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+The Project Gutenberg Etext of Beasts and Super-Beasts, by Saki
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+BEASTS AND SUPER-BEASTS - H. H. MUNRO ("SAKI")   
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+May, 1995  [Etext #269]
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+The Project Gutenberg Etext of Beasts and Super-Beasts by Saki
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+BEASTS AND SUPER-BEASTS - H. H. MUNRO ("SAKI")
+
+Scanner: Hewlett-Packard Scanjet IICX
+OCR: WordScan Version 3.00
+Spell-check: Word for Windows 6.0 - UK Dictionary
+Scanned by: David Price
+
+CONTENTS
+
+THE SHE-WOLF
+LAURA
+THE BOAR-PIG
+THE BROGUE
+THE HEN
+THE OPEN WINDOW
+THE TREASURE-SHIP
+THE COBWEB
+THE LULL
+THE UNKINDEST BLOW
+THE ROMANCERS
+THE SCHARTZ-METTERKLUME METHOD
+THE SEVENTH PULLET
+THE BLIND SPOT
+DUSK
+A TOUCH OF REALISM
+COUSIN TERESA
+THE YARKAND MANNER
+THE BYZANTINE OMELETTE
+THE FEAST OF NEMESIS
+THE DREAMER
+THE QUINCE TREE
+THE FORBIDDEN BUZZARDS
+THE STAKE
+CLOVIS ON PARENTAL RESPONSIBILITIES
+A HOLIDAY TASK
+THE STALLED OX
+THE STORY-TELLER
+A DEFENSIVE DIAMOND
+THE ELK
+"DOWN PENS"
+THE NAME-DAY
+THE LUMBER ROOM
+FUR
+THE PHILANTHROPIST AND THE HAPPY CAT
+ON APPROVAL
+
+
+
+
+
+Beasts and Super-Beasts
+
+
+
+
+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 Loiusa," 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?  ETES VOUS FRANCAISE?"
+
+"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 FRANCAIS."
+
+"Oh, very well, TRES BIEN," said Mrs. Stossen 
+reluctantly; in moments of flurry such French as she knew 
+was not under very good control.  "LA, A L'AUTRE COTE 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 BETE FEROCE - "
+
+"UNE BETE," 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 tomorrow.  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 tomorrow 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 
+Hollander.'  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 curacoa; 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 wide-spread 
+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 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 goodbye 
+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 four-score 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 manoeuvre, 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 role of Saint 
+Martin malgre 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'OEUVRES 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 hand-
+writing 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 Moliere'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 Caesar,
+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; Caesar 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 Caesar
+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; Nurnberg, 
+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 manoeuvres 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 bare-headed.
+
+"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 role 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 far-
+seeing."
+
+"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 role 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 PARTINGLON," 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 manoeuvre, 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 ADNRE 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 extra-ordinarily 
+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 storyteller 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 dosed 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 Maria Kleopha, 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 Maria Kleopha 
+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 
+cottonwool, and between the layers of cottonwool 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 threepence 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 Stolpmunde 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 "Hyaenas 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 hyaena 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 
+Stolpmunde, 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 Athenaeum 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 Stolpmunde 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 
+Stolpmunde and I do not come back.  Never."
+
+"But your picture, the hyaenas?"
+
+"No good.  It is too big to carry to Stolpmunde.  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 Etext Beasts and Superbeasts
+