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+The Project Gutenberg Etext of Novel Notes, by Jerome K. Jerome
+#18 in our series by Jerome K. Jerome
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+Novel Notes
+
+by Jerome K. Jerome
+
+January, 2000 [Etext #2037]
+
+
+The Project Gutenberg Etext of Novel Notes, by Jerome K. Jerome
+*****This file should be named nvlnt10.txt or nvlnt10.zip******
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+This etext was prepared by David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk
+from the 1893 Leadenhall Press Ltd. edition.
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+This etext was prepared by David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk
+from the 1893 Leadenhall Press Ltd. edition.
+
+
+
+
+
+NOVEL NOTES
+
+by Jerome K. Jerome
+
+
+
+
+PROLOGUE
+
+
+
+Years ago, when I was very small, we lived in a great house in a
+long, straight, brown-coloured street, in the east end of London.
+It was a noisy, crowded street in the daytime; but a silent,
+lonesome street at night, when the gas-lights, few and far between,
+partook of the character of lighthouses rather than of illuminants,
+and the tramp, tramp of the policeman on his long beat seemed to be
+ever drawing nearer, or fading away, except for brief moments when
+the footsteps ceased, as he paused to rattle a door or window, or to
+flash his lantern into some dark passage leading down towards the
+river.
+
+The house had many advantages, so my father would explain to friends
+who expressed surprise at his choosing such a residence, and among
+these was included in my own small morbid mind the circumstance that
+its back windows commanded an uninterrupted view of an ancient and
+much-peopled churchyard.  Often of a night would I steal from
+between the sheets, and climbing upon the high oak chest that stood
+before my bedroom window, sit peering down fearfully upon the aged
+gray tombstones far below, wondering whether the shadows that crept
+among them might not be ghosts--soiled ghosts that had lost their
+natural whiteness by long exposure to the city's smoke, and had
+grown dingy, like the snow that sometimes lay there.
+
+I persuaded myself that they were ghosts, and came, at length, to
+have quite a friendly feeling for them.  I wondered what they
+thought when they saw the fading letters of their own names upon the
+stones, whether they remembered themselves and wished they were
+alive again, or whether they were happier as they were.  But that
+seemed a still sadder idea.
+
+One night, as I sat there watching, I felt a hand upon my shoulder.
+I was not frightened, because it was a soft, gentle hand that I well
+knew, so I merely laid my cheek against it.
+
+"What's mumma's naughty boy doing out of bed?  Shall I beat him?"
+And the other hand was laid against my other cheek, and I could feel
+the soft curls mingling with my own.
+
+"Only looking at the ghosts, ma," I answered.  "There's such a lot
+of 'em down there."  Then I added, musingly, "I wonder what it feels
+like to be a ghost."
+
+My mother said nothing, but took me up in her arms, and carried me
+back to bed, and then, sitting down beside me, and holding my hand
+in hers--there was not so very much difference in the size--began to
+sing in that low, caressing voice of hers that always made me feel,
+for the time being, that I wanted to be a good boy, a song she often
+used to sing to me, and that I have never heard any one else sing
+since, and should not care to.
+
+But while she sang, something fell on my hand that caused me to sit
+up and insist on examining her eyes.  She laughed; rather a strange,
+broken little laugh, I thought, and said it was nothing, and told me
+to lie still and go to sleep.  So I wriggled down again and shut my
+eyes tight, but I could not understand what had made her cry.
+
+Poor little mother, she had a notion, founded evidently upon inborn
+belief rather than upon observation, that all children were angels,
+and that, in consequence, an altogether exceptional demand existed
+for them in a certain other place, where there are more openings for
+angels, rendering their retention in this world difficult and
+undependable.  My talk about ghosts must have made that foolishly
+fond heart ache with a vague dread that night, and for many a night
+onward, I fear.
+
+For some time after this I would often look up to find my mother's
+eyes fixed upon me.  Especially closely did she watch me at feeding
+times, and on these occasions, as the meal progressed, her face
+would acquire an expression of satisfaction and relief.
+
+Once, during dinner, I heard her whisper to my father (for children
+are not quite so deaf as their elders think), "He seems to eat all
+right."
+
+"Eat!" replied my father in the same penetrating undertone; "if he
+dies of anything, it will be of eating."
+
+So my little mother grew less troubled, and, as the days went by,
+saw reason to think that my brother angels might consent to do
+without me for yet a while longer; and I, putting away the child
+with his ghostly fancies, became, in course of time, a grown-up
+person, and ceased to believe in ghosts, together with many other
+things that, perhaps, it were better for a man if he did believe in.
+
+But the memory of that dingy graveyard, and of the shadows that
+dwelt therein, came back to me very vividly the other day, for it
+seemed to me as though I were a ghost myself, gliding through the
+silent streets where once I had passed swiftly, full of life.
+
+Diving into a long unopened drawer, I had, by chance, drawn forth a
+dusty volume of manuscript, labelled upon its torn brown paper
+cover, NOVEL NOTES.  The scent of dead days clung to its dogs'-eared
+pages; and, as it lay open before me, my memory wandered back to the
+summer evenings--not so very long ago, perhaps, if one but adds up
+the years, but a long, long while ago if one measures Time by
+feeling--when four friends had sat together making it, who would
+never sit together any more.  With each crumpled leaf I turned, the
+uncomfortable conviction that I was only a ghost, grew stronger.
+The handwriting was my own, but the words were the words of a
+stranger, so that as I read I wondered to myself, saying:  did I
+ever think this? did I really hope that? did I plan to do this? did
+I resolve to be such? does life, then, look so to the eyes of a
+young man? not knowing whether to smile or sigh.
+
+The book was a compilation, half diary, half memoranda.  In it lay
+the record of many musings, of many talks, and out of it--selecting
+what seemed suitable, adding, altering, and arranging--I have shaped
+the chapters that hereafter follow.
+
+That I have a right to do so I have fully satisfied my own
+conscience, an exceptionally fussy one.  Of the four joint authors,
+he whom I call "MacShaughnassy" has laid aside his title to all
+things beyond six feet of sun-scorched ground in the African veldt;
+while from him I have designated "Brown" I have borrowed but little,
+and that little I may fairly claim to have made my own by reason of
+the artistic merit with which I have embellished it.  Indeed, in
+thus taking a few of his bald ideas and shaping them into readable
+form, am I not doing him a kindness, and thereby returning good for
+evil?  For has he not, slipping from the high ambition of his youth,
+sunk ever downward step by step, until he has become a critic, and,
+therefore, my natural enemy?  Does he not, in the columns of a
+certain journal of large pretension but small circulation, call me
+"'Arry" (without an "H," the satirical rogue), and is not his
+contempt for the English-speaking people based chiefly upon the fact
+that some of them read my books?  But in the days of Bloomsbury
+lodgings and first-night pits we thought each other clever.
+
+From "Jephson" I hold a letter, dated from a station deep in the
+heart of the Queensland bush.  "Do what you like with it, dear boy,"
+the letter runs, "so long as you keep me out of it.  Thanks for your
+complimentary regrets, but I cannot share them.  I was never fitted
+for a literary career.  Lucky for me, I found it out in time.  Some
+poor devils don't.  (I'm not getting at you, old man.  We read all
+your stuff, and like it very much.  Time hangs a bit heavy, you
+know, here, in the winter, and we are glad of almost anything.)
+This life suits me better.  I love to feel my horse between my
+thighs, and the sun upon my skin.  And there are the youngsters
+growing up about us, and the hands to look after, and the stock.  I
+daresay it seems a very commonplace unintellectual life to you, but
+it satisfies my nature more than the writing of books could ever do.
+Besides, there are too many authors as it is.  The world is so busy
+reading and writing, it has no time left for thinking.  You'll tell
+me, of course, that books are thought, but that is only the jargon
+of the Press.  You come out here, old man, and sit as I do sometimes
+for days and nights together alone with the dumb cattle on an
+upheaved island of earth, as it were, jutting out into the deep sky,
+and you will know that they are not.  What a man thinks--really
+thinks--goes down into him and grows in silence.  What a man writes
+in books are the thoughts that he wishes to be thought to think."
+
+
+Poor Jephson! he promised so well at one time.  But he always had
+strange notions.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+
+
+When, on returning home one evening, after a pipe party at my friend
+Jephson's, I informed my wife that I was going to write a novel, she
+expressed herself as pleased with the idea.  She said she had often
+wondered I had never thought of doing so before.  "Look," she added,
+"how silly all the novels are nowadays; I'm sure you could write
+one."  (Ethelbertha intended to be complimentary, I am convinced;
+but there is a looseness about her mode of expression which, at
+times, renders her meaning obscure.)
+
+When, however, I told her that my friend Jephson was going to
+collaborate with me, she remarked, "Oh," in a doubtful tone; and
+when I further went on to explain to her that Selkirk Brown and
+Derrick MacShaughnassy were also going to assist, she replied, "Oh,"
+in a tone which contained no trace of doubtfulness whatever, and
+from which it was clear that her interest in the matter, as a
+practical scheme, had entirely evaporated.
+
+I fancy that the fact of my three collaborators being all bachelors
+diminished somewhat our chances of success, in Ethelbertha's mind.
+Against bachelors, as a class, she entertains a strong prejudice.  A
+man's not having sense enough to want to marry, or, having that, not
+having wit enough to do it, argues to her thinking either weakness
+of intellect or natural depravity, the former rendering its victim
+unable, and the latter unfit, ever to become a really useful
+novelist.
+
+I tried to make her understand the peculiar advantages our plan
+possessed.
+
+"You see," I explained, "in the usual common-place novel we only
+get, as a matter of fact, one person's ideas.  Now, in this novel,
+there will be four clever men all working together.  The public will
+thus be enabled to obtain the thoughts and opinions of the whole
+four of us, at the price usually asked for merely one author's
+views.  If the British reader knows his own business, he will order
+this book early, to avoid disappointment.  Such an opportunity may
+not occur again for years."
+
+Ethelbertha agreed that this was probable.
+
+"Besides," I continued, my enthusiasm waxing stronger the more I
+reflected upon the matter, "this work is going to be a genuine
+bargain in another way also.  We are not going to put our mere
+everyday ideas into it.  We are going to crowd into this one novel
+all the wit and wisdom that the whole four of us possess, if the
+book will hold it.  We shall not write another novel after this one.
+Indeed, we shall not be able to; we shall have nothing more to
+write.  This work will partake of the nature of an intellectual
+clearance sale.  We are going to put into this novel simply all we
+know."
+
+Ethelbertha shut her lips, and said something inside; and then
+remarked aloud that she supposed it would be a one volume affair.
+
+I felt hurt at the implied sneer.  I pointed out to her that there
+already existed a numerous body of specially-trained men employed to
+do nothing else but make disagreeable observations upon authors and
+their works--a duty that, so far as I could judge, they seemed
+capable of performing without any amateur assistance whatever.  And
+I hinted that, by his own fireside, a literary man looked to breathe
+a more sympathetic atmosphere.
+
+Ethelbertha replied that of course I knew what she meant.  She said
+that she was not thinking of me, and that Jephson was, no doubt,
+sensible enough (Jephson is engaged), but she did not see the object
+of bringing half the parish into it.  (Nobody suggested bringing
+"half the parish" into it.  Ethelbertha will talk so wildly.)  To
+suppose that Brown and MacShaughnassy could be of any use whatever,
+she considered absurd.  What could a couple of raw bachelors know
+about life and human nature?  As regarded MacShaughnassy in
+particular, she was of opinion that if we only wanted out of him all
+that HE knew, and could keep him to the subject, we ought to be able
+to get that into about a page.
+
+My wife's present estimate of MacShaughnassy's knowledge is the
+result of reaction.  The first time she ever saw him, she and he got
+on wonderfully well together; and when I returned to the drawing-
+room, after seeing him down to the gate, her first words were, "What
+a wonderful man that Mr. MacShaughnassy is.  He seems to know so
+much about everything."
+
+That describes MacShaughnassy exactly.  He does seem to know a
+tremendous lot.  He is possessed of more information than any man I
+ever came across.  Occasionally, it is correct information; but,
+speaking broadly, it is remarkable for its marvellous unreliability.
+Where he gets it from is a secret that nobody has ever yet been able
+to fathom.
+
+Ethelbertha was very young when we started housekeeping.  (Our first
+butcher very nearly lost her custom, I remember, once and for ever
+by calling her "Missie," and giving her a message to take back to
+her mother.  She arrived home in tears.  She said that perhaps she
+wasn't fit to be anybody's wife, but she did not see why she should
+be told so by the tradespeople.)  She was naturally somewhat
+inexperienced in domestic affairs, and, feeling this keenly, was
+grateful to any one who would give her useful hints and advice.
+When MacShaughnassy came along he seemed, in her eyes, a sort of
+glorified Mrs. Beeton.  He knew everything wanted to be known inside
+a house, from the scientific method of peeling a potato to the cure
+of spasms in cats, and Ethelbertha would sit at his feet,
+figuratively speaking, and gain enough information in one evening to
+make the house unlivable in for a month.
+
+He told her how fires ought to be laid.  He said that the way fires
+were usually laid in this country was contrary to all the laws of
+nature, and he showed her how the thing was done in Crim Tartary, or
+some such place, where the science of laying fires is alone properly
+understood.  He proved to her that an immense saving in time and
+labour, to say nothing of coals, could be effected by the adoption
+of the Crim Tartary system; and he taught it to her then and there,
+and she went straight downstairs and explained it to the girl.
+
+Amenda, our then "general," was an extremely stolid young person,
+and, in some respects, a model servant.  She never argued.  She
+never seemed to have any notions of her own whatever.  She accepted
+our ideas without comment, and carried them out with such pedantic
+precision and such evident absence of all feeling of responsibility
+concerning the result as to surround our home legislation with quite
+a military atmosphere.
+
+On the present occasion she stood quietly by while the
+MacShaughnassy method of fire-laying was expounded to her.  When
+Ethelbertha had finished she simply said:-
+
+"You want me to lay the fires like that?"
+
+"Yes, Amenda, we'll always have the fires laid like that in future,
+if you please."
+
+"All right, mum," replied Amenda, with perfect unconcern, and there
+the matter ended, for that evening.
+
+On coming downstairs the next morning we found the breakfast table
+spread very nicely, but there was no breakfast.  We waited.  Ten
+minutes went by--a quarter of an hour--twenty minutes.  Then
+Ethelbertha rang the bell.  In response Amenda presented herself,
+calm and respectful.
+
+"Do you know that the proper time for breakfast is half-past eight,
+Amenda?"
+
+"Yes'm."
+
+"And do you know that it's now nearly nine?"
+
+"Yes'm."
+
+"Well, isn't breakfast ready?"
+
+"No, mum."
+
+"Will it EVER be ready?"
+
+"Well, mum," replied Amenda, in a tone of genial frankness, "to tell
+you the truth, I don't think it ever will."
+
+"What's the reason?  Won't the fire light?"
+
+"Oh yes, it lights all right."
+
+"Well, then, why can't you cook the breakfast?"
+
+"Because before you can turn yourself round it goes out again."
+
+Amenda never volunteered statements.  She answered the question put
+to her and then stopped dead.  I called downstairs to her on one
+occasion, before I understood her peculiarities, to ask her if she
+knew the time.  She replied, "Yes, sir," and disappeared into the
+back kitchen.  At the end of thirty seconds or so, I called down
+again.  "I asked you, Amenda," I said reproachfully, "to tell me the
+time about ten minutes ago."
+
+"Oh, did you?" she called back pleasantly.  "I beg your pardon.  I
+thought you asked me if I knew it--it's half-past four."
+
+Ethelbertha inquired--to return to our fire--if she had tried
+lighting it again.
+
+"Oh yes, mum," answered the girl.  "I've tried four times."  Then
+she added cheerfully, "I'll try again if you like, mum."
+
+Amenda was the most willing servant we ever paid wages to.
+
+Ethelbertha said she would step down and light the fire herself, and
+told Amenda to follow her and watch how she did it.  I felt
+interested in the experiment, and followed also.  Ethelbertha tucked
+up her frock and set to work.  Amenda and I stood around and looked
+on.
+
+At the end of half an hour Ethelbertha retired from the contest,
+hot, dirty, and a trifle irritable.  The fireplace retained the same
+cold, cynical expression with which it had greeted our entrance.
+
+Then I tried.  I honestly tried my best.  I was eager and anxious to
+succeed.  For one reason, I wanted my breakfast.  For another, I
+wanted to be able to say that I had done this thing.  It seemed to
+me that for any human being to light a fire, laid as that fire was
+laid, would be a feat to be proud of.  To light a fire even under
+ordinary circumstances is not too easy a task:  to do so,
+handicapped by MacShaughnassy's rules, would, I felt, be an
+achievement pleasant to look back upon.  My idea, had I succeeded,
+would have been to go round the neighbourhood and brag about it.
+
+However, I did not succeed.  I lit various other things, including
+the kitchen carpet and the cat, who would come sniffing about, but
+the materials within the stove appeared to be fire-proof.
+
+Ethelbertha and I sat down, one each side of our cheerless hearth,
+and looked at one another, and thought of MacShaughnassy, until
+Amenda chimed in on our despair with one of those practical
+suggestions of hers that she occasionally threw out for us to accept
+or not, as we chose.
+
+"Maybe," said she, "I'd better light it in the old way just for to-
+day."
+
+"Do, Amenda," said Ethelbertha, rising.  And then she added, "I
+think we'll always have them lighted in the old way, Amenda, if you
+please."
+
+Another time he showed us how to make coffee--according to the
+Arabian method.  Arabia must be a very untidy country if they made
+coffee often over there.  He dirtied two saucepans, three jugs, one
+tablecloth, one nutmeg-grater, one hearthrug, three cups, and
+himself.  This made coffee for two--what would have been necessary
+in the case of a party, one dares not think.
+
+That we did not like the coffee when made, MacShaughnassy attributed
+to our debased taste--the result of long indulgence in an inferior
+article.  He drank both cups himself, and afterwards went home in a
+cab.
+
+He had an aunt in those days, I remember, a mysterious old lady, who
+lived in some secluded retreat from where she wrought incalculable
+mischief upon MacShaughnassy's friends.  What he did not know--the
+one or two things that he was NOT an authority upon--this aunt of
+his knew.  "No," he would say with engaging candour--"no, that is a
+thing I cannot advise you about myself.  But," he would add, "I'll
+tell you what I'll do.  I'll write to my aunt and ask her."  And a
+day or two afterwards he would call again, bringing his aunt's
+advice with him; and, if you were young and inexperienced, or a
+natural born fool, you might possibly follow it.
+
+She sent us a recipe on one occasion, through MacShaughnassy, for
+the extermination of blackbeetles.  We occupied a very picturesque
+old house; but, as with most picturesque old houses, its advantages
+were chiefly external.  There were many holes and cracks and
+crevices within its creaking framework.  Frogs, who had lost their
+way and taken the wrong turning, would suddenly discover themselves
+in the middle of our dining-room, apparently quite as much to their
+own surprise and annoyance as to ours.  A numerous company of rats
+and mice, remarkably fond of physical exercise, had fitted the place
+up as a gymnasium for themselves; and our kitchen, after ten
+o'clock, was turned into a blackbeetles' club.  They came up through
+the floor and out through the walls, and gambolled there in their
+light-hearted, reckless way till daylight.
+
+The rats and mice Amenda did not object to.  She said she liked to
+watch them.  But against the blackbeetles she was prejudiced.
+Therefore, when my wife informed her that MacShaughnassy's aunt had
+given us an infallible recipe for their annihilation, she rejoiced.
+
+We purchased the materials, manufactured the mixture, and put it
+about.  The beetles came and ate it.  They seemed to like it.  They
+finished it all up, and were evidently vexed that there was not
+more.  But they did not die.
+
+We told these facts to MacShaughnassy.  He smiled, a very grim
+smile, and said in a low tone, full of meaning, "Let them eat!"
+
+It appeared that this was one of those slow, insidious poisons.  It
+did not kill the beetle off immediately, but it undermined his
+constitution.  Day by day he would sink and droop without being able
+to tell what was the matter with himself, until one morning we
+should enter the kitchen to find him lying cold and very still.
+
+So we made more stuff and laid it round each night, and the
+blackbeetles from all about the parish swarmed to it.  Each night
+they came in greater quantities.  They fetched up all their friends
+and relations.  Strange beetles--beetles from other families, with
+no claim on us whatever--got to hear about the thing, and came in
+hordes, and tried to rob our blackbeetles of it.  By the end of a
+week we had lured into our kitchen every beetle that wasn't lame for
+miles round.
+
+MacShaughnassy said it was a good thing.  We should clear the suburb
+at one swoop.  The beetles had now been eating this poison steadily
+for ten days, and he said that the end could not be far off.  I was
+glad to hear it, because I was beginning to find this unlimited
+hospitality expensive.  It was a dear poison that we were giving
+them, and they were hearty eaters.
+
+We went downstairs to see how they were getting on.  MacShaughnassy
+thought they seemed queer, and was of opinion that they were
+breaking up.  Speaking for myself, I can only say that a healthier-
+looking lot of beetles I never wish to see.
+
+One, it is true, did die that very evening.  He was detected in the
+act of trying to make off with an unfairly large portion of the
+poison, and three or four of the others set upon him savagely and
+killed him.
+
+But he was the only one, so far as I could ever discover, to whom
+MacShaughnassy's recipe proved fatal.  As for the others, they grew
+fat and sleek upon it.  Some of them, indeed, began to acquire quite
+a figure.  We lessened their numbers eventually by the help of some
+common oil-shop stuff.  But such vast numbers, attracted by
+MacShaughnassy's poison, had settled in the house, that to finally
+exterminate them now was hopeless.
+
+I have not heard of MacShaughnassy's aunt lately.  Possibly, one of
+MacShaughnassy's bosom friends has found out her address and has
+gone down and murdered her.  If so, I should like to thank him.
+
+I tried a little while ago to cure MacShaughnassy of his fatal
+passion for advice-giving, by repeating to him a very sad story that
+was told to me by a gentleman I met in an American railway car.  I
+was travelling from Buffalo to New York, and, during the day, it
+suddenly occurred to me that I might make the journey more
+interesting by leaving the cars at Albany and completing the
+distance by water.  But I did not know how the boats ran, and I had
+no guide-book with me.  I glanced about for some one to question.  A
+mild-looking, elderly gentleman sat by the next window reading a
+book, the cover of which was familiar to me.  I deemed him to be
+intelligent, and approached him.
+
+"I beg your pardon for interrupting you," I said, sitting down
+opposite to him, "but could you give me any information about the
+boats between Albany and New York?"
+
+"Well," he answered, looking up with a pleasant smile, "there are
+three lines of boats altogether.  There is the Heggarty line, but
+they only go as far as Catskill.  Then there are the Poughkeepsie
+boats, which go every other day.  Or there is what we call the canal
+boat."
+
+"Oh," I said.  "Well now, which would you advise me to--"
+
+He jumped to his feet with a cry, and stood glaring down at me with
+a gleam in his eyes which was positively murderous.
+
+"You villain!" he hissed in low tones of concentrated fury, "so
+that's your game, is it?  I'll give you something that you'll want
+advice about," and he whipped out a six-chambered revolver.
+
+I felt hurt.  I also felt that if the interview were prolonged I
+might feel even more hurt.  So I left him without a word, and
+drifted over to the other end of the car, where I took up a position
+between a stout lady and the door.
+
+I was still musing upon the incident, when, looking up, I observed
+my elderly friend making towards me.  I rose and laid my hand upon
+the door-knob.  He should not find me unprepared.  He smiled,
+reassuringly, however, and held out his hand.
+
+"I've been thinking," he said, "that maybe I was a little rude just
+now.  I should like, if you will let me, to explain.  I think, when
+you have heard my story, you will understand, and forgive me."
+
+There was that about him which made me trust him.  We found a quiet
+corner in the smoking-car.  I had a "whiskey sour," and he
+prescribed for himself a strange thing of his own invention.  Then
+we lighted our cigars, and he talked.
+
+"Thirty years ago," said he, "I was a young man with a healthy
+belief in myself, and a desire to do good to others.  I did not
+imagine myself a genius.  I did not even consider myself
+exceptionally brilliant or talented.  But it did seem to me, and the
+more I noted the doings of my fellow-men and women, the more assured
+did I become of it, that I possessed plain, practical common sense
+to an unusual and remarkable degree.  Conscious of this, I wrote a
+little book, which I entitled How to be Happy, Wealthy, and Wise,
+and published it at my own expense.  I did not seek for profit.  I
+merely wished to be useful.
+
+The book did not make the stir that I had anticipated.  Some two or
+three hundred copies went off, and then the sale practically ceased.
+
+I confess that at first I was disappointed.  But after a while, I
+reflected that, if people would not take my advice, it was more
+their loss than mine, and I dismissed the matter from my mind.
+
+One morning, about a twelvemonth afterwards, I was sitting in my
+study, when the servant entered to say that there was a man
+downstairs who wanted very much to see me.
+
+"I gave instructions that he should be sent up, and up accordingly
+he came.
+
+"He was a common man, but he had an open, intelligent countenance,
+and his manner was most respectful.  I motioned him to be seated.
+He selected a chair, and sat down on the extreme edge of it.
+
+"'I hope you'll pard'n this intrusion, sir,' he began, speaking
+deliberately, and twirling his hat the while; 'but I've come more'n
+two hundred miles to see you, sir.'
+
+"I expressed myself as pleased, and he continued:  'They tell me,
+sir, as you're the gentleman as wrote that little book, How to be
+Happy, Wealthy, and Wise."
+
+He enumerated the three items slowly, dwelling lovingly on each.  I
+admitted the fact.
+
+"'Ah, that's a wonderful book, sir,' he went on.  'I ain't one of
+them as has got brains of their own--not to speak of--but I know
+enough to know them as has; and when I read that little book, I says
+to myself, Josiah Hackett (that's my name, sir), when you're in
+doubt don't you get addling that thick head o' yours, as will only
+tell you all wrong; you go to the gentleman as wrote that little
+book and ask him for his advice.  He is a kind-hearted gentleman, as
+any one can tell, and he'll give it you; and WHEN you've got it, you
+go straight ahead, full steam, and don't you stop for nothing,
+'cause he'll know what's best for you, same as he knows what's best
+for everybody.  That's what I says, sir; and that's what I'm here
+for.'
+
+"He paused, and wiped his brow with a green cotton handkerchief.  I
+prayed him to proceed.
+
+"It appeared that the worthy fellow wanted to marry, but could not
+make up his mind WHOM he wanted to marry.  He had his eye--so he
+expressed it--upon two young women, and they, he had reason to
+believe, regarded him in return with more than usual favour.  His
+difficulty was to decide which of the two--both of them excellent
+and deserving young persons--would make him the best wife.  The one,
+Juliana, the only daughter of a retired sea-captain, he described as
+a winsome lassie.  The other, Hannah, was an older and altogether
+more womanly girl.  She was the eldest of a large family.  Her
+father, he said, was a God-fearing man, and was doing well in the
+timber trade.  He asked me which of them I should advise him to
+marry.
+
+"I was flattered.  What man in my position would not have been?
+This Josiah Hackett had come from afar to hear my wisdom.  He was
+willing--nay, anxious--to entrust his whole life's happiness to my
+discretion.  That he was wise in so doing, I entertained no doubt.
+The choice of a wife I had always held to be a matter needing a
+calm, unbiassed judgment, such as no lover could possibly bring to
+bear upon the subject.  In such a case, I should not have hesitated
+to offer advice to the wisest of men.  To this poor, simple-minded
+fellow, I felt it would be cruel to refuse it.
+
+"He handed me photographs of both the young persons under
+consideration.  I jotted down on the back of each such particulars
+as I deemed would assist me in estimating their respective fitness
+for the vacancy in question, and promised to carefully consider the
+problem, and write him in a day or two.
+
+"His gratitude was touching.  'Don't you trouble to write no
+letters, sir,' he said; 'you just stick down "Julia" or "Hannah" on
+a bit of paper, and put it in an envelope.  I shall know what it
+means, and that's the one as I shall marry.'
+
+"Then he gripped me by the hand and left me.
+
+"I gave a good deal of thought to the selection of Josiah's wife.  I
+wanted him to be happy.
+
+"Juliana was certainly very pretty.  There was a lurking playfulness
+about the corners of Juliana's mouth which conjured up the sound of
+rippling laughter.  Had I acted on impulse, I should have clasped
+Juliana in Josiah's arms.
+
+"But, I reflected, more sterling qualities than mere playfulness and
+prettiness are needed for a wife.  Hannah, though not so charming,
+clearly possessed both energy and sense--qualities highly necessary
+to a poor man's wife.  Hannah's father was a pious man, and was
+'doing well'--a thrifty, saving man, no doubt.  He would have
+instilled into her lessons of economy and virtue; and, later on, she
+might possibly come in for a little something.  She was the eldest
+of a large family.  She was sure to have had to help her mother a
+good deal.  She would be experienced in household matters, and would
+understand the bringing up of children.
+
+"Julia's father, on the other hand, was a retired sea-captain.
+Seafaring folk are generally loose sort of fish.  He had probably
+been in the habit of going about the house, using language and
+expressing views, the hearing of which could not but have exercised
+an injurious effect upon the formation of a growing girl's
+character.  Juliana was his only child.  Only children generally
+make bad men and women.  They are allowed to have their own way too
+much.  The pretty daughter of a retired sea-captain would be certain
+to be spoilt.
+
+"Josiah, I had also to remember, was a man evidently of weak
+character.  He would need management.  Now, there was something
+about Hannah's eye that eminently suggested management.
+
+"At the end of two days my mind was made up.  I wrote 'Hannah' on a
+slip of paper, and posted it.
+
+"A fortnight afterwards I received a letter from Josiah.  He thanked
+me for my advice, but added, incidentally, that he wished I could
+have made it Julia.  However, he said, he felt sure I knew best, and
+by the time I received the letter he and Hannah would be one.
+
+"That letter worried me.  I began to wonder if, after all, I had
+chosen the right girl.  Suppose Hannah was not all I thought her!
+What a terrible thing it would be for Josiah.  What data, sufficient
+to reason upon, had I possessed?  How did I know that Hannah was not
+a lazy, ill-tempered girl, a continual thorn in the side of her
+poor, overworked mother, and a perpetual blister to her younger
+brothers and sisters?  How did I know she had been well brought up?
+Her father might be a precious old fraud:  most seemingly pious men
+are.  She may have learned from him only hypocrisy.
+
+"Then also, how did I know that Juliana's merry childishness would
+not ripen into sweet, cheerful womanliness?  Her father, for all I
+knew to the contrary, might be the model of what a retired sea-
+captain should be; with possibly a snug little sum safely invested
+somewhere.  And Juliana was his only child.  What reason had I for
+rejecting this fair young creature's love for Josiah?
+
+"I took her photo from my desk.  I seemed to detect a reproachful
+look in the big eyes.  I saw before me the scene in the little far-
+away home when the first tidings of Josiah's marriage fell like a
+cruel stone into the hitherto placid waters of her life.  I saw her
+kneeling by her father's chair, while the white-haired, bronzed old
+man gently stroked the golden head, shaking with silent sobs against
+his breast.  My remorse was almost more than I could bear.
+
+"I put her aside and took up Hannah--my chosen one.  She seemed to
+be regarding me with a smile of heartless triumph.  There began to
+take possession of me a feeling of positive dislike to Hannah.
+
+"I fought against the feeling.  I told myself it was prejudice.  But
+the more I reasoned against it the stronger it became.  I could tell
+that, as the days went by, it would grow from dislike to loathing,
+from loathing to hate.  And this was the woman I had deliberately
+selected as a life companion for Josiah!
+
+"For weeks I knew no peace of mind.  Every letter that arrived I
+dreaded to open, fearing it might be from Josiah.  At every knock I
+started up, and looked about for a hiding-place.  Every time I came
+across the heading, 'Domestic Tragedy,' in the newspapers, I broke
+into a cold perspiration.  I expected to read that Josiah and Hannah
+had murdered each other, and died cursing me.
+
+"As the time went by, however, and I heard nothing, my fears began
+to assuage, and my belief in my own intuitive good judgment to
+return.  Maybe, I had done a good thing for Josiah and Hannah, and
+they were blessing me.  Three years passed peacefully away, and I
+was beginning to forget the existence of the Hacketts.
+
+"Then he came again.  I returned home from business one evening to
+find him waiting for me in the hall.  The moment I saw him I knew
+that my worst fears had fallen short of the truth.  I motioned him
+to follow me to my study.  He did so, and seated himself in the
+identical chair on which he had sat three years ago.  The change in
+him was remarkable; he looked old and careworn.  His manner was that
+of resigned hopelessness.
+
+"We remained for a while without speaking, he twirling his hat as at
+our first interview, I making a show of arranging papers on my desk.
+At length, feeling that anything would be more bearable than this
+silence, I turned to him.
+
+"'Things have not been going well with you, I'm afraid, Josiah?' I
+said.
+
+"'No, sir,' he replied quietly; 'I can't say as they have,
+altogether.  That Hannah of yours has turned out a bit of a teaser.'
+
+"There was no touch of reproach in his tones.  He simply stated a
+melancholy fact.
+
+"'But she is a good wife to you in other ways,' I urged.  'She has
+her faults, of course.  We all have.  But she is energetic.  Come
+now, you will admit she's energetic.'
+
+"I owed it to myself to find some good in Hannah, and this was the
+only thing I could think of at that moment.
+
+"'Oh yes, she's that,' he assented.  'A little too much so for our
+sized house, I sometimes think.'
+
+"'You see,' he went on, 'she's a bit cornery in her temper, Hannah
+is; and then her mother's a bit trying, at times.'
+
+"'Her mother!' I exclaimed, 'but what's SHE got to do with you?'
+
+"'Well, you see, sir,' he answered, 'she's living with us now--ever
+since the old man went off.'
+
+"'Hannah's father!  Is he dead, then?'
+
+"'Well, not exactly, sir,' he replied.  'He ran off about a
+twelvemonth ago with one of the young women who used to teach in the
+Sunday School, and joined the Mormons.  It came as a great surprise
+to every one.'
+
+"I groaned.  'And his business,' I inquired--'the timber business,
+who carries that on?'
+
+"'Oh, that!' answered Josiah.  'Oh, that had to be sold to pay his
+debts--leastways, to go towards 'em.'
+
+"I remarked what a terrible thing it was for his family.  I supposed
+the home was broken up, and they were all scattered.
+
+"'No, sir,' he replied simply, 'they ain't scattered much.  They're
+all living with us.'
+
+"'But there,' he continued, seeing the look upon my face; 'of
+course, all this has nothing to do with you sir.  You've got
+troubles of your own, I daresay, sir.  I didn't come here to worry
+you with mine.  That would be a poor return for all your kindness to
+me.'
+
+"'What has become of Julia?' I asked.  I did not feel I wanted to
+question him any more about his own affairs.
+
+"A smile broke the settled melancholy of his features.  'Ah,' he
+said, in a more cheerful tone than he had hitherto employed, 'it
+does one good to think about HER, it does.  She's married to a
+friend of mine now, young Sam Jessop.  I slips out and gives 'em a
+call now and then, when Hannah ain't round.  Lord, it's like getting
+a glimpse of heaven to look into their little home.  He often chaffs
+me about it, Sam does.  "Well, you WAS a sawny-headed chunk, Josiah,
+YOU was," he often says to me.  We're old chums, you know, sir, Sam
+and me, so he don't mind joking a bit like.'
+
+"Then the smile died away, and he added with a sigh, 'Yes, I've
+often thought since, sir, how jolly it would have been if you could
+have seen your way to making it Juliana.'
+
+"I felt I must get him back to Hannah at any cost.  I said, 'I
+suppose you and your wife are still living in the old place?'
+
+"'Yes,' he replied, 'if you can call it living.  It's a hard
+struggle with so many of us.'
+
+"He said he did not know how he should have managed if it had not
+been for the help of Julia's father.  He said the captain had
+behaved more like an angel than anything else he knew of.
+
+"'I don't say as he's one of your clever sort, you know, sir,' he
+explained.  'Not the man as one would go to for advice, like one
+would to you, sir; but he's a good sort for all that.'
+
+"'And that reminds me, sir,' he went on, 'of what I've come here
+about.  You'll think it very bold of me to ask, sir, but--'
+
+"I interrupted him.  'Josiah,' I said, 'I admit that I am much to
+blame for what has come upon you.  You asked me for my advice, and I
+gave it you.  Which of us was the bigger idiot, we will not discuss.
+The point is that I did give it, and I am not a man to shirk my
+responsibilities.  What, in reason, you ask, and I can grant, I will
+give you.'
+
+"He was overcome with gratitude.  'I knew it, sir,' he said.  'I
+knew you would not refuse me.  I said so to Hannah.  I said, "I will
+go to that gentleman and ask him.  I will go to him and ask him for
+his advice.'"
+
+"I said, 'His what?'
+
+"'His advice,' repeated Josiah, apparently surprised at my tone, 'on
+a little matter as I can't quite make up my mind about.'
+
+"I thought at first he was trying to be sarcastic, but he wasn't.
+That man sat there, and wrestled with me for my advice as to whether
+he should invest a thousand dollars which Julia's father had offered
+to lend him, in the purchase of a laundry business or a bar.  He
+hadn't had enough of it (my advice, I mean); he wanted it again, and
+he spun me reasons why I should give it him.  The choice of a wife
+was a different thing altogether, he argued.  Perhaps he ought NOT
+to have asked me for my opinion as to that.  But advice as to which
+of two trades a man would do best to select, surely any business man
+could give.  He said he had just been reading again my little book,
+How to be Happy, etc., and if the gentleman who wrote that could not
+decide between the respective merits of one particular laundry and
+one particular bar, both situate in the same city, well, then, all
+he had got to say was that knowledge and wisdom were clearly of no
+practical use in this world whatever.
+
+"Well, it did seem a simple thing to advise a man about.  Surely as
+to a matter of this kind, I, a professed business man, must be able
+to form a sounder judgment than this poor pumpkin-headed lamb.  It
+would be heartless to refuse to help him.  I promised to look into
+the matter, and let him know what I thought.
+
+"He rose and shook me by the hand.  He said he would not try to
+thank me; words would only seem weak.  He dashed away a tear and
+went out.
+
+I brought an amount of thought to bear upon this thousand-dollar
+investment sufficient to have floated a bank.  I did not mean to
+make another Hannah job, if I could help it.  I studied the papers
+Josiah had left with me, but did not attempt to form any opinion
+from them.  I went down quietly to Josiah's city, and inspected both
+businesses on the spot.  I instituted secret but searching inquiries
+in the neighbourhood.  I disguised myself as a simple-minded young
+man who had come into a little money, and wormed myself into the
+confidence of the servants.  I interviewed half the town upon the
+pretence that I was writing the commercial history of New England,
+and should like some particulars of their career, and I invariably
+ended my examination by asking them which was their favourite bar,
+and where they got their washing done.  I stayed a fortnight in the
+town.  Most of my spare time I spent at the bar.  In my leisure
+moments I dirtied my clothes so that they might be washed at the
+laundry.
+
+"As the result of my investigations I discovered that, so far as the
+two businesses themselves were concerned, there was not a pin to
+choose between them.  It became merely a question of which
+particular trade would best suit the Hacketts.
+
+"I reflected.  The keeper of a bar was exposed to much temptation.
+A weak-minded man, mingling continually in the company of topers,
+might possibly end by giving way to drink.  Now, Josiah was an
+exceptionally weak-minded man.  It had also to be borne in mind that
+he had a shrewish wife, and that her whole family had come to live
+with him.  Clearly, to place Josiah in a position of easy access to
+unlimited liquor would be madness.
+
+"About a laundry, on the other hand, there was something soothing.
+The working of a laundry needed many hands.  Hannah's relatives
+might be used up in a laundry, and made to earn their own living.
+Hannah might expend her energy in flat-ironing, and Josiah could
+turn the mangle.  The idea conjured up quite a pleasant domestic
+picture.  I recommended the laundry.
+
+"On the following Monday, Josiah wrote to say that he had bought the
+laundry.  On Tuesday I read in the Commercial Intelligence that one
+of the most remarkable features of the time was the marvellous rise
+taking place all over New England in the value of hotel and bar
+property.  On Thursday, in the list of failures, I came across no
+less than four laundry proprietors; and the paper added, in
+explanation, that the American washing industry, owing to the rapid
+growth of Chinese competition, was practically on its last legs.  I
+went out and got drunk.
+
+"My life became a curse to me.  All day long I thought of Josiah.
+All night I dreamed of him.  Suppose that, not content with being
+the cause of his domestic misery, I had now deprived him of the
+means of earning a livelihood, and had rendered useless the
+generosity of that good old sea-captain.  I began to appear to
+myself as a malignant fiend, ever following this simple but worthy
+man to work evil upon him.
+
+"Time passed away, however; I heard nothing from or of him, and my
+burden at last fell from me.
+
+"Then at the end of about five years he came again.
+
+"He came behind me as I was opening the door with my latch-key, and
+laid an unsteady hand upon my arm.  It was a dark night, but a gas-
+lamp showed me his face.  I recognised it in spite of the red
+blotches and the bleary film that hid the eyes.  I caught him
+roughly by the arm, and hurried him inside and up into my study.
+
+"'Sit down,' I hissed, 'and tell me the worst first.'
+
+"He was about to select his favourite chair.  I felt that if I saw
+him and that particular chair in association for the third time, I
+should do something terrible to both.  I snatched it away from him,
+and he sat down heavily on the floor, and burst into tears.  I let
+him remain there, and, thickly, between hiccoughs, he told his tale.
+
+"The laundry had gone from bad to worse.  A new railway had come to
+the town, altering its whole topography.  The business and
+residential portion had gradually shifted northward.  The spot where
+the bar--the particular one which I had rejected for the laundry--
+had formerly stood was now the commercial centre of the city.  The
+man who had purchased it in place of Josiah had sold out and made a
+fortune.  The southern area (where the laundry was situate) was, it
+had been discovered, built upon a swamp, and was in a highly
+unsanitary condition.  Careful housewives naturally objected to
+sending their washing into such a neighbourhood.
+
+"Other troubles had also come.  The baby--Josiah's pet, the one
+bright thing in his life--had fallen into the copper and been
+boiled.  Hannah's mother had been crushed in the mangle, and was now
+a helpless cripple, who had to be waited on day and night.
+
+"Under these accumulated misfortunes Josiah had sought consolation
+in drink, and had become a hopeless sot.  He felt his degradation
+keenly, and wept copiously.  He said he thought that in a cheerful
+place, such as a bar, he might have been strong and brave; but that
+there was something about the everlasting smell of damp clothes and
+suds, that seemed to sap his manhood.
+
+"I asked him what the captain had said to it all.  He burst into
+fresh tears, and replied that the captain was no more.  That, he
+added, reminded him of what he had come about.  The good-hearted old
+fellow had bequeathed him five thousand dollars.  He wanted my
+advice as to how to invest it.
+
+"My first impulse was to kill him on the spot.  I wish now that I
+had.  I restrained myself, however, and offered him the alternative
+of being thrown from the window or of leaving by the door without
+another word.
+
+"He answered that he was quite prepared to go by the window if I
+would first tell him whether to put his money in the Terra del Fuego
+Nitrate Company, Limited, or in the Union Pacific Bank.  Life had no
+further interest for him.  All he cared for was to feel that this
+little nest-egg was safely laid by for the benefit of his beloved
+ones after he was gone.
+
+"He pressed me to tell him what I thought of nitrates.  I replied
+that I declined to say anything whatever on the subject.  He assumed
+from my answer that I did not think much of nitrates, and announced
+his intention of investing the money, in consequence, in the Union
+Pacific Bank.
+
+"I told him by all means to do so, if he liked.
+
+"He paused, and seemed to be puzzling it out.  Then he smiled
+knowingly, and said he thought he understood what I meant.  It was
+very kind of me.  He should put every dollar he possessed in the
+Terra del Fuego Nitrate Company.
+
+"He rose (with difficulty) to go.  I stopped him.  I knew, as
+certainly as I knew the sun would rise the next morning, that
+whichever company I advised him, or he persisted in thinking I had
+advised him (which was the same thing), to invest in, would, sooner
+or later, come to smash.  My grandmother had all her little fortune
+in the Terra del Fuego Nitrate Company.  I could not see her brought
+to penury in her old age.  As for Josiah, it could make no
+difference to him whatever.  He would lose his money in any event.
+I advised him to invest in Union Pacific Bank Shares.  He went and
+did it.
+
+"The Union Pacific Bank held out for eighteen months.  Then it began
+to totter.  The financial world stood bewildered.  It had always
+been reckoned one of the safest banks in the country.  People asked
+what could be the cause.  I knew well enough, but I did not tell.
+
+"The Bank made a gallant fight, but the hand of fate was upon it.
+At the end of another nine months the crash came.
+
+"(Nitrates, it need hardly be said, had all this time been going up
+by leaps and bounds.  My grandmother died worth a million dollars,
+and left the whole of it to a charity.  Had she known how I had
+saved her from ruin, she might have been more grateful.)
+
+"A few days after the failure of the Bank, Josiah arrived on my
+doorstep; and, this time, he brought his families with him.  There
+were sixteen of them in all.
+
+"What was I to do?  I had brought these people step by step to the
+verge of starvation.  I had laid waste alike their happiness and
+their prospects in life.  The least amends I could make was to see
+that at all events they did not want for the necessities of
+existence.
+
+"That was seventeen years ago.  I am still seeing that they do not
+want for the necessities of existence; and my conscience is growing
+easier by noticing that they seem contented with their lot.  There
+are twenty-two of them now, and we have hopes of another in the
+spring.
+
+"That is my story," he said.  "Perhaps you will now understand my
+sudden emotion when you asked for my advice.  As a matter of fact, I
+do not give advice now on any subject."
+
+
+I told this tale to MacShaughnassy.  He agreed with me that it was
+instructive, and said he should remember it.  He said he should
+remember it so as to tell it to some fellows that he knew, to whom
+he thought the lesson should prove useful.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+
+
+I can't honestly say that we made much progress at our first
+meeting.  It was Brown's fault.  He would begin by telling us a
+story about a dog.  It was the old, old story of the dog who had
+been in the habit of going every morning to a certain baker's shop
+with a penny in his mouth, in exchange for which he always received
+a penny bun.  One day, the baker, thinking he would not know the
+difference, tried to palm off upon the poor animal a ha'penny bun,
+whereupon the dog walked straight outside and fetched in a
+policeman.  Brown had heard this chestnut for the first time that
+afternoon, and was full of it.  It is always a mystery to me where
+Brown has been for the last hundred years.  He stops you in the
+street with, "Oh, I must tell you!--such a capital story!"  And he
+thereupon proceeds to relate to you, with much spirit and gusto, one
+of Noah's best known jokes, or some story that Romulus must have
+originally told to Remus.  One of these days somebody will tell him
+the history of Adam and Eve, and he will think he has got hold of a
+new plot, and will work it up into a novel.
+
+He gives forth these hoary antiquities as personal reminiscences of
+his own, or, at furthest, as episodes in the life of his second
+cousin.  There are certain strange and moving catastrophes that
+would seem either to have occurred to, or to have been witnessed by,
+nearly every one you meet.  I never came across a man yet who had
+not seen some other man jerked off the top of an omnibus into a mud-
+cart.  Half London must, at one time or another, have been jerked
+off omnibuses into mud-carts, and have been fished out at the end of
+a shovel.
+
+Then there is the tale of the lady whose husband is taken suddenly
+ill one night at an hotel.  She rushes downstairs, and prepares a
+stiff mustard plaster to put on him, and runs up with it again.  In
+her excitement, however, she charges into the wrong room, and,
+rolling down the bedclothes, presses it lovingly upon the wrong man.
+I have heard that story so often that I am quite nervous about going
+to bed in an hotel now.  Each man who has told it me has invariably
+slept in the room next door to that of the victim, and has been
+awakened by the man's yell as the plaster came down upon him.  That
+is how he (the story-teller) came to know all about it.
+
+Brown wanted us to believe that this prehistoric animal he had been
+telling us about had belonged to his brother-in-law, and was hurt
+when Jephson murmured, sotto voce, that that made the twenty-eighth
+man he had met whose brother-in-law had owned that dog--to say
+nothing of the hundred and seventeen who had owned it themselves.
+
+We tried to get to work afterwards, but Brown had unsettled us for
+the evening.  It is a wicked thing to start dog stories among a
+party of average sinful men.  Let one man tell a dog story, and
+every other man in the room feels he wants to tell a bigger one.
+
+There is a story going--I cannot vouch for its truth, it was told me
+by a judge--of a man who lay dying.  The pastor of the parish, a
+good and pious man, came to sit with him, and, thinking to cheer him
+up, told him an anecdote about a dog.  When the pastor had finished,
+the sick man sat up, and said, "I know a better story than that.  I
+had a dog once, a big, brown, lop-sided--"
+
+The effort had proved too much for his strength.  He fell back upon
+the pillows, and the doctor, stepping forward, saw that it was a
+question only of minutes.
+
+The good old pastor rose, and took the poor fellow's hand in his,
+and pressed it.  "We shall meet again," he gently said.
+
+The sick man turned towards him with a consoled and grateful look.
+
+"I'm glad to hear you say that," he feebly murmured.  "Remind me
+about that dog."
+
+Then he passed peacefully away, with a sweet smile upon his pale
+lips.
+
+Brown, who had had his dog story and was satisfied, wanted us to
+settle our heroine; but the rest of us did not feel equal to
+settling anybody just then.  We were thinking of all the true dog
+stories we had ever heard, and wondering which was the one least
+likely to be generally disbelieved.
+
+MacShaughnassy, in particular, was growing every moment more
+restless and moody.  Brown concluded a long discourse--to which
+nobody had listened--by remarking with some pride, "What more can
+you want?  The plot has never been used before, and the characters
+are entirely original!"
+
+Then MacShaughnassy gave way.  "Talking of plots," he said, hitching
+his chair a little nearer the table, "that puts me in mind.  Did I
+ever tell you about that dog we had when we lived in Norwood?"
+
+"It's not that one about the bull-dog, is it?" queried Jephson
+anxiously.
+
+"Well, it was a bull-dog," admitted MacShaughnassy, "but I don't
+think I've ever told it you before."
+
+We knew, by experience, that to argue the matter would only prolong
+the torture, so we let him go on.
+
+"A great many burglaries had lately taken place in our
+neighbourhood," he began, "and the pater came to the conclusion that
+it was time he laid down a dog.  He thought a bull-dog would be the
+best for his purpose, and he purchased the most savage and
+murderous-looking specimen that he could find.
+
+"My mother was alarmed when she saw the dog.  'Surely you're not
+going to let that brute loose about the house!' she exclaimed.
+'He'll kill somebody.  I can see it in his face.'
+
+"'I want him to kill somebody,' replied my father; 'I want him to
+kill burglars.'
+
+"'I don't like to hear you talk like that, Thomas,' answered the
+mater; 'it's not like you.  We've a right to protect our property,
+but we've no right to take a fellow human creature's life.'
+
+"'Our fellow human creatures will be all right--so long as they
+don't come into our kitchen when they've no business there,'
+retorted my father, somewhat testily.  'I'm going to fix up this dog
+in the scullery, and if a burglar comes fooling around--well, that's
+HIS affair.'
+
+"The old folks quarrelled on and off for about a month over this
+dog.  The dad thought the mater absurdly sentimental, and the mater
+thought the dad unnecessarily vindictive.  Meanwhile the dog grew
+more ferocious-looking every day.
+
+"One night my mother woke my father up with:  'Thomas, there's a
+burglar downstairs, I'm positive.  I distinctly heard the kitchen
+door open.'
+
+"'Oh, well, the dog's got him by now, then,' murmured my father, who
+had heard nothing, and was sleepy.
+
+"'Thomas,' replied my mother severely, 'I'm not going to lie here
+while a fellow-creature is being murdered by a savage beast.  If you
+won't go down and save that man's life, I will.'
+
+"'Oh, bother,' said my father, preparing to get up.  'You're always
+fancying you hear noises.  I believe that's all you women come to
+bed for--to sit up and listen for burglars.'  Just to satisfy her,
+however, he pulled on his trousers and socks, and went down.
+
+"Well, sure enough, my mother was right, this time.  There WAS a
+burglar in the house.  The pantry window stood open, and a light was
+shining in the kitchen.  My father crept softly forward, and peeped
+through the partly open door.  There sat the burglar, eating cold
+beef and pickles, and there, beside him, on the floor, gazing up
+into his face with a blood-curdling smile of affection, sat that
+idiot of a dog, wagging his tail.
+
+"My father was so taken aback that he forgot to keep silent.
+
+"'Well, I'm--,' and he used a word that I should not care to repeat
+to you fellows.
+
+"The burglar, hearing him, made a dash, and got clear off by the
+window; and the dog seemed vexed with my father for having driven
+him away.
+
+"Next morning we took the dog back to the trainer from whom we had
+bought it.
+
+"'What do you think I wanted this dog for?' asked my father, trying
+to speak calmly.
+
+"'Well,' replied the trainer, 'you said you wanted a good house
+dog.'
+
+"'Exactly so,' answered the dad.  'I didn't ask for a burglar's
+companion, did I?  I didn't say I wanted a dog who'd chum on with a
+burglar the first time he ever came to the house, and sit with him
+while he had supper, in case he might feel lonesome, did I?'  And my
+father recounted the incidents of the previous night.
+
+"The man agreed that there was cause for complaint.  'I'll tell you
+what it is, sir,' he said.  'It was my boy Jim as trained this 'ere
+dawg, and I guess the young beggar's taught 'im more about tackling
+rats than burglars.  You leave 'im with me for a week, sir; I'll put
+that all right.'
+
+"We did so, and at the end of the time the trainer brought him back
+again.
+
+"'You'll find 'im game enough now, sir,' said the man.  ''E ain't
+what I call an intellectual dawg, but I think I've knocked the right
+idea into 'im.'
+
+"My father thought he'd like to test the matter, so we hired a man
+for a shilling to break in through the kitchen window while the
+trainer held the dog by a chain.  The dog remained perfectly quiet
+until the man was fairly inside.  Then he made one savage spring at
+him, and if the chain had not been stout the fellow would have
+earned his shilling dearly.
+
+"The dad was satisfied now that he could go to bed in peace; and the
+mater's alarm for the safety of the local burglars was
+proportionately increased.
+
+"Months passed uneventfully by, and then another burglar sampled our
+house.  This time there could be no doubt that the dog was doing
+something for his living.  The din in the basement was terrific.
+The house shook with the concussion of falling bodies.
+
+"My father snatched up his revolver and rushed downstairs, and I
+followed him.  The kitchen was in confusion.  Tables and chairs were
+overturned, and on the floor lay a man gurgling for help.  The dog
+was standing over him, choking him.
+
+"The pater held his revolver to the man's ear, while I, by
+superhuman effort, dragged our preserver away, and chained him up to
+the sink, after which I lit the gas.
+
+"Then we perceived that the gentleman on the floor was a police
+constable.
+
+"'Good heavens!' exclaimed my father, dropping the revolver,
+'however did you come here?'
+
+"''Ow did I come 'ere?' retorted the man, sitting up and speaking in
+a tone of bitter, but not unnatural, indignation.  'Why, in the
+course of my dooty, that's 'ow I come 'ere.  I see a burglar getting
+in through the window, so I just follows and slips in after 'im.'
+
+"'Did you catch him?' asked my father.
+
+"'Did I catch 'im!' almost shrieked the man.  "Ow could I catch 'im
+with that blasted dog of yours 'olding me down by the throat, while
+'e lights 'is pipe and walks out by the back door?'
+
+"The dog was for sale the next day.  The mater, who had grown to
+like him, because he let the baby pull his tail, wanted us to keep
+him.  The mistake, she said, was not the animal's fault.  Two men
+broke into the house almost at the same time.  The dog could not go
+for both of them.  He did his best, and went for one.  That his
+selection should have fallen upon the policeman instead of upon the
+burglar was unfortunate.  But still it was a thing that might have
+happened to any dog.
+
+"My father, however, had become prejudiced against the poor
+creature, and that same week he inserted an advertisement in The
+Field, in which the animal was recommended as an investment likely
+to prove useful to any enterprising member of the criminal classes."
+
+MacShaughnassy having had his innings, Jephson took a turn, and told
+us a pathetic story about an unfortunate mongrel that was run over
+in the Strand one day and its leg broken.  A medical student, who
+was passing at the time, picked it up and carried it to the Charing
+Cross Hospital, where its leg was set, and where it was kept and
+tended until it was quite itself again, when it was sent home.
+
+The poor thing had quite understood what was being done for it, and
+had been the most grateful patient they had ever had in the
+hospital.  The whole staff were quite sorry when it left.
+
+One morning, a week or two later, the house-surgeon, looking out of
+the window, saw the dog coming down the street.  When it came near
+he noticed that it had a penny in its mouth.  A cat's-meat barrow
+was standing by the kerb, and for a moment, as he passed it, the dog
+hesitated.
+
+But his nobler nature asserted itself, and, walking straight up to
+the hospital railings, and raising himself upon his hind legs, he
+dropped his penny into the contribution box.
+
+MacShaughnassy was much affected by this story.  He said it showed
+such a beautiful trait in the dog's character.  The animal was a
+poor outcast, vagrant thing, that had perhaps never possessed a
+penny before in all its life, and might never have another.  He said
+that dog's penny seemed to him to be a greater gift than the biggest
+cheque that the wealthiest patron ever signed.
+
+The other three were very eager now to get to work on the novel, but
+I did not quite see the fairness of this.  I had one or two dog
+stories of my own.
+
+I knew a black-and-tan terrier years ago.  He lodged in the same
+house with me.  He did not belong to any one.  He had discharged his
+owner (if, indeed, he had ever permitted himself to possess one,
+which is doubtful, having regard to his aggressively independent
+character), and was now running himself entirely on his own account.
+He appropriated the front hall for his sleeping-apartment, and took
+his meals with the other lodgers--whenever they happened to be
+having meals.
+
+At five o'clock he would take an early morning snack with young
+Hollis, an engineer's pupil, who had to get up at half-past four and
+make his own coffee, so as to be down at the works by six.  At
+eight-thirty he would breakfast in a more sensible fashion with Mr.
+Blair, on the first floor, and on occasions would join Jack Gadbut,
+who was a late riser, in a devilled kidney at eleven.
+
+From then till about five, when I generally had a cup of tea and a
+chop, he regularly disappeared.  Where he went and what he did
+between those hours nobody ever knew.  Gadbut swore that twice he
+had met him coming out of a stockbroker's office in Threadneedle
+Street, and, improbable though the statement at first appeared, some
+colour of credibility began to attach to it when we reflected upon
+the dog's inordinate passion for acquiring and hoarding coppers.
+
+This craving of his for wealth was really quite remarkable.  He was
+an elderly dog, with a great sense of his own dignity; yet, on the
+promise of a penny, I have seen him run round after his own tail
+until he didn't know one end of himself from the other.
+
+He used to teach himself tricks, and go from room to room in the
+evening, performing them, and when he had completed his programme he
+would sit up and beg.  All the fellows used to humour him.  He must
+have made pounds in the course of the year.
+
+Once, just outside our door, I saw him standing in a crowd, watching
+a performing poodle attached to a hurdy-gurdy.  The poodle stood on
+his head, and then, with his hind legs in the air, walked round on
+his front paws.  The people laughed very much, and, when afterwards
+he came amongst them with his wooden saucer in his mouth, they gave
+freely.
+
+Our dog came in and immediately commenced to study.  In three days
+HE could stand on his head and walk round on his front legs, and the
+first evening he did so he made sixpence.  It must have been
+terribly hard work for him at his age, and subject to rheumatism as
+he was; but he would do anything for money.  I believe he would have
+sold himself to the devil for eightpence down.
+
+He knew the value of money.  If you held out to him a penny in one
+hand and a threepenny-bit in the other, he would snatch at the
+threepence, and then break his heart because he could not get the
+penny in as well.  You might safely have left him in the room with a
+leg of mutton, but it would not have been wise to leave your purse
+about.
+
+Now and then he spent a little, but not often.  He was desperately
+fond of sponge-cakes, and occasionally, when he had had a good week,
+he would indulge himself to the extent of one or two.  But he hated
+paying for them, and always made a frantic and frequently successful
+effort to get off with the cake and the penny also.  His plan of
+operations was simple.  He would walk into the shop with his penny
+in his mouth, well displayed, and a sweet and lamblike expression in
+his eyes.  Taking his stand as near to the cakes as he could get,
+and fixing his eyes affectionately upon them, he would begin to
+whine, and the shopkeeper, thinking he was dealing with an honest
+dog, would throw him one.
+
+To get the cake he was obliged, of course, to drop the penny, and
+then began a struggle between him and the shopkeeper for the
+possession of the coin.  The man would try to pick it up.  The dog
+would put his foot upon it, and growl savagely.  If he could finish
+the cake before the contest was over, he would snap up the penny and
+bolt.  I have known him to come home gorged with sponge-cakes, the
+original penny still in his mouth.
+
+So notorious throughout the neighbourhood did this dishonest
+practice of his become, that, after a time, the majority of the
+local tradespeople refused to serve him at all.  Only the
+exceptionally quick and able-bodied would attempt to do business
+with him.
+
+Then he took his custom further afield, into districts where his
+reputation had not yet penetrated.  And he would pick out shops kept
+by nervous females or rheumatic old men.
+
+They say that the love of money is the root of all evil.  It seemed
+to have robbed him of every shred of principle.
+
+It robbed him of his life in the end, and that came about in this
+way.  He had been performing one evening in Gadbut's room, where a
+few of us were sitting smoking and talking; and young Hollis, being
+in a generous mood, had thrown him, as he thought, a sixpence.  The
+dog grabbed it, and retired under the sofa.  This was an odd thing
+for him to do, and we commented upon it.  Suddenly a thought
+occurred to Hollis, and he took out his money and began counting it.
+
+"By Jove," he exclaimed, "I've given that little beast half-a-
+sovereign--here, Tiny!"
+
+But Tiny only backed further underneath the sofa, and no mere verbal
+invitation would induce him to stir.  So we adopted a more pressing
+plan, and coaxed him out by the scruff of his neck.
+
+He came, an inch at a time, growling viciously, and holding Hollis's
+half-sovereign tight between his teeth.  We tried sweet
+reasonableness at first.  We offered him a sixpence in exchange; he
+looked insulted, and evidently considered the proposal as tantamount
+to our calling him a fool.  We made it a shilling, then half-a-
+crown--he seemed only bored by our persistence.
+
+"I don't think you'll ever see this half-sovereign again, Hollis,"
+said Gadbut, laughing.  We all, with the exception of young Hollis,
+thought the affair a very good joke.  He, on the contrary, seemed
+annoyed, and, taking the dog from Gadbut, made an attempt to pull
+the coin out of its mouth.
+
+Tiny, true to his life-long principle of never parting if he could
+possibly help it, held on like grim death, until, feeling that his
+little earnings were slowly but surely going from him, he made one
+final desperate snatch, and swallowed the money.  It stuck in his
+throat, and he began to choke.
+
+Then we became seriously alarmed for the dog.  He was an amusing
+chap, and we did not want any accident to happen to him.  Hollis
+rushed into his room and procured a long pair of pincers, and the
+rest of us held the little miser while Hollis tried to relieve him
+of the cause of his suffering.
+
+But poor Tiny did not understand our intentions.  He still thought
+we were seeking to rob him of his night's takings, and resisted
+vehemently.  His struggles fixed the coin firmer, and, in spite of
+our efforts, he died--one more victim, among many, to the fierce
+fever for gold.
+
+
+I dreamt a very curious dream about riches once, that made a great
+impression upon me.  I thought that I and a friend--a very dear
+friend--were living together in a strange old house.  I don't think
+anybody else dwelt in the house but just we two.  One day, wandering
+about this strange old rambling place, I discovered the hidden door
+of a secret room, and in this room were many iron-bound chests, and
+when I raised the heavy lids I saw that each chest was full of gold.
+
+And, when I saw this, I stole out softly and closed the hidden door,
+and drew the worn tapestries in front of it again, and crept back
+along the dim corridor, looking behind me, fearfully.
+
+And the friend that I had loved came towards me, and we walked
+together with our hands clasped.  But I hated him.
+
+And all day long I kept beside him, or followed him unseen, lest by
+chance he should learn the secret of that hidden door; and at night
+I lay awake watching him.
+
+But one night I sleep, and, when I open my eyes, he is no longer
+near me.  I run swiftly up the narrow stairs and along the silent
+corridor.  The tapestry is drawn aside, and the hidden door stands
+open, and in the room beyond the friend that I loved is kneeling
+before an open chest, and the glint of the gold is in my eyes.
+
+His back is towards me, and I crawl forward inch by inch.  I have a
+knife in my hand, with a strong, curved blade; and when I am near
+enough I kill him as he kneels there.
+
+His body falls against the door, and it shuts to with a clang, and I
+try to open it, and cannot.  I beat my hands against its iron nails,
+and scream, and the dead man grins at me.  The light streams in
+through the chink beneath the massive door, and fades, and comes
+again, and fades again, and I gnaw at the oaken lids of the iron-
+bound chests, for the madness of hunger is climbing into my brain.
+
+Then I awake, and find that I really am hungry, and remember that in
+consequence of a headache I did not eat any dinner.  So I slip on a
+few clothes, and go down to the kitchen on a foraging expedition.
+
+It is said that dreams are momentary conglomerations of thought,
+centring round the incident that awakens us, and, as with most
+scientific facts, this is occasionally true.  There is one dream
+that, with slight variations, is continually recurring to me.  Over
+and over again I dream that I am suddenly called upon to act an
+important part in some piece at the Lyceum.  That poor Mr. Irving
+should invariably be the victim seems unfair, but really it is
+entirely his own fault.  It is he who persuades and urges me.  I
+myself would much prefer to remain quietly in bed, and I tell him
+so.  But he insists on my getting up at once and coming down to the
+theatre.  I explain to him that I can't act a bit.  He seems to
+consider this unimportant, and says, "Oh, that will be all right."
+We argue for a while, but he makes the matter quite a personal one,
+and to oblige him and get him out of the bedroom I consent, though
+much against my own judgment.  I generally dress the character in my
+nightshirt, though on one occasion, for Banquo, I wore pyjamas, and
+I never remember a single word of what I ought to say.  How I get
+through I do not know.  Irving comes up afterwards and congratulates
+me, but whether upon the brilliancy of my performance, or upon my
+luck in getting off the stage before a brickbat is thrown at me, I
+cannot say.
+
+Whenever I dream this incident I invariably wake up to find that the
+bedclothes are on the floor, and that I am shivering with cold; and
+it is this shivering, I suppose, that causes me to dream I am
+wandering about the Lyceum stage in nothing but my nightshirt.  But
+still I do not understand why it should always be the Lyceum.
+
+Another dream which I fancy I have dreamt more than once--or, if
+not, I have dreamt that I dreamt it before, a thing one sometimes
+does--is one in which I am walking down a very wide and very long
+road in the East End of London.  It is a curious road to find there.
+Omnibuses and trams pass up and down, and it is crowded with stalls
+and barrows, beside which men in greasy caps stand shouting; yet on
+each side it is bordered by a strip of tropical forest.  The road,
+in fact, combines the advantages of Kew and Whitechapel.
+
+Some one is with me, but I cannot see him, and we walk through the
+forest, pushing our way among the tangled vines that cling about our
+feet, and every now and then, between the giant tree-trunks, we
+catch glimpses of the noisy street.
+
+At the end of this road there is a narrow turning, and when I come
+to it I am afraid, though I do not know why I am afraid.  It leads
+to a house that I once lived in when a child, and now there is some
+one waiting there who has something to tell me.
+
+I turn to run away.  A Blackwall 'bus is passing, and I try to
+overtake it.  But the horses turn into skeletons and gallop away
+from me, and my feet are like lead, and the thing that is with me,
+and that I cannot see, seizes me by the arm and drags me back.
+
+It forces me along, and into the house, and the door slams to behind
+us, and the sound echoes through the lifeless rooms.  I recognise
+the rooms; I laughed and cried in them long ago.  Nothing is
+changed.  The chairs stand in their places, empty.  My mother's
+knitting lies upon the hearthrug, where the kitten, I remember,
+dragged it, somewhere back in the sixties.
+
+I go up into my own little attic.  My cot stands in the corner, and
+my bricks lie tumbled out upon the floor (I was always an untidy
+child).  An old man enters--an old, bent, withered man--holding a
+lamp above his head, and I look at his face, and it is my own face.
+And another enters, and he also is myself.  Then more and more, till
+the room is thronged with faces, and the stair-way beyond, and all
+the silent house.  Some of the faces are old and others young, and
+some are fair and smile at me, and many are foul and leer at me.
+And every face is my own face, but no two of them are alike.
+
+I do not know why the sight of myself should alarm me so, but I rush
+from the house in terror, and the faces follow me; and I run faster
+and faster, but I know that I shall never leave them behind me.
+
+
+As a rule one is the hero of one's own dreams, but at times I have
+dreamt a dream entirely in the third person--a dream with the
+incidents of which I have had no connection whatever, except as an
+unseen and impotent spectator.  One of these I have often thought
+about since, wondering if it could not be worked up into a story.
+But, perhaps, it would be too painful a theme.
+
+I dreamt I saw a woman's face among a throng.  It is an evil face,
+but there is a strange beauty in it.  The flickering gleams thrown
+by street lamps flash down upon it, showing the wonder of its evil
+fairness.  Then the lights go out.
+
+I see it next in a place that is very far away, and it is even more
+beautiful than before, for the evil has gone out of it.  Another
+face is looking down into it, a bright, pure face.  The faces meet
+and kiss, and, as his lips touch hers, the blood mounts to her
+cheeks and brow.  I see the two faces again.  But I cannot tell
+where they are or how long a time has passed.  The man's face has
+grown a little older, but it is still young and fair, and when the
+woman's eyes rest upon it there comes a glory into her face so that
+it is like the face of an angel.  But at times the woman is alone,
+and then I see the old evil look struggling back.
+
+Then I see clearer.  I see the room in which they live.  It is very
+poor.  An old-fashioned piano stands in one corner, and beside it is
+a table on which lie scattered a tumbled mass of papers round an
+ink-stand.  An empty chair waits before the table.  The woman sits
+by the open window.
+
+From far below there rises the sound of a great city.  Its lights
+throw up faint beams into the dark room.  The smell of its streets
+is in the woman's nostrils.
+
+Every now and again she looks towards the door and listens:  then
+turns to the open window.  And I notice that each time she looks
+towards the door the evil in her face shrinks back; but each time
+she turns to the window it grows more fierce and sullen.
+
+Suddenly she starts up, and there is a terror in her eyes that
+frightens me as I dream, and I see great beads of sweat upon her
+brow.  Then, very slowly, her face changes, and I see again the evil
+creature of the night.  She wraps around her an old cloak, and
+creeps out.  I hear her footsteps going down the stairs.  They grow
+fainter and fainter.  I hear a door open.  The roar of the streets
+rushes up into the house, and the woman's footsteps are swallowed
+up.
+
+Time drifts onward through my dream.  Scenes change, take shape, and
+fade; but all is vague and undefined, until, out of the dimness,
+there fashions itself a long, deserted street.  The lights make
+glistening circles on the wet pavement.  A figure, dressed in gaudy
+rags, slinks by, keeping close against the wall.  Its back is
+towards me, and I do not see its face.  Another figure glides from
+out the shadows.  I look upon its face, and I see it is the face
+that the woman's eyes gazed up into and worshipped long ago, when my
+dream was just begun.  But the fairness and the purity are gone from
+it, and it is old and evil, as the woman's when I looked upon her
+last.  The figure in the gaudy rags moves slowly on.  The second
+figure follows it, and overtakes it.  The two pause, and speak to
+one another as they draw near.  The street is very dark where they
+have met, and the figure in the gaudy rags keeps its face still
+turned aside.  They walk together in silence, till they come to
+where a flaring gas-lamp hangs before a tavern; and there the woman
+turns, and I see that it is the woman of my dream.  And she and the
+man look into each other's eyes once more.
+
+
+In another dream that I remember, an angel (or a devil, I am not
+quite sure which) has come to a man and told him that so long as he
+loves no living human thing--so long as he never suffers himself to
+feel one touch of tenderness towards wife or child, towards kith or
+kin, towards stranger or towards friend, so long will he succeed and
+prosper in his dealings--so long will all this world's affairs go
+well with him; and he will grow each day richer and greater and more
+powerful.  But if ever he let one kindly thought for living thing
+come into his heart, in that moment all his plans and schemes will
+topple down about his ears; and from that hour his name will be
+despised by men, and then forgotten.
+
+And the man treasures up these words, for he is an ambitious man,
+and wealth and fame and power are the sweetest things in all the
+world to him.  A woman loves him and dies, thirsting for a loving
+look from him; children's footsteps creep into his life and steal
+away again, old faces fade and new ones come and go.
+
+But never a kindly touch of his hand rests on any living thing;
+never a kindly word comes from his lips; never a kindly thought
+springs from his heart.  And in all his doings fortune favours him.
+
+The years pass by, and at last there is left to him only one thing
+that he need fear--a child's small, wistful face.  The child loves
+him, as the woman, long ago, had loved him, and her eyes follow him
+with a hungry, beseeching look.  But he sets his teeth, and turns
+away from her.
+
+The little face grows thin, and one day they come to him where he
+sits before the keyboard of his many enterprises, and tell him she
+is dying.  He comes and stands beside the bed, and the child's eyes
+open and turn towards him; and, as he draws nearer, her little arms
+stretch out towards him, pleading dumbly.  But the man's face never
+changes, and the little arms fall feebly back upon the tumbled
+coverlet, and the wistful eyes grow still, and a woman steps softly
+forward, and draws the lids down over them; then the man goes back
+to his plans and schemes.
+
+But in the night, when the great house is silent, he steals up to
+the room where the child still lies, and pushes back the white,
+uneven sheet.
+
+"Dead--dead," he mutters.  Then he takes the tiny corpse up in his
+arms, and holds it tight against his breast, and kisses the cold
+lips, and the cold cheeks, and the little, cold, stiff hands.
+
+And at that point my story becomes impossible, for I dream that the
+dead child lies always beneath the sheet in that quiet room, and
+that the little face never changes, nor the limbs decay.
+
+I puzzle about this for an instant, but soon forget to wonder; for
+when the Dream Fairy tells us tales we are only as little children,
+sitting round with open eyes, believing all, though marvelling that
+such things should be.
+
+Each night, when all else in the house sleeps, the door of that room
+opens noiselessly, and the man enters and closes it behind him.
+Each night he draws away the white sheet, and takes the small dead
+body in his arms; and through the dark hours he paces softly to and
+fro, holding it close against his breast, kissing it and crooning to
+it, like a mother to her sleeping baby.
+
+When the first ray of dawn peeps into the room, he lays the dead
+child back again, and smooths the sheet above her, and steals away.
+
+And he succeeds and prospers in all things, and each day he grows
+richer and greater and more powerful.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+
+
+We had much trouble with our heroine.  Brown wanted her ugly.
+Brown's chief ambition in life is to be original, and his method of
+obtaining the original is to take the unoriginal and turn it upside
+down.
+
+If Brown were given a little planet of his own to do as he liked
+with, he would call day, night, and summer, winter.  He would make
+all his men and women walk on their heads and shake hands with their
+feet, his trees would grow with their roots in the air, and the old
+cock would lay all the eggs while the hens sat on the fence and
+crowed.  Then he would step back and say, "See what an original
+world I have created, entirely my own idea!"
+
+There are many other people besides Brown whose notion of
+originality would seem to be precisely similar.
+
+I know a little girl, the descendant of a long line of politicians.
+The hereditary instinct is so strongly developed in her that she is
+almost incapable of thinking for herself.  Instead, she copies in
+everything her elder sister, who takes more after the mother.  If
+her sister has two helpings of rice pudding for supper, then she has
+two helpings of rice pudding.  If her sister isn't hungry and
+doesn't want any supper at all, then she goes to bed without any
+supper.
+
+This lack of character in the child troubles her mother, who is not
+an admirer of the political virtues, and one evening, taking the
+little one on her lap, she talked seriously to her.
+
+"Do try to think for yourself," said she.  "Don't always do just
+what Jessie does, that's silly.  Have an idea of your own now and
+then.  Be a little original."
+
+The child promised she'd try, and went to bed thoughtful.
+
+Next morning, for breakfast, a dish of kippers and a dish of kidneys
+were placed on the table, side by side.  Now the child loved kippers
+with an affection that amounted almost to passion, while she loathed
+kidneys worse than powders.  It was the one subject on which she did
+know her own mind.
+
+"A kidney or a kipper for you, Jessie?" asked the mother, addressing
+the elder child first.
+
+Jessie hesitated for a moment, while her sister sat regarding her in
+an agony of suspense.
+
+"Kipper, please, ma," Jessie answered at last, and the younger child
+turned her head away to hide the tears.
+
+"You'll have a kipper, of course, Trixy?" said the mother, who had
+noticed nothing.
+
+"No, thank you, ma," said the small heroine, stifling a sob, and
+speaking in a dry, tremulous voice, "I'll have a kidney."
+
+"But I thought you couldn't bear kidneys," exclaimed her mother,
+surprised.
+
+"No, ma, I don't like 'em much."
+
+"And you're so fond of kippers!"
+
+"Yes, ma."
+
+"Well, then, why on earth don't you have one?"
+
+"'Cos Jessie's going to have one, and you told me to be original,"
+and here the poor mite, reflecting upon the price her originality
+was going to cost her, burst into tears.
+
+
+The other three of us refused to sacrifice ourselves upon the altar
+of Brown's originality.  We decided to be content with the customary
+beautiful girl.
+
+"Good or bad?" queried Brown.
+
+"Bad," responded MacShaughnassy emphatically.  "What do you say,
+Jephson?"
+
+"Well," replied Jephson, taking the pipe from between his lips, and
+speaking in that soothingly melancholy tone of voice that he never
+varies, whether telling a joke about a wedding or an anecdote
+relating to a funeral, "not altogether bad.  Bad, with good
+instincts, the good instincts well under control."
+
+"I wonder why it is," murmured MacShaughnassy reflectively, "that
+bad people are so much more interesting than good."
+
+"I don't think the reason is very difficult to find," answered
+Jephson.  "There's more uncertainty about them.  They keep you more
+on the alert.  It's like the difference between riding a well-
+broken, steady-going hack and a lively young colt with ideas of his
+own.  The one is comfortable to travel on, but the other provides
+you with more exercise.  If you start off with a thoroughly good
+woman for your heroine you give your story away in the first
+chapter.  Everybody knows precisely how she will behave under every
+conceivable combination of circumstances in which you can place her.
+On every occasion she will do the same thing--that is the right
+thing.
+
+"With a bad heroine, on the other hand, you can never be quite sure
+what is going to happen.  Out of the fifty or so courses open to
+her, she may take the right one, or she may take one of the forty-
+nine wrong ones, and you watch her with curiosity to see which it
+will be."
+
+"But surely there are plenty of good heroines who are interesting,"
+I said.
+
+"At intervals--when they do something wrong," answered Jephson.  "A
+consistently irreproachable heroine is as irritating as Socrates
+must have been to Xantippe, or as the model boy at school is to all
+the other lads.  Take the stock heroine of the eighteenth-century
+romance.  She never met her lover except for the purpose of telling
+him that she could not be his, and she generally wept steadily
+throughout the interview.  She never forgot to turn pale at the
+sight of blood, nor to faint in his arms at the most inconvenient
+moment possible.  She was determined never to marry without her
+father's consent, and was equally resolved never to marry anybody
+but the one particular person she was convinced he would never agree
+to her marrying.  She was an excellent young woman, and nearly as
+uninteresting as a celebrity at home."
+
+"Ah, but you're not talking about good women now," I observed.
+"You're talking about some silly person's idea of a good woman."
+
+"I quite admit it," replied Jephson.  "Nor, indeed, am I prepared to
+say what is a good woman.  I consider the subject too deep and too
+complicated for any mere human being to give judgment upon.  But I
+AM talking of the women who conformed to the popular idea of
+maidenly goodness in the age when these books were written.  You
+must remember goodness is not a known quantity.  It varies with
+every age and every locality, and it is, generally speaking, your
+'silly persons' who are responsible for its varying standards.  In
+Japan, a 'good' girl would be a girl who would sell her honour in
+order to afford little luxuries to her aged parents.  In certain
+hospitable islands of the torrid zone the 'good' wife goes to
+lengths that we should deem altogether unnecessary in making her
+husband's guest feel himself at home.  In ancient Hebraic days, Jael
+was accounted a good woman for murdering a sleeping man, and Sarai
+stood in no danger of losing the respect of her little world when
+she led Hagar unto Abraham.  In eighteenth-century England,
+supernatural stupidity and dulness of a degree that must have been
+difficult to attain, were held to be feminine virtues--indeed, they
+are so still--and authors, who are always among the most servile
+followers of public opinion, fashioned their puppets accordingly.
+Nowadays 'slumming' is the most applauded virtue, and so all our
+best heroines go slumming, and are 'good to the poor.'"
+
+"How useful 'the poor' are," remarked MacShaughnassy, somewhat
+abruptly, placing his feet on the mantelpiece, and tilting his chair
+back till it stood at an angle that caused us to rivet our attention
+upon it with hopeful interest.  "I don't think we scribbling fellows
+ever fully grasp how much we owe to 'the poor.'  Where would our
+angelic heroines and our noble-hearted heroes be if it were not for
+'the poor'?  We want to show that the dear girl is as good as she is
+beautiful.  What do we do?  We put a basket full of chickens and
+bottles of wine on her arm, a fetching little sun-bonnet on her
+head, and send her round among the poor.  How do we prove that our
+apparent scamp of a hero is really a noble young man at heart?  Why,
+by explaining that he is good to the poor.
+
+"They are as useful in real life as they are in Bookland.  What is
+it consoles the tradesman when the actor, earning eighty pounds a
+week, cannot pay his debts?  Why, reading in the theatrical
+newspapers gushing accounts of the dear fellow's invariable
+generosity to the poor.  What is it stills the small but irritating
+voice of conscience when we have successfully accomplished some
+extra big feat of swindling?  Why, the noble resolve to give ten per
+cent of the net profits to the poor.
+
+"What does a man do when he finds himself growing old, and feels
+that it is time for him to think seriously about securing his
+position in the next world?  Why, he becomes suddenly good to the
+poor.  If the poor were not there for him to be good to, what could
+he do?  He would be unable to reform at all.  It's a great comfort
+to think that the poor will always be with us.  They are the ladder
+by which we climb into heaven."
+
+There was silence for a few moments, while MacShaughnassy puffed
+away vigorously, and almost savagely, at his pipe, and then Brown
+said:  "I can tell you rather a quaint incident, bearing very aptly
+on the subject.  A cousin of mine was a land-agent in a small
+country town, and among the houses on his list was a fine old
+mansion that had remained vacant for many years.  He had despaired
+of ever selling it, when one day an elderly lady, very richly
+dressed, drove up to the office and made inquiries about it.  She
+said she had come across it accidentally while travelling through
+that part of the country the previous autumn, and had been much
+struck by its beauty and picturesqueness.  She added she was looking
+out for some quiet spot where she could settle down and peacefully
+pass the remainder of her days, and thought this place might
+possibly prove to be the very thing for her.
+
+"My cousin, delighted with the chance of a purchaser, at once drove
+her across to the estate, which was about eight miles distant from
+the town, and they went over it together.  My cousin waxed eloquent
+upon the subject of its advantages.  He dwelt upon its quiet and
+seclusion, its proximity--but not too close proximity--to the
+church, its convenient distance from the village.
+
+"Everything pointed to a satisfactory conclusion of the business.
+The lady was charmed with the situation and the surroundings, and
+delighted with the house and grounds.  She considered the price
+moderate.
+
+"'And now, Mr. Brown,' said she, as they stood by the lodge gate,
+'tell me, what class of poor have you got round about?'
+
+"'Poor?' answered my cousin; 'there are no poor.'
+
+"'No poor!' exclaimed the lady.  'No poor people in the village, or
+anywhere near?'
+
+"'You won't find a poor person within five miles of the estate,' he
+replied proudly.  'You see, my dear madam, this is a thinly
+populated and exceedingly prosperous county:  this particular
+district especially so.  There is not a family in it that is not,
+comparatively speaking, well-to-do.'
+
+"'I'm sorry to hear that,' said the lady, in a tone of
+disappointment.  'The place would have suited me so admirably but
+for that.'
+
+"'But surely, madam,' cried my cousin, to whom a demand for poor
+persons was an entirely new idea, 'you don't mean to say that you
+WANT poor people!  Why, we've always considered it one of the chief
+attractions of the property--nothing to shock the eye or wound the
+susceptibilities of the most tender-hearted occupant.'
+
+"'My dear Mr. Brown,' replied the lady, 'I will be perfectly frank
+with you.  I am becoming an old woman, and my past life has not,
+perhaps, been altogether too well spent.  It is my desire to atone
+for the--er--follies of my youth by an old age of well-doing, and to
+that end it is essential that I should be surrounded by a certain
+number of deserving poor.  I had hoped to find in this charming
+neighbourhood of yours the customary proportion of poverty and
+misery, in which case I should have taken the house without
+hesitation.  As it is, I must seek elsewhere.'
+
+"My cousin was perplexed, and sad.  'There are plenty of poor people
+in the town,' he said, 'many of them most interesting cases, and you
+could have the entire care of them all.  There'd be no opposition
+whatever, I'm positive.'
+
+"'Thank you,' replied the lady, 'but I really couldn't go as far as
+the town.  They must be within easy driving distance or they are no
+good.'
+
+"My cousin cudgelled his brains again.  He did not intend to let a
+purchaser slip through his fingers if he could help it.  At last a
+bright thought flashed into his mind.  'I'll tell you what we could
+do,' he said.  'There's a piece of waste land the other end of the
+village that we've never been able to do much with, in consequence
+of its being so swampy.  If you liked, we could run you up a dozen
+cottages on that, cheap--it would be all the better their being a
+bit ramshackle and unhealthy--and get some poor people for you, and
+put into them.'
+
+"The lady reflected upon the idea, and it struck her as a good one.
+
+"'You see,' continued my cousin, pushing his advantage, 'by adopting
+this method you would be able to select your own poor.  We would get
+you some nice, clean, grateful poor, and make the thing pleasant for
+you.'
+
+"It ended in the lady's accepting my cousin's offer, and giving him
+a list of the poor people she would like to have.  She selected one
+bedridden old woman (Church of England preferred); one paralytic old
+man; one blind girl who would want to be read aloud to; one poor
+atheist, willing to be converted; two cripples; one drunken father
+who would consent to be talked to seriously; one disagreeable old
+fellow, needing much patience; two large families, and four ordinary
+assorted couples.
+
+"My cousin experienced some difficulty in securing the drunken
+father.  Most of the drunken fathers he interviewed upon the subject
+had a rooted objection to being talked to at all.  After a long
+search, however, he discovered a mild little man, who, upon the
+lady's requirements and charitable intentions being explained to
+him, undertook to qualify himself for the vacancy by getting
+intoxicated at least once a week.  He said he could not promise more
+than once a week at first, he unfortunately possessing a strong
+natural distaste for all alcoholic liquors, which it would be
+necessary for him to overcome.  As he got more used to them, he
+would do better.
+
+"Over the disagreeable old man, my cousin also had trouble.  It was
+hard to hit the right degree of disagreeableness.  Some of them were
+so very unpleasant.  He eventually made choice of a decayed cab-
+driver with advanced Radical opinions, who insisted on a three
+years' contract.
+
+"The plan worked exceedingly well, and does so, my cousin tells me,
+to this day.  The drunken father has completely conquered his
+dislike to strong drink.  He has not been sober now for over three
+weeks, and has lately taken to knocking his wife about.  The
+disagreeable fellow is most conscientious in fulfilling his part of
+the bargain, and makes himself a perfect curse to the whole village.
+The others have dropped into their respective positions and are
+working well.  The lady visits them all every afternoon, and is most
+charitable.  They call her Lady Bountiful, and everybody blesses
+her."
+
+Brown rose as he finished speaking, and mixed himself a glass of
+whisky and water with the self-satisfied air of a benevolent man
+about to reward somebody for having done a good deed; and
+MacShaughnassy lifted up his voice and talked.
+
+"I know a story bearing on the subject, too," he said.  "It happened
+in a tiny Yorkshire village--a peaceful, respectable spot, where
+folks found life a bit slow.  One day, however, a new curate
+arrived, and that woke things up considerably.  He was a nice young
+man, and, having a large private income of his own, was altogether a
+most desirable catch.  Every unmarried female in the place went for
+him with one accord.
+
+"But ordinary feminine blandishments appeared to have no effect upon
+him.  He was a seriously inclined young man, and once, in the course
+of a casual conversation upon the subject of love, he was heard to
+say that he himself should never be attracted by mere beauty and
+charm.  What would appeal to him, he said, would be a woman's
+goodness--her charity and kindliness to the poor.
+
+"Well, that set the petticoats all thinking.  They saw that in
+studying fashion plates and practising expressions they had been
+going upon the wrong tack.  The card for them to play was 'the
+poor.'  But here a serious difficulty arose.  There was only one
+poor person in the whole parish, a cantankerous old fellow who lived
+in a tumble-down cottage at the back of the church, and fifteen
+able-bodied women (eleven girls, three old maids, and a widow)
+wanted to be 'good' to him.
+
+"Miss Simmonds, one of the old maids, got hold of him first, and
+commenced feeding him twice a day with beef-tea; and then the widow
+boarded him with port wine and oysters.  Later in the week others of
+the party drifted in upon him, and wanted to cram him with jelly and
+chickens.
+
+The old man couldn't understand it.  He was accustomed to a small
+sack of coals now and then, accompanied by a long lecture on his
+sins, and an occasional bottle of dandelion tea.  This sudden spurt
+on the part of Providence puzzled him.  He said nothing, however,
+but continued to take in as much of everything as he could hold.  At
+the end of a month he was too fat to get through his own back door.
+
+"The competition among the women-folk grew keener every day, and at
+last the old man began to give himself airs, and to make the place
+hard for them.  He made them clean his cottage out, and cook his
+meals, and when he was tired of having them about the house, he set
+them to work in the garden.
+
+"They grumbled a good deal, and there was a talk at one time of a
+sort of a strike, but what could they do?  He was the only pauper
+for miles round, and knew it.  He had the monopoly, and, like all
+monopolises, he abused his position.
+
+"He made them run errands.  He sent them out to buy his 'baccy,' at
+their own expense.  On one occasion he sent Miss Simmonds out with a
+jug to get his supper beer.  She indignantly refused at first, but
+he told her that if she gave him any of her stuck-up airs out she
+would go, and never come into his house again.  If she wouldn't do
+it there were plenty of others who would.  She knew it and went.
+
+"They had been in the habit of reading to him--good books with an
+elevating tendency.  But now he put his foot down upon that sort of
+thing.  He said he didn't want Sunday-school rubbish at his time of
+life.  What he liked was something spicy.  And he made them read him
+French novels and sea-faring tales, containing realistic language.
+And they didn't have to skip anything either, or he'd know the
+reason why.
+
+"He said he liked music, so a few of them clubbed together and
+bought him a harmonium.  Their idea was that they would sing hymns
+and play high-class melodies, but it wasn't his.  His idea was--
+'Keeping up the old girl's birthday' and 'She winked the other eye,'
+with chorus and skirt dance, and that's what they sang.
+
+"To what lengths his tyranny would have gone it is difficult to say,
+had not an event happened that brought his power to a premature
+collapse.  This was the curate's sudden and somewhat unexpected
+marriage with a very beautiful burlesque actress who had lately been
+performing in a neighbouring town.  He gave up the Church on his
+engagement, in consequence of his fiancee's objection to becoming a
+minister's wife.  She said she could never 'tumble to' the district
+visiting.
+
+"With the curate's wedding the old pauper's brief career of
+prosperity ended.  They packed him off to the workhouse after that,
+and made him break stones."
+
+
+At the end of the telling of his tale, MacShaughnassy lifted his
+feet off the mantelpiece, and set to work to wake up his legs; and
+Jephson took a hand, and began to spin us stories.
+
+But none of us felt inclined to laugh at Jephson's stories, for they
+dealt not with the goodness of the rich to the poor, which is a
+virtue yielding quick and highly satisfactory returns, but with the
+goodness of the poor to the poor, a somewhat less remunerative
+investment and a different matter altogether.
+
+For the poor themselves--I do not mean the noisy professional poor,
+but the silent, fighting poor--one is bound to feel a genuine
+respect.  One honours them, as one honours a wounded soldier.
+
+In the perpetual warfare between Humanity and Nature, the poor stand
+always in the van.  They die in the ditches, and we march over their
+bodies with the flags flying and the drums playing.
+
+One cannot think of them without an uncomfortable feeling that one
+ought to be a little bit ashamed of living in security and ease,
+leaving them to take all the hard blows.  It is as if one were
+always skulking in the tents, while one's comrades were fighting and
+dying in the front.
+
+They bleed and fall in silence there.  Nature with her terrible
+club, "Survival of the Fittest"; and Civilisation with her cruel
+sword, "Supply and Demand," beat them back, and they give way inch
+by inch, fighting to the end.  But it is in a dumb, sullen way, that
+is not sufficiently picturesque to be heroic.
+
+I remember seeing an old bull-dog, one Saturday night, lying on the
+doorstep of a small shop in the New Cut.  He lay there very quiet,
+and seemed a bit sleepy; and, as he looked savage, nobody disturbed
+him.  People stepped in and out over him, and occasionally in doing
+so, one would accidentally kick him, and then he would breathe a
+little harder and quicker.
+
+At last a passer-by, feeling something wet beneath his feet, looked
+down, and found that he was standing in a pool of blood, and,
+looking to see where it came from, found that it flowed in a thick,
+dark stream from the step on which the dog was lying.
+
+Then he stooped down and examined the dog, and the dog opened its
+eyes sleepily and looked at him, gave a grin which may have implied
+pleasure, or may have implied irritation at being disturbed, and
+died.
+
+A crowd collected, and they turned the dead body of the dog over on
+its side, and saw a fearful gash in the groin, out of which oozed
+blood, and other things.  The proprietor of the shop said the animal
+had been there for over an hour.
+
+I have known the poor to die in that same grim, silent way--not the
+poor that you, my delicately-gloved Lady Bountiful and my very
+excellent Sir Simon DoGood, know, or that you would care to know;
+not the poor who march in processions with banners and collection-
+boxes; not the poor that clamour round your soup kitchens and sing
+hymns at your tea meetings; but the poor that you don't know are
+poor until the tale is told at the coroner's inquest--the silent,
+proud poor who wake each morning to wrestle with Death till night-
+time, and who, when at last he overcomes them, and, forcing them
+down on the rotting floor of the dim attic, strangles them, still
+die with their teeth tight shut.
+
+There was a boy I came to know when I was living in the East End of
+London.  He was not a nice boy by any means.  He was not quite so
+clean as are the good boys in the religious magazines, and I have
+known a sailor to stop him in the street and reprove him for using
+indelicate language.
+
+He and his mother and the baby, a sickly infant of about five months
+old, lived in a cellar down a turning off Three Colt Street.  I am
+not quite sure what had become of the father.  I rather think he had
+been "converted," and had gone off round the country on a preaching
+tour.  The lad earned six shillings a week as an errand-boy; and the
+mother stitched trousers, and on days when she was feeling strong
+and energetic would often make as much as tenpence, or even a
+shilling.  Unfortunately, there were days when the four bare walls
+would chase each other round and round, and the candle seem a faint
+speck of light, a very long way off; and the frequency of these
+caused the family income for the week to occasionally fall somewhat
+low.
+
+One night the walls danced round quicker and quicker till they
+danced away altogether, and the candle shot up through the ceiling
+and became a star and the woman knew that it was time to put away
+her sewing.
+
+"Jim," she said:  she spoke very low, and the boy had to bend over
+her to hear, "if you poke about in the middle of the mattress you'll
+find a couple of pounds.  I saved them up a long while ago.  That
+will pay for burying me.  And, Jim, you'll take care of the kid.
+You won't let it go to the parish."
+
+Jim promised.
+
+"Say 'S'welp me Gawd,' Jim."
+
+"S'welp me Gawd, mother."
+
+Then the woman, having arranged her worldly affairs, lay back ready,
+and Death struck.
+
+Jim kept his oath.  He found the money, and buried his mother; and
+then, putting his household goods on a barrow, moved into cheaper
+apartments--half an old shed, for which he paid two shillings a
+week.
+
+For eighteen months he and the baby lived there.  He left the child
+at a nursery every morning, fetching it away each evening on his
+return from work, and for that he paid fourpence a day, which
+included a limited supply of milk.  How he managed to keep himself
+and more than half keep the child on the remaining two shillings I
+cannot say.  I only know that he did it, and that not a soul ever
+helped him or knew that there was help wanted.  He nursed the child,
+often pacing the room with it for hours, washed it, occasionally,
+and took it out for an airing every Sunday.
+
+Notwithstanding all which care, the little beggar, at the end of the
+time above mentioned, "pegged out," to use Jimmy's own words.
+
+The coroner was very severe on Jim.  "If you had taken proper
+steps," he said, "this child's life might have been preserved."  (He
+seemed to think it would have been better if the child's life had
+been preserved.  Coroners have quaint ideas!)  "Why didn't you apply
+to the relieving officer?"
+
+"'Cos I didn't want no relief," replied Jim sullenly.  "I promised
+my mother it should never go on the parish, and it didn't."
+
+The incident occurred, very luckily, during the dead season, and the
+evening papers took the case up, and made rather a good thing out of
+it.  Jim became quite a hero, I remember.  Kind-hearted people
+wrote, urging that somebody--the ground landlord, or the Government,
+or some one of that sort--ought to do something for him.  And
+everybody abused the local vestry.  I really think some benefit to
+Jim might have come out of it all if only the excitement had lasted
+a little longer.  Unfortunately, however, just at its height a spicy
+divorce case cropped up, and Jim was crowded out and forgotten.
+
+I told the boys this story of mine, after Jephson had done telling
+his, and, when I had finished, we found it was nearly one o'clock.
+So, of course, it was too late to do any more work to the novel that
+evening.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+
+
+We held our next business meeting on my houseboat.  Brown was
+opposed at first to my going down to this houseboat at all.  He
+thought that none of us should leave town while the novel was still
+on hand.
+
+MacShaughnassy, on the contrary, was of opinion that we should work
+better on a houseboat.  Speaking for himself, he said he never felt
+more like writing a really great work than when lying in a hammock
+among whispering leaves, with the deep blue sky above him, and a
+tumbler of iced claret cup within easy reach of his hand.  Failing a
+hammock, he found a deck chair a great incentive to mental labour.
+In the interests of the novel, he strongly recommended me to take
+down with me at least one comfortable deck chair, and plenty of
+lemons.
+
+I could not myself see any reason why we should not be able to think
+as well on a houseboat as anywhere else, and accordingly it was
+settled that I should go down and establish myself upon the thing,
+and that the others should visit me there from time to time, when we
+would sit round and toil.
+
+This houseboat was Ethelbertha's idea.  We had spent a day, the
+summer before, on one belonging to a friend of mine, and she had
+been enraptured with the life.  Everything was on such a
+delightfully tiny scale.  You lived in a tiny little room; you slept
+on a tiny little bed, in a tiny, tiny little bedroom; and you cooked
+your little dinner by a tiny little fire, in the tiniest little
+kitchen that ever you did see.  "Oh, it must be lovely, living on a
+houseboat," said Ethelbertha, with a gasp of ecstasy; "it must be
+like living in a doll's house."
+
+Ethelbertha was very young--ridiculously young, as I think I have
+mentioned before--in those days of which I am writing, and the love
+of dolls, and of the gorgeous dresses that dolls wear, and of the
+many-windowed but inconveniently arranged houses that dolls inhabit-
+-or are supposed to inhabit, for as a rule they seem to prefer
+sitting on the roof with their legs dangling down over the front
+door, which has always appeared to me to be unladylike:  but then,
+of course, I am no authority on doll etiquette--had not yet, I
+think, quite departed from her.  Nay, am I not sure that it had not?
+Do I not remember, years later, peeping into a certain room, the
+walls of which are covered with works of art of a character
+calculated to send any aesthetic person mad, and seeing her, sitting
+on the floor, before a red brick mansion, containing two rooms and a
+kitchen; and are not her hands trembling with delight as she
+arranges the three real tin plates upon the dresser?  And does she
+not knock at the real brass knocker upon the real front door until
+it comes off, and I have to sit down beside her on the floor and
+screw it on again?
+
+Perhaps, however, it is unwise for me to recall these things, and
+bring them forward thus in evidence against her, for cannot she in
+turn laugh at me?  Did not I also assist in the arrangement and
+appointment of that house beautiful?  We differed on the matter of
+the drawing-room carpet, I recollect.  Ethelbertha fancied a dark
+blue velvet, but I felt sure, taking the wall-paper into
+consideration, that some shade of terra-cotta would harmonise best.
+She agreed with me in the end, and we manufactured one out of an old
+chest protector.  It had a really charming effect, and gave a
+delightfully warm tone to the room.  The blue velvet we put in the
+kitchen.  I deemed this extravagance, but Ethelbertha said that
+servants thought a lot of a good carpet, and that it paid to humour
+them in little things, when practicable.
+
+The bedroom had one big bed and a cot in it; but I could not see
+where the girl was going to sleep.  The architect had overlooked her
+altogether:  that is so like an architect.  The house also suffered
+from the inconvenience common to residences of its class, of
+possessing no stairs, so that to move from one room to another it
+was necessary to burst your way up through the ceiling, or else to
+come outside and climb in through a window; either of which methods
+must be fatiguing when you come to do it often.
+
+Apart from these drawbacks, however, the house was one that any doll
+agent would have been justified in describing as a "most desirable
+family residence"; and it had been furnished with a lavishness that
+bordered on positive ostentation.  In the bedroom there was a
+washing-stand, and on the washing-stand there stood a jug and basin,
+and in the jug there was real water.  But all this was as nothing.
+I have known mere ordinary, middle-class dolls' houses in which you
+might find washing-stands and jugs and basins and real water--ay,
+and even soap.  But in this abode of luxury there was a real towel;
+so that a body could not only wash himself, but wipe himself
+afterwards, and that is a sensation that, as all dolls know, can be
+enjoyed only in the very first-class establishments.
+
+Then, in the drawing-room, there was a clock, which would tick just
+so long as you continued to shake it (it never seemed to get tired);
+also a picture and a piano, and a book upon the table, and a vase of
+flowers that would upset the moment you touched it, just like a real
+vase of flowers.  Oh, there was style about this room, I can tell
+you.
+
+But the glory of the house was its kitchen.  There were all things
+that heart could desire in this kitchen, saucepans with lids that
+took on and off, a flat-iron and a rolling-pin.  A dinner service
+for three occupied about half the room, and what space was left was
+filled up by the stove--a REAL stove!  Think of it, oh ye owners of
+dolls' houses, a stove in which you could burn real bits of coal,
+and on which you could boil real bits of potato for dinner--except
+when people said you mustn't, because it was dangerous, and took the
+grate away from you, and blew out the fire, a thing that hampers a
+cook.
+
+I never saw a house more complete in all its details.  Nothing had
+been overlooked, not even the family.  It lay on its back, just
+outside the front door, proud but calm, waiting to be put into
+possession.  It was not an extensive family.  It consisted of four--
+papa, and mamma, and baby, and the hired girl; just the family for a
+beginner.
+
+It was a well-dressed family too--not merely with grand clothes
+outside, covering a shameful condition of things beneath, such as,
+alas! is too often the case in doll society, but with every article
+necessary and proper to a lady or gentleman, down to items that I
+could not mention.  And all these garments, you must know, could be
+unfastened and taken off.  I have known dolls--stylish enough dolls,
+to look at, some of them--who have been content to go about with
+their clothes gummed on to them, and, in some cases, nailed on with
+tacks, which I take to be a slovenly and unhealthy habit.  But this
+family could be undressed in five minutes, without the aid of either
+hot water or a chisel.
+
+Not that it was advisable from an artistic point of view that any of
+them should.  They had not the figure that looks well in its natural
+state--none of them.  There was a want of fulness about them all.
+Besides, without their clothes, it might have been difficult to
+distinguish the baby from the papa, or the maid from the mistress,
+and thus domestic complications might have arisen.
+
+When all was ready for their reception we established them in their
+home.  We put as much of the baby to bed as the cot would hold, and
+made the papa and mamma comfortable in the drawing-room, where they
+sat on the floor and stared thoughtfully at each other across the
+table.  (They had to sit on the floor because the chairs were not
+big enough.)  The girl we placed in the kitchen, where she leant
+against the dresser in an attitude suggestive of drink, embracing
+the broom we had given her with maudlin affection.  Then we lifted
+up the house with care, and carried it cautiously into another room,
+and with the deftness of experienced conspirators placed it at the
+foot of a small bed, on the south-west corner of which an absurdly
+small somebody had hung an absurdly small stocking.
+
+To return to our own doll's house, Ethelbertha and I, discussing the
+subject during our return journey in the train, resolved that, next
+year, we ourselves would possess a houseboat, a smaller houseboat,
+if possible, than even the one we had just seen.  It should have
+art-muslin curtains and a flag, and the flowers about it should be
+wild roses and forget-me-nots.  I could work all the morning on the
+roof, with an awning over me to keep off the sun, while Ethelbertha
+trimmed the roses and made cakes for tea; and in the evenings we
+would sit out on the little deck, and Ethelbertha would play the
+guitar (she would begin learning it at once), or we could sit quiet
+and listen to the nightingales.
+
+For, when you are very, very young you dream that the summer is all
+sunny days and moonlight nights, that the wind blows always softly
+from the west, and that roses will thrive anywhere.  But, as you
+grow older, you grow tired of waiting for the gray sky to break.  So
+you close the door and come in, and crouch over the fire, wondering
+why the winds blow ever from the east:  and you have given up trying
+to rear roses.
+
+I knew a little cottage girl who saved up her money for months and
+months so as to buy a new frock in which to go to a flower-show.
+But the day of the flower-show was a wet day, so she wore an old
+frock instead.  And all the fete days for quite a long while were
+wet days, and she feared she would never have a chance of wearing
+her pretty white dress.  But at last there came a fete day morning
+that was bright and sunny, and then the little girl clapped her
+hands and ran upstairs, and took her new frock (which had been her
+"new frock" for so long a time that it was now the oldest frock she
+had) from the box where it lay neatly folded between lavender and
+thyme, and held it up, and laughed to think how nice she would look
+in it.
+
+But when she went to put it on, she found that she had out-grown it,
+and that it was too small for her every way.  So she had to wear a
+common old frock after all.
+
+Things happen that way, you know, in this world.  There were a boy
+and girl once who loved each other very dearly.  But they were both
+poor, so they agreed to wait till he had made enough money for them
+to live comfortably upon, and then they would marry and be happy.
+It took him a long while to make, because making money is very slow
+work, and he wanted, while he was about it, to make enough for them
+to be very happy upon indeed.  He accomplished the task eventually,
+however, and came back home a wealthy man.
+
+Then they met again in the poorly-furnished parlour where they had
+parted.  But they did not sit as near to each other as of old.  For
+she had lived alone so long that she had grown old-maidish, and she
+was feeling vexed with him for having dirtied the carpet with his
+muddy boots.  And he had worked so long earning money that he had
+grown hard and cold like the money itself, and was trying to think
+of something affectionate to say to her.
+
+So for a while they sat, one each side of the paper "fire-stove
+ornament," both wondering why they had shed such scalding tears on
+that day they had kissed each other good-bye; then said "good-bye"
+again, and were glad.
+
+There is another tale with much the same moral that I learnt at
+school out of a copy-book.  If I remember rightly, it runs somewhat
+like this:-
+
+Once upon a time there lived a wise grasshopper and a foolish ant.
+All through the pleasant summer weather the grasshopper sported and
+played, gambolling with his fellows in and out among the sun-beams,
+dining sumptuously each day on leaves and dew-drops, never troubling
+about the morrow, singing ever his one peaceful, droning song.
+
+But there came the cruel winter, and the grass-hopper, looking
+around, saw that his friends, the flowers, lay dead, and knew
+thereby that his own little span was drawing near its close.
+
+Then he felt glad that he had been so happy, and had not wasted his
+life.  "It has been very short," said he to himself; "but it has
+been very pleasant, and I think I have made the best use of it.  I
+have drunk in the sunshine, I have lain on the soft, warm air, I
+have played merry games in the waving grass, I have tasted the juice
+of the sweet green leaves.  I have done what I could.  I have spread
+my wings, I have sung my song.  Now I will thank God for the sunny
+days that are passed, and die."
+
+Saying which, he crawled under a brown leaf, and met his fate in the
+way that all brave grasshoppers should; and a little bird that was
+passing by picked him up tenderly and buried him.
+
+Now when the foolish ant saw this, she was greatly puffed up with
+Pharisaical conceit.  "How thankful I ought to be," said she, "that
+I am industrious and prudent, and not like this poor grasshopper.
+While he was flitting about from flower to flower, enjoying himself,
+I was hard at work, putting by against the winter.  Now he is dead,
+while I am about to make myself cosy in my warm home, and eat all
+the good things that I have been saving up."
+
+But, as she spoke, the gardener came along with his spade, and
+levelled the hill where she dwelt to the ground, and left her lying
+dead amidst the ruins.
+
+Then the same kind little bird that had buried the grasshopper came
+and picked her out and buried her also; and afterwards he composed
+and sang a song, the burthen of which was, "Gather ye rosebuds while
+ye may."  It was a very pretty song, and a very wise song, and a man
+who lived in those days, and to whom the birds, loving him and
+feeling that he was almost one of themselves, had taught their
+language, fortunately overheard it and wrote it down, so that all
+may read it to this day.
+
+Unhappily for us, however, Fate is a harsh governess, who has no
+sympathy with our desire for rosebuds.  "Don't stop to pick flowers
+now, my dear," she cries, in her sharp, cross tones, as she seizes
+our arm and jerks us back into the roadway; "we haven't time to-day.
+We will come back again to-morrow, and you shall pick them then."
+
+And we have to follow her, knowing, if we are experienced children,
+that the chances are that we shall never come that way to-morrow; or
+that, if we do, the roses will be dead.
+
+Fate would not hear of our having a houseboat that summer,--which
+was an exceptionally fine summer,--but promised us that if we were
+good and saved up our money, we should have one next year; and
+Ethelbertha and I, being simple-minded, inexperienced children, were
+content with the promise, and had faith in its satisfactory
+fulfilment.
+
+As soon as we reached home we informed Amenda of our plan.  The
+moment the girl opened the door, Ethelbertha burst out with:- "Oh!
+can you swim, Amenda?"
+
+"No, mum," answered Amenda, with entire absence of curiosity as to
+why such a question had been addressed to her, "I never knew but one
+girl as could, and she got drowned."
+
+"Well, you'll have to make haste and learn, then," continued
+Ethelbertha, "because you won't be able to walk out with your young
+man, you'll have to swim out.  We're not going to live in a house
+any more.  We're going to live on a boat in the middle of the
+river."
+
+Ethelbertha's chief object in life at this period was to surprise
+and shock Amenda, and her chief sorrow that she had never succeeded
+in doing so.  She had hoped great things from this announcement, but
+the girl remained unmoved.  "Oh, are you, mum," she replied; and
+went on to speak of other matters.
+
+I believe the result would have been the same if we had told her we
+were going to live in a balloon.
+
+I do not know how it was, I am sure.  Amenda was always most
+respectful in her manner.  But she had a knack of making Ethelbertha
+and myself feel that we were a couple of children, playing at being
+grown up and married, and that she was humouring us.
+
+Amenda stayed with us for nearly five years--until the milkman,
+having saved up sufficient to buy a "walk" of his own, had become
+practicable--but her attitude towards us never changed.  Even when
+we came to be really important married people, the proprietors of a
+"family," it was evident that she merely considered we had gone a
+step further in the game, and were playing now at being fathers and
+mothers.
+
+By some subtle process she contrived to imbue the baby also with
+this idea.  The child never seemed to me to take either of us quite
+seriously.  She would play with us, or join with us in light
+conversation; but when it came to the serious affairs of life, such
+as bathing or feeding, she preferred her nurse.
+
+Ethelbertha attempted to take her out in the perambulator one
+morning, but the child would not hear of it for a moment.
+
+"It's all right, baby dear," explained Ethelbertha soothingly.
+"Baby's going out with mamma this morning."
+
+"Oh no, baby ain't," was baby's rejoinder, in effect if not in
+words.  "Baby don't take a hand in experiments--not this baby.  I
+don't want to be upset or run over."
+
+Poor Ethel!  I shall never forget how heart-broken she was.  It was
+the want of confidence that wounded her.
+
+But these are reminiscences of other days, having no connection with
+the days of which I am--or should be--writing; and to wander from
+one matter to another is, in a teller of tales, a grievous sin, and
+a growing custom much to be condemned.  Therefore I will close my
+eyes to all other memories, and endeavour to see only that little
+white and green houseboat by the ferry, which was the scene of our
+future collaborations.
+
+Houseboats then were not built to the scale of Mississippi steamers,
+but this boat was a small one, even for that primitive age.  The man
+from whom we hired it described it as "compact."  The man to whom,
+at the end of the first month, we tried to sub-let it, characterised
+it as "poky."  In our letters we traversed this definition.  In our
+hearts we agreed with it.
+
+At first, however, its size--or, rather, its lack of size--was one
+of its chief charms in Ethelbertha's eyes.  The fact that if you got
+out of bed carelessly you were certain to knock your head against
+the ceiling, and that it was utterly impossible for any man to put
+on his trousers except in the saloon, she regarded as a capital
+joke.
+
+That she herself had to take a looking-glass and go upon the roof to
+do her back hair, she thought less amusing.
+
+Amenda accepted her new surroundings with her usual philosophic
+indifference.  On being informed that what she had mistaken for a
+linen-press was her bedroom, she remarked that there was one
+advantage about it, and that was, that she could not tumble out of
+bed, seeing there was nowhere to tumble; and, on being shown the
+kitchen, she observed that she should like it for two things--one
+was that she could sit in the middle and reach everything without
+getting up; the other, that nobody else could come into the
+apartment while she was there.
+
+"You see, Amenda," explained Ethelbertha apologetically, "we shall
+really live outside."
+
+"Yes, mum," answered Amenda, "I should say that would be the best
+place to do it."
+
+If only we could have lived more outside, the life might have been
+pleasant enough, but the weather rendered it impossible, six days
+out of the seven, for us to do more than look out of the window and
+feel thankful that we had a roof over our heads.
+
+I have known wet summers before and since.  I have learnt by many
+bitter experiences the danger and foolishness of leaving the shelter
+of London any time between the first of May and the thirty-first of
+October.  Indeed, the country is always associate in my mind with
+recollections of long, weary days passed in the pitiless rain, and
+sad evenings spent in other people's clothes.  But never have I
+known, and never, I pray night and morning, may I know again, such a
+summer as the one we lived through (though none of us expected to)
+on that confounded houseboat.
+
+In the morning we would be awakened by the rain's forcing its way
+through the window and wetting the bed, and would get up and mop out
+the saloon.  After breakfast I would try to work, but the beating of
+the hail upon the roof just over my head would drive every idea out
+of my brain, and, after a wasted hour or two, I would fling down my
+pen and hunt up Ethelbertha, and we would put on our mackintoshes
+and take our umbrellas and go out for a row.  At mid-day we would
+return and put on some dry clothes, and sit down to dinner.
+
+In the afternoon the storm generally freshened up a bit, and we were
+kept pretty busy rushing about with towels and cloths, trying to
+prevent the water from coming into the rooms and swamping us.
+During tea-time the saloon was usually illuminated by forked
+lightning.  The evenings we spent in baling out the boat, after
+which we took it in turns to go into the kitchen and warm ourselves.
+At eight we supped, and from then until it was time to go to bed we
+sat wrapped up in rugs, listening to the roaring of the thunder, and
+the howling of the wind, and the lashing of the waves, and wondering
+whether the boat would hold out through the night.
+
+Friends would come down to spend the day with us--elderly, irritable
+people, fond of warmth and comfort; people who did not, as a rule,
+hanker after jaunts, even under the most favourable conditions; but
+who had been persuaded by our silly talk that a day on the river
+would be to them like a Saturday to Monday in Paradise.
+
+They would arrive soaked; and we would shut them up in different
+bunks, and leave them to strip themselves and put on things of
+Ethelbertha's or of mine.  But Ethel and I, in those days, were
+slim, so that stout, middle-aged people in our clothes neither
+looked well nor felt happy.
+
+Upon their emerging we would take them into the saloon and try to
+entertain them by telling them what we had intended to do with them
+had the day been fine.  But their answers were short, and
+occasionally snappy, and after a while the conversation would flag,
+and we would sit round reading last week's newspapers and coughing.
+
+The moment their own clothes were dry (we lived in a perpetual
+atmosphere of steaming clothes) they would insist upon leaving us,
+which seemed to me discourteous after all that we had done for them,
+and would dress themselves once more and start off home, and get wet
+again before they got there.
+
+We would generally receive a letter a few days afterwards, written
+by some relative, informing us that both patients were doing as well
+as could be expected, and promising to send us a card for the
+funeral in case of a relapse.
+
+Our chief recreation, our sole consolation, during the long weeks of
+our imprisonment, was to watch from our windows the pleasure-seekers
+passing by in small open boats, and to reflect what an awful day
+they had had, or were going to have, as the case might be.
+
+In the forenoon they would head up stream--young men with their
+sweethearts; nephews taking out their rich old aunts; husbands and
+wives (some of them pairs, some of them odd ones); stylish-looking
+girls with cousins; energetic-looking men with dogs; high-class
+silent parties; low-class noisy parties; quarrelsome family parties-
+-boatload after boatload they went by, wet, but still hopeful,
+pointing out bits of blue sky to each other.
+
+In the evening they would return, drenched and gloomy, saying
+disagreeable things to one another.
+
+One couple, and one couple only, out of the many hundreds that
+passed under our review, came back from the ordeal with pleasant
+faces.  He was rowing hard and singing, with a handkerchief tied
+round his head to keep his hat on, and she was laughing at him,
+while trying to hold up an umbrella with one hand and steer with the
+other.
+
+There are but two explanations to account for people being jolly on
+the river in the rain.  The one I dismissed as being both
+uncharitable and improbable.  The other was creditable to the human
+race, and, adopting it, I took off my cap to this damp but cheerful
+pair as they went by.  They answered with a wave of the hand, and I
+stood looking after them till they disappeared in the mist.
+
+I am inclined to think that those young people, if they be still
+alive, are happy.  Maybe, fortune has been kind to them, or maybe
+she has not, but in either event they are, I am inclined to think,
+happier than are most people.
+
+Now and again, the daily tornado would rage with such fury as to
+defeat its own purpose by prematurely exhausting itself.  On these
+rare occasions we would sit out on the deck, and enjoy the unwonted
+luxury of fresh air.
+
+I remember well those few pleasant evenings:  the river, luminous
+with the drowned light, the dark banks where the night lurked, the
+storm-tossed sky, jewelled here and there with stars.
+
+It was delightful not to hear for an hour or so the sullen thrashing
+of the rain; but to listen to the leaping of the fishes, the soft
+swirl raised by some water-rat, swimming stealthily among the
+rushes, the restless twitterings of the few still wakeful birds.
+
+An old corncrake lived near to us, and the way he used to disturb
+all the other birds, and keep them from going to sleep, was
+shameful.  Amenda, who was town-bred, mistook him at first for one
+of those cheap alarm clocks, and wondered who was winding him up,
+and why they went on doing it all night; and, above all, why they
+didn't oil him.
+
+He would begin his unhallowed performance about dusk, just as every
+respectable bird was preparing to settle down for the night.  A
+family of thrushes had their nest a few yards from his stand, and
+they used to get perfectly furious with him.
+
+"There's that fool at it again," the female thrush would say; "why
+can't he do it in the day-time if he must do it at all?"  (She
+spoke, of course, in twitters, but I am confident the above is a
+correct translation.)
+
+After a while, the young thrushes would wake up and begin chirping,
+and then the mother would get madder than ever.
+
+"Can't you say something to him?" she would cry indignantly to her
+husband.  "How do you think the children can get to sleep, poor
+things, with that hideous row going on all night?  Might just as
+well be living in a saw-mill."
+
+Thus adjured, the male thrush would put his head over the nest, and
+call out in a nervous, apologetic manner:-
+
+"I say, you know, you there, I wish you wouldn't mind being quiet a
+bit.  My wife says she can't get the children to sleep.  It's too
+bad, you know, 'pon my word it is."
+
+"Gor on," the corncrake would answer surlily.  "You keep your wife
+herself quiet; that's enough for you to do."  And on he would go
+again worse than before.
+
+Then a mother blackbird, from a little further off, would join in
+the fray.
+
+"Ah, it's a good hiding he wants, not a talking to.  And if I was a
+cock, I'd give it him."  (This remark would be made in a tone of
+withering contempt, and would appear to bear reference to some
+previous discussion.)
+
+"You're quite right, ma'am," Mrs. Thrush would reply.  "That's what
+I tell my husband, but" (with rising inflection, so that every lady
+in the plantation might hear) "HE wouldn't move himself, bless you--
+no, not if I and the children were to die before his eyes for want
+of sleep."
+
+"Ah, he ain't the only one, my dear," the blackbird would pipe back,
+"they're all alike"; then, in a voice more of sorrow than of anger:-
+"but there, it ain't their fault, I suppose, poor things.  If you
+ain't got the spirit of a bird you can't help yourself."
+
+I would strain my ears at this point to hear if the male blackbird
+was moved at all by these taunts, but the only sound I could ever
+detect coming from his neighbourhood was that of palpably
+exaggerated snoring.
+
+By this time the whole glade would be awake, expressing views
+concerning that corncrake that would have wounded a less callous
+nature.
+
+"Blow me tight, Bill," some vulgar little hedge-sparrow would chirp
+out, in the midst of the hubbub, "if I don't believe the gent thinks
+'e's a-singing."
+
+"'Tain't 'is fault," Bill would reply, with mock sympathy.
+"Somebody's put a penny in the slot, and 'e can't stop 'isself."
+
+Irritated by the laugh that this would call forth from the younger
+birds, the corncrake would exert himself to be more objectionable
+than ever, and, as a means to this end, would commence giving his
+marvellous imitation of the sharpening of a rusty saw by a steel
+file.
+
+But at this an old crow, not to be trifled with, would cry out
+angrily:-
+
+"Stop that, now.  If I come down to you I'll peck your cranky head
+off, I will."
+
+And then would follow silence for a quarter of an hour, after which
+the whole thing would begin again.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+
+
+Brown and MacShaughnassy came down together on the Saturday
+afternoon; and, as soon as they had dried themselves, and had had
+some tea, we settled down to work.
+
+Jephson had written that he would not be able to be with us until
+late in the evening, and Brown proposed that we should occupy
+ourselves until his arrival with plots.
+
+"Let each of us," said he, "sketch out a plot.  Afterwards we can
+compare them, and select the best."
+
+This we proceeded to do.  The plots themselves I forget, but I
+remember that at the subsequent judging each man selected his own,
+and became so indignant at the bitter criticism to which it was
+subjected by the other two, that he tore it up; and, for the next
+half-hour, we sat and smoked in silence.
+
+When I was very young I yearned to know other people's opinion of me
+and all my works; now, my chief aim is to avoid hearing it.  In
+those days, had any one told me there was half a line about myself
+in a newspaper, I should have tramped London to obtain that
+publication.  Now, when I see a column headed with my name, I
+hurriedly fold up the paper and put it away from me, subduing my
+natural curiosity to read it by saying to myself, "Why should you?
+It will only upset you for the day."
+
+In my cubhood I possessed a friend.  Other friends have come into my
+life since--very dear and precious friends--but they have none of
+them been to me quite what this friend was.  Because he was my first
+friend, and we lived together in a world that was much bigger than
+this world--more full of joy and of grief; and, in that world, we
+loved and hated deeper than we love and hate in this smaller world
+that I have come to dwell in since.
+
+He also had the very young man's craving to be criticised, and we
+made it our custom to oblige each other.  We did not know then that
+what we meant, when we asked for "criticism," was encouragement.  We
+thought that we were strong--one does at the beginning of the
+battle, and that we could bear to hear the truth.
+
+Accordingly, each one pointed out to the other one his errors, and
+this task kept us both so busy that we had never time to say a word
+of praise to one another.  That we each had a high opinion of the
+other's talents I am convinced, but our heads were full of silly
+saws.  We said to ourselves:  "There are many who will praise a man;
+it is only his friend who will tell him of his faults."  Also, we
+said:  "No man sees his own shortcomings, but when these are pointed
+out to him by another he is grateful, and proceeds to mend them."
+
+As we came to know the world better, we learnt the fallacy of these
+ideas.  But then it was too late, for the mischief had been done.
+
+When one of us had written anything, he would read it to the other,
+and when he had finished he would say, "Now, tell me what you think
+of it--frankly and as a friend."
+
+Those were his words.  But his thoughts, though he may not have
+known them, were:-
+
+"Tell me it is clever and good, my friend, even if you do not think
+so.  The world is very cruel to those that have not yet conquered
+it, and, though we keep a careless face, our young hearts are scored
+with wrinkles.  Often we grow weary and faint-hearted.  Is it not
+so, my friend?  No one has faith in us, and in our dark hours we
+doubt ourselves.  You are my comrade.  You know what of myself I
+have put into this thing that to others will be but an idle half-
+hour's reading.  Tell me it is good, my friend.  Put a little heart
+into me, I pray you."
+
+But the other, full of the lust of criticism, which is
+civilisation's substitute for cruelty, would answer more in
+frankness than in friendship.  Then he who had written would flush
+angrily, and scornful words would pass.
+
+One evening, he read me a play he had written.  There was much that
+was good in it, but there were also faults (there are in some
+plays), and these I seized upon and made merry over.  I could hardly
+have dealt out to the piece more unnecessary bitterness had I been a
+professional critic.
+
+As soon as I paused from my sport he rose, and, taking his
+manuscript from the table, tore it in two, and flung it in the fire-
+-he was but a very young man, you must remember--and then, standing
+before me with a white face, told me, unsolicited, his opinion of me
+and of my art.  After which double event, it is perhaps needless to
+say that we parted in hot anger.
+
+I did not see him again for years.  The streets of life are very
+crowded, and if we loose each other's hands we are soon hustled far
+apart.  When I did next meet him it was by accident.
+
+I had left the Whitehall Rooms after a public dinner, and, glad of
+the cool night air, was strolling home by the Embankment.  A man,
+slouching along under the trees, paused as I overtook him.
+
+"You couldn't oblige me with a light, could you, guv'nor?" he said.
+The voice sounded strange, coming from the figure that it did.
+
+I struck a match, and held it out to him, shaded by my hands.  As
+the faint light illumined his face, I started back, and let the
+match fall:-
+
+"Harry!"
+
+He answered with a short dry laugh.  "I didn't know it was you," he
+said, "or I shouldn't have stopped you."
+
+"How has it come to this, old fellow?" I asked, laying my hand upon
+his shoulder.  His coat was unpleasantly greasy, and I drew my hand
+away again as quickly as I could, and tried to wipe it covertly upon
+my handkerchief.
+
+"Oh, it's a long, story," he answered carelessly, "and too
+conventional to be worth telling.  Some of us go up, you know.  Some
+of us go down.  You're doing pretty well, I hear."
+
+"I suppose so," I replied; "I've climbed a few feet up a greasy
+pole, and am trying to stick there.  But it is of you I want to
+talk.  Can't I do anything for you?"
+
+We were passing under a gas-lamp at the moment.  He thrust his face
+forward close to mine, and the light fell full and pitilessly upon
+it.
+
+"Do I look like a man you could do anything for?" he said.
+
+We walked on in silence side by side, I casting about for words that
+might seize hold of him.
+
+"You needn't worry about me," he continued after a while, "I'm
+comfortable enough.  We take life easily down here where I am.
+We've no disappointments."
+
+"Why did you give up like a weak coward?" I burst out angrily.  "You
+had talent.  You would have won with ordinary perseverance."
+
+"Maybe," he replied, in the same even tone of indifference.  "I
+suppose I hadn't the grit.  I think if somebody had believed in me
+it might have helped me.  But nobody did, and at last I lost belief
+in myself.  And when a man loses that, he's like a balloon with the
+gas let out."
+
+I listened to his words in indignation and astonishment.  "Nobody
+believed in you!" I repeated.  "Why, I always believed in you, you
+know that I--"
+
+Then I paused, remembering our "candid criticism" of one another.
+
+"Did you?" he replied quietly, "I never heard you say so.  Good-
+night."
+
+In the course of our Strandward walking we had come to the
+neighbourhood of the Savoy, and, as he spoke, he disappeared down
+one of the dark turnings thereabouts.
+
+I hastened after him, calling him by name, but though I heard his
+quick steps before me for a little way, they were soon swallowed up
+in the sound of other steps, and, when I reached the square in which
+the chapel stands, I had lost all trace of him.
+
+A policeman was standing by the churchyard railings, and of him I
+made inquiries.
+
+"What sort of a gent was he, sir?" questioned the man.
+
+"A tall thin gentleman, very shabbily dressed--might be mistaken for
+a tramp."
+
+"Ah, there's a good many of that sort living in this town," replied
+the man.  "I'm afraid you'll have some difficulty in finding him."
+
+Thus for a second time had I heard his footsteps die away, knowing I
+should never listen for their drawing near again.
+
+I wondered as I walked on--I have wondered before and since--whether
+Art, even with a capital A, is quite worth all the suffering that is
+inflicted in her behalf--whether she and we are better for all the
+scorning and the sneering, all the envying and the hating, that is
+done in her name.
+
+Jephson arrived about nine o'clock in the ferry-boat.  We were made
+acquainted with this fact by having our heads bumped against the
+sides of the saloon.
+
+Somebody or other always had their head bumped whenever the ferry-
+boat arrived.  It was a heavy and cumbersome machine, and the ferry-
+boy was not a good punter.  He admitted this frankly, which was
+creditable of him.  But he made no attempt to improve himself; that
+is, where he was wrong.  His method was to arrange the punt before
+starting in a line with the point towards which he wished to
+proceed, and then to push hard, without ever looking behind him,
+until something suddenly stopped him.  This was sometimes the bank,
+sometimes another boat, occasionally a steamer, from six to a dozen
+times a day our riparian dwelling.  That he never succeeded in
+staving the houseboat in speaks highly for the man who built her.
+
+One day he came down upon us with a tremendous crash.  Amenda was
+walking along the passage at the moment, and the result to her was
+that she received a violent blow first on the left side of her head
+and then on the right.
+
+She was accustomed to accept one bump as a matter of course, and to
+regard it as an intimation from the boy that he had come; but this
+double knock annoyed her:  so much "style" was out of place in a
+mere ferry-boy.  Accordingly she went out to him in a state of high
+indignation.
+
+"What do you think you are?" she cried, balancing accounts by boxing
+his ears first on one side and then on the other, "a torpedo!  What
+are you doing here at all?  What do you want?"
+
+"I don't want nothin'," explained the boy, rubbing his head; "I've
+brought a gent down."
+
+"A gent?" said Amenda, looking round, but seeing no one.  "What
+gent?"
+
+"A stout gent in a straw 'at," answered the boy, staring round him
+bewilderedly.
+
+"Well, where is he?" asked Amenda.
+
+"I dunno," replied the boy, in an awed voice; "'e was a-standin'
+there, at the other end of the punt, a-smokin' a cigar."
+
+Just then a head appeared above the water, and a spent but
+infuriated swimmer struggled up between the houseboat and the bank.
+
+"Oh, there 'e is!" cried the boy delightedly, evidently much
+relieved at this satisfactory solution of the mystery; "'e must ha'
+tumbled off the punt."
+
+"You're quite right, my lad, that's just what he did do, and there's
+your fee for assisting him to do it."  Saying which, my dripping
+friend, who had now scrambled upon deck, leant over, and following
+Amenda's excellent example, expressed his feelings upon the boy's
+head.
+
+There was one comforting reflection about the transaction as a
+whole, and that was that the ferry-boy had at last received a fit
+and proper reward for his services.  I had often felt inclined to
+give him something myself.  I think he was, without exception, the
+most clumsy and stupid boy I have ever come across; and that is
+saying a good deal.
+
+His mother undertook that for three-and-sixpence a week he should
+"make himself generally useful" to us for a couple of hours every
+morning.
+
+Those were the old lady's very words, and I repeated them to Amenda
+when I introduced the boy to her.
+
+"This is James, Amenda," I said; "he will come down here every
+morning at seven, and bring us our milk and the letters, and from
+then till nine he will make himself generally useful."
+
+Amenda took stock of him.
+
+"It will be a change of occupation for him, sir, I should say, by
+the look of him," she remarked.
+
+After that, whenever some more than usually stirring crash or blood-
+curdling bump would cause us to leap from our seats and cry:  "What
+on earth has happened?"  Amenda would reply:  "Oh, it's only James,
+mum, making himself generally useful."
+
+Whatever he lifted he let fall; whatever he touched he upset;
+whatever he came near--that was not a fixture--he knocked over; if
+it was a fixture, it knocked HIM over.  This was not carelessness:
+it seemed to be a natural gift.  Never in his life, I am convinced,
+had he carried a bucketful of anything anywhere without tumbling
+over it before he got there.  One of his duties was to water the
+flowers on the roof.  Fortunately--for the flowers--Nature, that
+summer, stood drinks with a lavishness sufficient to satisfy the
+most confirmed vegetable toper:  otherwise every plant on our boat
+would have died from drought.  Never one drop of water did they
+receive from him.  He was for ever taking them water, but he never
+arrived there with it.  As a rule he upset the pail before he got it
+on to the boat at all, and this was the best thing that could
+happen, because then the water simply went back into the river, and
+did no harm to any one.  Sometimes, however, he would succeed in
+landing it, and then the chances were he would spill it over the
+deck or into the passage.  Now and again, he would get halfway up
+the ladder before the accident occurred.  Twice he nearly reached
+the top; and once he actually did gain the roof.  What happened
+there on that memorable occasion will never be known.  The boy
+himself, when picked up, could explain nothing.  It is supposed that
+he lost his head with the pride of the achievement, and essayed
+feats that neither his previous training nor his natural abilities
+justified him in attempting.  However that may be, the fact remains
+that the main body of the water came down the kitchen chimney; and
+that the boy and the empty pail arrived together on deck before they
+knew they had started.
+
+When he could find nothing else to damage, he would go out of his
+way to upset himself.  He could not be sure of stepping from his own
+punt on to the boat with safety.  As often as not, he would catch
+his foot in the chain or the punt-pole, and arrive on his chest.
+
+Amenda used to condole with him.  "Your mother ought to be ashamed
+of herself," I heard her telling him one morning; "she could never
+have taught you to walk.  What you want is a go-cart."
+
+He was a willing lad, but his stupidity was super-natural.  A comet
+appeared in the sky that year, and everybody was talking about it.
+One day he said to me:-
+
+"There's a comet coming, ain't there, sir?"  He talked about it as
+though it were a circus.
+
+"Coming!" I answered, "it's come.  Haven't you seen it?"
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"Oh, well, you have a look for it to-night.  It's worth seeing."
+
+"Yees, sir, I should like to see it.  It's got a tail, ain't it,
+sir?"
+
+"Yes, a very fine tail."
+
+"Yees, sir, they said it 'ad a tail.  Where do you go to see it,
+sir?"
+
+"Go!  You don't want to go anywhere.  You'll see it in your own
+garden at ten o'clock."
+
+He thanked me, and, tumbling over a sack of potatoes, plunged head
+foremost into his punt and departed.
+
+Next morning, I asked him if he had seen the comet.
+
+"No, sir, I couldn't see it anywhere."
+
+"Did you look?"
+
+"Yees, sir.  I looked a long time."
+
+"How on earth did you manage to miss it then?" I exclaimed.  "It was
+a clear enough night.  Where did you look?"
+
+"In our garden, sir.  Where you told me."
+
+"Whereabouts in the garden?" chimed in Amenda, who happened to be
+standing by; "under the gooseberry bushes?"
+
+"Yees--everywhere."
+
+That is what he had done:  he had taken the stable lantern and
+searched the garden for it.
+
+But the day when he broke even his own record for foolishness
+happened about three weeks later.  MacShaughnassy was staying with
+us at the time, and on the Friday evening he mixed us a salad,
+according to a recipe given him by his aunt.  On the Saturday
+morning, everybody was, of course, very ill.  Everybody always is
+very ill after partaking of any dish prepared by MacShaughnassy.
+Some people attempt to explain this fact by talking glibly of "cause
+and effect."  MacShaughnassy maintains that it is simply
+coincidence.
+
+"How do you know," he says, "that you wouldn't have been ill if you
+hadn't eaten any?  You're queer enough now, any one can see, and I'm
+very sorry for you; but, for all that you can tell, if you hadn't
+eaten any of that stuff you might have been very much worse--perhaps
+dead.  In all probability, it has saved your life."  And for the
+rest of the day, he assumes towards you the attitude of a man who
+has dragged you from the grave.
+
+The moment Jimmy arrived I seized hold of him.
+
+"Jimmy," I said, "you must rush off to the chemist's immediately.
+Don't stop for anything.  Tell him to give you something for colic--
+the result of vegetable poisoning.  It must be something very
+strong, and enough for four.  Don't forget, something to counteract
+the effects of vegetable poisoning.  Hurry up, or it may be too
+late."
+
+My excitement communicated itself to the boy.  He tumbled back into
+his punt, and pushed off vigorously.  I watched him land, and
+disappear in the direction of the village.
+
+Half an hour passed, but Jimmy did not return.  No one felt
+sufficiently energetic to go after him.  We had only just strength
+enough to sit still and feebly abuse him.  At the end of an hour we
+were all feeling very much better.  At the end of an hour and a half
+we were glad he had not returned when he ought to have, and were
+only curious as to what had become of him.
+
+In the evening, strolling through the village, we saw him sitting by
+the open door of his mother's cottage, with a shawl wrapped round
+him.  He was looking worn and ill.
+
+"Why, Jimmy," I said, "what's the matter?  Why didn't you come back
+this morning?"
+
+"I couldn't, sir," Jimmy answered, "I was so queer.  Mother made me
+go to bed."
+
+"You seemed all right in the morning," I said; "what's made you
+queer?"
+
+"What Mr. Jones give me, sir:  it upset me awful."
+
+A light broke in upon me.
+
+"What did you say, Jimmy, when you got to Mr. Jones's shop?" I
+asked.
+
+"I told 'im what you said, sir, that 'e was to give me something to
+counteract the effects of vegetable poisoning.  And that it was to
+be very strong, and enough for four."
+
+"And what did he say?"
+
+"'E said that was only your nonsense, sir, and that I'd better have
+enough for one to begin with; and then 'e asked me if I'd been
+eating green apples again."
+
+"And you told him?"
+
+"Yees, sir, I told 'im I'd 'ad a few, and 'e said it served me
+right, and that 'e 'oped it would be a warning to me.  And then 'e
+put something fizzy in a glass and told me to drink it."
+
+"And you drank it?"
+
+"Yees, sir."
+
+"It never occurred to you, Jimmy, that there was nothing the matter
+with you--that you were never feeling better in your life, and that
+you did not require any medicine?"
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"Did one single scintilla of thought of any kind occur to you in
+connection with the matter, Jimmy, from beginning to end?"
+
+"No, sir."
+
+People who never met Jimmy disbelieve this story.  They argue that
+its premises are in disaccord with the known laws governing human
+nature, that its details do not square with the average of
+probability.  People who have seen and conversed with Jimmy accept
+it with simple faith.
+
+The advent of Jephson--which I trust the reader has not entirely
+forgotten--cheered us up considerably.  Jephson was always at his
+best when all other things were at their worst.  It was not that he
+struggled in Mark Tapley fashion to appear most cheerful when most
+depressed; it was that petty misfortunes and mishaps genuinely
+amused and inspirited him.  Most of us can recall our unpleasant
+experiences with amused affection; Jephson possessed the robuster
+philosophy that enabled him to enjoy his during their actual
+progress.  He arrived drenched to the skin, chuckling hugely at the
+idea of having come down on a visit to a houseboat in such weather.
+
+Under his warming influence, the hard lines on our faces thawed, and
+by supper time we were, as all Englishmen and women who wish to
+enjoy life should be, independent of the weather.
+
+Later on, as if disheartened by our indifference, the rain ceased,
+and we took our chairs out on the deck, and sat watching the
+lightning, which still played incessantly.  Then, not unnaturally,
+the talk drifted into a sombre channel, and we began recounting
+stories, dealing with the gloomy and mysterious side of life.
+
+Some of these were worth remembering, and some were not.  The one
+that left the strongest impression on my mind was a tale that
+Jephson told us.
+
+I had been relating a somewhat curious experience of my own.  I met
+a man in the Strand one day that I knew very well, as I thought,
+though I had not seen him for years.  We walked together to Charing
+Cross, and there we shook hands and parted.  Next morning, I spoke
+of this meeting to a mutual friend, and then I learnt, for the first
+time, that the man had died six months before.
+
+The natural inference was that I had mistaken one man for another,
+an error that, not having a good memory for faces, I frequently fall
+into.  What was remarkable about the matter, however, was that
+throughout our walk I had conversed with the man under the
+impression that he was that other dead man, and, whether by
+coincidence or not, his replies had never once suggested to me my
+mistake.
+
+As soon as I finished, Jephson, who had been listening very
+thoughtfully, asked me if I believed in spiritualism "to its fullest
+extent."
+
+"That is rather a large question," I answered.  "What do you mean by
+'spiritualism to its fullest extent'?"
+
+"Well, do you believe that the spirits of the dead have not only the
+power of revisiting this earth at their will, but that, when here,
+they have the power of action, or rather, of exciting to action?
+Let me put a definite case.  A spiritualist friend of mine, a
+sensible and by no means imaginative man, once told me that a table,
+through the medium of which the spirit of a friend had been in the
+habit of communicating with him, came slowly across the room towards
+him, of its own accord, one night as he sat alone, and pinioned him
+against the wall.  Now can any of you believe that, or can't you?"
+
+"I could," Brown took it upon himself to reply; "but, before doing
+so, I should wish for an introduction to the friend who told you the
+story.  Speaking generally," he continued, "it seems to me that the
+difference between what we call the natural and the supernatural is
+merely the difference between frequency and rarity of occurrence.
+Having regard to the phenomena we are compelled to admit, I think it
+illogical to disbelieve anything we are unable to disprove."
+
+"For my part," remarked MacShaughnassy, "I can believe in the
+ability of our spirit friends to give the quaint entertainments
+credited to them much easier than I can in their desire to do so."
+
+"You mean," added Jephson, "that you cannot understand why a spirit,
+not compelled as we are by the exigencies of society, should care to
+spend its evenings carrying on a laboured and childish conversation
+with a room full of abnormally uninteresting people."
+
+"That is precisely what I cannot understand," MacShaughnassy agreed.
+
+"Nor I, either," said Jephson.  "But I was thinking of something
+very different altogether.  Suppose a man died with the dearest wish
+of his heart unfulfilled, do you believe that his spirit might have
+power to return to earth and complete the interrupted work?"
+
+"Well," answered MacShaughnassy, "if one admits the possibility of
+spirits retaining any interest in the affairs of this world at all,
+it is certainly more reasonable to imagine them engaged upon a task
+such as you suggest, than to believe that they occupy themselves
+with the performance of mere drawing-room tricks.  But what are you
+leading up to?"
+
+"Why, to this," replied Jephson, seating himself straddle-legged
+across his chair, and leaning his arms upon the back.  "I was told a
+story this morning at the hospital by an old French doctor.  The
+actual facts are few and simple; all that is known can be read in
+the Paris police records of sixty-two years ago.
+
+"The most important part of the case, however, is the part that is
+not known, and that never will be known.
+
+"The story begins with a great wrong done by one man unto another
+man.  What the wrong was I do not know.  I am inclined to think,
+however, it was connected with a woman.  I think that, because he
+who had been wronged hated him who had wronged him with a hate such
+as does not often burn in a man's brain, unless it be fanned by the
+memory of a woman's breath.
+
+"Still that is only conjecture, and the point is immaterial.  The
+man who had done the wrong fled, and the other man followed him.  It
+became a point-to-point race, the first man having the advantage of
+a day's start.  The course was the whole world, and the stakes were
+the first man's life.
+
+"Travellers were few and far between in those days, and this made
+the trail easy to follow.  The first man, never knowing how far or
+how near the other was behind him, and hoping now and again that he
+might have baffled him, would rest for a while.  The second man,
+knowing always just how far the first one was before him, never
+paused, and thus each day the man who was spurred by Hate drew
+nearer to the man who was spurred by Fear.
+
+"At this town the answer to the never-varied question would be:-
+
+"'At seven o'clock last evening, M'sieur.'
+
+"'Seven--ah; eighteen hours.  Give me something to eat, quick, while
+the horses are being put to.'
+
+"At the next the calculation would be sixteen hours.
+
+"Passing a lonely chalet, Monsieur puts his head out of the window:-
+
+"'How long since a carriage passed this way, with a tall, fair man
+inside?'
+
+"'Such a one passed early this morning, M'sieur.'
+
+"'Thanks, drive on, a hundred francs apiece if you are through the
+pass before daybreak.'
+
+"'And what for dead horses, M'sieur?'
+
+"'Twice their value when living.'
+
+"One day the man who was ridden by Fear looked up, and saw before
+him the open door of a cathedral, and, passing in, knelt down and
+prayed.  He prayed long and fervently, for men, when they are in
+sore straits, clutch eagerly at the straws of faith.  He prayed that
+he might be forgiven his sin, and, more important still, that he
+might be pardoned the consequences of his sin, and be delivered from
+his adversary; and a few chairs from him, facing him, knelt his
+enemy, praying also.
+
+"But the second man's prayer, being a thanksgiving merely, was
+short, so that when the first man raised his eyes, he saw the face
+of his enemy gazing at him across the chair-tops, with a mocking
+smile upon it.
+
+"He made no attempt to rise, but remained kneeling, fascinated by
+the look of joy that shone out of the other man's eyes.  And the
+other man moved the high-backed chairs one by one, and came towards
+him softly.
+
+"Then, just as the man who had been wronged stood beside the man who
+had wronged him, full of gladness that his opportunity had come,
+there burst from the cathedral tower a sudden clash of bells, and
+the man, whose opportunity had come, broke his heart and fell back
+dead, with that mocking smile still playing round his mouth.
+
+"And so he lay there.
+
+'Then the man who had done the wrong rose up and passed out,
+praising God.
+
+"What became of the body of the other man is not known.  It was the
+body of a stranger who had died suddenly in the cathedral.  There
+was none to identify it, none to claim it.
+
+"Years passed away, and the survivor in the tragedy became a worthy
+and useful citizen, and a noted man of science.
+
+"In his laboratory were many objects necessary to him in his
+researches, and, prominent among them, stood in a certain corner a
+human skeleton.  It was a very old and much-mended skeleton, and one
+day the long-expected end arrived, and it tumbled to pieces.
+
+"Thus it became necessary to purchase another.
+
+"The man of science visited a dealer he well knew--a little
+parchment-faced old man who kept a dingy shop, where nothing was
+ever sold, within the shadow of the towers of Notre Dame.
+
+"The little parchment-faced old man had just the very thing that
+Monsieur wanted--a singularly fine and well-proportioned 'study.'
+It should be sent round and set up in Monsieur's laboratory that
+very afternoon.
+
+"The dealer was as good as his word.  When Monsieur entered his
+laboratory that evening, the thing was in its place.
+
+"Monsieur seated himself in his high-backed chair, and tried to
+collect his thoughts.  But Monsieur's thoughts were unruly, and
+inclined to wander, and to wander always in one direction.
+
+"Monsieur opened a large volume and commenced to read.  He read of a
+man who had wronged another and fled from him, the other man
+following.  Finding himself reading this, he closed the book
+angrily, and went and stood by the window and looked out.  He saw
+before him the sun-pierced nave of a great cathedral, and on the
+stones lay a dead man with a mocking smile upon his face.
+
+"Cursing himself for a fool, he turned away with a laugh.  But his
+laugh was short-lived, for it seemed to him that something else in
+the room was laughing also.  Struck suddenly still, with his feet
+glued to the ground, he stood listening for a while:  then sought
+with starting eyes the corner from where the sound had seemed to
+come.  But the white thing standing there was only grinning.
+
+"Monsieur wiped the damp sweat from his head and hands, and stole
+out.
+
+"For a couple of days he did not enter the room again.  On the
+third, telling himself that his fears were those of a hysterical
+girl, he opened the door and went in.  To shame himself, he took his
+lamp in his hand, and crossing over to the far corner where the
+skeleton stood, examined it.  A set of bones bought for three
+hundred francs.  Was he a child, to be scared by such a bogey!
+
+"He held his lamp up in front of the thing's grinning head.  The
+flame of the lamp flickered as though a faint breath had passed over
+it.
+
+"The man explained this to himself by saying that the walls of the
+house were old and cracked, and that the wind might creep in
+anywhere.  He repeated this explanation to himself as he recrossed
+the room, walking backwards, with his eyes fixed on the thing.  When
+he reached his desk, he sat down and gripped the arms of his chair
+till his fingers turned white.
+
+"He tried to work, but the empty sockets in that grinning head
+seemed to be drawing him towards them.  He rose and battled with his
+inclination to fly screaming from the room.  Glancing fearfully
+about him, his eye fell upon a high screen, standing before the
+door.  He dragged it forward, and placed it between himself and the
+thing, so that he could not see it--nor it see him.  Then he sat
+down again to his work.  For a while he forced himself to look at
+the book in front of him, but at last, unable to control himself any
+longer, he suffered his eyes to follow their own bent.
+
+"It may have been an hallucination.  He may have accidentally placed
+the screen so as to favour such an illusion.  But what he saw was a
+bony hand coming round the corner of the screen, and, with a cry, he
+fell to the floor in a swoon.
+
+"The people of the house came running in, and lifting him up,
+carried him out, and laid him upon his bed.  As soon as he
+recovered, his first question was, where had they found the thing--
+where was it when they entered the room? and when they told him they
+had seen it standing where it always stood, and had gone down into
+the room to look again, because of his frenzied entreaties, and
+returned trying to hide their smiles, he listened to their talk
+about overwork, and the necessity for change and rest, and said they
+might do with him as they would.
+
+"So for many months the laboratory door remained locked.  Then there
+came a chill autumn evening when the man of science opened it again,
+and closed it behind him.
+
+"He lighted his lamp, and gathered his instruments and books around
+him, and sat down before them in his high-backed chair.  And the old
+terror returned to him.
+
+"But this time he meant to conquer himself.  His nerves were
+stronger now, and his brain clearer; he would fight his unreasoning
+fear.  He crossed to the door and locked himself in, and flung the
+key to the other end of the room, where it fell among jars and
+bottles with an echoing clatter.
+
+"Later on, his old housekeeper, going her final round, tapped at his
+door and wished him good-night, as was her custom.  She received no
+response, at first, and, growing nervous, tapped louder and called
+again; and at length an answering 'good-night' came back to her.
+
+"She thought little about it at the time, but afterwards she
+remembered that the voice that had replied to her had been strangely
+grating and mechanical.  Trying to describe it, she likened it to
+such a voice as she would imagine coming from a statue.
+
+"Next morning his door remained still locked.  It was no unusual
+thing for him to work all night and far into the next day, so no one
+thought to be surprised.  When, however, evening came, and yet he
+did not appear, his servants gathered outside the room and
+whispered, remembering what had happened once before.
+
+"They listened, but could hear no sound.  They shook the door and
+called to him, then beat with their fists upon the wooden panels.
+But still no sound came from the room.
+
+"Becoming alarmed, they decided to burst open the door, and, after
+many blows, it gave way, and they crowded in.
+
+He sat bolt upright in his high-backed chair.  They thought at first
+he had died in his sleep.  But when they drew nearer and the light
+fell upon him, they saw the livid marks of bony fingers round his
+throat; and in his eyes there was a terror such as is not often seen
+in human eyes."
+
+
+Brown was the first to break the silence that followed.  He asked me
+if I had any brandy on board.  He said he felt he should like just a
+nip of brandy before going to bed.  That is one of the chief charms
+of Jephson's stories:  they always make you feel you want a little
+brandy.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+
+
+"Cats," remarked Jephson to me, one afternoon, as we sat in the punt
+discussing the plot of our novel, "cats are animals for whom I
+entertain a very great respect.  Cats and Nonconformists seem to me
+the only things in this world possessed of a practicable working
+conscience.  Watch a cat doing something mean and wrong--if ever one
+gives you the chance; notice how anxious she is that nobody should
+see her doing it; and how prompt, if detected, to pretend that she
+was not doing it--that she was not even thinking of doing it--that,
+as a matter of fact, she was just about to do something else, quite
+different.  You might almost think they had a soul.
+
+"Only this morning I was watching that tortoise-shell of yours on
+the houseboat.  She was creeping along the roof, behind the flower-
+boxes, stalking a young thrush that had perched upon a coil of rope.
+Murder gleamed from her eye, assassination lurked in every twitching
+muscle of her body.  As she crouched to spring, Fate, for once
+favouring the weak, directed her attention to myself, and she
+became, for the first time, aware of my presence.  It acted upon her
+as a heavenly vision upon a Biblical criminal.  In an instant she
+was a changed being.  The wicked beast, going about seeking whom it
+might devour, had vanished.  In its place sat a long-tailed, furry
+angel, gazing up into the sky with an expression that was one-third
+innocence and two-thirds admiration of the beauties of nature.  What
+was she doing there, did I want to know?  Why, could I not see,
+playing with a bit of earth.  Surely I was not so evil-minded as to
+imagine she wanted to kill that dear little bird--God bless it.
+
+"Then note an old Tom, slinking home in the early morning, after a
+night spent on a roof of bad repute.  Can you picture to yourself a
+living creature less eager to attract attention?  'Dear me,' you can
+all but hear it saying to itself, 'I'd no idea it was so late; how
+time does go when one is enjoying oneself.  I do hope I shan't meet
+any one I know--very awkward, it's being so light.'
+
+"In the distance it sees a policeman, and stops suddenly within the
+shelter of a shadow.  'Now what's he doing there,' it says, 'and
+close to our door too?  I can't go in while he's hanging about.
+He's sure to see and recognise me; and he's just the sort of man to
+talk to the servants.'
+
+"It hides itself behind a post and waits, peeping cautiously round
+the corner from time to time.  The policeman, however, seems to have
+taken up his residence at that particular spot, and the cat becomes
+worried and excited.
+
+"'What's the matter with the fool?' it mutters indignantly; 'is he
+dead?  Why don't he move on, he's always telling other people to.
+Stupid ass.'
+
+"Just then a far-off cry of 'milk' is heard, and the cat starts up
+in an agony of alarm.  'Great Scott, hark at that!  Why, everybody
+will be down before I get in.  Well, I can't help it.  I must chance
+it.'
+
+"He glances round at himself, and hesitates.  'I wouldn't mind if I
+didn't look so dirty and untidy,' he muses; 'people are so prone to
+think evil in this world.'
+
+"'Ah, well,' he adds, giving himself a shake, 'there's nothing else
+for it, I must put my trust in Providence, it's pulled me through
+before:  here goes.'
+
+"He assumes an aspect of chastened sorrow, and trots along with a
+demure and saddened step.  It is evident he wishes to convey the
+idea that he has been out all night on work connected with the
+Vigilance Association, and is now returning home sick at heart
+because of the sights that he has seen.
+
+"He squirms in, unnoticed, through a window, and has just time to
+give himself a hurried lick down before he hears the cook's step on
+the stairs.  When she enters the kitchen he is curled up on the
+hearthrug, fast asleep.  The opening of the shutters awakes him.  He
+rises and comes forward, yawning and stretching himself.
+
+"'Dear me, is it morning, then?' he says drowsily.  'Heigh-ho!  I've
+had such a lovely sleep, cook; and such a beautiful dream about poor
+mother.'
+
+"Cats! do you call them?  Why, they are Christians in everything
+except the number of legs."
+
+"They certainly are," I responded, "wonderfully cunning little
+animals, and it is not by their moral and religious instincts alone
+that they are so closely linked to man; the marvellous ability they
+display in taking care of 'number one' is worthy of the human race
+itself.  Some friends of mine had a cat, a big black Tom:  they have
+got half of him still.  They had reared him from a kitten, and, in
+their homely, undemonstrative way, they liked him.  There was
+nothing, however, approaching passion on either side.
+
+"One day a Chinchilla came to live in the neighbourhood, under the
+charge of an elderly spinster, and the two cats met at a garden wall
+party.
+
+"'What sort of diggings have you got?' asked the Chinchilla.
+
+"'Oh, pretty fair.'
+
+"'Nice people?'
+
+"'Yes, nice enough--as people go.'
+
+"'Pretty willing?  Look after you well, and all that sort of thing?'
+
+"'Yes--oh yes.  I've no fault to find with them.'
+
+"'What's the victuals like?'
+
+"'Oh, the usual thing, you know, bones and scraps, and a bit of dog-
+biscuit now and then for a change.'
+
+"'Bones and dog-biscuits!  Do you mean to say you eat bones?'
+
+"'Yes, when I can get 'em.  Why, what's wrong about them?'
+
+"'Shade of Egyptian Isis, bones and dog-biscuits!  Don't you ever
+get any spring chickens, or a sardine, or a lamb cutlet?'
+
+"'Chickens!  Sardines!  What are you talking about?  What are
+sardines?'
+
+"'What are sardines!  Oh, my dear child (the Chinchilla was a lady
+cat, and always called gentlemen friends a little older than herself
+'dear child'), these people of yours are treating you just
+shamefully.  Come, sit down and tell me all about it.  What do they
+give you to sleep on?'
+
+"'The floor.'
+
+"'I thought so; and skim milk and water to drink, I suppose?'
+
+"'It IS a bit thin.'
+
+"'I can quite imagine it.  You must leave these people, my dear, at
+once.'
+
+"'But where am I to go to?'
+
+"'Anywhere.'
+
+"'But who'll take me in?'
+
+"'Anybody, if you go the right way to work.  How many times do you
+think I've changed my people?  Seven!--and bettered myself on each
+occasion.  Why, do you know where I was born?  In a pig-sty.  There
+were three of us, mother and I and my little brother.  Mother would
+leave us every evening, returning generally just as it was getting
+light.  One morning she did not come back.  We waited and waited,
+but the day passed on and she did not return, and we grew hungrier
+and hungrier, and at last we lay down, side by side, and cried
+ourselves to sleep.
+
+"'In the evening, peeping through a hole in the door, we saw her
+coming across the field.  She was crawling very slowly, with her
+body close down against the ground.  We called to her, and she
+answered with a low "crroo"; but she did not hasten her pace.
+
+"'She crept in and rolled over on her side, and we ran to her, for
+we were almost starving.  We lay long upon her breasts, and she
+licked us over and over.
+
+"'I dropped asleep upon her, and in the night I awoke, feeling cold.
+I crept closer to her, but that only made me colder still, and she
+was wet and clammy with a dark moisture that was oozing from her
+side.  I did not know what it was at that time, but I have learnt
+since.
+
+"'That was when I could hardly have been four weeks old, and from
+that day to this I've looked after myself:  you've got to do that in
+this world, my dear.  For a while, I and my brother lived on in that
+sty and kept ourselves.  It was a grim struggle at first, two babies
+fighting for life; but we pulled through.  At the end of about three
+months, wandering farther from home than usual, I came upon a
+cottage, standing in the fields.  It looked warm and cosy through
+the open door, and I went in:  I have always been blessed with
+plenty of nerve.  Some children were playing round the fire, and
+they welcomed me and made much of me.  It was a new sensation to me,
+and I stayed there.  I thought the place a palace at the time.
+
+"'I might have gone on thinking so if it had not been that, passing
+through the village one day, I happened to catch sight of a room
+behind a shop.  There was a carpet on the floor, and a rug before
+the fire.  I had never known till then that there were such luxuries
+in the world.  I determined to make that shop my home, and I did
+so.'
+
+"'How did you manage it?' asked the black cat, who was growing
+interested.
+
+"'By the simple process of walking in and sitting down.  My dear
+child, cheek's the "Open sesame" to every door.  The cat that works
+hard dies of starvation, the cat that has brains is kicked
+downstairs for a fool, and the cat that has virtue is drowned for a
+scamp; but the cat that has cheek sleeps on a velvet cushion and
+dines on cream and horseflesh.  I marched straight in and rubbed
+myself against the old man's legs.  He and his wife were quite taken
+with what they called my "trustfulness," and adopted me with
+enthusiasm.  Strolling about the fields of an evening I often used
+to hear the children of the cottage calling my name.  It was weeks
+before they gave up seeking for me.  One of them, the youngest,
+would sob herself to sleep of a night, thinking that I was dead:
+they were affectionate children.
+
+"'I boarded with my shopkeeping friends for nearly a year, and from
+them I went to some new people who had lately come to the
+neighbourhood, and who possessed a really excellent cook.  I think I
+could have been very satisfied with these people, but,
+unfortunately, they came down in the world, and had to give up the
+big house and the cook, and take a cottage, and I did not care to go
+back to that sort of life.
+
+"'Accordingly I looked about for a fresh opening.  There was a
+curious old fellow who lived not far off.  People said he was rich,
+but nobody liked him.  He was shaped differently from other men.  I
+turned the matter over in my mind for a day or two, and then
+determined to give him a trial.  Being a lonely sort of man, he
+might make a fuss over me, and if not I could go.
+
+"'My surmise proved correct.  I have never been more petted than I
+was by "Toady," as the village boys had dubbed him.  My present
+guardian is foolish enough over me, goodness knows, but she has
+other ties, while "Toady" had nothing else to love, not even
+himself.  He could hardly believe his eyes at first when I jumped up
+on his knees and rubbed myself against his ugly face.  "Why, Kitty,"
+he said, "do you know you're the first living thing that has ever
+come to me of its own accord."  There were tears in his funny little
+red eyes as he said that.
+
+"'I remained two years with "Toady," and was very happy indeed.
+Then he fell ill, and strange people came to the house, and I was
+neglected.  "Toady" liked me to come up and lie upon the bed, where
+he could stroke me with his long, thin hand, and at first I used to
+do this.  But a sick man is not the best of company, as you can
+imagine, and the atmosphere of a sick room not too healthy, so, all
+things considered, I felt it was time for me to make a fresh move.
+
+"'I had some difficulty in getting away.  "Toady" was always asking
+for me, and they tried to keep me with him:  he seemed to lie easier
+when I was there.  I succeeded at length, however, and, once outside
+the door, I put sufficient distance between myself and the house to
+ensure my not being captured, for I knew "Toady" so long as he lived
+would never cease hoping to get me back.
+
+"'Where to go, I did not know.  Two or three homes were offered me,
+but none of them quite suited me.  At one place, where I put up for
+a day, just to see how I liked it, there was a dog; and at another,
+which would otherwise have done admirably, they kept a baby.
+Whatever you do, never stop at a house where they keep a baby.  If a
+child pulls your tail or ties a paper bag round your head, you can
+give it one for itself and nobody blames you.  "Well, serve you
+right," they say to the yelling brat, "you shouldn't tease the poor
+thing."  But if you resent a baby's holding you by the throat and
+trying to gouge out your eye with a wooden ladle, you are called a
+spiteful beast, and "shoo'd" all round the garden.  If people keep
+babies, they don't keep me; that's my rule.
+
+"'After sampling some three or four families, I finally fixed upon a
+banker.  Offers more advantageous from a worldly point of view were
+open to me.  I could have gone to a public-house, where the victuals
+were simply unlimited, and where the back door was left open all
+night.  But about the banker's (he was also a churchwarden, and his
+wife never smiled at anything less than a joke by the bishop) there
+was an atmosphere of solid respectability that I felt would be
+comforting to my nature.  My dear child, you will come across cynics
+who will sneer at respectability:  don't you listen to them.
+Respectability is its own reward--and a very real and practical
+reward.  It may not bring you dainty dishes and soft beds, but it
+brings you something better and more lasting.  It brings you the
+consciousness that you are living the right life, that you are doing
+the right thing, that, so far as earthly ingenuity can fix it, you
+are going to the right place, and that other folks ain't.  Don't you
+ever let any one set you against respectability.  It's the most
+satisfying thing I know of in this world--and about the cheapest.
+
+"'I was nearly three years with this family, and was sorry when I
+had to go.  I should never have left if I could have helped it, but
+one day something happened at the bank which necessitated the
+banker's taking a sudden journey to Spain, and, after that, the
+house became a somewhat unpleasant place to live in.  Noisy,
+disagreeable people were continually knocking at the door and making
+rows in the passage; and at night folks threw bricks at the windows.
+
+"'I was in a delicate state of health at the time, and my nerves
+could not stand it.  I said good-bye to the town, and making my way
+back into the country, put up with a county family.
+
+"'They were great swells, but I should have preferred them had they
+been more homely.  I am of an affectionate disposition, and I like
+every one about me to love me.  They were good enough to me in their
+distant way, but they did not take much notice of me, and I soon got
+tired of lavishing attentions on people that neither valued nor
+responded to them.
+
+"'From these people I went to a retired potato merchant.  It was a
+social descent, but a rise so far as comfort and appreciation were
+concerned.  They appeared to be an exceedingly nice family, and to
+be extremely fond of me.  I say they "appeared" to be these things,
+because the sequel proved that they were neither.  Six months after
+I had come to them they went away and left me.  They never asked me
+to accompany them.  They made no arrangements for me to stay behind.
+They evidently did not care what became of me.  Such egotistical
+indifference to the claims of friendship I had never before met
+with.  It shook my faith--never too robust--in human nature.  I
+determined that, in future, no one should have the opportunity of
+disappointing my trust in them.  I selected my present mistress on
+the recommendation of a gentleman friend of mine who had formerly
+lived with her.  He said she was an excellent caterer.  The only
+reason he had left her was that she expected him to be in at ten
+each night, and that hour didn't fit in with his other arrangements.
+It made no difference to me--as a matter of fact, I do not care for
+these midnight reunions that are so popular amongst us.  There are
+always too many cats for one properly to enjoy oneself, and sooner
+or later a rowdy element is sure to creep in.  I offered myself to
+her, and she accepted me gratefully.  But I have never liked her,
+and never shall.  She is a silly old woman, and bores me.  She is,
+however, devoted to me, and, unless something extra attractive turns
+up, I shall stick to her.
+
+"'That, my dear, is the story of my life, so far as it has gone.  I
+tell it you to show you how easy it is to be "taken in."  Fix on
+your house, and mew piteously at the back door.  When it is opened
+run in and rub yourself against the first leg you come across.  Rub
+hard, and look up confidingly.  Nothing gets round human beings, I
+have noticed, quicker than confidence.  They don't get much of it,
+and it pleases them.  Always be confiding.  At the same time be
+prepared for emergencies.  If you are still doubtful as to your
+reception, try and get yourself slightly wet.  Why people should
+prefer a wet cat to a dry one I have never been able to understand;
+but that a wet cat is practically sure of being taken in and gushed
+over, while a dry cat is liable to have the garden hose turned upon
+it, is an undoubted fact.  Also, if you can possibly manage it, and
+it is offered you, eat a bit of dry bread.  The Human Race is always
+stirred to its deepest depths by the sight of a cat eating a bit of
+dry bread.'
+
+"My friend's black Tom profited by the Chinchilla's wisdom.  A
+catless couple had lately come to live next door.  He determined to
+adopt them on trial.  Accordingly, on the first rainy day, he went
+out soon after lunch and sat for four hours in an open field.  In
+the evening, soaked to the skin, and feeling pretty hungry, he went
+mewing to their door.  One of the maids opened it, he rushed under
+her skirts and rubbed himself against her legs.  She screamed, and
+down came the master and the mistress to know what was the matter.
+
+"'It's a stray cat, mum,' said the girl.
+
+"'Turn it out,' said the master.
+
+"'Oh no, don't,' said the mistress.
+
+"'Oh, poor thing, it's wet,' said the housemaid.
+
+"'Perhaps it's hungry,' said the cook.
+
+"'Try it with a bit of dry bread,' sneered the master, who wrote for
+the newspapers, and thought he knew everything.
+
+"A stale crust was proffered.  The cat ate it greedily, and
+afterwards rubbed himself gratefully against the man's light
+trousers.
+
+"This made the man ashamed of himself, likewise of his trousers.
+'Oh, well, let it stop if it wants to,' he said.
+
+"So the cat was made comfortable, and stayed on.
+
+"Meanwhile its own family were seeking for it high and low.  They
+had not cared over much for it while they had had it; now it was
+gone, they were inconsolable.  In the light of its absence, it
+appeared to them the one thing that had made the place home.  The
+shadows of suspicion gathered round the case.  The cat's
+disappearance, at first regarded as a mystery, began to assume the
+shape of a crime.  The wife openly accused the husband of never
+having liked the animal, and more than hinted that he and the
+gardener between them could give a tolerably truthful account of its
+last moments; an insinuation that the husband repudiated with a
+warmth that only added credence to the original surmise.
+
+"The bull-terrier was had up and searchingly examined.  Fortunately
+for him, he had not had a single fight for two whole days.  Had any
+recent traces of blood been detected upon him, it would have gone
+hard with him.
+
+"The person who suffered most, however, was the youngest boy.  Three
+weeks before, he had dressed the cat in doll's clothes and taken it
+round the garden in the perambulator.  He himself had forgotten the
+incident, but Justice, though tardy, was on his track.  The misdeed
+was suddenly remembered at the very moment when unavailing regret
+for the loss of the favourite was at its deepest, so that to box his
+ears and send him, then and there, straight off to bed was felt to
+be a positive relief.
+
+"At the end of a fortnight, the cat, finding he had not, after all,
+bettered himself, came back.  The family were so surprised that at
+first they could not be sure whether he was flesh and blood, or a
+spirit come to comfort them.  After watching him eat half a pound of
+raw steak, they decided he was material, and caught him up and
+hugged him to their bosoms.  For a week they over-fed him and made
+much of him.  Then, the excitement cooling, he found himself
+dropping back into his old position, and didn't like it, and went
+next door again.
+
+"The next door people had also missed him, and they likewise greeted
+his return with extravagant ebullitions of joy.  This gave the cat
+an idea.  He saw that his game was to play the two families off one
+against the other; which he did.  He spent an alternate fortnight
+with each, and lived like a fighting cock.  His return was always
+greeted with enthusiasm, and every means were adopted to induce him
+to stay.  His little whims were carefully studied, his favourite
+dishes kept in constant readiness.
+
+"The destination of his goings leaked out at length, and then the
+two families quarrelled about him over the fence.  My friend accused
+the newspaper man of having lured him away.  The newspaper man
+retorted that the poor creature had come to his door wet and
+starving, and added that he would be ashamed to keep an animal
+merely to ill-treat it.  They have a quarrel about him twice a week
+on the average.  It will probably come to blows one of these days."
+
+Jephson appeared much surprised by this story.  He remained
+thoughtful and silent.  I asked him if he would like to hear any
+more, and as he offered no active opposition I went on.  (Maybe he
+was asleep; that idea did not occur to me at the time.)
+
+I told him of my grandmother's cat, who, after living a blameless
+life for upwards of eleven years, and bringing up a family of
+something like sixty-six, not counting those that died in infancy
+and the water-butt, took to drink in her old age, and was run over
+while in a state of intoxication (oh, the justice of it! ) by a
+brewer's dray.  I have read in temperance tracts that no dumb animal
+will touch a drop of alcoholic liquor.  My advice is, if you wish to
+keep them respectable, don't give them a chance to get at it.  I
+knew a pony-- But never mind him; we are talking about my
+grandmother's cat.
+
+A leaky beer-tap was the cause of her downfall.  A saucer used to be
+placed underneath it to catch the drippings.  One day the cat,
+coming in thirsty, and finding nothing else to drink, lapped up a
+little, liked it, and lapped a little more, went away for half an
+hour, and came back and finished the saucerful.  Then sat down
+beside it, and waited for it to fill again.
+
+From that day till the hour she died, I don't believe that cat was
+ever once quite sober.  Her days she passed in a drunken stupor
+before the kitchen fire.  Her nights she spent in the beer cellar.
+
+My grandmother, shocked and grieved beyond expression, gave up her
+barrel and adopted bottles.  The cat, thus condemned to enforced
+abstinence, meandered about the house for a day and a half in a
+disconsolate, quarrelsome mood.  Then she disappeared, returning at
+eleven o'clock as tight as a drum.
+
+Where she went, and how she managed to procure the drink, we never
+discovered; but the same programme was repeated every day.  Some
+time during the morning she would contrive to elude our vigilance
+and escape; and late every evening she would come reeling home
+across the fields in a condition that I will not sully my pen by
+attempting to describe.
+
+It was on Saturday night that she met the sad end to which I have
+before alluded.  She must have been very drunk, for the man told us
+that, in consequence of the darkness, and the fact that his horses
+were tired, he was proceeding at little more than a snail's pace.
+
+I think my grandmother was rather relieved than otherwise.  She had
+been very fond of the cat at one time, but its recent conduct had
+alienated her affection.  We children buried it in the garden under
+the mulberry tree, but the old lady insisted that there should be no
+tombstone, not even a mound raised.  So it lies there, unhonoured,
+in a drunkard's grave.
+
+I also told him of another cat our family had once possessed.  She
+was the most motherly thing I have ever known.  She was never happy
+without a family.  Indeed, I cannot remember her when she hadn't a
+family in one stage or another.  She was not very particular what
+sort of a family it was.  If she could not have kittens, then she
+would content herself with puppies or rats.  Anything that she could
+wash and feed seemed to satisfy her.  I believe she would have
+brought up chickens if we had entrusted them to her.
+
+All her brains must have run to motherliness, for she hadn't much
+sense.  She could never tell the difference between her own children
+and other people's.  She thought everything young was a kitten.  We
+once mixed up a spaniel puppy that had lost its own mother among her
+progeny.  I shall never forget her astonishment when it first
+barked.  She boxed both its ears, and then sat looking down at it
+with an expression of indignant sorrow that was really touching.
+
+"You're going to be a credit to your mother," she seemed to be
+saying "you're a nice comfort to any one's old age, you are, making
+a row like that.  And look at your ears flopping all over your face.
+I don't know where you pick up such ways."
+
+He was a good little dog.  He did try to mew, and he did try to wash
+his face with his paw, and to keep his tail still, but his success
+was not commensurate with his will.  I do not know which was the
+sadder to reflect upon, his efforts to become a creditable kitten,
+or his foster-mother's despair of ever making him one.
+
+Later on we gave her a baby squirrel to rear.  She was nursing a
+family of her own at the time, but she adopted him with enthusiasm,
+under the impression that he was another kitten, though she could
+not quite make out how she had come to overlook him.  He soon became
+her prime favourite.  She liked his colour, and took a mother's
+pride in his tail.  What troubled her was that it would cock up over
+his head.  She would hold it down with one paw, and lick it by the
+half-hour together, trying to make it set properly.  But the moment
+she let it go up it would cock again.  I have heard her cry with
+vexation because of this.
+
+One day a neighbouring cat came to see her, and the squirrel was
+clearly the subject of their talk.
+
+"It's a good colour," said the friend, looking critically at the
+supposed kitten, who was sitting up on his haunches combing his
+whiskers, and saying the only truthfully pleasant thing about him
+that she could think of.
+
+"He's a lovely colour," exclaimed our cat proudly.
+
+"I don't like his legs much," remarked the friend.
+
+"No," responded his mother thoughtfully, "you're right there.  His
+legs are his weak point.  I can't say I think much of his legs
+myself."
+
+"Maybe they'll fill out later on," suggested the friend, kindly.
+
+"Oh, I hope so," replied the mother, regaining her momentarily
+dashed cheerfulness.  "Oh yes, they'll come all right in time.  And
+then look at his tail.  Now, honestly, did you ever see a kitten
+with a finer tail?"
+
+"Yes, it's a good tail," assented the other; "but why do you do it
+up over his head?"
+
+"I don't," answered our cat.  "It goes that way.  I can't make it
+out.  I suppose it will come straight as he gets older."
+
+"It will be awkward if it don't," said the friend.
+
+"Oh, but I'm sure it will," replied our cat.  "I must lick it more.
+It's a tail that wants a good deal of licking, you can see that."
+
+And for hours that afternoon, after the other cat had gone, she sat
+trimming it; and, at the end, when she lifted her paw off it, and it
+flew back again like a steel spring over the squirrel's head, she
+sat and gazed at it with feelings that only those among my readers
+who have been mothers themselves will be able to comprehend.
+
+"What have I done," she seemed to say--"what have I done that this
+trouble should come upon me?"
+
+Jephson roused himself on my completion of this anecdote and sat up.
+
+"You and your friends appear to have been the possessors of some
+very remarkable cats," he observed.
+
+"Yes," I answered, "our family has been singularly fortunate in its
+cats."
+
+"Singularly so," agreed Jephson; "I have never met but one man from
+whom I have heard more wonderful cat talk than, at one time or
+another, I have from you."
+
+"Oh," I said, not, perhaps without a touch of jealousy in my voice,
+"and who was he?"
+
+"He was a seafaring man," replied Jephson.  "I met him on a
+Hampstead tram, and we discussed the subject of animal sagacity.
+
+"'Yes, sir,' he said, 'monkeys is cute.  I've come across monkeys as
+could give points to one or two lubbers I've sailed under; and
+elephants is pretty spry, if you can believe all that's told of 'em.
+I've heard some tall tales about elephants.  And, of course, dogs
+has their heads screwed on all right:  I don't say as they ain't.
+But what I do say is:  that for straightfor'ard, level-headed
+reasoning, give me cats.  You see, sir, a dog, he thinks a powerful
+deal of a man--never was such a cute thing as a man, in a dog's
+opinion; and he takes good care that everybody knows it.  Naturally
+enough, we says a dog is the most intellectual animal there is.  Now
+a cat, she's got her own opinion about human beings.  She don't say
+much, but you can tell enough to make you anxious not to hear the
+whole of it.  The consequence is, we says a cat's got no
+intelligence.  That's where we let our prejudice steer our judgment
+wrong.  In a matter of plain common sense, there ain't a cat living
+as couldn't take the lee side of a dog and fly round him.  Now, have
+you ever noticed a dog at the end of a chain, trying to kill a cat
+as is sitting washing her face three-quarters of an inch out of his
+reach?  Of course you have.  Well, who's got the sense out of those
+two?  The cat knows that it ain't in the nature of steel chains to
+stretch.  The dog, who ought, you'd think, to know a durned sight
+more about 'em than she does, is sure they will if you only bark
+loud enough.
+
+"'Then again, have you ever been made mad by cats screeching in the
+night, and jumped out of bed and opened the window and yelled at
+them?  Did they ever budge an inch for that, though you shrieked
+loud enough to skeer the dead, and waved your arms about like a man
+in a play?  Not they.  They've turned and looked at you, that's all.
+"Yell away, old man," they've said, "we like to hear you:  the more
+the merrier."  Then what have you done?  Why, you've snatched up a
+hair-brush, or a boot, or a candlestick, and made as if you'd throw
+it at them.  They've seen your attitude, they've seen the thing in
+your hand, but they ain't moved a point.  They knew as you weren't
+going to chuck valuable property out of window with the chance of
+getting it lost or spoiled.  They've got sense themselves, and they
+give you credit for having some.  If you don't believe that's the
+reason, you try showing them a lump of coal, or half a brick, next
+time--something as they know you WILL throw.  Before you're ready to
+heave it, there won't be a cat within aim.
+
+"'Then as to judgment and knowledge of the world, why dogs are
+babies to 'em.  Have you ever tried telling a yarn before a cat,
+sir?'
+
+"I replied that cats had often been present during anecdotal
+recitals of mine, but that, hitherto, I had paid no particular
+attention to their demeanour.
+
+"'Ah, well, you take an opportunity of doing so one day, sir,'
+answered the old fellow; 'it's worth the experiment.  If you're
+telling a story before a cat, and she don't get uneasy during any
+part of the narrative, you can reckon you've got hold of a thing as
+it will be safe for you to tell to the Lord Chief Justice of
+England.
+
+"'I've got a messmate,' he continued; 'William Cooley is his name.
+We call him Truthful Billy.  He's as good a seaman as ever trod
+quarter-deck; but when he gets spinning yarns he ain't the sort of
+man as I could advise you to rely upon.  Well, Billy, he's got a
+dog, and I've seen him sit and tell yarns before that dog that would
+make a cat squirm out of its skin, and that dog's taken 'em in and
+believed 'em.  One night, up at his old woman's, Bill told us a yarn
+by the side of which salt junk two voyages old would pass for spring
+chicken.  I watched the dog, to see how he would take it.  He
+listened to it from beginning to end with cocked ears, and never so
+much as blinked.  Every now and then he would look round with an
+expression of astonishment or delight that seemed to say:
+"Wonderful, isn't it!"  "Dear me, just think of it!"  "Did you
+ever!"  "Well, if that don't beat everything!"  He was a chuckle-
+headed dog; you could have told him anything.
+
+"'It irritated me that Bill should have such an animal about him to
+encourage him, and when he had finished I said to him, "I wish you'd
+tell that yarn round at my quarters one evening."
+
+"'Why?' said Bill.
+
+"'Oh, it's just a fancy of mine,' I says.  I didn't tell him I was
+wanting my old cat to hear it.
+
+"'Oh, all right,' says Bill, 'you remind me.'  He loved yarning,
+Billy did.
+
+"'Next night but one he slings himself up in my cabin, and I does
+so.  Nothing loth, off he starts.  There was about half-a-dozen of
+us stretched round, and the cat was sitting before the fire fussing
+itself up.  Before Bill had got fairly under weigh, she stops
+washing and looks up at me, puzzled like, as much as to say, "What
+have we got here, a missionary?"  I signalled to her to keep quiet,
+and Bill went on with his yarn.  When he got to the part about the
+sharks, she turned deliberately round and looked at him.  I tell you
+there was an expression of disgust on that cat's face as might have
+made a travelling Cheap Jack feel ashamed of himself.  It was that
+human, I give you my word, sir, I forgot for the moment as the poor
+animal couldn't speak.  I could see the words that were on its lips:
+"Why don't you tell us you swallowed the anchor?" and I sat on
+tenter-hooks, fearing each instant that she would say them aloud.
+It was a relief to me when she turned her back on Bill.
+
+"'For a few minutes she sat very still, and seemed to be wrestling
+with herself like.  I never saw a cat more set on controlling its
+feelings, or that seemed to suffer more in silence.  It made my
+heart ache to watch it.
+
+"'At last Bill came to the point where he and the captain between
+'em hold the shark's mouth open while the cabin-boy dives in head
+foremost, and fetches up, undigested, the gold watch and chain as
+the bo'sun was a-wearing when he fell overboard; and at that the old
+cat giv'd a screech, and rolled over on her side with her legs in
+the air.
+
+"'I thought at first the poor thing was dead, but she rallied after
+a bit, and it seemed as though she had braced herself up to hear the
+thing out.
+
+"'But a little further on, Bill got too much for her again, and this
+time she owned herself beat.  She rose up and looked round at us:
+"You'll excuse me, gentlemen," she said--leastways that is what she
+said if looks go for anything--"maybe you're used to this sort of
+rubbish, and it don't get on your nerves.  With me it's different.
+I guess I've heard as much of this fool's talk as my constitution
+will stand, and if it's all the same to you I'll get outside before
+I'm sick."
+
+"'With that she walked up to the door, and I opened it for her, and
+she went out.
+
+"'You can't fool a cat with talk same as you can a dog.'"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+
+
+Does man ever reform?  Balzac says he doesn't.  So far as my
+experience goes, it agrees with that of Balzac--a fact the admirers
+of that author are at liberty to make what use of they please.
+
+When I was young and accustomed to take my views of life from people
+who were older than myself, and who knew better, so they said, I
+used to believe that he did.  Examples of "reformed characters" were
+frequently pointed out to me--indeed, our village, situate a few
+miles from a small seaport town, seemed to be peculiarly rich in
+such.  They were, from all accounts, including their own, persons
+who had formerly behaved with quite unnecessary depravity, and who,
+at the time I knew them, appeared to be going to equally
+objectionable lengths in the opposite direction.  They invariably
+belonged to one of two classes, the low-spirited or the aggressively
+unpleasant.  They said, and I believed, that they were happy; but I
+could not help reflecting how very sad they must have been before
+they were happy.
+
+One of them, a small, meek-eyed old man with a piping voice, had
+been exceptionally wild in his youth.  What had been his special
+villainy I could never discover.  People responded to my inquiries
+by saying that he had been "Oh, generally bad," and increased my
+longing for detail by adding that little boys ought not to want to
+know about such things.  From their tone and manner I assumed that
+he must have been a pirate at the very least, and regarded him with
+awe, not unmingled with secret admiration.
+
+Whatever it was, he had been saved from it by his wife, a bony lady
+of unprepossessing appearance, but irreproachable views.
+
+One day he called at our house for some purpose or other, and, being
+left alone with him for a few minutes, I took the opportunity of
+interviewing him personally on the subject.
+
+"You were very wicked once, weren't you?" I said, seeking by
+emphasis on the "once" to mitigate what I felt might be the
+disagreeable nature of the question.
+
+To my intense surprise, a gleam of shameful glory lit up his wizened
+face, and a sound which I tried to think a sigh, but which sounded
+like a chuckle, escaped his lips.
+
+"Ay," he replied; "I've been a bit of a spanker in my time."
+
+The term "spanker" in such connection puzzled me.  I had been
+hitherto led to regard a spanker as an eminently conscientious
+person, especially where the short-comings of other people were
+concerned; a person who laboured for the good of others.  That the
+word could also be employed to designate a sinful party was a
+revelation to me.
+
+"But you are good now, aren't you?" I continued, dismissing further
+reflection upon the etymology of "spanker" to a more fitting
+occasion.
+
+"Ay, ay," he answered, his countenance resuming its customary aspect
+of resigned melancholy.  "I be a brand plucked from the burning, I
+be.  There beant much wrong wi' Deacon Sawyers, now."
+
+"And it was your wife that made you good, wasn't it?" I persisted,
+determined, now that I had started this investigation, to obtain
+confirmation at first hand on all points.
+
+At the mention of his wife his features became suddenly transformed.
+Glancing hurriedly round, to make sure, apparently, that no one but
+myself was within hearing, he leaned across and hissed these words
+into my ear--I have never forgotten them, there was a ring of such
+evident sincerity about them -
+
+"I'd like to skin her, I'd like to skin her alive."
+
+It struck me, even in the light of my then limited judgment, as an
+unregenerate wish; and thus early my faith in the possibility of
+man's reformation received the first of those many blows that have
+resulted in shattering it.
+
+Nature, whether human or otherwise, was not made to be reformed.
+You can develop, you can check, but you cannot alter it.
+
+You can take a small tiger and train it to sit on a hearthrug, and
+to lap milk, and so long as you provide it with hearthrugs to lie on
+and sufficient milk to drink, it will purr and behave like an
+affectionate domestic pet.  But it is a tiger, with all a tiger's
+instincts, and its progeny to the end of all time will be tigers.
+
+In the same way, you can take an ape and develop it through a few
+thousand generations until it loses its tail and becomes an
+altogether superior ape.  You can go on developing it through still
+a few more thousands of generations until it gathers to itself out
+of the waste vapours of eternity an intellect and a soul, by the aid
+of which it is enabled to keep the original apish nature more or
+less under control.
+
+But the ape is still there, and always will be, and every now and
+again, when Constable Civilisation turns his back for a moment, as
+during "Spanish Furies," or "September massacres," or Western mob
+rule, it creeps out and bites and tears at quivering flesh, or
+plunges its hairy arms elbow deep in blood, or dances round a
+burning nigger.
+
+I knew a man once--or, rather, I knew of a man--who was a confirmed
+drunkard.  He became and continued a drunkard, not through weakness,
+but through will.  When his friends remonstrated with him, he told
+them to mind their own business, and to let him mind his.  If he saw
+any reason for not getting drunk he would give it up.  Meanwhile he
+liked getting drunk, and he meant to get drunk as often as possible.
+
+He went about it deliberately, and did it thoroughly.  For nearly
+ten years, so it was reported, he never went to bed sober.  This may
+be an exaggeration--it would be a singular report were it not--but
+it can be relied upon as sufficiently truthful for all practical
+purposes.
+
+Then there came a day when he did see a reason for not getting
+drunk.  He signed no pledge, he took no oath.  He said, "I will
+never touch another drop of drink," and for twenty-six years he kept
+his word.
+
+At the end of that time a combination of circumstances occurred that
+made life troublesome to him, so that he desired to be rid of it
+altogether.  He was a man accustomed, when he desired a thing within
+his reach, to stretch out his hand and take it.  He reviewed the
+case calmly, and decided to commit suicide.
+
+If the thing were to be done at all, it would be best, for reasons
+that if set forth would make this a long story, that it should be
+done that very night, and, if possible, before eleven o'clock, which
+was the earliest hour a certain person could arrive from a certain
+place.
+
+It was then four in the afternoon.  He attended to some necessary
+business, and wrote some necessary letters.  This occupied him until
+seven.  He then called a cab and drove to a small hotel in the
+suburbs, engaged a private room, and ordered up materials for the
+making of the particular punch that had been the last beverage he
+had got drunk on, six-and-twenty years ago.
+
+For three hours he sat there drinking steadily, with his watch
+before him.  At half-past ten he rang the bell, paid his bill, came
+home, and cut his throat.
+
+For a quarter of a century people had been calling that man a
+"reformed character."  His character had not reformed one jot.  The
+craving for drink had never died.  For twenty-six years he had,
+being a great man, held it gripped by the throat.  When all things
+became a matter of indifference to him, he loosened his grasp, and
+the evil instinct rose up within him as strong on the day he died as
+on the day he forced it down.
+
+That is all a man can do, pray for strength to crush down the evil
+that is in him, and to keep it held down day after day.  I never
+hear washy talk about "changed characters" and "reformed natures"
+but I think of a sermon I once heard at a Wesleyan revivalist
+meeting in the Black Country.
+
+"Ah! my friends, we've all of us got the devil inside us.  I've got
+him, you've got him," cried the preacher--he was an old man, with
+long white hair and beard, and wild, fighting eyes.  Most of the
+preachers who came "reviving," as it was called, through that
+district, had those eyes.  Some of them needed "reviving"
+themselves, in quite another sense, before they got clear out of it.
+I am speaking now of more than thirty years ago.
+
+"Ah! so us have--so us have," came the response.
+
+"And you carn't get rid of him," continued the speaker.
+
+"Not of oursel's," ejaculated a fervent voice at the end of the
+room, "but the Lord will help us."
+
+The old preacher turned on him almost fiercely:-
+
+"But th' Lord woan't," he shouted; "doan't 'ee reckon on that, lad.
+Ye've got him an' ye've got ta keep him.  Ye carn't get rid of him.
+Th' Lord doan't mean 'ee to."
+
+Here there broke forth murmurs of angry disapproval, but the old
+fellow went on, unheeding:-
+
+"It arn't good for 'ee to get rid of him.  Ye've just got to hug him
+tight.  Doan't let him go.  Hold him fast, and--LAM INTO HIM.  I
+tell 'ee it's good, healthy Christian exercise."
+
+We had been discussing the subject with reference to our hero.  It
+had been suggested by Brown as an unhackneyed idea, and one lending
+itself, therefore, to comparative freshness of treatment, that our
+hero should be a thorough-paced scamp.
+
+Jephson seconded the proposal, for the reason that it would the
+better enable us to accomplish artistic work.  He was of opinion
+that we should be more sure of our ground in drawing a villain than
+in attempting to portray a good man.
+
+MacShaughnassy thirded (if I may coin what has often appeared to me
+to be a much-needed word) the motion with ardour.  He was tired, he
+said, of the crystal-hearted, noble-thinking young man of fiction.
+Besides, it made bad reading for the "young person."  It gave her
+false ideas, and made her dissatisfied with mankind as he really is.
+
+And, thereupon, he launched forth and sketched us his idea of a
+hero, with reference to whom I can only say that I should not like
+to meet him on a dark night.
+
+Brown, our one earnest member, begged us to be reasonable, and
+reminded us, not for the first time, and not, perhaps, altogether
+unnecessarily, that these meetings were for the purpose of
+discussing business, not of talking nonsense.
+
+Thus adjured, we attacked the subject conscientiously.
+
+Brown's idea was that the man should be an out-and-out blackguard,
+until about the middle of the book, when some event should transpire
+that would have the effect of completely reforming him.  This
+naturally brought the discussion down to the question with which I
+have commenced this chapter:  Does man ever reform?  I argued in the
+negative, and gave the reasons for my disbelief much as I have set
+them forth here.  MacShaughnassy, on the other hand, contended that
+he did, and instanced the case of himself--a man who, in his early
+days, so he asserted, had been a scatterbrained, impracticable
+person, entirely without stability.
+
+I maintained that this was merely an example of enormous will-power
+enabling a man to overcome and rise superior to the defects of
+character with which nature had handicapped him.
+
+"My opinion of you," I said, "is that you are naturally a hopelessly
+irresponsible, well-meaning ass.  But," I continued quickly, seeing
+his hand reaching out towards a complete Shakespeare in one volume
+that lay upon the piano, "your mental capabilities are of such
+extraordinary power that you can disguise this fact, and make
+yourself appear a man of sense and wisdom."
+
+Brown agreed with me that in MacShaughnassy's case traces of the
+former disposition were clearly apparent, but pleaded that the
+illustration was an unfortunate one, and that it ought not to have
+weight in the discussion.
+
+"Seriously speaking," said he, "don't you think that there are some
+experiences great enough to break up and re-form a man's nature?"
+
+"To break up," I replied, "yes; but to re-form, no.  Passing through
+a great experience may shatter a man, or it may strengthen a man,
+just as passing through a furnace may melt or purify metal, but no
+furnace ever lit upon this earth can change a bar of gold into a bar
+of lead, or a bar of lead into one of gold."
+
+I asked Jephson what he thought.  He did not consider the bar of
+gold simile a good one.  He held that a man's character was not an
+immutable element.  He likened it to a drug--poison or elixir--
+compounded by each man for himself from the pharmacopoeia of all
+things known to life and time, and saw no impossibility, though some
+improbability, in the glass being flung aside and a fresh draught
+prepared with pain and labour.
+
+"Well," I said, "let us put the case practically; did you ever know
+a man's character to change?"
+
+"Yes," he answered, "I did know a man whose character seemed to me
+to be completely changed by an experience that happened to him.  It
+may, as you say, only have been that he was shattered, or that the
+lesson may have taught him to keep his natural disposition ever
+under control.  The result, in any case, was striking."
+
+We asked him to give us the history of the case, and he did so.
+
+"He was a friend of some cousins of mine," Jephson began, "people I
+used to see a good deal of in my undergraduate days.  When I met him
+first he was a young fellow of twenty-six, strong mentally and
+physically, and of a stern and stubborn nature that those who liked
+him called masterful, and that those who disliked him--a more
+numerous body--termed tyrannical.  When I saw him three years later,
+he was an old man of twenty-nine, gentle and yielding beyond the
+border-line of weakness, mistrustful of himself and considerate of
+others to a degree that was often unwise.  Formerly, his anger had
+been a thing very easily and frequently aroused.  Since the change
+of which I speak, I have never known the shade of anger to cross his
+face but once.  In the course of a walk, one day, we came upon a
+young rough terrifying a small child by pretending to set a dog at
+her.  He seized the boy with a grip that almost choked him, and
+administered to him a punishment that seemed to me altogether out of
+proportion to the crime, brutal though it was.
+
+"I remonstrated with him when he rejoined me.
+
+"'Yes,' he replied apologetically; 'I suppose I'm a hard judge of
+some follies.'  And, knowing what his haunted eyes were looking at,
+I said no more.
+
+"He was junior partner in a large firm of tea brokers in the City.
+There was not much for him to do in the London office, and when,
+therefore, as the result of some mortgage transactions, a South
+Indian tea plantation fell into the hands of the firm, it was
+suggested that he should go out and take the management of it.  The
+plan suited him admirably.  He was a man in every way qualified to
+lead a rough life; to face a by no means contemptible amount of
+difficulty and danger, to govern a small army of native workers more
+amenable to fear than to affection.  Such a life, demanding thought
+and action, would afford his strong nature greater interest and
+enjoyment than he could ever hope to obtain amid the cramped
+surroundings of civilisation.
+
+"Only one thing could in reason have been urged against the
+arrangement, that thing was his wife.  She was a fragile, delicate
+girl, whom he had married in obedience to that instinct of
+attraction towards the opposite which Nature, for the purpose of
+maintaining her average, has implanted in our breasts--a timid,
+meek-eyed creature, one of those women to whom death is less
+terrible than danger, and fate easier to face than fear.  Such women
+have been known to run screaming from a mouse and to meet martyrdom
+with heroism.  They can no more keep their nerves from trembling
+than an aspen tree can stay the quivering of its leaves.
+
+"That she was totally unfitted for, and would be made wretched by
+the life to which his acceptance of the post would condemn her might
+have readily occurred to him, had he stopped to consider for a
+moment her feelings in the matter.  But to view a question from any
+other standpoint than his own was not his habit.  That he loved her
+passionately, in his way, as a thing belonging to himself, there can
+be no doubt, but it was with the love that such men have for the dog
+they will thrash, the horse they will spur to a broken back.  To
+consult her on the subject never entered his head.  He informed her
+one day of his decision and of the date of their sailing, and,
+handing her a handsome cheque, told her to purchase all things
+necessary to her, and to let him know if she needed more; and she,
+loving him with a dog-like devotion that was not good for him,
+opened her big eyes a little wider, but said nothing.  She thought
+much about the coming change to herself, however, and, when nobody
+was by, she would cry softly; then, hearing his footsteps, would
+hastily wipe away the traces of her tears, and go to meet him with a
+smile.
+
+"Now, her timidity and nervousness, which at home had been a butt
+for mere chaff, became, under the new circumstances of their life, a
+serious annoyance to the man.  A woman who seemed unable to repress
+a scream whenever she turned and saw in the gloom a pair of piercing
+eyes looking out at her from a dusky face, who was liable to drop
+off her horse with fear at the sound of a wild beast's roar a mile
+off, and who would turn white and limp with horror at the mere sight
+of a snake, was not a companionable person to live with in the
+neighbourhood of Indian jungles.
+
+"He himself was entirely without fear, and could not understand it.
+To him it was pure affectation.  He had a muddled idea, common to
+men of his stamp, that women assume nervousness because they think
+it pretty and becoming to them, and that if one could only convince
+them of the folly of it they might be induced to lay it aside, in
+the same way that they lay aside mincing steps and simpering voices.
+A man who prided himself, as he did, upon his knowledge of horses,
+might, one would think, have grasped a truer notion of the nature of
+nervousness, which is a mere matter of temperament.  But the man was
+a fool.
+
+"The thing that vexed him most was her horror of snakes.  He was
+unblessed--or uncursed, whichever you may prefer--with imagination
+of any kind.  There was no special enmity between him and the seed
+of the serpent.  A creature that crawled upon its belly was no more
+terrible to him than a creature that walked upon its legs; indeed,
+less so, for he knew that, as a rule, there was less danger to be
+apprehended from them.  A reptile is only too eager at all times to
+escape from man.  Unless attacked or frightened, it will make no
+onset.  Most people are content to acquire their knowledge of this
+fact from the natural history books.  He had proved it for himself.
+His servant, an old sergeant of dragoons, has told me that he has
+seen him stop with his face six inches from the head of a hooded
+cobra, and stand watching it through his eye-glass as it crawled
+away from him, knowing that one touch of its fangs would mean death
+from which there could be no possible escape.  That any reasoning
+being should be inspired with terror--sickening, deadly terror--by
+such pitifully harmless things, seemed to him monstrous; and he
+determined to try and cure her of her fear of them.
+
+"He succeeded in doing this eventually somewhat more thoroughly than
+he had anticipated, but it left a terror in his own eyes that has
+not gone out of them to this day, and that never will.
+
+"One evening, riding home through a part of the jungle not far from
+his bungalow, he heard a soft, low hiss close to his ear, and,
+looking up, saw a python swing itself from the branch of a tree and
+make off through the long grass.  He had been out antelope-shooting,
+and his loaded rifle hung by his stirrup.  Springing from the
+frightened horse, he was just in time to get a shot at the creature
+before it disappeared.  He had hardly expected, under the
+circumstances, to even hit it.  By chance the bullet struck it at
+the junction of the vertebrae with the head, and killed it
+instantly.  It was a well-marked specimen, and, except for the small
+wound the bullet had made, quite uninjured.  He picked it up, and
+hung it across the saddle, intending to take it home and preserve
+it.
+
+"Galloping along, glancing down every now and again at the huge,
+hideous thing swaying and writhing in front of him almost as if
+still alive, a brilliant idea occurred to him.  He would use this
+dead reptile to cure his wife of her fear of living ones.  He would
+fix matters so that she should see it, and think it was alive, and
+be terrified by it; then he would show her that she had been
+frightened by a mere dead thing, and she would feel ashamed of
+herself, and be healed of her folly.  It was the sort of idea that
+would occur to a fool.
+
+"When he reached home, he took the dead snake into his smoking-room;
+then, locking the door, the idiot set out his prescription.  He
+arranged the monster in a very natural and life-like position.  It
+appeared to be crawling from the open window across the floor, and
+any one coming into the room suddenly could hardly avoid treading on
+it.  It was very cleverly done.
+
+"That finished, he picked out a book from the shelves, opened it,
+and laid it face downward upon the couch.  When he had completed all
+things to his satisfaction he unlocked the door and came out, very
+pleased with himself.
+
+"After dinner he lit a cigar and sat smoking a while in silence.
+
+"'Are you feeling tired?' he said to her at length, with a smile.
+
+"She laughed, and, calling him a lazy old thing, asked what it was
+he wanted.
+
+"'Only my novel that I was reading.  I left it in my den.  Do you
+mind?  You will find it open on the couch.'
+
+"She sprang up and ran lightly to the door.
+
+"As she paused there for a moment to look back at him and ask the
+name of the book, he thought how pretty and how sweet she was; and
+for the first time a faint glimmer of the true nature of the thing
+he was doing forced itself into his brain.
+
+"'Never mind,' he said, half rising, 'I'll--'; then, enamoured of
+the brilliancy of his plan, checked himself; and she was gone.
+
+"He heard her footsteps passing along the matted passage, and smiled
+to himself.  He thought the affair was going to be rather amusing.
+One finds it difficult to pity him even now when one thinks of it.
+
+"The smoking-room door opened and closed, and he still sat gazing
+dreamily at the ash of his cigar, and smiling.
+
+"One moment, perhaps two passed, but the time seemed much longer.
+The man blew the gray cloud from before his eyes and waited.  Then
+he heard what he had been expecting to hear--a piercing shriek.
+Then another, which, expecting to hear the clanging of the distant
+door and the scurrying back of her footsteps along the passage,
+puzzled him, so that the smile died away from his lips.
+
+"Then another, and another, and another, shriek after shriek.
+
+"The native servant, gliding noiselessly about the room, laid down
+the thing that was in his hand and moved instinctively towards the
+door.  The man started up and held him back.
+
+"'Keep where you are,' he said hoarsely.  'It is nothing.  Your
+mistress is frightened, that is all.  She must learn to get over
+this folly.'  Then he listened again, and the shrieks ended with
+what sounded curiously like a smothered laugh; and there came a
+sudden silence.
+
+"And out of that bottomless silence, Fear for the first time in his
+life came to the man, and he and the dusky servant looked at each
+other with eyes in which there was a strange likeness; and by a
+common instinct moved together towards the place where the silence
+came from.
+
+"When the man opened the door he saw three things:  one was the dead
+python, lying where he had left it; the second was a live python,
+its comrade apparently, slowly crawling round it; the third a
+crushed, bloody heap in the middle of the floor.
+
+"He himself remembered nothing more until, weeks afterwards, he
+opened his eyes in a darkened, unfamiliar place, but the native
+servant, before he fled screaming from the house, saw his master
+fling himself upon the living serpent and grasp it with his hands,
+and when, later on, others burst into the room and caught him
+staggering in their arms, they found the second python with its head
+torn off.
+
+"That is the incident that changed the character of my man--if it be
+changed," concluded Jephson.  "He told it me one night as we sat on
+the deck of the steamer, returning from Bombay.  He did not spare
+himself.  He told me the story, much as I have told it to you, but
+in an even, monotonous tone, free from emotion of any kind.  I asked
+him, when he had finished, how he could bear to recall it.
+
+"'Recall it!' he replied, with a slight accent of surprise; 'it is
+always with me.'"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+
+
+One day we spoke of crime and criminals.  We had discussed the
+possibility of a novel without a villain, but had decided that it
+would be uninteresting.
+
+"It is a terribly sad reflection," remarked MacShaughnassy,
+musingly; "but what a desperately dull place this earth would be if
+it were not for our friends the bad people.  Do you know," he
+continued, "when I hear of folks going about the world trying to
+reform everybody and make them good, I get positively nervous.  Once
+do away with sin, and literature will become a thing of the past.
+Without the criminal classes we authors would starve."
+
+"I shouldn't worry," replied Jephson, drily; "one half mankind has
+been 'reforming' the other half pretty steadily ever since the
+Creation, yet there appears to be a fairly appreciable amount of
+human nature left in it, notwithstanding.  Suppressing sin is much
+the same sort of task that suppressing a volcano would be--plugging
+one vent merely opens another.  Evil will last our time."
+
+"I cannot take your optimistic view of the case," answered
+MacShaughnassy.  "It seems to me that crime--at all events,
+interesting crime--is being slowly driven out of our existence.
+Pirates and highwaymen have been practically abolished.  Dear old
+'Smuggler Bill' has melted down his cutlass into a pint-can with a
+false bottom.  The pressgang that was always so ready to rescue our
+hero from his approaching marriage has been disbanded.  There's not
+a lugger fit for the purposes of abduction left upon the coast.  Men
+settle their 'affairs of honour' in the law courts, and return home
+wounded only in the pocket.  Assaults on unprotected females are
+confined to the slums, where heroes do not dwell, and are avenged by
+the nearest magistrate.  Your modern burglar is generally an out-of-
+work green-grocer.  His 'swag' usually consists of an overcoat and a
+pair of boots, in attempting to make off with which he is captured
+by the servant-girl.  Suicides and murders are getting scarcer every
+season.  At the present rate of decrease, deaths by violence will be
+unheard of in another decade, and a murder story will be laughed at
+as too improbable to be interesting.  A certain section of
+busybodies are even crying out for the enforcement of the seventh
+commandment.  If they succeed authors will have to follow the advice
+generally given to them by the critics, and retire from business
+altogether.  I tell you our means of livelihood are being filched
+from us one by one.  Authors ought to form themselves into a society
+for the support and encouragement of crime."
+
+MacShaughnassy's leading intention in making these remarks was to
+shock and grieve Brown, and in this object he succeeded.  Brown is--
+or was, in those days--an earnest young man with an exalted--some
+were inclined to say an exaggerated--view of the importance and
+dignity of the literary profession.  Brown's notion of the scheme of
+Creation was that God made the universe so as to give the literary
+man something to write about.  I used at one time to credit Brown
+with originality for this idea; but as I have grown older I have
+learned that the theory is a very common and popular one in cultured
+circles.
+
+Brown expostulated with MacShaughnassy.  "You speak," he said, "as
+though literature were the parasite of evil."
+
+"And what else is she?" replied the MacShaughnassy, with enthusiasm.
+"What would become of literature without folly and sin?  What is the
+work of the literary man but raking a living for himself out of the
+dust-heap of human woe?  Imagine, if you can, a perfect world--a
+world where men and women never said foolish things and never did
+unwise ones; where small boys were never mischievous and children
+never made awkward remarks; where dogs never fought and cats never
+screeched; where wives never henpecked their husbands and mothers-
+in-law never nagged; where men never went to bed in their boots and
+sea-captains never swore; where plumbers understood their work and
+old maids never dressed as girls; where niggers never stole chickens
+and proud men were never sea-sick! where would be your humour and
+your wit?  Imagine a world where hearts were never bruised; where
+lips were never pressed with pain; where eyes were never dim; where
+feet were never weary; where stomachs were never empty! where would
+be your pathos?  Imagine a world where husbands never loved more
+wives than one, and that the right one; where wives were never
+kissed but by their husbands; where men's hearts were never black
+and women's thoughts never impure; where there was no hating and no
+envying; no desiring; no despairing! where would be your scenes of
+passion, your interesting complications, your subtle psychological
+analyses?  My dear Brown, we writers--novelists, dramatists, poets--
+we fatten on the misery of our fellow-creatures.  God created man
+and woman, and the woman created the literary man when she put her
+teeth into the apple.  We came into the world under the shadow of
+the serpent.  We are special correspondents with the Devil's army.
+We report his victories in our three-volume novels, his occasional
+defeats in our five-act melodramas."
+
+"All of which is very true," remarked Jephson; "but you must
+remember it is not only the literary man who traffics in misfortune.
+The doctor, the lawyer, the preacher, the newspaper proprietor, the
+weather prophet, will hardly, I should say, welcome the millennium.
+I shall never forget an anecdote my uncle used to relate, dealing
+with the period when he was chaplain of the Lincolnshire county
+jail.  One morning there was to be a hanging; and the usual little
+crowd of witnesses, consisting of the sheriff, the governor, three
+or four reporters, a magistrate, and a couple of warders, was
+assembled in the prison.  The condemned man, a brutal ruffian who
+had been found guilty of murdering a young girl under exceptionally
+revolting circumstances, was being pinioned by the hangman and his
+assistant; and my uncle was employing the last few moments at his
+disposal in trying to break down the sullen indifference the fellow
+had throughout manifested towards both his crime and his fate.
+
+My uncle failing to make any impression upon him, the governor
+ventured to add a few words of exhortation, upon which the man
+turned fiercely on the whole of them.
+
+"'Go to hell,' he cried, 'with your snivelling jaw.  Who are you, to
+preach at me?  YOU'RE glad enough I'm here--all of you.  Why, I'm
+the only one of you as ain't going to make a bit over this job.
+Where would you all be, I should like to know, you canting swine, if
+it wasn't for me and my sort?  Why, it's the likes of me as KEEPS
+the likes of you,' with which he walked straight to the gallows and
+told the hangman to 'hurry up' and not keep the gentlemen waiting."
+
+"There was some 'grit' in that man," said MacShaughnassy.
+
+"Yes," added Jephson, "and wholesome wit also."
+
+MacShaughnassy puffed a mouthful of smoke over a spider which was
+just about to kill a fly.  This caused the spider to fall into the
+river, from where a supper-hunting swallow quickly rescued him.
+
+"You remind me," he said, "of a scene I once witnessed in the office
+of The Daily--well, in the office of a certain daily newspaper.  It
+was the dead season, and things were somewhat slow.  An endeavour
+had been made to launch a discussion on the question 'Are Babies a
+Blessing?'  The youngest reporter on the staff, writing over the
+simple but touching signature of 'Mother of Six,' had led off with a
+scathing, though somewhat irrelevant, attack upon husbands, as a
+class; the Sporting Editor, signing himself 'Working Man,' and
+garnishing his contribution with painfully elaborated orthographical
+lapses, arranged to give an air of verisimilitude to the
+correspondence, while, at the same time, not to offend the
+susceptibilities of the democracy (from whom the paper derived its
+chief support), had replied, vindicating the British father, and
+giving what purported to be stirring midnight experiences of his
+own.  The Gallery Man, calling himself, with a burst of imagination,
+'Gentleman and Christian,' wrote indignantly that he considered the
+agitation of the subject to be both impious and indelicate, and
+added he was surprised that a paper holding the exalted, and
+deservedly popular, position of The--should have opened its columns
+to the brainless vapourings of 'Mother of Six' and 'Working Man.'
+
+"The topic had, however, fallen flat.  With the exception of one man
+who had invented a new feeding-bottle, and thought he was going to
+advertise it for nothing, the outside public did not respond, and
+over the editorial department gloom had settled down.
+
+"One evening, as two or three of us were mooning about the stairs,
+praying secretly for a war or a famine, Todhunter, the town
+reporter, rushed past us with a cheer, and burst into the Sub-
+editor's room.  We followed.  He was waving his notebook above his
+head, and clamouring, after the manner of people in French
+exercises, for pens, ink, and paper.
+
+"'What's up?' cried the Sub-editor, catching his enthusiasm;
+'influenza again?'
+
+"'Better than that!' shouted Todhunter.  'Excursion steamer run
+down, a hundred and twenty-five lives lost--four good columns of
+heartrending scenes.'
+
+"'By Jove!' said the Sub, 'couldn't have happened at a better time
+either'--and then he sat down and dashed off a leaderette, in which
+he dwelt upon the pain and regret the paper felt at having to
+announce the disaster, and drew attention to the exceptionally
+harrowing account provided by the energy and talent of 'our special
+reporter.'"
+
+"It is the law of nature," said Jephson:  "we are not the first
+party of young philosophers who have been struck with the fact that
+one man's misfortune is another man's opportunity."
+
+"Occasionally, another woman's," I observed.
+
+I was thinking of an incident told me by a nurse.  If a nurse in
+fair practice does not know more about human nature--does not see
+clearer into the souls of men and women than all the novelists in
+little Bookland put together--it must be because she is physically
+blind and deaf.  All the world's a stage, and all the men and women
+merely players; so long as we are in good health, we play our parts
+out bravely to the end, acting them, on the whole, artistically and
+with strenuousness, even to the extent of sometimes fancying
+ourselves the people we are pretending to be.  But with sickness
+comes forgetfulness of our part, and carelessness of the impression
+we are making upon the audience.  We are too weak to put the paint
+and powder on our faces, the stage finery lies unheeded by our side.
+The heroic gestures, the virtuous sentiments are a weariness to us.
+In the quiet, darkened room, where the foot-lights of the great
+stage no longer glare upon us, where our ears are no longer strained
+to catch the clapping or the hissing of the town, we are, for a
+brief space, ourselves.
+
+This nurse was a quiet, demure little woman, with a pair of dreamy,
+soft gray eyes that had a curious power of absorbing everything that
+passed before them without seeming to look at anything.  Gazing upon
+much life, laid bare, had given to them a slightly cynical
+expression, but there was a background of kindliness behind.
+
+During the evenings of my convalescence she would talk to me of her
+nursing experiences.  I have sometimes thought I would put down in
+writing the stories that she told me, but they would be sad reading.
+The majority of them, I fear, would show only the tangled, seamy
+side of human nature, and God knows there is little need for us to
+point that out to each other, though so many nowadays seem to think
+it the only work worth doing.  A few of them were sweet, but I think
+they were the saddest; and over one or two a man might laugh, but it
+would not be a pleasant laugh.
+
+"I never enter the door of a house to which I have been summoned,"
+she said to me one evening, "without wondering, as I step over the
+threshold, what the story is going to be.  I always feel inside a
+sick-room as if I were behind the scenes of life.  The people come
+and go about you, and you listen to them talking and laughing, and
+you look into your patient's eyes, and you just know that it's all a
+play."
+
+The incident that Jephson's remark had reminded me of, she told me
+one afternoon, as I sat propped up by the fire, trying to drink a
+glass of port wine, and feeling somewhat depressed at discovering I
+did not like it.
+
+"One of my first cases," she said, "was a surgical operation.  I was
+very young at the time, and I made rather an awkward mistake--I
+don't mean a professional mistake--but a mistake nevertheless that I
+ought to have had more sense than to make.
+
+"My patient was a good-looking, pleasant-spoken gentleman.  The wife
+was a pretty, dark little woman, but I never liked her from the
+first; she was one of those perfectly proper, frigid women, who
+always give me the idea that they were born in a church, and have
+never got over the chill.  However, she seemed very fond of him, and
+he of her; and they talked very prettily to each other--too prettily
+for it to be quite genuine, I should have said, if I'd known as much
+of the world then as I do now.
+
+"The operation was a difficult and dangerous one.  When I came on
+duty in the evening I found him, as I expected, highly delirious.  I
+kept him as quiet as I could, but towards nine o'clock, as the
+delirium only increased, I began to get anxious.  I bent down close
+to him and listened to his ravings.  Over and over again I heard the
+name 'Louise.'  Why wouldn't 'Louise' come to him?  It was so unkind
+of her--they had dug a great pit, and were pushing him down into it-
+-oh! why didn't she come and save him?  He should be saved if she
+would only come and take his hand.
+
+"His cries became so pitiful that I could bear them no longer.  His
+wife had gone to attend a prayer-meeting, but the church was only in
+the next street.  Fortunately, the day-nurse had not left the house:
+I called her in to watch him for a minute, and, slipping on my
+bonnet, ran across.  I told my errand to one of the vergers and he
+took me to her.  She was kneeling, but I could not wait.  I pushed
+open the pew door, and, bending down, whispered to her, 'Please come
+over at once; your husband is more delirious than I quite care
+about, and you may be able to calm him.'
+
+"She whispered back, without raising her head, 'I'll be over in a
+little while.  The meeting won't last much longer.'
+
+"Her answer surprised and nettled me.  'You'll be acting more like a
+Christian woman by coming home with me,' I said sharply, 'than by
+stopping here.  He keeps calling for you, and I can't get him to
+sleep.'
+
+"She raised her head from her hands:  'Calling for me?' she asked,
+with a slightly incredulous accent.
+
+"'Yes,' I replied, 'it has been his one cry for the last hour:
+Where's Louise, why doesn't Louise come to him.'
+
+"Her face was in shadow, but as she turned it away, and the faint
+light from one of the turned-down gas-jets fell across it, I fancied
+I saw a smile upon it, and I disliked her more than ever.
+
+"'I'll come back with you,' she said, rising and putting her books
+away, and we left the church together.
+
+"She asked me many questions on the way:  Did patients, when they
+were delirious, know the people about them?  Did they remember
+actual facts, or was their talk mere incoherent rambling?  Could one
+guide their thoughts in any way?
+
+"The moment we were inside the door, she flung off her bonnet and
+cloak, and came upstairs quickly and softly.
+
+"She walked to the bedside, and stood looking down at him, but he
+was quite unconscious of her presence, and continued muttering.  I
+suggested that she should speak to him, but she said she was sure it
+would be useless, and drawing a chair back into the shadow, sat down
+beside him.
+
+"Seeing she was no good to him, I tried to persuade her to go to
+bed, but she said she would rather stop, and I, being little more
+than a girl then, and without much authority, let her.  All night
+long he tossed and raved, the one name on his lips being ever
+Louise--Louise--and all night long that woman sat there in the
+shadow, never moving, never speaking, with a set smile on her lips
+that made me long to take her by the shoulders and shake her.
+
+"At one time he imagined himself back in his courting days, and
+pleaded, 'Say you love me, Louise.  I know you do.  I can read it in
+your eyes.  What's the use of our pretending?  We KNOW each other.
+Put your white arms about me.  Let me feel your breath upon my neck.
+Ah!  I knew it, my darling, my love!'
+
+"The whole house was deadly still, and I could hear every word of
+his troubled ravings.  I almost felt as if I had no right to be
+there, listening to them, but my duty held me.  Later on, he fancied
+himself planning a holiday with her, so I concluded.  'I shall start
+on Monday evening,' he was saying, and you can join me in Dublin at
+Jackson's Hotel on the Wednesday, and we'll go straight on.'
+
+"His voice grew a little faint, and his wife moved forward on her
+chair, and bent her head closer to his lips.
+
+"'No, no,' he continued, after a pause, 'there's no danger whatever.
+It's a lonely little place, right in the heart of the Galway
+Mountains--O'Mullen's Half-way House they call it--five miles from
+Ballynahinch.  We shan't meet a soul there.  We'll have three weeks
+of heaven all to ourselves, my goddess, my Mrs. Maddox from Boston--
+don't forget the name.'
+
+"He laughed in his delirium; and the woman, sitting by his side,
+laughed also; and then the truth flashed across me.
+
+"I ran up to her and caught her by the arm.  'Your name's not
+Louise,' I said, looking straight at her.  It was an impertinent
+interference, but I felt excited, and acted on impulse.
+
+"'No,' she replied, very quietly; 'but it's the name of a very dear
+school friend of mine.  I've got the clue to-night that I've been
+waiting two years to get.  Good-night, nurse, thanks for fetching
+me.'
+
+"She rose and went out, and I listened to her footsteps going down
+the stairs, and then drew up the blind and let in the dawn.
+
+"I've never told that incident to any one until this evening," my
+nurse concluded, as she took the empty port wine glass out of my
+hand, and stirred the fire.  "A nurse wouldn't get many engagements
+if she had the reputation for making blunders of that sort."
+
+Another story that she told me showed married life more lovelit, but
+then, as she added, with that cynical twinkle which glinted so oddly
+from her gentle, demure eyes, this couple had only very recently
+been wed--had, in fact, only just returned from their honeymoon.
+
+They had been travelling on the Continent, and there had both
+contracted typhoid fever, which showed itself immediately on their
+home-coming.
+
+"I was called in to them on the very day of their arrival," she
+said; "the husband was the first to take to his bed, and the wife
+followed suit twelve hours afterwards.  We placed them in adjoining
+rooms, and, as often as was possible, we left the door ajar so that
+they could call out to one another.
+
+"Poor things!  They were little else than boy and girl, and they
+worried more about each other than they thought about themselves.
+The wife's only trouble was that she wouldn't be able to do anything
+for 'poor Jack.'  'Oh, nurse, you will be good to him, won't you?'
+she would cry, with her big childish eyes full of tears; and the
+moment I went in to him it would be:  'Oh, don't trouble about me,
+nurse, I'm all right.  Just look after the wifie, will you?'
+
+"I had a hard time between the two of them, for, with the help of
+her sister, I was nursing them both.  It was an unprofessional thing
+to do, but I could see they were not well off, and I assured the
+doctor that I could manage.  To me it was worth while going through
+the double work just to breathe the atmosphere of unselfishness that
+sweetened those two sick-rooms.  The average invalid is not the
+patient sufferer people imagine.  It is a fretful, querulous, self-
+pitying little world that we live in as a rule, and that we grow
+hard in.  It gave me a new heart, nursing these young people.
+
+"The man pulled through, and began steadily to recover, but the wife
+was a wee slip of a girl, and her strength--what there was of it--
+ebbed day by day.  As he got stronger he would call out more and
+more cheerfully to her through the open door, and ask her how she
+was getting on, and she would struggle to call back laughing
+answers.  It had been a mistake to put them next to each other, and
+I blamed myself for having done so, but it was too late to change
+then.  All we could do was to beg her not to exhaust herself, and to
+let us, when he called out, tell him she was asleep.  But the
+thought of not answering him or calling to him made her so wretched
+that it seemed safer to let her have her way.
+
+"Her one anxiety was that he should not know how weak she was.  'It
+will worry him so,' she would say; 'he is such an old fidget over
+me.  And I AM getting stronger, slowly; ain't I, nurse?'
+
+"One morning he called out to her, as usual, asking her how she was,
+and she answered, though she had to wait for a few seconds to gather
+strength to do so.  He seemed to detect the effort, for he called
+back anxiously, 'Are you SURE you're all right, dear?'
+
+"'Yes,' she replied, 'getting on famously.  Why?'
+
+"'I thought your voice sounded a little weak, dear,' he answered;
+'don't call out if it tries you.'
+
+"Then for the first time she began to worry about herself--not for
+her own sake, but because of him.
+
+"'Do you think I AM getting weaker, nurse?' she asked me, fixing her
+great eyes on me with a frightened look.
+
+"'You're making yourself weak by calling out,' I answered, a little
+sharply.  'I shall have to keep that door shut.'
+
+"'Oh, don't tell him'--that was all her thought--'don't let him know
+it.  Tell him I'm strong, won't you, nurse?  It will kill him if he
+thinks I'm not getting well.'
+
+"I was glad when her sister came up, and I could get out of the
+room, for you're not much good at nursing when you feel, as I felt
+then, as though you had swallowed a tablespoon and it was sticking
+in your throat.
+
+"Later on, when I went in to him, he drew me to the bedside, and
+whispered me to tell him truly how she was.  If you are telling a
+lie at all, you may just as well make it a good one, so I told him
+she was really wonderfully well, only a little exhausted after the
+illness, as was natural, and that I expected to have her up before
+him.
+
+"Poor lad! that lie did him more good than a week's doctoring and
+nursing; and next morning he called out more cheerily than ever to
+her, and offered to bet her a new bonnet against a new hat that he
+would race her, and be up first.
+
+"She laughed back quite merrily (I was in his room at the time).
+'All right,' she said, 'you'll lose.  I shall be well first, and I
+shall come and visit you.'
+
+"Her laugh was so bright, and her voice sounded so much stronger,
+that I really began to think she had taken a turn for the better, so
+that when on going in to her I found her pillow wet with tears, I
+could not understand it.
+
+"'Why, we were so cheerful just a minute ago,' I said; 'what's the
+matter?'
+
+"'Oh, poor Jack!' she moaned, as her little, wasted fingers opened
+and closed upon the counterpane.  'Poor Jack, it will break his
+heart.'
+
+"It was no good my saying anything.  There comes a moment when
+something tells your patient all that is to be known about the case,
+and the doctor and the nurse can keep their hopeful assurances for
+where they will be of more use.  The only thing that would have
+brought comfort to her then would have been to convince her that he
+would soon forget her and be happy without her.  I thought it at the
+time, and I tried to say something of the kind to her, but I
+couldn't get it out, and she wouldn't have believed me if I had.
+
+"So all I could do was to go back to the other room, and tell him
+that I wanted her to go to sleep, and that he must not call out to
+her until I told him.
+
+"She lay very still all day.  The doctor came at his usual hour and
+looked at her.  He patted her hand, and just glanced at the
+untouched food beside her.
+
+"'Yes,' he said, quietly.  'I shouldn't worry her, nurse.'  And I
+understood.
+
+"Towards evening she opened her eyes, and beckoned to her sister,
+who was standing by the bedside, to bend down.
+
+"'Jeanie,' she whispered, 'do you think it wrong to deceive any one
+when it's for their own good?'
+
+"'I don't know,' said the girl, in a dry voice; 'I shouldn't think
+so.  Why do you ask?'
+
+"'Jeanie, your voice was always very much like mine--do you
+remember, they used to mistake us at home.  Jeanie, call out for me-
+-just till--till he's a bit better; promise me.'
+
+"They had loved each other, those two, more than is common among
+sisters.  Jeanie could not answer, but she pressed her sister closer
+in her arms, and the other was satisfied.
+
+"Then, drawing all her little stock of life together for one final
+effort, the child raised herself in her sister's arms.
+
+"'Good-night, Jack,' she called out, loud and clear enough to be
+heard through the closed door.
+
+"'Good-night, little wife,' he cried back, cheerily; 'are you all
+right?'
+
+"'Yes, dear.  Good-night.'
+
+"Her little, worn-out frame dropped back upon the bed, and the next
+thing I remember is snatching up a pillow, and holding it tight-
+pressed against Jeanie's face for fear the sound of her sobs should
+penetrate into the next room; and afterwards we both got out,
+somehow, by the other door, and rushed downstairs, and clung to each
+other in the back kitchen.
+
+"How we two women managed to keep up the deceit, as, for three whole
+days, we did, I shall never myself know.  Jeanie sat in the room
+where her dead sister, from its head to its sticking-up feet, lay
+outlined under the white sheet; and I stayed beside the living man,
+and told lies and acted lies, till I took a joy in them, and had to
+guard against the danger of over-elaborating them.
+
+"He wondered at what he thought my 'new merry mood,' and I told him
+it was because of my delight that his wife was out of danger; and
+then I went on for the pure devilment of the thing, and told him
+that a week ago, when we had let him think his wife was growing
+stronger, we had been deceiving him; that, as a matter of fact, she
+was at that time in great peril, and I had been in hourly alarm
+concerning her, but that now the strain was over, and she was safe;
+and I dropped down by the foot of the bed, and burst into a fit of
+laughter, and had to clutch hold of the bedstead to keep myself from
+rolling on the floor.
+
+"He had started up in bed with a wild white face when Jeanie had
+first answered him from the other room, though the sisters' voices
+had been so uncannily alike that I had never been able to
+distinguish one from the other at any time.  I told him the slight
+change was the result of the fever, that his own voice also was
+changed a little, and that such was always the case with a person
+recovering from a long illness.  To guide his thoughts away from the
+real clue, I told him Jeanie had broken down with the long work, and
+that, the need for her being past, I had packed her off into the
+country for a short rest.  That afternoon we concocted a letter to
+him, and I watched Jeanie's eyes with a towel in my hand while she
+wrote it, so that no tears should fall on it, and that night she
+travelled twenty miles down the Great Western line to post it,
+returning by the next up-train.
+
+"No suspicion of the truth ever occurred to him, and the doctor
+helped us out with our deception; yet his pulse, which day by day
+had been getting stronger, now beat feebler every hour.  In that
+part of the country where I was born and grew up, the folks say that
+wherever the dead lie, there round about them, whether the time be
+summer or winter, the air grows cold and colder, and that no fire,
+though you pile the logs half-way up the chimney, will ever make it
+warm.  A few months' hospital training generally cures one of all
+fanciful notions about death, but this idea I have never been able
+to get rid of.  My thermometer may show me sixty, and I may try to
+believe that the temperature IS sixty, but if the dead are beside me
+I feel cold to the marrow of my bones.  I could SEE the chill from
+the dead room crawling underneath the door, and creeping up about
+his bed, and reaching out its hand to touch his heart.
+
+"Jeanie and I redoubled our efforts, for it seemed to us as if Death
+were waiting just outside in the passage, watching with his eye at
+the keyhole for either of us to make a blunder and let the truth
+slip out.  I hardly ever left his side except now and again to go
+into that next room, and poke an imaginary fire, and say a few
+chaffing words to an imaginary living woman on the bed where the
+dead one lay; and Jeanie sat close to the corpse, and called out
+saucy messages to him, or reassuring answers to his anxious
+questions.
+
+"At times, knowing that if we stopped another moment in these rooms
+we should scream, we would steal softly out and rush downstairs,
+and, shutting ourselves out of hearing in a cellar underneath the
+yard, laugh till we reeled against the dirty walls.  I think we were
+both getting a little mad.
+
+"One day--it was the third of that nightmare life, so I learned
+afterwards, though for all I could have told then it might have been
+the three hundredth, for Time seemed to have fled from that house as
+from a dream, so that all things were tangled--I made a slip that
+came near to ending the matter, then and there.
+
+"I had gone into that other room.  Jeanie had left her post for a
+moment, and the place was empty.
+
+"I did not think what I was doing.  I had not closed my eyes that I
+can remember since the wife had died, and my brain and my senses
+were losing their hold of one another.  I went through my usual
+performance of talking loudly to the thing underneath the white
+sheet, and noisily patting the pillows and rattling the bottles on
+the table.
+
+"On my return, he asked me how she was, and I answered, half in a
+dream, 'Oh, bonny, she's trying to read a little,' and he raised
+himself on his elbow and called out to her, and for answer there
+came back silence--not the silence that IS silence, but the silence
+that is as a voice.  I do not know if you understand what I mean by
+that.  If you had lived among the dead as long as I have, you would
+know.
+
+"I darted to the door and pretended to look in.  'She's fallen
+asleep,' I whispered, closing it; and he said nothing, but his eyes
+looked queerly at me.
+
+"That night, Jeanie and I stood in the hall talking.  He had fallen
+to sleep early, and I had locked the door between the two rooms, and
+put the key in my pocket, and had stolen down to tell her what had
+happened, and to consult with her.
+
+"'What can we do!  God help us, what can we do!' was all that Jeanie
+could say.  We had thought that in a day or two he would be
+stronger, and that the truth might be broken to him.  But instead of
+that he had grown so weak, that to excite his suspicions now by
+moving him or her would be to kill him.
+
+"We stood looking blankly in each other's faces, wondering how the
+problem could be solved; and while we did so the problem solved
+itself.
+
+"The one woman-servant had gone out, and the house was very silent--
+so silent that I could hear the ticking of Jeanie's watch inside her
+dress.  Suddenly, into the stillness there came a sound.  It was not
+a cry.  It came from no human voice.  I have heard the voice of
+human pain till I know its every note, and have grown careless to
+it; but I have prayed God on my knees that I may never hear that
+sound again, for it was the sob of a soul.
+
+"It wailed through the quiet house and passed away, and neither of
+us stirred.
+
+"At length, with the return of the blood to our veins, we went
+upstairs together.  He had crept from his own room along the passage
+into hers.  He had not had strength enough to pull the sheet off,
+though he had tried.  He lay across the bed with one hand grasping
+hers."
+
+
+My nurse sat for a while without speaking, a somewhat unusual thing
+for her to do.
+
+"You ought to write your experiences," I said.
+
+"Ah!" she said, giving the fire a contemplative poke, "if you'd seen
+as much sorrow in the world as I have, you wouldn't want to write a
+sad book."
+
+"I think," she added, after a long pause, with the poker still in
+her hand, "it can only be the people who have never KNOWN suffering
+who can care to read of it.  If I could write a book, I should write
+a merry book--a book that would make people laugh."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+
+
+The discussion arose in this way.  I had proposed a match between
+our villain and the daughter of the local chemist, a singularly
+noble and pure-minded girl, the humble but worthy friend of the
+heroine.
+
+Brown had refused his consent on the ground of improbability.  "What
+in thunder would induce him to marry HER?" he asked.
+
+"Love!" I replied; "love, that burns as brightly in the meanest
+villain's breast as in the proud heart of the good young man."
+
+"Are you trying to be light and amusing," returned Brown, severely,
+"or are you supposed to be discussing the matter seriously?  What
+attraction could such a girl have for such a man as Reuben Neil?"
+
+"Every attraction," I retorted.  "She is the exact moral contrast to
+himself.  She is beautiful (if she's not beautiful enough, we can
+touch her up a bit), and, when the father dies, there will be the
+shop."
+
+"Besides," I added, "it will make the thing seem more natural if
+everybody wonders what on earth could have been the reason for their
+marrying each other."
+
+Brown wasted no further words on me, but turned to MacShaughnassy.
+
+"Can YOU imagine our friend Reuben seized with a burning desire to
+marry Mary Holme?" he asked, with a smile.
+
+"Of course I can," said MacShaughnassy; "I can imagine anything, and
+believe anything of anybody.  It is only in novels that people act
+reasonably and in accordance with what might be expected of them.  I
+knew an old sea-captain who used to read the Young Ladies' Journal
+in bed, and cry over it.  I knew a bookmaker who always carried
+Browning's poems about with him in his pocket to study in the train.
+I have known a Harley Street doctor to develop at forty-eight a
+sudden and overmastering passion for switchbacks, and to spend every
+hour he could spare from his practice at one or other of the
+exhibitions, having three-pen'orths one after the other.  I have
+known a book-reviewer give oranges (not poisoned ones) to children.
+A man is not a character, he is a dozen characters, one of them
+prominent, the other eleven more or less undeveloped.  I knew a man
+once, two of whose characters were of equal value, and the
+consequences were peculiar."
+
+We begged him to relate the case to us, and he did so.
+
+"He was a Balliol man," said MacShaughnassy, "and his Christian name
+was Joseph.  He was a member of the 'Devonshire' at the time I knew
+him, and was, I think, the most superior person I have ever met.  He
+sneered at the Saturday Review as the pet journal of the suburban
+literary club; and at the Athenaeum as the trade organ of the
+unsuccessful writer.  Thackeray, he considered, was fairly entitled
+to his position of favourite author to the cultured clerk; and
+Carlyle he regarded as the exponent of the earnest artisan.  Living
+authors he never read, but this did not prevent his criticising them
+contemptuously.  The only inhabitants of the nineteenth century that
+he ever praised were a few obscure French novelists, of whom nobody
+but himself had ever heard.  He had his own opinion about God
+Almighty, and objected to Heaven on account of the strong Clapham
+contingent likely to be found in residence there.  Humour made him
+sad, and sentiment made him ill.  Art irritated him and science
+bored him.  He despised his own family and disliked everybody else.
+For exercise he yawned, and his conversation was mainly confined to
+an occasional shrug.
+
+"Nobody liked him, but everybody respected him.  One felt grateful
+to him for his condescension in living at all.
+
+"One summer, I was fishing over the Norfolk Broads, and on the Bank
+Holiday, thinking I would like to see the London 'Arry in his glory,
+I ran over to Yarmouth.  Walking along the sea-front in the evening,
+I suddenly found myself confronted by four remarkably choice
+specimens of the class.  They were urging on their wild and erratic
+career arm-in-arm.  The one nearest the road was playing an
+unusually wheezy concertina, and the other three were bawling out
+the chorus of a music-hall song, the heroine of which appeared to be
+'Hemmer.'
+
+They spread themselves right across the pavement, compelling all the
+women and children they met to step into the roadway.  I stood my
+ground on the kerb, and as they brushed by me something in the face
+of the one with the concertina struck me as familiar.
+
+"I turned and followed them.  They were evidently enjoying
+themselves immensely.  To every girl they passed they yelled out,
+'Oh, you little jam tart!' and every old lady they addressed as
+'Mar.'  The noisiest and the most vulgar of the four was the one
+with the concertina.
+
+"I followed them on to the pier, and then, hurrying past, waited for
+them under a gas-lamp.  When the man with the concertina came into
+the light and I saw him clearly I started.  From the face I could
+have sworn it was Joseph; but everything else about him rendered
+such an assumption impossible.  Putting aside the time and the
+place, and forgetting his behaviour, his companions, and his
+instrument, what remained was sufficient to make the suggestion
+absurd.  Joseph was always clean shaven; this youth had a smudgy
+moustache and a pair of incipient red whiskers.  He was dressed in
+the loudest check suit I have ever seen, off the stage.  He wore
+patent-leather boots with mother-of-pearl buttons, and a necktie
+that in an earlier age would have called down lightning out of
+Heaven.  He had a low-crowned billycock hat on his head, and a big
+evil-smelling cigar between his lips.
+
+"Argue as I would, however, the face was the face of Joseph; and,
+moved by a curiosity I could not control, I kept near him, watching
+him.
+
+"Once, for a little while, I missed him; but there was not much fear
+of losing that suit for long, and after a little looking about I
+struck it again.  He was sitting at the end of the pier, where it
+was less crowded, with his arm round a girl's waist.  I crept close.
+She was a jolly, red-faced girl, good-looking enough, but common to
+the last degree.  Her hat lay on the seat beside her, and her head
+was resting on his shoulder.  She appeared to be fond of him, but he
+was evidently bored.
+
+"'Don'tcher like me, Joe?' I heard her murmur.
+
+"'Yas,' he replied, somewhat unconvincingly, 'o' course I likes
+yer.'
+
+"She gave him an affectionate slap, but he did not respond, and a
+few minutes afterwards, muttering some excuse, he rose and left her,
+and I followed him as he made his way towards the refreshment-room.
+At the door he met one of his pals.
+
+"'Hullo!' was the question, 'wot 'a yer done wi' 'Liza?'
+
+"'Oh, I carn't stand 'er,' was his reply; 'she gives me the bloomin'
+'ump.  You 'ave a turn with 'er.'
+
+"His friend disappeared in the direction of 'Liza, and Joe pushed
+into the room, I keeping close behind him.  Now that he was alone I
+was determined to speak to him.  The longer I had studied his
+features the more resemblance I had found in them to those of my
+superior friend Joseph.
+
+"He was leaning across the bar, clamouring for two of gin, when I
+tapped him on the shoulder.  He turned his head, and the moment he
+saw me, his face went livid.
+
+"'Mr. Joseph Smythe, I believe,' I said with a smile.
+
+"'Who's Mr. Joseph Smythe?' he answered hoarsely; 'my name's Smith,
+I ain't no bloomin' Smythe.  Who are you?  I don't know yer.'
+
+"As he spoke, my eyes rested upon a curious gold ring of Indian
+workmanship which he wore upon his left hand.  There was no
+mistaking the ring, at all events:  it had been passed round the
+club on more than one occasion as a unique curiosity.  His eyes
+followed my gaze.  He burst into tears, and pushing me before him
+into a quiet corner of the saloon, sat down facing me.
+
+"'Don't give me away, old man,' he whimpered; 'for Gawd's sake,
+don't let on to any of the chaps 'ere that I'm a member of that
+blessed old waxwork show in Saint James's:  they'd never speak to me
+agen.  And keep yer mug shut about Oxford, there's a good sort.  I
+wouldn't 'ave 'em know as 'ow I was one o' them college blokes for
+anythink.'
+
+"I sat aghast.  I had listened to hear him entreat me to keep
+'Smith,' the rorty 'Arry, a secret from the acquaintances of
+'Smythe,' the superior person.  Here was 'Smith' in mortal terror
+lest his pals should hear of his identity with the aristocratic
+'Smythe,' and discard him.  His attitude puzzled me at the time,
+but, when I came to reflect, my wonder was at myself for having
+expected the opposite.
+
+"'I carn't 'elp it,' he went on; 'I 'ave to live two lives.  'Arf my
+time I'm a stuck-up prig, as orter be jolly well kicked--'
+
+"'At which times,' I interrupted, 'I have heard you express some
+extremely uncomplimentary opinions concerning 'Arries.'
+
+"'I know,' he replied, in a voice betraying strong emotion; 'that's
+where it's so precious rough on me.  When I'm a toff I despises
+myself, 'cos I knows that underneath my sneering phiz I'm a bloomin'
+'Arry.  When I'm an 'Arry, I 'ates myself 'cos I knows I'm a toff.'
+
+"'Can't you decide which character you prefer, and stick to it?' I
+asked.
+
+"'No,' he answered, 'I carn't.  It's a rum thing, but whichever I
+am, sure as fate, 'bout the end of a month I begin to get sick o'
+myself.'
+
+"'I can quite understand it,' I murmured; 'I should give way myself
+in a fortnight.'
+
+"'I've been myself, now,' he continued, without noticing my remark,
+'for somethin' like ten days.  One mornin', in 'bout three weeks'
+time, I shall get up in my diggins in the Mile End Road, and I shall
+look round the room, and at these clothes 'angin' over the bed, and
+at this yer concertina' (he gave it an affectionate squeeze), 'and I
+shall feel myself gettin' scarlet all over.  Then I shall jump out
+o' bed, and look at myself in the glass.  "You howling little cad,"
+I shall say to myself, "I have half a mind to strangle you"; and I
+shall shave myself, and put on a quiet blue serge suit and a bowler
+'at, tell my landlady to keep my rooms for me till I comes back,
+slip out o' the 'ouse, and into the fust 'ansom I meets, and back to
+the Halbany.  And a month arter that, I shall come into my chambers
+at the Halbany, fling Voltaire and Parini into the fire, shy me 'at
+at the bust of good old 'Omer, slip on my blue suit agen, and back
+to the Mile End Road.'
+
+"'How do you explain your absence to both parties?' I asked.
+
+"'Oh, that's simple enough,' he replied.  'I just tells my
+'ousekeeper at the Halbany as I'm goin' on the Continong; and my
+mates 'ere thinks I'm a traveller.'
+
+"'Nobody misses me much,' he added, pathetically; 'I hain't a
+partic'larly fetchin' sort o' bloke, either of me.  I'm sich an out-
+and-outer.  When I'm an 'Arry, I'm too much of an 'Arry, and when
+I'm a prig, I'm a reg'lar fust prize prig.  Seems to me as if I was
+two ends of a man without any middle.  If I could only mix myself up
+a bit more, I'd be all right.'
+
+"He sniffed once or twice, and then he laughed.  'Ah, well,' he
+said, casting aside his momentary gloom; 'it's all a game, and wot's
+the odds so long as yer 'appy.  'Ave a wet?'
+
+"I declined the wet, and left him playing sentimental airs to
+himself upon the concertina.
+
+"One afternoon, about a month later, the servant came to me with a
+card on which was engraved the name of 'Mr. Joseph Smythe.'  I
+requested her to show him up.  He entered with his usual air of
+languid superciliousness, and seated himself in a graceful attitude
+upon the sofa.
+
+"'Well,' I said, as soon as the girl had closed the door behind her,
+'so you've got rid of Smith?'
+
+"A sickly smile passed over his face.  'You have not mentioned it to
+any one?' he asked anxiously.
+
+"'Not to a soul,' I replied; 'though I confess I often feel tempted
+to.'
+
+"'I sincerely trust you never will,' he said, in a tone of alarm.
+'You can have no conception of the misery the whole thing causes me.
+I cannot understand it.  What possible affinity there can be between
+myself and that disgusting little snob passes my comprehension.  I
+assure you, my dear Mac, the knowledge that I was a ghoul, or a
+vampire, would cause me less nausea than the reflection that I am
+one and the same with that odious little Whitechapel bounder.  When
+I think of him every nerve in my body--'
+
+"'Don't think about him any more,' I interrupted, perceiving his
+strongly-suppressed emotion.  'You didn't come here to talk about
+him, I'm sure.  Let us dismiss him.'
+
+"'Well,' he replied, 'in a certain roundabout way it is slightly
+connected with him.  That is really my excuse for inflicting the
+subject upon you.  You are the only man I CAN speak to about it--if
+I shall not bore you?'
+
+"'Not in the least,' I said.  'I am most interested.'  As he still
+hesitated, I asked him point-blank what it was.
+
+"He appeared embarrassed.  'It is really very absurd of me,' he
+said, while the faintest suspicion of pink crossed his usually
+colourless face; 'but I feel I must talk to somebody about it.  The
+fact is, my dear Mac, I am in love.'
+
+"'Capital!' I cried; 'I'm delighted to hear it.'  (I thought it
+might make a man of him.)  'Do I know the lady?'
+
+"'I am inclined to think you must have seen her,' he replied; 'she
+was with me on the pier at Yarmouth that evening you met me.'
+
+"'Not 'Liza!' I exclaimed.
+
+"'That was she,' he answered; 'Miss Elizabeth Muggins.'  He dwelt
+lovingly upon the name.
+
+"'But,' I said, 'you seemed--I really could not help noticing, it
+was so pronounced--you seemed to positively dislike her.  Indeed, I
+gathered from your remark to a friend that her society was
+distinctly distasteful to you.'
+
+"'To Smith,' he corrected me.  'What judge would that howling little
+blackguard be of a woman's worth!  The dislike of such a man as that
+is a testimonial to her merit!'
+
+"'I may be mistaken,' I said; 'but she struck me as a bit common.'
+
+"'She is not, perhaps, what the world would call a lady,' he
+admitted; 'but then, my dear Mac, my opinion of the world is not
+such as to render ITS opinion of much value to me.  I and the world
+differ on most subjects, I am glad to say.  She is beautiful, and
+she is good, and she is my choice.'
+
+"'She's a jolly enough little girl,' I replied, 'and, I should say,
+affectionate; but have you considered, Smythe, whether she is quite-
+-what shall we say--quite as intellectual as could be desired?'
+
+"'Really, to tell the truth, I have not troubled myself much about
+her intellect,' he replied, with one of his sneering smiles.  'I
+have no doubt that the amount of intellect absolutely necessary to
+the formation of a British home, I shall be able to supply myself.
+I have no desire for an intellectual wife.  One is compelled to meet
+tiresome people, but one does not live with them if one can avoid
+it.'
+
+"'No,' he continued, reverting to his more natural tone; 'the more I
+think of Elizabeth the more clear it becomes to me that she is the
+one woman in the world for whom marriage with me is possible.  I
+perceive that to the superficial observer my selection must appear
+extraordinary.  I do not pretend to explain it, or even to
+understand it.  The study of mankind is beyond man.  Only fools
+attempt it.  Maybe it is her contrast to myself that attracts me.
+Maybe my, perhaps, too spiritual nature feels the need of contact
+with her coarser clay to perfect itself.  I cannot tell.  These
+things must always remain mysteries.  I only know that I love her--
+that, if any reliance is to be placed upon instinct, she is the mate
+to whom Artemis is leading me.'
+
+"It was clear that he was in love, and I therefore ceased to argue
+with him.  'You kept up your acquaintanceship with her, then, after
+you'--I was going to say 'after you ceased to be Smith,' but not
+wishing to agitate him by more mention of that person than I could
+help, I substituted, 'after you returned to the Albany?'
+
+"'Not exactly,' he replied; 'I lost sight of her after I left
+Yarmouth, and I did not see her again until five days ago, when I
+came across her in an aerated bread shop.  I had gone in to get a
+glass of milk and a bun, and SHE brought them to me.  I recognised
+her in a moment.'  His face lighted up with quite a human smile.  'I
+take tea there every afternoon now,' he added, glancing towards the
+clock, 'at four.'
+
+"'There's not much need to ask HER views on the subject,' I said,
+laughing; 'her feelings towards you were pretty evident.'
+
+"'Well, that is the curious part of it,' he replied, with a return
+to his former embarrassment; 'she does not seem to care for me now
+at all.  Indeed, she positively refuses me.  She says--to put it in
+the dear child's own racy language--that she wouldn't take me on at
+any price.  She says it would be like marrying a clockwork figure
+without the key.  She's more frank than complimentary, but I like
+that.'
+
+"'Wait a minute,' I said; 'an idea occurs to me.  Does she know of
+your identity with Smith?'
+
+"'No,' he replied, alarmed, 'I would not have her know it for
+worlds.  Only yesterday she told me that I reminded her of a fellow
+she had met at Yarmouth, and my heart was in my mouth.'
+
+"'How did she look when she told you that?' I asked.
+
+"'How did she look?' he repeated, not understanding me.
+
+"'What was her expression at that moment?' I said--'was it severe or
+tender?'
+
+"'Well,' he replied, 'now I come to think of it, she did seem to
+soften a bit just then.'
+
+"'My dear boy,' I said, 'the case is as clear as day-light.  She
+loves Smith.  No girl who admired Smith could be attracted by
+Smythe.  As your present self you will never win her.  In a few
+weeks' time, however, you will be Smith.  Leave the matter over
+until then.  Propose to her as Smith, and she will accept you.
+After marriage you can break Smythe gently to her.'
+
+"'By Jove!' he exclaimed, startled out of his customary lethargy, 'I
+never thought of that.  The truth is, when I am in my right senses,
+Smith and all his affairs seem like a dream to me.  Any idea
+connected with him would never enter my mind.'
+
+"He rose and held out his hand.  'I am so glad I came to see you,'
+he said; 'your suggestion has almost reconciled me to my miserable
+fate.  Indeed, I quite look forward to a month of Smith, now.'
+
+"'I'm so pleased,' I answered, shaking hands with him.  'Mind you
+come and tell me how you get on.  Another man's love affairs are not
+usually absorbing, but there is an element of interest about yours
+that renders the case exceptional.'
+
+"We parted, and I did not see him again for another month.  Then,
+late one evening, the servant knocked at my door to say that a Mr.
+Smith wished to see me.
+
+"'Smith, Smith,' I repeated; 'what Smith? didn't he give you a
+card?'
+
+"'No, sir,' answered the girl; 'he doesn't look the sort that would
+have a card.  He's not a gentleman, sir; but he says you'll know
+him.'  She evidently regarded the statement as an aspersion upon
+myself.
+
+"I was about to tell her to say I was out, when the recollection of
+Smythe's other self flashed into my mind, and I directed her to send
+him up.
+
+"A minute passed, and then he entered.  He was wearing a new suit of
+a louder pattern, if possible, than before.  I think he must have
+designed it himself.  He looked hot and greasy.  He did not offer to
+shake hands, but sat down awkwardly on the extreme edge of a small
+chair, and gaped about the room as if he had never seen it before.
+
+"He communicated his shyness to myself.  I could not think what to
+say, and we sat for a while in painful silence.
+
+"'Well,' I said, at last, plunging head-foremost into the matter,
+according to the method of shy people, 'and how's 'Liza?'
+
+"'Oh, SHE'S all right,' he replied, keeping his eyes fixed on his
+hat.
+
+"'Have you done it?' I continued.
+
+"'Done wot?' he asked, looking up.
+
+"'Married her.'
+
+"'No,' he answered, returning to the contemplation of his hat.
+
+"'Has she refused you then?' I said.
+
+"'I ain't arst 'er,' he returned.
+
+He seemed unwilling to explain matters of his own accord.  I had to
+put the conversation into the form of a cross-examination.
+
+"'Why not?' I asked; 'don't you think she cares for you any longer?'
+
+He burst into a harsh laugh.  'There ain't much fear o' that,' he
+said; 'it's like 'aving an Alcock's porous plaster mashed on yer,
+blowed if it ain't.  There's no gettin' rid of 'er.  I wish she'd
+giv' somebody else a turn.  I'm fair sick of 'er.'
+
+"'But you were enthusiastic about her a month ago!' I exclaimed in
+astonishment.
+
+"'Smythe may 'ave been,' he said; 'there ain't no accounting for
+that ninny, 'is 'ead's full of starch.  Anyhow, I don't take 'er on
+while I'm myself.  I'm too jolly fly.'
+
+"'That sort o' gal's all right enough to lark with,' he continued;
+'but yer don't want to marry 'em.  They don't do yer no good.  A man
+wants a wife as 'e can respect--some one as is a cut above 'imself,
+as will raise 'im up a peg or two--some one as 'e can look up to and
+worship.  A man's wife orter be to 'im a gawddess--a hangel, a--'
+
+"'You appear to have met the lady,' I remarked, interrupting him.
+
+"He blushed scarlet, and became suddenly absorbed in the pattern of
+the carpet.  But the next moment he looked up again, and his face
+seemed literally transformed.
+
+"'Oh!  Mr. MacShaughnassy,' he burst out, with a ring of genuine
+manliness in his voice, 'you don't know 'ow good, 'ow beautiful she
+is.  I ain't fit to breathe 'er name in my thoughts.  An' she's so
+clever.  I met 'er at that Toynbee 'All.  There was a party of toffs
+there all together.  You would 'ave enjoyed it, Mr. MacShaughnassy,
+if you could 'ave 'eard 'er; she was makin' fun of the pictures and
+the people round about to 'er pa--such wit, such learnin', such
+'aughtiness.  I follered them out and opened the carriage door for
+'er, and she just drew 'er skirt aside and looked at me as if I was
+the dirt in the road.  I wish I was, for then perhaps one day I'd
+kiss 'er feet.'
+
+"His emotion was so genuine that I did not feel inclined to laugh at
+him.  'Did you find out who she was?' I asked.
+
+"'Yes,' he answered; 'I 'eard the old gentleman say "'Ome" to the
+coachman, and I ran after the carriage all the way to 'Arley Street.
+Trevior's 'er name, Hedith Trevior.'
+
+"'Miss Trevior!' I cried, 'a tall, dark girl, with untidy hair and
+rather weak eyes?'
+
+"'Tall and dark,' he replied 'with 'air that seems tryin' to reach
+'er lips to kiss 'em, and heyes, light blue, like a Cambridge
+necktie.  A 'undred and seventy-three was the number.'
+
+"'That's right,' I said; 'my dear Smith, this is becoming
+complicated.  You've met the lady and talked to her for half an
+hour--as Smythe, don't you remember?'
+
+"'No,' he said, after cogitating for a minute, 'carn't say I do; I
+never can remember much about Smythe.  He allers seems to me like a
+bad dream.'
+
+"'Well, you met her,' I said; 'I'm positive.  I introduced you to
+her myself, and she confided to me afterwards that she thought you a
+most charming man.'
+
+"'No--did she?' he remarked, evidently softening in his feelings
+towards Smythe; 'and did I like 'ER?'
+
+"'Well, to tell the truth,' I answered, 'I don't think you did.  You
+looked intensely bored.'
+
+"'The Juggins,' I heard him mutter to himself, and then he said
+aloud:  'D'yer think I shall get a chance o' seein' 'er agen, when
+I'm--when I'm Smythe?'
+
+"'Of course,' I said, 'I'll take you round myself.  By the bye,' I
+added, jumping up and looking on the mantelpiece, 'I've got a card
+for a Cinderella at their place--something to do with a birthday.
+Will you be Smythe on November the twentieth?'
+
+"'Ye--as,' he replied; 'oh, yas--bound to be by then.'
+
+"'Very well, then,' I said, 'I'll call round for you at the Albany,
+and we'll go together.'
+
+"He rose and stood smoothing his hat with his sleeve.  'Fust time
+I've ever looked for'ard to bein' that hanimated corpse, Smythe,' he
+said slowly.  'Blowed if I don't try to 'urry it up--'pon my sivey I
+will.'
+
+"'He'll be no good to you till the twentieth,' I reminded him.
+'And,' I added, as I stood up to ring the bell, 'you're sure it's a
+genuine case this time.  You won't be going back to 'Liza?'
+
+"'Oh, don't talk 'bout 'Liza in the same breath with Hedith,' he
+replied, 'it sounds like sacrilege.'
+
+"He stood hesitating with the handle of the door in his hand.  At
+last, opening it and looking very hard at his hat, he said, 'I'm
+goin' to 'Arley Street now.  I walk up and down outside the 'ouse
+every evening, and sometimes, when there ain't no one lookin', I get
+a chance to kiss the doorstep.'
+
+"He disappeared, and I returned to my chair.
+
+"On November twentieth, I called for him according to promise.  I
+found him on the point of starting for the club:  he had forgotten
+all about our appointment.  I reminded him of it, and he with
+difficulty recalled it, and consented, without any enthusiasm, to
+accompany me.  By a few artful hints to her mother (including a
+casual mention of his income), I manoeuvred matters so that he had
+Edith almost entirely to himself for the whole evening.  I was proud
+of what I had done, and as we were walking home together I waited to
+receive his gratitude.
+
+"As it seemed slow in coming, I hinted my expectations.
+
+"'Well,' I said, 'I think I managed that very cleverly for you.'
+
+"'Managed what very cleverly?' said he.
+
+"'Why, getting you and Miss Trevior left together for such a long
+time in the conservatory,' I answered, somewhat hurt; 'I fixed that
+for you.'
+
+"'Oh, it was YOU, was it,' he replied; 'I've been cursing
+Providence.'
+
+"I stopped dead in the middle of the pavement, and faced him.
+'Don't you love her?' I said.
+
+"'Love her!' he repeated, in the utmost astonishment; 'what on earth
+is there in her to love?  She's nothing but a bad translation of a
+modern French comedy, with the interest omitted.'
+
+"This 'tired' me--to use an Americanism.  'You came to me a month
+ago,' I said, 'raving over her, and talking about being the dirt
+under her feet and kissing her doorstep.'
+
+"He turned very red.  'I wish, my dear Mac,' he said, 'you would pay
+me the compliment of not mistaking me for that detestable little cad
+with whom I have the misfortune to be connected.  You would greatly
+oblige me if next time he attempts to inflict upon you his vulgar
+drivel you would kindly kick him downstairs.'
+
+"'No doubt,' he added, with a sneer, as we walked on, 'Miss Trevior
+would be his ideal.  She is exactly the type of woman, I should say,
+to charm that type of man.  For myself, I do not appreciate the
+artistic and literary female.'
+
+"'Besides,' he continued, in a deeper tone, 'you know my feelings.
+I shall never care for any other woman but Elizabeth.'
+
+"'And she?' I said
+
+"'She,' he sighed, 'is breaking her heart for Smith.'
+
+"'Why don't you tell her you are Smith?' I asked.
+
+"'I cannot,' he replied, 'not even to win her.  Besides, she would
+not believe me.'
+
+"We said good-night at the corner of Bond Street, and I did not see
+him again till one afternoon late in the following March, when I ran
+against him in Ludgate Circus.  He was wearing his transition blue
+suit and bowler hat.  I went up to him and took his arm.
+
+"'Which are you?' I said.
+
+"'Neither, for the moment,' he replied, 'thank God.  Half an hour
+ago I was Smythe, half an hour hence I shall be Smith.  For the
+present half-hour I am a man.'
+
+"There was a pleasant, hearty ring in his voice, and a genial,
+kindly light in his eyes, and he held himself like a frank
+gentleman.
+
+"'You are certainly an improvement upon both of them,' I said.
+
+"He laughed a sunny laugh, with just the shadow of sadness dashed
+across it.  'Do you know my idea of Heaven?' he said.
+
+"'No,' I replied, somewhat surprised at the question.
+
+"'Ludgate Circus,' was the answer.  'The only really satisfying
+moments of my life,' he said, 'have been passed in the neighbourhood
+of Ludgate Circus.  I leave Piccadilly an unhealthy, unwholesome
+prig.  At Charing Cross I begin to feel my blood stir in my veins.
+From Ludgate Circus to Cheapside I am a human thing with human
+feeling throbbing in my heart, and human thought throbbing in my
+brain--with fancies, sympathies, and hopes.  At the Bank my mind
+becomes a blank.  As I walk on, my senses grow coarse and blunted;
+and by the time I reach Whitechapel I am a poor little uncivilised
+cad.  On the return journey it is the same thing reversed.'
+
+"'Why not live in Ludgate Circus,' I said, 'and be always as you are
+now?'
+
+"'Because,' he answered, 'man is a pendulum, and must travel his
+arc.'
+
+"'My dear Mac,' said he, laying his hand upon my shoulder, 'there is
+only one good thing about me, and that is a moral.  Man is as God
+made him:  don't be so sure that you can take him to pieces and
+improve him.  All my life I have sought to make myself an
+unnaturally superior person.  Nature has retaliated by making me
+also an unnaturally inferior person.  Nature abhors lopsidedness.
+She turns out man as a whole, to be developed as a whole.  I always
+wonder, whenever I come across a supernaturally pious, a
+supernaturally moral, a supernaturally cultured person, if they also
+have a reverse self.'
+
+"I was shocked at his suggested argument, and walked by his side for
+a while without speaking.  At last, feeling curious on the subject,
+I asked him how his various love affairs were progressing.
+
+"'Oh, as usual,' he replied; 'in and out of a cul de sac.  When I am
+Smythe I love Eliza, and Eliza loathes me.  When I am Smith I love
+Edith, and the mere sight of me makes her shudder.  It is as
+unfortunate for them as for me.  I am not saying it boastfully.
+Heaven knows it is an added draught of misery in my cup; but it is a
+fact that Eliza is literally pining away for me as Smith, and--as
+Smith I find it impossible to be even civil to her; while Edith,
+poor girl, has been foolish enough to set her heart on me as Smythe,
+and as Smythe she seems to me but the skin of a woman stuffed with
+the husks of learning, and rags torn from the corpse of wit.'
+
+"I remained absorbed in my own thoughts for some time, and did not
+come out of them till we were crossing the Minories.  Then, the idea
+suddenly occurring to me, I said:
+
+"'Why don't you get a new girl altogether?  There must be medium
+girls that both Smith and Smythe could like, and that would put up
+with both of you.'
+
+"'No more girls for this child,' he answered 'they're more trouble
+than they're worth.  Those yer want yer carn't get, and those yer
+can 'ave, yer don't want.'
+
+"I started, and looked up at him.  He was slouching along with his
+hands in his pockets, and a vacuous look in his face.
+
+"A sudden repulsion seized me.  'I must go now,' I said, stopping.
+'I'd no idea I had come so far.'
+
+"He seemed as glad to be rid of me as I to be rid of him.  'Oh, must
+yer,' he said, holding out his hand.  'Well, so long.'
+
+"We shook hands carelessly.  He disappeared in the crowd, and that
+is the last I have ever seen of him."
+
+
+"Is that a true story?" asked Jephson.
+
+"Well, I've altered the names and dates," said MacShaughnassy; "but
+the main facts you can rely upon."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+
+
+The final question discussed at our last meeting been:  What shall
+our hero be?  MacShaughnassy had suggested an author, with a critic
+for the villain.  My idea was a stockbroker, with an undercurrent of
+romance in his nature.  Said Jephson, who has a practical mind:
+"The question is not what we like, but what the female novel-reader
+likes."
+
+"That is so," agreed MacShaughnassy.  "I propose that we collect
+feminine opinion upon this point.  I will write to my aunt and
+obtain from her the old lady's view.  You," he said, turning to me,
+"can put the case to your wife, and get the young lady's ideal.  Let
+Brown write to his sister at Newnham, and find out whom the
+intellectual maiden favours, while Jephson can learn from Miss
+Medbury what is most attractive to the common-sensed girl."
+
+This plan we had adopted, and the result was now under
+consideration.  MacShaughnassy opened the proceedings by reading his
+aunt's letter.  Wrote the old lady:
+
+
+"I think, if I were you, my dear boy, I should choose a soldier.
+You know your poor grandfather, who ran away to America with that
+WICKED Mrs. Featherly, the banker's wife, was a soldier, and so was
+your poor cousin Robert, who lost eight thousand pounds at Monte
+Carlo.  I have always felt singularly drawn towards soldiers, even
+as a girl; though your poor dear uncle could not bear them.  You
+will find many allusions to soldiers and men of war in the Old
+Testament (see Jer. xlviii. 14).  Of course one does not like to
+think of their fighting and killing each other, but then they do not
+seem to do that sort of thing nowadays."
+
+
+"So much for the old lady," said MacShaughnassy, as he folded up the
+letter and returned it to his pocket.  "What says culture?"
+
+Brown produced from his cigar-case a letter addressed in a bold
+round hand, and read as follows:
+
+
+"What a curious coincidence!  A few of us were discussing this very
+subject last night in Millicent Hightopper's rooms, and I may tell
+you at once that our decision was unanimous in favour of soldiers.
+You see, my dear Selkirk, in human nature the attraction is towards
+the opposite.  To a milliner's apprentice a poet would no doubt be
+satisfying; to a woman of intelligence he would he an unutterable
+bore.  What the intellectual woman requires in man is not something
+to argue with, but something to look at.  To an empty-headed woman I
+can imagine the soldier type proving vapid and uninteresting; to the
+woman of mind he represents her ideal of man--a creature strong,
+handsome, well-dressed, and not too clever."
+
+
+"That gives us two votes for the army," remarked MacShaughnassy, as
+Brown tore his sister's letter in two, and threw the pieces into the
+waste-paper basket.  "What says the common-sensed girl?"
+
+"First catch your common-sensed girl," muttered Jephson, a little
+grumpily, as it seemed to me.  "Where do you propose finding her?"
+
+"Well," returned MacShaughnassy, "I looked to find her in Miss
+Medbury."
+
+As a rule, the mention of Miss Medbury's name brings a flush of joy
+to Jephson's face; but now his features wore an expression
+distinctly approaching a scowl.
+
+"Oh!" he replied, "did you?  Well, then, the common-sensed girl
+loves the military also."
+
+"By Jove!" exclaimed MacShaughnassy, "what an extraordinary thing.
+What reason does she give?"
+
+"That there's a something about them, and that they dance so
+divinely," answered Jephson, shortly.
+
+"Well, you do surprise me," murmured MacShaughnassy, "I am
+astonished."
+
+Then to me he said:  "And what does the young married woman say?
+The same?"
+
+"Yes," I replied, "precisely the same."
+
+"Does SHE give a reason?" he asked.
+
+"Oh yes," I explained; "because you can't help liking them."
+
+There was silence for the next few minutes, while we smoked and
+thought.  I fancy we were all wishing we had never started this
+inquiry.
+
+That four distinctly different types of educated womanhood should,
+with promptness and unanimity quite unfeminine, have selected the
+soldier as their ideal, was certainly discouraging to the civilian
+heart.  Had they been nursemaids or servant girls, I should have
+expected it.  The worship of Mars by the Venus of the white cap is
+one of the few vital religions left to this devoutless age.  A year
+or two ago I lodged near a barracks, and the sight to be seen round
+its huge iron gates on Sunday afternoons I shall never forget.  The
+girls began to assemble about twelve o'clock.  By two, at which hour
+the army, with its hair nicely oiled and a cane in its hand, was
+ready for a stroll, there would be some four or five hundred of them
+waiting in a line.  Formerly they had collected in a wild mob, and
+as the soldiers were let out to them two at a time, had fought for
+them, as lions for early Christians.  This, however, had led to
+scenes of such disorder and brutality, that the police had been
+obliged to interfere; and the girls were now marshalled in QUEUE,
+two abreast, and compelled, by a force of constables specially told
+off for the purpose, to keep their places and wait their proper
+turn.
+
+At three o'clock the sentry on duty would come down to the wicket
+and close it.  "They're all gone, my dears," he would shout out to
+the girls still left; "it's no good your stopping, we've no more for
+you to-day."
+
+"Oh, not one!" some poor child would murmur pleadingly, while the
+tears welled up into her big round eyes, "not even a little one.
+I've been waiting SUCH a long time."
+
+"Can't help that," the honest fellow would reply, gruffly, but not
+unkindly, turning aside to hide his emotion; "you've had 'em all
+between you.  We don't make 'em, you know:  you can't have 'em if we
+haven't got 'em, can you?  Come earlier next time."
+
+Then he would hurry away to escape further importunity; and the
+police, who appeared to have been waiting for this moment with
+gloating anticipation, would jeeringly hustle away the weeping
+remnant.  "Now then, pass along, you girls, pass along," they would
+say, in that irritatingly unsympathetic voice of theirs.  "You've
+had your chance.  Can't have the roadway blocked up all the
+afternoon with this 'ere demonstration of the unloved.  Pass along."
+
+In connection with this same barracks, our char-woman told Amenda,
+who told Ethelbertha, who told me a story, which I now told the
+boys.
+
+Into a certain house, in a certain street in the neighbourhood,
+there moved one day a certain family.  Their servant had left them--
+most of their servants did at the end of a week--and the day after
+the moving-in an advertisement for a domestic was drawn up and sent
+to the Chronicle.  It ran thus:
+
+
+WANTED, GENERAL SERVANT, in small family of eleven.  Wages, 6
+pounds; no beer money.  Must be early riser and hard worker.
+Washing done at home.  Must be good cook, and not object to window-
+cleaning.  Unitarian preferred.--Apply, with references, to A. B.,
+etc.
+
+
+That advertisement was sent off on Wednesday afternoon.  At seven
+o'clock on Thursday morning the whole family were awakened by
+continuous ringing of the street-door bell.  The husband, looking
+out of window, was surprised to see a crowd of about fifty girls
+surrounding the house.  He slipped on his dressing-gown and went
+down to see what was the matter.  The moment he opened the door,
+fifteen of them charged tumultuously into the passage, sweeping him
+completely off his legs.  Once inside, these fifteen faced round,
+fought the other thirty-five or so back on to the door-step, and
+slammed the door in their faces.  Then they picked up the master of
+the house, and asked him politely to conduct them to A. B."
+
+At first, owing to the clamour of the mob outside, who were
+hammering at the door and shouting curses through the keyhole, he
+could understand nothing, but at length they succeeded in explaining
+to him that they were domestic servants come ill answer to his
+wife's advertisement.  The man went and told his wife, and his wife
+said she would see them, one at a time.
+
+Which one should have audience first was a delicate question to
+decide.  The man, on being appealed to, said he would prefer to
+leave it to them.  They accordingly discussed the matter among
+themselves.  At the end of a quarter of an hour, the victor, having
+borrowed some hair-pins and a looking-glass from our charwoman, who
+had slept in the house, went upstairs, while the remaining fourteen
+sat down in the hall, and fanned themselves with their bonnets.
+
+"A. B." was a good deal astonished when the first applicant
+presented herself.  She was a tall, genteel-looking girl.  Up to
+yesterday she had been head housemaid at Lady Stanton's, and before
+that she had been under-cook for two years to the Duchess of York.
+
+"And why did you leave Lady Stanton?" asked "A. B."
+
+"To come here, mum," replied the girl.  The lady was puzzled.
+
+"And you'll be satisfied with six pounds a year?" she asked.
+
+"Certainly, mum, I think it ample."
+
+"And you don't mind hard work?"
+
+"I love it, mum."
+
+"And you're an early riser?"
+
+"Oh yes, mum, it upsets me stopping in bed after half-past five."
+
+"You know we do the washing at home?"
+
+"Yes, mum.  I think it so much better to do it at home.  Those
+laundries ruin good clothes.  They're so careless."
+
+"Are you a Unitarian?" continued the lady.
+
+"Not yet, mum," replied the girl, "but I should like to be one."
+
+The lady took her reference, and said she would write.
+
+The next applicant offered to come for three pounds--thought six
+pounds too much.  She expressed her willingness to sleep in the back
+kitchen:  a shakedown under the sink was all she wanted.  She
+likewise had yearnings towards Unitarianism.
+
+The third girl did not require any wages at all--could not
+understand what servants wanted with wages--thought wages only
+encouraged a love of foolish finery--thought a comfortable home in a
+Unitarian family ought to be sufficient wages for any girl.
+
+This girl said there was one stipulation she should like to make,
+and that was that she should be allowed to pay for all breakages
+caused by her own carelessness or neglect.  She objected to holidays
+and evenings out; she held that they distracted a girl from her
+work.
+
+The fourth candidate offered a premium of five pounds for the place;
+and then "A. B." began to get frightened, and refused to see any
+more of the girls, convinced that they must be lunatics from some
+neighbouring asylum out for a walk.
+
+Later in the day, meeting the next-door lady on the door-step, she
+related her morning's experiences.
+
+"Oh, that's nothing extraordinary," said the next-door lady; "none
+of us on this side of the street pay wages; and we get the pick of
+all the best servants in London.  Why, girls will come from the
+other end of the kingdom to get into one of these houses.  It's the
+dream of their lives.  They save up for years, so as to be able to
+come here for nothing."
+
+"What's the attraction?" asked "A. B.," more amazed than ever.
+
+"Why, don't you see," explained the next door lady, "our back
+windows open upon the barrack yard.  A girl living in one of these
+houses is always close to soldiers.  By looking out of window she
+can always see soldiers; and sometimes a soldier will nod to her or
+even call up to her.  They never dream of asking for wages.  They'll
+work eighteen hours a day, and put up with anything just to be
+allowed to stop."
+
+"A. B."  profited by this information, and engaged the girl who
+offered the five pounds premium.  She found her a perfect treasure
+of a servant.  She was invariably willing and respectful, slept on a
+sofa in the kitchen, and was always contented with an egg for her
+dinner.
+
+The truth of this story I cannot vouch for.  Myself, I can believe
+it.  Brown and MacShaughnassy made no attempt to do so, which seemed
+unfriendly.  Jephson excused himself on the plea of a headache.  I
+admit there are points in it presenting difficulties to the average
+intellect.  As I explained at the commencement, it was told to me by
+Ethelbertha, who had it from Amenda, who got it from the char-woman,
+and exaggerations may have crept into it.  The following, however,
+were incidents that came under my own personal observation.  They
+afforded a still stronger example of the influence exercised by
+Tommy Atkins upon the British domestic, and I therefore thought it
+right to relate them.
+
+"The heroine of them," I said, "is our Amenda.  Now, you would call
+her a tolerably well-behaved, orderly young woman, would you not?"
+
+"She is my ideal of unostentatious respectability," answered
+MacShaughnassy
+
+"That was my opinion also," I replied.  "You can, therefore, imagine
+my feelings on passing her one evening in the Folkestone High Street
+with a Panama hat upon her head (MY Panama hat), and a soldier's arm
+round her waist.  She was one of a mob following the band of the
+Third Berkshire Infantry, then in camp at Sandgate.  There was an
+ecstatic, far-away look in her eyes.  She was dancing rather than
+walking, and with her left hand she beat time to the music.
+
+"Ethelbertha was with me at the time.  We stared after the
+procession until it had turned the corner, and then we stared at
+each other.
+
+"'Oh, it's impossible,' said Ethelbertha to me.
+
+"'But that was my hat,' I said to Ethelbertha.
+
+"The moment we reached home Ethelbertha looked for Amenda, and I
+looked for my hat.  Neither was to be found.
+
+"Nine o'clock struck, ten o'clock struck.  At half-past ten, we went
+down and got our own supper, and had it in the kitchen.  At a
+quarter-past eleven, Amenda returned.  She walked into the kitchen
+without a word, hung my hat up behind the door, and commenced
+clearing away the supper things.
+
+"Ethelbertha rose, calm but severe.
+
+"'Where have you been, Amenda?' she inquired.
+
+"'Gadding half over the county with a lot of low soldiers,' answered
+Amenda, continuing her work.
+
+"'You had on my hat,' I added.
+
+"'Yes, sir,' replied Amenda, still continuing her work, 'it was the
+first thing that came to hand.  What I'm thankful for is that it
+wasn't missis's best bonnet.'
+
+"Whether Ethelbertha was mollified by the proper spirit displayed in
+this last remark, I cannot say, but I think it probable.  At all
+events, it was in a voice more of sorrow than of anger that she
+resumed her examination.
+
+"'You were walking with a soldier's arm around your waist when we
+passed you, Amenda?' she observed interrogatively.
+
+"'I know, mum,' admitted Amenda, 'I found it there myself when the
+music stopped.'
+
+"Ethelbertha looked her inquiries.  Amenda filled a saucepan with
+water, and then replied to them.
+
+"'I'm a disgrace to a decent household,' she said; 'no mistress who
+respected herself would keep me a moment.  I ought to be put on the
+doorstep with my box and a month's wages.'
+
+"'But why did you do it then?' said Ethelbertha, with natural
+astonishment.
+
+"'Because I'm a helpless ninny, mum.  I can't help myself; if I see
+soldiers I'm bound to follow them.  It runs in our family.  My poor
+cousin Emma was just such another fool.  She was engaged to be
+married to a quiet, respectable young fellow with a shop of his own,
+and three days before the wedding she ran off with a regiment of
+marines to Chatham and married the colour-sergeant.  That's what I
+shall end by doing.  I've been all the way to Sandgate with that lot
+you saw me with, and I've kissed four of them--the nasty wretches.
+I'm a nice sort of girl to be walking out with a respectable
+milkman.'
+
+"She was so deeply disgusted with herself that it seemed superfluous
+for anybody else to be indignant with her; and Ethelbertha changed
+her tone and tried to comfort her.
+
+"'Oh, you'll get over all that nonsense, Amenda,' she said,
+laughingly; 'you see yourself how silly it is.  You must tell Mr.
+Bowles to keep you away from soldiers.'
+
+"'Ah, I can't look at it in the same light way that you do, mum,'
+returned Amenda, somewhat reprovingly; 'a girl that can't see a bit
+of red marching down the street without wanting to rush out and
+follow it ain't fit to be anybody's wife.  Why, I should be leaving
+the shop with nobody in it about twice a week, and he'd have to go
+the round of all the barracks in London, looking for me.  I shall
+save up and get myself into a lunatic asylum, that's what I shall
+do.'
+
+"Ethelbertha began to grow quite troubled.  'But surely this is
+something altogether new, Amenda,' she said; 'you must have often
+met soldiers when you've been out in London?'
+
+"'Oh yes, one or two at a time, walking about anyhow, I can stand
+that all right.  It's when there's a lot of them with a band that I
+lose my head.'
+
+"'You don't know what it's like, mum,' she added, noticing
+Ethelbertha's puzzled expression; 'you've never had it.  I only hope
+you never may.'
+
+"We kept a careful watch over Amenda during the remainder of our
+stay at Folkestone, and an anxious time we had of it.  Every day
+some regiment or other would march through the town, and at the
+first sound of its music Amenda would become restless and excited.
+The Pied Piper's reed could not have stirred the Hamelin children
+deeper than did those Sandgate bands the heart of our domestic.
+Fortunately, they generally passed early in the morning when we were
+indoors, but one day, returning home to lunch, we heard distant
+strains dying away upon the Hythe Road.  We hurried in.  Ethelbertha
+ran down into the kitchen; it was empty!--up into Amenda's bedroom;
+it was vacant!  We called.  There was no answer.
+
+"'That miserable girl has gone off again,' said Ethelbertha.  'What
+a terrible misfortune it is for her.  It's quite a disease.'
+
+"Ethelbertha wanted me to go to Sandgate camp and inquire for her.
+I was sorry for the girl myself, but the picture of a young and
+innocent-looking man wandering about a complicated camp, inquiring
+for a lost domestic, presenting itself to my mind, I said that I'd
+rather not.
+
+Ethelbertha thought me heartless, and said that if I would not go
+she would go herself.  I replied that I thought one female member of
+my household was enough in that camp at a time, and requested her
+not to.  Ethelbertha expressed her sense of my inhuman behaviour by
+haughtily declining to eat any lunch, and I expressed my sense of
+her unreasonableness by sweeping the whole meal into the grate,
+after which Ethelbertha suddenly developed exuberant affection for
+the cat (who didn't want anybody's love, but wanted to get under the
+grate after the lunch), and I became supernaturally absorbed in the
+day-before-yesterday's newspaper.
+
+"In the afternoon, strolling out into the garden, I heard the faint
+cry of a female in distress.  I listened attentively, and the cry
+was repeated.  I thought it sounded like Amenda's voice, but where
+it came from I could not conceive.  It drew nearer, however, as I
+approached the bottom of the garden, and at last I located it in a
+small wooden shed, used by the proprietor of the house as a dark-
+room for developing photographs.
+
+"The door was locked.  'Is that you, Amenda?' I cried through the
+keyhole.
+
+"'Yes, sir,' came back the muffled answer. 'Will you please let me
+out? you'll find the key on the ground near the door.'
+
+"I discovered it on the grass about a yard away, and released her.
+'Who locked you in?' I asked.
+
+"'I did, sir,' she replied; 'I locked myself in, and pushed the key
+out under the door.  I had to do it, or I should have gone off with
+those beastly soldiers.'
+
+"'I hope I haven't inconvenienced you, sir,' she added, stepping
+out; 'I left the lunch all laid.'"
+
+
+Amenda's passion for soldiers was her one tribute to sentiment.
+Towards all others of the male sex she maintained an attitude of
+callous unsusceptibility, and her engagements with them (which were
+numerous) were entered into or abandoned on grounds so sordid as to
+seriously shock Ethelbertha.
+
+When she came to us she was engaged to a pork butcher--with a
+milkman in reserve.  For Amenda's sake we dealt with the man, but we
+never liked him, and we liked his pork still less.  When, therefore,
+Amenda announced to us that her engagement with him was "off," and
+intimated that her feelings would in no way suffer by our going
+elsewhere for our bacon, we secretly rejoiced.
+
+"I am confident you have done right, Amenda," said Ethelbertha; "you
+would never have been happy with that man."
+
+"No, mum, I don't think I ever should," replied Amenda.  "I don't
+see how any girl could as hadn't the digestion of an ostrich."
+
+Ethelbertha looked puzzled.  "But what has digestion got to do with
+it?" she asked.
+
+"A pretty good deal, mum," answered Amenda, "when you're thinking of
+marrying a man as can't make a sausage fit to eat."
+
+"But, surely," exclaimed Ethelbertha, "you don't mean to say you're
+breaking off the match because you don't like his sausages!"
+
+"Well, I suppose that's what it comes to," agreed Amenda,
+unconcernedly.
+
+"What an awful idea!" sighed poor Ethelbertha, after a long pause.
+"Do you think you ever really loved him?"
+
+"Oh yes," said Amenda, "I loved him right enough, but it's no good
+loving a man that wants you to live on sausages that keep you awake
+all night."
+
+"But does he want you to live on sausages?" persisted Ethelbertha.
+
+"Oh, he doesn't say anything about it," explained Amenda; "but you
+know what it is, mum, when you marry a pork butcher; you're expected
+to eat what's left over.  That's the mistake my poor cousin Eliza
+made.  She married a muffin man.  Of course, what he didn't sell
+they had to finish up themselves.  Why, one winter, when he had a
+run of bad luck, they lived for two months on nothing but muffins.
+I never saw a girl so changed in all my life.  One has to think of
+these things, you know."
+
+But the most shamefully mercenary engagement that I think Amenda
+ever entered into, was one with a 'bus conductor.  We were living in
+the north of London then, and she had a young man, a cheesemonger,
+who kept a shop in Lupus Street, Chelsea.  He could not come up to
+her because of the shop, so once a week she used to go down to him.
+One did not ride ten miles for a penny in those days, and she found
+the fare from Holloway to Victoria and back a severe tax upon her
+purse.  The same 'bus that took her down at six brought her back at
+ten.  During the first journey the 'bus conductor stared at Amenda;
+during the second he talked to her, during the third he gave her a
+cocoanut, during the fourth he proposed to her, and was promptly
+accepted.  After that, Amenda was enabled to visit her cheesemonger
+without expense.
+
+He was a quaint character himself, this 'bus conductor.  I often
+rode with him to Fleet Street.  He knew me quite well (I suppose
+Amenda must have pointed me out to him), and would always ask me
+after her--aloud, before all the other passengers, which was trying-
+-and give me messages to take back to her.  Where women were
+concerned he had what is called "a way" with him, and from the
+extent and variety of his female acquaintance, and the evident
+tenderness with which the majority of them regarded him, I am
+inclined to hope that Amenda's desertion of him (which happened
+contemporaneously with her jilting of the cheesemonger) caused him
+less prolonged suffering than might otherwise have been the case.
+
+He was a man from whom I derived a good deal of amusement one way
+and another.  Thinking of him brings back to my mind a somewhat odd
+incident.
+
+One afternoon, I jumped upon his 'bus in the Seven Sisters Road.  An
+elderly Frenchman was the only other occupant of the vehicle.  "You
+vil not forget me," the Frenchman was saying as I entered, "I desire
+Sharing Cross."
+
+"I won't forget yer," answered the conductor, "you shall 'ave yer
+Sharing Cross.  Don't make a fuss about it."
+
+"That's the third time 'ee's arst me not to forget 'im," he remarked
+to me in a stentorian aside; "'ee don't giv' yer much chance of
+doin' it, does 'ee?"
+
+At the corner of the Holloway Road we drew up, and our conductor
+began to shout after the manner of his species:  "Charing Cross--
+Charing Cross--'ere yer are--Come along, lady--Charing Cross."
+
+The little Frenchman jumped up, and prepared to exit; the conductor
+pushed him back.
+
+"Sit down and don't be silly," he said; "this ain't Charing Cross."
+
+The Frenchman looked puzzled, but collapsed meekly.  We picked up a
+few passengers, and proceeded on our way.  Half a mile up the
+Liverpool Road a lady stood on the kerb regarding us as we passed
+with that pathetic mingling of desire and distrust which is the
+average woman's attitude towards conveyances of all kinds.  Our
+conductor stopped.
+
+"Where d'yer want to go to?" he asked her severely--"Strand--Charing
+Cross?"
+
+The Frenchman did not hear or did not understand the first part of
+the speech, but he caught the words "Charing Cross," and bounced up
+and out on to the step.  The conductor collared him as he was
+getting off, and jerked him back savagely.
+
+"Carn't yer keep still a minute," he cried indignantly; "blessed if
+you don't want lookin' after like a bloomin' kid."
+
+"I vont to be put down at Sharing Cross," answered the Frenchman,
+humbly.
+
+"You vont to be put down at Sharing Cross," repeated the other
+bitterly, as he led him back to his seat.  "I shall put yer down in
+the middle of the road if I 'ave much more of yer.  You stop there
+till I come and sling yer out.  I ain't likely to let yer go much
+past yer Sharing Cross, I shall be too jolly glad to get rid o'
+yer."
+
+The poor Frenchman subsided, and we jolted on.  At "The Angel" we,
+of course, stopped.  "Charing Cross," shouted the conductor, and up
+sprang the Frenchman.
+
+"Oh, my Gawd," said the conductor, taking him by the shoulders and
+forcing him down into the corner seat, "wot am I to do?  Carn't
+somebody sit on 'im?"
+
+He held him firmly down until the 'bus started, and then released
+him.  At the top of Chancery Lane the same scene took place, and the
+poor little Frenchman became exasperated.
+
+"He keep saying Sharing Cross, Sharing Cross," he exclaimed, turning
+to the other passengers; "and it is NO Sharing Cross.  He is fool."
+
+"Carn't yer understand," retorted the conductor, equally indignant;
+"of course I say Sharing Cross--I mean Charing Cross, but that don't
+mean that it IS Charing Cross.  That means--" and then perceiving
+from the blank look on the Frenchman's face the utter impossibility
+of ever making the matter clear to him, he turned to us with an
+appealing gesture, and asked:
+
+"Does any gentleman know the French for 'bloomin' idiot'?"
+
+A day or two afterwards, I happened to enter his omnibus again.
+
+"Well," I asked him, "did you get your French friend to Charing
+Cross all right?"
+
+"No, sir," he replied, "you'll 'ardly believe it, but I 'ad a bit of
+a row with a policeman just before I got to the corner, and it put
+'im clean out o' my 'ead.  Blessed if I didn't run 'im on to
+Victoria."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+
+
+Said Brown one evening, "There is but one vice, and that is
+selfishness."
+
+Jephson was standing before the fire lighting his pipe.  He puffed
+the tobacco into a glow, threw the match into the embers, and then
+said:
+
+"And the seed of all virtue also."
+
+"Sit down and get on with your work," said MacShaughnassy from the
+sofa where he lay at full length with his heels on a chair; "we're
+discussing the novel.  Paradoxes not admitted during business
+hours."
+
+Jephson, however, was in an argumentative mood.
+
+"Selfishness," he continued, "is merely another name for Will.
+Every deed, good or bad, that we do is prompted by selfishness.  We
+are charitable to secure ourselves a good place in the next world,
+to make ourselves respected in this, to ease our own distress at the
+knowledge of suffering.  One man is kind because it gives him
+pleasure to be kind, just as another is cruel because cruelty
+pleases him.  A great man does his duty because to him the sense of
+duty done is a deeper delight than would be the case resulting from
+avoidance of duty.  The religious man is religious because he finds
+a joy in religion; the moral man moral because with his strong self-
+respect, viciousness would mean wretchedness.  Self-sacrifice itself
+is only a subtle selfishness:  we prefer the mental exaltation
+gained thereby to the sensual gratification which is the alternative
+reward.  Man cannot be anything else but selfish.  Selfishness is
+the law of all life.  Each thing, from the farthest fixed star to
+the smallest insect crawling on the earth, fighting for itself
+according to its strength; and brooding over all, the Eternal,
+working for HIMSELF:  that is the universe."
+
+"Have some whisky," said MacShaughnassy; "and don't be so
+complicatedly metaphysical.  You make my head ache."
+
+"If all action, good and bad, spring from selfishness," replied
+Brown, "then there must be good selfishness and bad selfishness:
+and your bad selfishness is my plain selfishness, without any
+adjective, so we are back where we started.  I say selfishness--bad
+selfishness--is the root of all evil, and there you are bound to
+agree with me."
+
+"Not always," persisted Jephson; "I've known selfishness--
+selfishness according to the ordinarily accepted meaning of the
+term--to be productive of good actions.  I can give you an instance,
+if you like."
+
+"Has it got a moral?" asked MacShaughnassy, drowsily,
+
+Jephson mused a moment.  "Yes," he said at length; "a very practical
+moral--and one very useful to young men."
+
+"That's the sort of story we want," said the MacShaughnassy, raising
+himself into a sitting position.  "You listen to this, Brown."
+
+Jephson seated himself upon a chair, in his favourite attitude, with
+his elbows resting upon the back, and smoked for a while in silence.
+
+"There are three people in this story," he began; "the wife, the
+wife's husband, and the other man.  In most dramas of this type, it
+is the wife who is the chief character.  In this case, the
+interesting person is the other man.
+
+"The wife--I met her once:  she was the most beautiful woman I have
+ever seen, and the most wicked-looking; which is saying a good deal
+for both statements.  I remember, during a walking tour one year,
+coming across a lovely little cottage.  It was the sweetest place
+imaginable.  I need not describe it.  It was the cottage one sees in
+pictures, and reads of in sentimental poetry.  I was leaning over
+the neatly-cropped hedge, drinking in its beauty, when at one of the
+tiny casements I saw, looking out at me, a face.  It stayed there
+only a moment, but in that moment the cottage had become ugly, and I
+hurried away with a shudder.
+
+"That woman's face reminded me of the incident.  It was an angel's
+face, until the woman herself looked out of it:  then you were
+struck by the strange incongruity between tenement and tenant.
+
+"That at one time she had loved her husband, I have little doubt.
+Vicious women have few vices, and sordidness is not usually one of
+them.  She had probably married him, borne towards him by one of
+those waves of passion upon which the souls of animal natures are
+continually rising and falling.  On possession, however, had quickly
+followed satiety, and from satiety had grown the desire for a new
+sensation.
+
+"They were living at Cairo at the period; her husband held an
+important official position there, and by virtue of this, and of her
+own beauty and tact, her house soon became the centre of the Anglo-
+Saxon society ever drifting in and out of the city.  The women
+disliked her, and copied her.  The men spoke slightingly of her to
+their wives, lightly of her to each other, and made idiots of
+themselves when they were alone with her.  She laughed at them to
+their faces, and mimicked them behind their backs.  Their friends
+said it was clever.
+
+"One year there arrived a young English engineer, who had come out
+to superintend some canal works.  He brought with him satisfactory
+letters of recommendation, and was at once received by the European
+residents as a welcome addition to their social circle.  He was not
+particularly good-looking, he was not remarkably charming, but he
+possessed the one thing that few women can resist in a man, and that
+is strength.  The woman looked at the man, and the man looked back
+at the woman; and the drama began.
+
+"Scandal flies swiftly through small communities.  Before a month,
+their relationship was the chief topic of conversation throughout
+the quarter.  In less than two, it reached the ears of the woman's
+husband.
+
+"He was either an exceptionally mean or an exceptionally noble
+character, according to how one views the matter.  He worshipped his
+wife--as men with big hearts and weak brains often do worship such
+women--with dog-like devotion.  His only dread was lest the scandal
+should reach proportions that would compel him to take notice of it,
+and thus bring shame and suffering upon the woman to whom he would
+have given his life.  That a man who saw her should love her seemed
+natural to him; that she should have grown tired of himself, a thing
+not to be wondered at.  He was grateful to her for having once loved
+him, for a little while.
+
+"As for 'the other man,' he proved somewhat of an enigma to the
+gossips.  He attempted no secrecy; if anything, he rather paraded
+his subjugation--or his conquest, it was difficult to decide which
+term to apply.  He rode and drove with her; visited her in public
+and in private (in such privacy as can be hoped for in a house
+filled with chattering servants, and watched by spying eyes); loaded
+her with expensive presents, which she wore openly, and papered his
+smoking-den with her photographs.  Yet he never allowed himself to
+appear in the least degree ridiculous; never allowed her to come
+between him and his work.  A letter from her, he would lay aside
+unopened until he had finished what he evidently regarded as more
+important business.  When boudoir and engine-shed became rivals, it
+was the boudoir that had to wait.
+
+"The woman chafed under his self-control, which stung her like a
+lash, but clung to him the more abjectly.
+
+"'Tell me you love me!' she would cry fiercely, stretching her white
+arms towards him.
+
+"'I have told you so,' he would reply calmly, without moving.
+
+"'I want to hear you tell it me again,' she would plead with a voice
+that trembled on a sob.  'Come close to me and tell it me again,
+again, again!'
+
+"Then, as she lay with half-closed eyes, he would pour forth a flood
+of passionate words sufficient to satisfy even her thirsty ears, and
+afterwards, as the gates clanged behind him, would take up an
+engineering problem at the exact point at which half an hour before,
+on her entrance into the room, he had temporarily dismissed it.
+
+"One day, a privileged friend put bluntly to him this question:
+'Are you playing for love or vanity?'
+
+"To which the man, after long pondering, gave this reply:  ''Pon my
+soul, Jack, I couldn't tell you.'
+
+"Now, when a man is in love with a woman who cannot make up her mind
+whether she loves him or not, we call the complication comedy; where
+it is the woman who is in earnest the result is generally tragedy.
+
+"They continued to meet and to make love.  They talked--as people in
+their position are prone to talk--of the beautiful life they would
+lead if it only were not for the thing that was; of the earthly
+paradise--or, maybe, 'earthy' would be the more suitable adjective--
+they would each create for the other, if only they had the right
+which they hadn't.
+
+"In this work of imagination the man trusted chiefly to his literary
+faculties, which were considerable; the woman to her desires.  Thus,
+his scenes possessed a grace and finish which hers lacked, but her
+pictures were the more vivid.  Indeed, so realistic did she paint
+them, that to herself they seemed realities, waiting for her.  Then
+she would rise to go towards them only to strike herself against the
+thought of the thing that stood between her and them.  At first she
+only hated the thing, but after a while there came an ugly look of
+hope into her eyes.
+
+"The time drew near for the man to return to England.  The canal was
+completed, and a day appointed for the letting in of the water.  The
+man determined to make the event the occasion of a social gathering.
+He invited a large number of guests, among whom were the woman and
+her husband, to assist at the function.  Afterwards the party were
+to picnic at a pleasant wooded spot some three-quarters of a mile
+from the first lock.
+
+"The ceremony of flooding was to be performed by the woman, her
+husband's position entitling her to this distinction.  Between the
+river and the head of the cutting had been left a strong bank of
+earth, pierced some distance down by a hole, which hole was kept
+closed by means of a closely-fitting steel plate.  The woman drew
+the lever releasing this plate, and the water rushed through and
+began to press against the lock gates.  When it had attained a
+certain depth, the sluices were raised, and the water poured down
+into the deep basin of the lock.
+
+"It was an exceptionally deep lock.  The party gathered round and
+watched the water slowly rising.  The woman looked down, and
+shuddered; the man was standing by her side.
+
+"'How deep it is,' she said.
+
+"'Yes,' he replied, 'it holds thirty feet of water, when full.'
+
+"The water crept up inch by inch.
+
+"'Why don't you open the gates, and let it in quickly?' she asked.
+
+"'It would not do for it to come in too quickly,' he explained; 'we
+shall half fill this lock, and then open the sluices at the other
+end, and so let the water pass through.'
+
+"The woman looked at the smooth stone walls and at the iron-plated
+gates.
+
+"'I wonder what a man would do,' she said, 'if he fell in, and there
+was no one near to help him?'
+
+"The man laughed.  'I think he would stop there,' he answered.
+'Come, the others are waiting for us.'
+
+"He lingered a moment to give some final instructions to the
+workmen.  'You can follow on when you've made all right,' he said,
+'and get something to eat.  There's no need for more than one to
+stop.'  Then they joined the rest of the party, and sauntered on,
+laughing and talking, to the picnic ground.
+
+After lunch the party broke up, as is the custom of picnic parties,
+and wandered away in groups and pairs.  The man, whose duty as host
+had hitherto occupied all his attention, looked for the woman, but
+she was gone.
+
+"A friend strolled by, the same that had put the question to him
+about love and vanity.
+
+"'Have you quarrelled?' asked the friend.
+
+"'No,' replied the man.
+
+"'I fancied you had,' said the other.  'I met her just now walking
+with her husband, of all men in the world, and making herself quite
+agreeable to him.'
+
+"The friend strolled on, and the man sat down on a fallen tree, and
+lighted a cigar.  He smoked and thought, and the cigar burnt out,
+but he still sat thinking.
+
+"After a while he heard a faint rustling of the branches behind him,
+and peering between the interlacing leaves that hid him, saw the
+crouching figure of the woman creeping through the wood.
+
+"His lips were parted to call her name, when she turned her
+listening head in his direction, and his eyes fell full upon her
+face.  Something about it, he could not have told what, struck him
+dumb, and the woman crept on.
+
+"Gradually the nebulous thoughts floating through his brain began to
+solidify into a tangible idea, and the man unconsciously started
+forward.  After walking a few steps he broke into a run, for the
+idea had grown clearer.  It continued to grow still clearer and
+clearer, and the man ran faster and faster, until at last he found
+himself racing madly towards the lock.  As he approached it he
+looked round for the watchman who ought to have been there, but the
+man was gone from his post.  He shouted, but if any answer was
+returned, it was drowned by the roar of the rushing water.
+
+"He reached the edge and looked down.  Fifteen feet below him was
+the reality of the dim vision that had come to him a mile back in
+the woods:  the woman's husband swimming round and round like a rat
+in a pail.
+
+"The river was flowing in and out of the lock at the same rate, so
+that the level of the water remained constant.  The first thing the
+man did was to close the lower sluices and then open those in the
+upper gate to their fullest extent.  The water began to rise.
+
+"'Can you hold out?' he cried.
+
+"The drowning man turned to him a face already contorted by the
+agony of exhaustion, and answered with a feeble 'No.'
+
+"He looked around for something to throw to the man.  A plank had
+lain there in the morning, he remembered stumbling over it, and
+complaining of its having been left there; he cursed himself now for
+his care.
+
+"A hut used by the navvies to keep their tools in stood about two
+hundred yards away; perhaps it had been taken there, perhaps there
+he might even find a rope.
+
+"'Just one minute, old fellow!' he shouted down, 'and I'll be back.'
+
+"But the other did not hear him.  The feeble struggles ceased.  The
+face fell back upon the water, the eyes half closed as if with weary
+indifference.  There was no time for him to do more than kick off
+his riding boots and jump in and clutch the unconscious figure as it
+sank.
+
+"Down there, in that walled-in trap, he fought a long fight with
+Death for the life that stood between him and the woman.  He was not
+an expert swimmer, his clothes hampered him, he was already blown
+with his long race, the burden in his arms dragged him down, the
+water rose slowly enough to make his torture fit for Dante's hell.
+
+"At first he could not understand why this was so, but in glancing
+down he saw to his horror that he had not properly closed the lower
+sluices; in each some eight or ten inches remained open, so that the
+stream was passing out nearly half as fast as it came in.  It would
+be another five-and-twenty minutes before the water would be high
+enough for him to grasp the top.
+
+"He noted where the line of wet had reached to, on the smooth stone
+wall, then looked again after what he thought must be a lapse of ten
+minutes, and found it had risen half an inch, if that.  Once or
+twice he shouted for help, but the effort taxed severely his already
+failing breath, and his voice only came back to him in a hundred
+echoes from his prison walls.
+
+"Inch by inch the line of wet crept up, but the spending of his
+strength went on more swiftly.  It seemed to him as if his inside
+were being gripped and torn slowly out:  his whole body cried out to
+him to let it sink and lie in rest at the bottom.
+
+"At length his unconscious burden opened its eyes and stared at him
+stupidly, then closed them again with a sigh; a minute later opened
+them once more, and looked long and hard at him.
+
+"'Let me go,' he said, 'we shall both drown.  You can manage by
+yourself.'
+
+"He made a feeble effort to release himself, but the other held him.
+
+"'Keep still, you fool!' he hissed; 'you're going to get out of this
+with me, or I'm going down with you.'
+
+"So the grim struggle went on in silence, till the man, looking up,
+saw the stone coping just a little way above his head, made one mad
+leap and caught it with his finger-tips, held on an instant, then
+fell back with a 'plump' and sank; came up and made another dash,
+and, helped by the impetus of his rise, caught the coping firmly
+this time with the whole of his fingers, hung on till his eyes saw
+the stunted grass, till they were both able to scramble out upon the
+bank and lie there, their breasts pressed close against the ground,
+their hands clutching the earth, while the overflowing water swirled
+softly round them.
+
+"After a while, they raised themselves and looked at one another.
+
+"'Tiring work,' said the other man, with a nod towards the lock.
+
+"'Yes,' answered the husband, 'beastly awkward not being a good
+swimmer.  How did you know I had fallen in?  You met my wife, I
+suppose?'
+
+"'Yes,' said the other man.
+
+"The husband sat staring at a point in the horizon for some minutes.
+'Do you know what I was wondering this morning?' said he.
+
+"'No,' said the other man.
+
+"'Whether I should kill you or not.'
+
+"'They told me,' he continued, after a pause, 'a lot of silly gossip
+which I was cad enough to believe.  I know now it wasn't true,
+because--well, if it had been, you would not have done what you have
+done.'
+
+"He rose and came across.  'I beg your pardon,' he said, holding out
+his hand.
+
+"'I beg yours,' said the other man, rising and taking it; 'do you
+mind giving me a hand with the sluices?'
+
+"They set to work to put the lock right.
+
+"'How did you manage to fall in?' asked the other man, who was
+raising one of the lower sluices, without looking round.
+
+"The husband hesitated, as if he found the explanation somewhat
+difficult.  'Oh,' he answered carelessly, 'the wife and I were
+chaffing, and she said she'd often seen you jump it, and'--he
+laughed a rather forced laugh--'she promised me a--a kiss if I
+cleared it.  It was a foolish thing to do.'
+
+"'Yes, it was rather,' said the other man.
+
+"A few days afterwards the man and woman met at a reception.  He
+found her in a leafy corner of the garden talking to some friends.
+She advanced to meet him, holding out her hand.  'What can I say
+more than thank you?' she murmured in a low voice.
+
+"The others moved away, leaving them alone.  'They tell me you
+risked your life to save his?' she said.
+
+"'Yes,' he answered.
+
+"She raised her eyes to his, then struck him across the face with
+her ungloved hand.
+
+"'You damned fool!' she whispered.
+
+"He seized her by her white arms, and forced her back behind the
+orange trees.  'Do you know why?' he said, speaking slowly and
+distinctly; 'because I feared that, with him dead, you would want me
+to marry you, and that, talked about as we have been, I might find
+it awkward to avoid doing so; because I feared that, without him to
+stand between us, you might prove an annoyance to me--perhaps come
+between me and the woman I love, the woman I am going back to.  Now
+do you understand?'
+
+"'Yes,' whispered the woman, and he left her.
+
+"But there are only two people," concluded Jephson, "who do not
+regard his saving of the husband's life as a highly noble and
+unselfish action, and they are the man himself and the woman."
+
+We thanked Jephson for his story, and promised to profit by the
+moral, when discovered.  Meanwhile, MacShaughnassy said that he knew
+a story dealing with the same theme, namely, the too close
+attachment of a woman to a strange man, which really had a moral,
+which moral was:  don't have anything to do with inventions.
+
+Brown, who had patented a safety gun, which he had never yet found a
+man plucky enough to let off, said it was a bad moral.  We agreed to
+hear the particulars, and judge for ourselves.
+
+"This story," commenced MacShaughnassy, "comes from Furtwangen, a
+small town in the Black Forest.  There lived there a very wonderful
+old fellow named Nicholaus Geibel.  His business was the making of
+mechanical toys, at which work he had acquired an almost European
+reputation.  He made rabbits that would emerge from the heart of a
+cabbage, flap their ears, smooth their whiskers, and disappear
+again; cats that would wash their faces, and mew so naturally that
+dogs would mistake them for real cats, and fly at them; dolls, with
+phonographs concealed within them, that would raise their hats and
+say, 'Good morning; how do you do?' and some that would even sing a
+song.
+
+"But he was something more than a mere mechanic; he was an artist.
+His work was with him a hobby, almost a passion.  His shop was
+filled with all manner of strange things that never would, or could,
+be sold--things he had made for the pure love of making them.  He
+had contrived a mechanical donkey that would trot for two hours by
+means of stored electricity, and trot, too, much faster than the
+live article, and with less need for exertion on the part of the
+driver; a bird that would shoot up into the air, fly round and round
+in a circle, and drop to earth at the exact spot from where it
+started; a skeleton that, supported by an upright iron bar, would
+dance a hornpipe; a life-size lady doll that could play the fiddle;
+and a gentleman with a hollow inside who could smoke a pipe and
+drink more lager beer than any three average German students put
+together, which is saying much.
+
+"Indeed, it was the belief of the town that old Geibel could make a
+man capable of doing everything that a respectable man need want to
+do.  One day he made a man who did too much, and it came about in
+this way.
+
+"Young Doctor Follen had a baby, and the baby had a birthday.  Its
+first birthday put Doctor Follen's household into somewhat of a
+flurry, but on the occasion of its second birthday, Mrs. Doctor
+Follen gave a ball in honour of the event.  Old Geibel and his
+daughter Olga were among the guests.
+
+"During the afternoon of the next day, some three or four of Olga's
+bosom friends, who had also been present at the ball, dropped in to
+have a chat about it.  They naturally fell to discussing the men,
+and to criticising their dancing.  Old Geibel was in the room, but
+he appeared to be absorbed in his newspaper, and the girls took no
+notice of him.
+
+"'There seem to be fewer men who can dance, at every ball you go
+to,' said one of the girls.
+
+"'Yes, and don't the ones who can, give themselves airs,' said
+another; 'they make quite a favour of asking you.'
+
+"'And how stupidly they talk,' added a third.  'They always say
+exactly the same things:  "How charming you are looking to-night."
+"Do you often go to Vienna?  Oh, you should, it's delightful."
+"What a charming dress you have on."  "What a warm day it has been."
+"Do you like Wagner?"  I do wish they'd think of something new.'
+
+"'Oh, I never mind how they talk,' said a fourth.  'If a man dances
+well he may be a fool for all I care.'
+
+"'He generally is,' slipped in a thin girl, rather spitefully.
+
+"'I go to a ball to dance,' continued the previous speaker, not
+noticing the interruption.  'All I ask of a partner is that he shall
+hold me firmly, take me round steadily, and not get tired before I
+do.'
+
+"'A clockwork figure would be the thing for you,' said the girl who
+had interrupted.
+
+"'Bravo!' cried one of the others, clapping her hands, 'what a
+capital idea!'
+
+"'What's a capital idea?' they asked.
+
+"'Why, a clockwork dancer, or, better still, one that would go by
+electricity and never run down.'
+
+"The girls took up the idea with enthusiasm.
+
+"'Oh, what a lovely partner he would make,' said one; 'he would
+never kick you, or tread on your toes.'
+
+"'Or tear your dress,' said another.
+
+"'Or get out of step.'
+
+"'Or get giddy and lean on you.'
+
+"'And he would never want to mop his face with his handkerchief.  I
+do hate to see a man do that after every dance.'
+
+"'And wouldn't want to spend the whole evening in the supper-room.'
+
+"'Why, with a phonograph inside him to grind out all the stock
+remarks, you would not be able to tell him from a real man,' said
+the girl who had first suggested the idea.
+
+"'Oh yes, you would,' said the thin girl, 'he would be so much
+nicer.'
+
+"Old Geibel had laid down his paper, and was listening with both his
+ears.  On one of the girls glancing in his direction, however, he
+hurriedly hid himself again behind it.
+
+"After the girls were gone, he went into his workshop, where Olga
+heard him walking up and down, and every now and then chuckling to
+himself; and that night he talked to her a good deal about dancing
+and dancing men--asked what they usually said and did--what dances
+were most popular--what steps were gone through, with many other
+questions bearing on the subject.
+
+"Then for a couple of weeks he kept much to his factory, and was
+very thoughtful and busy, though prone at unexpected moments to
+break into a quiet low laugh, as if enjoying a joke that nobody else
+knew of.
+
+"A month later another ball took place in Furtwangen.  On this
+occasion it was given by old Wenzel, the wealthy timber merchant, to
+celebrate his niece's betrothal, and Geibel and his daughter were
+again among the invited.
+
+"When the hour arrived to set out, Olga sought her father.  Not
+finding him in the house, she tapped at the door of his workshop.
+He appeared in his shirt-sleeves, looking hot, but radiant.
+
+"'Don't wait for me,' he said, 'you go on, I'll follow you.  I've
+got something to finish.'
+
+"As she turned to obey he called after her, 'Tell them I'm going to
+bring a young man with me--such a nice young man, and an excellent
+dancer.  All the girls will like him.'  Then he laughed and closed
+the door.
+
+"Her father generally kept his doings secret from everybody, but she
+had a pretty shrewd suspicion of what he had been planning, and so,
+to a certain extent, was able to prepare the guests for what was
+coming.  Anticipation ran high, and the arrival of the famous
+mechanist was eagerly awaited.
+
+"At length the sound of wheels was heard outside, followed by a
+great commotion in the passage, and old Wenzel himself, his jolly
+face red with excitement and suppressed laughter, burst into the
+room and announced in stentorian tones:
+
+"'Herr Geibel--and a friend.'
+
+"Herr Geibel and his 'friend' entered, greeted with shouts of
+laughter and applause, and advanced to the centre of the room.
+
+"'Allow me, ladies and gentlemen,' said Herr Geibel, 'to introduce
+you to my friend, Lieutenant Fritz.  Fritz, my dear fellow, bow to
+the ladies and gentlemen.'
+
+"Geibel placed his hand encouragingly on Fritz's shoulder, and the
+lieutenant bowed low, accompanying the action with a harsh clicking
+noise in his throat, unpleasantly suggestive of a death rattle.  But
+that was only a detail.
+
+"'He walks a little stiffly' (old Geibel took his arm and walked him
+forward a few steps.  He certainly did walk stiffly), 'but then,
+walking is not his forte.  He is essentially a dancing man.  I have
+only been able to teach him the waltz as yet, but at that he is
+faultless.  Come, which of you ladies may I introduce him to, as a
+partner?  He keeps perfect time; he never gets tired; he won't kick
+you or tread on your dress; he will hold you as firmly as you like,
+and go as quickly or as slowly as you please; he never gets giddy;
+and he is full of conversation.  Come, speak up for yourself, my
+boy.'
+
+"The old gentleman twisted one of the buttons of his coat, and
+immediately Fritz opened his mouth, and in thin tones that appeared
+to proceed from the back of his head, remarked suddenly, 'May I have
+the pleasure?' and then shut his mouth again with a snap.
+
+"That Lieutenant Fritz had made a strong impression on the company
+was undoubted, yet none of the girls seemed inclined to dance with
+him.  They looked askance at his waxen face, with its staring eyes
+and fixed smile, and shuddered.  At last old Geibel came to the girl
+who had conceived the idea.
+
+"'It is your own suggestion, carried out to the letter,' said
+Geibel, 'an electric dancer.  You owe it to the gentleman to give
+him a trial.'
+
+"She was a bright saucy little girl, fond of a frolic.  Her host
+added his entreaties, and she consented.
+
+"Herr Geibel fixed the figure to her.  Its right arm was screwed
+round her waist, and held her firmly; its delicately jointed left
+hand was made to fasten itself upon her right.  The old toymaker
+showed her how to regulate its speed, and how to stop it, and
+release herself.
+
+"'It will take you round in a complete circle,' he explained; 'be
+careful that no one knocks against you, and alters its course.'
+
+"The music struck up.  Old Geibel put the current in motion, and
+Annette and her strange partner began to dance.
+
+"For a while every one stood watching them.  The figure performed
+its purpose admirably.  Keeping perfect time and step, and holding
+its little partner tightly clasped in an unyielding embrace, it
+revolved steadily, pouring forth at the same time a constant flow of
+squeaky conversation, broken by brief intervals of grinding silence.
+
+"'How charming you are looking to-night,' it remarked in its thin,
+far-away voice.  'What a lovely day it has been.  Do you like
+dancing?  How well our steps agree.  You will give me another, won't
+you?  Oh, don't be so cruel.  What a charming gown you have on.
+Isn't waltzing delightful?  I could go on dancing for ever--with
+you.  Have you had supper?'
+
+"As she grew more familiar with the uncanny creature, the girl's
+nervousness wore off, and she entered into the fun of the thing
+
+"'Oh, he's just lovely,' she cried, laughing, 'I could go on dancing
+with him all my life.'
+
+"Couple after couple now joined them, and soon all the dancers in
+the room were whirling round behind them.  Nicholaus Geibel stood
+looking on, beaming with childish delight at his success,
+
+"Old Wenzel approached him, and whispered something in his ear.
+Geibel laughed and nodded, and the two worked their way quietly
+towards the door.
+
+"'This is the young people's house to-night,' said Wenzel, as soon
+as they were outside; 'you and I will have a quiet pipe and a glass
+of hock, over in the counting-house.'
+
+"Meanwhile the dancing grew more fast and furious.  Little Annette
+loosened the screw regulating her partner's rate of progress, and
+the figure flew round with her swifter and swifter.  Couple after
+couple dropped out exhausted, but they only went the faster, till at
+length they were the only pair left dancing.
+
+"Madder and madder became the waltz.  The music lagged behind:  the
+musicians, unable to keep pace, ceased, and sat staring.  The
+younger guests applauded, but the older faces began to grow anxious.
+
+"'Hadn't you better stop, dear,' said one of the women, 'You'll make
+yourself so tired.'
+
+"But Annette did not answer.
+
+"'I believe she's fainted,' cried out a girl, who had caught sight
+of her face as it was swept by.
+
+"One of the men sprang forward and clutched at the figure, but its
+impetus threw him down on to the floor, where its steel-cased feet
+laid bare his cheek.  The thing evidently did not intend to part
+with its prize easily.
+
+"Had any one retained a cool head, the figure, one cannot help
+thinking, might easily have been stopped.  Two or three men, acting
+in concert, might have lifted it bodily off the floor, or have
+jammed it into a corner.  But few human heads are capable of
+remaining cool under excitement.  Those who are not present think
+how stupid must have been those who were; those who are, reflect
+afterwards how simple it would have been to do this, that, or the
+other, if only they had thought of it at the time.
+
+"The women grew hysterical.  The men shouted contradictory
+directions to one another.  Two of them made a bungling rush at the
+figure, which had the result of forcing it out of its orbit in the
+centre of the room, and sending it crashing against the walls and
+furniture.  A stream of blood showed itself down the girl's white
+frock, and followed her along the floor.  The affair was becoming
+horrible.  The women rushed screaming from the room.  The men
+followed them.
+
+"One sensible suggestion was made:  'Find Geibel--fetch Geibel.'
+
+"No one had noticed him leave the room, no one knew where he was.  A
+party went in search of him.  The others, too unnerved to go back
+into the ballroom, crowded outside the door and listened.  They
+could hear the steady whir of the wheels upon the polished floor, as
+the thing spun round and round; the dull thud as every now and again
+it dashed itself and its burden against some opposing object and
+ricocheted off in a new direction.
+
+"And everlastingly it talked in that thin ghostly voice, repeating
+over and over the same formula:  'How charming you are looking to-
+night.  What a lovely day it has been.  Oh, don't be so cruel.  I
+could go on dancing for ever--with you.  Have you had supper?'
+
+"Of course they sought for Geibel everywhere but where he was.  They
+looked in every room in the house, then they rushed off in a body to
+his own place, and spent precious minutes in waking up his deaf old
+housekeeper.  At last it occurred to one of the party that Wenzel
+was missing also, and then the idea of the counting-house across the
+yard presented itself to them, and there they found him.
+
+"He rose up, very pale, and followed them; and he and old Wenzel
+forced their way through the crowd of guests gathered outside, and
+entered the room, and locked the door behind them.
+
+"From within there came the muffled sound of low voices and quick
+steps, followed by a confused scuffling noise, then silence, then
+the low voices again.
+
+"After a time the door opened, and those near it pressed forward to
+enter, but old Wenzel's broad shoulders barred the way.
+
+"'I want you--and you, Bekler,' he said, addressing a couple of the
+elder men.  His voice was calm, but his face was deadly white.  'The
+rest of you, please go--get the women away as quickly as you can.'
+
+"From that day old Nicholaus Geibel confined himself to the making
+of mechanical rabbits and cats that mewed and washed their faces."
+
+We agreed that the moral of MacShaughnassy's story was a good one.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+
+
+How much more of our--fortunately not very valuable--time we devoted
+to this wonderful novel of ours, I cannot exactly say.  Turning the
+dogs'-eared leaves of the dilapidated diary that lies before me, I
+find the record of our later gatherings confused and incomplete.
+For weeks there does not appear a single word.  Then comes an
+alarmingly business-like minute of a meeting at which there were--
+"Present:  Jephson, MacShaughnassy, Brown, and Self"; and at which
+the "Proceedings commenced at 8.30."  At what time the "proceedings"
+terminated, and what business was done, the chronicle, however,
+sayeth not; though, faintly pencilled in the margin of the page, I
+trace these hieroglyphics:  "3.14.9-2.6.7," bringing out a result of
+"1.8.2."  Evidently an unremunerative night.
+
+On September 13th we seem to have become suddenly imbued with energy
+to a quite remarkable degree, for I read that we "Resolved to start
+the first chapter at once"--"at once" being underlined.  After this
+spurt, we rest until October 4th, when we "Discussed whether it
+should be a novel of plot or of character," without--so far as the
+diary affords indication--arriving at any definite decision.  I
+observe that on the same day "Mac told a story about a man who
+accidentally bought a camel at a sale."  Details of the story are,
+however, wanting, which, perhaps, is fortunate for the reader.
+
+On the 16th, we were still debating the character of our hero; and I
+see that I suggested "a man of the Charley Buswell type."
+
+Poor Charley, I wonder what could have made me think of him in
+connection with heroes; his lovableness, I suppose--certainly not
+his heroic qualities.  I can recall his boyish face now (it was
+always a boyish face), the tears streaming down it as he sat in the
+schoolyard beside a bucket, in which he was drowning three white
+mice and a tame rat.  I sat down opposite and cried too, while
+helping him to hold a saucepan lid over the poor little creatures,
+and thus there sprang up a friendship between us, which grew.
+
+Over the grave of these murdered rodents, he took a solemn oath
+never to break school rules again, by keeping either white mice or
+tame rats, but to devote the whole of his energies for the future to
+pleasing his masters, and affording his parents some satisfaction
+for the money being spent upon his education.
+
+Seven weeks later, the pervadence throughout the dormitory of an
+atmospheric effect more curious than pleasing led to the discovery
+that he had converted his box into a rabbit hutch.  Confronted with
+eleven kicking witnesses, and reminded of his former promises, he
+explained that rabbits were not mice, and seemed to consider that a
+new and vexatious regulation had been sprung upon him.  The rabbits
+were confiscated.  What was their ultimate fate, we never knew with
+certainty, but three days later we were given rabbit-pie for dinner.
+To comfort him I endeavoured to assure him that these could not be
+his rabbits.  He, however, convinced that they were, cried steadily
+into his plate all the time that he was eating them, and afterwards,
+in the playground, had a stand-up fight with a fourth form boy who
+had requested a second helping.
+
+That evening he performed another solemn oath-taking, and for the
+next month was the model boy of the school.  He read tracts, sent
+his spare pocket-money to assist in annoying the heathen, and
+subscribed to The Young Christian and The Weekly Rambler, an
+Evangelical Miscellany (whatever that may mean).  An undiluted
+course of this pernicious literature naturally created in him a
+desire towards the opposite extreme.  He suddenly dropped The Young
+Christian and The Weekly Rambler, and purchased penny dreadfuls; and
+taking no further interest in the welfare of the heathen, saved up
+and bought a second-hand revolver and a hundred cartridges.  His
+ambition, he confided to me, was to become "a dead shot," and the
+marvel of it is that he did not succeed.
+
+Of course, there followed the usual discovery and consequent
+trouble, the usual repentance and reformation, the usual
+determination to start a new life.
+
+Poor fellow, he lived "starting a new life."  Every New Year's Day
+he would start a new life--on his birthday--on other people's
+birthdays.  I fancy that, later on, when he came to know their
+importance, he extended the principle to quarter days.  "Tidying up,
+and starting afresh," he always called it.
+
+I think as a young man he was better than most of us.  But he lacked
+that great gift which is the distinguishing feature of the English-
+speaking race all the world over, the gift of hypocrisy.  He seemed
+incapable of doing the slightest thing without getting found out; a
+grave misfortune for a man to suffer from, this.
+
+Dear simple-hearted fellow, it never occurred to him that he was as
+other men--with, perhaps, a dash of straightforwardness added; he
+regarded himself as a monster of depravity.  One evening I found him
+in his chambers engaged upon his Sisyphean labour of "tidying up." A
+heap of letters, photographs, and bills lay before him.  He was
+tearing them up and throwing them into the fire.
+
+I came towards him, but he stopped me.  "Don't come near me," he
+cried, "don't touch me.  I'm not fit to shake hands with a decent
+man."
+
+It was the sort of speech to make one feel hot and uncomfortable.  I
+did not know what to answer, and murmured something about his being
+no worse than the average.
+
+"Don't talk like that," he answered excitedly; "you say that to
+comfort me, I know; but I don't like to hear it.  If I thought other
+men were like me I should be ashamed of being a man.  I've been a
+blackguard, old fellow, but, please God, it's not too late.  To-
+morrow morning I begin a new life."
+
+He finished his work of destruction, and then rang the bell, and
+sent his man downstairs for a bottle of champagne.
+
+"My last drink," he said, as we clicked glasses.  "Here's to the old
+life out, and the new life in."
+
+He took a sip and flung the glass with the remainder into the fire.
+He was always a little theatrical, especially when most in earnest.
+
+For a long while after that I saw nothing of him.  Then, one
+evening, sitting down to supper at a restaurant, I noticed him
+opposite to me in company that could hardly be called doubtful.
+
+He flushed and came over to me.  "I've been an old woman for nearly
+six months," he said, with a laugh.  "I find I can't stand it any
+longer."
+
+"After all," he continued, "what is life for but to live?  It's only
+hypocritical to try and be a thing we are not.  And do you know"--he
+leant across the table, speaking earnestly--"honestly and seriously,
+I'm a better man--I feel it and know it--when I am my natural self
+than when I am trying to be an impossible saint."
+
+That was the mistake he made; he always ran to extremes.  He thought
+that an oath, if it were only big enough, would frighten away Human
+Nature, instead of serving only as a challenge to it.  Accordingly,
+each reformation was more intemperate than the last, to be duly
+followed by a greater swing of the pendulum in the opposite
+direction.
+
+Being now in a thoroughly reckless mood, he went the pace rather
+hotly.  Then, one evening, without any previous warning, I had a
+note from him.  "Come round and see me on Thursday.  It is my
+wedding eve."
+
+I went.  He was once more "tidying up."  All his drawers were open,
+and on the table were piled packs of cards, betting books, and much
+written paper, all, as before, in course of demolition.
+
+I smiled:  I could not help it, and, no way abashed, he laughed his
+usual hearty, honest laugh.
+
+"I know," he exclaimed gaily, "but this is not the same as the
+others."
+
+Then, laying his hand on my shoulder, and speaking with the sudden
+seriousness that comes so readily to shallow natures, he said, "God
+has heard my prayer, old friend.  He knows I am weak.  He has sent
+down an angel out of Heaven to help me."
+
+He took her portrait from the mantelpiece and handed it me.  It
+seemed to me the face of a hard, narrow woman, but, of course, he
+raved about her.
+
+As he talked, there fluttered to the ground from the heap before him
+an old restaurant bill, and, stooping, he picked it up and held it
+in his hand, musing.
+
+"Have you ever noticed how the scent of the champagne and the
+candles seems to cling to these things?" he said lightly, sniffing
+carelessly at it.  "I wonder what's become of her?"
+
+"I think I wouldn't think about her at all tonight," I answered.
+
+He loosened his hand, letting the paper fall into the fire.
+
+"My God!" he cried vehemently, "when I think of all the wrong I have
+done--the irreparable, ever-widening ruin I have perhaps brought
+into the world--O God! spare me a long life that I may make amends.
+Every hour, every minute of it shall be devoted to your service."
+
+As he stood there, with his eager boyish eyes upraised, a light
+seemed to fall upon his face and illumine it.  I had pushed the
+photograph back to him, and it lay upon the table before him.  He
+knelt and pressed his lips to it.
+
+"With your help, my darling, and His," he murmured.
+
+The next morning he was married.  She was a well-meaning girl,
+though her piety, as is the case with most people, was of the
+negative order; and her antipathy to things evil much stronger than
+her sympathy with things good.  For a longer time than I had
+expected she kept him straight--perhaps a little too straight.  But
+at last there came the inevitable relapse.
+
+I called upon him, in answer to an excited message, and found him in
+the depths of despair.  It was the old story, human weakness,
+combined with lamentable lack of the most ordinary precautions
+against being found out.  He gave me details, interspersed with
+exuberant denunciations of himself, and I undertook the delicate
+task of peace-maker.
+
+It was a weary work, but eventually she consented to forgive him.
+His joy, when I told him, was boundless.
+
+"How good women are," he said, while the tears came into his eyes.
+"But she shall not repent it.  Please God, from this day forth,
+I'll--"
+
+He stopped, and for the first time in his life the doubt of himself
+crossed his mind.  As I sat watching him, the joy died out of his
+face, and the first hint of age passed over it.
+
+"I seem to have been 'tidying up and starting afresh' all my life,"
+he said wearily; "I'm beginning to see where the untidiness lies,
+and the only way to get rid of it."
+
+I did not understand the meaning of his words at the time, but
+learnt it later on.
+
+He strove, according to his strength, and fell.  But by a miracle
+his transgression was not discovered.  The facts came to light long
+afterwards, but at the time there were only two who knew.
+
+It was his last failure.  Late one evening I received a hurriedly-
+scrawled note from his wife, begging me to come round.
+
+"A terrible thing has happened," it ran; "Charley went up to his
+study after dinner, saying he had some 'tidying up,' as he calls it,
+to do, and did not wish to be disturbed.  In clearing out his desk
+he must have handled carelessly the revolver that he always keeps
+there, not remembering, I suppose, that it was loaded.  We heard a
+report, and on rushing into the room found him lying dead on the
+floor.  The bullet had passed right through his heart."
+
+Hardly the type of man for a hero!  And yet I do not know.  Perhaps
+he fought harder than many a man who conquers.  In the world's
+courts, we are compelled to judge on circumstantial evidence only,
+and the chief witness, the man's soul, cannot very well be called.
+
+I remember the subject of bravery being discussed one evening at a
+dinner party, when a German gentleman present related an anecdote,
+the hero of which was a young Prussian officer.
+
+"I cannot give you his name," our German friend explained--"the man
+himself told me the story in confidence; and though he personally,
+by virtue of his after record, could afford to have it known, there
+are other reasons why it should not be bruited about.
+
+"How I learnt it was in this way.  For a dashing exploit performed
+during the brief war against Austria he had been presented with the
+Iron Cross.  This, as you are well aware, is the most highly-prized
+decoration in our army; men who have earned it are usually conceited
+about it, and, indeed, have some excuse for being so.  He, on the
+contrary, kept his locked in a drawer of his desk, and never wore it
+except when compelled by official etiquette.  The mere sight of it
+seemed to be painful to him.  One day I asked him the reason.  We
+are very old and close friends, and he told me.
+
+"The incident occurred when he was a young lieutenant.  Indeed, it
+was his first engagement.  By some means or another he had become
+separated from his company, and, unable to regain it, had attached
+himself to a line regiment stationed at the extreme right of the
+Prussian lines.
+
+"The enemy's effort was mainly directed against the left centre, and
+for a while our young lieutenant was nothing more than a distant
+spectator of the battle.  Suddenly, however, the attack shifted, and
+the regiment found itself occupying an extremely important and
+critical position.  The shells began to fall unpleasantly near, and
+the order was given to 'grass.'
+
+"The men fell upon their faces and waited.  The shells ploughed the
+ground around them, smothering them with dirt.  A horrible, griping
+pain started in my young friend's stomach, and began creeping
+upwards.  His head and heart both seemed to be shrinking and growing
+cold.  A shot tore off the head of the man next to him, sending the
+blood spurting into his face; a minute later another ripped open the
+back of a poor fellow lying to the front of him.
+
+"His body seemed not to belong to himself at all.  A strange,
+shrivelled creature had taken possession of it.  He raised his head
+and peered about him.  He and three soldiers--youngsters, like
+himself, who had never before been under fire--appeared to be
+utterly alone in that hell.  They were the end men of the regiment,
+and the configuration of the ground completely hid them from their
+comrades.
+
+"They glanced at each other, these four, and read one another's
+thoughts.  Leaving their rifles lying on the grass, they commenced
+to crawl stealthily upon their bellies, the lieutenant leading, the
+other three following.
+
+"Some few hundred yards in front of them rose a small, steep hill.
+If they could reach this it would shut them out of sight.  They
+hastened on, pausing every thirty yards or so to lie still and pant
+for breath, then hurrying on again, quicker than before, tearing
+their flesh against the broken ground.
+
+"At last they reached the base of the slope, and slinking a little
+way round it, raised their heads and looked back.  Where they were
+it was impossible for them to be seen from the Prussian lines.
+
+"They sprang to their feet and broke into a wild race.  A dozen
+steps further they came face to face with an Austrian field battery.
+
+"The demon that had taken possession of them had been growing
+stronger the further they had fled.  They were not men, they were
+animals mad with fear.  Driven by the same frenzy that prompted
+other panic-stricken creatures to once rush down a steep place into
+the sea, these four men, with a yell, flung themselves, sword in
+hand, upon the whole battery; and the whole battery, bewildered by
+the suddenness and unexpectedness of the attack, thinking the entire
+battalion was upon them, gave way, and rushed pell-mell down the
+hill.
+
+"With the sight of those flying Austrians the fear, as independently
+as it had come to him, left him, and he felt only a desire to hack
+and kill.  The four Prussians flew after them, cutting and stabbing
+at them as they ran; and when the Prussian cavalry came thundering
+up, they found my young lieutenant and his three friends had
+captured two guns and accounted for half a score of the enemy.
+
+"Next day, he was summoned to headquarters.
+
+"'Will you be good enough to remember for the future, sir,' said the
+Chief of the Staff, 'that His Majesty does not require his
+lieutenants to execute manoeuvres on their own responsibility, and
+also that to attack a battery with three men is not war, but damned
+tomfoolery.  You ought to be court-martialled, sir!'
+
+"Then, in somewhat different tones, the old soldier added, his face
+softening into a smile:  'However, alertness and daring, my young
+friend, are good qualities, especially when crowned with success.
+If the Austrians had once succeeded in planting a battery on that
+hill it might have been difficult to dislodge them.  Perhaps, under
+the circumstances, His Majesty may overlook your indiscretion.'
+
+"'His Majesty not only overlooked it, but bestowed upon me the Iron
+Cross,' concluded my friend.  'For the credit of the army, I judged
+it better to keep quiet and take it.  But, as you can understand,
+the sight of it does not recall very pleasurable reflections.'"
+
+
+To return to my diary, I see that on November 14th we held another
+meeting.  But at this there were present only "Jephson,
+MacShaughnassy, and Self"; and of Brown's name I find henceforth no
+further trace.  On Christmas eve we three met again, and my notes
+inform me that MacShaughnassy brewed some whiskey-punch, according
+to a recipe of his own, a record suggestive of a sad Christmas for
+all three of us.  No particular business appears to have been
+accomplished on either occasion.
+
+Then there is a break until February 8th, and the assemblage has
+shrunk to "Jephson and Self."  With a final flicker, as of a dying
+candle, my diary at this point, however, grows luminous, shedding
+much light upon that evening's conversation.
+
+Our talk seems to have been of many things--of most things, in fact,
+except our novel.  Among other subjects we spoke of literature
+generally.
+
+"I am tired of this eternal cackle about books," said Jephson;
+"these columns of criticism to every line of writing; these endless
+books about books; these shrill praises and shrill denunciations;
+this silly worship of novelist Tom; this silly hate of poet Dick;
+this silly squabbling over playwright Harry.  There is no soberness,
+no sense in it all.  One would think, to listen to the High Priests
+of Culture, that man was made for literature, not literature for
+man.  Thought existed before the Printing Press; and the men who
+wrote the best hundred books never read them.  Books have their
+place in the world, but they are not its purpose.  They are things
+side by side with beef and mutton, the scent of the sea, the touch
+of a hand, the memory of a hope, and all the other items in the sum-
+total of our three-score years and ten.  Yet we speak of them as
+though they were the voice of Life instead of merely its faint echo.
+Tales are delightful AS tales--sweet as primroses after the long
+winter, restful as the cawing of rooks at sunset.  But we do not
+write 'tales' now; we prepare 'human documents' and dissect souls."
+
+He broke off abruptly in the midst of his tirade.  "Do you know what
+these 'psychological studies,' that are so fashionable just now,
+always make me think of?" he said.  "One monkey examining another
+monkey for fleas.
+
+"And what, after all, does our dissecting pen lay bare?" he
+continued.  "Human nature? or merely some more or less unsavoury
+undergarment, disguising and disfiguring human nature?  There is a
+story told of an elderly tramp, who, overtaken by misfortune, was
+compelled to retire for a while to the seclusion of Portland.  His
+hosts, desiring to see as much as possible of their guest during his
+limited stay with them, proceeded to bath him.  They bathed him
+twice a day for a week, each time learning more of him; until at
+last they reached a flannel shirt.  And with that they had to be
+content, soap and water proving powerless to go further.
+
+"That tramp appears to me symbolical of mankind.  Human Nature has
+worn its conventions for so long that its habit has grown on to it.
+In this nineteenth century it is impossible to say where the clothes
+of custom end and the natural man begins.  Our virtues are taught to
+us as a branch of 'Deportment'; our vices are the recognised vices
+of our reign and set.  Our religion hangs ready-made beside our
+cradle to be buttoned upon us by loving hands.  Our tastes we
+acquire, with difficulty; our sentiments we learn by rote.  At cost
+of infinite suffering, we study to love whiskey and cigars, high art
+and classical music.  In one age we admire Byron and drink sweet
+champagne:  twenty years later it is more fashionable to prefer
+Shelley, and we like our champagne dry.  At school we are told that
+Shakespeare is a great poet, and that the Venus di Medici is a fine
+piece of sculpture; and so for the rest of our lives we go about
+saying what a great poet we think Shakespeare, and that there is no
+piece of sculpture, in our opinion, so fine as the Venus di Medici.
+If we are Frenchmen we adore our mother; if Englishmen we love dogs
+and virtue.  We grieve for the death of a near relative twelve
+months; but for a second cousin we sorrow only three.  The good man
+has his regulation excellencies to strive after, his regulation sins
+to repent of.  I knew a good man who was quite troubled because he
+was not proud, and could not, therefore, with any reasonableness,
+pray for humility.  In society one must needs be cynical and mildly
+wicked:  in Bohemia, orthodoxly unorthodox.  I remember my mother
+expostulating with a friend, an actress, who had left a devoted
+husband and eloped with a disagreeable, ugly, little low comedian (I
+am speaking of long, long ago).
+
+"'You must be mad,' said my mother; 'what on earth induced you to
+take such a step?'
+
+"'My dear Emma,' replied the lady; 'what else was there for me?  You
+know I can't act.  I had to do SOMETHING to show I was 'an artiste!'
+
+"We are dressed-up marionettes.  Our voice is the voice of the
+unseen showman, Convention; our very movements of passion and pain
+are but in answer to his jerk.  A man resembles one of those
+gigantic bundles that one sees in nursemaids' arms.  It is very
+bulky and very long; it looks a mass of delicate lace and rich fur
+and fine woven stuffs; and somewhere, hidden out of sight among the
+finery, there is a tiny red bit of bewildered humanity, with no
+voice but a foolish cry.
+
+"There is but one story," he went on, after a long pause, uttering
+his own thoughts aloud rather than speaking to me.  "We sit at our
+desks and think and think, and write and write, but the story is
+ever the same.  Men told it and men listened to it many years ago;
+we are telling it to one another to-day; we shall be telling it to
+one another a thousand years hence; and the story is:  'Once upon a
+time there lived a man, and a woman who loved him.'  The little
+critic cries that it is not new, and asks for something fresh,
+thinking--as children do--that there are strange things in the
+world."
+
+
+At that point my notes end, and there is nothing in the book beyond.
+Whether any of us thought any more of the novel, whether we ever met
+again to discuss it, whether it were ever begun, whether it were
+ever abandoned--I cannot say.  There is a fairy story that I read
+many, many years ago that has never ceased to haunt me.  It told how
+a little boy once climbed a rainbow.  And at the end of the rainbow,
+just behind the clouds, he found a wondrous city.  Its houses were
+of gold, and its streets were paved with silver, and the light that
+shone upon it was as the light that lies upon the sleeping world at
+dawn.  In this city there were palaces so beautiful that merely to
+look upon them satisfied all desires; temples so perfect that they
+who once knelt therein were cleansed of sin.  And all the men who
+dwelt in this wondrous city were great and good, and the women
+fairer than the women of a young man's dreams.  And the name of the
+city was, "The city of the things men meant to do."
+
+
+
+
+
+End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of Novel Notes, by Jerome K. Jerome
+
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