  shield of safety, sandals of swiftness, helmet of invisibility.&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;Oh, daddy!&quot; gasped Gip.</p>
+<p>I tried to find out what they cost, but the shopman did not heed me.
+  He had got Gip now; he had got him away from my finger; he had
+  embarked upon the exposition of all his confounded stock, and nothing
+  was going to stop him. Presently I saw with a qualm of distrust
+  and something very like jealousy that Gip had hold of this person's
+  finger as usually he has hold of mine. No doubt the fellow was
+  interesting, I thought, and had an interestingly faked lot of stuff,
+  really GOOD faked stuff, still--</p>
+<p>I wandered after them, saying very little, but keeping an eye
+  on this prestidigital fellow. After all, Gip was enjoying it.
+  And no doubt when the time came to go we should be able to go
+  quite easily.</p>
+<p>It was a long, rambling place, that show-room, a gallery broken up
+  by stands and stalls and pillars, with archways leading off to other
+  departments, in which the queerest-looking assistants loafed and
+  stared at one, and with perplexing mirrors and curtains. So perplexing,
+  indeed, were these that I was presently unable to make out the door
+  by which we had come.</p>
+<p>The shopman showed Gip magic trains that ran without steam or clockwork,
+  just as you set the signals, and then some very, very valuable boxes
+  of soldiers that all came alive directly you took off the lid
+  and said--. I myself haven't a very quick ear and it was a tongue-
+  twisting sound, but Gip--he has his mother's ear--got it in no time.
+  &quot;Bravo!&quot; said the shopman, putting the men back into the box
+  unceremoniously and handing it to Gip. &quot;Now,&quot; said the shopman, and 
+  in
+  a moment Gip had made them all alive again.</p>
+<p>&quot;You'll take that box?&quot; asked the shopman.</p>
+<p>&quot;We'll take that box,&quot; said I, &quot;unless you charge its full value.
+  In which case it would need a Trust Magnate--&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;Dear heart! NO!&quot; and the shopman swept the little men back again,
+  shut the lid, waved the box in the air, and there it was, in brown
+  paper, tied up and--WITH GIP'S FULL NAME AND ADDRESS ON THE PAPER!</p>
+<p>The shopman laughed at my amazement.</p>
+<p>&quot;This is the genuine magic,&quot; he said. &quot;The real thing.&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;It's a little too genuine for my taste,&quot; I said again.</p>
+<p>After that he fell to showing Gip tricks, odd tricks, and still
+  odder the way they were done. He explained them, he turned them
+  inside out, and there was the dear little chap nodding his busy bit
+  of a head in the sagest manner.</p>
+<p>I did not attend as well as I might. &quot;Hey, presto!&quot; said the Magic
+  Shopman, and then would come the clear, small &quot;Hey, presto!&quot;
+  of the boy. But I was distracted by other things. It was being
+  borne in upon me just how tremendously rum this place was; it was,
+  so to speak, inundated by a sense of rumness. There was something
+  a little rum about the fixtures even, about the ceiling, about the
+  floor, about the casually distributed chairs. I had a queer feeling
+  that whenever I wasn't looking at them straight they went askew, and
+  moved about, and played a noiseless puss-in-the-corner behind my back.
+  And the cornice had a serpentine design with masks--masks altogether
+  too expressive for proper plaster.</p>
+<p>Then abruptly my attention was caught by one of the odd-looking
+  assistants. He was some way off and evidently unaware of my presence--
+  I saw a sort of three-quarter length of him over a pile of toys
+  and through an arch--and, you know, he was leaning against a pillar
+  in an idle sort of way doing the most horrid things with his features!
+  The particular horrid thing he did was with his nose. He did it
+  just as though he was idle and wanted to amuse himself. First of all
+  it was a short, blobby nose, and then suddenly he shot it out
+  like a telescope, and then out it flew and became thinner and thinner
+  until it was like a long, red, flexible whip. Like a thing in
+  a nightmare it was! He flourished it about and flung it forth
+  as a fly-fisher flings his line.</p>
+<p>My instant thought was that Gip mustn't see him. I turned about,
+  and there was Gip quite preoccupied with the shopman, and thinking
+  no evil. They were whispering together and looking at me. Gip was
+  standing on a little stool, and the shopman was holding a sort of
+  big drum in his hand.</p>
+<p>&quot;Hide and seek, dadda!&quot; cried Gip. &quot;You're He!&quot;</p>
+<p>And before I could do anything to prevent it, the shopman had clapped
+  the big drum over him. I saw what was up directly. &quot;Take that off,&quot;
+  I cried, &quot;this instant! You'll frighten the boy. Take it off!&quot;</p>
+<p>The shopman with the unequal ears did so without a word, and held
+  the big cylinder towards me to show its emptiness. And the little
+  stool was vacant! In that instant my boy had utterly disappeared? . . .</p>
+<p>You know, perhaps, that sinister something that comes like a hand
+  out of the unseen and grips your heart about. You know it takes
+  your common self away and leaves you tense and deliberate, neither
+  slow nor hasty, neither angry nor afraid. So it was with me.</p>
+<p>I came up to this grinning shopman and kicked his stool aside.</p>
+<p>&quot;Stop this folly!&quot; I said. &quot;Where is my boy?&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;You see,&quot; he said, still displaying the drum's interior, &quot;there 
+  is
+  no deception---&quot;</p>
+<p>I put out my hand to grip him, and he eluded me by a dexterous
+  movement. I snatched again, and he turned from me and pushed open
+  a door to escape. &quot;Stop!&quot; I said, and he laughed, receding. I leapt
+  after him--into utter darkness.</p>
+<p>THUD!</p>
+<p>&quot;Lor' bless my 'eart! I didn't see you coming, sir!&quot;</p>
+<p>I was in Regent Street, and I had collided with a decent-looking
+  working man; and a yard away, perhaps, and looking a little
+  perplexed with himself, was Gip. There was some sort of apology,
+  and then Gip had turned and come to me with a bright little smile,
+  as though for a moment he had missed me.</p>
+<p>And he was carrying four parcels in his arm!</p>
+<p>He secured immediate possession of my finger.</p>
+<p>For the second I was rather at a loss. I stared round to see
+  the door of the magic shop, and, behold, it was not there!
+  There was no door, no shop, nothing, only the common pilaster
+  between the shop where they sell pictures and the window with
+  the chicks! . . .</p>
+<p>I did the only thing possible in that mental tumult; I walked straight
+  to the kerbstone and held up my umbrella for a cab.</p>
+<p>&quot;'Ansoms,&quot; said Gip, in a note of culminating exultation.</p>
+<p>I helped him in, recalled my address with an effort, and got in also.
+  Something unusual proclaimed itself in my tail-coat pocket, and
+  I felt and discovered a glass ball. With a petulant expression
+  I flung it into the street.</p>
+<p>Gip said nothing.</p>
+<p>For a space neither of us spoke.</p>
+<p>&quot;Dada!&quot; said Gip, at last, &quot;that WAS a proper shop!&quot;</p>
+<p>I came round with that to the problem of just how the whole thing
+  had seemed to him. He looked completely undamaged--so far, good;
+  he was neither scared nor unhinged, he was simply tremendously
+  satisfied with the afternoon's entertainment, and there in his arms
+  were the four parcels.</p>
+<p>Confound it! what could be in them?</p>
+<p>&quot;Um!&quot; I said. &quot;Little boys can't go to shops like that every 
+  day.&quot;</p>
+<p>He received this with his usual stoicism, and for a moment I was sorry
+  I was his father and not his mother, and so couldn't suddenly there,
+  coram publico, in our hansom, kiss him. After all, I thought,
+  the thing wasn't so very bad.</p>
+<p>But it was only when we opened the parcels that I really began to be
+  reassured. Three of them contained boxes of soldiers, quite ordinary
+  lead soldiers, but of so good a quality as to make Gip altogether
+  forget that originally these parcels had been Magic Tricks of the only
+  genuine sort, and the fourth contained a kitten, a little living
+  white kitten, in excellent health and appetite and temper.</p>
+<p>I saw this unpacking with a sort of provisional relief. I hung about
+  in the nursery for quite an unconscionable time. . . .</p>
+<p>That happened six months ago. And now I am beginning to believe
+  it is all right. The kitten had only the magic natural to all kittens,
+  and the soldiers seem as steady a company as any colonel could
+  desire. And Gip--?</p>
+<p>The intelligent parent will understand that I have to go cautiously
+  with Gip.</p>
+<p>But I went so far as this one day. I said, &quot;How would you like
+  your soldiers to come alive, Gip, and march about by themselves?&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;Mine do,&quot; said Gip. &quot;I just have to say a word I know before
+  I open the lid.&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;Then they march about alone?&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;Oh, QUITE, dadda. I shouldn't like them if they didn't do that.&quot;</p>
+<p>I displayed no unbecoming surprise, and since then I have taken
+  occasion to drop in upon him once or twice, unannounced, when
+  the soldiers were about, but so far I have never discovered them
+  performing in anything like a magical manner.</p>
+<p>It's so difficult to tell.</p>
+<p>There's also a question of finance. I have an incurable habit of
+  paying bills. I have been up and down Regent Street several times,
+  looking for that shop. I am inclined to think, indeed, that in that
+  matter honour is satisfied, and that, since Gip's name and address
+  are known to them, I may very well leave it to these people,
+  whoever they may be, to send in their bill in their own time.</p>
+<p>
+  3. THE VALLEY OF SPIDERS</p>
+<p>Towards mid-day the three pursuers came abruptly round a bend in
+  the torrent bed upon the sight of a very broad and spacious valley.
+  The difficult and winding trench of pebbles along which they had
+  tracked the fugitives for so long, expanded to a broad slope,
+  and with a common impulse the three men left the trail, and rode
+  to a little eminence set with olive-dun trees, and there halted,
+  the two others, as became them, a little behind the man with
+  the silver-studded bridle.</p>
+<p>For a space they scanned the great expanse below them with eager eyes.
+  It spread remoter and remoter, with only a few clusters of sere
+  thorn bushes here and there, and the dim suggestions of some now
+  waterless ravine, to break its desolation of yellow grass. Its purple
+  distances melted at last into the bluish slopes of the further hills--
+  hills it might be of a greener kind--and above them invisibly
+  supported, and seeming indeed to hang in the blue, were the snowclad
+  summits of mountains that grew larger and bolder to the north-westward
+  as the sides of the valley drew together. And westward the valley
+  opened until a distant darkness under the sky told where the forests
+  began. But the three men looked neither east nor west, but only
+  steadfastly across the valley.</p>
+<p>The gaunt man with the scarred lip was the first to speak. &quot;Nowhere,&quot;
+  he said, with a sigh of disappointment in his voice. &quot;But after all,
+  they had a full day's start.&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;They don't know we are after them,&quot; said the little man on the white
+  horse.</p>
+<p>&quot;SHE would know,&quot; said the leader bitterly, as if speaking to himself.</p>
+<p>&quot;Even then they can't go fast. They've got no beast but the mule,
+  and all to-day the girl's foot has been bleeding---&quot;</p>
+<p>The man with the silver bridle flashed a quick intensity of rage
+  on him. &quot;Do you think I haven't seen that?&quot; he snarled.</p>
+<p>&quot;It helps, anyhow,&quot; whispered the little man to himself.</p>
+<p>The gaunt man with the scarred lip stared impassively. &quot;They can't
+  be over the valley,&quot; he said. &quot;If we ride hard--&quot;</p>
+<p>He glanced at the white horse and paused.</p>
+<p>&quot;Curse all white horses!&quot; said the man with the silver bridle,
+  and turned to scan the beast his curse included.</p>
+<p>The little man looked down between the mclancholy ears of his steed.</p>
+<p>&quot;I did my best,&quot; he said.</p>
+<p>The two others stared again across the valley for a space. The gaunt
+  man passed the back of his hand across the scarred lip.</p>
+<p>&quot;Come up!&quot; said the man who owned the silver bridle, suddenly.
+  The little man started and jerked his rein, and the horse hoofs
+  of the three made a multitudinous faint pattering upon the withered
+  grass as they turned back towards the trail. . . .</p>
+<p>They rode cautiously down the long slope before them, and so came
+  through a waste of prickly, twisted bushes and strange dry shapes
+  of horny branches that grew amongst the rocks, into the levels below.
+  And there the trail grew faint, for the soil was scanty, and the only
+  herbage was this scorched dead straw that lay upon the ground.
+  Still, by hard scanning, by leaning beside the horses' necks and
+  pausing ever and again, even these white men could contrive to follow
+  after their prey.</p>
+<p>There were trodden places, bent and broken blades of the coarse
+  grass, and ever and again the sufficient intimation of a footmark.
+  And once the leader saw a brown smear of blood where the half-caste
+  girl may have trod. And at that under his breath he cursed her for
+  a fool.</p>
+<p>The gaunt man checked his leader's tracking, and the little man
+  on the white horse rode behind, a man lost in a dream. They rode
+  one after another, the man with the silver bridle led the way,
+  and they spoke never a word. After a time it came to the little man
+  on the white horse that the world was very still. He started out
+  of his dream. Besides the little noises of their horses and equipment,
+  the whole great valley kept the brooding quiet of a painted scene.</p>
+<p>Before him went his master and his fellow, each intently leaning forward to 
+  the left, each impassively moving with the paces of his horse; their shadows 
+  went before them--still, noiseless, tapering attendants; and nearer a crouched 
+  cool shape was his own. He looked about him. What was it had gone? Then he remembered 
+  the reverberation from the banks of the gorge and the perpetual accompaniment 
+  of shifting, jostling pebbles. And, moreover--? There was no breeze. That was 
+  it! What a vast, still place it was, a monotonous afternoon slumber. And the 
+  sky open and blank, except for a sombre veil of haze that had gathered in the 
+  upper valley.</p>
+<p>He straightened his back, fretted with his bridle, puckered his lips
+  to whistle, and simply sighed. He turned in his saddle for a time,
+  and stared at the throat of the mountain gorge out of which they
+  had come. Blank! Blank slopes on either side, with never a sign
+  of a decent beast or tree--much less a man. What a land it was!
+  What a wilderness! He dropped again into his former pose.</p>
+<p>It filled him with a momentary pleasure to see a wry stick of purple
+  black flash out into the form of a snake, and vanish amidst the brown.
+  After all, the infernal valley WAS alive. And then, to rejoice him
+  still more, came a little breath across his face, a whisper that
+  came and went, the faintest inclination of a stiff black-antlered
+  bush upon a little crest, the first intimations of a possible breeze.
+  Idly he wetted his finger, and held it up.</p>
+<p>He pulled up sharply to avoid a collision with the gaunt man, who
+  had stopped at fault upon the trail. Just at that guilty moment
+  he caught his master's eye looking towards him.</p>
+<p>For a time he forced an interest in the tracking. Then, as they rode
+  on again, he studied his master's shadow and hat and shoulder,
+  appearing and disappearing behind the gaunt man's nearer contours.
+  They had ridden four days out of the very limits of the world into
+  this desolate place, short of water, with nothing but a strip
+  of dried meat under their saddles, over rocks and mountains,
+  where surely none but these fugitives had ever been before--for THAT!</p>
+<p>And all this was for a girl, a mere wilful child! And the man
+  had whole cityfuls of people to do his basest bidding--girls, women!
+  Why in the name of passionate folly THIS one in particular? asked
+  the little man, and scowled at the world, and licked his parched lips
+  with a blackened tongue. It was the way of the master, and that
+  was all he knew. Just because she sought to evade him. . . .</p>
+<p>His eye caught a whole row of high plumed canes bending in unison,
+  and then the tails of silk that hung before his neck flapped and fell.
+  The breeze was growing stronger. Somehow it took the stiff stillness
+  out of things--and that was well.</p>
+<p>&quot;Hullo!&quot; said the gaunt man.</p>
+<p>All three stopped abruptly.</p>
+<p>&quot;What?&quot; asked the master. &quot;What?&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;Over there,&quot; said the gaunt man, pointing up the valley.</p>
+<p>&quot;What?&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;Something coming towards us.&quot;</p>
+<p>And as he spoke a yellow animal crested a rise and came bearing
+  down upon them. It was a big wild dog, coming before the wind,
+  tongue out, at a steady pace, and running with such an intensity
+  of purpose that he did not seem to see the horsemen he approached.
+  He ran with his nose up, following, it was plain, neither scent
+  nor quarry. As he drew nearer the little man felt for his sword.
+  &quot;He's mad,&quot; said the gaunt rider.</p>
+<p>&quot;Shout!&quot; said the little man, and shouted.</p>
+<p>The dog came on. Then when the little man's blade was already out,
+  it swerved aside and went panting by them and past. The eyes of
+  the little man followed its flight. &quot;There was no foam,&quot; he said.
+  For a space the man with the silver-studded bridle stared up
+  the valley. &quot;Oh, come on!&quot; he cried at last. &quot;What does it matter?&quot;
+  and jerked his horse into movement again.</p>
+<p>The little man left the insoluble mystery of a dog that fled from nothing but 
+  the wind, and lapsed into profound musings on human character. &quot;Come on!&quot; 
+  he whispered to himself. &quot;Why should it be given to one man to say 'Come 
+  on!' with that stupendous violence of effect. Always, all his life, the man 
+  with the silver bridle has been saying that. If <i>I</i> said it--!&quot; 
+  thought the little man. But people marvelled when the master was disobeyed even 
+  in the wildest things. This half-caste girl seemed to him, seemed to every one, 
+  mad--blasphemous almost. The little man, by way of comparison, reflected on 
+  the gaunt rider with the scarred lip, as stalwart as his master, as brave and, 
+  indeed, perhaps braver, and yet for him there was obedience, nothing but to 
+  give obedience duly and stoutly. . .</p>
+<p>Certain sensations of the hands and knees called the little man back
+  to more immediate things. He became aware of something. He rode up
+  beside his gaunt fellow. &quot;Do you notice the horses?&quot; he said in an
+  undertone.</p>
+<p>The gaunt face looked interrogation.</p>
+<p>&quot;They don't like this wind,&quot; said the little man, and dropped behind
+  as the man with the silver bridle turned upon him.</p>
+<p>&quot;It's all right,&quot; said the gaunt-faced man.</p>
+<p>They rode on again for a space in silence. The foremost two rode
+  downcast upon the trail, the hindmost man watched the haze that
+  crept down the vastness of the valley, nearer and nearer, and noted
+  how the wind grew in strength moment by moment. Far away on the left
+  he saw a line of dark bulks--wild hog perhaps, galloping down
+  the valley, but of that he said nothing, nor did he remark again upon
+  the uneasiness of the horses.</p>
+<p>And then he saw first one and then a second great white ball,
+  a great shining white ball like a gigantic head of thistle-down,
+  that drove before the wind athwart the path. These balls soared
+  high in the air, and dropped and rose again and caught for a moment,
+  and hurried on and passed, but at the sight of them the restlessness
+  of the horses increased.</p>
+<p>Then presently he saw that more of these drifting globes--and then
+  soon very many more--were hurrying towards him down the valley.</p>
+<p>They became aware of a squealing. Athwart the path a huge boar rushed,
+  turning his head but for one instant to glance at them, and then
+  hurling on down the valley again. And at that, all three stopped
+  and sat in their saddles, staring into the thickening haze that
+  was coming upon them.</p>
+<p>&quot;If it were not for this thistle-down--&quot; began the leader.</p>
+<p>But now a big globe came drifting past within a score of yards
+  of them. It was really not an even sphere at all, but a vast, soft,
+  ragged, filmy thing, a sheet gathered by the corners, an aerial
+  jelly-fish, as it were, but rolling over and over as it advanced,
+  and trailing long, cobwebby threads and streamers that floated
+  in its wake.</p>
+<p>&quot;It isn't thistle-down,&quot; said the little man.</p>
+<p>&quot;I don't like the stuff,&quot; said the gaunt man.</p>
+<p>And they looked at one another.</p>
+<p>&quot;Curse it!&quot; cried the leader. &quot;The air's full of it up there.
+  If it keeps on at this pace long, it will stop us altogether.&quot;</p>
+<p>An instinctive feeling, such as lines out a herd of deer at the
+  approach of some ambiguous thing, prompted them to turn their horses
+  to the wind, ride forward for a few paces, and stare at that advancing
+  multitude of floating masses. They came on before the wind with a sort
+  of smooth swiftness, rising and falling noiselessly, sinking to earth,
+  rebounding high, soaring--all with a perfect unanimity, with a still,
+  deliberate assurance.</p>
+<p>Right and left of the horsemen the pioneers of this strange army
+  passed. At one that rolled along the ground, breaking shapelessly
+  and trailing out reluctantly into long grappling ribbons and bands,
+  all three horses began to shy and dance. The master was seized
+  with a sudden unreasonable impatience. He cursed the drifting globes
+  roundly. &quot;Get on!&quot; he cried; &quot;get on! What do these things matter?
+  How CAN they matter? Back to the trail!&quot; He fell swearing at his horse
+  and sawed the bit across its mouth.</p>
+<p>He shouted aloud with rage. &quot;I will follow that trail, I tell you!&quot;
+  he cried. &quot;Where is the trail?&quot;</p>
+<p>He gripped the bridle of his prancing horse and searched amidst
+  the grass. A long and clinging thread fell across his face, a grey
+  streamer dropped about his bridle-arm, some big, active thing
+  with many legs ran down the back of his head. He looked up to discover
+  one of those grey masses anchored as it were above him by these things
+  and flapping out ends as a sail flaps when a boat comes, about--
+  but noiselessly.</p>
+<p>He had an impression of many eyes, of a dense crew of squat bodies,
+  of long, many-jointed limbs hauling at their mooring ropes to bring
+  the thing down upon him. For a space he stared up, reining in his
+  prancing horse with the instinct born of years of horsemanship.
+  Then the flat of a sword smote his back, and a blade flashed overhead
+  and cut the drifting balloon of spider-web free, and the whole mass
+  lifted softly and drove clear and away.</p>
+<p>&quot;Spiders!&quot; cried the voice of the gaunt man. &quot;The things are 
+  full
+  of big spiders! Look, my lord!&quot;</p>
+<p>The man with the silver bridle still followed the mass that drove away.</p>
+<p>&quot;Look, my lord!&quot;</p>
+<p>The master found himself staring down at a red, smashed thing
+  on the ground that, in spite of partial obliteration, could still
+  wriggle unavailing legs. Then when the gaunt man pointed to another
+  mass that bore down upon them, he drew his sword hastily. Up the
+  valley now it was like a fog bank torn to rags. He tried to grasp the
+  situation.</p>
+<p>&quot;Ride for it!&quot; the little man was shouting. &quot;Ride for it down 
+  the
+  valley.&quot;</p>
+<p>What happened then was like the confusion of a battle. The man
+  with the silver bridle saw the little man go past him slashing
+  furiously at imaginary cobwebs, saw him cannon into the horse
+  of the gaunt man and hurl it and its rider to earth. His own horse
+  went a dozen paces before he could rein it in. Then he looked up
+  to avoid imaginary dangers, and then back again to see a horse
+  rolling on the ground, the gaunt man standing and slashing over it
+  at a rent and fluttering mass of grey that streamed and wrapped
+  about them both. And thick and fast as thistle-down on waste land
+  on a windy day in July, the cobweb masses were coming on.</p>
+<p>The little man had dismounted, but he dared not release his horse.
+  He was endeavouring to lug the struggling brute back with the strength
+  of one arm, while with the other he slashed aimlessly, The tentacles
+  of a second grey mass had entangled themselves with the struggle,
+  and this second grey mass came to its moorings, and slowly sank.</p>
+<p>The master set his teeth, gripped his bridle, lowered his head,
+  and spurred his horse forward. The horse on the ground rolled over,
+  there were blood and moving shapes upon the flanks, and the gaunt man,
+  suddenly leaving it, ran forward towards his master, perhaps ten paces.
+  His legs were swathed and encumbered with grey; he made ineffectual
+  movements with his sword. Grey streamers waved from him; there was
+  a thin veil of grey across his face. With his left hand he beat at
+  something on his body, and suddenly he stumbled and fell. He struggled
+  to rise, and fell again, and suddenly, horribly, began to howl,
+  &quot;Oh--ohoo, ohooh!&quot;</p>
+<p>The master could see the great spiders upon him, and others upon
+  the ground.</p>
+<p>As he strove to force his horse nearer to this gesticulating,
+  screaming grey object that struggled up and down, there came a
+  clatter of hoofs, and the little man, in act of mounting, swordless,
+  balanced on his belly athwart the white horse, and clutching its mane,
+  whirled past. And again a clinging thread of grey gossamer swept
+  across the master's face. All about him, and over him, it seemed
+  this drifting, noiseless cobweb circled and drew nearer him. . . .</p>
+<p>To the day of his death he never knew just how the event of that moment
+  happened. Did he, indeed, turn his horse, or did it really of its
+  own accord stampede after its fellow? Suffice it that in another
+  second he was galloping full tilt down the valley with his sword
+  whirling furiously overhead. And all about him on the quickening
+  breeze, the spiders' airships, their air bundles and air sheets,
+  seemed to him to hurry in a conscious pursuit.</p>
+<p>Clatter, clatter, thud, thud--the man with the silver bridle rode,
+  heedless of his direction, with his fearful face looking up now right,
+  now left, and his sword arm ready to slash. And a few hundred yards
+  ahead of him, with a tail of torn cobweb trailing behind him, rode
+  the little man on the white horse, still but imperfectly in the saddle.
+  The reeds bent before them, the wind blew fresh and strong, over his
+  shoulder the master could see the webs hurrying to overtake. . . .</p>
+<p>He was so intent to escape the spiders' webs that only as his horse
+  gathered together for a leap did he realise the ravine ahead. And then
+  he reaIised it only to misunderstand and interfere. He was leaning
+  forward on his horse's neck and sat up and back all too late.</p>
+<p>But if in his excitement he had failed to leap, at any rate he had
+  not forgotten how to fall. He was horseman again in mid-air.
+  He came off clear with a mere bruise upon his shoulder, and his horse
+  rolled, kicking spasmodic legs, and lay still. But the master's sword
+  drove its point into the hard soil, and snapped clean across, as
+  though Chance refused him any longer as her Knight, and the splintered
+  end missed his face by an inch or so.</p>
+<p>He was on his feet in a moment, breathlessly scanning the onrushing
+  spider-webs. For a moment he was minded to run, and then thought
+  of the ravine, and turned back. He ran aside once to dodge one drifting
+  terror, and then he was swiftly clambering down the precipitous sides,
+  and out of the touch of the gale.</p>
+<p>There under the lee of the dry torrent's steeper banks he might
+  crouch, and watch these strange, grey masses pass and pass in safety
+  till the wind fell, and it became possible to escape. And there
+  for a long time he crouched, watching the strange, grey, ragged
+  masses trail their streamers across his narrowed sky.</p>
+<p>Once a stray spider fell into the ravine close beside him--a full
+  foot it measured from leg to leg, and its body was half a man's hand--
+  and after he had watched its monstrous alacrity of search and escape
+  for a little while, and tempted it to bite his broken sword, he lifted
+  up his iron-heeled boot and smashed it into a pulp. He swore as he did
+  so, and for a time sought up and down for another.</p>
+<p>Then presently, when he was surer these spider swarms could not
+  drop into the ravine, he found a place where he could sit down,
+  and sat and fell into deep thought and began after his manner
+  to gnaw his knuckles and bite his nails. And from this he was moved
+  by the coming of the man with the white horse.</p>
+<p>He heard him long before he saw him, as a clattering of hoofs,
+  stumbling footsteps, and a reassuring voice. Then the little man
+  appeared, a rueful figure, still with a tail of white cobweb trailing
+  behind him. They approached each other without speaking, without
+  a salutation. The little man was fatigued and shamed to the pitch
+  of hopeless bitterness, and came to a stop at last, face to face with
+  his seated master. The latter winced a little under his dependant's
+  eye. &quot;Well?&quot; he said at last, with no pretence of authority.</p>
+<p>&quot;You left him?&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;My horse bolted.&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;I know. So did mine.&quot;</p>
+<p>He laughed at his master mirthlessly.</p>
+<p>&quot;I say my horse bolted,&quot; said the man who once had a silver-studded
+  bridle.</p>
+<p>&quot;Cowards both,&quot; said the little man.</p>
+<p>The other gnawed his knuckle through some meditative moments,
+  with his eye on his inferior.</p>
+<p>&quot;Don't call me a coward,&quot; he said at length.</p>
+<p>&quot;You are a coward like myself.&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;A coward possibly. There is a limit beyond which every man must fear.
+  That I have learnt at last. But not like yourself. That is where
+  the difference comes in.&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;I never could have dreamt you would have left him. He saved
+  your life two minutes before. . . . Why are you our lord?&quot;</p>
+<p>The master gnawed his knuckles again, and his countenance was dark.</p>
+<p>&quot;No man calls me a coward,&quot; he said. &quot;No. A broken sword is 
+  better
+  than none. . . . One spavined white horse cannot be expected to carry
+  two men a four days' journey. I hate white horses, but this time
+  it cannot be helped. You begin to understand me? . . . I perceive
+  that you are minded, on the strength of what you have seen and fancy,
+  to taint my reputation. It is men of your sort who unmake kings.
+  Besides which--I never liked you.&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;My lord!&quot; said the little man.</p>
+<p>&quot;No,&quot; said the master. &quot;NO!&quot;</p>
+<p>He stood up sharply as the little man moved. For a minute perhaps
+  they faced one another. Overhead the spiders' balls went driving.
+  There was a quick movement among the pebbles; a running of feet,
+  a cry of despair, a gasp and a blow. . . .</p>
+<p>Towards nightfall the wind fell. The sun set in a calm serenity,
+  and the man who had once possessed the silver bridle came at last
+  very cautiously and by an easy slope out of the ravine again; but now
+  he led the white horse that once belonged to the little man.
+  He would have gone back to his horse to get his silver-mounted
+  bridle again, but he feared night and a quickening breeze might
+  still find him in the valley, and besides he disliked greatly
+  to think he might discover his horse all swathed in cobwebs
+  and perhaps unpleasantly eaten.</p>
+<p>And as he thought of those cobwebs and of all the dangers he
+  had been through, and the manner in which he had been preserved
+  that day, his hand sought a little reliquary that hung about his neck,
+  and he clasped it for a moment with heartfelt gratitude. As he did so
+  his eyes went across the valley.</p>
+<p>&quot;I was hot with passion,&quot; he said, &quot;and now she has met her 
+  reward.
+  They also, no doubt--&quot;</p>
+<p>And behold! Far away out of the wooded slopes across the valley,
+  but in the clearness of the sunset distinct and unmistakable,
+  he saw a little spire of smoke.</p>
+<p>At that his expression of serene resignation changed to an amazed
+  anger. Smoke? He turned the head of the white horse about, and
+  hesitated. And as he did so a little rustle of air went through the
+  grass about him. Far away upon some reeds swayed a tattered sheet of
+  grey. He looked at the cobwebs; he looked at the smoke.</p>
+<p>&quot;Perhaps, after all, it is not them,&quot; he said at last.</p>
+<p>But he knew better.</p>
+<p>After he had stared at the smoke for some time, he mounted the white
+  horse.</p>
+<p>As he rode, he picked his way amidst stranded masses of web. For some
+  reason there were many dead spiders on the ground, and those that
+  lived feasted guiltily on their fellows. At the sound of his horse's
+  hoofs they fled.</p>
+<p>Their time had passed. From the ground without either a wind to carry
+  them or a winding sheet ready, these things, for all their poison,
+  could do him little evil. He flicked with his belt at those
+  he fancied came too near. Once, where a number ran together over
+  a bare place, he was minded to dismount and trample them with his boots,
+  but this impulse he overcame. Ever and again he turned in his saddle,
+  and looked back at the smoke.</p>
+<p>&quot;Spiders,&quot; he muttered over and over again. &quot;Spiders! Well, 
+  well. . . .
+  The next time I must spin a web.&quot;</p>
+<p>
+  4. THE TRUTH ABOUT PYECRAFT</p>
+<p>He sits not a dozen yards away. If I glance over my shoulder
+  I can see him. And if I catch his eye--and usually I catch his eye--
+  it meets me with an expression.</p>
+<p>It is mainly an imploring look--and yet with suspicion in it.</p>
+<p>Confound his suspicion! If I wanted to tell on him I should have told
+  long ago. I don't tell and I don't tell, and he ought to feel at his
+  ease. As if anything so gross and fat as he could feel at ease! Who
+  would believe me if I did tell?</p>
+<p>Poor old Pyecraft! Great, uneasy jelly of substance! The fattest
+  clubman in London.</p>
+<p>He sits at one of the little club tables in the huge bay by the fire,
+  stuffing. What is he stuffing? I glance judiciously and catch him
+  biting at a round of hot buttered tea-cake, with his eyes on me.
+  Confound him!--with his eyes on me!</p>
+<p>That settles it, Pyecraft! Since you WILL be abject, since you WILL
+  behave as though I was not a man of honour, here, right under your
+  embedded eyes, I write the thing down--the plain truth about Pyecraft.
+  The man I helped, the man I shielded, and who has requited me
+  by making my club unendurable, absolutely unendurable, with his
+  liquid appeal, with the perpetual &quot;don't tell&quot; of his looks.</p>
+<p>And, besides, why does he keep on eternally eating?</p>
+<p>Well, here goes for the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the
+  truth!</p>
+<p>Pyecraft--. I made the acquaintance of Pyecraft in this very smoking- room. 
+  I was a young, nervous new member, and he saw it. I was sitting all alone, wishing 
+  I knew more of the members, and suddenly he came, a great rolling front of chins 
+  and abdomina, towards me, and grunted and sat down in a chair close by me and 
+  wheezed for a space, and scraped for a space with a match and lit a cigar, and 
+  then addressed me. I forget what he said--something about the matches not lighting 
+  properly, and afterwards as he talked he kept stopping the waiters one by one 
+  as they went by, and telling them about the matches in that thin, fluty voice 
+  he has. But, anyhow, it was in some such way we began our talking. </p>
+<p>He talked about various things and came round to games. And thence
+  to my figure and complexion. &quot;YOU ought to be a good cricketer,&quot;
+  he said. I suppose I am slender, slender to what some people would
+  call lean, and I suppose I am rather dark, still--I am not ashamed
+  of having a Hindu great-grandmother, but, for all that, I don't want
+  casual strangers to see through me at a glance to HER. So that
+  I was set against Pyecraft from the beginning.</p>
+<p>But he only talked about me in order to get to himself.</p>
+<p>&quot;I expect,&quot; he said, &quot;you take no more exercise than I do, and
+  probably you eat no less.&quot; (Like all excessively obese people
+  he fancied he ate nothing.) &quot;Yet,&quot;--and he smiled an oblique smile--
+  &quot;we differ.&quot;</p>
+<p>And then he began to talk about his fatness and his fatness;
+  all he did for his fatness and all he was going to do for his fatness;
+  what people had advised him to do for his fatness and what he had
+  heard of people doing for fatness similar to his. &quot;A priori,&quot; he said,
+  &quot;one would think a question of nutrition could be answered by dietary
+  and a question of assimilation by drugs.&quot; It was stifling. It was
+  dumpling talk. It made me feel swelled to hear him.</p>
+<p>One stands that sort of thing once in a way at a club, but a time
+  came when I fancied I was standing too much. He took to me altogether
+  too conspicuously. I could never go into the smoking-room but
+  he would come wallowing towards me, and sometimes he came and
+  gormandised round and about me while I had my lunch. He seemed
+  at times almost to be clinging to me. He was a bore, but not so
+  fearful a bore as to be limited to me; and from the first there
+  was something in his manner--almost as though he knew, almost as
+  though he penetrated to the fact that I MIGHT--that there was a remote,
+  exceptional chance in me that no one else presented.</p>
+<p>&quot;I'd give anything to get it down,&quot; he would say--&quot;anything,&quot;
+  and peer at me over his vast cheeks and pant.</p>
+<p>Poor old Pyecraft! He has just gonged, no doubt to order another
+  buttered tea-cake!</p>
+<p>He came to the actual thing one day. &quot;Our Pharmacopoeia,&quot; he said,
+  &quot;our Western Pharmacopoeia, is anything but the last word of medical
+  science. In the East, I've been told--&quot;</p>
+<p>He stopped and stared at me. It was like being at an aquarium.</p>
+<p>I was quite suddenly angry with him. &quot;Look here,&quot; I said, &quot;who 
+  told
+  you about my great-grandmother's recipes?&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;Well,&quot; he fenced.</p>
+<p>&quot;Every time we've met for a week,&quot; I said, &quot;and we've met pretty
+  often--you've given me a broad hint or so about that little secret
+  of mine.&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;Well,&quot; he said, &quot;now the cat's out of the bag, I'll admit, 
+  yes,
+  it is so. I had it--&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;From Pattison?&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;Indirectly,&quot; he said, which I believe was lying, &quot;yes.&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;Pattison,&quot; I said, &quot;took that stuff at his own risk.&quot;</p>
+<p>He pursed his mouth and bowed.</p>
+<p>&quot;My great-grandmother's recipes,&quot; I said, &quot;are queer things 
+  to handle.
+  My father was near making me promise--&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;He didn't?&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;No. But he warned me. He himself used one--once.&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;Ah! . . . But do you think--? Suppose--suppose there did happen
+  to be one--&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;The things are curious documents,&quot; I said.</p>
+<p>&quot;Even the smell of 'em. . . . No!&quot;</p>
+<p>But after going so far Pyecraft was resolved I should go farther.
+  I was always a little afraid if I tried his patience too much he would
+  fall on me suddenly and smother me. I own I was weak. But I was
+  also annoyed with Pyecraft. I had got to that state of feeling
+  for him that disposed me to say, &quot;Well, TAKE the risk!&quot; The little
+  affair of Pattison to which I have alluded was a different matter
+  altogether. What it was doesn't concern us now, but I knew, anyhow,
+  that the particular recipe I used then was safe. The rest I didn't
+  know so much about, and, on the whole, I was inclined to doubt
+  their safety pretty completely.</p>
+<p>Yet even if Pyecraft got poisoned--</p>
+<p>I must confess the poisoning of Pyecraft struck me as an immense
+  undertaking.</p>
+<p>That evening I took that queer, odd-scented sandalwood box out of
+  my safe and turned the rustling skins over. The gentleman who wrote
+  the recipes for my great-grandmother evidently had a weakness for skins
+  of a miscellaneous origin, and his handwriting was cramped to the last
+  degree. Some of the things are quite unreadable to me--though my family,
+  with its Indian Civil Service associations, has kept up a knowledge
+  of Hindustani from generation to generation--and none are absolutely
+  plain sailing. But I found the one that I knew was there soon enough,
+  and sat on the floor by my safe for some time looking at it.</p>
+<p>&quot;Look here,&quot; said I to Pyecraft next day, and snatched the slip away
+  from his eager grasp.</p>
+<p>&quot;So far as I--can make it out, this is a recipe for Loss of Weight.
+  (&quot;Ah!&quot; said Pyecraft.) I'm not absolutely sure, but I think it's that.
+  And if you take my advice you'll leave it alone. Because, you know--
+  I blacken my blood in your interest, Pyecraft--my ancestors on
+  that side were, so far as I can gather, a jolly queer lot. See?&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;Let me try it,&quot; said Pyecraft.</p>
+<p>I leant back in my chair. My imagination made one mighty effort
+  and fell flat within me. &quot;What in Heaven's name, Pyecraft,&quot; I asked,
+  &quot;do you think you'll look like when you get thin?&quot;</p>
+<p>He was impervious to reason. I made him promise never to say a word
+  to me about his disgusting fatness again whatever happened--never,
+  and then I handed him that little piece of skin.</p>
+<p>&quot;It's nasty stuff,&quot; I said.</p>
+<p>&quot;No matter,&quot; he said, and took it.</p>
+<p>He goggled at it. &quot;But--but--&quot; he said.</p>
+<p>He had just discovered that it wasn't English.</p>
+<p>&quot;To the best of my ability,&quot; I said, &quot;I will do you a translation.&quot;</p>
+<p>I did my best. After that we didn't speak for a fortnight. Whenever he
+  approached me I frowned and motioned him away, and he respected
+  our compact, but at the end of a fortnight he was as fat as ever.
+  And then he got a word in.</p>
+<p>&quot;I must speak,&quot; he said. &quot;It isn't fair. There's something wrong.
+  It's done me no good. You're not doing your great-grandmother justice.&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;Where's the recipe?&quot;</p>
+<p>He produced it gingerly from his pocket-book.</p>
+<p>I ran my eye over the items. &quot;Was the egg addled?&quot; I asked.</p>
+<p>&quot;No. Ought it to have been?&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;That,&quot; I said, &quot;goes without saying in all my poor dear
+  great-grandmother's
+  recipes. When condition or quality is not specified you must get
+  the worst. She was drastic or nothing. . . . And there's one or two
+  possible alternatives to some of these other things. You got FRESH
+  rattlesnake venom.&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;I got a rattlesnake from Jamrach's. It cost--it cost--&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;That's your affair, anyhow. This last item--&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;I know a man who--&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;Yes. H'm. Well, I'll write the alternatives down. So far as I know
+  the language, the spelling of this recipe is particularly atrocious.
+  By-the-bye, dog here probably means pariah dog.&quot;</p>
+<p>For a month after that I saw Pyecraft constantly at the club and
+  as fat and anxious as ever. He kept our treaty, but at times he broke
+  the spirit of it by shaking his head despondently. Then one day
+  in the cloakroom he said, &quot;Your great-grandmother--&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;Not a word against her,&quot; I said; and he held his peace.</p>
+<p>I could have fancied he had desisted, and I saw him one day talking
+  to three new members about his fatness as though he was in search
+  of other recipes. And then, quite unexpectedly, his telegram came.</p>
+<p>&quot;Mr. Formalyn!&quot; bawled a page-boy under my nose, and I took the telegram
+  and opened it at once.</p>
+<p>&quot;For Heaven's sake come.--Pyecraft.&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;H'm,&quot; said I, and to tell the truth I was so pleased at the
+  rehabilitation of my great grandmother's reputation this evidently
+  promised that I made a most excellent lunch.</p>
+<p>I got Pyecraft's address from the hall porter. Pyecraft inhabited the
+  upper half of a house in Bloomsbury, and I went there so soon as I
+  had done my coffee and Trappistine. I did not wait to finish my cigar.</p>
+<p>&quot;Mr. Pyecraft?&quot; said I, at the front door.</p>
+<p>They believed he was ill; he hadn't been out for two days.</p>
+<p>&quot;He expects me,&quot; said I, and they sent me up.</p>
+<p>I rang the bell at the lattice-door upon the landing.</p>
+<p>&quot;He shouldn't have tried it, anyhow,&quot; I said to myself. &quot;A man 
+  who
+  eats like a pig ought to look like a pig.&quot;</p>
+<p>An obviously worthy woman, with an anxious face and a carelessly
+  placed cap, came and surveyed me through the lattice.</p>
+<p>I gave my name and she let me in in a dubious fashion.</p>
+<p>&quot;Well?&quot; said I, as we stood together inside Pyecraft's piece of the
+  landing.</p>
+<p>&quot;'E said you was to come in if you came,&quot; she said, and regarded 
+  me,
+  making no motion to show me anywhere. And then, confidentially,
+  &quot;'E's locked in, sir.&quot; </p>
+<p>&quot;Locked in?&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;Locked himself in yesterday morning and 'asn't let any one in since,
+  sir. And ever and again SWEARING. Oh, my!&quot;</p>
+<p>I stared at the door she indicated by her glances.</p>
+<p>&quot;In there?&quot; I said.</p>
+<p>&quot;Yes, sir.&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;What's up?&quot;</p>
+<p>She shook her head sadly, &quot;'E keeps on calling for vittles, sir.
+  'EAVY vittles 'e wants. I get 'im what I can. Pork 'e's 'ad,
+  sooit puddin', sossiges, noo bread. Everythink like that. Left outside,
+  if you please, and me go away. 'E's eatin', sir, somethink AWFUL.&quot;</p>
+<p>There came a piping bawl from inside the door: &quot;That Formalyn?&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;That you, Pyecraft?&quot; I shouted, and went and banged the door.</p>
+<p>&quot;Tell her to go away.&quot;</p>
+<p>I did.</p>
+<p>Then I could hear a curious pattering upon the door, almost like
+  some one feeling for the handle in the dark, and Pyecraft's familiar
+  grunts.</p>
+<p>&quot;It's all right,&quot; I said, &quot;she's gone.&quot;</p>
+<p>But for a long time the door didn't open.</p>
+<p>I heard the key turn. Then Pyecraft's voice said, &quot;Come in.&quot;</p>
+<p>I turned the handle and opened the door. Naturally I expected to see
+  Pyecraft.</p>
+<p>Well, you know, he wasn't there!</p>
+<p>I never had such a shock in my life. There was his sitting-room
+  in a state of untidy disorder, plates and dishes among the books
+  and writing things, and several chairs overturned, but Pyecraft--</p>
+<p>&quot;It's all right, o' man; shut the door,&quot; he said, and then I
+  discovered him.</p>
+<p>There he was right up close to the cornice in the corner by the door,
+  as though some one had glued him to the ceiling. His face was anxious
+  and angry. He panted and gesticulated. &quot;Shut the door,&quot; he said.
+  &quot;If that woman gets hold of it--&quot;</p>
+<p>I shut the door, and went and stood away from him and stared.</p>
+<p>&quot;If anything gives way and you tumble down,&quot; I said, &quot;you'll 
+  break
+  your neck, Pyecraft.&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;I wish I could,&quot; he wheezed.</p>
+<p>&quot;A man of your age and weight getting up to kiddish gymnastics--&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;Don't,&quot; he said, and looked agonised.</p>
+<p>&quot;I'll tell you,&quot; he said, and gesticulated.</p>
+<p>&quot;How the deuce,&quot; said I, &quot;are you holding on up there?&quot;</p>
+<p>And then abruptly I realised that he was not holding on at all,
+  that he was floating up there--just as a gas-filled bladder might
+  have floated in the same position. He began a struggle to thrust
+  himself away from the ceiling and to clamber down the wall to me.
+  &quot;It's that prescription,&quot; he panted, as he did so. &quot;Your great-gran--&quot;</p>
+<p>He took hold of a framed engraving rather carelessly as he spoke
+  and it gave way, and he flew back to the ceiling again, while
+  the picture smashed onto the sofa. Bump he went against the ceiling,
+  and I knew then why he was all over white on the more salient curves
+  and angles of his person. He tried again more carefully, coming
+  down by way of the mantel.</p>
+<p>It was really a most extraordinary spectacle, that great, fat,
+  apoplectic-looking man upside down and trying to get from the ceiling
+  to the floor. &quot;That prescription,&quot; he said. &quot;Too successful.&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;How?&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;Loss of weight--almost complete.&quot;</p>
+<p>And then, of course, I understood.</p>
+<p>&quot;By Jove, Pyecraft,&quot; said I, &quot;what you wanted was a cure for 
+  fatness!
+  But you always called it weight. You would call it weight.&quot;</p>
+<p>Somehow I was extremely delighted. I quite liked Pyecraft for the time.
+  &quot;Let me help you!&quot; I said, and took his hand and pulled him down.
+  He kicked about, trying to get a foothold somewhere. It was very like
+  holding a flag on a windy day.</p>
+<p>&quot;That table,&quot; he said, pointing, &quot;is solid mahogany and very 
+  heavy.
+  If you can put me under that---&quot;</p>
+<p>I did, and there he wallowed about like a captive balloon, while
+  I stood on his hearthrug and talked to him.</p>
+<p>I lit a cigar. &quot;Tell me,&quot; I said, &quot;what happened?&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;I took it,&quot; he said.</p>
+<p>&quot;How did it taste?&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;Oh, BEASTLY!&quot;</p>
+<p>I should fancy they all did. Whether one regards the ingredients
+  or the probable compound or the possible results, almost all of
+  my great-grandmother's remedies appear to me at least to be
+  extraordinarily uninviting. For my own part--</p>
+<p>&quot;I took a little sip first.&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;Yes?&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;And as I felt lighter and better after an hour, I decided to take
+  the draught.&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;My dear Pyecraft!&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;I held my nose,&quot; he explained. &quot;And then I kept on getting 
+  lighter
+  and lighter--and helpless, you know.&quot;</p>
+<p>He gave way to a sudden burst of passion. &quot;What the goodness am I
+  to DO?&quot; he said.</p>
+<p>&quot;There's one thing pretty evident,&quot; I said, &quot;that you mustn't 
+  do.
+  If you go out of doors, you'll go up and up.&quot; I waved an arm upward.
+  &quot;They'd have to send Santos-Dumont after you to bring you down again.&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;I suppose it will wear off?&quot;</p>
+<p>I shook my head. &quot;I don't think you can count on that,&quot; I said.</p>
+<p>And then there was another burst of passion, and he kicked out
+  at adjacent chairs and banged the floor. He behaved just as I should
+  have expected a great, fat, self-indulgent man to behave under trying
+  circumstances--that is to say, very badly. He spoke of me and
+  my great-grandmother with an utter want of discretion.</p>
+<p>&quot;I never asked you to take the stuff,&quot; I said.</p>
+<p>And generously disregarding the insults he was putting upon me,
+  I sat down in his armchair and began to talk to him in a sober,
+  friendly fashion.</p>
+<p>I pointed out to him that this was a trouble he had brought upon
+  himself, and that it had almost an air of poetical justice. He had
+  eaten too much. This he disputed, and for a time we argued the point.</p>
+<p>He became noisy and violent, so I desisted from this aspect
+  of his lesson. &quot;And then,&quot; said I, &quot;you committed the sin of 
+  euphuism.
+  You called it not Fat, which is just and inglorious, but Weight. You--&quot;</p>
+<p>He interrupted to say he recognised all that. What was he to DO?</p>
+<p>I suggested he should adapt himself to his new conditions. So we
+  came to the really sensible part of the business. I suggested that
+  it would not be difficult for him to learn to walk about on the ceiling
+  with his hands--</p>
+<p>&quot;I can't sleep,&quot; he said.</p>
+<p>But that was no great difficulty. It was quite possible, I pointed out,
+  to make a shake-up under a wire mattress, fasten the under things
+  on with tapes, and have a blanket, sheet, and coverlet to button
+  at the side. He would have to confide in his housekeeper, I said;
+  and after some squabbling he agreed to that. (Afterwards it was
+  quite delightful to see the beautifully matter-of-fact way with which
+  the good lady took all these amazing inversions.) He could have
+  a library ladder in his room, and all his meals could be laid on
+  the top of his bookcase. We also hit on an ingenious device by which
+  he could get to the floor whenever he wanted, which was simply to put
+  the British Encyclopaedia (tenth edition) on the top of his open
+  shelves. He just pulled out a couple of volumes and held on, and down
+  he came. And we agreed there must be iron staples along the skirting,
+  so that he could cling to those whenever he wanted to get about the
+  room on the lower level.</p>
+<p>As we got on with the thing I found myself almost keenly interested.
+  It was I who called in the housekeeper and broke matters to her,
+  and it was I chiefly who fixed up the inverted bed. In fact, I spent
+  two whole days at his flat. I am a handy, interfering sort of man
+  with a screw-driver, and I made all sorts of ingenious adaptations
+  for him--ran a wire to bring his bells within reach, turned all
+  his electric lights up instead of down, and so on. The whole affair
+  was extremely curious and interesting to me, and it was delightful
+  to think of Pyecraft like some great, fat blow-fly, crawling about
+  on his ceiling and clambering round the lintels of his doors
+  from one room to another, and never, never, never coming to
+  the club any more. . . .</p>
+<p>Then, you know, my fatal ingenuity got the better of me. I was
+  sitting by his fire drinking his whisky, and he was up in his
+  favourite corner by the cornice, tacking a Turkey carpet to the
+  ceiling, when the idea struck me. &quot;By Jove, Pyecraft!&quot; I said, &quot;all
+  this is totally unnecessary.&quot;</p>
+<p>And before I could calculate the complete consequences of my notion
+  I blurted it out. &quot;Lead underclothing,&quot; said I, and the mischief was
+  done.</p>
+<p>Pyecraft received the thing almost in tears. &quot;To be right ways up
+  again--&quot; he said. I gave him the whole secret before I saw where
+  it would take me. &quot;Buy sheet lead,&quot; I said, &quot;stamp it into discs.
+  Sew 'em all over your underclothes until you have enough. Have
+  lead-soled boots, carry a bag of solid lead, and the thing is done!
+  Instead of being a prisoner here you may go abroad again, Pyecraft;
+  you may travel--&quot;</p>
+<p>A still happier idea came to me. &quot;You need never fear a shipwreck.
+  All you need do is just slip off some or all of your clothes, take the
+  necessary amount of luggage in your hand, and float up in the air--&quot;</p>
+<p>In his emotion he dropped the tack-hammer within an ace of my head.
+  &quot;By Jove!&quot; he said, &quot;I shall be able to come back to the club 
+  again.&quot;</p>
+<p>The thing pulled me up short. &quot;By Jove!&quot; I said faintly. &quot;Yes.
+  Of course--you will.&quot;</p>
+<p>He did. He does. There he sits behind me now, stuffing--as I live!--
+  a third go of buttered tea-cake. And no one in the whole world knows--
+  except his housekeeper and me--that he weighs practically nothing;
+  that he is a mere boring mass of assimilatory matter, mere clouds
+  in clothing, niente, nefas, the most inconsiderable of men. There
+  he sits watching until I have done this writing. Then, if he can,
+  he will waylay me. He will come billowing up to me. . . .</p>
+<p>He will tell me over again all about it, how it feels, how it
+  doesn't feel, how he sometimes hopes it is passing off a little.
+  And always somewhere in that fat, abundant discourse he will say,
+  &quot;The secret's keeping, eh? If any one knew of it--I should be
+  so ashamed. . . . Makes a fellow look such a fool, you know.
+  Crawling about on a ceiling and all that. . . .&quot;</p>
+<p>And now to elude Pyecraft, occupying, as he does, an admirable
+  strategic position between me and the door.</p>
+<p>
+  5. MR. SKELMERSDALE IN FAIRYLAND</p>
+<p>&quot;There's a man in that shop,&quot; said the Doctor, &quot;who has been 
+  in
+  Fairyland.&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;Nonsense!&quot; I said, and stared back at the shop. It was the usual
+  village shop, post-office, telegraph wire on its brow, zinc pans and
+  brushes outside, boots, shirtings, and potted meats in the window.
+  &quot;Tell me about it,&quot; I said, after a pause.</p>
+<p>&quot;<i>I</i> don't know,&quot; said the Doctor. &quot;He's an ordinary 
+  sort of lout-- Skelmersdale is his name. But everybody about here believes it 
+  like Bible truth.&quot;</p>
+<p>I reverted presently to the topic.</p>
+<p>&quot;I know nothing about it,&quot; said the Doctor, &quot;and I don't WANT 
+  to know.
+  I attended him for a broken finger--Married and Single cricket match--
+  and that's when I struck the nonsense. That's all. But it shows you
+  the sort of stuff I have to deal with, anyhow, eh? Nice to get
+  modern sanitary ideas into a people like this!&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;Very,&quot; I said in a mildly sympathetic tone, and he went on to tell
+  me about that business of the Bonham drain. Things of that kind,
+  I observe, are apt to weigh on the minds of Medical Officers of Health.
+  I was as sympathetic as I knew how, and when he called the Bonham
+  people &quot;asses,&quot; I said they were &quot;thundering asses,&quot; but 
+  even that
+  did not allay him.</p>
+<p>Afterwards, later in the summer, an urgent desire to seclude myself,
+  while finishing my chapter on Spiritual Pathology--it was really,
+  I believe, stiffer to write than it is to read--took me to Bignor.
+  I lodged at a farmhouse, and presently found myself outside that
+  little general shop again, in search of tobacco. &quot;Skelmersdale,&quot;
+  said I to myself at the sight of it, and went in.</p>
+<p>I was served by a short, but shapely, young man, with a fair downy complexion, 
+  good, small teeth, blue eyes, and a languid manner. I scrutinised him curiously. 
+  Except for a touch of melancholy in his expression, he was nothing out of the 
+  common. He was in the shirt-sleeves and tucked-up apron of his trade, and a 
+  pencil was thrust behind his inoffensive ear. Athwart his black waistcoat was 
+  a gold chain, from which dangled a bent guinea.</p>
+<p>&quot;Nothing more to-day, sir?&quot; he inquired. He leant forward over
+  my bill as he spoke.</p>
+<p>&quot;Are you Mr. Skelmersdale?&quot; said I.</p>
+<p>&quot;I am, sir,&quot; he said, without looking up.</p>
+<p>&quot;Is it true that you have been in Fairyland?&quot;</p>
+<p>He looked up at me for a moment with wrinkled brows, with an aggrieved,
+  exasperated face. &quot;O SHUT it! &quot; he said, and, after a moment
+  of hostility, eye to eye, he went on adding up my bill. &quot;Four,
+  six and a half,&quot; he said, after a pause. &quot;Thank you, Sir.&quot;</p>
+<p>So, unpropitiously, my acquaintance with Mr. Skelmersdale began.</p>
+<p>Well, I got from that to confidence--through a series of toilsome
+  efforts. I picked him up again in the Village Room, where of a night
+  I went to play billiards after my supper, and mitigate the extreme
+  seclusion from my kind that was so helpful to work during the day.
+  I contrived to play with him and afterwards to talk with him. I found
+  the one subject to avoid was Fairyland. On everything else he was
+  open and amiable in a commonplace sort of way, but on that he had
+  been worried--it was a manifest taboo. Only once in the room did
+  I hear the slightest allusion to his experience in his presence,
+  and that was by a cross-grained farm hand who was losing to him.
+  Skelmersdale had run a break into double figures, which, by the Bignor
+  standards, was uncommonly good play. &quot;Steady on!&quot; said his adversary.
+  &quot;None of your fairy flukes!&quot;</p>
+<p>Skelmersdale stared at him for a moment, cue in hand, then flung
+  it down and walked out of the room.</p>
+<p>&quot;Why can't you leave 'im alone?&quot; said a respectable elder who had
+  been enjoying the game, and in the general murmur of disapproval
+  the grin of satisfied wit faded from the ploughboy's face.</p>
+<p>I scented my opportunity. &quot;What's this joke,&quot; said I, &quot;about 
+  Fairyland?&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;'Tain't no joke about Fairyland, not to young Skelmersdale,&quot; said
+  the respectable elder, drinking. A little man with rosy cheeks was
+  more communicative. &quot;They DO say, sir,&quot; he said, &quot;that they took 
+  him
+  into Aldington Knoll an' kep' him there a matter of three weeks.&quot;</p>
+<p>And with that the gathering was well under weigh. Once one sheep
+  had started, others were ready enough to follow, and in a little time
+  I had at least the exterior aspect of the Skelmersdale affair.
+  Formerly, before he came to Bignor, he had been in that very similar
+  little shop at Aldington Corner, and there whatever it was did happen
+  had taken place. The story was clear that he had stayed out late
+  one night on the Knoll and vanished for three weeks from the sight
+  of men, and had returned with &quot;his cuffs as clean as when he started,&quot;
+  and his pockets full of dust and ashes. He returned in a state of
+  moody wretchedness that only slowly passed away, and for many days he
+  would give no account of where it was he had been. The girl he was
+  engaged to at Clapton Hill tried to get it out of him, and threw him
+  over partly because he refused, and partly because, as she said, he
+  fairly gave her the &quot;'ump.&quot; And then when, some time after, he let 
+  out
+  to some one carelessly that he had been in Fairyland and wanted to go
+  back, and when the thing spread and the simple badinage of the
+  countryside came into play, he threw up his situation abruptly, and
+  came to Bignor to get out of the fuss. But as to what had happened in
+  Fairyland none of these people knew. There the gathering in the Village
+  Room went to pieces like a pack at fault. One said this, and another
+  said that.</p>
+<p>Their air in dealing with this marvel was ostensibly critical and
+  sceptical, but I could see a considerable amount of belief showing
+  through their guarded qualifications. I took a line of intelligent
+  interest, tinged with a reasonable doubt of the whole story.</p>
+<p>&quot;If Fairyland's inside Aldington Knoll,&quot; I said, &quot;why don't 
+  you dig it
+  out?&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;That's what I says,&quot; said the young ploughboy.</p>
+<p>&quot;There's a-many have tried to dig on Aldington Knoll,&quot; said the
+  respectable elder, solemnly, &quot;one time and another. But there's
+  none as goes about to-day to tell what they got by digging.&quot;</p>
+<p>The unanimity of vague belief that surrounded me was rather impressive;
+  I felt there must surely be SOMETHING at the root of so much conviction,
+  and the already pretty keen curiosity I felt about the real facts
+  of the case was distinctly whetted. If these real facts were to be
+  got from any one, they were to be got from Skelmersdale himself;
+  and I set myself, therefore, still more assiduously to efface
+  the first bad impression I had made and win his confidence to the pitch
+  of voluntary speech. In that endeavour I had a social advantage.
+  Being a person of affability and no apparent employment, and wearing
+  tweeds and knickerbockers, I was naturally classed as an artist
+  in Bignor, and in the remarkable code of social precedence prevalent
+  in Bignor an artist ranks considerably higher than a grocer's assistant.
+  Skelmersdale, like too many of his class, is something of a snob;
+  he had told me to &quot;shut it,&quot; only under sudden, excessive provocation,
+  and with, I am certain, a subsequent repentance; he was, I knew,
+  quite glad to be seen walking about the village with me. In due course,
+  he accepted the proposal of a pipe and whisky in my rooms readily
+  enough, and there, scenting by some happy instinct that there
+  was trouble of the heart in this, and knowing that confidences beget
+  confidences, I plied him with much of interest and suggestion from
+  my real and fictitious past. And it was after the third whisky
+  of the third visit of that sort, if I remember rightly, that a propos
+  of some artless expansion of a little affair that had touched and
+  left me in my teens, that he did at last, of his own free will
+  and motion, break the ice. &quot;It was like that with me,&quot; he said,
+  &quot;over there at Aldington. It's just that that's so rum. First I didn't
+  care a bit and it was all her, and afterwards, when it was too late,
+  it was, in a manner of speaking, all me.&quot;</p>
+<p>I forbore to jump upon this allusion, and so he presently threw out
+  another, and in a little while he was making it as plain as daylight
+  that the one thing he wanted to talk about now was this Fairyland
+  adventure he had sat tight upon for so long. You see, I'd done
+  the trick with him, and from being just another half-incredulous,
+  would-be facetious stranger, I had, by all my wealth of shameless
+  self-exposure, become the possible confidant. He had been bitten
+  by the desire to show that he, too, had lived and felt many things,
+  and the fever was upon him.</p>
+<p>He was certainly confoundedly allusive at first, and my eagerness
+  to clear him up with a few precise questions was only equalled
+  and controlled by my anxiety not to get to this sort of thing too soon.
+  But in another meeting or so the basis of confidence was complete;
+  and from first to last I think I got most of the items and aspects--
+  indeed, I got quite a number of times over almost everything that
+  Mr. Skelmersdale, with his very limited powers of narration, will
+  ever be able to tell. And so I come to the story of his adventure,
+  and I piece it all together again. Whether it really happened,
+  whether he imagined it or dreamt it, or fell upon it in some strange
+  hallucinatory trance, I do not profess to say. But that he invented
+  it I will not for one moment entertain. The man simply and honestly
+  believes the thing happened as he says it happened; he is transparently
+  incapable of any lie so elaborate and sustained, and in the belief
+  of the simple, yet often keenly penetrating, rustic minds about him
+  I find a very strong confirmation of his sincerity. He believes--
+  and nobody can produce any positive fact to falsify his belief.
+  As for me, with this much of endorsement, I transmit his story--
+  I am a little old now to justify or explain.</p>
+<p>He says he went to sleep on Aldington Knoll about ten o'clock one
+  night--it was quite possibly Midsummer night, though he has never
+  thought of the date, and he cannot be sure within a week or so--
+  and it was a fine night and windless, with a rising moon. I have been
+  at the pains to visit this Knoll thrice since his story grew up
+  under my persuasions, and once I went there in the twilight summer
+  moonrise on what was, perhaps, a similar night to that of his adventure.
+  Jupiter was great and splendid above the moon, and in the north
+  and northwest the sky was green and vividly bright over the sunken
+  sun. The Knoll stands out bare and bleak under the sky, but surrounded
+  at a little distance by dark thickets, and as I went up towards it
+  there was a mighty starting and scampering of ghostly or quite
+  invisible rabbits. Just over the crown of the Knoll, but nowhere else,
+  was a multitudinous thin trumpeting of midges. The Knoll is, I believe,
+  an artificial mound, the tumulus of some great prehistoric chieftain,
+  and surely no man ever chose a more spacious prospect for a sepulchre.
+  Eastward one sees along the hills to Hythe, and thence across
+  the Channel to where, thirty miles and more perhaps, away, the great
+  white lights by Gris Nez and Boulogne wink and pass and shine.
+  Westward lies the whole tumbled valley of the Weald, visible as far
+  as Hindhead and Leith Hill, and the valley of the Stour opens
+  the Downs in the north to interminable hills beyond Wye. All
+  Romney Marsh lies southward at one's feet, Dymchurch and Romney
+  and Lydd, Hastings and its hill are in the middle distance, and
+  the hills multiply vaguely far beyond where Eastbourne rolls up
+  to Beachy Head.</p>
+<p>And out upon all this it was that Skelmersdale wandered, being troubled
+  in his earlier love affair, and as he says, &quot;not caring WHERE he went.&quot;
+  And there he sat down to think it over, and so, sulking and grieving,
+  was overtaken by sleep. And so he fell into the fairies' power.</p>
+<p>The quarrel that had upset him was some trivial matter enough
+  between himself and the girl at Clapton Hill to whom he was engaged.
+  She was a farmer's daughter, said Skelmersdale, and &quot;very respectable,&quot;
+  and no doubt an excellent match for him; but both girl and lover
+  were very young and with just that mutual jealousy, that intolerantly
+  keen edge of criticism, that irrational hunger for a beautiful
+  perfection, that life and wisdom do presently and most mercifully
+  dull. What the precise matter of quarrel was I have no idea. She may
+  have said she liked men in gaiters when he hadn't any gaiters on,
+  or he may have said he liked her better in a different sort of hat,
+  but however it began, it got by a series of clumsy stages to bitterness
+  and tears. She no doubt got tearful and smeary, and he grew dusty
+  and drooping, and she parted with invidious comparisons, grave doubts
+  whether she ever had REALLY cared for him, and a clear certainty
+  she would never care again. And with this sort of thing upon his mind
+  he came out upon Aldington Knoll grieving, and presently, after
+  a long interval, perhaps, quite inexplicably, fell asleep.</p>
+<p>He woke to find himself on a softer turf than ever he had slept
+  on before, and under the shade of very dark trees that completely
+  hid the sky. Always, indeed, in Fairyland the sky is hidden, it seems.
+  Except for one night when the fairies were dancing, Mr. Skelmersdale,
+  during all his time with them, never saw a star. And of that night
+  I am in doubt whether he was in Fairyland proper or out where the rings
+  and rushes are, in those low meadows near the railway line at Smeeth.</p>
+<p>But it was light under these trees for all that, and on the leaves
+  and amidst the turf shone a multitude of glow-worms, very bright
+  and fine. Mr. Skelmersdale's first impression was that he was SMALL,
+  and the next that quite a number of people still smaller were standing
+  all about him. For some reason, he says, he was neither surprised
+  nor frightened, but sat up quite deliberately and rubbed the sleep
+  out of his eyes. And there all about him stood the smiling elves
+  who had caught him sleeping under their privileges and had brought
+  him into Fairyland.</p>
+<p>What these elves were like I have failed to gather, so vague
+  and imperfect is his vocabulary, and so unobservant of all minor
+  detail does he seem to have been. They were clothed in something
+  very light and beautiful, that was neither wool, nor silk, nor leaves,
+  nor the petals of flowers. They stood all about him as he sat and waked,
+  and down the glade towards him, down a glow-worm avenue and fronted
+  by a star, came at once that Fairy Lady who is the chief personage
+  of his memory and tale. Of her I gathered more. She was clothed in
+  filmy green, and about her little waist was a broad silver girdle. Her
+  hair waved back from her forehead on either side; there were curls not
+  too wayward and yet astray, and on her brow was a little tiara,
+  set with a single star. Her sleeves were some sort of open sleeves
+  that gave little glimpses of her arms; her throat, I think, was
+  a little displayed, because he speaks of the beauty of her neck
+  and chin. There was a necklace of coral about her white throat,
+  and in her breast a coral-coloured flower. She had the soft lines
+  of a little child in her chin and cheeks and throat. And her eyes,
+  I gather, were of a kindled brown, very soft and straight and sweet
+  under her level brows. You see by these particulars how greatly
+  this lady must have loomed in Mr. Skelmersdale's picture. Certain
+  things he tried to express and could not express; &quot;the way she moved,&quot;
+  he said several times; and I fancy a sort of demure joyousness
+  radiated from this Lady.</p>
+<p>And it was in the company of this delightful person, as the guest
+  and chosen companion of this delightful person, that Mr. Skelmersdale
+  set out to be taken into the intimacies of Fairyland. She welcomed
+  him gladly and a little warmly--I suspect a pressure of his hand
+  in both of hers and a lit face to his. After all, ten years ago
+  young Skelmersdale may have been a very comely youth. And once
+  she took his arm, and once, I think, she led him by the hand adown
+  the glade that the glow-worms lit.</p>
+<p>Just how things chanced and happened there is no telling from
+  Mr. Skelmersdale's disarticulated skeleton of description. He gives
+  little unsatisfactory glimpses of strange corners and doings, of places
+  where there were many fairies together, of &quot;toadstool things that
+  shone pink,&quot; of fairy food, of which he could only say &quot;you should
+  have tasted it!&quot; and of fairy music, &quot;like a little musical box,&quot;
+  that came out of nodding flowers. There was a great open place
+  where fairies rode and raced on &quot;things,&quot; but what Mr. Skelmersdale
+  meant by &quot;these here things they rode,&quot; there is no telling. Larvae,
+  perhaps, or crickets, or the little beetles that elude us so abundantly.
+  There was a place where water splashed and gigantic king-cups grew,
+  and there in the hotter times the fairies bathed together. There were
+  games being played and dancing and much elvish love-making, too,
+  I think, among the moss-branch thickets. There can be no doubt that
+  the Fairy Lady made love to Mr. Skelmersdale, and no doubt either
+  that this young man set himself to resist her. A time came, indeed,
+  when she sat on a bank beside him, in a quiet, secluded place
+  &quot;all smelling of vi'lets,&quot; and talked to him of love.</p>
+<p>&quot;When her voice went low and she whispered,&quot; said Mr. Skelmersdale,
+  &quot;and laid 'er 'and on my 'and, you know, and came close with a soft,
+  warm friendly way she 'ad, it was as much as I could do to keep my
+  'ead.&quot;</p>
+<p>It seems he kept his head to a certain limited unfortunate extent.
+  He saw &quot;'ow the wind was blowing,&quot; he says, and so, sitting there
+  in a place all smelling of violets, with the touch of this lovely
+  Fairy Lady about him, Mr. Skelmersdale broke it to her gently--
+  that he was engaged!</p>
+<p>She had told him she loved him dearly, that he was a sweet human lad
+  for her, and whatever he would ask of her he should have--even
+  his heart's desire.</p>
+<p>And Mr. Skelmersdale, who, I fancy, tried hard to avoid looking
+  at her little lips as they just dropped apart and came together,
+  led up to the more intimate question by saying he would like enough
+  capital to start a little shop. He'd just like to feel, he said,
+  he had money enough to do that. I imagine a little surprise in those
+  brown eyes he talked about, but she seemed sympathetic for all that,
+  and she asked him many questions about the little shop, &quot;laughing like&quot;
+  all the time. So he got to the complete statement of his affianced
+  position, and told her all about Millie.</p>
+<p>&quot;All?&quot; said I.</p>
+<p>&quot;Everything,&quot; said Mr. Skelmersdale, &quot;just who she was, and 
+  where
+  she lived, and everything about her. I sort of felt I 'ad to all
+  the time, I did.&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;'Whatever you want you shall have,' said the Fairy Lady. 'That's as
+  good as done. You SHALL feel you have the money just as you wish.
+  And now, you know--YOU MUST KISS ME.'&quot;</p>
+<p>And Mr. Skelmersdale pretended not to hear the latter part of her
+  remark, and said she was very kind. That he really didn't deserve she
+  should be so kind. And--</p>
+<p>The Fairy Lady suddenly came quite close to him and whispered, &quot;Kiss
+  me!&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;And,&quot; said Mr. Skelmersdale, &quot;like a fool, I did.&quot;</p>
+<p>There are kisses and kisses, I am told, and this must have been quite
+  the other sort from Millie's resonant signals of regard. There was
+  something magic in that kiss; assuredly it marked a turning point.
+  At any rate, this is one of the passages that he thought sufficiently
+  important to describe most at length. I have tried to get it right,
+  I have tried to disentangle it from the hints and gestures through
+  which it came to me, but I have no doubt that it was all different
+  from my telling and far finer and sweeter, in the soft filtered light
+  and the subtly stirring silences of the fairy glades. The Fairy Lady
+  asked him more about Millie, and was she very lovely, and so on--
+  a great many times. As to Millie's loveliness, I conceive him
+  answering that she was &quot;all right.&quot; And then, or on some such
+  occasion, the Fairy Lady told him she had fallen in love with him
+  as he slept in the moonlight, and so he had been brought into
+  Fairyland, and she had thought, not knowing of Millie, that perhaps
+  he might chance to love her. &quot;But now you know you can't,&quot; she said,
+  &quot;so you must stop with me just a little while, and then you must
+  go back to Millie.&quot; She told him that, and you know Skelmersdale
+  was already in love with her, but the pure inertia of his mind kept
+  him in the way he was going. I imagine him sitting in a sort
+  of stupefaction amidst all these glowing beautiful things, answering
+  about his Millie and the little shop he projected and the need
+  of a horse and cart. . . . And that absurd state of affairs must
+  have gone on for days and days. I see this little lady, hovering
+  about him and trying to amuse him, too dainty to understand his
+  complexity and too tender to let him go. And he, you know, hypnotised
+  as it were by his earthly position, went his way with her hither
+  and thither, blind to everything in Fairyland but this wonderful
+  intimacy that had come to him. It is hard, it is impossible, to give
+  in print the effect of her radiant sweetness shining through the jungle
+  of poor Skelmersdale's rough and broken sentences. To me, at least,
+  she shone clear amidst the muddle of his story like a glow-worm
+  in a tangle of weeds.</p>
+<p>There must have been many days of things while all this was happening--
+  and once, I say, they danced under the moonlight in the fairy rings
+  that stud the meadows near Smeeth--but at last it all came to an end.
+  She led him into a great cavernous place, lit by a red nightlight
+  sort of thing, where there were coffers piled on coffers, and cups
+  and golden boxes, and a great heap of what certainly seemed to all
+  Mr. Skelmersdale's senses--coined gold. There were little gnomes
+  amidst this wealth, who saluted her at her coming, and stood aside.
+  And suddenly she turned on him there with brightly shining eyes.</p>
+<p>&quot;And now,&quot; she said, &quot;you have been kind to stay with me so 
+  long,
+  and it is time I let you go. You must go back to your Millie. You must
+  go back to your Millie, and here--just as I promised you--they will
+  give you gold.&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;She choked like,&quot; said Mr. Skelmersdale. &quot;At that, I had a 
+  sort
+  of feeling--&quot; (he touched his breastbone) &quot;as though I was fainting
+  here. I felt pale, you know, and shivering, and even then--I 'adn't
+  a thing to say.&quot;</p>
+<p>He paused. &quot;Yes,&quot; I said.</p>
+<p>The scene was beyond his describing. But I know that she kissed
+  him good-bye.</p>
+<p>&quot;And you said nothing?&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;Nothing,&quot; he said. &quot;I stood like a stuffed calf. She just looked
+  back once, you know, and stood smiling like and crying--I could
+  see the shine of her eyes--and then she was gone, and there was
+  all these little fellows bustling about me, stuffing my 'ands and
+  my pockets and the back of my collar and everywhere with gold.&quot;</p>
+<p>And then it was, when the Fairy Lady had vanished, that Mr. Skelmersdale
+  really understood and knew. He suddenly began plucking out the gold
+  they were thrusting upon him, and shouting out at them to prevent
+  their giving him more. &quot;'I don't WANT yer gold,' I said. 'I 'aven't
+  done yet. I'm not going. I want to speak to that Fairy Lady again.'
+  I started off to go after her and they held me back. Yes, stuck
+  their little 'ands against my middle and shoved me back. They kept
+  giving me more and more gold until it was running all down my
+  trouser legs and dropping out of my 'ands. 'I don't WANT yer gold,'
+  I says to them, 'I want just to speak to the Fairy Lady again.'&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;And did you?&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;It came to a tussle.&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;Before you saw her?&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;I didn't see her. When I got out from them she wasn't anywhere
+  to be seen.&quot;</p>
+<p>So he ran in search of her out of this red-lit cave, down a long
+  grotto, seeking her, and thence he came out in a great and desolate
+  place athwart which a swarm of will-o'-the-wisps were flying to and fro.
+  And about him elves were dancing in derision, and the little gnomes
+  came out of the cave after him, carrying gold in handfuls and casting
+  it after him, shouting, &quot;Fairy love and fairy gold! Fairy love and
+  fairy gold!&quot;</p>
+<p>And when he heard these words, came a great fear that it was all over,
+  and he lifted up his voice and called to her by her name, and suddenly
+  set himself to run down the slope from the mouth of the cavern,
+  through a place of thorns and briers, calling after her very loudly
+  and often. The elves danced about him unheeded, pinching him
+  and pricking him, and the will-o'-the-wisps circled round him
+  and dashed into his face, and the gnomes pursued him shouting and
+  pelting him with fairy gold. As he ran with all this strange rout
+  about him and distracting him, suddenly he was knee-deep in a swamp,
+  and suddenly he was amidst thick twisted roots, and he caught his foot
+  in one and stumbled and fell. . . .</p>
+<p>He fell and he rolled over, and in that instant he found himself
+  sprawling upon Aldington Knoll, all lonely under the stars.</p>
+<p>He sat up sharply at once, he says, and found he was very stiff
+  and cold, and his clothes were damp with dew. The first pallor
+  of dawn and a chilly wind were coming up together. He could have
+  believed the whole thing a strangely vivid dream until he thrust
+  his hand into his side pocket and found it stuffed with ashes.
+  Then he knew for certain it was fairy gold they had given him.
+  He could feel all their pinches and pricks still, though there was
+  never a bruise upon him. And in that manner, and so suddenly,
+  Mr. Skelmersdale came out of Fairyland back into this world of men.
+  Even then he fancied the thing was but the matter of a night until
+  he returned to the shop at Aldington Corner and discovered amidst
+  their astonishment that he had been away three weeks.</p>
+<p>&quot;Lor'! the trouble I 'ad!&quot; said Mr. Skelmersdale.</p>
+<p>&quot;How?&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;Explaining. I suppose you've never had anything like that to explain.&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;Never,&quot; I said, and he expatiated for a time on the behaviour of
+  this person and that. One name he avoided for a space.</p>
+<p>&quot;And Millie?&quot; said I at last.</p>
+<p>&quot;I didn't seem to care a bit for seeing Millie,&quot; he said.</p>
+<p>&quot;I expect she seemed changed?&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;Every one was changed. Changed for good. Every one seemed big,
+  you know, and coarse. And their voices seemed loud. Why, the sun,
+  when it rose in the morning, fair hit me in the eye!&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;And Millie?&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;I didn't want to see Millie.&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;And when you did?&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;I came up against her Sunday, coming out of church. 'Where you been?' 
+  she said, and I saw there was a row. <i>I</i> didn't care if there was. I 
+  seemed to forget about her even while she was there a-talking to me. She was 
+  just nothing. I couldn't make out whatever I 'ad seen in 'er ever, or what there 
+  could 'ave been. Sometimes when she wasn't about, I did get back a little, but 
+  never when she was there. Then it was always the other came up and blotted her 
+  out. . . . Anyow, it didn't break her heart.&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;Married?&quot; I asked.</p>
+<p>&quot;Married 'er cousin,&quot; said Mr. Skelmersdale, and reflected on the
+  pattern of the tablecloth for a space.</p>
+<p>When he spoke again it was clear that his former sweetheart had clean
+  vanished from his mind, and that the talk had brought back the Fairy
+  Lady triumphant in his heart. He talked of her--soon he was letting
+  out the oddest things, queer love secrets it would be treachery to
+  repeat. I think, indeed, that was the queerest thing in the whole
+  affair, to hear that neat little grocer man after his story was done,
+  with a glass of whisky beside him and a cigar between his fingers,
+  witnessing, with sorrow still, though now, indeed, with a time-blunted
+  anguish, of the inappeasable hunger of the heart that presently
+  came upon him. &quot;I couldn't eat,&quot; he said, &quot;I couldn't sleep. 
+  I made
+  mistakes in orders and got mixed with change. There she was day
+  and night, drawing me and drawing me. Oh, I wanted her. Lord! how
+  I wanted her! I was up there, most evenings I was up there on the Knoll,
+  often even when it rained. I used to walk over the Knoll and round it
+  and round it, calling for them to let me in. Shouting. Near blubbering
+  I was at times. Daft I was and miserable. I kept on saying it was all
+  a mistake. And every Sunday afternoon I went up there, wet and fine,
+  though I knew as well as you do it wasn't no good by day. And I've
+  tried to go to sleep there.&quot;</p>
+<p>He stopped sharply and decided to drink some whisky.</p>
+<p>&quot;I've tried to go to sleep there,&quot; he said, and I could swear his 
+  lips
+  trembled. &quot;I've tried to go to sleep there, often and often. And,
+  you know, I couldn't, sir--never. I've thought if I could go to sleep
+  there, there might be something. But I've sat up there and laid up
+  there, and I couldn't--not for thinking and longing. It's the
+  longing. . . . I've tried--&quot;</p>
+<p>He blew, drank up the rest of his whisky spasmodically, stood up
+  suddenly and buttoned his jacket, staring closely and critically
+  at the cheap oleographs beside the mantel meanwhile. The little
+  black notebook in which he recorded the orders of his daily round
+  projected stiffly from his breast pocket. When all the buttons were
+  quite done, he patted his chest and turned on me suddenly. &quot;Well,&quot;
+  he said, &quot;I must be going.&quot;</p>
+<p>There was something in his eyes and manner that was too difficult
+  for him to express in words. &quot;One gets talking,&quot; he said at last
+  at the door, and smiled wanly, and so vanished from my eyes.
+  And that is the tale of Mr. Skelmersdale in Fairyland just as
+  he told it to me.</p>
+<p>
+  6. THE STORY OF THE INEXPERIENCED GHOST</p>
+<p>The scene amidst which Clayton told his last story comes back very vividly 
+  to my mind. There he sat, for the greater part of the time, in the corner of 
+  the authentic settle by the spacious open fire, and Sanderson sat beside him 
+  smoking the Broseley clay that bore his name. There was Evans, and that marvel 
+  among actors, Wish, who is also a modest man. We had all come down to the Mermaid 
+  Club that Saturday morning, except Clayton, who had slept there overnight--which 
+  indeed gave him the opening of his story. We had golfed until golfing was invisible; 
+  we had dined, and we were in that mood of tranquil kindliness when men will 
+  suffer a story. When Clayton began to tell one, we naturally supposed he was 
+  lying. It may be that indeed he was lying--of that the reader will speedily 
+  be able to judge as well as I. He began, it is true, with an air of matter-of-fact 
+  anecdote, but that we thought was only the incurable artifice of the man. </p>
+<p>&quot;I say!&quot; he remarked, after a long consideration of the upward
+  rain of sparks from the log that Sanderson had thumped, &quot;you know
+  I was alone here last night?&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;Except for the domestics,&quot; said Wish.</p>
+<p>&quot;Who sleep in the other wing,&quot; said Clayton. &quot;Yes. Well--&quot; 
+  He pulled
+  at his cigar for some little time as though he still hesitated about
+  his confidence. Then he said, quite quietly, &quot;I caught a ghost!&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;Caught a ghost, did you?&quot; said Sanderson. &quot;Where is it?&quot;</p>
+<p>And Evans, who admires Clayton immensely and has been four weeks
+  in America, shouted, &quot;CAUGHT a ghost, did you, Clayton? I'm glad
+  of it! Tell us all about it right now.&quot;</p>
+<p>Clayton said he would in a minute, and asked him to shut the door.</p>
+<p>He looked apologetically at me. &quot;There's no eavesdropping of course,
+  but we don't want to upset our very excellent service with any rumours
+  of ghosts in the place. There's too much shadow and oak panelling
+  to trifle with that. And this, you know, wasn't a regular ghost.
+  I don't think it will come again--ever.&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;You mean to say you didn't keep it?&quot; said Sanderson.</p>
+<p>&quot;I hadn't the heart to,&quot; said Clayton.</p>
+<p>And Sanderson said he was surprised.</p>
+<p>We laughed, and Clayton looked aggrieved. &quot;I know,&quot; he said, with
+  the flicker of a smile, &quot;but the fact is it really WAS a ghost,
+  and I'm as sure of it as I am that I am talking to you now. I'm not
+  joking. I mean what I say.&quot;</p>
+<p>Sanderson drew deeply at his pipe, with one reddish eye on Clayton,
+  and then emitted a thin jet of smoke more eloquent than many words.</p>
+<p>Clayton ignored the comment. &quot;It is the strangest thing that has
+  ever happened in my life. You know, I never believed in ghosts
+  or anything of the sort, before, ever; and then, you know, I bag
+  one in a corner; and the whole business is in my hands.&quot;</p>
+<p>He meditated still more profoundly, and produced and began to pierce
+  a second cigar with a curious little stabber he affected.</p>
+<p>&quot;You talked to it?&quot; asked Wish.</p>
+<p>&quot;For the space, probably, of an hour.&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;Chatty?&quot; I said, joining the party of the sceptics.</p>
+<p>&quot;The poor devil was in trouble,&quot; said Clayton, bowed over his cigar-end
+  and with the very faintest note of reproof.</p>
+<p>&quot;Sobbing?&quot; some one asked.</p>
+<p>Clayton heaved a realistic sigh at the memory. &quot;Good Lord!&quot; he said;
+  &quot;yes.&quot; And then, &quot;Poor fellow! yes.&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;Where did you strike it?&quot; asked Evans, in his best American accent.</p>
+<p>&quot;I never realised,&quot; said Clayton, ignoring him, &quot;the poor sort 
+  of
+  thing a ghost might be,&quot; and he hung us up again for a time, while
+  he sought for matches in his pocket and lit and warmed to his cigar.</p>
+<p>&quot;I took an advantage,&quot; he reflected at last.</p>
+<p>We were none of us in a hurry. &quot;A character,&quot; he said, &quot;remains
+  just the same character for all that it's been disembodied. That's
+  a thing we too often forget. People with a certain strength or
+  fixity of purpose may have ghosts of a certain strength and fixity
+  of purpose--most haunting ghosts, you know, must be as one-idea'd
+  as monomaniacs and as obstinate as mules to come back again and again.
+  This poor creature wasn't.&quot; He suddenly looked up rather queerly, and
+  his eye went round the room. &quot;I say it,&quot; he said, &quot;in all kindliness,
+  but that is the plain truth of the case. Even at the first glance
+  he struck me as weak.&quot;</p>
+<p>He punctuated with the help of his cigar.</p>
+<p>&quot;I came upon him, you know, in the long passage. His back was towards
+  me and I saw him first. Right off I knew him for a ghost. He was
+  transparent and whitish; clean through his chest I could see the glimmer
+  of the little window at the end. And not only his physique but
+  his attitude struck me as being weak. He looked, you know, as though
+  he didn't know in the slightest whatever he meant to do. One hand
+  was on the panelling and the other fluttered to his mouth. Like--SO!&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;What sort of physique?&quot; said Sanderson.</p>
+<p>&quot;Lean. You know that sort of young man's neck that has two great
+  flutings down the back, here and here--so! And a little, meanish head
+  with scrubby hair--And rather bad ears. Shoulders bad, narrower
+  than the hips; turn-down collar, ready-made short jacket, trousers
+  baggy and a little frayed at the heels. That's how he took me.
+  I came very quietly up the staircase. I did not carry a light,
+  you know--the candles are on the landing table and there is that lamp--
+  and I was in my list slippers, and I saw him as I came up. I stopped
+  dead at that--taking him in. I wasn't a bit afraid. I think that
+  in most of these affairs one is never nearly so afraid or excited
+  as one imagines one would be. I was surprised and interested.
+  I thought, 'Good Lord! Here's a ghost at last! And I haven't believed
+  for a moment in ghosts during the last five-and-twenty years.'&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;Um,&quot; said Wish.</p>
+<p>&quot;I suppose I wasn't on the landing a moment before he found out I
+  was there. He turned on me sharply, and I saw the face of an immature
+  young man, a weak nose, a scrubby little moustache, a feeble chin.
+  So for an instant we stood--he looking over his shoulder at me
+  and regarded one another. Then he seemed to remember his high calling.
+  He turned round, drew himself up, projected his face, raised his arms,
+  spread his hands in approved ghost fashion--came towards me.
+  As he did so his little jaw dropped, and he emitted a faint, drawn-out
+  'Boo.' No, it wasn't--not a bit dreadful. I'd dined. I'd had a bottle
+  of champagne, and being all alone, perhaps two or three--perhaps
+  even four or five--whiskies, so I was as solid as rocks and no more
+  frightened than if I'd been assailed by a frog. 'Boo!' I said.
+  'Nonsense. You don't belong to THIS place. What are you doing here?'</p>
+<p>&quot;I could see him wince. 'Boo-oo,' he said.</p>
+<p>&quot;'Boo--be hanged! Are you a member?' I said; and just to show
+  I didn't care a pin for him I stepped through a corner of him and
+  made to light my candle. 'Are you a member?' I repeated, looking
+  at him sideways.</p>
+<p>&quot;He moved a little so as to stand clear of me, and his bearing
+  became crestfallen. 'No,' he said, in answer to the persistent
+  interrogation of my eye; 'I'm not a member--I'm a ghost.'</p>
+<p>&quot;'Well, that doesn't give you the run of the Mermaid Club. Is there
+  any one you want to see, or anything of that sort?' and doing it as
+  steadily as possible for fear that he should mistake the carelessness
+  of whisky for the distraction of fear, I got my candle alight.
+  I turned on him, holding it. 'What are you doing here?' I said.</p>
+<p>&quot;He had dropped his hands and stopped his booing, and there he stood,
+  abashed and awkward, the ghost of a weak, silly, aimless young man.
+  'I'm haunting,' he said.</p>
+<p>&quot;'You haven't any business to,' I said in a quiet voice.</p>
+<p>&quot;'I'm a ghost,' he said, as if in defence.</p>
+<p>&quot;'That may be, but you haven't any business to haunt here. This is
+  a respectable private club; people often stop here with nursemaids
+  and children, and, going about in the careless way you do, some poor
+  little mite could easily come upon you and be scared out of her wits.
+  I suppose you didn't think of that?'</p>
+<p>&quot;'No, sir,' he said, 'I didn't.'</p>
+<p>&quot;'You should have done. You haven't any claim on the place, have you?
+  Weren't murdered here, or anything of that sort?'</p>
+<p>&quot;'None, sir; but I thought as it was old and oak-panelled--'</p>
+<p>&quot;'That's NO excuse.' I regarded him firmly. 'Your coming here is
+  a mistake,' I said, in a tone of friendly superiority. I feigned
+  to see if I had my matches, and then looked up at him frankly.
+  'If I were you I wouldn't wait for cock-crow--I'd vanish right away.'</p>
+<p>&quot;He looked embarrassed. 'The fact IS, sir--' he began.</p>
+<p>&quot;'I'd vanish,' I said, driving it home.</p>
+<p>&quot;'The fact is, sir, that--somehow--I can't.'</p>
+<p>&quot;'You CAN'T?'</p>
+<p>&quot;'No, sir. There's something I've forgotten. I've been hanging
+  about here since midnight last night, hiding in the cupboards
+  of the empty bedrooms and things like that. I'm flurried. I've never
+  come haunting before, and it seems to put me out.'</p>
+<p>&quot;'Put you out?'</p>
+<p>&quot;'Yes, sir. I've tried to do it several times, and it doesn't come off.
+  There's some little thing has slipped me, and I can't get back.'</p>
+<p>&quot;That, you know, rather bowled me over. He looked at me in such
+  an abject way that for the life of me I couldn't keep up quite
+  the high, hectoring vein I had adopted. 'That's queer,' I said,
+  and as I spoke I fancied I heard some one moving about down below.
+  'Come into my room and tell me more about it,' I said. 'I didn't,
+  of course, understand this,' and I tried to take him by the arm.
+  But, of course, you might as well have tried to take hold of a puff
+  of smoke! I had forgotten my number, I think; anyhow, I remember
+  going into several bedrooms--it was lucky I was the only soul
+  in that wing--until I saw my traps. 'Here we are,' I said, and sat
+  down in the arm-chair; 'sit down and tell me all about it. It seems
+  to me you have got yourself into a jolly awkward position, old chap.'</p>
+<p>&quot;Well, he said he wouldn't sit down! he'd prefer to flit up and down
+  the room if it was all the same to me. And so he did, and in a little
+  while we were deep in a long and serious talk. And presently,
+  you know, something of those whiskies and sodas evaporated out of me,
+  and I began to realise just a little what a thundering rum and weird
+  business it was that I was in. There he was, semi-transparent--
+  the proper conventional phantom, and noiseless except for his ghost
+  of a voice--flitting to and fro in that nice, clean, chintz-hung
+  old bedroom. You could see the gleam of the copper candlesticks
+  through him, and the lights on the brass fender, and the corners
+  of the framed engravings on the wall,--and there he was telling me
+  all about this wretched little life of his that had recently ended
+  on earth. He hadn't a particularly honest face, you know, but being
+  transparent, of course, he couldn't avoid telling the truth.&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;Eh?&quot; said Wish, suddenly sitting up in his chair.</p>
+<p>&quot;What?&quot; said Clayton.</p>
+<p>&quot;Being transparent--couldn't avoid telling the truth--I don't see it,&quot;
+  said Wish.</p>
+<p>&quot;<i>I</i> don't see it,&quot; said Clayton, with inimitable assurance. 
+  &quot;But it IS so, I can assure you nevertheless. I don't believe he got once 
+  a nail's breadth off the Bible truth. He told me how he had been killed--he 
+  went down into a London basement with a candle to look for a leakage of gas--and 
+  described himself as a senior English master in a London private school when 
+  that release occurred.&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;Poor wretch!&quot; said I.</p>
+<p>&quot;That's what I thought, and the more he talked the more I thought it.
+  There he was, purposeless in life and purposeless out of it. He talked
+  of his father and mother and his schoolmaster, and all who had ever
+  been anything to him in the world, meanly. He had been too sensitive,
+  too nervous; none of them had ever valued him properly or understood
+  him, he said. He had never had a real friend in the world,
+  I think; he had never had a success. He had shirked games and failed
+  examinations. 'It's like that with some people,' he said; 'whenever
+  I got into the examination-room or anywhere everything seemed to go.'
+  Engaged to be married of course--to another over-sensitive person, I
+  suppose--when the indiscretion with the gas escape ended his affairs.
+  'And where are you now?' I asked. 'Not in--?'</p>
+<p>&quot;He wasn't clear on that point at all. The impression he gave me was of 
+  a sort of vague, intermediate state, a special reserve for souls too non-existent 
+  for anything so positive as either sin or virtue. <i>I</i> don't know. He 
+  was much too egotistical and unobservant to give me any clear idea of the kind 
+  of place, kind of country, there is on the Other Side of Things. Wherever he 
+  was, he seems to have fallen in with a set of kindred spirits: ghosts of weak 
+  Cockney young men, who were on a footing of Christian names, and among these 
+  there was certainly a lot of talk about 'going haunting' and things like that. 
+  Yes--going haunting! They seemed to think 'haunting' a tremendous adventure, 
+  and most of them funked it all the time. And so primed, you know, he had come.&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;But really!&quot; said Wish to the fire.</p>
+<p>&quot;These are the impressions he gave me, anyhow,&quot; said Clayton, modestly.
+  &quot;I may, of course, have been in a rather uncritical state, but that
+  was the sort of background he gave to himself. He kept flitting up and
+  down, with his thin voice going talking, talking about his wretched
+  self, and never a word of clear, firm statement from first to last.
+  He was thinner and sillier and more pointless than if he had been
+  real and alive. Only then, you know, he would not have been in my
+  bedroom here--if he HAD been alive. I should have kicked him out.&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;Of course,&quot; said Evans, &quot;there ARE poor mortals like that.&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;And there's just as much chance of their having ghosts as the rest
+  of us,&quot; I admitted.</p>
+<p>&quot;What gave a sort of point to him, you know, was the fact that
+  he did seem within limits to have found himself out. The mess he had
+  made of haunting had depressed him terribly. He had been told
+  it would be a 'lark'; he had come expecting it to be a 'lark,'
+  and here it was, nothing but another failure added to his record!
+  He proclaimed himself an utter out-and-out failure. He said, and
+  I can quite believe it, that he had never tried to do anything all
+  his life that he hadn't made a perfect mess of--and through all
+  the wastes of eternity he never would. If he had had sympathy,
+  perhaps--. He paused at that, and stood regarding me. He remarked that,
+  strange as it might seem to me, nobody, not any one, ever, had given
+  him the amount of sympathy I was doing now. I could see what he wanted
+  straight away, and I determined to head him off at once. I may be a
+  brute, you know, but being the Only Real Friend, the recipient of the
+  confidences of one of these egotistical weaklings, ghost or body, is
+  beyond my physical endurance. I got up briskly. 'Don't you brood on
+  these things too much,' I said. 'The thing you've got to do is to get
+  out of this get out of this--sharp. You pull yourself together and
+  TRY.' 'I can't,' he said. 'You try,' I said, and try he did.&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;Try!&quot; said Sanderson. &quot;HOW?&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;Passes,&quot; said Clayton.</p>
+<p>&quot;Passes?&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;Complicated series of gestures and passes with the hands. That's
+  how he had come in and that's how he had to get out again. Lord!
+  what a business I had!&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;But how could ANY series of passes--?&quot; I began.</p>
+<p>&quot;My dear man,&quot; said Clayton, turning on me and putting a great emphasis 
+  on certain words, &quot;you want EVERYTHING clear. <i>I</i> don't know HOW. 
+  All I know is that you DO--that HE did, anyhow, at least. After a fearful time, 
+  you know, he got his passes right and suddenly disappeared.&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;Did you,&quot; said Sanderson, slowly, &quot;observe the passes?&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;Yes,&quot; said Clayton, and seemed to think. &quot;It was tremendously 
+  queer,&quot;
+  he said. &quot;There we were, I and this thin vague ghost, in that silent
+  room, in this silent, empty inn, in this silent little Friday-night
+  town. Not a sound except our voices and a faint panting he made when
+  he swung. There was the bedroom candle, and one candle on the dressing-
+  table alight, that was all--sometimes one or other would flare up into
+  a tall, lean, astonished flame for a space. And queer things happened.
+  'I can't,' he said; 'I shall never--!' And suddenly he sat down on
+  a little chair at the foot of the bed and began to sob and sob.
+  Lord! what a harrowing, whimpering thing he seemed!</p>
+<p>&quot;'You pull yourself together,' I said, and tried to pat him on the
+  back, and . . . my confounded hand went through him! By that time,
+  you know, I wasn't nearly so--massive as I had been on the landing.
+  I got the queerness of it full. I remember snatching back my hand out
+  of him, as it were, with a little thrill, and walking over to the
+  dressing-table. 'You pull yourself together,' I said to him, 'and
+  try.' And in order to encourage and help him I began to try as well.&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;What!&quot; said Sanderson, &quot;the passes?&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;Yes, the passes.&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;But--&quot; I said, moved by an idea that eluded me for a space.</p>
+<p>&quot;This is interesting,&quot; said Sanderson, with his finger in his pipe-
+  bowl. &quot;You mean to say this ghost of yours gave away--&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;Did his level best to give away the whole confounded barrier? YES.&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;He didn't,&quot; said Wish; &quot;he couldn't. Or you'd have gone there 
+  too.&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;That's precisely it,&quot; I said, finding my elusive idea put into words
+  for me.</p>
+<p>&quot;That IS precisely it,&quot; said Clayton, with thoughtful eyes upon the
+  fire.</p>
+<p>For just a little while there was silence.</p>
+<p>&quot;And at last he did it?&quot; said Sanderson.</p>
+<p>&quot;At last he did it. I had to keep him up to it hard, but he did it at 
+  last--rather suddenly. He despaired, we had a scene, and then he got up abruptly 
+  and asked me to go through the whole performance, slowly, so that he might see. 
+  'I believe,' he said, 'if I could SEE I should spot what was wrong at once.' 
+  And he did. '<i>I</i> know,' he said. 'What do you know?' said I. '<i>I</i> 
+  know,' he repeated. Then he said, peevishly, 'I CAN'T do it if you look at me--I 
+  really CAN'T; it's been that, partly, all along. I'm such a nervous fellow that 
+  you put me out.' Well, we had a bit of an argument. Naturally I wanted to see; 
+  but he was as obstinate as a mule, and suddenly I had come over as tired as 
+  a dog--he tired me out. 'All right,' I said, '<i>I</i> won't look at you,' 
+  and turned towards the mirror, on the wardrobe, by the bed.</p>
+<p>He started off very fast. I tried to follow him by looking in
+  the looking-glass, to see just what it was had hung. Round went
+  his arms and his hands, so, and so, and so, and then with a rush
+  came to the last gesture of all--you stand erect and open out your
+  arms--and so, don't you know, he stood. And then he didn't! He didn't!
+  He wasn't! I wheeled round from the looking-glass to him. There was
+  nothingl I was alone, with the flaring candles and a staggering mind.
+  What had happened? Had anything happened? Had I been dreaming? . . .
+  And then, with an absurd note of finality about it, the clock upon
+  the landing discovered the moment was ripe for striking ONE. So!--Ping!
+  And I was as grave and sober as a judge, with all my champagne and
+  whisky gone into the vast serene. Feeling queer, you know--confoundedly
+  QUEER! Queer! Good Lord!&quot;</p>
+<p>He regarded his cigar-ash for a moment. &quot;That's all that happened,&quot; 
+  he
+  said.</p>
+<p>&quot;And then you went to bed?&quot; asked Evans.</p>
+<p>&quot;What else was there to do?&quot;</p>
+<p>I looked Wish in the eye. We wanted to scoff, and there was something,
+  something perhaps in Clayton's voice and manner, that hampered our
+  desire.</p>
+<p>&quot;And about these passes?&quot; said Sanderson.</p>
+<p>&quot;I believe I could do them now.&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;Oh!&quot; said Sanderson, and produced a penknife and set himself to 
+  grub
+  the dottel out of the bowl of his clay.</p>
+<p>&quot;Why don't you do them now?&quot; said Sanderson, shutting his pen-knife
+  with a click.</p>
+<p>&quot;That's what I'm going to do,&quot; said Clayton.</p>
+<p>&quot;They won't work,&quot; said Evans.</p>
+<p>&quot;If they do--&quot; I suggested.</p>
+<p>&quot;You know, I'd rather you didn't,&quot; said Wish, stretching out his 
+  legs.</p>
+<p>&quot;Why?&quot; asked Evans.</p>
+<p>&quot;I'd rather he didn't,&quot; said Wish.</p>
+<p>&quot;But he hasn't got 'em right,&quot; said Sanderson, plugging too much
+  tobacco in his pipe.</p>
+<p>&quot;All the same, I'd rather he didn't,&quot; said Wish.</p>
+<p>We argued with Wish. He said that for Clayton to go through those
+  gestures was like mocking a serious matter. &quot;But you don't believe--?&quot;
+  I said. Wish glanced at Clayton, who was staring into the fire, weighing
+  something in his mind. &quot;I do--more than half, anyhow, I do,&quot; said 
+  Wish.</p>
+<p>&quot;Clayton,&quot; said I, &quot;you're too good a liar for us. Most of it 
+  was
+  all right. But that disappearance . . . happened to be convincing.
+  Tell us, it's a tale of cock and bull.&quot;</p>
+<p>He stood up without heeding me, took the middle of the hearthrug,
+  and faced me. For a moment he regarded his feet thoughtfully, and
+  then for all the rest of the time his eyes were on the opposite wall,
+  with an intent expression. He raised his two hands slowly to the level
+  of his eyes and so began. . . .</p>
+<p>Now, Sanderson is a Freemason, a member of the lodge of the Four Kings,
+  which devotes itself so ably to the study and elucidation of all the
+  mysteries of Masonry past and present, and among the students of this
+  lodge Sanderson is by no means the least. He followed Clayton's motions
+  with a singular interest in his reddish eye. &quot;That's not bad,&quot; he 
+  said,
+  when it was done. &quot;You really do, you know, put things together,
+  Clayton, in a most amazing fashion. But there's one little detail out.&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;I know,&quot; said Clayton. &quot;I believe I could tell you which.&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;Well?&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;This,&quot; said Clayton, and did a queer little twist and writhing
+  and thrust of the hands.</p>
+<p>&quot;Yes.&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;That, you know, was what HE couldn't get right,&quot; said Clayton.
+  &quot;But how do YOU--?&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;Most of this business, and particularly how you invented it, I don't 
+  understand at all,&quot; said Sanderson, &quot;but just that phase--I do.&quot; 
+  He reflected. &quot;These happen to be a series of gestures--connected with 
+  a certain branch of esoteric Masonry. Probably you know. Or else--HOW?&quot; 
+  He reflected still further. &quot;I do not see I can do any harm in telling 
+  you just the proper twist. After all, if you know, you know; if you don't, you 
+  don't.&quot; </p>
+<p>&quot;I know nothing,&quot; said Clayton, &quot;except what the poor devil 
+  let
+  out last night.&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;Well, anyhow,&quot; said Sanderson, and placed his churchwarden very
+  carefully upon the shelf over the fireplace. Then very rapidly he
+  gesticulated with his hands.</p>
+<p>&quot;So?&quot; said Clayton, repeating.</p>
+<p>&quot;So,&quot; said Sanderson, and took his pipe in hand again.</p>
+<p>&quot;Ah, NOW,&quot; said Clayton, &quot;I can do the whole thing--right.&quot;</p>
+<p>He stood up before the waning fire and smiled at us all. But I think
+  there was just a little hesitation in his smile. &quot;If I begin--&quot;
+  he said.</p>
+<p>&quot;I wouldn't begin,&quot; said Wish.</p>
+<p>&quot;It's all right!&quot; said Evans. &quot;Matter is indestructible. You 
+  don't
+  think any jiggery-pokery of this sort is going to snatch Clayton
+  into the world of shades. Not it! You may try, Clayton, so far as
+  I'm concerned, until your arms drop off at the wrists.&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;I don't believe that,&quot; said Wish, and stood up and put his arm
+  on Clayton's shoulder. &quot;You've made me half believe in that story
+  somehow, and I don't want to see the thing done!&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;Goodness!&quot; said I, &quot;here's Wish frightened!&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;I am,&quot; said Wish, with real or admirably feigned intensity. &quot;I
+  believe that if he goes through these motions right he'll GO.&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;He'll not do anything of the sort,&quot; I cried. &quot;There's only 
+  one way
+  out of this world for men, and Clayton is thirty years from that.
+  Besides . . . And such a ghost! Do you think--?&quot;</p>
+<p>Wish interrupted me by moving. He walked out from among our chairs
+  and stopped beside the tole and stood there. &quot;Clayton,&quot; he said,
+  &quot;you're a fool.&quot;</p>
+<p>Clayton, with a humorous light in his eyes, smiled back at him.
+  &quot;Wish,&quot; he said, &quot;is right and all you others are wrong. I shall 
+  go.
+  I shall get to the end of these passes, and as the last swish whistles
+  through the air, Presto!--this hearthrug will be vacant, the room
+  will be blank amazement, and a respectably dressed gentleman of
+  fifteen stone will plump into the world of shades. I'm certain.
+  So will you be. I decline to argue further. Let the thing be tried.&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;NO,&quot; said Wish, and made a step and ceased, and Clayton raised
+  his hands once more to repeat the spirit's passing.</p>
+<p>By that time, you know, we were all in a state of tension--largely
+  because of the behaviour of Wish. We sat all of us with our eyes on
+  Clayton--I, at least, with a sort of tight, stiff feeling about me
+  as though from the back of my skull to the middle of my thighs my
+  body had been changed to steel. And there, with a gravity that was
+  imperturbably serene, Clayton bowed and swayed and waved his hands
+  and arms before us. As he drew towards the end one piled up, one
+  tingled in one's teeth. The last gesture, I have said, was to swing
+  the arms out wide open, with the face held up. And when at last he
+  swung out to this closing gesture I ceased even to breathe. It was
+  ridiculous, of course, but you know that ghost-story feeling. It was
+  after dinner, in a queer, old shadowy house. Would he, after all--?</p>
+<p>There he stood for one stupendous moment, with his arms open and his
+  upturned face, assured and bright, in the glare of the hanging lamp.
+  We hung through that moment as if it were an age, and then came from
+  all of us something that was half a sigh of infinite relief and half a
+  reassuring &quot;NO!&quot; For visibly--he wasn't going. It was all nonsense.
+  He had told an idle story, and carried it almost to conviction, that
+  was all! . . . And then in that moment the face of Clayton, changed.</p>
+<p>It changed. It changed as a lit house changes when its lights are
+  suddenly extinguished. His eyes were suddenly eyes that were fixed,
+  his smile was frozen on his lips, and he stood there still. He stood
+  there, very gently swaying.</p>
+<p>That moment, too, was an age. And then, you know, chairs were scraping,
+  things were falling, and we were all moving. His knees seemed to give,
+  and he fell forward, and Evans rose and caught him in his arms. . . .</p>
+<p>It stunned us all. For a minute I suppose no one said a coherent
+  thing. We believed it, yet could not believe it. . . . I came out
+  of a muddled stupefaction to find myself kneeling beside him,
+  and his vest and shirt were torn open, and Sanderson's hand lay
+  on his heart. . . .</p>
+<p>Well--the simple fact before us could very well wait our convenience;
+  there was no hurry for us to comprehend. It lay there for an hour;
+  it lies athwart my memory, black and amazing still, to this day.
+  Clayton had, indeed, passed into the world that lies so near to
+  and so far from our own, and he had gone thither by the only road
+  that mortal man may take. But whether he did indeed pass there
+  by that poor ghost's incantation, or whether he was stricken suddenly
+  by apoplexy in the midst of an idle tale--as the coroner's jury would
+  have us believe--is no matter for my judging; it is just one of those
+  inexplicable riddles that must remain unsolved until the final solution
+  of all things shall come. All I certainly know is that, in the very
+  moment, in the very instant, of concluding those passes, he changed,
+  and staggered, and fell down before us--dead!</p>
+<p>
+  7. JIMMY GOGGLES THE GOD</p>
+<p>&quot;It isn't every one who's been a god,&quot; said the sunburnt man. &quot;But
+  it's happened to me. Among other things.&quot;</p>
+<p>I intimated my sense of his condescension.</p>
+<p>&quot;It don't leave much for ambition, does it?&quot; said the sunburnt man.</p>
+<p>&quot;I was one of those men who were saved from the Ocean Pioneer.
+  Gummy! how time flies! It's twenty years ago. I doubt if you'll
+  remember anything of the Ocean Pioneer?&quot;</p>
+<p>The name was familiar, and I tried to recall when and where I had
+  read it. The Ocean Pioneer? &quot;Something about gold dust,&quot; I said
+  vaguely, &quot;but the precise--&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;That's it,&quot; he said. &quot;In a beastly little channel she hadn't 
+  no
+  business in--dodging pirates. It was before they'd put the kybosh
+  on that business. And there'd been volcanoes or something and all
+  the rocks was wrong. There's places about by Soona where you fair
+  have to follow the rocks about to see where they're going next.
+  Down she went in twenty fathoms before you could have dealt for whist,
+  with fifty thousand pounds worth of gold aboard, it was said,
+  in one form or another.&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;Survivors?&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;Three.&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;I remember the case now,&quot; I said. &quot;There was something about 
+  salvage--&quot;</p>
+<p>But at the word salvage the sunburnt man exploded into language so
+  extraordinarily horrible that I stopped aghast. He came down to more
+  ordinary swearing, and pulled himself up abruptly. &quot;Excuse me,&quot;
+  he said, &quot;but--salvage!&quot;</p>
+<p>He leant over towards me. &quot;I was in that job,&quot; he said. &quot;Tried 
+  to make
+  myself a rich man, and got made a god instead. I've got my feelings--</p>
+<p>&quot;It ain't all jam being a god,&quot; said the sunburnt man, and for some
+  time conversed by means of such pithy but unprogressive axioms.
+  At last he took up his tale again.</p>
+<p>&quot;There was me,&quot; said the sunburnt man, &quot;and a seaman named Jacobs,
+  and Always, the mate of the Ocean Pioneer. And him it was that set
+  the whole thing going. I remember him now, when we was in the
+  jolly-boat, suggesting it all to our minds just by one sentence.
+  He was a wonderful hand at suggesting things. 'There was forty
+  thousand pounds,' he said, 'on that ship, and it's for me to say
+  just where she went down.' It didn't need much brains to tumble
+  to that. And he was the leader from the first to the last. He got
+  hold of the Sanderses and their brig; they were brothers, and
+  the brig was the Pride of Banya, and he it was bought the diving-dress--
+  a second-hand one with a compressed air apparatus instead of pumping.
+  He'd have done the diving too, if it hadn't made him sick going down.
+  And the salvage people were mucking about with a chart he'd cooked up,
+  as solemn as could be, at Starr Race, a hundred and twenty miles away.</p>
+<p>&quot;I can tell you we was a happy lot aboard that brig, jokes and drink
+  and bright hopes all the time. It all seemed so neat and clean
+  and straightforward, and what rough chaps call a 'cert.' And we
+  used to speculate how the other blessed lot, the proper salvagers,
+  who'd started two days before us, were getting on, until our sides
+  fairly ached. We all messed together in the Sanderses' cabin--it
+  was a curious crew, all officers and no men--and there stood the
+  diving-dress waiting its turn. Young Sanders was a humorous sort of
+  chap, and there certainly was something funny in the confounded
+  thing's great fat head and its stare, and he made us see it too.
+  'Jimmie Goggles,' he used to call it, and talk to it like a Christian.
+  Asked if he was married, and how Mrs. Goggles was, and all the little
+  Goggleses. Fit to make you split. And every blessed day all of us
+  used to drink the health of Jimmy Goggles in rum, and unscrew his eye
+  and pour a glass of rum in him, until, instead of that nasty
+  mackintosheriness, he smelt as nice in his inside as a cask of rum.
+  It was jolly times we had in those days, I can tell you--little
+  suspecting, poor chaps! what was a-coming.</p>
+<p>&quot;We weren't going to throw away our chances by any blessed hurry,
+  you know, and we spent a whole day sounding our way towards where
+  the Ocean Pioneer had gone down, right between two chunks of ropy
+  grey rock--lava rocks that rose nearly out of the water. We had
+  to lay off about half a mile to get a safe anchorage, and there was
+  a thundering row who should stop on board. And there she lay just
+  as she had gone down, so that you could see the top of the masts
+  that was still standing perfectly distinctly. The row ending in
+  all coming in the boat. I went down in the diving-dress on Friday
+  morning directly it was light.</p>
+<p>&quot;What a surprise it was! I can see it all now quite distinctly.
+  It was a queer-looking place, and the light was just coming. People
+  over here think every blessed place in the tropics is a flat shore
+  and palm trees and surf, bless 'em! This place, for instance,
+  wasn't a bit that way. Not common rocks they were, undermined
+  by waves; but great curved banks like ironwork cinder heaps,
+  with green slime below, and thorny shrubs and things just waving
+  upon them here and there, and the water glassy calm and clear,
+  and showing you a kind of dirty grey-black shine, with huge flaring
+  red-brown weeds spreading motionless, and crawling and darting
+  things going through it. And far away beyond the ditches and pools
+  and the heaps was a forest on the mountain flank, growing again after
+  the fires and cinder showers of the last eruption. And the other way
+  forest, too, and a kind of broken--what is it?--ambytheatre of black
+  and rusty cinders rising out of it all, and the sea in a kind of bay
+  in the middle.</p>
+<p>&quot;The dawn, I say, was just coming, and there wasn't much colour
+  about things, and not a human being but ourselves anywhere in sight
+  up or down the channel. Except the Pride of Banya, lying out beyond
+  a lump of rocks towards the line of the sea.</p>
+<p>&quot;Not a human being in sight,&quot; he repeated, and paused.</p>
+<p>&quot;I don't know where they came from, not a bit. And we were feeling
+  so safe that we were all alone that poor young Sanders was a-singing.
+  I was in Jimmy Goggles, all except the helmet. 'Easy,' says Always,
+  'there's her mast.' And after I'd had just one squint over the gunwale,
+  I caught up the bogey and almost tipped out as old Sanders brought
+  the boat round. When the windows were screwed and everything was
+  all right, I shut the valve from the air belt in order to help
+  my sinking, and jumped overboard, feet foremost--for we hadn't
+  a ladder. I left the boat pitching, and all of them staring down
+  into the water after me, as my head sank down into the weeds and
+  blackness that lay about the mast. I suppose nobody, not the most
+  cautious chap in the world, would have bothered about a lookout
+  at such a desolate place. It stunk of solitude.</p>
+<p>&quot;Of course you must understand that I was a greenhorn at diving.
+  None of us were divers. We'd had to muck about with the thing to get
+  the way of it, and this was the first time I'd been deep. It feels
+  damnable. Your ears hurt beastly. I don't know if you've ever hurt
+  yourself yawning or sneezing, but it takes you like that, only ten
+  times worse. And a pain over the eyebrows here--splitting--and a
+  feeling like influenza in the head. And it isn't all heaven in your
+  lungs and things. And going down feels like the beginning of a lift,
+  only it keeps on. And you can't turn your head to see what's above you,
+  and you can't get a fair squint at what's happening to your feet
+  without bending down something painful. And being deep it was dark,
+  let alone the blackness of the ashes and mud that formed the bottom.
+  It was like going down out of the dawn back into the night, so to speak.</p>
+<p>&quot;The mast came up like a ghost out of the black, and then a lot of
+  fishes, and then a lot of flapping red seaweed, and then whack I came
+  with a kind of dull bang on the deck of the Ocean Pioneer, and the
+  fishes that had been feeding on the dead rose about me like a swarm of
+  flies from road stuff in summer time. I turned on the compressed air
+  again--for the suit was a bit thick and mackintoshery after all, in
+  spite of the rum--and stood recovering myself. It struck coolish down
+  there, and that helped take off the stuffiness a bit.</p>
+<p>&quot;When I began to feel easier, I started looking about me. It was
+  an extraordinary sight. Even the light was extraordinary, a kind
+  of reddy-coloured twilight, on account of the streamers of seaweed
+  that floated up on either side of the ship. And far overhead just
+  a moony, deep green-blue. The deck of the ship, except for a slight
+  list to starboard, was level, and lay all dark and long between
+  the weeds, clear except where the masts had snapped when she rolled,
+  and vanishing into black night towards the forecastle. There wasn't
+  any dead on the decks, most were in the weeds alongside, I suppose;
+  but afterwards I found two skeletons lying in the passengers' cabins,
+  where death had come to them. It was curious to stand on that deck
+  and recognise it all, bit by bit; a place against the rail where I'd
+  been fond of smoking by starlight, and the corner where an old chap
+  from Sydney used to flirt with a widow we had aboard. A comfortable
+  couple they'd been, only a month ago, and now you couldn't have
+  got a meal for a baby crab off either of them.</p>
+<p>&quot;I've always had a bit of a philosophical turn, and I dare say I
+  spent the best part of five minutes in such thoughts before I went
+  below to find where the blessed dust was stored. It was slow work
+  hunting, feeling it was for the most part, pitchy dark, with confusing
+  blue gleams down the companion. And there were things moving about,
+  a dab at my glass once, and once a pinch at my leg. Crabs, I expect.
+  I kicked a lot of loose stuff that puzzled me, and stooped and
+  picked up something all knobs and spikes. What do you think?
+  Backbone! But I never had any particular feeling for bones. We
+  had talked the affair over pretty thoroughly, and Always knew just
+  where the stuff was stowed. I found it that trip. I lifted a box
+  one end an inch or more.&quot;</p>
+<p>He broke off in his story. &quot;I've lifted it,&quot; he said, &quot;as near 
+  as
+  that! Forty thousand pounds worth of pure gold! Gold! I shouted
+  inside my helmet as a kind of cheer and hurt my ears. I was getting
+  confounded stuffy and tired by this time--I must have been down
+  twenty-five minutes or more--and I thought this was good enough.
+  I went up the companion again, and as my eyes came up flush with
+  the deck, a thundering great crab gave a kind of hysterical jump
+  and went scuttling off sideways. Quite a start it gave me. I stood
+  up clear on deck and shut the valve behind the helmet to let the air
+  accumulate to carry me up again--I noticed a kind of whacking
+  from above, as though they were hitting the water with an oar,
+  but I didn't look up. I fancied they were signalling me to come up.</p>
+<p>&quot;And then something shot down by me--something heavy, and stood
+  a-quiver in the planks. I looked, and there was a long knife I'd
+  seen young Sanders handling. Thinks I, he's dropped it, and I was
+  still calling him this kind of fool and that--for it might have hurt
+  me serious--when I began to lift and drive up towards the daylight.
+  Just about the level of the top spars of the Ocean Pioneer, whack!
+  I came against something sinking down, and a boot knocked in front
+  of my helmet. Then something else, struggling frightful. It was
+  a big weight atop of me, whatever it was, and moving and twisting
+  about. I'd have thought it a big octopus, or some such thing, if it
+  hadn't been for the boot. But octopuses don't wear boots. It was
+  all in a moment, of course. I felt myself sinking down again, and
+  I threw my arms about to keep steady, and the whole lot rolled
+  free of me and shot down as I went up--&quot;</p>
+<p>He paused.</p>
+<p>&quot;I saw young Sanders's face, over a naked black shoulder, and a spear
+  driven clean through his neck, and out of his mouth and neck what
+  looked like spirts of pink smoke in the water. And down they went
+  clutching one another, and turning over, and both too far gone
+  to leave go. And in another second my helmet came a whack, fit
+  to split, against the niggers' canoe. It was niggers! Two canoes full.</p>
+<p>&quot;It was lively times, I tell you! Overboard came Always with three
+  spears in him. There was the legs of three or four black chaps
+  kicking about me in the water. I couldn't see much, but I saw
+  the game was up at a glance, gave my valve a tremendous twist,
+  and went bubbling down again after poor Always, in as awful a state
+  of scare and astonishment as you can well imagine. I passed young
+  Sanders and the nigger going up again and struggling still a bit,
+  and in another moment I was standing in the dim again on the deck
+  of the Ocean Pioneer.</p>
+<p>&quot;'Gummy,' thinks I, 'here's a fix!' Niggers? At first I couldn't see
+  anything for it but Stifle below or Stabs above. I didn't properly
+  understand how much air there was to last me, but I didn't feel like
+  standing very much more of it down below. I was hot and frightfully
+  heady--quite apart from the blue funk I was in. We'd never repined
+  with these beastly natives, filthy Papuan beasts. It wasn't any good,
+  coming up where I was, but I had to do something. On the spur
+  of the moment, I clambered over the side of the brig and landed
+  among the weeds, and set off through the darkness as fast as I could.
+  I just stopped once and knelt, and twisted back my head in the helmet
+  and had a look up. It was a most extraordinary bright green-blue above,
+  and the two canoes and the boat floating there very small and distant
+  like a kind of twisted H. And it made me feel sick to squint up at it,
+  and think what the pitching and swaying of the three meant.</p>
+<p>&quot;It was just about the most horrible ten minutes I ever had, blundering
+  about in that darkness, pressure something awful, like being buried
+  in sand, pain across the chest, sick with funk, and breathing nothing
+  as it seemed but the smell of rum and mackintosh. Gummy! After a bit,
+  I found myself going up a steepish sort of slope. I had another
+  squint to see if anything was visible of the canoes and boats,
+  and then kept on. I stopped with my head a foot from the surface,
+  and tried to see where I was going, but, of course, nothing was
+  to be seen but the reflection of the bottom. Then out I dashed like
+  knocking my head through a mirror. Directly I got my eyes out of
+  the water, I saw I'd come up a kind of beach near the forest. I had a
+  look round, but the natives and the brig were both hidden by a big,
+  hummucky heap of twisted lava, the born fool in me suggested a run
+  for the woods. I didn't take the helmet off, but eased open one of
+  the windows, and, after a bit of a pant, went on out of the water.
+  You'd hardly imagine how clean and light the air tasted.</p>
+<p>&quot;Of course, with four inches of lead in your boot soles, and your
+  head in a copper knob the size of a football, and been thirty-five
+  minutes under water, you don't break any records running. I ran like
+  a ploughboy going to work. And half way to the trees I saw a dozen
+  niggers or more, coming out in a gaping, astonished sort of way
+  to meet me.</p>
+<p>&quot;I just stopped dead, and cursed myself for all the fools out of
+  London. I had about as much chance of cutting back to the water as
+  a turned turtle. I just screwed up my window again to leave my hands
+  free, and waited for them. There wasn't anything else for me to do.</p>
+<p>&quot;But they didn't come on very much. I began to suspect why. 'Jimmy
+  Goggles,' I says, 'it's your beauty does it.' I was inclined to be a
+  little light-headed, I think, with all these dangers about and the
+  change in the pressure of the blessed air. 'Who're ye staring at?' I
+  said, as if the savages could hear me. 'What d'ye take me for? I'm
+  hanged if I don't give you something to stare at,' I said, and with
+  that I screwed up the escape valve and turned on the compressed air
+  from the belt, until I was swelled out like a blown frog. Regular
+  imposing it must have been. I'm blessed if they'd come on a step;
+  and presently one and then another went down on their hands and knees.
+  They didn't know what to make of me, and they was doing the extra
+  polite, which was very wise and reasonable of them. I had half a mind
+  to edge back seaward and cut and run, but it seemed too hopeless. A
+  step back and they'd have been after me. And out of sheer desperation
+  I began to march towards them up the beach, with slow, heavy steps,
+  and waving my blown-out arms about, in a dignified manner. And inside
+  of me I was singing as small as a tomtit.</p>
+<p>&quot;But there's nothing like a striking appearance to help a man over a
+  difficulty,--I've found that before and since. People like ourselves,
+  who're up to diving-dresses by the time we're seven, can scarcely
+  imagine the effect of one on a simple-minded savage. One or two
+  of these niggers cut and run, the others started in a great hurry
+  trying to knock their brains out on the ground. And on I went as
+  slow and solemn and silly-looking and artful as a jobbing plumber.
+  It was evident they took me for something immense.</p>
+<p>&quot;Then up jumped one and began pointing, making extraordinary gestures
+  to me as he did so, and all the others began sharing their attention
+  between me and something out at sea. 'What's the matter now?' I said.
+  I turned slowly on account of my dignity, and there I saw, coming
+  round a point, the poor old Pride of Banya towed by a couple of canoes.
+  The sight fairly made me sick. But they evidently expected some
+  recognition, so I waved my arms in a striking sort of non-committal
+  manner. And then I turned and stalked on towards the trees again.
+  At that time I was praying like mad, I remember, over and over again:
+  'Lord help me through with it! Lord help me through with it!' It's
+  only fools who know nothing of dangers can afford to laugh at praying.</p>
+<p>&quot;But these niggers weren't going to let me walk through and away
+  like that. They started a kind of bowing dance about me, and sort of
+  pressed me to take a pathway that lay through the trees. It was
+  clear to me they didn't take me for a British citizen, whatever
+  else they thought of me, and for my own part I was never less anxious
+  to own up to the old country.</p>
+<p>&quot;You'd hardly believe it, perhaps, unless you're familiar with
+  savages, but these poor misguided, ignorant creatures took me
+  straight to their kind of joss place to present me to the blessed
+  old black stone there. By this time I was beginning to sort of realise
+  the depth of their ignorance, and directly I set eyes on this deity
+  I took my cue. I started a baritone howl, 'wow-wow,' very long
+  on one note, and began waving my arms about a lot, and then very
+  slowly and ceremoniously turned their image over on its side and
+  sat down on it. I wanted to sit down badly, for diving-dresses ain't
+  much wear in the tropics. Or, to put it different like, they're
+  a sight too much. It took away their breath, I could see, my sitting
+  on their joss, but in less time than a minute they made up their
+  minds and were hard at work worshipping me. And I can tell you
+  I felt a bit relieved to see things turning out so well, in spite
+  of the weight on my shoulders and feet.</p>
+<p>&quot;But what made me anxious was what the chaps in the canoes might
+  think when they came back. If they'd seen me in the boat before
+  I went down, and without the helmet on--for they might have been
+  spying and hiding since over night--they would very likely take
+  a different view from the others. I was in a deuce of a stew about
+  that for hours, as it seemed, until the shindy of the arrival began.</p>
+<p>&quot;But they took it down--the whole blessed village took it down. At the 
+  cost of sitting up stiff and stern, as much like those sitting Egyptian images 
+  one sees as I could manage, for pretty nearly twelve hours, I should guess at 
+  least, on end, I got over it. You'd hardly think what it meant in that heat 
+  and stink. I don't think any of them dreamt of the man inside. I was just a 
+  wonderful leathery great joss that had come up with luck out of the water. But 
+  the fatigue! the heat! the beastly closeness! the mackintosheriness and the 
+  rum! and the fuss! They lit a stinking fire on a kind of lava slab there was 
+  before me, and brought in a lot of gory muck--the worst parts of what they were 
+  feasting on outside, the Beasts--and burnt it all in my honour. I was getting 
+  a bit hungry, but I understand now how gods manage to do without eating, what 
+  with the smell of burnt offerings about them. And they brought in a lot of the 
+  stuff they'd got off the brig and, among other stuff, what I was a bit relieved 
+  to see, the kind of pneumatic pump that was used for the compressed air affair, 
+  and then a lot of chaps and girls came in and danced about me something disgraceful. 
+  It's extraordinary the different ways different people have of showing respect. 
+  If I'd had a hatchet handy I'd have gone for the lot of them--they made me feel 
+  that wild. All this time I sat as stiff as company, not knowing anything better 
+  to do. And at last, when nightfall came, and the wattle joss-house place got 
+  a bit too shadowy for their taste--all these here savages are afraid of the 
+  dark, you know--and I started a sort of 'Moo' noise, they built big bonfires 
+  outside and left me alone in peace in the darkness of my hut, free to unscrew 
+  my windows a bit and think things over, and feel just as bad as I liked. And, 
+  Lord! I was sick.</p>
+<p>&quot;I was weak and hungry, and my mind kept on behaving like a beetle
+  on a pin, tremendous activity and nothing done at the end of it.
+  Come round just where it was before. There was sorrowing for the other
+  chaps, beastly drunkards certainly, but not deserving such a fate,
+  and young Sanders with the spear through his neck wouldn't go out
+  of my mind. There was the treasure down there in the Ocean Pioneer,
+  and how one might get it and hide it somewhere safer, and get away
+  and come back for it. And there was the puzzle where to get anything
+  to eat. I tell you I was fair rambling. I was afraid to ask by signs
+  for food, for fear of behaving too human, and so there I sat and
+  hungered until very near the dawn. Then the village got a bit quiet,
+  and I couldn't stand it any longer, and I went out and got some stuff
+  like artichokes in a bowl and some sour milk. What was left of these
+  I put away among the other offerings, just to give them a hint
+  of my tastes. And in the morning they came to worship, and found
+  me sitting up stiff and respectable on their previous god, just as
+  they'd left me overnight. I'd got my back against the central pillar
+  of the hut, and, practically, I was asleep. And that's how I became
+  a god among the heathen--a false god no doubt, and blasphemous,
+  but one can't always pick and choose.</p>
+<p>&quot;Now, I don't want to crack myself up as a god beyond my merits,
+  but I must confess that while I was god to these people they was
+  extraordinary successful. I don't say there's anything in it,
+  mind you. They won a battle with another tribe--I got a lot of
+  offerings I didn't want through it--they had wonderful fishing,
+  and their crop of pourra was exceptional fine. And they counted
+  the capture of the brig among the benefits I brought 'em. I must
+  say I don't think that was a poor record for a perfectly new hand.
+  And, though perhaps you'd scarcely credit it, I was the tribal god
+  of those beastly savages for pretty nearly four months. . . .</p>
+<p>&quot;What else could I do, man? But I didn't wear that diving-dress
+  all the time. I made 'em rig me up a sort of holy of holies, and
+  a deuce of a time I had too, making them understand what it was
+  I wanted them to do. That indeed was the great difficulty--making
+  them understand my wishes. I couldn't let myself down by talking their
+  lingo badly--even if I'd been able to speak at all--and I couldn't
+  go flapping a lot of gestures at them. So I drew pictures in sand
+  and sat down beside them and hooted like one o'clock. Sometimes
+  they did the things I wanted all right, and sometimes they did them
+  all wrong. They was always very willing, certainly. All the while
+  I was puzzling how I was to get the confounded business settled.
+  Every night before the dawn I used to march out in full rig and go off
+  to a place where I could see the channel in which the Ocean Pioneer
+  lay sunk, and once even, one moonlight night, I tried to walk out
+  to her, but the weeds and rocks and dark clean beat me. I didn't get
+  back till full day, and then I found all those silly niggers out on
+  the beach praying their sea-god to return to them. I was that vexed
+  and tired, messing and tumbling about, and coming up and going down
+  again, I could have punched their silly heads all round when they
+  started rejoicing. I'm hanged if I like so much ceremony.</p>
+<p>&quot;And then came the missionary. That missionary! It was in the afternoon,
+  and I was sitting in state in my outer temple place, sitting on
+  that old black stone of theirs when he came. I heard a row outside
+  and jabbering, and then his voice speaking to an interpreter.
+  'They worship stocks and stones,' he said, and I knew what was up,
+  in a flash. I had one of my windows out for comfort, and I sang out
+  straight away on the spur of the moment. 'Stocks and stones!' I says.
+  'You come inside,' I says, 'and I'll punch your blooming head.'
+  There was a kind of silence and more jabbering, and in he came,
+  Bible in hand, after the manner of them--a little sandy chap in specks
+  and a pith helmet. I flatter myself that me sitting there in
+  the shadows, with my copper head and my big goggles, struck him
+  a bit of a heap at first. 'Well,' I says, 'how's the trade in calico?'
+  for I don't hold with missionaries.</p>
+<p>&quot;I had a lark with that missionary. He was a raw hand, and quite
+  outclassed with a man like me. He gasped out who was I, and I told
+  him to read the inscription at my feet if he wanted to know. Down
+  he goes to read, and his interpreter, being of course as superstitious
+  as any of them, took it as an act of worship and plumped down like
+  a shot. All my people gave a howl of triumph, and there wasn't
+  any more business to be done in my village after that journey,
+  not by the likes of him.</p>
+<p>&quot;But, of course, I was a fool to choke him off like that. If I'd had
+  any sense I should have told him straight away of the treasure
+  and taken him into Co. I've no doubt he'd have come into Co. A child,
+  with a few hours to think it over, could have seen the connection
+  between my diving-dress and the loss of the Ocean Pioneer. A week
+  after he left I went out one morning and saw the Motherhood, the
+  salver's ship from Starr Race, towing up the channel and sounding.
+  The whole blessed game was up, and all my trouble thrown away. Gummy!
+  How wild I felt! And guying it in that stinking silly dress! Four
+  months!&quot;</p>
+<p>The sunburnt man's story degenerated again. &quot;Think of it,&quot; he said,
+  when he emerged to linguistic purity once more. &quot;Forty thousand
+  pounds worth of gold.&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;Did the little missionary come back?&quot; I asked.</p>
+<p>&quot;Oh, yes! Bless him! And he pledged his reputation there was a man
+  inside the god, and started out to see as much with tremendous
+  ceremony. But there wasn't--he got sold again. I always did hate
+  scenes and explanations, and long before he came I was out of it
+  all--going home to Banya along the coast, hiding in bushes by day,
+  and thieving food from the villages by night. Only weapon, a spear.
+  No clothes, no money. Nothing. My face was my fortune, as the saying
+  is. And just a squeak of eight thousand pounds of gold--fifth share.
+  But the natives cut up rusty, thank goodness, because they thought
+  it was him had driven their luck away.&quot;</p>
+<p>
+  8. THE NEW ACCELERATOR</p>
+<p>Certainly, if ever a man found a guinea when he was looking for a pin
+  it is my good friend Professor Gibberne. I have heard before of
+  investigators overshooting the mark, but never quite to the extent
+  that he has done. He has really, this time at any rate, without any
+  touch of exaggeration in the phrase, found something to revolutionise
+  human life. And that when he was simply seeking an all-round nervous
+  stimulant to bring languid people up to the stresses of these pushful
+  days. I have tasted the stuff now several times, and I cannot do
+  better than describe the effect the thing had on me. That there are
+  astonishing experiences in store for all in search of new sensations
+  will become apparent enough.</p>
+<p>Professor Gibberne, as many people know, is my neighbour in Folkestone.
+  Unless my memory plays me a trick, his portrait at various ages
+  has already appeared in The Strand Magazine--I think late in 1899;
+  but I am unable to look it up because I have lent that volume to
+  some one who has never sent it back. The reader may, perhaps,
+  recall the high forehead and the singularly long black eyebrows
+  that give such a Mephistophelian touch to his face. He occupies one
+  of those pleasant little detached houses in the mixed style that
+  make the western end of the Upper Sandgate Road so interesting.
+  His is the one with the Flemish gables and the Moorish portico,
+  and it is in the little room with the mullioned bay window that
+  he works when he is down here, and in which of an evening we have
+  so often smoked and talked together. He is a mighty jester, but,
+  besides, he likes to talk to me about his work; he is one of those
+  men who find a help and stimulus in talking, and so I have been
+  able to follow the conception of the New Accelerator right up from
+  a very early stage. Of course, the greater portion of his experimental
+  work is not done in Folkestone, but in Gower Street, in the fine
+  new laboratory next to the hospital that he has been the first to use.</p>
+<p>As every one knows, or at least as all intelligent people know,
+  the special department in which Gibberne has gained so great
+  and deserved a reputation among physiologists is the action of drugs
+  upon the nervous system. Upon soporifics, sedatives, and anaesthetics
+  he is, I am told, unequalled. He is also a chemist of considerable
+  eminence, and I suppose in the subtle and complex jungle of riddles
+  that centres about the ganglion cell and the axis fibre there are
+  little cleared places of his making, little glades of illumination,
+  that, until he sees fit to publish his results, are still inaccessible
+  to every other living man. And in the last few years he has been
+  particularly assiduous upon this question of nervous stimulants,
+  and already, before the discovery of the New Accelerator, very
+  successful with them. Medical science has to thank him for at least
+  three distinct and absolutely safe invigorators of unrivalled value
+  to practising men. In cases of exhaustion the preparation known
+  as Gibberne's B Syrup has, I suppose, saved more lives already
+  than any lifeboat round the coast.</p>
+<p>&quot;But none of these little things begin to satisfy me yet,&quot; he told
+  me nearly a year ago. &quot;Either they increase the central energy
+  without affecting the nerves or they simply increase the available
+  energy by lowering the nervous conductivity; and all of them are
+  unequal and local in their operation. One wakes up the heart and
+  viscera and leaves the brain stupefied, one gets at the brain
+  champagne fashion and does nothing good for the solar plexus, and
+  what I want--and what, if it's an earthly possibility, I mean to have--
+  is a stimulant that stimulates all round, that wakes you up for
+  a time from the crown of your head to the tip of your great toe,
+  and makes you go two--or even three--to everybody else's one. Eh?
+  That's the thing I'm after.&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;It would tire a man,&quot; I said.</p>
+<p>&quot;Not a doubt of it. And you'd eat double or treble--and all that.
+  But just think what the thing would mean. Imagine yourself with
+  a little phial like this&quot;--he held up a little bottle of green glass
+  and marked his points with it--&quot;and in this precious phial is
+  the power to think twice as fast, move twice as quickly, do twice
+  as much work in a given time as you could otherwise do.&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;But is such a thing possible?&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;I believe so. If it isn't, I've wasted my time for a year. These
+  various preparations of the hypophosphites, for example, seem
+  to show that something of the sort . . . Even if it was only one
+  and a half times as fast it would do.&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;It WOULD do,&quot; I said.</p>
+<p>&quot;If you were a statesman in a corner, for example, time rushing up
+  against you, something urgent to be done, eh?&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;He could dose his private secretary,&quot; I said.</p>
+<p>&quot;And gain--double time. And think if YOU, for example, wanted
+  to finish a book.&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;Usually,&quot; I said, &quot;I wish I'd never begun 'em.&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;Or a doctor, driven to death, wants to sit down and think out
+  a case. Or a barrister--or a man cramming for an examination.&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;Worth a guinea a drop,&quot; said I, &quot;and more to men like that.&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;And in a duel, again,&quot; said Gibberne, &quot;where it all depends 
+  on
+  your quickness in pulling the trigger.&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;Or in fencing,&quot; I echoed.</p>
+<p>&quot;You see,&quot; said Gibberne, &quot;if I get it as an all-round thing 
+  it will
+  really do you no harm at all--except perhaps to an infinitesimal
+  degree it brings you nearer old age. You will just have lived twice
+  to other people's once--&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;I suppose,&quot; I meditated, &quot;in a duel--it would be fair?&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;That's a question for the seconds,&quot; said Gibberne.</p>
+<p>I harked back further. &quot;And you really think such a thing IS
+  possible?&quot; I said.</p>
+<p>&quot;As possible,&quot; said Gibberne, and glanced at something that went
+  throbbing by the window, &quot;as a motor-bus. As a matter of fact--&quot;</p>
+<p>He paused and smiled at me deeply, and tapped slowly on the edge
+  of his desk with the green phial. &quot;I think I know the stuff. . . . 
+  Already I've got something coming.&quot; The nervous smile upon his
+  face betrayed the gravity of his revelation. He rarely talked of
+  his actual experimental work unless things were very near the end.
+  &quot;And it may be, it may be--I shouldn't be surprised--it may even
+  do the thing at a greater rate than twice.&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;It will be rather a big thing,&quot; I hazarded.</p>
+<p>&quot;It will be, I think, rather a big thing.&quot;</p>
+<p>But I don't think he quite knew what a big thing it was to be, for
+  all that.</p>
+<p>I remember we had several talks about the stuff after that. &quot;The New
+  Accelerator&quot; he called it, and his tone about it grew more confident
+  on each occasion. Sometimes he talked nervously of unexpected
+  physiological results its use might have, and then he would get
+  a little unhappy; at others he was frankly mercenary, and we debated
+  long and anxiously how the preparation might be turned to commercial
+  account. &quot;It's a good thing,&quot; said Gibberne, &quot;a tremendous thing.
+  I know I'm giving the world something, and I think it only reasonable
+  we should expect the world to pay. The dignity of science is all
+  very well, but I think somehow I must have the monopoly of the stuff
+  for, say, ten years. I don't see why ALL the fun in life should go
+  to the dealers in ham.&quot;</p>
+<p>My own interest in the coming drug certainly did not wane in the time.
+  I have always had a queer little twist towards metaphysics in my
+  mind. I have always been given to paradoxes about space and time,
+  and it seemed to me that Gibberne was really preparing no less
+  than the absolute acceleration of life. Suppose a man repeatedly
+  dosed with such a preparation: he would live an active and record
+  life indeed, but he would be an adult at eleven, middle-aged at
+  twenty-five, and by thirty well on the road to senile decay. It seemed
+  to me that so far Gibberne was only going to do for any one who
+  took his drug exactly what Nature has done for the Jews and Orientals,
+  who are men in their teens and aged by fifty, and quicker in thought
+  and act than we are all the time. The marvel of drugs has always
+  been great to my mind; you can madden a man, calm a man, make him
+  incredibly strong and alert or a helpless log, quicken this passion
+  and allay that, all by means of drugs, and here was a new miracle
+  to be added to this strange armoury of phials the doctors use!
+  But Gibberne was far too eager upon his technical points to enter
+  very keenly into my aspect of the question.</p>
+<p>It was the 7th or 8th of August when he told me the distillation
+  that would decide his failure or success for a time was going forward
+  as we talked, and it was on the 10th that he told me the thing was
+  done and the New Accelerator a tangible reality in the world. I met
+  him as I was going up the Sandgate Hill towards Folkestone--I think
+  I was going to get my hair cut, and he came hurrying down to meet
+  me--I suppose he was coming to my house to tell me at once of his
+  success. I remember that his eyes were unusually bright and his face
+  flushed, and I noted even then the swift alacrity of his step.</p>
+<p>&quot;It's done,&quot; he cried, and gripped my hand, speaking very fast;
+  &quot;it's more than done. Come up to my house and see.&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;Really?&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;Really!&quot; he shouted. &quot;Incredibly! Come up and see.&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;And it does--twice?</p>
+<p>&quot;It does more, much more. It scares me. Come up and see the stuff.
+  Taste it! Try it! It's the most amazing stuff on earth.&quot; He gripped
+  my arm and, walking at such a pace that he forced me into a trot,
+  went shouting with me up the hill. A whole char-a-banc-ful of people
+  turned and stared at us in unison after the manner of people in
+  chars-a-banc. It was one of those hot, clear days that Folkestone
+  sees so much of, every colour incredibly bright and every outline
+  hard. There was a breeze, of course, but not so much breeze as
+  sufficed under these conditions to keep me cool and dry. I panted for
+  mercy.</p>
+<p>&quot;I'm not walking fast, am I?&quot; cried Gibberne, and slackened his pace
+  to a quick march.</p>
+<p>&quot;You've been taking some of this stuff,&quot; I puffed.</p>
+<p>&quot;No,&quot; he said. &quot;At the utmost a drop of water that stood in 
+  a beaker
+  from which I had washed out the last traces of the stuff. I took
+  some last night, you know. But that is ancient history, now.&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;And it goes twice?&quot; I said, nearing his doorway in a grateful
+  perspiration.</p>
+<p>&quot;It goes a thousand times, many thousand times!&quot; cried Gibberne, 
+  with
+  a dramatic gesture, flinging open his Early English carved oak gate.</p>
+<p>&quot;Phew!&quot; said I, and followed him to the door.</p>
+<p>&quot;I don't know how many times it goes,&quot; he said, with his latch-key
+  in his hand.</p>
+<p>&quot;And you--&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;It throws all sorts of light on nervous physiology, it kicks the theory
+  of vision into a perfectly new shape! . . . Heaven knows how many
+  thousand times. We'll try all that after--The thing is to try the stuff
+  now.&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;Try the stuff?&quot; I said, as we went along the passage.</p>
+<p>&quot;Rather,&quot; said Gibberne, turning on me in his study. &quot;There 
+  it is
+  in that little green phial there! Unless you happen to be afraid?&quot;</p>
+<p>I am a careful man by nature, and only theoretically adventurous.
+  I WAS afraid. But on the other hand there is pride.</p>
+<p>&quot;Well,&quot; I haggled. &quot;You say you've tried it?&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;I've tried it,&quot; he said, &quot;and I don't look hurt by it, do I?
+  I don't even look livery and I FEEL--&quot;</p>
+<p>I sat down. &quot;Give me the potion,&quot; I said. &quot;If the worst comes 
+  to
+  the worst it will save having my hair cut, and that I think is one
+  of the most hateful duties of a civilised man. How do you take the
+  mixture?&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;With water,&quot; said Gibberne, whacking down a carafe.</p>
+<p>He stood up in front of his desk and regarded me in his easy chair;
+  his manner was suddenly affected by a touch of the Harley Street
+  specialist. &quot;It's rum stuff, you know,&quot; he said.</p>
+<p>I made a gesture with my hand.</p>
+<p>&quot;I must warn you in the first place as soon as you've got it down
+  to shut your eyes, and open them very cautiously in a minute or so's
+  time. One still sees. The sense of vision is a question of length
+  of vibration, and not of multitude of impacts; but there's a kind
+  of shock to the retina, a nasty giddy confusion just at the time,
+  if the eyes are open. Keep 'em shut.&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;Shut,&quot; I said. &quot;Good!&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;And the next thing is, keep still. Don't begin to whack about.
+  You may fetch something a nasty rap if you do. Remember you will
+  be going several thousand times faster than you ever did before,
+  heart, lungs, muscles, brain--everything--and you will hit hard
+  without knowing it. You won't know it, you know. You'll feel just
+  as you do now. Only everything in the world will seem to be going
+  ever so many thousand times slower than it ever went before. That's
+  what makes it so deuced queer.&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;Lor',&quot; I said. &quot;And you mean--&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;You'll see,&quot; said he, and took up a little measure. He glanced
+  at the material on his desk. &quot;Glasses,&quot; he said, &quot;water. All 
+  here.
+  Mustn't take too much for the first attempt.&quot;</p>
+<p>The little phial glucked out its precious contents.</p>
+<p>&quot;Don't forget what I told you,&quot; he said, turning the contents of
+  the measure into a glass in the manner of an Italian waiter measuring
+  whisky. &quot;Sit with the eyes tightly shut and in absolute stillness
+  for two minutes,&quot; he said. &quot;Then you will hear me speak.&quot;</p>
+<p>He added an inch or so of water to the little dose in each glass.</p>
+<p>&quot;By-the-by,&quot; he said, &quot;don't put your glass down. Keep it in 
+  your
+  hand and rest your hand on your knee. Yes--so. And now--&quot;</p>
+<p>He raised his glass.</p>
+<p>&quot;The New Accelerator,&quot; I said.</p>
+<p>&quot;The New Accelerator,&quot; he answered, and we touched glasses and
+  drank, and instantly I closed my eyes.</p>
+<p>You know that blank non-existence into which one drops when one
+  has taken &quot;gas.&quot; For an indefinite interval it was like that. Then
+  I heard Gibberne telling me to wake up, and I stirred and opened
+  my eyes. There he stood as he had been standing, glass still
+  in hand. It was empty, that was all the difference.</p>
+<p>&quot;Well?&quot; said I.</p>
+<p>&quot;Nothing out of the way?&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;Nothing. A slight feeling of exhilaration, perhaps. Nothing more.&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;Sounds?&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;Things are still,&quot; I said. &quot;By Jove! yes! They ARE still. Except 
+  the
+  sort of faint pat, patter, like rain falling on different things.
+  What is it?&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;Analysed sounds,&quot; I think he said, but I am not sure. He glanced
+  at the window. &quot;Have you ever seen a curtain before a window fixed
+  in that way before?&quot;</p>
+<p>I followed his eyes, and there was the end of the curtain, frozen,
+  as it were, corner high, in the act of flapping briskly in the breeze.</p>
+<p>&quot;No,&quot; said I; &quot;that's odd.&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;And here,&quot; he said, and opened the hand that held the glass. Naturally
+  I winced, expecting the glass to smash. But so far from smashing
+  it did not even seem to stir; it hung in mid-air--motionless.</p>
+<p>&quot;Roughly speaking,&quot; said Gibberne, &quot;an object in these latitudes
+  falls 16 feet in the first second. This glass is falling 16 feet in
+  a second now. Only, you see, it hasn't been falling yet for the
+  hundredth part of a second. That gives you some idea of the pace
+  of my Accelerator.&quot; And he waved his hand round and round, over and
+  under the slowly sinking glass. Finally, he took it by the bottom,
+  pulled it down, and placed it very carefully on the table. &quot;Eh?&quot;
+  he said to me, and laughed.</p>
+<p>&quot;That seems all right,&quot; I said, and began very gingerly to raise
+  myself from my chair. I felt perfectly well, very light and
+  comfortable, and quite confident in my mind. I was going fast all
+  over. My heart, for example, was beating a thousand times a second,
+  but that caused me no discomfort at all. I looked out of the window.
+  An immovable cyclist, head down and with a frozen puff of dust
+  behind his driving-wheel, scorched to overtake a galloping char-a-banc
+  that did not stir. I gaped in amazement at this incredible spectacle.
+  &quot;Gibberne,&quot; I cried, &quot;how long will this confounded stuff last?&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;Heaven knows!&quot; he answered. &quot;Last time I took it I went to 
+  bed
+  and slept it off. I tell you, I was frightened. It must have lasted
+  some minutes, I think--it seemed like hours. But after a bit it
+  slows down rather suddenly, I believe.&quot;</p>
+<p>I was proud to observe that I did not feel frightened--I suppose
+  because there were two of us. &quot;Why shouldn't we go out?&quot; I asked.</p>
+<p>&quot;Why not?&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;They'll see us.&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;Not they. Goodness, no! Why, we shall be going a thousand times
+  faster than the quickest conjuring trick that was ever done. Come
+  along! Which way shall we go? Window, or door?&quot;</p>
+<p>And out by the window we went.</p>
+<p>Assuredly of all the strange experiences that I have ever had, or imagined, 
+  or read of other people having or imagining, that little raid I made with Gibberne 
+  on the Folkestone Leas, under the influence of the New Accelerator, was the 
+  strangest and maddest of all. We went out by his gate into the road, and there 
+  we made a minute examination of the statuesque passing traffic. The tops of 
+  the wheels and some of the legs of the horses of this char-a-banc, the end of 
+  the whip-lash and the lower jaw of the conductor--who was just beginning to 
+  yawn--were perceptibly in motion, but all the rest of the lumbering conveyance 
+  seemed still. And quite noiseless except for a faint rattling that came from 
+  one man's throat! And as parts of this frozen edifice there were a driver, you 
+  know, and a conductor, and eleven people! The effect as we walked about the 
+  thing began by being madly queer, and ended by being disagreeable. There they 
+  were, people like ourselves and yet not like ourselves, frozen in careless attitudes, 
+  caught in mid-gesture. A girl and a man smiled at one another, a leering smile 
+  that threatened to last for evermore; a woman in a floppy capelline rested her 
+  arm on the rail and stared at Gibberne's house with the unwinking stare of eternity; 
+  a man stroked his moustache like a figure of wax, and another stretched a tiresome 
+  stiff hand with extended fingers towards his loosened hat. We stared at them, 
+  we laughed at them, we made faces at them, and then a sort of disgust of them 
+  came upon us, and we turned away and walked round in front of the cyclist towards 
+  the Leas. </p>
+<p>&quot;Goodness!&quot; cried Gibberne, suddenly; &quot;look there!&quot;</p>
+<p>He pointed, and there at the tip of his finger and sliding down the
+  air with wings flapping slowly and at the speed of an exceptionally
+  languid snail--was a bee.</p>
+<p>And so we came out upon the Leas. There the thing seemed madder
+  than ever. The band was playing in the upper stand, though all
+  the sound it made for us was a low-pitched, wheezy rattle, a sort of
+  prolonged last sigh that passed at times into a sound like the slow,
+  muffled ticking of some monstrous clock. Frozen people stood erect,
+  strange, silent, self-conscious-looking dummies hung unstably in
+  mid-stride, promenading upon the grass. I passed close to a little
+  poodle dog suspended in the act of leaping, and watched the slow
+  movement of his legs as he sank to earth. &quot;Lord, look here!&quot; cried
+  Gibberne, and we halted for a moment before a magnificent person
+  in white faint-striped flannels, white shoes, and a Panama hat,
+  who turned back to wink at two gaily dressed ladies he had passed.
+  A wink, studied with such leisurely deliberation as we could afford,
+  is an unattractive thing. It loses any quality of alert gaiety,
+  and one remarks that the winking eye does not completely close,
+  that under its drooping lid appears the lower edge of an eyeball
+  and a little line of white. &quot;Heaven give me memory,&quot; said I,
+  &quot;and I will never wink again.&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;Or smile,&quot; said Gibberne, with his eye on the lady's answering teeth.</p>
+<p>&quot;It's infernally hot, somehow,&quot; said I. &quot;Let's go slower.&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;Oh, come along!&quot; said Gibberne.</p>
+<p>We picked our way among the bath-chairs in the path. Many of
+  the people sitting in the chairs seemed almost natural in their
+  passive poses, but the contorted scarlet of the bandsmen was not
+  a restful thing to see. A purple-faced little gentleman was frozen
+  in the midst of a violent struggle to refold his newspaper against
+  the wind; there were many evidences that all these people in their
+  sluggish way were exposed to a considerable breeze, a breeze that
+  had no existence so far as our sensations went. We came out and
+  walked a little way from the crowd, and turned and regarded it.
+  To see all that multitude changed, to a picture, smitten rigid,
+  as it were, into the semblance of realistic wax, was impossibly
+  wonderful. It was absurd, of course; but it filled me with an irrational,
+  an exultant sense of superior advantage. Consider the wonder of it!
+  All that I had said, and thought, and done since the stuff had begun
+  to work in my veins had happened, so far as those people, so far
+  as the world in general went, in the twinkling of an eye. &quot;The
+  New Accelerator--&quot; I began, but Gibberne interrupted me.</p>
+<p>&quot;There's that infernal old woman!&quot; he said.</p>
+<p>&quot;What old woman?&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;Lives next door to me,&quot; said Gibberne. &quot;Has a lapdog that yaps.
+  Gods! The temptation is strong!&quot;</p>
+<p>There is something very boyish and impulsive about Gibberne at times.
+  Before I could expostulate with him he had dashed forward, snatched
+  the unfortunate animal out of visible existence, and was running
+  violently with it towards the cliff of the Leas. It was most
+  extraordinary. The little brute, you know, didn't bark or wriggle or
+  make the slightest sign of vitality. It kept quite stiffly in an
+  attitude of somnolent repose, and Gibberne held it by the neck. It
+  was like running about with a dog of wood. &quot;Gibberne,&quot; I cried, &quot;put
+  it down!&quot; Then I said something else. &quot;If you run like that,
+  Gibberne,&quot; I cried, &quot;you'll set your clothes on fire. Your linen
+  trousers are going brown as it is!&quot;</p>
+<p>He clapped his hand on his thigh and stood hesitating on the verge.
+  &quot;Gibberne,&quot; I cried, coming up, &quot;put it down. This heat is too 
+  much!
+  It's our running so! Two or three miles a second! Friction of the air!&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;What?&quot; he said, glancing at the dog.</p>
+<p>&quot;Friction of the air,&quot; I shouted. &quot;Friction of the air. Going 
+  too
+  fast. Like meteorites and things. Too hot. And, Gibberne! Gibberne!
+  I'm all over pricking and a sort of perspiration. You can see people
+  stirring slightly. I believe the stuff's working off! Put that dog
+  down.&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;Eh?&quot; he said.</p>
+<p>&quot;It's working off,&quot; I repeated. &quot;We're too hot and the stuff's
+  working off! I'm wet through.&quot;</p>
+<p>He stared at me. Then at the band, the wheezy rattle of whose
+  performance was certainly going faster. Then with a tremendous sweep
+  of the arm he hurled the dog away from him and it went spinning
+  upward, still inanimate, and hung at last over the grouped parasols
+  of a knot of chattering people. Gibberne was gripping my elbow.
+  &quot;By Jove!&quot; he cried. &quot;I believe--it is! A sort of hot pricking
+  and--yes. That man's moving his pocket-handkerchief! Perceptibly.
+  We must get out of this sharp.&quot;</p>
+<p>But we could not get out of it sharply enough. Luckily, perhaps!
+  For we might have run, and if we had run we should, I believe,
+  have burst into flames. Almost certainly we should have burst into
+  flames! You know we had neither of us thought of that. . . . But
+  before we could even begin to run the action of the drug had ceased.
+  It was the business of a minute fraction of a second. The effect of
+  the New Accelerator passed like the drawing of a curtain, vanished in
+  the movement of a hand. I heard Gibberne's voice in infinite alarm.
+  &quot;Sit down,&quot; he said, and flop, down upon the turf at the edge of the
+  Leas I sat--scorching as I sat. There is a patch of burnt grass
+  there still where I sat down. The whole stagnation seemed to wake
+  up as I did so, the disarticulated vibration of the band rushed
+  together into a blast of music, the promenaders put their feet down
+  and walked their ways, the papers and flags began flapping, smiles
+  passed into words, the winker finished his wink and went on his
+  way complacently, and all the seated people moved and spoke.</p>
+<p>The whole world had come alive again, was going as fast as we were,
+  or rather we were going no faster than the rest of the world. It was
+  like slowing down as one comes into a railway station. Everything
+  seemed to spin round for a second or two, I had the most transient
+  feeling of nausea, and that was all. And the little dog which had
+  seemed to hang for a moment when the force of Gibberne's arm was
+  expended fell with a swift acceleration clean through a lady's parasol!</p>
+<p>That was the saving of us. Unless it was for one corpulent old
+  gentleman in a bath-chair, who certainly did start at the sight of
+  us and afterwards regarded us at intervals with a darkly suspicious
+  eye, and, finally, I believe, said something to his nurse about us,
+  I doubt if a solitary person remarked our sudden appearance among
+  them. Plop! We must have appeared abruptly. We ceased to smoulder
+  almost at once, though the turf beneath me was uncomfortably hot. The
+  attention of every one--including even the Amusements' Association
+  band, which on this occasion, for the only time in its history,
+  got out of tune--was arrested by the amazing fact, and the still
+  more amazing yapping and uproar caused by the fact that a respectable,
+  over-fed lap-dog sleeping quietly to the east of the bandstand
+  should suddenly fall through the parasol of a lady on the west--in
+  a slightly singed condition due to the extreme velocity of its
+  movements through the air. In these absurd days, too, when we are
+  all trying to be as psychic, and silly, and superstitious as possible!
+  People got up and trod on other people, chairs were overturned,
+  the Leas policeman ran. How the matter settled itself I do not
+  know--we were much too anxious to disentangle ourselves from
+  the affair and get out of range of the eye of the old gentleman
+  in the bath-chair to make minute inquiries. As soon as we were
+  sufficiently cool and sufficiently recovered from our giddiness
+  and nausea and confusion of mind to do so we stood up and, skirting
+  the crowd, directed our steps back along the road below the Metropole
+  towards Gibberne's house. But amidst the din I heard very distinctly
+  the gentleman who had been sitting beside the lady of the ruptured
+  sunshade using quite unjustifiable threats and language to one of
+  those chair-attendants who have &quot;Inspector&quot; written on their caps.
+  &quot;If you didn't throw the dog,&quot; he said, &quot;who DID?&quot;</p>
+<p>The sudden return of movement and familiar noises, and our natural
+  anxiety about ourselves (our clothe's were still dreadfully hot,
+  and the fronts of the thighs of Gibberne's white trousers were
+  scorched a drabbish brown), prevented the minute observations
+  I should have liked to make on all these things. Indeed, I really
+  made no observations of any scientific value on that return. The bee,
+  of course, had gone. I looked for that cyclist, but he was already
+  out of sight as we came into the Upper Sandgate Road or hidden
+  from us by traffic; the char-a-banc, however, with its people now
+  all alive and stirring, was clattering along at a spanking pace
+  almost abreast of the nearer church.</p>
+<p>We noted, however, that the window-sill on which we had stepped
+  in getting out of the house was slightly singed, and that the
+  impressions of our feet on the gravel of the path were unusually deep.</p>
+<p>So it was I had my first experience of the New Accelerator. Practically
+  we had been running about and saying and doing all sorts of things
+  in the space of a second or so of time. We had lived half an hour
+  while the band had played, perhaps, two bars. But the effect it
+  had upon us was that the whole world had stopped for our convenient
+  inspection. Considering all things, and particularly considering our
+  rashness in venturing out of the house, the experience might certainly
+  have been much more disagreeable than it was. It showed, no doubt,
+  that Gibberne has still much to learn before his preparation is
+  a manageable convenience, but its practicability it certainly
+  demonstrated beyond all cavil.</p>
+<p>Since that adventure he has been steadily bringing its use under
+  control, and I have several times, and without the slightest bad
+  result, taken measured doses under his direction; though I must
+  confess I have not yet ventured abroad again while under its influence.
+  I may mention, for example, that this story has been written at one
+  sitting and without interruption, except for the nibbling of some
+  chocolate, by its means. I began at 6.25, and my watch is now very
+  nearly at the minute past the half-hour. The convenience of securing
+  a long, uninterrupted spell of work in the midst of a day full
+  of engagements cannot be exaggerated. Gibberne is now working
+  at the quantitative handling of his preparation, with especial reference
+  to its distinctive effects upon different types of constitution.
+  He then hopes to find a Retarder with which to dilute its present
+  rather excessive potency. The Retarder will, of course, have the
+  reverse effect to the Accelerator; used alone it should enable
+  the patient to spread a few seconds over many hours of ordinary
+  time,--and so to maintain an apathetic inaction, a glacier-like
+  absence of alacrity, amidst the most animated or irritating
+  surroundings. The two things together must necessarily work an entire
+  revolution in civilised existence. It is the beginning of our escape
+  from that Time Garment of which Carlyle speaks. While this Accelerator
+  will enable us to concentrate ourselves with tremendous impact
+  upon any moment or occasion that demands our utmost sense and vigour,
+  the Retarder will enable us to pass in passive tranquillity through
+  infinite hardship and tedium. Perhaps I am a little optimistic
+  about the Retarder, which has indeed still to be discovered, but
+  about the Accelerator there is no possible sort of doubt whatever.
+  Its appearance upon the market in a convenient, controllable,
+  and assimilable form is a matter of the next few months. It will be
+  obtainable of all chemists and druggists, in small green bottles,
+  at a high but, considering its extraordinary qualities, by no means
+  excessive price. Gibberne's Nervous Accelerator it will be called,
+  and he hopes to be able to supply it in three strengths: one in 200,
+  one in 900, and one in 2000, distinguished by yellow, pink, and
+  white labels respectively.</p>
+<p>No doubt its use renders a great number of very extraordinary things
+  possible; for, of course, the most remarkable and, possibly, even
+  criminal proceedings may be effected with impunity by thus dodging,
+  as it were, into the interstices of time. Like all potent preparations
+  it will be liable to abuse. We have, however, discussed this aspect
+  of the question very thoroughly, and we have decided that this
+  is purely a matter of medical jurisprudence and altogether outside
+  our province. We shall manufacture and sell the Accelerator, and,
+  as for the consequences--we shall see.</p>
+<p>
+  9. MR. LEDBETTER'S VACATION</p>
+<p>My friend, Mr. Ledbetter, is a round-faced little man, whose natural
+  mildness of eye is gigantically exaggerated when you catch the beam
+  through his glasses, and whose deep, deliberate voice irritates
+  irritable people. A certain elaborate clearness of enunciation has
+  come with him to his present vicarage from his scholastic days, an
+  elaborate clearness of enunciation and a certain nervous determination
+  to be firm and correct upon all issues, important and unimportant
+  alike. He is a sacerdotalist and a chess player, and suspected by many
+  of the secret practice of the higher mathematics--creditable rather
+  than interesting things. His conversation is copious and given
+  much to needless detail. By many, indeed, his intercourse is
+  condemned, to put it plainly, as &quot;boring,&quot; and such have even done
+  me the compliment to wonder why I countenance him. But, on the other
+  hand, there is a large faction who marvel at his countenancing
+  such a dishevelled, discreditable acquaintance as myself. Few appear
+  to regard our friendship with equanimity. But that is because they
+  do not know of the link that binds us, of my amiable connection
+  via Jamaica with Mr. Ledbetter's past.</p>
+<p>About that past he displays an anxious modesty. &quot;I do not KNOW what
+  I should do if it became known,&quot; he says; and repeats, impressively,
+  &quot;I do not know WHAT I should do.&quot; As a matter of fact, I doubt if
+  he would do anything except get very red about the ears. But that
+  will appear later; nor will I tell here of our first encounter,
+  since, as a general rule--though I am prone to break it--the end
+  of a story should come after, rather than before, the beginning.
+  And the beginning of the story goes a long way back; indeed, it is
+  now nearly twenty years since Fate, by a series of complicated and
+  startling manoeuvres, brought Mr. Ledbetter, so to speak, into my
+  hands.</p>
+<p>In those days I was living in Jamaica, and Mr. Ledbetter was a
+  schoolmaster in England. He was in orders, and already recognisably
+  the same man that he is to-day: the same rotundity of visage,
+  the same or similar glasses, and the same faint shadow of surprise
+  in his resting expression. He was, of course, dishevelled when
+  I saw him, and his collar less of a collar than a wet bandage,
+  and that may have helped to bridge the natural gulf between us--but
+  of that, as I say, later.</p>
+<p>The business began at Hithergate-on-Sea, and simultaneously with
+  Mr. Ledbetter's summer vacation. Thither he came for a greatly
+  needed rest, with a bright brown portmanteau marked &quot;F. W. L.&quot;,
+  a new white-and-black straw hat, and two pairs of white flannel
+  trousers. He was naturally exhilarated at his release from school--
+  for he was not very fond of the boys he taught. After dinner he
+  fell into a discussion with a talkative person established in the
+  boarding-house to which, acting on the advice of his aunt, he had
+  resorted. This talkative person was the only other man in the house.
+  Their discussion concerned the melancholy disappearance of wonder
+  and adventure in these latter days, the prevalence of globe-trotting,
+  the abolition of distance by steam and electricity, the vulgarity
+  of advertisement, the degradation of men by civilisation, and many
+  such things. Particularly was the talkative person eloquent on
+  the decay of human courage through security, a security Mr. Ledbetter
+  rather thoughtlessly joined him in deploring. Mr. Ledbetter, in the
+  first delight of emancipation from &quot;duty,&quot; and being anxious, perhaps,
+  to establish a reputation for manly conviviality, partook, rather
+  more freely than was advisable, of the excellent whisky the talkative
+  person produced. But he did not become intoxicated, he insists.</p>
+<p>He was simply eloquent beyond his sober wont, and with the finer
+  edge gone from his judgment. And after that long talk of the brave
+  old days that were past forever, he went out into moonlit Hithergate--
+  alone and up the cliff road where the villas cluster together.</p>
+<p>He had bewailed, and now as he walked up the silent road he still
+  bewailed, the fate that had called him to such an uneventful life
+  as a pedagogue's. What a prosaic existence he led, so stagnant,
+  so colourless! Secure, methodical, year in year out, what call was
+  there for bravery? He thought enviously of those roving, mediaeval
+  days, so near and so remote, of quests and spies and condottieri
+  and many a risky blade-drawing business. And suddenly came a doubt,
+  a strange doubt, springing out of some chance thought of tortures,
+  and destructive altogether of the position he had assumed that evening.</p>
+<p>Was he--Mr. Ledbetter--really, after all, so brave as he assumed?
+  Would he really be so pleased to have railways, policemen, and
+  security vanish suddenly from the earth?</p>
+<p>The talkative man had spoken enviously of crime. &quot;The burglar,&quot;
+  he said, &quot;is the only true adventurer left on earth. Think of his
+  single-handed fight against the whole civilised world!&quot; And Mr.
+  Ledbetter had echoed his envy. &quot;They DO have some fun out of life,&quot;
+  Mr. Ledbetter had said. &quot;And about the only people who do. Just
+  think how it must feel to wire a lawn!&quot; And he had laughed wickedly.
+  Now, in this franker intimacy of self-communion he found himself
+  instituting a comparison between his own brand of courage and that of
+  the habitual criminal. He tried to meet these insidious questionings
+  with blank assertion. &quot;I could do all that,&quot; said Mr. Ledbetter.
+  &quot;I long to do all that. Only I do not give way to my criminal impulses.
+  My moral courage restrains me.&quot; But he doubted even while he told
+  himself these things.</p>
+<p>&quot;Mr. Ledbetter passed a large villa standing by itself. Conveniently
+  situated above a quiet, practicable balcony was a window, gaping
+  black, wide open. At the time he scarcely marked it, but the picture
+  of it came with him, wove into his thoughts. He figured himself
+  climbing up that balcony, crouching--plunging into that dark,
+  mysterious interior. &quot;Bah! You would not dare,&quot; said the Spirit
+  of Doubt. &quot;My duty to my fellow-men forbids,&quot; said Mr. Ledbetter's
+  self-respect.</p>
+<p>It was nearly eleven, and the little seaside town was already very
+  still. The whole world slumbered under the moonlight. Only one
+  warm oblong of window-blind far down the road spoke of waking life.
+  He turned and came back slowly towards the villa of the open window.
+  He stood for a time outside the gate, a battlefield of motives.
+  &quot;Let us put things to the test,&quot; said Doubt. &quot;For the satisfaction
+  of these intolerable doubts, show that you dare go into that house.
+  Commit a burglary in blank. That, at any rate, is no crime.&quot; Very
+  softly he opened and shut the gate and slipped into the shadow
+  of the shrubbery. &quot;This is foolish,&quot; said Mr. Ledbetter's caution.
+  &quot;I expected that,&quot; said Doubt. His heart was beating fast, but he
+  was certainly not afraid. He was NOT afraid. He remained in that
+  shadow for some considerable time.</p>
+<p>The ascent of the balcony, it was evident, would have to be done
+  in a rush, for it was all in clear moonlight, and visible from
+  the gate into the avenue. A trellis thinly set with young, ambitious
+  climbing roses made the ascent ridiculously easy. There, in that
+  black shadow by the stone vase of flowers, one might crouch and
+  take a closer view of this gaping breach in the domestic defences,
+  the open window. For a while Mr. Ledbetter was as still as the night,
+  and then that insidious whisky tipped the balance. He dashed forward.
+  He went up the trellis with quick, convulsive movements, swung his
+  legs over the parapet of the balcony, and dropped panting in the
+  shadow even as he had designed. He was trembling violently, short
+  of breath, and his heart pumped noisily, but his mood was exultation.
+  He could have shouted to find he was so little afraid.</p>
+<p>A happy line that he had learnt from Wills's &quot;Mephistopheles&quot; came
+  into his mind as he crouched there. &quot;I feel like a cat on the tiles,&quot;
+  he whispered to himself. It was far better than he had expected--
+  this adventurous exhilaration. He was sorry for all poor men to whom
+  burglary was unknown. Nothing happened. He was quite safe. And
+  he was acting in the bravest manner!</p>
+<p>And now for the window, to make the burglary complete! Must he dare do
+  that? Its position above the front door defined it as a landing or
+  passage, and there were no looking-glasses or any bedroom signs about
+  it, or any other window on the first floor, to suggest the possibility
+  of a sleeper within. For a time he listened under the ledge, then
+  raised his eyes above the sill and peered in. Close at hand, on
+  a pedestal, and a little startling at first, was a nearly life-size
+  gesticulating bronze. He ducked, and after some time he peered
+  again. Beyond was a broad landing, faintly gleaming; a flimsy fabric
+  of bead curtain, very black and sharp, against a further window; a
+  broad staircase, plunging into a gulf of darkness below; and another
+  ascending to the second floor. He glanced behind him, but the
+  stillness of the night was unbroken. &quot;Crime,&quot; he whispered, &quot;crime,&quot;
+  and scrambled softly and swiftly over the sill into the house. His
+  feet fell noiselessly on a mat of skin. He was a burglar indeed!</p>
+<p>He crouched for a time, all ears and peering eyes. Outside was
+  a scampering and rustling, and for a moment he repented of his
+  enterprise. A short &quot;miaow,&quot; a spitting, and a rush into silence,
+  spoke reassuringly of cats. His courage grew. He stood up. Every
+  one was abed, it seemed. So easy is it to commit a burglary, if one
+  is so minded. He was glad he had put it to the test. He determined
+  to take some petty trophy, just to prove his freedom from any abject
+  fear of the law, and depart the way he had come.</p>
+<p>He peered about him, and suddenly the critical spirit arose again.
+  Burglars did far more than such mere elementary entrance as this:
+  they went into rooms, they forced safes. Well--he was not afraid.
+  He could not force safes, because that would be a stupid want
+  of consideration for his hosts. But he would go into rooms--he would
+  go upstairs. More: he told himself that he was perfectly secure;
+  an empty house could not be more reassuringly still. He had to clench
+  his hands, nevertheless, and summon all his resolution before he
+  began very softly to ascend the dim staircase, pausing for several
+  seconds between each step. Above was a square landing with one
+  open and several closed doors; and all the house was still. For
+  a moment he stood wondering what would happen if some sleeper
+  woke suddenly and emerged. The open door showed a moonlit bedroom,
+  the coverlet white and undisturbed. Into this room he crept in three
+  interminable minutes and took a piece of soap for his plunder--
+  his trophy. He turned to descend even more softly than he had
+  ascended. It was as easy as--</p>
+<p>Hist! . . .</p>
+<p>Footsteps! On the gravel outside the house--and then the noise of a
+  latchkey, the yawn and bang of a door, and the spitting of a match
+  in the hall below. Mr. Ledbetter stood petrified by the sudden
+  discovery of the folly upon which he had come. &quot;How on earth am
+  I to get out of this?&quot; said Mr. Ledbetter.</p>
+<p>The hall grew bright with a candle flame, some heavy object bumped
+  against the umbrella-stand, and feet were ascending the staircase. In
+  a flash Mr. Ledbetter realised that his retreat was closed. He stood
+  for a moment, a pitiful figure of penitent confusion. &quot;My goodness!
+  What a FOOL I have been!&quot; he whispered, and then darted swiftly
+  across the shadowy landing into the empty bedroom from which he
+  had just come. He stood listening--quivering. The footsteps reached
+  the first-floor landing.</p>
+<p>Horrible thought! This was possibly the latecomer's room! Not a moment
+  was to be lost! Mr. Ledbetter stooped beside the bed, thanked Heaven
+  for a valance, and crawled within its protection not ten seconds
+  too soon. He became motionless on hands and knees. The advancing
+  candle-light appeared through the thinner stitches of the fabric, the
+  shadows ran wildly about, and became rigid as the candle was put down.</p>
+<p>&quot;Lord, what a day!&quot; said the newcomer, blowing noisily, and it seemed
+  he deposited some heavy burthen on what Mr. Ledbetter, judging
+  by the feet, decided to be a writing-table. The unseen then went
+  to the door and locked it, examined the fastenings of the windows
+  carefully and pulled down the blinds, and returning sat down upon
+  the bed with startling ponderosity.</p>
+<p>&quot;WHAT a day!&quot; he said. &quot;Good Lord!&quot; and blew again, and 
+  Mr. Ledbetter
+  inclined to believe that the person was mopping his face. His boots
+  were good stout boots; the shadows of his legs upon the valance
+  suggested a formidable stoutness of aspect. After a time he removed
+  some upper garments--a coat and waistcoat, Mr. Ledbetter inferred--
+  and casting them over the rail of the bed remained breathing less
+  noisily, and as it seemed cooling from a considerable temperature.
+  At intervals he muttered to himself, and once he laughed softly. And
+  Mr. Ledbetter muttered to himself, but he did not laugh. &quot;Of all the
+  foolish things,&quot; said Mr. Ledbetter. &quot;What on earth am I to do now?&quot;</p>
+<p>His outlook was necessarily limited. The minute apertures between
+  the stitches of the fabric of the valance admitted a certain amount
+  of light, but permitted no peeping. The shadows upon this curtain,
+  save for those sharply defined legs, were enigmatical, and intermingled
+  confusingly with the florid patterning of the chintz. Beneath the edge
+  of the valance a strip of carpet was visible, and, by cautiously
+  depressing his eye, Mr. Ledbetter found that this strip broadened
+  until the whole area of the floor came into view. The carpet was
+  a luxurious one, the room spacious, and, to judge by the castors
+  and so forth of the furniture, well equipped.</p>
+<p>What he should do he found it difficult to imagine. To wait until
+  this person had gone to bed, and then, when he seemed to be sleeping,
+  to creep to the door, unlock it, and bolt headlong for that balcony
+  seemed the only possible thing to do. Would it be possible to jump
+  from the balcony? The danger of it! When he thought of the chances
+  against him, Mr. Ledbetter despaired. He was within an ace of thrusting
+  forth his head beside the gentleman's legs, coughing if necessary
+  to attract his attention, and then, smiling, apologising and explaining
+  his unfortunate intrusion by a few well-chosen sentences. But he
+  found these sentences hard to choose. &quot;No doubt, sir, my appearance
+  is peculiar,&quot; or, &quot;I trust, sir, you will pardon my somewhat ambiguous
+  appearance from beneath you,&quot; was about as much as he could get.</p>
+<p>Grave possibilities forced themselves on his attention. Suppose
+  they did not believe him, what would they do to him? Would his
+  unblemished high character count for nothing? Technically he was
+  a burglar, beyond dispute. Following out this train of thought,
+  he was composing a lucid apology for &quot;this technical crime I have
+  committed,&quot; to be delivered before sentence in the dock, when
+  the stout gentleman got up and began walking about the room. He
+  locked and unlocked drawers, and Mr. Ledbetter had a transient hope
+  that he might be undressing. But, no! He seated himself at the
+  writing-table, and began to write and then tear up documents.
+  Presently the smell of burning cream-laid paper mingled with the odour
+  of cigars in Mr. Ledbetter's nostrils.</p>
+<p>&quot;The position I had assumed,&quot; said Mr. Ledbetter when he told me 
+  of
+  these things, &quot;was in many respects an ill-advised one. A transverse
+  bar beneath the bed depressed my head unduly, and threw a
+  disproportionate share of my weight upon my hands. After a time, I
+  experienced what is called, I believe, a crick in the neck. The
+  pressure of my hands on the coarsely-stitched carpet speedily became
+  painful. My knees, too, were painful, my trousers being drawn tightly
+  over them. At that time I wore rather higher collars than I do now--two
+  and a half inches, in fact--and I discovered what I had not remarked
+  before, that the edge of the one I wore was frayed slightly under
+  the chin. But much worse than these things was an itching of my face,
+  which I could only relieve by violent grimacing--I tried to raise
+  my hand, but the rustle of the sleeve alarmed me. After a time
+  I had to desist from this relief also, because--happily in time--
+  I discovered that my facial contortions were shifting my glasses
+  down my nose. Their fall would, of course, have exposed me, and as it
+  was they came to rest in an oblique position of by no means stable
+  equilibrium. In addition I had a slight cold, and an intermittent
+  desire to sneeze or sniff caused me inconvenience. In fact, quite
+  apart from the extreme anxiety of my position, my physical discomfort
+  became in a short time very considerable indeed. But I had to stay
+  there motionless, nevertheless.&quot;</p>
+<p>After an interminable time, there began a chinking sound. This
+  deepened into a rhythm: chink, chink, chink--twenty-five chinks--
+  a rap on the writing-table, and a grunt from the owner of the stout
+  legs. It dawned upon Mr. Ledbetter that this chinking was the chinking
+  of gold. He became incredulously curious as it went on. His curiosity
+  grew. Already, if that was the case, this extraordinary man must
+  have counted some hundreds of pounds. At last Mr. Ledbetter could
+  resist it no longer, and he began very cautiously to fold his arms
+  and lower his head to the level of the floor, in the hope of peeping
+  under the valance. He moved his feet, and one made a slight scraping
+  on the floor. Suddenly the chinking ceased. Mr. Ledbetter became
+  rigid. After a while the chinking was resumed. Then it ceased again,
+  and everything was still, except Mr. Ledbetter's heart--that organ
+  seemed to him to be beating like a drum.</p>
+<p>The stillness continued. Mr. Ledbetter's head was now on the floor,
+  and he could see the stout legs as far as the shins. They were
+  quite still. The feet were resting on the toes and drawn back,
+  as it seemed, under the chair of the owner. Everything was quite
+  still, everything continued still. A wild hope came to Mr. Ledbetter
+  that the unknown was in a fit or suddenly dead, with his head upon
+  the writing-table. . . .</p>
+<p>The stillness continued. What had happened? The desire to peep
+  became irresistible. Very cautiously Mr. Ledbetter shifted his hand
+  forward, projected a pioneer finger, and began to lift the valance
+  immediately next his eye. Nothing broke the stillness. He saw now
+  the stranger's knees, saw the back of the writing-table, and then--
+  he was staring at the barrel of a heavy revolver pointed over
+  the writing-table at his head.</p>
+<p>&quot;Come out of that, you scoundrel!&quot; said the voice of the stout
+  gentleman in a tone of quiet concentration. &quot;Come out. This side,
+  and now. None of your hanky-panky--come right out, now.&quot;</p>
+<p>Mr. Ledbetter came right out, a little reluctantly perhaps, but
+  without any hanky-panky, and at once, even as he was told.</p>
+<p>&quot;Kneel,&quot; said the stout gentleman. &quot;and hold up your hands.&quot;</p>
+<p>The valance dropped again behind Mr. Ledbetter, and he rose from
+  all-fours and held up his hands. &quot;Dressed like a parson,&quot; said
+  the stout gentleman. &quot;I'm blest if he isn't! A little chap, too!
+  You SCOUNDREL! What the deuce possessed you to come here to-night?
+  What the deuce possessed you to get under my bed?&quot;</p>
+<p>He did not appear to require an answer, but proceeded at once to
+  several very objectionable remarks upon Mr. Ledbetter's personal
+  appearance. He was not a very big man, but he looked strong to Mr.
+  Ledbetter: he was as stout as his legs had promised, he had rather
+  delicately-chiselled small features distributed over a considerable
+  area of whitish face, and quite a number of chins. And the note
+  of his voice had a sort of whispering undertone.</p>
+<p>&quot;What the deuce, I say, possessed you to get under my bed?&quot;</p>
+<p>Mr. Ledbetter, by an effort, smiled a wan propitiatory smile. He
+  coughed. &quot;I can quite understand--&quot; he said.</p>
+<p>&quot;Why! What on earth? It's SOAP! No!--you scoundrel. Don't you move
+  that hand.&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;It's soap,&quot; said Mr. Ledbetter. &quot;From your washstand. No doubt 
+  it--&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;Don't talk,&quot; said the stout man. &quot;I see it's soap. Of all incredible
+  things.&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;If I might explain--&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;Don't explain. It's sure to be a lie, and there's no time for
+  explanations. What was I going to ask you? Ah! Have you any mates?&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;In a few minutes, if you--&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;Have you any mates? Curse you. If you start any soapy palaver
+  I'll shoot. Have you any mates?&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;No,&quot; said Mr. Ledbetter.</p>
+<p>&quot;I suppose it's a lie,&quot; said the stout man. &quot;But you'll pay 
+  for it
+  if it is. Why the deuce didn't you floor me when I came upstairs?
+  You won't get a chance to now, anyhow. Fancy getting under the bed!
+  I reckon it's a fair cop, anyhow, so far as you are concerned.&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;I don't see how I could prove an alibi,&quot; remarked Mr. Ledbetter,
+  trying to show by his conversation that he was an educated man.
+  There was a pause. Mr. Ledbetter perceived that on a chair beside
+  his captor was a large black bag on a heap of crumpled papers,
+  and that there were torn and burnt papers on the table. And in front
+  of these, and arranged methodically along the edge were rows and
+  rows of little yellow rouleaux--a hundred times more gold than Mr.
+  Ledbetter had seen in all his life before. The light of two candles,
+  in silver candlesticks, fell upon these. The pause continued. &quot;It is
+  rather fatiguing holding up my hands like this,&quot; said Mr. Ledbetter,
+  with a deprecatory smile.</p>
+<p>&quot;That's all right,&quot; said the fat man. &quot;But what to do with you
+  I don't exactly know.&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;I know my position is ambiguous.&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;Lord!&quot; said the fat man, &quot;ambiguous! And goes about with his 
+  own
+  soap, and wears a thundering great clerical collar. You ARE a blooming
+  burglar, you are--if ever there was one!&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;To be strictly accurate,&quot; said Mr. Ledbetter, and suddenly his
+  glasses slipped off and clattered against his vest buttons.</p>
+<p>The fat man changed countenance, a flash of savage resolution
+  crossed his face, and something in the revolver clicked. He put
+  his other hand to the weapon. And then he looked at Mr. Ledbetter,
+  and his eye went down to the dropped pince-nez.</p>
+<p>&quot;Full-cock now, anyhow,&quot; said the fat man, after a pause, and his
+  breath seemed to catch. &quot;But I'll tell you, you've never been so
+  near death before. Lord! I'M almost glad. If it hadn't been that
+  the revolver wasn't cocked you'd be lying dead there now.&quot;</p>
+<p>Mr. Ledbetter said nothing, but he felt that the room was swaying.</p>
+<p>&quot;A miss is as good as a mile. It's lucky for both of us it wasn't.
+  Lord!&quot; He blew noisily. &quot;There's no need for you to go pale-green
+  for a little thing like that.&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;If I can assure you, sir--&quot; said Mr. Ledbetter, with an effort.</p>
+<p>&quot;There's only one thing to do. If I call in the police, I'm bust--
+  a little game I've got on is bust. That won't do. If I tie you up
+  and leave you again, the thing may be out to-morrow. Tomorrow's
+  Sunday, and Monday's Bank Holiday--I've counted on three clear
+  days. Shooting you's murder--and hanging; and besides, it will bust
+  the whole blooming kernooze. I'm hanged if I can think what to do--
+  I'm hanged if I can.&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;Will you permit me--&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;You gas as much as if you were a real parson, I'm blessed if you
+  don't. Of all the burglars you are the--Well! No!--I WON'T permit
+  you. There isn't time. If you start off jawing again, I'll shoot
+  right in your stomach. See? But I know now-I know now! What we're
+  going to do first, my man, is an examination for concealed arms--
+  an examination for concealed arms. And look here! When I tell you
+  to do a thing, don't start off at a gabble--do it brisk.&quot;</p>
+<p>And with many elaborate precautions, and always pointing the pistol
+  at Mr. Ledbetter's head, the stout man stood him up and searched
+  him for weapons. &quot;Why, you ARE a burglar!&quot; he said &quot;You're a 
+  perfect
+  amateur. You haven't even a pistol-pocket in the back of your
+  breeches. No, you don't! Shut up, now.&quot;</p>
+<p>So soon as the issue was decided, the stout man made Mr. Ledbetter
+  take off his coat and roll up his shirt-sleeves, and, with the revolver
+  at one ear, proceed with the packing his appearance had interrupted.
+  From the stout man's point of view that was evidently the only
+  possible arrangement, for if he had packed, he would have had
+  to put down the revolver. So that even the gold on the table was
+  handled by Mr. Ledbetter. This nocturnal packing was peculiar.
+  The stout man's idea was evidently to distribute the weight of
+  the gold as unostentatiously as possible through his luggage. It was
+  by no means an inconsiderable weight. There was, Mr. Ledbetter says,
+  altogether nearly L18,000 in gold in the black bag and on the table.
+  There were also many little rolls of L5 bank-notes. Each rouleau
+  of L25 was wrapped by Mr. Ledbetter in paper. These rouleaux were
+  then put neatly in cigar boxes and distributed between a travelling
+  trunk, a Gladstone bag, and a hatbox. About L600 went in a tobacco
+  tin in a dressing-bag. L10 in gold and a number of L5 notes the stout
+  man pocketed. Occasionally he objurgated Mr. Ledbetter's clumsiness,
+  and urged him to hurry, and several times he appealed to Mr.
+  Ledbetter's watch for information.</p>
+<p>Mr. Ledbetter strapped the trunk and bag, and returned the stout man the keys. 
+  It was then ten minutes to twelve, and until the stroke of midnight the stout 
+  man made him sit on the Gladstone bag, while he sat at a reasonably safe distance 
+  on the trunk and held the revolver handy and waited. He appeared to be now in 
+  a less aggressive mood, and having watched Mr. Ledbetter for some time, he offered 
+  a few remarks.</p>
+<p>&quot;From your accent I judge you are a man of some education,&quot; he said,
+  lighting a cigar. &quot;No--DON'T begin that explanation of yours. I know
+  it will be long-winded from your face, and I am much too old a liar
+  to be interested in other men's lying. You are, I say, a person
+  of education. You do well to dress as a curate. Even among educated
+  people you might pass as a curate.&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;I AM a curate,&quot; said Mr. Ledbetter, &quot;or, at least--&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;You are trying to be. I know. But you didn't ought to burgle.
+  You are not the man to burgle. You are, if I may say it--the thing
+  will have been pointed out to you before--a coward.&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;Do you know,&quot; said Mr. Ledbetter, trying to get a final opening,
+  &quot;it was that very question--&quot;</p>
+<p>The stout man waved him into silence.</p>
+<p>&quot;You waste your education in burglary. You should do one of two
+  things. Either you should forge or you should embezzle. For my
+  own part, I embezzle. Yes; I embezzle. What do you think a man
+  could be doing with all this gold but that? Ah! Listen! Midnight! . . .
+  Ten. Eleven. Twelve. There is something very impressive to me
+  in that slow beating of the hours. Time--space; what mysteries
+  they are! What mysteries. . . . It's time for us to be moving.
+  Stand up!&quot;</p>
+<p>And then kindly, but firmly, he induced Mr. Ledbetter to sling the
+  dressing bag over his back by a string across his chest, to shoulder
+  the trunk, and, overruling a gasping protest, to take the Gladstone
+  bag in his disengaged hand. So encumbered, Mr. Ledbetter struggled
+  perilously downstairs. The stout gentleman followed with an overcoat,
+  the hatbox, and the revolver, making derogatory remarks about Mr.
+  Ledbetter's strength, and assisting him at the turnings of the stairs.</p>
+<p>&quot;The back door,&quot; he directed, and Mr. Ledbetter staggered through
+  a conservatory, leaving a wake of smashed flower-pots behind him.
+  &quot;Never mind the crockery,&quot; said the stout man; &quot;it's good for 
+  trade.
+  We wait here until a quarter past. You can put those things down. You
+  have!&quot;</p>
+<p>Mr. Ledbetter collapsed panting on the trunk. &quot;Last night,&quot; he gasped,
+  &quot;I was asleep in my little room, and I no more dreamt--&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;There's no need for you to incriminate yourself,&quot; said the stout
+  gentleman, looking at the lock of the revolver. He began to hum.
+  Mr. Ledbetter made to speak, and thought better of it.</p>
+<p>There presently came the sound of a bell, and Mr. Ledbetter was
+  taken to the back door and instructed to open it. A fair-haired man
+  in yachting costume entered. At the sight of Mr. Ledbetter he started
+  violently and clapped his hand behind him. Then he saw the stout
+  man. &quot;Bingham!&quot; he cried, &quot;who's this?&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;Only a little philanthropic do of mine--burglar I'm trying to reform.
+  Caught him under my bed just now. He's all right. He's a frightful
+  ass. He'll be useful to carry some of our things.&quot;</p>
+<p>The newcomer seemed inclined to resent Mr. Ledbetter's presence
+  at first, but the stout man reassured him.</p>
+<p>&quot;He's quite alone. There's not a gang in the world would own him.
+  No!--don't start talking, for goodness' sake.&quot;</p>
+<p>They went out into the darkness of the garden with the trunk still
+  bowing Mr. Ledbetter's shoulders. The man in the yachting costume
+  walked in front with the Gladstone bag and a pistol; then came
+  Mr. Ledbetter like Atlas; Mr. Bingham followed with the hat-box,
+  coat, and revolver as before. The house was one of those that have
+  their gardens right up to the cliff. At the cliff was a steep wooden
+  stairway, descending to a bathing tent dimly visible on the beach.
+  Below was a boat pulled up, and a silent little man with a black face
+  stood beside it. &quot;A few moments' explanation,&quot; said Mr. Ledbetter;
+  &quot;I can assure you--&quot; Somebody kicked him, and he said no more.</p>
+<p>They made him wade to the boat, carrying the trunk, they pulled
+  him aboard by the shoulders and hair, they called him no better
+  name than &quot;scoundrel&quot; and &quot;burglar&quot; all that night. But 
+  they spoke
+  in undertones so that the general public was happily unaware of his
+  ignominy. They hauled him aboard a yacht manned by strange,
+  unsympathetic Orientals, and partly they thrust him and partly he
+  fell down a gangway into a noisome, dark place, where he was to
+  remain many days--how many he does not know, because he lost count
+  among other things when he was seasick. They fed him on biscuits and
+  incomprehensible words; they gave him water to drink mixed with
+  unwished-for rum. And there were cockroaches where they put him,
+  night and day there were cockroaches, and in the night-time there
+  were rats. The Orientals emptied his pockets and took his watch--
+  but Mr. Bingham, being appealed to, took that himself. And five or
+  six times the five Lascars--if they were Lascars--and the Chinaman
+  and the negro who constituted the crew, fished him out and took him
+  aft to Bingham and his friend to play cribbage and euchre and three-
+  anded whist, and to listen to their stories and boastings in an
+  interested manner.</p>
+<p>Then these principals would talk to him as men talk to those who
+  have lived a life of crime. Explanations they would never permit,
+  though they made it abundantly clear to him that he was the rummiest
+  burglar they had ever set eyes on. They said as much again and again.
+  The fair man was of a taciturn disposition and irascible at play;
+  but Mr. Bingham, now that the evident anxiety of his departure
+  from England was assuaged, displayed a vein of genial philosophy.
+  He enlarged upon the mystery of space and time, and quoted Kant
+  and Hegel--or, at least, he said he did. Several times Mr. Ledbetter
+  got as far as: &quot;My position under your bed, you know--,&quot; but then
+  he always had to cut, or pass the whisky, or do some such intervening
+  thing. After his third failure, the fair man got quite to look for
+  this opening, and whenever Mr. Ledbetter began after that, he would
+  roar with laughter and hit him violently on the back. &quot;Same old start,
+  same old story; good old burglar!&quot; the fair-haired man would say.</p>
+<p>So Mr. Ledbetter suffered for many days, twenty perhaps; and one
+  evening he was taken, together with some tinned provisions, over
+  the side and put ashore on a rocky little island with a spring.
+  Mr. Bingham came in the boat with him, giving him good advice
+  all the way, and waving his last attempts at an explanation aside.</p>
+<p>&quot;I am really NOT a burglar,&quot; said Mr. Ledbetter.</p>
+<p>&quot;You never will be,&quot; said Mr. Bingham. &quot;You'll never make a 
+  burglar.
+  I'm glad you are beginning to see it. In choosing a profession
+  a man must study his temperament. If you don't, sooner or later
+  you will fail. Compare myself, for example. All my life I have
+  been in banks--I have got on in banks. I have even been a bank
+  manager. But was I happy? No. Why wasn't I happy? Because it did
+  not suit my temperament. I am too adventurous--too versatile.
+  Practically I have thrown it over. I do not suppose I shall ever
+  manage a bank again. They would be glad to get me, no doubt;
+  but I have learnt the lesson of my temperament--at last. . . .
+  No! I shall never manage a bank again.</p>
+<p>&quot;Now, your temperament unfits you for crime--just as mine unfits
+  me for respectability. I know you better than I did, and now I do
+  not even recommend forgery. Go back to respectable courses, my man.
+  YOUR lay is the philanthropic lay--that is your lay. With that voice--
+  the Association for the Promotion of Snivelling among the Young--
+  something in that line. You think it over.</p>
+<p>&quot;The island we are approaching has no name apparently--at least,
+  there is none on the chart. You might think out a name for it while
+  you are there--while you are thinking about all these things. It has
+  quite drinkable water, I understand. It is one of the Grenadines--
+  one of the Windward Islands. Yonder, dim and blue, are others of
+  the Grenadines. There are quantities of Grenadines, but the majority
+  are out of sight. I have often wondered what these islands are
+  for--now, you see, I am wiser. This one at least is for you. Sooner
+  or later some simple native will come along and take you off.
+  Say what you like about us then--abuse us, if you like--we shan't
+  care a solitary Grenadine! And here--here is half a sovereign's
+  worth of silver. Do not waste that in foolish dissipation when
+  you return to civilisation. Properly used, it may give you a fresh
+  start in life. And do not--Don't beach her, you beggars, he can
+  wade!--Do not waste the precious solitude before you in foolish
+  thoughts. Properly used, it may be a turning-point in your career.
+  Waste neither money nor time. You will die rich. I'm sorry, but
+  I must ask you to carry your tucker to land in your arms. No; it's
+  not deep. Curse that explanation of yours! There's not time.
+  No, no, no! I won't listen. Overboard you go!&quot;</p>
+<p>And the falling night found Mr. Ledbetter--the Mr. Ledbetter who
+  had complained that adventure was dead--sitting beside his cans
+  of food, his chin resting upon his drawn-up knees, staring through
+  his glasses in dismal mildness over the shining, vacant sea.</p>
+<p>He was picked up in the course of three days by a negro fisherman
+  and taken to St. Vincent's, and from St. Vincent's he got, by
+  the expenditure of his last coins, to Kingston, in Jamaica. And there
+  he might have foundered. Even nowadays he is not a man of affairs,
+  and then he was a singularly helpless person. He had not the remotest
+  idea what he ought to do. The only thing he seems to have done was
+  to visit all the ministers of religion he could find in the place
+  to borrow a passage home. But he was much too dirty and incoherent--
+  and his story far too incredible for them. I met him quite by chance.
+  It was close upon sunset, and I was walking out after my siesta
+  on the road to Dunn's Battery, when I met him--I was rather bored,
+  and with a whole evening on my hands--luckily for him. He was trudging
+  dismally towards the town. His woebegone face and the quasi-clerical
+  cut of his dust-stained, filthy costume caught my humour. Our eyes met.
+  He hesitated. &quot;Sir,&quot; he said, with a catching of the breath, &quot;could
+  you spare a few minutes for what I fear will seem an incredible story?&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;Incredible!&quot; I said.</p>
+<p>&quot;Quite,&quot; he answered eagerly. &quot;No one will believe it, alter 
+  it
+  though I may. Yet I can assure you, sir--&quot;</p>
+<p>He stopped hopelessly. The man's tone tickled me. He seemed an odd
+  character. &quot;I am,&quot; he said, &quot;one of the most unfortunate beings 
+  alive.&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;Among other things, you haven't dined?&quot; I said, struck with an idea.</p>
+<p>&quot;I have not,&quot; he said solemnly, &quot;for many days.&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;You'll tell it better after that,&quot; I said; and without more ado 
+  led
+  the way to a low place I knew, where such a costume as his was
+  unlikely to give offence. And there--with certain omissions which
+  he subsequently supplied--I got his story. At first I was incredulous,
+  but as the wine warmed him, and the faint suggestion of cringing
+  which his misfortunes had added to his manner disappeared, I began
+  to believe. At last, I was so far convinced of his sincerity that
+  I got him a bed for the night, and next day verified the banker's
+  reference he gave me through my Jamaica banker. And that done, I took
+  him shopping for underwear and such like equipments of a gentleman
+  at large. Presently came the verified reference. His astonishing
+  story was true. I will not amplify our subsequent proceedings.
+  He started for England in three days' time.</p>
+<p>&quot;I do not know how I can possibly thank you enough,&quot; began the letter
+  he wrote me from England, &quot;for all your kindness to a total stranger,&quot;
+  and proceeded for some time in a similar strain. &quot;Had it not been
+  for your generous assistance, I could certainly never have returned
+  in time for the resumption of my scholastic duties, and my few
+  minutes of reckless folly would, perhaps, have proved my ruin.
+  As it is, I am entangled in a tissue of lies and evasions, of the most
+  complicated sort, to account for my sunburnt appearance and my
+  whereabouts. I have rather carelessly told two or three different
+  stories, not realising the trouble this would mean for me in the end.
+  The truth I dare not tell. I have consulted a number of law-books
+  in the British Museum, and there is not the slightest doubt that
+  I have connived at and abetted and aided a felony. That scoundrel
+  Bingham was the Hithergate bank manager, I find, and guilty of
+  the most flagrant embezzlement. Please, please burn this letter
+  when read--I trust you implicitly. The worst of it is, neither my aunt
+  nor her friend who kept the boarding-house at which I was staying
+  seem altogether to believe a guarded statement I have made them
+  practically of what actually happened. They suspect me of some
+  discreditable adventure, but what sort of discreditable adventure
+  they suspect me of, I do not know. My aunt says she would forgive me
+  if I told her everything. I have--I have told her MORE than everything,
+  and still she is not satisfied. It would never do to let them know
+  the truth of the case, of course, and so I represent myself as having
+  been waylaid and gagged upon the beach. My aunt wants to know
+  WHY they waylaid and gagged me, why they took me away in their yacht.
+  I do not know. Can you suggest any reason? I can think of nothing.
+  If, when you wrote, you could write on TWO sheets so that I could
+  show her one, and on that one if you could show clearly that I really
+  WAS in Jamaica this summer, and had come there by being removed
+  from a ship, it would be of great service to me. It would certainly
+  add to the load of my obligation to you--a load that I fear I can
+  never fully repay. Although if gratitude . . .&quot; And so forth.
+  At the end he repeated his request for me to burn the letter.</p>
+<p>So the remarkable story of Mr. Ledbetter's Vacation ends. That breach
+  with his aunt was not of long duration. The old lady had forgiven him
+  before she died.</p>
+<p>
+  10. THE STOLEN BODY</p>
+<p>Mr. Bessel was the senior partner in the firm of Bessel, Hart,
+  and Brown, of St. Paul's Churchyard, and for many years he was
+  well known among those interested in psychical research as a
+  liberal-minded and conscientious investigator. He was an unmarried
+  man, and instead of living in the suburbs, after the fashion of
+  his class, he occupied rooms in the Albany, near Piccadilly. He
+  was particularly interested in the questions of thought transference
+  and of apparitions of the living, and in November, 1896, he commenced
+  a series of experiments in conjunction with Mr. Vincey, of Staple Inn,
+  in order to test the alleged possibility of projecting an apparition
+  of one's self by force of will through space.</p>
+<p>Their experiments were conducted in the following manner: At a pre-
+  arranged hour Mr. Bessel shut himself in one of his rooms in the
+  Albany and Mr. Vincey in his sitting-room in Staple Inn, and each then
+  fixed his mind as resolutely as possible on the other. Mr. Bessel
+  had acquired the art of self-hypnotism, and, so far as he could,
+  he attempted first to hypnotise himself and then to project himself
+  as a &quot;phantom of the living&quot; across the intervening space of nearly
+  two miles into Mr. Vincey's apartment. On several evenings this
+  was tried without any satisfactory result, but on the fifth or sixth
+  occasion Mr. Vincey did actually see or imagine he saw an apparition
+  of Mr. Bessel standing in his room. He states that the appearance,
+  although brief, was very vivid and real. He noticed that Mr. Bessel's
+  face was white and his expression anxious, and, moreover, that
+  his hair was disordered. For a moment Mr. Vincey, in spite of his
+  state of expectation, was too surprised to speak or move, and in that
+  moment it seemed to him as though the figure glanced over its shoulder
+  and incontinently vanished.</p>
+<p>It had been arranged that an attempt should be made to photograph
+  any phantasm seen, but Mr. Vincey had not the instant presence
+  of mind to snap the camera that lay ready on the table beside him,
+  and when he did so he was too late. Greatly elated, however, even
+  by this partial success, he made a note of the exact time, and
+  at once took a cab to the Albany to inform Mr. Bessel of this result.</p>
+<p>He was surprised to find Mr. Bessel's outer door standing open
+  to the night, and the inner apartments lit and in an extraordinary
+  disorder. An empty champagne magnum lay smashed upon the floor;
+  its neck had been broken off against the inkpot on the bureau
+  and lay beside it. An octagonal occasional table, which carried
+  a bronze statuette and a number of choice books, had been rudely
+  overturned, and down the primrose paper of the wall inky fingers had
+  been drawn, as it seemed for the mere pleasure of defilement. One of
+  the delicate chintz curtains had been violently torn from its rings
+  and thrust upon the fire, so that the smell of its smouldering
+  filled the room. Indeed the whole place was disarranged in the
+  strangest fashion. For a few minutes Mr. Vincey, who had entered
+  sure of finding Mr. Bessel in his easy chair awaiting him, could
+  scarcely believe his eyes, and stood staring helplessly at these
+  unanticipated things.</p>
+<p>Then, full of a vague sense of calamity, he sought the porter at
+  the entrance lodge. &quot;Where is Mr. Bessel?&quot; he asked. &quot;Do you 
+  know
+  that all the furniture is broken in Mr. Bessel's room?&quot; The porter
+  said nothing, but, obeying his gestures, came at once to Mr. Bessel's
+  apartment to see the state of affairs. &quot;This settles it,&quot; he said,
+  surveying the lunatic confusion. &quot;I didn't know of this. Mr. Bessel's
+  gone off. He's mad!&quot;</p>
+<p>He then proceeded to tell Mr. Vincey that about half an hour
+  previously, that is to say, at about the time of Mr. Bessel's
+  apparition in Mr. Vincey's rooms, the missing gentleman had rushed
+  out of the gates of the Albany into Vigo Street, hatless and with
+  disordered hair, and had vanished into the direction of Bond Street.
+  &quot;And as he went past me,&quot; said the porter, &quot;he laughed--a sort 
+  of
+  gasping laugh, with his mouth open and his eyes glaring--I tell you,
+  sir, he fair scared me!--like this.&quot;</p>
+<p>According to his imitation it was anything but a pleasant laugh.
+  &quot;He waved his hand, with all his fingers crooked and clawing--like
+  that. And he said, in a sort of fierce whisper, 'LIFE!' Just that
+  one word, 'LIFE!'&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;Dear me,&quot; said Mr. Vincey. &quot;Tut, tut,&quot; and &quot;Dear 
+  me!&quot; He could
+  think of nothing else to say. He was naturally very much surprised.
+  He turned from the room to the porter and from the porter to the
+  room in the gravest perplexity. Beyond his suggestion that probably
+  Mr. Bessel would come back presently and explain what had happened,
+  their conversation was unable to proceed. &quot;It might be a sudden
+  toothache,&quot; said the porter, &quot;a very sudden and violent toothache,
+  jumping on him suddenly-like and driving him wild. I've broken
+  things myself before now in such a case . . .&quot; He thought. &quot;If it 
+  was,
+  why should he say 'LIFE' to me as he went past?&quot;</p>
+<p>Mr. Vincey did not know. Mr. Bessel did not return, and at last
+  Mr. Vincey, having done some more helpless staring, and having
+  addressed a note of brief inquiry and left it in a conspicuous
+  position on the bureau, returned in a very perplexed frame of mind
+  to his own premises in Staple Inn. This affair had given him a shock.
+  He was at a loss to account for Mr. Bessel's conduct on any sane
+  hypothesis. He tried to read, but he could not do so; he went for
+  a short walk, and was so preoccupied that he narrowly escaped
+  a cab at the top of Chancery Lane; and at last--a full hour before
+  his usual time--he went to bed. For a considerable time he could not
+  sleep because of his memory of the silent confusion of Mr. Bessel's
+  apartment, and when at length he did attain an uneasy slumber it was
+  at once disturbed by a very vivid and distressing dream of Mr. Bessel.</p>
+<p>He saw Mr. Bessel gesticulating wildly, and with his face white and contorted. 
+  And, inexplicably mingled with his appearance, suggested perhaps by his gestures, 
+  was an intense fear, an urgency to act. He even believes that he heard the voice 
+  of his fellow experimenter calling distressfully to him, though at the time 
+  he considered this to be an illusion. The vivid impression remained though Mr. 
+  Vincey awoke. For a space he lay awake and trembling in the darkness, possessed 
+  with that vague, unaccountable terror of unknown possibilities that comes out 
+  of dreams upon even the bravest men. But at last he roused himself, and turned 
+  over and went to sleep again, only for the dream to return with enhanced vividness. 
+</p>
+<p>He awoke with such a strong conviction that Mr. Bessel was in
+  overwhelming distress and need of help that sleep was no longer
+  possible. He was persuaded that his friend had rushed out to some dire
+  calamity. For a time he lay reasoning vainly against this belief, but
+  at last he gave way to it. He arose, against all reason, lit his gas,
+  and dressed, and set out through the deserted streets--deserted, save
+  for a noiseless policeman or so and the early news carts--towards Vigo
+  Street to inquire if Mr. Bessel had returned.</p>
+<p>But he never got there. As he was going down Long Acre some
+  unaccountable impulse turned him aside out of that street towards
+  Covent Garden, which was just waking to its nocturnal activities. He
+  saw the market in front of him--a queer effect of glowing yellow
+  lights and busy black figures. He became aware of a shouting, and
+  perceived a figure turn the corner by the hotel and run swiftly towards
+  him. He knew at once that it was Mr. Bessel. But it was Mr. Bessel
+  transfigured. He was hatless and dishevelled, his collar was torn open,
+  he grasped a bone-handled walking-cane near the ferrule end, and his
+  mouth was pulled awry. And he ran, with agile strides, very rapidly.
+  Their encounter was the affair of an instant. &quot;Bessel!&quot; cried Vincey.</p>
+<p>The running man gave no sign of recognition either of Mr. Vincey
+  or of his own name. Instead, he cut at his friend savagely with
+  the stick, hitting him in the face within an inch of the eye.
+  Mr. Vincey, stunned and astonished, staggered back, lost his footing,
+  and fell heavily on the pavement. It seemed to him that Mr. Bessel
+  leapt over him as he fell. When he looked again Mr. Bessel had
+  vanished, and a policeman and a number of garden porters and salesmen
+  were rushing past towards Long Acre in hot pursuit.</p>
+<p>With the assistance of several passers-by--for the whole street
+  was speedily alive with running people--Mr. Vincey struggled to
+  his feet. He at once became the centre of a crowd greedy to see
+  his injury. A multitude of voices competed to reassure him of his
+  safety, and then to tell him of the behaviour of the madman, as
+  they regarded Mr. Bessel. He had suddenly appeared in the middle
+  of the market screaming &quot;LIFE! LIFE!&quot; striking left and right with 
+  a
+  blood-stained walking-stick, and dancing and shouting with laughter
+  at each successful blow. A lad and two women had broken heads,
+  and he had smashed a man's wrist; a little child had been knocked
+  insensible, and for a time he had driven every one before him,
+  so furious and resolute had his behaviour been. Then he made a raid
+  upon a coffee stall, hurled its paraffin flare through the window
+  of the post office, and fled laughing, after stunning the foremost
+  of the two policemen who had the pluck to charge him.</p>
+<p>Mr. Vincey's first impulse was naturally to join in the pursuit
+  of his friend, in order if possible to save him from the violence
+  of the indignant people. But his action was slow, the blow had
+  half stunned him, and while this was still no more than a resolution
+  came the news, shouted through the crowd, that Mr. Bessel had eluded
+  his pursuers. At first Mr. Vincey could scarcely credit this, but
+  the universality of the report, and presently the dignified return
+  of two futile policemen, convinced him. After some aimless inquiries
+  he returned towards Staple Inn, padding a handkerchief to a now
+  very painful nose.</p>
+<p>He was angry and astonished and perplexed. It appeared to him
+  indisputable that Mr. Bessel must have gone violently mad in the midst
+  of his experiment in thought transference, but why that should make
+  him appear with a sad white face in Mr. Vincey's dreams seemed
+  a problem beyond solution. He racked his brains in vain to explain
+  this. It seemed to him at last that not simply Mr. Bessel, but
+  the order of things must be insane. But he could think of nothing
+  to do. He shut himself carefully into his room, lit his fire--it was
+  a gas fire with asbestos bricks--and, fearing fresh dreams if he
+  went to bed, remained bathing his injured face, or holding up books
+  in a vain attempt to read, until dawn. Throughout that vigil he had
+  a curious persuasion that Mr. Bessel was endeavouring to speak
+  to him, but he would not let himself attend to any such belief.</p>
+<p>About dawn, his physical fatigue asserted itself, and he went to bed
+  and slept at last in spite of dreaming. He rose late, unrested
+  and anxious, and in considerable facial pain. The morning papers
+  had no news of Mr. Bessel's aberration--it had come too late for them.
+  Mr. Vincey's perplexities, to which the fever of his bruise added
+  fresh irritation, became at last intolerable, and, after a fruitless
+  visit to the Albany, he went down to St. Paul's Churchyard to Mr. Hart,
+  Mr. Bessel's partner, and, so far as Mr. Vincey knew, his nearest
+  friend.</p>
+<p>He was surprised to learn that Mr. Hart, although he knew nothing
+  of the outbreak, had also been disturbed by a vision, the very
+  vision that Mr. Vincey had seen--Mr. Bessel, white and dishevelled,
+  pleading earnestly by his gestures for help. That was his impression
+  of the import of his signs. &quot;I was just going to look him up in the
+  Albany when you arrived,&quot; said Mr. Hart. &quot;I was so sure of something
+  being wrong with him.&quot;</p>
+<p>As the outcome of their consultation the two gentlemen decided
+  to inquire at Scotland Yard for news of their missing friend.
+  &quot;He is bound to be laid by the heels,&quot; said Mr. Hart. &quot;He can't 
+  go
+  on at that pace for long.&quot; But the police authorities had not laid
+  Mr. Bessel by the heels. They confirmed Mr. Vincey's overnight
+  experiences and added fresh circumstances, some of an even graver
+  character than those he knew--a list of smashed glass along the upper
+  half of Tottenham Court Road, an attack upon a policeman in Hampstead
+  Road, and an atrocious assault upon a woman. All these outrages were
+  committed between half-past twelve and a quarter to two in the morning,
+  and between those hours--and, indeed, from the very moment of Mr.
+  Bessel's first rush from his rooms at half-past nine in the evening--
+  they could trace the deepening violence of his fantastic career. For
+  the last hour, at least from before one, that is, until a quarter to
+  two, he had run amuck through London, eluding with amazing agility
+  every effort to stop or capture him.</p>
+<p>But after a quarter to two he had vanished. Up to that hour witnesses
+  were multitudinous. Dozens of people had seen him, fled from him or
+  pursued him, and then things suddenly came to an end. At a quarter to
+  two he had been seen running down the Euston Road towards Baker Street,
+  flourishing a can of burning colza oil and jerking splashes of flame
+  therefrom at the windows of the houses he passed. But none of
+  the policemen on Euston Road beyond the Waxwork Exhibition, nor
+  any of those in the side streets down which he must have passed
+  had he left the Euston Road, had seen anything of him. Abruptly he
+  disappeared. Nothing of his subsequent doings came to light in spite
+  of the keenest inquiry.</p>
+<p>Here was a fresh astonishment for Mr. Vincey. He had found considerable
+  comfort in Mr. Hart's conviction: &quot;He is bound to be laid by the heels
+  before long,&quot; and in that assurance he had been able to suspend
+  his mental perplexities. But any fresh development seemed destined
+  to add new impossibilities to a pile already heaped beyond the powers
+  of his acceptance. He found himself doubting whether his memory
+  might not have played him some grotesque trick, debating whether any
+  of these things could possibly have happened; and in the afternoon he
+  hunted up Mr. Hart again to share the intolerable weight on his mind.
+  He found Mr. Hart engaged with a well-known private detective,
+  but as that gentleman accomplished nothing in this case, we need
+  not enlarge upon his proceedings.</p>
+<p>All that day Mr. Bessel's whereabouts eluded an unceasingly active
+  inquiry, and all that night. And all that day there was a persuasion
+  in the back of Vincey's mind that Mr. Bessel sought his attention,
+  and all through the night Mr. Bessel with a tear-stained face
+  of anguish pursued him through his dreams. And whenever he saw
+  Mr. Bessel in his dreams he also saw a number of other faces, vague
+  but malignant, that seemed to be pursuing Mr. Bessel.</p>
+<p>It was on the following day, Sunday, that Mr. Vincey recalled certain
+  remarkable stories of Mrs. Bullock, the medium, who was then attracting
+  attention for the first time in London. He determined to consult her.
+  She was staying at the house of that well-known inquirer, Dr. Wilson
+  Paget, and Mr. Vincey, although he had never met that gentleman before,
+  repaired to him forthwith with the intention of invoking her help.
+  But scarcely had he mentioned the name of Bessel when Doctor Paget
+  interrupted him. &quot;Last night--just at the end,&quot; he said, &quot;we 
+  had
+  a communication.&quot;</p>
+<p>He left the room, and returned with a slate on which were certain
+  words written in a handwriting, shaky indeed, but indisputably
+  the handwriting of Mr. Bessel!</p>
+<p>&quot;How did you get this?&quot; said Mr. Vincey. &quot;Do you mean--?&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;We got it last night,&quot; said Doctor Paget. With numerous interruptions
+  from Mr. Vincey, he proceeded to explain how the writing had been
+  obtained. It appears that in her seances, Mrs. Bullock passes into
+  a condition of trance, her eyes rolling up in a strange way under
+  her eyelids, and her body becoming rigid. She then begins to talk
+  very rapidly, usually in voices other than her own. At the same time
+  one or both of her hands may become active, and if slates and pencils
+  are provided they will then write messages simultaneously with
+  and quite independently of the flow of words from her mouth. By many
+  she is considered an even more remarkable medium than the celebrated
+  Mrs. Piper. It was one of these messages, the one written by her
+  left hand, that Mr. Vincey now had before him. It consisted of eight
+  words written disconnectedly: &quot;George Bessel . . . trial excavn. . . .
+  Baker Street . . . help . . . starvation.&quot; Curiously enough, neither
+  Doctor Paget nor the two other inquirers who were present had heard
+  of the disappearance of Mr. Bessel--the news of it appeared only
+  in the evening papers of Saturday--and they had put the message
+  aside with many others of a vague and enigmatical sort that
+  Mrs. Bullock has from time to time delivered.</p>
+<p>When Doctor Paget heard Mr. Vincey's story, he gave himself at once
+  with great energy to the pursuit of this clue to the discovery of
+  Mr. Bessel. It would serve no useful purpose here to describe the
+  inquiries of Mr. Vincey and himself; suffice it that the clue was a
+  genuine one, and that Mr. Bessel was actually discovered by its aid.</p>
+<p>He was found at the bottom of a detached shaft which had been sunk
+  and abandoned at the commencement of the work for the new electric
+  railway near Baker Street Station. His arm and leg and two ribs were
+  broken. The shaft is protected by a hoarding nearly 20 feet high, and
+  over this, incredible as it seems, Mr. Bessel, a stout, middle-aged
+  gentleman, must have scrambled in order to fall down the shaft.
+  He was saturated in colza oil, and the smashed tin lay beside him,
+  but luckily the flame had been extinguished by his fall. And his
+  madness had passed from him altogether. But he was, of course,
+  terribly enfeebled, and at the sight of his rescuers he gave way
+  to hysterical weeping.</p>
+<p>In view of the deplorable state of his flat, he was taken to the
+  house of Dr. Hatton in Upper Baker Street. Here he was subjected to a
+  sedative treatment, and anything that might recall the violent crisis
+  through which he had passed was carefully avoided. But on the second
+  day he volunteered a statement.</p>
+<p>Since that occasion Mr. Bessel has several times repeated this
+  statement--to myself among other people--varying the details as
+  the narrator of real experiences always does, but never by any
+  chance contradicting himself in any particular. And the statement
+  he makes is in substance as follows.</p>
+<p>In order to understand it clearly it is necessary to go back to his
+  experiments with Mr. Vincey before his remarkable attack. Mr. Bessel's
+  first attempts at self-projection, in his experiments with Mr. Vincey,
+  were, as the reader will remember, unsuccessful. But through all
+  of them he was concentrating all his power and will upon getting
+  out of the body--&quot;willing it with all my might,&quot; he says. At last,
+  almost against expectation, came success. And Mr. Bessel asserts that
+  he, being alive, did actually, by an effort of will, leave his body
+  and pass into some place or state outside this world.</p>
+<p>The release was, he asserts, instantaneous. &quot;At one moment I was
+  seated in my chair, with my eyes tightly shut, my hands gripping
+  the arms of the chair, doing all I could to concentrate my mind
+  on Vincey, and then I perceived myself outside my body--saw my body
+  near me, but certainly not containing me, with the hands relaxing
+  and the head drooping forward on the breast.&quot;</p>
+<p>Nothing shakes him in his assurance of that release. He describes
+  in a quiet, matter-of-fact way the new sensation he experienced.
+  He felt he had become impalpable--so much he had expected, but
+  he had not expected to find himself enormously large. So, however,
+  it would seem he became. &quot;I was a great cloud--if I may express it
+  that way--anchored to my body. It appeared to me, at first, as if
+  I had discovered a greater self of which the conscious being in my
+  brain was only a little part. I saw the Albany and Piccadilly and
+  Regent Street and all the rooms and places in the houses, very minute
+  and very bright and distinct, spread out below me like a little
+  city seen from a balloon. Every now and then vague shapes like
+  drifting wreaths of smoke made the vision a little indistinct, but
+  at first I paid little heed to them. The thing that astonished me
+  most, and which astonishes me still, is that I saw quite distinctly
+  the insides of the houses as well as the streets, saw little people
+  dining and talking in the private houses, men and women dining,
+  playing billiards, and drinking in restaurants and hotels, and several
+  places of entertainment crammed with people. It was like watching
+  the affairs of a glass hive.&quot;</p>
+<p>Such were Mr. Bessel's exact words as I took them down when he told
+  me the story. Quite forgetful of Mr. Vincey, he remained for a space
+  observing these things. Impelled by curiosity, he says, he stooped
+  down, and, with the shadowy arm he found himself possessed of,
+  attempted to touch a man walking along Vigo Street. But he could
+  not do so, though his finger seemed to pass through the man. Something
+  prevented his doing this, but what it was he finds it hard to describe.
+  He compares the obstacle to a sheet of glass.</p>
+<p>&quot;I felt as a kitten may feel,&quot; he said, &quot;when it goes for the 
+  first
+  time to pat its reflection in a mirror.&quot; Again and again, on the
+  occasion when I heard him tell this story, Mr. Bessel returned to that
+  comparison of the sheet of glass. Yet it was not altogether a precise
+  comparison, because, as the reader will speedily see, there were
+  interruptions of this generally impermeable resistance, means of
+  getting through the barrier to the material world again. But,
+  naturally, there is a very great difficulty in expressing these
+  unprecedented impressions in the language of everyday experience.</p>
+<p>A thing that impressed him instantly, and which weighed upon him
+  throughout all this experience, was the stillness of this place--he
+  was in a world without sound.</p>
+<p>At first Mr. Bessel's mental state was an unemotional wonder.
+  His thought chiefly concerned itself with where he might be. He was
+  out of the body--out of his material body, at any rate--but that
+  was not all. He believes, and I for one believe also, that he was
+  somewhere out of space, as we understand it, altogether. By a strenuous
+  effort of will he had passed out of his body into a world beyond
+  this world, a world undreamt of, yet lying so close to it and so
+  strangely situated with regard to it that all things on this earth
+  are clearly visible both from without and from within in this other
+  world about us. For a long time, as it seemed to him, this realisation
+  occupied his mind to the exclusion of all other matters, and then
+  he recalled the engagement with Mr. Vincey, to which this astonishing
+  experience was, after all, but a prelude.</p>
+<p>He turned his mind to locomotion in this new body in which he found
+  himself. For a time he was unable to shift himself from his attachment
+  to his earthly carcass. For a time this new strange cloud body
+  of his simply swayed, contracted, expanded, coiled, and writhed
+  with his efforts to free himself, and then quite suddenly the link
+  that bound him snapped. For a moment everything was hidden by
+  what appeared to be whirling spheres of dark vapour, and then
+  through a momentary gap he saw his drooping body collapse limply,
+  saw his lifeless head drop sideways, and found he was driving along
+  like a huge cloud in a strange place of shadowy clouds that had
+  the luminous intricacy of London spread like a model below.</p>
+<p>But now he was aware that the fluctuating vapour about him was
+  something more than vapour, and the temerarious excitement of his first
+  essay was shot with fear. For he perceived, at first indistinctly,
+  and then suddenly very clearly, that he was surrounded by FACES!
+  that each roll and coil of the seeming cloud-stuff was a face.
+  And such faces! Faces of thin shadow, faces of gaseous tenuity.
+  Faces like those faces that glare with intolerable strangeness
+  upon the sleeper in the evil hours of his dreams. Evil, greedy eyes
+  that were full of a covetous curiosity, faces with knit brows and
+  snarling, smiling lips; their vague hands clutched at Mr. Bessel
+  as he passed, and the rest of their bodies was but an elusive streak
+  of trailing darkness. Never a word they said, never a sound from
+  the mouths that seemed to gibber. All about him they pressed in that
+  dreamy silence, passing freely through the dim mistiness that was
+  his body, gathering ever more numerously about him. And the shadowy
+  Mr. Bessel, now suddenly fear-stricken, drove through the silent,
+  active multitude of eyes and clutching hands.</p>
+<p>So inhuman were these faces, so malignant their staring eyes,
+  and shadowy, clawing gestures, that it did not occur to Mr. Bessel
+  to attempt intercourse with these drifting creatures. Idiot phantoms,
+  they seemed, children of vain desire, beings unborn and forbidden
+  the boon of being, whose only expressions and gestures told of
+  the envy and craving for life that was their one link with existence.</p>
+<p>It says much for his resolution that, amidst the swarming cloud
+  of these noiseless spirits of evil, he could still think of Mr. Vincey.
+  He made a violent effort of will and found himself, he knew not how,
+  stooping towards Staple Inn, saw Vincey sitting attentive and alert
+  in his arm-chair by the fire.</p>
+<p>And clustering also about him, as they clustered ever about all
+  that lives and breathes, was another multitude of these vain voiceless
+  shadows, longing, desiring, seeking some loophole into life.</p>
+<p>For a space Mr. Bessel sought ineffectually to attract his friend's
+  attention. He tried to get in front of his eyes, to move the objects
+  in his room, to touch him. But Mr. Vincey remained unaffected,
+  ignorant of the being that was so close to his own. The strange
+  something that Mr. Bessel has compared to a sheet of glass separated
+  them impermeably.</p>
+<p>And at last Mr. Bessel did a desperate thing. I have told how that
+  in some strange way he could see not only the outside of a man
+  as we see him, but within. He extended his shadowy hand and thrust
+  his vague black fingers, as it seemed, through the heedless brain.</p>
+<p>Then, suddenly, Mr. Vincey started like a man who recalls his attention
+  from wandering thoughts, and it seemed to Mr. Bessel that a little
+  dark-red body situated in the middle of Mr. Vincey's brain swelled
+  and glowed as he did so. Since that experience he has been shown
+  anatomical figures of the brain, and he knows now that this is
+  that useless structure, as doctors call it, the pineal eye. For,
+  strange as it will seem to many, we have, deep in our brains--where
+  it cannot possibly see any earthly light--an eye! At the time this,
+  with the rest of the internal anatomy of the brain, was quite new
+  to him. At the sight of its changed appearance, however, he thrust
+  forth his finger, and, rather fearful still of the consequences,
+  touched this little spot. And instantly Mr. Vincey started, and
+  Mr. Bessel knew that he was seen.</p>
+<p>And at that instant it came to Mr. Bessel that evil had happened
+  to his body, and behold! a great wind blew through all that world
+  of shadows and tore him away. So strong was this persuasion that
+  he thought no more of Mr. Vincey, but turned about forthwith, and all
+  the countless faces drove back with him like leaves before a gale.
+  But he returned too late. In an instant he saw the body that he had
+  left inert and collapsed--lying, indeed, like the body of a man
+  just dead--had arisen, had arisen by virtue of some strength and
+  will beyond his own. It stood with staring eyes, stretching its limbs
+  in dubious fashion.</p>
+<p>For a moment he watched it in wild dismay, and then he stooped
+  towards it. But the pane of glass had closed against him again,
+  and he was foiled. He beat himself passionately against this, and
+  all about him the spirits of evil grinned and pointed and mocked.
+  He gave way to furious anger. He compares himself to a bird that
+  has fluttered heedlessly into a room and is beating at the window-
+  pane that holds it back from freedom.</p>
+<p>And behold! the little body that had once been his was now dancing
+  with delight. He saw it shouting, though he could not hear its shouts;
+  he saw the violence of its movements grow. He watched it fling
+  his cherished furniture about in the mad delight of existence,
+  rend his books apart, smash bottles, drink heedlessly from the jagged
+  fragments, leap and smite in a passionate acceptance of living.
+  He watched these actions in paralysed astonishment. Then once more
+  he hurled himself against the impassable barrier, and then with all
+  that crew of mocking ghosts about him, hurried back in dire confusion
+  to Vincey to tell him of the outrage that had come upon him.</p>
+<p>But the brain of Vincey was now closed against apparitions, and
+  the disembodied Mr. Bessel pursued him in vain as he hurried out
+  into Holborn to call a cab. Foiled and terror-stricken, Mr. Bessel
+  swept back again, to find his desecrated body whooping in a glorious
+  frenzy down the Burlington Arcade. . . .</p>
+<p>And now the attentive reader begins to understand Mr. Bessel's
+  interpretation of the first part of this strange story. The being
+  whose frantic rush through London had inflicted so much injury
+  and disaster had indeed Mr. Bessel's body, but it was not Mr. Bessel.
+  It was an evil spirit out of that strange world beyond existence,
+  into which Mr. Bessel had so rashly ventured. For twenty hours it held
+  possession of him, and for all those twenty hours the dispossessed
+  spirit-body of Mr. Bessel was going to and fro in that unheard-of
+  middle world of shadows seeking help in vain. He spent many hours
+  beating at the minds of Mr. Vincey and of his friend Mr. Hart.
+  Each, as we know, he roused by his efforts. But the language that
+  might convey his situation to these helpers across the gulf he did
+  not know; his feeble fingers groped vainly and powerlessly in their
+  brains. Once, indeed, as we have already told, he was able to turn
+  Mr. Vincey aside from his path so that he encountered the stolen
+  body in its career, but he could not make him understand the thing
+  that had happened: he was unable to draw any help from that
+  encounter. . . .</p>
+<p>All through those hours the persuasion was overwhelming in Mr. Bessel's
+  mind that presently his body would be killed by its furious tenant,
+  and he would have to remain in this shadow-land for evermore.
+  So that those long hours were a growing agony of fear. And ever
+  as he hurried to and fro in his ineffectual excitement, innumerable
+  spirits of that world about him mobbed him and confused his mind.
+  And ever an envious applauding multitude poured after their successful
+  fellow as he went upon his glorious career.</p>
+<p>For that, it would seem, must be the life of these bodiless things
+  of this world that is the shadow of our world. Ever they watch,
+  coveting a way into a mortal body, in order that they may descend,
+  as furies and frenzies, as violent lusts and mad, strange impulses,
+  rejoicing in the body they have won. For Mr. Bessel was not the only
+  human soul in that place. Witness the fact that he met first one,
+  and afterwards several shadows of men, men like himself, it seemed,
+  who had lost their bodies even it may be as he had lost his, and
+  wandered, despairingly, in that lost world that is neither life
+  nor death. They could not speak because that world is silent, yet
+  he knew them for men because of their dim human bodies, and because
+  of the sadness of their faces.</p>
+<p>But how they had come into that world he could not tell, nor where
+  the bodies they had lost might be, whether they still raved about
+  the earth, or whether they were closed forever in death against
+  return. That they were the spirits of the dead neither he nor I
+  believe. But Doctor Wilson Paget thinks they are the rational souls
+  of men who are lost in madness on the earth.</p>
+<p>At last Mr. Bessel chanced upon a place where a little crowd of such
+  disembodied silent creatures was gathered, and thrusting through them
+  he saw below a brightly-lit room, and four or five quiet gentlemen
+  and a woman, a stoutish woman dressed in black bombazine and sitting
+  awkwardly in a chair with her head thrown back. He knew her from
+  her portraits to be Mrs. Bullock, the medium. And he perceived
+  that tracts and structures in her brain glowed and stirred as he had
+  seen the pineal eye in the brain of Mr. Vincey glow. The light was
+  very fitful; sometimes it was a broad illumination, and sometimes
+  merely a faint twilight spot, and it shifted slowly about her brain.
+  She kept on talking and writing with one hand. And Mr. Bessel saw
+  that the crowding shadows of men about him, and a great multitude
+  of the shadow spirits of that shadowland, were all striving and
+  thrusting to touch the lighted regions of her brain. As one gained
+  her brain or another was thrust away, her voice and the writing of
+  her hand changed. So that what she said was disorderly and confused
+  for the most part; now a fragment of one soul's message, and now
+  a fragment of another's, and now she babbled the insane fancies
+  of the spirits of vain desire. Then Mr. Bessel understood that she
+  spoke for the spirit that had touch of her, and he began to struggle
+  very furiously towards her. But he was on the outside of the crowd
+  and at that time he could not reach her, and at last, growing anxious,
+  he went away to find what had happened meanwhile to his body. For a
+  long time he went to and fro seeking it in vain and fearing that it
+  must have been killed, and then he found it at the bottom of the shaft
+  in Baker Street, writhing furiously and cursing with pain. Its leg and
+  an arm and two ribs had been broken by its fall. Moreover, the evil
+  spirit was angry because his time had been so short and because of the
+  painmaking violent movements and casting his body about.</p>
+<p>And at that Mr. Bessel returned with redoubled earnestness to the
+  room where the seance was going on, and so soon as he had thrust
+  himself within sight of the place he saw one of the men who stood
+  about the medium looking at his watch as if he meant that the seance
+  should presently end. At that a great number of the shadows who had
+  been striving turned away with gestures of despair. But the thought
+  that the seance was almost over only made Mr. Bessel the more
+  earnest, and he struggled so stoutly with his will against the others
+  that presently he gained the woman's brain. It chanced that just
+  at that moment it glowed very brightly, and in that instant she wrote
+  the message that Doctor Wilson Paget preserved. And then the other
+  shadows and the cloud of evil spirits about him had thrust Mr. Bessel
+  away from her, and for all the rest of the seance he could regain
+  her no more.</p>
+<p>So he went back and watched through the long hours at the bottom
+  of the shaft where the evil spirit lay in the stolen body it had
+  maimed, writhing and cursing, and weeping and groaning, and learning
+  the lesson of pain. And towards dawn the thing he had waited for
+  happened, the brain glowed brightly and the evil spirit came out,
+  and Mr. Bessel entered the body he had feared he should never enter
+  again. As he did so, the silence--the brooding silence--ended;
+  he heard the tumult of traffic and the voices of people overhead,
+  and that strange world that is the shadow of our world--the dark
+  and silent shadows of ineffectual desire and the shadows of lost
+  men--vanished clean away.</p>
+<p>He lay there for the space of about three hours before he was found.
+  And in spite of the pain and suffering of his wounds, and of the dim
+  damp place in which he lay; in spite of the tears--wrung from him
+  by his physical distress--his heart was full of gladness to know
+  that he was nevertheless back once more in the kindly world of men.</p>
+<p>
+  11. MR. BRISHER'S TREASURE</p>
+<p>&quot;You can't be TOO careful WHO you marry,&quot; said Mr. Brisher, and
+  pulled thoughtfully with a fat-wristed hand at the lank moustache
+  that hides his want of chin.</p>
+<p>&quot;That's why--&quot; I ventured.</p>
+<p>&quot;Yes,&quot; said Mr. Brisher, with a solemn light in his bleary, blue-grey
+  eyes, moving his head expressively and breathing alcohol INTIMATELY
+  at me. &quot;There's lots as 'ave 'ad a try at me--many as I could name
+  in this town--but none 'ave done it--none.&quot;</p>
+<p>I surveyed the flushed countenance, the equatorial expansion,
+  the masterly carelessness of his attire, and heaved a sigh to think
+  that by reason of the unworthiness of women he must needs be the last
+  of his race.</p>
+<p>&quot;I was a smart young chap when I was younger,&quot; said Mr. Brisher.
+  &quot;I 'ad my work cut out. But I was very careful--very. And I got
+  through . . .&quot;</p>
+<p>He leant over the taproom table and thought visibly on the subject
+  of my trustworthiness. I was relieved at last by his confidence.</p>
+<p>&quot;I was engaged once,&quot; he said at last, with a reminiscent eye on
+  the shuv-a'penny board.</p>
+<p>&quot;So near as that?&quot;</p>
+<p>He looked at me. &quot;So near as that. Fact is--&quot; He looked about him,
+  brought his face close to mine, lowered his voice, and fenced off an
+  unsympathetic world with a grimy hand. &quot;If she ain't dead or married
+  to some one else or anything--I'm engaged still. Now.&quot; He confirmed
+  this statement with nods and facial contortions. &quot;STILL,&quot; he said,
+  ending the pantomime, and broke into a reckless smile at my surprise.
+  &quot;ME!&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;Run away,&quot; he explained further, with coruscating eyebrows.
+  &quot;Come 'ome.</p>
+<p>&quot;That ain't all.</p>
+<p>&quot;You'd 'ardly believe it,&quot; he said, &quot;but I found a treasure. 
+  Found
+  a regular treasure.&quot;</p>
+<p>I fancied this was irony, and did not, perhaps, greet it with proper
+  surprise. &quot;Yes,&quot; he said, &quot;I found a treasure. And come 'ome. 
+  I tell
+  you I could surprise you with things that has happened to me.&quot;
+  And for some time he was content to repeat that he had found
+  a treasure--and left it.</p>
+<p>I made no vulgar clamour for a story, but I became attentive to Mr.
+  Brisher's bodily needs, and presently I led him back to the deserted
+  lady.</p>
+<p>&quot;She was a nice girl,&quot; he said--a little sadly, I thought. &quot;AND
+  respectable.&quot;</p>
+<p>He raised his eyebrows and tightened his mouth to express extreme
+  respectability--beyond the likes of us elderly men.</p>
+<p>&quot;It was a long way from 'ere. Essex, in fact. Near Colchester.
+  It was when I was up in London--in the buildin' trade. I was a smart
+  young chap then, I can tell you. Slim. 'Ad best clo'es 's good
+  as anybody. 'At--SILK 'at, mind you.&quot; Mr. Brisher's hand shot above
+  his head towards the infinite to indicate it silk hat of the highest.
+  &quot;Umbrella--nice umbrella with a 'orn 'andle. Savin's. Very careful
+  I was. . . .&quot;</p>
+<p>He was pensive for a little while, thinking, as we must all come
+  to think sooner or later, of the vanished brightness of youth.
+  But he refrained, as one may do in taprooms, from the obvious moral.</p>
+<p>&quot;I got to know 'er through a chap what was engaged to 'er sister. She 
+  was stopping in London for a bit with an aunt that 'ad a 'am an' beef shop. 
+  This aunt was very particular--they was all very particular people, all 'er 
+  people was--and wouldn't let 'er sister go out with this feller except 'er other 
+  sister, MY girl that is, went with them. So 'e brought me into it, sort of to 
+  ease the crowding. We used to go walks in Battersea Park of a Sunday afternoon. 
+  Me in my topper, and 'im in 'is; and the girl's--well--stylish. There wasn't 
+  many in Battersea Park 'ad the larf of us. She wasn't what you'd call pretty, 
+  but a nicer girl I never met. <i>I</i>  liked 'er from the start, and, well--though 
+  I say it who shouldn't--she liked me. You know 'ow it is, I dessay?&quot;</p>
+<p>I pretended I did.</p>
+<p>&quot;And when this chap married 'er sister--'im and me was great
+  friends--what must 'e do but arst me down to Colchester, close by
+  where She lived. Naturally I was introjuced to 'er people, and well,
+  very soon, her and me was engaged.&quot;</p>
+<p>He repeated &quot;engaged.&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;She lived at 'ome with 'er father and mother, quite the lady, in a
+  very nice little 'ouse with a garden--and remarkable respectable
+  people they was. Rich you might call 'em a'most. They owned their
+  own 'ouse--got it out of the Building Society, and cheap because
+  the chap who had it before was a burglar and in prison--and they 'ad
+  a bit of free'old land, and some cottages and money 'nvested--all
+  nice and tight: they was what you'd call snug and warm. I tell you,
+  I was On. Furniture too. Why! They 'ad a pianner. Jane--'er name
+  was Jane--used to play it Sundays, and very nice she played too.
+  There wasn't 'ardly a 'im toon in the book she COULDN'T play . . .</p>
+<p>&quot;Many's the evenin' we've met and sung 'ims there, me and 'er
+  and the family.</p>
+<p>&quot;'Er father was quite a leadin' man in chapel. You should ha' seen
+  him Sundays, interruptin' the minister and givin' out 'ims. He had
+  gold spectacles, I remember, and used to look over 'em at you while
+  he sang hearty--he was always great on singing 'earty to the Lord--
+  and when HE got out o' toon 'arf the people went after 'im--always.
+  'E was that sort of man. And to walk be'ind 'im in 'is nice black
+  clo'es--'is 'at was a brimmer--made one regular proud to be engaged
+  to such a father-in-law. And when the summer came I went down there
+  and stopped a fortnight.</p>
+<p>&quot;Now, you know there was a sort of Itch,&quot; said Mr. Brisher. &quot;We 
+  wanted
+  to marry, me and Jane did, and get things settled. But 'E said I 'ad
+  to get a proper position first. Consequently there was a Itch.
+  Consequently, when I went down there, I was anxious to show that
+  I was a good useful sort of chap like. Show I could do pretty nearly
+  everything like. See?&quot;</p>
+<p>I made a sympathetic noise.</p>
+<p>&quot;And down at the bottom of their garden was a bit of wild part like.
+  So I says to 'im, 'Why don't you 'ave a rockery 'ere?' I says.
+  'It 'ud look nice.'</p>
+<p>&quot;'Too much expense,' he says.</p>
+<p>&quot;'Not a penny,' says I. 'I'm a dab at rockeries. Lemme make you one.'
+  You see, I'd 'elped my brother make a rockery in the beer garden
+  be'ind 'is tap, so I knew 'ow to do it to rights. 'Lemme make you
+  one,' I says. 'It's 'olidays, but I'm that sort of chap, I 'ate doing
+  nothing,' I says. 'I'll make you one to rights.' And the long and
+  the short of it was, he said I might.</p>
+<p>&quot;And that's 'ow I come on the treasure.&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;What treasure?&quot; I asked.</p>
+<p>&quot;Why!&quot; said Mr. Brisher, &quot;the treasure I'm telling you about, 
+  what's
+  the reason why I never married.&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;What!--a treasure--dug up?&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;Yes--buried wealth--treasure trove. Come out of the ground. What
+  I kept on saying--regular treasure. . . .&quot; He looked at me with
+  unusual disrespect.</p>
+<p>&quot;It wasn't more than a foot deep, not the top of it,&quot; he said.
+  &quot;I'd 'ardly got thirsty like, before I come on the corner.&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;Go on,&quot; I said. &quot;I didn't understand.&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;Why! Directly I 'it the box I knew it was treasure. A sort of instinct
+  told me. Something seemed to shout inside of me--'Now's your chance--
+  lie low.' It's lucky I knew the laws of treasure trove or I'd 'ave been
+  shoutin' there and then. I daresay you know--&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;Crown bags it,&quot; I said, &quot;all but one per cent. Go on. It's 
+  a shame.
+  What did you do?&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;Uncovered the top of the box. There wasn't anybody in the garden
+  or about like. Jane was 'elping 'er mother do the 'ouse. I WAS
+  excited--I tell you. I tried the lock and then gave a whack at
+  the hinges. Open it came. Silver coins--full! Shining. It made me
+  tremble to see 'em. And jest then--I'm blessed if the dustman didn't
+  come round the back of the 'ouse. It pretty nearly gave me 'eart
+  disease to think what a fool I was to 'ave that money showing. And
+  directly after I 'eard the chap next door--'e was 'olidaying, too--
+  I 'eard him watering 'is beans. If only 'e'd looked over the fence!&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;What did you do?&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;Kicked the lid on again and covered it up like a shot, and went
+  on digging about a yard away from it--like mad. And my face, so
+  to speak, was laughing on its own account till I had it hid. I tell
+  you I was regular scared like at my luck. I jest thought that it
+  'ad to be kep' close and that was all. 'Treasure,' I kep' whisperin'
+  to myself, 'Treasure' and ''undreds of pounds, 'undreds, 'undreds
+  of pounds.' Whispering to myself like, and digging like blazes. It
+  seemed to me the box was regular sticking out and showing, like your
+  legs do under the sheets in bed, and I went and put all the earth
+  I'd got out of my 'ole for the rockery slap on top of it. I WAS
+  in a sweat. And in the midst of it all out toddles 'er father.
+  He didn't say anything to me, jest stood behind me and stared,
+  but Jane tole me afterwards when he went indoors, 'e says, 'That
+  there jackanapes of yours, Jane'--he always called me a jackanapes
+  some'ow--'knows 'ow to put 'is back into it after all.' Seemed quite
+  impressed by it, 'e did.&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;How long was the box?&quot; I asked, suddenly.</p>
+<p>&quot;'Ow long?&quot; said Mr. Brisher.</p>
+<p>&quot;Yes--in length?&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;Oh! 'bout so-by-so.&quot; Mr. Brisher indicated a moderate-sized trunk.</p>
+<p>&quot;FULL?&quot; said I.</p>
+<p>&quot;Full up of silver coins--'arf-crowns, I believe.&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;Why!&quot; I cried, &quot;that would mean--hundreds of pounds.&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;Thousands,&quot; said Mr. Brisher, in a sort of sad calm. &quot;I calc'lated 
+  it
+  out.&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;But how did they get there?&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;All I know is what I found. What I thought at the time was this.
+  The chap who'd owned the 'ouse before 'er father 'd been a regular
+  slap-up burglar. What you'd call a 'igh-class criminal. Used to drive
+  'is trap--like Peace did.&quot; Mr. Brisher meditated on the difficulties
+  of narration and embarked on a complicated parenthesis. &quot;I don't
+  know if I told you it'd been a burglar's 'ouse before it was my girl's
+  father's, and I knew 'e'd robbed a mail train once, I did know that.
+  It seemed to me--&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;That's very likely,&quot; I said. &quot;But what did you do?&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;Sweated,&quot; said Mr. Brisher. &quot;Regular run orf me. All that morning,&quot;
+  said Mr. Brisher, &quot;I was at it, pretending to make that rockery
+  and wondering what I should do. I'd 'ave told 'er father p'r'aps,
+  only I was doubtful of 'is honesty--I was afraid he might rob me of
+  it like, and give it up to the authorities--and besides, considering
+  I was marrying into the family, I thought it would be nicer like
+  if it came through me. Put me on a better footing, so to speak.
+  Well, I 'ad three days before me left of my 'olidays, so there
+  wasn't no hurry, so I covered it up and went on digging, and tried
+  to puzzle out 'ow I was to make sure of it. Only I couldn't.</p>
+<p>&quot;I thought,&quot; said Mr. Brisher, &quot;AND I thought. Once I got regular
+  doubtful whether I'd seen it or not, and went down to it and 'ad it
+  uncovered again, just as her ma came out to 'ang up a bit of washin'
+  she'd done. Jumps again! Afterwards I was just thinking I'd 'ave
+  another go at it, when Jane comes to tell me dinner was ready.
+  'You'll want it,' she said, 'seeing all the 'ole you've dug.'</p>
+<p>&quot;I was in a regular daze all dinner, wondering whether that chap
+  next door wasn't over the fence and filling 'is pockets. But in
+  the afternoon I got easier in my mind--it seemed to me it must 'ave
+  been there so long it was pretty sure to stop a bit longer--and
+  I tried to get up a bit of a discussion to dror out the old man
+  and see what 'E thought of treasure trove.&quot;</p>
+<p>Mr. Brisher paused, and affected amusement at the memory.</p>
+<p>&quot;The old man was a scorcher,&quot; he said; &quot;a regular scorcher.&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;What!&quot; said I; &quot;did he--?&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;It was like this,&quot; explained Mr. Brisher, laying a friendly hand
+  on my arm and breathing into my face to calm me. &quot;Just to dror
+  'im out, I told a story of a chap I said I knew--pretendin', you
+  know--who'd found a sovring in a novercoat 'e'd borrowed. I said
+  'e stuck to it, but I said I wasn't sure whether that was right
+  or not. And then the old man began. Lor'! 'e DID let me 'ave it!&quot;
+  Mr. Brisher affected an insincere amusement. &quot;'E was, well--what you
+  might call a rare 'and at Snacks. Said that was the sort of friend
+  'e'd naturally expect me to 'ave. Said 'e'd naturally expect that
+  from the friend of a out-of-work loafer who took up with daughters
+  who didn't belong to 'im. There! I couldn't tell you 'ARF 'e said.
+  'E went on most outrageous. I stood up to 'im about it, just to dror
+  'im out. 'Wouldn't you stick to a 'arf-sov', not if you found it in
+  the street?' I says. 'Certainly not,' 'e says; 'certainly I wouldn't.'
+  'What! not if you found it as a sort of treasure?' 'Young man,'
+  'e says, 'there's 'i'er 'thority than mine--Render unto Caesar'--
+  what is it? Yes. Well, he fetched up that. A rare 'and at 'itting
+  you over the 'ed with the Bible, was the old man. And so he went on.
+  'E got to such Snacks about me at last I couldn't stand it. I'd
+  promised Jane not to answer 'im back, but it got a bit TOO thick.
+  I--I give it 'im . . .&quot;</p>
+<p>Mr. Brisher, by means of enigmatical facework, tried to make me
+  think he had had the best of that argument, but I knew better.</p>
+<p>&quot;I went out in a 'uff at last. But not before I was pretty sure I
+  'ad to lift that treasure by myself. The only thing that kep' me up
+  was thinking 'ow I'd take it out of 'im when I 'ad the cash.&quot;</p>
+<p>There was a lengthy pause.</p>
+<p>&quot;Now, you'd 'ardly believe it, but all them three days I never
+  'ad a chance at the blessed treasure, never got out not even
+  a 'arf-crown. There was always a Somethink--always.</p>
+<p>&quot;'Stonishing thing it isn't thought of more,&quot; said Mr. Brisher.
+  &quot;Finding treasure's no great shakes. It's gettin' it. I don't
+  suppose I slep' a wink any of those nights, thinking where I was
+  to take it, what I was to do with it, 'ow I was to explain it.
+  It made me regular ill. And days I was that dull, it made Jane
+  regular 'uffy. 'You ain't the same chap you was in London,' she
+  says, several times. I tried to lay it on 'er father and 'is Snacks,
+  but bless you, she knew better. What must she 'ave but that I'd
+  got another girl on my mind! Said I wasn't True. Well, we had
+  a bit of a row. But I was that set on the Treasure, I didn't seem
+  to mind a bit Anything she said.</p>
+<p>&quot;Well, at last I got a sort of plan. I was always a bit good at
+  planning, though carrying out isn't so much in my line. I thought it
+  all out and settled on a plan. First, I was going to take all my
+  pockets full of these 'ere 'arf-crowns--see?--and afterwards as I
+  shall tell.</p>
+<p>&quot;Well, I got to that state I couldn't think of getting at the Treasure
+  again in the daytime, so I waited until the night before I had to go,
+  and then, when everything was still, up I gets and slips down
+  to the back door, meaning to get my pockets full. What must I do
+  in the scullery but fall over a pail! Up gets 'er father with a gun--'e
+  was a light sleeper was 'er father, and very suspicious and there
+  was me: 'ad to explain I'd come down to the pump for a drink because
+  my water-bottle was bad. 'E didn't let me off a Snack or two over
+  that bit, you lay a bob.&quot;
+</p>
+<p>&quot;And you mean to say--&quot; I began.</p>
+<p>&quot;Wait a bit,&quot; said Mr. Brisher. &quot;I say, I'd made my plan. That 
+  put
+  the kybosh on one bit, but it didn't 'urt the general scheme not a bit.
+  I went and I finished that rockery next day, as though there wasn't
+  a Snack in the world; cemented over the stones, I did, dabbed
+  it green and everythink. I put a dab of green just to show where
+  the box was. They all came and looked at it, and sai 'ow nice
+  it was--even 'e was a bit softer like to see it, and all he said was,
+  &quot;It's a pity you can't always work like that, then you might get
+  something definite to do,&quot; he says.</p>
+<p>&quot;'Yes,' I says--I couldn't 'elp it--'I put a lot in that rockery,'
+  I says, like that. See? 'I put a lot in that rockery'--meaning--&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;I see,&quot; said I--for Mr. Brisher is apt to overelaborate his jokes.</p>
+<p>&quot;'<i>E</i> didn't,&quot; said Mr. Brisher. &quot;Not then, anyhow.</p>
+<p>&quot;Ar'ever--after all that was over, off I set for London. . . .
+  Orf I set for London.&quot;</p>
+<p>Pause.</p>
+<p>&quot;On'y I wasn't going to no London,&quot; said Mr. Brisher, with sudden
+  animation, and thrusting his face into mine. &quot;No fear! What do YOU
+  think?</p>
+<p>&quot;I didn't go no further than Colchester--not a yard.</p>
+<p>&quot;I'd left the spade just where I could find it. I'd got everything
+  planned and right. I 'ired a little trap in Colchester, and pretended
+  I wanted to go to Ipswich and stop the night, and come back next
+  day, and the chap I 'ired it from made me leave two sovrings on it
+  right away, and off I set.</p>
+<p>&quot;I didn't go to no Ipswich neither.</p>
+<p>&quot;Midnight the 'orse and trap was 'itched by the little road that ran
+  by the cottage where 'e lived--not sixty yards off, it wasn't--and
+  I was at it like a good 'un. It was jest the night for such
+  games--overcast--but a trifle too 'ot, and all round the sky there
+  was summer lightning and presently a thunderstorm. Down it came.
+  First big drops in a sort of fizzle, then 'ail. I kep'on. I whacked
+  at it--I didn't dream the old man would 'ear. I didn't even trouble
+  to go quiet with the spade, and the thunder and lightning and 'ail
+  seemed to excite me like. I shouldn't wonder if I was singing. I got
+  so 'ard at it I clean forgot the thunder and the 'orse and trap. I
+  precious soon got the box showing, and started to lift it . . . .&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;Heavy?&quot; I said.</p>
+<p>&quot;I couldn't no more lift it than fly. I WAS sick. I'd never thought
+  of that I got regular wild--I tell you, I cursed. I got sort of
+  outrageous. I didn't think of dividing it like for the minute,
+  and even then I couldn't 'ave took money about loose in a trap.
+  I hoisted one end sort of wild like, and over the whole show went
+  with a tremenjous noise. Perfeck smash of silver. And then right
+  on the heels of that, Flash! Lightning like the day! and there was
+  the back door open and the old man coming down the garden with
+  'is blooming old gun. He wasn't not a 'undred yards away!</p>
+<p>&quot;I tell you I was that upset--I didn't think what I was doing.
+  I never stopped-not even to fill my pockets. I went over the fence
+  like a shot, and ran like one o'clock for the trap, cussing and
+  swearing as I went. I WAS in a state. . . .</p>
+<p>&quot;And will you believe me, when I got to the place where I'd left
+  the 'orse and trap, they'd gone. Orf! When I saw that I 'adn't
+  a cuss left for it. I jest danced on the grass, and when I'd danced
+  enough I started off to London. . . . I was done.&quot;</p>
+<p>Mr. Brisher was pensive for an interval. &quot;I was done,&quot; he repeated,
+  very bitterly.</p>
+<p>&quot;Well?&quot; I said.</p>
+<p>&quot;That's all,&quot; said Mr. Brisher.</p>
+<p>&quot;You didn't go back?&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;No fear. I'd 'ad enough of THAT blooming treasure, any'ow for a bit.
+  Besides, I didn't know what was done to chaps who tried to collar
+  a treasure trove. I started off for London there and then. . . .&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;And you never went back?&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;Never.&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;But about Jane? Did you write?&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;Three times, fishing like. And no answer. We'd parted in a bit
+  of a 'uff on account of 'er being jealous. So that I couldn't make
+  out for certain what it meant.</p>
+<p>&quot;I didn't know what to do. I didn't even know whether the old man
+  knew it was me. I sort of kep' an eye open on papers to see when he'd
+  give up that treasure to the Crown, as I hadn't a doubt 'e would,
+  considering 'ow respectable he'd always been.&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;And did he?&quot;</p>
+<p>Mr. Brisher pursed his mouth and moved his head slowly from side
+  to side. &quot;Not 'IM,&quot; he said.</p>
+<p>&quot;Jane was a nice girl,&quot; he said, &quot;a thorough nice girl mind 
+  you,
+  if jealous, and there's no knowing I mightn't 'ave gone back to 'er
+  after a bit. I thought if he didn't give up the treasure I might 'ave
+  a sort of 'old on 'im. . . . Well, one day I looks as usual under
+  Colchester--and there I saw 'is name. What for, d'yer think?&quot;</p>
+<p>I could not guess.</p>
+<p>Mr. Brisher's voice sank to a whisper, and once more he spoke behind
+  his hand. His manner was suddenly suffused with a positive joy.
+  &quot;Issuing counterfeit coins,&quot; he said. &quot;Counterfeit coins!&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;You don't mean to say--?&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;Yes-It. Bad. Quite a long case they made of it. But they got 'im,
+  though he dodged tremenjous. Traced 'is 'aving passed, oh!--nearly
+  a dozen bad 'arf-crowns.&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;And you didn't--?&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;No fear. And it didn't do 'IM much good to say it was treasure trove.&quot;</p>
+<p>
+  12. MISS WINCHELSEA'S HEART</p>
+<p>Miss Winchelsea was going to Rome. The matter had filled her mind
+  for a month or more, and had overflowed so abundantly into her
+  conversation that quite a number of people who were not going to Rome,
+  and who were not likely to go to Rome, had made it a personal
+  grievance against her. Some indeed had attempted quite unavailingly
+  to convince her that Rome was not nearly such a desirable place
+  as it was reported to be, and others had gone so far as to suggest
+  behind her back that she was dreadfully &quot;stuck up&quot; about &quot;that 
+  Rome
+  of hers.&quot; And little Lily Hardhurst had told her friend Mr. Binns
+  that so far as she was concerned Miss Winchelsea might &quot;go to her
+  old Rome and stop there; SHE (Miss Lily Hardhurst) wouldn't grieve.&quot;
+  And the way in which Miss Winchelsea put herself upon terms of personal
+  tenderness with Horace and Benvenuto Cellini and Raphael and Shelley
+  and Keats--if she had been Shelley's widow she could not have professed
+  a keener interest in his grave--was a matter of universal astonishment.
+  Her dress was a triumph of tactful discretion, sensible, but not too
+  &quot;touristy&quot;--Miss Winchelsea, had a great dread of being &quot;touristy&quot;--
+  and her Baedeker was carried in a cover of grey to hide its glaring
+  red. She made a prim and pleasant little figure on the Charing Cross
+  platform, in spite of her swelling pride, when at last the great
+  day dawned, and she could start for Rome. The day was bright,
+  the Channel passage would be pleasant, and all the omens promised
+  well. There was the gayest sense of adventure in this unprecedented
+  departure.</p>
+<p>She was going with two friends who had been fellow-students with her
+  at the training college, nice honest girls both, though not so good
+  at history and literature as Miss Winchelsea. They both looked up
+  to her immensely, though physically they had to look down, and she
+  anticipated some pleasant times to be spent in &quot;stirring them up&quot;
+  to her own pitch of aesthetic and historical enthusiasm. They had
+  secured seats already, and welcomed her effusively at the carriage
+  door. In the instant criticism of the encounter she noted that Fanny
+  had a slightly &quot;touristy&quot; leather strap, and that Helen had succumbed
+  to a serge jacket with side pockets, into which her hands were thrust.
+  But they were much too happy with themselves and the expedition
+  for their friend to attempt any hint at the moment about these things.
+  As soon as the first ecstasies were over--Fanny's enthusiasm was
+  a little noisy and crude, and consisted mainly in emphatic repetitions
+  of &quot;Just FANCY! we're going to Rome, my dear!--Rome!&quot;--they gave
+  their attention to their fellow-travellers. Helen was anxious to
+  secure a compartment to themselves, and, in order to discourage
+  intruders, got out and planted herself firmly on the step. Miss
+  Winchelsea peeped out over her shoulder, and made sly little remarks
+  about the accumulating people on the platform, at which Fanny laughed
+  gleefully.</p>
+<p>They were travelling with one of Mr. Thomas Gunn's parties--fourteen
+  days in Rome for fourteen pounds. They did not belong to the personally
+  conducted party of course--Miss Winchelsea had seen to that--but
+  they travelled with it because of the convenience of that arrangement.
+  The people were the oddest mixture, and wonderfully amusing.
+  There was a vociferous red-faced polyglot personal conductor in
+  a pepper-and-salt suit, very long in the arms and legs and very
+  active. He shouted proclamations. When he wanted to speak to people he
+  stretched out an arm and held them until his purpose was accomplished.
+  One hand was full of papers, tickets, counterfoils of tourists.
+  The people of the personally conducted party were, it seemed,
+  of two sorts; people the conductor wanted and could not find,
+  and people he did not want and who followed him in a steadily
+  growing tail up and down the platform. These people seemed, indeed,
+  to think that their one chance of reaching Rome lay in keeping
+  close to him. Three little old ladies were particularly energetic
+  in his pursuit, and at last maddened him to the pitch of clapping
+  them into a carriage and daring them to emerge again. For the rest
+  of the time, one, two, or three of their heads protruded from
+  the window wailing enquiries about &quot;a little wickerwork box&quot;
+  whenever he drew near. There was a very stout man with a very stout
+  wife in shiny black; there was a little old man like an aged hostler.</p>
+<p>&quot;What CAN such people want in Rome?&quot; asked Miss Winchelsea. &quot;What
+  can it mean to them?&quot; There was a very tall curate in a very small
+  straw hat, and a very short curate encumbered by a long camera
+  stand. The contrast amused Fanny very much. Once they heard some
+  one calling for &quot;Snooks.&quot; &quot;I always thought that name was invented
+  by novelists,&quot; said Miss Winchelsea. &quot;Fancy! Snooks. I wonder which
+  IS Mr. Snooks.&quot; Finally they picked out a very stout and resolute
+  little man in a large check suit. &quot;If he isn't Snooks, he ought
+  to be,&quot; said Miss Winchelsea.</p>
+<p>Presently the conductor discovered Helen's attempt at a corner
+  in carriages. &quot;Room for five,&quot; he bawled with a parallel translation
+  on his fingers. A party of four together--mother, father, and two
+  daughters--blundered in, all greatly excited. &quot;It's all right, Ma,
+  you let me,&quot; said one of the daughters, hitting her mother's bonnet
+  with a handbag she struggled to put in the rack. Miss Winchelsea
+  detested people who banged about and called their mother &quot;Ma.&quot;
+  A young man travelling alone followed. He was not at all &quot;touristy&quot;
+  in his costume, Miss Winchelsea observed; his Gladstone bag was
+  of good pleasant leather with labels reminiscent of Luxembourg and
+  Ostend, and his boots, though brown, were not vulgar. He carried
+  an overcoat on his arm. Before these people had properly settled
+  in their places, came an inspection of tickets and a slamming
+  of doors, and behold! they were gliding out of Charing Cross
+  station on their way to Rome.</p>
+<p>&quot;Fancy!&quot; cried Fanny, &quot;we are going to Rome, my dear! Rome! 
+  I don't
+  seem to believe it, even now.&quot;</p>
+<p>Miss Winchelsea suppressed Fanny's emotions with a little smile,
+  and the lady who was called &quot;Ma&quot; explained to people in general
+  why they had &quot;cut it so close&quot; at the station. The two daughters
+  called her &quot;Ma&quot; several times, toned her down in a tactless effective
+  way, and drove her at last to the muttered inventory of a basket
+  of travelling requisites. Presently she looked up. &quot;Lor'!&quot; she said,
+  &quot;I didn't bring THEM!&quot; Both the daughters said &quot;Oh, Ma!&quot; 
+  but what
+  &quot;them&quot; was did not appear. Presently Fanny produced Hare's Walks
+  in Rome, a sort of mitigated guide-book very popular among Roman
+  visitors; and the father of the two daughters began to examine
+  his books of tickets minutely, apparently in a search after English
+  words. When he had looked at the tickets for a long time right way up,
+  he turned them upside down. Then he produced a fountain pen and
+  dated them with considerable care. The young man, having completed
+  an unostentatious survey of his fellow travellers, produced a book and
+  fell to reading. When Helen and Fanny were looking out of the window
+  at Chiselhurst--the place interested Fanny because the poor dear
+  Empress of the French used to live there--Miss Winchelsea took
+  the opportunity to observe the book the young man held. It was not
+  a guide-book, but a little thin volume of poetry--BOUND. She glanced
+  at his face--it seemed a refined pleasant face to her hasty glance.
+  He wore a little gilt pince-nez. &quot;Do you think she lives there
+  now?&quot; said Fanny, and Miss Winchelsea's inspection came to an end.</p>
+<p>For the rest of the journey Miss Winchelsea talked little, and what
+  she said was as pleasant and as stamped with refinement as she
+  could make it. Her voice was always low and clear and pleasant,
+  and she took care that on this occasion it was particularly low and
+  clear and pleasant. As they came under the white cliffs the young
+  man put his book of poetry away, and when at last the train stopped
+  beside the boat, he displayed a graceful alacrity with the impedimenta
+  of Miss Winchelsea and her friends. Miss Winchelsea hated nonsense,
+  but she was pleased to see the young man perceived at once that
+  they were ladies, and helped them without any violent geniality;
+  and how nicely he showed that his civilities were to be no excuse
+  for further intrusions. None of her little party had been out
+  of England before, and they were all excited and a little nervous
+  at the Channel passage. They stood in a little group in a good place
+  near the middle of the boat--the young man had taken Miss Winchelsea's
+  carry-all there and had told her it was a good place--and they watched
+  the white shores of Albion recede and quoted Shakespeare and made
+  quiet fun of their fellow travellers in the English way.</p>
+<p>They were particularly amused at the precautions the bigger-sized
+  people had taken against the little waves--cut lemons and flasks
+  prevailed, one lady lay full-length in a deck chair with a handkerchief
+  over her face, and a very broad resolute man in a bright brown
+  &quot;touristy&quot; suit walked all the way from England to France along
+  the deck, with his legs as widely apart as Providence permitted. These
+  were all excellent precautions, and, nobody was ill. The personally
+  conducted party pursued the conductor about the deck with enquiries
+  in a manner that suggested to Helen's mind the rather vulgar image
+  of hens with a piece of bacon peel, until at last he went into hiding
+  below. And the young man with the thin volume of poetry stood
+  at the stern watching England receding, looking rather lonely
+  and sad to Miss Winchelsea's eye.</p>
+<p>And then came Calais and tumultuous novelties, and the young man
+  had not forgotten Miss Winchelsea's hold-all and the other little
+  things. All three girls, though they had passed government examinations
+  in French to any extent, were stricken with a dumb shame of their
+  accents, and the young man was very useful. And he did not intrude.
+  He put them in a comfortable carriage and raised his hat and went
+  away. Miss Winchelsea thanked him in her best manner--a pleasing,
+  cultivated manner--and Fanny said he was &quot;nice&quot; almost before he
+  was out of earshot. &quot;I wonder what he can be,&quot; said Helen. &quot;He's
+  going to Italy, because I noticed green tickets in his book.&quot;
+  Miss Winchelsea almost told them of the poetry, and decided not
+  to do so. And presently the carriage windows seized hold upon them
+  and the young man was forgotten. It made them feel that they were
+  doing an educated sort of thing to travel through a country whose
+  commonest advertisements were in idiomatic French, and Miss Winchelsea
+  made unpatriotic comparisons because there were weedy little sign-board
+  advertisements by the rail side instead of the broad hoardings that
+  deface the landscape in our land. But the north of France is really
+  uninteresting country, and after a time Fanny reverted to Hare's Walks
+  and Helen initiated lunch. Miss Winchelsea awoke out of a happy
+  reverie; she had been trying to realise, she said, that she was
+  actually going to Rome, but she perceived at Helen's suggestion
+  that she was hungry, and they lunched out of their baskets very
+  cheerfully. In the afternoon they were tired and silent until Helen
+  made tea. Miss Winchelsea might have dozed, only she knew Fanny
+  slept with her mouth open; and as their fellow passengers were
+  two rather nice critical-looking ladies of uncertain age--who knew
+  French well enough to talk it--she employed herself in keeping Fanny
+  awake. The rhythm of the train became insistent, and the streaming
+  landscape outside became at last quite painful to the eye. They were
+  already dreadfully tired of travelling before their night's stoppage
+  came.</p>
+<p>The stoppage for the night was brightened by the appearance of
+  the young man, and his manners were all that could be desired and
+  his French quite serviceable. His coupons availed for the same hotel
+  as theirs, and by chance as it seemed he sat next Miss Winchelsea
+  at the table d'hote. In spite of her enthusiasm for Rome, she had
+  thought out some such possibility very thoroughly, and when he
+  ventured to make a remark upon the tediousness of travelling--he
+  let the soup and fish go by before he did this--she did not simply
+  assent to his proposition, but responded with another. They were
+  soon comparing their journeys, and Helen and Fanny were cruelly
+  overlooked in the conversation. It was to be the same journey,
+  they found; one day for the galleries at Florence--&quot;from what I
+  hear,&quot; said the young man, &quot;it is barely enough,&quot;--and the rest
+  at Rome. He talked of Rome very pleasantly; he was evidently quite
+  well read, and he quoted Horace about Soracte. Miss Winchelsea had
+  &quot;done&quot; that book of Horace for her matriculation, and was delighted
+  to cap his quotation. It gave a sort of tone to things, this
+  incident--a touch of refinement to mere chatting. Fanny expressed
+  a few emotions, and Helen interpolated a few sensible remarks, but
+  the bulk of the talk on the girls' side naturally fell to Miss
+  Winchelsea.</p>
+<p>Before they reached Rome this young man was tacitly of their party.
+  They did not know his name nor what he was, but it seemed he taught,
+  and Miss Winchelsea had a shrewd idea he was an extension lecturer.
+  At any rate he was something of that sort, something gentlemanly
+  and refined without being opulent and impossible. She tried once
+  or twice to ascertain whether he came from Oxford or Cambridge,
+  but he missed her timid importunities. She tried to get him to make
+  remarks about those places to see if he would say &quot;come up&quot; to them
+  instead of &quot;go down&quot;--she knew that was how you told a 'Varsity man.
+  He used the word &quot;'Varsity&quot;--not university--in quite the proper way.</p>
+<p>They saw as much of Mr. Ruskin's Florence as the brief time permitted;
+  he met them in the Pitti Gallery and went round with them, chatting
+  brightly, and evidently very grateful for their recognition. He knew
+  a great deal about art, and all four enjoyed the morning immensely.
+  It was fine to go round recognising old favourites and finding
+  new beauties, especially while so many people fumbled helplessly
+  with Baedeker. Nor was he a bit of a prig, Miss Winchelsea said,
+  and indeed she detested prigs. He had a distinct undertone of humour,
+  and was funny, for example, without being vulgar, at the expense of
+  the quaint work of Beato Angelico. He had a grave seriousness beneath
+  it all, and was quick to seize the moral lessons of the pictures.
+  Fanny went softly among these masterpieces; she admitted &quot;she knew
+  so little about them,&quot; and she confessed that to her they were &quot;all
+  beautiful.&quot; Fanny's &quot;beautiful&quot; inclined to be a little monotonous,
+  Miss Winchelsea thought. She had been quite glad when the last
+  sunny Alp had vanished, because of the staccato of Fanny's admiration.
+  Helen said little, but Miss Winchelsea had found her a little wanting
+  on the aesthetic side in the old days and was not surprised; sometimes
+  she laughed at the young man's hesitating delicate little jests and
+  sometimes she didn't, and sometimes she seemed quite lost to the art
+  about them in the contemplation of the dresses of the other visitors.</p>
+<p>At Rome the young man was with them intermittently. A rather
+  &quot;touristy&quot; friend of his took him away at times. He complained
+  comically to Miss Winchelsea. &quot;I have only two short weeks in Rome,&quot;
+  he said, &quot;and my friend Leonard wants to spend a whole day at Tivoli,
+  looking at a waterfall.&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;What is your friend Leonard?&quot; asked Miss Winchelsea abruptly.</p>
+<p>&quot;He's the most enthusiastic pedestrian I ever met,&quot; the young man
+  replied, amusingly, but a little unsatisfactorily, Miss Winchelsea
+  thought. They had some glorious times, and Fanny could not think
+  what they would have done without him. Miss Winchelsea's interest
+  and Fanny's enormous capacity for admiration were insatiable. They
+  never flagged--through pictures and sculpture galleries, immense
+  crowded churches, ruins and museums, Judas trees and prickly pears,
+  wine carts and palaces, they admired their way unflinchingly. They
+  never saw a stone pine or a eucalyptus but they named and admired it;
+  they never glimpsed Soracte but they exclaimed. Their common ways
+  were made wonderful by imaginative play. &quot;Here Caesar may have
+  walked,&quot; they would say. &quot;Raphael may have seen Soracte from this
+  very point.&quot; They happened on the tomb of Bibulus. &quot;Old Bibulus,&quot;
+  said the young man. &quot;The oldest monument of Republican Rome!&quot;
+  said Miss Winchelsea.</p>
+<p>&quot;I'm dreadfully stupid,&quot; said Fanny, &quot;but who WAS Bibulus?&quot;</p>
+<p>There was a curious little pause.</p>
+<p>&quot;Wasn't he the person who built the wall?&quot; said Helen.</p>
+<p>The young man glanced quickly at her and laughed. &quot;That was Balbus,&quot;
+  he said. Helen reddened, but neither he nor Miss Winchelsea threw
+  any light upon Fanny's ignorance about Bibulus.</p>
+<p>Helen was more taciturn than the other three, but then she was
+  always taciturn, and usually she took care of the tram tickets
+  and things like that, or kept her eye on them if the young man took
+  them, and told him where they were when he wanted them. Glorious times
+  they had, these young people, in that pale brown cleanly city of
+  memories that was once the world. Their only sorrow was the shortness
+  of the time. They said indeed that the electric trams and the '70
+  buildings, and that criminal advertisement that glares upon the Forum,
+  outraged their aesthetic feelings unspeakably; but that was only part
+  of the fun. And indeed Rome is such a wonderful place that it made
+  Miss Winchelsea forget some of her most carefully prepared enthusiasms
+  at times, and Helen, taken unawares, would suddenly admit the beauty
+  of unexpected things. Yet Fanny and Helen would have liked a shop
+  window or so in the English quarter if Miss Winchelsea's uncompromising
+  hostility to all other English visitors had not rendered that district
+  impossible.</p>
+<p>The intellectual and aesthetic fellowship of Miss Winchelsea and
+  the scholarly young man passed insensibly towards a deeper feeling.
+  The exuberant Fanny did her best to keep pace with their recondite
+  admiration by playing her &quot;beautiful,&quot; with vigour, and saying &quot;Oh!
+  LET'S go,&quot; with enormous appetite whenever a new place of interest
+  was mentioned. But Helen developed a certain want of sympathy
+  towards the end, that disappointed Miss Winchelsea a little. She
+  refused to &quot;see anything&quot; in the face of Beatrice Cenci--Shelley's
+  Beatrice Cenci!--in the Barberini gallery; and one day, when they
+  were deploring the electric trams, she said rather snappishly that
+  &quot;people must get about somehow, and it's better than torturing
+  horses up these horrid little hills.&quot; She spoke of the Seven Hills
+  of Rome as &quot;horrid little hills!&quot;</p>
+<p>And the day they went on the Palatine--though Miss Winchelsea
+  did not know of this--she remarked suddenly to Fanny, &quot;Don't hurry
+  like that, my dear; THEY don't want us to overtake them. And we
+  don't say the right things for them when we DO get near.&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;I wasn't trying to overtake them,&quot; said Fanny, slackening her
+  excessive pace; &quot;I wasn't indeed.&quot; And for a minute she was short 
+  of
+  breath.</p>
+<p>But Miss Winchelsea had come upon happiness. It was only when she
+  came to look back across an intervening tragedy that she quite
+  realised how happy she had been, pacing among the cypress-shadowed
+  ruins, and exchanging the very highest class of information the human
+  mind can possess, the most refined impressions it is possible
+  to convey. Insensibly emotion crept into their intercourse, sunning
+  itself openly and pleasantly at last when Helen's modernity was not
+  too near. Insensibly their interest drifted from the wonderful
+  associations about them to their more intimate and personal feelings.
+  In a tentative way information was supplied; she spoke allusively
+  of her school, of her examination successes, of her gladness that
+  the days of &quot;Cram&quot; were over. He made it quite clear that he also
+  was a teacher. They spoke of the greatness of their calling, of the
+  necessity of sympathy to face its irksome details, of a certain
+  loneliness they sometimes felt.</p>
+<p>That was in the Colosseum, and it was as far as they got that day,
+  because Helen returned with Fanny--she had taken her into the upper
+  galleries. Yet the private dreams of Miss Winchelsea, already vivid
+  and concrete enough, became now realistic in the highest degree.
+  She figured that pleasant young man, lecturing in the most edifying
+  way to his students, herself modestly prominent as his intellectual
+  mate and helper; she figured a refined little home, with two bureaus,
+  with white shelves of high-class books, and autotypes of the pictures
+  of Rossetti and Burne-Jones, with Morris's wall papers and flowers in
+  pots of beaten copper. Indeed she figured many things. On the Pincio
+  the two had a few precious moments together, while Helen marched
+  Fanny off to see the muro Torto, and he spoke at once plainly. He
+  said he hoped their friendship was only beginning, that he already
+  found her company very precious to him, that indeed it was more than
+  that.</p>
+<p>He became nervous, thrusting at his glasses with trembling fingers
+  as though he fancied his emotions made them unstable. &quot;I should
+  of course,&quot; he said, &quot;tell you things about myself. I know it is
+  rather unusual my speaking to you like this. Only our meeting has
+  been so accidental--or providential--and I am snatching at things.
+  I came to Rome expecting a lonely tour . . . and I have been so very
+  happy, so very happy. Quite recently I found myself in a position--
+  I have dared to think--. And--&quot;</p>
+<p>He glanced over his shoulder and stopped. He said &quot;Damn!&quot; quite
+  distinctly--and she did not condemn him for that manly lapse into
+  profanity. She looked and saw his friend Leonard advancing. He drew
+  nearer; he raised his hat to Miss Winchelsea, and his smile was
+  almost a grin. &quot;I've been looking for you everywhere, Snooks,&quot; he
+  said. &quot;You promised to be on the Piazza steps half an hour ago.&quot;</p>
+<p>Snooks! The name struck Miss Winchelsea like a blow in the face.
+  She did not hear his reply. She thought afterwards that Leonard
+  must have considered her the vaguest-minded person. To this day
+  she is not sure whether she was introduced to Leonard or not, nor
+  what she said to him. A sort of mental paralysis was upon her.
+  Of all offensive surnames--Snooks!</p>
+<p>Helen and Fanny were returning, there were civilities, and the young
+  men were receding. By a great effort she controlled herself to face
+  the enquiring eyes of her friends. All that afternoon she lived
+  the life of a heroine under the indescribable outrage of that name,
+  chatting, observing, with &quot;Snooks&quot; gnawing at her heart. From the
+  moment that it first rang upon her ears, the dream of her happiness
+  was prostrate in the dust. All the refinement she had figured was
+  ruined and defaced by that cognomen's unavoidable vulgarity.</p>
+<p>What was that refined little home to her now, spite of autotypes,
+  Morris papers, and bureaus? Athwart it in letters of fire ran an
+  incredible inscription: &quot;Mrs. Snooks.&quot; That may seem a little thing 
+  to
+  the reader, but consider the delicate refinement of Miss Winchelsea's
+  mind. Be as refined as you can and then think of writing yourself
+  down:--&quot;Snooks.&quot; She conceived herself being addressed as Mrs. Snooks
+  by all the people she liked least, conceived the patronymic touched
+  with a vague quality of insult. She figured a card of grey and silver
+  bearing &quot;Winchelsea,&quot; triumphantly effaced by an arrow, Cupid's arrow,
+  in favour of &quot;Snooks.&quot; Degrading confession of feminine weakness! 
+  She
+  imagined the terrible rejoicings of certain girl friends, of certain
+  grocer cousins from whom her growing refinement had long since
+  estranged her. How they would make it sprawl across the envelope
+  that would bring their sarcastic congratulations. Would even his
+  pleasant company compensate her for that? &quot;It is impossible,&quot;
+  she muttered; &quot;impossible! SNOOKS!&quot;</p>
+<p>She was sorry for him, but not so sorry as she was for herself.
+  For him she had a touch of indignation. To be so nice, so refined,
+  while all the time he was &quot;Snooks,&quot; to hide under a pretentious
+  gentility of demeanour the badge sinister of his surname seemed
+  a sort of treachery. To put it in the language of sentimental science
+  she felt he had &quot;led her on.&quot;</p>
+<p>There were of course moments of terrible vacillation, a period even
+  when something almost like passion bid her throw refinement to
+  the winds. And there was something in her, an unexpurgated vestige
+  of vulgarity, that made a strenuous attempt at proving that Snooks
+  was not so very bad a name after all. Any hovering hesitation flew
+  before Fanny's manner, when Fanny came with an air of catastrophe to
+  tell that she also knew the horror. Fanny's voice fell to a whisper
+  when she said SNOOKS. Miss Winchelsea would not give him any answer
+  when at last, in the Borghese, she could have a minute with him;
+  but she promised him a note.</p>
+<p>She handed him that note in the little book of poetry he had lent
+  her, the little book that had first drawn them together. Her refusal
+  was ambiguous, allusive. She could no more tell him why she rejected
+  him than she could have told a cripple of his hump. He too must
+  feel something of the unspeakable quality of his name. Indeed he
+  had avoided a dozen chances of telling it, she now perceived. So she
+  spoke of &quot;obstacles she could not reveal&quot;--&quot;reasons why the thing 
+  he
+  spoke of was impossible.&quot; She addressed the note with a shiver, &quot;E. 
+  K.
+  Snooks.&quot;</p>
+<p>Things were worse than she had dreaded; he asked her to explain.
+  How COULD she explain? Those last two days in Rome were dreadful.
+  She was haunted by his air of astonished perplexity. She knew she
+  had given him intimate hopes, she had not the courage to examine
+  her mind thoroughly for the extent of her encouragement. She knew
+  he must think her the most changeable of beings. Now that she was
+  in full retreat, she would not even perceive his hints of a possible
+  correspondence. But in that matter he did a thing that seemed to her
+  at once delicate and romantic. He made a go-between of Fanny.
+  Fanny could not keep the secret, and came and told her that night
+  under a transparent pretext of needed advice. &quot;Mr. Snooks,&quot; said
+  Fanny, &quot;wants to write to me. Fancy! I had no idea. But should I let
+  him?&quot; They talked it over long and earnestly, and Miss Winchelsea was
+  careful to keep the veil over her heart. She was already repenting his
+  disregarded hints. Why should she not hear of him sometimes--painful
+  though his name must be to her? Miss Winchelsea decided it might
+  be permitted, and Fanny kissed her good-night with unusual emotion.
+  After she had gone Miss Winchelsea sat for a long time at the window
+  of her little room. It was moonlight, and down the street a man
+  sang &quot;Santa Lucia&quot; with almost heart-dissolving tenderness. . . .
+  She sat very still.</p>
+<p>She breathed a word very softly to herself. The word was &quot;SNOOKS.&quot;
+  Then she got up with a profound sigh, and went to bed. The next morning
+  he said to her meaningly, &quot;I shall hear of you through your friend.&quot;</p>
+<p>Mr. Snooks saw them off from Rome with that pathetic interrogative
+  perplexity still on his face, and if it had not been for Helen
+  he would have retained Miss Winchelsea's hold-all in his hand
+  as a sort of encyclopaedic keepsake. On their way back to England
+  Miss Winchelsea on six separate occasions made Fanny promise
+  to write to her the longest of long letters. Fanny, it seemed, would
+  be quite near Mr. Snooks. Her new school--she was always going
+  to new schools--would be only five miles from Steely Bank, and
+  it was in the Steely Bank Polytechnic, and one or two first-class
+  schools, that Mr. Snooks did his teaching. He might even see her
+  at times. They could not talk much of him--she and Fanny always
+  spoke of &quot;him,&quot; never of Mr. Snooks,--because Helen was apt to say
+  unsympathetic things about him. Her nature had coarsened very much,
+  Miss Winchelsea perceived, since the old Training College days;
+  she had become hard and cynical. She thought he had a weak face,
+  mistaking refinement for weakness as people of her stamp are apt
+  to do, and when she heard his name was Snooks, she said she had
+  expected something of the sort. Miss Winchelsea was careful to spare
+  her own feelings after that, but Fanny was less circumspect.</p>
+<p>The girls parted in London, and Miss Winchelsea returned, with a new interest 
+  in life, to the Girls' High School in which she had been an increasingly valuable 
+  assistant for the last three years. Her new interest in life was Fanny as a 
+  correspondent, and to give her a lead she wrote her a lengthy descriptive letter 
+  within a fortnight of her return. Fanny answered, very disappointingly. Fanny 
+  indeed had no literary gift, but it was new to Miss Winchelsea to find herself 
+  deploring the want of gifts in a friend. That letter was even criticised aloud 
+  in the safe solitude of Miss Winchelsea's study, and her criticism, spoken with 
+  great bitterness, was &quot;Twaddle!&quot; It was full of just the things Miss 
+  Winchelsea's letter had been full of, particulars of the school. And of Mr. 
+  Snooks, only this much: &quot;I have had a letter from Mr. Snooks, and he has 
+  been over to see me on two Saturday afternoons running. He talked about Rome 
+  and you; we both talked about you. Your ears must have burnt, my dear. . . .&quot; 
+</p>
+<p>Miss Winchelsea repressed a desire to demand more explicit information,
+  and wrote the sweetest long letter again. &quot;Tell me all about yourself,
+  dear. That journey has quite refreshed our ancient friendship,
+  and I do so want to keep in touch with you.&quot; About Mr. Snooks she
+  simply wrote on the fifth page that she was glad Fanny had seen
+  him, and that if he SHOULD ask after her, she was to be remembered
+  to him VERY KINDLY (underlined). And Fanny replied most obtusely
+  in the key of that &quot;ancient friendship,&quot; reminding Miss Winchelsea
+  of a dozen foolish things of those old schoolgirl days at the training
+  college, and saying not a word about Mr. Snooks!</p>
+<p>For nearly a week Miss Winchelsea was so angry at the failure
+  of Fanny as a go-between that she could not write to her. And then
+  she wrote less effusively, and in her letter she asked point-blank,
+  &quot;Have you seen Mr. Snooks?&quot; Fanny's letter was unexpectedly
+  satisfactory. &quot;I HAVE seen Mr. Snooks,&quot; she wrote, and having once
+  named him she kept on about him; it was all Snooks--Snooks this and
+  Snooks that. He was to give a public lecture, said Fanny, among other
+  things. Yet Miss Winchelsea, after the first glow of gratification,
+  still found this letter a little unsatisfactory. Fanny did not report
+  Mr. Snooks as saying anything about Miss Winchelsea, nor as looking
+  a little white and worn, as he ought to have been doing. And behold!
+  before she had replied, came a second letter from Fanny on the same
+  theme, quite a gushing letter, and covering six sheets with her loose
+  feminine hand.</p>
+<p>And about this second letter was a rather odd little thing that
+  Miss Winchelsea only noticed as she re-read it the third time.
+  Fanny's natural femininity had prevailed even against the round
+  and clear traditions of the training college; she was one of those
+  she-creatures born to make all her m's and n's and u's and r's and e's
+  alike, and to leave her o's and a's open and her i's undotted. So that
+  it was only after an elaborate comparison of word with word that Miss
+  Winchelsea felt assured Mr. Snooks was not really &quot;Mr. Snooks&quot;
+  at all! In Fanny's first letter of gush he was Mr. &quot;Snooks,&quot; in her
+  second the spelling was changed to Mr. &quot;Senoks.&quot; Miss Winchelsea's
+  hand positively trembled as she turned the sheet over--it meant
+  so much to her. For it had already begun to seem to her that even
+  the name of Mrs. Snooks might be avoided at too great a price,
+  and suddenly--this possibility! She turned over the six sheets,
+  all dappled with that critical name, and everywhere the first letter
+  had the form of an E! For a time she walked the room with a hand
+  pressed upon her heart.</p>
+<p>She spent a whole day pondering this change, weighing a letter
+  of inquiry that should be at once discreet and effectual, weighing
+  too what action she should take after the answer came. She was
+  resolved that if this altered spelling was anything more than
+  a quaint fancy of Fanny's, she would write forthwith to Mr. Snooks.
+  She had now reached a stage when the minor refinements of behaviour
+  disappear. Her excuse remained uninvented, but she had the subject
+  of her letter clear in her mind, even to the hint that &quot;circumstances
+  in my life have changed very greatly since we talked together.&quot; But
+  she never gave that hint. There came a third letter from that fitful
+  correspondent Fanny. The first line proclaimed her &quot;the happiest
+  girl alive.&quot;</p>
+<p>Miss Winchelsea crushed the letter in her hand--the rest unread--and
+  sat with her face suddenly very still. She had received it just before
+  morning school, and had opened it when the junior mathematicians were
+  well under way. Presently she resumed reading with an appearance of
+  great calm. But after the first sheet she went on reading the third
+  without discovering the error:--&quot;told him frankly I did not like his
+  name,&quot; the third sheet began. &quot;He told me he did not like it himself
+  --you know that sort of sudden frank way he has&quot;--Miss Winchelsea
+  did know. &quot;So I said 'Couldn't you change it?' He didn't see it
+  at first. Well, you know, dear, he had told me what it really meant;
+  it means Sevenoaks, only it has got down to Snooks--both Snooks
+  and Noaks, dreadfully vulgar surnames though they be, are really
+  worn forms of Sevenoaks. So I said--even I have my bright ideas
+  at times--'if it got down from Sevenoaks to Snooks, why not get it
+  back from Snooks to Sevenoaks?' And the long and the short of it
+  is, dear, he couldn't refuse me, and he changed his spelling there
+  and then to Senoks for the bills of the new lecture. And afterwards,
+  when we are married, we shall put in the apostrophe and make it
+  Se'noks. Wasn't it kind of him to mind that fancy of mine, when
+  many men would have taken offence? But it is just like him all over;
+  he is as kind as he is clever. Because he knew as well as I did
+  that I would have had him in spite of it, had he been ten times
+  Snooks. But he did it all the same.&quot;</p>
+<p>The class was startled by the sound of paper being viciously torn,
+  and looked up to see Miss Winchelsea white in the face, and with
+  some very small pieces of paper clenched in one hand. For a few
+  seconds they stared at her stare, and then her expression changed
+  back to a more familiar one. &quot;Has any one finished number three?&quot; 
+  she
+  asked in an even tone. She remained calm after that. But impositions
+  ruled high that day. And she spent two laborious evenings writing
+  letters of various sorts to Fanny, before she found a decent
+  congratulatory vein. Her reason struggled hopelessly against the
+  persuasion that Fanny had behaved in an exceedingly treacherous manner.</p>
+<p>One may be extremely refined and still capable of a very sore heart.
+  Certainly Miss Winchelsea's heart was very sore. She had moods
+  of sexual hostility, in which she generalised uncharitably about
+  mankind. &quot;He forgot himself with me,&quot; she said. &quot;But Fanny is 
+  pink
+  and pretty and soft and a fool--a very excellent match for a Man.&quot;
+  And by way of a wedding present she sent Fanny a gracefully bound
+  volume of poetry by George Meredith, and Fanny wrote back a grossly
+  happy letter to say that it was &quot;ALL beautiful.&quot; Miss Winchelsea
+  hoped that some day Mr. Senoks might take up that slim book and
+  think for a moment of the donor. Fanny wrote several times before
+  and about her marriage, pursuing that fond legend of their &quot;ancient
+  friendship,&quot; and giving her happiness in the fullest detail. And
+  Miss Winchelsea wrote to Helen for the first time after the Roman
+  journey, saying nothing about the marriage, but expressing very
+  cordial feelings.</p>
+<p>They had been in Rome at Easter, and Fanny was married in the
+  August vacation. She wrote a garrulous letter to Miss Winchelsea,
+  describing her home-coming, and the astonishing arrangements
+  of their &quot;teeny weeny&quot; little house. Mr. Se'noks was now beginning
+  to assume a refinement in Miss Winchelsea's memory out of all
+  proportion to the facts of the case, and she tried in vain to imagine
+  his cultured greatness in a &quot;teeny weeny&quot; little house. &quot;Am busy
+  enamelling a cosey corner,&quot; said Fanny, sprawling to the end of her
+  third sheet, &quot;so excuse more.&quot; Miss Winchelsea answered in her
+  best style, gently poking fun at Fanny's arrangements and hoping
+  intensely that Mr. Sen'oks might see the letter. Only this hope
+  enabled her to write at all, answering not only that letter but
+  one in November and one at Christmas.</p>
+<p>The two latter communications contained urgent invitations for her
+  to come to Steely Bank on a Visit during the Christmas holidays.
+  She tried to think that HE had told her to ask that, but it was
+  too much like Fanny's opulent good-nature. She could not but believe
+  that he must be sick of his blunder by this time; and she had more
+  than a hope that he would presently write her a letter beginning
+  &quot;Dear Friend.&quot; Something subtly tragic in the separation was
+  a great support to her, a sad misunderstanding. To have been jilted
+  would have been intolerable. But he never wrote that letter beginning
+  &quot;Dear Friend.&quot;</p>
+<p>For two years Miss Winchelsea could not go to see her friends,
+  in spite of the reiterated invitations of Mrs. Sevenoaks--it became
+  full Sevenoaks in the second year. Then one day near the Easter
+  rest she felt lonely and without a soul to understand her in the
+  world, and her mind ran once more on what is called Platonic
+  friendship. Fanny was clearly happy and busy in her new sphere
+  of domesticity, but no doubt HE had his lonely hours. Did he ever
+  think of those days in Rome--gone now beyond recalling? No one
+  had understood her as he had done; no one in all the world. It
+  would be a sort of melancholy pleasure to talk to him again, and
+  what harm could it do? Why should she deny herself? That night
+  she wrote a sonnet, all but the last two lines of the octave--which
+  would not come, and the next day she composed a graceful little note
+  to tell Fanny she was coming down.</p>
+<p>And so she saw him again.</p>
+<p>Even at the first encounter it was evident he had changed; he seemed
+  stouter and less nervous, and it speedily appeared that his
+  conversation had already lost much of its old delicacy. There even
+  seemed a justification for Helen's description of weakness in his
+  face--in certain lights it WAS weak. He seemed busy and preoccupied
+  about his affairs, and almost under the impression that Miss Winchelsea
+  had come for the sake of Fanny. He discussed his dinner with Fanny
+  in an intelligent way. They only had one good long talk together,
+  and that came to nothing. He did not refer to Rome, and spent some
+  time abusing a man who had stolen an idea he had had for a text-book.
+  It did not seem a very wonderful idea to Miss Winchelsea. She
+  discovered he had forgotten the names of more than half the painters
+  whose work they had rejoiced over in Florence.</p>
+<p>It was a sadly disappointing week, and Miss Winchelsea was glad
+  when it came to an end. Under various excuses she avoided visiting
+  them again. After a time the visitor's room was occupied by their
+  two little boys, and Fanny's invitations ceased. The intimacy of
+  her letters had long since faded away.</p>
+<p>
+  13. A DREAM OF ARMAGEDDON</p>
+<p>The man with the white face entered the carriage at Rugby. He moved
+  slowly in spite of the urgency of his porter, and even while he was
+  still on the platform I noted how ill he seemed. He dropped into
+  the corner over against me with a sigh, made an incomplete attempt
+  to arrange his travelling shawl, and became motionless, with his
+  eyes staring vacantly. Presently he was moved by a sense of my
+  observation, looked up at me, and put out a spiritless hand for
+  his newspaper. Then he glanced again in my direction.</p>
+<p>I feigned to read. I feared I had unwittingly embarrassed him,
+  and in a moment I was surprised to find him speaking.</p>
+<p>&quot;I beg your pardon?&quot; said I.</p>
+<p>&quot;That book,&quot; he repeated, pointing a lean finger, &quot;is about 
+  dreams.&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;Obviously,&quot; I answered, for it was Fortnum-Roscoe's Dream States,
+  and the title was on the cover. He hung silent for a space as if
+  he sought words. &quot;Yes,&quot; he said at last, &quot;but they tell you nothing.&quot;
+  I did not catch his meaning for a second.</p>
+<p>&quot;They don't know,&quot; he added.</p>
+<p>I looked a little more attentively at his face.</p>
+<p>&quot;There are dreams,&quot; he said, &quot;and dreams.&quot;</p>
+<p>That sort of proposition I never dispute.</p>
+<p>&quot;I suppose--&quot; he hesitated. &quot;Do you ever dream? I mean vividly.&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;I dream very little,&quot; I answered. &quot;I doubt if I have three 
+  vivid
+  dreams in a year.&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;Ah!&quot; he said, and seemed for a moment to collect his thoughts.</p>
+<p>&quot;Your dreams don't mix with your memories?&quot; he asked abruptly.
+  &quot;You don't find yourself in doubt; did this happen or did it not?&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;Hardly ever. Except just for a momentary hesitation now and then.
+  I suppose few people do.&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;Does HE say--&quot; he indicated the book.</p>
+<p>&quot;Says it happens at times and gives the usual explanation about
+  intensity of impression and the like to account for its not happening
+  as a rule. I suppose you know something of these theories--&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;Very little--except that they are wrong.&quot;</p>
+<p>His emaciated hand played with the strap of the window for a time.
+  I prepared to resume reading, and that seemed to precipitate his
+  next remark. He leant forward almost as though he would touch me.</p>
+<p>&quot;Isn't there something called consecutive dreaming--that goes on
+  night after night?&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;I believe there is. There are cases given in most books on mental
+  trouble.&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;Mental trouble! Yes. I dare say there are. It's the right place
+  for them. But what I mean--&quot; He looked at his bony knuckles.
+  &quot;Is that sort of thing always dreaming? IS it dreaming? Or is it
+  something else? Mightn't it be something else?&quot;</p>
+<p>I should have snubbed his persistent conversation but for the drawn
+  anxiety of his face. I remember now the look of his faded eyes
+  and the lids red-stained--perhaps you know that look.</p>
+<p>&quot;I'm not just arguing about a matter of opinion,&quot; he said. &quot;The
+  thing's killing me.&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;Dreams?&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;If you call them dreams. Night after night. Vivid!--so vivid . . .
+  this--&quot; (he indicated the landscape that went streaming by the
+  window) &quot;seems unreal in comparison! I can scarcely remember who I am,
+  what business I am on. . . .&quot;</p>
+<p>He paused. &quot;Even now--&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;The dream is always the same--do you mean?&quot; I asked.</p>
+<p>&quot;It's over.&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;You mean?&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;I died.&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;Died?&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;Smashed and killed, and now, so much of me as that dream was,
+  is dead. Dead for ever. I dreamt I was another man, you know, living
+  in a different part of the world and in a different time. I dreamt
+  that night after night. Night after night I woke into that other
+  life. Fresh scenes and fresh happenings--until I came upon the last--&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;When you died?&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;When I died.&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;And since then--&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;No,&quot; he said. &quot;Thank God! That was the end of the dream. . 
+  . .&quot;</p>
+<p>It was clear I was in for this dream. And after all, I had an hour
+  before me, the light was fading fast, and Fortnum-Roscoe has
+  a dreary way with him. &quot;Living in a different time,&quot; I said:
+  &quot;do you mean in some different age?&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;Yes.&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;Past?&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;No, to come--to come.&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;The year three thousand, for example?&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;I don't know what year it was. I did when I was asleep, when I was
+  dreaming, that is, but not now--not now that I am awake. There's
+  a lot of things I have forgotten since I woke out of these dreams,
+  though I knew them at the time when I was--I suppose it was dreaming.
+  They called the year differently from our way of calling the year. . . .
+  What DID they call it?&quot; He put his hand to his forehead. &quot;No,&quot; 
+  said
+  he, &quot;I forget.&quot;</p>
+<p>He sat smiling weakly. For a moment I feared he did not mean to tell
+  me his dream. As a rule I hate people who tell their dreams, but
+  this struck me differently. I proffered assistance even. &quot;It began--&quot;
+  I suggested.</p>
+<p>&quot;It was vivid from the first. I seemed to wake up in it suddenly.
+  And it's curious that in these dreams I am speaking of I never
+  remembered this life I am living now. It seemed as if the dream
+  life was enough while it lasted. Perhaps--But I will tell you how
+  I find myself when I do my best to recall it all. I don't remember
+  anything dearly until I found myself sitting in a sort of loggia
+  looking out over the sea. I had been dozing, and suddenly I woke
+  up--fresh and vivid--not a bit dream-like--because the girl had
+  stopped fanning me.&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;The girl?&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;Yes, the girl. You must not interrupt or you will put me out.&quot;</p>
+<p>He stopped abruptly. &quot;You won't think I'm mad?&quot; he said.</p>
+<p>&quot;No,&quot; I answered; &quot;you've been dreaming. Tell me your dream.&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;I woke up, I say, because the girl had stopped fanning me. I was
+  not surprised to find myself there or anything of that sort, you
+  understand. I did not feel I had fallen into it suddenly. I simply
+  took it up at that point. Whatever memory I had of THIS life,
+  this nineteenth-century life, faded as I woke, vanished like
+  a dream. I knew all about myself, knew that my name was no longer
+  Cooper but Hedon, and all about my position in the world. I've
+  forgotten a lot since I woke--there's a want of connection--but
+  it was all quite clear and matter of fact then.&quot;</p>
+<p>He hesitated again, gripping the window strap, putting his face
+  forward and looking up at me appealingly.</p>
+<p>&quot;This seems bosh to you?&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;No, no!&quot; I cried. &quot;Go on. Tell me what this loggia was like.&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;It was not really a loggia--I don't know what to call it. It faced
+  south. It was small. It was all in shadow except the semicircle
+  above the balcony that showed the sky and sea and the corner where
+  the girl stood. I was on a couch--it was a metal couch with light
+  striped cushions-and the girl was leaning over the balcony with
+  her back to me. The light of the sunrise fell on her ear and cheek.
+  Her pretty white neck and the little curls that nestled there,
+  and her white shoulder were in the sun, and all the grace of her
+  body was in the cool blue shadow. She was dressed--how can I describe
+  it? It was easy and flowing. And altogether there she stood, so that
+  it came to me how beautiful and desirable she was, as though I had
+  never seen her before. And when at last I sighed and raised myself
+  upon my arm she turned her face to me--&quot;</p>
+<p>He stopped.</p>
+<p>&quot;I have lived three-and-fifty years in this world. I have had mother,
+  sisters, friends, wife, and daughters--all their faces, the play
+  of their faces, I know. But the face of this girl--it is much more
+  real to me. I can bring it back into memory so that I see it
+  again--I could draw it or paint it. And after all--&quot;</p>
+<p>He stopped--but I said nothing.</p>
+<p>&quot;The face of a dream--the face of a dream. She was beautiful. Not
+  that beauty which is terrible, cold, and worshipful, like the beauty
+  of a saint; nor that beauty that stirs fierce passions; but a sort
+  of radiation, sweet lips that softened into smiles, and grave grey
+  eyes. And she moved gracefully, she seemed to have part with all
+  pleasant and gracious things--&quot;</p>
+<p>He stopped, and his face was downcast and hidden. Then he looked up
+  at me and went on, making no further attempt to disguise his absolute
+  belief in the reality of his story.</p>
+<p>&quot;You see, I had thrown up my plans and ambitions, thrown up all
+  I had ever worked for or desired for her sake. I had been a master
+  man away there in the north, with influence and property and a great
+  reputation, but none of it had seemed worth having beside her.
+  I had come to the place, this city of sunny pleasures, with her,
+  and left all those things to wreck and ruin just to save a remnant
+  at least of my life. While I had been in love with her before I knew
+  that she had any care for me, before I had imagined that she would
+  dare--that we should dare, all my life had seemed vain and hollow,
+  dust and ashes. It WAS dust and ashes. Night after night and through
+  the long days I had longed and desired--my soul had beaten against
+  the thing forbidden!</p>
+<p>&quot;But it is impossible for one man to tell another just these things.
+  It's emotion, it's a tint, a light that comes and goes. Only while
+  it's there, everything changes, everything. The thing is I came
+  away and left them in their Crisis to do what they could.&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;Left whom?&quot; I asked, puzzled.</p>
+<p>&quot;The people up in the north there. You see--in this dream, anyhow-- I 
+  had been a big man, the sort of man men come to trust in, to group themselves 
+  about. Millions of men who had never seen me were ready to do things and risk 
+  things because of their confidence in me. I had been playing that game for years, 
+  that big laborious game, that vague, monstrous political game amidst intrigues 
+  and betrayals, speech and agitation. It was a vast weltering world, and at last 
+  I had a sort of leadership against the Gang--you know it was called the Gang--a 
+  sort of compromise of scoundrelly projects and base ambitions and vast public 
+  emotional stupidities and catchwords-- the Gang that kept the world noisy and 
+  blind year by year, and all the while that it was drifting, drifting towards 
+  infinite disaster. But I can't expect you to understand the shades and complications 
+  of the year--the year something or other ahead. I had it all down to the smallest 
+  details--in my dream. I suppose I had been dreaming of it before I awoke, and 
+  the fading outline of some queer new development I had imagined still hung about 
+  me as I rubbed my eyes. It was some grubby affair that made me thank God for 
+  the sunlight. I sat up on the couch and remained looking at the woman and rejoicing-- 
+  rejoicing that I had come away out of all that tumult and folly and violence 
+  before it was too late. After all, I thought, this is life--love and beauty, 
+  desire and delight, are they not worth all those dismal struggles for vague, 
+  gigantic ends? And I blamed myself for having ever sought to be a leader when 
+  I might have given my days to love. But then, thought I, if I had not spent 
+  my early days sternly and austerely, I might have wasted myself upon vain and 
+  worthless women, and at the thought all my being went out in love and tenderness 
+  to my dear mistress, my dear lady, who had come at last and compelled me--compelled 
+  me by her invincible charm for me--to lay that life aside.</p>
+<p>&quot;'You are worth it,' I said, speaking without intending her to hear;
+  'you are worth it, my dearest one; worth pride and praise and all
+  things. Love! to have YOU is worth them all together.' And at
+  the murmur of my voice she turned about.</p>
+<p>&quot;'Come and see,' she cried--I can hear her now--'come and see
+  the sunrise upon Monte Solaro.'</p>
+<p>&quot;I remember how I sprang to my feet and joined her at the balcony.
+  She put a white hand upon my shoulder and pointed towards great
+  masses of limestone, flushing, as it were, into life. I looked.
+  But first I noted the sunlight on her face caressing the lines
+  of her cheeks and neck. How can I describe to you the scene we had
+  before us? We were at Capri--&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;I have been there,&quot; I said. &quot;I have clambered up Monte Solaro
+  and drunk vero Capri--muddy stuff like cider--at the summit.&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;Ah!&quot; said the man with the white face; &quot;then perhaps you can 
+  tell
+  me--you will know if this was indeed Capri. For in this life I have
+  never been there. Let me describe it. We were in a little room,
+  one of a vast multitude of little rooms, very cool and sunny, hollowed
+  out of the limestone of a sort of cape, very high above the sea.
+  The whole island, you know, was one enormous hotel, complex beyond
+  explaining, and on the other side there were miles of floating hotels,
+  and huge floating stages to which the flying machines came. They
+  called it a pleasure city. Of course, there was none of that in your
+  time rather, I should say, IS none of that NOW. Of course. Now!--yes.</p>
+<p>&quot;Well, this room of ours was at the extremity of the cape, so that
+  one could see east and west. Eastward was a great cliff--a thousand
+  feet high perhaps--coldly grey except for one bright edge of gold,
+  and beyond it the Isle of the Sirens, and a falling coast that
+  faded and passed into the hot sunrise. And when one turned to
+  the west, distinct and near was a little bay, a little beach still
+  in shadow. And out of that shadow rose Solaro straight and tall,
+  flushed and golden crested, like a beauty throned, and the white
+  moon was floating behind her in the sky. And before us from east to
+  west stretched the many-tinted sea all dotted with little sailing
+  boats.</p>
+<p>&quot;To the eastward, of course, these little boats were grey and very
+  minute and clear, but to the westward they were little boats of gold--
+  shining gold--almost like little flames. And just below us was
+  a rock with an arch worn through it. The blue sea-water broke
+  to green and foam all round the rock, and a galley came gliding
+  out of the arch.&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;I know that rock,&quot; I said. &quot;I was nearly drowned there. It 
+  is called
+  the Faraglioni.&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;I Faraglioni? Yes, she called it that,&quot; answered the man with
+  the white face. &quot;There was some story--but that--&quot;</p>
+<p>He put his hand to his forehead again. &quot;No,&quot; he said, &quot;I forget
+  that story.&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;Well, that is the first thing I remember, the first dream I had,
+  that little shaded room and the beautiful air and sky and that
+  dear lady of mine, with her shining arms and her graceful robe,
+  and how we sat and talked in half whispers to one another. We talked
+  in whispers not because there was any one to hear, but because there
+  was still such a freshness of mind between us that our thoughts were
+  a little frightened, I think, to find themselves at last in words.
+  And so they went softly.</p>
+<p>&quot;Presently we were hungry and we went from our apartment, going
+  by a strange passage with a moving floor, until we came to the great
+  breakfast room--there was a fountain and music. A pleasant and
+  joyful place it was, with its sunlight and splashing, and the murmur
+  of plucked strings. And we sat and ate and smiled at one another,
+  and I would not heed a man who was watching me from a table near by.</p>
+<p>&quot;And afterwards we went on to the dancing-hall. But I cannot
+  describe that hall. The place was enormous--larger than any building
+  you have ever seen--and in one place there was the old gate of Capri,
+  caught into the wall of a gallery high overhead. Light girders,
+  stems and threads of gold, burst from the pillars like fountains,
+  streamed like an Aurora across the roof and interlaced, like--
+  like conjuring tricks. All about the great circle for the dancers
+  there were beautiful figures, strange dragons, and intricate and
+  wonderful grotesques bearing lights. The place was inundated
+  with artificial light that shamed the newborn day. And as we went
+  through the throng the people turned about and looked at us, for
+  all through the world my name and face were known, and how I had
+  suddenly thrown up pride and struggle to come to this place. And
+  they looked also at the lady beside me, though half the story of how
+  at last she had come to me was unknown or mistold. And few of the
+  men who were there, I know, but judged me a happy man, in spite
+  of all the shame and dishonour that had come upon my name.</p>
+<p>&quot;The air was full of music, full of harmonious scents, full of
+  the rhythm of beautiful motions. Thousands of beautiful people
+  swarmed about the hall, crowded the galleries, sat in a myriad
+  recesses; they were dressed in splendid colours and crowned
+  with flowers; thousands danced about the great circle beneath
+  the white images of the ancient gods, and glorious processions
+  of youths and maidens came and went. We two danced, not the dreary
+  monotonies of your days--of this time, I mean--but dances that were
+  beautiful, intoxicating. And even now I can see my lady dancing--
+  dancing joyously. She danced, you know, with a serious face; she
+  danced with a serious dignity, and yet she was smiling at me and
+  caressing me--smiling and caressing with her eyes.</p>
+<p>&quot;The music was different,&quot; he murmured. &quot;It went--I cannot describe
+  it; but it was infinitely richer and more varied than any music
+  that has ever come to me awake.</p>
+<p>&quot;And then--it was when we had done dancing--a man came to speak to
+  me. He was a lean, resolute man, very soberly clad for that place,
+  and already I had marked his face watching me in the breakfasting
+  hall, and afterwards as we went along the passage I had avoided his
+  eye. But now, as we sat in a little alcove, smiling at the pleasure
+  of all the people who went to and fro across the shining floor, he
+  came and touched me, and spoke to me so that I was forced to listen.
+  And he asked that he might speak to me for a little time apart.</p>
+<p>&quot;'No,' I said. 'I have no secrets from this lady. What do you want
+  to tell me?'</p>
+<p>&quot;He said it was a trivial matter, or at least a dry matter, for
+  a lady to hear.</p>
+<p>&quot;'Perhaps for me to hear,' said I.</p>
+<p>&quot;He glanced at her, as though almost he would appeal to her. Then he
+  asked me suddenly if I had heard of a great and avenging declaration
+  that Evesham had made. Now, Evesham had always before been the man
+  next to myself in the leadership of that great party in the north.
+  He was a forcible, hard and tactless man, and only I had been able
+  to control and soften him. It was on his account even more than
+  my own, I think, that the others had been so dismayed at my retreat.
+  So this question about what he had done reawakened my old interest
+  in the life I had put aside just for a moment.</p>
+<p>&quot;'I have taken no heed of any news for many days,' I said. 'What
+  has Evesham been saying?'</p>
+<p>&quot;And with that the man began, nothing loath, and I must confess
+  even I was struck by Evesham's reckless folly in the wild and
+  threatening words he had used. And this messenger they had sent
+  to me not only told me of Evesham's speech, but went on to ask
+  counsel and to point out what need they had of me. While he talked,
+  my lady sat a little forward and watched his face and mine.</p>
+<p>&quot;My old habits of scheming and organising reasserted themselves.
+  I could even see myself suddenly returning to the north, and all
+  the dramatic effect of it. All that this man said witnessed to
+  the disorder of the party indeed, but not to its damage. I should
+  go back stronger than I had come. And then I thought of my lady.
+  You see--how can I tell you? There were certain peculiarities of our
+  relationship--as things are I need not tell you about that--which
+  would render her presence with me impossible. I should have had
+  to leave her; indeed, I should have had to renounce her clearly
+  and openly, if I was to do all that I could do in the north. And
+  the man knew THAT, even as he talked to her and me, knew it as well
+  as she did, that my steps to duty were--first, separation, then
+  abandonment. At the touch of that thought my dream of a return
+  was shattered. I turned on the man suddenly, as he was imagining
+  his eloquence was gaining ground with me.</p>
+<p>&quot;'What have I to do with these things now?' I said. 'I have done
+  with them. Do you think I am coquetting with your people in coming
+  here?'</p>
+<p>&quot;'No,' he said; 'but--'</p>
+<p>&quot;'Why cannot you leave me alone? I have done with these things.
+  I have ceased to be anything but a private man.'</p>
+<p>&quot;'Yes,' he answered. 'But have you thought?--this talk of war,
+  these reckless challenges, these wild aggressions--'</p>
+<p>&quot;I stood up.</p>
+<p>&quot;'No,' I cried. 'I won't hear you. I took count of all those things,
+  I weighed them--and I have come away.'</p>
+<p>&quot;He seemed to consider the possibility of persistence. He looked
+  from me to where the lady sat regarding us.</p>
+<p>&quot;'War,' he said, as if he were speaking to himself, and then turned
+  slowly from me and walked away. I stood, caught in the whirl of
+  thoughts his appeal had set going.</p>
+<p>&quot;I heard my lady's voice.</p>
+<p>&quot;'Dear,' she said; 'but if they have need of you--'</p>
+<p>&quot;She did not finish her sentence, she let it rest there. I turned
+  to her sweet face, and the balance of my mood swayed and reeled.</p>
+<p>&quot;'They want me only to do the thing they dare not do themselves,' I
+  said. 'If they distrust Evesham they must settle with him themselves.'</p>
+<p>&quot;She looked at me doubtfully.</p>
+<p>&quot;'But war--' she said.</p>
+<p>&quot;I saw a doubt on her face that I had seen before, a doubt of herself
+  and me, the first shadow of the discovery that, seen strongly and
+  completely, must drive us apart for ever.</p>
+<p>&quot;Now, I was an older mind than hers, and I could sway her to this
+  belief or that.</p>
+<p>&quot;'My dear one,' I said, 'you must not trouble over these things.
+  There will be no war. Certainly there will be no war. The age
+  of wars is past. Trust me to know the justice of this case. They
+  have no right upon me, dearest, and no one has a right upon me.
+  I have been free to choose my life, and I have chosen this.'</p>
+<p>&quot;'But WAR--' she said.</p>
+<p>&quot;I sat down beside her. I put an arm behind her and took her hand
+  in mine. I set myself to drive that doubt away--I set myself to fill
+  her mind with pleasant things again. I lied to her, and in lying
+  to her I lied also to myself. And she was only too ready to believe
+  me, only too ready to forget.</p>
+<p>&quot;Very soon the shadow had gone again, and we were hastening to our bathing-place 
+  in the Grotta del Bovo Marino, where it was our custom to bathe every day. We 
+  swam and splashed one another, and in that buoyant water I seemed to become 
+  something lighter and stronger than a man. And at last we came out dripping 
+  and rejoicing and raced among the rocks. And then I put on a dry bathing-dress, 
+  and we sat to bask in the sun, and presently I nodded, resting my head against 
+  her knee, and she put her hand upon my hair and stroked it softly and I dozed. 
+  And behold! as it were with the snapping of the string of a violin, I was awakening, 
+  and I was in my own bed in Liverpool, in the life of to-day. </p>
+<p>&quot;Only for a time I could not believe that all these vivid moments
+  had been no more than the substance of a dream.</p>
+<p>&quot;In truth, I could not believe it a dream for all the sobering
+  reality of things about me. I bathed and dressed as it were by habit,
+  and as I shaved I argued why I of all men should leave the woman
+  I loved to go back to fantastic politics in the hard and strenuous
+  north. Even if Evesham did force the world back to war, what was
+  that to me? I was a man, with the heart of a man, and why should
+  I feel the responsibility of a deity for the way the world might go?</p>
+<p>&quot;You know that is not quite the way I think about affairs, about
+  my real affairs. I am a solicitor, you know, with a point of view.</p>
+<p>&quot;The vision was so real, you must understand, so utterly unlike
+  a dream that I kept perpetually recalling little irrelevant details;
+  even the ornament of a book-cover that lay on my wife's sewing-machine
+  in the breakfast-room recalled with the utmost vividness the gilt
+  line that ran about the seat in the alcove where I had talked with
+  the messenger from my deserted party. Have you ever heard of
+  a dream that had a quality like that?&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;Like--?&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;So that afterwards you remembered little details you had forgotten.&quot;</p>
+<p>I thought. I had never noticed the point before, but he was right.</p>
+<p>&quot;Never,&quot; I said. &quot;That is what you never seem to do with dreams.&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;No,&quot; he answered. &quot;But that is just what I did. I am a solicitor,
+  you must understand, in Liverpool, and I could not help wondering
+  what the clients and business people I found myself talking to in
+  my office would think if I told them suddenly I was in love with a
+  girl who would be born a couple of hundred years or so hence, and
+  worried about the politics of my great-great-great-grandchildren.
+  I was chiefly busy that day negotiating a ninety-nine-year building
+  lease. It was a private builder in a hurry, and we wanted to tie him
+  in every possible way. I had an interview with him, and he showed a
+  certain want of temper that sent me to bed still irritated. That night
+  I had no dream. Nor did I dream the next night, at least, to remember.</p>
+<p>&quot;Something of that intense reality of conviction vanished. I began
+  to feel sure it WAS a dream. And then it came again.</p>
+<p>&quot;When the dream came again, nearly four days later, it was very
+  different. I think it certain that four days had also elapsed in
+  the dream. Many things had happened in the north, and the shadow
+  of them was back again between us, and this time it was not so
+  easily dispelled. I began, I know, with moody musings. Why, inspite
+  of all, should I go back, go back for all the rest of my days to toil
+  and stress, insults and perpetual dissatisfaction, simply to save
+  hundreds of millions of common people, whom I did not love, whom
+  too often I could do no other than despise, from the stress and
+  anguish of war and infinite misrule? And after all I might fail.
+  THEY all sought their own narrow ends, and why should not I--why
+  should not I also live as a man? And out of such thoughts her voice
+  summoned me, and I lifted my eyes.</p>
+<p>&quot;I found myself awake and walking. We had come out above the Pleasure
+  City, we were near the summit of Monte Solaro and looking towards the
+  bay. It was the late afternoon and very clear. Far away to the left
+  Ischia hung in a golden haze between sea. and sky, and Naples was
+  coldly white against the hills, and before us was Vesuvius with a
+  tall and slender streamer feathering at last towards the south, and
+  the ruins of Torre dell' Annunziata and Castellamare glittering and
+  near.&quot;</p>
+<p>I interrupted suddenly: &quot;You have been to Capri, of course?&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;Only in this dream,&quot; he said, &quot;only in this dream. All across
+  the bay beyond Sorrento were the floating palaces of the Pleasure City
+  moored and chained. And northward were the broad floating stages
+  that received the aeroplanes. Aeroplanes fell out of the sky every
+  afternoon, each bringing its thousands of pleasure-seekers from
+  the uttermost parts of the earth to Capri and its delights. All
+  these things, I say, stretched below.</p>
+<p>&quot;But we noticed them only incidentally because of an unusual sight
+  that evening had to show. Five war aeroplanes that had long slumbered
+  useless in the distant arsenals of the Rhinemouth were manoeuvring
+  now in the eastward sky. Evesham had astonished the world by
+  producing them and others, and sending them to circle here and
+  there. It was the threat material in the great game of bluff he was
+  playing, and it had taken even me by surprise. He was one of those
+  incredibly stupid energetic people who seem sent by Heaven to create
+  disasters. His energy to the first glance seemed so wonderfully
+  like capacity! But he had no imagination, no invention, only a stupid,
+  vast, driving force of will, and a mad faith in his stupid idiot
+  'luck' to pull him through. I remember how we stood out upon
+  the headland watching the squadron circling far away, and how
+  I weighed the full meaning of the sight, seeing clearly the way
+  things must go. And then even it was not too late. I might have
+  gone back, I think, and saved the world. The people of the north
+  would follow me, I knew, granted only that in one thing I respected
+  their moral standards. The east and south would trust me as they would
+  trust no other northern man. And I knew I had only to put it to her
+  and she would have let me go. . . . Not because she did not love me!</p>
+<p>&quot;Only I did not want to go; my will was all the other way about.
+  I had so newly thrown off the incubus of responsibility: I was still
+  so fresh a renegade from duty that the daylight clearness of what
+  I OUGHT to do had no power at all to touch my will. My will was
+  to live, to gather pleasures and make my dear lady happy. But
+  though this sense of vast neglected duties had no power to draw
+  me, it could make me silent and preoccupied, it robbed the days I had
+  spent of half their brightness and roused me into dark meditations
+  in the silence of the night. And as I stood and watched Evesham's
+  aeroplanes sweep to and fro--those birds of infinite ill omen--she
+  stood beside me watching me, perceiving the trouble indeed, but not
+  perceiving it clearly her eyes questioning my face, her expression
+  shaded with perplexity. Her face was grey because the sunset was
+  fading out of the sky. It was no fault of hers that she held me.
+  She had asked me to go from her, and again in the night time and
+  with tears she had asked me to go.</p>
+<p>&quot;At last it was the sense of her that roused me from my mood. I
+  turned upon her suddenly and challenged her to race down the mountain
+  slopes. 'No,' she said, as if I jarred with her gravity, but I was
+  resolved to end that gravity, and made her run--no one can be very
+  grey and sad who is out of breath--and when she stumbled I ran with
+  my hand beneath her arm. We ran down past a couple of men, who turned
+  back staring in astonishment at my behaviour--they must have
+  recognised my face. And halfway down the slope came a tumult in the
+  air, clang-clank, clang-clank, and we stopped, and presently over the
+  hill-crest those war things came flying one behind the other.&quot;</p>
+<p>The man seemed hesitating on the verge of a description.</p>
+<p>&quot;What were they like?&quot; I asked.</p>
+<p>&quot;They had never fought,&quot; he said. &quot;They were just like our ironclads
+  are nowadays; they had never fought. No one knew what they might
+  do, with excited men inside them; few even cared to speculate.
+  They were great driving things shaped like spearheads without a shaft,
+  with a propeller in the place of the shaft.&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;Steel?&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;Not steel.&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;Aluminium?&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;No, no, nothing of that sort. An alloy that was very common--as
+  common as brass, for example. It was called--let me see--.&quot; He
+  squeezed his forehead with the fingers of one hand. &quot;I am forgetting
+  everything,&quot; he said.</p>
+<p>&quot;And they carried guns?&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;Little guns, firing high explosive shells. They fired the guns
+  backwards, out of the base of the leaf, so to speak, and rammed
+  with the beak. That was the theory, you know, but they had never
+  been fought. No one could tell exactly what was going to happen.
+  And meanwhile I suppose it was very fine to go whirling through
+  the air like a flight of young swallows, swift and easy. I guess
+  the captains tried not to think too clearly what the real thing
+  would be like. And these flying war machines, you know, were only
+  one sort of the endless war contrivances that had been invented
+  and had fallen into abeyance during the long peace. There were
+  all sorts of these things that people were routing out and furbishing
+  up; infernal things, silly things; things that had never been tried;
+  big engines, terrible explosives, great guns. You know the silly way
+  of these ingenious sort of men who make these things; they turn 'em
+  out as beavers build dams, and with no more sense of the rivers
+  they're going to divert and the lands they're going to flood!</p>
+<p>&quot;As we went down the winding stepway to our hotel again, in the
+  twilight, I foresaw it all: I saw how clearly and inevitably things
+  were driving for war in Evesham's silly, violent hands, and I had some
+  inkling of what war was bound to be under these new conditions. And
+  even then, though I knew it was drawing near the limit of my
+  opportunity, I could find no will to go back.&quot;</p>
+<p>He sighed.</p>
+<p>&quot;That was my last chance.</p>
+<p>&quot;We didn't go into the city until the sky was full of stars, so we
+  walked out upon the high terrace, to and fro, and--she counselled
+  me to go back.</p>
+<p>&quot;'My dearest,' she said, and her sweet face looked up to me,
+  'this is Death. This life you lead is Death. Go back to them,
+  go back to your duty--.'</p>
+<p>&quot;She began to weep, saying, between her sobs, and clinging to my arm
+  as she said it, 'Go back--Go back.'</p>
+<p>&quot;Then suddenly she fell mute, and, glancing down at her face, I read
+  in an instant the thing she had thought to do. It was one of those
+  moments when one SEES.</p>
+<p>&quot;'No!' I said.</p>
+<p>&quot;'No?' she asked, in surprise, and I think a little fearful at
+  the answer to her thought.</p>
+<p>&quot;'Nothing,' I said, 'shall send me back. Nothing! I have chosen.
+  Love, I have chosen, and the world must go. Whatever happens
+  I will live this life--I will live for YOU! It--nothing shall turn
+  me aside; nothing, my dear one. Even if you died--even if you died--'</p>
+<p>&quot;'Yes,' she murmured, softly.</p>
+<p>&quot;'Then--I also would die.'</p>
+<p>&quot;And before she could speak again I began to talk, talking eloquently--
+  as I COULD do in that life--talking to exalt love, to make the life
+  we were living seem heroic and glorious; and the thing I was
+  deserting something hard and enormously ignoble that it was a fine
+  thing to set aside. I bent all my mind to throw that glamour upon it,
+  seeking not only to convert her but myself to that. We talked, and
+  she clung to me, torn too between all that she deemed noble and all
+  that she knew was sweet. And at last I did make it heroic, made
+  all the thickening disaster of the world only a sort of glorious
+  setting to our unparalleled love, and we two poor foolish souls
+  strutted there at last, clad in that splendid delusion, drunken
+  rather with that glorious delusion, under the still stars.</p>
+<p>&quot;And so my moment passed.</p>
+<p>&quot;It was my last chance. Even as we went to and fro there, the leaders
+  of the south and east were gathering their resolve, and the hot
+  answer that shattered Evesham's bluffing for ever, took shape
+  and waited. And all over Asia, and the ocean, and the south, the air
+  and the wires were throbbing with their warnings to prepare--prepare.</p>
+<p>&quot;No one living, you know, knew what war was; no one could imagine,
+  with all these new inventions, what horror war might bring. I believe
+  most people still believed it would be a matter of bright uniforms
+  and shouting charges and triumphs and flags and bands--in a time when
+  half the world drew its food supply from regions ten thousand miles
+  away--.&quot;</p>
+<p>The man with the white face paused. I glanced at him, and his face
+  was intent on the floor of the carriage. A little railway station,
+  a string of loaded trucks, a signal-box, and the back of a cottage,
+  shot by the carriage window, and a bridge passed with a clap
+  of noise, echoing the tumult of the train.</p>
+<p>&quot;After that,&quot; he said, &quot;I dreamt often. For three weeks of nights
+  that dream was my life. And the worst of it was there were nights
+  when I could not dream, when I lay tossing on a bed in THIS
+  accursed life; and THERE--somewhere lost to me--things were
+  happening--momentous, terrible things. . . . I lived at nights--my days,
+  my waking days, this life I am living now, became a faded, far-away
+  dream, a drab setting, the cover of the book.&quot;</p>
+<p>He thought.</p>
+<p>&quot;I could tell you all, tell you every little thing in the dream,
+  but as to what I did in the daytime--no. I could not tell--I do not
+  remember. My memory--my memory has gone. The business of life
+  slips from me--&quot;</p>
+<p>He leant forward, and pressed his hands upon his eyes. For a long
+  time he said nothing.</p>
+<p>&quot;And then?&quot; said I.</p>
+<p>&quot;The war burst like a hurricane.&quot;</p>
+<p>He stared before him at unspeakable things.</p>
+<p>&quot;And then?&quot; I urged again.</p>
+<p>&quot;One touch of unreality,&quot; he said, in the low tone of a man who
+  speaks to himself, &quot;and they would have been nightmares. But they
+  were not nightmares--they were not nightmares. NO!&quot;</p>
+<p>He was silent for so long that it dawned upon me that there was
+  a danger of losing the rest of the story. But he went on talking
+  again in the same tone of questioning self-communion.</p>
+<p>&quot;What was there to do but flight? I had not thought the war would touch 
+  Capri--I had seemed to see Capri as being out of it all, as the contrast to 
+  it all; but two nights after the whole place was shouting and bawling, every 
+  woman almost and every other man wore a badge--Evesham's badge--and there was 
+  no music but a jangling war-song over and over again, and everywhere men enlisting, 
+  and in the dancing halls they were drilling. The whole island was awhirl with 
+  rumours; it was said, again and again, that fighting had begun. I had not expected 
+  this. I had seen so little of the life of pleasure that I had failed to reckon 
+  with this violence of the amateurs. And as for me, I was out of it. I was like 
+  a man who might have prevented the firing of a magazine. The time had gone. 
+  I was no one; the vainest stripling with a badge counted for more than I. The 
+  crowd jostled us and bawled in our ears; that accursed song deafened us; a woman 
+  shrieked at my lady because no badge was on her, and we two went back to our 
+  own place again, ruffled and insulted-- my lady white and silent, and I aquiver 
+  with rage. So furious was I, I could have quarrelled with her if I could have 
+  found one shade of accusation in her eyes.</p>
+<p>&quot;All my magnificence had gone from me. I walked up and down our rock
+  cell, and outside was the darkling sea and a light to the southward
+  that flared and passed and came again.</p>
+<p>&quot;'We must get out of this place,' I said over and over. 'I have
+  made my choice, and I will have no hand in these troubles. I will
+  have nothing of this war. We have taken our lives out of all these
+  things. This is no refuge for us. Let us go.'</p>
+<p>&quot;And the next day we were already in flight from the war that covered
+  the world.</p>
+<p>&quot;And all the rest was Flight--all the rest was Flight.&quot;</p>
+<p>He mused darkly.</p>
+<p>&quot;How much was there of it?&quot;</p>
+<p>He made no answer.</p>
+<p>&quot;How many days?&quot;</p>
+<p>His face was white and drawn and his hands were clenched. He took
+  no heed of my curiosity.</p>
+<p>I tried to draw him back to his story with questions.</p>
+<p>&quot;Where did you go?&quot; I said.</p>
+<p>&quot;When?&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;When you left Capri.&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;Southwest,&quot; he said, and glanced at me for a second. &quot;We went
+  in a boat.&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;But I should have thought an aeroplane?&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;They had been seized.&quot;</p>
+<p>I questioned him no more. Presently I thought he was beginning
+  again. He broke out in an argumentative monotone:</p>
+<p>&quot;But why should it be? If, indeed, this battle, this slaughter and
+  stress IS life, why have we this craving for pleasure and beauty?
+  If there IS no refuge, if there is no place of peace, and if all
+  our dreams of quiet places are a folly and a snare, why have we
+  such dreams? Surely it was no ignoble cravings, no base intentions,
+  had brought us to this; it was Love had isolated us. Love had come
+  to me with her eyes and robed in her beauty, more glorious than all
+  else in life, in the very shape and colour of life, and summoned me
+  away. I had silenced all the voices, I had answered all the questions--
+  I had come to her. And suddenly there was nothing but War and Death!&quot;</p>
+<p>I had an inspiration. &quot;After all,&quot; I said, &quot;it could have been 
+  only a
+  dream.&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;A dream!&quot; he cried, flaming upon me, &quot;a dream--when even now--&quot;</p>
+<p>For the first time he became animated. A faint flush crept into
+  his cheek. He raised his open hand and clenched it, and dropped
+  it to his knee. He spoke, looking away from me, and for all the rest
+  of the time he looked away. &quot;We are but phantoms,&quot; he said, &quot;and
+  the phantoms of phantoms, desires like cloud shadows and wills
+  of straw that eddy in the wind; the days pass, use and wont carry
+  us through as a train carries the shadow of its lights, so be it!
+  But one thing is real and certain, one thing is no dreamstuff,
+  but eternal and enduring. It is the centre of my life, and all
+  other things about it are subordinate or altogether vain. I loved
+  her, that woman of a dream. And she and I are dead together!</p>
+<p>&quot;A dream! How can it be a dream, when it drenched a living life
+  with unappeasable sorrow, when it makes all that I have lived for
+  and cared for, worthless and unmeaning?</p>
+<p>&quot;Until that very moment when she was killed I believed we had still
+  a chance of getting away,&quot; he said. &quot;All through the night and
+  morning that we sailed across the sea from Capri to Salerno,
+  we talked of escape. We were full of hope, and it clung about us
+  to the end, hope for the life together we should lead, out of
+  it all, out of the battle and struggle, the wild and empty passions,
+  the empty arbitrary 'thou shalt' and 'thou shalt not' of the world.
+  We were uplifted, as though our quest was a holy thing, as though
+  love for one another was a mission. . . .</p>
+<p>&quot;Even when from our boat we saw the fair face of that great rock
+  Capri--already scarred and gashed by the gun emplacements and
+  hiding-places that were to make it a fastness--we reckoned nothing
+  of the imminent slaughter, though the fury of preparation hung about
+  in puffs and clouds of dust at a hundred points amidst the grey;
+  but, indeed, I made a text of that and talked. There, you know,
+  was the rock, still beautiful, for all its scars, with its countless
+  windows and arches and ways, tier upon tier, for a thousand feet,
+  a vast carving of grey, broken by vine-clad terraces, and lemon
+  and orange groves, and masses of agave and prickly pear, and puffs
+  of almond blossom. And out under the archway that is built over
+  the Piccola Marina other boats were coming; and as we came round
+  the cape and within sight of the mainland, another little string of
+  boats came into view, driving before the wind towards the southwest.
+  In a little while a multitude had come out, the remoter just little
+  specks of ultramarine in the shadow of the eastward cliff.</p>
+<p>&quot;'It is love and reason,' I said, 'fleeing from all this madness, of
+  war.'</p>
+<p>&quot;And though we presently saw a squadron of aeroplanes flying across
+  the southern sky we did not heed it. There it was--a line of little
+  dots in the sky--and then more, dotting the southeastern horizon,
+  and then still more, until all that quarter of the sky was stippled
+  with blue specks. Now they were all thin little strokes of blue,
+  and now one and now a multitude would heel and catch the sun
+  and become short flashes of light. They came rising and falling
+  and growing larger, like some huge flight of gulls or rooks,
+  or such-like birds moving with a marvellous uniformity, and ever
+  as they drew nearer they spread over a greater width of sky.
+  The southward wing flung itself in an arrow-headed cloud athwart
+  the sun. And then suddenly they swept round to the eastward and
+  streamed eastward, growing smaller and smaller and clearer and
+  clearer again until they vanished from the sky. And after that we
+  noted to the northward and very high Evesham's fighting machines
+  hanging high over Naples like an evening swarm of gnats.</p>
+<p>&quot;It seemed to have no more to do with us than a flight of birds.</p>
+<p>&quot;Even the mutter of guns far away in the southeast seemed to us
+  to signify nothing. . . .</p>
+<p>&quot;Each day, each dream after that, we were still exalted, still
+  seeking that refuge where we might live and love. Fatigue had
+  come upon us, pain and many distresses. For though we were dusty
+  and stained by our toilsome tramping, and half starved and with the
+  horror of the dead men we had seen and the flight of the peasants--
+  for very soon a gust of fighting swept up the peninsula--with these
+  things haunting our minds it still resulted only in a deepening
+  resolution to escape. O, but she was brave and patient! She who had
+  never faced hardship and exposure had courage for herself--and me.
+  We went to and fro seeking an outlet, over a country all commandeered
+  and ransacked by the gathering hosts of war. Always we went on foot.
+  At first there were other fugitives, but we did not mingle with them.
+  Some escaped northward, some were caught in the torrent of peasantry
+  that swept along the main roads; many gave themselves into the hands
+  of the soldiery and were sent northward. Many of the men were
+  impressed. But we kept away from these things; we had brought no
+  money to bribe a passage north, and I feared for my lady at the hands
+  of these conscript crowds. We had landed at Salerno, and we had
+  been turned back from Cava, and we had tried to cross towards
+  Taranto by a pass over Mount Alburno, but we had been driven back
+  for want of food, and so we had come down among the marshes by Paestum,
+  where those great temples stand alone. I had some vague idea that
+  by Paestum it might be possible to find a boat or something, and take
+  once more to sea. And there it was the battle overtook us.</p>
+<p>&quot;A sort of soul-blindness had me. Plainly I could see that we were
+  being hemmed in; that the great net of that giant Warfare had us in
+  its toils. Many times we had seen the levies that had come down from
+  the north going to and fro, and had come upon them in the distance
+  amidst the mountains making ways for the ammunition and preparing
+  the mounting of the guns. Once we fancied they had fired at us,
+  taking us for spies--at any rate a shot had gone shuddering over us.
+  Several times we had hidden in woods from hovering aeroplanes.</p>
+<p>&quot;But all these things do not matter now, these nights of flight
+  and pain. . . . We were in an open place near those great temples
+  at Paestum, at last, on a blank stony place dotted with spiky
+  bushes, empty and desolate and so flat that a grove of eucalyptus
+  far away showed to the feet of its stems. How I can see it! My lady
+  was sitting down under a bush, resting a little, for she was very
+  weak and weary, and I was standing up watching to see if I could
+  tell the distance of the firing that came and went. They were still,
+  you know, fighting far from each other, with those terrible new
+  weapons that had never before been used: guns that would carry
+  beyond sight, and aeroplanes that would do--What THEY would do
+  no man could foretell.</p>
+<p>&quot;I knew that we were between the two armies, and that they drew
+  together. I knew we were in danger, and that we could not stop there
+  and rest!</p>
+<p>&quot;Though all these things were in my mind, they were in the background.
+  They seemed to be affairs beyond our concern. Chiefly, I was thinking
+  of my lady. An aching distress filled me. For the first time she
+  had owned herself beaten and had fallen a-weeping. Behind me
+  I could hear her sobbing, but I would not turn round to her because
+  I knew she had need of weeping, and had held herself so far and
+  so long for me. It was well, I thought, that she would weep and
+  rest and then we would toil on again, for I had no inkling of the thing
+  that hung so near. Even now I can see her as she sat there, her
+  lovely hair upon her shoulder, can mark again the deepening hollow
+  of her cheek.</p>
+<p>&quot;'If we had parted,' she said, &quot;if I had let you go.'</p>
+<p>&quot;'No,' said I. 'Even now, I do not repent. I will not repent;
+  I made my choice, and I will hold on to the end.&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;And then--</p>
+<p>&quot;Overhead in the sky something flashed and burst, and all about
+  us I heard the bullets making a noise like a handful of peas
+  suddenly thrown. They chipped the stones about us, and whirled
+  fragments from the bricks and passed. . . .&quot;</p>
+<p>He put his hand to his mouth, and then moistened his lips.</p>
+<p>&quot;At the flash I had turned about. . . .</p>
+<p>&quot;You know--she stood up--</p>
+<p>&quot;She stood up; you know, and moved a step towards me--</p>
+<p>&quot;As though she wanted to reach me--</p>
+<p>&quot;And she had been shot through the heart.&quot;</p>
+<p>He stopped and stared at me. I felt all that foolish incapacity
+  an Englishman feels on such occasions. I met his eyes for a moment,
+  and then stared out of the window. For a long space we kept silence.
+  When at last I looked at him he was sitting back in his corner,
+  his arms folded, and his teeth gnawing at his knuckles.</p>
+<p>He bit his nail suddenly, and stared at it.</p>
+<p>&quot;I carried her,&quot; he said, &quot;towards the temples, in my arms--as 
+  though
+  it mattered. I don't know why. They seemed a sort of sanctuary, you
+  know, they had lasted so long, I suppose.</p>
+<p>&quot;She must have died almost instantly. Only--I talked to her--all the
+  way.&quot;</p>
+<p>Silence again.</p>
+<p>&quot;I have seen those temples,&quot; I said abruptly, and indeed he had brought
+  those still, sunlit arcades of worn sandstone very vividly before me.</p>
+<p>&quot;It was the brown one, the big brown one. I sat down on a fallen pillar
+  and held her in my arms. . . . Silent after the first babble was over.
+  And after a little while the lizards came out and ran about again,
+  as though nothing unusual was going on, as though nothing had
+  changed. . . . It was tremendously still there, the sun high, and the
+  shadows still; even the shadows of the weeds upon the entablature were
+  still--in spite of the thudding and banging that went all about the sky.</p>
+<p>&quot;I seem to remember that the aeroplanes came up out of the south, and 
+  that the battle went away to the west. One aeroplane was struck, and overset 
+  and fell. I remember that--though it didn't interest me in the least. It didn't 
+  seem to signify. It was like a wounded gull, you know--flapping for a time in 
+  the water. I could see it down the aisle of the temple--a black thing in the 
+  bright blue water.</p>
+<p>&quot;Three or four times shells burst about the beach, and then that
+  ceased. Each time that happened all the lizards scuttled in and hid
+  for a space. That was all the mischief done, except that once a stray
+  bullet gashed the stone hard by--made just a fresh bright surface.</p>
+<p>&quot;As the shadows grew longer, the stillness seemed greater.</p>
+<p>&quot;The curious thing,&quot; he remarked, with the manner of a man who
+  makes a trivial conversation, &quot;is that I didn't THINK--I didn't
+  think at all. I sat with her in my arms amidst the stones--in a sort
+  of lethargy--stagnant.</p>
+<p>&quot;And I don't remember waking up. I don't remember dressing that day.
+  I know I found myself in my office, with my letters all slit open
+  in front of me, and how I was struck by the absurdity of being
+  there, seeing that in reality I was sitting, stunned, in that Paestum
+  temple with a dead woman in my arms. I read my letters like a machine.
+  I have forgotten what they were about.&quot;</p>
+<p>He stopped, and there was a long silence.</p>
+<p>Suddenly I perceived that we were running down the incline from
+  Chalk Farm to Euston. I started at this passing of time. I turned
+  on him with a brutal question, with the tone of Now or never.</p>
+<p>&quot;And did you dream again?&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;Yes.&quot;</p>
+<p>He seemed to force himself to finish. His voice was very low.</p>
+<p>&quot;Once more, and as it were only for a few instants. I seemed
+  to have suddenly awakened out of a great apathy, to have risen
+  into a sitting position, and the body lay there on the stones beside
+  me. A gaunt body. Not her, you know. So soon--it was not her. . . .</p>
+<p>&quot;I may have heard voices. I do not know. Only I knew clearly that
+  men were coming into the solitude and that that was a last outrage.</p>
+<p>&quot;I stood up and walked through the temple, and then there came into
+  sight--first one man with a yellow face, dressed in a uniform
+  of dirty white, trimmed with blue, and then several, climbing
+  to the crest of the old wall of the vanished city, and crouching
+  there. They were little bright figures in the sunlight, and there
+  they hung, weapon in hand, peering cautiously before them.</p>
+<p>&quot;And further away I saw others and then more at another point
+  in the wall. It was a long lax line of men in open order.</p>
+<p>&quot;Presently the man I had first seen stood up and shouted a command,
+  and his men came tumbling down the wall and into the high weeds
+  towards the temple. He scrambled down with them and led them.
+  He came facing towards me, and when he saw me he stopped.</p>
+<p>&quot;At first I had watched these men with a mere curiosity, but when
+  I had seen they meant to come to the temple I was moved to forbid
+  them. I shouted to the officer.</p>
+<p>&quot;'You must not come here,' I cried, '<i>I </i>am here. I am here with 
+  my dead.'</p>
+<p>&quot;He stared, and then shouted a question back to me in some unknown
+  tongue.</p>
+<p>&quot;I repeated what I had said.</p>
+<p>&quot;He shouted again, and I folded my arms and stood still. Presently
+  he spoke to his men and came forward. He carried a drawn sword.</p>
+<p>&quot;I signed to him to keep away, but he continued to advance. I told
+  him again very patiently and clearly: 'You must not come here.
+  These are old temples and I am here with my dead.'</p>
+<p>&quot;Presently he was so close I could see his face clearly. It was
+  a narrow face, with dull grey eyes, and a black moustache. He had
+  a scar on his upper lip, and he was dirty and unshaven. He kept
+  shouting unintelligible things, questions perhaps, at me.</p>
+<p>&quot;I know now that he was afraid of me, but at the time that did not
+  occur to me. As I tried to explain to him he interrupted me in
+  imperious tones, bidding me, I suppose, stand aside.</p>
+<p>&quot;He made to go past me, And I caught hold of him.</p>
+<p>&quot;I saw his face change at my grip.</p>
+<p>&quot;'You fool,' I cried. 'Don't you know? She is dead!'</p>
+<p>&quot;He started back. He looked at me with cruel eyes. I saw a sort
+  of exultant resolve leap into them--delight. Then, suddenly,
+  with a scowl, he swept his sword back--SO--and thrust.&quot;</p>
+<p>He stopped abruptly. I became aware of a change in the rhythm
+  of the train. The brakes lifted their voices and the carriage
+  jarred and jerked. This present world insisted upon itself, became
+  clamorous. I saw through the steamy window huge electric lights
+  glaring down from tall masts upon a fog, saw rows of stationary
+  empty carriages passing by, and then a signal-box, hoisting its
+  constellation of green and red into the murky London twilight marched
+  after them. I looked again at his drawn features.</p>
+<p>&quot;He ran me through the heart. It was with a sort of astonishment--
+  no fear, no pain--but just amazement, that I felt it pierce me,
+  felt the sword drive home into my body. It didn't hurt, you know.
+  It didn't hurt at all.&quot;</p>
+<p>The yellow platform lights came into the field of view, passing
+  first rapidly, then slowly, and at last stopping with a jerk.
+  Dim shapes of men passed to and fro without.</p>
+<p>&quot;Euston!&quot; cried a voice.</p>
+<p>&quot;Do you mean--?&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;There was no pain, no sting or smart. Amazement and then darkness
+  sweeping over everything. The hot, brutal face before me, the face
+  of the man who had killed me, seemed to recede. It swept out of
+  existence--&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;Euston!&quot; clamoured the voices outside; &quot;Euston!&quot;</p>
+<p>The carriage door opened, admitting a flood of sound, and a porter
+  stood regarding us. The sounds of doors slamming, and the hoof-clatter
+  of cab-horses, and behind these things the featureless remote roar
+  of the London cobble-stones, came to my ears. A truckload of lighted
+  lamps blazed along the platform.</p>
+<p>&quot;A darkness, a flood of darkness that opened and spread and blotted
+  out all things.&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;Any luggage, sir?&quot; said the porter.</p>
+<p>&quot;And that was the end?&quot; I asked.</p>
+<p>He seemed to hesitate. Then, almost inaudibly, he answered, &quot;No.&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;You mean?&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;I couldn't get to her. She was there on the other side of the Temple--
+  And then--&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;Yes,&quot; I insisted. &quot;Yes?&quot;</p>
+<p>&quot;Nightmares,&quot; he cried; &quot;nightmares indeed! My God! Great birds
+  that fought and tore.&quot;</p>
+<p></p>
+<p></p>
+<p>End of the Project Gutenberg etext of Twelve Stories and a Dream by H.G. Wells</p>
+<pre>
+
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