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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Strand Magazine, Vol. 27, No. 161, May
+1904, by Various
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Strand Magazine, Vol. 27, No. 161, May 1904
+
+Author: Various
+
+Release Date: February 10, 2012 [EBook #38820]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK STRAND MAGAZINE, MAY, 1904 ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Dianna Adair, Jonathan Ingram, Ernest Schaal,
+and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
+https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+  [Illustration: "WITH THE BOUND OF A TIGER HOLMES WAS ON HIS BACK."]
+                           (_See page 492._)
+
+
+
+
+                          THE STRAND MAGAZINE.
+
+    Vol. xxvii.                MAY, 1904.                   No. 161.
+
+
+
+
+                     THE RETURN OF SHERLOCK HOLMES.
+
+                           By A. CONAN DOYLE.
+
+        Copyright, 1904, by A. Conan Doyle, in the United States of
+        America.
+
+              _VIII.--The Adventure of the Six Napoleons._
+
+
+It was no very unusual thing for Mr. Lestrade, of Scotland Yard, to look
+in upon us of an evening, and his visits were welcome to Sherlock
+Holmes, for they enabled him to keep in touch with all that was going on
+at the police head-quarters. In return for the news which Lestrade would
+bring, Holmes was always ready to listen with attention to the details
+of any case upon which the detective was engaged, and was able
+occasionally, without any active interference, to give some hint or
+suggestion drawn from his own vast knowledge and experience.
+
+On this particular evening Lestrade had spoken of the weather and the
+newspapers. Then he had fallen silent, puffing thoughtfully at his
+cigar. Holmes looked keenly at him.
+
+"Anything remarkable on hand?" he asked.
+
+"Oh, no, Mr. Holmes, nothing very particular."
+
+"Then tell me about it."
+
+Lestrade laughed.
+
+"Well, Mr. Holmes, there is no use denying that there _is_ something on
+my mind. And yet it is such an absurd business that I hesitated to
+bother you about it. On the other hand, although it is trivial, it is
+undoubtedly queer, and I know that you have a taste for all that is out
+of the common. But in my opinion it comes more in Dr. Watson's line than
+ours."
+
+"Disease?" said I.
+
+"Madness, anyhow. And a queer madness too! You wouldn't think there was
+anyone living at this time of day who had such a hatred of Napoleon the
+First that he would break any image of him that he could see."
+
+Holmes sank back in his chair.
+
+"That's no business of mine," said he.
+
+"Exactly. That's what I said. But then, when the man commits burglary in
+order to break images which are not his own, that brings it away from
+the doctor and on to the policeman."
+
+Holmes sat up again.
+
+"Burglary! This is more interesting. Let me hear the details."
+
+Lestrade took out his official note-book and refreshed his memory from
+its pages.
+
+      [Illustration: "LESTRADE TOOK OUT HIS OFFICIAL NOTE-BOOK."]
+
+"The first case reported was four days ago," said he. "It was at the
+shop of Morse Hudson, who has a place for the sale of pictures and
+statues in the Kennington Road. The assistant had left the front shop
+for an instant when he heard a crash, and hurrying in he found a plaster
+bust of Napoleon, which stood with several other works of art upon the
+counter, lying shivered into fragments. He rushed out into the road,
+but, although several passers-by declared that they had noticed a man
+run out of the shop, he could neither see anyone nor could he find any
+means of identifying the rascal. It seemed to be one of those senseless
+acts of Hooliganism which occur from time to time, and it was reported
+to the constable on the beat as such. The plaster cast was not worth
+more than a few shillings, and the whole affair appeared to be too
+childish for any particular investigation.
+
+"The second case, however, was more serious and also more singular. It
+occurred only last night.
+
+"In Kennington Road, and within a few hundred yards of Morse Hudson's
+shop, there lives a well-known medical practitioner, named Dr. Barnicot,
+who has one of the largest practices upon the south side of the Thames.
+His residence and principal consulting-room is at Kennington Road, but
+he has a branch surgery and dispensary at Lower Brixton Road, two miles
+away. This Dr. Barnicot is an enthusiastic admirer of Napoleon, and his
+house is full of books, pictures, and relics of the French Emperor. Some
+little time ago he purchased from Morse Hudson two duplicate plaster
+casts of the famous head of Napoleon by the French sculptor, Devine. One
+of these he placed in his hall in the house at Kennington Road, and the
+other on the mantelpiece of the surgery at Lower Brixton. Well, when Dr.
+Barnicot came down this morning he was astonished to find that his house
+had been burgled during the night, but that nothing had been taken save
+the plaster head from the hall. It had been carried out and had been
+dashed savagely against the garden wall, under which its splintered
+fragments were discovered."
+
+Holmes rubbed his hands.
+
+"This is certainly very novel," said he.
+
+"I thought it would please you. But I have not got to the end yet. Dr.
+Barnicot was due at his surgery at twelve o'clock, and you can imagine
+his amazement when, on arriving there, he found that the window had been
+opened in the night, and that the broken pieces of his second bust were
+strewn all over the room. It had been smashed to atoms where it stood.
+In neither case were there any signs which could give us a clue as to
+the criminal or lunatic who had done the mischief. Now, Mr. Holmes, you
+have got the facts."
+
+"They are singular, not to say grotesque," said Holmes. "May I ask
+whether the two busts smashed in Dr. Barnicot's rooms were the exact
+duplicates of the one which was destroyed in Morse Hudson's shop?"
+
+"They were taken from the same mould."
+
+"Such a fact must tell against the theory that the man who breaks them
+is influenced by any general hatred of Napoleon. Considering how many
+hundreds of statues of the great Emperor must exist in London, it is too
+much to suppose such a coincidence as that a promiscuous iconoclast
+should chance to begin upon three specimens of the same bust."
+
+"Well, I thought as you do," said Lestrade. "On the other hand, this
+Morse Hudson is the purveyor of busts in that part of London, and these
+three were the only ones which had been in his shop for years. So,
+although, as you say, there are many hundreds of statues in London, it
+is very probable that these three were the only ones in that district.
+Therefore, a local fanatic would begin with them. What do you think, Dr.
+Watson?"
+
+"There are no limits to the possibilities of monomania," I answered.
+"There is the condition which the modern French psychologists have
+called the 'idee fixe,' which may be trifling in character, and
+accompanied by complete sanity in every other way. A man who had read
+deeply about Napoleon, or who had possibly received some hereditary
+family injury through the great war, might conceivably form such an
+'idee fixe' and under its influence be capable of any fantastic
+outrage."
+
+"That won't do, my dear Watson," said Holmes, shaking his head; "for no
+amount of 'idee fixe' would enable your interesting monomaniac to find
+out where these busts were situated."
+
+"Well, how do _you_ explain it?"
+
+"I don't attempt to do so. I would only observe that there is a certain
+method in the gentleman's eccentric proceedings. For example, in Dr.
+Barnicot's hall, where a sound might arouse the family, the bust was
+taken outside before being broken, whereas in the surgery, where there
+was less danger of an alarm, it was smashed where it stood. The affair
+seems absurdly trifling, and yet I dare call nothing trivial when I
+reflect that some of my most classic cases have had the least promising
+commencement. You will remember, Watson, how the dreadful business of
+the Abernetty family was first brought to my notice by the depth which
+the parsley had sunk into the butter upon a hot day. I can't afford,
+therefore, to smile at your three broken busts, Lestrade, and I shall be
+very much obliged to you if you will let me hear of any fresh
+developments of so singular a chain of events."
+
+                               * * * * *
+
+The development for which my friend had asked came in a quicker and an
+infinitely more tragic form than he could have imagined. I was still
+dressing in my bedroom next morning when there was a tap at the door and
+Holmes entered, a telegram in his hand. He read it aloud:--
+
+"Come instantly, 131, Pitt Street, Kensington.--Lestrade."
+
+"What is it, then?" I asked.
+
+"Don't know--may be anything. But I suspect it is the sequel of the
+story of the statues. In that case our friend, the image-breaker, has
+begun operations in another quarter of London. There's coffee on the
+table, Watson, and I have a cab at the door."
+
+In half an hour we had reached Pitt Street, a quiet little backwater
+just beside one of the briskest currents of London life. No. 131 was one
+of a row, all flat-chested, respectable, and most unromantic dwellings.
+As we drove up we found the railings in front of the house lined by a
+curious crowd. Holmes whistled.
+
+"By George! it's attempted murder at the least. Nothing less will hold
+the London message-boy. There's a deed of violence indicated in that
+fellow's round shoulders and outstretched neck. What's this, Watson? The
+top steps swilled down and the other ones dry. Footsteps enough, anyhow!
+Well, well, there's Lestrade at the front window, and we shall soon know
+all about it."
+
+The official received us with a very grave face and showed us into a
+sitting-room, where an exceedingly unkempt and agitated elderly man,
+clad in a flannel dressing-gown, was pacing up and down. He was
+introduced to us as the owner of the house--Mr. Horace Harker, of the
+Central Press Syndicate.
+
+        [Illustration: "HE WAS INTRODUCED TO US AS THE OWNER OF
+                    THE HOUSE--MR. HORACE HARKER."]
+
+"It's the Napoleon bust business again," said Lestrade. "You seemed
+interested last night, Mr. Holmes, so I thought perhaps you would be
+glad to be present now that the affair has taken a very much graver
+turn."
+
+"What has it turned to, then?"
+
+"To murder. Mr. Harker, will you tell these gentlemen exactly what has
+occurred?"
+
+The man in the dressing-gown turned upon us with a most melancholy face.
+
+"It's an extraordinary thing," said he, "that all my life I have been
+collecting other people's news, and now that a real piece of news has
+come my own way I am so confused and bothered that I can't put two words
+together. If I had come in here as a journalist I should have
+interviewed myself and had two columns in every evening paper. As it is
+I am giving away valuable copy by telling my story over and over to a
+string of different people, and I can make no use of it myself. However,
+I've heard your name, Mr. Sherlock Holmes, and if you'll only explain
+this queer business I shall be paid for my trouble in telling you the
+story."
+
+Holmes sat down and listened.
+
+"It all seems to centre round that bust of Napoleon which I bought for
+this very room about four months ago. I picked it up cheap from Harding
+Brothers, two doors from the High Street Station. A great deal of my
+journalistic work is done at night, and I often write until the early
+morning. So it was to-day. I was sitting in my den, which is at the back
+of the top of the house, about three o'clock, when I was convinced that
+I heard some sounds downstairs. I listened, but they were not repeated,
+and I concluded that they came from outside. Then suddenly, about five
+minutes later, there came a most horrible yell--the most dreadful sound,
+Mr. Holmes, that ever I heard. It will ring in my ears as long as I
+live. I sat frozen with horror for a minute or two. Then I seized the
+poker and went downstairs. When I entered this room I found the window
+wide open, and I at once observed that the bust was gone from the
+mantelpiece. Why any burglar should take such a thing passes my
+understanding, for it was only a plaster cast and of no real value
+whatever.
+
+"You can see for yourself that anyone going out through that open window
+could reach the front doorstep by taking a long stride. This was clearly
+what the burglar had done, so I went round and opened the door. Stepping
+out into the dark I nearly fell over a dead man who was lying there. I
+ran back for a light, and there was the poor fellow, a great gash in his
+throat and the whole place swimming in blood. He lay on his back, his
+knees drawn up, and his mouth horribly open. I shall see him in my
+dreams. I had just time to blow on my police-whistle, and then I must
+have fainted, for I knew nothing more until I found the policeman
+standing over me in the hall."
+
+"Well, who was the murdered man?" asked Holmes.
+
+"There's nothing to show who he was," said Lestrade. "You shall see the
+body at the mortuary, but we have made nothing of it up to now. He is a
+tall man, sunburned, very powerful, not more than thirty. He is poorly
+dressed, and yet does not appear to be a labourer. A horn-handled clasp
+knife was lying in a pool of blood beside him. Whether it was the weapon
+which did the deed, or whether it belonged to the dead man, I do not
+know. There was no name on his clothing, and nothing in his pockets save
+an apple, some string, a shilling map of London, and a photograph. Here
+it is."
+
+It was evidently taken by a snap-shot from a small camera. It
+represented an alert, sharp-featured simian man with thick eyebrows, and
+a very peculiar projection of the lower part of the face like the muzzle
+of a baboon.
+
+"And what became of the bust?" asked Holmes, after a careful study of
+this picture.
+
+"We had news of it just before you came. It has been found in the front
+garden of an empty house in Campden House Road. It was broken into
+fragments. I am going round now to see it. Will you come?"
+
+"Certainly. I must just take one look round." He examined the carpet and
+the window. "The fellow had either very long legs or was a most active
+man," said he. "With an area beneath, it was no mean feat to reach that
+window-ledge and open that window. Getting back was comparatively
+simple. Are you coming with us to see the remains of your bust, Mr.
+Harker?"
+
+The disconsolate journalist had seated himself at a writing-table.
+
+"I must try and make something of it," said he, "though I have no doubt
+that the first editions of the evening papers are out already with full
+details. It's like my luck! You remember when the stand fell at
+Doncaster? Well, I was the only journalist in the stand, and my journal
+the only one that had no account of it, for I was too shaken to write
+it. And now I'll be too late with a murder done on my own doorstep."
+
+As we left the room we heard his pen travelling shrilly over the
+foolscap.
+
+The spot where the fragments of the bust had been found was only a few
+hundred yards away. For the first time our eyes rested upon this
+presentment of the great Emperor, which seemed to raise such frantic and
+destructive hatred in the mind of the unknown. It lay scattered in
+splintered shards upon the grass. Holmes picked up several of them and
+examined them carefully. I was convinced from his intent face and his
+purposeful manner that at last he was upon a clue.
+
+"Well?" asked Lestrade.
+
+Holmes shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"We have a long way to go yet," said he. "And yet--and yet--well, we
+have some suggestive facts to act upon. The possession of this trifling
+bust was worth more in the eyes of this strange criminal than a human
+life. That is one point. Then there is the singular fact that he did not
+break it in the house, or immediately outside the house, if to break it
+was his sole object."
+
+"He was rattled and bustled by meeting this other fellow. He hardly knew
+what he was doing."
+
+"Well, that's likely enough. But I wish to call your attention very
+particularly to the position of this house in the garden of which the
+bust was destroyed."
+
+Lestrade looked about him.
+
+"It was an empty house, and so he knew that he would not be disturbed in
+the garden."
+
+"Yes, but there is another empty house farther up the street which he
+must have passed before he came to this one. Why did he not break it
+there, since it is evident that every yard that he carried it increased
+the risk of someone meeting him?"
+
+"I give it up," said Lestrade.
+
+Holmes pointed to the street lamp above our heads.
+
+  [Illustration: "HOLMES POINTED TO THE STREET LAMP ABOVE OUR HEADS."]
+
+"He could see what he was doing here and he could not there. That was
+his reason."
+
+"By Jove! that's true," said the detective. "Now that I come to think of
+it, Dr. Barnicot's bust was broken not far from his red lamp. Well, Mr.
+Holmes, what are we to do with that fact?"
+
+"To remember it--to docket it. We may come on something later which will
+bear upon it. What steps do you propose to take now, Lestrade?"
+
+"The most practical way of getting at it, in my opinion, is to identify
+the dead man. There should be no difficulty about that. When we have
+found who he is and who his associates are, we should have a good start
+in learning what he was doing in Pitt Street last night, and who it was
+who met him and killed him on the doorstep of Mr. Horace Harker. Don't
+you think so?"
+
+"No doubt; and yet it is not quite the way in which I should approach
+the case."
+
+"What would you do, then?"
+
+"Oh, you must not let me influence you in any way! I suggest that you go
+on your line and I on mine. We can compare notes afterwards, and each
+will supplement the other."
+
+"Very good," said Lestrade.
+
+"If you are going back to Pitt Street you might see Mr. Horace Harker.
+Tell him from me that I have quite made up my mind, and that it is
+certain that a dangerous homicidal lunatic with Napoleonic delusions was
+in his house last night. It will be useful for his article."
+
+Lestrade stared.
+
+"You don't seriously believe that?"
+
+Holmes smiled.
+
+"Don't I? Well, perhaps I don't. But I am sure that it will interest Mr.
+Horace Harker and the subscribers of the Central Press Syndicate. Now,
+Watson, I think that we shall find that we have a long and rather
+complex day's work before us. I should be glad, Lestrade, if you could
+make it convenient to meet us at Baker Street at six o'clock this
+evening. Until then I should like to keep this photograph found in the
+dead man's pocket. It is possible that I may have to ask your company
+and assistance upon a small expedition which will have to be undertaken
+to-night, if my chain of reasoning should prove to be correct. Until
+then, good-bye and good luck!"
+
+Sherlock Holmes and I walked together to the High Street, where he
+stopped at the shop of Harding Brothers, whence the bust had been
+purchased. A young assistant informed us that Mr. Harding would be
+absent until after noon, and that he was himself a newcomer who could
+give us no information. Holmes's face showed his disappointment and
+annoyance.
+
+"Well, well, we can't expect to have it all our own way, Watson," he
+said, at last. "We must come back in the afternoon if Mr. Harding will
+not be here until then. I am, as you have no doubt surmised,
+endeavouring to trace these busts to their source, in order to find if
+there is not something peculiar which may account for their remarkable
+fate. Let us make for Mr. Morse Hudson, of the Kennington Road, and see
+if he can throw any light upon the problem."
+
+A drive of an hour brought us to the picture-dealer's establishment. He
+was a small, stout man with a red face and a peppery manner.
+
+"Yes, sir. On my very counter, sir," said he. "What we pay rates and
+taxes for I don't know, when any ruffian can come in and break one's
+goods. Yes, sir, it was I who sold Dr. Barnicot his two statues.
+Disgraceful, sir! A Nihilist plot, that's what I make it. No one but an
+Anarchist would go about breaking statues. Red republicans, that's what
+I call 'em. Who did I get the statues from? I don't see what that has to
+do with it. Well, if you really want to know, I got them from Gelder and
+Co., in Church Street, Stepney. They are a well-known house in the
+trade, and have been this twenty years. How many had I? Three--two and
+one are three--two of Dr. Barnicot's and one smashed in broad daylight
+on my own counter. Do I know that photograph? No, I don't. Yes, I do,
+though. Why, it's Beppo. He was a kind of Italian piece-work man, who
+made himself useful in the shop. He could carve a bit and gild and
+frame, and do odd jobs. The fellow left me last week, and I've heard
+nothing of him since. No, I don't know where he came from nor where he
+went to. I have nothing against him while he was here. He was gone two
+days before the bust was smashed."
+
+"Well, that's all we could reasonably expect to get from Morse Hudson,"
+said Holmes, as we emerged from the shop. "We have this Beppo as a
+common factor, both in Kennington and in Kensington, so that is worth a
+ten-mile drive. Now, Watson, let us make for Gelder and Co., of Stepney,
+the source and origin of busts. I shall be surprised if we don't get
+some help down there."
+
+In rapid succession we passed through the fringe of fashionable London,
+hotel London, theatrical London, literary London, commercial London,
+and, finally, maritime London, till we came to a riverside city of a
+hundred thousand souls, where the tenement houses swelter and reek with
+the outcasts of Europe. Here, in a broad thoroughfare, once the abode of
+wealthy City merchants, we found the sculpture works for which we
+searched. Outside was a considerable yard full of monumental masonry.
+Inside was a large room in which fifty workers were carving or moulding.
+The manager, a big blonde German, received us civilly, and gave a clear
+answer to all Holmes's questions. A reference to his books showed that
+hundreds of casts had been taken from a marble copy of Devine's head of
+Napoleon, but that the three which had been sent to Morse Hudson a year
+or so before had been half of a batch of six, the other three being sent
+to Harding Brothers, of Kensington. There was no reason why those six
+should be different to any of the other casts. He could suggest no
+possible cause why anyone should wish to destroy them--in fact, he
+laughed at the idea. Their wholesale price was six shillings, but the
+retailer would get twelve or more. The cast was taken in two moulds from
+each side of the face, and then these two profiles of plaster of Paris
+were joined together to make the complete bust. The work was usually
+done by Italians in the room we were in. When finished the busts were
+put on a table in the passage to dry, and afterwards stored. That was
+all he could tell us.
+
+But the production of the photograph had a remarkable effect upon the
+manager. His face flushed with anger, and his brows knotted over his
+blue Teutonic eyes.
+
+              [Illustration: "AH, THE RASCAL! HE CRIED."]
+
+"Ah, the rascal!" he cried. "Yes, indeed, I know him very well. This has
+always been a respectable establishment, and the only time that we have
+ever had the police in it was over this very fellow. It was more than a
+year ago now. He knifed another Italian in the street, and then he came
+to the works with the police on his heels, and he was taken here. Beppo
+was his name--his second name I never knew. Serve me right for engaging
+a man with such a face. But he was a good workman, one of the best."
+
+"What did he get?"
+
+"The man lived and he got off with a year. I have no doubt he is out
+now; but he has not dared to show his nose here. We have a cousin of his
+here, and I dare say he could tell you where he is."
+
+"No, no," cried Holmes, "not a word to the cousin--not a word, I beg
+you. The matter is very important, and the farther I go with it the more
+important it seems to grow. When you referred in your ledger to the sale
+of those casts I observed that the date was June 3rd of last year. Could
+you give me the date when Beppo was arrested?"
+
+"I could tell you roughly by the pay-list," the manager answered. "Yes,"
+he continued, after some turning over of pages, "he was paid last on May
+20th."
+
+"Thank you," said Holmes. "I don't think that I need intrude upon your
+time and patience any more." With a last word of caution that he should
+say nothing as to our researches we turned our faces westward once more.
+
+The afternoon was far advanced before we were able to snatch a hasty
+luncheon at a restaurant. A news-bill at the entrance announced
+"Kensington Outrage. Murder by a Madman," and the contents of the paper
+showed that Mr. Horace Harker had got his account into print after all.
+Two columns were occupied with a highly sensational and flowery
+rendering of the whole incident. Holmes propped it against the
+cruet-stand and read it while he ate. Once or twice he chuckled.
+
+"This is all right, Watson," said he. "Listen to this: 'It is
+satisfactory to know that there can be no difference of opinion upon
+this case, since Mr. Lestrade, one of the most experienced members of
+the official force, and Mr. Sherlock Holmes, the well-known consulting
+expert, have each come to the conclusion that the grotesque series of
+incidents, which have ended in so tragic a fashion, arise from lunacy
+rather than from deliberate crime. No explanation save mental aberration
+can cover the facts.' The Press, Watson, is a most valuable institution
+if you only know how to use it. And now, if you have quite finished, we
+will hark back to Kensington and see what the manager of Harding
+Brothers has to say to the matter."
+
+The founder of that great emporium proved to be a brisk, crisp little
+person, very dapper and quick, with a clear head and a ready tongue.
+
+"Yes, sir, I have already read the account in the evening papers. Mr.
+Horace Harker is a customer of ours. We supplied him with the bust some
+months ago. We ordered three busts of that sort from Gelder and Co., of
+Stepney. They are all sold now. To whom? Oh, I dare say by consulting
+our sales book we could very easily tell you. Yes, we have the entries
+here. One to Mr. Harker, you see, and one to Mr. Josiah Brown, of
+Laburnum Lodge, Laburnum Vale, Chiswick, and one to Mr. Sandeford, of
+Lower Grove Road, Reading. No, I have never seen this face which you
+show me in the photograph. You would hardly forget it, would you, sir,
+for I've seldom seen an uglier. Have we any Italians on the staff? Yes,
+sir, we have several among our workpeople and cleaners. I dare say they
+might get a peep at that sales book if they wanted to. There is no
+particular reason for keeping a watch upon that book. Well, well, it's a
+very strange business, and I hope that you'll let me know if anything
+comes of your inquiries."
+
+Holmes had taken several notes during Mr. Harding's evidence, and I
+could see that he was thoroughly satisfied by the turn which affairs
+were taking. He made no remark, however, save that, unless we hurried,
+we should be late for our appointment with Lestrade. Sure enough, when
+we reached Baker Street the detective was already there, and we found
+him pacing up and down in a fever of impatience. His look of importance
+showed that his day's work had not been in vain.
+
+"Well?" he asked. "What luck, Mr. Holmes?"
+
+"We have had a very busy day, and not entirely a wasted one," my friend
+explained. "We have seen both the retailers and also the wholesale
+manufacturers. I can trace each of the busts now from the beginning."
+
+"The busts!" cried Lestrade. "Well, well, you have your own methods, Mr.
+Sherlock Holmes, and it is not for me to say a word against them, but I
+think I have done a better day's work than you. I have identified the
+dead man."
+
+"You don't say so?"
+
+"And found a cause for the crime."
+
+"Splendid!"
+
+"We have an inspector who makes a speciality of Saffron Hill and the
+Italian quarter. Well, this dead man had some Catholic emblem round his
+neck, and that, along with his colour, made me think he was from the
+South. Inspector Hill knew him the moment he caught sight of him. His
+name is Pietro Venucci, from Naples, and he is one of the greatest
+cut-throats in London. He is connected with the Mafia, which, as you
+know, is a secret political society, enforcing its decrees by murder.
+Now you see how the affair begins to clear up. The other fellow is
+probably an Italian also, and a member of the Mafia. He has broken the
+rules in some fashion. Pietro is set upon his track. Probably the
+photograph we found in his pocket is the man himself, so that he may not
+knife the wrong person. He dogs the fellow, he sees him enter a house,
+he waits outside for him, and in the scuffle he receives his own death
+wound. How is that, Mr. Sherlock Holmes?"
+
+Holmes clapped his hands approvingly.
+
+"Excellent, Lestrade, excellent!" he cried. "But I didn't quite follow
+your explanation of the destruction of the busts."
+
+"The busts! You never can get those busts out of your head. After all,
+that is nothing; petty larceny, six months at the most. It is the murder
+that we are really investigating, and I tell you that I am gathering all
+the threads into my hands."
+
+"And the next stage?"
+
+"Is a very simple one. I shall go down with Hill to the Italian quarter,
+find the man whose photograph we have got, and arrest him on the charge
+of murder. Will you come with us?"
+
+"I think not. I fancy we can attain our end in a simpler way. I can't
+say for certain, because it all depends--well, it all depends upon a
+factor which is completely outside our control. But I have great
+hopes--in fact, the betting is exactly two to one--that if you will come
+with us to-night I shall be able to help you to lay him by the heels."
+
+"In the Italian quarter?"
+
+"No; I fancy Chiswick is an address which is more likely to find him. If
+you will come with me to Chiswick to-night, Lestrade, I'll promise to go
+to the Italian quarter with you to-morrow, and no harm will be done by
+the delay. And now I think that a few hours' sleep would do us all good,
+for I do not propose to leave before eleven o'clock, and it is unlikely
+that we shall be back before morning. You'll dine with us, Lestrade, and
+then you are welcome to the sofa until it is time for us to start. In
+the meantime, Watson, I should be glad if you would ring for an express
+messenger, for I have a letter to send, and it is important that it
+should go at once."
+
+Holmes spent the evening in rummaging among the files of the old daily
+papers with which one of our lumber-rooms was packed. When at last he
+descended it was with triumph in his eyes, but he said nothing to either
+of us as to the result of his researches. For my own part, I had
+followed step by step the methods by which he had traced the various
+windings of this complex case, and, though I could not yet perceive the
+goal which we would reach, I understood clearly that Holmes expected
+this grotesque criminal to make an attempt upon the two remaining busts,
+one of which, I remembered, was at Chiswick. No doubt the object of our
+journey was to catch him in the very act, and I could not but admire the
+cunning with which my friend had inserted a wrong clue in the evening
+paper, so as to give the fellow the idea that he could continue his
+scheme with impunity. I was not surprised when Holmes suggested that I
+should take my revolver with me. He had himself picked up the loaded
+hunting-crop which was his favourite weapon.
+
+A four-wheeler was at the door at eleven, and in it we drove to a spot
+at the other side of Hammersmith Bridge. Here the cabman was directed to
+wait. A short walk brought us to a secluded road fringed with pleasant
+houses, each standing in its own grounds. In the light of a street lamp
+we read "Laburnum Villa" upon the gate-post of one of them. The
+occupants had evidently retired to rest, for all was dark save for a
+fanlight over the hall door, which shed a single blurred circle on to
+the garden path. The wooden fence which separated the grounds from the
+road threw a dense black shadow upon the inner side, and here it was
+that we crouched.
+
+"I fear that you'll have a long wait," Holmes whispered. "We may thank
+our stars that it is not raining. I don't think we can even venture to
+smoke to pass the time. However, it's a two to one chance that we get
+something to pay us for our trouble."
+
+It proved, however, that our vigil was not to be so long as Holmes had
+led us to fear, and it ended in a very sudden and singular fashion. In
+an instant, without the least sound to warn us of his coming, the garden
+gate swung open, and a lithe, dark figure, as swift and active as an
+ape, rushed up the garden path. We saw it whisk past the light thrown
+from over the door and disappear against the black shadow of the house.
+There was a long pause, during which we held our breath, and then a very
+gentle creaking sound came to our ears. The window was being opened. The
+noise ceased, and again there was a long silence. The fellow was making
+his way into the house. We saw the sudden flash of a dark lantern inside
+the room. What he sought was evidently not there, for again we saw the
+flash through another blind, and then through another.
+
+"Let us get to the open window. We will nab him as he climbs out,"
+Lestrade whispered.
+
+But before we could move the man had emerged again. As he came out into
+the glimmering patch of light we saw that he carried something white
+under his arm. He looked stealthily all round him. The silence of the
+deserted street reassured him. Turning his back upon us he laid down his
+burden, and the next instant there was the sound of a sharp tap,
+followed by a clatter and rattle. The man was so intent upon what he was
+doing that he never heard our steps as we stole across the grass plot.
+With the bound of a tiger Holmes was on his back, and an instant later
+Lestrade and I had him by either wrist and the handcuffs had been
+fastened. As we turned him over I saw a hideous, sallow face, with
+writhing, furious features, glaring up at us, and I knew that it was
+indeed the man of the photograph whom we had secured.
+
+But it was not our prisoner to whom Holmes was giving his attention.
+Squatted on the doorstep, he was engaged in most carefully examining
+that which the man had brought from the house. It was a bust of Napoleon
+like the one which we had seen that morning, and it had been broken into
+similar fragments. Carefully Holmes held each separate shard to the
+light, but in no way did it differ from any other shattered piece of
+plaster. He had just completed his examination when the hall lights flew
+up, the door opened, and the owner of the house, a jovial, rotund figure
+in shirt and trousers, presented himself.
+
+      [Illustration: "THE DOOR OPENED, AND THE OWNER OF THE HOUSE
+                      PRESENTED HIMSELF."]
+
+"Mr. Josiah Brown, I suppose?" said Holmes.
+
+"Yes, sir; and you, no doubt, are Mr. Sherlock Holmes? I had the note
+which you sent by the express messenger, and I did exactly what you told
+me. We locked every door on the inside and awaited developments. Well,
+I'm very glad to see that you have got the rascal. I hope, gentlemen,
+that you will come in and have some refreshment."
+
+However, Lestrade was anxious to get his man into safe quarters, so
+within a few minutes our cab had been summoned and we were all four upon
+our way to London. Not a word would our captive say; but he glared at us
+from the shadow of his matted hair, and once, when my hand seemed within
+his reach, he snapped at it like a hungry wolf. We stayed long enough at
+the police-station to learn that a search of his clothing revealed
+nothing save a few shillings and a long sheath knife, the handle of
+which bore copious traces of recent blood.
+
+"That's all right," said Lestrade, as we parted. "Hill knows all these
+gentry, and he will give a name to him. You'll find that my theory of
+the Mafia will work out all right. But I'm sure I am exceedingly obliged
+to you, Mr. Holmes, for the workmanlike way in which you laid hands upon
+him. I don't quite understand it all yet."
+
+"I fear it is rather too late an hour for explanations," said Holmes.
+"Besides, there are one or two details which are not finished off, and
+it is one of those cases which are worth working out to the very end. If
+you will come round once more to my rooms at six o'clock to-morrow I
+think I shall be able to show you that even now you have not grasped the
+entire meaning of this business, which presents some features which make
+it absolutely original in the history of crime. If ever I permit you to
+chronicle any more of my little problems, Watson, I foresee that you
+will enliven your pages by an account of the singular adventure of the
+Napoleonic busts."
+
+                               * * * * *
+
+When we met again next evening Lestrade was furnished with much
+information concerning our prisoner. His name, it appeared, was Beppo,
+second name unknown. He was a well-known ne'er-do-well among the Italian
+colony. He had once been a skilful sculptor and had earned an honest
+living, but he had taken to evil courses and had twice already been in
+gaol--once for a petty theft and once, as we had already heard, for
+stabbing a fellow-countryman. He could talk English perfectly well. His
+reasons for destroying the busts were still unknown, and he refused to
+answer any questions upon the subject; but the police had discovered
+that these same busts might very well have been made by his own hands,
+since he was engaged in this class of work at the establishment of
+Gelder and Co. To all this information, much of which we already knew,
+Holmes listened with polite attention; but I, who knew him so well,
+could clearly see that his thoughts were elsewhere, and I detected a
+mixture of mingled uneasiness and expectation beneath that mask which he
+was wont to assume. At last he started in his chair and his eyes
+brightened. There had been a ring at the bell. A minute later we heard
+steps upon the stairs, and an elderly, red-faced man with grizzled
+side-whiskers was ushered in. In his right hand he carried an
+old-fashioned carpet-bag, which he placed upon the table.
+
+"Is Mr. Sherlock Holmes here?"
+
+My friend bowed and smiled. "Mr. Sandeford, of Reading, I suppose?" said
+he.
+
+"Yes, sir, I fear that I am a little late; but the trains were awkward.
+You wrote to me about a bust that is in my possession."
+
+"Exactly."
+
+"I have your letter here. You said, 'I desire to possess a copy of
+Devine's Napoleon, and am prepared to pay you ten pounds for the one
+which is in your possession.' Is that right?"
+
+"Certainly."
+
+"I was very much surprised at your letter, for I could not imagine how
+you knew that I owned such a thing."
+
+"Of course you must have been surprised, but the explanation is very
+simple. Mr. Harding, of Harding Brothers, said that they had sold you
+their last copy, and he gave me your address."
+
+"Oh, that was it, was it? Did he tell you what I paid for it?"
+
+"No, he did not."
+
+"Well, I am an honest man, though not a very rich one. I only gave
+fifteen shillings for the bust, and I think you ought to know that
+before I take ten pounds from you."
+
+"I am sure the scruple does you honour, Mr. Sandeford. But I have named
+that price, so I intend to stick to it."
+
+[Illustration: "I BROUGHT THE BUST UP WITH ME, AS YOU ASKED ME TO DO."]
+
+"Well, it is very handsome of you, Mr. Holmes. I brought the bust up
+with me, as you asked me to do. Here it is!" He opened his bag, and at
+last we saw placed upon our table a complete specimen of that bust which
+we had already seen more than once in fragments.
+
+Holmes took a paper from his pocket and laid a ten-pound note upon the
+table.
+
+"You will kindly sign that paper, Mr. Sandeford, in the presence of
+these witnesses. It is simply to say that you transfer every possible
+right that you ever had in the bust to me. I am a methodical man, you
+see, and you never know what turn events might take afterwards. Thank
+you, Mr. Sandeford; here is your money, and I wish you a very good
+evening."
+
+When our visitor had disappeared Sherlock Holmes's movements were such
+as to rivet our attention. He began by taking a clean white cloth from a
+drawer and laying it over the table. Then he placed his newly acquired
+bust in the centre of the cloth. Finally, he picked up his hunting crop
+and struck Napoleon a sharp blow on the top of the head. The figure
+broke into fragments, and Holmes bent eagerly over the shattered
+remains. Next instant, with a loud shout of triumph, he held up one
+splinter, in which a round, dark object was fixed like a plum in a
+pudding.
+
+"Gentlemen," he cried, "let me introduce you to the famous black pearl
+of the Borgias."
+
+Lestrade and I sat silent for a moment, and then, with a spontaneous
+impulse, we both broke out clapping as at the well-wrought crisis of a
+play. A flush of colour sprang to Holmes's pale cheeks, and he bowed to
+us like the master dramatist who receives the homage of his audience. It
+was at such moments that for an instant he ceased to be a reasoning
+machine, and betrayed his human love for admiration and applause. The
+same singularly proud and reserved nature which turned away with disdain
+from popular notoriety was capable of being moved to its depths by
+spontaneous wonder and praise from a friend.
+
+"Yes, gentlemen," said he, "it is the most famous pearl now existing in
+the world, and it has been my good fortune, by a connected chain of
+inductive reasoning, to trace it from the Prince of Colonna's bedroom at
+the Dacre Hotel, where it was lost, to the interior of this, the last of
+the six busts of Napoleon which were manufactured by Gelder and Co., of
+Stepney. You will remember, Lestrade, the sensation caused by the
+disappearance of this valuable jewel, and the vain efforts of the London
+police to recover it. I was myself consulted upon the case; but I was
+unable to throw any light upon it. Suspicion fell upon the maid of the
+Princess, who was an Italian, and it was proved that she had a brother
+in London, but we failed to trace any connection between them. The
+maid's name was Lucretia Venucci, and there is no doubt in my mind that
+this Pietro who was murdered two nights ago was the brother. I have been
+looking up the dates in the old files of the paper, and I find that the
+disappearance of the pearl was exactly two days before the arrest of
+Beppo for some crime of violence, an event which took place in the
+factory of Gelder and Co., at the very moment when these busts were
+being made. Now you clearly see the sequence of events, though you see
+them, of course, in the inverse order to the way in which they presented
+themselves to me. Beppo had the pearl in his possession. He may have
+stolen it from Pietro, he may have been Pietro's confederate, he may
+have been the go-between of Pietro and his sister. It is of no
+consequence to us which is the correct solution.
+
+"The main fact is that he _had_ the pearl, and at that moment, when it
+was on his person, he was pursued by the police. He made for the factory
+in which he worked, and he knew that he had only a few minutes in which
+to conceal this enormously valuable prize, which would otherwise be
+found on him when he was searched. Six plaster casts of Napoleon were
+drying in the passage. One of them was still soft. In an instant Beppo,
+a skilful workman, made a small hole in the wet plaster, dropped in the
+pearl, and with a few touches covered over the aperture once more. It
+was an admirable hiding-place. No one could possibly find it. But Beppo
+was condemned to a year's imprisonment, and in the meanwhile his six
+busts were scattered over London. He could not tell which contained his
+treasure. Only by breaking them could he see. Even shaking would tell
+him nothing, for as the plaster was wet it was probable that the pearl
+would adhere to it--as, in fact, it has done. Beppo did not despair, and
+he conducted his search with considerable ingenuity and perseverance.
+Through a cousin who works with Gelder he found out the retail firms who
+had bought the busts. He managed to find employment with Morse Hudson,
+and in that way tracked down three of them. The pearl was not there.
+Then, with the help of some Italian _employe_, he succeeded in finding
+out where the other three busts had gone. The first was at Harker's.
+There he was dogged by his confederate, who held Beppo responsible for
+the loss of the pearl, and he stabbed him in the scuffle which
+followed."
+
+"If he was his confederate why should he carry his photograph?" I asked.
+
+"As a means of tracing him if he wished to inquire about him from any
+third person. That was the obvious reason. Well, after the murder I
+calculated that Beppo would probably hurry rather than delay his
+movements. He would fear that the police would read his secret, and so
+he hastened on before they should get ahead of him. Of course, I could
+not say that he had not found the pearl in Harker's bust. I had not even
+concluded for certain that it was the pearl; but it was evident to me
+that he was looking for something, since he carried the bust past the
+other houses in order to break it in the garden which had a lamp
+overlooking it. Since Harker's bust was one in three the chances were
+exactly as I told you, two to one against the pearl being inside it.
+There remained two busts, and it was obvious that he would go for the
+London one first. I warned the inmates of the house, so as to avoid a
+second tragedy, and we went down with the happiest results. By that
+time, of course, I knew for certain that it was the Borgia pearl that we
+were after. The name of the murdered man linked the one event with the
+other. There only remained a single bust--the Reading one--and the pearl
+must be there. I bought it in your presence from the owner--and there it
+lies."
+
+We sat in silence for a moment.
+
+"Well," said Lestrade, "I've seen you handle a good many cases, Mr.
+Holmes, but I don't know that I ever knew a more workmanlike one than
+that. We're not jealous of you at Scotland Yard. No, sir, we are very
+proud of you, and if you come down to-morrow there's not a man, from the
+oldest inspector to the youngest constable, who wouldn't be glad to
+shake you by the hand."
+
+"Thank you!" said Holmes. "Thank you!" and as he turned away it seemed
+to me that he was more nearly moved by the softer human emotions than I
+had ever seen him. A moment later he was the cold and practical thinker
+once more. "Put the pearl in the safe, Watson," said he, "and get out
+the papers of the Conk-Singleton forgery case. Good-bye, Lestrade. If
+any little problem comes your way I shall be happy, if I can, to give
+you a hint or two as to its solution."
+
+
+
+
+                   _The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt._
+
+              Copyright, 1904, by George Newnes, Limited.
+
+    [These Memoirs, written by the greatest actress of our time,
+    will give not only the story of her career in the theatrical
+    world, but also in social life, in which she has, of course, met
+    nearly all the celebrated people of the day, from Royalties
+    downwards, and will be found throughout of the most striking
+    interest to all classes of readers.]
+
+
+CHAPTER II.--HOW I BECAME DESTINED FOR THE STAGE.
+
+I arose one September morning, my heart leaping with some vague thought
+of coming joy. It was eight o'clock. I pressed my forehead against the
+window-panes and gazed out, looking at I know not what. I had been
+roused with a start in the midst of a beautiful dream, and I rushed
+towards the light, as if in the hope of finding in the infinite space of
+the grey sky some explanation of the feelings that possessed me--the
+anxiety, and yet the bliss, of expectation. Expectation of what? I could
+not have answered that question then, any more than after much
+reflection I can do so now. I was on the eve of my fourteenth birthday,
+and I was in a state of expectation as to the future of my life. That
+particular morning seemed to me to be the precursor of a new era. I was
+not mistaken, for on that September day my fate was settled for me.
+
+                             [Illustration:
+  "I HAD BEEN ROUSED WITH A START IN THE MIDST OF A BEAUTIFUL DREAM."
+                    _From a Drawing by G. Clairin._]
+
+As if hypnotized by what was taking place in my mind, I remained with my
+forehead pressed against the window-pane, gazing in imagination through
+the halo of vapour formed by my breath at houses, palaces, carriages,
+jewels, pearls, which passed in fantasy before my eyes. Oh! what pearls
+there were! And there were princes and kings also; yes, I saw even
+kings! Oh! how fast imagination travels when left by its enemy, reason,
+free to roam alone! In my fancy I proudly rejected the princes, I
+rejected the kings, I refused the pearls and the palaces, and I declared
+that I was going to be a nun. For in the infinite grey sky I had caught
+a glimpse of the convent of Grand Champ, of my white bedroom, and of the
+small lamp that swung to and fro above the little Virgin which our hands
+had decorated with flowers. The king offered me a throne, but I
+preferred the throne of our Mother Superior, and I entertained a vague
+ambition to occupy it on some distant day. The king was heart-broken and
+dying of despair. Yes, _mon Dieu_! I preferred to the pearls that were
+offered me by princes the pearls of the rosary I was telling with my
+fingers; and no costume could compete in my mind with the black _barege_
+veil that fell like a soft shadow over the snowy white cambric that
+encircled the beloved faces of the nuns of Grand Champ.
+
+I do not know how long I had been dreaming thus when I heard my mother's
+voice asking our old servant, Marguerite, if I were awake. With one
+bound I was back in bed, and I buried my face under the sheet. Mamma
+half-opened the door very gently and I pretended to wake up.
+
+"How lazy you are to-day!" she said. I kissed her, and answered in a
+coaxing tone, "It is Thursday, and I have no music lesson."
+
+"And are you glad?" she asked.
+
+"Oh, yes," I replied, promptly.
+
+My mother frowned; she adored music, and I hated the piano. She was so
+fond of music that, although she was then nearly thirty, she took
+lessons herself in order to encourage me to practise. What horrible
+torture it was! I used very wickedly to do my utmost to set at variance
+my mother and my music mistress. They were both of them excessively
+short-sighted. When my mother had practised a new piece three or four
+days she knew it by heart, and played it fairly well, to the
+astonishment of Mlle. Clarisse, my insufferable old teacher, who held
+the music in her hand and read every note with her nose nearly touching
+the page. One day I heard, with joy, a quarrel beginning between mamma
+and this disagreeable person, Mlle. Clarisse.
+
+"There, that's a quaver!"
+
+"No, there's no quaver!"
+
+"This is a flat!"
+
+"No, you forget the sharp! How absurd you are!" added my mother,
+perfectly furious.
+
+A few minutes later my mother went to her room and Mlle. Clarisse
+departed, muttering as she left.
+
+As for me, I was choking with laughter in my bedroom, for one of my
+cousins, who was very musical, had helped me to add sharps, flats, and
+quavers to the music-sheet, and we had done it with such care that even
+a trained eye would have had difficulty in immediately discerning the
+fraud. As Mlle. Clarisse had been sent off, I had no lesson that day.
+Mamma gazed at me a long time with her mysterious eyes--the most
+beautiful eyes I have ever seen in my life--and then she said, speaking
+very slowly:--
+
+"After luncheon there is to be a family council."
+
+I felt myself turning pale.
+
+"All right," I answered; "what frock am I to put on, mamma?" I said this
+merely for the sake of saying something and to keep myself from crying.
+
+"Put on your blue silk; you look more staid in that."
+
+Just at this moment my sister Jeanne opened the door boisterously, and
+with a burst of laughter jumped on to my bed and, slipping under the
+sheets, called out: "I'm there!" Marguerite had followed her into the
+room, panting and scolding. The child had escaped from her just as she
+was about to bath her, and had announced: "I'm going into my sister's
+bed." Jeanne's mirth at this moment, which I felt was a very serious one
+for me, made me burst out crying and sobbing. My mother, not
+understanding the reason of this grief, shrugged her shoulders, told
+Marguerite to fetch Jeanne's slippers, and, taking the little bare feet
+in her hands, kissed them tenderly.
+
+     [Illustration: MME. BERNHARDT'S SISTER, JEANNE, AT THE AGE AT
+                WHICH SHE IS DESCRIBED IN THIS CHAPTER.
+                     _From a Photo. by Delintraz._]
+
+I sobbed more bitterly than ever. It was very evident that mamma loved
+my sister more than me, and this preference, which did not trouble me in
+an ordinary way, hurt me sorely now.
+
+Mamma went away quite out of patience with me. The nervous state in
+which I was, together with my anxiety and grief, had quite exhausted me.
+I fell asleep again and was roused by Marguerite, who helped me to
+dress, as otherwise I should have been late for luncheon. The guests
+that day were Aunt Rosine; Mlle. de Brabender, my governess, a charming
+creature whom I have always regretted; my godfather, and the Duc de
+Morny, a great friend of my godfather and of my mother. The luncheon was
+a melancholy meal for me, as I was thinking all the time about the
+family council. Mlle. de Brabender, in her gentle way and with her
+affectionate words, insisted on my eating. My sister burst out laughing
+when she looked at me.
+
+"Your eyes are as little as that," she said, putting her small thumb on
+the tip of her forefinger, "and it serves you right, because you've been
+crying, and mamma doesn't like anyone to cry. Do you, mamma?"
+
+"What have you been crying about?" asked the Duc de Morny. I did not
+answer, in spite of the friendly nudge Mlle. de Brabender gave me with
+her sharp elbow. The Duc de Morny always awed me a little. He was gentle
+and kind, but he was a great quiz. I knew, too, that he occupied a high
+place at Court, and that my family considered his friendship a great
+honour.
+
+"Because I told her that after luncheon there was to be a family council
+about her," said my mother, speaking slowly. "At times it seems to me
+that she is really idiotic. She quite disheartens me."
+
+"Come, come!" exclaimed my godfather, and Aunt Rosine said something in
+English to the Duc de Morny which made him smile shrewdly under his fine
+moustache. Mlle. de Brabender scolded me in a low voice, and her
+scoldings were like words from Heaven. When at last luncheon was over,
+mamma told me, as she passed, to pour out the coffee. Marguerite helped
+me to arrange the cups and I went into the drawing-room.
+
+Maitre G----, the notary from Havre, whom I detested, was already there.
+He represented the family of my father, who had died a few years before
+at Pisa in a way which had never been explained, but which seemed
+mysterious. My childish hatred was instinctive, and I learnt later on
+that this man had been my father's bitter enemy. He was very, very ugly,
+this notary; his whole face seemed to have moved upwards. It was as
+though he had been hanging by his hair for a long time, and his eyes,
+his mouth, his cheeks, and his nose had got into the habit of trying to
+reach the back of his head. He ought to have had a joyful expression, as
+so many of his features turned up, but instead of this his face was
+smooth and sinister. He had red hair, planted in his head like couch
+grass, and on his nose he wore a pair of gold-rimmed spectacles. Oh, the
+horrible man! What a torturing nightmare the very memory of him is, for
+he was the evil genius of my father, and his hatred now pursued me!
+
+ [Illustration: _From a_]  THE HAVRE NOTARY IN HIS OFFICE. [_Drawing._]
+
+My poor grandmother, since the death of my father, never went out, but
+spent her time mourning the loss of her beloved son, who had died so
+young. She had absolute faith in this man, who, besides, was the
+executor of my father's will. He had the control of the money which my
+dear father had left me. I was not to touch it until the day of my
+marriage, but my mother was to use the interest for my education.
+
+           [Illustration: _From a_]  FELIX FAURE. [_Drawing_]
+
+My uncle, Felix Faure (no relation of the late President), was also
+there. He was a very delightful man, handsome, too, and he had a deep,
+sympathetic voice. I loved him dearly, and, indeed, I love him now,
+although I have not seen him for a long time, as he has buried himself
+alive at the Grande Chartreuse, to await there, far away from the rest
+of the world, the time when he will rejoin those whom he loved so
+dearly.
+
+Seated near the fireplace, buried in an arm-chair, M. Lesprin pulled out
+his watch in a querulous way. He was an old friend of the family, and he
+always called me "_ma fil_," which annoyed me greatly, as did his
+familiarity. He considered me stupid, and when I handed him his coffee
+he said, in a jeering tone: "And is it for you, _ma fil_, that so many
+honest people have been hindered in their work? We have plenty of other
+things to attend to, I can assure you, than to discuss the fate of a
+little brat like you. Ah, if it had been her sister, there would have
+been no difficulty," and with his benumbed fingers he patted Jeanne's
+head, as she sat on the floor plaiting the fringe of the sofa upon which
+he was seated.
+
+When the coffee had been taken, the cups carried away, and my sister
+also, there was a short silence. The Duc de Morny rose to take his
+leave, but my mother begged him to stay. "You will be able to advise
+us," she urged, and the Duke took his seat again near my aunt, with
+whom, it seemed to me, he was carrying on a slight flirtation. Mamma had
+moved nearer to the window, her embroidery-frame in front of her, and
+her beautiful, clear-cut profile showing to advantage against the light.
+She looked as though she had nothing to do with what was about to be
+discussed. The hideous notary was standing up by the chimneypiece, and
+my uncle had drawn me near to him.
+
+My godfather, Regis de L----, seemed to be the exact counterpart of M.
+Lesprin; they both of them had the same bourgeois mind, and were equally
+stubborn and obstinate. They were both devoted to whist and good wine,
+and they both agreed that I was thin enough for a scarecrow. The door
+opened and a pale, dark-haired woman entered, a most poetical-looking
+and charming creature. It was Mme. Guerard, "the lady of the upstairs
+flat," as Marguerite always called her. My mother had made friends with
+her, in rather a patronizing way certainly, but Mme. Guerard was devoted
+to me and endured the little slights to which she was treated very
+patiently for my sake. She was tall and slender as a lath, very
+compliant and demure. She had no hat on, and was wearing an indoor gown
+of _indienne_ with a design of little brown leaves.
+
+    [Illustration: MME. GUERARD, THE GREAT FRIEND OF SARAH BERNHARDT
+    _From a Photo. by_]      WHEN A CHILD.            [_Delintraz._]
+
+M. Lesprin muttered something, I did not catch what. The abominable man
+gave a very curt bow, as Mme. Guerard was so simply dressed. The Duc de
+Morny was very gracious, for the new-comer was so pretty. My godfather
+merely bent his head, as Mme. Guerard was nothing to him. Aunt Rosine
+glanced at her from head to foot--Mme. Guerard was by no means rich.
+Mlle. de Brabender shook hands cordially with her, for Mme. Guerard was
+fond of me.
+
+My uncle, Felix Faure, gave her a chair and asked her to sit down, and
+then inquired in a kindly way about her husband, a _savant_, with whom
+my uncle collaborated sometimes for his book, "The Life of St. Louis."
+
+Mamma had merely glanced across the room without raising her head, for
+Mme. Guerard did not prefer my sister to me.
+
+"Well, as we have come here on account of this child," said my
+godfather, looking at his watch, "we must begin and discuss what is to
+be done with her."
+
+I began to tremble, and drew closer to "_mon petit dame_," as I had
+always called Mme. Guerard from my infancy, and to Mlle. de Brabender.
+They each took my hand by way of encouraging me.
+
+"Yes," continued M. Lesprin, with a laugh, "it appears you want to be a
+nun."
+
+"Ah, indeed?" said the Duc de Morny to Aunt Rosine.
+
+"'Sh! Be serious," she remarked. Mamma shrugged her shoulders and held
+her wools up close to her eyes to match them.
+
+"You have to be rich, though, to enter a convent," grunted the Havre
+notary, "and you have not a sou." I leaned towards Mlle. de Brabender
+and whispered, "I have the money that papa left."
+
+The horrid man overheard.
+
+"Your father left some money to get you married," he said.
+
+"Well, then, I'll marry the _bon Dieu_," I answered, and my voice was
+quite resolute now. I turned very red, and for the second time in my
+life I felt a desire and a strong inclination to fight for myself. I had
+no more fear, as everyone had gone too far and provoked me too much. I
+slipped away from my two kind friends and advanced towards the other
+group.
+
+"I will be a nun, I will!" I exclaimed. "I know that papa left me some
+money so that I should be married, and I know that the nuns marry the
+Saviour. Mamma says she does not care, it is all the same to her; so
+that it won't be vexing her at all, and they love me better at the
+convent than you do here!"
+
+"My dear child," said my uncle, drawing me towards him, "your religious
+vocation appears to me to be mainly a wish to have someone to care for."
+
+"And to be cared for herself," murmured Mme. Guerard, in a very low
+voice.
+
+Everyone glanced at mamma, who shrugged her shoulders slightly. It
+seemed to me as though the glance they all gave her was a reproachful
+one, and I felt a pang of remorse at once. I went across to her and,
+throwing my arms round her neck, said:--
+
+"You don't mind my being a nun, do you? It won't make you unhappy, will
+it?"
+
+Mamma stroked my hair, of which she was very proud.
+
+"Yes, it would make me unhappy. You know very well that, after your
+sister, I love you better than anyone else in the world."
+
+She said this very slowly in a gentle voice. It was like the sound of a
+little waterfall as it flows down, babbling and clear, from the
+mountain, dragging with it the gravel, and gradually increasing in
+volume, with the thawed snow, until it sweeps away rocks and trees in
+its course. This was the effect my mother's clear, drawling voice had
+upon me at that moment. I rushed back impulsively to the others, who
+were all speechless at this unexpected and spontaneous burst of
+eloquence. I went from one to the other, explaining my decision, and
+giving reasons which were certainly no reasons at all. I did my utmost
+to get someone to support me in the matter. Finally the Duc de Morny was
+bored, and rose to go.
+
+"Do you know what you ought to do with this child?" he said. "You ought
+to send her to the Conservatoire." He then patted my cheek, kissed my
+aunt's hand, and bowed to all the others. As he bent over my mother's
+hand, I heard him say to her, "You would have made a bad diplomatist,
+but take my advice and send her to the Conservatoire."
+
+He then took his departure, and I gazed at everyone in perfect anguish.
+
+The Conservatoire! What was it? What did it mean?
+
+I went up to my governess, Mlle. de Brabender. Her lips were firmly
+pressed together, and she looked shocked, just as she did sometimes when
+my godfather told, at table, some story of which she did not approve. My
+uncle, Felix Faure, was looking at the floor in an absent-minded way;
+the notary had a spiteful look in his eyes; my aunt was holding forth in
+a very excited manner; and M. Lesprin kept shaking his head and
+muttering, "Perhaps--yes--who knows? Hum! hum!" Mme. Guerard was very
+pale and sad, and she looked at me with infinite tenderness.
+
+What could be this Conservatoire? The word uttered so carelessly seemed
+to have entirely disturbed the equanimity of all these people. Each of
+them seemed to me to have a different impression about it, but none
+looked pleased. Suddenly, in the midst of the general embarrassment, my
+godfather exclaimed, brutally:--
+
+"She is too thin to make an actress."
+
+"I won't be an actress!" I exclaimed.
+
+"You don't know what an actress is," said my aunt.
+
+"Oh, yes, I do. Rachel is an actress!"
+
+"You know Rachel?" asked mamma, getting up.
+
+"Oh, yes; she came to the convent once to see little Adele Sarony. She
+went all over the convent and into the garden, and she had to sit down
+because she could not get her breath. They fetched her something to
+bring her round, and she was so pale--oh, so pale! I was very sorry for
+her, and Sister Appoline told me that what she did was killing her, for
+she was an actress, and so I won't be an actress, I won't!"
+
+I had said all this in a breath, with my cheeks on fire and my voice
+hard.
+
+I remembered all that Sister Appoline had told me, and Mother
+Sainte-Sophie, too, the Superior of the convent. I remembered, too, that
+when Rachel had gone out of the garden, looking very pale and holding a
+lady's arm for support, a little girl had put her tongue out at her. I
+did not want people to put out their tongues at me when I was grown up.
+There were a hundred other things, too, to which I objected, and about
+which I have only a vague memory now.
+
+My godfather laughed heartily, but my uncle was very grave. The others
+discussed the matter in a very excited way with my mother, who looked
+weary and bored. Mlle. de Brabender and Mme. Guerard were arguing in a
+low voice, and I thought of the aristocratic man who had just left us. I
+was very angry with him, for this idea of the Conservatoire was his.
+"Conservatoire!" This word frightened me. It was he who wanted me to be
+an actress, and now he had disappeared, and I could not talk the matter
+over with him. He had gone away smiling and tranquil, patting my head in
+the most ordinary yet friendly way. He had gone off without troubling a
+straw about the poor little, meagre child whose future was being
+discussed. "Send her to the Conservatoire," and this phrase, that had
+come to his lips so easily, was like a veritable bomb hurled into my
+life. I, the little, dreamy child, who that morning had rejected princes
+and kings; I, whose trembling fingers had only that morning told over
+whole rosaries of dreams and fancies; I, who only a few hours before had
+felt my heart beat wildly with some inexplicable emotion, and who had
+got up expecting some great event to happen during the day! Everything
+had given way under that phrase, which seemed as heavy as lead and as
+murderous as a cannon-ball. _Send her to the Conservatoire!_
+
+I guessed somehow that that phrase was destined to be the finger-post of
+my life. All these people had stopped at the bend of the road where
+there were crossways.
+
+_Send her to the Conservatoire!_ I wanted to be a nun, and they all
+thought that absurd, idiotic, unreasonable. Those words, "Send her to
+the Conservatoire," had opened up a new field of discussion, widened the
+horizon of the future. My uncle, Felix Faure, and Mlle. de Brabender
+were the only ones who disapproved of this idea, but they were in the
+minority--a passive minority which felt for me. I got very nervous and
+excited, and my mother sent me away. Mlle. de Brabender tried to console
+me. Mme. Guerard said that this career had its advantages. Mlle. de
+Brabender considered that the convent would have a great fascination for
+so dreamy a nature as mine. The one was very religious and a great
+church-goer, and the other was a pagan in the purest acceptation of that
+word, and yet the two women got on very well together, thanks to their
+affectionate devotion to me.
+
+Mme. Guerard adored the proud rebelliousness of my nature, my pretty
+face, and the slenderness of my figure; Mlle. de Brabender was touched
+by my delicate health. She spent no end of time trying to smooth my
+refractory hair. She endeavoured to comfort me when I was jealous at not
+being loved as much as my sister; but what she liked best about me was
+my voice. She always declared that my voice was modulated for prayers,
+and my delight in the convent appeared to her quite natural. She loved
+me with a gentle, pious affection, and Mme. Guerard loved me with bursts
+of paganism. These two women, whose memory is still dear to me, shared
+me between them, and made the best of my good qualities and my faults. I
+certainly owe to both of them this study of myself and the vision I have
+of myself.
+
+The day was destined to end in the strangest of fashions. Mme. Guerard
+had gone back to her apartment upstairs, and I was lying back on a
+little straw arm-chair, which was the most ornamental piece of furniture
+in my room. I felt very drowsy, and was holding Mlle. de Brabender's
+hand in mine when the door opened and my aunt entered, followed by my
+mother. I can see them now--my aunt in her dress of puce silk trimmed
+with fur, her brown velvet hat tied under her chin with long, wide
+strings, and mamma, who had taken off her dress and put on a white
+woollen dressing-gown. She always detested keeping on her dress in the
+house, and I understood by her change of costume that everyone had gone
+and that my aunt was ready to leave. I got up from my arm-chair, but
+mamma made me sit down again.
+
+"Rest yourself thoroughly," she said, "for we are going to take you to
+the theatre this evening--to the Francais."
+
+   [Illustration: THE THEATRE FRANCAIS, TO WHICH SARAH BERNHARDT WAS
+     TAKEN TO SEE HER FIRST PLAY WHEN HER DESTINY FOR THE STAGE HAD
+   _From a_]                BEEN DECIDED.                 [_Photo._]
+
+I felt sure that this was just a bait, and I would not show any sign of
+pleasure, although in my heart I was delighted at the idea of going to
+the Francais. The only theatre I knew anything of was the Robert Houdin,
+to which I was taken sometimes with my sister, and I fancy that it was
+for her benefit we went, as I was really too old to care for that kind
+of performance.
+
+"Will you come with us?" mamma said, turning to Mlle. de Brabender.
+
+"Willingly, madame," she replied. "I will go home and change my dress."
+
+My aunt laughed at my sullen looks.
+
+"Little fraud," she said, as she went away, "you are hiding your
+delight. Ah, well, you will see some actresses to-night."
+
+"Is Rachel going to act?" I asked.
+
+"Oh, no; she is ill."
+
+My aunt kissed me and went away, saying she should see me again later
+on, and my mother followed her out of the room. Mlle. de Brabender then
+prepared to leave me, as she had to go home to dress, and to say that
+she would not be in until quite late. She lived at a convent where old
+maids and widows were taken as boarders, and special permission had to
+be obtained when one wished to be out later than ten at night. When I
+was alone I swung myself backwards and forwards in my arm-chair, which,
+by the way, was anything but a rocking chair. I began to think, and for
+the first time in my life my critical comprehension came to my aid. And
+so all these serious people had been inconvenienced, the notary fetched
+from Havre, my uncle dragged away from working at his book, the old
+bachelor, M. Lesprin, disturbed in his habits and customs, my godfather
+kept away from the Stock Exchange, and that aristocratic and sceptical
+Duc de Morny cramped up for two hours in the midst of our bourgeois
+surroundings, and all to end in this decision: _she shall be taken to
+the theatre_!
+
+I do not know what part my uncle had taken in this burlesque plan, but I
+doubt whether it was to his taste. All the same, I was glad to go to the
+theatre; it made me feel more important. That morning on waking up I was
+quite a child, and now events had taken place which had transformed me
+into a young woman. I had been discussed by everyone, and I had
+expressed my wishes--without any result, certainly; but all the same I
+had expressed them, and now it was deemed necessary to humour and
+indulge me in order to win me over. They could not force me into
+agreeing to what they wanted me to do; my consent was necessary; and I
+felt so joyful and so proud about it that I was quite touched and almost
+ready to yield. I said to myself that it would be better to hold my own
+and let them ask me again.
+
+After dinner we all squeezed into a cab--mamma, my godfather, Mlle. de
+Brabender, and I. My godfather made me a present of some white gloves.
+
+    [Illustration: THE HALL AND STAIRCASE OF THE THEATRE FRANCAIS.]
+
+On mounting the steps at the Francais I trod on a lady's dress. She
+turned round and called me a "stupid child." I moved back hastily and
+came into collision with a very stout old gentleman, who gave me a rough
+push forward, so that I felt inclined to burst out crying.
+
+     [Illustration: THE BOXES OF THE THEATRE FRANCAIS, FROM ONE OF
+               WHICH SARAH BERNHARDT SAW HER FIRST PLAY.]
+
+When once we were all installed in a box facing the stage, mamma and I
+in the first row, with Mlle. de Brabender behind me, I felt more
+reassured. I was close against the partition of the box, and I could
+feel Mlle. de Brabender's sharp knees through the velvet of my chair.
+This gave me confidence, and I leaned against the back of the chair,
+purposely to feel the support of those two knees.
+
+When the curtain slowly rose I thought I should have fainted. It was as
+though the curtain of my future life were being raised. Those columns
+("Britannicus" was being played) were to be my palaces, the friezes
+above were to be my skies, and those boards were to bend under my frail
+weight. I heard nothing of "Britannicus," for I was far, far away, at
+Grand Champ, in my dormitory there.
+
+"Well, what do you think of it?" asked my godfather, when the curtain
+fell. I did not answer, and he laid his hand on my head and turned my
+face round towards him. I was crying, and big tears were rolling slowly
+down my cheeks, the kind of tears that come without any sobs and as if
+there were no hope that they would ever cease.
+
+My godfather shrugged his shoulders and, getting up, left the box,
+banging the door after him. Mamma, losing all patience with me,
+proceeded to review the house through her opera-glass. Mlle. de.
+Brabender passed me her handkerchief, for my own had fallen, and I had
+not the courage to pick it up.
+
+When the curtain rose on the second piece, "Amphitryon," I made an
+effort to listen, in order to please my governess, who was so kind and
+so conciliating. I remember only one thing about it, and that was I was
+so sorry for Alemene, who seemed to be so unhappy, that I burst into
+audible sobs, and that everyone, much amused, looked at our box. My
+mother was most annoyed, and promptly took me out, accompanied by Mlle.
+de Brabender, leaving my godfather furious. "_Bon Dieu de bois!_" I
+heard him mutter, "what an idiot the child is! They'd better put her in
+the convent and let her stop there."
+
+My teeth were chattering when Mlle. de Brabender, helped by Marguerite,
+put me to bed. Mme. Guerard was there too; she had been listening for my
+return, as though foreseeing what would happen.
+
+I did not get up again for six weeks, and only narrowly escaped dying of
+brain fever.
+
+Such was the _debut_ of my artistic career.
+
+                          (_To be continued._)
+
+
+
+
+                   THE MUTINOUS CONDUCT OF MRS RYDER.
+                           BY MORLEY ROBERTS.
+
+
+Although Watchett of the _Battle-Axe_ and Ryder of the _Star of the
+South_ were cousins, there was no great love lost between them, and all
+unprejudiced observers declared that this lack of mutual admiration was
+in no way due to Captain Ryder. That they remained friends at all was
+owing largely to his infinite good nature, and to the further fact that
+Mrs. Ryder pitied Mrs. Watchett.
+
+"I wonder she goes to sea with him at all," she said. "If you were one
+quarter as horrid as your cousin, Will, I should never go to sea till
+you came ashore."
+
+But she always went to sea with Will Ryder. It was their great delight
+to be together, and there were few men, married or single, who did not
+take a certain pleasure in seeing how fond they were of each other. He
+was a typical seaman of the best kind; he had a fine voice for singing
+and for hailing the foretopsail yard; his eyes were as blue as
+forget-me-nots, and his skin was as clear as the air on the Cordilleras
+which peeped at them over the tops of the barren hills which surround
+the Bay of Valparaiso. And Mrs. Ryder was just the kind of wife for a
+man who was somewhat inclined to take things easily. If she was as
+pretty as the peach, she had, like the peach, something inside which was
+not altogether soft. Her brown eyes could turn black--she had resolution
+and courage.
+
+"You shall not put up with it," was a favourite expression on her
+tongue. And there were times, to use his own expression, when she made
+sail when he would have shortened it. In that sense she was certainly
+capable of "carrying on."
+
+Both vessels were barques of about eleven hundred tons register, and if
+the _Star of the South_ had about twenty tons to the good in size she
+was rather harder to work. It is the nature of ships to develop in
+certain ways, and though both of these barques were sister ships it is
+always certain that sisters are never quite alike. But as they belonged
+to the same Port of London, and were owned by two branches of the same
+family, all of whose money was divided up in sixty-fourths, according to
+the common rule with ships, they were rivals and rival beauties. But,
+unlike the more respectable ladies who owned them, both the vessels were
+fast, and it was a sore point of honour with Ryder and Watchett to prove
+their own the fastest.
+
+"If she only worked a little easier, I could lick his head off," said
+Ryder, sadly.
+
+But there was the rub. The _Star of the South_ needed more "beef" on her
+than the _Battle-Axe_. She wasn't so quick in stays. By the time Ryder
+yelled "Let go and haul," the _Battle-Axe_ was gathering headway on a
+fresh tack.
+
+"And instead of having two more hands than we are allowed, we are two
+short," said his wife, bitterly. "If I were you, Will, I'd take those
+Greeks."
+
+"Not by an entire jugful," replied Captain Ryder. "I remember the
+_Lennie_ and the _Caswell_, my dear. I never knew Valparaiso so bare of
+men."
+
+"And we're sailing to-morrow," said Connie Ryder, angrily; "and you've
+betted him a hundred pounds we shall dock before him. It's too bad. I
+wonder whether he'd give us another day?"
+
+But Ryder shook his head.
+
+"And you've known him for years! He's spending that money in his mind."
+
+"But not on his wife, Will," said Mrs. Ryder. "If we win, I'm to have
+it."
+
+"I'd give him twenty to let me off," said Ryder.
+
+But Connie Ryder went on board the _Battle-Axe_ to see if she could
+induce her husband's cousin to forego the advantage he had already
+gained before sailing. She found him dark and grim and as hard as
+adamant.
+
+"A bet's a bet and business is business," said Watchett. "We appointed
+to-morrow, and, bar lying out a gale from the north, with two anchors
+down and the cables out to the bitter end, I'll sail."
+
+His wife, who was as meek as milk, suggested humbly that it would be
+more interesting if he waited.
+
+"I ain't in this for interest; I'm in it for capital," said Watchett,
+grinning gloomily. "The more like a dead certainty it looks the better I
+shall be pleased."
+
+Mrs. Ryder darkened.
+
+"I don't think you're a sportsman," she said, rather shortly.
+
+"I ain't," retorted old Watchett; "I'm a seaman, and him that'd go to
+sea for sport would go to Davy Jones for pastime. You can tell Bill that
+I'll give him ten per cent. discount for cash now."
+
+As Mrs. Ryder knew that he never called her husband "Bill" unless he
+desired to be more or less offensive, she showed unmistakable signs of
+temper.
+
+"If I ever get half a chance to make you sorry, I will," she said.
+
+"Let it go at that," said Watchett, sulkily. "I got on all right with
+Bill before you took to going to sea with him."
+
+"He was too soft with you," said Bill's wife.
+
+"And a deal softer with you than I'd be," said Watchett.
+
+"Oh, please, please don't," cried Mary Watchett, in great distress.
+
+"I thought you were a gentleman," said Connie Ryder.
+
+ [Illustration: "'I THOUGHT YOU WERE A GENTLEMAN,' SAID CONNIE RYDER."]
+
+"Not you," replied Watchett; "you never, and you know it. I'm not one
+and never hankered to be. I'm rough and tough and a seaman of the old
+school. I'm no sea dandy. I'm Jack Watchett, as plain as you like."
+
+"You're much plainer than I like," retorted his cousin's wife, "very
+much plainer."
+
+And though she kissed Mary Watchett she wondered greatly how any woman
+could kiss Mary Watchett's husband.
+
+"If I ever get a chance," she said. "But there, how can I?"
+
+She wept a little out of pure anger as she returned to the _Star of the
+South_. When she got on board she found the mate and second mate
+standing by the gangway.
+
+"Is there no chance of these men, Mr. Semple"?
+
+"No more than if it was the year '49 and this was San Francisco," said
+the mate, who was a hoary-headed old sea-dog, a great deal more like the
+old school than "plain Jack Watchett."
+
+"Why doesna the captain take they Greeks, ma'am?" asked McGill, the
+second mate, who had been almost long enough out of Scotland to forget
+his own language.
+
+"Because he doesn't like any but Englishmen," said Connie Ryder.
+
+"And Scotch, of course," she added, as she saw McGill's jaw fall a
+little. "I've been trying to get Captain Watchett to give us another
+day."
+
+"All our ship and cargo to a paper-bag of beans he didn't, ma'am," said
+Semple.
+
+"I--I hate him," cried Connie Ryder, as she entered the cabin.
+
+"She's as keen as mustard--as red pepper," said Semple; "if she'd been a
+man she'd have made a seaman."
+
+"I've never sailed wi' a skeeper's wife before," said McGill, who had
+shipped in the _Star of the South_ a week earlier, in place of the
+second mate, who had been given his discharge for drunkenness. "Is she
+at all interferin', Mr. Semple?"
+
+Old Semple nodded.
+
+"She interferes some, and it would be an obstinate cook that disputed
+with her. She made a revolution in the galley, my word, when she first
+came on board. Some would say she cockered the crew over-much, but I was
+long enough in the fo'c's'le not to forget that even a hog of a man
+don't do best on hogwash."
+
+Which was a marvellous concession on the part of any of the after-guard
+of any ship, seeing how the notion persists among owners, and even among
+officers, that the worse men are treated the better they work.
+
+"She seems a comfortable ship," owned McGill.
+
+And so everyone on board of her allowed.
+
+"Though she is a bit of a heart-breaker to handle," said the men
+for'ard. "But for that she be a daisy. And to think that the bally
+_Battle-Axe_ goes about like a racing yacht!"
+
+It made them sore to think of it. But it also made the men on board
+their rival sore to think how comfortable the _Star of the South_ was in
+all other respects.
+
+Owing to the fact that the _Battle-Axe's_ crowd was sulky, the _Star of
+the South_ got her anchor out of the ground and stood to the north-west
+to round Point Angelos a good ten minutes before Watchett's vessel was
+under way.
+
+"That's good," said Connie Ryder. "I know they're a sulky lot by now in
+the _Battle-Axe_. And our men work like dears."
+
+It was with difficulty she kept from tailing on to the braces as they
+jammed the _Star_ close up to weather the Point. For the wind was
+drawing down the coast from the nor'ard, and Valparaiso harbour faces
+due north. She was glad when they rounded the Point and squared away,
+for if there was any real difference in the sailing qualities of the
+rival barques, the _Star_ was best before the wind and the _Battle-Axe_
+when she was in a bow-line.
+
+"And with any real luck," said Mrs. Ryder, "we may have a good fair wind
+all the way till we cross the line."
+
+It was so far ahead to consider the north-east trades, which meant such
+mighty long stretches in a wind, that she declined to think of them. And
+she entirely forgot the calms of Capricorn.
+
+"We're doing very well, Will," she said to her husband when the
+starboard watch went below and the routine of the passage home
+commenced.
+
+"It's early days," replied Will Ryder. "I fancy the _Battle-Axe_ is in
+her best trim for a wind astern."
+
+But Mrs. Ryder didn't believe it.
+
+"And if she is, she mayn't be so good when it comes to beating."
+
+She knew what she was talking about and spoke good sense.
+
+"It's going to be luck," said Ryder. "If either of us get a good slant
+that the other misses, the last will be out of it. But I wish I'd had
+those other two hands. The _Star_ wants 'beef' on the braces. Mr.
+Semple, as soon as possible see all the parrals greased and the blocks
+running as free as you can make 'em."
+
+And Semple did his best, as the crew did. But Mrs. Ryder had her doubts
+as to whether her husband was doing his. For once he seemed to think
+failure was a foregone conclusion.
+
+"I think it must be his liver," said Mrs. Ryder. "I'll see to that at
+once."
+
+But instead of looking up the medicine chest she came across the Pacific
+Directory.
+
+"I never thought of that," she said. "He's never done it, now he shall."
+
+She took the big book down and read one part of it eagerly.
+
+"I don't see why not," she decided, and she went to her husband with the
+request that he should run through Magellan's Straits when he came to
+it.
+
+"Not for dollars," said Will Ryder. "When I'm skipper of a Pacific
+Navigation boat I'll take you through, but not till then."
+
+"But look at all you cut off," urged his wife, "if you get through."
+
+"And how you are cut off if you don't," retorted Ryder. "When I was an
+apprentice I went through in fine weather, and I'd rather drive a 'bus
+down Fleet Street in a fog than try it."
+
+She said he had very little enterprise and pouted.
+
+"Suppose the _Battle-Axe_ does it?"
+
+Ryder declined to suppose it.
+
+"John wouldn't try it if you could guarantee the weather. I know him."
+
+"You never take my advice," said his wife.
+
+"I love you too much," replied Will Ryder. He put his arm about her, but
+she was cross and pushed him away.
+
+"This is mutiny," said the captain, smiling.
+
+"Well, I feel mutinous," retorted Connie. "I wanted you to steal two of
+your cousin's men and you wouldn't. I'm sure they would have come, for
+what the _Battle-Axe_ owed them. And you wouldn't. And now I want to go
+through the Straits and you won't. The very, very next time that I want
+to do anything I shall do it without asking you. Why did you bet a
+hundred pounds if you weren't prepared to try to win it?"
+
+"We'll win yet," said the skipper, cheerfully, "We're only just
+started."
+
+The two vessels kept company right down to the Horn, and there, between
+Ildefonso Island and the Diego Ramirez Islands, the _Star of the South_
+lost sight of her sister and her rival, in a dark sou'-westerly gale.
+With the wind astern as it was when they squared away with Cape Horn
+frowning to the nor'-west the _Star_ was a shooting star, as they said
+for'ard.
+
+"If we could on'y carry a gale like this right to the line, we'd 'ave a
+pull over the _Battle-Axe_, ma'am," said Silas Bagge, an old fo'c's'le
+man, who was Mrs. Ryder's favourite among all the crew. He was a
+magnificent old chap with a long white beard, which he wore tucked
+inside a guernsey, except in fine weather.
+
+"But we can't; there'll be the trades," said the captain's wife,
+dolorously.
+
+"I've picked up the sou'-east trade blowin' a gale, ma'am, before now,"
+said Bagge; "years ago, in '74 or thereabouts, I was in the
+_Secunderabad_, and we crossed the line, bound south, doing eleven
+close-'auled, and we carried 'em to twenty-seven south latitude. There's
+times when it's difficult to say where the trades begin south too. Mebbe
+we'll be chased by such a gale as this nigh up to thirty south."
+
+"It's hoping too much," said Mrs. Ryder.
+
+"Hope till you bust, ma'am," said Silas Bagge. "Nothin's lost till it's
+won. If we can only get out of the doldrums without breaking our hearts
+working the ship, there's no knowing what'll 'appen. 'Twas a pity we
+didn't get them other two 'ands, though."
+
+And there she agreed with him.
+
+    [Illustration: "'HOPE TILL YOU BUST, MA'AM,' SAID SILAS BAGGE."]
+
+"Me and Bob Condy could 'ave got Gribbs and Tidewell out of the
+_Battle-Axe_ easy as easy," said Silas, regretfully. "'Twas a lost
+hopportunity, and there you are."
+
+The honourable conduct of his skipper in vetoing this little game seemed
+no more than foolishness to Bagge.
+
+"When we comes to the Hequator and it's 'square away' and 'brace up'
+every five minutes till one's 'ands are raw, 'twill be a grief to every
+mother's son aboard," said Bagge, as he touched his cap and went
+for'ard.
+
+But now the _Star of the South_ went booming on the outside of the
+Falklands with a gale that drew into the sou'-sou'-west and howled after
+her. She scooped up the seas at times and dipped her nose into them, and
+threw them apart and wallowed. The men were happy, for the fo'c's'le
+didn't leak, and the galley-fire was kept going every night to dry their
+clothes. At midnight every man got a mug of cocoa, and those that rose
+up called Mrs. Ryder blessed, and those that lay down agreed with them.
+The _Star_ was a happy ship. There was no rule against playing the
+concertina on a Sunday in her fo'c's'le, and the men were not reduced to
+playing "blind swaps" with their oldest rags for amusement, as they were
+in the _Battle-Axe_. And yet every man in the _Star_ knew his time for
+growling was coming on, with every pitch and send of the sea.
+
+They picked up the trades in nearly 30deg. south, with only a few days
+of a light and variable breeze, and the trades were good.
+
+"But where's the _Battle-Axe_?" asked Mrs. Ryder.
+
+She kept a bright look-out for her, and deeply regretted that her
+petticoats prevented her going aloft to search the horizon for John
+Watchett. She rubbed her hands in hope.
+
+"I do believe, Will, that we must be ahead of him," she declared, after
+the south-east trade had been steady on the _Star's_ starboard beam for
+a week.
+
+"Not much ahead," replied Will.
+
+And just then Bob Condy, who was aloft on the foreto'gallant yard
+cutting off old seizings and putting on new ones, hailed the deck.
+
+"There's a sail on the port beam, sir."
+
+"Take a glass aloft and have a look at her, Mr. McGill," said the
+skipper. "No, never mind, I'll go myself, as you've never seen the
+_Battle-Axe_ at sea. I know the cut of her jib, and no mistake."
+
+So Will Ryder went up to the maintop-gallant-yard, and with his leg
+astride of the yard took a squint to loo'ard. He shut up the glass so
+quick that his wife knew at once that the distant sail was the
+_Battle-Axe_. As he came down slowly he nodded to her.
+
+"It is?"
+
+"Rather," said Ryder. "I'm sorry we've no stun-sails. We're carrying all
+we've got and all we can."
+
+"And to think he's as good as we were on our own point of sailing!" said
+his wife, with the most visible vexation. "Can't you do anything to make
+her go faster, Will?"
+
+    [Illustration: "MRS. RYDER SAT ON A HEN-COOP AND NEARLY CRIED."]
+
+And when Will said he couldn't unless he got out and pushed, Mrs. Ryder
+sat on a hen-coop and very nearly cried. For if the _Battle-Axe_ had
+done so well up to this she would do better in the dead regions of the
+line, and the _Star_ would do much worse. There the want of a few more
+hands would tell. The _Star_ was no good at catching cat's-paws, and
+short-handed she worked like an unoiled gate.
+
+"If I'd only done what Silas Bagge wanted," she said, "we'd have been
+all right. To think that the want of a couple of hands should make all
+the difference."
+
+It was cruelly hard, but when vessels are undermanned at any time, less
+than their complement means "pull devil, pull baker," with the former
+best at the tug of war.
+
+For days there was nothing to choose between the vessels, save that the
+unusual strength of the trades gave the _Star_ a trifling advantage.
+Every night Watchett took in his royals. This Ryder declined to do,
+though he often expected them to take themselves in.
+
+"What did I say, ma'am?" said old Bagge. "I told you it _could_ blow
+quite 'eavy in its way in the south-east trades."
+
+And thus it happened that what the _Star_ lost by day she pulled up by
+night. And presently the _Battle-Axe_ edged up closer and at last was
+within hailing distance. Watchett stood on his poop with a
+speaking-trumpet, and roared in sombre triumph:--
+
+"I'm as good as you this trip on your best p'int, Ryder!"
+
+"Tell him to go to--to thunder," said Mrs. Ryder, angrily. Nevertheless,
+she waved her handkerchief to her enemy's wife, who was standing by
+"plain Jack Watchett."
+
+"You've done mighty well," said Ryder, in his turn, "but it isn't over
+yet."
+
+Jack Watchett intimated that he thought it was. He offered to double the
+bet. He also undertook to sail round the _Star of the South_ in a light
+wind. He offered to tow her, and made himself so disagreeable that Mrs.
+Ryder, who knew what became a lady, went below to prevent her snatching
+the speaking-trumpet from her husband and saying things for which she
+would be sorry afterwards. But Ryder, though he was by no means a saint,
+kept his temper and only replied with chaff, which was much more
+offensive to Watchett than bad language.
+
+"And don't be _too_ sure," he added. "I may do you yet."
+
+"Not you," said Watchett. "I'm cocksure."
+
+They sailed in company for a week, and gradually, as the trade lessened
+in driving power, the _Battle-Axe_ drew ahead inch by inch. And as she
+did Mrs. Ryder's appetite failed--she looked thin and ill.
+
+"Don't feel it so much, chickabiddy," said her husband.
+
+"I can't help it," sobbed Connie. "I hate your cousin. Oh, Will, if
+you'd only let me entice those two men from him. Bagge was sure that
+Gribbs and Tidewell would have come."
+
+"It wouldn't have been fair," said Ryder.
+
+"I--I--wanted to win," replied Connie; "and it'll be calm directly, and
+you know what that means."
+
+It _was_ calm directly, and very soon everyone knew what it meant. For
+it was a real fat streak of a calm that both vessels ran into. And as
+luck would have it the _Battle-Axe_, which was by now almost hull down
+to the nor'ard, got into it first. The _Star of the South_ carried the
+wind with her till she was within a mile of her rival. For a whole day
+they pointed their jibbooms alternately at Africa and South America, to
+the North Pole and the South. What little breeze there was after that
+day took them farther still into an absolute area of no wind at all.
+
+"This is the flattest calm I ever saw," said Ryder. "In such a calm as
+this he has no advantage."
+
+They boxed the compass for the best part of a week and lay and cooked in
+a sun that made the deck-seams bubble. At night the air was as hot as it
+had been by day. The men lay on deck, on the deck-house, on the
+fo'c's'le head.
+
+"This is a bally scorcher," said the crews of both ships. "Let's
+whistle."
+
+They whistled feebly, but the god of the winds had gone a journey, or
+was as fast asleep as Baal. And day by day the two vessels drifted
+together. At last they had to lower the boats and tow them apart.
+Watchett was very sick with the whole meteorology of the universe, and
+being a whole-souled man, incapable of more than one animosity at a
+time, he found no leisure to spare from reviling a heaven of brass to
+taunt Ryder. At the end of the week he even hailed the _Star_ and
+offered to come on board and bring his wife.
+
+"I don't want him," said Connie Ryder: "I won't have him."
+
+And as she said so she jumped as if a pin had been stuck into her.
+
+"What's the matter?" asked her husband.
+
+"Nothing," said Connie. "But let him come!"
+
+She went for'ard to interview the cook, so she said. But she really went
+to interview Silas Bagge. When she came back she found Watchett and his
+wife on board. If she was a little stiff with Watchett he never noticed
+it. As a matter of fact, the whims and fads and tempers of a woman were
+of no more account than the growling of the men for'ard. He was too much
+engaged in cursing the weather to pay her any attention.
+
+"This licks me," he said; "in a week we ain't moved--we're stuck. 'Ow
+long will it last, Bill?"
+
+"It looks as if it might last for ever," replied Ryder. "We've struck a
+bad streak."
+
+The women had tea and the men drank whisky and water. Although Watchett
+didn't know it, two of his hands left the boat and were given something
+to eat in the galley by Mrs. Ryder's orders. It was Bagge who conveyed
+the invitation, with the connivance of the mate, for whom the word of
+the captain's wife was law.
+
+"'Ave some marmalade and butter?" said Bagge. "Does they feed you good
+in the _Battle-Axe_, Gribbs?"
+
+     [Illustration: "'AVE SOME MARMALADE AND BUTTER?' SAID BAGGE."]
+
+"Hogwash," said Gribbs, with his mouth full. "Ain't it, Tidewell?"
+
+Tidewell, who was a youngster of a good middle-class family, who had
+gone to sea as an apprentice and run from his ship, agreed with many
+bitter words.
+
+"As I told you, we lives like fightin'-cocks 'ere," said Bagge. "When
+you're full in the back teeth, we'll 'ave your mates up. We likes to
+feed the pore and 'ungry, don't we, doctor?"
+
+The cook, to whom Bagge had confided something, said he did his best,
+his humble best.
+
+"The _Star's_ an 'appy ship," he added. "We know what your ship is."
+
+The other two men came up in their turn and were filled with tea and
+biscuit and butter and marmalade till they smiled.
+
+"This is like home," said Wat Crampe, who was from Newcastle.
+
+"It wass petter--much petter," said Evan Evans, "and ass for the
+captain's wife, she iss a lady, whatefer."
+
+That evening Ryder and his wife returned the call and were rowed to the
+_Battle-Axe_ by Bagge, Bob Condy, and two more of the men. Bagge and
+Condy went into the fo'c's'le. They lost no time in condemning the
+_Battle-Axe_ and in lauding their own ship.
+
+"This 'ere's a stinkin' 'ooker, mates," said Silas Bagge; "why, our
+fo'c's'le is a lady's droring-room compared with it. And as for the
+grub, ask them as come on board us this afternoon. What d'ye say,
+Gribbs?"
+
+"Toppin'," said Gribbs. "It's spiled my happetite 'ere."
+
+"It wass good," said the Welshman; "it wass good, whatefer."
+
+Bagge took Billy Gribbs aside on the deck and had a talk with him.
+
+"Oh, Lord!" said Gribbs. "Oh, what?"
+
+"Straight talk," replied Silas; "_she_ said so."
+
+"Do you mean it?"
+
+"Do I mean it?" replied Silas, with unutterable scorn. "In course I mean
+it. It will sarve them right as it sarves right."
+
+Gribbs held on to the rail and laughed till he ached. "It's the rummiest
+notion I ever 'eard tell on."
+
+"Not _so_ rummy!"
+
+"Wot!" cried Gribbs, "not so rummy? Well, if it ain't so rummy, I'm
+jiggered. I'll think of it."
+
+"Do, and tell your mate Tidewell."
+
+"If I tell Ned, 'e'll do it for sure. 'E's the biggest joker 'ere!"
+
+"Then tell him," said Silas.
+
+That evening Ned Tidewell and Billy Gribbs acted in a very strange way
+on board the _Battle-Axe_. Without any obvious reason they kept on
+bursting into violent fits of laughter.
+
+"The pore blokes is gone dotty from the 'eat," said the pitying crowd.
+"We've 'eard of such before."
+
+"Why shouldn't I laugh?" asked Gribbs. "I'm laughin' because I'm a pore
+silly sailor-man and my life ain't worth livin'. If I'd died early I'd
+ha' been saved a pile o' trouble. I was thinkin' of my father's green
+fields as I looked over the side this afternoon."
+
+"Was you really?" asked the oldest man on board. "Then you take my
+advice quick and go and ask the skipper for a real good workin' pill of
+the largest size."
+
+"Wot for?" asked Gribbs.
+
+"Because you've hobvious got a calentoor," said the old fo'c's'le man.
+"And chaps as gets a calentoor jumps overboard. Oh, but that's well
+known at sea by those as knows anythin'."
+
+But Gribbs laughed.
+
+"The worst is as it's catchin'," said his adviser, anxiously; "it's
+fatally catchin'. I've 'eard of crews doin' it one hafter the hother,
+till there wasn't no one left. In 'eat it was and in calm."
+
+"Gammon," said Gribbs. But he was observed to sigh.
+
+"Are you 'ot in your 'ead?" asked the anxious and ancient one.
+
+"I feels a little 'ot and rummy," said Gribbs; "but what I chiefly feels
+is a desire to eat grass."
+
+The old man groaned.
+
+"Then it's got you. Mates, we ought to tie Gribbs up, or lock 'im in the
+sail-locker, or 'is clothes will be auctioned off before long."
+
+But Gribbs kicked at that, and just then eight bells struck.
+
+"I'm turnin' in," said Gribbs, "and I'm all right."
+
+But at six bells in the first watch he was missing, as was discovered by
+old Brooks, the authority on calentures. He waked up Ned Tidewell, who
+was extraordinarily fast asleep.
+
+"Where's Gribbs?"
+
+"Not in my bunk," returned Ned, who with Gribbs was one of the few who
+still dossed in the fo'c's'le.
+
+"Then 'e's gone overboard for sartain," said Brooks, in great alarm;
+"there was the look of it in his eye, and in yours too, youngster. These
+long calms is fataller than scurvy. I shall go aft and report it."
+
+He reported it to Mr. Seleucus Thoms, the second mate, who came for'ard,
+and roused the watch below from the deck-house and t'gallant fo'c's'le.
+When all hands were mustered it was certain that Gribbs was missing.
+
+"This is a terrible catastrophe," said Seleucus Thoms, who had a
+weakness for fine language, derived from his rare Christian name, of
+which he was extremely proud. "My name is not Seleucus Thoms if he
+hasn't gone overboard."
+
+"'E was rampagious with laughter in the second dog-watch, sir," put in
+old Brooks. "And 'e talked of green fields, the which I've 'eard is a
+werry fatal symptom of calentoor."
+
+"Humph!" said Mr. Thoms, "there's something in that."
+
+And when he went for'ard old Brooks was as proud as a dog with two
+tails! Though he usually spent the second dog-watch daily in proving
+that Thoms was no sailor, this endorsement of his theory flattered him
+greatly.
+
+"I've been mistook in the second," he said, as Thoms went aft. "He's got
+'orse sense, after all. I shouldn't be surprised if he'd make a sailor
+some day."
+
+And Thoms reported the catastrophe to Watchett.
+
+"Drowned himself?" roared the captain; "drowned himself? And who's
+responsible if you ain't?"
+
+He came on deck in a great rage and scanty pyjamas and mustered the crew
+aft, and roared at them for full ten minutes as if it was their fault.
+When he had relieved his mind he asked if there was anyone who could
+throw light on the matter, and old Brooks was shoved to the front. He
+explained his views on calentures.
+
+"Never 'eard of 'em," said Watchett.
+
+"And I think, sir, as Tidewell 'ere 'as the symptoms."
+
+"I haven't," said Tidewell, indignantly.
+
+"Wild laughin' is a known symptom, sir, and Tidewell was laughin' 'orrid
+in the second dog-watch," insisted Brooks; "I'd put him in irons, sir."
+
+But Watchett was not prepared to go so far in prophylaxis.
+
+"If any of you 'as any more symptoms I'll flog 'im and take the
+consequences," he declared. He went below again unhappily, for he wasn't
+quite a brute after all.
+
+"This is a mighty unpleasant thing," he said to poor Mrs. Watchett, who
+cried when she heard the news. "It's a mighty unfortunate affair. Gribbs
+was the smartest man in the whole crowd and worth two of the others."
+
+But still the great and terrible calm lasted, and the morning was as hot
+as yesterday and the sea shone like polished brass and lapped faintly
+like heavy oil against the glowing iron of the sister barques. At dawn,
+which came up like a swiftly opening flower out of the fertile east, the
+vessels were just too far apart for hailing, and Watchett signalled the
+news to the _Star of the South_.
+
+"Lost a man overboard!" said Ryder. "That's strange; I wish to Heaven
+we'd found him!"
+
+When he told his wife she seemed extraordinarily callous.
+
+"Serves him right," she said.
+
+And it was wonderful how the crew of the _Star_ took the news. They had
+never seemed so cheerful. They grinned when Watchett came aboard.
+
+"This is an 'orrid circumstance," said Watchett. "I never lost a man
+before, not even when I was wrecked in the _Violet_. And this a dead
+calm!"
+
+"Your men aren't happy," said Mrs. Ryder, "and you don't try to make
+'em. If I give you three seven-pound tins of marmalade and some butter,
+will you serve it out to them?"
+
+      [Illustration: "'YOUR MEN AREN'T HAPPY,' SAID MRS. RYDER."]
+
+But Watchett shook his head angrily.
+
+"I'll not cocker no men up," he declared; "not if they all goes
+overboard and leaves me and the missis to take 'er 'ome. And what's
+marmalade against 'eat like this?"
+
+He mopped a melancholy brow and sighed.
+
+"It will help them to keep from gloomy thoughts," said Mrs. Ryder. "The
+_Star of the South_ is a home for our men."
+
+"And two run in Valparaiso," retorted Watchett. "And I on'y lost one."
+
+He took a drink with his cousin and went back on board the _Battle-Axe_,
+and spent the torrid day in getting a deal of unnecessary work done. And
+still no flaw of lightest air marred the awful mirror of the quiet seas.
+Early in the first watch the boats were lowered again to tow the vessels
+apart. At midnight, when the watch below came aft and answered to their
+names in the deep shadow of the moonless tropic night, Ned Tidewell did
+not answer to his name.
+
+"Tidewell!" cried Thoms, angrily and anxiously.
+
+And still there was no answer, but a groan from old Brooks.
+
+"Wot did I tell you?" he demanded. "I seed it in 'is eye."
+
+They searched the _Battle-Axe_ from stem to stern; they overhauled the
+sails in the sail-lockers; they hunted with a lantern in the forepeak;
+they even went aloft to the fore and main tops, where once or twice
+someone who sought for coolness where no coolness could be found went up
+into what they jocosely called the "attic." But Ned had lost the number
+of his mess.
+
+"More clothes for sale," said the melancholy crew, as they looked at
+each other suspiciously. "'Oo'll be the next?"
+
+Brooks declared to the other fo'c's'le men that the next would be Wat
+Crampe, or Taffy, as they called the Welshman.
+
+"There's an awful 'orrid look o' the deep, dark knowledge of death in
+their faces," declared old Brooks. "They thinks of the peace of it and
+the quiet, and smiles secret!"
+
+Next morning Watchett hailed the _Star_ and told the latest dreadful
+news. And at the end he added, in a truly pathetic roar, "Send me them
+tins o' marmalade aboard, and the butter."
+
+And when Mrs. Ryder superintended the steward's work getting these
+stores out of the lazaret, she smiled very strangely. She said to her
+husband: "If he loses another hand or two the _Battle-Axe_ will be no
+easy ship to work, Will."
+
+"I wouldn't have believed the matter of a hundred pounds would have made
+you so hard," said Ryder. And Connie Ryder pouted mutinously, and her
+pout ran off into a wicked and most charming smile.
+
+"I'm not thinking so much of the money as of our ship being beaten," she
+said.
+
+And poor Watchett was now beginning to think the same of his ship. Like
+most vessels, the _Battle-Axe_ required a certain number of men to work
+her easily, and her luck lay in the number allowed being the number
+necessary. With two hands gone a-missing she would not be much superior
+to the _Star_ in easiness of handling, and if more went a week of
+baffling winds now or later, when the north-east trade died out, might
+give the _Star_ a pull which nothing but an easterly wind from the chops
+of the Channel to Dover could hope to make up. He began to dance
+attendance on his crew as if they were patients and he their doctor. And
+the curious thing was that they all began to feel ill at once, so ill
+that they could not work in the sun. A certain uneasy terror got hold of
+them; they dreaded to look over the side, lest in place of an oily sea
+they should look down on grass and daisies.
+
+"Daisies draws a man, and buttercups draws a man," said old Brooks.
+
+"Don't," said Crampe, with a snigger. "You make me feel that I must pick
+buttercups or die."
+
+"Do you now?" asked Brooks. "Do you now?"
+
+And he sneaked aft to the skipper, who was turning all ways, as if
+wondering where windward was.
+
+"I'm very uneasy about Crampe, sir," he said, with a scrape, as he
+crawled up the port poop ladder. "'Is mind is set on buttercups."
+
+"The deuce it is!" cried Watchett, and going down to the main deck he
+called Crampe out.
+
+"What's this I 'ears about your 'ankering after buttercups?" he
+demanded, very anxiously.
+
+"I _did_ feel as if I'd like to see one, sir," said Crampe.
+
+"Don't let me 'ear of it again," began Watchett, angrily, but he pulled
+himself up with an ill grace. "But there, go in and lie down, and you
+needn't come on deck in your watch. I can't afford to lose no more mad
+fools. And you shall have butter instead of buttercups."
+
+     [Illustration: "YOU SHALL HAVE BUTTER INSTEAD OF BUTTERCUPS."]
+
+"And marmalade, sir?" suggested Crampe. "Marmalade's yellow too, as
+yellow as buttercups."
+
+"Say the word agin and I'll knock you flat," said the skipper. But,
+nevertheless, he sent the whole crowd marmalade and butter at four bells
+in the first dog-watch.
+
+"Hoo, but it iss fine," said "Efan Efans." "Thiss iss goot grup whatefer
+and moreover, yess!"
+
+"They scoffs the like in the _Star_ day in and day out," said Crampe;
+"if I can't roll on grass I'd like to be in her."
+
+And that night both Crampe and Evans disappeared.
+
+"I believe I 'eard a splash soon after six bells," said old Brooks.
+"Mates, this is most 'orrid. I feels as if I should be drawed overboard
+by a mermaid in spite of myself."
+
+And Watchett went raving crazy.
+
+Ryder came on board the _Battle-Axe_ as soon as the latest news was
+signalled to him. Mrs. Ryder declined to go, but she gave him a timely
+piece of advice.
+
+"Don't let him off the bet, Will, or I'll never forgive you."
+
+"I won't do that," said her husband, hastily, as if he hadn't been
+thinking of doing it.
+
+"And if he asks for a man or two, you know we're short-handed already."
+
+"Tell me something I don't know," said Ryder, a trifle crossly. Even his
+sweet temper suffered in 115deg. in the shade.
+
+"I dare say I could," said his wife, when he was in the boat; "I dare
+say I could."
+
+Watchett received his cousin with an air of gloom that would have struck
+a damp on anything anywhere but the Equator.
+
+"This is a terrible business," he said. "I never 'eard of anything like
+it. Every night a man, and last night two!"
+
+Ryder was naturally very much cut up about it, and said so.
+
+"Will you have some more marmalade?" he asked, anxiously.
+
+"Marmalade don't work," said Watchett, sadly; "it don't work worth a
+cent. Nor does butter. I'd give five pounds for some green cabbage."
+
+A brilliant idea struck Ryder.
+
+"Why don't you paint her green, all the inside of the rail and the
+boats?"
+
+"She'd be a beauty show, like a blessed timber-droghing Swede," said
+Watchett, with great distaste. "But d'ye think it'd work?"
+
+"You might try," replied Ryder.
+
+"And now you've got the bulge on me," sighed Watchett; "with two 'ands
+missing from both watches, she'll be as 'ard in the mouth as your
+_Star_. You might let me off that bet, Bill."
+
+"No," said Ryder, "a bet's a bet."
+
+"But fairness is fairness," urged Watchett; "there should be a clause in
+a bet renderin' it void by the act of God or the Queen's enemies."
+
+"There isn't," said his cousin, "and you forget you wouldn't help me
+about those two hands I wanted."
+
+"Oh, if you talk like that----"
+
+"That's the way I talk," said Ryder, remembering the wife he had left
+behind him. "I'm sorry."
+
+"Hang your sorrow," said Watchett. "But I'll lose no more, and 'tain't
+your money yet."
+
+"Will you and Mary come on board to tea?" asked Ryder.
+
+"I won't tea with no unfair person with no sympathy," returned Watchett,
+savagely.
+
+And when Ryder had gone he set the crowd painting his beautiful white
+paint a ripe grass-green.
+
+"Watch if it soothes 'em any," he said to Seleucus Thoms. "If it seems
+to work I'll paint 'er as green as a child's Noah's Ark."
+
+And that night there was no decrease of the _Battle-Axe's_ sad crowd, in
+spite of the fact that he did not act on his impulse to lock them up in
+the stuffy fo'c's'le. For soon after midnight Mr. Double felt one side
+of his face cooler than the other as he stood staring at the motionless
+lights of the _Star of the South_, then lying stern on to the
+_Battle-Axe's_ starboard beam.
+
+"Eh? What? Jerusalem!" said Double. Then he let a joyous bellow out of
+him. "Square the yards!"
+
+For there was a breath of wind out of the south. Both vessels were alive
+in a moment, and while the _Battle-Axe_ was squaring away the _Star's_
+foreyard was braced sharp up on the starboard tack till she fell off
+before the little breeze. Then she squared her yards too, and both
+vessels moved at least a mile towards home before they began fooling all
+round the compass again.
+
+"Them hands missin' makes a difference," said Watchett, gloomily. "Less
+than enough is starvation."
+
+As they fought through the night for the flaws of wind which came out of
+all quarters, the short watches of the _Battle-Axe_ found that out and
+grumbled accordingly. But it was a very curious thing that the _Star of
+the South_ was never so easy to handle.
+
+"That foreyard goes round now," said old Semple, "as if it was hung like
+a balance. This is very surprisin'. So it is."
+
+He mentioned the remarkable fact to McGill when he came on deck at four
+in the morning, and so long as it was dark, as it was till nearly six,
+McGill found it so too. And both watches were in a surprisingly good
+temper. For nothing tries men so much as "brace up" and "square away"
+every five minutes as they work their ship through a belt of calm. But
+as soon as the sun was up the _Star_ worked just as badly as she did
+before.
+
+"It's maist amazin'," said McGill.
+
+During the day the calm renewed itself and gave everyone a rest. But
+once more the breeze came at night, and the amazing easiness of the
+_Star_ showed itself when the darkness fell across the sea. Ryder and
+Semple and McGill were full of wonder and delight.
+
+"The character of a ship will change sometimes," said Semple. "It's just
+like a collision that will alter her deviation. This calm has worked a
+revolution."
+
+Because of this revolution the _Star_ got ahead of the _Battle-Axe_
+every change and chance of the wind. She got ahead with such effect that
+on the third day the _Battle-Axe_ was hull down to the south'ard, and
+when the fourth dawn broke she was out of sight. This meant much more
+than may appear, for the _Star_ picked up the north-east trade nearly
+four days earlier than her rival, and a better trade at that. When the
+_Battle-Axe_ crawled into its area it was half-sister to a calm, while
+the _Star_ was doing eight knots an hour. And as there was now no need
+to touch tack or sheet, there was no solution of the mysterious ease
+with which she worked in the dark. How long the mystery might have
+remained such no one can say, but it was owing to Mrs. Ryder's curious
+behaviour that it came out. She laughed in the strangest manner till
+Ryder got quite nervous.
+
+"These chaps that jumped over from the _Battle-Axe_ laughed like that,"
+he told her, in great anxiety.
+
+And she giggled more and more.
+
+"Shall I try marmalade?" she asked. Then she sat down by him and went
+off into something so like hysterics that a mere man might be excused
+for thinking she was crazy.
+
+"They're not dead!" she cried; "they're not dead!"
+
+  [Illustration: "'THEY'RE NOT DEAD!' SHE CRIED; 'THEY'RE NOT DEAD!'"]
+
+"Who aren't dead?" asked her husband, desperately.
+
+And, remembering something which had been told him years before, he took
+her hands and slapped with such severity that she screamed and then
+cried, and finally put her head upon his shoulder and confessed.
+
+"Was it mutiny of me to do it?" she asked, penitently.
+
+Will Ryder tried to look severe, and then laughed until he cried. "What
+ever made you think of it?"
+
+"It wasn't a what; it was a who," said his wife; "it was Silas Bagge."
+
+"The dickens it was," said Will, and with that he left her.
+
+"Call all hands and let them muster aft," he said to McGill, who, much
+wondering, did what he was told. The watch on deck dropped their jobs
+and the watch below turned out.
+
+"Call the names over," said Ryder, sternly.
+
+"They're all here, sir," said McGill.
+
+The skipper looked down at the upturned faces of the men and singled out
+Silas Bagge as if he meant to speak to him. But he checked himself, and,
+going down to the main deck, walked for'ard to the fo'c's'le. The men
+turned to look after him, and there was a grin on every face which would
+have been ample for two. Ryder walked quietly, and pushing aside the
+canvas door he came on a party playing poker. He heard strange voices.
+
+"I go one petter, moreover," said one of them.
+
+"I see you and go two better," said a man with a Newcastle burr in his
+speech.
+
+Then Ryder took a hand.
+
+"And I see you," he remarked. They dropped their cards and jumped to
+their feet.
+
+"What are you doing here?" he demanded. And there wasn't a word from one
+of them; they looked as sheepish as four stowaways interviewing the
+skipper before a crowd of passengers.
+
+"Get on deck," said Ryder. And much to McGill's astonishment the
+addition to the crew appeared with the captain behind them.
+
+"Divide this lot among the watches," said Ryder.
+
+Leaving McGill to "tumble to the racket," he walked to the mate's berth
+and explained to him that henceforth the _Star of the South_ would go
+about as easy by day as by night.
+
+"Then they're not dead!" cried Semple.
+
+"Not by a jugful," said Ryder, nodding.
+
+"This is very lucky, sir," said the mate, smiling.
+
+"It's confoundedly irregular, too," replied the skipper, as he rubbed
+his chin. "Are you sure you knew nothing of it, Mr. Semple?"
+
+"Me, sir! Why, I'd look on it as mutiny," said Semple; "rank mutiny!"
+
+"It was Mrs. Ryder's notion, Semple."
+
+"You don't say so, sir! She's a woman to be proud of!"
+
+"So she is," replied Ryder. "So she is."
+
+He went back to his wife.
+
+"You'll win the hundred pounds now, Will?"
+
+"I believe I shall," said Ryder.
+
+"And I'll spend it," cried his wife, running to him and kissing him.
+
+"I believe you will," said Ryder.
+
+It was a happy ship.
+
+
+
+
+                _The Size of the World's Great Cities._
+                         BY ARTHUR T. DOLLING.
+
+
+Those imposing agglomerations of houses and dwellers we call cities (in
+most cases political or commercial capitals) have shown a notable rate
+of progress during the last two or three decades. More and more do the
+centripetal forces at work in almost every nation make for the growth of
+the capital at the expense of the rural community. A century ago a
+million human beings dwelling side by side under a single municipal
+government was almost of itself one of the great wonders of the world.
+Men spoke of London with bated breath and wondered where it would all
+end. Reports of monster cities in China with a population double that of
+London were dismissed as travellers' tales. Travellers' tales, verily,
+they have proved to be, seeing that Peking even to-day has fewer than a
+million souls. But what would our forefathers have said of these
+twentieth-century "wens," these "gloomy or glowing, febrile and
+throbbing concentrations" of human life, numbering not merely two, but
+three, four, and even five millions of souls?
+
+ [Illustration: LONDON: THE ADMINISTRATIVE COUNTY OF LONDON, WITH WHICH
+    THE OTHER CITIES ARE COMPARED, IS SHOWN BY THE SHADED PORTION.]
+
+Let us take London as the basis of our diagrams. London is an
+indeterminate quantity. It may mean the City of London, which comprises
+only 673 acres, or it may mean the Administrative County of London,
+which boasts nearly 117 square miles, or 74,839 acres, or Greater
+London, which embraces the Metropolitan Police district, and has an area
+of no less than 692 square miles, or 443,420 acres. If we take the
+second of these Londons we shall find it to consist of twenty-nine large
+and small cities, ranging in population from 334,991 to 51,247
+inhabitants. These are called the Metropolitan boroughs; but as it is
+rather geographical size than population which here concerns us, we may
+state that the largest of these boroughs is Wandsworth, with an area of
+9,130 acres, and the smallest is Holborn, with 409 acres. The average
+area of these boroughs, if we exclude the City, is about four square
+miles. Within these borders of London--which must not be confounded with
+Greater London--there were in 1901 4,536,541 souls, living in 616,461
+houses. Within this area, besides buildings, must be counted 12,054
+acres of grass, including the public parks and gardens.
+
+If we take Greater London we embrace a far wider and yet still a
+homogeneous community, for it cannot be denied that the adjoining
+boroughs just outside the pale of the administrative county are policed
+from the same centre, are London to the Post Office, and commonly regard
+themselves, what they must soon be officially, as an integral part of
+the Great Wen. Greater London--within the fifteen-mile radius--is far
+more homogeneous and compact than Greater Chicago, for example, or even
+than Greater New York or Greater Boston. We have here an aggregation of
+6,580,000 inhabitants and, as we have already seen, 443,420 acres. But
+perhaps the fairest estimate of London is the natural one of a single
+mass of buildings, without any unoccupied or unimproved areas. This
+gives us a solid, compact city of 85,000 acres and 6,000,000
+inhabitants; extending from Edmonton on the north to Croydon on the
+south, and east and west from Woolwich to Ealing. Nor can one doubt, at
+the present rate of expansion, that even more distant areas than Croydon
+will eventually be included, although the Scotsman may have been a
+little "previous" who addressed a letter to a friend at "Bournemouth,
+S.W."
+
+  [Illustration: A MAP OF PARIS PRINTED UPON A MAP OF LONDON, SHOWING
+                  THE RELATIVE SHAPES AND SIZES.]
+
+In the following article we propose to compare with London the sizes of
+the chief cities of the world and, by printing a black map of each city
+upon a map of London, to display their relative magnitude at a glance.
+Let us see, to begin with, how Paris compares with London as represented
+in the above diagram.
+
+At a _coup d'oeil_ we perceive that the French capital is for its
+population remarkably small in area, a fact clearly owing to its fixed
+military barriers, which make growth upward rather than outward.
+Consequently, dwellers in Paris often have six or eight pairs of
+stairs to climb where the dweller in London has but two. There have
+been repeated agitations for municipal expansion, but so far nothing
+has been done to annex the surrounding communes. Paris has a
+population of 2,700,000, living in 75,000 houses, and an area of over
+thirty-one square miles. If, however, the agglomeration of houses be
+taken--including the suburbs--the area is forty-five square miles and
+the population 3,600,000, although, as yet, this is not actually and
+geographically Paris.
+
+              [Illustration: BERLIN COMPARED WITH LONDON.]
+
+Berlin, a mere village a century ago, is the third city of Europe in
+point of population, and its growth since 1870 has been phenomenal, as
+we shall see. Yet the technical barriers which enclose the city remain
+precisely what they were more than forty years ago, and Berlin is still
+as it was in 1861, compressed within twenty-eight square miles, six
+miles long and five and a half wide. At the close of the Franco-Prussian
+War Berlin, now the capital of a new empire, became a paradise for
+builders. Streets of houses appeared almost as if by magic, and the
+whole aspect of the city became changed. From being the worst lighted,
+the worst drained, and ugliest capital in Europe it has become one of
+the finest, cleanest, and handsomest of cities, and its population has
+more than doubled. Berlin now boasts within its boundaries 1,857,000
+inhabitants. But without there is, in Ibsen's phrase, "the younger
+generation knocking at the door," and Greater Berlin might have a
+population of 2,430,000, with an area at least treble, extending,
+indeed, as far as Potsdam. Berlin's actual increase from 1800 to 1900
+was 818 per cent., multiplying its population by nine.
+
+              [Illustration: VIENNA COMPARED WITH LONDON.]
+
+"The transformation of Vienna" has for nearly half a century been a
+watchword amongst the progressive party in the Austrian capital. The
+example of Paris--with which the Viennese love to be compared--has,
+since 1858, brought to the fore innumerable Haussmannizing projects, all
+of which have tended to the city's amplifying and beautifying. The
+second or outer girdle of fortifications has been taken down; the
+barriers thus removed, fifty suburbs became, in 1891, part and parcel of
+the capital. Before this time Vienna was twenty-one English square
+miles, or one-third less than Paris; afterwards it covered sixty-nine
+square miles, besides having by the process added half a million to its
+population, which now stands at 1,662,269. But Vienna does not intend to
+be stationary in the coming decade. The fever of the municipal race for
+territory is upon her also. She is now reaching out for the adjoining
+town of Floridsdorf across the Danube, together with four other
+communes, having a population of 50,000; and this step increases the
+area of Vienna to about eighty-two square miles, nearly thrice the size
+of Berlin. Naturally such a large territory for a population smaller
+than a third that of London would comprise much open ground, especially
+as there is great overcrowding in the industrial districts. And, as a
+matter of fact, over five-eighths of Vienna is woods, pastures and
+vineyards, and arable ground, while above a tenth of the total area is
+made up of parks, gardens, and squares. The cost of making Vienna so
+vast has been enormous; but it has not been borne by the ratepayers to
+any oppressive extent, because the appropriated military ground and
+sites of fortifications have yielded a handsome profit, and municipal
+improvements in the annexed districts have, of course, enhanced the
+value of property. Moreover, the most acute observers are convinced
+that, if Vienna had not roused herself to material self-improvement, her
+prestige, which is already threatened by Budapest, would ere this have
+completely vanished. After the Austro-Prussian struggle and the
+marvellous rise of Berlin and Budapest, the city on the Danube would
+have sunk to be the Bruges of the twentieth century.
+
+          [Illustration: ST. PETERSBURG COMPARED WITH LONDON.]
+
+There is, perhaps, hardly a capital in the world so badly situated as
+St. Petersburg. To its north and east is a desolate wilderness, and to
+its south is a mighty stretch of marshland, and it is 400 miles from any
+important commercial centre. Yet, built at the behest of an Imperial
+autocrat, it has risen steadily into magnitude and wealth, at the cost
+of hundreds of thousands of human lives.
+
+St. Petersburg is, as all the world knows, built on a swamp, or
+low-lying alluvial deposits, at the mouth of the Neva. These cover
+altogether an area of 21,185 acres, of which 12,820 are part of the
+delta proper of the river and 1,330 acres are submerged. In consequence
+of its origin and present condition the city is naturally subject to
+inundations, but these, owing to the admirable public works and
+precautions taken, are not of frequent occurrence. Of the area of the
+city, 798 acres are given up to gardens and parks, while a third of the
+whole area is densely overcrowded, the average in some districts being
+one inhabitant for every ninety-three square feet and some dwellings
+containing from 400 to 2,000 inhabitants each. As for the population, it
+is now 1,248,739, to which if that of the suburbs be added (190,635),
+the Russian capital is the fifth city of Europe. Yet in area it is far
+too small; overcrowding is universal, in spite of the 1,000 dwellings
+that are erected annually, and the mortality is appalling.
+
+            [Illustration: LIVERPOOL COMPARED WITH LONDON.]
+
+Liverpool is about six miles long by about three broad, the area being
+13,236 acres. It has a population of 686,332 within boundaries less than
+half the size of Berlin or Paris. But it comprised only 5,210 acres in
+1895. In that year, feeling cramped, Liverpool annexed an area of 8,026
+acres. Of the total area, there is comprised 772-1/2 acres of parks and
+gardens.
+
+              [Illustration: PEKING COMPARED WITH LONDON.]
+
+Peking, as we may see, is a walled city of oblong shape, and contains a
+total area of about thirty square miles. The two chief divisions are
+known as the Tartar city and the outer or Chinese city. The population
+is now about 1,000,000. Writing twenty years ago Sir Robert Douglas
+thought that a population of a mere million was "out of all proportion
+to the immense area enclosed within its walls. This disparity," he
+continued, "is partly accounted for by the fact that large spaces,
+notably in the Chinese city, are not built over, and that the grounds
+surrounding the Imperial Palace private residences are very extensive."
+
+What would he have said of Chicago, New York, Budapest, or, indeed, of
+any modern capital "expanded"? To us, at the beginning of the twentieth
+century, a million inhabitants seems a very respectable population
+indeed for a city of only thirty square miles, and in this respect we
+can no longer sneer or be astonished at the "peculiarities" of Oriental
+cities.
+
+              [Illustration: BOSTON COMPARED WITH LONDON.]
+
+Boston is one of the older and more conservative American cities which
+have lately been seized by the expansion fever, and now proudly refers
+to its "Greater Boston." But this is as yet only a term, and the new
+Boston metropolitan district, embracing all the area within a circle of
+ten miles from the State House, is hardly yet a distinct municipality.
+It will doubtless soon come about, and in that case twenty-two towns and
+cities will be taken to the bosom of "the Hub," and the total population
+will be close upon a million and a quarter. At present the area of the
+city is over thirty-seven square miles (24,000 acres), or just the size
+of Chicago a decade ago, of which 2,308 acres are common open spaces and
+126 acres ponds and rivers, in addition to numerous squares, gardens,
+and playgrounds. The length of the city is eight miles and its greatest
+breadth about seven miles.
+
+ [Illustration: COMPARED WITH LONDON.--THE SOLID BLACK AREA REPRESENTS
+       THE ACTUAL BUILDINGS OF CHICAGO; THE GREY AREA COMPLETING
+                    THE ADMINISTERED CITY.]
+
+Exactly one hundred years ago the American Government built Fort
+Dearborn, on Lake Michigan. In 1831 there was a village of one hundred
+people on the site; to-day the city of Chicago has spread out (rather
+too generously, its rival municipalities think) until it comprises
+190-1/2 square miles and a population of 1,698,575. But only some
+seventy square miles of this area is improved, and less than fifty miles
+built upon. As there are also 2,232 acres of parks and open spaces,
+Chicago cannot be said to be overcrowded; especially when one remembers
+the great height of most of the buildings in the business quarter.
+Chicago's expansion, in truth, follows the lines laid down by the early
+Western boom "cities," which were prairie wilderness one week, were
+surveyed the next, had a population of twelve, one man to the square
+mile, and applied for a charter the week following, and elected a Mayor
+and Corporation. The next week the boom was over and a mere shanty
+remained to mark the site of Boomopolis.
+
+   [Illustration: NEW YORK COMPARED WITH LONDON, THE SOLID BLACK AREA
+            REPRESENTING THE ACTUAL BUILDINGS, THE GREY AREA
+                   COMPLETING THE ADMINISTERED CITY.]
+
+Before 1898 the city of New York lay partly on Manhattan Island, a long
+and narrow strip of land at the head of New York Bay, thirteen miles
+long and twenty-two square miles in area, and partly, although to a very
+trifling extent so far as population was concerned, north of the Harlem
+River, and on several small islands in the bay and East River. The total
+area was forty-two square miles, within which was a population of
+1,515,301 souls. But in the aforementioned year the great arms of the
+city flung themselves out and gathered to its bosom so many of the
+outlying parts and people as to bring the total area of Greater New York
+up to 307 square miles, and the population to 3,437,202. It must be
+confessed that much of this huge municipal territory has been rather
+irrelevantly brought in--especially Staten Island (area 57.19 square
+miles), which is separated from New York proper by the width of the bay.
+But, on the other hand, other and nearer towns, such as Jersey City and
+Hoboken, were excluded, for the reason that they were in another State.
+Within Greater New York are included 6,766 acres of parks and open
+spaces, which is but little more than half that of London; yet the
+proportion of unoccupied land not under the control of the city is, of
+course, many times as great. The actual agglomeration of buildings in
+Greater New York--excluding Staten Island--covers barely 51,000 acres,
+or eighty square miles, as is shown in the diagram. Less than 5,000
+acres is built upon in Staten Island.
+
+
+
+
+                         _Some Novel Banquets._
+
+                           BY THEODORE ADAMS.
+
+
+The art of him who prepares the banquet has reached, in these latter
+days, a distinction of novelty which might reasonably make the
+gastronomer of fifty years ago hold up his knife and fork in wonder. It
+is a novelty born of the desire for change. No longer does the
+dinner-giver merely prepare, with the aid of his costly _chef_, the menu
+for his guests and the viands on it. He--or, more properly, she, because
+of the present prominence of the fair hostess--tries not only to set a
+pretty table with flowers and cutlery of gold. The giver of dinners is
+ever thinking of that which will make the banquet memorable to the
+guest, and, in some cases, even wonders what the Press will say about
+it. This means to lie awake at night, and in such nightly vigils many
+wondrous things have been evolved.
+
+Thus we have come to hear of banquets under conditions that make the
+imagination reel, and arouse speculation as to what the dinner of the
+twenty-first century will be like. When thirty-two people sat about on
+horseback a year ago, in a temporary stable, eating from dishes handed
+to them by waiters dressed as grooms, it seemed as if the top notch of
+_bizarrerie_ had been reached. But, as the German says, _noch nicht_.
+
+   [Illustration: A HORSEBACK DINNER IN A HOTEL BALLROOM, THE TABLES
+                   BEING CARRIED IN FRONT OF THE SADDLES.
+                       _From a Photo. by Byron._]
+
+This remarkable horseback dinner was given in the great ballroom at
+Sherry's by Mr. C. K. G. Billings, of New York, and, as it was intended
+to celebrate the construction of a new stable, the rumour went round
+that the banquet would be held in the structure itself. The guests,
+however, met at Sherry's, and were escorted to a small banquet room,
+where a long table, in the form of an ellipse, was lavishly banked with
+flowers. The centre space was occupied by a stuffed horse, which cast
+his glass eyes curiously upon the assembly as the oysters and caviare
+were served. So convinced were the guests that this was the real and
+much-talked-about equestrian dinner that their surprise was great when
+they were asked to follow their host into an adjoining room.
+
+"Here," according to the report of one who was at this famous banquet,
+"there had taken place an amazing transformation, for the decoration,
+the waxed floors, and everything of the world of indoors had been
+obliterated. A space sixty-five by eighty-five feet in the centre of the
+room had been enclosed by scenery. The guests were in a land of winding
+roadways, of brooks which coursed through green meadows, and of giant
+elms. There were cottages, vine-covered, and at the edge of a country
+estate was a porter's lodge. Far away stretched fields of grain. Over
+all was the blaze of a summer sun, for above in a vault of blue were
+strung electric lights. On all sides was the country, and in the middle
+of the room, rising in a pyramid, were geraniums, daisies, and roses,
+all blooming as if in the air of June. Above them a palm formed the apex
+of a pyramid thirty feet at the base. The floor was covered with long,
+velvety grass. Around the centrepiece were arranged thirty-one horses
+waiting for their riders. Mr. Billings's mount stood near the door,
+gazing into the geranium bed. How the steeds got up to the ballroom is
+no mystery in these days of large lifts, and they were well-trained
+horses, who cared not for lights and unusual conditions. Each guest
+found his mount by means of a horseshoe-shaped card attached to the
+saddle of the horse, just as he had been guided to his seat at the
+preliminary banquet by means of the bits of Bristol-board at each
+cover."
+
+Between every two horses there was placed a carpet-covered block, from
+which the diners swung into their saddles, where, from little tables
+placed upon the pommels, they ate their splendid dinner. The horses
+showed little nervousness. Their trappings were yellow and gold, making
+pretty contrast with the costumes of the servants, who wore trousers of
+white buckskin, scarlet coats, and boots with yellow tops. Towards the
+end of the feast the horses were treated with a consideration due to
+their efforts, for a turkey-red fence surrounding the floral pyramid was
+discovered by the guests to contain feeding-troughs in which had been
+placed a plentiful quantity of superior oats. After dinner the horses
+were taken from the room by the grooms, small tables and chairs were
+brought in, and the guests sat down to an after-dinner chat as if in a
+beautiful garden.
+
+   [Illustration: A DINNER OF THE NEW YORK EQUESTRIAN CLUB, THE TABLE
+                      REPRESENTING A HORSE'S HEAD.
+                       _From a Photo. by Byron._]
+
+The horse has figured in a less ambitious, though perhaps quite as
+attractive, manner at the dinners of the Equestrian Club, which meets in
+New York during the winter once a month. For one of these banquets was
+arranged a rural scene with trees, shrubs, and beautiful beds of tulips
+and hyacinths, the whole floor being covered with stage grass. The table
+represented a horse's head, chairs being placed around the neck, while
+the head proper of the horse was a mass of flowers, with eyes, nose, and
+mouth displayed by means of ornamental and many-coloured flowers. The
+bridle, particularly, stood out strongly in brilliant red. The menu was
+formed in the shape of a horse's head, with a small bit and bridle made
+of leather and steel attached to it.
+
+             [Illustration: A DINNER INSIDE AN EASTER EGG.
+                       _From a Photo. by Byron._]
+
+The use of effective scenery at such functions is growing more common.
+Perhaps the most effective use to which it was ever put was at the Proal
+banquet of April, 1903, when thirty-five ladies dined within a monster
+Easter egg. The egg itself towered to the top of Sherry's ballroom and
+extended almost to the outer walls. Outside the egg was represented a
+farm on which chickens, ducks, geese, rabbits, pigs, lambs, and
+guinea-pigs disported to the life--for they were really live. The
+ballroom had been turned into a fine landscape, with scenes representing
+fields and pastures, with flowing brooks near by, and farmhouses,
+windmills, and hayricks in the distance. One or two mirrors reflected
+parts of this landscape, which had been arranged to express that longing
+for "green fields and pastures new" which comes to all who live a city
+life when spring appears.
+
+In every respect the farm was true to life. A farmer with blue overalls
+and smock passed in front of the guests, followed by a flock of geese.
+Pigs ran between his legs, and the spring lamb frisked upon the green.
+Rabbits munched their carrots until, timid at the sight of strange
+people, they hid themselves in the straw which lay about. Around were
+scattered the implements of labour, as if the farmers had just left
+their work. There were scythes, mowing-machines, milk-pails, and
+milking-stools to be seen. Every detail, in fact, had been thought of
+necessary to make the illusion complete, and the guests--all of whom had
+been kept in ignorance until they came into the room--were justly
+astonished at the sight.
+
+The egg itself, with its shell of white, was geometrically perfect, and
+brought to mind the famous tale of Sindbad and the gigantic roc. The
+shell was fashioned with light timber bands bent to the required shape,
+and the supports were covered with green, all making a delightful
+arbour-like effect. The table was oval in form, hollowed in the centre,
+within which were floral decorations representing the white and yellow
+of an egg. Daffodils and jonquils were used for the yolk, while lilies,
+candytuft, and other white flowers were freely used. The air was filled
+with fragrance from these blooms. Mrs. Proal sat at the head of the
+ornamental table, with her guests around the oval. Music was provided by
+a band of negro musicians, who, seating themselves on wooden benches
+outside the dining-room, sang plantation melodies. The waiters were
+dressed as farm-labourers in gaily coloured shirts and smocks, with
+wisps of straw upon their heads. Fortunate, indeed, were the thirty-five
+women who took part at this unique banquet, for the farm and its giant
+egg had come into existence only for a single day, to be destroyed when
+luncheon was ended and its use was over.
+
+ [Illustration: THE GUESTS OF THE KETTLE CLUB DINNER WITH THE KETTLE IN
+                           WHICH THEY DINED.
+                       _From a Photo. by Byron._]
+
+We already begin to see in these dinners the existence of a new form of
+humour. This is shown even better in the so-called "babies' dinner"
+given at Sherry's by a Philadelphia organization called the Kettle Club.
+This club, composed of gentlemen who summer in the Adirondack Mountains,
+and who eat their forest meals round a vast and fragrant kettle,
+recently decided to admit five new members, or "babies." The only
+condition of candidacy was that the "babies" should show due
+appreciation of the honour conferred upon them. The result was a banquet
+such as had never been held before. To it were invited the older members
+of the club. The ballroom resembled a forest glade. Round the walls were
+painted forests with real trees in the foreground, to one of which was
+hitched a hunting-horse. The scenic effects included a dark blue cloth
+which represented a sky, with a moon in the distance and twinkling
+stars. In the centre of the room rested on a tall mound a huge kettle,
+twenty-five feet high and twenty-eight feet in diameter, with a door at
+one side reached by a rustic stairway. There was a circular table within
+the kettle, around which sat the guests, each with a wine "cooler" at
+his side.
+
+In the centre of the table, perfectly dark when dinner began, was a bed
+of tall flowers on the floor, nine feet below. Suddenly, when this hole
+was lighted, was revealed a magnificent display of orchids, with a vine
+of pale purple flowers. Below sat a negro with a banjo, who sang and
+played throughout the evening for the pleasure of the guests. The menu
+card showed a picture of the kettle, into which five babies were
+climbing, the faces of these being those of the five new members, each
+with a teething ring, a nursing bottle, and a rattle. Souvenirs of the
+occasion were given to the guests in the form of small kettles, each
+with the name of the guest and the club motto, "Take the Kettle,"
+painted on the side. This same inscription appeared on the structure in
+which the banquet took place, as shown in our illustration. Here we may
+note the part which the backcloth played at this noteworthy function.
+
+           [Illustration: THE OLD GUARDS' "MOCK-MENU" DINNER.
+                       _From a Photo. by Byron._]
+
+Another novel dinner was that given by a well-known New Yorker, Colonel
+O'Brien, to the Old Guard of Delmonico's, known to fame as the guard
+that "dines but never surrenders." For this affair two menus had been
+provided, one as a joke, the other for consumption. The mock bill of
+fare contained a list of dishes which _might_ have been provided. For
+example, under the heading of oysters were the words "half shell," which
+the waiters solemnly set before the assembled gentlemen, minus the
+bivalves. These being removed made way for the next item, which, being
+"cream of celery" and presumably a soup, was found to be small tubes of
+celery with cold cream inside. Through all the regular courses the joke
+was carried, with amusing success, the joint being spring lamb with
+"string," or French, beans. What was the astonishment of the guests to
+find served for this course a woolly toy lamb on a spring, which
+squeaked when pressed, and wore dried beans on a string around its neck!
+The humour of the dinner came with the continued surprise at the
+ingenuity shown by the preparer of the feast, and it can be truly said
+that each item tickled the guests immensely. With the woolly lambs this
+band of gastronomers were especially pleased, and it was at the moment
+when these ridiculous toys were handed round to the well-proportioned
+diners that our photograph was secured.
+
+           [Illustration: THE "LYRE DINNER," THE TABLE BEING
+                         IN THE FORM OF A LYRE.
+                       _From a Photo. by Byron._]
+
+A few years ago Mr. Sherry himself was returning with the _impresario_,
+Maurice Grau, from Europe, and as the result of a wager upon the ship's
+"run" Mr. Grau was given a splendid dinner. It is now known in
+gastronomic history as the "lyre dinner," for the table was arranged in
+the form of an enormous lyre. Long gilded ropes covered with pretty
+vines represented the strings, while, to carry out the idea of the
+instrument, there was a golden cloth on the inner side of the table.
+Into this were woven mauve orchids, with electric lights sparkling under
+the green leaves, thus bringing out sufficient brilliancy to please the
+guests and not to affect their eyesight. Between each two seats of the
+table was a wine "cooler," sunk into the wood in such a way that the
+neck only of each champagne bottle showed above the edge. The banquet
+was attended by those best known to music in New York, and its
+brilliancy has probably never been surpassed.
+
+
+
+
+                          _A Doubtful Case._
+               BY MRS. EGERTON EASTWICK (PLEYDELL NORTH).
+
+
+When, in the year 189-, a weakness of the throat prevented me from
+preaching for a time, I had considerable difficulty in persuading Allan
+Fortescue to take my place in the pulpit.
+
+He had been amongst us rather more than two years; and although an
+ordained priest in the Church of England, and a man of considerable
+ability, was without preferment, and, apparently, content to remain so.
+
+How came it, I often wondered, that he stayed on in our quiet village,
+with no apparent interest or occupation in life beyond his garden and
+his books?
+
+Nor, when he at length consented to my proposal and preached his first
+sermon in Stony Lea, was my perplexity lessened. His diction was that of
+a classical scholar, but his words were also the outpouring of a
+sensitive, warm-hearted man; I could have fancied that in these
+impersonal utterances he sought compensation for years of enforced
+silence and isolation.
+
+He had attracted me from the first. Manly, genial, but strangely
+reserved, Sir Lewin Maxwell and myself were, I believe, the only
+visitors who had gained admittance to his cottage.
+
+When I so far induced him to change his habits as to help me with my
+weekly sermons Sir Lewin Maxwell was abroad. He had left Stony Lea for
+the Riviera in November, and now, early in May, the fact of his marriage
+had just been announced. No particulars, however, concerning the bride
+had reached us, and the appearance of the newly-married couple at the
+Hall was looked for with much interest and curiosity. They did not come
+until June, and then, by the express desire of Sir Lewin, were met by no
+demonstration of any kind; indeed, no one, I believe, except the steward
+and myself knew the exact date or hour at which they were to be
+expected.
+
+On the Sunday following their arrival, therefore, glances were turned
+with some eagerness towards the Hall pew, but it was occupied only by a
+stout, elderly lady, who could not assuredly be Sir Lewin's
+newly-married wife.
+
+No sooner, on that day, had Allan Fortescue in due course mounted the
+pulpit than I became aware of something amiss. From my position in the
+chancel I could not see his face, but the pause which preceded his
+announcement of a text was just long enough to cause uneasiness, and his
+voice, when at length he broke the silence, was harsh and unnatural,
+although, when once fairly started, he spoke with even more than his
+usual fervour.
+
+When I reached the sacristy after the service Fortescue had already
+left, and as I was preparing to follow him I was accosted by the lady
+whom I had seen in the squire's pew.
+
+      [Illustration: "SHE TURNED TO ME AND INQUIRED WHETHER I WAS
+               AWARE OF THE TRUE CHARACTER OF THE MAN."]
+
+My visitor's comely, good-tempered face was flushed with heat and
+nervous indignation. After abruptly closing the sacristy door upon the
+two of us she turned to me and inquired whether I was aware of the true
+character of the man I had admitted to my pulpit, adding that it was
+with the greatest difficulty she had refrained from walking out of the
+church.
+
+Somewhat startled, I asked for further explanation, whereupon she gave
+me, at considerable length, the particulars I will here try to relate as
+concisely as possible.
+
+It seemed that about five years previously Allan Fortescue had been
+engaged as resident tutor to Mrs. Llewellyn's only son, and in that
+capacity had accompanied the family to Llidisfarn, a solitary,
+old-fashioned place in Wales. The house was occupied for the greater
+part of the year by a gardener and his wife as caretakers; but during
+the residence of their mistress these people retired to their own
+cottage. Mrs. Llewellyn brought with her two old and faithful
+servants--both women. Her party further included her niece and ward,
+Edith Graham, now Sir Lewin Maxwell's wife. The evening of her arrival
+Mrs. Llewellyn retired early to her room and to bed. The latter was an
+antiquated four-poster; the canopy had been removed for the sake of air,
+but the curtains remained, and on the night in question, the weather
+being boisterous and the room draughty, had been drawn so as to have
+only a small opening at the foot. Before retiring Mrs. Llewellyn had
+taken from her travelling-bag an ebony and silver casket which contained
+some valuable diamonds. She had intended placing the casket in an iron
+safe near the head of the bed, but had found the lock rusty from disuse;
+consequently, being exceedingly tired, and believing there could be no
+fear of burglars in this quiet and remote place, she left the casket on
+the dressing-table.
+
+The dressing-table faced the door of the room, and to cross from one to
+the other it was necessary to pass the foot of the bed.
+
+     [Illustration: "A FIGURE CARRYING A SMALL READING-LAMP PASSED
+                             THE APERTURE."]
+
+In the dead of the night Mrs. Llewellyn awoke, feeling sure that someone
+was stirring in the room, and, as she became more fully conscious, saw
+on the ceiling above her a dim reflection of light. Almost at the same
+moment a figure carrying a small reading-lamp passed the aperture
+between the curtains at the foot of the bed, going towards the door, and
+she recognised, to her amazement, the tutor, Allan Fortescue. She
+described herself as being too surprised and terrified to call out; it
+seemed but a moment before the door was closed and she was in darkness
+and alone. Then she struck a light, sprang from the bed, and went to the
+dressing-table. The ebony casket was gone. Even then she gave no alarm.
+Except her son and Allan Fortescue, only women were in the house; and
+she reflected that it would be safer and wiser to wait until the
+morning. That the thief should dispose of the diamonds during the night
+was virtually impossible. Also the circumstances were otherwise
+peculiar. Allan Fortescue was at that time the avowed admirer of Miss
+Graham, and for her sake an open scandal was, if possible, to be
+avoided.
+
+The following morning, however, after hours of sleepless anxiety, Mrs.
+Llewellyn summoned the tutor to the study, made her accusation, and
+demanded the return of her property.
+
+He did not attempt either to explain or deny his presence in her room
+during the night, but appeared to treat the idea of theft as a ludicrous
+jest, and stoutly maintained that the jewels were not in his possession.
+During the altercation which followed Miss Graham entered, and Fortescue
+at once explained the situation.
+
+Apparently to his surprise, Miss Graham took the affair very seriously,
+and seemed to feel that the evidence against him was overwhelming. She
+pleaded, however, so piteously that for her sake he might be spared from
+public disgrace that Mrs. Llewellyn finally consented to allow him to
+leave the house, upon the understanding that he should seek no further
+intercourse with any member of the family, and that he should never
+again undertake the duties either of a clergyman or a tutor. Under these
+circumstances he at last seemed to realize the seriousness of his
+position; he went away that morning, maintaining towards the end an
+obstinate silence. The most rigorous search, made at his own request,
+among his possessions failed to reveal the diamonds, which, indeed, had
+never since been heard of.
+
+I also gathered that, although made fully aware of the penalty to be
+incurred by any breach of the conditions named, he had steadily refused
+to bind himself as to his future.
+
+That afternoon, as soon as I was at leisure, I walked down to Allan
+Fortescue's cottage.
+
+Shocked and distressed as I was at the story, I felt many points in it
+needed clearing up, and was inwardly assured that, if he would, he had
+the power to explain the whole matter satisfactorily.
+
+He opened the door himself.
+
+"I know," he said, abruptly, before I could speak, "why you have come.
+Mrs. Llewellyn was with you this morning; I saw her rustling up towards
+the sacristy. Don't let charity bring you any farther."
+
+I signed to him to let me come in.
+
+"We can't talk on the doorstep," I said. "Of course, it is all a
+mistake."
+
+He let me come to the study; then, as he closed the door behind me, he
+said:--
+
+"There is no mistake. I was there--in her room that night. She saw me."
+
+"You were not there to take the diamonds," I persisted.
+
+"I was not there to steal the diamonds; I will own so much."
+
+"In that case, who did steal them, if stolen they were? No pains should
+have been spared at the time to discover the actual thief. Even now it
+might not be too late, if you would only account for your presence in
+the room."
+
+"The actual thief----" He began restlessly to pace the floor. "What if I
+were to say that I took the diamonds--with my own hands?"
+
+"I should answer that you must have been in some way unconscious of your
+actions."
+
+My confidence seemed to touch him; he looked at me, and for a moment I
+hoped I was to gain some enlightenment; then he said, slowly:--
+
+"I was never in my life more completely master of myself. And now there
+must be an end of my confessions."
+
+I saw that to question him further would be useless, and shortly
+afterwards took my leave. As we parted he grasped my extended hand.
+
+"I owe you an apology," he said, "for having brought this annoyance upon
+you, and I don't know how to thank you for your patience with me."
+
+A few days later an invitation reached me to dine at the Hall. Any
+intercourse between Allan Fortescue and Sir Lewin Maxwell had inevitably
+ceased. Sir Lewin, not unnaturally, accepted Mrs. Llewellyn's view of
+the case, but he did not quarrel with me for taking my own line, and
+young Lady Maxwell seemed almost grateful for my belief in the possible
+innocence of her old lover. She was a most charming woman, with an
+habitually sweet and gracious manner, rendered only more attractive, I
+at first thought, by a variableness of mood which brought suggestion of
+possible storms.
+
+An accomplished musician, her talent made a link between us. Often,
+indeed, during the earlier part of our intercourse she became associated
+in my mind with the harmonies of Beethoven, whose creations she rendered
+with remarkable skill and feeling. Later, however, I noticed an increase
+of nervous restlessness, an expression in her eyes as of some haunting,
+eager desire, little in keeping with the works of the master, which,
+however full of variety, are to my mind always instinct with a great
+satisfaction and repose.
+
+For some time I was inclined to attribute these signs of disturbance to
+the neighbourhood of Allan Fortescue, and to think that he would have
+done well to leave the village. But, so far as I could see, he
+studiously avoided all chance of encounter with any of the Hall party;
+and, without definite reason, I had not the heart to suggest that he
+should become once more a wanderer.
+
+In this way some few months passed without noticeable event. Sir Lewin,
+I thought, at times looked careworn and more aged than the passage of
+months would justify, but he seemed, if possible, more entirely devoted
+to his wife than in the earlier days of their marriage. Then, one Monday
+afternoon early in April, as I was riding homewards from visiting an
+outlying district, a curious thing happened.
+
+My way led me through Oxley Dell, a piece of road bordered on each side
+by Sir Lewin's woods, through which to the right a bridle-path leads by
+a short cut to Stony Lea. The path and immediate neighbourhood are but
+little frequented, owing to an old story of a murder and a subsequent
+ghost.
+
+   [Illustration: "A WOMAN SUDDENLY APPEARED FROM AMONG THE TREES."]
+
+As I neared the Dell I saw Allan Fortescue tramping along the road in
+front of me, but before I could overtake him he turned aside into the
+bridle-path. There I presently followed, and had him once more in view,
+when a woman suddenly appeared from among the trees and accosted him.
+Allan raised his hat, and the two walked on together; the meeting had
+the air of an appointment.
+
+Having no wish to play the spy I turned my pony's head, but I was ill at
+ease. The tall, graceful figure of the woman, enveloped though it was in
+a long rain-coat, had been ominously familiar, and as I jogged slowly
+homewards I resolved that I would call that evening on Allan and have
+the matter out with him.
+
+I found him in better spirits than usual, but when I explained my errand
+he seemed somewhat disconcerted.
+
+"Ah! you saw us," he said, and bent to knock the ashes from his pipe;
+then added, "You are sure, I suppose, of the identity of the lady?"
+
+"As sure as it is possible to be without having seen her face to face."
+
+"Still, you might be utterly mistaken. Would it not be better, for the
+sake of--the lady chiefly concerned in your mind--to give her the
+benefit of the doubt?"
+
+His eyes met mine fully, I answered question with question.
+
+"Do you think you are dealing fairly with me? Strictly speaking, perhaps
+this is no affair of mine, and yet----"
+
+"And yet you have been extraordinarily good to me, and deserve that I
+should be open with you. I can only ask you to trust me a little
+farther; to believe that the meeting you witnessed to-day cannot
+possibly injure the lady you are thinking of except through your
+interference, and that it was as far removed from being of a sentimental
+nature as though I had met my grandmother."
+
+The Friday following this interview I received a visit from the squire;
+he looked ill and harassed.
+
+"I am vexed," he said, "about Edith. She went to town for a day's
+shopping on Wednesday and has not returned. She was to lunch with Mrs.
+Llewellyn and come back for dinner. She has frequently made these little
+excursions of late. In the evening, however, I got a telegram to say she
+was detained by the dressmaker, and yesterday morning a letter to the
+same effect. This morning I had no letter, but half an hour ago I met
+General Anson--he had just arrived by the three o'clock train. He told
+me that he had seen Edith having lunch at Franconi's with Fortescue.
+They did not see him--his table was behind theirs--but as he left the
+room he passed close to them and heard Fortescue say, 'To-night, then,
+without fail, by the seven-thirty.' 'So,' the old man went on, 'I
+suppose Lady Maxwell comes down to-night, and Mr. Fortescue is to escort
+her. I thought there was a coolness--that he was under a cloud.' I
+laughed, and told him it was a case of mistaken identity."
+
+"And Fortescue?"
+
+"He went to London yesterday; I happen to know that."
+
+I must here mention that Stony Lea, although but a small village in
+Kent, has a good train service, and is but an hour's run from town. I
+looked at my watch. It was barely four o'clock. "Why not," I said, "go
+up to town by the four-forty-five, and travel down yourself with Lady
+Maxwell when she is prepared to come? You could be in Belgrave Road
+before six o'clock."
+
+"Will you come with me?" he asked.
+
+I consented; and by 6.30 we were in Belgrave Road.
+
+Mrs. Llewellyn's house had an empty, uninhabited air, and the servant
+who came to the door said his mistress had been out of town for a few
+days. Lady Maxwell had been staying there during the week. She had
+driven out in the morning and not returned until four o'clock; then,
+after a cup of tea, she had gone out again, walking; she had said she
+was leaving town that evening, and would return about half-past six in a
+cab for various parcels that were awaiting her.
+
+"Quite so," Sir Lewin said; "she is travelling down with me. I will wait
+for her here," and he walked straight into the drawing-room, whither I
+followed him. The room opened into the hall. Presently a hansom drove
+up; Lady Maxwell got out and entered the house with a latch-key. Sir
+Lewin moved towards the door of the room as though intending to meet
+her, when the arrival of another cab made him pause and look round. Lady
+Maxwell ran lightly upstairs; the door was ajar and I heard the
+swish-swish of her skirts. The second cab was a four-wheeler; Fortescue
+descended from it, and the electric bell of the front door tingled
+persistently in the silence of the house. Then we heard him asking for
+Lady Maxwell, and almost before the servant could reply Sir Lewin was on
+the doorstep. Fearful of what might ensue I followed him from the room;
+I saw him touch Fortescue on the shoulder, and Allan's start of surprise
+and, apparently, dismay; then the two men entered the hall together.
+
+"Now," said Sir Lewin, "kindly explain your presence here and your
+business with my wife."
+
+Allan's answer was unexpected.
+
+"I think," he said, quietly, "I will leave that to Lady Maxwell
+herself."
+
+They had spoken so far in low tones and with outward calm; now Sir Lewin
+muttered angrily some words which I could not hear, and raised his arm.
+
+     [Illustration: "SIR LEWIN MUTTERED ANGRILY SOME WORDS WHICH I
+                 COULD NOT HEAR, AND RAISED HIS ARM."]
+
+I stepped forward.
+
+"Come into the drawing-room," I said hurriedly in his ear. "Don't make a
+public scene."
+
+He shook me off, but at that moment another and more importunate voice
+intervened.
+
+"My dear Lewin, you here? How exceedingly fortunate! Now we need not
+rush for that seven-thirty train; you and dear Edith can stay to
+dinner."
+
+There was a darkening of the doorway, a rustle of garments, and Mrs.
+Llewellyn advanced with outstretched hands.
+
+Sir Lewin stared in blank amazement. Allan smiled.
+
+"I was in the cab," went on the lady, "waiting for Edith. Mr. Fortescue
+kindly drove with me from the station, and I had intended to travel down
+with her, trusting, my dear Lewin, to your hospitality to put me up for
+the night. I am so sorry I have been unable to return before, to be with
+the dear child all the time."
+
+She had talked us all to the drawing-room door.
+
+"I still quite fail to see," began Sir Lewin, stiffly, "how Mr.
+Fortescue----"
+
+"I will explain," said Lady Maxwell. She had come down the stairs
+unheard, and now advanced towards us. Her face was as white as the gown
+she wore, her eyes looked wild and startled. "Come with me," she added
+to Sir Lewin, and led the way to a small back room. He followed her
+without a word.
+
+"Pay the cab," said Mrs. Llewellyn, cheerfully, to the servant, "and
+bring all those packages in. Sir Lewin and Lady Maxwell will remain to
+dinner. Mr. Greyling and Mr. Fortescue, please come in, and let me offer
+you some refreshment."
+
+She moved towards the dining-room and, the door being safely closed,
+fell gasping into a chair. There was wine upon the side-board; Allan
+poured some into a glass and brought it to her. She sighed heavily as
+she took it. "How all this is to end, Heaven only knows!"
+
+"I think," said Allan, "there is nothing further for me to do. If you
+will allow me I will bid you good-night."
+
+She looked at him curiously, the wineglass half-way to her lips.
+
+"Can you," she said, "trust your vindication to us?"
+
+"Entirely. It has come to be the last thing I think about," he answered,
+sadly; "and, if she may in any degree be spared, I beg that it may be
+the very last thing in your mind also."
+
+A few minutes later Allan and I left the house. We dined in town and
+travelled back to Stony Lea together; but he offered me no explanation
+of the events of the afternoon, and I respected his silence.
+
+Nearly a week passed before I heard anything further about the matter.
+
+Then, one morning, Sir Lewin called upon me; he and Lady Maxwell had
+returned only the previous night from town. He made no reference to the
+circumstances of our last meeting, but asked me to come to the Hall that
+afternoon, as his wife was far from well, and anxious to see me.
+
+I went accordingly and found her alone, lying upon a couch in her
+morning-room and looking sadly, terribly changed.
+
+"I have asked you to come," she said, when I had taken a seat beside
+her, "because I want to tell you the truth about Allan Fortescue; he has
+suffered all these years through my fault, and I must make what
+reparation I can before----It was I who really had the diamonds; I
+wanted them, and I employed him to bring me the casket; he did this
+quite innocently, as you will hear, not knowing what it contained. I had
+seen it on the dressing-table when I went to say good-night to my aunt
+just after she had gone to bed--about nine o'clock; but I was equally
+afraid either to take it then or to return to the room in the dark later
+on. Yet the chance seemed too good to be lost; I had never seen the
+casket left exposed before; it was always kept under lock and key. On my
+way downstairs I met Allan Fortescue, and we went together to the
+drawing-room. As we sat chatting by the fire, the plan I afterwards
+carried out occurred to me. The talk turned upon ghosts, and he said he
+should much like to meet one. Then I told him, truly, that one room in
+the house was said to be haunted by the spirit of a lady who had died
+there mysteriously on her return from a ball at which she had promised
+her lover to elope with him. I explained that nothing had been disturbed
+since the morning she was found there, dead in her chair before the
+mirror; but instead of the room to which the story really attached I
+described the one I had just left, and dared him to visit it after
+midnight. He said he had no fear, but I added that I should not believe
+in his courage unless he brought me as a proof a small ebony casket
+which had always stood upon the dressing-table. He laughed and said he
+would do even that, and I promised to meet him in the conservatory the
+following morning before breakfast to receive it and hear his
+experiences. He was quite strange to the house and did not know how any
+of the bedrooms were occupied except his own and his pupil's, which were
+in another wing. In the morning he handed me the casket as arranged. You
+know the rest; you see he was helpless in my hands."
+
+"Do you mean to tell me," I asked, "that you wrecked a man's life for a
+few jewels?"
+
+  [Illustration: "'DON'T JUDGE ME TOO HARDLY,' SHE SAID, PITEOUSLY."]
+
+"Don't judge me too hardly," she said, piteously. "I was in terrible
+straits. I had been staying with some of my father's relations in town,
+and had learned much of a side of life concerning which Aunt Mary knew
+practically nothing. I owed a great deal of money, and was afraid to
+tell her about it. When I had the diamonds I was able to put off the
+most threatening of my creditors with promises of payment, and, later,
+one of my cousins helped me to dispose of the stones. I told him they
+were some jewels of my mother's which had just been made over to me.
+Aunt Mary would hold no intercourse with my father's family, so I had no
+fear of awkward explanations. When I was twenty-one I came in for a
+little money, all that was left of my mother's fortune, and I gave Aunt
+Mary some fresh jewels. You see, I had inherited certain tendencies from
+my father--perhaps in the beginning there was some excuse for me; you
+will understand when I say that he died from a hurt received in a
+gambling quarrel when I was about twelve years old. The house and all he
+possessed were sold to pay his debts, and Aunt Mary took charge of me.
+It was a great change. To me at all events my father had been good
+always, and I loved him dearly.
+
+"As to Allan Fortescue, when he found how I had tricked him he was
+furious, but I managed to see him alone and persuaded him to accept the
+situation. You see, I had contrived things so that his speaking would
+have been of very little use unless I had chosen to confess--only his
+word against mine. Of course, I was dreadfully upset when I found that
+Aunt Mary had seen him. That was just what I had not counted upon; but I
+couldn't go back then and give up the jewels--I couldn't. I promised him
+that, if he would keep silence, I would never be reckless and
+extravagant or wicked again; and for a long time I kept my word. But
+life was dreadfully dull, and the thought of what I had done made me
+wretched; if Allan had been prosecuted I don't think I could have borne
+it--I must have spoken out. As it was, I became subject to dreadful fits
+of depression, and I think Aunt Mary was very glad to get me safely
+married, as she called it. For a time, then, I was very happy; for I
+loved Lewin dearly, and I tried to forget. Then, finding Allan here,
+seeing the wreck I had made of his life, brought back to me all my
+trouble. I began to crave again for excitement of any sort. Lewin
+thought I was ill, and at first used to give me champagne as a tonic.
+
+"When we were in town last year I got back into the old set, from a
+different standpoint, and with more money at command----"
+
+Once more she stopped, but I would not again interrupt her; I felt that
+the whole sad story must be finished now.
+
+"I don't know," she continued, presently, "how Allan Fortescue
+discovered what was going on, but he did. One day I received a
+communication from him--I can't call it a letter--telling me that he
+knew the sort of life I was leading, and that unless I kept my promise
+to him he would speak and tell Lewin the truth even now. He knew and
+could prove where I had sold the diamonds. In reply to that I induced
+him to meet me in the Oxley Woods, and persuaded him to give me a little
+more time. I promised to tell Lewin that very night about my debts.
+Instead, I went to London. I really meant to start afresh; but I thought
+I could raise some money and get fairly straight without saying anything
+to my husband. I--I stayed longer than I meant. Allan came to look for
+me. He followed me to the places where he thought I was likely to be--he
+must have kept a watch upon me for some time past--but our meeting at
+last was accidental. I was really at my wits' end, and I went into
+Franconi's with Allan to talk things over. We saw General Anson leave
+the place, and I think that made Allan decide there must be no more
+concealment; also, I suppose he felt it was useless to trust me any
+longer. He went straight from me to Aunt Mary and fetched her. She knew
+that he must be speaking the truth. I had promised to go home that night
+anyhow; but I don't know what I might have done if I had been left to
+myself. Then you and Lewin appeared----It is better as it is--I should
+never have had the strength, the courage--I am so sorry--so sorry--for
+Lewin--for myself--for Allan--for my little child that is coming----"
+
+She turned her face to the wall, and I saw her slight frame shiver with
+voiceless, choking tears.
+
+There is little more to tell. Lady Maxwell lived only a few months after
+she had made this confession. Her child survived--a son--and there are
+three men who watch over that boy with perhaps exaggerated solicitude
+and love--his father, Allan Fortescue, and myself.
+
+Will he reward our care? I think so. He has his mother's face and charm,
+but in character he takes after Sir Lewin. Allan Fortescue has remained
+in the village as my curate. I trust he may never leave me, and that the
+bishop may see fit hereafter to appoint him vicar in my stead; I am
+growing old.
+
+
+
+
+                       _Illustrated Interviews._
+
+                     No. LXXXI.--DR. EDWARD ELGAR.
+
+                         BY RUDOLPH DE CORDOVA.
+
+
+                             [Illustration:
+     _From a Photo. by_] DR. EDWARD ELGAR. [_George Newnes, Ltd._]
+
+"If ever this votary of the muse of song looked from the hills of his
+present home at Malvern, from the cradle of English poetry, the scene of
+the vision of Piers Plowman, and from the British camp, with its
+legendary memories of his own 'Caractacus,' and in the light of the
+rising sun sees the towers of Tewkesbury and Gloucester and Worcester,
+he might recall in that view the earlier stages of his career, and
+confess with modest pride, like the bard in the 'Odyssey':--
+
+    Self-taught I sing; 'tis Heaven, and Heaven alone,
+    Inspires my song with music all its own."
+
+                             [Illustration:
+   _From a Photo. by_] DR. ELGAR'S HOUSE AT MALVERN. [_George Newnes
+   Ltd._]
+
+It was in November, 1900, that these words were spoken by the Orator
+when the University of Cambridge honoured itself by conferring the
+honorary degree of Doctor of Music on Dr. Elgar, whom one of the most
+distinguished German writers on music declared to be "the most brilliant
+champion of the National School of Composition which is beginning to
+bloom in England."
+
+The encomiums which Germany--the acknowledged leader of the world in
+music--has showered on Dr. Elgar have at length been reflected in
+England, which has awakened to the fact that to him at least that much
+misapplied word "genius" belongs by right divine. That awakening was
+marked by the three days' festival in the middle of March, when Covent
+Garden Opera House reverted to an old custom and for two glorious nights
+became the home of oratorio, with a concert on the third night. That
+festival is unique in the history of music, for it is the first time an
+English composer has been so honoured.
+
+However gratifying the applause of the public may be to the worker in
+any art, his greatest pleasure must properly come from his
+fellow-workers, who know the difficulties which have to be surmounted
+before the desired effect can be produced.
+
+"Was not Herr Steinbach, the conductor of the Meiningen Orchestra, among
+the others who said that you have something different from anybody else
+in the tone of your orchestra?" I asked Dr. Elgar, as we sat in his
+study at Malvern, with a great expanse of country visible through the
+wide windows.
+
+                             [Illustration:
+     _From a Photo. by_] DR. ELGAR'S STUDY. [_George Newnes, Ltd._]
+
+"I believe so," he replied; "and that remark has been one from which I
+have naturally derived great pleasure.
+
+"You know," said Dr. Elgar, as he settled down to talk for the purpose
+of this interview, in accordance with a long-standing promise made in
+what he came to regard as an unguarded moment--"you know, since you
+compel me to begin at the beginning, that I 'began' in Broadheath, a
+little village three miles from Worcester, in which city my father was
+organist of St. George's Catholic Church, a post he held for
+thirty-seven years. I was a very little boy indeed when I began to show
+some aptitude for music and used to extemporize on the piano. When I was
+quite small I received a few lessons on the piano. The organ-loft then
+attracted me, and from the time I was about seven or eight I used to go
+and sit by my father and watch him play. After a time I began to try to
+play myself. At first the only thing I succeeded in producing was noise,
+but gradually, out of the chaos, harmony began to evolve itself. In
+those days, too, an English opera company used to visit the old
+Worcester Theatre, and I was taken into the orchestra, which consisted
+of only eight or ten performers, and so heard old operas like 'Norma,'
+'Traviata,' 'Trovatore,' and, above all, 'Don Giovanni.'
+
+                    [Illustration: DR. EDWARD ELGAR.
+                   _From a Photo. by E. T. Holding._]
+
+"My general education was not neglected. I went to Littleton House
+School until I was about fifteen. At the same time I saw and learnt a
+great deal about music from the stream of music that passed through my
+father's establishment.
+
+"My hope was that I should be able to get a musical education, and I
+worked hard at German on the chance that I should go to Leipsic, but my
+father discovered that he could not afford to send me away, and anything
+in that direction seemed to be at an end. Then a friend, a solicitor,
+suggested that I should go to him for a year and see how I liked the
+law. I went for a year, but came to the conclusion that the law was not
+for me, and I determined to return to music. There appeared to be an
+opening for a violinist in Worcester, and as it occurred to me that it
+would be a good thing to try to take advantage of the opening, I had
+been teaching myself to play the violin. Then I began to teach on my own
+account, and spent such leisure as I had in writing music. It was music
+of a sort--bad, very bad--but my juvenile efforts are, I hope,
+destroyed.
+
+"Although I was teaching the violin I wanted to improve my playing, so I
+began to save up in order to go to London to get some lessons from Herr
+Pollitzer. On one occasion I was working the first violin part of the
+Haydn quartet. There was a rest, and I suddenly began to play the 'cello
+part. Pollitzer looked up. 'You know the whole thing?' he said.
+
+"'Of course,' I replied.
+
+"He looked up, curiously. 'Do you compose, yourself?' he asked.
+
+"'I try,' I replied again.
+
+"'Show me something of yours,' he said.
+
+"I did so, with the result that he gave me an introduction to Mr., now
+Sir, August Manns, who, later on, played many of my things at the daily
+concerts at the Crystal Palace.
+
+"When I resolved to become a musician and found that the exigencies of
+life would prevent me from getting any tuition, the only thing to do was
+to teach myself. I read everything, played everything, and heard
+everything I possibly could. As I have told you, I used to play the
+organ and the violin. I attended as many of the cathedral services as I
+could to hear the anthems, and to get to know what they were, so as to
+become thoroughly acquainted with the English Church style. The putting
+of the fine new organ into the cathedral at Worcester was a great event,
+and brought many organists to play there at various times. I went to
+hear them all. The services at the cathedral were over later on Sunday
+than those at the Catholic church, and as soon as the voluntary was
+finished at the church I used to rush over to the cathedral to hear the
+concluding voluntary. Eventually I succeeded my father as organist at
+St. George's. We lived at that time in the parish of St. Helen's, in
+which is the mother church of Worcester, which had a peal of eight
+bells. The Curfew used always to be rung in those days at eight o'clock
+in the evening, and I believe it is still rung. I made friends with the
+sexton and used to ring the Curfew, and afterwards strike the day of the
+month. My enthusiasm was so great that I used to prolong the ringing
+from three minutes to ten minutes, until the people in the neighbourhood
+complained, when I had to reduce the time. On Sunday the bells were
+supposed to go for half an hour before service, from half-past ten to
+eleven. The performance was divided into certain parts. With a friend, I
+used to 'raise' and 'fall' the bell for ten minutes, chime a smaller
+bell for ten minutes or so, and at five minutes to eleven I would fly
+off to play the organ at the Catholic church.
+
+             [Illustration: AN EARLY PORTRAIT OF DR. ELGAR.
+                          _From a Photograph._]
+
+"You ask me to go into greater details about my musical education. I am
+constantly receiving letters on this point from all over the world, for
+it is well known that I am self-taught in the matter of harmony,
+counterpoint, form, and, in short, the whole of the 'mystery' of music,
+and people want to know what books I used. To-day there are all sorts of
+books to make the study of harmony and orchestration pleasant. In my
+young days they were repellent. But I read them and I still exist."
+
+If only cold type could suggest the humour with which those words were
+spoken!
+
+"The first was Catel, and that was followed by Cherubini. The first real
+sort of friendly leading I had, however, was from 'Mozart's
+Thorough-bass School.' There was something in that to go upon--something
+human. It is a small book--a collection of papers beautifully and
+clearly expressed--which he wrote on harmony for the niece of a friend
+of his. I still treasure the old volume. Ouseley and Macfarren followed,
+but the articles which have since helped me the most are those of Sir
+Hubert Parry in 'Grove's Dictionary.'"
+
+"How did these various authorities mix?" I interrupted.
+
+"They didn't mix," was Dr. Elgar's reply, "and it appears it is
+necessary for anyone who has to be self-taught to read everything
+and--pick out the best. That, I suppose, is the difficulty--to pick out
+the best. How to forget the rubbish and remember the good I can't tell
+you, but perhaps that is where his brains must come in.
+
+"It would be affectation were I to pretend that my work is not
+recognised as modern, and I hate affectation, yet it would probably
+surprise you to know the amount of work I did in studying musical form.
+Only those can safely disregard form who ignore it with a full knowledge
+and do not evade it through ignorance.
+
+"Mozart is the musician from whom everyone should learn form. I once
+ruled a score for the same instruments and with the same number of bars
+as Mozart's G Minor Symphony, and in that framework I wrote a symphony,
+following as far as possible the same outline in the themes and the same
+modulation. I did this on my own initiative, as I was groping in the
+dark after light, but looking back after thirty years I don't know any
+discipline from which I learned so much.
+
+"So you insist on my telling you some more of my early struggles and my
+early work? I was interested in many other things besides music, and I
+had the good fortune to be thrown among an unsorted collection of old
+books. There were books of all kinds, and all distinguished by the
+characteristic that they were for the most part incomplete. I busied
+myself for days and weeks arranging them. I picked out the theological
+books, of which there were a good many, and put them on one side. Then I
+made a place for the Elizabethan dramatists, the chronicles including
+Baker's and Hollinshed's, besides a tolerable collection of old poets
+and translations of Voltaire, and all sorts of things up to the
+eighteenth century. Then I began to read. I used to get up at four or
+five o'clock in the summer and read--every available opportunity found
+me reading. I read till dark. I finished by reading every one of these
+books--including the theology. The result of that reading has been that
+people tell me I know more of life up to the eighteenth century than I
+do of my own time, and it is probably true.
+
+"In studying scores the first which came into my hands were the
+Beethoven symphonies. Anyone can have them now, but they were difficult
+for a boy to get in Worcester thirty years ago. I, however, managed to
+get two or three, and I remember distinctly the day I was able to buy
+the Pastoral Symphony. I stuffed my pockets with bread and cheese and
+went out into the fields to study it. That was what I always did. Even
+when I began to teach, when a new score came into my hands I went off
+for a long day with it out of doors, and when my unfortunate--or
+fortunate?--pupils went for their lessons I was not at home to give
+them.
+
+"By the way, talking about scores, it will probably surprise you to know
+that I never possessed a score of Wagner until one was given to me in
+1900.
+
+     [Illustration: DR. ELGAR AS A MEMBER OF HIS QUINTET, FOR WHICH
+                          HE WROTE THE MUSIC.
+                      _From a Photo. by Bennett._]
+
+"In the early days of which I have been speaking five of us established
+a wind quintet. We had two flutes, an oboe, a clarionet, and a bassoon,
+which last I played for some time, and afterwards relinquished it for
+the 'cello. There was no music at all to suit our peculiar requirements,
+as in the ideal wind quintet a horn should find a place and not a second
+flute, so I used to write the music. We met on Sunday afternoons, and it
+was an understood thing that we should have a new piece every week. The
+sermons in our church used to take at least half an hour, and I spent
+the time composing the thing for the afternoon. It was great experience
+for me, as you may imagine, and the books are all extant, so some of
+that music still exists. We played occasionally for friends, and I
+remember one moonlight night stopping in front of a house to put the
+bassoon together. I held it up to see if it was straight before
+tightening it. As I did so, someone rushed out of the house, grabbed me
+by the arms, and shouted, 'It will be five shillings if you do.' He
+thought I had a gun in my hand.
+
+"The old Worcester Glee Club had been established as long ago as 1809
+for the performance of old glees, with an occasional instrumental night.
+At these last I first played second fiddle and afterwards became leader,
+as, after a time, I used to do the accompanying. It was an enjoyable and
+artistic gathering, and the programmes were principally drawn from the
+splendid English compositions for men's voices. The younger generation
+seemed to prefer ordinary part-songs, and ballads also were introduced,
+and the tone of the thing changed. I am not sure if the club is still in
+existence.
+
+"It was in 1877 that I first went to take lessons of Pollitzer. He
+suggested that I should stay in London and devote myself to violin
+playing, but I had become enamoured of a country life, and would not
+give up the prospect of a certain living by playing and teaching in
+Worcester on the chance of only a possible success which I might make as
+a soloist in London.
+
+"The thing which brought me before a larger public as a composer was the
+production of several things of mine at Birmingham by Mr. W. C.
+Stockley, to whom my music was introduced by Dr. Wareing, himself a
+composer, and still resident in Birmingham. At that time I was a member
+of Mr. Stockley's orchestra--first violin."
+
+In this connection it is interesting to break Dr. Elgar's narrative to
+tell an anecdote which Mr. Stockley relates. When he decided to do
+something of Dr. Elgar's, he asked him if he would like to conduct it.
+"Certainly not," Dr. Elgar replied; "I am a member of the orchestra and
+I am going to stick in the orchestra. I am not recognised as a composer,
+and the fact that you are going to do something of mine gives me no
+title to a place anywhere else." The piece was a success and the
+audience called for Dr. Elgar, who came down from among the fiddles,
+made his bow, and then went back to his place.
+
+    [Illustration: REDUCED FACSIMILE OF A PAGE OF THE FULL SCORE OF
+                      "THE DREAM OF GERONTIUS."]
+
+To resume. "Don't suppose, however," Dr. Elgar said, "that after that
+recognition as a composer things were easy for me. The directors of the
+old Promenade Concerts at Covent Garden Theatre were good enough to
+write that they thought sufficiently of my things to devote a morning to
+rehearsing them. I went on the appointed day to London to conduct the
+rehearsal. When I arrived it was explained to me that a few songs had to
+be taken before I could begin. Before the songs were finished Sir Arthur
+Sullivan unexpectedly arrived, bringing with him a selection from one of
+his operas. It was the only chance he had of going through it with the
+orchestra, so they determined to take advantage of the opportunity. He
+consumed all my time in rehearsing this, and when he had finished the
+director came out and said to me, 'There will be no chance of your going
+through your music to-day.' I went back to Worcester to my teaching, and
+that was the last of my chance of an appearance at the Promenade
+Concerts.
+
+"Years after I met Sullivan, one of the most amiable and genial souls
+that ever lived. When we were introduced he said, 'I don't think we have
+met before.' 'Not exactly,' I replied, 'but very near it,' and I told
+him the circumstance. 'But, my dear boy, I hadn't the slightest idea of
+it,' he exclaimed, in his enthusiastic manner. 'Why on earth didn't you
+come and tell me? I'd have rehearsed it myself for you.' They were not
+idle words. He would have done it, just as he said. He never forgot the
+episode till the end of his life.
+
+"Two similar occurrences took place at the Crystal Palace: rehearsals
+were planned which never came off, so I was no nearer to getting a
+hearing for big orchestral works.
+
+"Mr. Hugh Blair, then the organist of Worcester Cathedral, saw some of
+the cantata, 'The Black Knight,' and said: 'If you will finish it I will
+produce it at Worcester.' I finished it, and it was produced by the
+Worcester Festival Choir. This cantata then came under the notice of Dr.
+Swinnerton Heap, to whom I owe my introduction to the musical festivals
+as a writer of choral works. He had known me for a good many years as a
+violinist, but it had never occurred to him to talk to me about my
+composing, and he knew nothing of it.
+
+"It was through Dr. Heap that I was asked to write a cantata for the
+Staffordshire Musical Festival, and, shortly after, the committee asked
+me to provide an oratorio for the Worcester Festival. They were 'The
+Light of Life,' performed in Worcester Cathedral, and 'King Olaf,' at
+Hanley.
+
+"Since then it has been a record of the production of one composition
+after another until we come to 'The Apostles,' and my new overture 'In
+the South,' produced at Covent Garden; the one great event that
+particularly stands out is the production of the 'Variations' by Dr.
+Richter, to whom I was then a complete stranger.
+
+"For a long time I had had the idea of writing 'The Apostles' in pretty
+much the form in which I hope it will eventually appear. As you know,
+there have been oratorios on many points of Jewish and Christian
+history, but none had shown how Christianity has risen. I take the men
+who were in touch with Christ, the Apostles in fact, and show them to be
+ordinary mortals rather than superhuman men, as they are generally
+represented in art. I was always particularly impressed with
+Archbishop Whately's conception of Judas, who, as he wrote, 'had no
+design to betray his Master to death, but to have been as confident of
+the will of Jesus to deliver Himself from His enemies by a miracle as He
+must have been certain of His power to do so, and accordingly to have
+designed to force Him to make such a display of His superhuman powers as
+would have induced all the Jews--and, indeed, the Romans too--to
+acknowledge Him King.'
+
+"In carrying out this plan I made the book myself, taking out lines from
+different parts of the Bible which exactly express my conception. How it
+was done the following chorus will show you, for you will notice that
+the references to the text are printed in the margin:--
+
+    The Lord hath chosen them to stand before Him, to serve
+    Him.--_II. Chron._ 29, 11.
+
+    He hath chosen the weak to confound the mighty.--_I. Cor._ 1,
+    27.
+
+    He will direct their work in truth.--_Isa._ 61, 8.
+
+    Behold, God exalteth by His power: who teacheth like Him?--_Job_
+    36, 22.
+
+    The meek will He guide in judgment, and the meek will He teach
+    His way.--_Ps._ 25, 9.
+
+    He will direct their work in truth.--_Isa._ 61, 8.
+
+    For out of Zion shall go forth the law.--_Isa._ 2, 3.
+
+"You will notice that occasionally, as in the third extract, I have used
+the words in their meaning that appears on the surface, and not in the
+real meaning of the sentence which may be found in any commentary. To
+keep the diction exactly the same I have not gone outside the Scripture
+except in one sentence from the Talmud in the case of the watchers on
+the Temple roof.
+
+"It was part of my original scheme to continue 'The Apostles' by a
+second work carrying on the establishment of the Church among the
+Gentiles. This, too, is to be followed by a third oratorio, in which the
+fruit of the whole--that is to say, the end of the world and the
+Judgment--is to be exemplified. I, however, faltered at that idea, and I
+suggested to the directors of the Birmingham Festival to add merely a
+short third part to the two into which the already published work, 'The
+Apostles,' is divided. But I found that to be unsatisfactory, and I have
+decided to revert to my original lines. There will, therefore, be two
+other oratorios."
+
+This definite pronouncement of Dr. Elgar's cannot fail to evoke the
+warmest anticipations on the part of the music loving world.
+
+It is worth noting here that shortly after "The Dream of Gerontius" was
+produced at the Birmingham Festival, in 1900, Herr Julius Buths, the
+famous conductor of Duesseldorf, was so struck with it that he determined
+to produce it in Germany and himself translated the libretto. So great a
+success was this performance that "The Dream," which one of the most
+celebrated German musical critics has declared to be "the greatest
+composition of the last hundred years, with the exception of the
+'Requiem' of Brahms," was repeated at the Lower Rhine Festival, a thing
+hitherto unheard of in the annals of English music, and at the Lower
+Rhine Festival on Whit-Sunday "The Apostles" is to be given.
+
+Dr. Elgar has a delightful and most acute sense of humour, so that I was
+sure I should not be misunderstood if I ventured to ask a question about
+his "musical crimes."
+
+He smiled. "But which of my musical crimes do you mean? From the point
+of view of one person or another I understand all my music has been a
+crime," he replied, lightly. Then he added, "Oh, you mean 'The
+Cockaigne,' 'The Coronation Ode,' and 'The Imperial March' especially.
+Yes, I believe there are a good many people who have objected to them.
+But I like to look on the composer's vocation as the old troubadours or
+bards did. In those days it was no disgrace to a man to be turned on to
+step in front of an army and inspire the people with a song. For my own
+part, I know that there are a lot of people who like to celebrate events
+with music. To these people I have given tunes. Is that wrong? Why
+should I write a fugue or something which won't appeal to anyone, when
+the people yearn for things which can stir them--"
+
+"Such as 'Pomp and Circumstance,'" I interpolated.
+
+"Ah, I don't know anything about that," replied Dr. Elgar, "but I do
+know we are a nation with great military proclivities, and I did not see
+why the ordinary quick march should not be treated on a large scale in
+the way that the waltz, the old-fashioned slow march, and even the polka
+have been treated by the great composers; yet all marches on the
+symphonic scale are so slow that people can't march to them. I have some
+of the soldier instinct in me, and so I have written two marches of
+which, so far from being ashamed, I am proud. 'Pomp and Circumstance,'
+by the way, is merely the generic name for what is a set of six marches.
+Two, as you know, have already appeared, and the others will come later.
+One of them is to be a Soldier's Funeral March.
+
+  [Illustration: REDUCED FACSIMILE OF MS. OF "POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE."]
+
+"As for 'The Imperial March,' which was written for Queen Victoria's
+Diamond Jubilee of 1897, it would, perhaps, interest you to know that
+only on January 22nd last it was given in St. George's Chapel, Berlin,
+at the unveiling of the memorials of Queen Victoria and the Empress
+Frederick, and Dr. G. R. Sinclair, of Hereford Cathedral, played it on
+the organ.
+
+                             [Illustration:
+  _From a Photo. by_] GOLF ON MALVERN COMMON. [_Foulsham & Banfield._]
+
+"How and when do I do my music? I can tell you very easily. I come into
+my study at nine o'clock in the morning and I work till a quarter to
+one. I don't do any inventing then, for that comes anywhere and
+everywhere. It may be when I am walking, golfing, or cycling, or the
+ideas may come in the evening, and then I sit up until any hour in order
+to get them down. The morning is devoted to revising and orchestration,
+of which I have as much to do as I can manage. As soon as lunch is over
+I go out for exercise and return about four or later, after which I
+sometimes do two hours' work before dinner. A country life I find
+absolutely essential to me, and here the conditions are exactly what I
+require. As you see," and Dr. Elgar moved over to the large window which
+takes up the whole of one side of his study, "I get a wonderful view of
+the surrounding country. I can see across Worcestershire, to Edgehill,
+the Cathedral of Worcester, the Abbeys of Pershore and Tewkesbury, and
+even the smoke from round Birmingham. It is delightfully quiet, and yet
+in contrast with it there is a constant stream of communication with the
+outside world in the shape of cables from America and Australia, and
+letters innumerable from all over the world."
+
+In the house itself there are not many evidences of Dr. Elgar's
+productions, but prominent in a corner of the drawing-room is the laurel
+wreath presented to him at Duesseldorf when "The Dream" was first
+produced. The leaves are brown to-day, but the scarlet ribbon is as
+bright as the memory of the music in the enraptured ears of those who
+have heard it. In his study are two prized possessions, the one a
+tankard made by some members of the Festival Choir at Hanley at the time
+of the production of "King Olaf." The inscription, taken from one of the
+choruses, is, appropriately, a Bacchanalian one:--
+
+        The ale was strong;
+        King Olaf feasted late and long.
+
+                                    --_Longfellow_.
+
+Next to this is a cup, also specially designed by Mr. Noke, of Hanley,
+to commemorate the performance of "The Dream." On one side is a portrait
+of Cardinal Newman and on the other a portrait of Dr. Elgar, with the
+following inscription from the work itself:--
+
+    Learn that the flame of the everlasting love
+    Doth burn ere it transform.
+
+
+
+
+                       _Off the Track in London._
+
+                           BY GEORGE R. SIMS.
+
+                II.--IN THE ROYAL BOROUGH OF KENSINGTON.
+
+
+The sun shines brightly on the gay Kensington thoroughfare in which I
+meet my artist _confrere_ and prepare to wander off the track in a
+district which is held to be the wealthiest in the Empire.
+
+It is a winter morning, but the sky is blue, the air is balmy, and the
+flood of sunlight gives a Rivieran aspect to the stately mansions and
+pleasant villas that we pass on our way to the point at which we are to
+turn off and make our plunge into one of the strangest districts of
+London, a district of which its rich neighbours have no knowledge,
+although it lies at their doors.
+
+A walk of a few minutes and we have left wealth and fashion behind us;
+the gay shops have vanished, the well-dressed people have disappeared as
+if by magic. The mansions and the villas have given place to the long
+streets of grey, weather-beaten, two and three story houses, in which
+the local industry writes itself large in white letters.
+
+Here we are in Notting Dale and in the heart of Laundry-Land. In every
+house in street after street the blinds of the ground floor are down as
+though someone lay dead within. But if you look from the opposite side
+of the street you will see that in every room above the blinds lines are
+stretched from wall to wall, and from these lines wrung out details of
+the washing-tub are hanging. If you cross to the dilapidated railings of
+the sorry little patch that was once a front garden and peer into the
+basement you will see that laundry work is in full swing. The blinds of
+the ground-floor rooms are probably drawn because the hand laundresses
+do not like to be criticised too closely by the neighbours, who are also
+their business rivals.
+
+The street is typical of a dozen others. You may see again and again
+that broken-down little front garden, with its stunted trees, strewn
+rubbish, and the little wooden, lop-sided railing that looks as though
+it no longer thought the patch it once guarded worth standing up for. On
+the window-sill of the top floor of a score of houses you may see a
+lonely, empty flower-pot that looks more like a handy missile in an
+emergency than an adjunct of window gardening. The rain-sodden,
+blackened stucco meets you at every turn, and when you have counted the
+twentieth cat sitting on a sill or a doorstep washing its shirt to snowy
+whiteness you begin to wonder why the local influence has not made
+itself more widely felt. Everybody inside the houses is washing for
+other people, everything is conducted with scrupulous cleanliness and
+under official inspection, but there are plenty of streets adjacent to
+Laundry-Land in which only the cats make themselves conspicuously clean.
+
+A little farther away towards Latimer Road are the great steam laundries
+employing a small army of young women, who at the dinner hour will turn
+out and make every street in the Dale a forest of white aprons.
+
+But all the streets of Laundry-Land are not given up to useful industry.
+A portion of the district is so notorious as a guilt garden that it has
+been called the London Avernus. It is packed with common lodging-houses,
+a large number of them for women, and it has streets of evil reputation
+in which almost every window is broken and stuffed with rags. The
+Borough Council has now in hand a splendid rehousing scheme which will
+vastly improve the district, but we must take it as we find it to-day.
+
+We turn out of the sunlight, and entering a narrow doorway descend into
+the basement of a typical lodging-house. The house is known locally as
+the "Golden Gates," a name bestowed upon it in a spirit of badinage by a
+client with a sense of humour.
+
+The kitchen is crowded with women, young and old. Some are sitting on
+the benches around the wall, one or two are making a late breakfast; an
+old woman is cooking something at the red coke fire.
+
+As a rule there is little conversation in a lodging-house in the morning
+hours. I have been constantly struck by the note of moodiness, not to
+say sullenness, which hangs over the company during the hours of
+daylight. The men are, as a rule, more communicative than the women.
+Women of the class that drift to the doss-house are not inclined to
+exchange confidences with their neighbours.
+
+But the kitchen of the Golden Gates as we enter it has one talkative
+occupant. As soon as our eyes get accustomed to the gloom, which is only
+relieved by a ray of light filtering through a small, dust-covered
+window, we notice that a tall woman in faded finery and an astrachan
+hat, and with some traces of refinement in features and bearing, is
+standing in the centre and chaffing the others. One or two smile at her
+jokes, but the majority are wholly indifferent, wearing that air of
+sullen aloofness which is peculiarly characteristic of a woman's
+lodging-house.
+
+I have not intruded on the privacy of the ladies of the Golden Gates
+without a show of justification. To enable my companion to make a sketch
+of the scene, I have resorted to an expedient which permits me to make
+certain inquiries of a semi-official nature, and to attract the
+attention of the guests while my _confrere_ is at work. If they were
+aware that they were being sketched it is quite likely that there would
+be trouble, and my comrade might find himself in as unpleasant a fix as
+did a photographer who once went with me to the Chinese quarter in
+Limehouse, for "Living London," and attempted to take the proprietor of
+an opium den and some of his clients. The photographer emerged
+unscathed, but the camera required a considerable amount of repair.
+
+Fortunately I have an inquiry to make which puts my audience in sympathy
+with me, and my _confrere_ is supposed to be making notes of the
+information supplied as to the last movements of a woman who had used
+the house for some time and had mysteriously disappeared.
+
+During the whole time the lady in the dingy astrachan keeps up a running
+fire of chaff, which materially assists us.
+
+       [Illustration: "THE LADY IN THE DINGY ASTRACHAN KEEPS UP A
+                          RUNNING FIRE OF CHAFF."]
+
+She welcomes us to the "Hotel de Fourpence," and says, though it isn't
+exactly the Carlton, it is quite comfortable when you get used to it.
+She interlards her bantering remarks with French words, and we come to
+the conclusion that she is a governess who has drifted down.
+
+It is no uncommon thing to find men and women of education in the lowest
+lodging-houses of London. I have found a clergyman in one of the worst
+dens of Flower and Dean Street. In one of the Dale lodging-houses there
+is a woman whose father had his town house and his country house and his
+villa in the South of France.
+
+This woman in the astrachan hat is a striking contrast to her
+surroundings. Most of the other inmates are of the usual type--women who
+have drifted down from honest industry to vagabondage, or have been born
+to it.
+
+Returning through the Golden Gates into the sunshine, we make our way to
+Jetsam Street. That is not its real name, but the one I have given it.
+This is a street of black and battered doors, of damaged railings, and
+of broken windows. On the doorsteps here and there stand groups of
+slatternly, unkempt women. From the windows above a tousled head
+occasionally appears. Many of the houses here are common lodging-houses;
+but some of them are in the hands of the house-farmers, who let them out
+in furnished rooms at a shilling a day. We enter a room which is
+unoccupied and take stock of the furniture. It consists of a bed, two
+chairs, and the wreckage of a dirty deal table.
+
+In this room a man and his wife and children are accommodated at night,
+but the shilling paid only entitles the family to remain there until ten
+in the morning.
+
+At that hour they are turned out and their tenancy ceases. If they wish
+to renew it they can do so in the evening, but not before.
+
+These people, who are paying six shillings a week, or seven shillings
+where Sunday is not a free day, for a single room, have to spend the day
+in the streets. Many of them make their way to the public parks and
+sleep on the seats or on the grass. Some of them beg, some of them hawk
+trumpery articles. They are probably paying eighteen pounds a year for a
+wretched room, and yet in the house-farmer's hands they are homeless
+every day in the week.
+
+Jetsam Street is flooded with golden sunshine as we pass through it, but
+the sunshine has not made the inhabitants light-hearted. Half-way down
+the street a man and a woman are fighting. The man is delivering a
+series of kicks in the style of La Savate at the woman, who is defiant
+and nimble and defends herself with her jacket, which she has taken off
+and uses both as a guard and as a weapon.
+
+      [Illustration: "ONE OR TWO WOMEN STANDING ON THE DOORSTEPS
+                    WATCH THE PROCEEDINGS."
+
+One or two women standing on the doorsteps watch the proceedings, but
+apparently without interest. An old woman proceeding to the public-house
+for beer turns her head for a moment and then passes on her way. A
+little boy in rags passes the fighting couple and takes no notice
+whatever. It is an ordinary incident, and has no special attraction for
+the neighbours.
+
+Presently the man succeeds in planting a blow that sends the woman down.
+She is up again in a moment and faces him, prepared to continue the
+contest. But he thinks he has scored a point and is satisfied.
+
+"Now I'll go to the workhouse," he says.
+
+"And the best place for you," answers the woman.
+
+The man thrusts his hands in his pockets and slouches off. The woman
+puts on her jacket and strolls away. If we were to investigate the
+circumstances that have led up to the fight, we should find that we had
+been assisting at a Notting Dale version of the story of Carmen, Don
+Jose, and Escamillo, only Carmen in this case is a laundry girl, Don
+Jose is an idle ruffian, and Escamillo is another, only of a bolder
+type.
+
+In Notting Dale the women are the principal wage-earners, and the
+district is infested with a contemptible set of men, who are loafers or
+worse. It is a common thing in the Dale for a man to boast that he is
+going to marry a laundry girl and do nothing for the rest of his life.
+
+It seems difficult to realize that such a scene and such a street can
+exist within a stone's throw of a quarter crowded with the wealth and
+fashion of the capital. But wherever you step off the beaten track in
+London a hundred surprises await you.
+
+I do not wonder at the fight in Jetsam Street which fails to rouse the
+lookers-on from their midday lethargy, for I am an old traveller in this
+strange land. But I must confess that it gives me a little shock when at
+the end of the street I come upon a man in the last stage of consumption
+sitting propped up with pillows in an arm-chair on the doorstep.
+
+  [Illustration: "BROUGHT OUT TO SIT A LITTLE WHILE IN THE SUNSHINE."]
+
+He has been brought out to sit a little while in the sunshine. The poor
+fellow has, I ascertain, taken his discharge from the infirmary a few
+days previously. He wants to die at home--at home in Jetsam Street!
+
+The picture I have had so far to draw is a painful one and a squalid
+one. But it is typical of the neighbourhood, and could not be omitted if
+in these travels off the track I am to give a faithful account of the
+London that is so little known even to Londoners.
+
+Let us hasten through the sordid streets, looking up at the blue skies
+and ignoring the squalid houses, and make our way to a more romantic
+spot.
+
+"The Potteries!" How odd this description of a portion of Kensington
+sounds, yet the district we are now in is known by this name, and yonder
+is what remains of the kiln.
+
+Here in the Potteries the spell of the old romance still lingers, for
+this is the district of the gipsies. In front of it is the pleasant
+recreation-ground, Avondale Park, which the County Council has made
+beautiful for the children of the Dale, and just round the corner is
+hidden a space where, year after year, the gipsies came with their vans
+and encamped for the winter. And close at hand are cottages and gardens,
+to which ducks and geese give quite a rural appearance.
+
+   [Illustration: "THERE ARE ONE OR TWO VANS LEFT TO MARK THE SPOT."]
+
+The gipsies are not here this winter, but there are one or two vans left
+to mark the spot where, until quite recently, the sons and daughters of
+Egypt pitched their "tans" in the heart of fashionable Kensington. Some
+of them, yielding to the force of such modern ideas as the sanitary
+inspector and the School Board officer, have given up the fight for
+existence in a dwelling-van and have gone to live under a roof like the
+gorgios, though a gipsy of the true Romany blood believes that nothing
+but ill-luck will attend the Romany chal or the Romany chi who lives in
+a house.
+
+To-day the children of the gipsies are, many of them, in the Notting
+Dale Board School and the fathers and mothers are in the lodging-houses.
+One of the wanderers, who in the old times used to pitch on the vacant
+ground of the Potteries, so far fell into Gentile ways as to take a
+lodging-house and run it himself. He and his wife became noted
+characters in the Dale, and when he died a little time ago the gipsies
+came from far and near and gave him a genuine Romany funeral, with all
+the ancient rites and ceremonies of the great Pali tribe who wandered
+out of India long centuries ago and gave the word "pal" to our language
+to signify brother.
+
+Though the gipsy camp has departed and the ground will know it no more,
+the surroundings are still suggestive of the old days. Hard by a
+dwelling-van left, like the rose of the poet, blooming alone is the shed
+of a chair-caner, a handsome, prosperous-looking man, who is working in
+the open and singing at his congenial task. The battered carts, the old
+chains, the broken wheels, the pigeon lofts, and the wooden sheds
+standing on a patch of waste ground remind you of the pictures you were
+given to copy at school when you were in the drawing-class. If there had
+only been a mill handy the resemblance would have been complete, but the
+chimney of the old kiln dominates the scene and takes the mill's place.
+
+Here the note of Jetsam Street has disappeared. All around are
+respectable working-class dwellings and stableyards. A little farther up
+is a double row of cottages with a paved way between them that seem to
+have been lifted bodily out of a Yorkshire mill town and dropped with
+their quaint out-houses on to the confines of Kensington. When you come
+upon Thresher's Place you rub your eyes and wonder if it is possible
+that five minutes' walk will bring you out on Campden Hill.
+
+In the mews round about the Potteries are the remnants of the Italian
+colony that drifted here some years ago, when Little Italy in
+Clerkenwell began to be encroached upon by the modern builder. The
+majority have now drifted farther afield, to Fulham and Hammersmith.
+
+But there are still a fair number of the children of the Sunny South in
+the Dale. You may see the organs in the early morning being polished up
+outside the houses, and if you go into the yards you may discover the
+ice-barrows packed away in the coach-houses, waiting for the
+disappearance of the baked-chestnut season and the coming of summer.
+
+Here, in a large coach-house in a mews, is a proprietor of ice-cream
+barrows hard at work repainting his stock in gorgeous colours. Brilliant
+streaks of red and green light up the dreary place where the signor is
+working. When we look in upon his artistic proceedings he is filling his
+studio with melody. He is singing an air from "Il Trovatore" in his
+native Italian, and at the same time painting an Italian girl in her
+national costume on the panel of an ice-barrow.
+
+A little farther down the mews we climb the crazy staircase that leads
+to the loft, and find a middle-aged widow occupying it with five
+children.
+
+We have arrived at an awkward moment, for the widow is in tearful
+converse with the Industrial Schools officer.
+
+One of the children has been caught the previous night begging. Children
+are not allowed to beg in the streets to-day, and if it is found that
+the parents send them out or have not sufficient control over them to
+keep them in the little offenders can be taken before a magistrate and
+sent to an industrial school, to be trained for more reputable
+occupations in life.
+
+The widow declares that the boy was not sent out by her, and weeps
+copiously while she relates her story. She has five children and no
+money. I don't think the officer is very much impressed. I am afraid he
+knows more about the widow and the begging boy than he cares to reveal
+in the presence of strangers. He gives the woman a kindly warning, and
+leaves her with the intimation that if any more of her children are
+caught begging she will be invited to pay a visit to the magistrate.
+
+The Industrial Schools officer has a busy time in the Dale, for there
+are many young children living in vicious and criminal surroundings, and
+it is his task to remove them at the first opportunity, in order that
+they may have a chance in life. The work the industrial schools are
+accomplishing is invaluable. Under the Act a careful guardianship can be
+exercised by the State until the rescued boy or girl has reached the age
+of eighteen. There is no coming out of the industrial schools and
+returning to the evil surroundings now. But the task of the officer who
+has to see that the lads and lasses do not, after their school days are
+up, return to their evil associates is not a light one. He has
+occasionally to exercise the ingenuity of a Sherlock Holmes in order to
+get on the track of "one of his young people" who has mysteriously
+disappeared from the place that has been found for him or her.
+
+Not long ago a young girl who had been sent to Canada, and was supposed
+to be doing well there, was discovered dressed in boy's clothes back
+again in the Dale with her uncle and aunt, who were undesirable
+companions for her. The girl had in some way managed to get her
+passage-money and come home, and had hoped, disguised as a young man, to
+escape the vigilance of the Industrial Schools officer.
+
+Through a couple of streets and we are back in common lodging-house
+land. There is one long street in which the houses are registered from
+end to end. Some of them look like shops with the shutters up, others
+like private houses that have come down in the world. But every room is
+packed with as many beds as the law permits, and the common kitchen is
+reached by the area steps.
+
+At one of the houses along this street a man and a woman are standing at
+the door. The woman has only one arm and one eye, the man has no arms.
+But they are a highly popular couple, and a good many of the
+lodging-houses in the street belong to them. The lady is said to be
+quite equal to quieting any disturbance among the lodgers with her one
+hand, and the man displays the most remarkable skill, suffering
+apparently little inconvenience from his loss. When you have seen him
+take his pipe out of his mouth with the empty sleeve of his jacket you
+will understand how he is able, with his wife's assistance, to keep his
+rough _clientele_ well in hand, and to compel their respect.
+
+There is one feature of Notting Dale which strikes you forcibly if you
+go into a local crowd engaged in a heated argument, and that is the
+preponderance of the rural accent; for this is a district in which the
+evil of rural immigration has written itself large. Thousands of honest
+country folks crowd up year after year to the great city that they
+believe to be paved with gold. Of those who come in by the Great Western
+a large percentage drift to the Dale, failing to find room in the
+districts around the terminus; and in the Dale a process of moral
+deterioration goes on which is a tragedy.
+
+The husband fails to find the work he expected would be ready to his
+hand in busy London. The little savings are soon gone; the man and his
+wife are driven to the common lodging-house, or, if there are children
+with them, to the furnished room. The wife perhaps goes to the laundry
+work. The husband's enforced idleness often ends in his becoming a
+confirmed loafer, contented to live on what his wife can earn. There is
+in Notting Dale a large working population living cleanly by honest
+industry, but the country folk who have been unfortunate at the
+commencement of the struggle for life in London cannot avail themselves
+of the cleaner accommodation and the better environment. They are forced
+into the area which is given over to the vicious and the criminal, and
+they gradually sink to the level of their neighbours.
+
+Many a tale of heroic struggle against evil surroundings do the women
+tell who come before the School Board officials to explain the
+non-attendance of their children. Sometimes it is the man who has had
+the moral strength to resist, and with tears in his eyes will tell of
+the healthy, country-bred wife who came with him one day from the
+far-away village full of hope, but who has yielded to the awful
+environment, deserted his home, and left his children to fall into evil
+companionship.
+
+There is no sadder chapter in the story of London than that of the
+light-hearted country folk who come to it full of courage and hope, and
+gradually sink down under the evil influence of a slum to which their
+poverty has driven them, until they themselves are as criminal and as
+vicious as their neighbours.
+
+For them little can be done, though now and again the brave men and
+women who are working in the good cause succeed in rescuing them, even
+though they have fallen to the lowest depths of the abyss.
+
+But for the next generation the hope is greater. High above one of the
+most notorious streets in the Dale tower the great buildings in which
+the children are gathered together and educated and taught the
+principles of right doing.
+
+This is the thought that comes to me as, fresh from our pilgrimage of
+pain, we stand in the big playground and watch the little ones filing
+out in the sunshine to go to their homes. Some of them are well clad,
+the children of honest, hard-working folk who love them and care for
+them. But many are going back to miserable dens where there is neither
+love nor care, where there is no respect for the laws of God or man.
+
+        [Illustration: "MANY ARE GOING BACK TO MISERABLE DENS."]
+
+They cannot all be saved from the evil environment that awaits them, but
+they come day after day to the schools, and there they fall under an
+influence which, if they are not inherently bad, will stand them in good
+stead through all their lives.
+
+We watch the little ones as with the light-heartedness of childhood they
+trip away, some to the meal which loving hands have prepared for them,
+others to crowd and clamour at the doors of the mission-house, where the
+free meal stands between them and the hunger pain, and then we turn into
+a street that bore formerly so ill a name that the authorities changed
+it, to remove the stigma of the address from the few decent people in
+it.
+
+In five minutes we are once more on the beaten track and in the heart of
+Royal and aristocratic Kensington.
+
+
+
+
+                     [Illustration: DIALSTONE LANE
+                             BY W.W.JACOBS]
+
+        Copyright, 1904, by W. W. Jacobs, in the United States of
+        America.
+
+
+                              CHAPTER IX.
+
+The church bells were ringing for morning service as Mr. Vickers, who
+had been for a stroll with Mr. William Russell and a couple of ferrets,
+returned home to breakfast. Contrary to custom, the small front room and
+the kitchen were both empty, and breakfast, with the exception of a cold
+herring and the bitter remains of a pot of tea, had been cleared away.
+
+"I've known men afore now," murmured Mr. Vickers, eyeing the herring
+disdainfully, "as would take it by the tail and smack 'em acrost the
+face with it."
+
+He cut himself a slice of bread, and, pouring out a cup of cold tea,
+began his meal, ever and anon stopping to listen, with a puzzled face,
+to a continuous squeaking overhead. It sounded like several pairs of new
+boots all squeaking at once, but Mr. Vickers, who was a reasonable man
+and past the age of self-deception, sought for a more probable cause.
+
+A particularly aggressive squeak detached itself from the others and
+sounded on the stairs. The resemblance to the noise made by new boots
+was stronger than ever. It _was_ new boots. The door opened, and Mr.
+Vickers, with a slice of bread arrested half-way to his mouth, sat
+gazing in astonishment at Charles Vickers, clad for the first time in
+his life in new raiment from top to toe. Ere he could voice inquiries,
+an avalanche of squeaks descended the stairs, and the rest of the
+children, all smartly clad, with Selina bringing up the rear, burst into
+the room.
+
+"What is it?" demanded Mr. Vickers, in a voice husky with astonishment;
+"a bean-feast?"
+
+Miss Vickers, who was doing up a glove which possessed more buttons than
+his own waistcoat, looked up and eyed him calmly. "New clothes--and not
+before they wanted 'em," she replied, tartly.
+
+"New clothes?" repeated her father, in a scandalized voice. "Where'd
+they get 'em?"
+
+"Shop," said his daughter, briefly.
+
+Mr. Vickers rose and, approaching his offspring, inspected them with the
+same interest that he would have bestowed upon a wax-works. A certain
+stiffness of pose combined with the glassy stare which met his gaze
+helped to favour the illusion.
+
+"For once in their lives they're respectable," said Selina, regarding
+them with moist eyes. "Soap and water they've always had, bless 'em, but
+you've never seen 'em dressed like this before."
+
+Before Mr. Vickers could frame a reply a squeaking which put all the
+others in the shade sounded from above. It crossed the floor on hurried
+excursions to different parts of the room, and then, hesitating for a
+moment at the head of the stairs, came slowly and ponderously down until
+Mrs. Vickers, looking somewhat nervous, stood revealed before her
+expectant husband. In scornful surprise he gazed at a blue cloth dress,
+a black velvet cape trimmed with bugles, and a bonnet so aggressively
+new that it had not yet accommodated itself to Mrs. Vickers's style of
+hair-dressing.
+
+"Go on!" he breathed. "Go on! Don't mind me. What, you--you--you're not
+going to _church_?"
+
+Mrs. Vickers glanced at the books in her hand--also new--and trembled.
+
+"And why not?" demanded Selina. "Why shouldn't we?"
+
+Mr. Vickers took another amazed glance round and his brow darkened.
+
+"Where did you get the money?" he inquired.
+
+"Saved it," said his daughter, reddening despite herself.
+
+"_Saved_ it?" repeated the justly-astonished Mr. Vickers. "_Saved_ it?
+Ah! out of my money; out of the money I toil and moil for--out of the
+money that ought to be spent on food. No wonder you're always
+complaining that it ain't enough. I won't 'ave it, d'ye hear? I'll have
+my rights; I'll----"
+
+"Don't make so much noise," said his daughter, who was stooping down to
+ease one of Mrs. Vickers's boots. "You would have fours, mother, and I
+told you what it would be."
+
+"He said that I ought to wear threes by rights," said Mrs. Vickers; "I
+used to."
+
+"And I s'pose," said Mr. Vickers, who had been listening to these
+remarks with considerable impatience--"I s'pose there's a bran' new suit
+o' clothes, and a pair o' boots, and 'arf-a-dozen shirts, and a new hat
+hid upstairs for me?"
+
+"Yes, they're _hid_ all right," retorted the dutiful Miss Vickers. "You
+go upstairs and amuse yourself looking for 'em. Go and have a game of
+'hot boiled beans' all by yourself."
+
+    [Illustration: "'WHY, YOU MUST HAVE BEEN STINTING ME FOR YEARS,'
+                        CONTINUED MR. VICKERS."]
+
+"Why, you must have been stinting me for years," continued Mr. Vickers,
+examining the various costumes in detail. "This is what comes o' keeping
+quiet and trusting you--not but what I've 'ad my suspicions. My own kids
+taking the bread out o' my mouth and buying boots with it; my own wife
+going about in a bonnet that's took me weeks and weeks to earn."
+
+His words fell on deaf ears. No adjutant getting his regiment ready for
+a march-past could have taken more trouble than Miss Vickers was taking
+at this moment over her small company. Caps were set straight and
+sleeves pulled down. Her face shone with pride and her eyes glistened as
+the small fry, discoursing in excited whispers, filed stiffly out.
+
+A sudden cessation of gossip in neighbouring doorways testified to the
+impression made by their appearance. Past little startled groups the
+procession picked its way in squeaking pride, with Mrs. Vickers and
+Selina bringing up the rear. The children went by with little set,
+important faces; but Miss Vickers's little bows and pleased smiles of
+recognition to acquaintances were so lady-like that several untidy
+matrons retired inside their houses to wrestle grimly with feelings too
+strong for outside display.
+
+"Pack o' prancing peacocks," said the unnatural Mr. Vickers, as the
+procession wound round the corner.
+
+He stood looking vacantly up the street until the gathering excitement
+of his neighbours aroused new feelings. Vanity stirred within him, and
+leaning casually against the door-post he yawned and looked at the
+chimney-pots opposite. A neighbour in a pair of corduroy trousers,
+supported by one brace worn diagonally, shambled across the road.
+
+"What's up?" he inquired, with a jerk of the thumb in the direction of
+Mr. Vickers's vanished family.
+
+"Up?" repeated Mr. Vickers, with an air of languid surprise.
+
+"Somebody died and left you a fortin?" inquired the other.
+
+"Not as I knows of," replied Mr. Vickers, staring. "Why?"
+
+"_Why?_" exclaimed the other. "Why, new clothes all over. I never see
+such a turn-out."
+
+Mr. Vickers regarded him with an air of lofty disdain. "Kids must 'ave
+new clothes sometimes, I s'pose?" he said, slowly. "You wouldn't 'ave
+'em going about of a Sunday in a ragged shirt and a pair of trowsis,
+would you?"
+
+The shaft passed harmlessly. "Why not?" said the other. "They gin'rally
+do."
+
+Mr. Vickers's denial died away on his lips. In twos and threes his
+neighbours had drawn gradually near and now stood by listening
+expectantly. The idea of a fortune was common to all of them, and they
+were anxious for particulars.
+
+          [Illustration: "THEY WERE ANXIOUS FOR PARTICULARS."]
+
+"Some people have all the luck," said a stout matron. "I've 'ad thirteen
+and buried seven, and never 'ad so much as a chiney tea-pot left me. One
+thing is, I never could make up to people for the sake of what I could
+get out of them. I couldn't not if I tried. I must speak my mind free
+and independent."
+
+"Ah! that's how you get yourself disliked," said another lady, shaking
+her head sympathetically.
+
+"Disliked?" said the stout matron, turning on her fiercely. "What d'ye
+mean? You don't know what you're talking about. Who's getting themselves
+disliked?"
+
+"A lot o' good a chiney tea-pot would be to you," said the other, with a
+ready change of front, "or any other kind o' tea-pot."
+
+Surprise and indignation deprived the stout matron of utterance.
+
+"Or a milk-jug either," pursued her opponent, following up her
+advantage. "Or a coffee-pot, or----"
+
+The stout matron advanced upon her, and her mien was so terrible that
+the other, retreating to her house, slammed the door behind her and
+continued the discussion from a first-floor window. Mint Street, with
+the conviction that Mr. Vickers's tidings could wait, swarmed across the
+road to listen.
+
+Mr. Vickers himself listened for a little while to such fragments as
+came his way, and then, going indoors, sat down amid the remains of his
+breakfast to endeavour to solve the mystery of the new clothes.
+
+He took a short clay pipe from his pocket, and, igniting a little piece
+of tobacco which remained in the bowl, endeavoured to form an estimate
+of the cost of each person's wardrobe. The sum soon becoming too large
+to work in his head, he had recourse to pencil and paper, and after five
+minutes' hard labour sat gazing at a total, which made his brain reel.
+The fact that immediately afterwards he was unable to find even a few
+grains of tobacco at the bottom of his box furnished a contrast which
+almost made him maudlin.
+
+He sat sucking at his cold pipe and indulging in hopeless conjectures as
+to the source of so much wealth, and, with a sudden quickening of the
+pulse, wondered whether it had all been spent. His mind wandered from
+Selina to Mr. Joseph Tasker, and almost imperceptibly the absurdities of
+which young men in love could be capable occurred to him. He remembered
+the extravagances of his own youth, and bethinking himself of the sums
+he had squandered on the future Mrs. Vickers--sums which increased with
+the compound interest of repetition--came to the conclusion that Mr.
+Tasker had been more foolish still.
+
+It seemed the only possible explanation. His eye brightened, and,
+knocking the ashes out of his pipe, he crossed to the tap and washed his
+face.
+
+"If he can't lend a trifle to the man what's going to be his
+father-in-law," he said, cheerfully, as he polished his face on a
+roller-towel, "I shall tell 'im he can't have Selina, that's all. I'll
+go and see 'im afore she gets any more out of him."
+
+He walked blithely up the road, and, after shaking off one or two
+inquirers whose curiosity was almost proof against insult, made his way
+to Dialstone Lane. In an unobtrusive fashion he glided round to the
+back, and, opening the kitchen door, bestowed a beaming smile upon the
+startled Joseph.
+
+"Busy, my lad?" he inquired.
+
+"What d'ye want?" asked Mr. Tasker, whose face was flushed with cooking.
+
+Mr. Vickers opened the door a little wider, and, stepping inside, closed
+it softly behind him and dropped into a chair.
+
+"Don't be alarmed, my lad," he said, benevolently. "Selina's all right."
+
+"What d'ye want?" repeated Mr. Tasker. "Who told you to come round
+here?"
+
+Mr. Vickers looked at him in reproachful surprise.
+
+"I suppose a father can come round to see his future son-in-law?" he
+said, with some dignity. "I don't want to do no interrupting of your
+work, Joseph, but I couldn't 'elp just stepping round to tell you how
+nice they all looked. Where you got the money from I can't think."
+
+"Have you gone dotty, or what?" demanded Mr. Tasker, who was busy wiping
+out a saucepan. "Who looked nice?"
+
+Mr. Vickers shook his head at him and smiled waggishly.
+
+"Ah! who?" he said, with much enjoyment. "I tell you it did my father's
+'art good to see 'em all dressed up like that; and when I thought of its
+all being owing to you, sit down at home in comfort with a pipe instead
+of coming to thank you for it I could not. Not if you was to have paid
+me I couldn't."
+
+"Look 'ere," said Mr. Tasker, putting the saucepan down with a bang, "if
+you can't talk plain, common English you'd better get out. I don't want
+you 'ere at all as a matter o' fact, but to have you sitting there
+shaking your silly 'ead and talking a pack o' nonsense is more than I
+can stand."
+
+Mr. Vickers gazed at him in perplexity. "Do you mean to tell me you
+haven't been giving my Selina money to buy new clothes for the young
+'uns?" he demanded, sharply. "Do you mean to tell me that Selina didn't
+get money out of you to buy herself and 'er mother and all of
+'em--except me--a new rig-out from top to toe?"
+
+"D'ye think I've gone mad, or what?" inquired the amazed Mr. Tasker.
+"What d'ye think I should want to buy clothes for your young 'uns for?
+That's your duty. And Selina, too; I haven't given 'er anything except a
+ring, and she lent me the money for that. D'ye think I'm made o' money?"
+
+"All right, Joseph," said Mr. Vickers, secretly incensed at this
+unforeseen display of caution on Mr. Tasker's part. "I s'pose the
+fairies come and put 'em on while they was asleep. But it's dry work
+walking; 'ave you got such a thing as a glass o' water you could give
+me?"
+
+The other took a glass from the dresser and, ignoring the eye of his
+prospective father-in-law, which was glued to a comfortable-looking
+barrel in the corner, filled it to the brim with fair water and handed
+it to him. Mr. Vickers, giving him a surly nod, took a couple of dainty
+sips and placed it on the table.
+
+"It's very nice water," he said, sarcastically.
+
+"Is it?" said Mr. Tasker. "We don't drink it ourselves, except in tea or
+coffee; the cap'n says it ain't safe."
+
+Mr. Vickers brought his eye from the barrel and glared at him.
+
+"I s'pose, Joseph," he said, after a long pause, during which Mr. Tasker
+was busy making up the fire--"I s'pose Selina didn't tell you you wasn't
+to tell me about the money?"
+
+"I don't know what you're driving at," said the other, confronting him
+angrily. "I haven't got no money."
+
+Mr. Vickers coughed. "Don't say that, Joseph," he urged, softly; "don't
+say that, my lad. As a matter o' fact, I come round to you, interrupting
+of you in your work, and I'm sorry for it--knowing how fond of it you
+are--to see whether I--I couldn't borrow a trifle for a day or two."
+
+"Ho, did you?" commented Mr. Tasker, who had opened the oven door and
+was using his hand as a thermometer.
+
+His visitor hesitated. It was no use asking for too much; on the other
+hand, to ask for less than he could get would be unpardonable folly.
+
+"If I could lay my hand on a couple o' quid," he said, in a mysterious
+whisper, "I could make it five in a week."
+
+"Well, why don't you?" inquired Mr. Tasker, who was tenderly sucking the
+bulb of the thermometer after contact with the side of the oven.
+
+"It's the two quid that's the trouble, Joseph," replied Mr. Vickers,
+keeping his temper with difficulty. "A little thing like that wouldn't
+be much trouble to you, I know, but to a pore man with a large family
+like me it's a'most impossible."
+
+Mr. Tasker went outside to the larder, and returning with a small joint
+knelt down and thrust it carefully into the oven.
+
+"A'most impossible," repeated Mr. Vickers, with a sigh.
+
+"What is?" inquired the other, who had not been listening.
+
+The half-choking Mr. Vickers explained.
+
+"Yes, o' course it is," assented Mr. Tasker.
+
+"People what's got money," said the offended Mr. Vickers, regarding him
+fiercely, "stick to it like leeches. Now, suppose I was a young man
+keeping company with a gal and her father wanted to borrow a couple o'
+quid--a paltry couple o' thick 'uns--what d'ye think I should do?"
+
+"If you was a young man--keeping company with a gal--and 'er father
+wanted--to borrow a couple of quid off o' you--what would you do?"
+repeated Mr. Tasker, mechanically, as he bustled to and fro.
+
+Mr. Vickers nodded and smiled. "What should I do?" he inquired again,
+hopefully.
+
+"I don't know, I'm sure," said the other, opening the oven door and
+peering in. "How should I?"
+
+At the imminent risk of something inside giving way under the strain,
+Mr. Vickers restrained himself. He breathed hard, and glancing out of
+window sought to regain his equilibrium by becoming interested in a
+blackbird outside.
+
+"What I mean to say is," he said at length, in a trembling voice--"what
+I mean to say is, without no roundaboutedness, will you lend a
+'ard-working man, what's going to be your future father-in-law, a couple
+o' pounds?"
+
+Mr. Tasker laughed. It was not a loud laugh, nor yet a musical one. It
+was merely a laugh designed to convey to the incensed Mr. Vickers a
+strong sense of the absurdity of his request.
+
+"I asked you a question," said the latter gentleman, glaring at him.
+
+"I haven't got a couple o' pounds," replied Mr. Tasker; "and if I 'ad,
+there's nine hundred and ninety-nine things I would sooner do with it
+than lend it to you."
+
+    [Illustration: "MR. VICKERS ROSE AND STOOD REGARDING THE IGNOBLE
+                   CREATURE WITH PROFOUND CONTEMPT."]
+
+Mr. Vickers rose and stood regarding the ignoble creature with profound
+contempt. His features worked and a host of adjectives crowded to his
+lips.
+
+"Is that your last word, Joseph?" he inquired, with solemn dignity.
+
+"I'll say it all over again if you like," said the obliging Mr. Tasker.
+"If you want money, go and earn it, same as I have to; don't come round
+'ere cadging on me, because it's no good."
+
+Mr. Vickers laughed; a dry, contemptuous laugh, terrible to hear.
+
+"And that's the man that's going to marry my daughter," he said, slowly;
+"that's the man that's going to marry into my family. Don't you expect
+_me_ to take you up and point you out as my son-in-law, cos I won't do
+it. If there's anything I can't abide it's stinginess. And there's my
+gal--my pore gal don't know your real character. Wait till I've told 'er
+about this morning and opened 'er eyes! Wait till----"
+
+He stopped abruptly as the door leading to the front room opened and
+revealed the inquiring face of Captain Bowers.
+
+"What's all this noise about, Joseph?" demanded the captain, harshly.
+
+Mr. Tasker attempted to explain, but his explanation involving a
+character for Mr. Vickers which that gentleman declined to accept on any
+terms, he broke in and began to give his own version of the affair. Much
+to Joseph's surprise the captain listened patiently.
+
+"Did you buy all those things, Joseph?" he inquired, carelessly, as Mr.
+Vickers paused for breath.
+
+"Cert'nly not, sir," replied Mr. Tasker. "Where should I get the money
+from?"
+
+The captain eyed him without replying, and a sudden suspicion occurred
+to him. The strange disappearance of the map, followed by the sudden
+cessation of Mr. Chalk's visits, began to link themselves to this tale
+of unexpected wealth. He bestowed another searching glance upon the
+agitated Mr. Tasker.
+
+"You haven't _sold_ anything lately, have you?" he inquired, with
+startling gruffness.
+
+"I haven't 'ad nothing to sell, sir," replied the other, in
+astonishment. "And I dare say Mr. Vickers here saw a new pair o' boots
+on one o' the young 'uns and dreamt all the rest."
+
+Mr. Vickers intervened with passion.
+
+"That'll do," said the captain, sharply. "How dare you make that noise
+in my house? I think that the tale about the clothes is all right," he
+added, turning to Joseph. "I saw them go into church looking very smart.
+And you know nothing about it?"
+
+Mr. Tasker's astonishment was too genuine to be mistaken, and the
+captain, watching him closely, transferred his suspicions to a more
+deserving object. Mr. Vickers caught his eye and essayed a smile.
+
+"Dry work talking, sir," he said, gently.
+
+Captain Bowers eyed him steadily. "Have we got any beer, Joseph?" he
+inquired.
+
+"Plenty in the cask, sir," said Mr. Tasker, reluctantly.
+
+"Well, keep your eye on it," said the captain. "Good morning, Mr.
+Vickers."
+
+But disappointment and indignation got the better of Mr. Vickers's
+politeness.
+
+
+                               CHAPTER X.
+
+"A penny for your thoughts, uncle," said Miss Drewitt, as they sat at
+dinner an hour or two after the departure of Mr. Vickers.
+
+"_H'm?_" said the captain, with a guilty start.
+
+"You've been scowling and smiling by turns for the last five minutes,"
+said his niece.
+
+"I was thinking about that man that was here this morning," said the
+captain, slowly; "trying to figure it out. If I thought that that girl
+Selina----"
+
+He took a draught of ale and shook his head solemnly.
+
+"You know my ideas about that," said Prudence.
+
+"Your poor _mother_ was obstinate," commented the captain, regarding her
+tolerantly. "Once she got an idea into her head it stuck there, and
+nothing made her more angry than proving to her that she was wrong.
+Trying to prove to her, I should have said."
+
+Miss Drewitt smiled amiably. "Well, you've earned half the sum," she
+said. "Now, what were you smiling about?"
+
+"Didn't know I was smiling," declared the captain.
+
+With marvellous tact he turned the conversation to lighthouses, a
+subject upon which he discoursed with considerable fluency until the
+meal was finished. Miss Drewitt, who had a long memory and at least her
+fair share of curiosity, returned to the charge as he smoked half a pipe
+preparatory to accompanying her for a walk.
+
+"You're looking very cheerful," she remarked.
+
+The captain's face fell several points. "Am I?" he said, ruefully. "I
+didn't mean to."
+
+"Why not?" inquired his niece.
+
+"I mean I didn't know I was," he replied, "more than usual, I mean. I
+always do look fairly cheerful--at least, I hope I do. There's nothing
+to make me look the opposite."
+
+Miss Drewitt eyed him carefully and then passed upstairs to put on her
+hat. Relieved of her presence the captain walked to the small glass over
+the mantelpiece and, regarding his tell-tale features with gloomy
+dissatisfaction, acquired, after one or two attempts, an expression
+which he flattered himself defied analysis.
+
+He tapped the barometer which hung by the door as they went out, and,
+checking a remark which rose to his lips, stole a satisfied glance at
+the face by his side.
+
+"Clark's farm by the footpaths would be a nice walk," said Miss Drewitt,
+as they reached the end of the lane.
+
+The captain started. "I was thinking of Dutton Priors," he said, slowly.
+"We could go there by Hanger's Lane and home by the road."
+
+"The footpaths would be nice to-day," urged his niece.
+
+"You try my way," said the captain, jovially.
+
+"Have you got any particular reason for wanting to go to Dutton Priors
+this afternoon?" inquired the girl.
+
+"Reason?" said the captain. "Good gracious, no. What reason should I
+have? My leg is a trifle stiff to-day for stiles, but still----"
+
+Miss Drewitt gave way at once, and, taking his arm, begged him to lean
+on her, questioning him anxiously as to his fitness for a walk in any
+direction.
+
+"Walking 'll do it good," was the reply, as they proceeded slowly down
+the High Street.
+
+         [Illustration: "HE BECAME INTENT ON A DERELICT PUNT."]
+
+He took his watch from his pocket, and, after comparing it with the town
+clock, peered furtively right and left, gradually slackening his pace
+until Miss Drewitt's fears for his leg became almost contagious. At the
+old stone bridge, spanning the river at the bottom of the High Street,
+he paused, and, resting his arms on the parapet, became intent on a
+derelict punt. On the subject of sitting in a craft of that description
+in mid-stream catching fish he discoursed at such length that the girl
+eyed him in amazement.
+
+"Shall we go on?" she said, at length.
+
+The captain turned and, merely pausing to point out the difference
+between the lines of a punt and a dinghy, with a digression to sampans
+which included a criticism of the Chinese as boat-builders, prepared to
+depart. He cast a swift glance up the road as he did so, and Miss
+Drewitt's cheek flamed with sudden wrath as she saw Mr. Edward Tredgold
+hastening towards them. In a somewhat pointed manner she called her
+uncle's attention to the fact.
+
+"Lor' bless my soul," said that startled mariner, "so it is. Well!
+well!"
+
+If Mr. Tredgold had been advancing on his head he could not have
+exhibited more surprise.
+
+"I'm afraid I'm late," said Tredgold, as he came up and shook hands. "I
+hope you haven't been waiting long."
+
+The hapless captain coughed loud and long. He emerged from a large red
+pocket-handkerchief to find the eye of Miss Drewitt seeking his.
+
+"That's all right, my lad," he said, huskily. "I'd forgotten about our
+arrangement. Did I say this Sunday or next?"
+
+"This," said Mr. Tredgold, bluntly.
+
+The captain coughed again, and with some pathos referred to the tricks
+which old age plays with memory. As they walked on he regaled them with
+selected instances.
+
+"Don't forget your leg, uncle," said Miss Drewitt, softly.
+
+Captain Bowers gazed at her suspiciously.
+
+"Don't forget that it's stiff and put too much strain on it," explained
+his niece.
+
+The captain eyed her uneasily, but she was talking and laughing with
+Edward Tredgold in a most reassuring fashion. A choice portion of his
+programme, which, owing to the events of the afternoon, he had almost
+resolved to omit, clamoured for production. He stole another glance at
+his niece and resolved to risk it.
+
+"Hah!" he said, suddenly, stopping short and feeling in his pockets.
+"There's my memory again. Well, of all the----"
+
+"What's the matter, uncle?" inquired Miss Drewitt.
+
+"I've left my pipe at home," said the captain, in a desperate voice.
+
+"I've got some cigars," suggested Tredgold.
+
+The captain shook his head. "No, I must have my pipe," he said,
+decidedly. "If you two will walk on slowly, I'll soon catch you up."
+
+"You're not going all the way back for it?" exclaimed Miss Drewitt.
+
+"Let me go," said Tredgold.
+
+The captain favoured him with an inscrutable glance. "I'll go," he said,
+firmly. "I'm not quite sure where I left it. You go by Hanger's Lane;
+I'll soon catch you up."
+
+He set off at a pace which rendered protest unavailing. Mr. Tredgold
+turned, and, making a mental note of the fact that Miss Drewitt had
+suddenly added inches to her stature, walked on by her side.
+
+"Captain Bowers is very fond of his pipe," he said, after they had
+walked a little way in silence.
+
+Miss Drewitt assented. "Nasty things," she said, calmly.
+
+"So they are," said Mr. Tredgold.
+
+"But you smoke," said the girl.
+
+Mr. Tredgold sighed. "I have often thought of giving it up," he said,
+softly, "and then I was afraid that it would look rather presumptuous."
+
+"Presumptuous?" repeated Miss Drewitt.
+
+"So many better and wiser men than myself smoke," explained Mr.
+Tredgold, "including even bishops. If it is good enough for them, it
+ought to be good enough for me; that's the way I look at it. Who am I
+that I should be too proud to smoke? Who am I that I should try and set
+my poor ideas above those of my superiors? Do you see my point of view?"
+
+Miss Drewitt made no reply.
+
+"Of course, it is a thing that grows on one," continued Mr. Tredgold,
+with the air of making a concession. "It is the first smoke that does
+the mischief; it is a fatal precedent. Unless, perhaps----How pretty
+that field is over there."
+
+Miss Drewitt looked in the direction indicated. "Very nice," she said,
+briefly. "But what were you going to say?"
+
+Mr. Tredgold made an elaborate attempt to appear confused. "I was going
+to say," he murmured, gently, "unless, perhaps, one begins on coarse-cut
+Cavendish rolled in a piece of the margin of the Sunday newspaper."
+
+Miss Drewitt suppressed an exclamation. "I wanted to see where the
+fascination was," she said, indignantly.
+
+"And did you?" inquired Mr. Tredgold, smoothly.
+
+The girl turned her head and looked at him. "I have no doubt my uncle
+gave you full particulars," she said, bitterly. "It seems to me that men
+can gossip as much as women."
+
+"I tried to stop him," said the virtuous Mr. Tredgold.
+
+"You need not have troubled," said Miss Drewitt, loftily. "It is not a
+matter of any consequence. I am surprised that my uncle should have
+thought it worth mentioning."
+
+She walked on slowly with head erect, pausing occasionally to look round
+for the captain. Edward Tredgold looked too, and a feeling of annoyance
+at the childish stratagems of his well-meaning friend began to possess
+him.
+
+"We had better hurry a little, I think," he said, glancing at the sky.
+"The sooner we get to Dutton Priors the better."
+
+"Why?" inquired his companion.
+
+"Rain," said the other, briefly.
+
+"It won't rain before evening," said Miss Drewitt, confidently; "uncle
+said so."
+
+"Perhaps we had better walk faster, though," urged Mr. Tredgold.
+
+Miss Drewitt slackened her pace deliberately. "There is no fear of its
+raining," she declared. "And uncle will not catch us up if we walk
+fast."
+
+A sudden glimpse into the immediate future was vouchsafed to Mr.
+Tredgold; for a fraction of a second the veil was lifted. "Don't blame
+me if you get wet, though," he said, with some anxiety.
+
+They walked on at a pace which gave the captain every opportunity of
+overtaking them. The feat would not have been beyond the powers of an
+athletic tortoise, but the most careful scrutiny failed to reveal any
+signs of him.
+
+"I'm afraid that he is not well," said Miss Drewitt, after a long,
+searching glance along the way they had come. "Perhaps we had better go
+back. It does begin to look rather dark."
+
+"Just as you please," said Edward Tredgold, with unwonted caution; "but
+the nearest shelter is Dutton Priors."
+
+He pointed to a lurid, ragged cloud right ahead of them. As if in
+response, a low, growling rumble sounded overhead.
+
+"Was--was that thunder?" said Miss Drewitt, drawing a little nearer to
+him.
+
+"Sounded something like it," was the reply.
+
+A flash of lightning and a crashing peal that rent the skies put the
+matter beyond a doubt. Miss Drewitt, turning very pale, began to walk at
+a rapid pace in the direction of the village.
+
+The other looked round in search of some nearer shelter. Already the
+pattering of heavy drops sounded in the lane, and before they had gone a
+dozen paces the rain came down in torrents. Two or three fields away a
+small shed offered the only shelter. Mr. Tredgold, taking his companion
+by the arm, started to run towards it.
+
+Before they had gone a hundred yards they were wet through, but Miss
+Drewitt, holding her skirts in one hand and shivering at every flash,
+ran until they brought up at a tall gate, ornamented with barbed wire,
+behind which stood the shed.
+
+The gate was locked, and the wire had been put on by a farmer who
+combined with great ingenuity a fervent hatred of his fellowmen. To Miss
+Drewitt it seemed insurmountable, but, aided by Mr. Tredgold and a peal
+of thunder which came to his assistance at a critical moment, she
+managed to clamber over and reach the shed. Mr. Tredgold followed at his
+leisure with a strip of braid torn from the bottom of her dress.
+
+    [Illustration: "AIDED BY MR. TREDGOLD AND A PEAL OF THUNDER, SHE
+                       MANAGED TO CLAMBER OVER."]
+
+The roof leaked in twenty places and the floor was a puddle, but it had
+certain redeeming features in Mr. Tredgold's eyes of which the girl knew
+nothing. He stood at the doorway watching the rain.
+
+"Come inside," said Miss Drewitt, in a trembling voice. "You might be
+struck."
+
+Mr. Tredgold experienced a sudden sense of solemn pleasure in this
+unexpected concern for his safety. He turned and eyed her.
+
+"I'm not afraid," he said, with great gentleness.
+
+"No, but I am," said Miss Drewitt, petulantly, "and I can never get over
+that gate alone."
+
+Mr. Tredgold came inside, and for some time neither of them spoke. The
+rattle of rain on the roof became less deafening and began to drip
+through instead of forming little jets. A patch of blue sky showed.
+
+"It isn't much," said Tredgold, going to the door again.
+
+Miss Drewitt, checking a sharp retort, returned to the door and looked
+out. The patch of blue increased in size; the rain ceased and the sun
+came out; birds exchanged congratulations from every tree. The girl,
+gathering up her wet skirts, walked to the gate, leaving her companion
+to follow.
+
+Approached calmly and under a fair sky the climb was much easier.
+
+"I believe that I could have got over by myself after all," said Miss
+Drewitt, as she stood on the other side. "I suppose that you were in too
+much of a hurry the last time. My dress is ruined."
+
+She spoke calmly, but her face was clouded. From her manner during the
+rapid walk home Mr. Tredgold was enabled to see clearly that she was
+holding him responsible for the captain's awkward behaviour; the rain;
+her spoiled clothes; and a severe cold in the immediate future. He
+glanced at her ruined hat and the wet, straight locks of hair hanging
+about her face, and held his peace.
+
+Never before on a Sunday afternoon had Miss Drewitt known the streets of
+Binchester to be so full of people. She hurried on with bent head,
+looking straight before her, trying to imagine what she looked like.
+There was no sign of the captain, but as they turned into Dialstone Lane
+they both saw a huge, shaggy, grey head protruding from the small window
+of his bedroom. It disappeared with a suddenness almost startling.
+
+"Thank you," said Miss Drewitt, holding out her hand as she reached the
+door. "Good-bye."
+
+Mr. Tredgold said "Good-bye," and with a furtive glance at the window
+above departed. Miss Drewitt, opening the door, looked round an empty
+room. Then the kitchen door opened and the face of Mr. Tasker, full of
+concern, appeared.
+
+"Did you get wet, miss?" he inquired.
+
+Miss Drewitt ignored the question. "Where is Captain Bowers?" she asked,
+in a clear, penetrating voice.
+
+The face of Mr. Tasker fell. "He's gone to bed with a headache, miss,"
+he replied.
+
+"Headache?" repeated the astonished Miss Drewitt. "When did he go?"
+
+"About 'arf an hour ago," said Mr. Tasker; "just after the storm. I
+suppose that's what caused it, though it seems funny, considering what a
+lot he must ha' seen at sea. He said he'd go straight to bed and try and
+sleep it off. And I was to ask you to please not to make a noise."
+
+Miss Drewitt swept past him and mounted the stairs. At the captain's
+door she paused, but the loud snoring of a determined man made her
+resolve to postpone her demands for an explanation to a more fitting
+opportunity. Tired, wet, and angry she gained her own room, and threw
+herself thoughtlessly into that famous old Chippendale chair which, in
+accordance with Mr. Tredgold's instructions, had been placed against the
+wall.
+
+    [Illustration: "SHE THREW HERSELF THOUGHTLESSLY INTO THAT FAMOUS
+                        OLD CHIPPENDALE CHAIR."]
+
+The captain stirred in his sleep.
+
+                          (_To be continued._)
+
+
+
+
+                       _Wild Western Journalism._
+
+                            BY AN EX-EDITOR.
+
+
+One of the most thrilling occupations that a human being could follow in
+the old days--say a brief generation since--was that of editing a
+newspaper in a small American town. There was a fulness in the life, a
+feverish activity in the office and a perpetual spice of danger out of
+it, that made all other callings seem trivial. Things have changed a
+great deal in the past few years, but even yet Wild Western journalism
+can boast a flavour--a tang of its own. There is no other Press in the
+world quite like it; there is no similar body of men like those who
+engineer it. To our old friends, Mr. Pott, of the _Eatanswill Gazette_,
+and Mr. Slurk, of the _Eatanswill Independent_, their Occidental
+followers of the _Arizona Arrow_ and the _Tombstone Epitaph_ bear but
+faint resemblance. Perhaps in the birth-throes of English journalism--in
+the era of the _Mercurius Pragmaticus_ and the _Scot's Dove_--the
+vicissitudes of editors were not dissimilar to those endured by the
+Colorado and Texas editor of yesterday, who was often his own publisher,
+his own printer, and his own editor rolled in one--and not only that,
+but was forced to perform these functions with a six-chambered revolver
+reposing gracefully, yet ominously, on his desk. As to his Protean
+character there has been little if any improvement. I cull the following
+from a recent issue of the _Yampa_ (Oregon) _Leader_:--
+
+    The great city papers think they are smart in having a large
+    staff, and, although we have not published ours before, we shall
+    do so to take some of the conceit out of the city brethren. The
+    editorial staff of the _Leader_ is composed of: Managing editor,
+    V. S. Wilson; city editor, Vic Wilson; news editor, V. Wilson;
+    editorial writer, Hon. Mr. Wilson; exchange editor, Wilson;
+    pressman, the same Wilson; foreman, more of the same Wilson;
+    devil, a picture of the same Wilson; fighting editor, Mrs.
+    Wilson.
+
+      [Illustration: Facsimile of newspaper, "Tombstone Epitaph"]
+
+By no means exaggerated is the description of a Western editor and his
+environment which was given some years ago by the authors of that
+amusing novel, "The Golden Butterfly." Prototypes of Gilead P. Beck
+could be found in abundance throughout the region west of the
+Mississippi. One of the most extraordinary characters and one of the
+most delightful was the late Alvin S. Peek--"Judge" Peek of
+Dakota--whose boast it was that he had "run" papers in nine different
+States and territories, had shot eleven men who disagreed with his
+opinions--three of them fatally--and had never swallowed a word he had
+ever written, and who died universally respected in bed and at the ripe
+age--for Dakota--of fifty-one years.
+
+But apart from any personal contact with the men who make the newspapers
+of the wild and woolly West it was once my experience to receive and
+peruse weekly many hundreds of their productions--"exchanges" they are
+called--and ranging from the _Mother Lode Magnet_ of California and the
+_Tombstone Epitaph_ of Tombstone, Arizona, to the _Arkansas Howler_ and
+the _Mustang_ (Colorado) _Mail_. Many a pleasant evening have I spent
+over them, and I still prize a scrap-book containing things to me as
+funny as I could find in any collection of wit and humour in the world.
+There is reason for this, because the backwoods and prairie Press of
+America is the nursery of American humour. It produced Mark Twain, Bret
+Harte, Petroleum V. Nasby, Joshua Billings, J. M. Bailey, Bob Burdette,
+Bill Nye, John Phoenix, and F. L. Stanton, to mention only a few of the
+humorists of international renown. I was well acquainted with Stanton at
+the time he was editing, printing, and publishing the famous _Smithville
+News_. _Texas Siftings_, the _Arizona Kicker_, and the _Burlington
+Hawkeye_ have made the peculiarities and amenities of Western journalism
+familiar to English readers. Albeit, scattered through a dozen States
+and territories are thousands of small newspapers, eking out a
+precarious existence--full of native humour and sentiment--of which not
+even the resident of Chicago and St. Louis has so much as heard. How
+precarious that existence is may be judged from the following editorial
+appeal in the _Gem_, of Flagstaff, Arizona:--
+
+    Have you paid your subscription yet? Remember even an editor
+    must live. If the _hard times_ have struck your shebang, don't
+    forget turnips, potatoes, and corn in the shock are most as
+    welcome as hard cash at the _Gem_ office. Also hard wood. Our
+    latch-string is always out, or same (_i.e._, the turnips, etc.)
+    can be delivered to our wife, who will give receipt in our
+    absence.
+
+One of the pleasing fictions preserved by the Western Press is, as we
+have seen, that of a plurality of editors. To these supposititious
+editors the most extraordinary titles and functions are bequeathed. On
+the front page of the _Rising Star_ (Texas) _X-ray_ no pretence of a
+numerous staff is made--Mr. Albert Tyson boldly announces himself as
+"horse, snake, lying, and fighting editor," while his motto is, "Do unto
+others as you would have them do to you, and do it _fust_!"
+
+In mining districts or in the new territories, where a "tenderfoot" is
+made welcome in the "'eave 'arf-brick" fashion, the career of an editor
+is one of constant risk and turmoil. If he is young and inexperienced
+there are always lawless spirits ready to take a rise out of him, just
+for the pleasure and excitement of the thing.
+
+                             [Illustration:
+                         The Rising Star X-Ray
+
+        ALBERT TYSON, HORSE, SNAKE, LYING, AND FIGHTING EDITOR,
+
+        Entered at the Rising Star Post-Office as Second-class
+        Mail matter. Published every Friday.
+
+        "DO UNTO OTHERS AS YOU WOULD HAVE THEM DO TO YOU, AND DO
+        IT FUST"
+
+                               Editorial
+
+                                  -0-
+
+        This is 1901, have you resolted any yet? If you have
+        been making a dozzen New Year resolutions and breaking
+        them all in about 30 days, try the plan this time of
+        making only six and see if you can't keep your integrity
+        with at least three of them.
+
+        In this New Year, A D 1901 make a grave effort to "Do
+        unto others as you would have them do to you, and do it
+        FUST"
+
+                                 0 0 0
+
+        The Mav Enterprise has gone into hence,--is a mournful
+        corpse. She died, according to a hasty post mortem
+        examination, of a malignant attack of impecuniosity
+        fever or financial strangulation.
+
+                                 0 0 0
+
+        The X-Ray makes a motion that the people of Eastland
+        county instruct their next Representative to the
+        Legislature to introduce a bill in that honorable body
+        against the sale of toy pistols, firecrackers, and
+        torpedos of every description.]
+
+Even in the civilized Southern States to the east of the Mississippi
+editing was not fifteen years ago a healthy pastime. On one occasion,
+when I was assisting a friend in Georgia, a citizen in a high state of
+excitement entered the "editorial sanctum"--they are very particular
+about the dignity of these epithets in America--and riddled the walls
+and my desk with bullets from a revolver.
+
+Luckily, I happened not to be there, but in the composing-room, engaged
+in making-up the editorial page. My eye dwelt lovingly on a neat row of
+paragraphs, one beginning in this wise:--
+
+    If our esteemed (but chronically overheated) fellow-townsman,
+    Sam Beale, will take our advice, etc.
+
+ [Illustration: "THE MALLET GRAZED MY EAR AND CRASHED INTO THE WALL."]
+
+At that moment three shots rang out in deafening succession. My
+journeyman "comp." dropped on his knees under the composing-case, and I
+was just deciding on my own line of conduct when the door was flung
+violently open, and Mr. Samuel Beale and I stood face to face. There
+were no words--none which I could bring my pen to write--but a heavy
+printer's mallet lay at one end of the make-up stone; this "our esteemed
+(but chronically overheated) fellow-townsman" seized and flung with all
+possible force straight at my head. Had his aim been true I should never
+have lived to tell this tale. As it was, the mallet grazed my ear and
+crashed into the wall, and the next object I saw was Beale wrestling
+with the door in a frantic effort to escape. The conclusion of this
+anecdote doesn't matter; but my printer was, I believe, finally obliged
+to haul me off the body of the prostrate Mr. Beale, upon whom I then and
+there felt it my editorial duty to take summary vengeance. Afterwards I
+wisely went armed, my victim having openly threatened to shoot me on
+sight. But the quarrel was eventually patched up, my chief inserting the
+following characteristic _amende_:--
+
+    The _News-Democrat_ having on divers occasions, through a
+    misapprehension of the true circumstances, stated that our
+    esteemed townsman Sam Beale was a liar, a thief, and the
+    meanest skunk in the whole State of Georgia, we beg hereby
+    to retract this, and declare that our knowledge is solely
+    confined to Pawnee County. Shake, Sam, and be friends!
+
+One of the arts which a Western editor must understand is that of
+"padding," especially in his local "society" items.
+
+Thus a Missouri paper, the _Hannibal Hornet_, is responsible for the
+following string of "personals":--
+
+    Dec. 7th. Miss Sadie James, of Tarrant Springs, is visiting her
+    friend, Miss Annabel S. Colver, at the house of Miss Annabel S.
+    Colver, on Decatur Street.
+
+    Dec. 8th. Miss Annabel S. Colver gave a party in honour of her
+    guest, Miss Sadie James, who is visiting her at Miss Colver's
+    beautiful home on Decatur Street, at which all the youth and
+    beauty of Hannibal were present in full force.
+
+    Dec. 9th. Miss Sadie James, of Tarrant Springs, was observed out
+    sleigh-riding with her charming hostess, Miss A. S. Colver, and
+    their neat turn-out was shortly joined by several others.
+
+    Dec. 10th.  Miss Sadie James terminated a pleasant visit to
+    Hannibal and returned to Tarrant Springs.
+
+But occasionally it happens that an exquisite item of "society" falls in
+the editor's way, without his having to do any "padding" at all, as in
+this from the _Fairplay Flume_, published in the flourishing Colorado
+"city" of Fairplay:--
+
+    MARRIED. MARKHAM--SEELY.--At the residence of the groom's
+    parents one of the most up-to-date weddings took place. (There
+    had been an agreement between the bride and groom not to be
+    married in the old-fashioned way, but to change the mode a
+    little.) Therefore they were married at the residence of the
+    father of the groom, Peter J. Seely, Esq. The groom wore a long
+    pair of overalls and a cutaway coat. The bride wore a calico
+    dress and apron. They both looked the picture of health, and
+    were ably assisted--the groom by the bride's sister and the
+    bride by Mr. Sam Meadows, a particular friend of the groom's.
+    After spending a couple of weeks in the West they will return
+    and settle down in their pleasant home, "Swandown"; Burlap, the
+    furniture man at Five Forks, having already the contract to see
+    that their home is properly furnished during their absence.
+
+      [Illustration: FAIRPLAY FLUME, THE BLISS BREEZE, THE ARIZONA
+    ARROW, THE CREEDE CANDLE, THE RIFLE REVEILLE, THE MUSTANG MAIL,
+                        THE MOTHER LODE MAGNET]
+
+As to the titles of many of these Western productions, it might be
+supposed these spring from the fertile brain of some incorrigible
+humorist. But this is not so. Nothing could be more real--"alive and
+kicking"--in Anno Domini 1904, than the _Creede_ (Colorado) _Candle_,
+the _Arizona Arrow_ of Chloride, Arizona, the _Rifle Reveille_, the
+_Rising Star X-ray_, the _Bald-Knob Herald_, the Dallas _World Hustler_,
+the _Kosse Cyclone_, the Blooming _Grove Rustler_, the Carrizo
+_Javelin_, the Noyales _Oasis_, and the Devil's Lake _Free Press_. The
+names of some Western towns are fantastic to a degree, and the editorial
+love for alliteration is strong. Thus we have the _Bliss Breeze_, the
+_Mustang Mail_, and the Searchlight _Searchlight_ in addition to those I
+have mentioned. What more natural in the "city" of Tombstone, Arizona,
+than that the newspaper should be entitled the _Epitaph_? Or that an
+_Epitaph_ should take as naturally to obituaries as a duck to water or
+an Arizonian takes to his "gun"?
+
+               [Illustration: JAKE MOFFATT GONE SKYWARD!]
+
+    As we feared on hearing that two doctors had been called in, the
+    life of our esteemed fellow-citizen Jake Moffatt ered out on
+    Wednesday last, just after we had gone to press. Jake was every
+    inch a scholar and a gentleman, upright in all his dealings,
+    unimpeachable in character, and ran the Front Street Saloon in
+    the very toniest style consistent with order. Jake never fully
+    recovered from the year he spent in the county jail at the time
+    of the Ryan-Sternberg fracas. His health was shattered, and he
+    leaves a sorrowing widow and nary an enemy.
+
+      [Illustration: Newspapers: "THE JAVELIN. The Flagstaff Gem.
+                   The Oasis. The Oklahoma Hornet."]
+
+The Tombstone men are handy with their "shooting-irons," as may be
+judged from the accompanying cheery advertisement last Christmas time.
+
+                     [Illustration: TURKEY SHOOTING
+                      Wednesday, December 23, 1903
+                       North End of Fifth Street
+                                -------
+                          Use Any Kind of Rifle
+                                -------
+            AT 50 YARDS,
+                Turkey's Head Exposed, 25c Per Shot
+            AT 200 YARDS,
+                Entire Turkey Exposed, 25c Per Shot
+            To Draw Blood Entitles You to the Turkey
+                                -------
+            SPORT BEGINS AT 2 P. M.
+                                -------
+              Turkeys Now on Exhibition at Saylor's Store,
+                  Allen. Bet. Fourth and Fifth Streets]
+
+The chief advertisements in the _Epitaph_, as in the other papers in the
+ranching country, consist of cattle-brands--_i.e._, rude outlines or
+silhouettes of equine or bovine quadrupeds, marked with the peculiar
+sign which distinguishes their ownership from others. By this means any
+strayed or stolen cattle are readily identified.
+
+            [Illustration: CATTLE-BRAND ADVERTISEMENTS.]
+
+As to the technical aspect of all the papers, which have so much in
+common, the reader may like to learn something. How are they produced so
+as to cover expenses in a "city" which boasts often fewer than one
+thousand inhabitants, rarely reaches two thousand, and not seldom has
+but five hundred souls? The answer is, in the first place, to be found
+in the invention of patent "insides" or "outsides." These are sheets
+ready printed on two of the four outside or inside pages; or, if it
+should happen to be an eight-page paper, six pages would be set up and
+printed at some great centre of population like Chicago or St. Louis.
+The invention is of English origin, but owes its vogue in America to A.
+N. Kellogg, who in 1861 was editing a little paper at Baraboo,
+Wisconsin. When the Civil War broke out his printers left him for the
+front, and, unable to get out his journal, he wrote to the publisher of
+the Madison _Daily Journal_ for sheets of that paper printed on one side
+only with the latest available war news. The blank side the enterprising
+Kellogg filled up himself with big "block" advertisements and local
+items and the inevitable political "editorial," without which no
+American newspaper, however small, would be complete in its editor's
+eyes, although it is rarely read. In a short space of time other country
+editors followed Kellogg's example, and the Madison daily was printing
+newspapers for thirty different Wisconsin papers on one side of the
+sheet. The enterprise grew, Kellogg directed his entire attention to it,
+and ended by founding a business which to-day prints two thousand
+different sets or editions of patent insides.
+
+At one time the same formes were used for hundreds of papers, only the
+titles, headings, etc., being changed to suit each customer. But now the
+editors of the _Oasis_ and the _Hustler_ have at least a hundred
+different styles of paper to select from. As to the cost, the editor
+pays hardly more than what the blank paper is worth, for the ready-print
+companies derive their profit from the advertisements, for which they
+reserve several columns of space. These country papers are usually sold
+in "bundles" of nine hundred and sixty copies, but the circulation may
+not be one-half of that figure.
+
+We have seen that editing is a precarious livelihood, yet the editor
+manages to get along somehow. I have seen it publicly stated that there
+are four classes of men who usually own these small papers: farmers'
+sons who are too good for farming and not quite good enough to do
+nothing; school-teachers; lawyers who have made a failure of the law;
+and professional printers who have "worked their way"--these last two by
+far the most numerous class. They derive their chief profits from
+advertisements, for it is a point of honour with the local bankers,
+storekeepers, implement dealers, lawyers, doctors, liverymen, and
+blacksmiths to advertise in the local paper. Then there is the annual,
+and occasionally the semi-annual, circus advertisement, which may bring
+in as much as a hundred dollars, "if a picture of the elephant is thrown
+in." In the cattle-raising districts, as in Arizona, the different
+cattle-brands fill up a large part of the paper, as in the case of the
+_Tombstone Epitaph_. But besides the patent "inside," the editor of the
+little paper has another convenient expedient for filling up his
+columns. He can buy stereotype plates--that is, columns of interesting
+matter in thin sheets. These are made to fit metal bases with which he
+is supplied, and which he keeps in stock. Plates and bases being "type
+high," or level with the type of the newspaper, are cheap to send by
+rail, and being furnished to hundreds of other journals are of far
+higher literary character than the editor could turn out himself for
+treble cost.
+
+I have said little of illustrated journalism in the Far West; but, as
+the accompanying reproduction humorously suggests, it is--inexpensive.
+And it may also betray the fount whence the authors of that amusing
+brochure, "Wisdom While You Wait," drew some, at least, of their
+inspiration.
+
+                             [Illustration:
+      PHOENIX'S PICTORIAL, And Second Story Front Room Companion.
+      Vol. I]          San Diego, October 1, 1853          [No. 1
+
+          Mansion of John Phoenix, Esq., San Diego, California
+
+       House in which Shakespeare was born, in Stratford-on-Avon]
+
+
+
+
+                            The Red Counter.
+
+                           BY L. J. BEESTON.
+
+
+                                   I.
+
+Veterin gathered up from the table the papers which his captain pushed
+toward him. He said, moodily:--
+
+"I am surprised at _you_. We shall all be killed while you are making
+love here. You may be very emotional, but you will have to tell that to
+the German advanced guard."
+
+Nicolas La Hire rose and took his sabre from a chair in this, the best
+room of the _auberge_. He was commanding a scattered remnant of
+cuirassiers who were shadowed by a Prussian force. It was his intention
+to join the main body, but not only were there many obstacles in the
+way, but he had fallen very desperately in love with Rachel Nay, the
+sweetest and prettiest girl in Orgemont. He replied--by no means
+offended by the familiarity of his officer, for whom he had the greatest
+friendship:--
+
+"You are needlessly alarmed. Besides, love speaks louder than a
+bugle-call."
+
+        [Illustration: "LOVE SPEAKS LOUDER THAN A BUGLE-CALL."]
+
+"But not so loud as a bomb, and that is what we shall get very soon. I
+am not afraid--I; but there is a time for making love and a time for
+making war. Then, consider your family. A farmer's pretty daughter is no
+match for a La Hire. And in any case you will not get her, for she is
+promised to that rascal Simon Mansart, who lives in the chateau on the
+hill yonder"; and Veterin pointed through the unshuttered window, across
+the village, where the cottages bore a covering of snow, and the frozen
+road, to where a clump of acacias crowned an eminence.
+
+"That is what troubles me," answered La Hire, beginning to pace the
+room. "If she is married to that man, whom she detests and fears--to
+that miser, that creature----!" he broke off suddenly, then continued:
+"It is a burning shame that this pure girl, this sweet Rachel, this
+wild-flower----!"
+
+"Oh, come," interrupted Veterin, shrugging his shoulders contemptuously,
+"if you are going to dilate in that strain----"
+
+"Silence!" shouted La Hire; "you go too far." He muttered, in an
+undertone, "I cannot leave her, loving her as I do, loving me as she
+does, for I greatly fear that this vulture Mansart will be too strong
+for me when I am gone."
+
+"Then visit him," said Veterin. "Have you not a sword to threaten with?
+Better still, have you not gold to offer? That will persuade him, if
+anything can."
+
+La Hire thought for a moment; then he said, "That is not at all a bad
+idea. I will go now.... We will leave to-night. You will give the word.
+Laporte is moving on Besancon, which is in a state of siege. We really
+ought to join him three leagues from here, if only these confounded
+Prussians will let us alone." He went out, murmuring, "I must see Rachel
+before I go."
+
+                               * * * * *
+
+"You hear what I say, Monsieur Mansart?" thundered La Hire.
+
+Simon did not reply, nor did his eyes fail before the stern gaze of the
+captain of cuirassiers. A crafty smile touched the corners of his thin
+lips, and he stroked with either hand the heads of two immense mastiffs
+that crouched on the floor by his side.
+
+"Mademoiselle Rachel Nay does not need your attentions. You will not
+molest or annoy her in any way. Your gold, which, if report says true,
+you have spent your life in wringing from whom you can, cannot buy a
+woman's heart, and hers is pledged to me."
+
+Simon smiled still more craftily. He knew that his parsimony had made
+him notorious; he knew that the widow and the fatherless had little
+cause to love him. His heart had shrunk in the grip of his miserly
+instincts. But he was not afraid as he answered:--
+
+"I shall take my own course, monsieur. Who are you to dictate to me? I
+care not for your clanking spurs, your fierce looks. I have influence
+with Mademoiselle Rachel's parents, who are very poor, and I shall use
+it to the uttermost. I pit my gold against your handsome face and
+swaggering manner. We will see who will win."
+
+"Listen!" said Nicolas, in a voice hoarse with anger. "I will descend to
+make terms with you, though, _mon Dieu!_ there is little reason why I
+should. Since money is as vital breath to you, I offer you five thousand
+francs if you will withdraw your suit."
+
+"I refuse."
+
+"Ten thousand, then?"
+
+Mansart laughed and snapped his dry fingers.
+
+"Come, I offer you fifteen thousand francs, and not a sou further will I
+go."
+
+Simon was visibly moved, and his hands rested nervously upon the heads
+of his great curs; but he controlled the rising temptation and answered,
+bitterly:--
+
+"It is clear that you fear me or you would not make such overtures. I
+decline your offer."
+
+"Think well! I will never yield this girl."
+
+"That is unfortunate, for I certainly intend to win her."
+
+"Be careful!" said La Hire, in such a terrible voice that the mastiffs
+growled and bared their teeth.
+
+And instinctively, though he meant nothing, his hand groped at the hilt
+of his sabre.
+
+Mansart half rose from his chair. "You forget my dogs," he snarled.
+
+"And you forget the Prussians, who cannot be far off," replied the
+other; and when he perceived that the warning had a distinct effect he
+followed up his advantage. "You will have to take care of yourself here,
+monsieur, and yet greater care of your gold. I warn you that a Prussian
+force is shadowing us, so that they will almost certainly take this
+direction, if that is comforting for you to know."
+
+Mansart turned pale.
+
+"And as they have a couple of field-pieces, you may expect a display, by
+Jove!"
+
+He had scarcely spoken the words when a deep sound, a heavy thud, which
+appeared to come from a long distance, startled him.
+
+"Malediction! A gun!" exclaimed the captain.
+
+He had scarcely spoken when a second and much sharper report sounded.
+The shell had burst. Faint shouting came from below in the village.
+
+"The 'Blues' have come after all," said La Hire, and he went out.
+
+Looking northward he saw a tiny cloud drifting across the stars. It was
+the smoke from the cannon which had been discharged. In that direction a
+ridge broke the flatness of the fields, that were buried under a sheet
+of ice. He muttered to himself:--
+
+"They are there, on the escarpment. They will put a few shells into the
+village and turn us out, and we must retreat--as usual. I do not care if
+I can withdraw them from Orgemont." His eyes grew tender; he was
+thinking of Rachel.
+
+"Are they here--these Germans?" asked a fearful voice at his elbow.
+
+Mansart also had quitted the house. That note of war, which was the
+first he had ever heard, had terrified him.
+
+"You may be sure of it," said the other, laughing. "And it is to be
+hoped that you have some good things in your larder, for if these
+Prussians visit you you will find that they have the stomachs of
+wolves."
+
+A bugle sounded.
+
+"They will be expecting me," murmured La Hire.
+
+It was frightfully cold. The air, like the earth, seemed frozen, biting
+the lungs and making it difficult to breathe. The swaying branches of
+the trees in the garden appeared to be trying to obtain a little warmth
+by the exercise. The final crescent of the moon had risen, and her pale
+gleam upon the fields seemed to have become petrified also with the
+cold, and permanent.
+
+La Hire had no sooner made up his mind to move than a red flame glowed
+on the summit of the escarpment, and passed. It was quickly followed by
+a second heavy thud--the report of a six-pounder field-gun. A bright
+light appeared upon the sky, moving swiftly.
+
+Something uttered a wail; something rushed amongst the acacia trees in
+the garden, flinging down branches and tearing up earth. There was a
+splitting report, sheeted flame, a terrible cry.
+
+The night closed down as before, scarcely disturbed by that burst of
+passion.
+
+La Hire relaxed his grip of the garden soil. He lifted his face, which
+was covered with earth.
+
+"_Ciel!_ I thought I was done for," he muttered.
+
+He rose from the prostrate position into which he had flung himself, and
+looked around with eyes that were still dazed by the explosion.
+
+"Simon--Simon Mansart! Are you still alive?" he called.
+
+A loud burst of derisive laughter came from one of the lower windows of
+the house.
+
+"Go! The Prussians are waiting for you!" cried Mansart.
+
+La Hire shrugged his shoulders, then stepped briskly from the garden to
+where an orderly waited with his horse.
+
+And as he rode away he felt his love swell and rise in his heart, and a
+mad longing to see Rachel once more gripped him; to feel on his lips the
+soft touch of her lips, and round his neck the clinging fingers once
+clasped there. And this wave of passion that ran through his veins
+seemed to unstring his nerves, weaken his purpose, and cast a mist of
+love over his courage.
+
+He found Veterin waiting impatiently for his appearance; and he led his
+men southward, tempting the Prussians and drawing them from the
+village.
+
+
+                                  II.
+
+Weeks passed. The battles with the Germans, that were scarring the land
+and so many hearts, only threatened Orgemont.
+
+Now Simon Mansart lay very ill, and it was said that he was dying. At a
+late hour that night Rachel received a letter. It was from Mansart, and
+ran as follows:--
+
+"RACHEL,--I am very ill, and have but a few more hours to live. Will you
+wed me, dying? This is a strange request; but if for one brief hour I
+might call you wife it should not make you sad, and it would give me
+happiness.... I have a considerable sum of money with me in this house,
+which represents the greater part of my fortune. I am anxious that you
+should possess this when I am gone. I have papers drawn up making over
+to you the whole of this sum. Only your signature is needed and all
+becomes yours, even while I live. I would have it so, fearing that you
+might say, 'If he should not die after all!' In any case you will be
+rich. But have no fears; I am sinking, and can scarcely hold this pen.
+Rachel, you have scorned my offer of marriage; at any rate you cannot
+scorn me now. Let me call you wife; let me hold your hand for my final
+but sweetest hour.--SIMON MANSART."
+
+Old Joseph Nay, when this letter was read to him, slapped his shrunken
+thighs. "And I wished, when you were born, that you had been a boy!"
+cried he. "What a piece of fortune this is! At last I hope you will show
+some sense. Quick, and get ready. I will take you round in the cart. It
+is a frightful night, but one does not get a fortune every day on such
+terms. Then one must respect the request of a man who is dying." And he
+went out, adding to himself, "We are so poor that this is nothing less
+than a godsend."
+
+Rachel had turned very pale. She had greatly feared Mansart living; now,
+at his last moments, he still threatened her peace. Seeing marriage only
+in the holy light it has for lovers, she shrank from this thing.
+
+                               * * * * *
+
+A month passed.
+
+One day the hamlet was thrown into a state of excitement.
+
+A horseman came dashing bravely up the rough, snow covered road. He was
+a splendid figure. He wore a steel helmet with streaming plumes, a
+glittering cuirass, red breeches, and immense boots to his knees. A
+sabre leaped at his side, and foam flew from the red jaws of his
+magnificent horse. His bronzed face carried a formidable scar, that
+added to the fierceness of his appearance. He reined in his charger with
+a most telling effect.
+
+"Where is Mademoiselle Rachel Nay?" he demanded.
+
+They brought her to him. He sprang off his horse, removed his helmet,
+which he placed in the bend of his left arm, and bowed with gallantry,
+while his eyes showed his appreciation of the girl's beauty. He was
+Philippe Veterin.
+
+"I have come for you, mademoiselle," said he, trying to soften his
+voice, that had been roughened in the war.
+
+The blood crept from Rachel's cheeks.
+
+"And with a message from Nicolas La Hire, who is my friend. He is
+wounded--ah! pardon my stupidness, I am too abrupt; the hurt is not
+much, but enough to prevent his coming for you. _Mon Dieu!_--do not look
+so frightened, my pretty one; I have the best of news--news to bring the
+blood again to those smooth cheeks. Listen! We ambushed a whole host of
+Prussians, and we cut them to pieces. La Hire was equal to any two of
+us. The colonel vowed he would give him whatever he asked for. 'Then
+send,' said Nicolas, 'to Orgemont, which is three leagues from here, and
+fetch my sweetheart to me, that I may kiss her lips.'
+
+"We cheered him, mademoiselle, for it appealed to our hearts and made us
+think of the women whose love is ours, and who are waiting for us. 'It
+shall be done,' said the colonel, 'and you shall wed her, La Hire, if
+that be your present wish. Then she can return to her parents to wait
+for you until we have finished the war.'
+
+"This is my errand, pretty one. I have come to fetch you. Ah! you are
+paler than before. Courage! You shall have such a wedding that every
+woman in France shall envy you. The church bells will peal while our
+sentries guard the roads, the guns will salute you, and each breast that
+a cuirass hides will swell with the cheers that we shall give you. My
+sword, why am I not Nicolas La Hire!"
+
+Rachel tried to speak, but there was such a weight upon her heart that
+the words she would have uttered stopped in her throat. At length she
+said, faintly: "I--I cannot go: it is impossible."
+
+The trooper laughed outright. "_Pardonnez moi_," he cried, "I said that
+I have come for you, and without you I dare not return, or I should be
+compelled to fight my regiment, one by one. Mademoiselle, you will
+obtain a horse, and you will accompany me; that is as certain as my name
+is Philippe Veterin." He twisted his moustache, and a flash almost of
+menace sparkled in his black eyes.
+
+They were without old Joseph's cottage as they spoke, and Rachel drew
+Veterin in, closing the door against the little crowd of villagers, who
+turned their attention to the trooper's charger. She said, in a
+heart-broken voice:--
+
+"Nevertheless, I cannot accompany you. I am married already; I am
+another man's wife."
+
+                [Illustration: "I AM MARRIED ALREADY."]
+
+The trooper gave back a step; then he laughed harshly--a contemptuous
+laugh.
+
+"Oh, oh!" said he, shrugging his shoulders, "that is a different matter.
+All the same, it is bad, bad news for La Hire," and he moved toward the
+door.
+
+"Stay!" said the girl, flushing hotly at his derisive tone. "I have a
+message in return for yours. Will you tell Nicolas that, though he must
+come no more to Orgemont, though he must not see me again, I am wife in
+name only. Maiden I am still, before God, and, for Nicolas's sake, shall
+always remain so. You will tell him, monsieur, that he had been gone but
+a few weeks when Simon Mansart----"
+
+"Ah!" interrupted Veterin, "I have heard about him."
+
+"----when Simon Mansart fell ill. At the point of death (so it seemed
+to all of us) he besought me to wed him, for he loves me almost as much
+as he loves his gold. And he offered me in return all his money that is
+hid in his house. I refused. It was pointed out to me that Monsieur
+Mansart had no one to whom to leave the wealth which he had accumulated,
+but he asked nothing better than to leave it to me if I would grant him
+one brief hour in which to call me wife, that, holding my hand, he might
+pass the last great barrier. I refused again. Then they made it clear to
+me that certain papers only wanted my signature, and even while Monsieur
+Mansart lived his wealth became mine--so certain was he that he could
+not recover. Again I declined this offer. I was told that I should hold
+sacred the prayer of one who loved me and was dying; that it would not
+be only right, but an act of nobleness to render his end peaceful and
+happy. Still I refused."
+
+"Ah! Yet you yielded!" sighed Veterin, moved to his heart by a tear that
+was trickling down one of the soft brown cheeks.
+
+"For my parents' sake. They had their way at last. They are very poor;
+the war has tried us greatly. Against my heart, against my conscience, I
+said 'yes.' That night I signed the papers and was wedded to Monsieur
+Mansart; that night he held my hand as I sat by his couch, and he looked
+into my eyes with a terrible gaze of love."
+
+"And he lived? My sword! I could swear he was not so ill as he said. The
+cunning rascal!"
+
+"It was God's will. I have not seen him since then, and will not.... You
+will tell Nicolas all this, monsieur; and you will give him these papers
+and ask him to destroy them, lest he should say, 'Rachel married this
+man for the money.' I thought at first that I would send them back to
+Monsieur Mansart, for you may be sure I shall not touch this money that
+has come between Nicolas and me. And you will tell him that he must not
+grieve for me, because I am not worthy of his remembrance."
+
+"And I shall tell him that you love him still. Is it not so,
+mademoiselle?" said Veterin, huskily.
+
+"Yes, yes!" Rachel answered, struggling with her rising tears. She
+caught the trooper by the arm, clasping his great muscles with her two
+hands, and her breath fanned his face. "Tell him that--that I love him
+as much as--as I despise myself; that my heart, which I gave to him,
+must always be his; that all my thoughts are of him, are with him
+wherever he goes. And you may tell him, monsieur, if you like, that my
+heart is breaking--no, no; you must not say that! He would come to see
+me, and he must not. Oh, _mon Dieu_!"
+
+The clinging fingers tightened round the soldier's arm; the voice broke
+off into a sob. Veterin's eyes were wet. He blinked fiercely.
+
+"Take him my message. Tell him all this. But you cannot, wanting my
+voice and my eyes, in which he used to read every thought. Yet you will
+remember how I looked and what I said. And you will tell Nicolas that I
+love him as he taught me to, that without him all the world has grown
+dark, and that I shall love him until I die!"
+
+The trooper caught her to him, for he felt that she was falling. Rachel
+controlled herself by a strong effort, and she pushed him gently toward
+the door. Veterin turned to give one last look at that supplicating
+figure, with the dishevelled hair in sweet confusion about the
+tear-stained face; then he went out. He muttered, in a voice that he
+might not have known as his own:
+
+_Peste!_ It seems to me that this Simon Mansart is very much in the
+way!"
+
+
+                                  III.
+
+On the evening of that day Simon Mansart was sitting alone before a
+handful of fire when he heard his big dogs barking with anger. As the
+disturbance continued he went to the door, and he thought he perceived
+without, in the black night, a blacker shadow beyond the gate.
+
+"Will you call off your lambs?" shouted a voice.
+
+"Who are you? And what do you want?" cried Mansart, always terribly
+suspicious of strangers, and especially those who arrived after dusk.
+
+"You do not know me, but I have come on your business."
+
+"Then you will come again when it is daylight, my friend," and he began
+to close the door.
+
+"Very well," was the immediate reply. "I am determined to see you now,
+and if your dogs attempt to stop me they must take the consequences."
+
+Simon laughed incredulously; but when he heard the iron gate scream on
+its rusty hinges, and when he heard the growls of the dogs, he
+exclaimed, vehemently, "Take care! You will be torn to pieces!"
+
+"I shall at least kill one of your dogs first," was the determined
+reply.
+
+"Stop! I will call them off," said Mansart, who would never have yielded
+had he the smallest doubt of the other's resolution. He whistled his
+great curs off; but he was sorry that he had done so when he perceived
+his visitor, who was a French trooper, swaggering and fierce, and who
+could have crushed Mansart in his strong arms.
+
+"May I come in?" said he, and he advanced so persistently that the other
+was compelled to retreat before him. He closed the door and stood before
+it--tall, erect, commanding.
+
+"Your errand, monsieur?" demanded Simon, trembling with rage, yet
+afraid.
+
+"How dark it is in here! And what a little fire for so cold a night!"
+
+"We do not need light to talk by, and I am warm enough."
+
+"And poor enough. Is it not so? It is about that that I have come."
+
+Mansart grew more polite. He had signed away a fortune to a girl who
+loathed him. When peace should come the courts would make good her
+claim. So that any overture, any compromise, was welcome.
+
+  [Illustration: "MY NAME IS PHILLIPE VETERIN," SAID THE CUIRASSIER.]
+
+"My name is Philippe Veterin," said the cuirassier, folding his arms
+with their gauntleted hands, and fixing a stern look upon Mansart.
+"Captain Nicolas La Hire is my friend."
+
+"And my enemy," muttered Simon, his deep-set eyes flashing.
+
+"I have come to Orgemot on his behalf."
+
+"Ah! Is he wounded?"
+
+"He is."
+
+Mansart rubbed his hands together.
+
+"But not badly. Unless you are going to listen to me, I think it likely
+that La Hire will pay you a visit one of these days."
+
+Simon sank uneasily into his chair. "What has this to do with me?" he
+demanded. "And how is it that you are here?"
+
+Veterin went on steadily. "I am here with a message for Mademoiselle
+Rachel Nay, that sweet girl----"
+
+"That name is hers no longer. Also you will keep your compliments until
+I ask for them," interrupted the other, savagely.
+
+"You are her husband; that is true enough. To you I bear a message also.
+Yet I can scarcely call it that, since what I am about to propose to you
+is entirely an idea of my own, and which I should like to mention in the
+interests of my friend Monsieur Nicolas La Hire. It is of a most unusual
+nature. Here it is. Rachel married you believing that you were at
+Death's door. But the door wouldn't open. Good for you, bad for her, bad
+for Nicolas, whom she loves. Now, La Hire loves this girl; she is as
+indispensable to his happiness as your money is to yours. Mark that."
+
+There was a pause. Then Mansart said, "What do you mean?"
+
+"That I have come to offer to restore to you these papers, which
+represent the fortune which you have bestowed upon your wife. Ah! not so
+quick. There is one condition attached. You must release this girl."
+
+A terrible light of joy leaped into Simon's face, but it died away
+instantly. "The thing is impossible," he said. "She is my wife; we were
+lawfully wedded, remember. How, then, can I release her? How can she be
+wedded to another?"
+
+"Yet La Hire has sworn that only as her husband will he kiss the lips of
+his love again."
+
+"But, monsieur, how can it be? See for yourself!"
+
+Veterin continued, imperturbably:--
+
+"Certainly, if I restore to you these papers, which I am sure you would
+be glad to get back, that would scarcely break the bond between you and
+Rachel; yet I am about to yield them to you. It follows, then, that you
+will still call her your wife and enjoy your own as well? I am afraid
+that it does, but there is an 'if' in the case; for though I am
+perfectly willing to give you these papers, yet it is just possible that
+they may cost you your life."
+
+"My life!"
+
+"Precisely."
+
+Mansart crouched back. "You are threatening me?" said he, hoarsely.
+
+"By no means. Look here."
+
+Veterin advanced to the table, upon which he emptied a handful of small
+counters. "There are thirteen of them," he said. "You will perceive that
+twelve of them are white and that the other is red. Will you count
+them?"
+
+"Oh, I take your word for it."
+
+"Yet you had better count for yourself. That is right. And now I will
+tell you my idea, which is so unusual and so dramatic that I rather
+pride myself upon it. I throw these ivory discs into my helmet and cover
+them with a handkerchief--so. And I ask you, if you are a man of
+courage, to raise one corner of the handkerchief and take out a single
+counter. If it be a white one--as is almost certain to be the case--I
+hand you the papers in my possession and I wish you good-night,
+enjoyment of your hoarded gold, and happiness with Rachel. But if it be
+the solitary red one--and that is extremely unlikely--then--then--if it
+be the red one, I say----"
+
+The cuirassier broke off and regarded the other steadily. Mansart had
+turned livid. "Go on," he said, in a shaking voice; "why do you stop? If
+I should draw the red one--what then?"
+
+Veterin shrugged his shoulders as he answered, "In that case I should
+ask you to fight with me."
+
+"Ah! you would murder me!" said Simon, recoiling.
+
+"Pardon, I have _two_ pistols here. It would be fair fighting."
+
+"It is horrible, monstrous! I will not listen to you."
+
+"Almost as terrible as wedding a maid whose soul has been given to
+another; almost as monstrous as coming eternally between two hearts that
+beat for each other," was the stern response.
+
+"I tell you that I will not hear of it," repeated Mansart, frantically.
+
+"Then you will be a great fool. I wish I stood in your shoes. The
+chances of life are twelve; of death, one. And even then it will be fair
+fighting--though, by my sword, I shall do my best to kill you. Consider.
+But a moment separates you from your wealth. Come, it might have been
+over and forgotten by now."
+
+"Monsieur, if you are a gentleman, if you entertain toward me no
+sinister intent, you will leave my house at once."
+
+"Very well, I will go," said Veterin, and he moved toward the door. He
+opened it and was about to pass out when the querulous voice of Simon
+called to him again.
+
+"Well?"
+
+"The chances in my favour are not sufficient."
+
+"What a coward it is!"
+
+"Add six more to the number and I will agree."
+
+The trooper laughed and tossed half-a-dozen more of the white discs into
+his helmet. "There you are," he said. "Take one; you are perfectly
+safe."
+
+"Shake them well together," whispered Mansart, who appeared to be almost
+fainting with the excitement of this terrible gamble.
+
+Then he put his hand under the handkerchief and into the steel casque.
+He withdrew it slowly. The trooper snatched away his helmet to prevent
+any trick, and Simon looked at the disc which his fingers held.
+
+It was the red one!
+
+ [Illustration: "HE REMAINED GAZING FIXEDLY AT THAT SYMBOL OF DEATH."]
+
+And he began to mutter; inarticulate words, such as one may use under
+the spell of some strangling dream. He remained gazing fixedly at that
+symbol of death. A rush of blood mounted to his forehead, swelling the
+veins, then as quickly died away, leaving him pallid.
+
+"Ah!" said Veterin, "how unfortunate for you!"
+
+Mansart retreated a few steps, crouching back like a wild beast that has
+received a wound, which simulates an approaching end, and which holds
+its remaining strength together waiting for its destroyer to draw near.
+
+"You must acknowledge that it does not look like chance," went on
+Veterin, who was cool as ice. "Eighteen to one! _Ma foi_, it is
+astonishing." He placed two pistols upon the table.
+
+"Come, monsieur," he exclaimed, suddenly, in a hard, rasping voice. "You
+will play the man, will you not?"
+
+Mansart appeared unable to reply; perhaps he could not. His look was
+steadily directed upon the trooper, whose slightest movement he observed
+with the most intense anxiety.
+
+Veterin examined the pistols, while he threw more than one furtive
+glance at the other's passionless face. He pushed a pistol toward Simon.
+"I think you had better defend yourself," he said. "I am going to hold
+you to your word," and he stepped back, raising his own weapon.
+
+"Stop!" exclaimed Mansart, in a choked voice. "We do not fight on equal
+terms."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"You are skilled in the use of your weapon, while I----"
+
+"That is easily remedied." Veterin suddenly extinguished the candle. He
+called out, "Take care! I shall fire at the first opportunity."
+
+A nebulous red glow came from the nearly-burned log in the grate and
+shone upon the farther side of the apartment. Both men had retreated
+into the shadow; both waited.
+
+There was a profound silence, broken occasionally by whispering sounds
+from the log that pulsated, red and grey, as the draught fanned it.
+Veterin was scarcely breathing; his straining eyes peered into the dark,
+seeking to detect the form of Simon Mansart. He listened intently. Not
+the faintest sound was audible. Suddenly he believed that he perceived a
+black object but a few feet from him. Surely that was Mansart.
+
+The cuirassier lifted his pistol and aimed at the centre of that
+indistinct form; yet his finger did not press the trigger. Instead he
+gradually lowered the weapon.
+
+"What is the matter with my nerves?" he thought.
+
+He remained standing in a rigid posture, undecided. "Why not?" he asked
+himself again. "It is fair fighting. _Ma foi_, I have done worse
+things."
+
+Another minute passed. Veterin sighed deeply. "I cannot do it," he
+muttered; "not even for you, Nicolas." Then he called out aloud:--
+
+"Light the candle; I shall do you no harm."
+
+No answer.
+
+"You need not fear me," repeated the trooper.
+
+Still no reply.
+
+"If I move he will shoot at me," thought Veterin. Nevertheless, he
+advanced in the direction of the table and groped about for the
+candlestick. He found it, went to the fire, and held the coarse wick
+against the log. All the time he did not remove his eyes for an instant
+from that black something which he believed to be Mansart. The candle
+smoked, glowed, then broke into a flame. The trooper had made a mistake;
+he perceived that the shadowy object was a chair merely.
+
+Veterin spun round, expecting a pistol-ball and extending his weapon. A
+low cry escaped him at the sight which met his eyes.
+
+    [Illustration: "A LOW CRY ESCAPED HIM AT THE SIGHT WHICH MET HIS
+                                EYES."]
+
+Simon Mansart, crouched in an angle of the room, held with dead fingers
+his undischarged pistol, looked with dead eyes at the flaring light. The
+excitement of the gamble and terror of this unfought duel had stopped
+his heart.
+
+Veterin crossed himself. "God judge me! I did it for Nicolas's sake," he
+said. He crossed to the grate and pushed some papers into the embers.
+
+And all at once there came upon him a sudden fear which sent him running
+from the house. The sharp air and a strong effort of self-control gave
+him his wits again. For a moment he halted to look back at the chateau,
+with its unlighted windows and dead aspect; and he said aloud, as if
+concluding an unspoken thought:--
+
+"----and they will be married when the war is over."
+
+
+
+
+          [Illustration: A MEETING OF THE PORTSMOUTH NAVAL WAR
+     GAME SOCIETY IN THE NELSON ROOM AT THE "GEORGE", PORTSMOUTH.]
+
+               _The Naval War Game and How it is Played._
+
+                         BY ANGUS SHERLOCK.
+
+        Copyright in the United States by A. P. Watt and Son.
+
+    (NOTE.--This is the only popular article that has ever appeared
+    on the Naval War Game, though it is played in every navy in the
+    world. The subject is of some special interest just at present,
+    because both the Japanese and Russian navies trained on it for
+    the present war.  Proofs of the article have been submitted to
+    the inventor, who himself selected the illustrations.)
+
+
+From time to time one reads in the technical naval Press brief
+references to, or fixtures for, the Naval War Game. At rare intervals a
+"war-game battle" will be found described at length in some of the
+Service journals, but beyond this it is safe to say that the game is a
+mystery to the general public. The reason is, in part, that it touches
+technical questions that are caviare to the million, but as much, or
+more so, it is mysterious on account of the secrecy with which many of
+its details are guarded. It is open to the public to purchase the
+"game," it is true, but, though the material and plenty of directions
+can thus he secured, it is by now well enough known that many
+unpublished "confidential" rules exist.
+
+These, it may be noted, differ in every navy. The problems of naval
+warfare and the ideals of facing them are not the same for a Russian as
+for an American, and Sweden and the Argentine Republic again have
+nothing in common in their naval aspirations. However, were I in a
+position to divulge these matters they would not be of any great
+interest to readers of THE STRAND MAGAZINE, so I propose to confine
+myself as much as possible to things in which the human interest is the
+dominant factor.
+
+First, however, some description of the game and its invention may be of
+interest. The naval war game reached its fruition some five years ago,
+but Mr. Fred. T. Jane, its inventor, always asserts that he began to
+think it out when he was a small boy at school.
+
+"When I was a small boy," said Mr. Jane, "I had the boat sailing craze.
+A school-fellow had a better boat than I; I mounted a gun in mine and
+committed an act of piracy on a duck-pond. My chum was a sportsman, and,
+after punching my head, proceeded to arm his ship also. We took to
+armour-plates made from biscuit-tins, and to squadrons instead of single
+ships. In the battle that ensued our fleets annihilated each other, and
+depleted finances forbade their renewal. Then it was that the economy
+born of necessity caused me to think that make-believe battles would be
+cheaper. Thus was the naval war game evolved in embryo. At first we
+fought with imaginary leviathans, but after a time such impossible
+vessels were claimed that we decided to simulate nothing but existing
+ships.
+
+"A year or so later I read in some newspaper that a fortune awaited the
+man who could invent something that could be applied to ships as the
+land _Kriegspiel_ to armies. I thought I could do with that fortune, so
+packed the game in an empty Australian beef-tin and sent it to the
+Admiralty, together with a letter in which the following magnificent
+sentence occurred: 'I shall not be above accepting financial
+remuneration, and for convenience this can be paid in instalments.'
+
+"In due course 'My Lords' returned the game with thanks. They had
+'inspected it with much interest,' they said.
+
+"Somehow I doubt it. After the lapse of many years I still remember
+vividly the smell of that old meat-tin in which the game was sent to
+them.
+
+"My next step was one which is, I believe, chronic with disappointed
+inventors. I wrote letters to the newspapers attacking Admiralty policy
+in general, with a view to making the callous authorities tremble! I
+never witnessed the trembling, but as out of this campaign I grew into
+what is called a 'naval expert,' I suppose I owe the Admiralty a debt of
+gratitude! However, that is another story.
+
+"Meanwhile, war game languished, till some seven years ago it was found
+by accident in a lumber-room. Even then it was resuscitated only as a
+toy. I used to take it to the _Majestic_, and it was played there very
+much _a la_ ping-pong, till one day the captain, Prince Louis of
+Battenberg, asked about it, and wished to see the rules.
+
+"Feeling somewhat of a fraud," says Mr. Jane, "I hastily recast the
+thing into its original serious mould, plus a variety of improvements
+that occurred to me, or were suggested by various naval friends.
+
+"The game was then played in the _Majestic_ once more, and 'caught on.'
+To my astonishment I was deluged with letters asking about the game. The
+first came from the Grand Duke Alexander of Russia, the Czar's
+brother-in-law, who, with that absence of 'side' so characteristic of
+the Romanoffs, wrote himself as a naval officer. He had, he told me,
+himself invented a naval war game, the strategical part of which was
+successful, but the tactical not what he had hoped for it. If mine were
+satisfactory, he would do all he could for it.
+
+"That is how the game came to have its Imperial and Royal 'godfathers,'
+as announced on the title-page. Royal sailors are usually regarded as
+mere ornamental dummies, but both the Grand Duke Alexander and Prince
+Louis of Battenberg were responsible for many excellent improvements in
+the game, for which I, perhaps, have received the credit.
+
+"There were two other godfathers--Rear-Admiral H. J. May, of the British
+Navy, and Captain Kawashima, of the Japanese Navy. The former expended
+endless labour in revising the rules; the latter it was who played with
+me all the early experimental games to test the rules, and alter them
+when necessary to make practice as simple as possible. We used to fight
+little one-man 'wars,' beginning at about ten in the morning and
+carrying on till after midnight. Captain Kawashima is now in command of
+the _Matsushima_ (the famous cruiser that was flagship at Yalu in the
+Chino-Japanese War), and when I remember the painstaking enthusiasm he
+used to put into the 'wars' he and I had, I think that he will go far in
+the present war.
+
+"A lecture at the United Service Institution followed the _Majestic_
+battle, and thus the game 'took root.' It is in every navy in the world
+now."
+
+About this time a foreign Government approached the inventor with a view
+to purchasing the game and its secret. The offer was declined, but Mr.
+Jane gave a similar option to the British Admiralty, which, however,
+made no reply whatever beyond an official acknowledgment of the receipt
+of the letter. Perhaps, like Mr. Jane, the Permanent Secretary
+remembered the old meat-tin!
+
+After an interval the game was produced--the very first set to be sold
+being secured by, of all people, the Chinese! This particular set later
+on helped to make history; indeed, it has been seriously surmised that
+it caused the Chinese attack on the allied fleets at Taku. After that
+affair a British landing party found the ground inside one fort littered
+with war-game models, each model ship being stuck full of pins. The
+leader of the party being a war-game player followed up his find, to
+discover a shed laid out for naval war game and "scorers"[1] of all the
+allied fleets in various stages of destruction!
+
+    [1] For particulars of "scorers" see later.] The Chinese had
+        apparently worked out things by war game before opening
+        fire. They had, however, made one little mistake--they had
+        made no allowance for the allied fleet firing back!
+
+Following China, the United States, Germany, Russia, and Japan secured
+early sets, and a little while afterwards the British War Office. That
+much-abused department was, curiously enough, the very first to
+recognise the utility of the game for the chief purpose its inventor
+designed it for--the teaching of the guns and armour of possible
+enemies. It was procured for the use of artillery officers in sea forts,
+and in his last report Lord Roberts emphasized the vast difference
+between those officers who had played the game and those who had not.
+The former knew the weak points of every possible enemy; the latter, on
+hearing the name of any ship, could not tell whether she were a
+battleship or gunboat, dangerous or harmless. Every War Office has since
+followed suit in adopting the "Kindergarten war system."
+
+        [Illustration: A STANDARD NORWEGIAN NAVAL WAR-GAME SET.
+   _From a Photo.                                 by Symonds & Co._]
+
+And now for some account of how the game is played. A large table is the
+primary requisite. This is covered with blue cards divided into a
+multitude of little squares, each of which represents half a cable--that
+is to say, a hundred yards. Over these squares are moved the
+pieces--model ships on the same scale as the board.
+
+These models are a most important part of the game. They are made of
+cork, painted, and most accurate representations of actual ships; and
+this they need to be, for the players have to recognise them. Each model
+is fitted with tiny guns--little bits of wire set in at various angles
+which indicate the arcs of training of the corresponding guns in the
+real ships, while long pins mark the bearings of the torpedo tubes.
+Other pins, fitted with delicate little military tops, make the masts;
+and, to digress a moment, hereby hangs a tale.
+
+One of the earliest experimenters with the naval war game was the
+ubiquitous Kaiser. He took to it keenly, and himself played it often
+with his admirals. One day, so runs the story in the German Navy, the
+Kaiser was winning hand over fist, his fleet, led by his flagship,
+bearing down upon the enemy. Excitement was high, when at the critical
+moment the Kaiser's fleet suddenly disappeared!
+
+The Kaiser gazed at the deserted board and then at his admirals. An
+"awkward pause" is said to have ensued, and the writer for one can quite
+believe that. It is undoubtedly an awkward thing to seem to have played
+tricks with an Emperor so as to cheat him out of victory.
+
+"Where is my fleet?" asked the Kaiser.
+
+"I do not know, sire," exclaimed his chief opponent, a famous admiral.
+
+He saluted as he spoke, and thereupon there fell to the floor,
+apparently from down the admiral's sleeve, three of the missing
+warships! What the admiral felt is better imagined than described.
+
+Fortunately for his reputation one model still remained stuck in his
+sleeve. In moving his own ships he had rested his arm on the Kaiser's
+vessels, and so lifted the lot unawares. All's well that ends well, and
+the Kaiser laughed most heartily; but there is an admiral in the German
+fleet whom it is in no way wise to talk to about naval war game.
+
+However, this admiral is not the only one who has met misadventure from
+war-game models, no less a person than the Japanese Admiral Togo heading
+the list of those who have had "naval war-game hand"--the result of
+inadvertently leaning on the masts of a model ship!
+
+To resume the description. Every player has assigned to him a particular
+ship, and this he moves simultaneously with all the others at the
+direction of his "admiral." Each move nominally occupies a minute of
+time--actually it usually takes more, and it is in the ways and means
+adopted to balance this that most of the confidential rules exist. A
+most essential part of the game is to counterfeit with all possible
+realism the hurry-scurry of an actual battle.
+
+         [Illustration: A NAVAL WAR-GAME TARGET--ACTUAL SIZE.]
+
+The distance moved depends, of course, upon the speed of the ship
+represented. A flier like H.M.S. _Drake_, for instance, can cover as
+many as eight squares should full speed be ordered. This means eight
+hundred yards a minute--equivalent, approximately, to a speed of
+twenty-four knots per hour. In actual practice the ships do not move by
+squares, else a vessel proceeding along the diagonals would go much
+faster than one moving straight across; the squares merely exist to
+afford a rough means of guessing the range. Special measures are,
+therefore, employed.
+
+Innumerable rules cover such matters as increasing and decreasing speed,
+turning, and so forth. General conventions exist, but in actual practice
+the real turning circles of ships are alone made--and here, of course,
+confidential features are thick. The inventor of the game is probably
+the repository of more secrets in this respect than three of the best
+Naval Intelligence Departments of Europe put together.
+
+At the end of each "minute" more firing takes place. This is the
+characteristic feature of the game. Each player has a card with a plan
+of his ship showing guns, armour, etc., and divided into arbitrary
+vertical sections of twenty-five feet each. This card is known
+technically as a "scorer." Pictures of each ship, similarly divided, but
+showing no armour, and of different sizes for different ranges, are also
+provided. These are the "targets."
+
+They are struck at by "strikers," which at first sight are rather like
+ping-pong bats with a pin in them.[2] This pin is nearly, but never
+quite, in the centre of the striker. To ensure hitting any particular
+part of a ship is, therefore, practically impossible, except at close
+range, and not very often then. Nice calculation is required, and also
+great coolness--too great effort after accuracy being usually as fatal
+as too little. Thus, by automatic means, that great factor of modern
+warfare, "moral effect," is provided for, since experience shows that no
+player whose ship has been badly knocked about ever hurts the enemy very
+much. One strike per gun is allowed; with reduced gun-fire he feels his
+chances of hitting reduced, and tries harder to make the most of what he
+has got, and the slight excitement, coupled with the extra effort that
+he makes, invariably disconcerts his aim.
+
+    [2] "Strikers" will be seen on the table and in the hands of
+        players in the big picture of a war game.
+
+         [Illustration: "SCORER" FOR H.M.S. "KING EDWARD VII."]
+
+To some extent the excitement of a battle always does this. When the
+game was first exhibited at the Royal United Service Institution, a
+certain admiral urged as a weak point in the shooting system that he
+could hit the enemy every time. He took a target and did it. Yet in the
+battle that ensued he never scored a single hit--the slight extra
+tension upset his aim completely. And it is astonishing how many misses
+are made by many players from this cause.
+
+    [Illustration: THE SAME "SCORER" AFTER A BATTLE IN WHICH THE
+    SHIP WAS KNOCKED ABOUT. THE DAMAGES HAVE BEEN SCORED ACCORDING
+    TO HITS RECEIVED ON "TARGETS."]
+
+Hitting the enemy is, however, but half the battle. If the ship fired at
+is armoured the impact may be on a cuirass that the gun represented
+cannot get through, or an armour-piercing shot may hit a part where no
+armour exists, and so do next to no harm. When harm is done it is scored
+on the card of the ship hit on a scale corresponding to the actual
+damage that would be inflicted. In a very little while the player
+realizes that what will put one ship out of action will hardly hurt
+another. This in theory he has, of course, always known, but between
+knowing a thing and fully realizing it there is an enormous gap. He has
+been firing, perhaps, at the German _Kaiser Friedrich_ and blown her to
+pieces almost with big shell. He shifts his fire to the _Wittelsbach_,
+hits her as often, and she comes on unhurt. These two ships have the
+same armament and the same weight of armour--it is merely differently
+disposed. That difference of disposition tells in naval war game as
+heavily as it would in actual war.
+
+In this little piece of realism lies the fascination of the game. That
+it has extraordinary fascinations for some naval officers is beyond
+dispute. The Grand Duke Alexander of Russia, for instance, had all the
+furniture turned out of the big drawing-room at the Xenia Palace, St.
+Petersburg, in order to have set up a table large enough to allow huge
+fleets to be manoeuvred, and he invited the inventor over to stay with
+him at St. Petersburg for a month in order to play against him. In a
+Russian lunatic asylum there is at this day a captain who actually went
+mad on the game and spends his existence in perpetual imaginary battles.
+In the British Navy there are dozens of young officers who think nothing
+of playing a game from half-past eight on to four in the morning, taking
+their chances of being able to find a shore-boat to take them back to
+their ships at that hour in the depth of winter. I have seen battles
+often in which the opposing sides would not speak to each other; indeed,
+when a regular "war" is being worked out this is the usual situation. It
+is being "real war in miniature" that produces this. The writer can
+vouch for the maddening effect in a battle of some apparently splendid
+scheme being ruined by a single "lucky shell" from the enemy. Too late
+one realizes that the best dispositions are not those that promise most,
+but those in which a lucky shot or two will not bring about failure.
+
+Torpedoes, however, perhaps take first place as maddening irritants. In
+the game as now played in the British Navy, between each move screens
+are usually put up. The object of these is to prevent the enemy
+"answering" any change of formation more quickly than could be done in
+actual battle. Under cover of these screens torpedoes are fired--the
+firing method being to draw a pencil line following the bearing of the
+tube, firing not at the enemy, but at the spot on which he is _expected
+to be when the torpedo reaches him_. Torpedoes are slow things
+relatively. They can travel a thousand yards in a minute, but take three
+minutes to do two thousand yards, and six to go three thousand. Very
+nice calculation is, therefore, needed. At the expiration of the
+time--that is to say, anything from one to six moves after firing--if
+the torpedo line and any ship (friend or foe) coincide, the ship is
+torpedoed. Till then nothing has been said: the torpedo comes as a bolt
+from the blue.
+
+The panic caused by the first torpedoes fired under this system was
+immense. Both fleets put about and rushed away from each other, never
+getting within torpedo range again. In the centre, between the fleet,
+lay the victim, which the umpire had notified as torpedoed. Not till the
+battle was over was it made known that the torpedoed vessel had been hit
+by a torpedo fired by one of her consorts, across the path of which she
+had unwittingly wandered!
+
+The acme of horror in this direction is perhaps provided by submarines.
+Slow moving, they have more or less to take up their positions before
+the battle begins. It is not permitted me to describe exactly how they
+are worked. I may say, however, that they are manoeuvred on a separate
+board, and work blindly enough; for all that the player of a submarine
+sees of the battlefield is what he can find reflected in a tiny mirror.
+He has, in fine, to guess a great deal as to the course and distance of
+the enemy from the spot corresponding to that on which he is supposed to
+be, which reproduces the conditions under which a periscope is used
+fairly accurately. If a submarine can get within a square (one hundred
+yards) of a ship, that ship is allowed torpedoed. Nothing is allowed for
+the chance of the boat being seen by the ship, the assumption being that
+these chances are too small to be worth consideration; at any rate, till
+such time as it is too late for the ship to do anything.
+
+This looks like an easy time for the submarine, but it is not so
+comfortable in reality, because destroyers and picket-boats may be with
+the enemy. Should a destroyer at any time pass within a hundred yards of
+the submarine, it is exit submarine!
+
+In the British Navy the official home of the naval war game is at
+Greenwich Naval College, where captains play it during the "war course."
+In the United States the War College is its home. Its real British
+head-quarters are at Portsmouth, where a voluntary society plays it
+twice a week. Admiral Sir John Hopkins is the president of this
+association, and Mr. Fred. T. Jane, the inventor, its secretary. Both
+naval and military officers are eligible for membership, and, as far as
+possible, junior officers only. At the "war course" tactics are the
+principal study, but at Portsmouth tactics play a minor part. "Tactics
+cannot be taught by naval war game, save in a very general way," is the
+dictum of the inventor. "The Portsmouth Naval War-Game Society exists
+for quite different objects. It aims chiefly at teaching the guns and
+armour of possible enemies; and for the rest tries to train officers to
+think out war problems, to train them to think things quickly, and to
+exhibit resource, to learn the value of all the vital side issues of
+war, such as international law or the keeping up of communications, and
+so forth. There is no such thing as the abstract right or wrong move in
+war; to do a more or less wrong thing at once may often be better than
+doing a better thing a little later. 'Act' is the motto that the society
+strives to inculcate."
+
+It is, it will be seen, far removed from a "theory hot-bed." In
+pursuance of the plan the society's members are incessantly at war with
+each other. Advantage is taken of the rivalry that exists between ships
+in the Navy--and one ship's officers are usually pitted against those of
+another ship. At other times it is the Navy against the Army; and before
+now personal enemies have been pitted against each other.
+
+"In cards and games you play for sport, but in war game you must 'play
+to win,'" is the principle inculcated.
+
+To this end anything whatever may be claimed, subject, however, to the
+provision that, should the umpire consider any claim impossible or
+absurd, the maker of it gets a breakdown to his best ship as a reward.
+
+The record in claims is held by a young lieutenant who acted as Admiral
+Alexieff in a Russo-Japanese War. His claim ran as follows:--
+
+"Orders issued that no offal is to be thrown overboard from Russian
+ships.
+
+"A special field of small observation mines is to be laid at ---- (here
+a place geographically suitable near Port Arthur is mentioned). At this
+spot offal is to be freely thrown into the water to attract porpoises
+and sharks. When a good number have collected the mines are to be
+exploded and the stunned fish collected.
+
+"Each is then to have strapped to it a leather band, holding a short
+pole in position (as per small model accompanying), after which it is to
+be liberated.
+
+"I claim that these fish will, as usual, follow any vessels in the
+neighbourhood of Port Arthur dropping offal--that is to say, Japanese
+ships only--and that they will be taken for submarine boats when the
+pole like a periscope is sighted.
+
+"The Japanese will soon detect the imposition, and then grow so used to
+the sight that after a time a real submarine will be able to approach
+without attracting any suspicion."
+
+            [Illustration: Attacking destroyers (Japanese).
+
+    Russian merchantman.             Russian battleship _Peresviet_.
+
+    A TORPEDO-BOAT ATTACK IN A RUSSO-JAPANESE WAR GAME--PLAYED
+    OCTOBER-DECEMBER LAST. AS USUAL IN TORPEDO OPERATIONS, THIS WAS
+    PLAYED ON A BOARD WITHOUT SQUARES, IN ORDER TO RENDER IT MORE
+    DIFFICULT TO JUDGE DISTANCES.
+
+                        _From a Photo. by West._]
+
+Truly an astounding claim! It was not allowed by the umpire, but the
+fertile brain whence it originated is never likely to let its owner come
+to grief for want of an expedient.
+
+As a rule possible actual wars are not often played: more usually
+imaginary countries are established in some part of Europe and given the
+ships which it is most desired to study. Admiralty charts are used, and
+an immense amount of study of harbours is thus put in as pastime, while
+these little wars give prominence to such minor operations as attacks on
+coastguard stations and so forth, which could not well enter into a
+larger war. Usually, too, there is some special theme--international
+law, perhaps, one time, gleaning and sifting intelligence another time,
+and so forth.
+
+What was, perhaps, the funniest war ever carried out had "Intelligence
+Sifting" as its theme. The combatants were allowed to procure
+information of each other's plans by any means they chose--any trick
+being regarded as legitimate. The gamut of the possible was run in no
+time. Both sides enrolled their friends as spies, and a silver-haired
+old lady, who liked to hear officers talk of their professions, was most
+deadly to one player. Two others, wishing to ensure private discussion,
+hired a motor-car. They had only gone some little way into the country
+when a policeman sprang from the hedge and stopped them. After the usual
+protests the policeman admitted an element of doubt in the case; if they
+would drive him to the police-station he would have his stop-watch
+tested in their presence. They took him on board and, as motorists have
+done before and since, marooned him far away after an hour's drive. By
+then, plans being decided, they went home by devious routes, thinking no
+more of the marooned policeman. Not till some days afterwards did it
+dawn on them that the policeman was a bogus one--an enemy who had
+availed himself of this means of learning their secret plans!
+
+They were not, however, without resource. The day following the
+discovery they called on the ship which the chief "admiral" of the other
+side served in. Keeping out of sight, they waited till he went to his
+cabin; then, slipping in, gagged and bound him, after which they
+proceeded to rifle his cabin. Plans were soon found, but false
+information had been disseminated once or twice, and they were wary.
+They continued the search, being at last rewarded by finding the whole
+plan of campaign concealed inside a telescope.
+
+After this they departed happy, and made their dispositions accordingly,
+handing these in to the umpire long before the gagged one--for they left
+him gagged and bound--was able to release himself.
+
+Total failure was theirs: their wily enemy had in some way anticipated
+their raid, and the plan concealed in the telescope had been carefully
+prepared for their undoing!
+
+It must not be supposed, however, that a war game is often so frivolous
+as this one, for in the ordinary way any such "spying" is strictly
+forbidden. Yet few games, perhaps, have been more useful than this one,
+for certainly half the players must have had impressed upon them in the
+most direct and unexpectedly forcible of ways the urgent necessity of
+taking no information for granted and also of sifting it all most
+carefully, which was the object sought. And if in the hereafter any one
+of them is the repository of important Service secrets he will have to
+be a very wily spy who secures them from him. There cannot be much wrong
+while young officers can be found ready to sacrifice such little leisure
+as they get in studying war problems for amusement.
+
+It is only in the British Navy that--so far as I can ascertain--this is
+done. In other navies officially supervised games are plentiful enough,
+but with them, of course, there is not the same interest. Here and there
+isolated foreign ships have the game on board and use it for purposes
+akin to those for which the inventor designed it. Two such ships are the
+Russian _Bayan_ and _Novik_--the only two ships which have, so far,
+distinguished themselves in the present war.
+
+In connection with the former ship it is interesting to note that her
+captain was a regular attendant at the Grand Duke Alexander's games in
+St. Petersburg, and used there to be laughingly called the "War-Game
+Skobeleff." Skobeleff, it will be remembered, was that Russian general
+who, in the Turco-Russian War, led a hundred desperate forlorn hopes
+untouched, though all around him were killed or wounded. Any ship played
+by Captain Wiren of the _Bayan_ used to have similar extraordinary luck;
+as one Russian officer, who must have Irish blood in him, put it: "The
+enemy's hits on him were all misses." Strangely enough, the same luck
+has followed him in the present war--the _Bayan_ survived the torpedo
+attack of February 8th; in the battle of the 9th, though she charged the
+Japanese fleet, she was untouched; in the action of the 25th February,
+when Captain Wiren, with three Russian cruisers, tried to fight the
+entire Japanese squadron, two were badly mauled, but the _Bayan_ was not
+hurt.
+
+In concluding this brief sketch of naval war game from the popular
+standpoint a reference may be made to flying-machines, which some think
+will be the warships of the future. Rules of the aerial fights of the
+future are said to exist all ready cut and dried, together with an
+ingenious machine by which the aerial warship's moves can be made. There
+is, in fine, nothing in earth, sky, or sea, or under the sea, that has
+not been the subject of rules in this "War by Kindergarten."
+
+
+
+
+             [Illustration: _The Phoenix and the Carpet._
+
+                            _By E. NESBIT._]
+
+               Copyright 1904, by George Newnes, Limited.
+
+
+                     XI.--THE BEGINNING OF THE END.
+
+"Well, I _must_ say," mother said, looking at the Wishing Carpet as it
+lay, all darned and mended and backed with shiny American cloth, on the
+floor of the nursery--"I _must_ say I've never in my life bought such a
+bad bargain as that carpet."
+
+A soft "Oh!" of contradiction sprang to the lips of Cyril, Robert, Jane,
+and Anthea. Mother looked at them quickly, and said:--
+
+"Well, of course I see you've mended it very nicely, and that was sweet
+of you, dears."
+
+"The boys helped too," said the dears, honourably.
+
+"But, still--twenty-two and ninepence! It ought to have lasted for
+years. It's simply dreadful now. Well, never mind, darlings, you've done
+your best. I think we'll have cocoanut matting next time. A carpet
+doesn't have an easy life of it in this room, does it?"
+
+"It's not our fault, mother, is it, that our boots are the really
+reliable kind?" Robert asked the question more in sorrow than in anger.
+
+"No, dear, we can't help our boots," said mother, cheerfully, "but we
+might change them when we come in, perhaps. It's just an idea of mine. I
+wouldn't dream of scolding on the very first morning after I've come
+home. Oh, my Lamb, how could you?"
+
+This conversation was at breakfast, and the Lamb had been beautifully
+good until everyone was looking at the carpet, and then it was for him
+but the work of a moment to turn a glass dish of syrupy blackberry jam
+upside down on his young head. It was the work of a good many minutes
+and several persons to get the jam off him again, and this interesting
+work took people's minds off the carpet, and nothing more was said just
+then about its badness as a bargain and about what mother hoped for from
+cocoanut matting.
+
+When the Lamb was clean again he had to be taken care of while mother
+rumpled her hair and inked her fingers and made her head ache over the
+difficult and twisted housekeeping accounts which cook gave her on dirty
+bits of paper, and which were supposed to explain how it was that cook
+had only fivepence-halfpenny and a lot of unpaid bills left out of all
+the money mother had sent her for housekeeping. Mother was very clever,
+but even she could not quite understand the cook's accounts.
+
+The Lamb was very glad to have his brothers and sisters to play with
+him. He had not forgotten them a bit, and he made them play all the old
+exhausting games: "Whirling Worlds," where you swing the baby round and
+round by his hands; and "Leg and Wing," where you swing him from side to
+side by one ankle and one wrist. There was also climbing Vesuvius. In
+this game the baby walks up you, and when he is standing on your
+shoulders you shout as loud as you can, which is the rumbling of the
+burning mountain, and then tumble him gently on to the floor and roll
+him there, which is the destruction of Pompeii.
+
+"All the same, I wish we could decide what we'd better say next time
+mother says anything about the carpet," said Cyril, breathlessly ceasing
+to be a burning mountain.
+
+"Well, you talk and decide," said Anthea; "here, you lovey ducky Lamb.
+Come to Panther and play Noah's Ark."
+
+The Lamb came with his pretty hair all tumbled and his face all dusty
+from the destruction of Pompeii, and instantly became a baby snake,
+hissing and wriggling and creeping in Anthea's arms, as she said:--
+
+    I love my little baby snake,
+    He hisses when he is awake,
+    He creeps with such a wriggly creep,
+    He wriggles even in his sleep.
+
+"Well, you see," Cyril was saying, "it's just the old bother. Mother
+can't believe the real true truth about the carpet, and----"
+
+"You speak sooth, O Cyril!" remarked the Phoenix, coming out from the
+cupboard where the black-beetles lived, and the torn books, and the
+broken slates, and odd pieces of toys that had lost the rest of
+themselves. "Now hear the wisdom of the Phoenix, the son of the
+Phoenix."
+
+"There's a society called that," said Cyril.
+
+"Where is it? And what is a society?" asked the bird.
+
+"It's a sort of joined-together lot of people--a sort of brotherhood--a
+kind of--well, something very like your temple, you know, only quite
+different."
+
+"I take your meaning," said the Phoenix. "I would fain see these calling
+themselves Sons of the Phoenix."
+
+"But what about your words of wisdom?"
+
+"Wisdom is always welcome," said the Phoenix.
+
+          [Illustration: "'PRETTY POLLY!' REMARKED THE LAMB."]
+
+"Pretty Polly!" remarked the Lamb, reaching his hands towards the golden
+speaker.
+
+The Phoenix modestly retreated behind Robert, and Anthea hastened to
+distract the attention of the Lamb by murmuring:--
+
+    I love my little baby rabbit;
+    But oh, he has a dreadful habit
+    Of paddling out among the rocks
+    And soaking both his bunny-socks.
+
+"I don't think you'd care about the Sons of the Phoenix, really," said
+Robert. "I have heard that they don't do anything fiery. They only drink
+a great deal. Much more than other people, because they drink lemonade
+and fizzy things, and the more you drink of those the more good you
+get."
+
+"In your mind, perhaps," said Jane; "but it wouldn't be good in your
+body. You'd get too balloony." The Phoenix yawned.
+
+"Look here," said Anthea, "I really have an idea. This isn't like a
+common carpet. It's very magic indeed. Don't you think, if we put Tatcho
+on it and then gave it a rest, the magic part of it might grow, like
+hair is supposed to do?"
+
+"It might," said Robert, "but I should think paraffin would do as
+well--at any rate as far as the smell goes, and that seems to be the
+great thing about Tatcho."
+
+But with all its faults Anthea's idea was something to do, and they did
+it.
+
+It was Cyril who fetched the Tatcho bottle from father's washhand-stand.
+But the bottle had not much in it.
+
+"We mustn't take it all," Jane said, "in case father's hair began to
+come off suddenly; if he hadn't anything to put on it, it might all drop
+off before Eliza had time to get round to the chemist's for another
+bottle. It would be dreadful to have a bald father, and it would all be
+our fault."
+
+"And wigs are very expensive, I believe," said Anthea. "Look here, leave
+enough in the bottle to wet father's head all over with in case any
+emergency emerges--and let's make up with paraffin. I expect it's the
+smell that does the good really--and the smell's exactly the same."
+
+So a small teaspoonful of the Tatcho was put on the edges of the worst
+darn in the carpet and rubbed carefully into the roots of the hairs of
+it, and all the parts that there was not enough Tatcho for had paraffin
+rubbed into them with a piece of flannel. Then the flannel was burned.
+It made a gay flame, which delighted the Phoenix and the Lamb.
+
+"How often," said mother, opening the door--"how often am I to tell you
+that you are _not_ to play with paraffin? What have you been doing?"
+
+"We have burnt a paraffiny rag," Anthea answered. It was no use telling
+mother what they had done to the carpet. She did not know it was a magic
+carpet, and no one wants to be laughed at for trying to mend an ordinary
+carpet with lamp-oil.
+
+"Well, don't do it again," said mother. "And now away with melancholy!
+Father has sent a telegram. Look!" She held it out, and the children
+holding it by its yielding corners read:--
+
+"Box for kiddies at Garrick. Stalls for us, Haymarket. Meet Charing
+Cross, 6.30."
+
+"That means," said mother, "that you're going to see 'The Water Babies'
+all by your happy selves, and father and I will take you and fetch you.
+Give me the Lamb, dear, and you and Jane put clean lace in your red
+evening frocks, and I shouldn't wonder if you found they wanted ironing.
+This paraffin smell is ghastly. Run and get out your frocks."
+
+The frocks did want ironing--wanted it rather badly, as it happened;
+for, being of tomato-coloured Liberty silk, they had been found very
+useful for _tableaux vivants_ when a red dress was required for Cardinal
+Richelieu. They were very nice _tableaux_, these, and I wish I could
+tell you about them--but one cannot tell everything in a story. You
+would have been specially interested in hearing about the _tableaux_ of
+the Princes in the Tower, when one of the pillows burst and the youthful
+Princes were so covered with feathers that the picture might very well
+have been called "Michaelmas Eve; or, Plucking the Geese."
+
+Ironing the dresses and sewing the lace in occupied some time, and no
+one was dull because there was the theatre to look forward to, and also
+the possible growth of hairs on the carpet, for which everyone kept
+looking anxiously. By four o'clock Jane was almost sure that several
+hairs were beginning to grow.
+
+The Phoenix perched on the fender, and its conversation, as usual, was
+entertaining and instructive--like school prizes are said to be. But it
+seemed a little absent-minded and even a little sad.
+
+"Don't you feel well, Phoenix, dear?" asked Anthea, stooping to take an
+iron off the fire.
+
+ [Illustration: "'DON'T YOU FEEL WELL, PHOENIX, DEAR?' ASKED ANTHEA."]
+
+"I am not sick," replied the golden bird, with a gloomy shake of the
+head, "but I am getting old."
+
+"Why, you've only been hatched about two months."
+
+"Time," remarked the Phoenix, "is measured by heart-beats. I'm sure the
+palpitations I've had since I've known you are enough to blanch the
+feathers of any bird."
+
+"But I thought you lived five hundred years," said Robert, "and you've
+hardly begun this set of years. Think of all the time that's before
+you."
+
+"Time," said the Phoenix, "is, as you are probably aware, merely a
+convenient fiction. There is no such thing as time. I have lived in
+these two months at a pace which generously counterbalances five hundred
+years of life in the desert. I am old, I am weary. I feel as if I ought
+to lay my egg, and lay me down to my fiery sleep. But unless I'm careful
+I shall be hatched again instantly, and that is a misfortune which I
+really do not think I _could_ endure. But do not let me intrude these
+desperate personal reflections on your youthful happiness. What is the
+show at the theatre to-night? Wrestlers? Gladiators? A combat of
+camelopards and unicorns?"
+
+"I don't think so," said Cyril; "it's called 'The Water Babies,' and if
+it's like the book there isn't any gladiating in it. There are
+chimney-sweeps and professors, and a lobster and an otter and a salmon,
+and children living in the water."
+
+"It sounds chilly," the Phoenix shivered, and went to sit on the tongs.
+
+"I don't suppose there will be _real_ water," said Jane. "And theatres
+are very warm and pretty, with a lot of gold and lamps. Wouldn't you
+like to come with us?"
+
+"_I_ was just going to say that," said Robert, in injured tones, "only I
+know how rude it is to interrupt. Do come, Phoenix, old chap; it will
+cheer you up. It'll make you laugh like anything. Mr. Bourchier always
+makes ripping plays. You ought to have seen 'Shock-Headed Peter' last
+year."
+
+"Your words are strange," said the Phoenix, "but I will come with you.
+The revels of this Bourchier of whom you speak may help me to forget the
+weight of my years."
+
+So the Phoenix snuggled inside the waistcoat of Robert's Etons--a very
+tight fit it seemed both to Robert and to the Phoenix--and was taken to
+the play.
+
+          [Illustration: "ROBERT HAD TO PRETEND TO BE COLD."]
+
+Robert had to pretend to be cold at the glittering, many-mirrored
+restaurant where they all had dinner, with father in evening dress, with
+a very shiny white shirt-front, and mother looking lovely in her grey
+evening dress, that changes into pink and green when she moves. Robert
+pretended that he was too cold to take off his great-coat, and so sat
+sweltering through what would otherwise have been a most thrilling meal.
+He felt that he was a blot on the smart beauty of the family, and he
+hoped the Phoenix knew what he was suffering for its sake. Of course, we
+are all pleased to suffer for the sake of others, but we like them to
+know it--unless we are the very best and noblest kind of people, and
+Robert was just ordinary.
+
+Father was full of jokes and fun, and everyone laughed all the time,
+even with their mouths full, which is not manners. Robert thought father
+would not have been quite so funny about his keeping his overcoat on if
+father had known all the truth. And there Robert was probably right.
+
+When dinner was finished to the last grape and the last paddle in the
+finger-glasses--for it was a really truly grown-up dinner--the children
+were taken to the theatre, guided to a box close to the stage, and left.
+Father's parting words were:--
+
+"Now, don't you stir out of this box, whatever you do. I shall be back
+before the end of the play. Be good and you will be happy. Is this zone
+torrid enough for the abandonment of great-coats, Bobs? No? Well, then,
+I should say you were sickening for something--mumps or measles, or
+thrush or teething. Good-bye."
+
+He went, and Robert was at last able to remove his coat, mop his
+perspiring brow, and release the crushed and dishevelled Phoenix. Robert
+had to arrange his damp hair at the looking-glass at the back of the
+box, and the Phoenix had to preen its disordered feathers for some time
+before either of them was fit to be seen.
+
+They were very, very early. When the lights went up fully the Phoenix,
+balancing itself on the gilded back of a chair, swayed in ecstasy.
+
+"How fair a scene is this!" it murmured; "how far fairer than my temple!
+Or have I guessed aright? Have you brought me hither to lift up my head
+with emotions of joyous surprise? Tell me, my Robert, is it not that
+this, _this_ is my true temple, and the other was but a humble shrine
+frequented by outcasts?"
+
+"I don't know about outcasts," said Robert, "but you can call this your
+temple if you like. Hush! the music is beginning."
+
+I am not going to tell you about the play. As I said before, one can't
+tell everything, and no doubt you saw "The Water Babies" yourselves. If
+you did not it was a shame, or rather a pity.
+
+What I must tell you is that, though Cyril and Jane and Robert and
+Anthea enjoyed it as much as any children possibly could, the pleasure
+of the Phoenix was far, far greater than theirs.
+
+"This is indeed my temple," it said, again and again. "What radiant
+rites! And all to do honour to me!"
+
+The songs in the play it took to be hymns in its honour. The choruses
+were choric songs in its praise. The electric lights, it said, were
+magic torches lighted for its sake, and it was so charmed with the
+footlights that the children could hardly persuade it to sit still. But
+when the limelight was shown it could contain its approval no longer. It
+flapped its golden wings, and cried in a voice that could be heard all
+over the theatre:--
+
+"Well done, my servants! Ye have my favour and my countenance!"
+
+Little Tom on the stage stopped short in what he was saying. A deep
+breath was drawn by hundreds of lungs, every eye in the house turned to
+the box where the luckless children cringed, and most people hissed, or
+said "Shish!" or "Turn them out!"
+
+Then the play went on, and an attendant presently came to the box and
+spoke wrathfully.
+
+"It wasn't us, indeed it wasn't," said Anthea, earnestly; "it was the
+bird."
+
+The man said well, then, they must keep their bird quiet.
+
+"Disturbing everyone like this," he said.
+
+"It won't do it again," said Robert, glancing imploringly at the golden
+bird; "I'm sure it won't."
+
+"You have my leave to depart," said the Phoenix, gently.
+
+"Well, he is a beauty, and no mistake," said the attendant, "only I'd
+cover him up during the acts. It upsets the performance."
+
+And he went.
+
+"Don't speak again, there's a dear," said Anthea; "you wouldn't like to
+interfere with your own temple, would you?"
+
+So now the Phoenix was quiet, but it kept whispering to the children. It
+wanted to know why there was no altar, no fire, no incense, and became
+so excited and fretful and tiresome that four at least of the party of
+five wished deeply that it had been left at home.
+
+What happened next was entirely the fault of the Phoenix. It was not in
+the least the fault of the theatre people, and no one could ever
+understand afterwards how it did happen. No one, that is, except the
+guilty bird itself and the four children. The Phoenix was balancing
+itself on the gilt back of the chair, swaying backwards and forwards and
+up and down, as you may see your own domestic parrot do. I mean the grey
+one with the red tail. All eyes were on the stage, where the lobster was
+delighting the audience with that gem of a song, "If you can't walk
+straight, walk sideways!" when the Phoenix murmured warmly:--
+
+"No altar, no fire, no incense!" and then, before any of the children
+could even begin to think of stopping it, it spread its bright wings and
+swept round the theatre, brushing its gleaming feathers against delicate
+hangings and gilded wood-work.
+
+It seemed to have made but one circular wing-sweep, such as you may see
+a gull make over grey water on a stormy day. Next moment it was perched
+again on the chair-back--and all round the theatre, where it had passed,
+little sparks shone like tinsel seeds, then little smoke wreaths curled
+up like growing plants--little flames opened like flower-buds.
+
+People whispered--then people shrieked.
+
+"Fire! Fire!" The curtain went down--the lights went up.
+
+"Fire!" cried everyone, and made for the doors.
+
+"A magnificent idea!" said the Phoenix, complacently. "An enormous
+altar--fire supplied free of charge. Doesn't the incense smell
+delicious?" The only smell was the stifling smell of smoke, of burning
+silk, or scorching varnish.
+
+The little flames had opened now into great flame-flowers. The people in
+the theatre were shouting and pressing towards the doors.
+
+"Oh, how _could_ you!" cried Jane. "Let's get out."
+
+"Father said stay here," said Anthea, very pale, and trying to speak in
+her ordinary voice.
+
+"He didn't mean stay and be roasted," said Robert; "no boys on burning
+decks for me, thank you."
+
+"Not much," said Cyril, and he opened the door of the box.
+
+            [Illustration: "HE OPENED THE DOOR OF THE BOX."]
+
+But a fierce waft of smoke and hot air made him shut it again. It was
+not possible to get out that way.
+
+They looked over the front of the box. Could they climb down?
+
+It would be possible, certainly, but would they be much better off?
+
+"Look at the people," moaned Anthea; "we couldn't get through." And,
+indeed, the crowd round the doors looked thick as flies in the
+jam-making season.
+
+"I wish we'd never seen the Phoenix," cried Jane.
+
+Even at that awful moment Robert looked round to see if the bird had
+overheard a speech which, however natural, was hardly polite or
+grateful.
+
+The Phoenix was gone.
+
+"Look here," said Cyril, "I've read about fires in papers; I'm sure it's
+all right. Let's wait here, as father said."
+
+"We can't do anything else," said Anthea, bitterly.
+
+"Look here," said Robert, "I'm _not_ frightened--no, I'm not. The
+Phoenix has never been a skunk yet, and I'm certain it'll see us through
+somehow. I believe in the Phoenix!"
+
+"The Phoenix thanks you, O Robert," said a golden voice at his feet, and
+there was the Phoenix itself, on the Wishing Carpet.
+
+"Quick!" it said, "stand on those portions of the carpet which are truly
+antique and authentic--and----"
+
+A sudden jet of flame stopped its words. Alas! the Phoenix had
+unconsciously warmed to its subject, and in the unintentional heat of
+the moment had set fire to the paraffin with which that morning the
+children had anointed the carpet. It burned merrily. The children tried
+in vain to stamp it out. They had to stand back and let it burn itself
+out. When the paraffin had burned away it was found that it had taken
+with it all the darns of Scotch heather-mixture fingering. Only the
+fabric of the old carpet was left--and that was full of holes.
+
+"Come," said the Phoenix, "I'm cool now."
+
+The four children got on to what was left of the carpet. Very careful
+they were not to leave a leg or a hand hanging over one of the holes. It
+was very hot--the theatre was a pit of fire. Everyone else had got out.
+
+Jane had to sit on Anthea's lap.
+
+"Home!" said Cyril, and instantly the cool draught from under the
+nursery door played upon their legs as they sat. They were all on the
+carpet still, and the carpet was lying in its proper place on the
+nursery floor, as calm and unmoved as though it had never been to the
+theatre or taken part in a fire in its life.
+
+Four long breaths of deep relief were instantly breathed. The draught
+which they had never liked before was for the moment quite pleasant. And
+they were safe. And everyone else was safe. The theatre had been quite
+empty when they left. Everyone was sure of that.
+
+They presently found themselves all talking at once. Somehow none of
+their adventures had given them so much to talk about. None other had
+seemed so real.
+
+"Did you notice----?" they said, and "Do you remember----?"
+
+When suddenly Anthea's face turned pale under the dirt which it had
+collected on it during the fire.
+
+"Oh," she cried, "mother and father! Oh, how awful! They'll think we're
+burned to cinders. Oh, let's go this minute and tell them we aren't."
+
+"We should only miss them," said the sensible Cyril.
+
+"Well--_you_ go, then," said Anthea, "or I will. Only do wash your face
+first. Mother will be sure to think you are burnt to a cinder if she
+sees you as black as that. Mother, she'll faint or be ill or something.
+Oh, I wish we'd never got to know that Phoenix."
+
+"Hush!" said Robert; "it's no use being rude to the bird. I suppose it
+can't help its nature. Perhaps we'd better wash too. Now I come to think
+of it my hands are rather----"
+
+No one had noticed the Phoenix since it had bidden them to step on the
+carpet. And no one noticed that no one had noticed.
+
+All were partially clean, and Cyril was just plunging into his
+great-coat to go and look for his parents--he, and not unjustly, called
+it looking for a needle in a bundle of hay--when the sound of father's
+latchkey in the front door sent everyone bounding up the stairs.
+
+"Are you all safe?" cried mother's voice; "are you all safe?" and the
+next moment she was kneeling on the linoleum of the hall, trying to kiss
+four damp children at once, and laughing and crying by turns, while
+father stood looking on and saying he was blessed or something.
+
+"But how did you guess we'd come home?" said Cyril, later, when everyone
+was calm enough for talking.
+
+"Well, it was rather a rum thing. We heard the Garrick was on fire and,
+of course, we went straight there," said father, briskly. "We couldn't
+find you, of course--and we couldn't get in--but the firemen told us
+everyone was safely out. And then I heard a voice at my ear say, 'Cyril,
+Anthea, Robert, and Jane'--and something touched me on the shoulder. It
+was a great yellow pigeon, and it got in the way of my seeing who'd
+spoken. It fluttered off, and then someone said in the other ear,
+'They're safe at home'; and when I turned again, to see who it was
+speaking, hanged if there wasn't that confounded pigeon on my other
+shoulder. Dazed by the fire, I suppose. Your mother said it was the
+voice of----"
+
+            [Illustration: "IT WAS A GREAT YELLOW PIGEON."]
+
+"I said it was the bird that spoke," said mother, "and so it was. Or at
+least I thought so then. It wasn't a pigeon. It was an orange-coloured
+cockatoo. I don't care who it was that spoke. It was true--and you're
+safe."
+
+Mother began to cry again, and father said bed was a good place after
+the pleasures of the stage.
+
+So everyone went there.
+
+Robert had a talk to the Phoenix that night.
+
+"Oh, very well," said the bird, when Robert had said what he felt,
+"didn't you know that I had power over fire? Do not distress yourself.
+I, like my high priests in Lombard Street, can undo the work of flames.
+Kindly open the casement."
+
+It flew out.
+
+That was why the papers said, next day, that the fire at the theatre had
+done less damage than had been anticipated. As a matter of fact, it had
+done none, for the Phoenix spent the night in putting things straight.
+How the management accounted for this, and how many of the theatre
+officials still believe that they were mad on that night, will never be
+known.
+
+Next day mother saw the burnt holes in the carpet.
+
+"It caught where it was paraffiny," said Anthea.
+
+"I must get rid of that carpet at once," said mother.
+
+But what the children said in sad whispers to each other, as they
+pondered over last night's events, was:--
+
+"We must get rid of that Phoenix."
+
+
+
+
+    [Illustration: NIAGARA FALLS--THE POINT MARKED X SHOWS THE SPOT
+           REACHED BY GUIDE BARLOW AND SUPERINTENDENT PERRY.
+
+                            _From a Photo._]
+
+                   _Walking on the Brink of Niagara._
+
+                          BY ORRIN E. DUNLAP.
+
+
+There is no man who has so many adventures at Niagara to his credit as
+John R. Barlow. Mr. Barlow, in the summer-time, is the chief guide at
+the Cave of the Winds, that wonderful cavern under the waterfall as it
+plunges between Goat and Luna Islands. Years of familiarity with the
+waters of the world-famed Niagara have caused Guide Barlow to forget
+what fear is, and he moves about in dangerous places without thinking of
+possible disaster. He is the oldest and best-known guide at Niagara, and
+people from many countries have crossed his palm with silver in token of
+care bestowed upon them, or in return for the kindly information which
+he is ever ready to give.
+
+When the new stone arch bridges were built to connect Goat Island to the
+mainland, a temporary bridge was erected on piers for the convenience of
+pedestrians. When this temporary structure had ceased to be useful it
+was destroyed, and, unfortunately for the scenic beauty of the portion
+of the upper rapids lying between the brink of the American fall and the
+island bridges, several of the cribs lodged on the reefs and refused to
+be stirred by the rush of the downpouring waters. The hope of the State
+Reservation officials was that the cribs would pass over the fall in
+time of high water, but flood after flood poured down from Lake Erie and
+the cribs refused to move. They were unsightly to a remarkable degree,
+and quite an annoyance to the officials who had charge of the beauty of
+Niagara. This was the condition when winter set in last autumn.
+
+The winter proved of unusual severity. Ice came down from the lake in
+large sheets, and a considerable quantity of it lodged on the reefs
+between the mainland and Goat Island. By February the main part of the
+channel through which the water flows to the American fall was blocked
+with ice. Between Goat Island and the mainland there were three open
+channels, through which the water ran streak-like to the brink. One of
+these was close by the mainland, and made the plunge over the fall close
+to Prospect Point. The second was close to the outer edge of Luna
+Island, while the third was between Luna and Goat Islands. This left a
+wide expanse of the American fall, and the river-bed immediately above
+it, covered with ice. This ice-field remained unbroken for several days,
+but by going out on the ice-bridge that spanned the river in front of
+the fall it was possible to study the face of the cliff, and to see that
+at several points the water crept through under the ice and found its
+way to the fall.
+
+However, the fact that the portion of the fall below Green Island was
+covered with ice gave the impression to Superintendent Edward Perry, of
+the State Reservation, that the unsightly cribs on the river-bed could
+be removed. He called Guide Barlow to go with him, together with another
+man named William Mullane, and the trio made their way to Green Island.
+Going to the foot of this island, it was easy for them to step out over
+the ice to several of the cribs, which Superintendent Perry then and
+there ordered to be removed.
+
+It was while Superintendent Perry and Guide Barlow were on this mission
+that the latter recognised the unusual conditions of the ice. His
+practised eye scanned the white expanse as it extended westward and
+turned over the precipice.
+
+"I believe it would be possible for us to walk to the brink of the
+American fall," said Barlow, addressing Superintendent Perry.
+
+The superintendent looked at him in amazement. So far as is known no
+human being had ever stood where Guide Barlow contemplated going. Still,
+the superintendent is a man of nerve, and as he looked down the river at
+Robinson's Island, at Chapin's Island, at Crow and Blackbird Islands, he
+longed to set foot on the possessions of the Empire State over which he
+was the official guard.
+
+    [Illustration: GUIDE BARLOW AND SUPERINTENDENT PERRY STANDING ON
+      THE BRINK OF THE FALL AT A POINT NEVER BEFORE REACHED BY MAN.
+                            _From a Photo._]
+
+There was little said. Guide Barlow had already commenced to move down
+the river over the ice. It was firm, and stood his weight well. In a
+minute Superintendent Perry followed him. As they moved along the
+untrodden path the condition of the ice gave them new courage, and both
+felt that they were walking where man had never before been. Their route
+carried them between Robinson's and Blackbird Islands, and on down by a
+little isle as yet unnamed. Leaving the foot of Robinson's Island
+behind, they moved cautiously over the frozen expanse down, farther
+down, right to the brink of the American fall, midway between Luna
+Island's shore and Prospect Park. Along the very crest of the brink they
+walked, realizing that they were at the very centre of the great fall
+that is a world-wonder. Guide Barlow pointed out to Superintendent Perry
+the mighty ice-mountain that reared its head from below, and also
+related how human beings passing over the fall at that point were never
+found.
+
+Their dark forms outlined against the pure white, snow covered ice,
+standing only a few feet back from the awful brink of the fall, made a
+startling picture. As they stood there a dark shadow crept down over the
+ice, intimating that the river was rising and might overflow the ice on
+which they stood. Yet it was such a novel place to be in that they
+lingered and looked--looked and gained new and wonderful ideas of the
+sublimity and awfulness of Niagara. So close did they go to the brink
+that a slight advance would have carried them over the precipice to the
+frightful, unknown, unexplored regions behind the icy mounds below.
+
+Before they returned the author of this story hurried from Goat Island,
+from which point he had taken a picture of the remarkable trip, to the
+brink of the American fall, where he took another photograph of
+Superintendent Perry and Guide Barlow as they stood at the edge of the
+precipice over which the Niagara torrent flows in chaotic fury in
+summer-time.
+
+    [Illustration: GUIDE BARLOW AND SUPERINTENDENT PERRY STANDING ON
+                         THE BRINK OF NIAGARA.
+                            _From a Photo._]
+
+The trip up the channel carried the party outside of Robinson's Island,
+all stopping to pay tribute to Chapin's Island, the little spot where,
+in 1838, a man had lodged as he was being swept toward the fall by the
+awful current.
+
+"I am glad to be back," said Superintendent Perry, as the party reached
+the lower end of Green Island.
+
+"But you are also glad to have been where you have been," added Guide
+Barlow, the only man who had ever conducted a party to that dangerous
+point on the brink of the American fall.
+
+The date was Saturday, February 13, 1904.
+
+
+
+
+                             _Curiosities_
+
+              Copyright, 1904, by George Newnes, Limited.
+
+    [_We shall be glad to receive Contributions to this section, and
+    to pay for such as are accepted._]
+
+
+                             [Illustration]
+
+                           A WHEEL--OR WHAT?
+
+"This is a cross-section of a white pine tree about twenty-eight inches
+in diameter. What appear to be carrots sticking through the sides are
+the knots caused by the branches, which, owing to their resinous nature,
+have not decayed, while the wood which formerly surrounded them has
+rotted away."--Mr. A. S. Angell, care of _Times_ Printing and Publishing
+Co., Victoria, B.C.
+
+                               * * * * *
+
+                          A HOMEMADE BICYCLE.
+
+                             [Illustration]
+
+This photograph, taken in Russia by a Blackburn contributor, is of an
+extraordinary bicycle and its ingenious maker, a Russian peasant, who at
+the time was employed as a mill watchman in St. Petersburg. The frame of
+the bicycle is mainly made out of broomsticks, the wheels consist of
+barrel hoops and wooden spokes, the cranks are of wood, and bobbins form
+the principal part of the pedals; the front forks are likewise of wood,
+working inside a ten-inch "slubbing bobbin"; the saddle (movable) is cut
+out of an ordinary piece of wood, the back of a disused arm-chair does
+duty as handle-bars, and the chain was taken off an old "flat-card"
+machine. It only remains to add that this curiosity is not a mere
+exhibit, for a friend of the gentleman who supplies the photo. rode it
+more than once, though he never accomplished anything in the way of
+record-breaking on the wooden "bike."
+
+                               * * * * *
+
+                        SWALLOWED BY AN OSTRICH.
+
+                             [Illustration]
+
+"I send you a photo. of the contents of a tame ostrich's stomach, which
+you will not be surprised to hear was the cause of its death. All these
+pieces of metal were picked up by it around the blacksmith's shop of a
+farm in South America. The circle of round pieces in the centre is made
+up of 3/8 in. punch pellets from a punching machine, and will give an
+idea of the size of the rest of the metal. All these pieces were more or
+less worn, according to the time they had been swallowed; some had
+almost disappeared. The total weight of iron was considerable."--Mr. E.
+Windus, Erin Manor, Burgess Hill, Sussex.
+
+                               * * * * *
+
+                      PECULIAR MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS
+
+                     [Illustration] [Illustration]
+
+"The accompanying photos. are of two musical instruments which, with
+their inventor, can be found at an obscure little hamlet called Keld,
+about twenty miles from Richmond in Yorkshire. No. 1 is an adaptation to
+a harmonium, and consists of the branch of a tree fastened to the end of
+the harmonium; upon the branch is a double row of bells which come from
+all parts of England. When playing, the musician has a long piece of
+wood ending in a steel spike, and at the lower end of the wood is a
+finger-hole. The striker is slipped upon one of the fingers of the left
+hand, and as the treble and bass are being played the finger with the
+striker upon it is bent in order to strike one of the bells. No. 2 is
+what the inventor calls 'a stone organ.' The old man said that one day
+when fishing in the river his foot caught a stone and he noticed that it
+gave forth a musical note, so he constructed a sounding-board, secured
+stones from the river, and placed them thereon. He found that clipping a
+piece off the end of the stone sharpened the note, whilst to clip off
+the side flattened it; in this way he made three octaves. The old man
+has never had any lessons in music."--Mr. G. Hardwick, The Promenade,
+Bridlington.
+
+                               * * * * *
+
+                         SAVED BY A CARTRIDGE.
+
+                             [Illustration]
+
+"Here is the photograph of a cartridge which has been pierced by a
+bullet. My brother, of the 6th Dragoon Guards, was carrying this in his
+bandolier when he was wounded in the late South African War. The bullet
+after piercing the cartridge passed clean through his body, leaving in
+the centre of his back after penetrating one of his lungs. Fortunately
+it did not touch the spinal cord, owing probably to being deviated by
+the cartridge, and he recovered. The cartridge did not explode, and has
+still the explosive in it intact."--Mr. F. W. Robins, 14, Wellington
+Road, Barnsbury, N.
+
+                               * * * * *
+
+                      A DIVING TOWER ON DRY LAND.
+
+                             [Illustration]
+
+"I send you a photo. of a curious structure which stands not very far
+from the Lake of Neuchatel. It would be difficult for anyone
+unacquainted with its history to give a name to it, for its appearance
+and position furnish absolutely no clue as to its use. It is, as a
+matter of fact, a diving tower, built many years ago for the use of
+bathers in the Lake of Neuchatel. The peculiar part about it is that
+anyone desirous of diving from it nowadays would have to fly
+horizontally over a railway, a road, and a good three hundred yards of
+dry land before reaching the water, for, the lake having gradually
+receded, the tower has been left high and dry, about a quarter of a mile
+from the edge of the water. As may be seen from the photo., it is now in
+a very tumble-down condition."--Mr. J. O. S. Ziegler, Place Bel Air,
+Yverdon, Switzerland.
+
+                               * * * * *
+
+                            A POSTAL MARROW.
+
+                             [Illustration]
+
+"The vegetable marrow shown in the accompanying photograph was grown by
+my brother, Mr. David Ager, gardener to Mr. Milton Bode, of West Dean,
+near Reading, the well-known gold medallist for chrysanthemum culture.
+The name and address were marked on the marrow when it was quite small,
+and the writing has become more distinct with increasing age. When about
+nine inches in length the marrow was cut, a label with the necessary
+postage affixed tied to the small piece of stalk, and it was then handed
+in at the post-office. In due course it arrived at its destination, the
+marrow being none the worse for its journey."--Mr. J. Ager, c/o Messrs.
+Betts, Hartley, and Co., 9 and 10, Great Tower Street, E.C.
+
+                               * * * * *
+
+                     WHAT IS THERE BENEATH THE IVY?
+
+                             [Illustration]
+
+"This curious statue, which appears to be looking out of a tree, is to
+be found in the public park at Bath. The ivy has been allowed to cover
+the whole statue with the exception of the head; probably no one knows
+what the rest of it is like. This is a winter view; in summer the head
+has a background of foliage."--Mr. James A. Rooth, 112, Oakwood Court,
+Kensington.
+
+                               * * * * *
+
+                         "HOW THE CROW FLIES."
+
+                             [Illustration]
+
+"A remarkable instance of the unexpected happening, especially to
+devotees of the camera, occurred to me the other day. I took the
+photograph of Canterbury Cathedral which I send you, and whilst the
+plate was exposed I noticed a crow rising from the branches of the tree
+at the extreme left of the picture. The bird flew slowly upwards and in
+zigzag fashion until it reached a height nearly equal to the cathedral
+spire. On developing the negative I found that the bird's flight was
+most accurately recorded in the shape of a thin black line, which can be
+distinctly traced in the photograph. By means of a magnifying glass the
+extended wings of the crow could be distinctly seen. I may add that as I
+was using a small stop the exposure was rather a long one."--Mr. H. J.
+Divers, 13, Burgate Street, Canterbury.
+
+                               * * * * *
+
+                           THE MORRIS DANCE.
+
+                             [Illustration]
+
+"I send you a photograph which may interest some of your readers. The
+village of Bidford-on-Avon keeps up the quaint old custom of the Morris
+Dance, and on high days and holidays the six dancers, accompanied by the
+clown and the hobby-horse, dance through the village to the music of a
+violin."--Miss Dryhurst, 11, Downshire Hill, Hampstead.
+
+                               * * * * *
+
+                              VERY SIMPLE.
+
+                             [Illustration]
+
+"The curious effect produced in the photograph which I send was obtained
+by the simple means of placing a small piece of specially-cut paper over
+the negative."--Mr. R. J. Chenneour, Ishpeming, Mich.
+
+                               * * * * *
+
+                             THE FAN TREE.
+
+                             [Illustration]
+
+"Travellers in South-Eastern Asia sometimes see at a distance what
+appears to be a gigantic fan. In fact, it closely resembles the dainty
+creations of feathers and ivory which are so popular with ladies. On
+approaching closer, however, the fan is seen to be a natural one, being
+a species of palm tree which is wonderfully like a fan, not only in the
+way in which its branches project from the trunk, but in the leaves in
+which the branches terminate. As shown in the picture, the tree spreads
+out like an extended fan and the leaves bear a strong resemblance to
+feathers. It is called the Traveller's Palm, partly for the reason that
+in the forenoon or afternoon, when the sun is not directly above, it
+frequently offers welcome shade. Some of the palms grow to a height of
+fifty or sixty feet, with 'feathers' ranging from ten to fifteen feet in
+length."--Mr. D. A. Willey, Baltimore.
+
+                               * * * * *
+
+                            PETRIFIED WIRE.
+
+                             [Illustration]
+
+"Here is the photo. of a piece of wire rope taken from a coal-mine in
+Wales. The mine referred to had not been worked for some ten years, and
+when the water was pumped out the rope was discovered as shown, encased
+in a formation of hard stone. I may add that when the stone was broken
+the wire was found to be in a perfect state of preservation."--Mr. B. H.
+Wadsworth, Oriel College, Helensburgh, N.B.
+
+                               * * * * *
+
+                           NOT WHAT IT SEEMS.
+
+                             [Illustration]
+
+"This is not a snap-shot of Satan, nor of Pluto, or any demon of the
+heathen mythology. Neither is it the picture of a water-logged member
+of the 'tramp' profession after a shower of rain. It is simply the
+photograph of the curious form which a splash of lead took when it
+dropped from a crucible on the floor."--Mr. Joseph W. Hammond, 12,
+Stafford Street, Dublin.
+
+                               * * * * *
+
+                           A WOODEN SOLDIER.
+
+                             [Illustration]
+
+"I took this snap-shot in Spain, at La Zubia, a small town about two
+miles from Granada. The 'soldier' is a most surprising object to come
+upon suddenly. He is cut out of a single tree, and is therefore all in
+one piece. Branches have been neatly adapted to make his fingers, which,
+it will be observed, have a somewhat knotted and gouty appearance. A
+flower-pot forms the head, while a plant of aloes makes a very fine
+plumed head-dress. His uniform is painted in the most realistic way, so
+that altogether he has a most ferocious appearance and his expression
+does not invite confidence, as may be seen from the photograph. The
+garden in which he lives is rather an historic one, for it was here that
+the great Queen Isabella the Catholic was saved from falling into the
+hands of the Moors by hiding in a laurel bush. A monument marks the
+spot."--Miss A. Milne Home, Caldra, Duns, N.B.
+
+                               * * * * *
+
+                       IN THE MIDST OF THE ENEMY.
+
+                             [Illustration]
+
+"A gamekeeper in this neighbourhood had shot a fine carrion crow, and
+hung up his prize, as usual, on a nail near his cottage. A wren finding
+it built her nest between the wings, and in the body of her greatest
+enemy actually reared her family. By the kindness of the owner of the
+nest I have been able to photograph it."--Miss Mary Sharp, Riding Mill,
+Northumberland.
+
+                               * * * * *
+
+                          A PECULIAR HARVEST.
+
+                             [Illustration]
+
+"The Rev. W. H. Jenoure, rector of Barwick, Yeovil, describes a novel
+sight which may be seen in his parish. A farmer had been feeding his
+sheep on oats, and some of the grain fell on the back of one of the
+animals. It has taken root in the wool and sprouted, and the young
+shoots may be seen growing on the animal's back."--Mr. S. G. Witcomb,
+Middle Street, Yeovil, Somerset.
+
+
+
+
+                           Transcriber Notes:
+
+Passages in italics were indicated by _underscores_.
+
+Passages in bold were indicated by =equal signs=.
+
+Small caps were replaced with ALL CAPS.
+
+Throughout the document, the oe ligature was replaced with "oe".
+
+Throughout the dialogues, there were words used to mimic accents of the
+speakers. Those words were retained as-is.
+
+The illustrations have been moved so that they do not break up
+paragraphs and so that they are next to the text they illustrate.
+
+Errors in punctuations and inconsistent hyphenation were not corrected
+unless otherwise noted.
+
+On page 525, "menu was formed the shape" was replaced with "menu was
+formed in the shape".
+
+On page 548, "slouches of" was replaced with "slouches off".
+
+On page 563, "A D 1901. make a grave" was replaced with "A D 1901 make a
+grave".
+
+On page 563, the single quotation mark after "FUST" was replaced with a
+double quotation mark.
+
+On page 563, a period was placed after "is a mournful corpse".
+
+On page 563, "ex amination" was replaced with "examination".
+
+On page 563, "honoable" was replaced with "honorable".
+
+On page 573, "onn" was replaced with "on".
+
+On page 584, "plain of campaign" was replaced with "plan of campaign".
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Strand Magazine, Vol. 27, No. 161,
+May 1904, by Various
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK STRAND MAGAZINE, MAY, 1904 ***
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