initial commit of ebook 269HEADmain

1 files changed, 7545 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/269-0.txt b/269-0.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..4af2cc0
--- /dev/null
+++ b/269-0.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,7545 @@
+The Project Gutenberg eBook, Beasts and Super-Beasts, by Saki
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: Beasts and Super-Beasts
+
+
+Author: Saki
+
+
+
+Release Date: December 26, 2011  [eBook #269]
+This file was first posted in April 1995
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BEASTS AND SUPER-BEASTS***
+
+
+Transcribed from the 1914 John Lane, The Bodley Head edition by David
+Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org
+
+
+
+
+
+                                BEASTS AND
+                               SUPER-BEASTS
+
+
+                         By H. H. MUNRO (“SAKI”)
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+                    LONDON: JOHN LANE THE BODLEY HEAD
+                       NEW YORK: JOHN LANE COMPANY
+                     TORONTO: BELL & COCKBURN  MCMXIV
+
+
+
+
+AUTHOR’S NOTE
+
+
+“The Open Window,” “The Schartz-Metterklume Method,” and “Clovis on
+Parental Responsibilities,” originally appeared in the _Westminster
+Gazette_, “The Elk” in the _Bystander_, and the remaining stories in the
+_Morning Post_.  To the Editors of these papers I am indebted for their
+courtesy in allowing me to reprint them.
+
+                                                                  H. H. M.
+
+
+
+
+THE SHE-WOLF
+
+
+Leonard Bilsiter was one of those people who have failed to find this
+world attractive or interesting, and who have sought compensation in an
+“unseen world” of their own experience or imagination—or invention.
+Children do that sort of thing successfully, but children are content to
+convince themselves, and do not vulgarise their beliefs by trying to
+convince other people.  Leonard Bilsiter’s beliefs were for “the few,”
+that is to say, anyone who would listen to him.
+
+His dabblings in the unseen might not have carried him beyond the
+customary platitudes of the drawing-room visionary if accident had not
+reinforced his stock-in-trade of mystical lore.  In company with a
+friend, who was interested in a Ural mining concern, he had made a trip
+across Eastern Europe at a moment when the great Russian railway strike
+was developing from a threat to a reality; its outbreak caught him on the
+return journey, somewhere on the further side of Perm, and it was while
+waiting for a couple of days at a wayside station in a state of suspended
+locomotion that he made the acquaintance of a dealer in harness and
+metalware, who profitably whiled away the tedium of the long halt by
+initiating his English travelling companion in a fragmentary system of
+folk-lore that he had picked up from Trans-Baikal traders and natives.
+Leonard returned to his home circle garrulous about his Russian strike
+experiences, but oppressively reticent about certain dark mysteries,
+which he alluded to under the resounding title of Siberian Magic.  The
+reticence wore off in a week or two under the influence of an entire lack
+of general curiosity, and Leonard began to make more detailed allusions
+to the enormous powers which this new esoteric force, to use his own
+description of it, conferred on the initiated few who knew how to wield
+it.  His aunt, Cecilia Hoops, who loved sensation perhaps rather better
+than she loved the truth, gave him as clamorous an advertisement as
+anyone could wish for by retailing an account of how he had turned a
+vegetable marrow into a wood pigeon before her very eyes.  As a
+manifestation of the possession of supernatural powers, the story was
+discounted in some quarters by the respect accorded to Mrs. Hoops’ powers
+of imagination.
+
+However divided opinion might be on the question of Leonard’s status as a
+wonderworker or a charlatan, he certainly arrived at Mary Hampton’s
+house-party with a reputation for pre-eminence in one or other of those
+professions, and he was not disposed to shun such publicity as might fall
+to his share.  Esoteric forces and unusual powers figured largely in
+whatever conversation he or his aunt had a share in, and his own
+performances, past and potential, were the subject of mysterious hints
+and dark avowals.
+
+“I wish you would turn me into a wolf, Mr. Bilsiter,” said his hostess at
+luncheon the day after his arrival.
+
+“My dear Mary,” said Colonel Hampton, “I never knew you had a craving in
+that direction.”
+
+“A she-wolf, of course,” continued Mrs. Hampton; “it would be too
+confusing to change one’s sex as well as one’s species at a moment’s
+notice.”
+
+“I don’t think one should jest on these subjects,” said Leonard.
+
+“I’m not jesting, I’m quite serious, I assure you.  Only don’t do it
+to-day; we have only eight available bridge players, and it would break
+up one of our tables.  To-morrow we shall be a larger party.  To-morrow
+night, after dinner—”
+
+“In our present imperfect understanding of these hidden forces I think
+one should approach them with humbleness rather than mockery,” observed
+Leonard, with such severity that the subject was forthwith dropped.
+
+Clovis Sangrail had sat unusually silent during the discussion on the
+possibilities of Siberian Magic; after lunch he side-tracked Lord Pabham
+into the comparative seclusion of the billiard-room and delivered himself
+of a searching question.
+
+“Have you such a thing as a she-wolf in your collection of wild animals?
+A she-wolf of moderately good temper?”
+
+Lord Pabham considered.  “There is Louisa,” he said, “a rather fine
+specimen of the timber-wolf.  I got her two years ago in exchange for
+some Arctic foxes.  Most of my animals get to be fairly tame before
+they’ve been with me very long; I think I can say Louisa has an angelic
+temper, as she-wolves go.  Why do you ask?”
+
+“I was wondering whether you would lend her to me for to-morrow night,”
+said Clovis, with the careless solicitude of one who borrows a collar
+stud or a tennis racquet.
+
+“To-morrow night?”
+
+“Yes, wolves are nocturnal animals, so the late hours won’t hurt her,”
+said Clovis, with the air of one who has taken everything into
+consideration; “one of your men could bring her over from Pabham Park
+after dusk, and with a little help he ought to be able to smuggle her
+into the conservatory at the same moment that Mary Hampton makes an
+unobtrusive exit.”
+
+Lord Pabham stared at Clovis for a moment in pardonable bewilderment;
+then his face broke into a wrinkled network of laughter.
+
+“Oh, that’s your game, is it?  You are going to do a little Siberian
+Magic on your own account.  And is Mrs. Hampton willing to be a
+fellow-conspirator?”
+
+“Mary is pledged to see me through with it, if you will guarantee
+Louisa’s temper.”
+
+“I’ll answer for Louisa,” said Lord Pabham.
+
+By the following day the house-party had swollen to larger proportions,
+and Bilsiter’s instinct for self-advertisement expanded duly under the
+stimulant of an increased audience.  At dinner that evening he held forth
+at length on the subject of unseen forces and untested powers, and his
+flow of impressive eloquence continued unabated while coffee was being
+served in the drawing-room preparatory to a general migration to the
+card-room.
+
+His aunt ensured a respectful hearing for his utterances, but her
+sensation-loving soul hankered after something more dramatic than mere
+vocal demonstration.
+
+“Won’t you do something to _convince_ them of your powers, Leonard?” she
+pleaded; “change something into another shape.  He can, you know, if he
+only chooses to,” she informed the company.
+
+“Oh, do,” said Mavis Pellington earnestly, and her request was echoed by
+nearly everyone present.  Even those who were not open to conviction were
+perfectly willing to be entertained by an exhibition of amateur
+conjuring.
+
+Leonard felt that something tangible was expected of him.
+
+“Has anyone present,” he asked, “got a three-penny bit or some small
+object of no particular value—?”
+
+“You’re surely not going to make coins disappear, or something primitive
+of that sort?” said Clovis contemptuously.
+
+“I think it very unkind of you not to carry out my suggestion of turning
+me into a wolf,” said Mary Hampton, as she crossed over to the
+conservatory to give her macaws their usual tribute from the dessert
+dishes.
+
+“I have already warned you of the danger of treating these powers in a
+mocking spirit,” said Leonard solemnly.
+
+“I don’t believe you can do it,” laughed Mary provocatively from the
+conservatory; “I dare you to do it if you can.  I defy you to turn me
+into a wolf.”
+
+As she said this she was lost to view behind a clump of azaleas.
+
+“Mrs. Hampton—” began Leonard with increased solemnity, but he got no
+further.  A breath of chill air seemed to rush across the room, and at
+the same time the macaws broke forth into ear-splitting screams.
+
+“What on earth is the matter with those confounded birds, Mary?”
+exclaimed Colonel Hampton; at the same moment an even more piercing
+scream from Mavis Pellington stampeded the entire company from their
+seats.  In various attitudes of helpless horror or instinctive defence
+they confronted the evil-looking grey beast that was peering at them from
+amid a setting of fern and azalea.
+
+Mrs. Hoops was the first to recover from the general chaos of fright and
+bewilderment.
+
+“Leonard!” she screamed shrilly to her nephew, “turn it back into Mrs.
+Hampton at once!  It may fly at us at any moment.  Turn it back!”
+
+“I—I don’t know how to,” faltered Leonard, who looked more scared and
+horrified than anyone.
+
+“What!” shouted Colonel Hampton, “you’ve taken the abominable liberty of
+turning my wife into a wolf, and now you stand there calmly and say you
+can’t turn her back again!”
+
+To do strict justice to Leonard, calmness was not a distinguishing
+feature of his attitude at the moment.
+
+“I assure you I didn’t turn Mrs. Hampton into a wolf; nothing was farther
+from my intentions,” he protested.
+
+“Then where is she, and how came that animal into the conservatory?”
+demanded the Colonel.
+
+“Of course we must accept your assurance that you didn’t turn Mrs.
+Hampton into a wolf,” said Clovis politely, “but you will agree that
+appearances are against you.”
+
+“Are we to have all these recriminations with that beast standing there
+ready to tear us to pieces?” wailed Mavis indignantly.
+
+“Lord Pabham, you know a good deal about wild beasts—” suggested Colonel
+Hampton.
+
+“The wild beasts that I have been accustomed to,” said Lord Pabham, “have
+come with proper credentials from well-known dealers, or have been bred
+in my own menagerie.  I’ve never before been confronted with an animal
+that walks unconcernedly out of an azalea bush, leaving a charming and
+popular hostess unaccounted for.  As far as one can judge from _outward_
+characteristics,” he continued, “it has the appearance of a well-grown
+female of the North American timber-wolf, a variety of the common species
+_canis lupus_.”
+
+“Oh, never mind its Latin name,” screamed Mavis, as the beast came a step
+or two further into the room; “can’t you entice it away with food, and
+shut it up where it can’t do any harm?”
+
+“If it is really Mrs. Hampton, who has just had a very good dinner, I
+don’t suppose food will appeal to it very strongly,” said Clovis.
+
+“Leonard,” beseeched Mrs. Hoops tearfully, “even if this is none of your
+doing can’t you use your great powers to turn this dreadful beast into
+something harmless before it bites us all—a rabbit or something?”
+
+“I don’t suppose Colonel Hampton would care to have his wife turned into
+a succession of fancy animals as though we were playing a round game with
+her,” interposed Clovis.
+
+“I absolutely forbid it,” thundered the Colonel.
+
+“Most wolves that I’ve had anything to do with have been inordinately
+fond of sugar,” said Lord Pabham; “if you like I’ll try the effect on
+this one.”
+
+He took a piece of sugar from the saucer of his coffee cup and flung it
+to the expectant Louisa, who snapped it in mid-air.  There was a sigh of
+relief from the company; a wolf that ate sugar when it might at the least
+have been employed in tearing macaws to pieces had already shed some of
+its terrors.  The sigh deepened to a gasp of thanks-giving when Lord
+Pabham decoyed the animal out of the room by a pretended largesse of
+further sugar.  There was an instant rush to the vacated conservatory.
+There was no trace of Mrs. Hampton except the plate containing the
+macaws’ supper.
+
+“The door is locked on the inside!” exclaimed Clovis, who had deftly
+turned the key as he affected to test it.
+
+Everyone turned towards Bilsiter.
+
+“If you haven’t turned my wife into a wolf,” said Colonel Hampton, “will
+you kindly explain where she has disappeared to, since she obviously
+could not have gone through a locked door?  I will not press you for an
+explanation of how a North American timber-wolf suddenly appeared in the
+conservatory, but I think I have some right to inquire what has become of
+Mrs. Hampton.”
+
+Bilsiter’s reiterated disclaimer was met with a general murmur of
+impatient disbelief.
+
+“I refuse to stay another hour under this roof,” declared Mavis
+Pellington.
+
+“If our hostess has really vanished out of human form,” said Mrs. Hoops,
+“none of the ladies of the party can very well remain.  I absolutely
+decline to be chaperoned by a wolf!”
+
+“It’s a she-wolf,” said Clovis soothingly.
+
+The correct etiquette to be observed under the unusual circumstances
+received no further elucidation.  The sudden entry of Mary Hampton
+deprived the discussion of its immediate interest.
+
+“Some one has mesmerised me,” she exclaimed crossly; “I found myself in
+the game larder, of all places, being fed with sugar by Lord Pabham.  I
+hate being mesmerised, and the doctor has forbidden me to touch sugar.”
+
+The situation was explained to her, as far as it permitted of anything
+that could be called explanation.
+
+“Then you _really_ did turn me into a wolf, Mr. Bilsiter?” she exclaimed
+excitedly.
+
+But Leonard had burned the boat in which he might now have embarked on a
+sea of glory.  He could only shake his head feebly.
+
+“It was I who took that liberty,” said Clovis; “you see, I happen to have
+lived for a couple of years in North-Eastern Russia, and I have more than
+a tourist’s acquaintance with the magic craft of that region.  One does
+not care to speak about these strange powers, but once in a way, when one
+hears a lot of nonsense being talked about them, one is tempted to show
+what Siberian magic can accomplish in the hands of someone who really
+understands it.  I yielded to that temptation.  May I have some brandy?
+the effort has left me rather faint.”
+
+If Leonard Bilsiter could at that moment have transformed Clovis into a
+cockroach and then have stepped on him he would gladly have performed
+both operations.
+
+
+
+
+LAURA
+
+
+“You are not really dying, are you?” asked Amanda.
+
+“I have the doctor’s permission to live till Tuesday,” said Laura.
+
+“But to-day is Saturday; this is serious!” gasped Amanda.
+
+“I don’t know about it being serious; it is certainly Saturday,” said
+Laura.
+
+“Death is always serious,” said Amanda.
+
+“I never said I was going to die.  I am presumably going to leave off
+being Laura, but I shall go on being something.  An animal of some kind,
+I suppose.  You see, when one hasn’t been very good in the life one has
+just lived, one reincarnates in some lower organism.  And I haven’t been
+very good, when one comes to think of it.  I’ve been petty and mean and
+vindictive and all that sort of thing when circumstances have seemed to
+warrant it.”
+
+“Circumstances never warrant that sort of thing,” said Amanda hastily.
+
+“If you don’t mind my saying so,” observed Laura, “Egbert is a
+circumstance that would warrant any amount of that sort of thing.  You’re
+married to him—that’s different; you’ve sworn to love, honour, and endure
+him: I haven’t.”
+
+“I don’t see what’s wrong with Egbert,” protested Amanda.
+
+“Oh, I daresay the wrongness has been on my part,” admitted Laura
+dispassionately; “he has merely been the extenuating circumstance.  He
+made a thin, peevish kind of fuss, for instance, when I took the collie
+puppies from the farm out for a run the other day.”
+
+“They chased his young broods of speckled Sussex and drove two sitting
+hens off their nests, besides running all over the flower beds.  You know
+how devoted he is to his poultry and garden.”
+
+“Anyhow, he needn’t have gone on about it for the entire evening and then
+have said, ‘Let’s say no more about it’ just when I was beginning to
+enjoy the discussion.  That’s where one of my petty vindictive revenges
+came in,” added Laura with an unrepentant chuckle; “I turned the entire
+family of speckled Sussex into his seedling shed the day after the puppy
+episode.”
+
+“How could you?” exclaimed Amanda.
+
+“It came quite easy,” said Laura; “two of the hens pretended to be laying
+at the time, but I was firm.”
+
+“And we thought it was an accident!”
+
+“You see,” resumed Laura, “I really _have_ some grounds for supposing
+that my next incarnation will be in a lower organism.  I shall be an
+animal of some kind.  On the other hand, I haven’t been a bad sort in my
+way, so I think I may count on being a nice animal, something elegant and
+lively, with a love of fun.  An otter, perhaps.”
+
+“I can’t imagine you as an otter,” said Amanda.
+
+“Well, I don’t suppose you can imagine me as an angel, if it comes to
+that,” said Laura.
+
+Amanda was silent.  She couldn’t.
+
+“Personally I think an otter life would be rather enjoyable,” continued
+Laura; “salmon to eat all the year round, and the satisfaction of being
+able to fetch the trout in their own homes without having to wait for
+hours till they condescend to rise to the fly you’ve been dangling before
+them; and an elegant svelte figure—”
+
+“Think of the otter hounds,” interposed Amanda; “how dreadful to be
+hunted and harried and finally worried to death!”
+
+“Rather fun with half the neighbourhood looking on, and anyhow not worse
+than this Saturday-to-Tuesday business of dying by inches; and then I
+should go on into something else.  If I had been a moderately good otter
+I suppose I should get back into human shape of some sort; probably
+something rather primitive—a little brown, unclothed Nubian boy, I should
+think.”
+
+“I wish you would be serious,” sighed Amanda; “you really ought to be if
+you’re only going to live till Tuesday.”
+
+As a matter of fact Laura died on Monday.
+
+“So dreadfully upsetting,” Amanda complained to her uncle-in-law, Sir
+Lulworth Quayne.  “I’ve asked quite a lot of people down for golf and
+fishing, and the rhododendrons are just looking their best.”
+
+“Laura always was inconsiderate,” said Sir Lulworth; “she was born during
+Goodwood week, with an Ambassador staying in the house who hated babies.”
+
+“She had the maddest kind of ideas,” said Amanda; “do you know if there
+was any insanity in her family?”
+
+“Insanity?  No, I never heard of any.  Her father lives in West
+Kensington, but I believe he’s sane on all other subjects.”
+
+“She had an idea that she was going to be reincarnated as an otter,” said
+Amanda.
+
+“One meets with those ideas of reincarnation so frequently, even in the
+West,” said Sir Lulworth, “that one can hardly set them down as being
+mad.  And Laura was such an unaccountable person in this life that I
+should not like to lay down definite rules as to what she might be doing
+in an after state.”
+
+“You think she really might have passed into some animal form?” asked
+Amanda.  She was one of those who shape their opinions rather readily
+from the standpoint of those around them.
+
+Just then Egbert entered the breakfast-room, wearing an air of
+bereavement that Laura’s demise would have been insufficient, in itself,
+to account for.
+
+“Four of my speckled Sussex have been killed,” he exclaimed; “the very
+four that were to go to the show on Friday.  One of them was dragged away
+and eaten right in the middle of that new carnation bed that I’ve been to
+such trouble and expense over.  My best flower bed and my best fowls
+singled out for destruction; it almost seems as if the brute that did the
+deed had special knowledge how to be as devastating as possible in a
+short space of time.”
+
+“Was it a fox, do you think?” asked Amanda.
+
+“Sounds more like a polecat,” said Sir Lulworth.
+
+“No,” said Egbert, “there were marks of webbed feet all over the place,
+and we followed the tracks down to the stream at the bottom of the
+garden; evidently an otter.”
+
+Amanda looked quickly and furtively across at Sir Lulworth.
+
+Egbert was too agitated to eat any breakfast, and went out to superintend
+the strengthening of the poultry yard defences.
+
+“I think she might at least have waited till the funeral was over,” said
+Amanda in a scandalised voice.
+
+“It’s her own funeral, you know,” said Sir Lulworth; “it’s a nice point
+in etiquette how far one ought to show respect to one’s own mortal
+remains.”
+
+Disregard for mortuary convention was carried to further lengths next
+day; during the absence of the family at the funeral ceremony the
+remaining survivors of the speckled Sussex were massacred.  The
+marauder’s line of retreat seemed to have embraced most of the flower
+beds on the lawn, but the strawberry beds in the lower garden had also
+suffered.
+
+“I shall get the otter hounds to come here at the earliest possible
+moment,” said Egbert savagely.
+
+“On no account!  You can’t dream of such a thing!” exclaimed Amanda.  “I
+mean, it wouldn’t do, so soon after a funeral in the house.”
+
+“It’s a case of necessity,” said Egbert; “once an otter takes to that
+sort of thing it won’t stop.”
+
+“Perhaps it will go elsewhere now there are no more fowls left,”
+suggested Amanda.
+
+“One would think you wanted to shield the beast,” said Egbert.
+
+“There’s been so little water in the stream lately,” objected Amanda; “it
+seems hardly sporting to hunt an animal when it has so little chance of
+taking refuge anywhere.”
+
+“Good gracious!” fumed Egbert, “I’m not thinking about sport.  I want to
+have the animal killed as soon as possible.”
+
+Even Amanda’s opposition weakened when, during church time on the
+following Sunday, the otter made its way into the house, raided half a
+salmon from the larder and worried it into scaly fragments on the Persian
+rug in Egbert’s studio.
+
+“We shall have it hiding under our beds and biting pieces out of our feet
+before long,” said Egbert, and from what Amanda knew of this particular
+otter she felt that the possibility was not a remote one.
+
+On the evening preceding the day fixed for the hunt Amanda spent a
+solitary hour walking by the banks of the stream, making what she
+imagined to be hound noises.  It was charitably supposed by those who
+overheard her performance, that she was practising for farmyard
+imitations at the forth-coming village entertainment.
+
+It was her friend and neighbour, Aurora Burret, who brought her news of
+the day’s sport.
+
+“Pity you weren’t out; we had quite a good day.  We found at once, in the
+pool just below your garden.”
+
+“Did you—kill?” asked Amanda.
+
+“Rather.  A fine she-otter.  Your husband got rather badly bitten in
+trying to ‘tail it.’  Poor beast, I felt quite sorry for it, it had such
+a human look in its eyes when it was killed.  You’ll call me silly, but
+do you know who the look reminded me of?  My dear woman, what is the
+matter?”
+
+When Amanda had recovered to a certain extent from her attack of nervous
+prostration Egbert took her to the Nile Valley to recuperate.  Change of
+scene speedily brought about the desired recovery of health and mental
+balance.  The escapades of an adventurous otter in search of a variation
+of diet were viewed in their proper light.  Amanda’s normally placid
+temperament reasserted itself.  Even a hurricane of shouted curses,
+coming from her husband’s dressing-room, in her husband’s voice, but
+hardly in his usual vocabulary, failed to disturb her serenity as she
+made a leisurely toilet one evening in a Cairo hotel.
+
+“What is the matter?  What has happened?” she asked in amused curiosity.
+
+“The little beast has thrown all my clean shirts into the bath!  Wait
+till I catch you, you little—”
+
+“What little beast?” asked Amanda, suppressing a desire to laugh;
+Egbert’s language was so hopelessly inadequate to express his outraged
+feelings.
+
+“A little beast of a naked brown Nubian boy,” spluttered Egbert.
+
+And now Amanda is seriously ill.
+
+
+
+
+THE BOAR-PIG
+
+
+“There is a back way on to the lawn,” said Mrs. Philidore Stossen to her
+daughter, “through a small grass paddock and then through a walled fruit
+garden full of gooseberry bushes.  I went all over the place last year
+when the family were away.  There is a door that opens from the fruit
+garden into a shrubbery, and once we emerge from there we can mingle with
+the guests as if we had come in by the ordinary way.  It’s much safer
+than going in by the front entrance and running the risk of coming bang
+up against the hostess; that would be so awkward when she doesn’t happen
+to have invited us.”
+
+“Isn’t it a lot of trouble to take for getting admittance to a garden
+party?”
+
+“To a garden party, yes; to _the_ garden party of the season, certainly
+not.  Every one of any consequence in the county, with the exception of
+ourselves, has been asked to meet the Princess, and it would be far more
+troublesome to invent explanations as to why we weren’t there than to get
+in by a roundabout way.  I stopped Mrs. Cuvering in the road yesterday
+and talked very pointedly about the Princess.  If she didn’t choose to
+take the hint and send me an invitation it’s not my fault, is it?  Here
+we are: we just cut across the grass and through that little gate into
+the garden.”
+
+Mrs. Stossen and her daughter, suitably arrayed for a county garden party
+function with an infusion of Almanack de Gotha, sailed through the narrow
+grass paddock and the ensuing gooseberry garden with the air of state
+barges making an unofficial progress along a rural trout stream.  There
+was a certain amount of furtive haste mingled with the stateliness of
+their advance, as though hostile search-lights might be turned on them at
+any moment; and, as a matter of fact, they were not unobserved.  Matilda
+Cuvering, with the alert eyes of thirteen years old and the added
+advantage of an exalted position in the branches of a medlar tree, had
+enjoyed a good view of the Stossen flanking movement and had foreseen
+exactly where it would break down in execution.
+
+“They’ll find the door locked, and they’ll jolly well have to go back the
+way they came,” she remarked to herself.  “Serves them right for not
+coming in by the proper entrance.  What a pity Tarquin Superbus isn’t
+loose in the paddock.  After all, as every one else is enjoying
+themselves, I don’t see why Tarquin shouldn’t have an afternoon out.”
+
+Matilda was of an age when thought is action; she slid down from the
+branches of the medlar tree, and when she clambered back again Tarquin,
+the huge white Yorkshire boar-pig, had exchanged the narrow limits of his
+stye for the wider range of the grass paddock.  The discomfited Stossen
+expedition, returning in recriminatory but otherwise orderly retreat from
+the unyielding obstacle of the locked door, came to a sudden halt at the
+gate dividing the paddock from the gooseberry garden.
+
+“What a villainous-looking animal,” exclaimed Mrs. Stossen; “it wasn’t
+there when we came in.”
+
+“It’s there now, anyhow,” said her daughter.  “What on earth are we to
+do?  I wish we had never come.”
+
+The boar-pig had drawn nearer to the gate for a closer inspection of the
+human intruders, and stood champing his jaws and blinking his small red
+eyes in a manner that was doubtless intended to be disconcerting, and, as
+far as the Stossens were concerned, thoroughly achieved that result.
+
+“Shoo!  Hish!  Hish!  Shoo!” cried the ladies in chorus.
+
+“If they think they’re going to drive him away by reciting lists of the
+kings of Israel and Judah they’re laying themselves out for
+disappointment,” observed Matilda from her seat in the medlar tree.  As
+she made the observation aloud Mrs. Stossen became for the first time
+aware of her presence.  A moment or two earlier she would have been
+anything but pleased at the discovery that the garden was not as deserted
+as it looked, but now she hailed the fact of the child’s presence on the
+scene with absolute relief.
+
+“Little girl, can you find some one to drive away—” she began hopefully.
+
+“_Comment_?  _Comprends pas_,” was the response.
+
+“Oh, are you French?  _Êtes vous française_?”
+
+“_Pas de tous_.  _’Suis anglaise_.”
+
+“Then why not talk English?  I want to know if—”
+
+“_Permettez-moi expliquer_.  You see, I’m rather under a cloud,” said
+Matilda.  “I’m staying with my aunt, and I was told I must behave
+particularly well to-day, as lots of people were coming for a garden
+party, and I was told to imitate Claude, that’s my young cousin, who
+never does anything wrong except by accident, and then is always
+apologetic about it.  It seems they thought I ate too much raspberry
+trifle at lunch, and they said Claude never eats too much raspberry
+trifle.  Well, Claude always goes to sleep for half an hour after lunch,
+because he’s told to, and I waited till he was asleep, and tied his hands
+and started forcible feeding with a whole bucketful of raspberry trifle
+that they were keeping for the garden-party.  Lots of it went on to his
+sailor-suit and some of it on to the bed, but a good deal went down
+Claude’s throat, and they can’t say again that he has never been known to
+eat too much raspberry trifle.  That is why I am not allowed to go to the
+party, and as an additional punishment I must speak French all the
+afternoon.  I’ve had to tell you all this in English, as there were words
+like ‘forcible feeding’ that I didn’t know the French for; of course I
+could have invented them, but if I had said _nourriture obligatoire_ you
+wouldn’t have had the least idea what I was talking about.  _Mais
+maintenant_, _nous parlons français_.”
+
+“Oh, very well, _trés bien_,” said Mrs. Stossen reluctantly; in moments
+of flurry such French as she knew was not under very good control.
+“_Là_, _à l’autre côté de la porte_, _est un cochon_—”
+
+“_Un cochon_? _Ah_, _le petit charmant_!” exclaimed Matilda with
+enthusiasm.
+
+“_Mais non_, _pas du tout petit_, _et pas du tout charmant_; _un bête
+féroce_—”
+
+“_Une bête_,” corrected Matilda; “a pig is masculine as long as you call
+it a pig, but if you lose your temper with it and call it a ferocious
+beast it becomes one of us at once.  French is a dreadfully unsexing
+language.”
+
+“For goodness’ sake let us talk English then,” said Mrs. Stossen.  “Is
+there any way out of this garden except through the paddock where the pig
+is?”
+
+“I always go over the wall, by way of the plum tree,” said Matilda.
+
+“Dressed as we are we could hardly do that,” said Mrs. Stossen; it was
+difficult to imagine her doing it in any costume.
+
+“Do you think you could go and get some one who would drive the pig
+away?” asked Miss Stossen.
+
+“I promised my aunt I would stay here till five o’clock; it’s not four
+yet.”
+
+“I am sure, under the circumstances, your aunt would permit—”
+
+“My conscience would not permit,” said Matilda with cold dignity.
+
+“We can’t stay here till five o’clock,” exclaimed Mrs. Stossen with
+growing exasperation.
+
+“Shall I recite to you to make the time pass quicker?” asked Matilda
+obligingly.  “‘Belinda, the little Breadwinner,’ is considered my best
+piece, or, perhaps, it ought to be something in French.  Henri Quatre’s
+address to his soldiers is the only thing I really know in that
+language.”
+
+“If you will go and fetch some one to drive that animal away I will give
+you something to buy yourself a nice present,” said Mrs. Stossen.
+
+Matilda came several inches lower down the medlar tree.
+
+“That is the most practical suggestion you have made yet for getting out
+of the garden,” she remarked cheerfully; “Claude and I are collecting
+money for the Children’s Fresh Air Fund, and we are seeing which of us
+can collect the biggest sum.”
+
+“I shall be very glad to contribute half a crown, very glad indeed,” said
+Mrs. Stossen, digging that coin out of the depths of a receptacle which
+formed a detached outwork of her toilet.
+
+“Claude is a long way ahead of me at present,” continued Matilda, taking
+no notice of the suggested offering; “you see, he’s only eleven, and has
+golden hair, and those are enormous advantages when you’re on the
+collecting job.  Only the other day a Russian lady gave him ten
+shillings.  Russians understand the art of giving far better than we do.
+I expect Claude will net quite twenty-five shillings this afternoon;
+he’ll have the field to himself, and he’ll be able to do the pale,
+fragile, not-long-for-this-world business to perfection after his
+raspberry trifle experience.  Yes, he’ll be _quite_ two pounds ahead of
+me by now.”
+
+With much probing and plucking and many regretful murmurs the beleaguered
+ladies managed to produce seven-and-sixpence between them.
+
+“I am afraid this is all we’ve got,” said Mrs. Stossen.
+
+Matilda showed no sign of coming down either to the earth or to their
+figure.
+
+“I could not do violence to my conscience for anything less than ten
+shillings,” she announced stiffly.
+
+Mother and daughter muttered certain remarks under their breath, in which
+the word “beast” was prominent, and probably had no reference to Tarquin.
+
+“I find I _have_ got another half-crown,” said Mrs. Stossen in a shaking
+voice; “here you are.  Now please fetch some one quickly.”
+
+Matilda slipped down from the tree, took possession of the donation, and
+proceeded to pick up a handful of over-ripe medlars from the grass at her
+feet.  Then she climbed over the gate and addressed herself
+affectionately to the boar-pig.
+
+“Come, Tarquin, dear old boy; you know you can’t resist medlars when
+they’re rotten and squashy.”
+
+Tarquin couldn’t.  By dint of throwing the fruit in front of him at
+judicious intervals Matilda decoyed him back to his stye, while the
+delivered captives hurried across the paddock.
+
+“Well, I never!  The little minx!” exclaimed Mrs. Stossen when she was
+safely on the high road.  “The animal wasn’t savage at all, and as for
+the ten shillings, I don’t believe the Fresh Air Fund will see a penny of
+it!”
+
+There she was unwarrantably harsh in her judgment.  If you examine the
+books of the fund you will find the acknowledgment: “Collected by Miss
+Matilda Cuvering, 2s. 6d.”
+
+
+
+
+THE BROGUE
+
+
+The hunting season had come to an end, and the Mullets had not succeeded
+in selling the Brogue.  There had been a kind of tradition in the family
+for the past three or four years, a sort of fatalistic hope, that the
+Brogue would find a purchaser before the hunting was over; but seasons
+came and went without anything happening to justify such ill-founded
+optimism.  The animal had been named Berserker in the earlier stages of
+its career; it had been rechristened the Brogue later on, in recognition
+of the fact that, once acquired, it was extremely difficult to get rid
+of.  The unkinder wits of the neighbourhood had been known to suggest
+that the first letter of its name was superfluous.  The Brogue had been
+variously described in sale catalogues as a light-weight hunter, a lady’s
+hack, and, more simply, but still with a touch of imagination, as a
+useful brown gelding, standing 15.1.  Toby Mullet had ridden him for four
+seasons with the West Wessex; you can ride almost any sort of horse with
+the West Wessex as long as it is an animal that knows the country.  The
+Brogue knew the country intimately, having personally created most of the
+gaps that were to be met with in banks and hedges for many miles round.
+His manners and characteristics were not ideal in the hunting field, but
+he was probably rather safer to ride to hounds than he was as a hack on
+country roads.  According to the Mullet family, he was not really
+road-shy, but there were one or two objects of dislike that brought on
+sudden attacks of what Toby called the swerving sickness.  Motors and
+cycles he treated with tolerant disregard, but pigs, wheelbarrows, piles
+of stones by the roadside, perambulators in a village street, gates
+painted too aggressively white, and sometimes, but not always, the newer
+kind of beehives, turned him aside from his tracks in vivid imitation of
+the zigzag course of forked lightning.  If a pheasant rose noisily from
+the other side of a hedgerow the Brogue would spring into the air at the
+same moment, but this may have been due to a desire to be companionable.
+The Mullet family contradicted the widely prevalent report that the horse
+was a confirmed crib-biter.
+
+It was about the third week in May that Mrs. Mullet, relict of the late
+Sylvester Mullet, and mother of Toby and a bunch of daughters, assailed
+Clovis Sangrail on the outskirts of the village with a breathless
+catalogue of local happenings.
+
+“You know our new neighbour, Mr. Penricarde?” she vociferated; “awfully
+rich, owns tin mines in Cornwall, middle-aged and rather quiet.  He’s
+taken the Red House on a long lease and spent a lot of money on
+alterations and improvements.  Well, Toby’s sold him the Brogue!”
+
+Clovis spent a moment or two in assimilating the astonishing news; then
+he broke out into unstinted congratulation.  If he had belonged to a more
+emotional race he would probably have kissed Mrs. Mullet.
+
+“How wonderfully lucky to have pulled it off at last!  Now you can buy a
+decent animal.  I’ve always said that Toby was clever.  Ever so many
+congratulations.”
+
+“Don’t congratulate me.  It’s the most unfortunate thing that could have
+happened!” said Mrs. Mullet dramatically.
+
+Clovis stared at her in amazement.
+
+“Mr. Penricarde,” said Mrs. Mullet, sinking her voice to what she
+imagined to be an impressive whisper, though it rather resembled a
+hoarse, excited squeak, “Mr. Penricarde has just begun to pay attentions
+to Jessie.  Slight at first, but now unmistakable.  I was a fool not to
+have seen it sooner.  Yesterday, at the Rectory garden party, he asked
+her what her favourite flowers were, and she told him carnations, and
+to-day a whole stack of carnations has arrived, clove and malmaison and
+lovely dark red ones, regular exhibition blooms, and a box of chocolates
+that he must have got on purpose from London.  And he’s asked her to go
+round the links with him to-morrow.  And now, just at this critical
+moment, Toby has sold him that animal.  It’s a calamity!”
+
+“But you’ve been trying to get the horse off your hands for years,” said
+Clovis.
+
+“I’ve got a houseful of daughters,” said Mrs. Mullet, “and I’ve been
+trying—well, not to get them off my hands, of course, but a husband or
+two wouldn’t be amiss among the lot of them; there are six of them, you
+know.”
+
+“I don’t know,” said Clovis, “I’ve never counted, but I expect you’re
+right as to the number; mothers generally know these things.”
+
+“And now,” continued Mrs. Mullet, in her tragic whisper, “when there’s a
+rich husband-in-prospect imminent on the horizon Toby goes and sells him
+that miserable animal.  It will probably kill him if he tries to ride it;
+anyway it will kill any affection he might have felt towards any member
+of our family.  What is to be done?  We can’t very well ask to have the
+horse back; you see, we praised it up like anything when we thought there
+was a chance of his buying it, and said it was just the animal to suit
+him.”
+
+“Couldn’t you steal it out of his stable and send it to grass at some
+farm miles away?” suggested Clovis; “write ‘Votes for Women’ on the
+stable door, and the thing would pass for a Suffragette outrage.  No one
+who knew the horse could possibly suspect you of wanting to get it back
+again.”
+
+“Every newspaper in the country would ring with the affair,” said Mrs.
+Mullet; “can’t you imagine the headline, ‘Valuable Hunter Stolen by
+Suffragettes’?  The police would scour the countryside till they found
+the animal.”
+
+“Well, Jessie must try and get it back from Penricarde on the plea that
+it’s an old favourite.  She can say it was only sold because the stable
+had to be pulled down under the terms of an old repairing lease, and that
+now it has been arranged that the stable is to stand for a couple of
+years longer.”
+
+“It sounds a queer proceeding to ask for a horse back when you’ve just
+sold him,” said Mrs. Mullet, “but something must be done, and done at
+once.  The man is not used to horses, and I believe I told him it was as
+quiet as a lamb.  After all, lambs go kicking and twisting about as if
+they were demented, don’t they?”
+
+“The lamb has an entirely unmerited character for sedateness,” agreed
+Clovis.
+
+Jessie came back from the golf links next day in a state of mingled
+elation and concern.
+
+“It’s all right about the proposal,” she announced; “he came out with it
+at the sixth hole.  I said I must have time to think it over.  I accepted
+him at the seventh.”
+
+“My dear,” said her mother, “I think a little more maidenly reserve and
+hesitation would have been advisable, as you’ve known him so short a
+time.  You might have waited till the ninth hole.”
+
+“The seventh is a very long hole,” said Jessie; “besides, the tension was
+putting us both off our game.  By the time we’d got to the ninth hole
+we’d settled lots of things.  The honeymoon is to be spent in Corsica,
+with perhaps a flying visit to Naples if we feel like it, and a week in
+London to wind up with.  Two of his nieces are to be asked to be
+bridesmaids, so with our lot there will be seven, which is rather a lucky
+number.  You are to wear your pearl grey, with any amount of Honiton lace
+jabbed into it.  By the way, he’s coming over this evening to ask your
+consent to the whole affair.  So far all’s well, but about the Brogue
+it’s a different matter.  I told him the legend about the stable, and how
+keen we were about buying the horse back, but he seems equally keen on
+keeping it.  He said he must have horse exercise now that he’s living in
+the country, and he’s going to start riding to-morrow.  He’s ridden a few
+times in the Row, on an animal that was accustomed to carry octogenarians
+and people undergoing rest cures, and that’s about all his experience in
+the saddle—oh, and he rode a pony once in Norfolk, when he was fifteen
+and the pony twenty-four; and to-morrow he’s going to ride the Brogue!  I
+shall be a widow before I’m married, and I do so want to see what
+Corsica’s like; it looks so silly on the map.”
+
+Clovis was sent for in haste, and the developments of the situation put
+before him.
+
+“Nobody can ride that animal with any safety,” said Mrs. Mullet, “except
+Toby, and he knows by long experience what it is going to shy at, and
+manages to swerve at the same time.”
+
+“I did hint to Mr. Penricarde—to Vincent, I should say—that the Brogue
+didn’t like white gates,” said Jessie.
+
+“White gates!” exclaimed Mrs. Mullet; “did you mention what effect a pig
+has on him?  He’ll have to go past Lockyer’s farm to get to the high
+road, and there’s sure to be a pig or two grunting about in the lane.”
+
+“He’s taken rather a dislike to turkeys lately,” said Toby.
+
+“It’s obvious that Penricarde mustn’t be allowed to go out on that
+animal,” said Clovis, “at least not till Jessie has married him, and
+tired of him.  I tell you what: ask him to a picnic to-morrow, starting
+at an early hour; he’s not the sort to go out for a ride before
+breakfast.  The day after I’ll get the rector to drive him over to
+Crowleigh before lunch, to see the new cottage hospital they’re building
+there.  The Brogue will be standing idle in the stable and Toby can offer
+to exercise it; then it can pick up a stone or something of the sort and
+go conveniently lame.  If you hurry on the wedding a bit the lameness
+fiction can be kept up till the ceremony is safely over.”
+
+Mrs. Mullet belonged to an emotional race, and she kissed Clovis.
+
+It was nobody’s fault that the rain came down in torrents the next
+morning, making a picnic a fantastic impossibility.  It was also nobody’s
+fault, but sheer ill-luck, that the weather cleared up sufficiently in
+the afternoon to tempt Mr. Penricarde to make his first essay with the
+Brogue.  They did not get as far as the pigs at Lockyer’s farm; the
+rectory gate was painted a dull unobtrusive green, but it had been white
+a year or two ago, and the Brogue never forgot that he had been in the
+habit of making a violent curtsey, a back-pedal and a swerve at this
+particular point of the road.  Subsequently, there being apparently no
+further call on his services, he broke his way into the rectory orchard,
+where he found a hen turkey in a coop; later visitors to the orchard
+found the coop almost intact, but very little left of the turkey.
+
+Mr. Penricarde, a little stunned and shaken, and suffering from a bruised
+knee and some minor damages, good-naturedly ascribed the accident to his
+own inexperience with horses and country roads, and allowed Jessie to
+nurse him back into complete recovery and golf-fitness within something
+less than a week.
+
+In the list of wedding presents which the local newspaper published a
+fortnight or so later appeared the following item:
+
+“Brown saddle-horse, ‘The Brogue,’ bridegroom’s gift to bride.”
+
+“Which shows,” said Toby Mullet, “that he knew nothing.”
+
+“Or else,” said Clovis, “that he has a very pleasing wit.”
+
+
+
+
+THE HEN
+
+
+“Dora Bittholz is coming on Thursday,” said Mrs. Sangrail.
+
+“This next Thursday?” asked Clovis
+
+His mother nodded.
+
+“You’ve rather done it, haven’t you?” he chuckled; “Jane Martlet has only
+been here five days, and she never stays less than a fortnight, even when
+she’s asked definitely for a week.  You’ll never get her out of the house
+by Thursday.”
+
+“Why should I?” asked Mrs. Sangrail; “she and Dora are good friends,
+aren’t they?  They used to be, as far as I remember.”
+
+“They used to be; that’s what makes them all the more bitter now.  Each
+feels that she has nursed a viper in her bosom.  Nothing fans the flame
+of human resentment so much as the discovery that one’s bosom has been
+utilised as a snake sanatorium.”
+
+“But what has happened?  Has some one been making mischief?”
+
+“Not exactly,” said Clovis; “a hen came between them.”
+
+“A hen?  What hen?”
+
+“It was a bronze Leghorn or some such exotic breed, and Dora sold it to
+Jane at a rather exotic price.  They both go in for prize poultry, you
+know, and Jane thought she was going to get her money back in a large
+family of pedigree chickens.  The bird turned out to be an abstainer from
+the egg habit, and I’m told that the letters which passed between the two
+women were a revelation as to how much invective could be got on to a
+sheet of notepaper.”
+
+“How ridiculous!” said Mrs. Sangrail.  “Couldn’t some of their friends
+compose the quarrel?”
+
+“People tried,” said Clovis, “but it must have been rather like composing
+the storm music of the ‘Fliegende Holländer.’  Jane was willing to take
+back some of her most libellous remarks if Dora would take back the hen,
+but Dora said that would be owning herself in the wrong, and you know
+she’d as soon think of owning slum property in Whitechapel as do that.”
+
+“It’s a most awkward situation,” said Mrs. Sangrail.  “Do you suppose
+they won’t speak to one another?”
+
+“On the contrary, the difficulty will be to get them to leave off.  Their
+remarks on each other’s conduct and character have hitherto been governed
+by the fact that only four ounces of plain speaking can be sent through
+the post for a penny.”
+
+“I can’t put Dora off,” said Mrs. Sangrail.  “I’ve already postponed her
+visit once, and nothing short of a miracle would make Jane leave before
+her self-allotted fortnight is over.”
+
+“Miracles are rather in my line,” said Clovis.  “I don’t pretend to be
+very hopeful in this case but I’ll do my best.”
+
+“As long as you don’t drag me into it—” stipulated his mother.
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+“Servants are a bit of a nuisance,” muttered Clovis, as he sat in the
+smoking-room after lunch, talking fitfully to Jane Martlet in the
+intervals of putting together the materials of a cocktail, which he had
+irreverently patented under the name of an Ella Wheeler Wilcox.  It was
+partly compounded of old brandy and partly of curaçoa; there were other
+ingredients, but they were never indiscriminately revealed.
+
+“Servants a nuisance!” exclaimed Jane, bounding into the topic with the
+exuberant plunge of a hunter when it leaves the high road and feels turf
+under its hoofs; “I should think they were!  The trouble I’ve had in
+getting suited this year you would hardly believe.  But I don’t see what
+you have to complain of—your mother is so wonderfully lucky in her
+servants.  Sturridge, for instance—he’s been with you for years, and I’m
+sure he’s a paragon as butlers go.”
+
+“That’s just the trouble,” said Clovis.  “It’s when servants have been
+with you for years that they become a really serious nuisance.  The ‘here
+to-day and gone to-morrow’ sort don’t matter—you’ve simply got to replace
+them; it’s the stayers and the paragons that are the real worry.”
+
+“But if they give satisfaction—”
+
+“That doesn’t prevent them from giving trouble.  Now, you’ve mentioned
+Sturridge—it was Sturridge I was particularly thinking of when I made the
+observation about servants being a nuisance.”
+
+“The excellent Sturridge a nuisance!  I can’t believe it.”
+
+“I know he’s excellent, and we just couldn’t get along without him; he’s
+the one reliable element in this rather haphazard household.  But his
+very orderliness has had an effect on him.  Have you ever considered what
+it must be like to go on unceasingly doing the correct thing in the
+correct manner in the same surroundings for the greater part of a
+lifetime?  To know and ordain and superintend exactly what silver and
+glass and table linen shall be used and set out on what occasions, to
+have cellar and pantry and plate-cupboard under a minutely devised and
+undeviating administration, to be noiseless, impalpable, omnipresent,
+and, as far as your own department is concerned, omniscient?”
+
+“I should go mad,” said Jane with conviction.
+
+“Exactly,” said Clovis thoughtfully, swallowing his completed Ella
+Wheeler Wilcox.
+
+“But Sturridge hasn’t gone mad,” said Jane with a flutter of inquiry in
+her voice.
+
+“On most points he’s thoroughly sane and reliable,” said Clovis, “but at
+times he is subject to the most obstinate delusions, and on those
+occasions he becomes not merely a nuisance but a decided embarrassment.”
+
+“What sort of delusions?”
+
+“Unfortunately they usually centre round one of the guests of the house
+party, and that is where the awkwardness comes in.  For instance, he took
+it into his head that Matilda Sheringham was the Prophet Elijah, and as
+all that he remembered about Elijah’s history was the episode of the
+ravens in the wilderness he absolutely declined to interfere with what he
+imagined to be Matilda’s private catering arrangements, wouldn’t allow
+any tea to be sent up to her in the morning, and if he was waiting at
+table he passed her over altogether in handing round the dishes.”
+
+“How very unpleasant.  Whatever did you do about it?”
+
+“Oh, Matilda got fed, after a fashion, but it was judged to be best for
+her to cut her visit short.  It was really the only thing to be done,”
+said Clovis with some emphasis.
+
+“I shouldn’t have done that,” said Jane, “I should have humoured him in
+some way.  I certainly shouldn’t have gone away.”
+
+Clovis frowned.
+
+“It is not always wise to humour people when they get these ideas into
+their heads.  There’s no knowing to what lengths they may go if you
+encourage them.”
+
+“You don’t mean to say he might be dangerous, do you?” asked Jane with
+some anxiety.
+
+“One can never be certain,” said Clovis; “now and then he gets some idea
+about a guest which might take an unfortunate turn.  That is precisely
+what is worrying me at the present moment.”
+
+“What, has he taken a fancy about some one here now?” asked Jane
+excitedly; “how thrilling!  Do tell me who it is.”
+
+“You,” said Clovis briefly.
+
+“Me?”
+
+Clovis nodded.
+
+“Who on earth does he think I am?”
+
+“Queen Anne,” was the unexpected answer.
+
+“Queen Anne!  What an idea.  But, anyhow, there’s nothing dangerous about
+her; she’s such a colourless personality.”
+
+“What does posterity chiefly say about Queen Anne?” asked Clovis rather
+sternly.
+
+“The only thing that I can remember about her,” said Jane, “is the saying
+‘Queen Anne’s dead.’”
+
+“Exactly,” said Clovis, staring at the glass that had held the Ella
+Wheeler Wilcox, “dead.”
+
+“Do you mean he takes me for the ghost of Queen Anne?” asked Jane.
+
+“Ghost?  Dear no.  No one ever heard of a ghost that came down to
+breakfast and ate kidneys and toast and honey with a healthy appetite.
+No, it’s the fact of you being so very much alive and flourishing that
+perplexes and annoys him.  All his life he has been accustomed to look on
+Queen Anne as the personification of everything that is dead and done
+with, ‘as dead as Queen Anne,’ you know; and now he has to fill your
+glass at lunch and dinner and listen to your accounts of the gay time you
+had at the Dublin Horse Show, and naturally he feels that something’s
+very wrong with you.”
+
+“But he wouldn’t be downright hostile to me on that account, would he?”
+Jane asked anxiously.
+
+“I didn’t get really alarmed about it till lunch to-day,” said Clovis; “I
+caught him glowering at you with a very sinister look and muttering:
+‘Ought to be dead long ago, she ought, and some one should see to it.’
+That’s why I mentioned the matter to you.”
+
+“This is awful,” said Jane; “your mother must be told about it at once.”
+
+“My mother mustn’t hear a word about it,” said Clovis earnestly; “it
+would upset her dreadfully.  She relies on Sturridge for everything.”
+
+“But he might kill me at any moment,” protested Jane.
+
+“Not at any moment; he’s busy with the silver all the afternoon.”
+
+“You’ll have to keep a sharp look-out all the time and be on your guard
+to frustrate any murderous attack,” said Jane, adding in a tone of weak
+obstinacy: “It’s a dreadful situation to be in, with a mad butler
+dangling over you like the sword of What’s-his-name, but I’m certainly
+not going to cut my visit short.”
+
+Clovis swore horribly under his breath; the miracle was an obvious
+misfire.
+
+It was in the hall the next morning after a late breakfast that Clovis
+had his final inspiration as he stood engaged in coaxing rust spots from
+an old putter.
+
+“Where is Miss Martlet?” he asked the butler, who was at that moment
+crossing the hall.
+
+“Writing letters in the morning-room, sir,” said Sturridge, announcing a
+fact of which his questioner was already aware.
+
+“She wants to copy the inscription on that old basket-hilted sabre,” said
+Clovis, pointing to a venerable weapon hanging on the wall.  “I wish
+you’d take it to her; my hands are all over oil.  Take it without the
+sheath, it will be less trouble.”
+
+The butler drew the blade, still keen and bright in its well-cared for
+old age, and carried it into the morning-room.  There was a door near the
+writing-table leading to a back stairway; Jane vanished through it with
+such lightning rapidity that the butler doubted whether she had seen him
+come in.  Half an hour later Clovis was driving her and her
+hastily-packed luggage to the station.
+
+“Mother will be awfully vexed when she comes back from her ride and finds
+you have gone,” he observed to the departing guest, “but I’ll make up
+some story about an urgent wire having called you away.  It wouldn’t do
+to alarm her unnecessarily about Sturridge.”
+
+Jane sniffed slightly at Clovis’ ideas of unnecessary alarm, and was
+almost rude to the young man who came round with thoughtful inquiries as
+to luncheon-baskets.
+
+The miracle lost some of its usefulness from the fact that Dora wrote the
+same day postponing the date of her visit, but, at any rate, Clovis holds
+the record as the only human being who ever hustled Jane Martlet out of
+the time-table of her migrations.
+
+
+
+
+THE OPEN WINDOW
+
+
+“My aunt will be down presently, Mr. Nuttel,” said a very self-possessed
+young lady of fifteen; “in the meantime you must try and put up with me.”
+
+Framton Nuttel endeavoured to say the correct something which should duly
+flatter the niece of the moment without unduly discounting the aunt that
+was to come.  Privately he doubted more than ever whether these formal
+visits on a succession of total strangers would do much towards helping
+the nerve cure which he was supposed to be undergoing.
+
+“I know how it will be,” his sister had said when he was preparing to
+migrate to this rural retreat; “you will bury yourself down there and not
+speak to a living soul, and your nerves will be worse than ever from
+moping.  I shall just give you letters of introduction to all the people
+I know there.  Some of them, as far as I can remember, were quite nice.”
+
+Framton wondered whether Mrs. Sappleton, the lady to whom he was
+presenting one of the letters of introduction, came into the nice
+division.
+
+“Do you know many of the people round here?” asked the niece, when she
+judged that they had had sufficient silent communion.
+
+“Hardly a soul,” said Framton.  “My sister was staying here, at the
+rectory, you know, some four years ago, and she gave me letters of
+introduction to some of the people here.”
+
+He made the last statement in a tone of distinct regret.
+
+“Then you know practically nothing about my aunt?” pursued the
+self-possessed young lady.
+
+“Only her name and address,” admitted the caller.  He was wondering
+whether Mrs. Sappleton was in the married or widowed state.  An
+undefinable something about the room seemed to suggest masculine
+habitation.
+
+“Her great tragedy happened just three years ago,” said the child; “that
+would be since your sister’s time.”
+
+“Her tragedy?” asked Framton; somehow in this restful country spot
+tragedies seemed out of place.
+
+“You may wonder why we keep that window wide open on an October
+afternoon,” said the niece, indicating a large French window that opened
+on to a lawn.
+
+“It is quite warm for the time of the year,” said Framton; “but has that
+window got anything to do with the tragedy?”
+
+“Out through that window, three years ago to a day, her husband and her
+two young brothers went off for their day’s shooting.  They never came
+back.  In crossing the moor to their favourite snipe-shooting ground they
+were all three engulfed in a treacherous piece of bog.  It had been that
+dreadful wet summer, you know, and places that were safe in other years
+gave way suddenly without warning.  Their bodies were never recovered.
+That was the dreadful part of it.”  Here the child’s voice lost its
+self-possessed note and became falteringly human.  “Poor aunt always
+thinks that they will come back some day, they and the little brown
+spaniel that was lost with them, and walk in at that window just as they
+used to do.  That is why the window is kept open every evening till it is
+quite dusk.  Poor dear aunt, she has often told me how they went out, her
+husband with his white waterproof coat over his arm, and Ronnie, her
+youngest brother, singing ‘Bertie, why do you bound?’ as he always did to
+tease her, because she said it got on her nerves.  Do you know, sometimes
+on still, quiet evenings like this, I almost get a creepy feeling that
+they will all walk in through that window—”
+
+She broke off with a little shudder.  It was a relief to Framton when the
+aunt bustled into the room with a whirl of apologies for being late in
+making her appearance.
+
+“I hope Vera has been amusing you?” she said.
+
+“She has been very interesting,” said Framton.
+
+“I hope you don’t mind the open window,” said Mrs. Sappleton briskly; “my
+husband and brothers will be home directly from shooting, and they always
+come in this way.  They’ve been out for snipe in the marshes to-day, so
+they’ll make a fine mess over my poor carpets.  So like you men-folk,
+isn’t it?”
+
+She rattled on cheerfully about the shooting and the scarcity of birds,
+and the prospects for duck in the winter.  To Framton it was all purely
+horrible.  He made a desperate but only partially successful effort to
+turn the talk on to a less ghastly topic; he was conscious that his
+hostess was giving him only a fragment of her attention, and her eyes
+were constantly straying past him to the open window and the lawn beyond.
+It was certainly an unfortunate coincidence that he should have paid his
+visit on this tragic anniversary.
+
+“The doctors agree in ordering me complete rest, an absence of mental
+excitement, and avoidance of anything in the nature of violent physical
+exercise,” announced Framton, who laboured under the tolerably widespread
+delusion that total strangers and chance acquaintances are hungry for the
+least detail of one’s ailments and infirmities, their cause and cure.
+“On the matter of diet they are not so much in agreement,” he continued.
+
+“No?” said Mrs. Sappleton, in a voice which only replaced a yawn at the
+last moment.  Then she suddenly brightened into alert attention—but not
+to what Framton was saying.
+
+“Here they are at last!” she cried.  “Just in time for tea, and don’t
+they look as if they were muddy up to the eyes!”
+
+Framton shivered slightly and turned towards the niece with a look
+intended to convey sympathetic comprehension.  The child was staring out
+through the open window with dazed horror in her eyes.  In a chill shock
+of nameless fear Framton swung round in his seat and looked in the same
+direction.
+
+In the deepening twilight three figures were walking across the lawn
+towards the window; they all carried guns under their arms, and one of
+them was additionally burdened with a white coat hung over his shoulders.
+A tired brown spaniel kept close at their heels.  Noiselessly they neared
+the house, and then a hoarse young voice chanted out of the dusk: “I
+said, Bertie, why do you bound?”
+
+Framton grabbed wildly at his stick and hat; the hall-door, the
+gravel-drive, and the front gate were dimly-noted stages in his headlong
+retreat.  A cyclist coming along the road had to run into the hedge to
+avoid an imminent collision.
+
+“Here we are, my dear,” said the bearer of the white mackintosh, coming
+in through the window; “fairly muddy, but most of it’s dry.  Who was that
+who bolted out as we came up?”
+
+“A most extraordinary man, a Mr. Nuttel,” said Mrs. Sappleton; “could
+only talk about his illnesses, and dashed off without a word of good-bye
+or apology when you arrived.  One would think he had seen a ghost.”
+
+“I expect it was the spaniel,” said the niece calmly; “he told me he had
+a horror of dogs.  He was once hunted into a cemetery somewhere on the
+banks of the Ganges by a pack of pariah dogs, and had to spend the night
+in a newly dug grave with the creatures snarling and grinning and foaming
+just above him.  Enough to make anyone lose their nerve.”
+
+Romance at short notice was her speciality.
+
+
+
+
+THE TREASURE SHIP
+
+
+The great galleon lay in semi-retirement under the sand and weed and
+water of the northern bay where the fortune of war and weather had long
+ago ensconced it.  Three and a quarter centuries had passed since the day
+when it had taken the high seas as an important unit of a fighting
+squadron—precisely which squadron the learned were not agreed.  The
+galleon had brought nothing into the world, but it had, according to
+tradition and report, taken much out of it.  But how much?  There again
+the learned were in disagreement.  Some were as generous in their
+estimate as an income-tax assessor, others applied a species of higher
+criticism to the submerged treasure chests, and debased their contents to
+the currency of goblin gold.  Of the former school was Lulu, Duchess of
+Dulverton.
+
+The Duchess was not only a believer in the existence of a sunken treasure
+of alluring proportions; she also believed that she knew of a method by
+which the said treasure might be precisely located and cheaply
+disembedded.  An aunt on her mother’s side of the family had been Maid of
+Honour at the Court of Monaco, and had taken a respectful interest in the
+deep-sea researches in which the Throne of that country, impatient
+perhaps of its terrestrial restrictions, was wont to immerse itself.  It
+was through the instrumentality of this relative that the Duchess learned
+of an invention, perfected and very nearly patented by a Monegaskan
+savant, by means of which the home-life of the Mediterranean sardine
+might be studied at a depth of many fathoms in a cold white light of more
+than ball-room brilliancy.  Implicated in this invention (and, in the
+Duchess’s eyes, the most attractive part of it) was an electric suction
+dredge, specially designed for dragging to the surface such objects of
+interest and value as might be found in the more accessible levels of the
+ocean-bed.  The rights of the invention were to be acquired for a matter
+of eighteen hundred francs, and the apparatus for a few thousand more.
+The Duchess of Dulverton was rich, as the world counted wealth; she
+nursed the hope, of being one day rich at her own computation.  Companies
+had been formed and efforts had been made again and again during the
+course of three centuries to probe for the alleged treasures of the
+interesting galleon; with the aid of this invention she considered that
+she might go to work on the wreck privately and independently.  After
+all, one of her ancestors on her mother’s side was descended from Medina
+Sidonia, so she was of opinion that she had as much right to the treasure
+as anyone.  She acquired the invention and bought the apparatus.
+
+Among other family ties and encumbrances, Lulu possessed a nephew, Vasco
+Honiton, a young gentleman who was blessed with a small income and a
+large circle of relatives, and lived impartially and precariously on
+both.  The name Vasco had been given him possibly in the hope that he
+might live up to its adventurous tradition, but he limited himself
+strictly to the home industry of adventurer, preferring to exploit the
+assured rather than to explore the unknown.  Lulu’s intercourse with him
+had been restricted of recent years to the negative processes of being
+out of town when he called on her, and short of money when he wrote to
+her.  Now, however, she bethought herself of his eminent suitability for
+the direction of a treasure-seeking experiment; if anyone could extract
+gold from an unpromising situation it would certainly be Vasco—of course,
+under the necessary safeguards in the way of supervision.  Where money
+was in question Vasco’s conscience was liable to fits of obstinate
+silence.
+
+Somewhere on the west coast of Ireland the Dulverton property included a
+few acres of shingle, rock, and heather, too barren to support even an
+agrarian outrage, but embracing a small and fairly deep bay where the
+lobster yield was good in most seasons.  There was a bleak little house
+on the property, and for those who liked lobsters and solitude, and were
+able to accept an Irish cook’s ideas as to what might be perpetrated in
+the name of mayonnaise, Innisgluther was a tolerable exile during the
+summer months.  Lulu seldom went there herself, but she lent the house
+lavishly to friends and relations.  She put it now at Vasco’s disposal.
+
+“It will be the very place to practise and experiment with the salvage
+apparatus,” she said; “the bay is quite deep in places, and you will be
+able to test everything thoroughly before starting on the treasure hunt.”
+
+In less than three weeks Vasco turned up in town to report progress.
+
+“The apparatus works beautifully,” he informed his aunt; “the deeper one
+got the clearer everything grew.  We found something in the way of a
+sunken wreck to operate on, too!”
+
+“A wreck in Innisgluther Bay!” exclaimed Lulu.
+
+“A submerged motor-boat, the _Sub-Rosa_,” said Vasco.
+
+“No! really?” said Lulu; “poor Billy Yuttley’s boat.  I remember it went
+down somewhere off that coast some three years ago.  His body was washed
+ashore at the Point.  People said at the time that the boat was capsized
+intentionally—a case of suicide, you know.  People always say that sort
+of thing when anything tragic happens.”
+
+“In this case they were right,” said Vasco.
+
+“What do you mean?” asked the Duchess hurriedly.  “What makes you think
+so?”
+
+“I know,” said Vasco simply.
+
+“Know?  How can you know?  How can anyone know?  The thing happened three
+years ago.”
+
+“In a locker of the _Sub-Rosa_ I found a water-tight strong-box.  It
+contained papers.”  Vasco paused with dramatic effect and searched for a
+moment in the inner breast-pocket of his coat.  He drew out a folded slip
+of paper.  The Duchess snatched at it in almost indecent haste and moved
+appreciably nearer the fireplace.
+
+“Was this in the _Sub-Rosa’s_ strong-box?” she asked.
+
+“Oh no,” said Vasco carelessly, “that is a list of the well-known people
+who would be involved in a very disagreeable scandal if the _Sub-Rosa’s_
+papers were made public.  I’ve put you at the head of it, otherwise it
+follows alphabetical order.”
+
+The Duchess gazed helplessly at the string of names, which seemed for the
+moment to include nearly every one she knew.  As a matter of fact, her
+own name at the head of the list exercised an almost paralysing effect on
+her thinking faculties.
+
+“Of course you have destroyed the papers?” she asked, when she had
+somewhat recovered herself.  She was conscious that she made the remark
+with an entire lack of conviction.
+
+Vasco shook his head.
+
+“But you should have,” said Lulu angrily; “if, as you say, they are
+highly compromising—”
+
+“Oh, they are, I assure you of that,” interposed the young man.
+
+“Then you should put them out of harm’s way at once.  Supposing anything
+should leak out, think of all these poor, unfortunate people who would be
+involved in the disclosures,” and Lulu tapped the list with an agitated
+gesture.
+
+“Unfortunate, perhaps, but not poor,” corrected Vasco; “if you read the
+list carefully you’ll notice that I haven’t troubled to include anyone
+whose financial standing isn’t above question.”
+
+Lulu glared at her nephew for some moments in silence.  Then she asked
+hoarsely: “What are you going to do?”
+
+“Nothing—for the remainder of my life,” he answered meaningly.  “A little
+hunting, perhaps,” he continued, “and I shall have a villa at Florence.
+The Villa Sub-Rosa would sound rather quaint and picturesque, don’t you
+think, and quite a lot of people would be able to attach a meaning to the
+name.  And I suppose I must have a hobby; I shall probably collect
+Raeburns.”
+
+Lulu’s relative, who lived at the Court of Monaco, got quite a snappish
+answer when she wrote recommending some further invention in the realm of
+marine research.
+
+
+
+
+THE COBWEB
+
+
+The farmhouse kitchen probably stood where it did as a matter of accident
+or haphazard choice; yet its situation might have been planned by a
+master-strategist in farmhouse architecture.  Dairy and poultry-yard, and
+herb garden, and all the busy places of the farm seemed to lead by easy
+access into its wide flagged haven, where there was room for everything
+and where muddy boots left traces that were easily swept away.  And yet,
+for all that it stood so well in the centre of human bustle, its long,
+latticed window, with the wide window-seat, built into an embrasure
+beyond the huge fireplace, looked out on a wild spreading view of hill
+and heather and wooded combe.  The window nook made almost a little room
+in itself, quite the pleasantest room in the farm as far as situation and
+capabilities went.  Young Mrs. Ladbruk, whose husband had just come into
+the farm by way of inheritance, cast covetous eyes on this snug corner,
+and her fingers itched to make it bright and cosy with chintz curtains
+and bowls of flowers, and a shelf or two of old china.  The musty farm
+parlour, looking out on to a prim, cheerless garden imprisoned within
+high, blank walls, was not a room that lent itself readily either to
+comfort or decoration.
+
+“When we are more settled I shall work wonders in the way of making the
+kitchen habitable,” said the young woman to her occasional visitors.
+There was an unspoken wish in those words, a wish which was unconfessed
+as well as unspoken.  Emma Ladbruk was the mistress of the farm; jointly
+with her husband she might have her say, and to a certain extent her way,
+in ordering its affairs.  But she was not mistress of the kitchen.
+
+On one of the shelves of an old dresser, in company with chipped
+sauce-boats, pewter jugs, cheese-graters, and paid bills, rested a worn
+and ragged Bible, on whose front page was the record, in faded ink, of a
+baptism dated ninety-four years ago.  “Martha Crale” was the name written
+on that yellow page.  The yellow, wrinkled old dame who hobbled and
+muttered about the kitchen, looking like a dead autumn leaf which the
+winter winds still pushed hither and thither, had once been Martha Crale;
+for seventy odd years she had been Martha Mountjoy.  For longer than
+anyone could remember she had pattered to and fro between oven and
+wash-house and dairy, and out to chicken-run and garden, grumbling and
+muttering and scolding, but working unceasingly.  Emma Ladbruk, of whose
+coming she took as little notice as she would of a bee wandering in at a
+window on a summer’s day, used at first to watch her with a kind of
+frightened curiosity.  She was so old and so much a part of the place, it
+was difficult to think of her exactly as a living thing.  Old Shep, the
+white-nozzled, stiff-limbed collie, waiting for his time to die, seemed
+almost more human than the withered, dried-up old woman.  He had been a
+riotous, roystering puppy, mad with the joy of life, when she was already
+a tottering, hobbling dame; now he was just a blind, breathing carcase,
+nothing more, and she still worked with frail energy, still swept and
+baked and washed, fetched and carried.  If there were something in these
+wise old dogs that did not perish utterly with death, Emma used to think
+to herself, what generations of ghost-dogs there must be out on those
+hills, that Martha had reared and fed and tended and spoken a last
+good-bye word to in that old kitchen.  And what memories she must have of
+human generations that had passed away in her time.  It was difficult for
+anyone, let alone a stranger like Emma, to get her to talk of the days
+that had been; her shrill, quavering speech was of doors that had been
+left unfastened, pails that had got mislaid, calves whose feeding-time
+was overdue, and the various little faults and lapses that chequer a
+farmhouse routine.  Now and again, when election time came round, she
+would unstore her recollections of the old names round which the fight
+had waged in the days gone by.  There had been a Palmerston, that had
+been a name down Tiverton way; Tiverton was not a far journey as the crow
+flies, but to Martha it was almost a foreign country.  Later there had
+been Northcotes and Aclands, and many other newer names that she had
+forgotten; the names changed, but it was always Libruls and Toories,
+Yellows and Blues.  And they always quarrelled and shouted as to who was
+right and who was wrong.  The one they quarrelled about most was a fine
+old gentleman with an angry face—she had seen his picture on the walls.
+She had seen it on the floor too, with a rotten apple squashed over it,
+for the farm had changed its politics from time to time.  Martha had
+never been on one side or the other; none of “they” had ever done the
+farm a stroke of good.  Such was her sweeping verdict, given with all a
+peasant’s distrust of the outside world.
+
+When the half-frightened curiosity had somewhat faded away, Emma Ladbruk
+was uncomfortably conscious of another feeling towards the old woman.
+She was a quaint old tradition, lingering about the place, she was part
+and parcel of the farm itself, she was something at once pathetic and
+picturesque—but she was dreadfully in the way.  Emma had come to the farm
+full of plans for little reforms and improvements, in part the result of
+training in the newest ways and methods, in part the outcome of her own
+ideas and fancies.  Reforms in the kitchen region, if those deaf old ears
+could have been induced to give them even a hearing, would have met with
+short shrift and scornful rejection, and the kitchen region spread over
+the zone of dairy and market business and half the work of the household.
+Emma, with the latest science of dead-poultry dressing at her
+finger-tips, sat by, an unheeded watcher, while old Martha trussed the
+chickens for the market-stall as she had trussed them for nearly
+fourscore years—all leg and no breast.  And the hundred hints anent
+effective cleaning and labour-lightening and the things that make for
+wholesomeness which the young woman was ready to impart or to put into
+action dropped away into nothingness before that wan, muttering,
+unheeding presence.  Above all, the coveted window corner, that was to be
+a dainty, cheerful oasis in the gaunt old kitchen, stood now choked and
+lumbered with a litter of odds and ends that Emma, for all her nominal
+authority, would not have dared or cared to displace; over them seemed to
+be spun the protection of something that was like a human cobweb.
+Decidedly Martha was in the way.  It would have been an unworthy meanness
+to have wished to see the span of that brave old life shortened by a few
+paltry months, but as the days sped by Emma was conscious that the wish
+was there, disowned though it might be, lurking at the back of her mind.
+
+She felt the meanness of the wish come over her with a qualm of
+self-reproach one day when she came into the kitchen and found an
+unaccustomed state of things in that usually busy quarter.  Old Martha
+was not working.  A basket of corn was on the floor by her side, and out
+in the yard the poultry were beginning to clamour a protest of overdue
+feeding-time.  But Martha sat huddled in a shrunken bunch on the window
+seat, looking out with her dim old eyes as though she saw something
+stranger than the autumn landscape.
+
+“Is anything the matter, Martha?” asked the young woman.
+
+“’Tis death, ’tis death a-coming,” answered the quavering voice; “I knew
+’twere coming.  I knew it.  ’Tweren’t for nothing that old Shep’s been
+howling all morning.  An’ last night I heard the screech-owl give the
+death-cry, and there were something white as run across the yard
+yesterday; ’tweren’t a cat nor a stoat, ’twere something.  The fowls knew
+’twere something; they all drew off to one side.  Ay, there’s been
+warnings.  I knew it were a-coming.”
+
+The young woman’s eyes clouded with pity.  The old thing sitting there so
+white and shrunken had once been a merry, noisy child, playing about in
+lanes and hay-lofts and farmhouse garrets; that had been eighty odd years
+ago, and now she was just a frail old body cowering under the approaching
+chill of the death that was coming at last to take her.  It was not
+probable that much could be done for her, but Emma hastened away to get
+assistance and counsel.  Her husband, she knew, was down at a
+tree-felling some little distance off, but she might find some other
+intelligent soul who knew the old woman better than she did.  The farm,
+she soon found out, had that faculty common to farmyards of swallowing up
+and losing its human population.  The poultry followed her in interested
+fashion, and swine grunted interrogations at her from behind the bars of
+their styes, but barnyard and rickyard, orchard and stables and dairy,
+gave no reward to her search.  Then, as she retraced her steps towards
+the kitchen, she came suddenly on her cousin, young Mr. Jim, as every one
+called him, who divided his time between amateur horse-dealing,
+rabbit-shooting, and flirting with the farm maids.
+
+“I’m afraid old Martha is dying,” said Emma.  Jim was not the sort of
+person to whom one had to break news gently.
+
+“Nonsense,” he said; “Martha means to live to a hundred.  She told me so,
+and she’ll do it.”
+
+“She may be actually dying at this moment, or it may just be the
+beginning of the break-up,” persisted Emma, with a feeling of contempt
+for the slowness and dulness of the young man.
+
+A grin spread over his good-natured features.
+
+“It don’t look like it,” he said, nodding towards the yard.  Emma turned
+to catch the meaning of his remark.  Old Martha stood in the middle of a
+mob of poultry scattering handfuls of grain around her.  The turkey-cock,
+with the bronzed sheen of his feathers and the purple-red of his wattles,
+the gamecock, with the glowing metallic lustre of his Eastern plumage,
+the hens, with their ochres and buffs and umbers and their scarlet combs,
+and the drakes, with their bottle-green heads, made a medley of rich
+colour, in the centre of which the old woman looked like a withered stalk
+standing amid a riotous growth of gaily-hued flowers.  But she threw the
+grain deftly amid the wilderness of beaks, and her quavering voice
+carried as far as the two people who were watching her.  She was still
+harping on the theme of death coming to the farm.
+
+“I knew ’twere a-coming.  There’s been signs an’ warnings.”
+
+“Who’s dead, then, old Mother?” called out the young man.
+
+“’Tis young Mister Ladbruk,” she shrilled back; “they’ve just a-carried
+his body in.  Run out of the way of a tree that was coming down an’ ran
+hisself on to an iron post.  Dead when they picked un up.  Aye, I knew
+’twere coming.”
+
+And she turned to fling a handful of barley at a belated group of
+guinea-fowl that came racing toward her.
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+The farm was a family property, and passed to the rabbit-shooting cousin
+as the next-of-kin.  Emma Ladbruk drifted out of its history as a bee
+that had wandered in at an open window might flit its way out again.  On
+a cold grey morning she stood waiting, with her boxes already stowed in
+the farm cart, till the last of the market produce should be ready, for
+the train she was to catch was of less importance than the chickens and
+butter and eggs that were to be offered for sale.  From where she stood
+she could see an angle of the long latticed window that was to have been
+cosy with curtains and gay with bowls of flowers.  Into her mind came the
+thought that for months, perhaps for years, long after she had been
+utterly forgotten, a white, unheeding face would be seen peering out
+through those latticed panes, and a weak muttering voice would be heard
+quavering up and down those flagged passages.  She made her way to a
+narrow barred casement that opened into the farm larder.  Old Martha was
+standing at a table trussing a pair of chickens for the market stall as
+she had trussed them for nearly fourscore years.
+
+
+
+
+THE LULL
+
+
+“I’ve asked Latimer Springfield to spend Sunday with us and stop the
+night,” announced Mrs. Durmot at the breakfast-table.
+
+“I thought he was in the throes of an election,” remarked her husband.
+
+“Exactly; the poll is on Wednesday, and the poor man will have worked
+himself to a shadow by that time.  Imagine what electioneering must be
+like in this awful soaking rain, going along slushy country roads and
+speaking to damp audiences in draughty schoolrooms, day after day for a
+fortnight.  He’ll have to put in an appearance at some place of worship
+on Sunday morning, and he can come to us immediately afterwards and have
+a thorough respite from everything connected with politics.  I won’t let
+him even think of them.  I’ve had the picture of Cromwell dissolving the
+Long Parliament taken down from the staircase, and even the portrait of
+Lord Rosebery’s ‘Ladas’ removed from the smoking-room.  And Vera,” added
+Mrs. Durmot, turning to her sixteen-year-old niece, “be careful what
+colour ribbon you wear in your hair; not blue or yellow on any account;
+those are the rival party colours, and emerald green or orange would be
+almost as bad, with this Home Rule business to the fore.”
+
+“On state occasions I always wear a black ribbon in my hair,” said Vera
+with crushing dignity.
+
+Latimer Springfield was a rather cheerless, oldish young man, who went
+into politics somewhat in the spirit in which other people might go into
+half-mourning.  Without being an enthusiast, however, he was a fairly
+strenuous plodder, and Mrs. Durmot had been reasonably near the mark in
+asserting that he was working at high pressure over this election.  The
+restful lull which his hostess enforced on him was decidedly welcome, and
+yet the nervous excitement of the contest had too great a hold on him to
+be totally banished.
+
+“I know he’s going to sit up half the night working up points for his
+final speeches,” said Mrs. Durmot regretfully; “however, we’ve kept
+politics at arm’s length all the afternoon and evening.  More than that
+we cannot do.”
+
+“That remains to be seen,” said Vera, but she said it to herself.
+
+Latimer had scarcely shut his bedroom door before he was immersed in a
+sheaf of notes and pamphlets, while a fountain-pen and pocket-book were
+brought into play for the due marshalling of useful facts and discreet
+fictions.  He had been at work for perhaps thirty-five minutes, and the
+house was seemingly consecrated to the healthy slumber of country life,
+when a stifled squealing and scuffling in the passage was followed by a
+loud tap at his door.  Before he had time to answer, a much-encumbered
+Vera burst into the room with the question; “I say, can I leave these
+here?”
+
+“These” were a small black pig and a lusty specimen of black-red
+gamecock.
+
+Latimer was moderately fond of animals, and particularly interested in
+small livestock rearing from the economic point of view; in fact, one of
+the pamphlets on which he was at that moment engaged warmly advocated the
+further development of the pig and poultry industry in our rural
+districts; but he was pardonably unwilling to share even a commodious
+bedroom with samples of henroost and stye products.
+
+“Wouldn’t they be happier somewhere outside?” he asked, tactfully
+expressing his own preference in the matter in an apparent solicitude for
+theirs.
+
+“There is no outside,” said Vera impressively, “nothing but a waste of
+dark, swirling waters.  The reservoir at Brinkley has burst.”
+
+“I didn’t know there was a reservoir at Brinkley,” said Latimer.
+
+“Well, there isn’t now, it’s jolly well all over the place, and as we
+stand particularly low we’re the centre of an inland sea just at present.
+You see the river has overflowed its banks as well.”
+
+“Good gracious!  Have any lives been lost?”
+
+“Heaps, I should say.  The second housemaid has already identified three
+bodies that have floated past the billiard-room window as being the young
+man she’s engaged to.  Either she’s engaged to a large assortment of the
+population round here or else she’s very careless at identification.  Of
+course it may be the same body coming round again and again in a swirl; I
+hadn’t thought of that.”
+
+“But we ought to go out and do rescue work, oughtn’t we?” said Latimer,
+with the instinct of a Parliamentary candidate for getting into the local
+limelight.
+
+“We can’t,” said Vera decidedly, “we haven’t any boats and we’re cut off
+by a raging torrent from any human habitation.  My aunt particularly
+hoped you would keep to your room and not add to the confusion, but she
+thought it would be so kind of you if you would take in Hartlepool’s
+Wonder, the gamecock, you know, for the night.  You see, there are eight
+other gamecocks, and they fight like furies if they get together, so
+we’re putting one in each bedroom.  The fowl-houses are all flooded out,
+you know.  And then I thought perhaps you wouldn’t mind taking in this
+wee piggie; he’s rather a little love, but he has a vile temper.  He gets
+that from his mother—not that I like to say things against her when she’s
+lying dead and drowned in her stye, poor thing.  What he really wants is
+a man’s firm hand to keep him in order.  I’d try and grapple with him
+myself, only I’ve got my chow in my room, you know, and he goes for pigs
+wherever he finds them.”
+
+“Couldn’t the pig go in the bathroom?” asked Latimer faintly, wishing
+that he had taken up as determined a stand on the subject of bedroom
+swine as the chow had.
+
+“The bathroom?” Vera laughed shrilly.  “It’ll be full of Boy Scouts till
+morning if the hot water holds out.”
+
+“Boy Scouts?”
+
+“Yes, thirty of them came to rescue us while the water was only
+waist-high; then it rose another three feet or so and we had to rescue
+them.  We’re giving them hot baths in batches and drying their clothes in
+the hot-air cupboard, but, of course, drenched clothes don’t dry in a
+minute, and the corridor and staircase are beginning to look like a bit
+of coast scenery by Tuke.  Two of the boys are wearing your Melton
+overcoat; I hope you don’t mind.”
+
+“It’s a new overcoat,” said Latimer, with every indication of minding
+dreadfully.
+
+“You’ll take every care of Hartlepool’s Wonder, won’t you?” said Vera.
+“His mother took three firsts at Birmingham, and he was second in the
+cockerel class last year at Gloucester.  He’ll probably roost on the rail
+at the bottom of your bed.  I wonder if he’d feel more at home if some of
+his wives were up here with him?  The hens are all in the pantry, and I
+think I could pick out Hartlepool Helen; she’s his favourite.”
+
+Latimer showed a belated firmness on the subject of Hartlepool Helen, and
+Vera withdrew without pressing the point, having first settled the
+gamecock on his extemporised perch and taken an affectionate farewell of
+the pigling.  Latimer undressed and got into bed with all due speed,
+judging that the pig would abate its inquisitorial restlessness once the
+light was turned out.  As a substitute for a cosy, straw-bedded sty the
+room offered, at first inspection, few attractions, but the disconsolate
+animal suddenly discovered an appliance in which the most luxuriously
+contrived piggeries were notably deficient.  The sharp edge of the
+underneath part of the bed was pitched at exactly the right elevation to
+permit the pigling to scrape himself ecstatically backwards and forwards,
+with an artistic humping of the back at the crucial moment and an
+accompanying gurgle of long-drawn delight.  The gamecock, who may have
+fancied that he was being rocked in the branches of a pine-tree, bore the
+motion with greater fortitude than Latimer was able to command.  A series
+of slaps directed at the pig’s body were accepted more as an additional
+and pleasing irritant than as a criticism of conduct or a hint to desist;
+evidently something more than a man’s firm hand was needed to deal with
+the case.  Latimer slipped out of bed in search of a weapon of
+dissuasion.  There was sufficient light in the room to enable the pig to
+detect this manœuvre, and the vile temper, inherited from the drowned
+mother, found full play.  Latimer bounded back into bed, and his
+conqueror, after a few threatening snorts and champings of its jaws,
+resumed its massage operations with renewed zeal.  During the long
+wakeful hours which ensued Latimer tried to distract his mind from his
+own immediate troubles by dwelling with decent sympathy on the second
+housemaid’s bereavement, but he found himself more often wondering how
+many Boy Scouts were sharing his Melton overcoat.  The rôle of Saint
+Martin malgré lui was not one which appealed to him.
+
+Towards dawn the pigling fell into a happy slumber, and Latimer might
+have followed its example, but at about the same time Stupor Hartlepooli
+gave a rousing crow, clattered down to the floor and forthwith commenced
+a spirited combat with his reflection in the wardrobe mirror.
+Remembering that the bird was more or less under his care Latimer
+performed Hague Tribunal offices by draping a bath-towel over the
+provocative mirror, but the ensuing peace was local and short-lived.  The
+deflected energies of the gamecock found new outlet in a sudden and
+sustained attack on the sleeping and temporarily inoffensive pigling, and
+the duel which followed was desperate and embittered beyond any
+possibility of effective intervention.  The feathered combatant had the
+advantage of being able, when hard pressed, to take refuge on the bed,
+and freely availed himself of this circumstance; the pigling never quite
+succeeded in hurling himself on to the same eminence, but it was not from
+want of trying.
+
+Neither side could claim any decisive success, and the struggle had been
+practically fought to a standstill by the time that the maid appeared
+with the early morning tea.
+
+“Lor, sir,” she exclaimed in undisguised astonishment, “do you want those
+animals in your room?”
+
+_Want_!
+
+The pigling, as though aware that it might have outstayed its welcome,
+dashed out at the door, and the gamecock followed it at a more dignified
+pace.
+
+“If Miss Vera’s dog sees that pig—!” exclaimed the maid, and hurried off
+to avert such a catastrophe.
+
+A cold suspicion was stealing over Latimer’s mind; he went to the window
+and drew up the blind.  A light, drizzling rain was falling, but there
+was not the faintest trace of any inundation.
+
+Some half-hour later he met Vera on the way to the breakfast-room.
+
+“I should not like to think of you as a deliberate liar,” he observed
+coldly, “but one occasionally has to do things one does not like.”
+
+“At any rate I kept your mind from dwelling on politics all the night,”
+said Vera.
+
+Which was, of course, perfectly true.
+
+
+
+
+THE UNKINDEST BLOW
+
+
+The season of strikes seemed to have run itself to a standstill.  Almost
+every trade and industry and calling in which a dislocation could
+possibly be engineered had indulged in that luxury.  The last and least
+successful convulsion had been the strike of the World’s Union of
+Zoological Garden attendants, who, pending the settlement of certain
+demands, refused to minister further to the wants of the animals
+committed to their charge or to allow any other keepers to take their
+place.  In this case the threat of the Zoological Gardens authorities
+that if the men “came out” the animals should come out also had
+intensified and precipitated the crisis.  The imminent prospect of the
+larger carnivores, to say nothing of rhinoceroses and bull bison, roaming
+at large and unfed in the heart of London, was not one which permitted of
+prolonged conferences.  The Government of the day, which from its
+tendency to be a few hours behind the course of events had been nicknamed
+the Government of the afternoon, was obliged to intervene with
+promptitude and decision.  A strong force of Bluejackets was despatched
+to Regent’s Park to take over the temporarily abandoned duties of the
+strikers.  Bluejackets were chosen in preference to land forces, partly
+on account of the traditional readiness of the British Navy to go
+anywhere and do anything, partly by reason of the familiarity of the
+average sailor with monkeys, parrots, and other tropical fauna, but
+chiefly at the urgent request of the First Lord of the Admiralty, who was
+keenly desirous of an opportunity for performing some personal act of
+unobtrusive public service within the province of his department.
+
+“If he insists on feeding the infant jaguar himself, in defiance of its
+mother’s wishes, there may be another by-election in the north,” said one
+of his colleagues, with a hopeful inflection in his voice.  “By-elections
+are not very desirable at present, but we must not be selfish.”
+
+As a matter of fact the strike collapsed peacefully without any outside
+intervention.  The majority of the keepers had become so attached to
+their charges that they returned to work of their own accord.
+
+And then the nation and the newspapers turned with a sense of relief to
+happier things.  It seemed as if a new era of contentment was about to
+dawn.  Everybody had struck who could possibly want to strike or who
+could possibly be cajoled or bullied into striking, whether they wanted
+to or not.  The lighter and brighter side of life might now claim some
+attention.  And conspicuous among the other topics that sprang into
+sudden prominence was the pending Falvertoon divorce suit.
+
+The Duke of Falvertoon was one of those human _hors d’œuvres_ that
+stimulate the public appetite for sensation without giving it much to
+feed on.  As a mere child he had been precociously brilliant; he had
+declined the editorship of the _Anglian Review_ at an age when most boys
+are content to have declined _mensa_, a table, and though he could not
+claim to have originated the Futurist movement in literature, his
+“Letters to a possible Grandson,” written at the age of fourteen, had
+attracted considerable notice.  In later days his brilliancy had been
+less conspicuously displayed.  During a debate in the House of Lords on
+affairs in Morocco, at a moment when that country, for the fifth time in
+seven years, had brought half Europe to the verge of war, he had
+interpolated the remark “a little Moor and how much it is,” but in spite
+of the encouraging reception accorded to this one political utterance he
+was never tempted to a further display in that direction.  It began to be
+generally understood that he did not intend to supplement his numerous
+town and country residences by living overmuch in the public eye.
+
+And then had come the unlooked-for tidings of the imminent proceedings
+for divorce.  And such a divorce!  There were cross-suits and allegations
+and counter-allegations, charges of cruelty and desertion, everything in
+fact that was necessary to make the case one of the most complicated and
+sensational of its kind.  And the number of distinguished people involved
+or cited as witnesses not only embraced both political parties in the
+realm and several Colonial governors, but included an exotic contingent
+from France, Hungary, the United States of North America, and the Grand
+Duchy of Baden.  Hotel accommodation of the more expensive sort began to
+experience a strain on its resources.  “It will be quite like the Durbar
+without the elephants,” exclaimed an enthusiastic lady who, to do her
+justice, had never seen a Durbar.  The general feeling was one of
+thankfulness that the last of the strikes had been got over before the
+date fixed for the hearing of the great suit.
+
+As a reaction from the season of gloom and industrial strife that had
+just passed away the agencies that purvey and stage-manage sensations
+laid themselves out to do their level best on this momentous occasion.
+Men who had made their reputations as special descriptive writers were
+mobilised from distant corners of Europe and the further side of the
+Atlantic in order to enrich with their pens the daily printed records of
+the case; one word-painter, who specialised in descriptions of how
+witnesses turn pale under cross-examination, was summoned hurriedly back
+from a famous and prolonged murder trial in Sicily, where indeed his
+talents were being decidedly wasted.  Thumb-nail artists and expert kodak
+manipulators were retained at extravagant salaries, and special dress
+reporters were in high demand.  An enterprising Paris firm of costume
+builders presented the defendant Duchess with three special creations, to
+be worn, marked, learned, and extensively reported at various critical
+stages of the trial; and as for the cinematograph agents, their industry
+and persistence was untiring.  Films representing the Duke saying
+good-bye to his favourite canary on the eve of the trial were in
+readiness weeks before the event was due to take place; other films
+depicted the Duchess holding imaginary consultations with fictitious
+lawyers or making a light repast off specially advertised vegetarian
+sandwiches during a supposed luncheon interval.  As far as human
+foresight and human enterprise could go nothing was lacking to make the
+trial a success.
+
+Two days before the case was down for hearing the advance reporter of an
+important syndicate obtained an interview with the Duke for the purpose
+of gleaning some final grains of information concerning his Grace’s
+personal arrangements during the trial.
+
+“I suppose I may say this will be one of the biggest affairs of its kind
+during the lifetime of a generation,” began the reporter as an excuse for
+the unsparing minuteness of detail that he was about to make quest for.
+
+“I suppose so—if it comes off,” said the Duke lazily.
+
+“If?” queried the reporter, in a voice that was something between a gasp
+and a scream.
+
+“The Duchess and I are both thinking of going on strike,” said the Duke.
+
+“Strike!”
+
+The baleful word flashed out in all its old hideous familiarity.  Was
+there to be no end to its recurrence?
+
+“Do you mean,” faltered the reporter, “that you are contemplating a
+mutual withdrawal of the charges?”
+
+“Precisely,” said the Duke.
+
+“But think of the arrangements that have been made, the special
+reporting, the cinematographs, the catering for the distinguished foreign
+witnesses, the prepared music-hall allusions; think of all the money that
+has been sunk—”
+
+“Exactly,” said the Duke coldly, “the Duchess and I have realised that it
+is we who provide the material out of which this great far-reaching
+industry has been built up.  Widespread employment will be given and
+enormous profits made during the duration of the case, and we, on whom
+all the stress and racket falls, will get—what?  An unenviable notoriety
+and the privilege of paying heavy legal expenses whichever way the
+verdict goes.  Hence our decision to strike.  We don’t wish to be
+reconciled; we fully realise that it is a grave step to take, but unless
+we get some reasonable consideration out of this vast stream of wealth
+and industry that we have called into being we intend coming out of court
+and staying out.  Good afternoon.”
+
+The news of this latest strike spread universal dismay.  Its
+inaccessibility to the ordinary methods of persuasion made it peculiarly
+formidable.  If the Duke and Duchess persisted in being reconciled the
+Government could hardly be called on to interfere.  Public opinion in the
+shape of social ostracism might be brought to bear on them, but that was
+as far as coercive measures could go.  There was nothing for it but a
+conference, with powers to propose liberal terms.  As it was, several of
+the foreign witnesses had already departed and others had telegraphed
+cancelling their hotel arrangements.
+
+The conference, protracted, uncomfortable, and occasionally acrimonious,
+succeeded at last in arranging for a resumption of litigation, but it was
+a fruitless victory.  The Duke, with a touch of his earlier precocity,
+died of premature decay a fortnight before the date fixed for the new
+trial.
+
+
+
+
+THE ROMANCERS
+
+
+It was autumn in London, that blessed season between the harshness of
+winter and the insincerities of summer; a trustful season when one buys
+bulbs and sees to the registration of one’s vote, believing perpetually
+in spring and a change of Government.
+
+Morton Crosby sat on a bench in a secluded corner of Hyde Park, lazily
+enjoying a cigarette and watching the slow grazing promenade of a pair of
+snow-geese, the male looking rather like an albino edition of the
+russet-hued female.  Out of the corner of his eye Crosby also noted with
+some interest the hesitating hoverings of a human figure, which had
+passed and repassed his seat two or three times at shortening intervals,
+like a wary crow about to alight near some possibly edible morsel.
+Inevitably the figure came to an anchorage on the bench, within easy
+talking distance of its original occupant.  The uncared-for clothes, the
+aggressive, grizzled beard, and the furtive, evasive eye of the new-comer
+bespoke the professional cadger, the man who would undergo hours of
+humiliating tale-spinning and rebuff rather than adventure on half a
+day’s decent work.
+
+For a while the new-comer fixed his eyes straight in front of him in a
+strenuous, unseeing gaze; then his voice broke out with the insinuating
+inflection of one who has a story to retail well worth any loiterer’s
+while to listen to.
+
+“It’s a strange world,” he said.
+
+As the statement met with no response he altered it to the form of a
+question.
+
+“I daresay you’ve found it to be a strange world, mister?”
+
+“As far as I am concerned,” said Crosby, “the strangeness has worn off in
+the course of thirty-six years.”
+
+“Ah,” said the greybeard, “I could tell you things that you’d hardly
+believe.  Marvellous things that have really happened to me.”
+
+“Nowadays there is no demand for marvellous things that have really
+happened,” said Crosby discouragingly; “the professional writers of
+fiction turn these things out so much better.  For instance, my
+neighbours tell me wonderful, incredible things that their Aberdeens and
+chows and borzois have done; I never listen to them.  On the other hand,
+I have read ‘The Hound of the Baskervilles’ three times.”
+
+The greybeard moved uneasily in his seat; then he opened up new country.
+
+“I take it that you are a professing Christian,” he observed.
+
+“I am a prominent and I think I may say an influential member of the
+Mussulman community of Eastern Persia,” said Crosby, making an excursion
+himself into the realms of fiction.
+
+The greybeard was obviously disconcerted at this new check to
+introductory conversation, but the defeat was only momentary.
+
+“Persia.  I should never have taken you for a Persian,” he remarked, with
+a somewhat aggrieved air.
+
+“I am not,” said Crosby; “my father was an Afghan.”
+
+“An Afghan!” said the other, smitten into bewildered silence for a
+moment.  Then he recovered himself and renewed his attack.
+
+“Afghanistan.  Ah!  We’ve had some wars with that country; now, I
+daresay, instead of fighting it we might have learned something from it.
+A very wealthy country, I believe.  No real poverty there.”
+
+He raised his voice on the word “poverty” with a suggestion of intense
+feeling.  Crosby saw the opening and avoided it.
+
+“It possesses, nevertheless, a number of highly talented and ingenious
+beggars,” he said; “if I had not spoken so disparagingly of marvellous
+things that have really happened I would tell you the story of Ibrahim
+and the eleven camel-loads of blotting-paper.  Also I have forgotten
+exactly how it ended.”
+
+“My own life-story is a curious one,” said the stranger, apparently
+stifling all desire to hear the history of Ibrahim; “I was not always as
+you see me now.”
+
+“We are supposed to undergo complete change in the course of every seven
+years,” said Crosby, as an explanation of the foregoing announcement.
+
+“I mean I was not always in such distressing circumstances as I am at
+present,” pursued the stranger doggedly.
+
+“That sounds rather rude,” said Crosby stiffly, “considering that you are
+at present talking to a man reputed to be one of the most gifted
+conversationalists of the Afghan border.”
+
+“I don’t mean in that way,” said the greybeard hastily; “I’ve been very
+much interested in your conversation.  I was alluding to my unfortunate
+financial situation.  You mayn’t hardly believe it, but at the present
+moment I am absolutely without a farthing.  Don’t see any prospect of
+getting any money, either, for the next few days.  I don’t suppose you’ve
+ever found yourself in such a position,” he added.
+
+“In the town of Yom,” said Crosby, “which is in Southern Afghanistan, and
+which also happens to be my birthplace, there was a Chinese philosopher
+who used to say that one of the three chiefest human blessings was to be
+absolutely without money.  I forget what the other two were.”
+
+“Ah, I daresay,” said the stranger, in a tone that betrayed no enthusiasm
+for the philosopher’s memory; “and did he practise what he preached?
+That’s the test.”
+
+“He lived happily with very little money or resources,” said Crosby.
+
+“Then I expect he had friends who would help him liberally whenever he
+was in difficulties, such as I am in at present.”
+
+“In Yom,” said Crosby, “it is not necessary to have friends in order to
+obtain help.  Any citizen of Yom would help a stranger as a matter of
+course.”
+
+The greybeard was now genuinely interested.
+
+The conversation had at last taken a favourable turn.
+
+“If someone, like me, for instance, who was in undeserved difficulties,
+asked a citizen of that town you speak of for a small loan to tide over a
+few days’ impecuniosity—five shillings, or perhaps a rather larger
+sum—would it be given to him as a matter of course?”
+
+“There would be a certain preliminary,” said Crosby; “one would take him
+to a wine-shop and treat him to a measure of wine, and then, after a
+little high-flown conversation, one would put the desired sum in his hand
+and wish him good-day.  It is a roundabout way of performing a simple
+transaction, but in the East all ways are roundabout.”
+
+The listener’s eyes were glittering.
+
+“Ah,” he exclaimed, with a thin sneer ringing meaningly through his
+words, “I suppose you’ve given up all those generous customs since you
+left your town.  Don’t practise them now, I expect.”
+
+“No one who has lived in Yom,” said Crosby fervently, “and remembers its
+green hills covered with apricot and almond trees, and the cold water
+that rushes down like a caress from the upland snows and dashes under the
+little wooden bridges, no one who remembers these things and treasures
+the memory of them would ever give up a single one of its unwritten laws
+and customs.  To me they are as binding as though I still lived in that
+hallowed home of my youth.”
+
+“Then if I was to ask you for a small loan—” began the greybeard
+fawningly, edging nearer on the seat and hurriedly wondering how large he
+might safely make his request, “if I was to ask you for, say—”
+
+“At any other time, certainly,” said Crosby; “in the months of November
+and December, however, it is absolutely forbidden for anyone of our race
+to give or receive loans or gifts; in fact, one does not willingly speak
+of them.  It is considered unlucky.  We will therefore close this
+discussion.”
+
+“But it is still October!” exclaimed the adventurer with an eager, angry
+whine, as Crosby rose from his seat; “wants eight days to the end of the
+month!”
+
+“The Afghan November began yesterday,” said Crosby severely, and in
+another moment he was striding across the Park, leaving his recent
+companion scowling and muttering furiously on the seat.
+
+“I don’t believe a word of his story,” he chattered to himself; “pack of
+nasty lies from beginning to end.  Wish I’d told him so to his face.
+Calling himself an Afghan!”
+
+The snorts and snarls that escaped from him for the next quarter of an
+hour went far to support the truth of the old saying that two of a trade
+never agree.
+
+
+
+
+THE SCHARTZ-METTERKLUME METHOD
+
+
+Lady Carlotta stepped out on to the platform of the small wayside station
+and took a turn or two up and down its uninteresting length, to kill time
+till the train should be pleased to proceed on its way.  Then, in the
+roadway beyond, she saw a horse struggling with a more than ample load,
+and a carter of the sort that seems to bear a sullen hatred against the
+animal that helps him to earn a living.  Lady Carlotta promptly betook
+her to the roadway, and put rather a different complexion on the
+struggle.  Certain of her acquaintances were wont to give her plentiful
+admonition as to the undesirability of interfering on behalf of a
+distressed animal, such interference being “none of her business.”  Only
+once had she put the doctrine of non-interference into practice, when one
+of its most eloquent exponents had been besieged for nearly three hours
+in a small and extremely uncomfortable may-tree by an angry boar-pig,
+while Lady Carlotta, on the other side of the fence, had proceeded with
+the water-colour sketch she was engaged on, and refused to interfere
+between the boar and his prisoner.  It is to be feared that she lost the
+friendship of the ultimately rescued lady.  On this occasion she merely
+lost the train, which gave way to the first sign of impatience it had
+shown throughout the journey, and steamed off without her.  She bore the
+desertion with philosophical indifference; her friends and relations were
+thoroughly well used to the fact of her luggage arriving without her.
+She wired a vague non-committal message to her destination to say that
+she was coming on “by another train.”  Before she had time to think what
+her next move might be she was confronted by an imposingly attired lady,
+who seemed to be taking a prolonged mental inventory of her clothes and
+looks.
+
+“You must be Miss Hope, the governess I’ve come to meet,” said the
+apparition, in a tone that admitted of very little argument.
+
+“Very well, if I must I must,” said Lady Carlotta to herself with
+dangerous meekness.
+
+“I am Mrs. Quabarl,” continued the lady; “and where, pray, is your
+luggage?”
+
+“It’s gone astray,” said the alleged governess, falling in with the
+excellent rule of life that the absent are always to blame; the luggage
+had, in point of fact, behaved with perfect correctitude.  “I’ve just
+telegraphed about it,” she added, with a nearer approach to truth.
+
+“How provoking,” said Mrs. Quabarl; “these railway companies are so
+careless.  However, my maid can lend you things for the night,” and she
+led the way to her car.
+
+During the drive to the Quabarl mansion Lady Carlotta was impressively
+introduced to the nature of the charge that had been thrust upon her; she
+learned that Claude and Wilfrid were delicate, sensitive young people,
+that Irene had the artistic temperament highly developed, and that Viola
+was something or other else of a mould equally commonplace among children
+of that class and type in the twentieth century.
+
+“I wish them not only to be _taught_,” said Mrs. Quabarl, “but
+_interested_ in what they learn.  In their history lessons, for instance,
+you must try to make them feel that they are being introduced to the
+life-stories of men and women who really lived, not merely committing a
+mass of names and dates to memory.  French, of course, I shall expect you
+to talk at meal-times several days in the week.”
+
+“I shall talk French four days of the week and Russian in the remaining
+three.”
+
+“Russian?  My dear Miss Hope, no one in the house speaks or understands
+Russian.”
+
+“That will not embarrass me in the least,” said Lady Carlotta coldly.
+
+Mrs. Quabarl, to use a colloquial expression, was knocked off her perch.
+She was one of those imperfectly self-assured individuals who are
+magnificent and autocratic as long as they are not seriously opposed.
+The least show of unexpected resistance goes a long way towards rendering
+them cowed and apologetic.  When the new governess failed to express
+wondering admiration of the large newly-purchased and expensive car, and
+lightly alluded to the superior advantages of one or two makes which had
+just been put on the market, the discomfiture of her patroness became
+almost abject.  Her feelings were those which might have animated a
+general of ancient warfaring days, on beholding his heaviest
+battle-elephant ignominiously driven off the field by slingers and
+javelin throwers.
+
+At dinner that evening, although reinforced by her husband, who usually
+duplicated her opinions and lent her moral support generally, Mrs.
+Quabarl regained none of her lost ground.  The governess not only helped
+herself well and truly to wine, but held forth with considerable show of
+critical knowledge on various vintage matters, concerning which the
+Quabarls were in no wise able to pose as authorities.  Previous
+governesses had limited their conversation on the wine topic to a
+respectful and doubtless sincere expression of a preference for water.
+When this one went as far as to recommend a wine firm in whose hands you
+could not go very far wrong Mrs. Quabarl thought it time to turn the
+conversation into more usual channels.
+
+“We got very satisfactory references about you from Canon Teep,” she
+observed; “a very estimable man, I should think.”
+
+“Drinks like a fish and beats his wife, otherwise a very lovable
+character,” said the governess imperturbably.
+
+“_My dear_ Miss Hope!  I trust you are exaggerating,” exclaimed the
+Quabarls in unison.
+
+“One must in justice admit that there is some provocation,” continued the
+romancer.  “Mrs. Teep is quite the most irritating bridge-player that I
+have ever sat down with; her leads and declarations would condone a
+certain amount of brutality in her partner, but to souse her with the
+contents of the only soda-water syphon in the house on a Sunday
+afternoon, when one couldn’t get another, argues an indifference to the
+comfort of others which I cannot altogether overlook.  You may think me
+hasty in my judgments, but it was practically on account of the syphon
+incident that I left.”
+
+“We will talk of this some other time,” said Mrs. Quabarl hastily.
+
+“I shall never allude to it again,” said the governess with decision.
+
+Mr. Quabarl made a welcome diversion by asking what studies the new
+instructress proposed to inaugurate on the morrow.
+
+“History to begin with,” she informed him.
+
+“Ah, history,” he observed sagely; “now in teaching them history you must
+take care to interest them in what they learn.  You must make them feel
+that they are being introduced to the life-stories of men and women who
+really lived—”
+
+“I’ve told her all that,” interposed Mrs. Quabarl.
+
+“I teach history on the Schartz-Metterklume method,” said the governess
+loftily.
+
+“Ah, yes,” said her listeners, thinking it expedient to assume an
+acquaintance at least with the name.
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+“What are you children doing out here?” demanded Mrs. Quabarl the next
+morning, on finding Irene sitting rather glumly at the head of the
+stairs, while her sister was perched in an attitude of depressed
+discomfort on the window-seat behind her, with a wolf-skin rug almost
+covering her.
+
+“We are having a history lesson,” came the unexpected reply.  “I am
+supposed to be Rome, and Viola up there is the she-wolf; not a real wolf,
+but the figure of one that the Romans used to set store by—I forget why.
+Claude and Wilfrid have gone to fetch the shabby women.”
+
+“The shabby women?”
+
+“Yes, they’ve got to carry them off.  They didn’t want to, but Miss Hope
+got one of father’s fives-bats and said she’d give them a number nine
+spanking if they didn’t, so they’ve gone to do it.”
+
+A loud, angry screaming from the direction of the lawn drew Mrs. Quabarl
+thither in hot haste, fearful lest the threatened castigation might even
+now be in process of infliction.  The outcry, however, came principally
+from the two small daughters of the lodge-keeper, who were being hauled
+and pushed towards the house by the panting and dishevelled Claude and
+Wilfrid, whose task was rendered even more arduous by the incessant, if
+not very effectual, attacks of the captured maidens’ small brother.  The
+governess, fives-bat in hand, sat negligently on the stone balustrade,
+presiding over the scene with the cold impartiality of a Goddess of
+Battles.  A furious and repeated chorus of “I’ll tell muvver” rose from
+the lodge-children, but the lodge-mother, who was hard of hearing, was
+for the moment immersed in the preoccupation of her washtub.
+
+After an apprehensive glance in the direction of the lodge (the good
+woman was gifted with the highly militant temper which is sometimes the
+privilege of deafness) Mrs. Quabarl flew indignantly to the rescue of the
+struggling captives.
+
+“Wilfrid!  Claude!  Let those children go at once.  Miss Hope, what on
+earth is the meaning of this scene?”
+
+“Early Roman history; the Sabine Women, don’t you know?  It’s the
+Schartz-Metterklume method to make children understand history by acting
+it themselves; fixes it in their memory, you know.  Of course, if, thanks
+to your interference, your boys go through life thinking that the Sabine
+women ultimately escaped, I really cannot be held responsible.”
+
+“You may be very clever and modern, Miss Hope,” said Mrs. Quabarl firmly,
+“but I should like you to leave here by the next train.  Your luggage
+will be sent after you as soon as it arrives.”
+
+“I’m not certain exactly where I shall be for the next few days,” said
+the dismissed instructress of youth; “you might keep my luggage till I
+wire my address.  There are only a couple of trunks and some golf-clubs
+and a leopard cub.”
+
+“A leopard cub!” gasped Mrs. Quabarl.  Even in her departure this
+extraordinary person seemed destined to leave a trail of embarrassment
+behind her.
+
+“Well, it’s rather left off being a cub; it’s more than half-grown, you
+know.  A fowl every day and a rabbit on Sundays is what it usually gets.
+Raw beef makes it too excitable.  Don’t trouble about getting the car for
+me, I’m rather inclined for a walk.”
+
+And Lady Carlotta strode out of the Quabarl horizon.
+
+The advent of the genuine Miss Hope, who had made a mistake as to the day
+on which she was due to arrive, caused a turmoil which that good lady was
+quite unused to inspiring.  Obviously the Quabarl family had been
+woefully befooled, but a certain amount of relief came with the
+knowledge.
+
+“How tiresome for you, dear Carlotta,” said her hostess, when the overdue
+guest ultimately arrived; “how very tiresome losing your train and having
+to stop overnight in a strange place.”
+
+“Oh dear, no,” said Lady Carlotta; “not at all tiresome—for me.”
+
+
+
+
+THE SEVENTH PULLET
+
+
+“It’s not the daily grind that I complain of,” said Blenkinthrope
+resentfully; “it’s the dull grey sameness of my life outside of office
+hours.  Nothing of interest comes my way, nothing remarkable or out of
+the common.  Even the little things that I do try to find some interest
+in don’t seem to interest other people.  Things in my garden, for
+instance.”
+
+“The potato that weighed just over two pounds,” said his friend Gorworth.
+
+“Did I tell you about that?” said Blenkinthrope; “I was telling the
+others in the train this morning.  I forgot if I’d told you.”
+
+“To be exact you told me that it weighed just under two pounds, but I
+took into account the fact that abnormal vegetables and freshwater fish
+have an after-life, in which growth is not arrested.”
+
+“You’re just like the others,” said Blenkinthrope sadly, “you only make
+fun of it.”
+
+“The fault is with the potato, not with us,” said Gorworth; “we are not
+in the least interested in it because it is not in the least interesting.
+The men you go up in the train with every day are just in the same case
+as yourself; their lives are commonplace and not very interesting to
+themselves, and they certainly are not going to wax enthusiastic over the
+commonplace events in other men’s lives.  Tell them something startling,
+dramatic, piquant that has happened to yourself or to someone in your
+family, and you will capture their interest at once.  They will talk
+about you with a certain personal pride to all their acquaintances.  ‘Man
+I know intimately, fellow called Blenkinthrope, lives down my way, had
+two of his fingers clawed clean off by a lobster he was carrying home to
+supper.  Doctor says entire hand may have to come off.’  Now that is
+conversation of a very high order.  But imagine walking into a tennis
+club with the remark: ‘I know a man who has grown a potato weighing two
+and a quarter pounds.’”
+
+“But hang it all, my dear fellow,” said Blenkinthrope impatiently,
+“haven’t I just told you that nothing of a remarkable nature ever happens
+to me?”
+
+“Invent something,” said Gorworth.  Since winning a prize for excellence
+in Scriptural knowledge at a preparatory school he had felt licensed to
+be a little more unscrupulous than the circle he moved in.  Much might
+surely be excused to one who in early life could give a list of seventeen
+trees mentioned in the Old Testament.
+
+“What sort of thing?” asked Blenkinthrope, somewhat snappishly.
+
+“A snake got into your hen-run yesterday morning and killed six out of
+seven pullets, first mesmerising them with its eyes and then biting them
+as they stood helpless.  The seventh pullet was one of that French sort,
+with feathers all over its eyes, so it escaped the mesmeric snare, and
+just flew at what it could see of the snake and pecked it to pieces.”
+
+“Thank you,” said Blenkinthrope stiffly; “it’s a very clever invention.
+If such a thing had really happened in my poultry-run I admit I should
+have been proud and interested to tell people about it.  But I’d rather
+stick to fact, even if it is plain fact.”  All the same his mind dwelt
+wistfully on the story of the Seventh Pullet.  He could picture himself
+telling it in the train amid the absorbed interest of his
+fellow-passengers.  Unconsciously all sorts of little details and
+improvements began to suggest themselves.
+
+Wistfulness was still his dominant mood when he took his seat in the
+railway carriage the next morning.  Opposite him sat Stevenham, who had
+attained to a recognised brevet of importance through the fact of an
+uncle having dropped dead in the act of voting at a Parliamentary
+election.  That had happened three years ago, but Stevenham was still
+deferred to on all questions of home and foreign politics.
+
+“Hullo, how’s the giant mushroom, or whatever it was?” was all the notice
+Blenkinthrope got from his fellow travellers.
+
+Young Duckby, whom he mildly disliked, speedily monopolised the general
+attention by an account of a domestic bereavement.
+
+“Had four young pigeons carried off last night by a whacking big rat.
+Oh, a monster he must have been; you could tell by the size of the hole
+he made breaking into the loft.”
+
+No moderate-sized rat ever seemed to carry out any predatory operations
+in these regions; they were all enormous in their enormity.
+
+“Pretty hard lines that,” continued Duckby, seeing that he had secured
+the attention and respect of the company; “four squeakers carried off at
+one swoop.  You’d find it rather hard to match that in the way of
+unlooked-for bad luck.”
+
+“I had six pullets out of a pen of seven killed by a snake yesterday
+afternoon,” said Blenkinthrope, in a voice which he hardly recognised as
+his own.
+
+“By a snake?” came in excited chorus.
+
+“It fascinated them with its deadly, glittering eyes, one after the
+other, and struck them down while they stood helpless.  A bedridden
+neighbour, who wasn’t able to call for assistance, witnessed it all from
+her bedroom window.”
+
+“Well, I never!” broke in the chorus, with variations.
+
+“The interesting part of it is about the seventh pullet, the one that
+didn’t get killed,” resumed Blenkinthrope, slowly lighting a cigarette.
+His diffidence had left him, and he was beginning to realise how safe and
+easy depravity can seem once one has the courage to begin.  “The six dead
+birds were Minorcas; the seventh was a Houdan with a mop of feathers all
+over its eyes.  It could hardly see the snake at all, so of course it
+wasn’t mesmerised like the others.  It just could see something wriggling
+on the ground, and went for it and pecked it to death.”
+
+“Well, I’m blessed!” exclaimed the chorus.
+
+In the course of the next few days Blenkinthrope discovered how little
+the loss of one’s self-respect affects one when one has gained the esteem
+of the world.  His story found its way into one of the poultry papers,
+and was copied thence into a daily news-sheet as a matter of general
+interest.  A lady wrote from the North of Scotland recounting a similar
+episode which she had witnessed as occurring between a stoat and a blind
+grouse.  Somehow a lie seems so much less reprehensible when one can call
+it a lee.
+
+For awhile the adapter of the Seventh Pullet story enjoyed to the full
+his altered standing as a person of consequence, one who had had some
+share in the strange events of his times.  Then he was thrust once again
+into the cold grey background by the sudden blossoming into importance of
+Smith-Paddon, a daily fellow-traveller, whose little girl had been
+knocked down and nearly hurt by a car belonging to a musical-comedy
+actress.  The actress was not in the car at the time, but she was in
+numerous photographs which appeared in the illustrated papers of Zoto
+Dobreen inquiring after the well-being of Maisie, daughter of Edmund
+Smith-Paddon, Esq.  With this new human interest to absorb them the
+travelling companions were almost rude when Blenkinthrope tried to
+explain his contrivance for keeping vipers and peregrine falcons out of
+his chicken-run.
+
+Gorworth, to whom he unburdened himself in private, gave him the same
+counsel as heretofore.
+
+“Invent something.”
+
+“Yes, but what?”
+
+The ready affirmative coupled with the question betrayed a significant
+shifting of the ethical standpoint.
+
+It was a few days later that Blenkinthrope revealed a chapter of family
+history to the customary gathering in the railway carriage.
+
+“Curious thing happened to my aunt, the one who lives in Paris,” he
+began.  He had several aunts, but they were all geographically
+distributed over Greater London.
+
+“She was sitting on a seat in the Bois the other afternoon, after
+lunching at the Roumanian Legation.”
+
+Whatever the story gained in picturesqueness from the dragging-in of
+diplomatic “atmosphere,” it ceased from that moment to command any
+acceptance as a record of current events.  Gorworth had warned his
+neophyte that this would be the case, but the traditional enthusiasm of
+the neophyte had triumphed over discretion.
+
+“She was feeling rather drowsy, the effect probably of the champagne,
+which she’s not in the habit of taking in the middle of the day.”
+
+A subdued murmur of admiration went round the company.  Blenkinthrope’s
+aunts were not used to taking champagne in the middle of the year,
+regarding it exclusively as a Christmas and New Year accessory.
+
+“Presently a rather portly gentleman passed by her seat and paused an
+instant to light a cigar.  At that moment a youngish man came up behind
+him, drew the blade from a swordstick, and stabbed him half a dozen times
+through and through.  ‘Scoundrel,’ he cried to his victim, ‘you do not
+know me.  My name is Henri Leturc.’  The elder man wiped away some of the
+blood that was spattering his clothes, turned to his assailant, and said:
+‘And since when has an attempted assassination been considered an
+introduction?’  Then he finished lighting his cigar and walked away.  My
+aunt had intended screaming for the police, but seeing the indifference
+with which the principal in the affair treated the matter she felt that
+it would be an impertinence on her part to interfere.  Of course I need
+hardly say she put the whole thing down to the effects of a warm, drowsy
+afternoon and the Legation champagne.  Now comes the astonishing part of
+my story.  A fortnight later a bank manager was stabbed to death with a
+swordstick in that very part of the Bois.  His assassin was the son of a
+charwoman formerly working at the bank, who had been dismissed from her
+job by the manager on account of chronic intemperance.  His name was
+Henri Leturc.”
+
+From that moment Blenkinthrope was tacitly accepted as the Munchausen of
+the party.  No effort was spared to draw him out from day to day in the
+exercise of testing their powers of credulity, and Blenkinthrope, in the
+false security of an assured and receptive audience, waxed industrious
+and ingenious in supplying the demand for marvels.  Duckby’s satirical
+story of a tame otter that had a tank in the garden to swim in, and
+whined restlessly whenever the water-rate was overdue, was scarcely an
+unfair parody of some of Blenkinthrope’s wilder efforts.  And then one
+day came Nemesis.
+
+Returning to his villa one evening Blenkinthrope found his wife sitting
+in front of a pack of cards, which she was scrutinising with unusual
+concentration.
+
+“The same old patience-game?” he asked carelessly.
+
+“No, dear; this is the Death’s Head patience, the most difficult of them
+all.  I’ve never got it to work out, and somehow I should be rather
+frightened if I did.  Mother only got it out once in her life; she was
+afraid of it, too.  Her great-aunt had done it once and fallen dead from
+excitement the next moment, and mother always had a feeling that she
+would die if she ever got it out.  She died the same night that she did
+it.  She was in bad health at the time, certainly, but it was a strange
+coincidence.”
+
+“Don’t do it if it frightens you,” was Blenkinthrope’s practical comment
+as he left the room.  A few minutes later his wife called to him.
+
+“John, it gave me such a turn, I nearly got it out.  Only the five of
+diamonds held me up at the end.  I really thought I’d done it.”
+
+“Why, you can do it,” said Blenkinthrope, who had come back to the room;
+“if you shift the eight of clubs on to that open nine the five can be
+moved on to the six.”
+
+His wife made the suggested move with hasty, trembling fingers, and piled
+the outstanding cards on to their respective packs.  Then she followed
+the example of her mother and great-grand-aunt.
+
+Blenkinthrope had been genuinely fond of his wife, but in the midst of
+his bereavement one dominant thought obtruded itself.  Something
+sensational and real had at last come into his life; no longer was it a
+grey, colourless record.  The headlines which might appropriately
+describe his domestic tragedy kept shaping themselves in his brain.
+“Inherited presentiment comes true.”  “The Death’s Head patience:
+Card-game that justified its sinister name in three generations.”  He
+wrote out a full story of the fatal occurrence for the _Essex Vedette_,
+the editor of which was a friend of his, and to another friend he gave a
+condensed account, to be taken up to the office of one of the halfpenny
+dailies.  But in both cases his reputation as a romancer stood fatally in
+the way of the fulfilment of his ambitions.  “Not the right thing to be
+Munchausening in a time of sorrow” agreed his friends among themselves,
+and a brief note of regret at the “sudden death of the wife of our
+respected neighbour, Mr. John Blenkinthrope, from heart failure,”
+appearing in the news column of the local paper was the forlorn outcome
+of his visions of widespread publicity.
+
+Blenkinthrope shrank from the society of his erstwhile travelling
+companions and took to travelling townwards by an earlier train.  He
+sometimes tries to enlist the sympathy and attention of a chance
+acquaintance in details of the whistling prowess of his best canary or
+the dimensions of his largest beetroot; he scarcely recognises himself as
+the man who was once spoken about and pointed out as the owner of the
+Seventh Pullet.
+
+
+
+
+THE BLIND SPOT
+
+
+“You’ve just come back from Adelaide’s funeral, haven’t you?” said Sir
+Lulworth to his nephew; “I suppose it was very like most other funerals?”
+
+“I’ll tell you all about it at lunch,” said Egbert.
+
+“You’ll do nothing of the sort.  It wouldn’t be respectful either to your
+great-aunt’s memory or to the lunch.  We begin with Spanish olives, then
+a borshch, then more olives and a bird of some kind, and a rather
+enticing Rhenish wine, not at all expensive as wines go in this country,
+but still quite laudable in its way.  Now there’s absolutely nothing in
+that menu that harmonises in the least with the subject of your
+great-aunt Adelaide or her funeral.  She was a charming woman, and quite
+as intelligent as she had any need to be, but somehow she always reminded
+me of an English cook’s idea of a Madras curry.”
+
+“She used to say you were frivolous,” said Egbert.  Something in his tone
+suggested that he rather endorsed the verdict.
+
+“I believe I once considerably scandalised her by declaring that clear
+soup was a more important factor in life than a clear conscience.  She
+had very little sense of proportion.  By the way, she made you her
+principal heir, didn’t she?”
+
+“Yes,” said Egbert, “and executor as well.  It’s in that connection that
+I particularly want to speak to you.”
+
+“Business is not my strong point at any time,” said Sir Lulworth, “and
+certainly not when we’re on the immediate threshold of lunch.”
+
+“It isn’t exactly business,” explained Egbert, as he followed his uncle
+into the dining-room.
+
+“It’s something rather serious.  Very serious.”
+
+“Then we can’t possibly speak about it now,” said Sir Lulworth; “no one
+could talk seriously during a borshch.  A beautifully constructed
+borshch, such as you are going to experience presently, ought not only to
+banish conversation but almost to annihilate thought.  Later on, when we
+arrive at the second stage of olives, I shall be quite ready to discuss
+that new book on Borrow, or, if you prefer it, the present situation in
+the Grand Duchy of Luxemburg.  But I absolutely decline to talk anything
+approaching business till we have finished with the bird.”
+
+For the greater part of the meal Egbert sat in an abstracted silence, the
+silence of a man whose mind is focussed on one topic.  When the coffee
+stage had been reached he launched himself suddenly athwart his uncle’s
+reminiscences of the Court of Luxemburg.
+
+“I think I told you that great-aunt Adelaide had made me her executor.
+There wasn’t very much to be done in the way of legal matters, but I had
+to go through her papers.”
+
+“That would be a fairly heavy task in itself.  I should imagine there
+were reams of family letters.”
+
+“Stacks of them, and most of them highly uninteresting.  There was one
+packet, however, which I thought might repay a careful perusal.  It was a
+bundle of correspondence from her brother Peter.”
+
+“The Canon of tragic memory,” said Lulworth.
+
+“Exactly, of tragic memory, as you say; a tragedy that has never been
+fathomed.”
+
+“Probably the simplest explanation was the correct one,” said Sir
+Lulworth; “he slipped on the stone staircase and fractured his skull in
+falling.”
+
+Egbert shook his head.  “The medical evidence all went to prove that the
+blow on the head was struck by some one coming up behind him.  A wound
+caused by violent contact with the steps could not possibly have been
+inflicted at that angle of the skull.  They experimented with a dummy
+figure falling in every conceivable position.”
+
+“But the motive?” exclaimed Sir Lulworth; “no one had any interest in
+doing away with him, and the number of people who destroy Canons of the
+Established Church for the mere fun of killing must be extremely limited.
+Of course there are individuals of weak mental balance who do that sort
+of thing, but they seldom conceal their handiwork; they are more
+generally inclined to parade it.”
+
+“His cook was under suspicion,” said Egbert shortly.
+
+“I know he was,” said Sir Lulworth, “simply because he was about the only
+person on the premises at the time of the tragedy.  But could anything be
+sillier than trying to fasten a charge of murder on to Sebastien?  He had
+nothing to gain, in fact, a good deal to lose, from the death of his
+employer.  The Canon was paying him quite as good wages as I was able to
+offer him when I took him over into my service.  I have since raised them
+to something a little more in accordance with his real worth, but at the
+time he was glad to find a new place without troubling about an increase
+of wages.  People were fighting rather shy of him, and he had no friends
+in this country.  No; if anyone in the world was interested in the
+prolonged life and unimpaired digestion of the Canon it would certainly
+be Sebastien.”
+
+“People don’t always weigh the consequences of their rash acts,” said
+Egbert, “otherwise there would be very few murders committed.  Sebastien
+is a man of hot temper.”
+
+“He is a southerner,” admitted Sir Lulworth; “to be geographically exact
+I believe he hails from the French slopes of the Pyrenees.  I took that
+into consideration when he nearly killed the gardener’s boy the other day
+for bringing him a spurious substitute for sorrel.  One must always make
+allowances for origin and locality and early environment; ‘Tell me your
+longitude and I’ll know what latitude to allow you,’ is my motto.”
+
+“There, you see,” said Egbert, “he nearly killed the gardener’s boy.”
+
+“My dear Egbert, between nearly killing a gardener’s boy and altogether
+killing a Canon there is a wide difference.  No doubt you have often felt
+a temporary desire to kill a gardener’s boy; you have never given way to
+it, and I respect you for your self-control.  But I don’t suppose you
+have ever wanted to kill an octogenarian Canon.  Besides, as far as we
+know, there had never been any quarrel or disagreement between the two
+men.  The evidence at the inquest brought that out very clearly.”
+
+“Ah!” said Egbert, with the air of a man coming at last into a deferred
+inheritance of conversational importance, “that is precisely what I want
+to speak to you about.”
+
+He pushed away his coffee cup and drew a pocket-book from his inner
+breast-pocket.  From the depths of the pocket-book he produced an
+envelope, and from the envelope he extracted a letter, closely written in
+a small, neat handwriting.
+
+“One of the Canon’s numerous letters to Aunt Adelaide,” he explained,
+“written a few days before his death.  Her memory was already failing
+when she received it, and I daresay she forgot the contents as soon as
+she had read it; otherwise, in the light of what subsequently happened,
+we should have heard something of this letter before now.  If it had been
+produced at the inquest I fancy it would have made some difference in the
+course of affairs.  The evidence, as you remarked just now, choked off
+suspicion against Sebastien by disclosing an utter absence of anything
+that could be considered a motive or provocation for the crime, if crime
+there was.”
+
+“Oh, read the letter,” said Sir Lulworth impatiently.
+
+“It’s a long rambling affair, like most of his letters in his later
+years,” said Egbert.  “I’ll read the part that bears immediately on the
+mystery.
+
+“‘I very much fear I shall have to get rid of Sebastien.  He cooks
+divinely, but he has the temper of a fiend or an anthropoid ape, and I am
+really in bodily fear of him.  We had a dispute the other day as to the
+correct sort of lunch to be served on Ash Wednesday, and I got so
+irritated and annoyed at his conceit and obstinacy that at last I threw a
+cupful of coffee in his face and called him at the same time an impudent
+jackanapes.  Very little of the coffee went actually in his face, but I
+have never seen a human being show such deplorable lack of self-control.
+I laughed at the threat of killing me that he spluttered out in his rage,
+and thought the whole thing would blow over, but I have several times
+since caught him scowling and muttering in a highly unpleasant fashion,
+and lately I have fancied that he was dogging my footsteps about the
+grounds, particularly when I walk of an evening in the Italian Garden.’
+
+“It was on the steps in the Italian Garden that the body was found,”
+commented Egbert, and resumed reading.
+
+“‘I daresay the danger is imaginary; but I shall feel more at ease when
+he has quitted my service.’”
+
+Egbert paused for a moment at the conclusion of the extract; then, as his
+uncle made no remark, he added: “If lack of motive was the only factor
+that saved Sebastien from prosecution I fancy this letter will put a
+different complexion on matters.”
+
+“Have you shown it to anyone else?” asked Sir Lulworth, reaching out his
+hand for the incriminating piece of paper.
+
+“No,” said Egbert, handing it across the table, “I thought I would tell
+you about it first.  Heavens, what are you doing?”
+
+Egbert’s voice rose almost to a scream.  Sir Lulworth had flung the paper
+well and truly into the glowing centre of the grate.  The small, neat
+handwriting shrivelled into black flaky nothingness.
+
+“What on earth did you do that for?” gasped Egbert.  “That letter was our
+one piece of evidence to connect Sebastien with the crime.”
+
+“That is why I destroyed it,” said Sir Lulworth.
+
+“But why should you want to shield him?” cried Egbert; “the man is a
+common murderer.”
+
+“A common murderer, possibly, but a very uncommon cook.”
+
+
+
+
+DUSK
+
+
+Norman Gortsby sat on a bench in the Park, with his back to a strip of
+bush-planted sward, fenced by the park railings, and the Row fronting him
+across a wide stretch of carriage drive.  Hyde Park Corner, with its
+rattle and hoot of traffic, lay immediately to his right.  It was some
+thirty minutes past six on an early March evening, and dusk had fallen
+heavily over the scene, dusk mitigated by some faint moonlight and many
+street lamps.  There was a wide emptiness over road and sidewalk, and yet
+there were many unconsidered figures moving silently through the
+half-light, or dotted unobtrusively on bench and chair, scarcely to be
+distinguished from the shadowed gloom in which they sat.
+
+The scene pleased Gortsby and harmonised with his present mood.  Dusk, to
+his mind, was the hour of the defeated.  Men and women, who had fought
+and lost, who hid their fallen fortunes and dead hopes as far as possible
+from the scrutiny of the curious, came forth in this hour of gloaming,
+when their shabby clothes and bowed shoulders and unhappy eyes might pass
+unnoticed, or, at any rate, unrecognised.
+
+    A king that is conquered must see strange looks,
+    So bitter a thing is the heart of man.
+
+The wanderers in the dusk did not choose to have strange looks fasten on
+them, therefore they came out in this bat-fashion, taking their pleasure
+sadly in a pleasure-ground that had emptied of its rightful occupants.
+Beyond the sheltering screen of bushes and palings came a realm of
+brilliant lights and noisy, rushing traffic.  A blazing, many-tiered
+stretch of windows shone through the dusk and almost dispersed it,
+marking the haunts of those other people, who held their own in life’s
+struggle, or at any rate had not had to admit failure.  So Gortsby’s
+imagination pictured things as he sat on his bench in the almost deserted
+walk.  He was in the mood to count himself among the defeated.  Money
+troubles did not press on him; had he so wished he could have strolled
+into the thoroughfares of light and noise, and taken his place among the
+jostling ranks of those who enjoyed prosperity or struggled for it.  He
+had failed in a more subtle ambition, and for the moment he was heartsore
+and disillusionised, and not disinclined to take a certain cynical
+pleasure in observing and labelling his fellow wanderers as they went
+their ways in the dark stretches between the lamp-lights.
+
+On the bench by his side sat an elderly gentleman with a drooping air of
+defiance that was probably the remaining vestige of self-respect in an
+individual who had ceased to defy successfully anybody or anything.  His
+clothes could scarcely be called shabby, at least they passed muster in
+the half-light, but one’s imagination could not have pictured the wearer
+embarking on the purchase of a half-crown box of chocolates or laying out
+ninepence on a carnation buttonhole.  He belonged unmistakably to that
+forlorn orchestra to whose piping no one dances; he was one of the
+world’s lamenters who induce no responsive weeping.  As he rose to go
+Gortsby imagined him returning to a home circle where he was snubbed and
+of no account, or to some bleak lodging where his ability to pay a weekly
+bill was the beginning and end of the interest he inspired.  His
+retreating figure vanished slowly into the shadows, and his place on the
+bench was taken almost immediately by a young man, fairly well dressed
+but scarcely more cheerful of mien than his predecessor.  As if to
+emphasise the fact that the world went badly with him the new-corner
+unburdened himself of an angry and very audible expletive as he flung
+himself into the seat.
+
+“You don’t seem in a very good temper,” said Gortsby, judging that he was
+expected to take due notice of the demonstration.
+
+The young man turned to him with a look of disarming frankness which put
+him instantly on his guard.
+
+“You wouldn’t be in a good temper if you were in the fix I’m in,” he
+said; “I’ve done the silliest thing I’ve ever done in my life.”
+
+“Yes?” said Gortsby dispassionately.
+
+“Came up this afternoon, meaning to stay at the Patagonian Hotel in
+Berkshire Square,” continued the young man; “when I got there I found it
+had been pulled down some weeks ago and a cinema theatre run up on the
+site.  The taxi driver recommended me to another hotel some way off and I
+went there.  I just sent a letter to my people, giving them the address,
+and then I went out to buy some soap—I’d forgotten to pack any and I hate
+using hotel soap.  Then I strolled about a bit, had a drink at a bar and
+looked at the shops, and when I came to turn my steps back to the hotel I
+suddenly realised that I didn’t remember its name or even what street it
+was in.  There’s a nice predicament for a fellow who hasn’t any friends
+or connections in London!  Of course I can wire to my people for the
+address, but they won’t have got my letter till to-morrow; meantime I’m
+without any money, came out with about a shilling on me, which went in
+buying the soap and getting the drink, and here I am, wandering about
+with twopence in my pocket and nowhere to go for the night.”
+
+There was an eloquent pause after the story had been told.  “I suppose
+you think I’ve spun you rather an impossible yarn,” said the young man
+presently, with a suggestion of resentment in his voice.
+
+“Not at all impossible,” said Gortsby judicially; “I remember doing
+exactly the same thing once in a foreign capital, and on that occasion
+there were two of us, which made it more remarkable.  Luckily we
+remembered that the hotel was on a sort of canal, and when we struck the
+canal we were able to find our way back to the hotel.”
+
+The youth brightened at the reminiscence.  “In a foreign city I wouldn’t
+mind so much,” he said; “one could go to one’s Consul and get the
+requisite help from him.  Here in one’s own land one is far more derelict
+if one gets into a fix.  Unless I can find some decent chap to swallow my
+story and lend me some money I seem likely to spend the night on the
+Embankment.  I’m glad, anyhow, that you don’t think the story
+outrageously improbable.”
+
+He threw a good deal of warmth into the last remark, as though perhaps to
+indicate his hope that Gortsby did not fall far short of the requisite
+decency.
+
+“Of course,” said Gortsby slowly, “the weak point of your story is that
+you can’t produce the soap.”
+
+The young man sat forward hurriedly, felt rapidly in the pockets of his
+overcoat, and then jumped to his feet.
+
+“I must have lost it,” he muttered angrily.
+
+“To lose an hotel and a cake of soap on one afternoon suggests wilful
+carelessness,” said Gortsby, but the young man scarcely waited to hear
+the end of the remark.  He flitted away down the path, his head held
+high, with an air of somewhat jaded jauntiness.
+
+“It was a pity,” mused Gortsby; “the going out to get one’s own soap was
+the one convincing touch in the whole story, and yet it was just that
+little detail that brought him to grief.  If he had had the brilliant
+forethought to provide himself with a cake of soap, wrapped and sealed
+with all the solicitude of the chemist’s counter, he would have been a
+genius in his particular line.  In his particular line genius certainly
+consists of an infinite capacity for taking precautions.”
+
+With that reflection Gortsby rose to go; as he did so an exclamation of
+concern escaped him.  Lying on the ground by the side of the bench was a
+small oval packet, wrapped and sealed with the solicitude of a chemist’s
+counter.  It could be nothing else but a cake of soap, and it had
+evidently fallen out of the youth’s overcoat pocket when he flung himself
+down on the seat.  In another moment Gortsby was scudding along the
+dusk-shrouded path in anxious quest for a youthful figure in a light
+overcoat.  He had nearly given up the search when he caught sight of the
+object of his pursuit standing irresolutely on the border of the carriage
+drive, evidently uncertain whether to strike across the Park or make for
+the bustling pavements of Knightsbridge.  He turned round sharply with an
+air of defensive hostility when he found Gortsby hailing him.
+
+“The important witness to the genuineness of your story has turned up,”
+said Gortsby, holding out the cake of soap; “it must have slid out of
+your overcoat pocket when you sat down on the seat.  I saw it on the
+ground after you left.  You must excuse my disbelief, but appearances
+were really rather against you, and now, as I appealed to the testimony
+of the soap I think I ought to abide by its verdict.  If the loan of a
+sovereign is any good to you—”
+
+The young man hastily removed all doubt on the subject by pocketing the
+coin.
+
+“Here is my card with my address,” continued Gortsby; “any day this week
+will do for returning the money, and here is the soap—don’t lose it again
+it’s been a good friend to you.”
+
+“Lucky thing your finding it,” said the youth, and then, with a catch in
+his voice, he blurted out a word or two of thanks and fled headlong in
+the direction of Knightsbridge.
+
+“Poor boy, he as nearly as possible broke down,” said Gortsby to himself.
+“I don’t wonder either; the relief from his quandary must have been
+acute.  It’s a lesson to me not to be too clever in judging by
+circumstances.”
+
+As Gortsby retraced his steps past the seat where the little drama had
+taken place he saw an elderly gentleman poking and peering beneath it and
+on all sides of it, and recognised his earlier fellow occupant.
+
+“Have you lost anything, sir?” he asked.
+
+“Yes, sir, a cake of soap.”
+
+
+
+
+A TOUCH OF REALISM
+
+
+“I hope you’ve come full of suggestions for Christmas,” said Lady Blonze
+to her latest arrived guest; “the old-fashioned Christmas and the
+up-to-date Christmas are both so played out.  I want to have something
+really original this year.”
+
+“I was staying with the Mathesons last month,” said Blanche Boveal
+eagerly, “and we had such a good idea.  Every one in the house-party had
+to be a character and behave consistently all the time, and at the end of
+the visit one had to guess what every one’s character was.  The one who
+was voted to have acted his or her character best got a prize.”
+
+“It sounds amusing,” said Lady Blonze.
+
+“I was St. Francis of Assisi,” continued Blanche; “we hadn’t got to keep
+to our right sexes.  I kept getting up in the middle of a meal, and
+throwing out food to the birds; you see, the chief thing that one
+remembers of St. Francis is that he was fond of the birds.  Every one was
+so stupid about it, and thought that I was the old man who feeds the
+sparrows in the Tuileries Gardens.  Then Colonel Pentley was the Jolly
+Miller on the banks of Dee.”
+
+“How on earth did he do that?” asked Bertie van Tahn.
+
+“‘He laughed and sang from morn till night,’” explained Blanche.
+
+“How dreadful for the rest of you,” said Bertie; “and anyway he wasn’t on
+the banks of Dee.”
+
+“One had to imagine that,” said Blanche.
+
+“If you could imagine all that you might as well imagine cattle on the
+further bank and keep on calling them home, Mary-fashion, across the
+sands of Dee.  Or you might change the river to the Yarrow and imagine it
+was on the top of you, and say you were Willie, or whoever it was,
+drowned in Yarrow.”
+
+“Of course it’s easy to make fun of it,” said Blanche sharply, “but it
+was extremely interesting and amusing.  The prize was rather a fiasco,
+though.  You see, Millie Matheson said her character was Lady Bountiful,
+and as she was our hostess of course we all had to vote that she had
+carried out her character better than anyone.  Otherwise I ought to have
+got the prize.”
+
+“It’s quite an idea for a Christmas party,” said Lady Blonze; “we must
+certainly do it here.”
+
+Sir Nicholas was not so enthusiastic.  “Are you quite sure, my dear, that
+you’re wise in doing this thing?” he said to his wife when they were
+alone together.  “It might do very well at the Mathesons, where they had
+rather a staid, elderly house-party, but here it will be a different
+matter.  There is the Durmot flapper, for instance, who simply stops at
+nothing, and you know what Van Tahn is like.  Then there is Cyril
+Skatterly; he has madness on one side of his family and a Hungarian
+grandmother on the other.”
+
+“I don’t see what they could do that would matter,” said Lady Blonze.
+
+“It’s the unknown that is to be dreaded,” said Sir Nicholas.  “If
+Skatterly took it into his head to represent a Bull of Bashan, well, I’d
+rather not be here.”
+
+“Of course we shan’t allow any Bible characters.  Besides, I don’t know
+what the Bulls of Bashan really did that was so very dreadful; they just
+came round and gaped, as far as I remember.”
+
+“My dear, you don’t know what Skatterly’s Hungarian imagination mightn’t
+read into the part; it would be small satisfaction to say to him
+afterwards: ‘You’ve behaved as no Bull of Bashan would have behaved.’”
+
+“Oh, you’re an alarmist,” said Lady Blonze; “I particularly want to have
+this idea carried out.  It will be sure to be talked about a lot.”
+
+“That is quite possible,” said Sir Nicholas.
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+Dinner that evening was not a particularly lively affair; the strain of
+trying to impersonate a self-imposed character or to glean hints of
+identity from other people’s conduct acted as a check on the natural
+festivity of such a gathering.  There was a general feeling of gratitude
+and acquiescence when good-natured Rachel Klammerstein suggested that
+there should be an hour or two’s respite from “the game” while they all
+listened to a little piano-playing after dinner.  Rachel’s love of piano
+music was not indiscriminate, and concentrated itself chiefly on
+selections rendered by her idolised offspring, Moritz and Augusta, who,
+to do them justice, played remarkably well.
+
+The Klammersteins were deservedly popular as Christmas guests; they gave
+expensive gifts lavishly on Christmas Day and New Year, and Mrs.
+Klammerstein had already dropped hints of her intention to present the
+prize for the best enacted character in the game competition.  Every one
+had brightened at this prospect; if it had fallen to Lady Blonze, as
+hostess, to provide the prize, she would have considered that a little
+souvenir of some twenty or twenty-five shillings’ value would meet the
+case, whereas coming from a Klammerstein source it would certainly run to
+several guineas.
+
+The close time for impersonation efforts came to an end with the final
+withdrawal of Moritz and Augusta from the piano.  Blanche Boveal retired
+early, leaving the room in a series of laboured leaps that she hoped
+might be recognised as a tolerable imitation of Pavlova.  Vera Durmot,
+the sixteen-year-old flapper, expressed her confident opinion that the
+performance was intended to typify Mark Twain’s famous jumping frog, and
+her diagnosis of the case found general acceptance.  Another guest to set
+an example of early bed-going was Waldo Plubley, who conducted his life
+on a minutely regulated system of time-tables and hygienic routine.
+Waldo was a plump, indolent young man of seven-and-twenty, whose mother
+had early in his life decided for him that he was unusually delicate, and
+by dint of much coddling and home-keeping had succeeded in making him
+physically soft and mentally peevish.  Nine hours’ unbroken sleep,
+preceded by elaborate breathing exercises and other hygienic ritual, was
+among the indispensable regulations which Waldo imposed on himself, and
+there were innumerable small observances which he exacted from those who
+were in any way obliged to minister to his requirements; a special teapot
+for the decoction of his early tea was always solemnly handed over to the
+bedroom staff of any house in which he happened to be staying.  No one
+had ever quite mastered the mechanism of this precious vessel, but Bertie
+van Tahn was responsible for the legend that its spout had to be kept
+facing north during the process of infusion.
+
+On this particular night the irreducible nine hours were severely
+mutilated by the sudden and by no means noiseless incursion of a
+pyjama-clad figure into Waldo’s room at an hour midway between midnight
+and dawn.
+
+“What is the matter?  What are you looking for?” asked the awakened and
+astonished Waldo, slowly recognising Van Tahn, who appeared to be
+searching hastily for something he had lost.
+
+“Looking for sheep,” was the reply.
+
+“Sheep?” exclaimed Waldo.
+
+“Yes, sheep.  You don’t suppose I’m looking for giraffes, do you?”
+
+“I don’t see why you should expect to find either in my room,” retorted
+Waldo furiously.
+
+“I can’t argue the matter at this hour of the night,” said Bertie, and
+began hastily rummaging in the chest of drawers.  Shirts and underwear
+went flying on to the floor.
+
+“There are no sheep here, I tell you,” screamed Waldo.
+
+“I’ve only got your word for it,” said Bertie, whisking most of the
+bedclothes on to the floor; “if you weren’t concealing something you
+wouldn’t be so agitated.”
+
+Waldo was by this time convinced that Van Tahn was raving mad, and made
+an anxious effort to humour him.
+
+“Go back to bed like a dear fellow,” he pleaded, “and your sheep will
+turn up all right in the morning.”
+
+“I daresay,” said Bertie gloomily, “without their tails.  Nice fool I
+shall look with a lot of Manx sheep.”
+
+And by way of emphasising his annoyance at the prospect he sent Waldo’s
+pillows flying to the top of the wardrobe.
+
+“But _why_ no tails?” asked Waldo, whose teeth were chattering with fear
+and rage and lowered temperature.
+
+“My dear boy, have you never heard the ballad of Little Bo-Peep?” said
+Bertie with a chuckle.  “It’s my character in the Game, you know.  If I
+didn’t go hunting about for my lost sheep no one would be able to guess
+who I was; and now go to sleepy weeps like a good child or I shall be
+cross with you.”
+
+“I leave you to imagine,” wrote Waldo in the course of a long letter to
+his mother, “how much sleep I was able to recover that night, and you
+know how essential nine uninterrupted hours of slumber are to my health.”
+
+On the other hand he was able to devote some wakeful hours to exercises
+in breathing wrath and fury against Bertie van Tahn.
+
+Breakfast at Blonzecourt was a scattered meal, on the “come when you
+please” principle, but the house-party was supposed to gather in full
+strength at lunch.  On the day after the “Game” had been started there
+were, however, some notable absentees.  Waldo Plubley, for instance, was
+reported to be nursing a headache.  A large breakfast and an “A.B.C.” had
+been taken up to his room, but he had made no appearance in the flesh.
+
+“I expect he’s playing up to some character,” said Vera Durmot; “isn’t
+there a thing of Molière’s, ‘_Le Malade Imaginaire_’?  I expect he’s
+that.”
+
+Eight or nine lists came out, and were duly pencilled with the
+suggestion.
+
+“And where are the Klammersteins?” asked Lady Blonze; “they’re usually so
+punctual.”
+
+“Another character pose, perhaps,” said Bertie van Tahn; “‘the Lost Ten
+Tribes.’”
+
+“But there are only three of them.  Besides, they’ll want their lunch.
+Hasn’t anyone seen anything of them?”
+
+“Didn’t you take them out in your car?” asked Blanche Boveal, addressing
+herself to Cyril Skatterly.
+
+“Yes, took them out to Slogberry Moor immediately after breakfast.  Miss
+Durmot came too.”
+
+“I saw you and Vera come back,” said Lady Blonze, “but I didn’t see the
+Klammersteins.  Did you put them down in the village?”
+
+“No,” said Skatterly shortly.
+
+“But where are they?  Where did you leave them?”
+
+“We left them on Slogberry Moor,” said Vera calmly.
+
+“On Slogberry Moor?  Why, it’s more than thirty miles away!  How are they
+going to get back?”
+
+“We didn’t stop to consider that,” said Skatterly; “we asked them to get
+out for a moment, on the pretence that the car had stuck, and then we
+dashed off full speed and left them there.”
+
+“But how dare you do such a thing?  It’s most inhuman!  Why, it’s been
+snowing for the last hour.”
+
+“I expect there’ll be a cottage or farmhouse somewhere if they walk a
+mile or two.”
+
+“But why on earth have you done it?”
+
+The question came in a chorus of indignant bewilderment.
+
+“_That_ would be telling what our characters are meant to be,” said Vera.
+
+“Didn’t I warn you?” said Sir Nicholas tragically to his wife.
+
+“It’s something to do with Spanish history; we don’t mind giving you that
+clue,” said Skatterly, helping himself cheerfully to salad, and then
+Bertie van Tahn broke forth into peals of joyous laughter.
+
+“I’ve got it!  Ferdinand and Isabella deporting the Jews!  Oh, lovely!
+Those two have certainly won the prize; we shan’t get anything to beat
+that for thoroughness.”
+
+Lady Blonze’s Christmas party was talked about and written about to an
+extent that she had not anticipated in her most ambitious moments.  The
+letters from Waldo’s mother would alone have made it memorable.
+
+
+
+
+COUSIN TERESA
+
+
+Basset Harrowcluff returned to the home of his fathers, after an absence
+of four years, distinctly well pleased with himself.  He was only
+thirty-one, but he had put in some useful service in an out-of-the-way,
+though not unimportant, corner of the world.  He had quieted a province,
+kept open a trade route, enforced the tradition of respect which is worth
+the ransom of many kings in out-of-the-way regions, and done the whole
+business on rather less expenditure than would be requisite for
+organising a charity in the home country.  In Whitehall and places where
+they think, they doubtless thought well of him.  It was not
+inconceivable, his father allowed himself to imagine, that Basset’s name
+might figure in the next list of Honours.
+
+Basset was inclined to be rather contemptuous of his half-brother, Lucas,
+whom he found feverishly engrossed in the same medley of elaborate
+futilities that had claimed his whole time and energies, such as they
+were, four years ago, and almost as far back before that as he could
+remember.  It was the contempt of the man of action for the man of
+activities, and it was probably reciprocated.  Lucas was an over-well
+nourished individual, some nine years Basset’s senior, with a colouring
+that would have been accepted as a sign of intensive culture in an
+asparagus, but probably meant in this case mere abstention from exercise.
+His hair and forehead furnished a recessional note in a personality that
+was in all other respects obtrusive and assertive.  There was certainly
+no Semitic blood in Lucas’s parentage, but his appearance contrived to
+convey at least a suggestion of Jewish extraction.  Clovis Sangrail, who
+knew most of his associates by sight, said it was undoubtedly a case of
+protective mimicry.
+
+Two days after Basset’s return, Lucas frisked in to lunch in a state of
+twittering excitement that could not be restrained even for the immediate
+consideration of soup, but had to be verbally discharged in spluttering
+competition with mouthfuls of vermicelli.
+
+“I’ve got hold of an idea for something immense,” he babbled, “something
+that is simply It.”
+
+Basset gave a short laugh that would have done equally well as a snort,
+if one had wanted to make the exchange.  His half-brother was in the
+habit of discovering futilities that were “simply It” at frequently
+recurring intervals.  The discovery generally meant that he flew up to
+town, preceded by glowingly-worded telegrams, to see some one connected
+with the stage or the publishing world, got together one or two momentous
+luncheon parties, flitted in and out of “Gambrinus” for one or two
+evenings, and returned home with an air of subdued importance and the
+asparagus tint slightly intensified.  The great idea was generally
+forgotten a few weeks later in the excitement of some new discovery.
+
+“The inspiration came to me whilst I was dressing,” announced Lucas; “it
+will be _the_ thing in the next music-hall _revue_.  All London will go
+mad over it.  It’s just a couplet; of course there will be other words,
+but they won’t matter.  Listen:
+
+    Cousin Teresa takes out Cæsar,
+    Fido, Jock, and the big borzoi.
+
+A lifting, catchy sort of refrain, you see, and big-drum business on the
+two syllables of bor-zoi.  It’s immense.  And I’ve thought out all the
+business of it; the singer will sing the first verse alone, then during
+the second verse Cousin Teresa will walk through, followed by four wooden
+dogs on wheels; Cæsar will be an Irish terrier, Fido a black poodle, Jock
+a fox-terrier, and the borzoi, of course, will be a borzoi.  During the
+third verse Cousin Teresa will come on alone, and the dogs will be drawn
+across by themselves from the opposite wing; then Cousin Teresa will
+catch on to the singer and go off-stage in one direction, while the dogs’
+procession goes off in the other, crossing en route, which is always very
+effective.  There’ll be a lot of applause there, and for the fourth verse
+Cousin Teresa will come on in sables and the dogs will all have coats on.
+Then I’ve got a great idea for the fifth verse; each of the dogs will be
+led on by a Nut, and Cousin Teresa will come on from the opposite side,
+crossing en route, always effective, and then she turns round and leads
+the whole lot of them off on a string, and all the time every one singing
+like mad:
+
+    Cousin Teresa takes out Cæsar
+    Fido, Jock, and the big borzoi.
+
+Tum-Tum!  Drum business on the two last syllables.  I’m so excited, I
+shan’t sleep a wink to-night.  I’m off to-morrow by the ten-fifteen.
+I’ve wired to Hermanova to lunch with me.”
+
+If any of the rest of the family felt any excitement over the creation of
+Cousin Teresa, they were signally successful in concealing the fact.
+
+“Poor Lucas does take his silly little ideas seriously,” said Colonel
+Harrowcluff afterwards in the smoking-room.
+
+“Yes,” said his younger son, in a slightly less tolerant tone, “in a day
+or two he’ll come back and tell us that his sensational masterpiece is
+above the heads of the public, and in about three weeks’ time he’ll be
+wild with enthusiasm over a scheme to dramatise the poems of Herrick or
+something equally promising.”
+
+And then an extraordinary thing befell.  In defiance of all precedent
+Lucas’s glowing anticipations were justified and endorsed by the course
+of events.  If Cousin Teresa was above the heads of the public, the
+public heroically adapted itself to her altitude.  Introduced as an
+experiment at a dull moment in a new _revue_, the success of the item was
+unmistakable; the calls were so insistent and uproarious that even Lucas’
+ample devisings of additional “business” scarcely sufficed to keep pace
+with the demand.  Packed houses on successive evenings confirmed the
+verdict of the first night audience, stalls and boxes filled
+significantly just before the turn came on, and emptied significantly
+after the last _encore_ had been given.  The manager tearfully
+acknowledged that Cousin Teresa was It.  Stage hands and supers and
+programme sellers acknowledged it to one another without the least
+reservation.  The name of the _revue_ dwindled to secondary importance,
+and vast letters of electric blue blazoned the words “Cousin Teresa” from
+the front of the great palace of pleasure.  And, of course, the magic of
+the famous refrain laid its spell all over the Metropolis.  Restaurant
+proprietors were obliged to provide the members of their orchestras with
+painted wooden dogs on wheels, in order that the much-demanded and always
+conceded melody should be rendered with the necessary spectacular
+effects, and the crash of bottles and forks on the tables at the mention
+of the big borzoi usually drowned the sincerest efforts of drum or
+cymbals.  Nowhere and at no time could one get away from the double thump
+that brought up the rear of the refrain; revellers reeling home at night
+banged it on doors and hoardings, milkmen clashed their cans to its
+cadence, messenger boys hit smaller messenger boys resounding double
+smacks on the same principle.  And the more thoughtful circles of the
+great city were not deaf to the claims and significance of the popular
+melody.  An enterprising and emancipated preacher discoursed from his
+pulpit on the inner meaning of “Cousin Teresa,” and Lucas Harrowcluff was
+invited to lecture on the subject of his great achievement to members of
+the Young Mens’ Endeavour League, the Nine Arts Club, and other learned
+and willing-to-learn bodies.  In Society it seemed to be the one thing
+people really cared to talk about; men and women of middle age and
+average education might be seen together in corners earnestly discussing,
+not the question whether Servia should have an outlet on the Adriatic, or
+the possibilities of a British success in international polo contests,
+but the more absorbing topic of the problematic Aztec or Nilotic origin
+of the Teresa _motiv_.
+
+“Politics and patriotism are so boring and so out of date,” said a
+revered lady who had some pretensions to oracular utterance; “we are too
+cosmopolitan nowadays to be really moved by them.  That is why one
+welcomes an intelligible production like ‘Cousin Teresa,’ that has a
+genuine message for one.  One can’t understand the message all at once,
+of course, but one felt from the very first that it was there.  I’ve been
+to see it eighteen times and I’m going again to-morrow and on Thursday.
+One can’t see it often enough.”
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+“It would be rather a popular move if we gave this Harrowcluff person a
+knighthood or something of the sort,” said the Minister reflectively.
+
+“Which Harrowcluff?” asked his secretary.
+
+“Which?  There is only one, isn’t there?” said the Minister; “the ‘Cousin
+Teresa’ man, of course.  I think every one would be pleased if we
+knighted him.  Yes, you can put him down on the list of certainties—under
+the letter L.”
+
+“The letter L,” said the secretary, who was new to his job; “does that
+stand for Liberalism or liberality?”
+
+Most of the recipients of Ministerial favour were expected to qualify in
+both of those subjects.
+
+“Literature,” explained the Minister.
+
+And thus, after a fashion, Colonel Harrowcluff’s expectation of seeing
+his son’s name in the list of Honours was gratified.
+
+
+
+
+THE YARKAND MANNER
+
+
+Sir Lulworth Quayne was making a leisurely progress through the
+Zoological Society’s Gardens in company with his nephew, recently
+returned from Mexico.  The latter was interested in comparing and
+contrasting allied types of animals occurring in the North American and
+Old World fauna.
+
+“One of the most remarkable things in the wanderings of species,” he
+observed, “is the sudden impulse to trek and migrate that breaks out now
+and again, for no apparent reason, in communities of hitherto
+stay-at-home animals.”
+
+“In human affairs the same phenomenon is occasionally noticeable,” said
+Sir Lulworth; “perhaps the most striking instance of it occurred in this
+country while you were away in the wilds of Mexico.  I mean the wander
+fever which suddenly displayed itself in the managing and editorial
+staffs of certain London newspapers.  It began with the stampede of the
+entire staff of one of our most brilliant and enterprising weeklies to
+the banks of the Seine and the heights of Montmartre.  The migration was
+a brief one, but it heralded an era of restlessness in the Press world
+which lent quite a new meaning to the phrase ‘newspaper circulation.’
+Other editorial staffs were not slow to imitate the example that had been
+set them.  Paris soon dropped out of fashion as being too near home;
+Nürnberg, Seville, and Salonica became more favoured as planting-out
+grounds for the personnel of not only weekly but daily papers as well.
+The localities were perhaps not always well chosen; the fact of a leading
+organ of Evangelical thought being edited for two successive fortnights
+from Trouville and Monte Carlo was generally admitted to have been a
+mistake.  And even when enterprising and adventurous editors took
+themselves and their staffs further afield there were some unavoidable
+clashings.  For instance, the _Scrutator_, _Sporting Bluff_, and _The
+Damsels’ Own Paper_ all pitched on Khartoum for the same week.  It was,
+perhaps, a desire to out-distance all possible competition that
+influenced the management of the _Daily Intelligencer_, one of the most
+solid and respected organs of Liberal opinion, in its decision to
+transfer its offices for three or four weeks from Fleet Street to Eastern
+Turkestan, allowing, of course, a necessary margin of time for the
+journey there and back.  This was, in many respects, the most remarkable
+of all the Press stampedes that were experienced at this time.  There was
+no make-believe about the undertaking; proprietor, manager, editor,
+sub-editors, leader-writers, principal reporters, and so forth, all took
+part in what was popularly alluded to as the _Drang nach Osten_; an
+intelligent and efficient office-boy was all that was left in the
+deserted hive of editorial industry.”
+
+“That was doing things rather thoroughly, wasn’t it?” said the nephew.
+
+“Well, you see,” said Sir Lulworth, “the migration idea was falling
+somewhat into disrepute from the half-hearted manner in which it was
+occasionally carried out.  You were not impressed by the information that
+such and such a paper was being edited and brought out at Lisbon or
+Innsbruck if you chanced to see the principal leader-writer or the art
+editor lunching as usual at their accustomed restaurants.  The _Daily
+Intelligencer_ was determined to give no loophole for cavil at the
+genuineness of its pilgrimage, and it must be admitted that to a certain
+extent the arrangements made for transmitting copy and carrying on the
+usual features of the paper during the long outward journey worked
+smoothly and well.  The series of articles which commenced at Baku on
+‘What Cobdenism might do for the camel industry’ ranks among the best of
+the recent contributions to Free Trade literature, while the views on
+foreign policy enunciated ‘from a roof in Yarkand’ showed at least as
+much grasp of the international situation as those that had germinated
+within half a mile of Downing Street.  Quite in keeping, too, with the
+older and better traditions of British journalism was the manner of the
+home-coming; no bombast, no personal advertisement, no flamboyant
+interviews.  Even a complimentary luncheon at the Voyagers’ Club was
+courteously declined.  Indeed, it began to be felt that the
+self-effacement of the returned pressmen was being carried to a pedantic
+length.  Foreman compositors, advertisement clerks, and other members of
+the non-editorial staff, who had, of course, taken no part in the great
+trek, found it as impossible to get into direct communication with the
+editor and his satellites now that they had returned as when they had
+been excusably inaccessible in Central Asia.  The sulky, overworked
+office-boy, who was the one connecting link between the editorial brain
+and the business departments of the paper, sardonically explained the new
+aloofness as the ‘Yarkand manner.’  Most of the reporters and sub-editors
+seemed to have been dismissed in autocratic fashion since their return
+and new ones engaged by letter; to these the editor and his immediate
+associates remained an unseen presence, issuing its instructions solely
+through the medium of curt typewritten notes.  Something mystic and
+Tibetan and forbidden had replaced the human bustle and democratic
+simplicity of pre-migration days, and the same experience was encountered
+by those who made social overtures to the returned wanderers.  The most
+brilliant hostess of Twentieth Century London flung the pearl of her
+hospitality into the unresponsive trough of the editorial letter-box; it
+seemed as if nothing short of a Royal command would drag the
+hermit-souled _revenants_ from their self-imposed seclusion.  People
+began to talk unkindly of the effect of high altitudes and Eastern
+atmosphere on minds and temperaments unused to such luxuries.  The
+Yarkand manner was not popular.”
+
+“And the contents of the paper,” said the nephew, “did they show the
+influence of the new style?”
+
+“Ah!” said Sir Lulworth, “that was the exciting thing.  In home affairs,
+social questions, and the ordinary events of the day not much change was
+noticeable.  A certain Oriental carelessness seemed to have crept into
+the editorial department, and perhaps a note of lassitude not unnatural
+in the work of men who had returned from what had been a fairly arduous
+journey.  The aforetime standard of excellence was scarcely maintained,
+but at any rate the general lines of policy and outlook were not departed
+from.  It was in the realm of foreign affairs that a startling change
+took place.  Blunt, forcible, outspoken articles appeared, couched in
+language which nearly turned the autumn manœuvres of six important Powers
+into mobilisations.  Whatever else the _Daily Intelligencer_ had learned
+in the East, it had not acquired the art of diplomatic ambiguity.  The
+man in the street enjoyed the articles and bought the paper as he had
+never bought it before; the men in Downing Street took a different view.
+The Foreign Secretary, hitherto accounted a rather reticent man, became
+positively garrulous in the course of perpetually disavowing the
+sentiments expressed in the _Daily Intelligencer’s_ leaders; and then one
+day the Government came to the conclusion that something definite and
+drastic must be done.  A deputation, consisting of the Prime Minister,
+the Foreign Secretary, four leading financiers, and a well-known
+Nonconformist divine, made its way to the offices of the paper.  At the
+door leading to the editorial department the way was barred by a nervous
+but defiant office-boy.
+
+“‘You can’t see the editor nor any of the staff,’ he announced.
+
+“‘We insist on seeing the editor or some responsible person,’ said the
+Prime Minister, and the deputation forced its way in.  The boy had spoken
+truly; there was no one to be seen.  In the whole suite of rooms there
+was no sign of human life.
+
+“‘Where is the editor?’  ‘Or the foreign editor?’  ‘Or the chief
+leader-writer?  Or anybody?’
+
+“In answer to the shower of questions the boy unlocked a drawer and
+produced a strange-looking envelope, which bore a Khokand postmark, and a
+date of some seven or eight months back.  It contained a scrap of paper
+on which was written the following message:
+
+    “‘Entire party captured by brigand tribe on homeward journey.
+    Quarter of million demanded as ransom, but would probably take less.
+    Inform Government, relations, and friends.’
+
+“There followed the signatures of the principal members of the party and
+instructions as to how and where the money was to be paid.
+
+“The letter had been directed to the office-boy-in-charge, who had
+quietly suppressed it.  No one is a hero to one’s own office-boy, and he
+evidently considered that a quarter of a million was an unwarrantable
+outlay for such a doubtfully advantageous object as the repatriation of
+an errant newspaper staff.  So he drew the editorial and other salaries,
+forged what signatures were necessary, engaged new reporters, did what
+sub-editing he could, and made as much use as possible of the large
+accumulation of special articles that was held in reserve for
+emergencies.  The articles on foreign affairs were entirely his own
+composition.
+
+“Of course the whole thing had to be kept as quiet as possible; an
+interim staff, pledged to secrecy, was appointed to keep the paper going
+till the pining captives could be sought out, ransomed, and brought home,
+in twos and threes to escape notice, and gradually things were put back
+on their old footing.  The articles on foreign affairs reverted to the
+wonted traditions of the paper.”
+
+“But,” interposed the nephew, “how on earth did the boy account to the
+relatives all those months for the non-appearance—”
+
+“That,” said Sir Lulworth, “was the most brilliant stroke of all.  To the
+wife or nearest relative of each of the missing men he forwarded a
+letter, copying the handwriting of the supposed writer as well as he
+could, and making excuses about vile pens and ink; in each letter he told
+the same story, varying only the locality, to the effect that the writer,
+alone of the whole party, was unable to tear himself away from the wild
+liberty and allurements of Eastern life, and was going to spend several
+months roaming in some selected region.  Many of the wives started off
+immediately in pursuit of their errant husbands, and it took the
+Government a considerable time and much trouble to reclaim them from
+their fruitless quests along the banks of the Oxus, the Gobi Desert, the
+Orenburg steppe, and other outlandish places.  One of them, I believe, is
+still lost somewhere in the Tigris Valley.”
+
+“And the boy?”
+
+“Is still in journalism.”
+
+
+
+
+THE BYZANTINE OMELETTE
+
+
+Sophie Chattel-Monkheim was a Socialist by conviction and a
+Chattel-Monkheim by marriage.  The particular member of that wealthy
+family whom she had married was rich, even as his relatives counted
+riches.  Sophie had very advanced and decided views as to the
+distribution of money: it was a pleasing and fortunate circumstance that
+she also had the money.  When she inveighed eloquently against the evils
+of capitalism at drawing-room meetings and Fabian conferences she was
+conscious of a comfortable feeling that the system, with all its
+inequalities and iniquities, would probably last her time.  It is one of
+the consolations of middle-aged reformers that the good they inculcate
+must live after them if it is to live at all.
+
+On a certain spring evening, somewhere towards the dinner-hour, Sophie
+sat tranquilly between her mirror and her maid, undergoing the process of
+having her hair built into an elaborate reflection of the prevailing
+fashion.  She was hedged round with a great peace, the peace of one who
+has attained a desired end with much effort and perseverance, and who has
+found it still eminently desirable in its attainment.  The Duke of Syria
+had consented to come beneath her roof as a guest, was even now installed
+beneath her roof, and would shortly be sitting at her dining-table.  As a
+good Socialist, Sophie disapproved of social distinctions, and derided
+the idea of a princely caste, but if there were to be these artificial
+gradations of rank and dignity she was pleased and anxious to have an
+exalted specimen of an exalted order included in her house-party.  She
+was broad-minded enough to love the sinner while hating the sin—not that
+she entertained any warm feeling of personal affection for the Duke of
+Syria, who was a comparative stranger, but still, as Duke of Syria, he
+was very, very welcome beneath her roof.  She could not have explained
+why, but no one was likely to ask her for an explanation, and most
+hostesses envied her.
+
+“You must surpass yourself to-night, Richardson,” she said complacently
+to her maid; “I must be looking my very best.  We must all surpass
+ourselves.”
+
+The maid said nothing, but from the concentrated look in her eyes and the
+deft play of her fingers it was evident that she was beset with the
+ambition to surpass herself.
+
+A knock came at the door, a quiet but peremptory knock, as of some one
+who would not be denied.
+
+“Go and see who it is,” said Sophie; “it may be something about the
+wine.”
+
+Richardson held a hurried conference with an invisible messenger at the
+door; when she returned there was noticeable a curious listlessness in
+place of her hitherto alert manner.
+
+“What is it?” asked Sophie.
+
+“The household servants have ‘downed tools,’ madame,” said Richardson.
+
+“Downed tools!” exclaimed Sophie; “do you mean to say they’ve gone on
+strike?”
+
+“Yes, madame,” said Richardson, adding the information: “It’s Gaspare
+that the trouble is about.”
+
+“Gaspare?” said Sophie wanderingly; “the emergency chef!  The omelette
+specialist!”
+
+“Yes, madame.  Before he became an omelette specialist he was a valet,
+and he was one of the strike-breakers in the great strike at Lord
+Grimford’s two years ago.  As soon as the household staff here learned
+that you had engaged him they resolved to ‘down tools’ as a protest.
+They haven’t got any grievance against you personally, but they demand
+that Gaspare should be immediately dismissed.”
+
+“But,” protested Sophie, “he is the only man in England who understands
+how to make a Byzantine omelette.  I engaged him specially for the Duke
+of Syria’s visit, and it would be impossible to replace him at short
+notice.  I should have to send to Paris, and the Duke loves Byzantine
+omelettes.  It was the one thing we talked about coming from the
+station.”
+
+“He was one of the strike-breakers at Lord Grimford’s,” reiterated
+Richardson.
+
+“This is too awful,” said Sophie; “a strike of servants at a moment like
+this, with the Duke of Syria staying in the house.  Something must be
+done immediately.  Quick, finish my hair and I’ll go and see what I can
+do to bring them round.”
+
+“I can’t finish your hair, madame,” said Richardson quietly, but with
+immense decision.  “I belong to the union and I can’t do another
+half-minute’s work till the strike is settled.  I’m sorry to be
+disobliging.”
+
+“But this is inhuman!” exclaimed Sophie tragically; “I’ve always been a
+model mistress and I’ve refused to employ any but union servants, and
+this is the result.  I can’t finish my hair myself; I don’t know how to.
+What am I to do?  It’s wicked!”
+
+“Wicked is the word,” said Richardson; “I’m a good Conservative and I’ve
+no patience with this Socialist foolery, asking your pardon.  It’s
+tyranny, that’s what it is, all along the line, but I’ve my living to
+make, same as other people, and I’ve got to belong to the union.  I
+couldn’t touch another hair-pin without a strike permit, not if you was
+to double my wages.”
+
+The door burst open and Catherine Malsom raged into the room.
+
+“Here’s a nice affair,” she screamed, “a strike of household servants
+without a moment’s warning, and I’m left like this!  I can’t appear in
+public in this condition.”
+
+After a very hasty scrutiny Sophie assured her that she could not.
+
+“Have they all struck?” she asked her maid.
+
+“Not the kitchen staff,” said Richardson, “they belong to a different
+union.”
+
+“Dinner at least will be assured,” said Sophie, “that is something to be
+thankful for.”
+
+“Dinner!” snorted Catherine, “what on earth is the good of dinner when
+none of us will be able to appear at it?  Look at your hair—and look at
+me! or rather, don’t.”
+
+“I know it’s difficult to manage without a maid; can’t your husband be
+any help to you?” asked Sophie despairingly.
+
+“Henry?  He’s in worse case than any of us.  His man is the only person
+who really understands that ridiculous new-fangled Turkish bath that he
+insists on taking with him everywhere.”
+
+“Surely he could do without a Turkish bath for one evening,” said Sophie;
+“I can’t appear without hair, but a Turkish bath is a luxury.”
+
+“My good woman,” said Catherine, speaking with a fearful intensity,
+“Henry was in the bath when the strike started.  In it, do you
+understand?  He’s there now.”
+
+“Can’t he get out?”
+
+“He doesn’t know how to.  Every time he pulls the lever marked ‘release’
+he only releases hot steam.  There are two kinds of steam in the bath,
+‘bearable’ and ‘scarcely bearable’; he has released them both.  By this
+time I’m probably a widow.”
+
+“I simply can’t send away Gaspare,” wailed Sophie; “I should never be
+able to secure another omelette specialist.”
+
+“Any difficulty that I may experience in securing another husband is of
+course a trifle beneath anyone’s consideration,” said Catherine bitterly.
+
+Sophie capitulated.  “Go,” she said to Richardson, “and tell the Strike
+Committee, or whoever are directing this affair, that Gaspare is herewith
+dismissed.  And ask Gaspare to see me presently in the library, when I
+will pay him what is due to him and make what excuses I can; and then fly
+back and finish my hair.”
+
+Some half an hour later Sophie marshalled her guests in the Grand Salon
+preparatory to the formal march to the dining-room.  Except that Henry
+Malsom was of the ripe raspberry tint that one sometimes sees at private
+theatricals representing the human complexion, there was little outward
+sign among those assembled of the crisis that had just been encountered
+and surmounted.  But the tension had been too stupefying while it lasted
+not to leave some mental effects behind it.  Sophie talked at random to
+her illustrious guest, and found her eyes straying with increasing
+frequency towards the great doors through which would presently come the
+blessed announcement that dinner was served.  Now and again she glanced
+mirror-ward at the reflection of her wonderfully coiffed hair, as an
+insurance underwriter might gaze thankfully at an overdue vessel that had
+ridden safely into harbour in the wake of a devastating hurricane.  Then
+the doors opened and the welcome figure of the butler entered the room.
+But he made no general announcement of a banquet in readiness, and the
+doors closed behind him; his message was for Sophie alone.
+
+“There is no dinner, madame,” he said gravely; “the kitchen staff have
+‘downed tools.’  Gaspare belongs to the Union of Cooks and Kitchen
+Employees, and as soon as they heard of his summary dismissal at a
+moment’s notice they struck work.  They demand his instant reinstatement
+and an apology to the union.  I may add, madame, that they are very firm;
+I’ve been obliged even to hand back the dinner rolls that were already on
+the table.”
+
+After the lapse of eighteen months Sophie Chattel-Monkheim is beginning
+to go about again among her old haunts and associates, but she still has
+to be very careful.  The doctors will not let her attend anything at all
+exciting, such as a drawing-room meeting or a Fabian conference; it is
+doubtful, indeed, whether she wants to.
+
+
+
+
+THE FEAST OF NEMESIS
+
+
+“It’s a good thing that Saint Valentine’s Day has dropped out of vogue,”
+said Mrs. Thackenbury; “what with Christmas and New Year and Easter, not
+to speak of birthdays, there are quite enough remembrance days as it is.
+I tried to save myself trouble at Christmas by just sending flowers to
+all my friends, but it wouldn’t work; Gertrude has eleven hot-houses and
+about thirty gardeners, so it would have been ridiculous to send flowers
+to her, and Milly has just started a florist’s shop, so it was equally
+out of the question there.  The stress of having to decide in a hurry
+what to give to Gertrude and Milly just when I thought I’d got the whole
+question nicely off my mind completely ruined my Christmas, and then the
+awful monotony of the letters of thanks: ‘Thank you so much for your
+lovely flowers.  It was so good of you to think of me.’  Of course in the
+majority of cases I hadn’t thought about the recipients at all; their
+names were down in my list of ‘people who must not be left out.’  If I
+trusted to remembering them there would be some awful sins of omission.”
+
+“The trouble is,” said Clovis to his aunt, “all these days of intrusive
+remembrance harp so persistently on one aspect of human nature and
+entirely ignore the other; that is why they become so perfunctory and
+artificial.  At Christmas and New Year you are emboldened and encouraged
+by convention to send gushing messages of optimistic goodwill and servile
+affection to people whom you would scarcely ask to lunch unless some one
+else had failed you at the last moment; if you are supping at a
+restaurant on New Year’s Eve you are permitted and expected to join hands
+and sing ‘For Auld Lang Syne’ with strangers whom you have never seen
+before and never want to see again.  But no licence is allowed in the
+opposite direction.”
+
+“Opposite direction; what opposite direction?” queried Mrs. Thackenbury.
+
+“There is no outlet for demonstrating your feelings towards people whom
+you simply loathe.  That is really the crying need of our modern
+civilisation.  Just think how jolly it would be if a recognised day were
+set apart for the paying off of old scores and grudges, a day when one
+could lay oneself out to be gracefully vindictive to a carefully
+treasured list of ‘people who must not be let off.’  I remember when I
+was at a private school we had one day, the last Monday of the term I
+think it was, consecrated to the settlement of feuds and grudges; of
+course we did not appreciate it as much as it deserved, because, after
+all, any day of the term could be used for that purpose.  Still, if one
+had chastised a smaller boy for being cheeky weeks before, one was always
+permitted on that day to recall the episode to his memory by chastising
+him again.  That is what the French call reconstructing the crime.”
+
+“I should call it reconstructing the punishment,” said Mrs. Thackenbury;
+“and, anyhow, I don’t see how you could introduce a system of primitive
+schoolboy vengeance into civilised adult life.  We haven’t outgrown our
+passions, but we are supposed to have learned how to keep them within
+strictly decorous limits.”
+
+“Of course the thing would have to be done furtively and politely,” said
+Clovis; “the charm of it would be that it would never be perfunctory like
+the other thing.  Now, for instance, you say to yourself: ‘I must show
+the Webleys some attention at Christmas, they were kind to dear Bertie at
+Bournemouth,’ and you send them a calendar, and daily for six days after
+Christmas the male Webley asks the female Webley if she has remembered to
+thank you for the calendar you sent them.  Well, transplant that idea to
+the other and more human side of your nature, and say to yourself: ‘Next
+Thursday is Nemesis Day; what on earth can I do to those odious people
+next door who made such an absurd fuss when Ping Yang bit their youngest
+child?’  Then you’d get up awfully early on the allotted day and climb
+over into their garden and dig for truffles on their tennis court with a
+good gardening fork, choosing, of course, that part of the court that was
+screened from observation by the laurel bushes.  You wouldn’t find any
+truffles but you would find a great peace, such as no amount of
+present-giving could ever bestow.”
+
+“I shouldn’t,” said Mrs. Thackenbury, though her air of protest sounded a
+bit forced; “I should feel rather a worm for doing such a thing.”
+
+“You exaggerate the power of upheaval which a worm would be able to bring
+into play in the limited time available,” said Clovis; “if you put in a
+strenuous ten minutes with a really useful fork, the result ought to
+suggest the operations of an unusually masterful mole or a badger in a
+hurry.”
+
+“They might guess I had done it,” said Mrs. Thackenbury.
+
+“Of course they would,” said Clovis; “that would be half the satisfaction
+of the thing, just as you like people at Christmas to know what presents
+or cards you’ve sent them.  The thing would be much easier to manage, of
+course, when you were on outwardly friendly terms with the object of your
+dislike.  That greedy little Agnes Blaik, for instance, who thinks of
+nothing but her food, it would be quite simple to ask her to a picnic in
+some wild woodland spot and lose her just before lunch was served; when
+you found her again every morsel of food could have been eaten up.”
+
+“It would require no ordinary human strategy to lose Agnes Blaik when
+luncheon was imminent: in fact, I don’t believe it could be done.”
+
+“Then have all the other guests, people whom you dislike, and lose the
+luncheon.  It could have been sent by accident in the wrong direction.”
+
+“It would be a ghastly picnic,” said Mrs. Thackenbury.
+
+“For them, but not for you,” said Clovis; “you would have had an early
+and comforting lunch before you started, and you could improve the
+occasion by mentioning in detail the items of the missing banquet—the
+lobster Newburg and the egg mayonnaise, and the curry that was to have
+been heated in a chafing-dish.  Agnes Blaik would be delirious long
+before you got to the list of wines, and in the long interval of waiting,
+before they had quite abandoned hope of the lunch turning up, you could
+induce them to play silly games, such as that idiotic one of ‘the Lord
+Mayor’s dinner-party,’ in which every one has to choose the name of a
+dish and do something futile when it is called out.  In this case they
+would probably burst into tears when their dish is mentioned.  It would
+be a heavenly picnic.”
+
+Mrs. Thackenbury was silent for a moment; she was probably making a
+mental list of the people she would like to invite to the Duke Humphrey
+picnic.  Presently she asked: “And that odious young man, Waldo Plubley,
+who is always coddling himself—have you thought of anything that one
+could do to him?”  Evidently she was beginning to see the possibilities
+of Nemesis Day.
+
+“If there was anything like a general observance of the festival,” said
+Clovis, “Waldo would be in such demand that you would have to bespeak him
+weeks beforehand, and even then, if there were an east wind blowing or a
+cloud or two in the sky he might be too careful of his precious self to
+come out.  It would be rather jolly if you could lure him into a hammock
+in the orchard, just near the spot where there is a wasps’ nest every
+summer.  A comfortable hammock on a warm afternoon would appeal to his
+indolent tastes, and then, when he was getting drowsy, a lighted fusee
+thrown into the nest would bring the wasps out in an indignant mass, and
+they would soon find a ‘home away from home’ on Waldo’s fat body.  It
+takes some doing to get out of a hammock in a hurry.”
+
+“They might sting him to death,” protested Mrs. Thackenbury.
+
+“Waldo is one of those people who would be enormously improved by death,”
+said Clovis; “but if you didn’t want to go as far as that, you could have
+some wet straw ready to hand, and set it alight under the hammock at the
+same time that the fusee was thrown into the nest; the smoke would keep
+all but the most militant of the wasps just outside the stinging line,
+and as long as Waldo remained within its protection he would escape
+serious damage, and could be eventually restored to his mother, kippered
+all over and swollen in places, but still perfectly recognisable.”
+
+“His mother would be my enemy for life,” said Mrs. Thackenbury.
+
+“That would be one greeting less to exchange at Christmas,” said Clovis.
+
+
+
+
+THE DREAMER
+
+
+It was the season of sales.  The august establishment of Walpurgis and
+Nettlepink had lowered its prices for an entire week as a concession to
+trade observances, much as an Arch-duchess might protestingly contract an
+attack of influenza for the unsatisfactory reason that influenza was
+locally prevalent.  Adela Chemping, who considered herself in some
+measure superior to the allurements of an ordinary bargain sale, made a
+point of attending the reduction week at Walpurgis and Nettlepink’s.
+
+“I’m not a bargain hunter,” she said, “but I like to go where bargains
+are.”
+
+Which showed that beneath her surface strength of character there flowed
+a gracious undercurrent of human weakness.
+
+With a view to providing herself with a male escort Mrs. Chemping had
+invited her youngest nephew to accompany her on the first day of the
+shopping expedition, throwing in the additional allurement of a
+cinematograph theatre and the prospect of light refreshment.  As Cyprian
+was not yet eighteen she hoped he might not have reached that stage in
+masculine development when parcel-carrying is looked on as a thing
+abhorrent.
+
+“Meet me just outside the floral department,” she wrote to him, “and
+don’t be a moment later than eleven.”
+
+Cyprian was a boy who carried with him through early life the wondering
+look of a dreamer, the eyes of one who sees things that are not visible
+to ordinary mortals, and invests the commonplace things of this world
+with qualities unsuspected by plainer folk—the eyes of a poet or a house
+agent.  He was quietly dressed—that sartorial quietude which frequently
+accompanies early adolescence, and is usually attributed by novel-writers
+to the influence of a widowed mother.  His hair was brushed back in a
+smoothness as of ribbon seaweed and seamed with a narrow furrow that
+scarcely aimed at being a parting.  His aunt particularly noted this item
+of his toilet when they met at the appointed rendezvous, because he was
+standing waiting for her bareheaded.
+
+“Where is your hat?” she asked.
+
+“I didn’t bring one with me,” he replied.
+
+Adela Chemping was slightly scandalised.
+
+“You are not going to be what they call a Nut, are you?” she inquired
+with some anxiety, partly with the idea that a Nut would be an
+extravagance which her sister’s small household would scarcely be
+justified in incurring, partly, perhaps, with the instinctive
+apprehension that a Nut, even in its embryo stage, would refuse to carry
+parcels.
+
+Cyprian looked at her with his wondering, dreamy eyes.
+
+“I didn’t bring a hat,” he said, “because it is such a nuisance when one
+is shopping; I mean it is so awkward if one meets anyone one knows and
+has to take one’s hat off when one’s hands are full of parcels.  If one
+hasn’t got a hat on one can’t take it off.”
+
+Mrs. Chemping sighed with great relief; her worst fear had been laid at
+rest.
+
+“It is more orthodox to wear a hat,” she observed, and then turned her
+attention briskly to the business in hand.
+
+“We will go first to the table-linen counter,” she said, leading the way
+in that direction; “I should like to look at some napkins.”
+
+The wondering look deepened in Cyprian’s eyes as he followed his aunt; he
+belonged to a generation that is supposed to be over-fond of the rôle of
+mere spectator, but looking at napkins that one did not mean to buy was a
+pleasure beyond his comprehension.  Mrs. Chemping held one or two napkins
+up to the light and stared fixedly at them, as though she half expected
+to find some revolutionary cypher written on them in scarcely visible
+ink; then she suddenly broke away in the direction of the glassware
+department.
+
+“Millicent asked me to get her a couple of decanters if there were any
+going really cheap,” she explained on the way, “and I really do want a
+salad bowl.  I can come back to the napkins later on.”
+
+She handled and scrutinised a large number of decanters and a long series
+of salad bowls, and finally bought seven chrysanthemum vases.
+
+“No one uses that kind of vase nowadays,” she informed Cyprian, “but they
+will do for presents next Christmas.”
+
+Two sunshades that were marked down to a price that Mrs. Chemping
+considered absurdly cheap were added to her purchases.
+
+“One of them will do for Ruth Colson; she is going out to the Malay
+States, and a sunshade will always be useful there.  And I must get her
+some thin writing paper.  It takes up no room in one’s baggage.”
+
+Mrs. Chemping bought stacks of writing paper; it was so cheap, and it
+went so flat in a trunk or portmanteau.  She also bought a few
+envelopes—envelopes somehow seemed rather an extragavance compared with
+notepaper.
+
+“Do you think Ruth will like blue or grey paper?” she asked Cyprian.
+
+“Grey,” said Cyprian, who had never met the lady in question.
+
+“Have you any mauve notepaper of this quality?” Adela asked the
+assistant.
+
+“We haven’t any mauve,” said the assistant, “but we’ve two shades of
+green and a darker shade of grey.”
+
+Mrs. Chemping inspected the greens and the darker grey, and chose the
+blue.
+
+“Now we can have some lunch,” she said.
+
+Cyprian behaved in an exemplary fashion in the refreshment department,
+and cheerfully accepted a fish cake and a mince pie and a small cup of
+coffee as adequate restoratives after two hours of concentrated shopping.
+He was adamant, however, in resisting his aunt’s suggestion that a hat
+should be bought for him at the counter where men’s headwear was being
+disposed of at temptingly reduced prices.
+
+“I’ve got as many hats as I want at home,” he said, “and besides, it
+rumples one’s hair so, trying them on.”
+
+Perhaps he was going to develop into a Nut after all.  It was a
+disquieting symptom that he left all the parcels in charge of the
+cloak-room attendant.
+
+“We shall be getting more parcels presently,” he said, “so we need not
+collect these till we have finished our shopping.”
+
+His aunt was doubtfully appeased; some of the pleasure and excitement of
+a shopping expedition seemed to evaporate when one was deprived of
+immediate personal contact with one’s purchases.
+
+“I’m going to look at those napkins again,” she said, as they descended
+the stairs to the ground floor.  “You need not come,” she added, as the
+dreaming look in the boy’s eyes changed for a moment into one of mute
+protest, “you can meet me afterwards in the cutlery department; I’ve just
+remembered that I haven’t a corkscrew in the house that can be depended
+on.”
+
+Cyprian was not to be found in the cutlery department when his aunt in
+due course arrived there, but in the crush and bustle of anxious shoppers
+and busy attendants it was an easy matter to miss anyone.  It was in the
+leather goods department some quarter of an hour later that Adela
+Chemping caught sight of her nephew, separated from her by a rampart of
+suit-cases and portmanteaux and hemmed in by the jostling crush of human
+beings that now invaded every corner of the great shopping emporium.  She
+was just in time to witness a pardonable but rather embarrassing mistake
+on the part of a lady who had wriggled her way with unstayable
+determination towards the bareheaded Cyprian, and was now breathlessly
+demanding the sale price of a handbag which had taken her fancy.
+
+“There now,” exclaimed Adela to herself, “she takes him for one of the
+shop assistants because he hasn’t got a hat on.  I wonder it hasn’t
+happened before.”
+
+Perhaps it had.  Cyprian, at any rate, seemed neither startled nor
+embarrassed by the error into which the good lady had fallen.  Examining
+the ticket on the bag, he announced in a clear, dispassionate voice:
+
+“Black seal, thirty-four shillings, marked down to twenty-eight.  As a
+matter of fact, we are clearing them out at a special reduction price of
+twenty-six shillings.  They are going off rather fast.”
+
+“I’ll take it,” said the lady, eagerly digging some coins out of her
+purse.
+
+“Will you take it as it is?” asked Cyprian; “it will be a matter of a few
+minutes to get it wrapped up, there is such a crush.”
+
+“Never mind, I’ll take it as it is,” said the purchaser, clutching her
+treasure and counting the money into Cyprian’s palm.
+
+Several kind strangers helped Adela into the open air.
+
+“It’s the crush and the heat,” said one sympathiser to another; “it’s
+enough to turn anyone giddy.”
+
+When she next came across Cyprian he was standing in the crowd that
+pushed and jostled around the counters of the book department.  The dream
+look was deeper than ever in his eyes.  He had just sold two books of
+devotion to an elderly Canon.
+
+
+
+
+THE QUINCE TREE
+
+
+“I’ve just been to see old Betsy Mullen,” announced Vera to her aunt,
+Mrs. Bebberly Cumble; “she seems in rather a bad way about her rent.  She
+owes about fifteen weeks of it, and says she doesn’t know where any of it
+is to come from.”
+
+“Betsy Mullen always is in difficulties with her rent, and the more
+people help her with it the less she troubles about it,” said the aunt.
+“I certainly am not going to assist her any more.  The fact is, she will
+have to go into a smaller and cheaper cottage; there are several to be
+had at the other end of the village for half the rent that she is paying,
+or supposed to be paying, now.  I told her a year ago that she ought to
+move.”
+
+“But she wouldn’t get such a nice garden anywhere else,” protested Vera,
+“and there’s such a jolly quince tree in the corner.  I don’t suppose
+there’s another quince tree in the whole parish.  And she never makes any
+quince jam; I think to have a quince tree and not to make quince jam
+shows such strength of character.  Oh, she can’t possibly move away from
+that garden.”
+
+“When one is sixteen,” said Mrs. Bebberly Cumble severely, “one talks of
+things being impossible which are merely uncongenial.  It is not only
+possible but it is desirable that Betsy Mullen should move into smaller
+quarters; she has scarcely enough furniture to fill that big cottage.”
+
+“As far as value goes,” said Vera after a short pause, “there is more in
+Betsy’s cottage than in any other house for miles round.”
+
+“Nonsense,” said the aunt; “she parted with whatever old china ware she
+had long ago.”
+
+“I’m not talking about anything that belongs to Betsy herself,” said Vera
+darkly; “but, of course, you don’t know what I know, and I don’t suppose
+I ought to tell you.”
+
+“You must tell me at once,” exclaimed the aunt, her senses leaping into
+alertness like those of a terrier suddenly exchanging a bored drowsiness
+for the lively anticipation of an immediate rat hunt.
+
+“I’m perfectly certain that I oughtn’t to tell you anything about it,”
+said Vera, “but, then, I often do things that I oughtn’t to do.”
+
+“I should be the last person to suggest that you should do anything that
+you ought not to do to—” began Mrs. Bebberly Cumble impressively.
+
+“And I am always swayed by the last person who speaks to me,” admitted
+Vera, “so I’ll do what I ought not to do and tell you.”
+
+Mrs. Bebberley Cumble thrust a very pardonable sense of exasperation into
+the background of her mind and demanded impatiently:
+
+“What is there in Betsy Mullen’s cottage that you are making such a fuss
+about?”
+
+“It’s hardly fair to say that _I’ve_ made a fuss about it,” said Vera;
+“this is the first time I’ve mentioned the matter, but there’s been no
+end of trouble and mystery and newspaper speculation about it.  It’s
+rather amusing to think of the columns of conjecture in the Press and the
+police and detectives hunting about everywhere at home and abroad, and
+all the while that innocent-looking little cottage has held the secret.”
+
+“You don’t mean to say it’s the Louvre picture, La Something or other,
+the woman with the smile, that disappeared about two years ago?”
+exclaimed the aunt with rising excitement.
+
+“Oh no, not that,” said Vera, “but something quite as important and just
+as mysterious—if anything, rather more scandalous.”
+
+“Not the Dublin—?”
+
+Vera nodded.
+
+“The whole jolly lot of them.”
+
+“In Betsy’s cottage?  Incredible!”
+
+“Of course Betsy hasn’t an idea as to what they are,” said Vera; “she
+just knows that they are something valuable and that she must keep quiet
+about them.  I found out quite by accident what they were and how they
+came to be there.  You see, the people who had them were at their wits’
+end to know where to stow them away for safe keeping, and some one who
+was motoring through the village was struck by the snug loneliness of the
+cottage and thought it would be just the thing.  Mrs. Lamper arranged the
+matter with Betsy and smuggled the things in.”
+
+“Mrs. Lamper?”
+
+“Yes; she does a lot of district visiting, you know.”
+
+“I am quite aware that she takes soup and flannel and improving
+literature to the poorer cottagers,” said Mrs. Bebberly Cumble, “but that
+is hardly the same sort of thing as disposing of stolen goods, and she
+must have known something about their history; anyone who reads the
+papers, even casually, must have been aware of the theft, and I should
+think the things were not hard to recognise.  Mrs. Lamper has always had
+the reputation of being a very conscientious woman.”
+
+“Of course she was screening some one else,” said Vera.  “A remarkable
+feature of the affair is the extraordinary number of quite respectable
+people who have involved themselves in its meshes by trying to shield
+others.  You would be really astonished if you knew some of the names of
+the individuals mixed up in it, and I don’t suppose a tithe of them know
+who the original culprits were; and now I’ve got you entangled in the
+mess by letting you into the secret of the cottage.”
+
+“You most certainly have not entangled me,” said Mrs. Bebberly Cumble
+indignantly.  “I have no intention of shielding anybody.  The police must
+know about it at once; a theft is a theft, whoever is involved.  If
+respectable people choose to turn themselves into receivers and disposers
+of stolen goods, well, they’ve ceased to be respectable, that’s all.  I
+shall telephone immediately—”
+
+“Oh, aunt,” said Vera reproachfully, “it would break the poor Canon’s
+heart if Cuthbert were to be involved in a scandal of this sort.  You
+know it would.”
+
+“Cuthbert involved!  How can you say such things when you know how much
+we all think of him?”
+
+“Of course I know you think a lot of him, and that he’s engaged to marry
+Beatrice, and that it will be a frightfully good match, and that he’s
+your ideal of what a son-in-law ought to be.  All the same, it was
+Cuthbert’s idea to stow the things away in the cottage, and it was his
+motor that brought them.  He was only doing it to help his friend
+Pegginson, you know—the Quaker man, who is always agitating for a smaller
+Navy.  I forget how he got involved in it.  I warned you that there were
+lots of quite respectable people mixed up in it, didn’t I?  That’s what I
+meant when I said it would be impossible for old Betsy to leave the
+cottage; the things take up a good bit of room, and she couldn’t go
+carrying them about with her other goods and chattels without attracting
+notice.  Of course if she were to fall ill and die it would be equally
+unfortunate.  Her mother lived to be over ninety, she tells me, so with
+due care and an absence of worry she ought to last for another dozen
+years at least.  By that time perhaps some other arrangements will have
+been made for disposing of the wretched things.”
+
+“I shall speak to Cuthbert about it—after the wedding,” said Mrs.
+Bebberly Cumble.
+
+“The wedding isn’t till next year,” said Vera, in recounting the story to
+her best girl friend, “and meanwhile old Betsy is living rent free, with
+soup twice a week and my aunt’s doctor to see her whenever she has a
+finger ache.”
+
+“But how on earth did you get to know about it all?” asked her friend, in
+admiring wonder.
+
+“It was a mystery—” said Vera.
+
+“Of course it was a mystery, a mystery that baffled everybody.  What
+beats me is how you found out—”
+
+“Oh, about the jewels?  I invented that part,” explained Vera; “I mean
+the mystery was where old Betsy’s arrears of rent were to come from; and
+she would have hated leaving that jolly quince tree.”
+
+
+
+
+THE FORBIDDEN BUZZARDS
+
+
+“Is matchmaking at all in your line?”
+
+Hugo Peterby asked the question with a certain amount of personal
+interest.
+
+“I don’t specialise in it,” said Clovis; “it’s all right while you’re
+doing it, but the after-effects are sometimes so disconcerting—the mute
+reproachful looks of the people you’ve aided and abetted in matrimonial
+experiments.  It’s as bad as selling a man a horse with half a dozen
+latent vices and watching him discover them piecemeal in the course of
+the hunting season.  I suppose you’re thinking of the Coulterneb girl.
+She’s certainly jolly, and quite all right as far as looks go, and I
+believe a certain amount of money adheres to her.  What I don’t see is
+how you will ever manage to propose to her.  In all the time I’ve known
+her I don’t remember her to have stopped talking for three consecutive
+minutes.  You’ll have to race her six times round the grass paddock for a
+bet, and then blurt your proposal out before she’s got her wind back.
+The paddock is laid up for hay, but if you’re really in love with her you
+won’t let a consideration of that sort stop you, especially as it’s not
+your hay.”
+
+“I think I could manage the proposing part right enough,” said Hugo, “if
+I could count on being left alone with her for four or five hours.  The
+trouble is that I’m not likely to get anything like that amount of grace.
+That fellow Lanner is showing signs of interesting himself in the same
+quarter.  He’s quite heartbreakingly rich and is rather a swell in his
+way; in fact, our hostess is obviously a bit flattered at having him
+here.  If she gets wind of the fact that he’s inclined to be attracted by
+Betty Coulterneb she’ll think it a splendid match and throw them into
+each other’s arms all day long, and then where will my opportunities come
+in?  My one anxiety is to keep him out of the girl’s way as much as
+possible, and if you could help me—”
+
+“If you want me to trot Lanner round the countryside, inspecting alleged
+Roman remains and studying local methods of bee culture and crop raising,
+I’m afraid I can’t oblige you,” said Clovis.  “You see, he’s taken
+something like an aversion to me since the other night in the
+smoking-room.”
+
+“What happened in the smoking-room?”
+
+“He trotted out some well-worn chestnut as the latest thing in good
+stories, and I remarked, quite innocently, that I never could remember
+whether it was George II. or James II. who was so fond of that particular
+story, and now he regards me with politely-draped dislike.  I’ll do my
+best for you, if the opportunity arises, but it will have to be in a
+roundabout, impersonal manner.”
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+“It’s so nice having Mr. Lanner here,” confided Mrs. Olston to Clovis the
+next afternoon; “he’s always been engaged when I’ve asked him before.
+Such a nice man; he really ought to be married to some nice girl.
+Between you and me, I have an idea that he came down here for a certain
+reason.”
+
+“I’ve had much the same idea,” said Clovis, lowering his voice; “in fact,
+I’m almost certain of it.”
+
+“You mean he’s attracted by—” began Mrs. Olston eagerly.
+
+“I mean he’s here for what he can get,” said Clovis.
+
+“For what he can _get_?” said the hostess with a touch of indignation in
+her voice; “what do you mean?  He’s a very rich man.  What should he want
+to get here?”
+
+“He has one ruling passion,” said Clovis, “and there’s something he can
+get here that is not to be had for love nor for money anywhere else in
+the country, as far as I know.”
+
+“But what?  Whatever do you mean?  What is his ruling passion?”
+
+“Egg-collecting,” said Clovis.  “He has agents all over the world getting
+rare eggs for him, and his collection is one of the finest in Europe; but
+his great ambition is to collect his treasures personally.  He stops at
+no expense nor trouble to achieve that end.”
+
+“Good heavens!  The buzzards, the rough-legged buzzards!” exclaimed Mrs.
+Olston; “you don’t think he’s going to raid their nest?”
+
+“What do you think yourself?” asked Clovis; “the only pair of
+rough-legged buzzards known to breed in this country are nesting in your
+woods.  Very few people know about them, but as a member of the league
+for protecting rare birds that information would be at his disposal.  I
+came down in the train with him, and I noticed that a bulky volume of
+Dresser’s ‘Birds of Europe’ was one of the requisites that he had packed
+in his travelling-kit.  It was the volume dealing with short-winged hawks
+and buzzards.”
+
+Clovis believed that if a lie was worth telling it was worth telling
+well.
+
+“This is appalling,” said Mrs. Olston; “my husband would never forgive me
+if anything happened to those birds.  They’ve been seen about the woods
+for the last year or two, but this is the first time they’ve nested.  As
+you say, they are almost the only pair known to be breeding in the whole
+of Great Britain; and now their nest is going to be harried by a guest
+staying under my roof.  I must do something to stop it.  Do you think if
+I appealed to him—”
+
+Clovis laughed.
+
+“There is a story going about, which I fancy is true in most of its
+details, of something that happened not long ago somewhere on the coast
+of the Sea of Marmora, in which our friend had a hand.  A Syrian
+nightjar, or some such bird, was known to be breeding in the olive
+gardens of a rich Armenian, who for some reason or other wouldn’t allow
+Lanner to go in and take the eggs, though he offered cash down for the
+permission.  The Armenian was found beaten nearly to death a day or two
+later, and his fences levelled.  It was assumed to be a case of Mussulman
+aggression, and noted as such in all the Consular reports, but the eggs
+are in the Lanner collection.  No, I don’t think I should appeal to his
+better feelings if I were you.”
+
+“I must do something,” said Mrs. Olston tearfully; “my husband’s parting
+words when he went off to Norway were an injunction to see that those
+birds were not disturbed, and he’s asked about them every time he’s
+written.  Do suggest something.”
+
+“I was going to suggest picketing,” said Clovis.
+
+“Picketing!  You mean setting guards round the birds?”
+
+“No; round Lanner.  He can’t find his way through those woods by night,
+and you could arrange that you or Evelyn or Jack or the German governess
+should be by his side in relays all day long.  A fellow guest he could
+get rid of, but he couldn’t very well shake off members of the household,
+and even the most determined collector would hardly go climbing after
+forbidden buzzards’ eggs with a German governess hanging round his neck,
+so to speak.”
+
+Lanner, who had been lazily watching for an opportunity for prosecuting
+his courtship of the Coulterneb girl, found presently that his chances of
+getting her to himself for ten minutes even were non-existent.  If the
+girl was ever alone he never was.  His hostess had changed suddenly, as
+far as he was concerned, from the desirable type that lets her guests do
+nothing in the way that best pleases them, to the sort that drags them
+over the ground like so many harrows.  She showed him the herb garden and
+the greenhouses, the village church, some water-colour sketches that her
+sister had done in Corsica, and the place where it was hoped that celery
+would grow later in the year.
+
+He was shown all the Aylesbury ducklings and the row of wooden hives
+where there would have been bees if there had not been bee disease.  He
+was also taken to the end of a long lane and shown a distant mound
+whereon local tradition reported that the Danes had once pitched a camp.
+And when his hostess had to desert him temporarily for other duties he
+would find Evelyn walking solemnly by his side.  Evelyn was fourteen and
+talked chiefly about good and evil, and of how much one might accomplish
+in the way of regenerating the world if one was thoroughly determined to
+do one’s utmost.  It was generally rather a relief when she was displaced
+by Jack, who was nine years old, and talked exclusively about the Balkan
+War without throwing any fresh light on its political or military
+history.  The German governess told Lanner more about Schiller than he
+had ever heard in his life about any one person; it was perhaps his own
+fault for having told her that he was not interested in Goethe.  When the
+governess went off picket duty the hostess was again on hand with a
+not-to-be-gainsaid invitation to visit the cottage of an old woman who
+remembered Charles James Fox; the woman had been dead for two or three
+years, but the cottage was still there.  Lanner was called back to town
+earlier than he had originally intended.
+
+Hugo did not bring off his affair with Betty Coulterneb.  Whether she
+refused him or whether, as was more generally supposed, he did not get a
+chance of saying three consecutive words, has never been exactly
+ascertained.  Anyhow, she is still the jolly Coulterneb girl.
+
+The buzzards successfully reared two young ones, which were shot by a
+local hairdresser.
+
+
+
+
+THE STAKE
+
+
+“Ronnie is a great trial to me,” said Mrs. Attray plaintively.  “Only
+eighteen years old last February and already a confirmed gambler.  I am
+sure I don’t know where he inherits it from; his father never touched
+cards, and you know how little I play—a game of bridge on Wednesday
+afternoons in the winter, for three-pence a hundred, and even that I
+shouldn’t do if it wasn’t that Edith always wants a fourth and would be
+certain to ask that detestable Jenkinham woman if she couldn’t get me.  I
+would much rather sit and talk any day than play bridge; cards are such a
+waste of time, I think.  But as to Ronnie, bridge and baccarat and
+poker-patience are positively all that he thinks about.  Of course I’ve
+done my best to stop it; I’ve asked the Norridrums not to let him play
+cards when he’s over there, but you might as well ask the Atlantic Ocean
+to keep quiet for a crossing as expect them to bother about a mother’s
+natural anxieties.”
+
+“Why do you let him go there?” asked Eleanor Saxelby.
+
+“My dear,” said Mrs. Attray, “I don’t want to offend them.  After all,
+they are my landlords and I have to look to them for anything I want done
+about the place; they were very accommodating about the new roof for the
+orchid house.  And they lend me one of their cars when mine is out of
+order; you know how often it gets out of order.”
+
+“I don’t know how often,” said Eleanor, “but it must happen very
+frequently.  Whenever I want you to take me anywhere in your car I am
+always told that there is something wrong with it, or else that the
+chauffeur has got neuralgia and you don’t like to ask him to go out.”
+
+“He suffers quite a lot from neuralgia,” said Mrs. Attray hastily.
+“Anyhow,” she continued, “you can understand that I don’t want to offend
+the Norridrums.  Their household is the most rackety one in the county,
+and I believe no one ever knows to an hour or two when any particular
+meal will appear on the table or what it will consist of when it does
+appear.”
+
+Eleanor Saxelby shuddered.  She liked her meals to be of regular
+occurrence and assured proportions.
+
+“Still,” pursued Mrs. Attray, “whatever their own home life may be, as
+landlords and neighbours they are considerate and obliging, so I don’t
+want to quarrel with them.  Besides, if Ronnie didn’t play cards there
+he’d be playing somewhere else.”
+
+“Not if you were firm with him,” said Eleanor “I believe in being firm.”
+
+“Firm?  I am firm,” exclaimed Mrs. Attray; “I am more than firm—I am
+farseeing.  I’ve done everything I can think of to prevent Ronnie from
+playing for money.  I’ve stopped his allowance for the rest of the year,
+so he can’t even gamble on credit, and I’ve subscribed a lump sum to the
+church offertory in his name instead of giving him instalments of small
+silver to put in the bag on Sundays.  I wouldn’t even let him have the
+money to tip the hunt servants with, but sent it by postal order.  He was
+furiously sulky about it, but I reminded him of what happened to the ten
+shillings that I gave him for the Young Men’s Endeavour League
+‘Self-Denial Week.’”
+
+“What did happen to it?” asked Eleanor.
+
+“Well, Ronnie did some preliminary endeavouring with it, on his own
+account, in connection with the Grand National.  If it had come off, as
+he expressed it, he would have given the League twenty-five shillings and
+netted a comfortable commission for himself; as it was, that ten
+shillings was one of the things the League had to deny itself.  Since
+then I’ve been careful not to let him have a penny piece in his hands.”
+
+“He’ll get round that in some way,” said Eleanor with quiet conviction;
+“he’ll sell things.”
+
+“My dear, he’s done all that is to be done in that direction already.
+He’s got rid of his wrist-watch and his hunting flask and both his
+cigarette cases, and I shouldn’t be surprised if he’s wearing
+imitation-gold sleeve links instead of those his Aunt Rhoda gave him on
+his seventeenth birthday.  He can’t sell his clothes, of course, except
+his winter overcoat, and I’ve locked that up in the camphor cupboard on
+the pretext of preserving it from moth.  I really don’t see what else he
+can raise money on.  I consider that I’ve been both firm and farseeing.”
+
+“Has he been at the Norridrums lately?” asked Eleanor.
+
+“He was there yesterday afternoon and stayed to dinner,” said Mrs.
+Attray.  “I don’t quite know when he came home, but I fancy it was late.”
+
+“Then depend on it he was gambling,” said Eleanor, with the assured air
+of one who has few ideas and makes the most of them.  “Late hours in the
+country always mean gambling.”
+
+“He can’t gamble if he has no money and no chance of getting any,” argued
+Mrs. Attray; “even if one plays for small stakes one must have a decent
+prospect of paying one’s losses.”
+
+“He may have sold some of the Amherst pheasant chicks,” suggested
+Eleanor; “they would fetch about ten or twelve shillings each, I
+daresay.”
+
+“Ronnie wouldn’t do such a thing,” said Mrs. Attray; “and anyhow I went
+and counted them this morning and they’re all there.  No,” she continued,
+with the quiet satisfaction that comes from a sense of painstaking and
+merited achievement, “I fancy that Ronnie had to content himself with the
+rôle of onlooker last night, as far as the card-table was concerned.”
+
+“Is that clock right?” asked Eleanor, whose eyes had been straying
+restlessly towards the mantel-piece for some little time; “lunch is
+usually so punctual in your establishment.”
+
+“Three minutes past the half-hour,” exclaimed Mrs. Attray; “cook must be
+preparing something unusually sumptuous in your honour.  I am not in the
+secret; I’ve been out all the morning, you know.”
+
+Eleanor smiled forgivingly.  A special effort by Mrs. Attray’s cook was
+worth waiting a few minutes for.
+
+As a matter of fact, the luncheon fare, when it made its tardy
+appearance, was distinctly unworthy of the reputation which the
+justly-treasured cook had built up for herself.  The soup alone would
+have sufficed to cast a gloom over any meal that it had inaugurated, and
+it was not redeemed by anything that followed.  Eleanor said little, but
+when she spoke there was a hint of tears in her voice that was far more
+eloquent than outspoken denunciation would have been, and even the
+insouciant Ronald showed traces of depression when he tasted the rognons
+Saltikoff.
+
+“Not quite the best luncheon I’ve enjoyed in your house,” said Eleanor at
+last, when her final hope had flickered out with the savoury.
+
+“My dear, it’s the worst meal I’ve sat down to for years,” said her
+hostess; “that last dish tasted principally of red pepper and wet toast.
+I’m awfully sorry.  Is anything the matter in the kitchen, Pellin?” she
+asked of the attendant maid.
+
+“Well, ma’am, the new cook hadn’t hardly time to see to things properly,
+coming in so sudden—” commenced Pellin by way of explanation.
+
+“The new cook!” screamed Mrs. Attray.
+
+“Colonel Norridrum’s cook, ma’am,” said Pellin.
+
+“What on earth do you mean?  What is Colonel Norridrum’s cook doing in my
+kitchen—and where is my cook?”
+
+“Perhaps I can explain better than Pellin can,” said Ronald hurriedly;
+“the fact is, I was dining at the Norridrums’ yesterday, and they were
+wishing they had a swell cook like yours, just for to-day and to-morrow,
+while they’ve got some gourmet staying with them: their own cook is no
+earthly good—well, you’ve seen what she turns out when she’s at all
+flurried.  So I thought it would be rather sporting to play them at
+baccarat for the loan of our cook against a money stake, and I lost,
+that’s all.  I have had rotten luck at baccarat all this year.”
+
+The remainder of his explanation, of how he had assured the cooks that
+the temporary transfer had his mother’s sanction, and had smuggled the
+one out and the other in during the maternal absence, was drowned in the
+outcry of scandalised upbraiding.
+
+“If I had sold the woman into slavery there couldn’t have been a bigger
+fuss about it,” he confided afterwards to Bertie Norridrum, “and Eleanor
+Saxelby raged and ramped the louder of the two.  I tell you what, I’ll
+bet you two of the Amherst pheasants to five shillings that she refuses
+to have me as a partner at the croquet tournament.  We’re drawn together,
+you know.”
+
+This time he won his bet.
+
+
+
+
+CLOVIS ON PARENTAL RESPONSIBILITIES
+
+
+Marion Eggelby sat talking to Clovis on the only subject that she ever
+willingly talked about—her offspring and their varied perfections and
+accomplishments.  Clovis was not in what could be called a receptive
+mood; the younger generation of Eggelby, depicted in the glowing
+improbable colours of parent impressionism, aroused in him no enthusiasm.
+Mrs. Eggelby, on the other hand, was furnished with enthusiasm enough for
+two.
+
+“You would like Eric,” she said, argumentatively rather than hopefully.
+Clovis had intimated very unmistakably that he was unlikely to care
+extravagantly for either Amy or Willie.  “Yes, I feel sure you would like
+Eric.  Every one takes to him at once.  You know, he always reminds me of
+that famous picture of the youthful David—I forget who it’s by, but it’s
+very well known.”
+
+“That would be sufficient to set me against him, if I saw much of him,”
+said Clovis.  “Just imagine at auction bridge, for instance, when one was
+trying to concentrate one’s mind on what one’s partner’s original
+declaration had been, and to remember what suits one’s opponents had
+originally discarded, what it would be like to have some one persistently
+reminding one of a picture of the youthful David.  It would be simply
+maddening.  If Eric did that I should detest him.”
+
+“Eric doesn’t play bridge,” said Mrs. Eggelby with dignity.
+
+“Doesn’t he?” asked Clovis; “why not?”
+
+“None of my children have been brought up to play card games,” said Mrs.
+Eggelby; “draughts and halma and those sorts of games I encourage.  Eric
+is considered quite a wonderful draughts-player.”
+
+“You are strewing dreadful risks in the path of your family,” said
+Clovis; “a friend of mine who is a prison chaplain told me that among the
+worst criminal cases that have come under his notice, men condemned to
+death or to long periods of penal servitude, there was not a single
+bridge-player.  On the other hand, he knew at least two expert
+draughts-players among them.”
+
+“I really don’t see what my boys have got to do with the criminal
+classes,” said Mrs. Eggelby resentfully.  “They have been most carefully
+brought up, I can assure you that.”
+
+“That shows that you were nervous as to how they would turn out,” said
+Clovis.  “Now, my mother never bothered about bringing me up.  She just
+saw to it that I got whacked at decent intervals and was taught the
+difference between right and wrong; there is some difference, you know,
+but I’ve forgotten what it is.”
+
+“Forgotten the difference between right and wrong!” exclaimed Mrs.
+Eggelby.
+
+“Well, you see, I took up natural history and a whole lot of other
+subjects at the same time, and one can’t remember everything, can one?  I
+used to know the difference between the Sardinian dormouse and the
+ordinary kind, and whether the wry-neck arrives at our shores earlier
+than the cuckoo, or the other way round, and how long the walrus takes in
+growing to maturity; I daresay you knew all those sorts of things once,
+but I bet you’ve forgotten them.”
+
+“Those things are not important,” said Mrs. Eggelby, “but—”
+
+“The fact that we’ve both forgotten them proves that they are important,”
+said Clovis; “you must have noticed that it’s always the important things
+that one forgets, while the trivial, unnecessary facts of life stick in
+one’s memory.  There’s my cousin, Editha Clubberley, for instance; I can
+never forget that her birthday is on the 12th of October.  It’s a matter
+of utter indifference to me on what date her birthday falls, or whether
+she was born at all; either fact seems to me absolutely trivial, or
+unnecessary—I’ve heaps of other cousins to go on with.  On the other
+hand, when I’m staying with Hildegarde Shrubley I can never remember the
+important circumstance whether her first husband got his unenviable
+reputation on the Turf or the Stock Exchange, and that uncertainty rules
+Sport and Finance out of the conversation at once.  One can never mention
+travel, either, because her second husband had to live permanently
+abroad.”
+
+“Mrs. Shrubley and I move in very different circles,” said Mrs. Eggelby
+stiffly.
+
+“No one who knows Hildegarde could possibly accuse her of moving in a
+circle,” said Clovis; “her view of life seems to be a non-stop run with
+an inexhaustible supply of petrol.  If she can get some one else to pay
+for the petrol so much the better.  I don’t mind confessing to you that
+she has taught me more than any other woman I can think of.”
+
+“What kind of knowledge?” demanded Mrs. Eggelby, with the air a jury
+might collectively wear when finding a verdict without leaving the box.
+
+“Well, among other things, she’s introduced me to at least four different
+ways of cooking lobster,” said Clovis gratefully.  “That, of course,
+wouldn’t appeal to you; people who abstain from the pleasures of the
+card-table never really appreciate the finer possibilities of the
+dining-table.  I suppose their powers of enlightened enjoyment get
+atrophied from disuse.”
+
+“An aunt of mine was very ill after eating a lobster,” said Mrs. Eggelby.
+
+“I daresay, if we knew more of her history, we should find out that she’d
+often been ill before eating the lobster.  Aren’t you concealing the fact
+that she’d had measles and influenza and nervous headache and hysteria,
+and other things that aunts do have, long before she ate the lobster?
+Aunts that have never known a day’s illness are very rare; in fact, I
+don’t personally know of any.  Of course if she ate it as a child of two
+weeks old it might have been her first illness—and her last.  But if that
+was the case I think you should have said so.”
+
+“I must be going,” said Mrs. Eggelby, in a tone which had been thoroughly
+sterilised of even perfunctory regret.
+
+Clovis rose with an air of graceful reluctance.
+
+“I have so enjoyed our little talk about Eric,” he said; “I quite look
+forward to meeting him some day.”
+
+“Good-bye,” said Mrs. Eggelby frostily; the supplementary remark which
+she made at the back of her throat was—
+
+“I’ll take care that you never shall!”
+
+
+
+
+A HOLIDAY TASK
+
+
+Kenelm Jerton entered the dining-hall of the Golden Galleon Hotel in the
+full crush of the luncheon hour.  Nearly every seat was occupied, and
+small additional tables had been brought in, where floor space permitted,
+to accommodate latecomers, with the result that many of the tables were
+almost touching each other.  Jerton was beckoned by a waiter to the only
+vacant table that was discernible, and took his seat with the
+uncomfortable and wholly groundless idea that nearly every one in the
+room was staring at him.  He was a youngish man of ordinary appearance,
+quiet of dress and unobtrusive of manner, and he could never wholly rid
+himself of the idea that a fierce light of public scrutiny beat on him as
+though he had been a notability or a super-nut.  After he had ordered his
+lunch there came the unavoidable interval of waiting, with nothing to do
+but to stare at the flower-vase on his table and to be stared at (in
+imagination) by several flappers, some maturer beings of the same sex,
+and a satirical-looking Jew.  In order to carry off the situation with
+some appearance of unconcern he became spuriously interested in the
+contents of the flower-vase.
+
+“What is the name of these roses, d’you know?” he asked the waiter.  The
+waiter was ready at all times to conceal his ignorance concerning items
+of the wine-list or menu; he was frankly ignorant as to the specific name
+of the roses.
+
+“_Amy Sylvester Partington_,” said a voice at Jerton’s elbow.
+
+The voice came from a pleasant-faced, well-dressed young woman who was
+sitting at a table that almost touched Jerton’s.  He thanked her
+hurriedly and nervously for the information, and made some inconsequent
+remark about the flowers.
+
+“It is a curious thing,” said the young woman, that, “I should be able to
+tell you the name of those roses without an effort of memory, because if
+you were to ask me my name I should be utterly unable to give it to you.”
+
+Jerton had not harboured the least intention of extending his thirst for
+name-labels to his neighbour.  After her rather remarkable announcement,
+however, he was obliged to say something in the way of polite inquiry.
+
+“Yes,” answered the lady, “I suppose it is a case of partial loss of
+memory.  I was in the train coming down here; my ticket told me that I
+had come from Victoria and was bound for this place.  I had a couple of
+five-pound notes and a sovereign on me, no visiting cards or any other
+means of identification, and no idea as to who I am.  I can only hazily
+recollect that I have a title; I am Lady Somebody—beyond that my mind is
+a blank.”
+
+“Hadn’t you any luggage with you?” asked Jerton.
+
+“That is what I didn’t know.  I knew the name of this hotel and made up
+my mind to come here, and when the hotel porter who meets the trains
+asked if I had any luggage I had to invent a dressing-bag and
+dress-basket; I could always pretend that they had gone astray.  I gave
+him the name of Smith, and presently he emerged from a confused pile of
+luggage and passengers with a dressing-bag and dress-basket labelled
+Kestrel-Smith.  I had to take them; I don’t see what else I could have
+done.”
+
+Jerton said nothing, but he rather wondered what the lawful owner of the
+baggage would do.
+
+“Of course it was dreadful arriving at a strange hotel with the name of
+Kestrel-Smith, but it would have been worse to have arrived without
+luggage.  Anyhow, I hate causing trouble.”
+
+Jerton had visions of harassed railway officials and distraught
+Kestrel-Smiths, but he made no attempt to clothe his mental picture in
+words.  The lady continued her story.
+
+“Naturally, none of my keys would fit the things, but I told an
+intelligent page boy that I had lost my key-ring, and he had the locks
+forced in a twinkling.  Rather too intelligent, that boy; he will
+probably end in Dartmoor.  The Kestrel-Smith toilet tools aren’t up to
+much, but they are better than nothing.”
+
+“If you feel sure that you have a title,” said Jerton, “why not get hold
+of a peerage and go right through it?”
+
+“I tried that.  I skimmed through the list of the House of Lords in
+‘Whitaker,’ but a mere printed string of names conveys awfully little to
+one, you know.  If you were an army officer and had lost your identity
+you might pore over the Army List for months without finding out who your
+were.  I’m going on another tack; I’m trying to find out by various
+little tests who I am _not_—that will narrow the range of uncertainty
+down a bit.  You may have noticed, for instance, that I’m lunching
+principally off lobster Newburg.”
+
+Jerton had not ventured to notice anything of the sort.
+
+“It’s an extravagance, because it’s one of the most expensive dishes on
+the menu, but at any rate it proves that I’m not Lady Starping; she never
+touches shell-fish, and poor Lady Braddleshrub has no digestion at all;
+if I am _her_ I shall certainly die in agony in the course of the
+afternoon, and the duty of finding out who I am will devolve on the press
+and the police and those sort of people; I shall be past caring.  Lady
+Knewford doesn’t know one rose from another and she hates men, so she
+wouldn’t have spoken to you in any case; and Lady Mousehilton flirts with
+every man she meets—I haven’t flirted with you, have I?”
+
+Jerton hastily gave the required assurance.
+
+“Well, you see,” continued the lady, “that knocks four off the list at
+once.”
+
+“It’ll be rather a lengthy process bringing the list down to one,” said
+Jerton.
+
+“Oh, but, of course, there are heaps of them that I couldn’t possibly
+be—women who’ve got grandchildren or sons old enough to have celebrated
+their coming of age.  I’ve only got to consider the ones about my own
+age.  I tell you how you might help me this afternoon, if you don’t mind;
+go through any of the back numbers of _Country Life_ and those sort of
+papers that you can find in the smoking-room, and see if you come across
+my portrait with infant son or anything of that sort.  It won’t take you
+ten minutes.  I’ll meet you in the lounge about tea-time.  Thanks
+awfully.”
+
+And the Fair Unknown, having graciously pressed Jerton into the search
+for her lost identity, rose and left the room.  As she passed the young
+man’s table she halted for a moment and whispered:
+
+“Did you notice that I tipped the waiter a shilling?  We can cross Lady
+Ulwight off the list; she would have died rather than do that.”
+
+At five o’clock Jerton made his way to the hotel lounge; he had spent a
+diligent but fruitless quarter of an hour among the illustrated weeklies
+in the smoking-room.  His new acquaintance was seated at a small
+tea-table, with a waiter hovering in attendance.
+
+“China tea or Indian?” she asked as Jerton came up.
+
+“China, please, and nothing to eat.  Have you discovered anything?”
+
+“Only negative information.  I’m not Lady Befnal.  She disapproves
+dreadfully of any form of gambling, so when I recognised a well-known
+book maker in the hotel lobby I went and put a tenner on an unnamed filly
+by William the Third out of Mitrovitza for the three-fifteen race.  I
+suppose the fact of the animal being nameless was what attracted me.”
+
+“Did it win?” asked Jerton.
+
+“No, came in fourth, the most irritating thing a horse can do when you’ve
+backed it win or place.  Anyhow, I know now that I’m not Lady Befnal.”
+
+“It seems to me that the knowledge was rather dearly bought,” commented
+Jerton.
+
+“Well, yes, it has rather cleared me out,” admitted the identity-seeker;
+“a florin is about all I’ve got left on me.  The lobster Newburg made my
+lunch rather an expensive one, and, of course, I had to tip that boy for
+what he did to the Kestrel-Smith locks.  I’ve got rather a useful idea,
+though.  I feel certain that I belong to the Pivot Club; I’ll go back to
+town and ask the hall porter there if there are any letters for me.  He
+knows all the members by sight, and if there are any letters or telephone
+messages waiting for me of course that will solve the problem.  If he
+says there aren’t any I shall say: ‘You know who I am, don’t you?’ so
+I’ll find out anyway.”
+
+The plan seemed a sound one; a difficulty in its execution suggested
+itself to Jerton.
+
+“Of course,” said the lady, when he hinted at the obstacle, “there’s my
+fare back to town, and my bill here and cabs and things.  If you’ll lend
+me three pounds that ought to see me through comfortably.  Thanks ever
+so.  Then there is the question of that luggage: I don’t want to be
+saddled with that for the rest of my life.  I’ll have it brought down to
+the hall and you can pretend to mount guard over it while I’m writing a
+letter.  Then I shall just slip away to the station, and you can wander
+off to the smoking-room, and they can do what they like with the things.
+They’ll advertise them after a bit and the owner can claim them.”
+
+Jerton acquiesced in the manœuvre, and duly mounted guard over the
+luggage while its temporary owner slipped unobtrusively out of the hotel.
+Her departure was not, however, altogether unnoticed.  Two gentlemen were
+strolling past Jerton, and one of them remarked to the other:
+
+“Did you see that tall young woman in grey who went out just now?  She is
+the Lady—”
+
+His promenade carried him out of earshot at the critical moment when he
+was about to disclose the elusive identity.  The Lady Who?  Jerton could
+scarcely run after a total stranger, break into his conversation, and ask
+him for information concerning a chance passer-by.  Besides, it was
+desirable that he should keep up the appearance of looking after the
+luggage.  In a minute or two, however, the important personage, the man
+who knew, came strolling back alone.  Jerton summoned up all his courage
+and waylaid him.
+
+“I think I heard you say you knew the lady who went out of the hotel a
+few minutes ago, a tall lady, dressed in grey.  Excuse me for asking if
+you could tell me her name; I’ve been talking to her for half an hour;
+she—er—she knows all my people and seems to know me, so I suppose I’ve
+met her somewhere before, but I’m blest if I can put a name to her.
+Could you—?”
+
+“Certainly.  She’s a Mrs. Stroope.”
+
+“_Mrs._?” queried Jerton.
+
+“Yes, she’s the Lady Champion at golf in my part of the world.  An awful
+good sort, and goes about a good deal in Society, but she has an awkward
+habit of losing her memory every now and then, and gets into all sorts of
+fixes.  She’s furious, too, if you make any allusion to it afterwards.
+Good day, sir.”
+
+The stranger passed on his way, and before Jerton had had time to
+assimilate his information he found his whole attention centred on an
+angry-looking lady who was making loud and fretful-seeming inquiries of
+the hotel clerks.
+
+“Has any luggage been brought here from the station by mistake, a
+dress-basket and dressing-case, with the name Kestrel-Smith?  It can’t be
+traced anywhere.  I saw it put in at Victoria, that I’ll swear.
+Why—there is my luggage! and the locks have been tampered with!”
+
+Jerton heard no more.  He fled down to the Turkish bath, and stayed there
+for hours.
+
+
+
+
+THE STALLED OX
+
+
+Theophil Eshley was an artist by profession, a cattle painter by force of
+environment.  It is not to be supposed that he lived on a ranche or a
+dairy farm, in an atmosphere pervaded with horn and hoof, milking-stool,
+and branding-iron.  His home was in a park-like, villa-dotted district
+that only just escaped the reproach of being suburban.  On one side of
+his garden there abutted a small, picturesque meadow, in which an
+enterprising neighbour pastured some small picturesque cows of the
+Channel Island persuasion.  At noonday in summertime the cows stood
+knee-deep in tall meadow-grass under the shade of a group of walnut
+trees, with the sunlight falling in dappled patches on their mouse-sleek
+coats.  Eshley had conceived and executed a dainty picture of two
+reposeful milch-cows in a setting of walnut tree and meadow-grass and
+filtered sunbeam, and the Royal Academy had duly exposed the same on the
+walls of its Summer Exhibition.  The Royal Academy encourages orderly,
+methodical habits in its children.  Eshley had painted a successful and
+acceptable picture of cattle drowsing picturesquely under walnut trees,
+and as he had begun, so, of necessity, he went on.  His “Noontide Peace,”
+a study of two dun cows under a walnut tree, was followed by “A Mid-day
+Sanctuary,” a study of a walnut tree, with two dun cows under it.  In due
+succession there came “Where the Gad-Flies Cease from Troubling,” “The
+Haven of the Herd,” and “A-dream in Dairyland,” studies of walnut trees
+and dun cows.  His two attempts to break away from his own tradition were
+signal failures: “Turtle Doves alarmed by Sparrow-hawk” and “Wolves on
+the Roman Campagna” came back to his studio in the guise of abominable
+heresies, and Eshley climbed back into grace and the public gaze with “A
+Shaded Nook where Drowsy Milkers Dream.”
+
+On a fine afternoon in late autumn he was putting some finishing touches
+to a study of meadow weeds when his neighbour, Adela Pingsford, assailed
+the outer door of his studio with loud peremptory knockings.
+
+“There is an ox in my garden,” she announced, in explanation of the
+tempestuous intrusion.
+
+“An ox,” said Eshley blankly, and rather fatuously; “what kind of ox?”
+
+“Oh, I don’t know what kind,” snapped the lady.  “A common or garden ox,
+to use the slang expression.  It is the garden part of it that I object
+to.  My garden has just been put straight for the winter, and an ox
+roaming about in it won’t improve matters.  Besides, there are the
+chrysanthemums just coming into flower.”
+
+“How did it get into the garden?” asked Eshley.
+
+“I imagine it came in by the gate,” said the lady impatiently; “it
+couldn’t have climbed the walls, and I don’t suppose anyone dropped it
+from an aeroplane as a Bovril advertisement.  The immediately important
+question is not how it got in, but how to get it out.”
+
+“Won’t it go?” said Eshley.
+
+“If it was anxious to go,” said Adela Pingsford rather angrily, “I should
+not have come here to chat with you about it.  I’m practically all alone;
+the housemaid is having her afternoon out and the cook is lying down with
+an attack of neuralgia.  Anything that I may have learned at school or in
+after life about how to remove a large ox from a small garden seems to
+have escaped from my memory now.  All I could think of was that you were
+a near neighbour and a cattle painter, presumably more or less familiar
+with the subjects that you painted, and that you might be of some slight
+assistance.  Possibly I was mistaken.”
+
+“I paint dairy cows, certainly,” admitted Eshley, “but I cannot claim to
+have had any experience in rounding-up stray oxen.  I’ve seen it done on
+a cinema film, of course, but there were always horses and lots of other
+accessories; besides, one never knows how much of those pictures are
+faked.”
+
+Adela Pingsford said nothing, but led the way to her garden.  It was
+normally a fair-sized garden, but it looked small in comparison with the
+ox, a huge mottled brute, dull red about the head and shoulders, passing
+to dirty white on the flanks and hind-quarters, with shaggy ears and
+large blood-shot eyes.  It bore about as much resemblance to the dainty
+paddock heifers that Eshley was accustomed to paint as the chief of a
+Kurdish nomad clan would to a Japanese tea-shop girl.  Eshley stood very
+near the gate while he studied the animal’s appearance and demeanour.
+Adela Pingsford continued to say nothing.
+
+“It’s eating a chrysanthemum,” said Eshley at last, when the silence had
+become unbearable.
+
+“How observant you are,” said Adela bitterly.  “You seem to notice
+everything.  As a matter of fact, it has got six chrysanthemums in its
+mouth at the present moment.”
+
+The necessity for doing something was becoming imperative.  Eshley took a
+step or two in the direction of the animal, clapped his hands, and made
+noises of the “Hish” and “Shoo” variety.  If the ox heard them it gave no
+outward indication of the fact.
+
+“If any hens should ever stray into my garden,” said Adela, “I should
+certainly send for you to frighten them out.  You ‘shoo’ beautifully.
+Meanwhile, do you mind trying to drive that ox away?  That is a
+_Mademoiselle Louise Bichot_ that he’s begun on now,” she added in icy
+calm, as a glowing orange head was crushed into the huge munching mouth.
+
+“Since you have been so frank about the variety of the chrysanthemum,”
+said Eshley, “I don’t mind telling you that this is an Ayrshire ox.”
+
+The icy calm broke down; Adela Pingsford used language that sent the
+artist instinctively a few feet nearer to the ox.  He picked up a
+pea-stick and flung it with some determination against the animal’s
+mottled flanks.  The operation of mashing _Mademoiselle Louise Bichot_
+into a petal salad was suspended for a long moment, while the ox gazed
+with concentrated inquiry at the stick-thrower.  Adela gazed with equal
+concentration and more obvious hostility at the same focus.  As the beast
+neither lowered its head nor stamped its feet Eshley ventured on another
+javelin exercise with another pea-stick.  The ox seemed to realise at
+once that it was to go; it gave a hurried final pluck at the bed where
+the chrysanthemums had been, and strode swiftly up the garden.  Eshley
+ran to head it towards the gate, but only succeeded in quickening its
+pace from a walk to a lumbering trot.  With an air of inquiry, but with
+no real hesitation, it crossed the tiny strip of turf that the charitable
+called the croquet lawn, and pushed its way through the open French
+window into the morning-room.  Some chrysanthemums and other autumn
+herbage stood about the room in vases, and the animal resumed its
+browsing operations; all the same, Eshley fancied that the beginnings of
+a hunted look had come into its eyes, a look that counselled respect.  He
+discontinued his attempt to interfere with its choice of surroundings.
+
+“Mr. Eshley,” said Adela in a shaking voice, “I asked you to drive that
+beast out of my garden, but I did not ask you to drive it into my house.
+If I must have it anywhere on the premises I prefer the garden to the
+morning-room.”
+
+“Cattle drives are not in my line,” said Eshley; “if I remember I told
+you so at the outset.”  “I quite agree,” retorted the lady, “painting
+pretty pictures of pretty little cows is what you’re suited for.  Perhaps
+you’d like to do a nice sketch of that ox making itself at home in my
+morning-room?”
+
+This time it seemed as if the worm had turned; Eshley began striding
+away.
+
+“Where are you going?” screamed Adela.
+
+“To fetch implements,” was the answer.
+
+“Implements?  I won’t have you use a lasso.  The room will be wrecked if
+there’s a struggle.”
+
+But the artist marched out of the garden.  In a couple of minutes he
+returned, laden with easel, sketching-stool, and painting materials.
+
+“Do you mean to say that you’re going to sit quietly down and paint that
+brute while it’s destroying my morning-room?” gasped Adela.
+
+“It was your suggestion,” said Eshley, setting his canvas in position.
+
+“I forbid it; I absolutely forbid it!” stormed Adela.
+
+“I don’t see what standing you have in the matter,” said the artist; “you
+can hardly pretend that it’s your ox, even by adoption.”
+
+“You seem to forget that it’s in my morning-room, eating my flowers,”
+came the raging retort.
+
+“You seem to forget that the cook has neuralgia,” said Eshley; “she may
+be just dozing off into a merciful sleep and your outcry will waken her.
+Consideration for others should be the guiding principle of people in our
+station of life.”
+
+“The man is mad!” exclaimed Adela tragically.  A moment later it was
+Adela herself who appeared to go mad.  The ox had finished the
+vase-flowers and the cover of “Israel Kalisch,” and appeared to be
+thinking of leaving its rather restricted quarters.  Eshley noticed its
+restlessness and promptly flung it some bunches of Virginia creeper
+leaves as an inducement to continue the sitting.
+
+“I forget how the proverb runs,” he observed; “of something about ‘better
+a dinner of herbs than a stalled ox where hate is.’  We seem to have all
+the ingredients for the proverb ready to hand.”
+
+“I shall go to the Public Library and get them to telephone for the
+police,” announced Adela, and, raging audibly, she departed.
+
+Some minutes later the ox, awakening probably to the suspicion that oil
+cake and chopped mangold was waiting for it in some appointed byre,
+stepped with much precaution out of the morning-room, stared with grave
+inquiry at the no longer obtrusive and pea-stick-throwing human, and then
+lumbered heavily but swiftly out of the garden.  Eshley packed up his
+tools and followed the animal’s example and “Larkdene” was left to
+neuralgia and the cook.
+
+The episode was the turning-point in Eshley’s artistic career.  His
+remarkable picture, “Ox in a morning-room, late autumn,” was one of the
+sensations and successes of the next Paris Salon, and when it was
+subsequently exhibited at Munich it was bought by the Bavarian
+Government, in the teeth of the spirited bidding of three meat-extract
+firms.  From that moment his success was continuous and assured, and the
+Royal Academy was thankful, two years later, to give a conspicuous
+position on its walls to his large canvas “Barbary Apes Wrecking a
+Boudoir.”
+
+Eshley presented Adela Pingsford with a new copy of “Israel Kalisch,” and
+a couple of finely flowering plants of _Madame Adnré Blusset_, but
+nothing in the nature of a real reconciliation has taken place between
+them.
+
+
+
+
+THE STORY-TELLER
+
+
+It was a hot afternoon, and the railway carriage was correspondingly
+sultry, and the next stop was at Templecombe, nearly an hour ahead.  The
+occupants of the carriage were a small girl, and a smaller girl, and a
+small boy.  An aunt belonging to the children occupied one corner seat,
+and the further corner seat on the opposite side was occupied by a
+bachelor who was a stranger to their party, but the small girls and the
+small boy emphatically occupied the compartment.  Both the aunt and the
+children were conversational in a limited, persistent way, reminding one
+of the attentions of a housefly that refuses to be discouraged.  Most of
+the aunt’s remarks seemed to begin with “Don’t,” and nearly all of the
+children’s remarks began with “Why?”  The bachelor said nothing out loud.
+“Don’t, Cyril, don’t,” exclaimed the aunt, as the small boy began
+smacking the cushions of the seat, producing a cloud of dust at each
+blow.
+
+“Come and look out of the window,” she added.
+
+The child moved reluctantly to the window.  “Why are those sheep being
+driven out of that field?” he asked.
+
+“I expect they are being driven to another field where there is more
+grass,” said the aunt weakly.
+
+“But there is lots of grass in that field,” protested the boy; “there’s
+nothing else but grass there.  Aunt, there’s lots of grass in that
+field.”
+
+“Perhaps the grass in the other field is better,” suggested the aunt
+fatuously.
+
+“Why is it better?” came the swift, inevitable question.
+
+“Oh, look at those cows!” exclaimed the aunt.  Nearly every field along
+the line had contained cows or bullocks, but she spoke as though she were
+drawing attention to a rarity.
+
+“Why is the grass in the other field better?” persisted Cyril.
+
+The frown on the bachelor’s face was deepening to a scowl.  He was a
+hard, unsympathetic man, the aunt decided in her mind.  She was utterly
+unable to come to any satisfactory decision about the grass in the other
+field.
+
+The smaller girl created a diversion by beginning to recite “On the Road
+to Mandalay.”  She only knew the first line, but she put her limited
+knowledge to the fullest possible use.  She repeated the line over and
+over again in a dreamy but resolute and very audible voice; it seemed to
+the bachelor as though some one had had a bet with her that she could not
+repeat the line aloud two thousand times without stopping.  Whoever it
+was who had made the wager was likely to lose his bet.
+
+“Come over here and listen to a story,” said the aunt, when the bachelor
+had looked twice at her and once at the communication cord.
+
+The children moved listlessly towards the aunt’s end of the carriage.
+Evidently her reputation as a story-teller did not rank high in their
+estimation.
+
+In a low, confidential voice, interrupted at frequent intervals by loud,
+petulant questionings from her listeners, she began an unenterprising and
+deplorably uninteresting story about a little girl who was good, and made
+friends with every one on account of her goodness, and was finally saved
+from a mad bull by a number of rescuers who admired her moral character.
+
+“Wouldn’t they have saved her if she hadn’t been good?” demanded the
+bigger of the small girls.  It was exactly the question that the bachelor
+had wanted to ask.
+
+“Well, yes,” admitted the aunt lamely, “but I don’t think they would have
+run quite so fast to her help if they had not liked her so much.”
+
+“It’s the stupidest story I’ve ever heard,” said the bigger of the small
+girls, with immense conviction.
+
+“I didn’t listen after the first bit, it was so stupid,” said Cyril.
+
+The smaller girl made no actual comment on the story, but she had long
+ago recommenced a murmured repetition of her favourite line.
+
+“You don’t seem to be a success as a story-teller,” said the bachelor
+suddenly from his corner.
+
+The aunt bristled in instant defence at this unexpected attack.
+
+“It’s a very difficult thing to tell stories that children can both
+understand and appreciate,” she said stiffly.
+
+“I don’t agree with you,” said the bachelor.
+
+“Perhaps you would like to tell them a story,” was the aunt’s retort.
+
+“Tell us a story,” demanded the bigger of the small girls.
+
+“Once upon a time,” began the bachelor, “there was a little girl called
+Bertha, who was extraordinarily good.”
+
+The children’s momentarily-aroused interest began at once to flicker; all
+stories seemed dreadfully alike, no matter who told them.
+
+“She did all that she was told, she was always truthful, she kept her
+clothes clean, ate milk puddings as though they were jam tarts, learned
+her lessons perfectly, and was polite in her manners.”
+
+“Was she pretty?” asked the bigger of the small girls.
+
+“Not as pretty as any of you,” said the bachelor, “but she was horribly
+good.”
+
+There was a wave of reaction in favour of the story; the word horrible in
+connection with goodness was a novelty that commended itself.  It seemed
+to introduce a ring of truth that was absent from the aunt’s tales of
+infant life.
+
+“She was so good,” continued the bachelor, “that she won several medals
+for goodness, which she always wore, pinned on to her dress.  There was a
+medal for obedience, another medal for punctuality, and a third for good
+behaviour.  They were large metal medals and they clicked against one
+another as she walked.  No other child in the town where she lived had as
+many as three medals, so everybody knew that she must be an extra good
+child.”
+
+“Horribly good,” quoted Cyril.
+
+“Everybody talked about her goodness, and the Prince of the country got
+to hear about it, and he said that as she was so very good she might be
+allowed once a week to walk in his park, which was just outside the town.
+It was a beautiful park, and no children were ever allowed in it, so it
+was a great honour for Bertha to be allowed to go there.”
+
+“Were there any sheep in the park?” demanded Cyril.
+
+“No;” said the bachelor, “there were no sheep.”
+
+“Why weren’t there any sheep?” came the inevitable question arising out
+of that answer.
+
+The aunt permitted herself a smile, which might almost have been
+described as a grin.
+
+“There were no sheep in the park,” said the bachelor, “because the
+Prince’s mother had once had a dream that her son would either be killed
+by a sheep or else by a clock falling on him.  For that reason the Prince
+never kept a sheep in his park or a clock in his palace.”
+
+The aunt suppressed a gasp of admiration.
+
+“Was the Prince killed by a sheep or by a clock?” asked Cyril.
+
+“He is still alive, so we can’t tell whether the dream will come true,”
+said the bachelor unconcernedly; “anyway, there were no sheep in the
+park, but there were lots of little pigs running all over the place.”
+
+“What colour were they?”
+
+“Black with white faces, white with black spots, black all over, grey
+with white patches, and some were white all over.”
+
+The story-teller paused to let a full idea of the park’s treasures sink
+into the children’s imaginations; then he resumed:
+
+“Bertha was rather sorry to find that there were no flowers in the park.
+She had promised her aunts, with tears in her eyes, that she would not
+pick any of the kind Prince’s flowers, and she had meant to keep her
+promise, so of course it made her feel silly to find that there were no
+flowers to pick.”
+
+“Why weren’t there any flowers?”
+
+“Because the pigs had eaten them all,” said the bachelor promptly.  “The
+gardeners had told the Prince that you couldn’t have pigs and flowers, so
+he decided to have pigs and no flowers.”
+
+There was a murmur of approval at the excellence of the Prince’s
+decision; so many people would have decided the other way.
+
+“There were lots of other delightful things in the park.  There were
+ponds with gold and blue and green fish in them, and trees with beautiful
+parrots that said clever things at a moment’s notice, and humming birds
+that hummed all the popular tunes of the day.  Bertha walked up and down
+and enjoyed herself immensely, and thought to herself: ‘If I were not so
+extraordinarily good I should not have been allowed to come into this
+beautiful park and enjoy all that there is to be seen in it,’ and her
+three medals clinked against one another as she walked and helped to
+remind her how very good she really was.  Just then an enormous wolf came
+prowling into the park to see if it could catch a fat little pig for its
+supper.”
+
+“What colour was it?” asked the children, amid an immediate quickening of
+interest.
+
+“Mud-colour all over, with a black tongue and pale grey eyes that gleamed
+with unspeakable ferocity.  The first thing that it saw in the park was
+Bertha; her pinafore was so spotlessly white and clean that it could be
+seen from a great distance.  Bertha saw the wolf and saw that it was
+stealing towards her, and she began to wish that she had never been
+allowed to come into the park.  She ran as hard as she could, and the
+wolf came after her with huge leaps and bounds.  She managed to reach a
+shrubbery of myrtle bushes and she hid herself in one of the thickest of
+the bushes.  The wolf came sniffing among the branches, its black tongue
+lolling out of its mouth and its pale grey eyes glaring with rage.
+Bertha was terribly frightened, and thought to herself: ‘If I had not
+been so extraordinarily good I should have been safe in the town at this
+moment.’  However, the scent of the myrtle was so strong that the wolf
+could not sniff out where Bertha was hiding, and the bushes were so thick
+that he might have hunted about in them for a long time without catching
+sight of her, so he thought he might as well go off and catch a little
+pig instead.  Bertha was trembling very much at having the wolf prowling
+and sniffing so near her, and as she trembled the medal for obedience
+clinked against the medals for good conduct and punctuality.  The wolf
+was just moving away when he heard the sound of the medals clinking and
+stopped to listen; they clinked again in a bush quite near him.  He
+dashed into the bush, his pale grey eyes gleaming with ferocity and
+triumph, and dragged Bertha out and devoured her to the last morsel.  All
+that was left of her were her shoes, bits of clothing, and the three
+medals for goodness.”
+
+“Were any of the little pigs killed?”
+
+“No, they all escaped.”
+
+“The story began badly,” said the smaller of the small girls, “but it had
+a beautiful ending.”
+
+“It is the most beautiful story that I ever heard,” said the bigger of
+the small girls, with immense decision.
+
+“It is the _only_ beautiful story I have ever heard,” said Cyril.
+
+A dissentient opinion came from the aunt.
+
+“A most improper story to tell to young children!  You have undermined
+the effect of years of careful teaching.”
+
+“At any rate,” said the bachelor, collecting his belongings preparatory
+to leaving the carriage, “I kept them quiet for ten minutes, which was
+more than you were able to do.”
+
+“Unhappy woman!” he observed to himself as he walked down the platform of
+Templecombe station; “for the next six months or so those children will
+assail her in public with demands for an improper story!”
+
+
+
+
+A DEFENSIVE DIAMOND
+
+
+Treddleford sat in an easeful arm-chair in front of a slumberous fire,
+with a volume of verse in his hand and the comfortable consciousness that
+outside the club windows the rain was dripping and pattering with
+persistent purpose.  A chill, wet October afternoon was merging into a
+bleak, wet October evening, and the club smoking-room seemed warmer and
+cosier by contrast.  It was an afternoon on which to be wafted away from
+one’s climatic surroundings, and “The Golden Journey to Samarkand”
+promised to bear Treddleford well and bravely into other lands and under
+other skies.  He had already migrated from London the rain-swept to
+Bagdad the Beautiful, and stood by the Sun Gate “in the olden time” when
+an icy breath of imminent annoyance seemed to creep between the book and
+himself.  Amblecope, the man with the restless, prominent eyes and the
+mouth ready mobilised for conversational openings, had planted himself in
+a neighbouring arm-chair.  For a twelvemonth and some odd weeks
+Treddleford had skilfully avoided making the acquaintance of his voluble
+fellow-clubman; he had marvellously escaped from the infliction of his
+relentless record of tedious personal achievements, or alleged
+achievements, on golf links, turf, and gaming table, by flood and field
+and covert-side.  Now his season of immunity was coming to an end.  There
+was no escape; in another moment he would be numbered among those who
+knew Amblecope to speak to—or rather, to suffer being spoken to.
+
+The intruder was armed with a copy of _Country Life_, not for purposes of
+reading, but as an aid to conversational ice-breaking.
+
+“Rather a good portrait of Throstlewing,” he remarked explosively,
+turning his large challenging eyes on Treddleford; “somehow it reminds me
+very much of Yellowstep, who was supposed to be such a good thing for the
+Grand Prix in 1903.  Curious race that was; I suppose I’ve seen every
+race for the Grand Prix for the last—”
+
+“Be kind enough never to mention the Grand Prix in my hearing,” said
+Treddleford desperately; “it awakens acutely distressing memories.  I
+can’t explain why without going into a long and complicated story.”
+
+“Oh, certainly, certainly,” said Amblecope hastily; long and complicated
+stories that were not told by himself were abominable in his eyes.  He
+turned the pages of _Country Life_ and became spuriously interested in
+the picture of a Mongolian pheasant.
+
+“Not a bad representation of the Mongolian variety,” he exclaimed,
+holding it up for his neighbour’s inspection.  “They do very well in some
+covers.  Take some stopping too, once they’re fairly on the wing.  I
+suppose the biggest bag I ever made in two successive days—”
+
+“My aunt, who owns the greater part of Lincolnshire,” broke in
+Treddleford, with dramatic abruptness, “possesses perhaps the most
+remarkable record in the way of a pheasant bag that has ever been
+achieved.  She is seventy-five and can’t hit a thing, but she always goes
+out with the guns.  When I say she can’t hit a thing, I don’t mean to say
+that she doesn’t occasionally endanger the lives of her fellow-guns,
+because that wouldn’t be true.  In fact, the chief Government Whip won’t
+allow Ministerial M.P.’s to go out with her; ‘We don’t want to incur
+by-elections needlessly,’ he quite reasonably observed.  Well, the other
+day she winged a pheasant, and brought it to earth with a feather or two
+knocked out of it; it was a runner, and my aunt saw herself in danger of
+being done out of about the only bird she’d hit during the present reign.
+Of course she wasn’t going to stand that; she followed it through bracken
+and brushwood, and when it took to the open country and started across a
+ploughed field she jumped on to the shooting pony and went after it.  The
+chase was a long one, and when my aunt at last ran the bird to a
+standstill she was nearer home than she was to the shooting party; she
+had left that some five miles behind her.”
+
+“Rather a long run for a wounded pheasant,” snapped Amblecope.
+
+“The story rests on my aunt’s authority,” said Treddleford coldly, “and
+she is local vice-president of the Young Women’s Christian Association.
+She trotted three miles or so to her home, and it was not till the middle
+of the afternoon that it was discovered that the lunch for the entire
+shooting party was in a pannier attached to the pony’s saddle.  Anyway,
+she got her bird.”
+
+“Some birds, of course, take a lot of killing,” said Amblecope; “so do
+some fish.  I remember once I was fishing in the Exe, lovely trout
+stream, lots of fish, though they don’t run to any great size—”
+
+“One of them did,” announced Treddleford, with emphasis.  “My uncle, the
+Bishop of Southmolton, came across a giant trout in a pool just off the
+main stream of the Exe near Ugworthy; he tried it with every kind of fly
+and worm every day for three weeks without an atom of success, and then
+Fate intervened on his behalf.  There was a low stone bridge just over
+this pool, and on the last day of his fishing holiday a motor van ran
+violently into the parapet and turned completely over; no one was hurt,
+but part of the parapet was knocked away, and the entire load that the
+van was carrying was pitched over and fell a little way into the pool.
+In a couple of minutes the giant trout was flapping and twisting on bare
+mud at the bottom of a waterless pool, and my uncle was able to walk down
+to him and fold him to his breast.  The van-load consisted of
+blotting-paper, and every drop of water in that pool had been sucked up
+into the mass of spilt cargo.”
+
+There was silence for nearly half a minute in the smoking-room, and
+Treddleford began to let his mind steal back towards the golden road that
+led to Samarkand.  Amblecope, however, rallied, and remarked in a rather
+tired and dispirited voice:
+
+“Talking of motor accidents, the narrowest squeak I ever had was the
+other day, motoring with old Tommy Yarby in North Wales.  Awfully good
+sort, old Yarby, thorough good sportsman, and the best—”
+
+“It was in North Wales,” said Treddleford, “that my sister met with her
+sensational carriage accident last year.  She was on her way to a
+garden-party at Lady Nineveh’s, about the only garden-party that ever
+comes to pass in those parts in the course of the year, and therefore a
+thing that she would have been very sorry to miss.  She was driving a
+young horse that she’d only bought a week or two previously, warranted to
+be perfectly steady with motor traffic, bicycles, and other common
+objects of the roadside.  The animal lived up to its reputation, and
+passed the most explosive of motor-bikes with an indifference that almost
+amounted to apathy.  However, I suppose we all draw the line somewhere,
+and this particular cob drew it at travelling wild beast shows.  Of
+course my sister didn’t know that, but she knew it very distinctly when
+she turned a sharp corner and found herself in a mixed company of camels,
+piebald horses, and canary-coloured vans.  The dogcart was overturned in
+a ditch and kicked to splinters, and the cob went home across country.
+Neither my sister nor the groom was hurt, but the problem of how to get
+to the Nineveh garden-party, some three miles distant, seemed rather
+difficult to solve; once there, of course, my sister would easily find
+some one to drive her home.  ‘I suppose you wouldn’t care for the loan of
+a couple of my camels?’ the showman suggested, in humorous sympathy.  ‘I
+would,’ said my sister, who had ridden camel-back in Egypt, and she
+overruled the objections of the groom, who hadn’t.  She picked out two of
+the most presentable-looking of the beasts and had them dusted and made
+as tidy as was possible at short notice, and set out for the Nineveh
+mansion.  You may imagine the sensation that her small but imposing
+caravan created when she arrived at the hall door.  The entire
+garden-party flocked up to gape.  My sister was rather glad to slip down
+from her camel, and the groom was thankful to scramble down from his.
+Then young Billy Doulton, of the Dragoon Guards, who has been a lot at
+Aden and thinks he knows camel-language backwards, thought he would show
+off by making the beasts kneel down in orthodox fashion.  Unfortunately
+camel words-of-command are not the same all the world over; these were
+magnificent Turkestan camels, accustomed to stride up the stony terraces
+of mountain passes, and when Doulton shouted at them they went side by
+side up the front steps, into the entrance hall, and up the grand
+staircase.  The German governess met them just at the turn of the
+corridor.  The Ninevehs nursed her with devoted attention for weeks, and
+when I last heard from them she was well enough to go about her duties
+again, but the doctor says she will always suffer from Hagenbeck heart.”
+
+Amblecope got up from his chair and moved to another part of the room.
+Treddleford reopened his book and betook himself once more across
+
+    The dragon-green, the luminous, the dark, the serpent-haunted sea.
+
+For a blessed half-hour he disported himself in imagination by the “gay
+Aleppo-Gate,” and listened to the bird-voiced singing-man.  Then the
+world of to-day called him back; a page summoned him to speak with a
+friend on the telephone.
+
+As Treddleford was about to pass out of the room he encountered
+Amblecope, also passing out, on his way to the billiard-room, where,
+perchance, some luckless wight might be secured and held fast to listen
+to the number of his attendances at the Grand Prix, with subsequent
+remarks on Newmarket and the Cambridgeshire.  Amblecope made as if to
+pass out first, but a new-born pride was surging in Treddleford’s breast
+and he waved him back.
+
+“I believe I take precedence,” he said coldly; “you are merely the club
+Bore; I am the club Liar.”
+
+
+
+
+THE ELK
+
+
+Teresa, Mrs. Thropplestance, was the richest and most intractable old
+woman in the county of Woldshire.  In her dealings with the world in
+general her manner suggested a blend between a Mistress of the Robes and
+a Master of Foxhounds, with the vocabulary of both.  In her domestic
+circle she comported herself in the arbitrary style that one attributes,
+probably without the least justification, to an American political Boss
+in the bosom of his caucus.  The late Theodore Thropplestance had left
+her, some thirty-five years ago, in absolute possession of a considerable
+fortune, a large landed property, and a gallery full of valuable
+pictures.  In those intervening years she had outlived her son and
+quarrelled with her elder grandson, who had married without her consent
+or approval.  Bertie Thropplestance, her younger grandson, was the
+heir-designate to her property, and as such he was a centre of interest
+and concern to some half-hundred ambitious mothers with daughters of
+marriageable age.  Bertie was an amiable, easy-going young man, who was
+quite ready to marry anyone who was favourably recommended to his notice,
+but he was not going to waste his time in falling in love with anyone who
+would come under his grandmother’s veto.  The favourable recommendation
+would have to come from Mrs. Thropplestance.
+
+Teresa’s house-parties were always rounded off with a plentiful
+garnishing of presentable young women and alert, attendant mothers, but
+the old lady was emphatically discouraging whenever any one of her girl
+guests became at all likely to outbid the others as a possible
+granddaughter-in-law.  It was the inheritance of her fortune and estate
+that was in question, and she was evidently disposed to exercise and
+enjoy her powers of selection and rejection to the utmost.  Bertie’s
+preferences did not greatly matter; he was of the sort who can be
+stolidly happy with any kind of wife; he had cheerfully put up with his
+grandmother all his life, so was not likely to fret and fume over
+anything that might befall him in the way of a helpmate.
+
+The party that gathered under Teresa’s roof in Christmas week of the year
+nineteen-hundred-and-something was of smaller proportions than usual, and
+Mrs. Yonelet, who formed one of the party, was inclined to deduce hopeful
+augury from this circumstance.  Dora Yonelet and Bertie were so obviously
+made for one another, she confided to the vicar’s wife, and if the old
+lady were accustomed to seeing them about a lot together she might adopt
+the view that they would make a suitable married couple.
+
+“People soon get used to an idea if it is dangled constantly before their
+eyes,” said Mrs. Yonelet hopefully, “and the more often Teresa sees those
+young people together, happy in each other’s company, the more she will
+get to take a kindly interest in Dora as a possible and desirable wife
+for Bertie.”
+
+“My dear,” said the vicar’s wife resignedly, “my own Sybil was thrown
+together with Bertie under the most romantic circumstances—I’ll tell you
+about it some day—but it made no impression whatever on Teresa; she put
+her foot down in the most uncompromising fashion, and Sybil married an
+Indian civilian.”
+
+“Quite right of her,” said Mrs. Yonelet with vague approval; “it’s what
+any girl of spirit would have done.  Still, that was a year or two ago, I
+believe; Bertie is older now, and so is Teresa.  Naturally she must be
+anxious to see him settled.”
+
+The vicar’s wife reflected that Teresa seemed to be the one person who
+showed no immediate anxiety to supply Bertie with a wife, but she kept
+the thought to herself.
+
+Mrs. Yonelet was a woman of resourceful energy and generalship; she
+involved the other members of the house-party, the deadweight, so to
+speak, in all manner of exercises and occupations that segregated them
+from Bertie and Dora, who were left to their own devisings—that is to
+say, to Dora’s devisings and Bertie’s accommodating acquiescence.  Dora
+helped in the Christmas decorations of the parish church, and Bertie
+helped her to help.  Together they fed the swans, till the birds went on
+a dyspepsia-strike, together they played billiards, together they
+photographed the village almshouses, and, at a respectful distance, the
+tame elk that browsed in solitary aloofness in the park.  It was “tame”
+in the sense that it had long ago discarded the least vestige of fear of
+the human race; nothing in its record encouraged its human neighbours to
+feel a reciprocal confidence.
+
+Whatever sport or exercise or occupation Bertie and Dora indulged in
+together was unfailingly chronicled and advertised by Mrs. Yonelet for
+the due enlightenment of Bertie’s grandmother.
+
+“Those two inseparables have just come in from a bicycle ride,” she would
+announce; “quite a picture they make, so fresh and glowing after their
+spin.”
+
+“A picture needing words,” would be Teresa’s private comment, and as far
+as Bertie was concerned she was determined that the words should remain
+unspoken.
+
+On the afternoon after Christmas Day Mrs. Yonelet dashed into the
+drawing-room, where her hostess was sitting amid a circle of guests and
+teacups and muffin-dishes.  Fate had placed what seemed like a trump-card
+in the hands of the patiently-manoeuvring mother.  With eyes blazing with
+excitement and a voice heavily escorted with exclamation marks she made a
+dramatic announcement.
+
+“Bertie has saved Dora from the elk!”
+
+In swift, excited sentences, broken with maternal emotion, she gave
+supplementary information as to how the treacherous animal had ambushed
+Dora as she was hunting for a strayed golf ball, and how Bertie had
+dashed to her rescue with a stable fork and driven the beast off in the
+nick of time.
+
+“It was touch and go!  She threw her niblick at it, but that didn’t stop
+it.  In another moment she would have been crushed beneath its hoofs,”
+panted Mrs. Yonelet.
+
+“The animal is not safe,” said Teresa, handing her agitated guest a cup
+of tea.  “I forget if you take sugar.  I suppose the solitary life it
+leads has soured its temper.  There are muffins in the grate.  It’s not
+my fault; I’ve tried to get it a mate for ever so long.  You don’t know
+of anyone with a lady elk for sale or exchange, do you?” she asked the
+company generally.
+
+But Mrs. Yonelet was in no humour to listen to talk of elk marriages.
+The mating of two human beings was the subject uppermost in her mind, and
+the opportunity for advancing her pet project was too valuable to be
+neglected.
+
+“Teresa,” she exclaimed impressively, “after those two young people have
+been thrown together so dramatically, nothing can be quite the same again
+between them.  Bertie has done more than save Dora’s life; he has earned
+her affection.  One cannot help feeling that Fate has consecrated them
+for one another.”
+
+“Exactly what the vicar’s wife said when Bertie saved Sybil from the elk
+a year or two ago,” observed Teresa placidly; “I pointed out to her that
+he had rescued Mirabel Hicks from the same predicement a few months
+previously, and that priority really belonged to the gardener’s boy, who
+had been rescued in the January of that year.  There is a good deal of
+sameness in country life, you know.”
+
+“It seems to be a very dangerous animal,” said one of the guests.
+
+“That’s what the mother of the gardener’s boy said,” remarked Teresa;
+“she wanted me to have it destroyed, but I pointed out to her that she
+had eleven children and I had only one elk.  I also gave her a black silk
+skirt; she said that though there hadn’t been a funeral in her family she
+felt as if there had been.  Anyhow, we parted friends.  I can’t offer you
+a silk skirt, Emily, but you may have another cup of tea.  As I have
+already remarked, there are muffins in the grate.”
+
+Teresa closed the discussion, having deftly conveyed the impression that
+she considered the mother of the gardener’s boy had shown a far more
+reasonable spirit than the parents of other elk-assaulted victims.
+
+“Teresa is devoid of feeling,” said Mrs. Yonelet afterwards to the
+vicar’s wife; “to sit there, talking of muffins, with an appalling
+tragedy only narrowly averted—”
+
+“Of course you know whom she really intends Bertie to marry?” asked the
+vicar’s wife; “I’ve noticed it for some time.  The Bickelbys’ German
+governess.”
+
+“A German governess!  What an idea!” gasped Mrs. Yonelet.
+
+“She’s of quite good family, I believe,” said the vicar’s wife, “and not
+at all the mouse-in-the-back-ground sort of person that governesses are
+usually supposed to be.  In fact, next to Teresa, she’s about the most
+assertive and combative personality in the neighbourhood.  She’s pointed
+out to my husband all sorts of errors in his sermons, and she gave Sir
+Laurence a public lecture on how he ought to handle the hounds.  You know
+how sensitive Sir Laurence is about any criticism of his Mastership, and
+to have a governess laying down the law to him nearly drove him into a
+fit.  She’s behaved like that to every one, except, of course, Teresa,
+and every one has been defensively rude to her in return.  The Bickelbys
+are simply too afraid of her to get rid of her.  Now isn’t that exactly
+the sort of woman whom Teresa would take a delight in installing as her
+successor?  Imagine the discomfort and awkwardness in the county if we
+suddenly found that she was to be the future hostess at the Hall.
+Teresa’s only regret will be that she won’t be alive to see it.”
+
+“But,” objected Mrs. Yonelet, “surely Bertie hasn’t shown the least sign
+of being attracted in that quarter?”
+
+“Oh, she’s quite nice-looking in a way, and dresses well, and plays a
+good game of tennis.  She often comes across the park with messages from
+the Bickelby mansion, and one of these days Bertie will rescue her from
+the elk, which has become almost a habit with him, and Teresa will say
+that Fate has consecrated them to one another.  Bertie might not be
+disposed to pay much attention to the consecrations of Fate, but he would
+not dream of opposing his grandmother.”
+
+The vicar’s wife spoke with the quiet authority of one who has intuitive
+knowledge, and in her heart of hearts Mrs. Yonelet believed her.
+
+Six months later the elk had to be destroyed.  In a fit of exceptional
+moroseness it had killed the Bickelbys’ German governess.  It was an
+irony of its fate that it should achieve popularity in the last moments
+of its career; at any rate, it established the record of being the only
+living thing that had permanently thwarted Teresa Thropplestance’s plans.
+
+Dora Yonelet broke off her engagement with an Indian civilian, and
+married Bertie three months after his grandmother’s death—Teresa did not
+long survive the German governess fiasco.  At Christmas time every year
+young Mrs. Thropplestance hangs an extra large festoon of evergreens on
+the elk horns that decorate the hall.
+
+“It was a fearsome beast,” she observes to Bertie, “but I always feel
+that it was instrumental in bringing us together.”
+
+Which, of course, was true.
+
+
+
+
+“DOWN PENS”
+
+
+“Have you written to thank the Froplinsons for what they sent us?” asked
+Egbert.
+
+“No,” said Janetta, with a note of tired defiance in her voice; “I’ve
+written eleven letters to-day expressing surprise and gratitude for
+sundry unmerited gifts, but I haven’t written to the Froplinsons.”
+
+“Some one will have to write to them,” said Egbert.
+
+“I don’t dispute the necessity, but I don’t think the some one should be
+me,” said Janetta.  “I wouldn’t mind writing a letter of angry
+recrimination or heartless satire to some suitable recipient; in fact, I
+should rather enjoy it, but I’ve come to the end of my capacity for
+expressing servile amiability.  Eleven letters to-day and nine yesterday,
+all couched in the same strain of ecstatic thankfulness: really, you
+can’t expect me to sit down to another.  There is such a thing as writing
+oneself out.”
+
+“I’ve written nearly as many,” said Egbert, “and I’ve had my usual
+business correspondence to get through, too.  Besides, I don’t know what
+it was that the Froplinsons sent us.”
+
+“A William the Conqueror calendar,” said Janetta, “with a quotation of
+one of his great thoughts for every day in the year.”
+
+“Impossible,” said Egbert; “he didn’t have three hundred and sixty-five
+thoughts in the whole of his life, or, if he did, he kept them to
+himself.  He was a man of action, not of introspection.”
+
+“Well, it was William Wordsworth, then,” said Janetta; “I know William
+came into it somewhere.”
+
+“That sounds more probable,” said Egbert; “well, let’s collaborate on
+this letter of thanks and get it done.  I’ll dictate, and you can
+scribble it down.  ‘Dear Mrs. Froplinson—thank you and your husband so
+much for the very pretty calendar you sent us.  It was very good of you
+to think of us.’”
+
+“You can’t possibly say that,” said Janetta, laying down her pen.
+
+“It’s what I always do say, and what every one says to me,” protested
+Egbert.
+
+“We sent them something on the twenty-second,” said Janetta, “so they
+simply _had_ to think of us.  There was no getting away from it.”
+
+“What did we send them?” asked Egbert gloomily.
+
+“Bridge-markers,” said Janetta, “in a cardboard case, with some inanity
+about ‘digging for fortune with a royal spade’ emblazoned on the cover.
+The moment I saw it in the shop I said to myself ‘Froplinsons’ and to the
+attendant ‘How much?’  When he said ‘Ninepence,’ I gave him their
+address, jabbed our card in, paid tenpence or elevenpence to cover the
+postage, and thanked heaven.  With less sincerity and infinitely more
+trouble they eventually thanked me.”
+
+“The Froplinsons don’t play bridge,” said Egbert.
+
+“One is not supposed to notice social deformities of that sort,” said
+Janetta; “it wouldn’t be polite.  Besides, what trouble did they take to
+find out whether we read Wordsworth with gladness?   For all they knew or
+cared we might be frantically embedded in the belief that all poetry
+begins and ends with John Masefield, and it might infuriate or depress us
+to have a daily sample of Wordsworthian products flung at us.”
+
+“Well, let’s get on with the letter of thanks,” said Egbert.
+
+“Proceed,” said Janetta.
+
+“‘How clever of you to guess that Wordsworth is our favourite poet,’”
+dictated Egbert.
+
+Again Janetta laid down her pen.
+
+“Do you realise what that means?” she asked; “a Wordsworth booklet next
+Christmas, and another calendar the Christmas after, with the same
+problem of having to write suitable letters of thankfulness.  No, the
+best thing to do is to drop all further allusion to the calendar and
+switch off on to some other topic.”
+
+“But what other topic?”
+
+“Oh, something like this: ‘What do you think of the New Year Honours
+List?  A friend of ours made such a clever remark when he read it.’  Then
+you can stick in any remark that comes into your head; it needn’t be
+clever.  The Froplinsons won’t know whether it is or isn’t.”
+
+“We don’t even know on which side they are in politics,” objected Egbert;
+“and anyhow you can’t suddenly dismiss the subject of the calendar.
+Surely there must be some intelligent remark that can be made about it.”
+
+“Well, we can’t think of one,” said Janetta wearily; “the fact is, we’ve
+both written ourselves out.  Heavens!  I’ve just remembered Mrs. Stephen
+Ludberry.  I haven’t thanked her for what she sent.”
+
+“What did she send?”
+
+“I forget; I think it was a calendar.”
+
+There was a long silence, the forlorn silence of those who are bereft of
+hope and have almost ceased to care.
+
+Presently Egbert started from his seat with an air of resolution.  The
+light of battle was in his eyes.
+
+“Let me come to the writing-table,” he exclaimed.
+
+“Gladly,” said Janetta.  “Are you going to write to Mrs. Ludberry or the
+Froplinsons?”
+
+“To neither,” said Egbert, drawing a stack of notepaper towards him; “I’m
+going to write to the editor of every enlightened and influential
+newspaper in the Kingdom, I’m going to suggest that there should be a
+sort of epistolary Truce of God during the festivities of Christmas and
+New Year.  From the twenty-fourth of December to the third or fourth of
+January it shall be considered an offence against good sense and good
+feeling to write or expect any letter or communication that does not deal
+with the necessary events of the moment.  Answers to invitations,
+arrangements about trains, renewal of club subscriptions, and, of course,
+all the ordinary everyday affairs of business, sickness, engaging new
+cooks, and so forth, these will be dealt with in the usual manner as
+something inevitable, a legitimate part of our daily life.  But all the
+devastating accretions of correspondence, incident to the festive season,
+these should be swept away to give the season a chance of being really
+festive, a time of untroubled, unpunctuated peace and good will.”
+
+“But you would have to make some acknowledgment of presents received,”
+objected Janetta; “otherwise people would never know whether they had
+arrived safely.”
+
+“Of course, I have thought of that,” said Egbert; “every present that was
+sent off would be accompanied by a ticket bearing the date of dispatch
+and the signature of the sender, and some conventional hieroglyphic to
+show that it was intended to be a Christmas or New Year gift; there would
+be a counterfoil with space for the recipient’s name and the date of
+arrival, and all you would have to do would be to sign and date the
+counterfoil, add a conventional hieroglyphic indicating heartfelt thanks
+and gratified surprise, put the thing into an envelope and post it.”
+
+“It sounds delightfully simple,” said Janetta wistfully, “but people
+would consider it too cut-and-dried, too perfunctory.”
+
+“It is not a bit more perfunctory than the present system,” said Egbert;
+“I have only the same conventional language of gratitude at my disposal
+with which to thank dear old Colonel Chuttle for his perfectly delicious
+Stilton, which we shall devour to the last morsel, and the Froplinsons
+for their calendar, which we shall never look at.  Colonel Chuttle knows
+that we are grateful for the Stilton, without having to be told so, and
+the Froplinsons know that we are bored with their calendar, whatever we
+may say to the contrary, just as we know that they are bored with the
+bridge-markers in spite of their written assurance that they thanked us
+for our charming little gift.  What is more, the Colonel knows that even
+if we had taken a sudden aversion to Stilton or been forbidden it by the
+doctor, we should still have written a letter of hearty thanks around it.
+So you see the present system of acknowledgment is just as perfunctory
+and conventional as the counterfoil business would be, only ten times
+more tiresome and brain-racking.”
+
+“Your plan would certainly bring the ideal of a Happy Christmas a step
+nearer realisation,” said Janetta.
+
+“There are exceptions, of course,” said Egbert, “people who really try to
+infuse a breath of reality into their letters of acknowledgment.  Aunt
+Susan, for instance, who writes: ‘Thank you very much for the ham; not
+such a good flavour as the one you sent last year, which itself was not a
+particularly good one.  Hams are not what they used to be.’  It would be
+a pity to be deprived of her Christmas comments, but that loss would be
+swallowed up in the general gain.”
+
+“Meanwhile,” said Janetta, “what am I to say to the Froplinsons?”
+
+
+
+
+THE NAME-DAY
+
+
+Adventures, according to the proverb, are to the adventurous.  Quite as
+often they are to the non-adventurous, to the retiring, to the
+constitutionally timid.  John James Abbleway had been endowed by Nature
+with the sort of disposition that instinctively avoids Carlist intrigues,
+slum crusades, the tracking of wounded wild beasts, and the moving of
+hostile amendments at political meetings.  If a mad dog or a Mad Mullah
+had come his way he would have surrendered the way without hesitation.
+At school he had unwillingly acquired a thorough knowledge of the German
+tongue out of deference to the plainly-expressed wishes of a
+foreign-languages master, who, though he taught modern subjects, employed
+old-fashioned methods in driving his lessons home.  It was this enforced
+familiarity with an important commercial language which thrust Abbleway
+in later years into strange lands where adventures were less easy to
+guard against than in the ordered atmosphere of an English country town.
+The firm that he worked for saw fit to send him one day on a prosaic
+business errand to the far city of Vienna, and, having sent him there,
+continued to keep him there, still engaged in humdrum affairs of
+commerce, but with the possibilities of romance and adventure, or even
+misadventure, jostling at his elbow.  After two and a half years of
+exile, however, John James Abbleway had embarked on only one hazardous
+undertaking, and that was of a nature which would assuredly have
+overtaken him sooner or later if he had been leading a sheltered,
+stay-at-home existence at Dorking or Huntingdon.  He fell placidly in
+love with a placidly lovable English girl, the sister of one of his
+commercial colleagues, who was improving her mind by a short trip to
+foreign parts, and in due course he was formally accepted as the young
+man she was engaged to.  The further step by which she was to become Mrs.
+John Abbleway was to take place a twelvemonth hence in a town in the
+English midlands, by which time the firm that employed John James would
+have no further need for his presence in the Austrian capital.
+
+It was early in April, two months after the installation of Abbleway as
+the young man Miss Penning was engaged to, when he received a letter from
+her, written from Venice.  She was still peregrinating under the wing of
+her brother, and as the latter’s business arrangements would take him
+across to Fiume for a day or two, she had conceived the idea that it
+would be rather jolly if John could obtain leave of absence and run down
+to the Adriatic coast to meet them.  She had looked up the route on the
+map, and the journey did not appear likely to be expensive.  Between the
+lines of her communication there lay a hint that if he really cared for
+her—
+
+Abbleway obtained leave of absence and added a journey to Fiume to his
+life’s adventures.  He left Vienna on a cold, cheerless day.  The flower
+shops were full of spring blooms, and the weekly organs of illustrated
+humour were full of spring topics, but the skies were heavy with clouds
+that looked like cotton-wool that has been kept over long in a shop
+window.
+
+“Snow comes,” said the train official to the station officials; and they
+agreed that snow was about to come.  And it came, rapidly, plenteously.
+The train had not been more than an hour on its journey when the
+cotton-wool clouds commenced to dissolve in a blinding downpour of
+snowflakes.  The forest trees on either side of the line were speedily
+coated with a heavy white mantle, the telegraph wires became thick
+glistening ropes, the line itself was buried more and more completely
+under a carpeting of snow, through which the not very powerful engine
+ploughed its way with increasing difficulty.  The Vienna-Fiume line is
+scarcely the best equipped of the Austrian State railways, and Abbleway
+began to have serious fears for a breakdown.  The train had slowed down
+to a painful and precarious crawl and presently came to a halt at a spot
+where the drifting snow had accumulated in a formidable barrier.  The
+engine made a special effort and broke through the obstruction, but in
+the course of another twenty minutes it was again held up.  The process
+of breaking through was renewed, and the train doggedly resumed its way,
+encountering and surmounting fresh hindrances at frequent intervals.
+After a standstill of unusually long duration in a particularly deep
+drift the compartment in which Abbleway was sitting gave a huge jerk and
+a lurch, and then seemed to remain stationary; it undoubtedly was not
+moving, and yet he could hear the puffing of the engine and the slow
+rumbling and jolting of wheels.  The puffing and rumbling grew fainter,
+as though it were dying away through the agency of intervening distance.
+Abbleway suddenly gave vent to an exclamation of scandalised alarm,
+opened the window, and peered out into the snowstorm.  The flakes perched
+on his eyelashes and blurred his vision, but he saw enough to help him to
+realise what had happened.  The engine had made a mighty plunge through
+the drift and had gone merrily forward, lightened of the load of its rear
+carriage, whose coupling had snapped under the strain.  Abbleway was
+alone, or almost alone, with a derelict railway waggon, in the heart of
+some Styrian or Croatian forest.  In the third-class compartment next to
+his own he remembered to have seen a peasant woman, who had entered the
+train at a small wayside station.  “With the exception of that woman,” he
+exclaimed dramatically to himself, “the nearest living beings are
+probably a pack of wolves.”
+
+Before making his way to the third-class compartment to acquaint his
+fellow-traveller with the extent of the disaster Abbleway hurriedly
+pondered the question of the woman’s nationality.  He had acquired a
+smattering of Slavonic tongues during his residence in Vienna, and felt
+competent to grapple with several racial possibilities.
+
+“If she is Croat or Serb or Bosniak I shall be able to make her
+understand,” he promised himself.  “If she is Magyar, heaven help me!  We
+shall have to converse entirely by signs.”
+
+He entered the carriage and made his momentous announcement in the best
+approach to Croat speech that he could achieve.
+
+“The train has broken away and left us!”
+
+The woman shook her head with a movement that might be intended to convey
+resignation to the will of heaven, but probably meant noncomprehension.
+Abbleway repeated his information with variations of Slavonic tongues and
+generous displays of pantomime.
+
+“Ah,” said the woman at last in German dialect, “the train has gone?  We
+are left.  Ah, so.”
+
+She seemed about as much interested as though Abbleway had told her the
+result of the municipal elections in Amsterdam.
+
+“They will find out at some station, and when the line is clear of snow
+they will send an engine.  It happens that way sometimes.”
+
+“We may be here all night!” exclaimed Abbleway.
+
+The woman nodded as though she thought it possible.
+
+“Are there wolves in these parts?” asked Abbleway hurriedly.
+
+“Many,” said the woman; “just outside this forest my aunt was devoured
+three years ago, as she was coming home from market.  The horse and a
+young pig that was in the cart were eaten too.  The horse was a very old
+one, but it was a beautiful young pig, oh, so fat.  I cried when I heard
+that it was taken.  They spare nothing.”
+
+“They may attack us here,” said Abbleway tremulously; “they could easily
+break in, these carriages are like matchwood.  We may both be devoured.”
+
+“You, perhaps,” said the woman calmly; “not me.”
+
+“Why not you?” demanded Abbleway.
+
+“It is the day of Saint Mariä Kleophä, my name-day.  She would not allow
+me to be eaten by wolves on her day.  Such a thing could not be thought
+of.  You, yes, but not me.”
+
+Abbleway changed the subject.
+
+“It is only afternoon now; if we are to be left here till morning we
+shall be starving.”
+
+“I have here some good eatables,” said the woman tranquilly; “on my
+festival day it is natural that I should have provision with me.  I have
+five good blood-sausages; in the town shops they cost twenty-five heller
+each.  Things are dear in the town shops.”
+
+“I will give you fifty heller apiece for a couple of them,” said Abbleway
+with some enthusiasm.
+
+“In a railway accident things become very dear,” said the woman; “these
+blood-sausages are four kronen apiece.”
+
+“Four kronen!” exclaimed Abbleway; “four kronen for a blood-sausage!”
+
+“You cannot get them any cheaper on this train,” said the woman, with
+relentless logic, “because there aren’t any others to get.  In Agram you
+can buy them cheaper, and in Paradise no doubt they will be given to us
+for nothing, but here they cost four kronen each.  I have a small piece
+of Emmenthaler cheese and a honey-cake and a piece of bread that I can
+let you have.  That will be another three kronen, eleven kronen in all.
+There is a piece of ham, but that I cannot let you have on my name-day.”
+
+Abbleway wondered to himself what price she would have put on the ham,
+and hurried to pay her the eleven kronen before her emergency tariff
+expanded into a famine tariff.  As he was taking possession of his modest
+store of eatables he suddenly heard a noise which set his heart thumping
+in a miserable fever of fear.  ‘There was a scraping and shuffling as of
+some animal or animals trying to climb up to the footboard.  In another
+moment, through the snow-encrusted glass of the carriage window, he saw a
+gaunt prick-eared head, with gaping jaw and lolling tongue and gleaming
+teeth; a second later another head shot up.
+
+“There are hundreds of them,” whispered Abbleway; “they have scented us.
+They will tear the carriage to pieces.  We shall be devoured.”
+
+“Not me, on my name-day.  The holy Mariä Kleophä would not permit it,”
+said the woman with provoking calm.
+
+The heads dropped down from the window and an uncanny silence fell on the
+beleaguered carriage.  Abbleway neither moved nor spoke.  Perhaps the
+brutes had not clearly seen or winded the human occupants of the
+carriage, and had prowled away on some other errand of rapine.
+
+The long torture-laden minutes passed slowly away.
+
+“It grows cold,” said the woman suddenly, crossing over to the far end of
+the carriage, where the heads had appeared.  “The heating apparatus does
+not work any longer.  See, over there beyond the trees, there is a
+chimney with smoke coming from it.  It is not far, and the snow has
+nearly stopped, I shall find a path through the forest to that house with
+the chimney.”
+
+“But the wolves!” exclaimed Abbleway; “they may—”
+
+“Not on my name-day,” said the woman obstinately, and before he could
+stop her she had opened the door and climbed down into the snow.  A
+moment later he hid his face in his hands; two gaunt lean figures rushed
+upon her from the forest.  No doubt she had courted her fate, but
+Abbleway had no wish to see a human being torn to pieces and devoured
+before his eyes.
+
+When he looked at last a new sensation of scandalised astonishment took
+possession of him.  He had been straitly brought up in a small English
+town, and he was not prepared to be the witness of a miracle.  The wolves
+were not doing anything worse to the woman than drench her with snow as
+they gambolled round her.
+
+A short, joyous bark revealed the clue to the situation.
+
+“Are those—dogs?” he called weakly.
+
+“My cousin Karl’s dogs, yes,” she answered; “that is his inn, over beyond
+the trees.  I knew it was there, but I did not want to take you there; he
+is always grasping with strangers.  However, it grows too cold to remain
+in the train.  Ah, ah, see what comes!”
+
+A whistle sounded, and a relief engine made its appearance, snorting its
+way sulkily through the snow.  Abbleway did not have the opportunity for
+finding out whether Karl was really avaricious.
+
+
+
+
+THE LUMBER ROOM
+
+
+The children were to be driven, as a special treat, to the sands at
+Jagborough.  Nicholas was not to be of the party; he was in disgrace.
+Only that morning he had refused to eat his wholesome bread-and-milk on
+the seemingly frivolous ground that there was a frog in it.  Older and
+wiser and better people had told him that there could not possibly be a
+frog in his bread-and-milk and that he was not to talk nonsense; he
+continued, nevertheless, to talk what seemed the veriest nonsense, and
+described with much detail the colouration and markings of the alleged
+frog.  The dramatic part of the incident was that there really was a frog
+in Nicholas’ basin of bread-and-milk; he had put it there himself, so he
+felt entitled to know something about it.  The sin of taking a frog from
+the garden and putting it into a bowl of wholesome bread-and-milk was
+enlarged on at great length, but the fact that stood out clearest in the
+whole affair, as it presented itself to the mind of Nicholas, was that
+the older, wiser, and better people had been proved to be profoundly in
+error in matters about which they had expressed the utmost assurance.
+
+“You said there couldn’t possibly be a frog in my bread-and-milk; there
+_was_ a frog in my bread-and-milk,” he repeated, with the insistence of a
+skilled tactician who does not intend to shift from favourable ground.
+
+So his boy-cousin and girl-cousin and his quite uninteresting younger
+brother were to be taken to Jagborough sands that afternoon and he was to
+stay at home.  His cousins’ aunt, who insisted, by an unwarranted stretch
+of imagination, in styling herself his aunt also, had hastily invented
+the Jagborough expedition in order to impress on Nicholas the delights
+that he had justly forfeited by his disgraceful conduct at the
+breakfast-table.  It was her habit, whenever one of the children fell
+from grace, to improvise something of a festival nature from which the
+offender would be rigorously debarred; if all the children sinned
+collectively they were suddenly informed of a circus in a neighbouring
+town, a circus of unrivalled merit and uncounted elephants, to which, but
+for their depravity, they would have been taken that very day.
+
+A few decent tears were looked for on the part of Nicholas when the
+moment for the departure of the expedition arrived.  As a matter of fact,
+however, all the crying was done by his girl-cousin, who scraped her knee
+rather painfully against the step of the carriage as she was scrambling
+in.
+
+“How she did howl,” said Nicholas cheerfully, as the party drove off
+without any of the elation of high spirits that should have characterised
+it.
+
+“She’ll soon get over that,” said the _soi-disant_ aunt; “it will be a
+glorious afternoon for racing about over those beautiful sands.  How they
+will enjoy themselves!”
+
+“Bobby won’t enjoy himself much, and he won’t race much either,” said
+Nicholas with a grim chuckle; “his boots are hurting him.  They’re too
+tight.”
+
+“Why didn’t he tell me they were hurting?” asked the aunt with some
+asperity.
+
+“He told you twice, but you weren’t listening.  You often don’t listen
+when we tell you important things.”
+
+“You are not to go into the gooseberry garden,” said the aunt, changing
+the subject.
+
+“Why not?” demanded Nicholas.
+
+“Because you are in disgrace,” said the aunt loftily.
+
+Nicholas did not admit the flawlessness of the reasoning; he felt
+perfectly capable of being in disgrace and in a gooseberry garden at the
+same moment.  His face took on an expression of considerable obstinacy.
+It was clear to his aunt that he was determined to get into the
+gooseberry garden, “only,” as she remarked to herself, “because I have
+told him he is not to.”
+
+Now the gooseberry garden had two doors by which it might be entered, and
+once a small person like Nicholas could slip in there he could
+effectually disappear from view amid the masking growth of artichokes,
+raspberry canes, and fruit bushes.  The aunt had many other things to do
+that afternoon, but she spent an hour or two in trivial gardening
+operations among flower beds and shrubberies, whence she could keep a
+watchful eye on the two doors that led to the forbidden paradise.  She
+was a woman of few ideas, with immense powers of concentration.
+
+Nicholas made one or two sorties into the front garden, wriggling his way
+with obvious stealth of purpose towards one or other of the doors, but
+never able for a moment to evade the aunt’s watchful eye.  As a matter of
+fact, he had no intention of trying to get into the gooseberry garden,
+but it was extremely convenient for him that his aunt should believe that
+he had; it was a belief that would keep her on self-imposed sentry-duty
+for the greater part of the afternoon.  Having thoroughly confirmed and
+fortified her suspicions Nicholas slipped back into the house and rapidly
+put into execution a plan of action that had long germinated in his
+brain.  By standing on a chair in the library one could reach a shelf on
+which reposed a fat, important-looking key.  The key was as important as
+it looked; it was the instrument which kept the mysteries of the
+lumber-room secure from unauthorised intrusion, which opened a way only
+for aunts and such-like privileged persons.  Nicholas had not had much
+experience of the art of fitting keys into keyholes and turning locks,
+but for some days past he had practised with the key of the schoolroom
+door; he did not believe in trusting too much to luck and accident.  The
+key turned stiffly in the lock, but it turned.  The door opened, and
+Nicholas was in an unknown land, compared with which the gooseberry
+garden was a stale delight, a mere material pleasure.
+
+Often and often Nicholas had pictured to himself what the lumber-room
+might be like, that region that was so carefully sealed from youthful
+eyes and concerning which no questions were ever answered.  It came up to
+his expectations.  In the first place it was large and dimly lit, one
+high window opening on to the forbidden garden being its only source of
+illumination.  In the second place it was a storehouse of unimagined
+treasures.  The aunt-by-assertion was one of those people who think that
+things spoil by use and consign them to dust and damp by way of
+preserving them.  Such parts of the house as Nicholas knew best were
+rather bare and cheerless, but here there were wonderful things for the
+eye to feast on.  First and foremost there was a piece of framed tapestry
+that was evidently meant to be a fire-screen.  To Nicholas it was a
+living, breathing story; he sat down on a roll of Indian hangings,
+glowing in wonderful colours beneath a layer of dust, and took in all the
+details of the tapestry picture.  A man, dressed in the hunting costume
+of some remote period, had just transfixed a stag with an arrow; it could
+not have been a difficult shot because the stag was only one or two paces
+away from him; in the thickly-growing vegetation that the picture
+suggested it would not have been difficult to creep up to a feeding stag,
+and the two spotted dogs that were springing forward to join in the chase
+had evidently been trained to keep to heel till the arrow was discharged.
+That part of the picture was simple, if interesting, but did the huntsman
+see, what Nicholas saw, that four galloping wolves were coming in his
+direction through the wood?  There might be more than four of them hidden
+behind the trees, and in any case would the man and his dogs be able to
+cope with the four wolves if they made an attack?  The man had only two
+arrows left in his quiver, and he might miss with one or both of them;
+all one knew about his skill in shooting was that he could hit a large
+stag at a ridiculously short range.  Nicholas sat for many golden minutes
+revolving the possibilities of the scene; he was inclined to think that
+there were more than four wolves and that the man and his dogs were in a
+tight corner.
+
+But there were other objects of delight and interest claiming his instant
+attention: there were quaint twisted candlesticks in the shape of snakes,
+and a teapot fashioned like a china duck, out of whose open beak the tea
+was supposed to come.  How dull and shapeless the nursery teapot seemed
+in comparison!  And there was a carved sandal-wood box packed tight with
+aromatic cotton-wool, and between the layers of cotton-wool were little
+brass figures, hump-necked bulls, and peacocks and goblins, delightful to
+see and to handle.  Less promising in appearance was a large square book
+with plain black covers; Nicholas peeped into it, and, behold, it was
+full of coloured pictures of birds.  And such birds!  In the garden, and
+in the lanes when he went for a walk, Nicholas came across a few birds,
+of which the largest were an occasional magpie or wood-pigeon; here were
+herons and bustards, kites, toucans, tiger-bitterns, brush turkeys,
+ibises, golden pheasants, a whole portrait gallery of undreamed-of
+creatures.  And as he was admiring the colouring of the mandarin duck and
+assigning a life-history to it, the voice of his aunt in shrill
+vociferation of his name came from the gooseberry garden without.  She
+had grown suspicious at his long disappearance, and had leapt to the
+conclusion that he had climbed over the wall behind the sheltering screen
+of the lilac bushes; she was now engaged in energetic and rather hopeless
+search for him among the artichokes and raspberry canes.
+
+“Nicholas, Nicholas!” she screamed, “you are to come out of this at once.
+It’s no use trying to hide there; I can see you all the time.”
+
+It was probably the first time for twenty years that anyone had smiled in
+that lumber-room.
+
+Presently the angry repetitions of Nicholas’ name gave way to a shriek,
+and a cry for somebody to come quickly.  Nicholas shut the book, restored
+it carefully to its place in a corner, and shook some dust from a
+neighbouring pile of newspapers over it.  Then he crept from the room,
+locked the door, and replaced the key exactly where he had found it.  His
+aunt was still calling his name when he sauntered into the front garden.
+
+“Who’s calling?” he asked.
+
+“Me,” came the answer from the other side of the wall; “didn’t you hear
+me?  I’ve been looking for you in the gooseberry garden, and I’ve slipped
+into the rain-water tank.  Luckily there’s no water in it, but the sides
+are slippery and I can’t get out.  Fetch the little ladder from under the
+cherry tree—”
+
+“I was told I wasn’t to go into the gooseberry garden,” said Nicholas
+promptly.
+
+“I told you not to, and now I tell you that you may,” came the voice from
+the rain-water tank, rather impatiently.
+
+“Your voice doesn’t sound like aunt’s,” objected Nicholas; “you may be
+the Evil One tempting me to be disobedient.  Aunt often tells me that the
+Evil One tempts me and that I always yield.  This time I’m not going to
+yield.”
+
+“Don’t talk nonsense,” said the prisoner in the tank; “go and fetch the
+ladder.”
+
+“Will there be strawberry jam for tea?” asked Nicholas innocently.
+
+“Certainly there will be,” said the aunt, privately resolving that
+Nicholas should have none of it.
+
+“Now I know that you are the Evil One and not aunt,” shouted Nicholas
+gleefully; “when we asked aunt for strawberry jam yesterday she said
+there wasn’t any.  I know there are four jars of it in the store
+cupboard, because I looked, and of course you know it’s there, but she
+doesn’t, because she said there wasn’t any.  Oh, Devil, you _have_ sold
+yourself!”
+
+There was an unusual sense of luxury in being able to talk to an aunt as
+though one was talking to the Evil One, but Nicholas knew, with childish
+discernment, that such luxuries were not to be over-indulged in.  He
+walked noisily away, and it was a kitchenmaid, in search of parsley, who
+eventually rescued the aunt from the rain-water tank.
+
+Tea that evening was partaken of in a fearsome silence.  The tide had
+been at its highest when the children had arrived at Jagborough Cove, so
+there had been no sands to play on—a circumstance that the aunt had
+overlooked in the haste of organising her punitive expedition.  The
+tightness of Bobby’s boots had had disastrous effect on his temper the
+whole of the afternoon, and altogether the children could not have been
+said to have enjoyed themselves.  The aunt maintained the frozen muteness
+of one who has suffered undignified and unmerited detention in a
+rain-water tank for thirty-five minutes.  As for Nicholas, he, too, was
+silent, in the absorption of one who has much to think about; it was just
+possible, he considered, that the huntsman would escape with his hounds
+while the wolves feasted on the stricken stag.
+
+
+
+
+FUR
+
+
+“You look worried, dear,” said Eleanor.
+
+“I am worried,” admitted Suzanne; “not worried exactly, but anxious.  You
+see, my birthday happens next week—”
+
+“You lucky person,” interrupted Eleanor; “my birthday doesn’t come till
+the end of March.”
+
+“Well, old Bertram Kneyght is over in England just now from the
+Argentine.  He’s a kind of distant cousin of my mother’s, and so
+enormously rich that we’ve never let the relationship drop out of sight.
+Even if we don’t see him or hear from him for years he is always Cousin
+Bertram when he does turn up.  I can’t say he’s ever been of much solid
+use to us, but yesterday the subject of my birthday cropped up, and he
+asked me to let him know what I wanted for a present.”
+
+“Now I understand the anxiety,” observed Eleanor.
+
+“As a rule when one is confronted with a problem like that,” said
+Suzanne, “all one’s ideas vanish; one doesn’t seem to have a desire in
+the world.  Now it so happens that I have been very keen on a little
+Dresden figure that I saw somewhere in Kensington; about thirty-six
+shillings, quite beyond my means.  I was very nearly describing the
+figure, and giving Bertram the address of the shop.  And then it suddenly
+struck me that thirty-six shillings was such a ridiculously inadequate
+sum for a man of his immense wealth to spend on a birthday present.  He
+could give thirty-six pounds as easily as you or I could buy a bunch of
+violets.  I don’t want to be greedy, of course, but I don’t like being
+wasteful.”
+
+“The question is,” said Eleanor, “what are his ideas as to
+present-giving?  Some of the wealthiest people have curiously cramped
+views on that subject.  When people grow gradually rich their
+requirements and standard of living expand in proportion, while their
+present-giving instincts often remain in the undeveloped condition of
+their earlier days.  Something showy and not-too-expensive in a shop is
+their only conception of the ideal gift.  That is why even quite good
+shops have their counters and windows crowded with things worth about
+four shillings that look as if they might be worth seven-and-six, and are
+priced at ten shillings and labelled seasonable gifts.’”
+
+“I know,” said Suzanne; “that is why it is so risky to be vague when one
+is giving indications of one’s wants.  Now if I say to him: ‘I am going
+out to Davos this winter, so anything in the travelling line would be
+acceptable,’ he might give me a dressing-bag with gold-mounted fittings,
+but, on the other hand, he might give me Baedeker’s Switzerland, or
+‘Skiing without Tears,’ or something of that sort.”
+
+“He would be more likely to say: ‘She’ll be going to lots of dances, a
+fan will be sure to be useful.’”
+
+“Yes, and I’ve got tons of fans, so you see where the danger and anxiety
+lies.  Now if there is one thing more than another that I really urgently
+want it is furs.  I simply haven’t any.  I’m told that Davos is full of
+Russians, and they are sure to wear the most lovely sables and things.
+To be among people who are smothered in furs when one hasn’t any oneself
+makes one want to break most of the Commandments.”
+
+“If it’s furs that you’re out for,” said Eleanor, “you will have to
+superintend the choice of them in person.  You can’t be sure that your
+cousin knows the difference between silver-fox and ordinary squirrel.”
+
+“There are some heavenly silver-fox stoles at Goliath and Mastodon’s,”
+said Suzanne, with a sigh; “if I could only inveigle Bertram into their
+building and take him for a stroll through the fur department!”
+
+“He lives somewhere near there, doesn’t he?” said Eleanor.  “Do you know
+what his habits are?  Does he take a walk at any particular time of day?”
+
+“He usually walks down to his club about three o’clock, if it’s a fine
+day.  That takes him right past Goliath and Mastodon’s.”
+
+“Let us two meet him accidentally at the street corner to-morrow,” said
+Eleanor; “we can walk a little way with him, and with luck we ought to be
+able to side-track him into the shop.  You can say you want to get a
+hair-net or something.  When we’re safely there I can say: ‘I wish you’d
+tell me what you want for your birthday.’  Then you’ll have everything
+ready to hand—the rich cousin, the fur department, and the topic of
+birthday presents.”
+
+“It’s a great idea,” said Suzanne; “you really are a brick.  Come round
+to-morrow at twenty to three; don’t be late, we must carry out our ambush
+to the minute.”
+
+At a few minutes to three the next afternoon the fur-trappers walked
+warily towards the selected corner.  In the near distance rose the
+colossal pile of Messrs.  Goliath and Mastodon’s famed establishment.
+The afternoon was brilliantly fine, exactly the sort of weather to tempt
+a gentleman of advancing years into the discreet exercise of a leisurely
+walk.
+
+“I say, dear, I wish you’d do something for me this evening,” said
+Eleanor to her companion; “just drop in after dinner on some pretext or
+other, and stay on to make a fourth at bridge with Adela and the aunts.
+Otherwise I shall have to play, and Harry Scarisbrooke is going to come
+in unexpectedly about nine-fifteen, and I particularly want to be free to
+talk to him while the others are playing.”
+
+“Sorry, my dear, no can do,” said Suzanne; “ordinary bridge at
+three-pence a hundred, with such dreadfully slow players as your aunts,
+bores me to tears.  I nearly go to sleep over it.”
+
+“But I most particularly want an opportunity to talk with Harry,” urged
+Eleanor, an angry glint coming into her eyes.
+
+“Sorry, anything to oblige, but not that,” said Suzanne cheerfully; the
+sacrifices of friendship were beautiful in her eyes as long as she was
+not asked to make them.
+
+Eleanor said nothing further on the subject, but the corners of her mouth
+rearranged themselves.
+
+“There’s our man!” exclaimed Suzanne suddenly; “hurry!”
+
+Mr. Bertram Kneyght greeted his cousin and her friend with genuine
+heartiness, and readily accepted their invitation to explore the crowded
+mart that stood temptingly at their elbow.  The plate-glass doors swung
+open and the trio plunged bravely into the jostling throng of buyers and
+loiterers.
+
+“Is it always as full as this?” asked Bertram of Eleanor.
+
+“More or less, and autumn sales are on just now,” she replied.
+
+Suzanne, in her anxiety to pilot her cousin to the desired haven of the
+fur department, was usually a few paces ahead of the others, coming back
+to them now and then if they lingered for a moment at some attractive
+counter, with the nervous solicitude of a parent rook encouraging its
+young ones on their first flying expedition.
+
+“It’s Suzanne’s birthday on Wednesday next,” confided Eleanor to Bertram
+Kneyght at a moment when Suzanne had left them unusually far behind; “my
+birthday comes the day before, so we are both on the look-out for
+something to give each other.”
+
+“Ah,” said Bertram.  “Now, perhaps you can advise me on that very point.
+I want to give Suzanne something, and I haven’t the least idea what she
+wants.”
+
+“She’s rather a problem,” said Eleanor.  “She seems to have everything
+one can think of, lucky girl.  A fan is always useful; she’ll be going to
+a lot of dances at Davos this winter.  Yes, I should think a fan would
+please her more than anything.  After our birthdays are over we inspect
+each other’s muster of presents, and I always feel dreadfully humble.
+She gets such nice things, and I never have anything worth showing.  You
+see, none of my relations or any of the people who give me presents are
+at all well off, so I can’t expect them to do anything more than just
+remember the day with some little trifle.  Two years ago an uncle on my
+mother’s side of the family, who had come into a small legacy, promised
+me a silver-fox stole for my birthday.  I can’t tell you how excited I
+was about it, how I pictured myself showing it off to all my friends and
+enemies.  Then just at that moment his wife died, and, of course, poor
+man, he could not be expected to think of birthday presents at such a
+time.  He has lived abroad ever since, and I never got my fur.  Do you
+know, to this day I can scarcely look at a silver-fox pelt in a shop
+window or round anyone’s neck without feeling ready to burst into tears.
+I suppose if I hadn’t had the prospect of getting one I shouldn’t feel
+that way.  Look, there is the fan counter, on your left; you can easily
+slip away in the crowd.  Get her as nice a one as you can see—she is such
+a dear, dear girl.”
+
+“Hullo, I thought I had lost you,” said Suzanne, making her way through
+an obstructive knot of shoppers.  “Where is Bertram?”
+
+“I got separated from him long ago.  I thought he was on ahead with you,”
+said Eleanor.  “We shall never find him in this crush.”
+
+Which turned out to be a true prediction.
+
+“All our trouble and forethought thrown away,” said Suzanne sulkily, when
+they had pushed their way fruitlessly through half a dozen departments.
+
+“I can’t think why you didn’t grab him by the arm,” said Eleanor; “I
+would have if I’d known him longer, but I’d only just been introduced.
+It’s nearly four now, we’d better have tea.”
+
+Some days later Suzanne rang Eleanor up on the telephone.
+
+“Thank you very much for the photograph frame.  It was just what I
+wanted.  Very good of you.  I say, do you know what that Kneyght person
+has given me?  Just what you said he would—a wretched fan.  What?  Oh
+yes, quite a good enough fan in its way, but still . . .”
+
+“You must come and see what he’s given me,” came in Eleanor’s voice over
+the ’phone.
+
+“You!  Why should he give you anything?”
+
+“Your cousin appears to be one of those rare people of wealth who take a
+pleasure in giving good presents,” came the reply.
+
+“I wondered why he was so anxious to know where she lived,” snapped
+Suzanne to herself as she rang off.
+
+A cloud has arisen between the friendships of the two young women; as far
+as Eleanor is concerned the cloud has a silver-fox lining.
+
+
+
+
+THE PHILANTHROPIST AND THE HAPPY CAT
+
+
+Jocantha Bessbury was in the mood to be serenely and graciously happy.
+Her world was a pleasant place, and it was wearing one of its pleasantest
+aspects.  Gregory had managed to get home for a hurried lunch and a smoke
+afterwards in the little snuggery; the lunch had been a good one, and
+there was just time to do justice to the coffee and cigarettes.  Both
+were excellent in their way, and Gregory was, in his way, an excellent
+husband.  Jocantha rather suspected herself of making him a very charming
+wife, and more than suspected herself of having a first-rate dressmaker.
+
+“I don’t suppose a more thoroughly contented personality is to be found
+in all Chelsea,” observed Jocantha in allusion to herself; “except
+perhaps Attab,” she continued, glancing towards the large tabby-marked
+cat that lay in considerable ease in a corner of the divan.  “He lies
+there, purring and dreaming, shifting his limbs now and then in an
+ecstasy of cushioned comfort.  He seems the incarnation of everything
+soft and silky and velvety, without a sharp edge in his composition, a
+dreamer whose philosophy is sleep and let sleep; and then, as evening
+draws on, he goes out into the garden with a red glint in his eyes and
+slays a drowsy sparrow.”
+
+“As every pair of sparrows hatches out ten or more young ones in the
+year, while their food supply remains stationary, it is just as well that
+the Attabs of the community should have that idea of how to pass an
+amusing afternoon,” said Gregory.  Having delivered himself of this sage
+comment he lit another cigarette, bade Jocantha a playfully affectionate
+good-bye, and departed into the outer world.
+
+“Remember, dinner’s a wee bit earlier to-night, as we’re going to the
+Haymarket,” she called after him.
+
+Left to herself, Jocantha continued the process of looking at her life
+with placid, introspective eyes.  If she had not everything she wanted in
+this world, at least she was very well pleased with what she had got.
+She was very well pleased, for instance, with the snuggery, which
+contrived somehow to be cosy and dainty and expensive all at once.  The
+porcelain was rare and beautiful, the Chinese enamels took on wonderful
+tints in the firelight, the rugs and hangings led the eye through
+sumptuous harmonies of colouring.  It was a room in which one might have
+suitably entertained an ambassador or an archbishop, but it was also a
+room in which one could cut out pictures for a scrap-book without feeling
+that one was scandalising the deities of the place with one’s litter.
+And as with the snuggery, so with the rest of the house, and as with the
+house, so with the other departments of Jocantha’s life; she really had
+good reason for being one of the most contented women in Chelsea.
+
+From being in a mood of simmering satisfaction with her lot she passed to
+the phase of being generously commiserating for those thousands around
+her whose lives and circumstances were dull, cheap, pleasureless, and
+empty.  Work girls, shop assistants and so forth, the class that have
+neither the happy-go-lucky freedom of the poor nor the leisured freedom
+of the rich, came specially within the range of her sympathy.  It was sad
+to think that there were young people who, after a long day’s work, had
+to sit alone in chill, dreary bedrooms because they could not afford the
+price of a cup of coffee and a sandwich in a restaurant, still less a
+shilling for a theatre gallery.
+
+Jocantha’s mind was still dwelling on this theme when she started forth
+on an afternoon campaign of desultory shopping; it would be rather a
+comforting thing, she told herself, if she could do something, on the
+spur of the moment, to bring a gleam of pleasure and interest into the
+life of even one or two wistful-hearted, empty-pocketed workers; it would
+add a good deal to her sense of enjoyment at the theatre that night.  She
+would get two upper circle tickets for a popular play, make her way into
+some cheap tea-shop, and present the tickets to the first couple of
+interesting work girls with whom she could casually drop into
+conversation.  She could explain matters by saying that she was unable to
+use the tickets herself and did not want them to be wasted, and, on the
+other hand, did not want the trouble of sending them back.  On further
+reflection she decided that it might be better to get only one ticket and
+give it to some lonely-looking girl sitting eating her frugal meal by
+herself; the girl might scrape acquaintance with her next-seat neighbour
+at the theatre and lay the foundations of a lasting friendship.
+
+With the Fairy Godmother impulse strong upon her, Jocantha marched into a
+ticket agency and selected with immense care an upper circle seat for the
+“Yellow Peacock,” a play that was attracting a considerable amount of
+discussion and criticism.  Then she went forth in search of a tea-shop
+and philanthropic adventure, at about the same time that Attab sauntered
+into the garden with a mind attuned to sparrow stalking.  In a corner of
+an A.B.C. shop she found an unoccupied table, whereat she promptly
+installed herself, impelled by the fact that at the next table was
+sitting a young girl, rather plain of feature, with tired, listless eyes,
+and a general air of uncomplaining forlornness.  Her dress was of poor
+material, but aimed at being in the fashion, her hair was pretty, and her
+complexion bad; she was finishing a modest meal of tea and scone, and she
+was not very different in her way from thousands of other girls who were
+finishing, or beginning, or continuing their teas in London tea-shops at
+that exact moment.  The odds were enormously in favour of the supposition
+that she had never seen the “Yellow Peacock”; obviously she supplied
+excellent material for Jocantha’s first experiment in haphazard
+benefaction.
+
+Jocantha ordered some tea and a muffin, and then turned a friendly
+scrutiny on her neighbour with a view to catching her eye.  At that
+precise moment the girl’s face lit up with sudden pleasure, her eyes
+sparkled, a flush came into her cheeks, and she looked almost pretty.  A
+young man, whom she greeted with an affectionate “Hullo, Bertie,” came up
+to her table and took his seat in a chair facing her.  Jocantha looked
+hard at the new-comer; he was in appearance a few years younger than
+herself, very much better looking than Gregory, rather better looking, in
+fact, than any of the young men of her set.  She guessed him to be a
+well-mannered young clerk in some wholesale warehouse, existing and
+amusing himself as best he might on a tiny salary, and commanding a
+holiday of about two weeks in the year.  He was aware, of course, of his
+good looks, but with the shy self-consciousness of the Anglo-Saxon, not
+the blatant complacency of the Latin or Semite.  He was obviously on
+terms of friendly intimacy with the girl he was talking to, probably they
+were drifting towards a formal engagement.  Jocantha pictured the boy’s
+home, in a rather narrow circle, with a tiresome mother who always wanted
+to know how and where he spent his evenings.  He would exchange that
+humdrum thraldom in due course for a home of his own, dominated by a
+chronic scarcity of pounds, shillings, and pence, and a dearth of most of
+the things that made life attractive or comfortable.  Jocantha felt
+extremely sorry for him.  She wondered if he had seen the “Yellow
+Peacock”; the odds were enormously in favour of the supposition that he
+had not.  The girl had finished her tea and would shortly be going back
+to her work; when the boy was alone it would be quite easy for Jocantha
+to say: “My husband has made other arrangements for me this evening;
+would you care to make use of this ticket, which would otherwise be
+wasted?”  Then she could come there again one afternoon for tea, and, if
+she saw him, ask him how he liked the play.  If he was a nice boy and
+improved on acquaintance he could be given more theatre tickets, and
+perhaps asked to come one Sunday to tea at Chelsea.  Jocantha made up her
+mind that he would improve on acquaintance, and that Gregory would like
+him, and that the Fairy Godmother business would prove far more
+entertaining than she had originally anticipated.  The boy was distinctly
+presentable; he knew how to brush his hair, which was possibly an
+imitative faculty; he knew what colour of tie suited him, which might be
+intuition; he was exactly the type that Jocantha admired, which of course
+was accident.  Altogether she was rather pleased when the girl looked at
+the clock and bade a friendly but hurried farewell to her companion.
+Bertie nodded “good-bye,” gulped down a mouthful of tea, and then
+produced from his overcoat pocket a paper-covered book, bearing the title
+“Sepoy and Sahib, a tale of the great Mutiny.”
+
+The laws of tea-shop etiquette forbid that you should offer theatre
+tickets to a stranger without having first caught the stranger’s eye.  It
+is even better if you can ask to have a sugar basin passed to you, having
+previously concealed the fact that you have a large and well-filled sugar
+basin on your own table; this is not difficult to manage, as the printed
+menu is generally nearly as large as the table, and can be made to stand
+on end.  Jocantha set to work hopefully; she had a long and rather
+high-pitched discussion with the waitress concerning alleged defects in
+an altogether blameless muffin, she made loud and plaintive inquiries
+about the tube service to some impossibly remote suburb, she talked with
+brilliant insincerity to the tea-shop kitten, and as a last resort she
+upset a milk-jug and swore at it daintily.  Altogether she attracted a
+good deal of attention, but never for a moment did she attract the
+attention of the boy with the beautifully-brushed hair, who was some
+thousands of miles away in the baking plains of Hindostan, amid deserted
+bungalows, seething bazaars, and riotous barrack squares, listening to
+the throbbing of tom-toms and the distant rattle of musketry.
+
+Jocantha went back to her house in Chelsea, which struck her for the
+first time as looking dull and over-furnished.  She had a resentful
+conviction that Gregory would be uninteresting at dinner, and that the
+play would be stupid after dinner.  On the whole her frame of mind showed
+a marked divergence from the purring complacency of Attab, who was again
+curled up in his corner of the divan with a great peace radiating from
+every curve of his body.
+
+But then he had killed his sparrow.
+
+
+
+
+ON APPROVAL
+
+
+Of all the genuine Bohemians who strayed from time to time into the
+would-be Bohemian circle of the Restaurant Nuremberg, Owl Street, Soho,
+none was more interesting and more elusive than Gebhard Knopfschrank.  He
+had no friends, and though he treated all the restaurant frequenters as
+acquaintances he never seemed to wish to carry the acquaintanceship
+beyond the door that led into Owl Street and the outer world.  He dealt
+with them all rather as a market woman might deal with chance passers-by,
+exhibiting her wares and chattering about the weather and the slackness
+of business, occasionally about rheumatism, but never showing a desire to
+penetrate into their daily lives or to dissect their ambitions.
+
+He was understood to belong to a family of peasant farmers, somewhere in
+Pomerania; some two years ago, according to all that was known of him, he
+had abandoned the labours and responsibilities of swine tending and goose
+rearing to try his fortune as an artist in London.
+
+“Why London and not Paris or Munich?” he had been asked by the curious.
+
+Well, there was a ship that left Stolpmünde for London twice a month,
+that carried few passengers, but carried them cheaply; the railway fares
+to Munich or Paris were not cheap.  Thus it was that he came to select
+London as the scene of his great adventure.
+
+The question that had long and seriously agitated the frequenters of the
+Nuremberg was whether this goose-boy migrant was really a soul-driven
+genius, spreading his wings to the light, or merely an enterprising young
+man who fancied he could paint and was pardonably anxious to escape from
+the monotony of rye bread diet and the sandy, swine-bestrewn plains of
+Pomerania.  There was reasonable ground for doubt and caution; the
+artistic groups that foregathered at the little restaurant contained so
+many young women with short hair and so many young men with long hair,
+who supposed themselves to be abnormally gifted in the domain of music,
+poetry, painting, or stagecraft, with little or nothing to support the
+supposition, that a self-announced genius of any sort in their midst was
+inevitably suspect.  On the other hand, there was the ever-imminent
+danger of entertaining, and snubbing, an angel unawares.  There had been
+the lamentable case of Sledonti, the dramatic poet, who had been
+belittled and cold-shouldered in the Owl Street hall of judgment, and had
+been afterwards hailed as a master singer by the Grand Duke Constantine
+Constantinovitch—“the most educated of the Romanoffs,” according to
+Sylvia Strubble, who spoke rather as one who knew every individual member
+of the Russian imperial family; as a matter of fact, she knew a newspaper
+correspondent, a young man who ate _bortsch_ with the air of having
+invented it.  Sledonti’s “Poems of Death and Passion” were now being sold
+by the thousand in seven European languages, and were about to be
+translated into Syrian, a circumstance which made the discerning critics
+of the Nuremberg rather shy of maturing their future judgments too
+rapidly and too irrevocably.
+
+As regards Knopfschrank’s work, they did not lack opportunity for
+inspecting and appraising it.  However resolutely he might hold himself
+aloof from the social life of his restaurant acquaintances, he was not
+minded to hide his artistic performances from their inquiring gaze.
+Every evening, or nearly every evening, at about seven o’clock, he would
+make his appearance, sit himself down at his accustomed table, throw a
+bulky black portfolio on to the chair opposite him, nod round
+indiscriminately at his fellow-guests, and commence the serious business
+of eating and drinking.  When the coffee stage was reached he would light
+a cigarette, draw the portfolio over to him, and begin to rummage among
+its contents.  With slow deliberation he would select a few of his more
+recent studies and sketches, and silently pass them round from table to
+table, paying especial attention to any new diners who might be present.
+On the back of each sketch was marked in plain figures the announcement
+“Price ten shillings.”
+
+If his work was not obviously stamped with the hall-mark of genius, at
+any rate it was remarkable for its choice of an unusual and unvarying
+theme.  His pictures always represented some well-known street or public
+place in London, fallen into decay and denuded of its human population,
+in the place of which there roamed a wild fauna, which, from its wealth
+of exotic species, must have originally escaped from Zoological Gardens
+and travelling beast shows.  “Giraffes drinking at the fountain pools,
+Trafalgar Square,” was one of the most notable and characteristic of his
+studies, while even more sensational was the gruesome picture of
+“Vultures attacking dying camel in Upper Berkeley Street.”  There were
+also photographs of the large canvas on which he had been engaged for
+some months, and which he was now endeavouring to sell to some
+enterprising dealer or adventurous amateur.  The subject was “Hyænas
+asleep in Euston Station,” a composition that left nothing to be desired
+in the way of suggesting unfathomed depths of desolation.
+
+“Of course it may be immensely clever, it may be something epoch-making
+in the realm of art,” said Sylvia Strubble to her own particular circle
+of listeners, “but, on the other hand, it may be merely mad.  One mustn’t
+pay too much attention to the commercial aspect of the case, of course,
+but still, if some dealer would make a bid for that hyæna picture, or
+even for some of the sketches, we should know better how to place the man
+and his work.”
+
+“We may all be cursing ourselves one of these days,” said Mrs.
+Nougat-Jones, “for not having bought up his entire portfolio of sketches.
+At the same time, when there is so much real talent going about, one does
+not feel like planking down ten shillings for what looks like a bit of
+whimsical oddity.  Now that picture that he showed us last week,
+‘Sand-grouse roosting on the Albert Memorial,’ was very impressive, and
+of course I could see there was good workmanship in it and breadth of
+treatment; but it didn’t in the least convey the Albert Memorial to me,
+and Sir James Beanquest tells me that sand-grouse don’t roost, they sleep
+on the ground.”
+
+Whatever talent or genius the Pomeranian artist might possess, it
+certainly failed to receive commercial sanction.  The portfolio remained
+bulky with unsold sketches, and the “Euston Siesta,” as the wits of the
+Nuremberg nicknamed the large canvas, was still in the market.  The
+outward and visible signs of financial embarrassment began to be
+noticeable; the half-bottle of cheap claret at dinner-time gave way to a
+small glass of lager, and this in turn was displaced by water.  The
+one-and-sixpenny set dinner receded from an everyday event to a Sunday
+extravagance; on ordinary days the artist contented himself with a
+sevenpenny omelette and some bread and cheese, and there were evenings
+when he did not put in an appearance at all.  On the rare occasions when
+he spoke of his own affairs it was observed that he began to talk more
+about Pomerania and less about the great world of art.
+
+“It is a busy time there now with us,” he said wistfully; “the schwines
+are driven out into the fields after harvest, and must be looked after.
+I could be helping to look after if I was there.  Here it is difficult to
+live; art is not appreciate.”
+
+“Why don’t you go home on a visit?” some one asked tactfully.
+
+“Ah, it cost money!  There is the ship passage to Stolpmünde, and there
+is money that I owe at my lodgings.  Even here I owe a few schillings.
+If I could sell some of my sketches—”
+
+“Perhaps,” suggested Mrs. Nougat-Jones, “if you were to offer them for a
+little less, some of us would be glad to buy a few.  Ten shillings is
+always a consideration, you know, to people who are not over well off.
+Perhaps if you were to ask six or seven shillings—”
+
+Once a peasant, always a peasant.  The mere suggestion of a bargain to be
+struck brought a twinkle of awakened alertness into the artist’s eyes,
+and hardened the lines of his mouth.
+
+“Nine schilling nine pence each,” he snapped, and seemed disappointed
+that Mrs. Nougat-Jones did not pursue the subject further.  He had
+evidently expected her to offer seven and fourpence.
+
+The weeks sped by, and Knopfschrank came more rarely to the restaurant in
+Owl Street, while his meals on those occasions became more and more
+meagre.  And then came a triumphal day, when he appeared early in the
+evening in a high state of elation, and ordered an elaborate meal that
+scarcely stopped short of being a banquet.  The ordinary resources of the
+kitchen were supplemented by an imported dish of smoked goosebreast, a
+Pomeranian delicacy that was luckily procurable at a firm of
+_delikatessen_ merchants in Coventry Street, while a long-necked bottle
+of Rhine wine gave a finishing touch of festivity and good cheer to the
+crowded table.
+
+“He has evidently sold his masterpiece,” whispered Sylvia Strubble to
+Mrs. Nougat-Jones, who had come in late.
+
+“Who has bought it?” she whispered back.
+
+“Don’t know; he hasn’t said anything yet, but it must be some American.
+Do you see, he has got a little American flag on the dessert dish, and he
+has put pennies in the music box three times, once to play the
+‘Star-spangled Banner,’ then a Sousa march, and then the ‘Star-spangled
+Banner’ again.  It must be an American millionaire, and he’s evidently
+got a very big price for it; he’s just beaming and chuckling with
+satisfaction.”
+
+“We must ask him who has bought it,” said Mrs. Nougat-Jones.
+
+“Hush! no, don’t.  Let’s buy some of his sketches, quick, before we are
+supposed to know that he’s famous; otherwise he’ll be doubling the
+prices.  I am so glad he’s had a success at last.  I always believed in
+him, you know.”
+
+For the sum of ten shillings each Miss Strubble acquired the drawings of
+the camel dying in Upper Berkeley Street and of the giraffes quenching
+their thirst in Trafalgar Square; at the same price Mrs. Nougat-Jones
+secured the study of roosting sand-grouse.  A more ambitious picture,
+“Wolves and wapiti fighting on the steps of the Athenæum Club,” found a
+purchaser at fifteen shillings.
+
+“And now what are your plans?” asked a young man who contributed
+occasional paragraphs to an artistic weekly.
+
+“I go back to Stolpmünde as soon as the ship sails,” said the artist,
+“and I do not return.  Never.”
+
+“But your work?  Your career as painter?”
+
+“Ah, there is nossing in it.  One starves.  Till to-day I have sold not
+one of my sketches.  To-night you have bought a few, because I am going
+away from you, but at other times, not one.”
+
+“But has not some American—?”
+
+“Ah, the rich American,” chuckled the artist.  “God be thanked.  He dash
+his car right into our herd of schwines as they were being driven out to
+the fields.  Many of our best schwines he killed, but he paid all
+damages.  He paid perhaps more than they were worth, many times more than
+they would have fetched in the market after a month of fattening, but he
+was in a hurry to get on to Dantzig.  When one is in a hurry one must pay
+what one is asked.  God be thanked for rich Americans, who are always in
+a hurry to get somewhere else.  My father and mother, they have now so
+plenty of money; they send me some to pay my debts and come home.  I
+start on Monday for Stolpmünde and I do not come back.  Never.”
+
+“But your picture, the hyænas?”
+
+“No good.  It is too big to carry to Stolpmünde.  I burn it.”
+
+In time he will be forgotten, but at present Knopfschrank is almost as
+sore a subject as Sledonti with some of the frequenters of the Nuremberg
+Restaurant, Owl Street, Soho.
+
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BEASTS AND SUPER-BEASTS***
+
+
+******* This file should be named 269-0.txt or 269-0.zip *******
+
+
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/6/269
+
+
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
+http://www.gutenberg.org/license).
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation web page at http://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/pglaf.
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
+809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
+business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
+information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
+page at http://www.gutenberg.org/about/contact
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit http://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/donate
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations.
+To donate, please visit:
+http://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     http://www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
+