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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 41574 ***
+
+Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
+      file which includes the original illustration.
+      See 41574-h.htm or 41574-h.zip:
+      (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/41574/41574-h/41574-h.htm)
+      or
+      (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/41574/41574-h.zip)
+
+
+      Images of the original pages are available through
+      Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries. See
+      http://archive.org/details/amansman00hayiuoft
+
+
+Transcriber's note:
+
+      Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_).
+
+      Text enclosed by equal signs is in bold face (=bold=).
+
+      Small capitals were replaced with ALL CAPITALS.
+
+
+
+
+
+A MAN'S MAN
+
+by
+
+IAN HAY
+
+                               * * * * *
+
+                              =By Ian Hay=
+
+
+    A SAFETY MATCH. With frontispiece.
+    A MAN'S MAN. With frontispiece.
+    THE RIGHT STUFF. With frontispiece.
+
+    HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
+    BOSTON AND NEW YORK
+
+                               * * * * *
+
+
+A MAN'S MAN
+
+[Illustration: "O, HUGHIE, DID YOU?" (p. 376)]
+
+
+A MAN'S MAN
+
+by
+
+IAN HAY
+
+Author of "The Right Stuff"
+
+With Frontispiece by James Montgomery Flagg
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Boston and New York
+Houghton Mifflin Company
+The Riverside Press Cambridge
+
+Copyright, 1909, by William Blackwood and Sons
+Copyright, 1910, by Houghton Mifflin Company
+
+All Rights Reserved
+
+Published September 1910
+
+
+
+
+                                   TO
+                                 T. B.
+
+
+
+
+_Partner_ (_after several collisions_). I should think you were more at
+home in a boat than a ballroom, Mr. Rudderford!
+
+_Little Bobbie Rudderford_ (_the famous Oxbridge coxswain_). Yes; and by
+Jove, I'd sooner steer eight men than one woman, any day!--_Punch._
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+   BOOK ONE
+
+                DEALS WITH A STUFF THAT WILL NOT ENDURE
+
+          I. NAVAL MANOEUVRES                                      3
+
+         II. INTRODUCES THE HEROINE OF THIS NARRATIVE             22
+
+        III. JIMMY MARRABLE                                       28
+
+         IV. AN UNDERSTUDY                                        49
+
+          V. THE JOY OF BATTLE                                    61
+
+
+   BOOK TWO
+
+                            _FORTITER IN RE_
+
+         VI. KNIGHT-ERRANTRY _À LA MODE_                          81
+
+        VII. THE ALTERNATIVE ROUTE                               112
+
+       VIII. A BENEFIT PERFORMANCE                               130
+
+         IX. _LITERA SCRIPTA MANET_                              146
+
+          X. THE END OF AN ODYSSEY                               157
+
+
+   BOOK THREE
+
+                           _SUAVITER IN MODO_
+
+         XI. SEALED ORDERS                                       179
+
+        XII. A CHANGE OF ATMOSPHERE                              195
+
+       XIII. _VARIUM ET MUTABILE_                                223
+
+        XIV. BUSINESS ONLY                                       247
+
+
+   BOOK FOUR
+
+                           THE UNJUST STEWARD
+
+         XV. DEPUTATIONS--WITH A DIFFERENCE                      263
+
+        XVI. IN WHICH CHARITY SUFFERETH LONG, AND JOAN
+                    MISSES HER CUE                               292
+
+       XVII. IN WHICH CHARITY BEGINS AT HOME, AND HUGHIE
+                    MISSES HIS TRAIN                             320
+
+      XVIII. _EX MACHINA_                                        339
+
+        XIX. IN WHICH LOVE FLIES OUT OF THE WINDOW               354
+
+         XX. SINFUL WASTE OF A PENNY STAMP                       372
+
+
+
+
+                                BOOK ONE
+
+                      DEALS WITH A STUFF THAT WILL
+                               NOT ENDURE
+
+
+
+
+                              A MAN'S MAN
+
+                               CHAPTER I
+
+                            NAVAL MANOEUVRES
+
+
+A University college varies its facial expression about as frequently as
+The Sphinx and about as violently as a treacle-well.
+
+This remark specially applies between the hours of breakfast and
+luncheon. The courts, with their monastic cloisters and inviolable
+grassplots, lie basking in a sunny obliviousness to the world outside.
+Their stately exclusiveness is accentuated rather than diminished by the
+glimpse of an occasional flying figure in a cap and gown, or the
+spectacle of a middle-aged female of a discreet and chastened
+appearance, who glides respectfully from one archway to another,
+carrying a broom and a tin pail, or--alas for the goings-on that a
+cloistered cell may conceal behind its art-muslin curtains!--a tankard
+containing some gentleman's morning ale.
+
+In one corner, close to the Buttery door, you may behold one of the
+college cats, which appears to be combining a searching morning toilet
+with a course of practical calisthenics; and inside the massive arch of
+the gateway stands a majestic figure in a tall hat, whom appreciative
+Americans usually mistake for the Master, but who in reality occupies
+the far more onerous and responsible post of Head Porter.
+
+Perhaps the greatest variation from the normal is to be observed on a
+Saturday morning. Then the scene is brightened by the vision of an
+occasional washerwoman, who totters bravely at one end of a heavy
+basket, what time her lord and master (who has temporarily abandoned his
+favourite street-corner and donned Sabbath attire for this, his weekly
+contribution to the work of the world) sulkily supports the other.
+
+Undergraduates, too, are more in evidence than on other days. On most
+mornings they either stay indoors, to work or sleep, or else go outside
+the college altogether. "Loitering" in the courts is not encouraged by
+the authorities. Not that the undergraduate minds that; but it will
+probably cost him half-a-crown every time he does so, not because he
+loiters but because he smokes.
+
+The Old Court of St. Benedict's College--it is hardly necessary to say
+that we are in Cambridge and not in Oxford: otherwise we should have
+said "Quad"--presents to us on the present occasion a very fair sample
+of a Saturday morning crowd. The observant eye of the Dean, looking down
+(like Jezebel) from an upper chamber, can discern--
+
+1. Three washerwomen, with the appurtenances thereof.
+
+2. One small boy delivering _The Granta_.
+
+3. A solitary spectacled gentleman, of the type described by the
+University Calendar in stately periphrasis as "A Native of Asia, not of
+European Parentage" (but more tersely classified by the rest of the
+community as "a nigger"), hurrying in cap and gown to secure a good
+place at the feet of some out-of-college Gamaliel.
+
+4. A kitchen-man in white jacket and apron, bearing upon his head a tray
+containing a salmon mayonnaise, cutlets in aspic, and a special
+Cambridge dainty known as "Grassy Corner Pudding"--a fearsome compound
+of whipped cream and pistachio nuts.
+
+5. A Buttery boy, walking close behind, with a basket containing
+bottles. Evidently some young gentleman is about to entertain
+angels--unawares so far as his bill-paying papa is concerned.
+
+6. Four young men converging to a group in the centre of the court. Of
+these, two are attired in the undergraduate mode of the moment--tweed
+jackets with leather buttons, waistcoats of the Urim and Thummim
+variety, grey flannel trousers well turned up, clamorous silk socks, and
+heavy Highland shooting brogues. The third wears what the College
+Regulations describe rather ingenuously as "Athletic Dress."
+Pheidippides himself would have found it difficult to perform feats of
+prowess in a costume composed of split pumps, white duck trousers, and a
+blazer admirably qualified to serve as a model of the Solar Spectrum.
+
+It may be mentioned in passing that, to the College Regulations,
+"Athletic Dress" is not in itself a costume in which it is possible to
+perform athletic feats, but one whose colour-scheme clashes with the
+_sub-fusc_ standard which obtains in all college courts until one P.M.;
+such, in fact, as would tend to distract the eye and sap the diligence
+of those who traverse the courts on their way to lectures. In
+consequence, he who would be matutinally athletic must either keep his
+warpaint somewhere out of college, or drape himself like a stage
+conspirator as he flits from his rooms to the river or Fenner's.
+
+The fourth gentleman of the party was dressed, if not gorgeously,
+sufficiently respectably to warrant the assumption that he was not a
+member of the University.
+
+All four were smoking.
+
+The Dean, glancing in the direction of the gateway, and observing with
+sardonic satisfaction that the watchful Cerberus there was taking a note
+of the delinquency, returned to his work. Regardless of the prospective
+loss of half-a-crown apiece, the undergraduates exchanged cheerful
+greetings.
+
+"Hallo, Dishy-Washy!"
+
+"Hallo, Gussie!"
+
+"Hallo, Towzer!"
+
+There ensued an awkward pause, while Messrs. Gussie and Towzer,
+nervously conscious of the presence of a stranger to whom they were
+about to be presented, looked intently at their boots and waited for the
+introduction to take place.
+
+The gentleman previously addressed as Dishy-Washy, a diminutive youth
+with wizened features,--his name was Dishart-Watson,--cleared his
+throat.
+
+"Introduce my brother," he said huskily. "Mr. Poltimore--Mr. Angus!"
+
+The gentlemen indicated shook hands with the visitor, and Mr. Angus,
+after a mental effort, inquired:--
+
+"Come to see us go Head?"
+
+He giggled deprecatingly, to show that he did not really mean this.
+
+"Hope so," said Dishy-Washy's brother politely. "I hear you've got a
+pretty hot crew," he added.
+
+"First chop," said Mr. Poltimore. "You just arrived?"
+
+"Yes; down from town this morning."
+
+"Oh! live there?"
+
+"Er--yes."
+
+"Oxford man," interpolated Dishy-Washy swiftly. "Sent down," he added in
+extenuation.
+
+The other two nodded sympathetically, and the conversation proceeded
+more briskly.
+
+"_Are_ you going to catch those chaps to-night, Dishy?" inquired Mr.
+Angus earnestly.
+
+"Don't know," replied Dishy-Washy, who as coxswain of the St. Benedict's
+boat enjoyed a position of authority and esteem in inverse ratio to his
+inches. "Duncombe's a good enough little oar, but you can't expect a man
+who weighs nine stone ten to stroke the boat and pull it along too. Of
+course, if we had anything we could call a Six! As for old Puffin--"
+
+"Fourteen stone of tripe!" interpolated Mr. Angus, the gentleman in
+Athletic Dress. "Lord help the boat!" he added bitterly.
+
+It may be mentioned in passing that Mr. Angus's athletic achievements
+were rather overstated by his costume. His blazer was that of a college
+club of twelve members, admission to which was strictly limited to
+gentlemen who could absorb a gallon of beer at a draught, and whose
+first rule stated that any member who committed the _bêtise_ of taking a
+degree, however humble, should pay to the club a fine of five pounds.
+
+"Still," said Towzer hopefully, "there's always Marrable."
+
+Everybody--even the gentleman who had been sent down from
+Oxford--cheered up at this reflection.
+
+"By gum!" said the coxswain with sudden enthusiasm, "he's a wonder! You
+should have seen him in the boat yesterday. He was rowing a blade that
+simply lifted the whole of bow side along by itself; and besides that he
+was coaching Stroke all the time--telling him when to swing out and when
+to quicken, and bucking him up generally; and on the top of all that he
+found time every now and then to turn round and curse old Six. I tell
+you, he's a wonder. Did you hear about him last night?"
+
+"I did hear some yarn," said Angus. "Went and smashed up The Owls,
+didn't he?"
+
+"Smashed up?" Dishy's saturnine features expanded into a smile that was
+almost benevolent. "My lad, _have_ you seen Muggeridge's alabaster brow
+this morning?"
+
+Mr. Muggeridge was the president of "The Owls" Wine Club.
+
+"No."
+
+"Well, last night I was going round about half-past ten to see that all
+the crew were in their beds. When I came to H, New Court, I found a
+devil of a row going on in Muggeridge's rooms--directly under
+Duncombe's, you know."
+
+"Yes. Go on," said all, much interested.
+
+"There was a meeting of The Owls on," continued Dishy, "and they'd had
+the nerve to hold it on a staircase where there were actually two men of
+the crew--Duncombe and Eversley--trying to get to sleep."
+
+"What did you do?" inquired Poltimore.
+
+"Went in and reminded them. I thought they might have forgotten."
+
+"What did they say?"
+
+"They told me to go to--"
+
+"Good Lord!" said the audience, genuinely horrified at the employment of
+such language by a non-athletic to an athletic man.
+
+The Owls were a collection of rather dissipated young nobodies, while
+Dishy wore a Leander tie, which in a rowing college entitles a man to
+something like reverence.
+
+"I soon found it was a put-up job," continued the coxswain. "They had
+some grudge against Duncombe, and wanted to score him off. I could hear
+him hammering on his bedroom floor above to make them dry up."
+
+"What did you do then?"
+
+"I explained to them exactly what I thought of them," replied the
+coxswain simply.
+
+"What did you say, exactly?"
+
+Dishy told them. They smacked their lips appreciatively, and the next
+question followed pat.
+
+"And what did _they_ do?"
+
+"Well, they were a bit far gone--"
+
+"Drunken sweeps!" remarked the virtuous Gussie, who belonged to a rival
+institution.
+
+"Yes. They were a bit far gone," repeated the coxswain, with the air of
+one endeavouring to explain an otherwise unaccountable circumstance,
+"and they--well, they hove me out, in fact. There were nine of them," he
+added, in the manner of one who is not quite sure if his excuse will be
+accepted.
+
+"And then?"
+
+"Then I went straight off to old Hughie's rooms"--there was a respectful
+intaking of breath by the company: most of the College were wont to
+refer to the gentleman in question as Marrable--"and knocked him up. He
+had just gone to bed."
+
+"What did he do?" came the question, in lively anticipation of the
+recital to come.
+
+"Put on a few things over his pyjamas, and came along with me."
+
+The audience sighed ecstatically.
+
+"What happened?" said Poltimore.
+
+"Well, things were getting a bit lively by the time we arrived. Just as
+we got to the foot of the stair we were greeted by Muggeridge's oak,
+which some playful fellow had taken off its hinges and thrown over the
+banisters. However, we dodged that and raced up to the first floor.
+
+"You could have heard a pin drop when we walked into the room. One or
+two of them looked a bit green, though, when they saw what a towering
+passion Hughie was in. Still, Muggeridge was sober enough, and tried to
+talk it off. He stood up, and said, 'Hallo, Marrable! This is splendid!
+You are just in time to drink to the success of the crew to-morrow.
+We're all sportsmen here. Come on, you chaps--no heeltaps!'
+
+"He stood waving his glass, but anybody could see that he was in a
+putrid funk.
+
+"Hughie shut the door behind him and leaned against it, and said:--
+
+"'Muggeridge, I don't know you very intimately, but I know this, that
+you always were a worm and a bounder. You can't altogether help that,
+and personally I don't particularly mind, although you give the College
+away a bit. Still, I think the College can bear that. You are quite at
+liberty to get full and amuse yourself in any way you please, so long as
+you and your pals don't interfere with other people. But when it comes
+to disturbing my crew, who have to fight the battles of the College on
+behalf of warriors like you and these gentlemen here, whose favourite
+field-sport is probably billiards--well, that's just what I call a bit
+_too_ thick!'
+
+"All this time Muggeridge was looking pretty averagely uncomfortable.
+The other chaps were gazing at him, evidently waiting for a lead. But
+you could see he was pretty well up a stump as to what to do next.
+However, next time old Hughie paused for breath, he said:--
+
+"'Oh, get out!'
+
+"It was a rotten thing to say. Hughie smiled at him.
+
+"'All right,' he said, 'but I must put you to bed before I go.'
+
+"Before anybody could do anything he was across the room and had a grip
+of Muggeridge by the back of the neck and one wrist, which he twisted
+round behind somehow. Then he turned him round, and kicked him all the
+way across the room into his bedroom. He used Muggeridge's head as a
+sort of battering-ram to open the door with. Oh, it was the most
+gorgeous spectacle!"
+
+There was a little sigh of rapture all round the group.
+
+Muggeridge was a prominent member of that class of society which
+undergraduates and other healthy and outspoken Philistines designate
+simply and comprehensively as "Tishbites" or "Tishes."
+
+"He shut him in and locked the door," continued the coxswain, "and then
+he turned on the other eight. They were a pretty average lot of
+worms--you know them?"
+
+There was a murmur of assent, and Mr. Poltimore, with rather belated
+presence of mind, hurriedly explained to the Oxford gentleman that the
+band of heroes under discussion were not in any sense representative of
+the rank and file of the College.
+
+"--And they just sat round the table looking perfectly paralytic. (As a
+matter of fact most of them were.) Hughie laid hold of the biggest of
+them--Skeffington--and said:--
+
+"'This meeting is adjourned, gentlemen. Just to show you that I'm
+speaking the truth, I'll heave the senior member present downstairs!'"
+
+"Did he?" asked everybody.
+
+"No. He'd have killed him if he had. He picked Skeff up by the collar
+and the seat of his bags and said to me, 'Watch 'em, Dishy!' Then he
+carried Skeff downstairs, and slugged him into the middle of the grass
+plot outside."
+
+"Good egg!" murmured Mr. Angus.
+
+"Didn't the others try to bolt?" inquired Towzer.
+
+"The idea _was_ mooted," replied the coxswain loftily, "but I told them
+to sit still or they'd get their silly heads knocked together."
+
+"Did he cart them all downstairs?"
+
+"No; it would have been too tame a job with such a set of mangy squirts.
+He simply came back and said:--
+
+"'Now, you miserable little snipes, I give you fifteen seconds to quit
+these premises. The last man out will be personally assisted downstairs
+by me. I'm sorry I've only got slippers on.' Still, he landed the
+Honourable Hopton-Hattersley a very healthy root for all that,"
+concluded Dishy, with a seraphic smile. "After that the porter arrived
+with the Dean's compliments, and it was past the hour for music,
+gentlemen; but Hughie slapped him on the back and told him that he had
+arrived too late for the fair. Then he went home to bed as cool as a
+cucumber. Oh, he's--Hallo, there he is! I must catch him. So long, you
+men! See you at lunch, Reggie."
+
+And Mr. Dishart-Watson, swelling with importance, hurried off to
+overtake a figure which had swung out of a distant staircase in the
+southwest corner of the court and was striding towards the gateway.
+
+There was no undergraduate slouchiness discernible either in the dress
+or in the appearance of the Captain of the St. Benedict's boat. He was a
+strong-limbed, clean-run young man of about twenty-one; perhaps a trifle
+too muscular to be a quick mover, but, with his broad back and sinewy
+loins, an ideally built rowing-man. He was a youth of rather grave
+countenance, with shrewd blue eyes which had a habit of disappearing
+into his head when he laughed, and a mouth in which, during these same
+periods of exhilaration, his friends confidently asserted that you could
+post a letter. He was a born leader of men, and, as the discerning
+reader will have gathered from Mr. Dishart-Watson's narrative, was still
+strongly imbued with what may be called public-school principles of
+justice. He entirely refused to suffer fools gladly or even resignedly,
+but had a kindly nod for timorous freshmen, a friendly salute for those
+Dons who regarded undergraduates as an integral part of the scheme of
+college life and not merely as a necessary evil, and a courtly good-day
+for fluttered and appreciative bedmakers. He never forgot the faces or
+names of any of those over him or under him--Dons and college servants,
+that is; and further, in his own walk of life (a society in which you
+may recognise the existence of no man, even though he daily passes you
+the salt or gathers you under his arm in the familiarity of a Rugby
+scrummage, until you have been formally introduced to him), he never
+pretended to do so.
+
+While Mr. Dishy-Washy's short legs are endeavouring to bring him
+alongside the striding Olympian in front, it will perhaps be well to
+explain why it was so absolutely essential to the welfare of St.
+Benedict's College that eight young men should enjoy a night's rest
+untrammelled by revels on the floors below.
+
+For the benefit of those who have never made a study of that refinement
+of torture known as a "bumping" race, it may be mentioned that at Oxford
+and Cambridge the various College crews, owing to the narrowness of
+their rivers, race not abreast but in a long string, each boat being
+separated from its pursuer and pursued by an equal space. Every crew
+which succeeds in rowing over the course without being caught (or
+"bumped") by the boat behind it is said to have "kept its place," and
+starts in the same position for the next day's racing. But if it
+contrives to touch the boat in front, it is said to have made a "bump,"
+and both bumper and bumped get under the bank with all speed and allow
+the rest of the procession to race past. Next day bumper and bumped
+change places, and the victors of the day before endeavour to repeat
+their performance at the expense of the next boat in front of them. The
+crew at "the head of the river" have, of course, nothing to catch, and
+can accordingly devote their attention to keeping away from Number Two,
+which is usually in close attendance owing to the pressing attention of
+Number Three. And so on.
+
+The racing takes place during four successive evenings in the May Week,
+so called for the somewhat inadequate reason that it occurs in June. It
+was now Saturday, the last day of the races, and the men of St.
+Benedict's knew that an enormous effort must be made that evening. So
+far they had made two bumps, comparatively easily. Starting from fourth
+place they were now second on the river, and only the All Saints boat
+stood between them and the haven where they would be. They had tried
+last night to bring their foe down, but had failed; they were going to
+try again to-night, but All Saints were a terribly strong crew. They had
+been Head for five years, and there were four Blues in the boat. Public
+opinion admitted that St. Benedict's were about the fastest crew on the
+river that year, but considered that a seasoned lot like All Saints
+could keep on spurting away long enough to last out the course.
+
+"Unless, of course," people said, "unless Marrable does something extra
+special."
+
+It was wonderful what a lot the world in general seemed to expect of
+Marrable. Character counts for something even among the very young; and
+there is no more youthful member of society than the undergraduate. The
+sixth-form boy is a Nestor compared with him.
+
+Meanwhile our diminutive friend Dishy, the coxswain, had succeeded in
+overtaking his captain, just as that great man stepped into a hansom in
+Trinity Street.
+
+"Where are you off to, Hughie?" he panted.
+
+"Station."
+
+"People?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Well, I'm coming with you. I'll cut away before you meet her."
+
+Dishy was one of the few who dared to address Marrable in this strain.
+
+The two installed themselves in the hansom, and while the experienced
+animal between the shafts proceeded down Trinity Street, butting its way
+through sauntering pedestrians, pushing past country-parsonical
+governess carts, taking dogs in its stride, and shrinking apprehensively
+from motor-bicycles ridden by hatless youths in bedroom slippers, they
+discussed affairs of state.
+
+"There's only one way to do it, Dishy," said Marrable. "I'm going
+stroke."
+
+Dishy nodded approvingly.
+
+"It's the only thing to do," he said. "But who is going to row
+seven--Stroke?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Bow-side will go to pieces," said Dishy with conviction.
+
+"Perhaps. But as things are at present stroke side will."
+
+"That's true," admitted the coxswain. "Let's see now: there'll be you
+stroke, Duncombe seven, Puffin six--it's worth trying anyhow. We're
+bound to keep away from the James' people, so we might as well have a
+shot."
+
+"Clear out now," said Marrable, "and go round and tell the men to be at
+the boathouse by four, and we'll have a ten minutes' outing in the new
+order. Then, when you've done that, cut down to the boathouse and tell
+Jerry to alter my stretcher and Duncombe's."
+
+These commands involved a full hour's excessive activity in a hot sun on
+the part of Mr. Dishart-Watson; but Marrable was not the man to spare
+himself or his subordinates when occasion demanded.
+
+The coxswain descended to the step of the hansom and clung to the
+splash-board as he received his last instructions.
+
+"And tell Jerry," added Marrable, "to get down a new stroke-side oar,
+with a good six-inch blade. Duncombe's has been shaved down to a
+tooth-pick."
+
+Dishy nodded cheerfully and dropped off into the traffic.
+
+"The old man means business. We shall go Head now," he murmured to
+himself with simple confidence. "All right, sir, my fault entirely.
+Don't apologise!"
+
+And leaving an inverted motor-cyclist, who had run into him from behind,
+to congest the traffic and endure laceration from his own still
+faithfully revolving pedals, the coxswain of the St. Benedict's boat
+proceeded at a brisk pace back to his College, there to inform a sorely
+tried troupe of seven that, owing to an eleventh-hour change in the
+cast, a full-dress rehearsal of their evening's performance had been
+called for four o'clock sharp.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER II
+
+                INTRODUCES THE HEROINE OF THIS NARRATIVE
+
+
+It has been said by those who ought to know that, if the most painful
+quarter of an hour in a man's life comes when he is screwing himself up
+to proposing-point, the corresponding period in a woman's is that
+immediately preceding her first dinner-party in her own house.
+
+Granting the unpleasantness of both these chastening but necessary
+experiences, a mere male may be excused for inquiring why the second
+should be ear-marked as the exclusive prerogative of the opposite sex.
+There is no more morbidly apprehensive creature under the sun than the
+undergraduate about to give a state luncheon-party which is to be graced
+by the presence of his beloved.
+
+Hughie Marrable sat back in his hansom with knitted brow, and checked
+some hieroglyphics on the back of an envelope.
+
+"Let's see," he murmured to himself, "_Dressed crab_. Can't go wrong
+there. Told the cook to be sure to send it up in the silver scallops
+with the College crest on. After all, it's the trimmings that really
+appeal to a woman. Not the food, but the way you serve it up. Rum
+creatures!" he added parenthetically. "_Prawns in aspic_. That always
+looks nice, anyway, though not very filling at the price. I remember
+last year Kitty Devenish said it looked simply--"
+
+Hughie checked his soliloquy rather suddenly, and, if any one else had
+been present in the hansom, would probably have blushed a little. Miss
+Kitty Devenish was what cycle-dealers term "a last year's model," and at
+the present moment Hughie was driving to meet some one else. He
+continued:--
+
+"_Cutlets à la reform_. Quite the best thing the kitchens turn out, but
+not so showy as they might be. Still, with old Huish's Crown Derby
+plates--it was decent of the old man to lend them; I hope to goodness
+Mrs. Gunn won't do anything rash with them--they ought to do. _Grassy
+corner pudding_. That always creates excitement, though it tastes
+rotten. _Fruit salad_; _crême brûlé_. That's safe enough. _Macaroni au
+gratin_. She won't touch it, but it'll please Uncle Jimmy and Jack Ames.
+Wish I could have some myself! Never mind; only about six hours more!"
+
+Hughie smacked his lips. It is hard to sit among the flesh-pots and not
+partake thereof. His fare at this feast would be cold beef and dry
+toast.
+
+He turned over the envelope.
+
+"H'm--drink. Don't suppose she'll have anything, but I can't take that
+for granted. There's a bottle of Berncastler Doctor and some Beaune. I
+wonder if it would be best to have them open before I ask her what
+she'll drink, or ask her what she'll drink before I open them. I'll have
+'em open, I think. She might refuse if she saw the corks weren't drawn.
+Anyhow Mrs. Ames will probably take some. But, great Scott! I must ask
+Mrs. Ames first, mustn't I? That's settled anyway. She'll probably take
+whatever Mrs. Ames takes.
+
+"Then there are the table decorations. I wish to goodness I could
+remember whether it _was_ wall-flower she said. I think it must have
+been, because I remember making some putrid joke to her once about like
+attracting unlike. Anyhow, it's too late to change it now. I've plumped
+for wall-flower, and the room simply stinks of it.
+
+"Then the seats. Me at the head, with Mrs. Ames on one hand and her on
+the other. Uncle Jimmy at the end, with Ames on his left and Dicky Lunn
+between Mrs. Ames and Uncle Jimmy. Yes, Ames _must_ sit there. Lord
+knows, Dicky Lunn should be safe enough, but you never know what sort of
+man a girl won't take a fancy to. And after all, Ames is married," added
+the infatuated youth.
+
+"Then Mrs. Gunn. I think I've told her everything." He feverishly ticked
+off his admonitions on his fingers. "Let me see,--
+
+"_One_: not to put used plates on the floor.
+
+"_Two_: not to join in the conversation.
+
+"_Three_: not to let that wobbly affair in her bonnet dip into the food.
+
+"_Four_: not to breathe on things or polish them with her apron, except
+out of sight.
+
+"_Five_: not to attempt on any account to hand round the drink.
+
+"_Six_: to go away directly after lunch and not trot in and out of the
+gyp-room munching remains.
+
+"The tea-hamper should be all right. Trust the kitchens for that! I must
+remember to stick in a box of chocolates, though. And I don't think I
+need bother about dinner, as they are going to send in Richards to wait.
+Anyhow, I shall have the boat off my chest by that time. That will be
+something, especially _if_--"
+
+Hughie lapsed into silence, and for a moment a vision of love requited
+gave place in his imagination to the spectacle of the Benedictine crew
+going Head of the river.
+
+His reflections were interrupted by the arrival of his equipage at that
+combined masterpiece of imposing architecture and convenient
+arrangement, Cambridge railway station. The platform was crowded with
+young men, most of them in "athletic dress," waiting for the London
+train. The brows of all were seamed with care, partaking in all
+probability of the domestic and amorous variety which obsessed poor
+Hughie.
+
+The train as usual dashed into the station with a haughty
+can't-stop-at-a-hole-like-this expression, only to clank across some
+points and grind itself to an ignominious and asthmatic standstill at a
+distant point beside the solitary and interminable platform which,
+together with a ticket-office and a bookstall, prevents Cambridge
+railway station from being mistaken for a rather out-of-date dock-shed.
+
+Presently Hughie, running rapidly, observed his guests descending from a
+carriage.
+
+First came a pleasant-faced lady of between thirty and forty, followed
+by a stout and easy-going husband. Next, an oldish gentleman with a
+white moustache and a choleric blue eye. And finally--pretty, fresh, and
+disturbing--appeared the _fons et origo_ of the entire expedition, on
+whose account the disposition and incidents of Hughie's luncheon-party
+had been so cunningly planned and so laboriously rehearsed--Miss Mildred
+Freshwater.
+
+The party greeted their host characteristically. His uncle, even as he
+shook hands, let drop a few fervent anticipatory remarks on the subject
+of lunch; Mr. Ames, who was an old college boat captain, coupled his
+greeting with an anxious inquiry as to the club's prospects of success
+that evening; Mrs. Ames' eyes plainly said, "Well, I've _brought_ her,
+my boy; now wire in!" and Miss Freshwater, when it came to her turn,
+shook hands with an unaffected pleasure and _camaraderie_ which would
+have suited Hughie better if there had been discernible upon her face
+what Yum-Yum once pithily summed up as "a trace of diffidence or
+shyness."
+
+Still, Hughie was so enraptured with the vision before him that he
+failed to observe a small and shrinking figure which had coyly emerged
+from the train, and was hanging back, as if doubtful about its
+reception, behind Mrs. Ames' skirts. Presently it detached itself and
+stood before Hughie in the form of a small girl with coppery brown hair
+and wide grey-blue eyes.
+
+"Joey!" shouted Hughie.
+
+"She would come!" explained his uncle, in the resigned tones of a strong
+man who knows his limits.
+
+The lady indicated advanced to Hughie's side, and, taking his hand,
+rubbed herself ingratiatingly against him in the inarticulate but
+eloquent manner peculiar to dumb animals and young children.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER III
+
+                             JIMMY MARRABLE
+
+
+Luncheon on the whole was a success, though Mrs. Gunn's behaviour
+exceeded anything that Hughie had feared.
+
+She began by keeping the ladies adjusting their hair in Hughie's bedroom
+for something like ten minutes, while she recited to them a detailed and
+revolting description of her most recent complaint. Later, she initiated
+an impromptu and unseemly campaign--beginning with a skirmish of
+whispers in the doorway, swelling uproariously to what sounded like a
+duet between a cockatoo and a bloodhound on the landing outside, and
+dying away to an irregular fire of personal innuendoes, which dropped
+over the banisters one by one, like the gentle dew of heaven, on to the
+head of the retreating foe beneath--with a kitchen-man over a thumb-mark
+on a pudding-plate.
+
+But fortunately for Hughie the company tacitly agreed to regard her as a
+form of comic relief; and when she kept back the salad-dressing for the
+express purpose--frustrated at the very last moment--of pouring it over
+the sweets; yea, even when she suddenly plucked a hairpin from her head
+with which to spear a wasp in the grassy corner pudding, the ladies
+agreed that she was "an old pet." When Mrs. Ames went so far as to
+follow her into the gyp-room after lunch and thank her for her trouble
+in waiting upon them, Mrs. Gunn, divided between extreme gratification
+and a desire to lose no time, unlimbered her batteries at once; and
+Hughie's tingling ears, as he handed round the coffee, overheard the
+portentous and mysterious fragment: "Well, mum, I put 'im straight to
+bed, and laid a hot flannel on his--," just as the door of the gyp-room
+swung to with a merciful bang.
+
+It was now after two, and Hughie, in response to a generally expressed
+desire, laid before his guests a detailed programme for the afternoon.
+He proposed, first of all, to show them round the College. After that
+the party would proceed to Ditton Paddock in charge of Mr. Richard
+Lunn--who, it will be remembered, had been selected by Hughie as
+cavalier on account of his exceptional qualifications for the post--in
+company with a substantial tea-basket, the contents of which he hoped
+would keep them fortified in body and spirit until the races began with
+the Second Division, about five-thirty.
+
+"How are you going to get us down to Ditton, Hughie?" inquired his
+uncle.
+
+"Well, there's a fly which will hold five of you, and I thought"--Hughie
+cleared his throat--"I could take the other one down in a canoe."
+
+There was a brief pause, while the company, glancing at one another with
+varying expressions of solemnity, worked out mental problems in
+Permutations and Combinations. Presently the tactless Ames inquired:--
+
+"Which one are you going to take in the canoe?"
+
+"Oh, anybody," said Hughie, in a voice which said as plainly as
+possible: "Silly old ass!"
+
+However, realising that it is no use to continue skirmishing after your
+cover has been destroyed, he directed a gaze of invitation upon Miss
+Freshwater, who was sitting beside him on the seat.
+
+She turned to him before he could speak.
+
+"Hughie," she said softly, "take that child. Just look at her!"
+
+Hughie obediently swallowed something, and turned to the wide-eyed and
+wistful picture on the sofa.
+
+"Will you come, Joey?" he inquired.
+
+The lady addressed signified, by a shudder of ecstasy, that the answer
+to the invitation was in the affirmative.
+
+"Meanwhile," said Mr. Marrable, "I am going to smoke a cigar before I
+stir out of this room. And if you people will spare Hughie for ten
+minutes, I'll keep him here and have a short talk with him. I must go
+back to-night."
+
+The accommodating Mr. Lunn suggested that this interval should be
+bridged by a personally conducted expedition to his rooms downstairs,
+where he would have great pleasure in exhibiting to the company a
+"rather decent" collection of door-knockers and bell-handles, the
+acquisition of which articles of _vertu_ (he being a youth of strong
+wrist and fleet foot) was a special hobby of his.
+
+Hughie was left alone with his uncle--the only relation he possessed in
+the world, and the man who had been to him both father and mother for
+nearly eighteen years.
+
+Hughie had been born in India. His recollections of his parents were
+vague in the extreme, but if he shut both eyes and pressed hard upon
+them with his hands he could summon up various pictures of a beautiful
+lady, whose arms were decked with glittering playthings that jingled
+musically when she carved the chicken for Hughie's nursery dinner. He
+particularly remembered these arms, for their owner had a pleasant habit
+of coming up to kiss him good-night after his ayah had put him to bed.
+On these occasions they were always bare; and Hughie remembered quite
+distinctly how much more comfortable they were then than next morning at
+tiffin, when they were enclosed in sleeves which sometimes scratched.
+
+Of his father he remembered less, except that he was a very large person
+who wore gorgeous raiment of scarlet. Also things on his heels which
+clicked. He had a big voice, too, this man, and he used to amuse himself
+by training Hughie to stand stiffly erect whenever he cried, "'Shun!"
+
+Hughie also remembered a voyage on a big ship, where the passengers made
+much of him, and a fascinating person in a blue jersey (which
+unfortunately scratched) presented him with numerous string balls, which
+smelt most gloriously of tar but always fell into the Indian Ocean or
+some other inaccessible place.
+
+Then he remembered arriving with his parents at a big bungalow in a
+compound full of grassplots and flower-beds, where a person whom he
+afterwards learned to call Uncle Jimmy greeted him gravely and asked him
+to accept his hospitality for a time. After that--quite soon--he
+remembered saying good-bye to his parents, or rather, his parents saying
+good-bye to him. The big man shook him long and solemnly by the hand,
+which hurt a good deal but impressed Hughie deeply, and the beautiful
+lady's arms--with thick sleeves on, too!--clung round Hughie's neck till
+he thought he would choke. But he stood stiffly at "'shun" all the time,
+because his parents seemed thoroughly unhappy about something, and he
+desired to please them. He had never had a woman's arms round his neck
+since.
+
+After his parents had gone, he settled down happily enough in the big
+compound, which he soon learned to call "the garding." The name of the
+bungalow he gathered from most of the people with whom he came in
+contact was "The 'All," though there were some who called it "Manors,"
+and Uncle Jimmy, who, too, apparently possessed more than one name, was
+invariably referred to by Hughie's friends in the village as "Ole
+Peppery."
+
+Very shortly after his parents' departure Hughie overheard a
+conversation between his uncle and Mrs. Capper, the lady who managed the
+household, which puzzled him a good deal.
+
+"Understand, Capper, I won't have it," said his uncle.
+
+"Think what people will say, sir," urged Mrs. Capper respectfully but
+insistently.
+
+"I don't care a"--Capper coughed discreetly here--"what people say. The
+boy is not going to be decked out in crape and hearse-plumes to please
+you or any other old woman."
+
+"Hearse-plumes would not be essential, sir," said the literal Capper.
+"But I think the child should have a little black suit."
+
+"The child will run about in his usual rags," replied Old Peppery, in a
+voice of thunder; "and if I catch you or any one else stuffing him up
+with yarns about canker-worms or hell-fire, or any trimmings of that
+description, I tell you straight that there will be the father and
+mother of a row."
+
+"Yes, sir," said Capper meekly. "And I desire, sir," she added in the
+same even tone, "to give warning."
+
+Thereupon Uncle Jimmy had stamped his way downstairs to the hall, and
+Hughie was left wondering what the warning could have been which Mrs.
+Capper desired to utter. It must have been a weighty one, for she
+continued to deliver it at intervals during the next ten years, long
+indeed after Hughie's growing intelligence had discovered its meaning.
+But her utterances received about as much attention from her employer as
+Cassandra's from hers.
+
+However, the immediate result of the conversation recorded above
+was that Mrs. Capper made no attempt to deck Hughie in crape or
+hearse-plumes; and later on, when he was old enough to understand the
+meaning of death, his uncle told him how his parents had gone to their
+God together--"the happiest fate, old man, that can fall on husband and
+wife"--one stormy night in the Bay of Biscay, in company with every
+other soul on board the troop-ship Helianthus, and that henceforth
+Hughie must be prepared to regard the broken-down old buffer before him
+as his father and mother.
+
+Hughie had gravely accepted this arrangement, and for more than
+seventeen years he and his uncle had treated one another as father and
+son.
+
+Jimmy Marrable was a little eccentric,--but so are most old
+bachelors,--and like a good many eccentric men he rather prided himself
+on his peculiarities. If anything, he rather cultivated them. One of his
+most startling characteristics was a habit of thinking aloud. He would
+emerge unexpectedly from a brown study, to comment to himself with
+stunning suddenness and absolute candour on the appearance and manners
+of those around him. It was credibly reported that he had once taken a
+rather intense and voluble lady in to dinner, and after regarding her
+for some time with a fixity of attention which had deluded the good soul
+into the belief that he was hanging on her lips, had remarked to
+himself, with appalling distinctness, during a lull in the conversation:
+"Guinea set--misfit at the top--gutta-percha fixings--wonder they don't
+drop into her soup!" and continued his meal without any apparent
+consciousness of having said anything unusual.
+
+He was eccentric, too, about other matters. Once Hughie, returning from
+school for his holidays, discovered that there had been an addition to
+the family in his absence.
+
+Mrs. Capper's very face in the hall told him that something was wrong.
+Its owner informed Hughie that though one should be prepared to take
+life as one found it, and live and let live had been her motto from
+infancy, her equilibrium ever since the thing had happened had lain at
+the mercy of the first aggressively disposed feather that came along,
+and what people in the neighbourhood would say she dared not think.
+
+She ran on. Hughie waited patiently, and presently unearthed the facts.
+
+A few weeks ago the master had returned from a protracted visit to
+London, bringing with him two children. He had announced that the
+pair were henceforth to be regarded as permanent inmates of the
+establishment. Beyond the fact that one brat was fair and a boy and the
+other darkish and a girl, and that Mrs. Capper had given warning on
+sight, Hughie could elicit nothing, and waited composedly for his uncle
+to come home from shooting.
+
+Jimmy Marrable, when he arrived, was not communicative. He merely stated
+that the little devils were the children of an old friend of his, called
+Gaymer, who had died suddenly and left them to be brought up by him as
+guardian.
+
+"And Hughie, my son," he concluded, "if you don't want your head bitten
+off you will refrain in this case from indulging in your propensity for
+asking why and getting to the bottom of things. I'm not best pleased at
+finding them on my hands, but here they are and there's an end of it.
+The girl is five--ten years younger than you--and the boy's eight. She
+is called Joan, and his idiotic name is Lancelot Wellesley. I wonder
+they didn't christen him Galahad Napoleon! Come upstairs and see them."
+
+All this had occurred seven years ago. During that time Lancelot
+Wellesley Gaymer had grown up sufficiently to go to a public school, and
+consequently Miss Joan Gaymer had been left very much in the company of
+the curious old gentleman whom she had soon learned to call Unker Zimmy.
+Of their relations it will be sufficient at present to mention that a
+more curiously assorted and more thoroughly devoted couple it would be
+difficult to find.
+
+Jimmy Marrable reclined on the window seat and smoked his cigar. His
+nephew, enviously eyeing the blue smoke, sprawled in an arm-chair.
+
+"Hughie," said the elder man suddenly, "how old are you? Twenty-one,
+isn't it?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And are you going down for good next week?"
+
+"Yes." Hughie sighed.
+
+"Got a degree?"
+
+"Tell you on Tuesday."
+
+"Tell me now."
+
+"Well--yes, I should think."
+
+"What in?"
+
+"Mechanical Stinks--Engineering. Second Class, if I'm lucky."
+
+"Um. Got any vices?"
+
+"Not specially."
+
+"Drink?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Not a teetotaller?" said Jimmy Marrable in some concern.
+
+"No."
+
+"That's good. Ever been drunk?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Badly, I mean. I'm not talking about bump-supper exhilaration."
+
+"Only once."
+
+"When?"
+
+"My first term."
+
+"What for?"
+
+"To see what it was like."
+
+"Perfectly sound proceeding," commented Jimmy Marrable. "What were your
+impressions of the experiment?"
+
+"I haven't got any," said Hughie frankly. "I only woke up next morning
+in bed with my boots on."
+
+"Who put you there?"
+
+"Seven other devils."
+
+"And you have not repeated the experiment?"
+
+"No. There's no need. I know my capacity to a glass now."
+
+"Then you know something really worth knowing," remarked Jimmy Marrable
+with sincerity. "Now, what are you going to do with yourself? Why not go
+and see the world a bit? You have always wanted to. And do it thoroughly
+while you are about it. Take five years over it; ten if you like. You
+_will_ like, you know. It's in the blood. That's why I think you are
+wise not to want to enter the Service. You can always scrape in
+somewhere if there _is_ a war, and barrack-life in time of peace
+would corrode your very heart out. It nearly killed your dad at
+five-and-twenty. That was why he exchanged and took to the Frontier, and
+ended his days in command of a Goorkha regiment. Life at first hand;
+that's what we Marrables thrive on! I never set foot in this country
+myself between the ages of twenty and thirty-three. I would come with
+you again if it wasn't for Anno Domini--and the nippers. But you'll find
+a good many old friends of mine dotted about the world. They're not all
+folk I could give you letters of introduction to--some of 'em don't
+speak English and others can't read and write; but they'll show you the
+ropes better than any courier. You take my advice, and go. England is no
+place for a young man with money and no particular profession, until
+he's over thirty and ready to marry. Will you go, Hughie?"
+
+Hughie's expression showed that he was considering the point rather
+reluctantly. His uncle continued:--
+
+"Money all right, I suppose? You have eight hundred a-year now you are
+of age. Got any debts, eh? I'll help you."
+
+"None to speak of. Thanks all the same."
+
+"Well; why not go?"
+
+"I should like to go more than anything," said Hughie slowly, "but--"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"I don't know--that is--"
+
+"I _do_," said Jimmy Marrable with characteristic frankness. "You are
+struggling between an instinct which tells you to do the sensible thing
+and an overpowering desire to do a dashed silly one."
+
+Hughie grew very red.
+
+His uncle continued:--
+
+"You want to marry that girl."
+
+Hughie blazed up.
+
+"I do," he said, rather defiantly.
+
+The cigar glowed undisturbedly.
+
+"You think that life has no greater happiness to offer you?"
+
+"I am sure of it," said Hughie, with an air of one stating a simple
+truth.
+
+"And you are twenty-one?"
+
+"Ye--es," with less fire.
+
+Jimmy Marrable smoked reflectively for a few minutes.
+
+"I am an old bachelor," he said at last, "and old bachelors are supposed
+to know nothing about love-affairs. The truth of course is that they
+know far more than any one else."
+
+Hughie was accustomed to these _obiter dicta_.
+
+"Why?" he asked dutifully.
+
+"Well, for the same reason that a broken swashbuckler knows a deal more
+about soldiering than a duly enrolled private of the line. He has had a
+more varied experience. The longer a man remains a bachelor the more he
+learns about women; and the more he learns about women the better able
+he will be to make his way in the world. Therefore, if he marries young
+he reduces his chances of success in life to a minimum. The sad part
+about it all is that, provided he gets the girl he wants, he doesn't
+care. That, by the way, is the reason why nearly all the most famous men
+in history have either been unhappily married or not married at all.
+Happiness has no history. Happily married men are never ambitious. They
+don't go toiling and panting after--"
+
+"They have no need to," said Hughie. "A man doesn't go on running after
+a tram-car after he has caught it."
+
+"That begs the question, Hughie. It presumes that all the available
+happiness in the world is contained in one particular tram-car. Besides,
+the tram-cars you mean are intended for men over thirty. The young ought
+to walk."
+
+Hughie realised that the conversation was growing rather too subtle for
+him, and reverted to plain cut and thrust.
+
+"Then you think no man should marry before thirty?" he said.
+
+"Nothing of the kind! It depends on the man. If he is a steady, decent,
+average sort of fellow, who regards a ledger as a Bible and an
+office-stool as a stepping-stone to the summit of the universe, and
+possesses no particular aptitude for the rough-and-tumble of life, the
+sooner he marries and settles down as a contented old pram-pusher the
+better for him and the nation. Do you fancy yourself in that line,
+Hughie?"
+
+"No-o-o," said Hughie reluctantly. "But I might learn," he added
+hopefully. "I'm a pretty adaptable bloke."
+
+Jimmy Marrable threw his cigar-end out of the window, and sat up.
+
+"Listen, Hughie," he said, "and I'll tell you what you _really_ are. You
+are the son of a mother who climbed out of her bedroom window (and let
+herself down a rain-pipe that I wouldn't have trusted a monkey on) in
+order to elope with the man she loved. Your father was the commander of
+as tough a native regiment as I have ever known. Your grandfather was an
+explorer. I've been a bit of a rolling-stone myself. About one relation
+of yours in three dies in his bed. You come of a stock which prefers to
+go and see things for itself rather than read about them in the
+newspaper, and which has acquired a considerable knowledge of the art of
+handling men in the process. Those are rather rare assets. If you take a
+woman in tow at the tender age of twenty-one, there will be a disaster.
+Either you will sit at home and eat your heart out, or you will go
+abroad and leave her to eat out hers. Am I talking sense?"
+
+Hughie sighed like a furnace.
+
+"Yes, confound you!" he said.
+
+"Will you promise not to rush into matrimony, then?"
+
+"Perhaps she'll wait for me," mused Hughie.
+
+"How old is she?"
+
+"Twenty-one, like me."
+
+"H'm," remarked Jimmy Marrable drily. "That means that she is for all
+practical purposes ten years your senior. However, perhaps she will.
+Pigs might fly. But will you promise me to think the matter over very
+carefully before deciding not to go abroad?"
+
+"Yes," said Hughie.
+
+"That being the case," continued his uncle briskly, "I want to tell you
+one or two things. If you do go, I may never see you again."
+
+"I say," said Hughie in alarm, "there's nothing wrong with your health,
+is there, old man?"
+
+"Bless you, no! But once a Marrable takes to the wilds Methuselah
+himself couldn't reckon on living long enough to see him again. So I am
+going to talk to you while I've got you. I am taking this opportunity of
+being near town to see my solicitor and make my will. I am fit enough,
+but I am fifty this year; and at that age a man ought to make some
+disposition of his property. I may as well tell you that I have left you
+nothing. Annoyed?"
+
+"Not in the least."
+
+"And I have left nothing to Master Lance."
+
+Hughie looked a little surprised at this.
+
+"I mean to start him on his own legs before my demise," explained Jimmy
+Marrable. "Immediately, in fact. That is partly what I am going up to
+town for. I am investing a sum for him which ought to bring him in about
+two hundred a year for the rest of his life. He's nearly sixteen now,
+and he'll have to administer his income himself--pay his own
+school-bills and everything. Just as I made you do. Nothing like
+accustoming a boy to handling money when he's young. Then he doesn't go
+a mucker when he suddenly comes into a lot of it. I shan't give him
+more, because it would prevent him from working. Two hundred won't. A
+slug would perhaps live contentedly enough on it, but Lancelot Wellesley
+Gaymer is a pretentious young sweep, and he'll work in order to gain the
+means for making a splash. The two hundred will keep him going till he
+finds his feet."
+
+Jimmy Marrable paused, and surveyed his nephew rather irritably.
+
+"Well," he inquired at length, "haven't you any contribution to make to
+this conversation?"
+
+"Can't say I have had much chance so far," replied the disrespectful
+Hughie.
+
+"Don't you want to know what I'm going to do with the rest of my money?
+That's a question that a good many people are worrying themselves about.
+Don't you want to join in the inquisition?"
+
+"Can't say I do. No business of mine."
+
+His uncle surveyed him curiously.
+
+"You're infernally like your father, Hughie," he said. "Well, I'm going
+to leave it to Joey."
+
+"Good scheme," said Hughie.
+
+"You think so?"
+
+"Rather!"
+
+"There's a lot of it," continued his uncle reflectively. "Some of it is
+tied up rather queerly, too. My executors will have a bit of a job."
+
+He surveyed the impassive Hughie again.
+
+"Don't you want to know who my executors are?" he inquired quite
+angrily.
+
+"No," said Hughie, who was deep in other thoughts at the moment. "Not my
+business," he repeated.
+
+"Hughie," said Jimmy Marrable, "you are poor Arthur over again. He was a
+cursedly irritating chap at times," he added explosively.
+
+A babble of cheerful voices on the staircase announced the return of the
+safe-looking Mr. Lunn and party. They flowed in, entranced with that
+gentleman's door-knockers (the countenances of which, by the way, were
+usually compared by undergraduate critics, not at all unfavourably, with
+that of their owner), and declared themselves quite ready now to be
+properly impressed by whatever features of the College Hughie should be
+pleased to exhibit to them.
+
+One tour round a College is very like another; and we need not therefore
+follow our friends up and down winding staircases, or in and out of
+chapels and libraries, while they gaze down on the resting-places of
+the illustrious dead or gape up at the ephemeral abodes of the
+undistinguished living.
+
+The expedition was chiefly remarkable (to the observant eye of Mrs.
+Ames) for the efforts made by its conductor to get lost in suitable
+company--an enterprise which was invariably frustrated by the resolute
+conduct of that small but determined hero-worshipper, Miss Joan Gaymer.
+On one occasion, however, Hughie and Miss Freshwater were left together
+for a moment. The party had finished surveying the prospect from the
+roof of the College Chapel, and were painfully groping their way in
+single file down a spiral staircase. Only Hughie, Miss Freshwater, and
+the ubiquitous Miss Gaymer were left at the top.
+
+"You go next, Joey," said Hughie; "then Miss Freshwater, then me."
+
+The lady addressed plunged obediently into the gloomy chasm at her feet.
+She observed with frank jealousy that the other two did not immediately
+follow her, and accordingly waited for them in the belfry half-way down.
+
+Presently she heard their footsteps descending; and Miss Freshwater's
+voice said:--
+
+"I wanted to tell you about it first of anybody, Hughie, because you and
+I have always been such friends. Nobody else knows yet."
+
+There was a silence, broken only by Hughie's footsteps, evidently
+negotiating a difficult turn. Then Miss Freshwater's voice continued, a
+little wistfully:--
+
+"Aren't you going to congratulate me?"
+
+And Hughie's voice, sounding strangely sepulchral in the echoing
+darkness, replied:--
+
+"Rather! I--I--hope you'll be very happy. Mind that step."
+
+Miss Gaymer wondered what it was all about.
+
+Hughie found an opportunity before the day was over of holding another
+brief conversation with his uncle, in the course of which he expressed
+an opinion on the advantages of immediate and extensive foreign travel
+which sent that opponent of early marriages back to town in a thoroughly
+satisfied frame of mind.
+
+"There ought to be a statue," said Jimmy Marrable to his cigar, as he
+leaned back reflectively in his railway carriage, "set up in the capital
+of every British Colony, representing a female figure in an attitude of
+aloofness, and inscribed: _Erected by a grateful Colony to its Principal
+Emigration Agent--The Girl at Home Who Married Somebody Else_."
+
+Then he sighed to himself--rather forlornly, a woman would have said.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER IV
+
+                             AN UNDERSTUDY
+
+
+    "_The indulgence of the audience is asked on behalf of Miss Joan
+    Gaymer, who, owing to the sudden indisposition of Miss Mildred
+    Freshwater, has taken up that lady's part at very short notice._"
+
+A couple of hours later Hughie, roaring very gently for so great a lion,
+was engaged in paddling a Canadian canoe down to Ditton Corner.
+
+The canoe contained one passenger, who, with feminine indifference to
+the inflexible laws of science, was endeavouring to assist its progress
+by paddling in the wrong direction. Her small person, propped by
+convenient cushions, was wedged into the bow of the vessel, and her
+white frock and attenuated black legs were protected from the results of
+her own efforts at navigation by a spare blazer of Hughie's. Her hat lay
+on the floor of the canoe, half-full of cherries, and her long hair
+rippled and glimmered in the afternoon sun. Miss Joan Gaymer would be a
+beauty some day, but for the present all knowledge of that fact was
+being tactfully withheld from her. To do her justice, the prospect would
+have interested her but little. Like most small girls of eleven, she
+desired nothing so much at present as to resemble a small boy as closely
+as possible. She would rather have captured one bird's-nest than twenty
+hearts, and appearances she counted as dross provided she could hold her
+own in a catherine-wheel competition.
+
+They were rather a silent couple. Joan was filled with that contentment
+which is beyond words. She was wearing a new frock; she had escaped
+under an escort almost exclusively male--if we except the benevolent
+despotism of Mrs. Ames--from home, nurse, and governess, to attend a
+series of purely grown-up functions; and to crown all, she was alone in
+the canoe, a light-blue blazer spread over her knees, with one who
+represented to her small experience the head and summit of all that a
+man should--nay, could--be.
+
+"I expect," she remarked, in a sudden burst of exultation, as the canoe
+slid past two gorgeously arrayed young persons who were seated by the
+water's edge, "that those two are pretty sorry they're not in this canoe
+with us."
+
+The ladies referred to arose and walked inland with some deliberation.
+Hughie did not answer. His brow was knitted and his manner somewhat
+absent.
+
+"Hughie," announced Miss Gaymer reproachfully, "you are looking very
+cross at me."
+
+She had a curiously gruff and hoarse little voice, and suffered in
+addition from inability to pronounce those elusive consonants _r_ and
+_l_. So she did not say "very cross," but "ve'y c'oss," in a deep bass.
+
+Hughie roused himself.
+
+"Sorry, Joey!" he said; "I was thinking."
+
+"Sec'ets?" inquired Miss Gaymer, all agog with femininity at once.
+
+"No."
+
+"Oh,"--rather disappointedly. "About your old boat, then?"
+
+"Yes," said Hughie untruthfully. "Do you quite understand how we race?"
+
+"I _think_ so," said the child. "Your boat is second, and it wants to
+bump into the boat in f'ont--is that it?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Well, do it just when you pass us, will you?"
+
+"I'll try," said Hughie, beginning to brighten up. "But it may take
+longer than that. About the Railway Bridge, I should think."
+
+"And after the race will _you_ take me home again?" inquired the lady
+anxiously.
+
+"Can't be done, I'm afraid. The race finishes miles from Ditton, where
+you will be; and I shouldn't be able to get back in time. You had better
+drive home with the others."
+
+"When shall I see you again, then?" demanded Miss Gaymer, who was not of
+an age to be reticent about the trend of her virgin affections.
+
+"About seven. You are all coming to dine in my rooms."
+
+"Ooh!" exclaimed his companion in a flutter of excitement. "How long can
+I sit up?"
+
+"Ask Mrs. Ames," replied the diplomatic Hughie.
+
+"Till _ten_?" hazarded Joey, with the air of one initiating a Dutch
+auction.
+
+"Don't ask _me_, old lady."
+
+"Supposing," suggested Miss Gaymer craftily, "that you was to say you
+wanted me to sit up and keep you company?"
+
+Hughie laughed. "Afraid that wouldn't work. I have to go out about nine
+to a Bump Supper."
+
+"What's that?"
+
+"A College supper, in honour of the men who have been rowing."
+
+"I like suppers," said Miss Gaymer tentatively.
+
+Hughie smiled. "I don't think you'd like this one, Joey," he said.
+
+"Why? Don't they have any sixpences or thimbles in the t'ifle?" said
+Miss Gaymer, in whose infant mind the word supper merely conjured up a
+vision of sticky children, wearing paper caps out of crackers,
+distending themselves under adult supervision.
+
+"I don't think they _have_ any trifle."
+
+"Perfectly p'eposte'ous!" commented Miss Gaymer with heat. (I think it
+has already been mentioned that she spent a good deal of her time in the
+company of Jimmy Marrable.) "Ices?"
+
+"Let me see. Yes--sometimes."
+
+"Ah!" crooned Joey, with a happy little sigh. "_Can't_ I come?"
+
+"Afraid not, madam. Bump Suppers are for gentlemen only."
+
+"I should like that," said madam frankly.
+
+"And they are rather noisy. You might get frightened."
+
+"Not if I was sitting alongside of you," was the tender reply.
+
+Joey's anxiety for his company renewed Hughie's depression of spirits.
+Admiration and confidence are very desirable tributes to receive; but
+when they come from every quarter save the right one the desirability of
+that quarter is only intensified. Poor human nature! Hughie sighed again
+in a manner which caused the entire canoe to vibrate. Miss Gaymer
+suddenly turned the conversation.
+
+"What was that person talking to you about, Hughie?" she inquired.
+
+"Who?"
+
+"That person that came with us in the t'ain. Miss--" Joey's mouth
+twisted itself into a hopeless tangle.
+
+"Freshwater?" said Hughie, reddening.
+
+"Yes. When you were taking us round the Co'ege after lunch you and her
+stayed behind on the top of the Chapel, while the rest of us were coming
+down. When I was waiting for you, I heard her say: 'You're the first to
+hear of it, Hughie.' To hear of what?"
+
+Hughie looked genuinely disturbed.
+
+"I don't know whether she wants it known yet, Joey," he said.
+
+Miss Gaymer assumed an expression before which she knew that most
+gentlemen of her acquaintance, from Uncle Jimmy down to the coachman at
+home, were powerless.
+
+"Hughie dear, you'll tell _me_, won't you?" she said.
+
+Hughie, making a virtue of necessity, agreed.
+
+"Well, promise you won't tell anybody," he said.
+
+"All right," agreed Miss Gaymer, pleasantly intrigued.
+
+"She's going to be married," said Hughie, in a voice which he
+endeavoured to make as matter-of-fact as possible. It was not a very
+successful effort. At twenty-one these things hurt quite as much, if not
+so lastingly, as in later life.
+
+"I'm ve'y g'ad to hear it," remarked Miss Gaymer with composure.
+
+Hughie looked at the small flushed face before him rather curiously.
+
+"Why, Joey?" he asked.
+
+"Never mind!" replied Miss Gaymer primly.
+
+After that the conversation languished, for they were approaching the
+race-course, and boats of every size and rig were thronging round them.
+There was the stately family gig, with an academic and myopic
+paterfamilias at the helm and his numerous progeny at the oars, sweeping
+the deep of surrounding craft like Van Tromp's broom. There was the
+typical May Week argosy, consisting of a rowing-man's mother and
+sisters, left in the care of two or three amorous but unnautical
+cricketers, what time their relative performed prodigies of valour in
+the Second Division. There was also a particularly noisome home-made
+motor-boat,--known up and down the river from Grantchester to Ely as
+"The Stinkpot,"--about the size of a coffin, at present occupied (in the
+fullest sense of the word) by its designer, builder, and owner; who,
+packed securely into his craft, with his feet in a pile of small coal,
+the end of the boiler in the pit of his stomach, and the engines working
+at fever heat between his legs, was combining the duties of stoker,
+engineer, helmsman, and finally (with conspicuous success) director of
+ramming operations.
+
+Through these various obstacles Hughie, despite the assistance of his
+passenger, directed his canoe with unerring precision, and finally
+brought up with all standing beside the piles at Ditton. He experienced
+no difficulty in making arrangements for the return journey of the
+canoe, for a gentleman of his acquaintance begged to be allowed the
+privilege of navigating it home, pleading internal pressure in his own
+craft as the reason. Hughie granted the boon with alacrity, merely
+wondering in his heart which of the three languishing damsels planted
+round his friend's tea-urn he had to thank for the deliverance.
+
+They found the fly in a good position close to the water, with the rest
+of the party drinking tea, and meekly wondering when the heroes who
+dotted the landscape in various attitudes of nervousness would
+disencumber themselves of their gorgeous trappings and get to business.
+Hughie deposited Joan beside a mountain of buns and a fountain of tea,
+and, after expressing a hope that every one was getting on all right,
+announced that the Second Division might be expected to paddle down at
+any moment now.
+
+This statement involved a chorus of questions regarding the
+technicalities of rowing, which that model of utility, Mr. Lunn, had
+confessed himself unable to answer, and which had accordingly been held
+over till Hughie's arrival.
+
+Hughie's rather diffident impersonation of Sir Oracle, and his intricate
+explanation of the exact difference between bucketing and tubbing
+(listened to with respectful interest by surrounding tea-parties), was
+suddenly interrupted by a small but insistent voice, which besought him
+to turn the tap off and look pretty for a moment.
+
+There was a shout of laughter, and Hughie turned round, to find that one
+of those privileged and all too inveterate attendants upon the modern
+athlete, a photographer, was (with the assistance of a megaphone)
+maintaining a reputation for humorous offensiveness, at his expense, on
+the towpath opposite.
+
+After this the Second Division paddled down to the start, arrayed in
+colours which would have relegated such competitors as King Solomon and
+the lilies of the field to that euphemistic but humiliating category
+indicated by the formula "Highly Commended." Presently they returned,
+unclothed to an alarming and increasing extent, and rowing forty to the
+minute. One crew brought off a "gallery" bump right at Ditton Corner, to
+the joy of the galaxy of beauty and fashion thereon assembled. The
+bumped crew made the best of an inglorious situation by running into the
+piles and doubling up the nose of the boat, which suddenly buckled and
+assumed a sentry-box attitude over the head of the apoplectic gentleman
+who was rowing bow. The good ship herself incontinently sank, all hands
+going down with her like an octette of Casabiancas. Whereupon applause
+for the victors was turned into cries of compassion for the vanquished.
+However, as all concerned shook themselves clear of the wreck without
+difficulty and paddled contentedly to the bank, the panic subsided, and
+the rest of the procession raced past without further incident.
+
+As the last boat, remote, unfriended, melancholy, slow, accompanied by a
+coloured gentleman ringing a dinner-bell and a spectacled don who
+trotted alongside chanting, "Well rowed, Non-Collegiate Students!"
+creaked dismally past, Hughie arose and shook himself.
+
+"Our turn now," he said. "So long, everybody!"
+
+"Good luck, Hughie!" said Mrs. Ames. "Your health!"
+
+She waved her cup and then took a sip of tea.
+
+There was a chorus of good wishes from the party, and one or two
+neighbouring enthusiasts raised a cry of "Benedict's!" which swelled to
+a roar as Hughie, flushing red, elbowed his way out of the paddock and
+steered a course for a ferry-boat a hundred yards down the Long Reach.
+Popular feeling, which likes a peg upon which to hang its predilections,
+was running high in favour of Hughie and his practically single-handed
+endeavour to humble the pride of the All Saints men, with their four
+Blues and five years' Headship.
+
+Still, though many a man's--especially a young man's--heart would have
+swelled excusably enough at such homage, Hughie cared very little
+for these things. The notoriety of the sporting paper and the
+picture-postcard attracted him not at all. He was doggedly determined to
+take his boat to the Head of the river, not for the glory the
+achievement would bring him, but for the very simple and sufficient
+reason that he had made up his mind, four Blues notwithstanding, to
+leave it there before he went down. A Cambridge man's pride in his
+College is a very real thing. An Oxford man will tell you that he is an
+Oxford man. A Cambridge man will say: "I was at such-and-such a College,
+Cambridge." Which sentiment is the nobler need not be decided here, but
+the fact remains.
+
+However, there was a fly in the ointment. Amid the expressions of
+goodwill that emanated from Hughie's own party one voice had been
+silent. The omission was quite unintentional, for Miss Mildred
+Freshwater's head had been buried in a hamper in search of spoons at the
+moment of Hughie's departure. But to poor Hughie, who for all his
+strength was no more reasonable where his affections were concerned than
+other and weaker brethren, the circumstance bereft the ovation of the
+one mitigating feature it might otherwise have possessed for him.
+
+As he strode along the bank to where the ferry-boat was waiting, he
+heard a pattering of feet behind. A small, hot, and rather grubby hand
+was thrust into his, and Miss Gaymer remarked:--
+
+"I'm coming as far as that boat with you, Hughie. Can I?"
+
+"All right, Joey," he replied.
+
+They had only a few yards farther to go. Miss Gaymer looked up into her
+idol's troubled countenance.
+
+"What's the matter, Hughie!" she inquired.
+
+"Joey, I've got the hump."
+
+Miss Gaymer squeezed his arm affectionately.
+
+"Never mind, I'll marry you when I'm grown up," she announced rather
+breathlessly.
+
+Hughie felt a little awed, as a man must always when he realises that a
+woman, however old or young, loves him. He smiled down on the slim
+figure beside him.
+
+"You're a good sort, Joey," he said. "One of the best!"
+
+Miss Gaymer returned contentedly to her tea, utterly and absolutely
+rewarded for the effort involved by the sacrifice of this, her maidenly
+reserve.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER V
+
+                           THE JOY OF BATTLE
+
+
+Hughie stepped out of the ferry-boat on to the towpath, which was
+crowded with young men hastening to the places where the boats were
+moored and young women who would have been much better employed on the
+opposite bank.
+
+The punctilious Hughie was looking about for a friendly hedge or other
+protection behind which he might decorously slip off the white flannel
+trousers which during the afternoon had been veiling the extreme brevity
+of his rowing-shorts, when he was tapped on the shoulder. He turned and
+found himself faced by a stout clean-shaven man, with eyes that twinkled
+cheerfully behind round spectacles. He looked like what he was, a
+country parson of the best type, burly, humorous, and shrewd, with
+unmistakable traces of the schoolmaster about him.
+
+"I beg your pardon, sir," he said, with a rather old-fashioned bow, "but
+are you Mr. Marrable?"
+
+Hughie admitted the fact.
+
+"Well, I just want to say that I hope you are going Head to-night. You
+are to row stroke yourself, I hear."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Quite right, quite right! It's a desperate thing to change your crew
+about between races, but it's our only chance. You could never have
+caught them with the man you had last night. He's plucky, but he can't
+pick a crew up and take them with him. Have you been out in the new
+order?"
+
+"Yes. We had a short spin a couple of hours ago."
+
+"Satisfactory?"
+
+"Yes, very fair."
+
+"That's excellent. Now we shall see a race!"
+
+The speaker turned and walked beside Hughie in the direction of the
+Railway Bridge. Hughie wondered who he could be.
+
+"I suppose you are an old member of the College, sir," he said.
+
+"Yes. Haven't been able to come up for fifteen years, though."
+
+"In the crew, perhaps?" continued Hughie, observing his companion's
+mighty chest--it had slipped down a little in fifteen years--and
+shoulders.
+
+"Yes,"--rather diffidently.
+
+"I thought so. About what year?"
+
+The stranger told him.
+
+Hughie grew interested.
+
+"You must have been in D'Arcy's crew," he said,--"the great D'Arcy. My
+father knew him well. _Were_ you?"
+
+"Er--yes."
+
+"My word!" Hughie's eyes blazed at the mention of the name, which,
+uttered anywhere along the waterside between Putney Bridge and Henley,
+still rouses young oarsmen to respectful dreams of distant emulation and
+middle-aged coaches to floods of unreliable reminiscence. "He must have
+been a wonder in his time. Did you know him well? What sort of chap was
+he?"
+
+"Well--you see--I _am_ D'Arcy," replied the stranger apologetically.
+
+After that he gave Hughie advice about the coming race.
+
+"I have watched the All Saints crew for three nights now," he said.
+"They are a fine lot, and beautifully together; but it is my opinion
+that they can't last."
+
+"They're a bit too sure of themselves," said Hughie. "Too many Blues in
+the boat."
+
+"How many?"
+
+"Four. Seven, Six, Five, and Bow."
+
+"Good! They are probably labouring under the delusion that a boat with
+four Blues in it is four times as good as a boat with one Blue in it.
+Consequently they haven't trained very hard, especially those two fat
+men in the middle of the boat. What about their Stroke?"
+
+"Pretty enough, but a rotter when it comes to the pinch."
+
+"Good again! Well, these fellows have not once been extended during the
+races, for you gave them no sort of a run last night. You went to bits
+at the start and never quite recovered. However, that will give All
+Saints some false confidence, which is just what we want. Now what do
+you propose to do to-night? Jump on to their tails at the start?"
+
+"No good," said Hughie. "They are too old birds for that game. Besides,
+my crew want very carefully working up to a fast stroke. I can't trust
+Six at anything above thirty-four. He'll go on rowing that all day; but
+if I quicken up to thirty-six or seven he gets flustered, and forty
+sends him clean off his nut after about a minute. No, we must just wear
+them down."
+
+"Quite right," said D'Arcy. "If you are within a length at the Railway
+Bridge you ought just to do it."
+
+"The difficulty is," said Hughie ruefully, "that the crew are only good
+for about one spurt. It's a good spurt, I must say, but if it fails we
+are done. They can never slow down to a steady stroke again--especially
+Six. So it simply has to be made at the right moment. The difficulty is
+to know when."
+
+"Have you got a reliable cox?"
+
+"First-class."
+
+"Can't he tell you?"
+
+"Too much row going on," said Hughie. "The whole College will be on the
+towpath to-night."
+
+The Reverend Montague D'Arcy plunged his hand into the tail-pocket of
+his clerical frock-coat, and produced therefrom a large-pattern service
+revolver.
+
+"Look here," he said. "You would be able to hear this lethal weapon on
+the Day of Judgment itself. Will you consent to take your time from me?"
+
+"Rather! Thank you, sir." There was no doubting the sincerity of
+Hughie's gratitude.
+
+"Well," continued the clergyman briskly, "I shall wait by the Railway
+Bridge, on the Barnwell side, away from the towpath. If you have made
+your bump before that you won't want me. Well and good. But I don't
+think you _will_ have made it, and I don't advise you to try. For the
+first half of the course those All Saints men will match you stroke for
+stroke, and if you hustle your heavy man at Six he will probably lose
+his head. As you pass under the Railway Bridge quicken slightly--not
+more than two strokes a minute, though. I have six shots in this
+revolver. When you hear two of them, that will mean that you are getting
+within jumping distance and must be ready for the spurt. When you hear
+the remaining four in quick succession you must simply swing out and put
+the very last ounce of your blood and bones and bodies and souls into
+it. And if you catch 'em," concluded the reverend gentleman, "by gad!
+I'll dance the Cachuca on the bank!"
+
+By this time they had reached the spot where their
+racing-shell--sixty-two feet of flimsy cedar wood--was lying waiting for
+them. The rest of the crew, already assembled, were standing about in
+the attitudes of profound dejection or forced hilarity which appear to
+be the only alternatives of deportment open to men who are suffering
+from what is expressively termed "the needle." Some were whistling,
+others were yawning, and all were wondering why on earth men took up
+rowing as a pastime.
+
+Hughie gathered his Argonauts into a knot, and at his request the
+Reverend Montague D'Arcy outlined to them the plan of campaign. Then the
+crew embarked, and the stout clergyman assisted the grizzled College
+boatman--the only person present whose nerves appeared unaffected by the
+prevailing tension--to push their craft clear of the bank, and set them
+going on a half-minute dash as a preliminary to their long paddle down
+the course to the starting point of the race.
+
+In accordance with a picturesque but peculiar custom they wore in their
+straw hats bunches of marigolds and corn-flowers--the College
+colours--as an intimation that they had achieved bumps during the
+preceding nights; and so bedecked they paddled majestically down the
+Long Reach, feeling extremely valorous and looking slightly ridiculous,
+to challenge a comparison (in which they were hopelessly outclassed from
+the start) with the headgear of the assembled fair in Ditton Paddock.
+
+The method of sending off a bumping race is the refinement of cruelty.
+
+As each boat reaches its starting-post the crews disembark and stand
+dismally about, listening to the last exhortations of coaches or
+nervously eyeing the crew behind them. Presently an objectionably loud
+piece of artillery, situated half-way down the long line of boats, goes
+off with a roar. This is called "first gun," and means chiefly that
+there will be another in three minutes. The crew mournfully denude
+themselves of a few more articles of their already scanty wardrobe,
+which they pile upon the shoulders of the perspiring menial whose duty
+it is to convey the same to the finishing-post, and crawl one by one
+into their places in the boat. Finally, the coxswain coils himself into
+his seat and takes both rudder-lines in his left hand, leaving the right
+free to grasp the end of the boat's last link with _terra firma_, her
+starting-chain. Then the second gun goes, and the crew shudder and know
+that in sixty seconds precisely they must start.
+
+The ritual observed during the final minute is complicated in the
+extreme, and varies directly with the nervous system of the coach, who
+dances upon the bank with a stop-watch in his hand, to time the
+ministrations of the College boatman, who stands by with a long
+boat-hook ready to prod the vessel into midstream.
+
+"Fifteen seconds gone," says the coach. "Push her out, Ben."
+
+Ben complies, with a maddening but wise deliberation. If the boat is
+pushed out too promptly the starting-chain will grow taut and tug the
+stern of the boat inwards towards the bank, just when her nose should be
+pointing straight upstream. But this elementary truth does not occur to
+the frenzied octette in the boat. The gun will go, and bow-side will
+find their oar-blades still resting on the towpath. They _know_ it.
+
+"Thirty seconds gone," says the coach. "Paddle on gently, Bow and Two."
+
+His object is to get the full advantage of the length of the chain, but
+Bow and Two know better. They are convinced that he merely desires that
+they shall be caught at a disadvantage when the gun fires. However, they
+paddle on as requested, with a palsied stealthiness that suggests
+musical chairs.
+
+"Fifteen seconds left," says the coach. "Are you straight, Cox? Ten more
+sec--"
+
+Ah! As usual the chain has drawn tight, and the stern of the boat is
+being dragged inwards again.
+
+"Paddle on, Two!" yells the coxswain.
+
+Two gives a couple of frenzied digs; the Dervish with the watch,
+accompanied by a ragged and inaccurate chorus all down the bank, chants
+"Five, four, three, two--"; there is a terrific roar from the gun; the
+coxswain drops the chain; the boatman slips the point of his boat-hook
+(which, between ourselves, has been doing the lion's share in keeping
+the ship's head straight) from Five's rigger; and they are off.
+
+The Benedictine crew got under way very unostentatiously. Their coach
+was actually rowing in the All Saints boat,--and it would be difficult
+to select a more glowing testimonial to the sterling sportsmanship of
+English rowing,--so the starting operations were wisely left to the
+College boatman, who had performed the office for something like half a
+century. The flight of time was recorded by Hughie himself, from the
+watch which hung on his stretcher beside his right foot. The experienced
+Mr. Dishart-Watson kept those too-often fatally intimate acquaintances,
+the rudder-lines and starting-chain, tactfully apart, and the St.
+Benedict's boat got off the mark with a start that brought her within a
+length of All Saints during the first half-minute.
+
+After that their opponents drew away. As D'Arcy had said, they were a
+seasoned crew, and nothing short of sheer superiority would wear them
+down. The two boats swung round Grassy Corner and entered the Plough
+Reach about their distance apart. All Saints were rowing the faster
+stroke.
+
+Hughie, who was keeping to a steady thirty-two, felt with satisfaction
+that the men behind him were well together. Number Seven, small but
+plucky, was setting bow-side a beautiful example in steady swing and
+smart finish. Six--Mr. Puffin--was rowing a great blade. To look at him
+now, you would ask why he had not been included in the University Crew.
+If you saw him trying to row forty to the minute, you would marvel that
+he should be included in any crew at all.
+
+Five was not looking happy. He was lying back too far and tugging at the
+finish. To him the boat seemed heavier than usual, for he was just
+beginning to realise the difference between seconding the efforts of
+Hughie Marrable and those of Mr. Duncombe. Still, he was plugging
+gamely. Four, a painstaking person, was encouraging himself in a fashion
+entirely his own. After every stroke, as he sat up and swung forward, he
+gasped out some little _sotto voce_ remark to himself, such as, "Oh,
+well _rowed_, Four!--Stick to it, Four!--Use your _legs_, old
+man!--That's better!--That's a _beauty_!--Oh, well _rowed_, Four!" And
+so on. Where he got the necessary breath for these exercises nobody
+knew; but some folk possess these little peculiarities, and row none the
+worse for them. Bow was another instance. He was a chirpy but eccentric
+individual, and used to sing to himself some little ditty of the
+moment--or possibly a hymn--all through a race, beginning with the first
+stroke and ending exactly, if possible, with the last. He had been
+known, when stroking a boat, to quicken up to a perfectly incredible
+rate simply because he feared that the song would end before he
+completed the course, a contingency which he regarded as unlucky in the
+extreme. On the other hand, he would become quite depressed if he had to
+stop in the middle of a verse, and he was quite capable of rowing
+_rallentando_ if he desired to synchronise his two conclusions.
+
+But few people have the time or inclination for these diversions while
+oscillating upon a sixteen-inch slide, and the rest of the crew were
+swinging at and plugging in grim silence.
+
+The two boats swept into the roaring medley of Ditton Corner. They
+flashed past the row of piles and tethered punts amid a hurricane of
+shouts and waving handkerchiefs. Hughie, wrongfully exercising his
+privilege as Stroke, allowed his eyes to slide to the right for a
+moment. He had a fleeting glimpse of the crimson and excited countenance
+of Miss Gaymer, as some man held her aloft in the crowd. Then the boat
+gave a slight lurch, and Joey was swallowed up again. Hughie felt
+guiltily responsible for the lurch, and recalling his gaze into the
+proper channel--straight over the coxswain's right shoulder--swung out
+again long and steadily.
+
+"Are we straight yet?" he gasped to Dishy.
+
+"Yes--just."
+
+"Tell 'em to reach out a bit."
+
+Mr. Watson complied, in tones that rose high above the tumult on the
+bank and penetrated even into the harmonious soul of Bow, who was
+grappling with a difficult cadenza at the moment.
+
+"Six good ones!" said Hughie, next time his face swung up towards the
+coxswain's.
+
+"Now, you men, six good ones!" echoed Dishy. "_One! Two!_ Five, you're
+late! _Three! Four! Five!_ Bow, get hold of it! _Six!_ Oh, well rowed!"
+
+There was a delighted roar from the bank. The Benedictine crew were
+together again after the unsteadiness round Ditton.
+
+"How far?" signalled Hughie's lips.
+
+"Length--and--a--half," replied Cox. "Less," he added, peering ahead.
+
+They were half-way up the Long Reach now. In another minute or two they
+would be at the Railway Bridge, beyond which hard-pressed boats are
+popularly supposed to be safe.
+
+"Tell 'em--going--quicken," gurgled Hughie, "if can."
+
+Cox nodded, rather doubtfully, and Hughie ground his teeth. If only this
+accursed noise on the bank would cease, even for five seconds, Dishy
+would get a chance to make the crew hear. As it was, the ever-increasing
+crowd, rolling up fresh adherents like a snowball, made that feat almost
+an impossibility.
+
+But the coxswain was a man of experience and resource. Just as the boat
+passed under the Railway Bridge itself there was a momentary silence,
+for the crew were shut off from their supporters by some intervening
+balks of timber. Dishy seized the opportunity.
+
+"Be ready to quicken," he yelled. "Now! Oh, well done!"
+
+The crew had heard him, and what was more, they had obeyed him. Stroke
+in the All Saints boat suddenly realised that the oncoming foe had
+quickened to thirty-five or six, and that the interval between the two
+boats had shrunk to something under a length. He spurted in his turn,
+and his men spurted with him, but their length of stroke grew
+proportionately shorter, and the pace of the boat did not increase. St.
+Benedict's were holding their advantage.
+
+"Half a length," said Dishy, in response to an agonised interrogation
+from Hughie's right eyebrow.
+
+Suddenly above the tumult there rang out two reverberating
+revolver-shots. A stout clergyman, whooping like a Choctaw, was tearing
+along the right bank of the river, which was practically clear of
+spectators, with his weapon smoking in his hand. Dishy's voice rose to a
+scream.
+
+"Look out--be ready! _Only_ six feet!"
+
+And now the musical gentleman who was rowing bow felt the boat lift
+unsteadily under him. A wave rolled across the canvas decking behind
+him, and he felt a splash of water on his back.
+
+"Washing us off!" was his comment. "Glory, glory! Another verse'll do
+it. Now then, all together,--
+
+    "_What though the spicy breezes
+      Blow soft, o'er Ceylon's--_"
+
+Bang! bang! bang! bang!
+
+The great service revolver rang out. The nose of the Benedictine boat,
+half submerged in a boiling flood, suddenly sprang to within three feet
+of the All Saints rudder.
+
+"_Now_, you men!" Mr. Dishart-Watson's wizened and saturnine countenance
+shrank suddenly and alarmingly to a mere rim surrounding his mouth.
+"Just _ten_ more! _One--two--_"
+
+Like St. Francis of Assisi, "Of all his body he made a tongue." He
+counted the strokes in tones that overtopped all the roars of
+encouragement and apprehension arising from the now hopelessly mixed-up
+mob of Benedictine and All Saints men that raged alongside. Hughie
+Marrable quickened and quickened, and his crew responded sturdily.
+Faster and faster grew the stroke, and more and more pertinaciously did
+the nose of the Benedictine boat plough its way through the turbid waves
+emitted by the twitching rudder in front. Never had they travelled like
+this. Six was rowing like a man possessed. Four had ceased to encourage
+himself, and was plugging automatically with his chest open and his eyes
+shut. Bow may or may not have been singing: he was certainly rowing.
+There was a world of rolling and splashing, for the All Saints coxswain
+was manipulating his rudder very skilfully, and ever and again the
+aggressive nose of the Benedictine boat was sent staggering back by a
+rolling buffeting wave. But there was no stopping the Benedictines.
+
+Suddenly Dishy gave vent to a final cataclysmic bellow.
+
+"You're overlapping!"
+
+They were almost at Charon's Grind. The coxswain's lank body stiffened
+in its little seat, and Hughie saw him lean hard over and haul on to the
+right-hand rudder-line.
+
+"Last three strokes! Now, you devils! _Plug! plug!
+pl_--Aa--a--ee--ooh--ee--easy all! Oh, well rowed, well rowed, well
+rowed!"
+
+There was a lurch and a bump.
+
+"Done it!--'_Bows down to wood and stone_,'" gasped Bow.
+
+The eight men let go their oars and tumbled forward on to their
+stretchers, and listened, with their heads and hearts bursting, to the
+din that raged on the bank.
+
+It was a fine confused moment.
+
+In the boat itself Cox was vainly endeavouring to shake hands with
+Stroke, who lay doubled up over his oar, with his head right down on the
+bottom of the boat, oblivious to everything save the blessed fact that
+he need not row any more. Consciousness that he had taken his crew to
+the Head of the River was yet to come. At the other end Bow, with his
+head clasped between his knees, was croaking half-hysterically to
+himself, "Two bars too soon, Hughie! Oh, my aunt, we've gone Head! Two
+bars too soon!"
+
+On the towpath every one was shouting and shaking hands with
+indiscriminate _bonhomie_,--this was one of those occasions upon which
+even the ranks of Tuscany could scarce forbear to cheer,--and everybody,
+with one exception, seemed to be ringing a bell or blowing a trumpet.
+The exception was supplied by a trio of young gentlemen, two of whom
+held an enormous Chinese gong suspended between them, while a third
+smote the same unceasingly with a mallet, and cried aloud the name of
+Marrable. It must be recorded here, to his honour, that the smiter bore
+upon his forehead an enormous and highly coloured bruise, suggestive of
+sudden contact with, say, a bedroom-door.
+
+On the opposite bank of the river, a stout, middle-aged, and apparently
+demented Clerk in Holy Orders was dancing the Cachuca.
+
+
+
+
+                                BOOK TWO
+
+                            _FORTITER IN RE_
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER VI
+
+                      KNIGHT-ERRANTRY _À LA MODE_
+
+
+If all good Americans go to Paris when they die, it may safely be
+predicted that all the bad ones will be booked through to Coney Island.
+
+So much may be inferred from the regularity and zeal with which the
+Toughs, Hoboes, Bowery Boys, and other fearful wildfowl of the New York
+proletariat, accompanied by the corresponding females of the species,
+betake themselves every Sabbath by trolley-car or steamer to this haunt
+of ancient peace (which, by the way, is not to all appearances an island
+and harbours no conies).
+
+Take Margate and Douglas and Blackpool, and pile them into an untidy
+heap; throw in a dozen Fun-Cities from Olympia and half a score of
+World's Fairs from the Agricultural Hall; add some of the less reputable
+features of Earl's Court and Neuilly Fair; include a race-course of the
+baser sort; case the whole in wood, and people it with sallow gentlemen
+in striped jerseys and ladies answering exclusively to such names as
+Hattie, Sadie, and Mamie, reared up apparently upon an exclusive diet of
+peanuts and clam-chowder; keep the whole multitude duly controlled and
+disciplined by a police force which, if appearances go for anything, has
+been recruited entirely from the criminal classes; and you will be able
+faintly to realise what Coney Island can do when it tries on a fine
+Sunday in summer.
+
+So thought Hughie Marrable. He had been wandering round the world for
+nine years now; but not even a previous acquaintance with the Devil
+Dancers of Ceylon, the unhallowed revels of Port Said, or the
+refinements of a Central African Witch-Hunt (with full tom-tom
+accompaniment), had quite prepared him for this. Still, it was part and
+parcel of Life, and Life was what he had left England to see.
+
+He had arrived in New York from San Francisco two days ago. But
+let it not be imagined that he had been conveyed thither by any
+Grand-Trunk-Ocean-to-Ocean-Limited, or other refinement of an effete
+modernity. His transcontinental journey had occupied just three years.
+Since the day on which he steamed through the Golden Gate on a
+tramp-freighter from Yokohama he had been working his way eastward by
+easy stages, acquiring experience (as Jimmy Marrable had directed) of
+the manner in which the other half of the world lives. Incidentally he
+had mixed cocktails behind a Nevada bar; learned to fire a revolver
+without taking it out of his pocket; accompanied a freight train over
+the Rockies in the capacity of assistant brakeman--his duties being
+chiefly confined to standing by with a coupling-pin, to discourage the
+enterprise of those gentlemen of the road who proposed to travel
+without tickets; and once, in a Southern State, he had been privileged
+to be present at that ennobling spectacle to which the brightest
+nation on earth occasionally treats the representatives of an older
+civilisation--the lynching of a negro.
+
+In a few days Hughie would sail for England, on board the mighty Apulia.
+It was not often that he travelled in such ostentatious luxury: the
+primitive man in him leaned towards something damp and precarious on
+board a sailing-ship or a collier; but he happened to know that the
+Apulia intended going for the ocean record this trip; and since the
+third engineer happened to be a friend of his, Hughie had decided that
+four-and-a-half days and nights down among the humming turbines and the
+spirits that controlled them would be cheap at the price of an
+expensively upholstered state-room many decks above, in which he would
+leave his baggage and occasionally sleep.
+
+For all that he had cast a regretful eye only that very morning on a
+battered little tramp-steamer which was loading up with cargo alongside
+a wharf at Hoboken--due to sail for Europe, so a stevedore told him, in
+about two days' time.
+
+To-morrow he was to be taken yachting in New York harbour by an old P.
+and O. acquaintance, whom he had faithfully "looked up," in accordance
+with a two-year-old promise, at his city office that morning. In the
+evening, at the invitation of an American actor to whom he had once been
+of service in Calcutta, he was to dine at the Lambs' Club,--the New York
+equivalent of the Garrick and Green Room, with a dash of the Eccentric
+thrown in,--and the next day he was to pay a flying visit to Atlantic
+City.
+
+Meanwhile he was putting in a few off-hours at Coney Island. He had
+watched the islanders bathing, had witnessed a display of highly--not to
+say epileptically--Animated Pictures, had spent half-an-hour in an open
+_café-chantant_, where a bevy of tired-looking girls in short skirts
+pranced about with mechanical abandon at the back of the small stage,
+shouting the chorus of a ditty which a wheezy lady (who looked like the
+mother of all chorus-girls) was singing at the front; and had declined a
+pressing invitation from the keeper of an Anatomical Museum to step
+inside and "have a dollar's worth for a dime."
+
+Finally he drifted into a small theatre, where a melodrama of distinctly
+British flavour (seasoned to the Coney Island palate by a few distinctly
+local interpolations) was unfolding itself to a closely packed and
+hard-breathing audience.
+
+To judge from the state of the atmosphere the entertainment had been in
+progress for some time. As Hughie took his seat the curtain rose on a
+moonlit military scene. Figures wrapped in great-coats sat round a
+camp-fire on the audience's right hand, the only plainly recognisable
+character being the Heroine, who, attired as a hospital nurse and
+positively starred with red crosses, was sewing aloofly upon an erection
+which looked like a sarcophagus, but was marked in plain figures
+"Ambulence." A sentry, who from his gait Hughie took (rightly) to be the
+Comic Man, was pacing up and down at the back.
+
+Presently the guard was changed, with much saluting of a pattern unknown
+at any War Office, and the Comic Man, released from duty, was called
+upon to sing "that dear ole song you useter sing at 'ome." The cold
+light of the moon having been temporarily replaced by broad daylight in
+order to give the singer's facial expression full play, he obliged;
+though why any one who had heard him sing the song before should have
+asked him to sing it again passed Hughie's comprehension. Next a
+drummer-boy (female) was called upon by the company, and after a great
+exhibition of reluctance,--fully justified by her subsequent
+performance,--gave vent to a patriotic ditty, in which the only
+distinguishable rhymes were "Black Watch" and "Scotch."
+
+These revels brought the Hero on to the stage. He was attired in
+clerical dress and a cavalry helmet; and, sitting down beside the
+Heroine upon the sarcophagus, he proceeded, oblivious of the presence of
+the entire guard, who were huddled round the fire not more than five
+feet away, to make her a proposal of marriage; quoting Scripture to some
+purpose, and extorting a demure affirmative from the lady just before
+the Comic Man, who had obviously been lamenting that the success of the
+piece should be imperilled by such stuff as this, upset the soup-kettle,
+and so gave a fresh turn to the proceedings.
+
+All this time Hughie had been conscious of an increasing feeling of
+curiosity as to the identity of the only member of the glee-party round
+the fire who so far had made no contribution to the entertainment. He
+darkly suspected him of being the Villain, though what the Villain
+should be doing unrecognised at such a period of the play--it was about
+the third act--was hard to understand. However, the mystery was now
+cleared up by a French _vivandière_--by this time it was plain that the
+scene was laid in the Crimea--who called upon the mysterious one, in the
+accents of Stratford-atte-Bowe, for a song and dance. No reply being
+forthcoming, the entire company (precipitately, but quite correctly, as
+it happened) rose up and denounced the stranger as a Russian and a spy.
+They had only themselves to blame for his presence, for apparently he
+had strolled up and joined the party quite promiscuously; and no one had
+thought, so far, of asking him who he was or even of addressing him.
+
+The audience now sat up expectantly. But instead of taking the
+spy prisoner and shooting him on sight, the guard hurried off
+R.U.E.--possibly to bring up their big guns or find a policeman. These
+deplorable tactics did not meet with the reward they deserved, for the
+Villain, instead of bolting off L. as fast as he could, lingered upon
+the stage to tell the audience that he had come back to have one more go
+at the Hero. (Goodness knows how many he had had!) The Hero obligingly
+appeared at that moment, and a section (whose numbers appeared to
+increase as the play proceeded) of the audience shouted to the Villain
+to cut in and do it _now_. But portentous trampings "off" announced the
+return of the glee-party, and the Villain, finding that he could not
+execute his perfectly justifiable design without considerable danger to
+his own person, and was in fact in a particularly tight place himself,
+suddenly appealed (with considerable "nerve," it seemed to Hughie) to
+the Hero, as a Cleric, to save him. The Hero (who was evidently a fool
+as well as a bore) immediately complied. "You must take upon you my
+identity," he remarked. In a twinkling they had exchanged great-coats,
+and the Villain was now by all the laws of Melodrama completely
+disguised as the Hero. He dashed off L., just as a perfect avalanche of
+people, who had been faithfully and increasingly marking time in the
+wings, poured on to the stage R., and endeavoured almost to poke their
+rifles into the Hero's breast. But just as a nervous female in the
+audience, apprehensive about the sudden discharge of firearms,
+convulsively gripped Hughie's left elbow, the Heroine dashed on from
+nowhere, and taking her stand before the Hero--apparently she was the
+only person upon the stage who recognised him--uttered these thrilling
+but mysterious words: "You kennot far erpon ther Red Kerawss!"
+
+Curtain, amid thunders of applause.
+
+After a commendably short interval the curtain rose upon the next act.
+The Hero was now discovered asleep (under what must have struck any
+thoughtful member of the audience as highly compromising circumstances
+for a clergyman) in the cottage of a stout lady in a very short skirt
+and fur-topped boots; whom, from the fact that her opening soliloquy
+commenced with the words, "Har, vell!" the audience rightly adjudged to
+be a Russian. This lady, it was soon plain, was consumed by a secret
+passion for the Hero. In fact she proclaimed it in such strident tones
+that it was surprising that its object did not wake up.
+
+This scene soon resolved itself into a series of determined efforts on
+the part of the Villain to terminate the existence of the Hero--an
+enterprise in which he by this time commanded the whole-hearted support
+of the greater part of the audience. His first attempt was foiled by the
+Comic Man, who entered singing "Keep the baby warm, Mother!" just as he
+had crawled within striking distance of the unwakeable Hero. Muttering
+curses, the unfortunate man announced his intention of retiring "to the
+woods," pending another opportunity. But he had no luck. Just as the
+Comic Man performed a humorous exit through the window, the stout
+lady--most of the other characters, by the way, addressed her as
+"Tinker": possibly her name was Katinka--came in through the door,
+filled with the forebodings of what she called "loove." Her subsequent
+course of action could certainly only have been condoned on the plea of
+emotional insanity. She unceremoniously bundled the Hero out of
+bed--fortunately he had gone there in his boots--and sent him off on a
+transparent wild-goose chase to the "trenches." Then she got into bed
+herself, and when the Villain came crawling back from "the woods,"
+brandishing his knife in the limelight, the audience were treated to a
+sort of up-to-date rendering of "Little Red Riding Hood," the part of
+the Wolf being sustained by Katinka, and that of Red Riding Hood by the
+now hopelessly demoralised Villain, who was once more chased back to his
+arboreal lurking-place with the muzzle of a revolver in the small of his
+back.
+
+In the next and final act the Villain made a supreme effort. He began by
+slaying the drummer-boy,--presumably to keep his hand in,--but on going
+through his victim's pockets in search of certain "despatches" which
+that youthful hero had undertaken to carry through the Russian
+lines,--where to, heaven knows!--the unfortunate man discovered a
+locket, which instantly revealed to him the surprising, but none the
+less distressing, intelligence that he had slain his own son. His
+anguish was pitiful to behold, and when the Hero came on and began to
+rub it in by further excerpts from the Scriptures, the audience to a man
+decided that if the Villain brought it off this time no jury would
+convict, but that he would be bound over at the most. He certainly set
+about the business with more gumption than usual. Waiting until the Hero
+was well launched into "Secondly," with the limelight full in his eyes,
+he once more produced the glittering knife. Suddenly the ubiquitous
+Katinka dashed on, and in the most unsportsmanlike manner shot the
+Villain in the small of the back, at a range of about eighteen inches.
+He dropped dead across the body of his son (which must have hurt that
+infant prodigy very much). All the other characters sidled on from the
+wings and formed a grand concluding tableau, the Hero, egregious to the
+last and entwined in a stained-glass attitude with the Hospital Nurse,
+pronouncing a sort of benediction as the curtain fell.
+
+"Doesn't this remind you of the Drama as it used to be dished up to the
+undergraduates in the old Barn at Cambridge?" remarked a voice.
+
+Hughie turned to the speaker. He found beside him a man of about thirty,
+with a fair moustache, which half hid a weak but amiable mouth and a
+receding chin. He was dressed in the thick blue shore-going garments of
+the seaman, but he looked too slight for an A.B. and too clean for a
+fireman.
+
+"Deck-hand," said Hughie to himself. "Gentleman once--no, still!"
+
+"Hallo!" he replied. "You seem to know me. Forgive me if I ought to know
+you, but I can't fix you at present. Odd thing, too, because I don't
+often forget a face."
+
+"I was up at Cambridge in your time," said the man.
+
+"Not Benedict's?"
+
+"No--Trinity. I was sent down ultimately. But I knew you well by sight.
+Often saw you in the boat, and so on. You're Marrable, aren't you?"
+
+"Yes. Were you a rowing man?"
+
+"No. I hunted with the Drag and rode at Cottenham--in those days." He
+glanced philosophically at his present attire.
+
+"Come and have something," said Hughie.
+
+The man interested him. He might, of course, be a mere long-shore shark
+on the make, or he might be what he looked--a good-hearted, well-born
+waster--an incorrigible but contented failure. Anyhow, five minutes over
+a friendly glass would probably settle the question.
+
+"I wonder if it's possible to obtain a decent British drink in this
+clam-ridden hole," Hughie continued.
+
+"The nearest thing to a product of the British Empire that you'll get
+here," said the man, "is Canadian whisky; and personally I would rather
+drink nitric acid. We had better stick to lager. Come along: I know the
+ropes."
+
+Presently they found themselves in a German beer saloon, where a
+stertorous Teuton supplied their needs.
+
+"By the way," said the man, "I have the advantage of you. My name is
+Allerton. Sorry I forgot!"
+
+"Thanks," said Hughie, rather lamely. "Are you--living out here just
+now?"
+
+"No," said Allerton simply. "I'm a deck-hand on a tramp-steamer." He
+spoke easily and freely, as one gentleman to another. He had realised at
+a glance that he was not about to be made the victim of offensive
+curiosity or misplaced charity. "She's lying at Hoboken, due out on
+Tuesday, for Bordeaux."
+
+"French boat?"
+
+"No. American owned, under the British flag, by a fairly competent
+rascal, too. This trip we are carrying a cargo of Californian wine of
+sorts. We took it last week from a sailing barque that had brought it
+round the Horn. She wanted to start back at once, so turned it over to
+us cheap."
+
+"And you're going to Bordeaux? What does your astute owner want to take
+coals to Newcastle for?"
+
+"Because everything that comes _out_ of Newcastle is labelled coal
+whether it is coal or not. In other words, this poison will be carried
+by us to Bordeaux, bottled and sealed, and shipped to England as fine
+vintage Burgundy. John Bull will drink it and feel none the worse. I'm
+told it's a paying trade."
+
+"I wish I were going in your boat," said Hughie, rather regretfully.
+"I'm booked by the Apulia."
+
+"Well, look out for the Orinoco on your second day out."
+
+"The Orinoco? I remember seeing her at Hoboken to-day, and wishing I
+could make the trip on her."
+
+"I doubt if you'd be of the same opinion after trying conclusions with
+Mr. James Gates, our first 'greaser,'" replied Allerton. "Still, I don't
+know," he continued, regarding Hughie's brawny form reflectively. "I
+don't believe he could put the fear of death into you the way he does
+into most of us. You've knocked about a bit in your time, I dare say,
+only with more success than I. Perhaps you weren't born with holes in
+_all_ your pockets."
+
+"I say," said Hughie rather diffidently,--it is difficult to confer a
+favour upon a man who is down without offending him,--"will you dine
+with me? Or sup, as it's getting late?"
+
+"I shall be charmed," said the deck-hand. "Shall I show you a place? I
+know quite a comfortable establishment close by here."
+
+Hughie said "Righto!" and presently they found themselves in the place
+of entertainment selected by Allerton. Most of the room was occupied by
+small tables, at which various couples were eating and drinking. At one
+end was a platform, upon which an intermittent sort of variety
+entertainment was in progress.
+
+On the floor at the foot of the platform was a piano. At the piano sat a
+girl, who accompanied the performers and bridged over the gaps in the
+programme by selections from the less restrained works of American
+Masters of Music. Not far from the stage an unhealthy-looking youth was
+presiding over a bar. The atmosphere was something between that of a
+smoking-concert, and Baker Street Station in the days of the old
+Underground.
+
+Allerton's lazy nonchalance lasted until the first course was set before
+him by a smiling blackamoor, and then, with a half-apologetic aside to
+his host on the subject of his last meal, he fell upon the fare in a
+manner which brought very vividly home to Hughie's intelligence the
+difference between an amateur casual like himself, with money enough in
+his pocket to make it possible to knock off when he tired of the game,
+and the genuine article. He was not hungry, having in fact dined a
+couple of hours before; but he did his best by tactful pecking to
+conceal the fact from his guest. Still, even after he had ordered some
+wine and duly inspected the cork, he had a good deal of time to look
+about him.
+
+Presently his attention began to concentrate itself upon the girl at the
+piano. She was sitting quite near him, and Hughie, always respectfully
+appreciative where a pretty face was concerned,--his wanderings, though
+they had made him more than ever a master of men, had done little to
+eradicate his innate attitude of quiet, determined, and occasionally
+quite undeserved reverence towards women,--had time to notice the
+un-American freshness of her colouring, the regularity of her profile,
+and the prettiness of her hair. He also observed that the foot which
+rested upon the pedal of the piano was small and shapely. She was
+quietly dressed, in a dark-blue serge skirt and a white silk blouse--or
+"shirtwaist," to employ the mysterious local designation--with short
+sleeves. She had round arms and good hands.
+
+Hughie wondered what she was doing in a place like this, and,
+young-man-like, felt vaguely unhappy on her behalf; but experienced a
+truly British feeling of relief (mingled with slight disappointment) on
+observing that she wore a wedding-ring. He waxed sentimental. Who was
+her husband? he wondered. He hoped it was not the proprietor of the
+establishment,--a greasy individual of Semitic appearance, who
+occasionally found leisure, in the intervals between announcing the
+"turns" and calling the attention of patrons to the exceptional
+resources of the bar, to walk across the room and paw the girl
+affectionately on the shoulder while giving her some direction as to the
+music,--nor yet the scorbutic young man behind the bar.
+
+His meditations were interrupted by Allerton.
+
+"Marrable, eyes front! And fill up your glass. Hang it, drink fair!"
+
+Hughie turned and regarded his guest. The greater part of a magnum of
+vitriolic champagne had disappeared down that gentleman's throat. His
+eye had brightened, and now twinkled facetiously as he surveyed first
+Hughie and then the girl at the piano.
+
+"_Une petite pièce de tout droit_--eh, what?" he remarked.
+
+Hughie, beginning to understand why his companion was now swabbing decks
+instead of ruling ancestral acres, nodded shortly.
+
+Allerton noticed his host's momentary distance of manner, and leaned
+across the table with an air of contrition.
+
+"I'm afraid," he said apologetically, "that I'm getting most infernally
+full. You see how it is with me, don't you? I'm that sort of bloke.
+Always have been, from a nipper. Thash--That's why I'm here. It's a
+pity. And the worst of it is," he added, in a sudden burst of candour,
+"that I'm going to get much fuller. It's a long time since I tasted
+this." He touched his glass. "It isn't served out on the Orinoco. Do
+you--er--mind?"
+
+Hughie, with a queer feeling of compassion, smiled reassuringly, and
+ordered another bottle. If Allerton was about to get drunk, he should
+get drunk like a gentleman for once in a way.
+
+Then his attention reverted to the piano.
+
+There had been a development. The girl was mechanically playing one of
+the compositions of that delicate weaver of subtle harmonies, Mr. John
+Philip Sousa; but she was not reading her music. Her eyelids were
+resolutely lowered, as if she wished to avoid seeing something. The
+reason resolved itself into a gentleman who was leaning over the front
+of the piano, gazing amorously down upon the musician, and endeavouring,
+with surprising success, to make himself heard above one of the
+composer's most characteristic efforts.
+
+Hughie looked him up and down. He was a big man, powerfully built,
+with little pig's eyes set close together, and a ponderous and
+vicious-looking lower jaw. Was _he_ her husband? wondered the deeply
+interested Hughie. No: he was too obviously endeavouring to make himself
+agreeable.
+
+"Marrable, my son," suddenly interpolated the convivial but observant
+Allerton, "you're cut out! No use bidding against that customer. Do you
+know who he is?"
+
+"No. Who?"
+
+"That," replied the deck-hand with an air of almost proprietary pride,
+"is Noddy Kinahan."
+
+"Oh! And who may he be?"
+
+"Gee! (Sorry! One picks up these rotten Yankee expressions somehow.) I
+mean, I am surprised you haven't heard of him. He's rather a big man
+here. In fact, to be explish--explicit,"--Mr. Allerton was fast arriving
+at that stage of intoxication which cannot let well alone, but must
+tempt Providence by dragging in unnecessarily hard words,--"he is my
+employer."
+
+"Anything else."
+
+"Political boss of sorts. _Inter alia_--that's good! I'm glad I
+remembered that. _Inter alia_ rhymes with Australia, doesn't it? We'll
+make up a Limerick on it some time--let me see, where was I? Oh,
+yesh--yes, I mean--_inter alia_, he owns the Orinoco and about a dozen
+more mouldy old coffins; and very well he does out of them, too! Buys
+them cheap, and--but excuse further details at present, ole man. To tell
+you the truth I'm getting so screwed that I'm afraid of saying something
+that in my calmer moments I shall subsequently regret. A cigar? I thank
+you. You're a white man, Marrable. Chin chin!"
+
+After this burst of discretion Mr. Allerton returned to the joint
+worship of Bacchus and Vesta, the difficulty which he experienced in
+keeping the lighted end of the cigar out of his mouth increasing as the
+evening advanced, but leaving his cheerfulness unimpaired. His condition
+was due not so much to the depths of his potations as to the shallowness
+of his accommodation for the same; and strong-headed Hughie, as he
+surveyed the weak chin and receding forehead on the other side of the
+table, mused not altogether without envy upon the strange inequality of
+that law of nature which decrees that what is a toothful for one man
+shall be a skinful for another and an anæsthetic for a third.
+
+He was recalled from these musings by the remembrance of the girl at the
+piano, and turned to see what was happening now.
+
+Mr. Noddy Kinahan was returning from an expedition to the bar, carrying
+a bottle of champagne and a long tumbler. These accessories to
+conviviality he placed on the top of the piano, and departed on a second
+trip, returning shortly with a wine-glassful of brandy. The girl, though
+she probably observed more of his movements than her low-drooping lashes
+would seem to allow, made no sign, but continued to play the ragtime
+tune with a mechanical precision which caused the tumbler on the top of
+the piano to tread a lively and self-accompanied measure round its more
+stolid and heavily weighted companion.
+
+Mr. Kinahan next proceeded to pour himself out a tumblerful of
+champagne, liberally lacing the foaming liquid with brandy. Then, with
+an ingratiating gesture toward the shrinking girl, he proceeded to
+swallow the mixture with every appearance of enjoyment.
+
+"King's peg!" commented Hughie to himself. "Wonder how much of _that_ he
+can stand? I'd back him against friend Allerton, though, if it
+came--Hallo! The hound! This must stop!"
+
+He half rose to his feet. Mr. Kinahan, having satisfied his present
+needs, had refilled the tumbler with champagne, added the rest of the
+brandy, and was now proffering the potion, in the self-same vessel which
+he had just honoured with his own august lips, to the girl at the piano.
+
+The girl turned crimson and shook her head, but kept on playing.
+
+Noddy Kinahan was not accustomed to bestow favours in vain. He walked
+round behind the piano, and, taking the girl firmly by the shoulders
+with his left arm, held the sizzling tumbler to her lips. She uttered a
+strangled cry, left off playing, and struggled frantically to seize the
+glass with her hands.
+
+Now Hughie Marrable had a healthy prejudice in favour of minding his own
+business. He had witnessed scenes of this description before, and he
+knew that, place and company considered, the girl at the piano was
+probably not unaccustomed to accept refreshment at the hands of
+gentlemen, even when the gentleman was half-drunk, the hands dirty, and
+the refreshment (after allowing a generous discount for spillings)
+sufficiently potent to deprive any ordinary woman, within ten minutes,
+of any sort of control over her own actions or behaviour. Moreover,
+Hughie had a truly British horror of a scene. _But_--
+
+He was surprised to feel himself leap from his chair and bound toward
+the piano. His surprise, however, was nothing to that experienced a
+moment later by Mr. Noddy Kinahan, who, having succeeded in pinning the
+desperately resisting girl's arms to her sides, was now endeavouring to
+prise her lips open with the edge of the tumbler. But there are slips
+even after the cup has reached the lip. Just as success appeared to be
+about to crown Mr. Kinahan's hospitable efforts, a large and sinewy hand
+shot over his right shoulder and snatched away the glass, which it threw
+under the piano. Simultaneously an unseen force in the rear shook him
+till his teeth rattled, and then, depressing his head to the level of
+the keyboard, began to play a lively if staccato tune thereon with the
+point of Mr. Kinahan's rubicund and fleshy nose.
+
+These operations were more or less screened from the public view by the
+body of the piano, which was an "upright" of the cottage variety. But
+the sudden cessation of "The Washington Post" in favour of what sounded
+like "The Cat's Polka" played by a baby with its feet, brought the
+proprietor of the establishment hurrying across the room. He arrived
+just in time to be present at the conclusion of a florid chromatic scale
+of about four octaves, executed under the guidance of Hughie Marrable's
+heavy hand by Mr. Kinahan's somewhat abraded nasal organ.
+
+The instrumental part of the entertainment now terminated in favour of a
+vocal interlude. Hughie released his grip of Mr. Noddy Kinahan's collar,
+and stood back a pace waiting for a rush. He was confident that, given a
+clear floor and no interference, he could offer his burly opponent a
+lesson in manners which he would never forget.
+
+But Mr. Kinahan, being a mover in high political altitudes, was not in
+the habit of doing his own dirty work. He reviled his opponent, it is
+true, in terms which an expert could not but have admitted were
+masterly, but it was obvious to the unruffled Hughie that he was doing
+so chiefly to keep his courage up and "save his face." There was a
+cunning, calculating look in his piggy eyes which did not quite fit in
+with the unrestrained _abandon_ of his utterances, and Hughie began to
+realise that there are deeper schemes of retaliation than mere assault
+and battery.
+
+Once or twice Mr. Kinahan, in pausing for breath, turned and looked over
+his shoulder toward the curious crowd which was gathering behind
+him. Presently Hughie noticed a couple of "toughs" of the most
+uncompromisingly villainous appearance advancing in a leisurely fashion
+from a corner by the door, where they had been supping. They kept their
+eyes on Kinahan, as if for an order. Evidently that great man never took
+his walks abroad without his jackals.
+
+Things were beginning to look serious. The Hebraic proprietor, half
+crazy with fright at the gratuitous advertisement which the fracas was
+conferring upon his establishment,--an advertisement which was receiving
+a gratifying response from an influx of curious sightseers,--was
+frantically begging people to go away. The girl, the source (as ever!)
+of all the trouble, was still sitting on the music-stool, trembling like
+a fluttered bird, with Hughie, feeling slightly self-conscious, standing
+over her. In the middle distance, Mr. Allerton, gloriously oblivious to
+the ephemeral and irrelevant disturbance around him, sat contentedly
+before two empty bottles, endeavouring with erratic fingers to adorn the
+lapel of his blue pea-jacket with a silver-plated fork (the property of
+the establishment), upon which he had impaled a nodding banana of
+pantomimic proportions.
+
+Suddenly Hughie heard himself addressed in casual tones by some one
+standing close behind him.
+
+"Say, Johnny Bull, you'd best get out of here, right now. Skip! Those
+two toughs of Noddy's won't touch you till they get the word, but when
+they do you'll be sorry. Get out this way, by the side of the stage. It
+leads around to the back door."
+
+Having delivered himself of this undoubtedly sound piece of advice, the
+unhealthy-looking young gentleman from behind the bar picked up the
+champagne bottle and broken glass, and lounged back to his base of
+operations.
+
+Hughie, realising the wisdom of his words, and making a hasty note that
+one should never judge even a mottle-faced bar-tender by his appearance,
+reluctantly abandoned his half-projected scheme of hurling Noddy Kinahan
+into the arms of his two sinister supporters and then knocking their
+collective heads together, and turned to the small door behind him.
+Suddenly he caught sight of the piano-girl. He paused and surveyed her
+thoughtfully.
+
+"You'd better come with me," he said.
+
+Without a word, the girl rose and preceded him to the door. Hughie
+opened it for her, and they both passed through and hurried down a
+narrow passage, which gave direct into the alley at the back of the
+establishment.
+
+Once outside, Hughie took the girl's arm and fairly ran, never pausing
+till they reached the brightly lighted sea-front. He had an idea that a
+cheerful and crowded thoroughfare would prove more salubrious than
+deserted and ill-lit byways.
+
+Once clear of their late surroundings the two slackened pace, and Hughie
+surveyed his charge with comical perplexity.
+
+"Now what am I to do with _you_?" he inquired.
+
+"Take me home," said the girl, sobbing.
+
+Her pluck and fortitude, having brought her dry-eyed through the worst
+of the conflict, had now taken their usual leave of absence, and she was
+indulging very properly in a few reactionary and comforting tears.
+
+"Where do you live?" asked Hughie.
+
+"Brooklyn."
+
+"That's a matter for a trolley-car. Come along."
+
+He took her arm again, rather diffidently this time,--his old masculine
+self-consciousness was returning,--and hurried off to what the Coney
+Islanders call a "deepo." Here they ensconced themselves in the corner
+of a fairly empty car, and started on their twenty-mile run, _viâ_
+Sheepshead Bay and other delectable spots, to Brooklyn Bridge.
+
+As soon as the car started, Hughie turned to his companion.
+
+"Look here," he said bluntly. "I know a lady when I meet one. What were
+you doing in that place at all? You are English, too."
+
+"Yes. I can't blame you for wondering. I'll tell you. I come from
+London. My father was a small schoolmaster in Sydenham. He--he was
+unfortunate, and died three years ago, and I was left alone in the
+world, with hardly two sixpences to rub together. Just as things were
+looking none too promising for me, I met and married"--she flushed
+proudly--"one of the best men that ever stepped--Dennis Maclear. He is
+an electrical engineer. We came out here together to make our fortunes,
+and settled in New York. We were beginning to do fairly well after a
+long struggle, when one day Dennis crushed his left arm and leg in a
+cog-wheel arrangement of some kind, and for three months he has not been
+able even to get out of bed without help. Bad luck, wasn't it? He is
+getting better slowly, and some day, the doctor says, he will be able to
+get about again. But--well, savings don't last for ever, you know; so
+I--"
+
+"I see," said Hughie; "the upkeep of the establishment has devolved on
+you in the meanwhile?"
+
+"Yes. Piano-playing is about the only accomplishment I possess. A girl
+friend of mine told me she was giving up her billet at old Bercotti's,
+and asked if I would like it. She wouldn't recommend it to most girls,
+she said, but perhaps it would suit me all right, being married. I took
+it; but as you saw, my being married wasn't sufficient protection after
+all."
+
+She shuddered, for she was very young, and badly shaken; but presently
+she smiled bravely.
+
+"What did you get?" asked Hughie.
+
+"Dollar a night."
+
+"It's not much."
+
+"It's better than starvation," said practical little Mrs. Maclear.
+
+"And what are you going to do next?"
+
+"I'm not going back to old Bercotti's again--that's flat."
+
+"Can you get another berth?"
+
+"Well, if there happens to be anybody in this simple and confiding
+country who is willing to take on as accompanist or teacher a young
+woman of shabby-genteel appearance, who is unable to mention a single
+soul as a reference, and has no character to show from her former
+employer--it ought to be easy!" said the girl.
+
+Hughie regarded her reflectively.
+
+"You take it well. I admire your pluck," he said.
+
+"A married woman with a husband to keep has no time to worry about
+pluck," replied Mrs. Maclear; "she just _has_ to do things. Besides, all
+the pluck in the world can't save a woman when Noddy Kinahan is about.
+If it hadn't been for you--by the way, would you mind telling me your
+name? You know mine."
+
+Hughie told her. Presently they left the trolley-car--_anglicè_,
+electric-tram--and struck off down a street in Brooklyn. The girl turned
+in at a doorway, and paused at the foot of a stair.
+
+"Won't you come up and see my husband, Mr. Marrable?" she said. "It's
+ten flights up, and we don't run to an elevator; but I know Dennis would
+like to thank you himself."
+
+Hughie had intended to refuse,--he hated being thanked as much as most
+matter-of-fact people,--but, a flash of unusual insight revealing to him
+the fact that the true object of the invitation was not to exhibit him
+to the husband, but to enable this proud little lady to exhibit her
+husband to him, he felt reassured, and allowed himself to be borne aloft
+to the Maclear eyrie. Here a gigantic and impulsive son of Kerry, gaunt
+and hollow-eyed through long bed-keeping, wrung his hand in a manner
+which made him feel glad he was not a refractory terminal, what time
+Mrs. Maclear, in a sort of up-to-date version of the song of Miriam,
+described Hughie's glorious triumph over Noddy Kinahan, laying special
+stress upon the ecstatic period during which Mr. Kinahan, at the
+instance of Hughie, had enacted the part of a human pianola.
+
+He left them at last, wondering in his heart, as he tramped home under
+the stars to his hotel in West Forty-Second Street, what the plucky
+couple were going to live on during the next two or three months. The
+man was still practically a cripple,--he must have been badly
+mangled,--and it is hard work fighting for time in a country whose
+motto, as regards human as well as other machinery, is: "Never repair!
+Scrap, and replace!"
+
+Hughie had solved the problem to his satisfaction by the time he crossed
+Brooklyn Bridge.
+
+For the rest of the way home he thought of other things. A bachelor,
+however ungregarious, is at heart a sentimental animal, and during his
+walk Hughie was contemplating with his mind's eye the picture that he
+had left behind him as he said good-night,--the picture of "a snug
+little kingdom up ten pair of stairs," tenanted by a little community of
+two, self-contained and self-sufficient, dauntless in the face of grim
+want and utter friendlessness,--and, despite his own health and wealth,
+he experienced a sudden feeling of envy for the crippled and impecunious
+Dennis Maclear.
+
+"I suppose," he mused to himself, "it doesn't really matter _how_ rotten
+a time you have in this world so long as you have it in the right
+company." Then he added, apparently as a sort of corollary: "By gad,
+when I get home next week, I'll _stay_ there!"
+
+But, however carefully (or carelessly) we handle the tiller on life's
+voyage, it is the little casual currents and unexpected side winds that
+really set our course for us. As Hughie rolled into bed that night he
+reflected, rather regretfully, that the incident of that evening was
+closed for ever. He had definitely cut himself off from the Maclears, at
+any rate, for the very simple reason that he had just posted to them a
+hundred one-dollar notes, as a temporary loan until their "ship came
+in," carefully omitting to mention that his own was due to go out in
+twenty-four hours, and giving no address for purposes of repayment.
+
+But for all that, the incident had definitely altered his course for
+him, or at any rate was destined to send him round by an alternative
+route.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER VII
+
+                         THE ALTERNATIVE ROUTE
+
+
+Her most ardent admirers--and they had never been very numerous--could
+hardly have described the Orinoco as a rapid or up-to-date vessel. She
+could average a fair eight knots in ordinary weather (except when the
+Chief Engineer was not sober; and then she had been known to do as much
+as eleven), and she had faced with tolerable credit seven strenuous
+years of North Atlantic weather, winter and summer alike. But she was no
+flier.
+
+She had not always ploughed the ocean at the behests of Mr. Noddy
+Kinahan, her present owner. As a matter of fact, she dated back to the
+early sixties. She had been built on the Clyde, in days when people were
+not in such a hurry as they are now, for steady and reliable
+cross-channel service between Scotland and Ireland; and the crinolined
+young lady who had blushingly performed the christening ceremony as the
+brand-new steamer slipped down the ways had named her the Gareloch.
+
+After fifteen years of honest buffeting between the Kish and the Cloch
+the little Gareloch had been pronounced too slow, and sold to the
+proprietor of a line of coasting steamers which plied between Cardiff
+and London. In this capacity, with a different-coloured funnel and a
+slightly decayed interior, she had served for nine years as the Annie S.
+Holmes. After that an officious gentleman from the Board of Trade
+happened to notice the state of her boilers, and unhesitatingly declined
+to renew her certificate until various things were done which her
+present owner was not in the habit of doing. Consequently she had
+lain rusting in Southampton Water for six months, until an astute Scot,
+who ran a sort of Dr. Barnardo's home for steamers which had been
+abandoned by their original owners, stepped in and bought her, at the
+rate of about a pound per ton; and having refitted her with some
+convenient boilers which he had picked up at a sale, and checked her
+fuel-consumption by reducing her grate-area, set her going again in a
+humble but remunerative way as a pig-boat between Limerick and Glasgow.
+During this period of her career she was known as the Blush Rose--and
+probably smelt as sweet.
+
+The maritime Dr. Barnardo sold her three years later (at a profit) to a
+gentleman who required a ship for some shady and mysterious operations
+amid certain islands in the Southern Pacific. The nature of the poor
+Blush Rose's occupation may be gathered from the fact that in the space
+of three months she made those already tropical regions too hot to hold
+her; and, with her name painted out, a repaired shot-hole in her
+counter, and a few pearl oyster-shells sticking out here and there in
+the murky recesses of her hold, was knocked down for a song at Buenos
+Ayres to a Spanish-American who desired her for the fulfilment of some
+rather private contracts, into which he had entered with a Central
+American State, for a consignment of small arms and ammunition delivered
+immediately--terms, C. O. D. and no questions asked. Her captain on this
+occasion was a Lowland Scot of disreputable character but inherent
+piety, who endeavoured to confer a rather spurious sanctity upon a
+nefarious enterprise by christening his nameless vessel the Jedburgh
+Abbey. But, alas! the Jedburgh Abbey was confiscated a year later by the
+United States government, and having disgorged a most uncanonical cargo,
+was knocked down by Dutch auction, without benefit of clergy, to the
+highest bidder. Competition for her possession was not keen, and she
+ultimately became the property of Mr. Noddy Kinahan, who at that
+time was beginning to pile up a considerable fortune by purchasing
+old steamers on their way to the scrap-heap and running them as
+tramp-freighters until they sank. The Jedburgh Abbey, with a new
+propeller,--she had gone short of a blade for years,--her rusty carcase
+tinkered into something like sea-worthiness, and her engines secured a
+little more firmly to their bed-plates, had re-established her social
+status by creeping once more into Lloyd's list--the Red Book of the
+Mercantile Marine--and, disguised as the Orinoco, of the "River" Line of
+freight-carrying steamships, had served Mr. Noddy Kinahan well for seven
+years. This grey morning, with Sandy Hook well down below the western
+horizon, she clambered wearily but perseveringly over the Atlantic
+rollers, like a disillusioned and world-weary old cab-horse which,
+having begun life between the shafts of a gentleman's brougham, is now
+concluding a depressing existence by dragging a funereal "growler" up
+and down the undulations of a London suburb.
+
+Her redeeming feature was a certain purity of outline and symmetry of
+form. She boasted a flush deck, unbroken by any unsightly waist
+amid-ships; and not even her unscraped masts, her scarred sides, and her
+flaked and salt-whitened funnel could altogether take away from her her
+pride of race,--the right to boast, in common with many a human derelict
+of the same sex and a very similar history, that she had "been a lady
+once."
+
+She had now been at sea for well over twenty-four hours, and her crew,
+who had to a man been brought on board in what a sympathetic eyewitness
+on a similar occasion once described as "a state of beastly but enviable
+intoxication," were once more beginning to sit up and take notice. Their
+efforts in this direction owed much to the kind assistance of Messrs.
+Gates and Dingle, the first and second mates, who with cold douche and
+unrelenting boot were sparing no pains to rouse to a sense of duty those
+of their flock who had not yet found or recovered their sea-legs.
+
+The crew consisted of two Englishmen and a Californian, together with a
+handful of Scandinavians, Portuguese, and Germans, divided by sea-law
+(which, like its big brother, _non curat de minimis_) into "Dagoes" and
+"Dutchmen" respectively, representatives of the Romance races being
+grouped under the former and of the Anglo-Saxon under the latter
+designations. With one exception none of them had sailed on the ship
+before, and in all probability would never do so again. They had been
+purveyed to Captain Kingdom by a Tenderloin boarding-house keeper, and
+had signed a contract for the voyage to Bordeaux and back, wages for
+both trips to be paid at the end of the second. If sufficiently knocked
+about, they would in all probability desert at Bordeaux, preferring to
+forego their pay rather than stand a second dose of the home comforts of
+the Orinoco. This was one of the ways in which Captain Kingdom saved his
+employer money and in which Mr. Noddy Kinahan made the "River" Line a
+profitable concern. There were also others, which shall be set forth in
+due course.
+
+Captain Kingdom had just appeared on the bridge. He was a furtive and
+sinister-looking individual, resembling rather a pawnbroker's assistant
+than one who occupied his business in great waters. But he was a useful
+servant to Noddy Kinahan.
+
+"Got all the hands to work, Mr. Gates?" he called down to the mate.
+
+"Aye, aye, sir!" replied Mr. Gates, knocking the heel of his boot on the
+deck to ease his aching toes.
+
+The captain ran his eye over the crew, who were huddling together
+forward of the bridge. He cleared his throat.
+
+"Now, you scum," he began genially, "attend to me, while I tell you what
+you've got to do on board this ship."
+
+The scum, stagnant and unresponsive, listened stolidly to his harangue,
+the substance of which did not differ materially, _mutatis mutandis_,
+from one of Mr. Squeers's inaugural addresses to his pupils on the first
+morning of term at Dotheboys Hall. Captain Kingdom's peroration laid
+particular stress upon the fact that Messrs. Gates and Dingle had been
+requested by him as a particular favour to adopt the policy of the thick
+stick and the big boot in the case of those members of the crew who
+refrained from looking slick in executing their orders.
+
+The crew received his remarks with sheepish grins or sullen scowls; and
+the orator concluded:
+
+"Pick watches, Mr. Gates, and then we'll pipe down to dinner. Are all
+hands on deck?"
+
+"Aye, aye, sir," replied Mr. Gates, looking over his list.
+
+"I saw _somebody_ down below a few minutes ago," drawled a voice,
+proceeding from a figure seated upon a bollard.
+
+It was Mr. Allerton, who, with characteristic contentment with (or
+indifference to) his lot, had performed the unprecedented feat of
+signing on for a second voyage in the Orinoco. He wore his usual air of
+humorous tolerance of the cares of this world, and spoke in the composed
+and unruffled fashion which stamps the high-caste Englishman all over
+the globe. His lot on board the Orinoco had been lighter than that of
+most, for his companions, finding him apparently impervious to ill-usage
+and philosophically genial under all circumstances, had agreed to regard
+him as a species of heavily decayed and slightly demented "dude," and
+had half-affectionately christened him "Percy,"--a term which sums up
+the typical Englishman for the New Yorker almost as vividly as "Rosbif"
+and "Godam" perform that office for the Parisian.
+
+The captain descended from the bridge, walked across the deck, and
+dispassionately kicked Mr. Allerton off the bollard.
+
+"Stand up, you swine, when you speak to me!" he shouted. "Where did you
+see anybody?"
+
+Mr. Allerton rose slowly and painfully from the scuppers. There are
+moments when the _rôle_ of a Democritus is difficult to sustain.
+
+"I'm sorry you did that, captain," he remarked, "because I know you
+didn't mean it personally. You had to make some sort of demonstration,
+of course, to put the fear of death into these new hands, but I regret
+that you should have singled me out as the _corpus vile_,--you don't
+know what that means, I daresay: never mind!--because you have shaken up
+my wits so much, besides nearly breaking my hip-bone, that I shall have
+to pause and consider a minute before I remember where I _did_ see the
+gentleman."
+
+If the captain had been Mr. Gates he would probably have felled Allerton
+to the deck a second time. As it was, he shuffled his feet uncomfortably
+and glared. The broken man before him, when all was said and done, was
+his superior; and the captain, who was of sufficiently refined clay to
+be sensitive to social distinctions, was angrily conscious of that sense
+of sheepish uneasiness which obsesses the cad, however exalted, in the
+presence of a gentleman, however degraded.
+
+Allerton continued:--
+
+"I remember now, captain. The man was lying in the alley-way leading to
+the companion. I'll go and see how he is getting on. Keep your seats,
+gentlemen."
+
+He dived down the fore-hatchway, just in time to escape the itching boot
+of the unimpressionable Mr. Gates, and proceeded between decks toward
+the stern. Presently he came to the alley-way in question. The man was
+still there, but had slightly shifted his position since Allerton had
+last seen him. He was now reclining across the passage, with his head
+sunk on his chest. His feet were bare, and he was attired in a blue
+jumper and a pair of trousers which had once belonged to a suit of
+orange-and-red pyjamas. His appearance was not impressive.
+
+Allerton stirred him gently with his foot.
+
+"Wake up, old man," he remarked, "or there'll be hell--Well, I'm
+damned!"
+
+For the man had drowsily lifted his heavy head and displayed the
+features of Hughie Marrable.
+
+They gazed at each other for a full minute. Then Allerton said feebly:--
+
+"You've preferred the Orinoco to the Apulia after all, then?"
+
+Hughie did not reply. He was running his tongue round his cracked and
+blackened lips, and tentatively sucking his palate.
+
+"I know that taste," he remarked. "It reminds me of a night I once spent
+in Canton. I have it--opium!"
+
+Then he tenderly fingered the back of his head, and nodded with the
+interested air of one who is acquiring a new item of experience.
+
+"I've been filled up with opium before," he said, "but this is the first
+time I've been sand-bagged. I suppose I was sand-bagged first and
+hocussed afterwards. Yes, that's it."
+
+He looked almost pleased. He was a man who liked to get to the bottom of
+things. Presently he continued:--
+
+"Could you get me a drink of water? I've got a tongue like a stick of
+glue."
+
+Allerton departed as bidden, presently to return with a pannikin. Hughie
+was standing up in the alley-way, swaying unsteadily and regarding his
+attire.
+
+"I say," he said, after gulping the water, "would you mind telling
+me--you see, I'm a little bit wuzzy in the head at present--where the
+devil I am, and whether I came on board in this kit or my own clothes?"
+
+"Steamship Orinoco," replied Allerton precisely, "out of New York, for
+Bordeaux."
+
+"Let me think," said Hughie,--"Orinoco? Ah! now I'm beginning to see
+daylight. What's the name of the owner, our friend from Coney Island?"
+
+Allerton told him. "But he's more than your friend now," he added; "he's
+your employer."
+
+Hughie whistled long and low.
+
+"I see," he said. "Shanghaied--eh? Well, I must say he owed me one: I
+fairly barked his nose for him that night. But now that he has had me
+knocked on the head and shipped on board this old ark, I think he has
+overpaid me. I owe him one again; and, with any luck, he shall have it."
+
+"Do you remember being slugged?" said Allerton.
+
+"Can't say I do precisely. Let me see. I recollect coming along
+Forty-second Street on my way to the Manhattan. I'd been dining at the
+Lambs, and I stopped a minute on the sidewalk under an L railway-track
+to light my pipe, when--yes, it must have happened then."
+
+"I expect you had been shadowed all day," said Allerton. "But I'm
+forgetting my duties. You are wanted on deck."
+
+"Who wants me? Noddy Kinahan?"
+
+"Not much! He doesn't travel by his own ships. It's the captain. I
+understand that you are to be presented to the company as a little
+stowaway, and great surprise and pain will be officially manifested at
+your appearance on board."
+
+"All right. Come along and introduce me."
+
+Captain Kingdom's method of dealing with stowaways--natural and
+artificial--was simple and unvarying. On presentation, he first of all
+abused them with all the resources of an almost Esperantic vocabulary,
+and then handed them over to Mr. Gates to be kicked into shape.
+
+On Hughie Marrable's appearance on deck, the captain proceeded with
+gusto to Part One of his syllabus. Hard words break no bones, and
+Hughie, who was breathing in great draughts of sea-air and feeling less
+dizzy and more collected each minute, set no particular store by the
+oratorical display to which he was being treated. In fact, he was almost
+guilty of the discourtesy of allowing his attention to wander. He set
+the crown upon his offence by interrupting the captain's peroration.
+
+"Look here, skipper," he said, brusquely breaking in upon a period, "you
+can drop that. My name is Marrable. I am not a stowaway, and I have been
+dumped on board this ship by order of--"
+
+"Your name," said Captain Kingdom with relish, "is anything I choose to
+call you; and as you stowed yourself away on board--"
+
+"Look here," said Hughie, "I want a word with you--in your own cabin for
+choice. All right," he continued with rising voice, as the captain broke
+out again, "I'll have it here instead. First of all, what is Mr. Noddy
+Kinahan paying you for this job?"
+
+The captain turned to the mate.
+
+"Sock him, Mr. Gates!" he roared.
+
+Mr. Gates, whose curiosity--together with that of the rest of the
+crew--had been roused, as Hughie meant it to be, by the latter's
+reference to Mr. Noddy Kinahan's share in the present situation, moved
+forward to his task with less alacrity than usual, and paused readily
+enough when Hughie continued:--
+
+"If you'll put back, captain, and land me anywhere within a hundred
+miles of New York, I'll give you double what Kinahan is paying you for
+this job."
+
+"You _look_ like a man with money, I must say!" replied Kingdom. "Now
+then, Mr. Gates!"
+
+"It's to be no deal, then?" said Hughie composedly. "Very well. The next
+question is, if I am coming with you, how am I going to be treated?
+Cabin or steer--"
+
+"I'll show you," roared the incensed skipper. "Knock him silly, Mr.
+Gates!"
+
+Mr. Gates came on with a rush. But Hughie, who all this time had been
+taking his bearings, leapt back lightly in his bare feet and snatched a
+capstan-bar from the rack behind him.
+
+"Keep your distance for a moment, Mr. Gates," he commanded, "if you
+don't want your head cracked. I haven't finished interviewing this
+captain of yours yet. Happy to oblige _you_ later, for any period you
+care to specify."
+
+"'Nother Percy!" commented Mr. Dingle dejectedly, expectorating over the
+side. He was a plain man, was Mr. Dingle, and loved straight hitting and
+words of one syllable.
+
+Mr. Gates paused, and Hughie, leaning back against the bulwarks and
+toying with the capstan-bar, continued to address the fulminating
+mariner on the bridge.
+
+"Now, captain, I'm going to be brief with you--brief and business-like.
+You've been paid by Kinahan to shanghai me and take me for a long
+sea-voyage. Very good. I'm not kicking. I wanted to get to Europe
+anyhow, and I rather like long sea-voyages, especially before the mast.
+In fact, I'd rather sail before the mast on board this ship than in the
+cuddy. (Keep still, Mr. Gates!) As I'm here, I've no particular
+objection to working my passage, always reserving to myself the right to
+make things hot for your employer when I get ashore. I'll work as an
+A.B. or deck-hand if you like, though personally I would rather do
+something in the engine-room. I'm pretty well qualified in that
+direction. But I must be decently treated, and there must be no more
+sand-bagging or knockabout variety business. Is it a deal?"
+
+Captain Kingdom surveyed the sinewy stowaway before him thoughtfully. He
+saw that until Hughie gave up the capstan-bar Mr. Gates would have
+little chance of enforcing discipline. He must temporise.
+
+"I can give you a job in the engine-room," he said, in what he imagined
+was a more conciliatory tone. "Second engineer's down with something
+this morning. You can take his watch. Drop that capstan-bar of yours,
+and go and see Mr. Angus, the chief."
+
+"That should suit me," replied Hughie. "But as a guarantee of good
+faith, and to avoid disappointing the assembled company, I'm quite
+willing to stand up and have a turn with Mr. Gates here, or that
+gentleman over by the funnel-stay, or any one else you may appoint. But
+I should _prefer_ Mr. Gates," he added, almost affectionately. "I'm not
+in first-class form at present, as my head has got a dint in it behind;
+but I'll do my best. Are you game, Mr. Gates?"
+
+"Go on, Mr. Gates, learn him!" commanded the highly gratified skipper.
+
+"Drop that bar," shouted the genial Mr. Gates, "and I'll kill you!"
+
+"Half a minute, please," said Hughie, as unruffled as if he were putting
+on the gloves for a ten-minute spar in a gymnasium. "I'm not going to
+fight a man in sea-boots in my bare feet. Can any gentleman oblige me
+with--Thank you, sir! You are a white man."
+
+A pair of oily canvas tennis shoes, with list soles, pattered down on
+the deck beside him. Their donor, the "white man,"--a coal-black
+individual attired chiefly in cotton-waste,--was smiling affably from
+the engine-room hatchway.
+
+"They'll dae ye fine," he observed unexpectedly, and disappeared below.
+
+In a moment Hughie had slipped on the shoes. Then, casting away the bar,
+he hurled himself straight at the head of Mr. Gates.
+
+In the brief but exhilarating exhibition which followed Mr. Gates
+realised that a first mate on the defensive is a very different being
+from a first mate on the rampage. He had become so accustomed to
+breaking in unresisting dock-rats and bemused foreigners, taking his own
+time and using his boots where necessary, that a high-pressure combat
+with a man who seemed to be everywhere except at the end of his fist--to
+his honour he never once thought of employing his foot--was an entire
+novelty to him. He fought sullenly but ponderously, wasting his enormous
+strength on murderous blows which never reached their mark, and stolidly
+enduring a storm of smacks, bangs, and punches that would have knocked a
+man of less enduring material into a pulp. But there is one blow which
+no member of the human family can stand up to, glutton for punishment
+though he be. Hughie made a sudden feint with his left at his opponent's
+body, just below the heart. Gates dropped his guard, momentarily
+throwing forward his head as he did so. Instantaneously a terrific
+upper-cut from Hughie's right took him squarely under the chin. Mr.
+Gates described a graceful parabola, and landed heavily on his back on
+deck, striking his head against a ring-bolt as he fell. The whole fight
+had lasted less than four minutes.
+
+Hughie was about to assist his fallen opponent to rise, when he heard a
+warning cry from half-a-dozen voices. He swung round, to find the
+captain making for him, open-mouthed, with the capstan-bar. He sprang
+lightly aside--a further blessing on those list shoes!--and his opponent
+charged past him, bringing down the bar with a flail-like sweep upon the
+drum of a steam windlass. Next moment Hughie, grasping the foremast
+shrouds, leaped on the bulwarks and pulled himself up to the level of
+the bridge, which was unoccupied save by the man at the wheel, who had
+been an enthusiastic spectator of the scene below.
+
+Having climbed upon the bridge, and so secured the upper ground in case
+of any further attack, Hughie leaned over the rails and parleyed. In his
+hand he held a pair of heavy binoculars, which he had taken out of a box
+clamped to the back of the wind-screen.
+
+"The first man who attempts to follow me up here," he announced, when he
+had got his breath back, "will get this pair of glasses in the eye.
+Captain, I don't think you are a great success as an employer of labour.
+You haven't got the knack of conciliating your men. Can't we come to
+terms? Mine are very simple. I want some clothes--my own, for choice. If
+you haven't got them, anything quiet and unobtrusive will do. But I
+decline to go about in orange-and-red pyjama trousers in mid-Atlantic to
+please you or anybody else. For one thing they're not warm, and for
+another they're not usual. If you will oblige me in this matter, I am
+quite willing to live at peace with you. I don't see that you can really
+suppress me except by killing me, and that is a thing which I don't
+think you have either the authority or the pluck to do. Why not give me
+a billet in the engine-room and cry quits?"
+
+Captain Kingdom looked up at the obstreperous mutineer on the bridge,
+and down at the recumbent Mr. Gates on the deck, and ground his teeth.
+Then he looked up to the bridge again.
+
+"All right," he growled. "Come down!"
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER VIII
+
+                         A BENEFIT PERFORMANCE
+
+
+Hughie, having been relieved to a slight extent from sartorial
+humiliation, entered upon his engine-room duties forthwith.
+
+The society in which he found himself consisted of Mr. Angus, the
+chief,--engineers, like gardeners, editors, and Cabinet Ministers, are
+practically all Scotsmen,--Mr. Goble, the acting-second (_vice_ Mr.
+Walsh, sick), and a motley gang of undersized, half-mutinous, wholly
+vile sweepings of humanity in the form of firemen. Mr. Walsh was
+suffering from an intermittent form of malaria contracted years ago in
+an up-river trip to the pestilential regions round Saigon. Mr. Angus, a
+hoary-headed and bottle-nosed Dundonian, who could have charmed a
+scrap-heap into activity, received Hughie with native politeness, and
+paid him the compliment of working him uncommonly hard. He explained
+(with perfect truth) that the only reason why he was not at that moment
+driving a Cunarder was a habit of his, viewed by certain owners with
+regrettable narrowness of vision, of "takin' a drap, whiles." The
+concluding adverb Hughie correctly estimated to mean "whenever I can get
+anything to drink."
+
+"I canna see what for they should be sae partic'lar aboot it," mused Mr.
+Angus in recounting the circumstance, "for I haundle her jist as weel
+drunk as sober. However, here I am, and there's an end o't. Aiblins it's
+jist as weel. I could rin the engines o' ony Cunarder afloat, but I ken
+fine there's not hauf-a-dozen men in their hale fleet could knock eight
+knots oot o' the auld Orinoco. There's a kin' o' divinity aboot it, I
+doot. A man's pit whaur he's maist wantit."
+
+John Alexander Goble, the acting-second, proved to be a man of greater
+depth and more surprises than his superior. He it was who had thrown the
+list shoes to Hughie before the battle with Mr. Gates, which showed that
+he was at heart a Sportsman; he had taken the first opportunity of
+asking for the return of the same, which showed that he was a Scotsman;
+but he had found Hughie a better pair of shoes in their stead, together
+with some garments more suitable than the blue jumper and the
+orange-and-red pyjama trousers, which showed that he was a good
+Samaritan: and a man who is a Sportsman and a Scot and a good Samaritan
+all rolled into one is an addition to the society of any engine-room.
+
+His face wore an expression of chastened gloom; and if washed and set
+ashore in his native Caledonia, he would probably have received a
+unanimous invitation to come and glower over the plate in the doorway of
+the nearest Wee Free conventicle. His speech was slow and unctuous: one
+could imagine him under happier circumstances conducting family worship,
+and pausing to elucidate in approved fashion some specially obvious
+passage in the evening's "portion," thus: "From the expression, 'a
+michty man o' valour,' we may gather that the subject of this reference
+was a person of considerable stature and undoubted physical courage."
+
+He was habitually and painfully sober, for reasons which Hughie learned
+from him at a period when they had more leisure to study each other's
+characters. He was ignorant of the first principles of mechanics, but
+could be trusted to keep the Orinoco's propeller-shaft revolving at a
+steady seventy-two to the minute; and he had a gentle compelling way
+with refractory firemen which made for sweet reasonableness and general
+harmony below stairs, what time Mr. Angus was recovering from one of
+those sudden and regrettable attacks of indisposition which usually
+coincided with the forgetfulness of the steward to lock up the cabin
+whisky-bottle.
+
+Hughie berthed in the foc'sle, and was regarded by the Dagoes, Dutchmen,
+_et hoc genus omne_, with mingled admiration for the manner in which he
+had settled Mr. Gates, and mystified surprise that a man capable of such
+a feat should be content to live on his own rations and sleep in his
+allotted bunk, without desiring to make researches into the respective
+succulence and comfort of his neighbours'.
+
+On the whole Hughie found his life tolerable enough, as the Orinoco
+butted and grunted her way across the Newfoundland Banks; and he
+experienced no pang when the Apulia, spouting smoke from her four
+funnels and carrying his luggage in one of her state-rooms, swept past
+them on the rim of the southern horizon on their third day out. He was
+accustomed to rough quarters, and any new experience of things as they
+are was of interest to him. Moreover, he possessed the priceless
+possession of a cast-iron digestion; and a man so blessed can afford to
+snap his fingers at most of the sundry and manifold changes of this
+world.
+
+Captain Kingdom and Mr. Gates for the time being held him severely
+aloof. The taciturn Mr. Dingle conveyed to him, by means of a
+surprisingly ingenious code of grunts and expectorations, that provided
+he, Hughie,--or Brown, as he was usually called,--was content to go his
+way without hunting for trouble, he, Mr. Dingle, was content to go his
+without endeavouring to supply it. Altogether there seemed to be no
+reason for doubting that the Orinoco, provided she did not open up and
+sink like a basket _en route_, would ultimately reach the port of
+Bordeaux, bringing her sheaves, in the form of Hughie and some
+unspeakable claret, with her.
+
+But there is more than one way of making money out of the shipping
+trade.
+
+One night Hughie was leaning over the taffrail behind the wheel-house at
+the stern. It was two o'clock, and the darkness was intensified by a
+heavy mist. There was almost no wind, and the Orinoco, like a
+draught-horse which feels the wheels of its equipage upon a tram-line,
+slid gratefully up and down the lazy rollers with the nearest approach
+to comfort that she had experienced that voyage.
+
+Hughie was idly watching the phosphorescent wake of the propeller,
+wondering whether Captain Kingdom had orders to land him in France in
+his shirt and trousers or throw him overboard before they got there,
+when a figure rose up out of the darkness beside him. It was the
+easy-going Mr. Allerton.
+
+"Hallo, Percy!" said Hughie. He had soon dropped into the nomenclature
+of the foc'sle.
+
+"Look here," said Allerton, in a more purposeful voice than usual; "come
+along and look at this boat."
+
+The largest of the three boats carried by the Orinoco lay close by them.
+She was swung inboard and rested on deck-chocks below the davits. A
+canvas cover, one end of which fluttered intermittently in the breeze,
+roofed her over. Allerton lifted this flap and inserted his hand.
+Presently there was a splutter and a glimmer, and it became plain that
+he was holding a lighted match under the canvas.
+
+"Look!" he whispered.
+
+Hughie peered under the flap. He saw water-barrels, a spirit-keg, and
+various bags and boxes. Then the match went out, and Allerton withdrew
+his hand.
+
+The pair retired once more to their shelter behind the wheel-house.
+
+"You saw that?" said Allerton.
+
+"I did. Do they usually keep the boats provisioned on this ship? If so,
+I don't blame them."
+
+"Not they. Somebody is going for a water-picnic shortly--that's all."
+
+Hughie mused.
+
+"Am _I_ the man, do you think?" he said at length.
+
+"No, I don't think so. There's too much grub for one. Besides the other
+boats are provisioned too. It looks as if the ship were to be
+abandoned."
+
+"But why? There's no reason why she should drop to bits for a long time
+yet. Rust is very binding, you know. Probably they keep her provisioned
+just in case--"
+
+Allerton wagged his head sagaciously.
+
+"There's more in this than meets the eye," he said. "It is my pleasure
+and privilege, as you know, to act as steward at present during the
+regretted retirement of the regular holder of that office, owing to
+eczema of the hands. (Even Mr. Gates shies at eczema sea-pie!) Now
+there's some mischief brewing in the cuddy, and they're all in
+it--Kingdom, Gates, and Angus. I'm not quite sure about Dingle, because
+he berths forward; but I think he is too. What's more: it's something
+they can't afford to have given away. Kingdom, who usually keeps Angus
+very short of drink at sea, now lets him have it whenever he wants it,
+and generally speaking is going out of his way to keep him sweet. That
+shows he can't afford to quarrel with him. And when a captain can't
+afford to quarrel with a chief engineer whom he hates, it usually means
+that he and the engineer are in together over some hanky-panky which has
+its roots in the engine-room. You mark my words, one of these fine
+nights that hoary-headed old Caledonian will open a sea-cock or two and
+rush up on deck and say the ship is sinking. It'll be a case of all
+hands to the boats; the Orinoco will go to her long-overdue and
+thoroughly deserved rest at the bottom, and the insurance people will
+pay up and look pleasant."
+
+"H'm," said Hughie; "there seems to be something in what you say. I wish
+I could keep an eye on the old sinner in the engine-room; but since
+Walsh came back to duty I've no excuse for going there at all now. It
+might almost be worth while to warn Goble. He's a decent chap."
+
+"Who is on duty in the engine-room now?"
+
+"Walsh, I should think. Angus usually makes way for him about eight
+bells. But I'm not sure. Hark! Do you notice anything about the beat of
+the engines?"
+
+"Not being an expert, can't say I do. They sound a trifle more asthmatic
+than usual, perhaps. What's up?"
+
+"Somebody has got the donkey-pump at work," said Hughie. "It may be
+Angus, after all, monkeying with the water-ballast. Hallo!" He leaned
+over the stern-rail and peered down. "Do you notice anything unusual
+about the propeller?"
+
+"It seems to be kicking up a bit of a dust," said Allerton. "Is it going
+round faster, or getting nearer the surface?"
+
+"It's half out of the water," said Hughie. "That means that the old man
+has pumped out the after double-bottom tank. Look, we're all down by the
+head!"
+
+The two stepped out from behind the wheelhouse and gazed forward. The
+flush deck of the Orinoco was undoubtedly running downhill towards the
+bows.
+
+"What's the game?" inquired Allerton excitedly.
+
+Hughie was thinking. Presently he said:--
+
+"I'm not sure, but his next move should tell us. Either he is trying to
+drive her nose under and sink her by manipulating the water-ballast,
+which seems a hopeless job in a flat calm like this, and suicidal if it
+comes off; or else he is working up for a scare of some kind, which will
+frighten the crew into--Hallo? what's that?"
+
+There was a warning cry from Mr. Dingle, who was standing right forward
+in the bows.
+
+"Something right ahead, sir! Looks like--"
+
+There was an answering shout from the bridge, where the captain was
+standing by the wheel, followed by a jangling of telegraph-bells. Next
+moment the Orinoco gave a jar and a stagger, and Hughie and Allerton
+pitched forward on to their noses.
+
+There were shouts and cries all over the ship, and men came tumbling up
+the hatchways.
+
+"We've struck something," gasped Allerton.
+
+"Struck your grandmother!" grunted Hughie, who was sitting up rubbing
+his nose tenderly. "That jar came from directly underneath us. It was
+caused by Angus reversing his engines without giving the ship time to
+slow down. I daresay he never even shut off steam. Likely enough he's
+lifted the engines off their beds. Well, perhaps he had finished with
+them anyway. Come along forward."
+
+By this time a frightened crowd had assembled on the deck of the
+Orinoco, which, lying motionless on the silent sea, artistically tilted
+up by the stern,--Hughie began to grasp the inwardness of Mr. Angus's
+manoeuvres with the water-ballast,--presented a sufficiently alarming
+appearance even on that calm night.
+
+Mr. Dingle and the captain, the one hanging over the bows and the other
+standing in an attitude of alertness on the bridge, were sustaining
+between them a conversation which vaguely suggested to Hughie a
+carefully rehearsed "cross-talk" duologue between two knockabout
+artistes of the Variety firmament--say the Brothers Bimbo in one of
+their renowned impromptu "patter scenes." The resemblance was enhanced
+by the fact that the "patter" was delivered _fortissimo_ by both
+performers, and each repeated the other's most telling phrases in tones
+which made it impossible for the audience to avoid hearing them.
+
+"What was it?" shouted Bimbo Senior (as represented by Captain Kingdom).
+
+"Lump of wreckage!" roared Bimbo Junior, from a prolonged scrutiny of
+the ship's forefoot.
+
+"Lump of wreckage?" bellowed Bimbo Senior.
+
+"Lump of wreckage!" corroborated Bimbo Junior.
+
+"Of course it _might_ have been ice," suggested Number One, at the top
+of his voice.
+
+"Might have been ice," replied the conscientious echo.
+
+"Pairsonally I'm inclined tae believe it was jist a wee bit coral
+island," interpolated a third voice, with painful and stunning
+distinctness. The Chief Engineer had suddenly made his appearance on the
+bridge.
+
+The captain was obviously much put out. In the first place, coral
+islands are not plentiful in the North Atlantic, and there are limits
+even to the gullibility of an audience composed of foreign deck-hands
+and half-civilised firemen. Secondly, the axiom that two is company and
+three none applies even to cross-talk duologues. Thirdly, Mr. Angus was
+excessively drunk, and consequently the laboriously planned comedietta
+at present in progress might, owing to his inartistic and uncalled-for
+intrusion upon the scene, take a totally unrehearsed turn at any moment.
+
+The captain lost no time.
+
+"What report have you from the engine-room, Mr. Angus?" he inquired
+loudly and pointedly.
+
+Mr. Angus, suddenly recognising his cue, and realising almost with tears
+that he had been imperilling the success of the entire piece by unseemly
+"gagging," pulled himself together, returned to his text, and announced
+that the ship was badly down by the head and the stokehold awash.
+
+"There's nothing else for it," yelled the captain resignedly, "but to
+leave her. Clear away the boats, Mr. Gates!"
+
+Having thus established a good working explanation of the disaster, and
+incidentally enlisted the entire audience--those members of it, that is,
+who were not already doing service in the _claque_--as unbiassed
+witnesses for the defence in case the insurance company turned nasty,
+the intrepid commander descended from the bridge to his cabin, to
+collect a few necessaries pending the abandonment of his beloved vessel.
+
+Hughie and Allerton surveyed each other.
+
+"Which boat are you going in?" inquired Allerton.
+
+"None," said Hughie.
+
+"Going to stay on board?"
+
+Hughie nodded.
+
+"But she'll sink under our feet."
+
+"I don't believe she's as badly damaged as all that. There's some game
+on here."
+
+"I don't suppose she's damaged at all," said Allerton, "but you can be
+sure they won't be such blamed fools as to leave the ship floating about
+to be picked up. Old Angus will let water into her before he leaves, if
+he hasn't started the process already."
+
+"Well, I'm not going in any of those boats," said Hughie. "If the
+Orinoco sinks, I'll float to Europe on a hen-coop."
+
+"May I have half of it?" said Allerton.
+
+"You may," said Hughie.
+
+And so the S. S. Orinoco Salvage Company, Limited, was floated, and the
+Board of Directors entered upon their new duties at once.
+
+By this time the boats had been swung outboard and their provisioning
+completed. They were now lowered from the davits, and the men began to
+take their places. There was no panic, for the night was calm, and the
+Orinoco showed no signs of settling deeper. Messrs. Gates and Dingle
+were already at their respective tillers. Captain Kingdom and Mr. Angus
+were standing by the davits to which the whale-boat was still shackled.
+Mr. Goble, apparently in no hurry, was leaning over the bulwarks in the
+darkness not far from Hughie and Allerton, dispassionately regarding the
+crew's preparations for departure. He approached nearer.
+
+"There's a wheen fowk in thae boats," he observed. "I doot we'd be safer
+on board."
+
+Hughie turned to him and nodded comprehendingly.
+
+"That's my opinion too," he said, "and Percy's. We're thinking of
+staying here."
+
+Mr. Goble regarded him reflectively.
+
+"Is that a fact?" he said. "Weel, I'll bide too."
+
+And so a third member was co-opted on to the Board of Directors.
+
+"We'd better get out of sight," said Hughie. "They won't like leaving us
+behind. I think I know a good place to wait. Come along."
+
+The trio slipped round behind the chart-house, passed along a deserted
+stretch of the deck, and disappeared down the engine-room hatchway.
+
+The engine-room was illuminated by a couple of swinging lanterns. A
+black and greasy flood of water glistened on the iron floor below,
+filling the crank-pits and covering the propeller-shaft. The doors
+leading to the stokehold were standing open, and they could see that the
+floors there too were flooded, though the water had not reached the
+level of the fire-bars. Owing to the immobility of the ship, its oily
+surface was almost unruffled, and the engine-room itself was curiously
+quiet after the turmoil on deck. The fires were burning low, but
+occasionally a glowing clinker slipped from between the bars into the
+blood-red flood beneath, with a sizzling splash. The steam was hissing
+discontentedly in the gauges.
+
+The Salvage Board stood knee-deep in the water of the engine-room.
+
+Hughie picked up a smoky inspection-lamp,--a teapot-like affair with a
+wick in the spout,--lit it, and peered about.
+
+"Now look here," he said, "I don't quite know where this water came
+from, and it doesn't much matter, as no more is coming in at present. If
+the old man means to sink the ship he will have to come down here to do
+it. He has probably got some dodge arranged by which he can just turn a
+wheel and open a valve and send her to the bottom. Isn't that the idea,
+Goble? (I'll explain to you afterwards, Allerton.) My impression is that
+he'll pop down and turn the valve on just before he leaves. In that case
+one of us must stand by and turn it off again. You two go through into
+the stokehold. He's not likely to come in there. If he does, you must
+use your own discretion. I'll wait here, on the far side of the
+cylinders, up against the condenser. He's not likely to see me, but I
+shall be able to watch him and see which valve-wheel he turns on."
+
+The other two obeyed, and Hughie, scrambling across the bed-plates of
+the engines, ensconced himself behind a convenient cross-head, with his
+feet in a flooded crank-pit and his body squeezed back as far as
+possible into the shadow of the condenser.
+
+He had not long to wait. Presently cautious feet were heard descending
+the iron ladder, and Mr. Angus, comparatively sober, stepped heavily
+into the flood on the floor.
+
+His first proceeding was to wade to the stokehold end of the
+engine-room,--Hughie thought at first that he was going right through
+into the arms of Allerton and Goble, and wondered what they would do
+with him,--where he began to manipulate the great valve-wheel which kept
+the steam imprisoned in the boilers; and presently Hughie could hear the
+roar of the escape far above his head. This was a purely precautionary
+measure, and could do no harm to any one.
+
+Then Mr. Angus splashed his way to the corner by the donkey-pump, where
+the machinery for controlling the bilge and water-ballast valves was
+situated, and began to twist over another wheel. Presently there was a
+gurgling bubbling sound in the bowels of the ship, followed by a slight
+hissing and whispering on the surface of the water on the engine-room
+floor. The valve was open.
+
+Mr. Angus turned and lurched heavily through the rising flood to the
+iron ladder. Thirty seconds later a glistening figure crawled out of the
+crank-pit and vigorously turned the wheel in the opposite direction. The
+gurgling and hissing ceased. The valve was closed.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER IX
+
+                         _LITERA SCRIPTA MANET_
+
+
+"Mr. Marrable, did ever ye see a drookit craw?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Well, see me!" announced Mr. Goble complacently.
+
+He crawled out of the engine-room companionway and sat down on the deck.
+Excessive spruceness had never been a foible of his, but now he was an
+unrecognisable mass of coal-dust, oil, and rust. He was dripping wet,
+for he had spent the last hour in an exhaustive examination of the
+Orinoco's waterlogged internal economy. The morning sun was warm, and he
+steamed comfortably as he detailed the result of his investigations to
+Hughie, who in some imperceptible but inevitable manner had taken
+command of the tiny ship's company.
+
+Shorn of technicalities and irrelevant excursions into the regions of
+pawky philosophy, Mr. Goble's report came to this.
+
+Mr. Angus had pumped out the after ballast-tank during the night,
+allowing the water, by means of a specially rigged return-pipe, to flow
+into the bilges of the ship instead of escaping overboard. By this
+device he had altered the Orinoco's centre of gravity in such a manner
+as to produce the afore-mentioned down-hill slant of her decks--a
+corroborative detail, as Pooh-Bah would have observed, which gave a
+little much-needed artistic verisimilitude to the Bimbo Brothers' bald
+and unconvincing narrative of disaster. Incidentally he had flooded the
+forehold and engine-room with sufficient water to give those members of
+the ship's company who were not in their employer's confidence the
+impression that she was sinking, and to furnish those who were with a
+_prima facie_ argument for deserting her.
+
+But these thoughtful precautions, though sufficient to procure the
+abandonment of the Orinoco, were by no means sufficient to send her to
+the bottom, a consummation to be achieved at any cost; for to leave
+your ship lying about in mid-ocean, to be picked up by the first
+chance-comer, while you go hurrying home to extract a cheque from the
+insurance company, savours of slipshod business methods; and Mr. Noddy
+Kinahan was nothing if not thorough.
+
+Now every steamer which plies under Lloyds' ægis is fitted, below the
+water-line, with a set of what are called bilge-valves. Through these it
+is possible to expel any water which may have found its way into the
+body of the vessel. As it is even more desirable to prevent the entrance
+of water into your ship than to assist its exit, these valves are of
+a strictly "non-return" variety, and no amount of pressure from
+the outside should ever prevail upon them to play the part of
+Facing-Both-Ways. The very life of the ship depends upon them; and the
+enterprising individual who tampers with their mechanism in such a
+manner as to convert what is meant to be an Emergency Exit into a sort
+of Early Door for the rolling deep, does so at the risk of coming into
+immediate and painful collision with the criminal laws of his country.
+
+Mr. Angus, it appeared, had been employing some of his spare time during
+the voyage in reversing one of these bilge-valves, with such skill and
+_finesse_ that, as we have seen, one had only to give a turn to a
+worm-and-wheel gear in the engine-room to admit the Atlantic Ocean in
+large quantities.
+
+"Oh, he has a heid on him, has Angus!" commented Mr. Goble with
+professional appreciation, "even when he's fou'. He made a rare job o't.
+But how he managed to contrive that imitation o' a collision, merely
+through some jookery-packery wi' the reverse-gear and throttle, wi'oot
+tearin' the guts oot o' her, I div not ken. Man, it was a fair conjurin'
+trick! By rights the link motion should be twisted intil a watch-chain
+and the cross-heids jammit in the guides. But they're no. It's jist
+Providence, I doot," he added rather apologetically, with the air of one
+who should have thought of this sooner.
+
+Then he uprose from his seat on an inverted bucket.
+
+"Before I gang ben, sir," he concluded, "tae change ma feet and ma
+breeks, I'll tak' the liberty tae inquire of you what you propose tae
+dae next. Maircy me! Yon's Walsh."
+
+Two figures had appeared round the corner of the chart-house, their
+presence on the far side thereof having been advertised for some time by
+the clanking of the deck-pumps. (Mr. Angus's precaution of blowing off
+steam before leaving had put mechanical assistance in getting rid of the
+water out of the question for the time being.)
+
+"Yes, it's me," said Walsh, who, it will be remembered, was the second
+engineer, to whom Hughie had recently been acting as deputy. "I should
+have come on duty at eight bells to relieve Angus, but I slept right
+through everything till Mr. Marrable found me in my bunk an hour or two
+ago. I expect they put something in my grog last night."
+
+"It's quite a hobby of theirs," said Allerton drily. "Mr. Marrable, I
+have found something that may be useful to us."
+
+He handed his superior officer a damp but undamaged little packet of
+papers.
+
+"Where did you find them?" asked Hughie. "I thought I had gone through
+Kingdom's kit pretty thoroughly."
+
+"They were sticking in the falls of the davits belonging to the boat
+Kingdom went off in," replied Allerton. "I saw him hurrying along the
+deck from his cabin just before his departure, carrying the log-book and
+some papers and instruments. I expect he dropped these as he went over
+the side."
+
+"Sit down, everybody," said the commander, "we'll see this through. It
+may concern us all."
+
+The packet contained two letters, together with some invoices and bills
+of lading referring chiefly to the Orinoco's cargo of astringent claret.
+
+Hughie glanced through the letters. Then he re-read them with some
+deliberation. Then he whistled low and expressively. Then he sat up and
+sighed, gently and contentedly.
+
+"Mr. Noddy Kinahan," he said, "is shortly going to wish, with all his
+benevolent and philanthropic little heart, that he had never been born.
+And we are the people that are going to make him wish. Listen!"
+
+He read the two letters aloud. They were brief, but explicit. One
+contained Kinahan's orders to Kingdom as to the disposal of the Orinoco.
+The other was a sort of invoice, or consignment note, relating to the
+person of one Marrable, who had apparently been shipped on board the
+night before the ship sailed. Each of these documents, it may be added,
+contained sufficient matter to ensure penal servitude for their author.
+
+Hughie stopped reading, and there was a long and appreciative silence.
+Then Allerton said:--
+
+"What beats me is to understand how Kinahan could have been such a mug
+as to commit these schemes to paper, and how Kingdom should have been
+such a fool as to want to keep them. _I'd_ have let them go down in the
+Orinoco."
+
+"I expect one explanation covers both cases," said Hughie. "Kingdom
+probably demanded his orders in black and white, as a guarantee that he
+would get his money when he had done his job. Otherwise he had no claim
+on Kinahan for a penny, beyond his ordinary wage as skipper. Kinahan
+probably agreed, stipulating that the letters should be handed back to
+him when they squared accounts. It was a risky thing to do, but when two
+thieves can't trust each other, and go dropping about documentary
+evidence to that effect--well, that's where poor but deserving people
+like ourselves come in. No, I shouldn't think Kingdom _would_ want to
+leave these behind; and I opine that he's a pretty sick man by this time
+if he has missed them."
+
+He folded the letters up, and put them away carefully.
+
+"Now, gentlemen," he said briskly, "I propose that we go below and see
+if there is sufficient steam on the Orinoco to pump the rest of the
+water out of her and get the propeller revolving again. We'll have to
+damp down most of the fires, because we can't run too many firemen, but
+I think we ought to knock four or five knots out of her in ordinary
+weather. Luckily, seventy-five _per cent_ of the ship's company are
+competent engineers. After that we'll have some breakfast, and after
+that we'll make tracks for home. We'll work"--he smacked his lips
+cheerily, like an energetic pedagogue on the first morning of term--"in
+shifts of three. Two men will run the engine-room and stokehold, and the
+third will take the wheel. The fourth can sleep. That will give us each
+eighteen hours on and six hours off. I don't know where we are, and I
+have no means of finding out, as Captain Kingdom has walked off with the
+chart and most of the proper instruments. But we must be near land, or
+they would not have taken to the boats yet. If we keep steaming steadily
+east (with a little north in it), at about a hundred miles a day,--which
+I fancy is about our limit,--we should knock up against something sooner
+or later. And when we do, we'll get hold of the proper authorities, and
+I venture to think that with the help of these two letters and that
+doctored bilge-valve down below we shall be able to prepare a welcome
+for those three boat-loads of shipwrecked mariners, when they arrive,
+that will surprise them. Also, I fancy there will be pickings for you in
+the way of salvage. What a game!" Hughie stood up, and inhaled a great
+breath. This was real life! "Are you _on_, boys?" he cried suddenly. "Is
+the old Orinoco going to the bottom this journey?"
+
+The crew rose at him and gave three cheers.
+
+                               * * * * *
+
+Later that afternoon, as the Orinoco pounded along at a strictly
+processional pace through the ruffling waters,--the glass was falling
+and a breeze getting up,--Deputy-Quartermaster Lionel Hinchcliffe
+Welford-Welford Allerton, late scholar of Trinity College, Cambridge,
+sometime Assistant Deck-Hand in the mercantile marine, descried from his
+post on the bridge a small moving object upon the starboard bow.
+
+It was the Orinoco's whale-boat, which was proceeding under two lugsails
+on a course parallel with the steamer's.
+
+Allerton, who in the excitement of salving the Orinoco had almost
+forgotten the existence of the gang of buccaneers who had scuttled her,
+excitedly rang the telegraph bell and summoned the rest of the ship's
+company to his side.
+
+The emotions, however, aroused in the Orinoco by the sight of the
+whale-boat were mild in comparison with those excited in the undutiful
+whale-boat by the spectacle of her resuscitated parent. Mr. Angus, on
+beholding the steamer, kept discreetly silent. He had given himself away
+by seeing things which were not there once or twice in his life before.
+But Captain Kingdom turned a delicate apple-green.
+
+"Look there!" he gasped, pointing.
+
+"Yon bit cloud, ye mean?" said the cautious Angus.
+
+"No, no, man--the Orinoco!" cried the frantic skipper.
+
+"Oh--the shup! Aye, aye!" replied Mr. Angus, rather pleased than
+otherwise.
+
+"There's a crew on board her," continued Kingdom shakily. "And she's got
+steam on her, too!"
+
+"Aye," said Mr. Angus. "I doot somebody will have closed yon sea-cock
+again."
+
+"Who can it be?" demanded the captain feverishly. "Surely we left no one
+on board. I told Dingle to take that fellow Marrable in his boat."
+
+"Perhaps," suggested Mr. Angus, "yin of the other boats cam' back."
+
+Kingdom pointed impatiently to two small specks upon the horizon.
+
+"They're there," he said.
+
+"Maybe some liner has come across her and left a bit crew on board her,"
+continued the fertile Mr. Angus.
+
+"If so, we'd have seen the liner," replied Kingdom irritably.
+
+He took up his binoculars and began to scrutinise the Orinoco, which had
+altered her course a few points in their direction.
+
+Mr. Angus had a fresh inspiration.
+
+"Did ye mind tae wauken Walsh?" he whispered. "If not, ye ken he micht
+weel--"
+
+The captain lowered his glasses, and nodded.
+
+"He might be one," he agreed; "but there are four men on deck." He
+raised his binoculars again. "Yes, there they are. Well, whoever they
+are and whatever the game is, we must get on board again and do the job
+properly this time.--Hallo, one of them is running below!--Here he is
+again!--He's carrying something--flags, I reckon. They're going to
+signal us."
+
+He was right. Up to the topmost summit of the Orinoco's grimy foremast
+travelled a signal--a banner with a strange device indeed, but conveying
+a perfectly intelligible message for all that. It consisted of the
+nether or unmentionable portion of a ragged suit of orange-and-red
+striped pyjamas.
+
+Having reached its destination, it inflated itself in the freshening
+breeze and streamed out, defiant and derisive, in the rays of the
+setting sun; flinging to the fermenting couple in the whale-boat the
+simple but comprehensive intimation--"Sold!"
+
+Then, with one single joyous toot from her siren, the Orinoco altered
+her course a couple of points and wallowed off in a north-easterly
+direction, leaving the crew of the whale-boat to listen in admiring
+silence to a sulphurous antistrophe in two dialects proceeding from the
+stern-sheets.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER X
+
+                         THE END OF AN ODYSSEY
+
+
+Hughie reckoned that they might have to steam eastward for quite three
+or four days before they sighted land.
+
+This was an underestimate.
+
+The history of the Orinoco's last voyage will never be written. In
+the first place, those who took part in it were none of them men who
+were addicted to the composition of travellers' tales; and in the
+second, their recollections of the course of events when all was
+over, were hopelessly and rather mercifully blurred. Not that they
+minded. One derives no pleasure or profit from reconstructing a
+nightmare--especially when it has lasted for sixteen days and nights.
+
+Some events, of course, were focussed more sharply in their memories
+than others. There was that eternity of thirty-six hours during which
+the Orinoco, with every vulnerable orifice sealed up or battened down,
+her asthmatic engines pulsing just vigorously enough to keep her head
+before the wind, rode out a north-easterly gale which blew her many
+miles out of her reckoning. ("Not that that matters much," said her
+philosophic commander. "We don't know where we are now, it's true; but
+then we didn't know where we were before, so what's the odds? We'll keep
+on steering away about north-east, and as we are aiming at a target
+eight hundred miles wide we ought to hit it somewhere.") Then there was
+a palpitating night when the faithful engines, having wheezily but
+unceasingly performed their allotted task for a period long enough to
+lull all who depended upon them into an optimistic frame of mind, broke
+down utterly and absolutely; and the fires had to be banked and the
+Orinoco allowed to wallow unrestrainedly in the trough of the sea while
+the entire ship's company, with cracking muscles and heart-breaking
+gasps, released a jammed crosshead from the guides and took down a leaky
+cylinder.
+
+They were evidently out of the ordinary sea-lanes, for they sighted only
+one steamer in ten days, and her they allowed to go by.
+
+"None of us understand proper signalling," said Hughie, "so we can't
+attract her attention without doing something absurdly theatrical, like
+running up the ensign upside down; and I'm hanged if we'll do that--yet.
+After all, we only want to know where we _are_. We may be just off the
+coast of Ireland for all I can say, and it does seem feeble to bring a
+liner out of her course to ask her footling questions. It would be like
+stopping the Flying Scotsman to get a light for one's pipe."
+
+"Or asking a policeman in Piccadilly Circus the nearest way to the
+Criterion bar," added Allerton. "I'm with you all the time, captain."
+
+And so these four mendicants allowed a potential Good Samaritan to pass
+by and sink behind the horizon. It was an action typical of their race:
+they had no particular objection to death, but they drew the line at
+being smiled at. Still, there were moments during the next ten days when
+they rather regretted their diffidence.
+
+But events like these were mere excrescences in a plane of dead
+monotony. The day's work was made up of endless hours in a Gehenna-like
+stokehold, where with aching backs and bleeding hands they laboured to
+feed the insatiable fires, or crawled along tunnel-like bunkers in
+search of the gradually receding coal; spells at the wheel--sometimes
+lashed to it--in biting wind or blinding fog; the whole sustained on a
+diet of ship's biscuit, salt pork, and lukewarm coffee, tempered by
+brief but merciful intervals of the slumber of utter exhaustion.
+
+Still, one can get used to anything. They even enjoyed themselves after
+a fashion. High endeavour counts for something, whether you have a wife
+and family dependent upon you, like Walsh, or can extract _la joie de
+vivre_ out of an eighteen-hour day and a workhouse diet, like Hughie.
+
+And they got to know each other, thoroughly,--a privilege denied to most
+in these days of restless activity and multifarious acquaintance.
+
+It was a lasting wonder to Hughie how Allerton could ever have fallen to
+his present estate; for he displayed an amount of energy, endurance, and
+initiative during this manhood-testing voyage that was amazing. He
+himself ascribed his virtue to want of opportunity to practise anything
+else, but this was obviously too modest an explanation. Perhaps blood
+always tells. At any rate, Allerton took unquestioned rank as second in
+command over the heads of two men whose technical knowledge and physical
+strength far exceeded his own. But in his hours of ease--few enough
+now--he was as easy-going and flippant and casual as ever.
+
+Walsh in a sense was the weakest of the quartet. He was a capable
+engineer and an honest man, but he lacked the devil-may-care nonchalance
+of the other three; for he had a wife and eight children waiting for him
+in distant Limehouse, and a fact like that gives a man a distaste for
+adventure. He was a disappointed man, too. He had held a chief
+engineer's "ticket" for seven years, but he had never held a chief
+engineer's billet. He could never afford to knock off work and wait
+until the right berth should come his way: he must always take the first
+that offered, for fear that the tale of boots and bread in Limehouse
+should diminish. As a crowning stroke of ill-luck, he had been paid off
+from his last job because his ship had collided with a New York lighter
+and been compelled to go into dry dock for three months; and by shipping
+in the Orinoco he was barely doing more than work his passage home. His
+ten-year-old dream of delivering Mrs. Walsh from her wash-tub for all
+time, and exalting her from the _res angustæ_ of Teak Street, Limehouse,
+to a social environment reserved exclusively for the wives of chief
+engineers, seemed as far from fulfilment as ever. Still, he maintained a
+stiff upper lip and kept his watch like a man, which is more than most
+of us would have done under the circumstances.
+
+But it was Goble who interested Hughie most. In the long night-watches,
+as they swung the heavy fire-shovels in the stokehold, or heaved the
+ever-accumulating clinkers over the side, or took turn and turn about to
+gulp tepid water out of a sooty bucket, or met over a collation of
+coffee and ship's biscuit--the supper of one and the breakfast of the
+other--in the galley, Goble would let fall dry pawky reflections on life
+in general, with autobiographical illustrations, which enabled Hughie to
+piece together a fairly comprehensive idea of his companion's previous
+existence.
+
+John Alexander Goble had played many parts in his time, like most
+vagrants. He had been born a gamekeeper's son in Renfrewshire, and had
+lost his father early, that devoted upholder of proprietary rights
+having been shot through the head in a poaching affray. After this
+catastrophe the widow, who had openly pined for her native Glasgow
+during the whole of her husband's lifetime, had returned to that
+municipal paradise; and the ripening youth of John Alexander Goble had
+been passed in a delectable locality, known as "The Coocaddens," to
+which he could never refer without a gleam of tender reminiscence in his
+eyes.
+
+Why John Alexander had ever deserted this Eden Hughie could never
+rightly ascertain. His references to that particular epoch in his career
+were invariably obscure; but since he darkly observed on one occasion
+that "weemen can mak' a gowk o' the best man leevin'," Hughie gathered
+that Mr. Goble's present course of life owed its origin to a tender but
+unsatisfactory episode in the dim and distant days of his hot youth.
+
+"After that," John would continue elliptically, "I went tae Motherwell.
+D'ye ken Motherwell? A grand place! Miles and miles of blast-furnaces,
+and the sky lit up day and nicht, like the Last Judgment. I did a wheen
+odd jobs there. Whiles I would hurl a trolley wi' coke, whiles I would
+sort coal wi' some lassies, and at last I got a job as a moulder."
+
+"What's that?" inquired the ever-receptive Hughie.
+
+"What else but a body that makes moulds?"
+
+"Yes, but how does he do it?"
+
+"Weel, there's a sort o' sandy place at the fit o' each
+smelting-furnace--like a bit sea-shore, ye'll understand--and every
+four-and-twenty hours they cast the furnace. They let oot the melted
+ore, that is, and it rins doon intil moulds that hae been made in the
+sand. (Ye dae it by just buryin' baulks o' timber in rows and then
+pickin' them oot again, and the stuff rins intil the hollows that have
+been left. When it's cauld they ca' it pig-iron.) Well, I stuck tae that
+job for a matter o' sax months. But it was drouthy work, besides bein'
+haird on the feet,--you go scratch-scratching in the sand wi' your bare
+soles makin' the moulds,--and presently I gave it up and took tae daen'
+odd jobs among the trucks and engines in the yairds. I liked that fine,
+for machinery is the yin thing that really excites me. First I was a
+coupler, then I was a fireman, then I got tae drivin' a wee shunting
+engine, dunting trucks about the yaird. And at last I was set in charge
+o' a winding-engine at a pit-heid. That was a grand job; but it didna
+last long. I was drinkin' haird by this time--I'd stairtit after I left
+the Coocaddens--and yin' day I was that fou' I let the cage gang doon
+wi' a run tae the bottom o' the shaft."
+
+"Was there anybody in the cage?" inquired Hughie, as Goble paused, as if
+to contemplate some mental picture.
+
+"There was not, thank God! But there _was_ a bit laddie doon ablow in
+the pit, that was sittin' on his hutch--his truck, that is--at the fit
+o' the shaft, waitin' on the cage. He wasna expectin' the thing tae fall
+doon like a daud o' putty, so he was no' sittin' quite clear; and the
+cage cam' doon and took off baith his feet. Man, I hae never forgotten
+his mither's face when they brought him up. I lost ma job, and I hae
+never touched a drop since. For seven-and-twenty years have I been on
+the teetotal--seven-and-twenty years! It'll shorten ma life, I doot," he
+added gloomily; "but I'll bide by it!"
+
+"What became of the boy?" inquired Hughie.
+
+"He's gotten twa wooden feet the noo," replied Goble more cheerfully,
+"and he's been minding the lamp-room this twenty year. I've heard frae
+him noo and again, and we've always been freens; but his auld mither has
+never forgiven me. She's ower seventy the day, but Jeems tells me she
+aye lets a curse every time he mentions ma name."
+
+A further instalment of Mr. Goble's adventures explained how he took to
+the sea.
+
+"After I cleared oot o' Motherwell I went to the Clydeside. I was a fair
+enough mechanic by this time, but I had tak'n a sort o' skunner at
+machinery--no wi'oot some reason--and I tried for to get taken on as a
+dock-hand. I had no luck there, and I was fair starvin' when yin day I
+met a freend o' min' on the Dumbarton Road, and he asked me would I like
+tae wash dishes and peel potaties on a passenger steamer. I would hae
+been pleased tae soop the lums o' muckle Hell by that time, gin it was
+for a wage, I was that thrawn wi' hunger; so I jist said, ''Deed ay!'
+
+"For a hale summer I sat peelin' potaties and washin' dishes on board
+the Electra, her that has done a trip doon the watter, roond about Arran
+and Bute, and hame by Skelmorlie ilka day o' the summer season for
+twenty-twa years. When the winter cam' on I dooted I would be oot o' a
+job again; but bein' nowadays permanently on the teetotal, and varra
+dependable, I was shifted tae the auld Stornoway, o' the same line,
+carryin' goods, cattle, and passengers tae the West Highlands--Coll,
+Tiree, Barra, Uist, Ullapool, and a wheen places in and oot o' sea-lochs
+up and doon that coast. She loused frae the Broomielaw every Thursday at
+three o'clock in the afternoon, and she was back there, week in week
+out, summer and winter, by eleven in the forenoon o' the following
+Wednesday. The folk along by Largs, where her cap'n lived, used tae set
+their watches by her. She was a fine auld boat, the Stornoway: she piled
+herself up on the rocks below the Scuir of Eig, where she had no call
+tae be, in a snowstorm seven winters syne. I was a cabin steward
+nowadays, ye'll unnerstand; and once we were roond the Mull and the
+passengers had thrawn up what they'd had tae their tea off Gourock and
+tak'n a dander ashore at Oban, appetites was big and I was busy. It was
+the first time I had seen the gentry at their meals, and it improved my
+mainners considerable. Never since then have I skailed ma tea intil ma
+saucer: I jist gie a bit blow on it noo. Yon's Mr. Allerton roarin' for
+to be relieved at the wheel."
+
+On another occasion Goble explained how he came to forsake the fleshpots
+of the Stornoway and take to the high seas.
+
+"I was aye hankerin', hankerin' after the machinery," he explained. "A
+body canna serve tables all his life. So after twa years on the
+Stornoway I shippit as a fireman on a passenger steamer outward bound
+frae Glasgow tae Bilbao. There I left her, tae be second engineer on a
+wee tramp carrying iron-ore tae the Mediterranean. That was nigh twenty
+years ago, and I've never set fit in Scotland since. Weel, weel! Aha!
+Mphm!" (_Ad lib._ and _da capo_.)
+
+So he would discourse, in a manner which passed many a weary hour for
+both, and added considerably to Hughie's stock of human knowledge.
+
+The days wore on. The work and long hours were beginning to tell their
+tale, but the entire crew kept grimly to it. Their nerves were in good
+order too. Even when, on the morning of the sixteenth day, as they
+groped their way through a streaming wet fog, a great ghostly monster of
+a liner suddenly loomed out of the wrack, and, as she shouldered her way
+past them, actually scraped the starboard counter with her stern, while
+the look-out on her forward deck yelled frantically, and a frightened
+man up aloft on the bridge flung his wheel over with great rattling of
+steam steering-gear to avoid a collision, the sole occupant of the
+Orinoco's deck--it was Goble: he was steering while Hughie and Walsh
+took their turn in the stokehold and Allerton slept--did not deem the
+occasion sufficiently important to merit a report until he was relieved
+from duty two hours later.
+
+But this encounter provided that pawky philosopher with a valuable clue
+as to their whereabouts.
+
+"She was a Ben liner," he intimated to Hughie in describing the event.
+"I saw the twa bit stripes roond her funnel, and her name, Ben Cruachan,
+on her stern. They're Glasgow boats, and sail every other Thursday tae
+Buenos Ayres, calling at Moville on Lough Foyle tae tak' up Irish
+passengers. It's no' near Cape Clear we are, anyway. We're somewhere off
+the north coast o' Ireland, sir. I kenned fine we were near land: this
+is a ground swell that's throwin' us aboot noo. Aiblins we'll be gettin'
+a dunt against the Giant's Causeway if we're no' canny."
+
+There was something in Goble's conclusions, for after they had steamed
+dead slow all night the rising sun licked up the fog; and there,
+ten miles to the south of them, lay a long green seacoast; and
+straight before them uprose what looked like a rocky island, with a
+homely-looking white lighthouse perched half-way up its rugged face.
+
+"If that land to the right is Ireland," said Hughie, "we can't be very
+far from Scotland. I wonder what that great rock ahead of us can be.
+Lucky we didn't reach it a couple of hours ago!"
+
+"Don't you think," suggested Allerton, putting his head out of the
+engine-room hatchway, "that as we have a _pukka_ Scot on board, we had
+better rouse him up and see if he can identify his native land?"
+
+It was Goble's turn for sleep, but Allerton's suggestion was adopted,
+and he was haled on deck.
+
+"Do you happen to recognise that island straight ahead, Mr. Goble?"
+inquired Hughie.
+
+Goble surveyed the rock and the lighthouse, and though his countenance
+remained unmoved, his eye lit up with proprietary pride.
+
+"Island? Yon's no' an island," he replied. "'Tis Scotland hersel'. Sir,
+'tis the Mull o' Kintyre! It rins straight awa' back tae Argyllshire.
+We're at the varra mouth o' the Clyde. We micht hae been drawed there
+across the Atlantic by a bit string! God presairve us, it's a miracle!"
+
+"The Clyde?" shouted Hughie. It seemed too utterly good to be true. "Are
+you sure, Goble? Is that really the Mull?"
+
+"Sure?" Goble's expression was a mixture of pity and resentment. "Man,
+I'm tellin' ye I sailed roond it twice a week for the best pairt o' twa
+years. I was awfu' sick the first time. The second--"
+
+All this time the Mull of Kintyre was growing nearer.
+
+"What's the course?" queried Walsh, leaning over the bridge. "Do I turn
+up New Cut, Mr. Goble, or keep straight along the Blackfr'ars Road?"
+
+Everybody's spirits were soaring marvellously at the sight of the
+blessed green land. Walsh's wife was within twenty-four hours of him.
+
+"Keep yon heap o' stanes on your left hand, ma mannie," replied the
+greatly inflated Goble, facetiously indicating the towering headland
+before them, "and then straight on Ailsa Craig. You're daen' fine. Mr.
+Marrable, will you rin her up tae the Tail o' the Bank, off Greenock, or
+gi'e a cry in at Campbeltown Bay? It's jist roond the corner."
+
+"Hang it! we'll take her all the way, now we have got so far," said
+Hughie. "We're _home_! I _was_ reckoning on bringing up in Plymouth
+Sound; but that's a detail. Come on, Allerton, let's go below and fire
+up for the last time. We'll bring her in in style!"
+
+And so it came about that not many hours later the Orinoco, a rotting
+hulk, clogged with weed, corroded with rust, caked with salt, feebly
+churning up the water with her debilitated propeller, steamed painfully
+but grandly past the Cloch Light and into the mouth of the Clyde. A
+sorry object she may have seemed to the butterfly host of natty
+paddle-steamers which was pouring down the river under the forced
+draught of triple competition, carrying the Glasgow man, released from
+office, to Dunoon and Rothesay and other summer repositories for wife
+and family. But to those who _knew_, she was no uncleanly tramp, but a
+battle-scarred veteran,--a ship that had deserved well of the Republic
+of the high seas,--another little Golden Hind, though laden with nothing
+nearer to Spanish ingots than bottles of imitation French claret. Every
+scar on her sides was an honourable wound; every groan and creak that
+rose from her starting timbers a pæan; every cough and wheeze that
+proceeded from her leaky cylinders a prayer of joyful thanks. The
+Orinoco had graduated high in the nameless but glorious band of those
+who have illustrated, not altogether without profit and pride, the
+homely truth that
+
+    Life ain't holdin' good cards;
+    It's playin' a poor hand _well_!
+
+And so she turned the last corner of her long and painful Odyssey, and
+came home to lay up her bones by the Clyde, which had given them birth.
+And by a happy chance the unconscious Hughie, instead of navigating her
+to the Tail of the Bank as he had intended, changed his mind, put over
+his helm, and conned her up to the head of that beautiful Gareloch
+which, many many years ago, had given the little ship her maiden name.
+
+There, swinging at her rusty cable, with the clear green water laving
+her weary forefoot, and the hills above Roseneath and Shandon smiling
+reassuringly down upon her in the glow of the evening sun, we will leave
+her. _Molliter ossa cubent!_
+
+                               * * * * *
+
+The law's delays are proverbial, and the task of getting even with Mr.
+Noddy Kinahan involved Hughie in endless encounters with those in high
+places, several appearances (with suite) in the abodes of the Law, and
+another trip to New York--by Cunarder this time.
+
+However, grim determination will accomplish most things; and when some
+months later Hughie finally sailed from New York for his native land,
+the labour of love had been completed, and Mr. Noddy Kinahan was duly
+regretting, for a term of years, the fact that he had ever been born.
+
+This consummation was followed by another, depressing but inevitable.
+The Orinoco Salvage Company, having served its purpose, paid Nature's
+debt and ceased to exist. The circumstances connected with its demise,
+together with the respective fates of Hughie's little band of Argonauts,
+will best be gathered from the following epistolary excerpts:--
+
+                   No. I (N. B. _Spelling corrected_)
+
+                                              c/o MISTRESS HOWIESON,
+                                       17 CANDLISH STREET, GREENOCK.
+
+    To H. MARRABLE, Esq.:--
+
+    SIR,--I thank you for cheque, and have disposed of same. I also
+    thank you for offer to find a job for me. But I would prefer to
+    bide by you, as I feel I will not get a better job than that. I
+    would like fine to be your servant. You will be needing some one
+    to redd up your quarters and keep your clothes sorted, now you
+    are ashore. (Women is no' to be trusted.) Of course I would not
+    want a big wage: the siller from the Orinoco will do grandly for
+    a long time. I ken fine the way to wait at table and clean
+    silver, having been steward, as I once telled you, on the old
+    Stornoway, where they had a cuddy full of gentry every
+    trip.--Your servant (I am hoping),
+
+                                                   JNO. ALEX. GOBLE.
+
+
+                                 No. II
+
+             (_Extracts. No date or address, but obviously
+                        written in a public-house_)
+
+    ... So you must take the money back. It is no use to me: all I
+    should get out of it would be a d----d bad headache. Also, it
+    might give me ideas above my station, which is bad for the lower
+    orders at any time. Give it to Walsh; but don't let on, of
+    course, that it comes from me: let him believe that it is part
+    of his natural share of the salvage. I have kept back enough to
+    pay for a new suit (which I am now wearing) and one big bust
+    before I sail next week as deck steward on an Aberdeen liner.
+
+    ... Well, it was a great trip. We have all got something out of
+    it. You have got an adventure and incidentally done a big thing,
+    and I have spent a month of absolute happiness in the society of
+    men who regarded me neither as an object of pity nor as a
+    monster of depravity, but were content to let me go my own way
+    as a man who prefers to live his own life and be asked no
+    questions.... Your offer to set me on my legs again and make me
+    a respectable member of society is friendly and, I suppose,
+    natural; but it threatens a happy episode with a sad ending. I'm
+    not cut out for conventionality, and (_pace_ your kind
+    references to my "sterling merit and latent force of character")
+    I am not of the stuff that successful men are made of. I have
+    only done two big things in my life. One was getting elected to
+    Pop at Eton, the other was helping you to bring the old Orinoco
+    home. I think I'll rest on my laurels now. I suppose I was born
+    a rotter, and if you were to endeavour to raise me to your giddy
+    heights I should only fall down again, and the bump at the
+    bottom might hurt. I am safer where I am: the beauty of lying on
+    the floor is that you can't fall off.
+
+    ... Well, chin, chin! If I may be permitted to gush for a
+    moment, I should like to tell you that you are a good
+    sort.--Yours ever,
+
+                                                LIONEL ALLERTON.
+
+
+                                No. III
+
+                       No. 4 TEAK ST., LIMEHOUSE.
+
+    DEAR SIR,--I beg to acknowledge with thanks your cheque for
+    share of salvage. It was far more than I expected, and the
+    Adm'ty C'ts have certainly done well by us. At the best, I had
+    hoped for suffic'nt to rig out the nippers with boots and duds
+    for the winter and give the missis a week or two off the laundry
+    work. We have all been fair barmy the last few days. Square
+    meals and a big fire, and you can't hear yours'lf talk for the
+    squeaking of the new boots. We are settling down a bit now, and
+    I have put the rest of the money in the bank and told the old
+    woman she is to burn her wash-tubs. Catch her: I d'n't think!
+    With my new clothes I have obt'd a berth as Chief on board s.s.
+    Batavia, of the Imperial Line, and sail on 21st inst. Her
+    engines are (_several lines of hopeless technicalities
+    omitted_). It was a lucky day for me when I struck the Orinoco,
+    and luckier when Angus doctored my grog.
+
+    On returning from voyage will take the lib'ty of calling on you
+    in London at the address you gave.--Yrs. respect'fly,
+
+                                                       JAS. WALSH
+                                      (Chief Engineer s.s. Batavia).
+
+
+        Postscript (_In a larger and less educated hand_)
+
+    MR. MARRABLE, DEAR SIR,--The children and me begs to thank you
+    for all your kindness to father. Father he is very greatful
+    himself, but would rather leave it to me to tell you, as he
+    don't like. Mr. Marrable, sir, if you could only see the
+    diff'nce in the children, espec'y little Albert, what was always
+    sickly, since they got good boots and food inside them you would
+    feel well paid for your kindness. I know the money did not come
+    from you, but it was through you we got it. God bless you,
+    sir.--Yours resp'fly,
+
+                                              MRS. MARTHA WALSH.
+
+    _P. S._--Our ninth, which has just come, we are taking the liberty
+    to call by your name.
+
+
+
+
+                               BOOK THREE
+
+                           _SUAVITER IN MODO_
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER XI
+
+                             SEALED ORDERS
+
+
+On a bright morning in April Hughie emerged from the offices of Messrs.
+Slocum, Spink, and Slocum, Solicitors, in Lincoln's Inn Fields, and made
+for the Strand.
+
+Like most men who have been abroad for a long time, he trod the streets
+of London with an oddly mingled sensation of familiarity and
+strangeness. At one moment he felt that he had been living in London for
+years, at another he felt that he was exploring a new city. The Strand
+itself, save for the old congested stretch in the neighbourhood of
+Charing Cross, was almost unrecognisable. Gone for ever were the various
+landmarks of his youth, such as the Old Gaiety and the Lowther Arcade.
+Holywell Street and Wych Street, with their delectable environs, had
+vanished like a bad but interesting dream, leaving room for a broad and
+stately thoroughfare, in the midst of which the churches of St. Mary and
+St. Clement Danes split the traffic like boulders in a Highland spate,
+and the Law Courts acquired an unfamiliar prominence. A new fairway of
+uncanny width and straightness clove its course to Holborn, blocked at
+its mouth by a dismal patch of excavated territory resembling nothing so
+much as what Scotsmen term a "free toom," and proclaiming to all and
+sundry, by means of a gigantic notice-board, that This Site was To Let
+as a Whole.
+
+The traffic had developed too. There were countless motor-buses, which
+shook the earth and smelt to heaven; and taxicabs, which skipped like
+rams and quacked like ducks.
+
+But after all, though landmarks change their bearings and banks be
+washed away, the stream flows on unchanged. The people were the same,
+and Hughie felt comforted. The smell of asphalt was the same, and he
+felt uplifted. And when he beheld the torrents of traffic that converge
+on the Wellington Street crossing arrest their courses _seriatim_ and
+pile themselves up in a manner that would have done credit to the waters
+of Jordan, all at the bidding of an imperturbable figure in a blue
+uniform, he felt that he was indeed home once more.
+
+Presently he hailed a taxicab, and whizzed along, exulting like a child
+with a new toy, to a railway station, where John Alexander Goble, having
+previously superintended the placing of his master's luggage in the
+train (with a maximum of precaution on his part and a minimum of profit
+on the porter's), was waiting to see him off.
+
+Hughie dismissed his retainer to take charge of his newly acquired flat
+until his return, and having secured his seat, followed his invariable
+custom and went forward to view the engine. He noted with interest that
+compound locomotives seemed to have made little or no progress in the
+country's favour, but that the prejudice against high-pitched boilers
+and six-coupled wheels had disappeared.
+
+He then made his way to the refreshment room,--where alone, he noted,
+Time's devastating hand appeared to have stood still,--and having
+lunched frugally off something from under a glass dome which the
+divinity behind the counter, in response to a respectful inquiry,
+brusquely described as "fourpence," together with as much bitter beer as
+remained after the same damosel had slapped its containing vessel
+playfully down on the fingers of a pimply but humorous youth who was
+endeavouring to tempt the appetites of two wizened sardines, exposed for
+sale on a piece of toast, with a hard-boiled egg from a neighbouring
+plate, returned to his seat in the train; where he was duly locked in by
+a porter, who displayed an amount of cheerful gratitude for sixpence
+that an American baggage-man would have considered excessive at a
+dollar. Here, with a rug, a pipe, and a quantity of illustrated papers,
+most of which had come to birth since he had left England, and all of
+which appeared to depend for their livelihood on the exploitation of the
+lighter lyric drama, Hughie settled himself for a comfortable run along
+the Thames Valley.
+
+This done, he took two letters from his pocket. One had been opened
+already. It was an obviously feminine production, and said:--
+
+                                              "MANORS, _Monday_.
+
+    "DEAR HUGHIE,--We are all thrilled to hear that you are home at
+    last. You must come down here _at once_ and be our guest until
+    you have looked round, and then you can renew all our
+    acquaintances at one go. There are lots of nice people with us
+    just now, so come! You will be feeling lonely, poor thing,
+    landing in this country after so many years, and of course you
+    will miss poor Mr. Marrable sadly. I suppose you have heard all
+    about his death from the lawyers by this time, or perhaps you
+    saw it in the papers two years ago.
+
+    "Mr. D'Arcy is here; also Joan, of course. My husband, too,
+    wants to have the pleasure of entertaining you--that is, if you
+    are prepared not to shoot him on sight! I don't _think_, though,
+    that I shall be able to command your regretful affections any
+    more. One look at me will be sufficient for you. Alas, I have
+    two chins and three babies!
+
+    "However, come down on Saturday, and you can size us all up. I
+    suppose you know that Mr. Marrable asked us to take Manors and
+    look after Joan until you or he came home again; so you won't
+    play the heavy landlord and evict us on the spot, will
+    you?--Yours ever,
+
+                                                "MILDRED LEROY."
+
+Hughie put this epistle away with a slightly sentimental sigh. It did
+not seem so very long since he had been organising May Week festivities
+in Miss Mildred Freshwater's honour. Now--two chins and three babies!
+_Eheu, fugaces!_
+
+The other letter had not yet been opened, and Hughie broke the seal. The
+envelope looked blue and legal, and its contents consisted of several
+pages of Jimmy Marrable's stiff upright handwriting. The date was nearly
+three years old.
+
+    "I am leaving England again"--it began--"next week, and I doubt
+    very much if I shall ever come back. It is not in the breed to
+    die in bed of something stuffy. The only tie that keeps me here
+    is Joey, and she is too much occupied at present in collecting
+    scalps to pay much attention to the old ruin who brought her up.
+    In about four years' time she may be fit to live with again: at
+    present she is not; and I refuse point-blank for the time being
+    to play second fiddle to any young cub who ever wore magenta
+    socks and a pleated shirt. I think it quite time that you came
+    home and took her in hand. Indeed, if you don't appear on the
+    scene within two years, I have given instructions that you are
+    to be ferreted out and asked to do so. When you do return you
+    will receive this letter, in which I am going to set down the
+    manner in which I wish my estate to be administered on Joey's
+    behalf if I don't come back.
+
+    "In the first place, I must tell you that Manors goes to you by
+    entail, but that all the rest is Joey's, and you will be her
+    sole trustee and guardian. Lance is of age, and independent, and
+    I have disposed of things in such a way that he can't possibly
+    interfere with the management of Joey's affairs. Secondly, I
+    want to tell you something about the children themselves.
+
+    "I am not their father, though I very nearly was, and though
+    every old shrew in the neighbourhood thinks I am. Their mother
+    was the most beautiful and lovable girl I have ever known, and
+    the only woman in the world I ever cared a rap for. Ours was a
+    boy-and-girl idyll, though I was ten years her senior. I had
+    known her ever since I could carry her on my back, and it was
+    always a sort of understood thing between us that we were to
+    marry each other when the time came.
+
+    "Till she was nineteen and I twenty-nine, I suppose we were the
+    happiest couple under the broad heaven. Then she let down her
+    skirt and put up her hair and made her _début_. (I should say
+    that she lived alone with her old father, a retired East Indian
+    of the time of John Company.) To her own surprise and my great
+    pride--at first--she caused quite a sensation, for besides her
+    face she had the prettiest manners possible. If you want to know
+    what she was like you will find a miniature of her among my
+    papers. Or perhaps it would be simpler to look at Joey.
+
+    "But now the trouble began. Irene--that was her name--soon
+    discovered an immense appetite for admiration, which was quite
+    natural and excusable. (One can't blame a girl for making all
+    the runs she can while her innings lasts; God knows, it is short
+    enough!) But presently she could not do without it. She was
+    always 'asking for it,' as they say nowadays. Sometimes she made
+    herself rather conspicuous, and people began to smile at her. I
+    ground my teeth, and, finally, at the least suitable moment, I
+    put my oar in. I expostulated. No, I _didn't_ expostulate: I
+    simply _ordered_ her to mend her ways, and generally acted the
+    Grand Turk and proud proprietor rolled into one. My word,
+    Hughie, she was furious! There had never been any definite
+    engagement between us, and she opened her defence by saying so,
+    pat. It happened at a ball, where she had been making herself
+    rather noticeable with a seedy ruffian--half actor, half
+    poet--called Gaymer, against whom I had been fool enough to warn
+    her. She informed me that she was her own mistress, and that I
+    was an officious busybody. If I had had the sense to tell her
+    there and then that I loved her more than all the world, and
+    that I was jealous of the very ground she walked on,--let alone
+    the people she spoke to,--she would have melted at once, I
+    swear; for she was as impulsive and generous as a child, and she
+    loved me, too, I _know_. If I had even lost my temper and called
+    her a brazen hussy, she would have forgiven me in time: a woman
+    regards a remark like that as a sort of compliment. _But_--I
+    smiled indulgently, shrugged my shoulders, and said that she
+    would look at these things differently when she was older.
+
+    "That did it. Apparently there is only one crime in this world
+    more heinous than telling an old woman that she is old, and that
+    is to tell a young woman that she is young. Irene got straight
+    up and left me sitting, and went home without ever looking in my
+    direction again that night.
+
+    "Next day I called at her father's house to make my peace. I was
+    prepared to admit that I had been an irritating young cub, and
+    eat humble pie generally. But I was too late. She was gone! She
+    had bolted, in some wild fit of pique or sentimentalism, with
+    that long-haired exponent of Byronism-and-water, Lance Gaymer,
+    and had married him at a Registry Office that very morning.
+    Probably she had fallen in with his proposals at the ball--after
+    her interview with me.
+
+    "Well, Hughie, I would rather pass over the next few years. I
+    cut her out of my scheme of things as completely as I could, and
+    went on my way. Fortunately you began to engage my attention
+    about that time, and I rubbed along somehow, and finally
+    developed into the fine old crusted fogey that you know me to
+    be.
+
+    "Ten years later I heard from her. She sent for me. I had never
+    known where she was, nor tried to find out. But I did not expect
+    to find her where I did. She was in a miserable dingy house in
+    Bloomsbury--dying, Hughie! Her ruffianly husband had left her
+    after her second baby was born,--our Joey, that is,--and her old
+    father had been dead eight years. She had not a friend in the
+    world, and yet she would not turn to me till it was too late.
+    Pride, pride, pride! For some years she had been struggling on
+    with a little money her father had left her, and which her
+    husband had not been able to get hold of, and she had also taken
+    in lodgers. _Lodgers_, Hughie! It was only when she realised
+    that she was going out for good that the thought of the kiddies'
+    future began to frighten her, and she sent for me--at last!
+
+    "I was with her during most of the remaining three months of her
+    life, to the scandalisation of virtuous Bloomsbury. I wanted to
+    bring her to Manors, which she had often visited in her
+    childhood, but she said she preferred to die in London; and as
+    she was obviously going to die somewhere pretty soon, I did not
+    press the point. During that time we lived a life of almost
+    perfect happiness; and when she finally slipped away, quite
+    peacefully,--poor child! she was barely thirty-two,--and I took
+    the youngsters home with me, the long waste of years behind us
+    seemed almost as though it never had been, so completely had the
+    recollection of it been wiped out by the intervening three
+    months. Love can work marvels, Hughie, even though it come to a
+    man at the very last.
+
+    "I may add that during the closing weeks of her life I had the
+    supreme satisfaction of marrying her, as we received undeniable
+    proof that her accursed husband had died in South America. This
+    gives me a sort of additional hold over Joey, though I have
+    never mentioned it to her; nor do I think it necessary, for I
+    had rather that her attachment to me remained a purely
+    sentimental one, for the present at any rate.
+
+    "And now, as regards the future. As I said at the beginning of
+    this letter, I don't know whether I shall ever come back from
+    this trip. If I don't, well and good: Joey can take my money. If
+    I do, I am afraid I must request the use of it for myself for a
+    little while longer. However, you will naturally want me to fix
+    some sort of time-limit, and the question has been occupying my
+    attention a good deal. My original idea was to make a kind of
+    provisional will, leaving all my property to Joey, and entitling
+    her to come into possession automatically in the event of my not
+    returning within five years; but the lawyers tell me this
+    arrangement won't work, as I have to be _pukka_ dead before they
+    can shell out. So I have fixed it this way. For the present Joey
+    will want nothing but her daily bread and her fallals and a roof
+    to sleep under, as her so-called education is now completed. I
+    have therefore let Manors to the Leroys, on the understanding
+    that the child is to live there with them for the present. (Not
+    that they required much persuasion.) She is eighteen at the time
+    of writing this letter.
+
+    "Further, I have realised practically all my personal estate,
+    and placed the cash to your credit (on Joey's behalf) at the Law
+    Courts Branch of the Home Counties Bank. When you come home,
+    which I hope will be soon, I want you to take this money and
+    administer it for her benefit. The rest of my property--nothing
+    to speak of in comparison--is set down and duly disposed of in
+    my will (which I have left in the hands of Slocum, Spink, and
+    Slocum, Lincoln's Inn Fields), and cannot be touched until my
+    death is authenticated. I have made you Joey's sole trustee and
+    guardian, and you will enter upon your duties as soon as you get
+    home. She is not to come of age, financially speaking, until she
+    is twenty-four.
+
+    "That's all, I think.
+
+    "Good luck to you in life, Hughie! I can't, I fear, take my
+    stand on the pinnacle of a successful career and shout down
+    advice to you on your way up; neither will I presume to counsel
+    you as to your future. My only piece of advice to you is not to
+    expect much in this world, and then you won't be disappointed.
+    Roughly speaking, there are only three things in life that
+    matter--health, money, and friends. A woman once told me that
+    the recipe for perfect happiness is a million pounds and a good
+    digestion. The last, I admit, is indispensable. Well, you have
+    it: the Marrable interior is dyspepsia-proof. The million pounds
+    you have not got, and don't want. Wealth, after all, is a purely
+    relative affair. You can measure it either by the greatness of
+    what you have or the smallness of what you want. All that a man
+    needs is enough of the first to ensure his getting the second,
+    and I am inclined to think that in your case this should not be
+    a matter of much difficulty.
+
+    "Besides, it is in the _small_ needs of life that money really
+    counts. The yacht, the house in town, the grouse moor--who wants
+    'em? But the cab home in the rain; the occasional bottle of
+    Pommery; the couple of stalls when an old friend looks you up,
+    or the furtive and sympathetic fiver when his widow does,--these
+    are the things that make money really worth having. Besides, the
+    greatest joys are those you have to save up for, so a
+    millionaire can never know them.
+
+    "As for friends--well, there are two classes, men and women. Men
+    I need not trouble you about. If you haven't acquired the knack
+    of handling them during the last ten years you never will, and
+    are no Marrable. Women? I give it up! You can't standardise
+    them. Men are fairly normal as a class. If you deal straight
+    with a man he will realise and appreciate the fact, and though
+    he may not respond by dealing straight with you, he will at any
+    rate recognise you for what you are--a white man. But you can't
+    depend on a woman to do that. They are far stronger in their
+    likes and dislikes than we are, and are hopelessly capricious
+    into the bargain. My general experience--and it has been wider
+    than you might think--has been that, once a woman takes a fancy
+    to you, you may run counter to every canon of honesty, sobriety,
+    and common decency, and she will cleave to you--probably, I
+    fancy, because you arouse all the protective maternal instinct
+    in her. On the other hand, once you get into her bad books,--it
+    may be because you deserve it, but as often as not it is because
+    you have hot hands or once trod on her skirt in a
+    waltz,--nothing that you can do will prevent her shuddering at
+    the very mention of your name. Perhaps, from the point of view
+    of the greatest good of the greatest number, a woman's method of
+    sizing up the male sex is the best possible, but it comes hard
+    on well-meaning but heavy-handed men like us.
+
+    "We Marrables have always been men's men, although we have the
+    profoundest reverence for women. (Perhaps that is the reason: a
+    woman never wants you to reverence women; she wants you to
+    reverence _her_.) What sticks in our throats is the enormous
+    amount of make-believe and shilly-shallying that has to go on
+    between the sexes before any definite business can be
+    accomplished. Whenever I see a Marrable in a drawing-room,
+    sitting on the edge of a chair and balancing a teacup, I always
+    know exactly what he is there for, and I also know that he is
+    dumbly resisting man's primitive instinct to pick up the right
+    girl and _run_. When that feat, or its equivalent, has been
+    accomplished, all is well: I have never known a Marrable who was
+    not a complete success as a husband. But they are bad starters.
+
+    "Your father was an exception. He had the good luck to meet a
+    girl who knew a man when she saw one, and was willing to accept
+    the will for the deed when she found him unable to express
+    articulately what she would have loved to hear. By a further
+    stroke of good luck her parents objected to him, so he had a
+    comparative walk-over.
+
+    "And therefore, Hughie, I counsel you to escape all future
+    unhappiness by marrying Joey as soon as you get home--a
+    consummation to which, as you will probably have gathered by
+    this time, the whole of these laboured and transparent
+    testamentary dispositions of mine are directed. I have left the
+    child entirely in your hands. Marry her as quickly as you can,
+    and then I shall know for certain, whatever my state of
+    existence at the time, that the two people whom I care for most
+    on earth are both booked for a life of perfect happiness. I
+    could not wish a man a sweeter wife or a woman a better husband.
+
+    "Forgive my clumsy methods, but you know I mean well.--Yours,
+
+                                              "JAMES MARRABLE."
+
+Hughie folded up this characteristic document and put it carefully back
+in his pocket. Then he lit his pipe and reflected.
+
+He did not altogether agree with the tone of his uncle's letter, but he
+knew in his heart that it contained a good deal of truth. He was ready
+to marry and settle down, but like most of his race he contemplated the
+preliminary reconnoitring, the manoeuvring for position, and the
+elaborate enveloping movements which seem inseparable from a modern
+matrimonial engagement, with something akin to terror. At the same time,
+it seemed a tame thing to come home and marry a bread-and-butter miss
+out of the schoolroom to gratify the shade of a departed relative.
+
+The train slowed down. They were approaching Midfield Junction, where he
+must change. Hughie took his feet down from the opposite cushions and
+knocked the ashes out of his pipe.
+
+"We'll see," he said. "I must have a look at Joey first. Pretty children
+so often grow up plain. Perhaps it would be simplest to marry her, but
+there's no hurry. I'm home for a rest, and I'm not going to bother
+myself. I have roughed it for nine years. Now I'm going to settle down
+and have an easy time of it."
+
+He was never more mistaken in his life.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XII
+
+                         A CHANGE OF ATMOSPHERE
+
+
+Miss Joan Gaymer sat in a Windsor chair on the landing outside the
+bathroom door at Manors. It was half-past eight in the morning--an hour
+when traffic outside bathroom doors is apt to be congested.
+
+Miss Gaymer was wrapped in a bluish-grey kimono, which, whether by
+accident or design,--I fear there is very little doubt about it,
+really,--exactly matched the colour of her eyes. At the same time it
+failed to conceal the fact--_horresco referens_--that she was still
+attired in what American haberdashers call "slumber-wear." Her slim bare
+feet were encased in red slippers, one of which dangled precariously
+from her right big toe, and her hair hung down her back in two tightly
+screwed but not unbecoming pigtails. At present she was engaged in a
+heated altercation with two gentlemen for right of entry into the
+bathroom.
+
+The only excuse that I can offer for her conduct is that, although she
+was nearly twenty-one, in her present setting she looked about fourteen.
+
+The gentlemen, who wore large hairy dressing-gowns, with towels swathed
+round their necks and mighty sponges in their hands, did not, it must be
+confessed, show to such advantage as their opponent. They were
+distinctly tousled and gummy in appearance, and their wits, as is usual
+with the male sex early in the morning, were in no condition for rapier
+work. They had both been patiently awaiting their turn for the bath when
+Joan arrived, and they were now listening in helpless indignation to a
+peremptory order to return to their rooms and stay there till sent for,
+and not to molest an unprotected female on her way to her ablutions.
+
+"But look here, Joey," said one,--he was a pleasant-faced youth of about
+nineteen,--"we were _both_ here before you; and you know we arranged
+last night that you were to come at twenty past--"
+
+"Binks," commanded the offender in the Windsor chair, "go straight back
+to your bedroom and don't argue with me. If you are good I'll give your
+door a tap on my way back."
+
+But Binks was in no mood for compromise, and furthermore wanted his
+breakfast.
+
+"It's not playing the game," he grumbled; "I was here first, Cherub was
+second--"
+
+"_Who_ isn't playing the game?" flashed out Miss Gaymer. "Have you
+_shaved_, Binks?"
+
+Binks, taken in flank, admitted the impeachment,--which, it may be
+mentioned, was self-evident. "You haven't, either," was the best retort
+he could make.
+
+"No, but I've brushed my teeth," said the ever-ready Miss Gaymer.
+
+"Well," pursued Binks desperately, "you haven't done your hair."
+
+"My lad," replied his opponent frankly, "if you were a woman and had to
+put things on over your head, you wouldn't have done your hair either."
+
+Binks, utterly demoralised, fell out of the fighting line.
+
+"Joey, _I've_ shaved," murmured the second gentleman in a deprecating
+voice.
+
+Miss Gaymer turned a surprised eye upon him.
+
+"_Why_, Cherub, dear?" she inquired.
+
+"Cherub," who was still of an age to be exceedingly sensitive on the
+subject of his manly growth, blushed deeply and subsided. But his
+companion was made of sterner stuff.
+
+"Come along, Cherub!" he said. "Let's run her into her bedroom and lock
+her in until we've bathed. Hang it! It's the third time she's done it
+this week."
+
+"Lay one finger on me, children," proclaimed Miss Gaymer, "and I'll
+never speak to either of you again!"
+
+She made ready for battle by twining her feet in and out of the legs of
+the Windsor chair, and sat brandishing a loofah, the picture of outraged
+propriety.
+
+Her heartless opponents advanced to the attack, and seizing the arms of
+the chair bore it swiftly, occupant and all, down the passage. Joan,
+utterly unprepared for these tactics, was at first too taken aback to do
+anything but shriek and wield the loofah; but shortly recovering her
+presence of mind, she slipped off the seat, and, doubling round her
+bearers, who were hampered by the chair, scampered back towards the
+bathroom--only to run heavily into the arms of an unyielding, sunburned,
+and highly embarrassed gentleman, who had been standing nervously on the
+other side of the door of that apartment for the last five minutes,
+awaiting an opportunity to escape, and had suddenly emerged therefrom on
+a dash to his bedroom, under the perfectly correct impression that it
+was a case of now or never.
+
+"Oh, I _beg_ your--Why, it's Hughie!" cried Joan. "Yes, it _really_ is!"
+
+They recoiled, and stood surveying each other. It was their first
+meeting. Hughie, owing to a breakdown on the branch line, had arrived
+late the night before, after the ladies had gone to bed. Joan and he had
+not set eyes on each other for nine years.
+
+Miss Gaymer recovered her equanimity first.
+
+"You're not a bit changed, Hughie," she observed with a disarming smile.
+"A little browner--that's all. Am I?"
+
+Hughie did not answer for a moment. He was genuinely astonished at what
+he had just seen, and not a little shocked. Where young girls are
+concerned, there is no greater stickler for propriety than your man of
+the world; and this sudden instance of the latter-day _camaraderie_ of
+young men and maidens had rather taken Hughie's breath away. He felt
+almost as fluttered as an early Victorian matron. Suddenly he realised
+that he had been asked a question.
+
+"Changed?" he said haltingly. "Well, it's rather hard to say,
+until--until--"
+
+"Until I've got my hair up and more clothes on?" suggested Miss Gaymer.
+"Perhaps you're right. Still, I look rather nice, don't you think?" she
+added modestly, preening herself in the kimono. "However, you'll see me
+at breakfast. Meanwhile I want you to hold those two boys back while I
+get into the bathroom. Ta-ta, dears!"
+
+And with an airy wave of her hand to the unwashed and discomfited firm
+of Dicky and Cherub, who stood grinning sheepishly in the background,
+Hughie's ward slipped under her guardian's arm and disappeared into the
+bathroom, with a swish of cærulean drapery and a triumphant banging of
+the door.
+
+Half an hour later Hughie descended to breakfast, there to be greeted by
+his host, Jack Leroy, a retired warrior of thirty-eight, of comfortable
+exterior and incurable laziness, and his wife, the one-time render of
+Hughie's heart-strings in the person of Miss Mildred Freshwater. Another
+old friend was the Reverend Montague D'Arcy, whom we last saw dancing
+the Cachuca by the waters of the Cam. Here he was, a trifle more rotund
+and wearing Archidiaconal gaiters, but still the twinkling-eyed D'Arcy
+of old. One or two other guests were seated at the table, but as
+yet there was no sign of Joey. When she did appear, it was in a
+riding-habit; and after a hearty meal, in no way accelerated by urgent
+and outspoken messages from the front door, where her swains were
+smoking the pipe of patience, she dashed off in a manner which caused
+most of those who were over-eating themselves round the table to refer
+enviously to the digestive equipment of the young, and left Hughie to be
+entertained by his host and hostess.
+
+"You'll find her a queer handful, Hughie," said Mrs. Leroy, as she sat
+placidly embroidering an infantine garment in the morning sun on the
+verandah,--in the corner of which the current issues of the "Spectator"
+and "Sporting Life," fully unfurled, together with two pairs of
+perpendicular boot-soles and a cloud of cigar-smoke, proclaimed the fact
+that the Army and the Church were taking their ease together,--"but I
+want you to remember all the time that she is _sound_. You'll be tempted
+to disbelieve that over and over again, but don't! She has been utterly
+spoiled by everybody, and you must give her time to find her level
+again. Left to herself, she would be as good as gold. I don't say she
+wouldn't do something rather _outré_ now and then from sheer animal
+spirits, but that doesn't count. She's young, of course, so she
+can't--she can't be expected to--you know what I mean?"
+
+"Stand corn," remarked a voice from behind the "Sporting Life."
+
+"Thank you, dear: that's just it. You see, Hughie, men egg her
+on,--they're all alike: Jack and Mr. D'Arcy are as bad as any,--and she
+gets excited and carried away, and occasionally she does something
+stupid and conspicuous. Five minutes later she is bitterly ashamed, and
+comes and cries her heart out to me. People know nothing about _that_,
+of course: all they do know is that she did the stupid thing, and they
+call her a forward little cat and a detestable imp. Don't you believe
+them, Hughie!
+
+"Then you'll find her absurdly impulsive and generous: you could have
+the clothes off her back if you wanted them. The other day she came home
+in floods of tears because of a story which a beggar-woman with a baby
+had told her. It was the usual sort of story, but it was quite enough
+for Joey. She had carried the baby herself for about two miles, and
+given the mother all the money she had, and made her promise faithfully
+to come and see me next day. Of course the woman never turned up, and
+Joey's blouse had to be burned,--_oh_, that baby!--but that sort of
+thing doesn't alter her faith in human nature. And she stands the
+_great_ test, Hughie. She hasn't got one set of manners when men are
+about and another when they are not. But she's a kittle creature. You
+must be tender with her, and--"
+
+"Run her on the snaffle, old man--what?" corroborated the "Sporting
+Life."
+
+Hughie blew through his pipe meditatively.
+
+"Seems to me, Mrs. Leroy," he said at length, "that I'm in for a pretty
+thick time. Do you think she's at all likely to take to my present
+methods, or must I learn some new tricks? Afraid I'm not much of a
+lady's man. Still, Joey and I used to be great friends, once. Won't that
+count for something?"
+
+"I'm not sure," said Mrs. Leroy. "You know how the young loathe being
+thought young, or reminded of their youth? Joey is just in that frame of
+mind at present. Because you were a boy of twenty-one when she was a
+child of twelve, she may darkly suspect you of desiring to continue on
+the footing of those days. Don't do that, for mercy's sake! For all
+practical purposes you are much nearer to each other in age than you
+were--"
+
+A chuckle reverberated through the peaceful verandah, and the
+"Spectator" and "Sporting Life" converged for a moment as if to share a
+confidence.
+
+"Jack," inquired Mrs. Leroy sternly, "what were you saying to Mr. D'Arcy
+just now?"
+
+"Nothin', dear," said a meek voice.
+
+"Mr. D'Arcy, what was he saying to you?"
+
+Mr. D'Arcy took in a reef in the "Spectator" and replied suavely,--
+
+"He made use of a sporting expression, dear lady, with regard to your
+plans for our friend Marrable's future, which I was happily unable to
+understand."
+
+"Jack," said Mrs. Leroy in warning tones, "people who put their oar in
+uninvited get taken out for afternoon calls--in the brougham, with both
+windows up!"
+
+The "Sporting Life" was promptly expanded to its full extent, and
+silence reigned again. Presently Mrs. Leroy observed cheerfully,--
+
+"By the way, Hughie, you are home just in time for a dance--the Hunt
+Ball."
+
+Hollow groans burst from behind the newspapers.
+
+"Oh, look here!" said Hughie frankly. "I mean--not really?"
+
+"Yes: I promised Nina Fludyer to back her up and bring a 'bus-load of
+people. Why don't you want to come?"
+
+"Well, for one thing I have only danced twice since I went down from
+Cambridge. One time was at a Viceregal reception in Calcutta, and the
+other was in Montmartre--under less formal conditions. I'll tell you
+what--you and your house-party go to the ball and enjoy yourselves, and
+your husband and I will keep each other company here--eh?"
+
+Captain Leroy put down his paper and said, "Good scheme!" in the loyal
+but mournful tones of one who realizes that it is a forlorn hope, but
+that one might as well have a shot for it. "In fact, dear," he continued
+desperately, "I was thinkin' of takin' Marrable out that very night to
+lie out for poachers. Old Gannet was tellin' me that the North
+Wood--that is--"
+
+He observed his wife's withering eye, and became suddenly interested in
+the advertisements on the back page of his periodical.
+
+"Jack," said Mrs. Leroy in a tone of finality, "on Tuesday night you put
+on your best bib and tucker and come with us--that's flat."
+
+"All right, m' dear," replied her husband in a voice which said to
+Hughie, "I was afraid it wouldn't work, old man!"
+
+"And why don't _you_ want to come, Hughie?" continued Mrs. Leroy,
+suddenly turning on her guest.
+
+"Well, I am not cut out for balls," said Hughie. "Prefer the open air,
+somehow."
+
+"If open air is all you want," remarked Mrs. Leroy grimly, "the Town
+Hall at Midfield is the draughtiest building in the county."
+
+"Balls are dull affairs," urged the faithful but misguided Leroy,
+"compared with the excitement and--er--suspense--"
+
+"If you want excitement and suspense," replied the inexorable Mrs.
+Leroy, "dance the Lancers with Lady Fludyer--fifteen stone of
+imperfectly balanced _blanc-mange_!"
+
+"And just a spice of risk--"
+
+"Risk? My dear boy, try the Ball Committee's champagne!"
+
+Captain Leroy, defeated at all points, once more subsided; but D'Arcy
+took up the argument.
+
+"Joking apart, Mrs. Leroy," he said, "it's an awful thing to be a
+supernumerary man at a dance in the country. You crawl in at the tail of
+your party, and shake hands with the governess, under the impression
+that she is your hostess. You are introduced to a girl, and book a
+dance. You don't catch her name, so you write down 'Red hair and bird of
+paradise' on your programme, and leave her. Of course you know nobody;
+so, after booking a few more wallflowers, you still find a good deal of
+time at your disposal. You can always tell a male wallflower. Women can
+usually brazen it out: they put on an air which implies that they have
+refused countless offers, and are sitting on a hard bench because they
+like it."
+
+"They can't deceive the other women, though," said Mrs. Leroy.
+
+"Still," agreed Hughie, "they impose on men all right. But, as D'Arcy
+says, a male wallflower is hopeless. He looks miserable, and either
+mopes in a corner like a new boy at school, or else reads away at his
+programme and peers about for a partner who isn't on it."
+
+"Why not try the smoking-room?"
+
+"The smokin'-room," interpolated Leroy, "is all right for the regular
+Philistine. But if _I_ go there, I find it in possession of a bilious
+octogenarian and a retired major-general. They are sittin' in front of
+the fire with a cigar apiece. They glare at me when I come in, and then
+go on buckin' to each other. Presently they stop, and one says: 'I
+suppose you are not a dancin' man, sir,' in a way which implies that he
+doesn't know what the devil young men are comin' to nowadays. And by
+this time I'm so ashamed of myself that I simply bolt out of the room,
+with some yarn about a brief rest between two dances, and go and sit
+among the hats and coats in the cloak-room until it is time to go and
+hunt up the next freak on my programme. Rotten job, I call it!"
+
+Mrs. Leroy surveyed the three orators with an air of serene amusement.
+
+"I _have_ roused a storm," she said. "But you are coming on Tuesday--all
+three! Now, Hughie, I know Jack is dying to take you round the stables
+and plantations. When you have smacked all the horses' backs and taken
+the pheasants' temperatures, come in. I want to introduce you to my
+offspring. You are fond of children, I know."
+
+"I know I shall be fond of yours, Mildred," said Hughie.
+
+"Thank you--that's nicely put. But they really are rather pets, though I
+say it who shouldn't."
+
+"Rum little beggars," mused the male parent. "Bite your head off if they
+see you havin' a sherry and bitters before dinner. Got a sort of
+religious maniac of a nurse," he explained. "Been saved, and all that.
+Save _you_ for tuppence, Marrable!"
+
+"She's a queer old thing," said Mrs. Leroy, "but such a good nurse that
+her weaknesses don't matter much. The children are never sick or
+sorry--wait till I tap wood! your head will do, Jack--and simply love
+her."
+
+"I was pleased to learn from their own lips," remarked D'Arcy, "that
+they have been enthusiastic teetotalers from birth, and are both ardent
+supporters of Foreign Missions."
+
+"And the baby?" inquired Hughie.
+
+"Too young," replied Leroy; "but that doesn't excuse the poor little
+sinner from havin' to wear a blue ribbon."
+
+"How does the nurse regard you, Leroy?" asked D'Arcy.
+
+"Lost sheep--hard case--bad egg generally," replied that gentleman
+resignedly. "She's given me up, I'm glad to say; but she'll be on
+Hughie's track in no time. Come along."
+
+In the joy of roaming round the familiar plantations and stables Hughie
+allowed the existence of Mildred Leroy's offspring to fade from his
+memory; and it was not until the party gathered for luncheon that he was
+reminded of the introduction in store for him.
+
+The assembled company consisted of the host and hostess, D'Arcy, Hughie,
+Joan, and the young gentleman previously referred to as "Cherub." The
+others had departed on a sailing expedition. Joan had declined to go,
+alleging that she must stay at home and entertain her "keeper," as she
+had now christened Hughie; and Cherub had speciously pleaded a tendency
+to _mal de mer_, and remained at home to steal a march on his rivals.
+
+The party was completed by two chubby infants of seven and five, in
+large pinafores and short white socks, who were presented to
+Brevet-Uncle Hughie as Theodora and Hildegard, though Hughie discovered,
+after a brief experience of their society, that they answered without
+resentment and much more spontaneity to the appellations of "Duckles"
+and "Stodger" respectively.
+
+They were deposited--it seems the right word--in the dining-room by an
+austere and elderly female, who groaned heavily at the sight of Captain
+Leroy, and eyed Hughie with unconcealed distrust before withdrawing. The
+small girls took their places one on each side of their mother, and sat,
+like two well-bred little owlets, taking stock of their new uncle.
+Presently their vigilance relaxed. It is a truism that teetotalers are
+hearty eaters, and the consumption of what was placed before them soon
+occupied the attention of Mesdames Duckles and Stodger to the exclusion
+of all else, the latter exhibiting a particularly praiseworthy attention
+to duty.
+
+Their sole contribution to the conversation was offered when Leroy
+passed the claret to Hughie.
+
+"Wine," remarked Duckles severely, "is a mocker!"
+
+"Stwong dwink," corroborated Stodger, turning up the whites of her eyes,
+"is raging!"
+
+The two ladies then groaned heavily in concert, and, having thus
+contributed their mite to the redemption of a sinner, resumed their
+repast.
+
+At the end of the meal the numbers of the company were augmented by the
+arrival of John Marrable Leroy, aged two years--an infant whose
+apoplectic countenance sadly belied the small piece of blue ribbon
+inserted in his bib. Having taken his seat in his mother's lap, he
+proceeded, after the manner of babies, to give his celebrated
+entertainment. For the benefit of the company he obligingly identified
+various articles upon the table, and then proceeded to give an
+exposition (assisted by manual contortions) of the exact whereabouts of
+the Church, the Steeple, the Door, and the People. After this, without
+warning or apology, he deposited a nude foot in his mother's plate,
+having in some mysterious manner got rid of his shoe and sock under the
+table; and was proceeding to enumerate the respective marketing
+experiences of a family of little pigs, when his mother, deciding that
+it was high time this _séance_ came to an end, called upon him to say
+grace on behalf of the company.
+
+John Marrable Leroy reluctantly ceased fingering his toes, and twisted
+himself into a state of devotional rigidity. He then closed his eyes,
+folded his hands, and breathed stertorously. All waited with devoutly
+bowed heads for his benediction.
+
+"T'ank God--" began Master Leroy at length.
+
+There was another tense pause.
+
+"T'ank God--" repeated the infant despondently.
+
+Another hiatus.
+
+"'_For_'--dearest," prompted his mother.
+
+A smile of intense relief illuminated the supplicant's troubled
+countenance.
+
+"--Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine, Ten!" he gabbled cheerfully; and the
+meeting broke up in unseemly confusion.
+
+                               * * * * *
+
+It was a hot afternoon, and Hughie, who as yet was far from getting
+tired of doing nothing, was well content to sprawl in a basket-chair
+under a great copper-beech, and watch the others play croquet.
+
+Presently Joan, swinging a mallet, came and sat on the grass beside him.
+
+"Well, Hughie?" she began, regarding her comptroller rather quizzically.
+
+"Well, Joey?"
+
+Then they both laughed, or rather chuckled. The curious part about it
+was that while Hughie laughed "Ha, ha!" deep down, Joey did the same.
+Tee-heeing and high-pitched feminine shrieking were beyond her compass.
+She was the Joey of old, with the same gruff voice, though she had got
+over her difficulty with the _r_'s and _l_'s.
+
+"It seems rummy," observed Miss Gaymer reflectively, "my being put in
+your charge like the guard of a train. Do you expect me to obey you?"
+
+"Yes," said Hughie. He felt he was missing an opportunity of saying
+something bright and striking, but "Yes" was the only word he could
+think of besides "No."
+
+"Oh!" replied Miss Gaymer enigmatically.
+
+"Don't you intend to?" inquired Hughie.
+
+"Well, it depends on what you tell me to do. If it was anything that
+didn't matter much I might do it, sometimes, just to save your face. But
+as a rule I shouldn't."
+
+"Oh!" said Hughie, in his turn.
+
+"I may as well tell you at once," continued the lady, "the things that
+it's no use scolding me about. First of all, I always choose my own
+friends, and never take recommendations or warnings from anybody. Then
+you mustn't interfere with my dancing or sailing or riding, because I
+love them better than anything in the world. Then, you mustn't try to
+prevent my reading books and seeing plays that you think are bad for me,
+because that sort of thing is simply not _done_ nowadays. And of course
+you mustn't call me extravagant if I dress nicely. Also, you mustn't
+expect me to go in for good works, because I hate curates. And don't
+give me advice, because I loathe it. On the other hand, it may comfort
+you to know--it does _most_ men, for some reason--that I don't want a
+vote and I don't smoke cigarettes. Oh, the poor little mite!"
+
+She was on her feet and across the lawn in a flash, to where the obese
+Stodger, prostrate upon a half-buried tree-root, was proclaiming to the
+heavens the sorrow of a sudden transition from the perpendicular to the
+horizontal. She comforted the child with whole-hearted tenderness, and
+after taking her turn in the game of croquet, returned to Hughie and sat
+down beside him again.
+
+"Well--what do you think of me?" she inquired suddenly.
+
+Hughie regarded her intently.
+
+"I don't know yet," he said. "I want to see a little more of you."
+
+"Most people," said Miss Gaymer with dignity, "make up their minds about
+me at once."
+
+"I won't do that," said Hughie. "It wouldn't be quite fair."
+
+Joan pondered this retort and finally flushed like a child.
+
+"That means that you have taken a dislike to me," she said.
+
+"I didn't mean it that way," said Hughie, much distressed,--"really!"
+
+"Anyhow, it means that you haven't made up your mind about me,"
+persisted Joan.
+
+"That is true," admitted Hughie, who was no hand at fencing.
+
+"Well, do it soon," said Miss Gaymer. "I'm not accustomed to being put
+on trial. I may mention to you," she added complacently, "that I am
+considered a great success. Do you know what Jacky Penn told me?"
+
+"No; what?" inquired Hughie perfunctorily. He was beginning to
+understand the inwardness of Mildred Leroy's warning that the girl
+beside him had not yet found her feet.
+
+"He told me," said Joan, with an unaffected sigh of pleasure, "that the
+men here all call me 'The Toast.' What do you say to that?"
+
+"A Toast," said Hughie rather heavily, "is usually 'an excuse for a
+glass.' I shouldn't like to think of you merely as that, Joey."
+
+Miss Gaymer eyed her guardian with undisguised exasperation.
+
+"Hughie, you have got fearfully old-maidish in the last nine years," she
+said. "Where have you been? In any decent society?"
+
+"Sometimes; but not often. Not what _you_ would call decent society,
+Joey."
+
+"Well," remarked Miss Gaymer, turning her opponent's flank with
+characteristic readiness, "whatever it was, it wasn't very particular
+about clothes. Hughie, your get-up is perfectly _tragic_. If you are
+going to be my keeper you will have to begin by dressing decently. I
+don't know who your tailor is, but--Che-e-erub!"
+
+"What ho!" came from the croquet-lawn.
+
+"Come here, at once."
+
+Cherub obediently put down his mallet and approached. Having arrived, he
+halted and stood to attention.
+
+"Cherub," commanded Miss Gaymer, "turn round and round till I tell you
+to stop, and let Mr. Marrable see your clothes."
+
+Much flattered, Cherub rotated serenely on his axis for the benefit of
+the untutored Marrable, while Miss Gaymer ran over his points.
+
+"Must I have a waist?" inquired Hughie meekly.
+
+"Yes--if you've _got_ one," replied Joan, surveying her guardian's
+amorphous shooting-jacket doubtfully.
+
+"And purple socks?"
+
+"Green will do, old man," remarked the _mannequin_ unexpectedly.
+
+"Cherub, keep quiet!" said the _coutumière_. "You have absolutely
+nothing whatever to recommend you but your clothes, so don't spoil it by
+babbling. There, Hughie! That is the sort of thing. You must go up to
+town next week and order some. Run away, Cherub! Now, another thing,
+Hughie. Look at your hands. They're like a coal-heaver's, except that
+they're clean. Can't you get them attended to?"
+
+Hughie surveyed his hands in a reminiscent fashion. They were
+serviceable members, and had pulled their owner through many rough
+places. At present the palms bore the mark of the Orinoco's
+coal-shovels, and there was a great scar on one wrist where Hughie had
+incautiously touched a hot bearing. There was also an incision in the
+middle knuckle of the right hand, caused by the impact of Mr. Gates's
+front teeth on an historic occasion. There were other and older marks,
+and most of them had some interesting story attached to them. But of
+course Joan did not know this. To her they were large, unsightly,
+un-manicured hands--only that and nothing more. Hughie sighed. All his
+old assets seemed to have become liabilities, somehow.
+
+"Aren't they a scandal, Hughie?" Joan repeated.
+
+"I suppose they are, Joey," said Hughie, coming out of his reverie.
+"Right O! I'll get them seen to. I don't suppose they're ever likely to
+be much use to me again," he added in a depressed tone, "so they might
+as well be made ornamental. I'll go and consult Sophy Fullgarney about
+them when I get back to town."
+
+"Who's she?" said Joey quickly.
+
+"Manicurist--before your time," said Hughie briefly, pleased to feel
+that he could give points to his ward in knowledge of something. "Any
+more requirements, Joey?"
+
+"Let me see. Oh, yes. Can you dance?"
+
+"Used to waltz," said Hughie cautiously.
+
+"Decently?"
+
+"I can get round a room."
+
+"Can you reverse properly?"
+
+"If a man reversed in my young days," said Hughie, "we used to regard
+him as a bounder. Do they do it now?"
+
+"Yes, always. Can you do anything else?"
+
+"The usual things--Lancers and polka. Danced a reel once in Scotland."
+
+"Nobody dances the polka now, and I hate the Lancers. Can you two-step?"
+
+"Never even heard of it."
+
+Miss Gaymer sighed.
+
+"Never heard of the Boston, I suppose?" she said resignedly.
+
+"Never in my life," said Hughie. "Look here," he added, inspired by a
+sudden hope, "perhaps it would be as well if I stayed at home on Tuesday
+night--eh?"
+
+"_Quite_ as well," said Miss Gaymer candidly. "But I don't suppose
+Mildred will let you off. You'll be wanted by the wallflowers."
+
+"But not by Joey, apparently."
+
+"I don't dance with rotters," said Miss Gaymer elegantly. "I am
+practically booked up already, too. However, if you apply at once I
+might give you _one_." She thought for a moment. "I'll try you with
+number eight."
+
+"We had better not settle at present," said Hughie. "I should like to
+have a look round the ballroom before I tie myself down in any way. But
+I'll bear your application in mind."
+
+Miss Joan Gaymer turned and regarded her companion with unfeigned
+astonishment. He was still sprawling, but his indolent pose of lazy
+contentment was gone, and for a moment challenge peeped out of his
+steely eyes. She rose deliberately from the grass, and walked with great
+stateliness back to the croquet-lawn.
+
+Hughie sat on, feeling slightly breathless. He had just realised that he
+possessed a temper.
+
+Presently Mrs. Leroy completed a sequence of five hoops and retired,
+followed by the applause of an incompetent partner, to the copper-beech.
+
+She sat down opposite Hughie, and surveyed him expectantly.
+
+"Well, Hughie?" she said.
+
+"Well, Mildred?"
+
+"_Well_, Hughie?"
+
+"I think," said Hughie, answering the unspoken question, "that she
+wants--_slapping_!"
+
+Mildred Leroy nodded her head sagely.
+
+"Ah!" she remarked. "I thought you would say that. Well, I hope you'll
+do it."
+
+                               * * * * *
+
+Hughie reviewed the events of the day, _more suo_, at three o'clock next
+morning, sitting with his feet on the sill of his open bedroom
+window,--the bedroom of his boyhood, with the old school and 'Varsity
+groups upon the walls,--as he smoked a final pipe before retiring to
+rest.
+
+It was almost dawn. The velvety darkness was growing lighter in texture;
+and occasionally an early-rising and energetic young bird would utter a
+tentative chirrup--only to subside, on meeting with no encouragement
+from the other members of the orchestra (probably trades unionists),
+until a more seasonable hour.
+
+Hughie had sat on with D'Arcy and Leroy in the billiard-room long after
+the other men--Joey's _clientèle_--had emptied their glasses and gone to
+bed. There had been a "ladies' night," accompanied by fearsome games (of
+a character detrimental to the table) between sides captained by Joey
+and another damsel; and even after Mildred Leroy had swept her charges
+upstairs there had been bear-fighting and much shrieking in the passages
+and up the staircase. Then the younger gentlemen had returned, rumpled
+but victorious, to quench their thirst and listen with respectful
+deference to any tale that the great Marrable might care to unfold. (The
+story of the Orinoco had gone round, though it had mercifully escaped
+the notice of the halfpenny papers.)
+
+But Hughie had not been communicative, though he had proved an eager and
+appreciative listener to 'Varsity gossip and athletic "shop." So the
+young men, having talked themselves to a standstill, had gradually faded
+away, highly gratified to find the great man not only willing but eager
+to listen to their meticulous chronicles; and Hughie and D'Arcy and
+Leroy, their symposium reduced to companionable limits, had compared
+notes and "swapped lies," as the Americans say, far into the night.
+
+Hughie's impressions of the day were slightly blurred and confused--at
+the which let no man wonder. He was accustomed to fresh faces and new
+environments, but the plunge from yesterday into to-day had been a
+trifle sudden. Last night he had driven up to the door of Manors a
+masterless man, a superior vagabond, an irresponsible free-lance, with
+hundreds of acquaintances and never a friend. In twenty-four hours this
+sense of irresponsible detachment had gone for ever, and the spell of
+English home-life had sunk deep into his being. He felt for the first
+time that he was more than a mere unit in the Universe. He had turned
+from something into somebody. He realised that he had a stake in the
+country--the county--the little estate of Manors itself; and a great
+desire was upon him to settle down and surround himself with everything
+that is conveyed to an Englishman here and abroad--especially abroad--by
+the word Home.
+
+Then there were the people with whom he had come in contact that day.
+They were nearly all old friends, but they were old friends with new
+faces. There was Mildred Leroy, for instance. He had half expected his
+relations with that young matron, the past considered, to be of a
+slightly tender and sentimental nature. Far from it. Her attitude to him
+was simply maternal--as, indeed, it had been, had he realised the fact,
+from the very beginning of their friendship. A woman always feels
+motherly towards a man of her own age, and rightly, for she is much
+older than he is. Occasionally she mistakes this motherly feeling for
+something else, and marries him--but not often. Obviously Mildred Leroy
+now regarded Hughie as nothing more than an eligible young _débutant_,
+the chaperon's natural prey, to be rounded up and paired off with all
+possible despatch.
+
+Then there was Joey. Twenty-four hours ago he had had no particular
+views on the subject of his ward, beyond--
+
+(1) The reflection that he would probably find her "rather a bore";
+
+(2) An idle speculation as to whether, if expediency should demand it,
+he would be able to bring himself to marry her.
+
+Well, twenty-four hours is a long time. He saw now quite clearly that
+whatever Miss Gaymer's shortcomings might be, a tendency to bore her
+companions was not one of them; and that if ever the other question
+should arise, the difficulty would lie, not in bringing himself to marry
+Joey, but in bringing Joey to marry him.
+
+Like a sensible man, he decided to let things work themselves out in
+their own way, and went to bed. There he dreamed that Joey, attired in a
+blue kimono and red slippers, was teaching him to dance the two-step to
+a tune played by the engines of the Orinoco.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XIII
+
+                          _VARIUM ET MUTABILE_
+
+
+Hughie continued during the next few weeks to study the character of the
+female sex as exemplified by his ward Miss Joan Gaymer, and some facts
+in natural history were brought to his notice which had not hitherto
+occurred to him.
+
+In her relations with her male belongings a woman does not expect much.
+Certainly not justice, nor reason, nor common sense. That which she
+chiefly desires--so those who know inform us--is admiration, and, if
+possible, kindness, though the latter is not essential. The one thing
+she cannot brook is neglect. Attention of some kind she must have.
+Satisfy her soul with this, and she will remain all you desire her to
+remain,--_toute femme_,--something for lonely mankind to thank God for.
+Stint her, and there is a danger that she will drift into the ranks of
+that rather pathetic third sex, born of higher education and feminine
+superfluity, which to-day stands apart from its fellow-creatures and
+loudly proclaims its loathing for the masculinity of man and its
+contempt for the effeminacy of woman, but which seems so far only to
+have cast away the rapier of the one without being able to lift or
+handle the bludgeon of the other.
+
+Not that Miss Joan Gaymer ran any such risk. She was indeed _toute
+femme_, and stood secure from the prospect of being cut off from her
+natural provender. Her chief danger was that of a surfeit. She possessed
+a more than usually healthy appetite for admiration, and there was never
+wanting a supply of persons--chiefly of her own sex, be it said--to
+proclaim the fact that in her case the line between appetite and
+gluttony was very finely drawn indeed. There was some truth, it is to be
+feared, in the accusation, for Joan was undoubtedly exhibiting symptoms
+at this time of a species of mental indigestion--what the French call
+_tête montée_ and the Americans "swelled head"--induced by an undiluted
+diet of worship and homage. Appetite for this sort of thing grows with
+eating, and Joan, like her mother before her, was beginning to think too
+much of those who supplied her with the meat her soul loved and too
+little of those who did not. And as those who did not were chiefly those
+who had her welfare most nearly at heart, she was deprived for the time
+being of a good deal of the solid sustenance of real friendship.
+
+She was a curious mixture of worldly wisdom and naïveté, and was frankly
+interested in herself. She was undisguisedly anxious to know what people
+thought of her, and made no attempt to conceal her pleasure when she
+found herself "a success." On the other hand, she presumed a great deal
+too much on the patience and loyalty of her following. She was always
+captious, frequently inconsiderate, and, like most young persons who
+have been respectably brought up, was desperately anxious to be
+considered rather wicked.
+
+These facts the slow-moving brain of Hughie Marrable absorbed one by
+one, and he felt vaguely unhappy on the girl's account, though he could
+not find it in his heart to blame her. Joey, he felt, was merely making
+full use of her opportunities. Within her small kingdom, and for her
+brief term, she held authority as absolute as that, say, of a secretary
+of state, nor was she fettered by any pedantic scruples, such as might
+have hampered the official in question, about exercising the same; and
+Hughie, who was something of an autocrat himself, could not but admit
+that his ward was acting very much, _mutatis mutandis_, as he would have
+done under similar circumstances.
+
+But as time went on and his sense of perspective adjusted itself, he
+began to discover signs that beneath all her airs and graces and foam
+and froth, the old Joey endured. She was a creature of impulse, and her
+vagaries were more frequently due to the influence of the moment than
+any desire to pose. She would disappoint a young man of a long-promised
+_tête-à-tête_ on the river, to go and play at shop in a plantation with
+the under-keeper's children. She would shed tears over harrowing but
+unconvincing narratives of destitution at the back door. She was kind to
+plain girls,--which attractive girls sometimes are not,--and servants
+adored her, which is a good sign of anybody.
+
+She was lavishly generous; indeed, it was never safe for her girl
+friends to express admiration, however discreet, for anything belonging
+to her, for she had an embarrassing habit of tearing off articles of
+attire or adornment and saying, "I'll give it to you!" with the
+eagerness and sincerity of a child.
+
+And her code of honour was as strict as a schoolboy's--than which no
+more can be said. A secret was safe with her. She had once promptly and
+permanently renounced the friendship of a particular crony of her own,
+who boasted to her, giving names and details, of a proposal of marriage
+which she had recently refused.
+
+In short, Miss Joan Gaymer strongly resembled the young lady who in
+times long past was a certain poetical gentleman's Only Joy. She
+was sometimes forward, sometimes coy,--sometimes, be it added,
+detestable,--but she never failed to please--or rather, to attract,
+which is better still.
+
+Mrs. Jack Leroy spared neither age nor sex on the night of the Hunt
+Ball. Her husband, Hughie, and the Reverend Montague D'Arcy--all
+suffering from that peculiar feeling of languid depression which
+invariably attacks the male sex about 9.30 P.M. when dancing is in
+prospect--were hounded into pumps and white gloves, and packed into the
+omnibus, which, after a drive of seven miles, during which the gentlemen
+slept furtively and the tongues of Joan and her girl friends wagged
+unceasingly, deposited the entire party of twelve on the steps of the
+Town Hall at Midfield.
+
+Their numbers had been completed by some overnight arrivals. The first
+two were Mr. and Mrs. Lance Gaymer. Joan's only brother had taken upon
+him the responsibility of matrimony at the early age of twenty-two,
+and the rather appalling young person who preceded him into the
+drawing-room, and greeted Joan as "Jowey," was the accessory to the
+fact. Why or where Lance had married her no one knew. He had sprung her
+one day, half proudly, half defiantly, upon a family circle at Manors
+which was for the moment too horror-struck to do anything but gape.
+Fortunately Uncle Jimmy was not present,--he had departed on his voyage
+by this time,--and it was left to Joan to welcome the latest addition to
+the house of Gaymer. This she did very sensibly and prettily, though she
+wept unrestrainedly upon the sympathetic bosom of Mildred Leroy
+afterwards.
+
+For Lance's sake Mrs. Gaymer was accepted without demur. Whatever she
+was or had been,--whether she had manipulated a beer-engine or
+gesticulated in musical comedy,--there she was, and had to be
+assimilated. No questions were asked, but she was religiously invited to
+Manors at intervals, and Joan and Mrs. Leroy, when they went up to town
+in the season, paid occasional state calls upon Mrs. Lance at her
+residence in Maida Vale, where they drank tea in company with the
+_alumnæ_ of the variety stage and the jug-and-bottle department.
+
+Lance himself was understood to be making a living out of journalism. He
+looked considerably more than twenty-three.
+
+The third arrival was a Mr. Guy Haliburton, proposed for admission by
+Mr. Lance Gaymer, seconded by Mrs. Lance Gaymer. He was full of
+deference, and apologised with graceful humility for his presence. He
+felt himself a horrible intruder, he said, but he had been assured so
+earnestly by "old Lance" that Mrs. Leroy was in want of another dancing
+man, that he had ventured to accept his vicarious invitation and come to
+Manors. He was made welcome.
+
+Mr. Haliburton, on further acquaintance, described himself as an actor,
+but Hughie, whose judgments of men--as opposed to women--were seldom
+wrong, put him down unhesitatingly as a gentleman who lived, actor or
+no, by his wits. He was a striking-looking personage of about thirty. He
+had curly black hair and dark eyes, with dangerous eyelashes. He was
+well dressed,--too well dressed for the country,--and one felt
+instinctively that he was a good card-player, and probably objected to
+cold baths and early rising.
+
+The Manors party were greeted in the vestibule of the Town Hall by Lady
+Fludyer, self-appointed Mistress of the Revels. At present she more
+nearly resembled a well-nourished Niobe.
+
+"My dear," she cried, falling limply upon Mrs. Leroy and kissing her
+feverishly, "what _do_ you think has happened?"
+
+"Band not come?" hazarded Mrs. Leroy.
+
+"Worse! Not a man--not a subaltern--not a drummerboy can get away from
+Ipsleigh to-night!" (Ipsleigh was a neighbouring military _depôt_, and a
+fountain-head of eligibility in a barren land.) "They have all been
+called out to some absurd inspection, or route-march, or manoeuvres, or
+something, at twenty-four hours' notice. And they were coming here in
+_swarms_! There won't be nearly enough men to go round now. Half the
+girls will be against the wall all night! Oh, my _dear_, when I get hold
+of the General--"
+
+Lady Fludyer's voice rose to a shriek, and she plunged wailing into a
+dark doorway, like a train entering a tunnel.
+
+Mrs. Leroy turned to her shrinking cavaliers, with satisfaction in her
+eye.
+
+"It's as well I brought the lot of you," she said. "Now get to work.
+Jack, the first waltz with you, if you please."
+
+The ball was soon in full swing, though it was only too plain that men
+were somewhat scarce. Hughie, much to his alarm, found his programme
+full in ten minutes, and presently, bitterly regretting the stokehold of
+the Orinoco, put forth into the fray with Mrs. Lance Gaymer, having
+decided to do his duty by that lady as soon as possible, and get it
+over. She addressed him as "dear boy," and waltzed in a manner which
+reminded him of the Covent Garden balls of his youth, thereby causing
+the highest and haughtiest of the county to inquire of their partners
+who she might be. The word soon passed round that she was the wife of
+young Gaymer. ("You remember, don't you? Rather an unfortunate marriage,
+and all that. Barmaid, or something. However, the family have decided to
+make the best of her. They'll have their hands full--eh?") Whereupon
+fair women elevated their discreetly powdered noses a little higher,
+while unregenerate men hurried up, like the Four Young Oysters, all
+eager for the treat, and furtively petitioned Lance Gaymer to introduce
+them to his wife.
+
+On entering the ballroom Joan Gaymer, serenely conscious of a
+perfectly-fitting new frock and her very best tinge of colour, took up
+her stand at her recognised "pitch" beside the end pillar on the left
+under the musicians' gallery, and proceeded to fill up the vacancies
+caused in her programme by the defection of the dancing warriors from
+Ipsleigh. Among the first applicants for the favour of a waltz was Mr.
+Guy Haliburton.
+
+"All right--number two," said Joan.
+
+Haliburton wrote it down, and asked for another.
+
+"I'll see how you waltz first," said Miss Gaymer frankly.
+"Then--perhaps! I am rather particular."
+
+The music had risen to her brain like wine, and she was in what her
+admirers would have called her most regal, and her detractors her
+most objectionable, mood. Mr. Haliburton, however, merely bowed
+reverentially, and made way for an avalanche of Binkses and Cherubs,
+with whom Joan, babbling at the top of her voice and enjoying every
+moment of her triumph, booked a list of fixtures that stretched away far
+into to-morrow morning.
+
+The waltz with the fascinating Haliburton proved so satisfactory,--in
+point of fact, he was easily the best dancer in the room,--that Joan
+immediately granted him two more. It was characteristic of her that she
+declined to take the floor again until the unfortunate gentlemen at
+whose expense Haliburton was being honoured had been found, brought to
+her, and apprised of their fate. They protested feebly, but Joan swept
+them aside in a fashion with which they were only too familiar.
+
+"Run way, chicks," she said maternally, "and get fresh partners. There
+are heaps of nice girls to spare to-night. Look at that little thing
+over there, with the blue eyes, and forget-me-nots in her hair. Get
+introduced to her--she's perfectly _lovely_. Worth six of me, any day.
+Trot!"
+
+But the two young men, refusing to be comforted, growled sulkily and
+elbowed their way outside, to console each other for the fragility of
+petticoat promises, and fortify themselves against any further slings
+and arrows of outrageous Fortune of a similar nature, in the refreshment
+room.
+
+Still, the girl to whom Joan had directed their attention was well worth
+notice. She stood near the door, a slim, graceful, and somehow rather
+appealing little figure. Her hair was the colour of ripe corn, her eyes,
+wide and wondering, were as blue as the forget-me-nots in her hair, and
+her lips, to quote King Solomon upon a very different type of female,
+were like a thread of scarlet. She wore a simple white frock, and
+carried in her hand the bouquet of the _débutante_.
+
+Joan swung past her in the embrace of the ever-faithful Binks.
+
+"That child is a perfect dream," she said to herself, "but her mouth is
+trembling at the corners. I wonder if some man has forgotten to ask her
+to dance. I should think--"
+
+At this point in her reflections she was whirled heavily into the orbit
+of a reversing couple, and the ensuing collision, together with the
+enjoyment of exacting a grovelling apology from the hapless Binks (who
+was in no way responsible for the accident), drove further cogitations
+on the subject of the girl with the forget-me-nots out of her head.
+
+About midnight Joan slipped upstairs to what her last partner--a
+mechanically-minded young gentleman from Woolwich--described as the
+repairing shop, to make good the ravages effected by the Lancers as
+danced in high society in the present year of grace.
+
+The music for the next waltz was just beginning when she returned to her
+pillar. No eager partner awaited her, which was unusual; and Joan
+glanced at her programme. She bit her lip.
+
+"Number eight," she said to herself. "Joey, my child, he has scored you
+off--and you deserve it!"
+
+This cryptic utterance had reference to Mr. Hugh Marrable, to whom it
+may be remembered this particular dance had been offered, much as a bone
+is thrown to a dog, on the lawn at Manors three days before.
+
+Hughie's subsequent demeanour had piqued his ward's curiosity. He had
+made no further reference to number eight, neither had he made any
+attempt during this evening to come up and confirm the fixture. In fact,
+he had not asked Joan for a dance at all, with the consequence that Miss
+Gaymer, who, serenely confident that her guardian would come and eat
+humble pie at the last moment, had kept number eight free, now found
+herself occupying the rather unusual _rôle_ of wallflower. What was
+more, she knew she would be unable to pick up a partner, for every
+available man was being worked to the last ounce, and pretty girls still
+sat here and there about the room, chatting with chaperons and
+maintaining a brave appearance of enjoyment and _insouciance_.
+
+"I'm not going to let Hughie see me propping a wall _this_ dance," said
+Joan to herself with decision. "He would think I had been keeping it for
+him. What shall I do? Go back to the cloakroom? No; it is always full of
+girls without partners pretending they've just dropped in to get sewn
+up. I'll go to the Mayor's parlour and sit there. It's never used at
+these dances."
+
+Making a mental entry on the debit side of her missing partner's ledger,
+Miss Gaymer retired unostentatiously from the ballroom, and turned down
+an unlighted passage, which was blocked by a heavy screen marked
+"Private," and encumbered with rolls of carpet and superfluous
+furniture.
+
+The darkened passage was comfortably cool and peaceful after the blaze
+and turmoil of the field of action, and apparently had not been
+discovered by couples in search of seclusion. Joan was approaching the
+end, where she knew the door of the Mayor's parlour was situated, when
+she became aware of a certain subdued sound quite near her. It was a
+sound well calculated to catch the ear of one so tender-hearted as
+herself. Some one was sobbing, very wretchedly, in the darkness within a
+few feet of her.
+
+Joan stopped short, a little frightened, and peered about her. Her eyes
+were growing accustomed to the gloom, and presently she beheld a glimmer
+of white almost at her knee. The glimmer outlined itself into the form
+of a filmy ball-dress.
+
+Joan tackled the situation with her usual promptitude.
+
+"I say," she said, "what's the matter? Let me help you."
+
+The sobbing ceased, and the white figure sat up with a start.
+
+"If you don't mind," continued Joan, "I'm going to turn up this electric
+light."
+
+There was a click, and the rays of a single and rather dusty
+incandescent lamp illuminated the scene, and with it the slender figure,
+seated forlornly on a roll of red carpet, of the little lady of the
+forget-me-nots.
+
+Her face was flushed with sudden shame, for her shoulders were still
+heaving, and her cheeks glistened with tears, the which she dabbed
+confusedly with a totally inadequate scrap of pocket handkerchief.
+
+Joan, regardless of her new frock, was down upon the dusty roll of
+carpet in a moment. She put her arm round the girl.
+
+"My dear," she said authoritatively, "what is it? Tell me."
+
+The girl told her. It was a simple story, and not altogether a novel
+one, but it contained the elements of tragedy for all that.
+
+This was her coming-out ball. She pointed to her discarded bouquet lying
+on the grimy floor. Her father had put it into her hand, and hung a
+little enamel pendant round her neck, and given her a kiss,--she told
+her story with all a child's fidelity to detail,--and had despatched her
+in her brother's charge, with admonitions not to break too many hearts,
+on the long fourteen-mile drive to Midfield,--a period occupied in
+ecstatic anticipations of the event to which she had been looking
+forward ever since she had put her hair up.
+
+Her brother, on their arrival, had booked one dance with
+her,--subsequently cancelled with many apologies on the ground that he
+had just met a girl whom he simply _must_ dance with,--and introduced
+her to two young men whose programmes were already full; after which he
+had plunged into the crowd, comfortably conscious that his duty had been
+done, leaving his sister to stand, smiling bravely, with tingling feet
+and her heart in her throat, from half-past nine until a quarter-past
+twelve. The music was pulsing in her ears, youth and laughter were
+swinging easily past her--even brushing her skirt; and she was utterly
+and absolutely alone. She was just eighteen; she was the prettiest girl
+(with the possible exception of Joan Gaymer) in the room; it was her
+first ball--and not a man had asked her to dance. A small matter,
+perhaps, compared with some, but men have blown out their brains for
+less.
+
+Long before she had sobbed out all her pitiful little narrative her head
+was on Joan's shoulder, and that mercurial young person, oblivious of
+everything save the fact that here was a sister in distress, was
+handling the situation as if she were twenty years her companion's
+senior instead of two.
+
+"I stood it for nearly three hours," said the girl apologetically, "and
+then I--I came here."
+
+"Well, my dear," said Joan with decision, "you aren't going to stay here
+any longer. You are coming straight back to the ballroom with me."
+
+"I can't," replied the girl,--"I couldn't _bear_ it!"
+
+"You are coming back to the ballroom with me," repeated Miss Gaymer
+firmly. "There are sixteen dances to go yet, and you are going to dance
+the soles of your slippers through, my child!"
+
+"You are awfully kind," said the girl wistfully, "but you won't be able
+to find me a partner now."
+
+"I can find you sixteen," said Joan.
+
+The child turned wondering eyes on her, and asked a question.
+
+"Me? Oh, I shall have a rest: I want one," replied Miss Gaymer,
+_splendide mendax_. "In fact, it will be a charity on your part to take
+them. They're all stupid, and they can't dance."
+
+But the girl shook her head.
+
+"You're a dear to suggest it," she said, "but it wouldn't do. Think how
+angry they would be, having booked a dance with Miss Gaymer, and only
+getting--"
+
+"Do you know me?" asked Joan in surprise.
+
+"Everybody knows you," said the girl.
+
+Joan flushed rosily. It was a compliment after her own heart.
+
+"I say, what's _your_ name?" she asked.
+
+"Sylvia Tarrant."
+
+Joan nodded. "I know now," she said. "You live near Gainford."
+
+The Tarrants were new-comers. Sylvia's father was a retired sailor and a
+widower, and had but lately settled in the district, which would account
+for his daughter's want of acquaintance.
+
+"Yes," said Sylvia. "But really, I could not take your partners. They'd
+be furious at getting me instead of you."
+
+Miss Gaymer turned and scrutinised the face and figure beside her.
+
+"All you want, my child," she said, "is a _start_. After to-night you'll
+never be left alone for two seconds at any ball you care to go to. In
+fact, I don't see how I shall ever be able to get any partners at all,"
+she added plaintively.
+
+At this idea the girl laughed and looked happier, which was just exactly
+what Joan meant her to do. Her spirit was returning.
+
+Joan rose briskly.
+
+"Now, Sylvia," she said, "I'm going to leave you for two minutes,
+because I want to find a man to send round and tell all my partners that
+you've agreed to take them on. Then I'll come back and get you started.
+Just put yourself straight. There's a loose end of hair here: I'll roll
+it up. There! Your eyes are getting better every minute. Give your skirt
+a shake out, and have a look at yourself in that mirror, and you'll be
+simply perfect. So long!"
+
+"There's somebody coming," said Sylvia, turning from her toilet and
+looking over her shoulder.
+
+A masculine form filled the passage. It was Hughie, who, deprived of a
+partner through Joan's absence,--the result of standing on his dignity
+in the matter of number eight,--was prowling about in search of a quiet
+spot where he might indulge in the luxury of a pipe.
+
+Joan, who had forgotten all about number eight, received him with
+unfeigned pleasure, and hurried him back whence he came. On the way she
+breathlessly explained the situation to him.
+
+"Hughie, that poor child has come here not knowing a soul, and has stood
+against the wall for three hours. There isn't a partner to be had for
+love or money at this hour, so she must just have mine. Take my
+programme--wait a minute, I'll fill in some of these initials--and go
+round to all the men whose names are on it, and tell them I'm very sorry
+but I've got a headache and can't dance any more to-night, but they're
+to come to me at once at my pillar and be introduced to a substitute
+I've provided for them."
+
+"Do you think they'll exactly--_jump_ at the idea of a substitute?"
+suggested Hughie mildly.
+
+"Their business," said Miss Gaymer with a sudden return to her usual
+manner, "is to do what I tell them! Run, Hughie. Don't say a word about
+the poor kid not having been able to get partners, will you? Say she
+came late--anything! You understand?"
+
+Hughie nodded.
+
+"I understand," he said. "She came late, and you have a headache. Those
+are the two essential facts of the case--eh?"
+
+"Yes. Hurry!" said Joan, giving her guardian a push.
+
+"Joey," said Hughie, "you're a brick!"
+
+                               * * * * *
+
+Half an hour later the members of the Midfield Hunt Ball were
+electrified to behold Miss Joan Gaymer sitting between two comatose and
+famished chaperons, watching the dancers with indulgent eye, and
+generally presenting the appearance of one whose time for these follies
+is overpast.
+
+Then heads began to turn in another direction. People were asking one
+another who the little thing with the forget-me-nots might be, who
+danced like a fairy, and appeared to have made a "corner" in all Miss
+Gaymer's usual admirers. Had her appearance anything to do with Miss
+Gaymer's retirement? A case of pique--eh? Heads wagged sagely, and
+eyebrows were elevated. Poor Joan! Like all the great ones of the earth,
+she had her detractors.
+
+Sylvia herself was lost in the clouds by this time. When not engaged in
+obeying Joan's mandate to dance the soles of her slippers through, she
+was granting interviews to obsequious young men, who surged round in
+respectful platoons and hoped that, though disappointed on this
+occasion, they might have the pleasure at the County Bachelors' on
+Thursday fortnight.
+
+Never was there such a triumph. The girl, radiant and fluttering, smiled
+and blushed and wrote down hopeless hieroglyphics on the back of her
+programme, while Miss Joan Gaymer, the deposed, the eclipsed, sat
+contentedly by and realised to the full the truth of her own dictum that
+all Sylvia Tarrant wanted was a start.
+
+Later in the evening the watchful eye of Hughie Marrable detected the
+fact that Joan had disappeared from amid the concourse of matrons, and
+he speculated as to where she might be. He himself was enjoying a brief
+period of freedom, his partner for the moment having pleaded urgent
+private repairs and vanished to the regions above, and the idea had
+struck him that Joan might be going supperless.
+
+A brief scrutiny informed him that she was neither in the ballroom nor
+the supper-room. Then an inspiration seized him. Waiting for a
+comparatively quiet moment, he paid a hasty visit to the latter
+apartment, and having levied a contribution upon the side-table, slipped
+furtively round the big screen and down the dark passage.
+
+His instincts had not failed him. Miss Joan Gaymer was sitting
+peacefully upon the roll of red carpet. Her head was lying back against
+the wall, and the rays of the dusty electric light glinted upon her
+coppery hair. Her eyes were closed, but she opened them at Hughie's
+approach, blinking like a sleepy Dryad.
+
+"Hallo, Hughie!" she observed. "You nearly won a pair of gloves that
+time. Long evening, this!"
+
+Hughie began to deposit articles on the floor.
+
+"Supper," he observed briefly.
+
+He laid out a plate of mayonnaise, another of trifle, a bottle about
+half-full of champagne, and a tumbler.
+
+"Hughie," said Joan, "you're the only real friend I have in the world! I
+was nearly _crying_ for something to eat. That, and seeing other people
+dance and not me. Hughie, it was simply awful! I had no idea: if I had
+sat there much longer I should have burst into tears. I'd forgotten,
+too, that by giving away all my partners I was giving away my supper. If
+I'd remembered I would have kept just one--a little one. But never mind,
+now: the plague is stayed. I owe you one for this. How did you manage to
+carry all those things?"
+
+"Large hands," said Hughie. "Half a minute!"
+
+He produced from his tail-pocket two forks, a napkin, and a bottle of
+soda-water.
+
+"I remembered you liked your drink diluted," he said, pouring out both
+bottles at once. "I noticed it at dinner, the other night."
+
+"Hughie, you're a dear!" said Joan impulsively.
+
+"Say when!" remarked Hughie unsteadily.
+
+                               * * * * *
+
+It was five o'clock in the morning. The band had played "Whisper and I
+shall hear," followed by "John Peel," followed by "God save the King,"
+followed by "John Peel," once more, followed by "God save the King"
+again, and the musicians were now putting away their instruments with an
+air of finality which intimated that in their humble opinion the
+Midfield Hunt Ball had had its money's worth.
+
+The Manors party, all twelve of them, were being scientifically packed
+into an omnibus constructed to seat ten uncomfortably, and Joan was
+waiting her turn in the portico. At this moment Sylvia Tarrant, followed
+by a slightly sheepish brother, came down the steps. Her cheeks were
+excessively pink and her eyes blazed.
+
+She saw Joan, and stopped.
+
+"I was afraid I was going to miss you," she said. "Good-night!"
+
+"Good-night!" said Joan.
+
+The little girl--she was a head shorter than Joan--placed her hands upon
+her new friend's shoulders, and stood on tiptoe.
+
+"I should like to kiss you," she said shyly.
+
+"Oh, my dear!" said Joan, quite flustered. "Of course--if you like.
+There!"
+
+She was unusually silent all the way home, and when they reached Manors
+said good-night to Mrs. Leroy and flitted upstairs to her room. The rest
+of the party dispersed ten minutes later, and Hughie was left alone with
+his host and hostess.
+
+"I have never known that child have a headache before," said Mrs. Leroy
+rather anxiously, as Hughie lighted her candle. "I hope there's nothing
+wrong."
+
+"She's as right as rain," said Hughie. "She gave up all her
+partners--every man Jack of them--I mean--I'm sorry! I don't think she
+meant me to tell--"
+
+"You may as well finish now," said Mrs. Leroy composedly.
+
+Hughie did so. Mrs. Leroy nodded.
+
+"It was like her," she said softly, "especially telling you to keep
+quiet about it. A good many women might have given up their dances, but
+very few could have resisted the temptation to make capital out of their
+generosity. Never tell me again, miserable creature," she continued,
+turning suddenly upon her comatose spouse, "that a woman is incapable of
+doing a good turn to another woman!"
+
+"Cert'nly, m'dear," replied Captain Leroy, making a desperate effort to
+close his mouth and open his eyes.
+
+"But of course," broke in Hughie unexpectedly, "there are precious few
+women like Joey."
+
+Then he bit his lip, and turned a dusky red.
+
+Mrs. Leroy, being a woman, took no outward notice, but her husband, who
+was a plain creature, turned and regarded his guest with undisguised
+interest.
+
+"What _ho_!" he remarked, wagging his sleepy head.
+
+"Good-night, old man!" said Hughie hurriedly.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XIV
+
+                             BUSINESS ONLY
+
+
+Next morning Hughie made Miss Joan Gaymer a proposal of marriage.
+
+It was not an impressive effort--very few proposals are. But a
+performance of this kind may miss the mark as a spectacle and yet, by
+the indulgence of the principal spectator, achieve its end. Even thus
+Hughie failed, and for various reasons.
+
+In the first place, he proposed directly after breakfast, which, as Joey
+pathetically observed to Mrs. Leroy long afterwards, was just the sort
+of brutal thing he would do. A woman, especially if she be young, likes
+to be won, or at any rate wooed, in a certain style. A secluded spot,
+subdued light, mayhap a moon; if possible, distant music--all these
+things tell. If Hughie had paid a little more attention to stage-effects
+of this kind he might have found his ward more amenable. Being a
+Marrable, he brushed aside these trappings and came straight to what he
+fondly imagined was the point, little knowing that to a young girl
+romance and courtship make up one great and glorious vista, filling the
+eye and occupying the entire landscape, while marriage is a small black
+cloud on the distant horizon.
+
+His actual method of procedure was to sit heavily down beside his ward
+as she enjoyed the morning sun in a corner of the lawn, and say,--
+
+"Joey, I want to talk to you--on business."
+
+"All right, warder," replied Miss Gaymer meekly; "fire away!"
+
+"I suppose you know," said Hughie, a little dashed, "that all your
+affairs have been left in my hands?"
+
+"I do, worse luck!" said Miss Gaymer frankly. "And that reminds me,
+Hughie dear, I should like a trifle on account. You won't refuse poor
+Joey, will you?"
+
+She squeezed her guardian's arm in a manner which a Frenchman would have
+described as _très câline_.
+
+"I think I had better put you on an allowance," said Hughie.
+
+Joan's eyes danced.
+
+"Oh, you _ripper_! How much?"
+
+"Can't say," replied Hughie, "until I've been up to town and seen the
+bankers."
+
+"When are you going?"
+
+"To-morrow: that's why I wanted to talk to you to-day. You see, your
+money is in two parts, so to speak. One lot is tied up in such a way
+that it can't be touched until poor Uncle Jimmy's death is actually
+proved."
+
+Joan's blue-grey eyes were troubled.
+
+"Hughie," she said, "is there _any_ hope? I still like to think so."
+
+Hughie shook his head. "Not much," he said. "In fact, none. It is known
+that he went with that crack-brained expedition of Hymack's up the
+Congo,--to study the Rubber Question on the spot,--and the last letter
+he sent home said that he was suffering from black-water fever, and it
+is also known that the expedition came back without him. And--all that
+was two years ago, Joey."
+
+Joan nodded her head submissively.
+
+"Poor Uncle Jimmy!" she said softly.
+
+"Still," continued Hughie stoutly, "you never know. I have sent a man
+out to make inquiries, and if he fails, perhaps I shall go myself. But
+until we learn something definite the will can't be proved. However, he
+left me very full instructions what to do in case he did not come back,
+so I must carry them out. There is plenty for you to go on with. I shall
+run up to town to-morrow, and when I come back I'll let you know how
+much it is, and how much a year I can allow you."
+
+Miss Gaymer clasped her hands and sighed happily.
+
+"We _will_ have a time, Hughie!" she said. "I'll stand treat."
+
+"Thank you," said Hughie gravely.
+
+There was a long silence. Hughie, suddenly ill at ease,--he had arrived
+at Part Two of his morning's syllabus,--made fatuous attempts to roll a
+cigarette. His ward sat with a rapt expression in her widely-opened
+eyes, mentally visualising a series of charitable enterprises (ranging
+from a turquoise pendant for Mildred Leroy to a new cap for the cook)
+made feasible by the sudden prospect of wealth.
+
+Presently Hughie cleared his throat in a heart-rending manner, and said,
+in what he afterwards admitted to himself was entirely the wrong sort of
+voice,--
+
+"Joey, I think you and I had better marry one another."
+
+Miss Gaymer, who was more used to this sort of thing than her companion,
+turned and eyed him calmly.
+
+"And why?" she asked.
+
+There was only one possible answer to this question, and Hughie should
+have given it with the full strength of his heart and soul and body.
+But--well, reserve is a curious and paralysing thing. All he said was,--
+
+"I think it would be very suitable; don't you?"
+
+"For you or for me?" inquired Miss Gaymer.
+
+"For both of us," replied Hughie. "No--for me!" he added, his habitual
+modesty getting the better of him.
+
+"In what way?" continued Miss Gaymer, with unnatural calm.
+
+"Well--Uncle Jimmy was very keen about it," said Hughie desperately.
+
+"You're a dutiful nephew, Hughie," observed Joan approvingly.
+
+"And then," continued the suitor, "as I have been made your guardian,
+and all that, I think I am in a position to take care of you, and look
+after your money, and so on."
+
+"You mean it would make it easier for you to manage my affairs?" said
+Miss Gaymer helpfully.
+
+"Yes," said Hughie, feeling that he was getting on.
+
+"Any more reasons?" inquired Miss Gaymer, with a docile appearance of
+intelligent interest.
+
+Hughie made an immense effort, and grasped his chair until the veins
+stood out on his hands. _Parturiunt montes_--at last.
+
+"Well, Joey," he said at last, "we have always been pals, and all that.
+I mean, we have known each other for a long time now, haven't we? You
+even offered to marry me once,"--he laughed nervously,--"when you were a
+kiddie. Do you remember? It seems to me we should get on first-rate
+together--eh? What's your opinion?"
+
+_Ridiculus mus!_
+
+Miss Gaymer sat up in her chair, and turned upon the unfortunate young
+man beside her.
+
+"And you _dare_," she said, "to come to a girl like me with a proposal
+like that! You sit there and tell me that you have taken me over from
+Uncle Jimmy like a--like a parcel from a porter, and that you have been
+saddled with my money and affairs, so perhaps it would be simplest and
+save trouble if you married me! _Me!_" she repeated, "who have to keep
+men off with a stick!"
+
+The last sentence was a mistake. It was an inartistic and egotistical
+climax to a perfectly justifiable tirade. Joan realised the fact the
+moment she had uttered the words, but poor Hughie was too much occupied
+in retiring into his shell to notice anything. He had laid bare his
+heart, in his own fashion, for the first time in his life, and this was
+the result. Never again! He burned inwardly, like a child who has been
+laughed at by grown-ups.
+
+"I'm sorry," he said stiffly. "My mistake! Shan't occur again."
+
+Joey's ear was caught by the tone of his voice, and conscience gave her
+a twinge. She patted Hughie's arm in a friendly way.
+
+"Old boy," she said, suddenly contrite, "I've made you angry, and I've
+hurt you. I'm sowwy--sorry, I mean! (I'm a bit upset, you see)," she
+said, smiling disarmingly. "But I _can't_ marry you, really. I couldn't
+_bear_ to be married at all at present. It seems so--so unnecessary. I
+don't see what I should get out of it. That's a selfish thing to say, I
+suppose, but I'll try to explain a girl's point of view to you. You're a
+terrible child in some respects, so I'll do it quite simply."
+
+She stroked his sleeve in a motherly fashion, and continued:--
+
+"Years ago, my dear, the only way a girl could get her freedom or any
+male society was by marrying. Now, she gets as much of both as she
+wants, and if she marries she loses all the freedom and most of the male
+society. So why should she marry at all?"
+
+Hughie kept silence before this poser. He felt incapable of plunging
+into the depths of an argument: one has to keep to the surface in
+discussing these matters with a maiden of twenty.
+
+"So I shan't marry for years, if at all," continued Miss Gaymer, with
+the air of one propounding an entirely new theory. "Not until I'm
+getting _passée_ at any rate, and only then if I could find a man whom
+it wouldn't give me the creeps to think of spending the rest of my life
+with. Besides, the moment one gets engaged all the other men drop
+off,--all the nice ones, at any rate,--and that would never do. Don't
+you think my system is a sensible one?"
+
+"It comes hard on the men," said Hughie.
+
+"Yes, poor dears!" said Miss Gaymer sympathetically. "Still, one man is
+so tiresome and a lot is so nice!"
+
+With which concise and not unmasterly summary of the marriage question,
+as viewed through the eyes of the modern maiden, Miss Gaymer turned the
+conversation into other channels, and the idyll terminated.
+
+Half an hour later they were called into the house, to make ready for a
+boating expedition.
+
+Joan, with her usual frankness, reverted for a moment before they left
+the seclusion of the trees to the topic that was uppermost in their
+minds.
+
+"Hughie," she said softly, "does it hurt much?"
+
+"I don't quite know yet," said Hughie.
+
+"I mean, are you sad or angry--which? It usually takes a man one way or
+the other," observed this experienced damsel.
+
+"I don't know that I'm either," said Hughie meditatively; "the only
+feeling that I have just now is that I'm desperately sorry. But I'm not
+kicking."
+
+"It is my belief," remarked Miss Gaymer with sudden and pardonable
+asperity, "that you don't care for me in the least. Do you, now?"
+
+They were a very honest and sincere couple, these. For a full minute
+they looked each other in the face, without speaking. Then Hughie
+said,--
+
+"Joey, I simply don't know! I thought I did half an hour ago, and I'd
+have sworn it last night, when--"
+
+He checked himself.
+
+"When what?" asked Joan swiftly.
+
+"Nothing," said Hughie. "That's rather beside the point now, isn't it?"
+
+Joan, curiosity struggling with honesty, nodded reluctantly.
+
+"Anyhow," continued Hughie, "I thought I did then, but I'm blessed if I
+know now. In fact," he added in a sudden burst of confidence, "sometimes
+I can't stand you at any price, Joey dear!"
+
+"Ah!" said Miss Gaymer, nodding a wise head, "I see you don't know your
+own mind yet. But you _will_--one way or another--as soon as you get
+away from me."
+
+                               * * * * *
+
+A week later another interview took place between the pair, on the same
+spot.
+
+"Business only this time, Joey!" said Hughie, with rather laborious
+cheerfulness.
+
+"All right. Did you have a good time in town?" inquired Miss Gaymer, in
+the inevitable manner of women and Orientals, who dislike coming to the
+point in matters of business without a few decent preliminaries.
+
+"Yes, thanks. I have been picking up old friends again, and
+generally settling down," said Hughie. "Got a flat, and a comic
+man-servant--Scotchman--introduce you some day. He--"
+
+He plunged into a rather rambling description of John Alexander Goble.
+He was evidently no more anxious to get to business than Joan.
+
+At last Miss Gaymer inquired,--
+
+"Well, Hughie, have you fixed up my affairs?"
+
+"Yes," said Hughie slowly. "Do you want details?"
+
+"Mercy, no! I don't know anything about business, and I don't believe
+you do either, Hughie. _Do_ you?"
+
+"Not much," confessed the trustee. "However, I must tell you at once,
+Joey, that your income won't be nearly as large as I expected--"
+
+"Right O!" replied Joan cheerfully. "When do I start for the workhouse?"
+
+"It's not quite so bad as that," said Hughie, "but--"
+
+"What am I worth?" inquired the practical Miss Gaymer.
+
+"I can't quite tell you," said Hughie in a hesitating fashion. "You
+see"--he appeared to be choosing his words rather carefully--"the
+nominal value of investments, and their actual cash equivalent--"
+
+Joan put her fingers in her ears.
+
+"Stop!" she cried, "or I shall scream! I don't know an asset from a
+liability, except that in the arithmetic book brokerage is one-eighth,
+and--Never mind! I should never understand. How much am I to have a
+year? Tell me that."
+
+"Supposing it should be a mere trifle," said Hughie slowly, "what would
+you do?"
+
+Miss Gaymer puckered her brow thoughtfully.
+
+"You mean, if I hadn't enough to live on?"
+
+Hughie nodded.
+
+"Well, I shouldn't be a governess, I don't think. I love children, but
+children are always perfectly diabolical to their governess, and I
+shouldn't be able to stand their mothers, either. No: governesses are
+off! I shouldn't mind being a typewriter, though, or a secretary,--not
+that I can typewrite, or even spell,--provided it was to a really nice
+man. An author, you know, or a Cabinet Minister. He could walk about the
+room, rumpling up his hair and getting the stuff off his chest, and I
+would sit there like a little mouse, in a neat black skirt and a white
+silk blouse,--_perhaps_ one or two carnations pinned on,--looking very
+sweet and taking it all down."
+
+"It's a pretty picture," said Hughie drily.
+
+"Yes, isn't it?" said Miss Gaymer, with genuine enthusiasm. "I think,"
+she continued, soaring to still greater heights, "that I should like to
+go on the stage best of all. Of course, it wouldn't be the slightest
+good my going on the proper stage--learning parts, and all that; but a
+piece like 'The Merry Widow,' with different frocks for each act and
+just a few choruses to sing in, would be top-hole! _Say_ I'm a pauper,
+Hughie!"
+
+"You're not--thank God!" was Hughie's brutal but earnest response.
+
+"All right, then! Don't bite my head off!" said Miss Gaymer, with
+unimpaired good temper. "Let us resume. How much are you going to give
+me?"
+
+"How much can you live on?"
+
+"Well, I was talking about it to Ursula Harbord--you know her, don't
+you?"
+
+"I do," said Hughie, making a wry face.
+
+"Very well, don't abuse her. She's the cleverest girl I know," said Joan
+warmly. "She is on the staff of 'The New Woman,' and can put a man in
+his place in about two minutes."
+
+"So I discovered," said Hughie resignedly. "Popular type of girl.
+However, you were saying--?"
+
+"I was asking Ursula," continued Joan, "about the cost of living in
+town, and so on, and we agreed to share a flat. She said I could get
+along on three hundred a-year."
+
+Joan paused expectantly, and waited for an answer to her unspoken
+question.
+
+"That," said Hughie, after hesitating a moment as if to work out a sum
+in mental arithmetic, "is just what I can give you."
+
+                               * * * * *
+
+A pair of Archdiaconal shoe-buckles, the glimmer of a lady's white
+evening wrap, and a glowing cigar-end were discernible in the half-light
+of the verandah outside the drawing-room window after dinner. Two
+Olympians, to whom human hearts were as an open book, were discussing
+mortal affairs.
+
+"Is there no way of bringing it off?" inquired one voice.
+
+"Lots," replied the other. "But they have so bungled things between them
+that we shall have to go slow for a bit. Why, oh, why do men whom you
+could trust to do almost _anything_ in the ordinary way always make such
+a mess of their love-affairs? Why aren't _you_ married, for instance,
+Mr. D'Arcy?"
+
+"To return to the point," said the reverend gentleman evasively, "what
+ought Hughie to do? Take her by the shoulders and shake her? I have
+known such a method prove most efficacious," he added, rather
+incautiously.
+
+"N-no," said Mrs. Leroy, "I don't think so--not in Joey's case. It would
+bring some women to reason--most women, in fact--in no time. But the
+child is too high-spirited. Her pride would never forgive such
+treatment. A better way would be for him to make love to some one else."
+
+"Being Hughie, that is out of the question. He could only make love to
+some one else if he meant it; and that would rather defeat your object,
+Mrs. Leroy."
+
+"_My_ object?"
+
+"Well, ours, then. But is there no other way?"
+
+"Yes. He must get into trouble of some kind. At present he is too
+popular: everybody likes him. If they turned against him she would come
+round fast enough. Yes, he must get into _trouble_."
+
+"Well, perhaps he will," said the Venerable the Archdeacon hopefully.
+
+
+
+
+                               BOOK FOUR
+
+                           THE UNJUST STEWARD
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER XV
+
+                     DEPUTATIONS--WITH A DIFFERENCE
+
+
+Hughie let himself into his chambers in Jermyn Street, and rang the bell
+of his sitting-room. It was a comfortable bachelor apartment, with
+sporting trophies on the walls, cavernous arm-chairs round the
+fireplace, and plenty of pipes dotted about the mantelpiece.
+
+It was eleven o'clock on a fine morning in March, and Hughie had been to
+Putney to stroke a scratch eight against the Cambridge crew, who had
+rowed a full trial on the early flood and required a little pacing
+between bridges.
+
+Presently the sitting-room door opened, and John Alexander Goble
+presented himself upon the threshold. Since his unregenerate days on
+board the Orinoco a new and awful respectability had descended upon him,
+and in his sober menial attire he looked more like a Calvinistic divine
+than ever. He regarded his employer with some displeasure.
+
+"Your breakfast has been sitting in the fender these twa hours," he
+observed bitterly.
+
+"Sorry, John. Afraid I forgot to countermand it. I had some at Putney."
+
+"At what hour?" inquired the inexorable Mr. Goble.
+
+"Half-past seven, about, with the crew."
+
+"It's eleven the noo. You'll be able for some mair, I doot. Forbye it's
+a pity to waste good food. Bide you, while I'll get it."
+
+Hughie, who was as wax in the hands of his retainer, presently found
+himself partaking of a lukewarm collation and opening his letters.
+
+He glanced through the first.
+
+"John!" he called.
+
+Mr. Goble appeared from the bedroom.
+
+"Were you cryin' on me?" he inquired.
+
+"Yes. Did two gentlemen call here at ten?"
+
+"Aye."
+
+"Who were they?"
+
+"Yon felly Gaymer, and anither."
+
+"Who was he?"
+
+"I couldna say."
+
+"What was he like?"
+
+Mr. Goble cast about him for a suitable comparison.
+
+"He was just a long drink o' watter," he announced at last, with an air
+of finality.
+
+"Did he look--like an actor?" inquired Hughie, with a flash of
+intuition.
+
+"Worse than that," replied Goble.
+
+"Um--I think I know him. Thank you, that will do. By the way, I'm
+expecting some friends to lunch. Captain and Mrs. Leroy--and Mr. D'Arcy.
+You know him, don't you?"
+
+"D'Arcy? Aye, I mind him fine. A fat yin, wi' a lum hat tied up wi'
+string. A popish-lookin' body," commented Mr. Goble sorrowfully.
+
+He retired downstairs, to ponder upon the dubiety of the company into
+which his employer appeared to be drifting, and Hughie returned to his
+letters.
+
+The sight of the next caused him to glow suddenly, for on the back of
+the envelope he observed the address of Joan's flat. But he cooled when
+he turned it round and read the superscription. It was in the
+handwriting of the lady with whom Joan shared the flat.
+
+    "DEAR MR. MARRABLE [it said],--
+
+    "Joan and I are coming to call on you to-morrow about twelve--"
+
+"They'd better stay to lunch." Hughie touched the bell and continued,--
+
+    "Dear Joan is very young in some ways, and she has no idea of
+    the value of money; but since talking the matter over with _me_
+    recently, she would like to have a few words with you about her
+    financial position.
+
+    "How delightful to see the leaves coming out again!--Believe me,
+    yours sincerely,
+
+                                               "URSULA HARBORD."
+
+"'Dear Joan would like'--_would_ she?" commented Hughie. "I'm afraid
+it's Ursula Harbord I'm going to have the few words with, though.
+Hades!"
+
+He rose and crossed the room to the fireplace, where he kicked the coals
+with unnecessary violence. Then he sighed heavily, and picked up a
+photograph which stood upon the mantelpiece.
+
+Joan had spoken nothing but the truth when she told Hughie that he would
+discover his true feelings as soon as he found himself away from her.
+For six or eight months he had gone about his day's work with the
+thoroughness and determination of his nature. He had administered the
+little estate of Manors, was beginning to dabble in politics, had taken
+up rowing again, and was trying to interest himself generally in the
+course of life to which he had looked forward so eagerly on his travels.
+He had even tried conclusions with a few _débutantes_ who had been
+introduced to his notice by business-like Mammas. But whatever his
+course of life, his thoughts and desires persisted in centring round a
+single object,--a very disturbing and elusive object,--and try as he
+would, he failed to derive either pleasure or profit from his present
+existence.
+
+In other words, he had made a mess of a love-affair.
+
+Most men--and most women too, for that matter--undergo this experience
+at least once in their lives, and no two ever endure it in the same way.
+One rants, another mopes, a third forgets, a fourth bides his time, a
+fifth seeks consolation elsewhere, a sixth buries himself in work or
+dissipation. Hughie, who cherished a theory that everything ultimately
+comes right in this world provided you hold on long enough, and that
+when in doubt a man should "stand by the Day's Work and await
+instructions," like Kipling's Bridge-Builders, had gone steadily on,
+because it was his nature so to do. It was uphill work at present,--a
+mechanical perfunctory business, with no reward or alleviation in
+sight,--but he was determined to go on doing his duty by Joan to the
+best of his ability, and combine so far as he was able the incompatible
+_rôles_ of stern guardian, undesired suitor, and--to him most
+paradoxical of all--familiar friend.
+
+For there was no doubt that Joan liked him. She trusted him, consulted
+him,--yea, obeyed him, even when he contradicted her most preposterous
+utterances and put down a heavy foot on her most cherished enterprises.
+For this he did without flinching. The fact that he was a failure as a
+lover seemed to be no reason why he should fail as a guardian.
+
+Not that Joan submitted readily to his _régime_. To Hughie's essentially
+masculine mind her changes of attitude were a complete mystery. They
+seemed to have no logical sequence or connection. She would avoid him or
+seek him out with equal unexpectedness. She might be hopelessly
+obstinate or disarmingly docile. One day she would behave like a spoilt
+child; on another she would be a very grandmother to him. Sometimes she
+would blaze up and rail against her much-enduring guardian for a tyrant
+and a monster; at others she would take him under a most maternal wing,
+and steer him through a garden-party or a reception in a manner which
+made him feel like a lost child in the hands of a benevolent policeman.
+On one occasion, which he particularly remembered, she had rounded on
+him and scolded him for a full half-hour for his stolid immobility and
+lack of _finesse_; the self-same afternoon he had overheard her hotly
+defending him against a charge of dulness brought by two frivolous
+damsels over the tea-table.
+
+All this was very perplexing to a man who hated subtlety and liked his
+friends and foes marked in plain figures. It unsettled his own opinions,
+too. Joey's variegated behaviour prevented him from deciding in his own
+mind whether he really liked her or not. At present all he was certain
+of was that he loved her.
+
+Meanwhile she was coming to see him--about her financial position. That
+did not promise romance. And Ursula Harbord was coming too. Help!
+Certainly life was a rotten business at present. And it had been so full
+and glorious before he had forsaken the wide world and taken to this
+sort of thing. It might have been so different too, if only--
+
+Poor Hughie replaced Joan's photograph, sighed again--and coughed
+confusedly. A funereal image appeared over his shoulder in the
+chimney-glass.
+
+"Were you ringin'?" inquired a sepulchral voice.
+
+"Yes, John. Miss Gaymer and a friend of hers are coming to see me this
+morning. They'll probably stay to lunch. You can clear away that food
+over there."
+
+He returned to his letters. Only one remained unopened, and proved to be
+from a man with whom he had arranged to shoot in the autumn.
+
+"This seems to promise a little relief from the present cheery state of
+affairs," he mused. "Four men on a nice bleak moor, with no women about!
+Thank God! A hundred pounds a share. Well, Lord knows, trusteeing is an
+unprofitable business, but I think I can just do it. I'll accept at
+once."
+
+He began to write a telegram. Bachelors have a habit of conducting their
+correspondence in this manner.
+
+"Here's they twa whigmalearies," announced Mr. Goble dispassionately.
+
+He ushered in Lance Gaymer and the histrionic Mr. Haliburton.
+
+"After compliments," as they say in official circles, Lance came to the
+point.
+
+"Marrable," he said, after an almost imperceptible exchange of glances
+with Haliburton, "aren't you keeping my sister rather short of money?"
+
+Hughie turned and stared at him in blank astonishment.
+
+Mr. Haliburton, exuding gentlemanly tact at every pore, rose instantly.
+
+"You two fellows would like to be alone, no doubt," he said. "I must not
+intrude into family matters. I'll call for you in half an hour, Lance."
+
+Hughie had risen too.
+
+"You need not trouble, Mr. Haliburton," he said. "Lance is coming with
+you."
+
+Mr. Gaymer was obviously unprepared for such prompt measures as these.
+
+"But look here--I say--what the devil do you mean?" he spluttered.
+
+"I mean," replied Hughie deliberately,--he had realised, almost
+exultantly, that here once more was a situation which need not be
+handled with kid gloves,--"that I am your sister's sole trustee and
+guardian, and that you have nothing whatever to do with the disposition
+of her property, and--"
+
+"I think you forget," said Lance truculently, "that I am her brother."
+
+"I do not forget it," said Hughie. "Neither did Jimmy Marrable. It was
+no oversight on his part which left Joan's inheritance and yours locked
+up in separate compartments, so to speak. He gave you an independent
+income long ago, Lance, because he was particularly anxious to give you
+no opportunity of interfering with Joan's affairs when the time came.
+For some reason he had chosen me for the job, and he preferred that I
+should have a free hand. Therefore I am not going to allow you to cut
+into my department. I am sorry to have to put it so brutally, but,
+really, you have been infernally officious of late. This is the fourth
+reference which you have made to the subject during the past six weeks.
+I don't know whether your enterprise is inspired by brotherly love or
+the desire to make a bit, but whichever it is I don't think you'll get
+much change out of me. I also object to your latest move--bringing in
+Mr. Haliburton, presumably as an accomplice, or a witness, or whatever
+you like to call him."
+
+"Really, Mr. Marrable!" Mr. Haliburton's voice quivered with gentlemanly
+indignation.
+
+Hughie rang the bell.
+
+"Look here, Marrable," burst out Lance furiously, "you are getting
+yourself in a hole, I can tell you! We--I happen to know that Jimmy
+Marrable left thirty or forty thousand pounds at least for Joey's
+immediate use; and I am pretty certain he left something for mine too.
+Now--"
+
+"I'm sorry I can't ask you to stay to lunch," said Hughie, "but I have
+some friends coming. Show these gentlemen out, John."
+
+The deputation was ruthlessly shepherded downstairs by the impassive Mr.
+Goble, and Hughie was left to his own reflections. He filled a pipe
+meditatively.
+
+"I wonder," he said, lighting a spill and puffing, "where young Lance
+got his figures from. I also wonder what the game is. He was obviously a
+bit worked up, and I should say he had been fortifying himself for the
+interview before he arrived. I knew, of course, that he had never
+forgiven me for being put in charge of Joey's affairs: he has always
+made things as difficult for me as possible. Perhaps he wants a trifle
+for himself: his closing remarks rather pointed that way. But what on
+earth is friend Haliburton doing in that galley? I fancy he has been at
+the back of things all along. What interest has _he_ in the amount of
+Joey's fortune? I don't know much about him, but I wouldn't trust him a
+yard. Perhaps Lance owes him money. Have they gone, John?"
+
+"Aye," replied Mr. Goble. "They went quite quietly," he added
+regretfully.
+
+He began to lay the table for luncheon.
+
+"I say, John," began Hughie awkwardly.
+
+"Aye?"
+
+"There's a thing I want to speak to you about. I have been losing money
+lately, and I have to give up some luxuries I can't afford. I--I am
+afraid you are one of them. I have always regarded a man-servant as an
+extravagance," he went on with a rush, "and I must ask you to look about
+for another place. Take your time, of course, and don't leave me till
+you are suited. I shall be glad to give you a character, and all that.
+You understand?"
+
+There was a silence, while Mr. Goble folded a napkin. Then he replied:
+"Fine!" Then he added, after a pause, "So you've been lossin' your
+money? Aye! Aha! Mphm!"
+
+"Yes. I'm desperately sorry," said Hughie penitently. "I don't want to
+lose you. Perhaps it will only be tempor--"
+
+"You'll no be daen' that yet a while," remarked Mr. Goble morosely. "I'm
+an ill body tae move."
+
+"But, John, you don't understand. I can't afford to keep you for more
+than--"
+
+"There a cab!" observed Mr. Goble.
+
+Hughie looked down out of the window.
+
+"So it is," he said hastily. "I'll show them up, John. You go on with
+your work."
+
+He was across and out of the room in three strides, and could be heard
+descending the stairs kangaroo fashion.
+
+Mr. John Goble breathed heavily into a spoon and rubbed it with the
+point of his elbow.
+
+"I wunner wha his visitors is," he mused caustically. "Of course he
+always opens the door himsel' tae all his visitors! Of course I dinna
+ken wha she is! Oh, no!"
+
+He wagged his head in a broken-hearted manner, and gave vent to a
+depressing sound which a brother Scot would have recognised as a chuckle
+of intense amusement.
+
+To him entered Miss Ursula Harbord. She wore _pince-nez_ and a
+sage-green costume of some art fabric--one of the numerous crimes
+committed in the name of Liberty. She was Joan Gaymer's latest fad; and
+under her persuasive tutelage Joan was beginning to learn that the men
+who all her life had served her slightest whim were at once monsters of
+duplicity and brainless idiots; and that, given a few more fervid and
+ungrammatical articles in "The New Woman," women would shortly come to
+their own and march in the van of civilisation, and that people like
+Ursula Harbord would march in the van of the women.
+
+Pending this glorious destiny, Miss Harbord acted as
+unsettler-in-general of Joan's domestic instincts, and worried Hughie
+considerably.
+
+She was followed into the room by Joan; very much the Joan of last
+summer, if we make allowances for the distressing appearance presented
+by a young woman of considerable personal attractions who is compelled
+by Fashion's decree, for this season at any rate, to obscure her
+features under a hat which looks like an unsuccessful compromise between
+a waste-paper basket and a dish-cover.
+
+"Well, John," she inquired in her friendly fashion, "have you quite
+settled down in London?"
+
+"Aye, mem."
+
+"Not missing Scotland?" continued Joan, peeling off her white gloves and
+sitting down in an arm-chair.
+
+"Naething to speak of," said John.
+
+"I thought," continued Miss Gaymer, surveying Mr. Goble's Cimmerian
+features, "that you had perhaps left your heart there."
+
+"Ma hairt? What for would I dae a thing like that?" enquired the literal
+Mr. Goble. "A hairt is no a thing a body can dae wi'oot," he explained.
+"It's no like a rib. Ye jist get the ane, so ye canna afford tae get
+leavin' it ony place."
+
+Miss Gaymer smilingly abandoned the topic, and in all probability the
+ghost of Sydney Smith chuckled.
+
+"When are you going to pay us another visit at Manors?" was Joan's next
+question.
+
+"I'm no sure," said Mr. Goble. "Mr. Marrable has jist given me notice."
+
+"Oh, John!" said Joan, "what have you been doing? Breaking his china?"
+
+"Drinking his wine?" suggested Miss Harbord, turning from a scornful
+inspection of Hughie's stock of current literature.
+
+"I doot I'm no givin' satisfaction," said John.
+
+"But, John, I am _sure_ you are!" said Joan. "Was that the reason he
+gave?"
+
+"He said he was givin' up keepin' a man-servant."
+
+Miss Harbord, who had been craning her neck to see something in the
+street, turned round sharply.
+
+"Why? Has he been losing money?"
+
+"I couldna say, mem," said Mr. Goble woodenly. He shared his master's
+antipathy to Miss Harbord.
+
+That lady shook her head resignedly.
+
+"I thought so!" she said. "Joan, dear--"
+
+At this moment Hughie entered, and Miss Harbord's fire was diverted.
+
+"Mr. Marrable, have you got rid of that cabman?" she enquired with
+truculence.
+
+"Rather!" said Hughie. "He went like a lamb."
+
+"He was intoxicated," remarked Miss Harbord freezingly.
+
+"I didn't notice it," said Hughie. "He was quite tractable. Apparently
+you engaged him at Hyde Park Terrace and stopped at two shops on the
+way."
+
+"That is correct."
+
+"And you gave him one and threepence for a drive of over two miles and a
+stop of about ten minutes."
+
+"His legal fare. We employed him for exactly half an hour."
+
+"But did you tell him that you were engaging him by the hour?"
+
+"Of course not! They simply _crawl_ if you do. You might have known
+that, Mr. Marrable."
+
+"Well, it's all right now," interposed Joan cheerfully.
+
+"Mr. Marrable," persisted Miss Harbord, "I fear you were weak with him.
+How much did you give him?"
+
+"Nothing out of the way," said Hughie uneasily. "You'll stay to lunch,
+won't you? I am expecting the Leroys and D'Arcy. We can all go on to a
+_matinée_ afterwards."
+
+Miss Harbord assumed the expression of one who is not to be won over by
+fair words, and endeavoured to catch Miss Gaymer's eye--an enterprise
+which failed signally, as the latter lady rose from her seat and
+strolled to the window.
+
+"Mr. Marrable," began Miss Harbord, taking up her parable single-handed,
+"Joan wishes to have a chat with you about money-matters."
+
+"No I don't, Hughie," said Miss Gaymer promptly, over her shoulder.
+
+"Well then, dear," said Miss Harbord calmly, "you ought to. Women leave
+these things to men far too much as it is. Joan has an old-fashioned
+notion," she added to Hughie, "that it is not quite nice for girls to
+know anything about money-matters: hence her reluctance. However, I will
+conduct her case for her."
+
+Miss Harbord crossed her legs, threw herself back in her chair in a
+manner which demonstrated most conclusively her contempt for appearances
+and feminine ideas of decorum, and began:
+
+"Tell me, Mr. Marrable, what interest does Joan get on her money?"
+
+Hughie gaped feebly. Half an hour ago he had put Mr. Lance Gaymer to the
+door for an almost precisely similar question. But Lance Gaymer was a
+man, and Miss Harbord, conceal the fact as she might, was a woman; and
+Hughie's old helplessness paralysed him once more.
+
+"The usual rate of interest," he said lamely, "is about four per cent."
+
+Ursula Harbord nodded her head, as who should say, "I expected that!"
+and produced a crumpled newspaper from her muff.
+
+"That," she said almost indulgently, "reveals your ignorance of the
+world, Mr. Marrable. If you mixed a little more in affairs, and followed
+some regular occupation, you would have more opportunities of
+discovering things for yourself, and so be spared the indignity--I
+suppose you consider it an indignity?--of having to be advised by a
+woman."
+
+The afflicted Hughie murmured something about it being a pleasure.
+
+"Now here," continued Miss Harbord, slapping the newspaper as an
+East-End butcher slaps the last beef-steak at his Saturday night
+auction, "I have the report of the half-yearly meeting of the
+International Trading Company, Limited, where a dividend of seven per
+cent was declared, making a dividend on the whole year of fourteen per
+cent. _Now_ do you see what I--what Joan wants?"
+
+"Hughie," said Joan, who was making a tour of inspection of the room,
+"where did you get this lovely leopard-skin? Have I seen it before?"
+
+"Shot it, Joey. I beg your pardon, Miss Harbord?"
+
+"Do you see what Joan wants you to do?" repeated that financial Amazon.
+
+"Afraid I don't, quite. I'll get on to it in a minute, though," replied
+the docile Hughie.
+
+"Surely, the whole thing is quite clear! You must take Joan's capital
+out of whatever it is in and buy shares in The International Trading
+Company with it. And be sure you order _preference_ shares, Mr.
+Marrable. They are the best sort to get. That is all; but I ought not to
+have to point these things out to you."
+
+Hughie surveyed his preceptress in an undecided fashion. Was it worth
+while endeavouring to explain to her a few of the first principles of
+finance, or would it be simpler to grin and bear it? He decided on the
+latter alternative.
+
+"The shares," continued Miss Harbord, having evidently decided to follow
+up her whips with a few selected scorpions, "should be bought as cheap
+as possible. They go up and down, you know, like--a--"
+
+"Monkey on a stick?" suggested Hughie, with the air of one anxious to
+help.
+
+Miss Harbord smiled indulgently.
+
+"No, no! Like a--a barometer, let us say; and you have to watch your
+opportunity. There is a thing called 'par' which they go to,--anybody
+will tell you what it is,--and that is a very good time to buy them."
+
+Hughie, fighting for breath, rose and joined Joan in the window recess,
+while Miss Harbord, with much ostentatious crackling, folded up the
+newspaper and put it away.
+
+"Hughie," said Joan, under cover of the noise, "you are angry."
+
+"Not at all," replied Hughie, wiping his eyes furtively. "A bit
+flummoxed--that's all. No idea your friend was so up in these things."
+
+"She _is_ clever, isn't she?" said Joan, with unaffected sincerity.
+"But, Hughie dear, don't bother about it if it worries you. My affairs
+must be a fearful nuisance to you, but Ursula was so keen that I should
+come--"
+
+"I'm glad you did, Joey. It was worth it," said Hughie simply.
+
+"Of course," continued the unlearned Miss Gaymer, "to people like Ursula
+these things are as easy as falling off a log, but for you and me, who
+know nothing about business, they're pretty stiff to tackle, aren't
+they?"
+
+"Quite so," agreed Hughie meekly. "But look here, Joey," he continued,
+"are you really in want of money?"
+
+"Of course she is!" said Miss Harbord, overhearing and resuming the
+offensive.
+
+"I _could_ do with a few more frocks, Hughie," said Miss Gaymer
+wistfully, "if it wouldn't be a bother to change those investments about
+a bit, as Ursula advises. Still, if it can't be done, we'll say no more
+about it."
+
+"Will another hundred a-year be any use to you?" said Hughie suddenly.
+
+"Oh, Hughie, I should _think_ so! Can it be managed without a fearful
+upset?" cried Miss Gaymer, her eyes already brightening over a vista of
+blouse-lengths and double-widths.
+
+"Yes," said Hughie shortly. "I'll--I'll make the necessary changes and
+see that the cash is paid into your banking account."
+
+"You dear!" said Miss Gaymer, with sincerity.
+
+"A hundred pounds? It might be more!" observed the daughter of the
+horse-leech on the sofa. Fourteen per cent still rankled in her
+Napoleonic brain.
+
+Hughie crossed to the writing-table and tore up a telegraph-form.
+
+"Capt'n Leroy!" announced Mr. Goble's voice in the doorway.
+
+That easy-going paladin entered the room, and intimated that his wife
+had sent him along to say that she would arrive in ten minutes.
+
+"That means twenty," said Joan. "Ursula, we have just time to run round
+and see that hat we thought we'd better not decide about until we had
+heard from Hughie about the thing we came to see him about. Now I can
+try it on with a clear conscience. Back directly, Hughie!"
+
+She flitted out, the prospective hundred pounds obviously burning a hole
+in her pocket (or wherever woman in the present era of fashion keeps her
+money), followed by Miss Harbord.
+
+Hughie turned to Leroy.
+
+"Take a cigarette, old man," he said, "and sit down with a glass of
+sherry while I do myself up for lunch. Been down at Putney."
+
+Leroy obeyed. When Hughie returned from his bedroom a quarter of an hour
+later, he found that Mrs. Leroy had arrived. She and her husband were
+engaged in a low-toned conversation, which they broke off rather
+abruptly on their host's entrance.
+
+Hughie shook hands, and sweeping some newspapers off the sofa, offered
+his latest-arrived guest a seat.
+
+"No, thanks, Hughie," said Mrs. Leroy; "I prefer to look out of the
+window."
+
+She walked across the room and began to gaze down into the street with
+her back to Hughie. Her husband, evidently struck with the suitability
+of this attitude, rose and joined her.
+
+"The fact is, Hughie," began Mrs. Leroy, staring resolutely at the house
+opposite, "Jack and I want to talk to you like a father and mother, and
+I can do it more easily if I look the other way."
+
+"Same here," corroborated Leroy gruffly.
+
+Hughie started, and surveyed the guilty-looking pair of backs before him
+with an uneasy suspicion. Surely he was not going to be treated to a
+third variation on the same theme!
+
+"Go on, Jack!" was Mrs. Leroy's next remark.
+
+"Can't be done, m'dear," replied the gentleman, after an obvious effort.
+
+"Well, Hughie," continued Mrs. Leroy briskly, "as this coward has failed
+me, I must say it myself. I want to tell you that people are talking."
+
+"Ursula Harbord, for instance," said Hughie drily.
+
+"Yes. How did you know?"
+
+"She delivered a lecture to me this morning. Gave me to understand that
+she darkly suspects me of being a knave, and made no attempt to conceal
+her conviction that I am a fool."
+
+"Well, of course that's all nonsense," said Mrs. Leroy to a fly on the
+window-pane; "but really, Hughie, with all the money that her Uncle
+Jimmy left her, you ought to be able to give Joey more than you do,
+_shouldn't_ you? The child has to live in quite a small way--not really
+poor, you know, but hardly as an heiress ought to live. You give her
+surprisingly small interest on her money, Jack says--didn't you, Jack?"
+
+Captain Leroy made no reply, but the deep shade of carmine on the back
+of his neck said "Sneak!" as plainly as possible.
+
+"And you know he would be the last to say anything against you--wouldn't
+you, Jack?"
+
+"Rather!" said Leroy, in a voice of thunder.
+
+"Hughie," said Mrs. Leroy, turning impulsively, "won't you confide in
+me?"
+
+Hughie kicked a coal in the grate in his usual fashion, and sighed.
+
+"I can't, _really_," he said.
+
+"Fact is, old man," broke in Leroy, in response to his wife's appealing
+glances, "we didn't want to say anything at all, but the missis thought
+it best--considerin' the way people are talkin', and all that. Can _I_
+be of any use? Been speculatin', or anything?"
+
+"No, Jack, I haven't," said Hughie shortly.
+
+Mrs. Leroy gave a helpless look at her husband, and said desperately:
+
+"But, Hughie, we can't leave things like this! You simply don't _know_
+what stories are going about. It is ruining your chances with Joey, too.
+She thinks you are a noodle."
+
+"I know it," said Hughie.
+
+"Well, look here," said Leroy, "can't you give us some sort of
+explanation--some yarn we could put about the place to account for this
+state of things--"
+
+"What state of things?" said Hughie doggedly. He was in an unpleasant
+temper.
+
+"Well, Hughie," said Mrs. Leroy, keeping hers, "here is Joan, known to
+have been left a lot of money for her immediate use,--she admits it
+herself,--living quite humbly and cheaply, and obviously not well off.
+People are asking why. There are two explanations given. One, the more
+popular, is that you have embezzled or speculated the money all away.
+The other, which prevails among the _élite_--"
+
+"The people who are really in the know, you know," explained Leroy.
+
+"Yes: _they_ say," continued his wife, "that Joan won't marry you, so
+you have retaliated by--by--"
+
+"By cutting off supplies," suggested Hughie.
+
+"Yes, until--"
+
+"Until she is starved into submission--eh?"
+
+"That's about the size of it, old son," said Leroy.
+
+There was a long pause. Finally Hughie said:--
+
+"Well, it's a pretty story; but, honestly, I'm not in a position to
+contradict it at present."
+
+Mrs. Leroy desisted from plaiting the window-cord, swung round, walked
+deliberately to the fireplace, and laid a hand on Hughie's arm.
+
+"Hughie," she said, in tones which her husband subsequently affirmed
+would have drawn ducks off a pond, "what have you done? Tell _us_!"
+
+Leroy followed his wife across the room. "Get it off your chest, old
+man," he said, with the air of a father confessor.
+
+Hughie smiled gratefully. He took Mrs. Leroy's two hands into one of his
+own, and laid the other on Jack Leroy's shoulder.
+
+"Jack and Milly," he said earnestly, "my two pals!--I would rather tell
+you than anybody else; but--I simply _can't_! It's not my secret! You'll
+probably find out all about it some day. At present I must ask you to
+accept my assurance that I'm not so black as I'm painted."
+
+"Hughie," said Mrs. Leroy, "you are simply stupid! We have not come to
+you out of idle curiosity--"
+
+"I know that," said Hughie heartily.
+
+"And I think you might give us some sort of an inkling--a sort of
+favourable bulletin--that I could pass on to Joey, at any rate--"
+
+"Joey!" said Hughie involuntarily; "Lord forbid!"
+
+Mrs. Leroy, startled by the vehemence of his tone, paused; and her
+husband added dejectedly,--
+
+"All right, old man! Let's drop it! Sorry you couldn't see your way to
+confide in us. Wouldn't have gone any further. Rather sick about the
+whole business--eh? No wonder! Money is the devil, anyway."
+
+Somehow Leroy's words hit Hughie harder than anything that had been said
+yet. He wavered. After all,--
+
+"We've bought the hat, and I'm perfectly _ravenous_," announced Joan,
+appearing in the doorway. "And we've brought Mr. D'Arcy. Hughie, are
+those plover's eggs? Ooh!"
+
+This was no atmosphere for the breathing of confidential secrets. The
+party resumed its usual demeanour of off-hand British _insouciance_, and
+began to gather round the luncheon-table. Only Mr. D'Arcy's right
+eyebrow asked a question of Mrs. Leroy, which was answered by a slight
+but regretful shrug of the shoulders.
+
+Hughie's apartment was L-shaped, and the feast was spread in the smaller
+arm, out of the way of draughts and doorways. Consequently any one
+entering the room would fail to see the luncheon table unless he turned
+to his left and walked round a corner.
+
+Hughie was helping the plover's eggs,--it is to be feared that Miss
+Gaymer received a Benjamin's portion of the same,--when Mr. Goble
+suddenly appeared at his elbow and whispered in his ear,--
+
+"Him again!"
+
+Muttering an apology, Hughie left the table and walked round the corner
+to the other arm of the room. Lance Gaymer had just entered. His face
+was flushed and his eyes glittered, and Hughie's half-uttered invitation
+to him to come in and have some lunch died away upon his lips.
+
+"Hallo, Lance!" he said lamely.
+
+Mr. Gaymer replied, in the deliberate and portentously solemn tones of a
+man who is three parts drunk,--
+
+"I understand you have got a party on here."
+
+"Yes," said Hughie, endeavouring to edge his visitor through the
+doorway.
+
+"What I want to say," continued Mr. Gaymer in rising tones, "is that I
+accuse you of embezzling my sister's property, and I'm going to make
+things damned hot for you. Yes--_you_! Go and tell that to your
+luncheon-party round the corner!" he concluded with a snort.
+"And--glug--glug-glug!"
+
+By this time he had been judiciously backed into the passage, almost out
+of ear-shot of those in the room. Simultaneously Mr. Goble's large hand
+closed upon his mouth from behind, and having thus acquired a good
+purchase, turned its owner deftly round and conducted him downstairs.
+
+Death-like silence reigned at the luncheon-table. Hughie wondered how
+much they had heard. Not that it mattered greatly, for Master Lance's
+accusations, making allowances for alcoholic directness, partook very
+largely of the nature of those already levelled at Hughie by more
+conventional deputations.
+
+Before returning to his seat, Hughie crossed to the window and looked
+down into the street.
+
+Mr. Lance Gaymer was being assisted into a waiting hansom by the kindly
+hands of Mr. Guy Haliburton.
+
+Hughie, having seen all he expected to see, returned with faltering
+steps to his duties as a host.
+
+It was a delicate moment, calling for the exercise of much tact. Even
+Mildred Leroy hesitated. Joan had flushed red, whether with shame, or
+anger, or sympathy, it was hard to say. Mr. D'Arcy regarded her
+curiously.
+
+But heavy-footed husbands sometimes rush in, with success, where the
+most wary and diplomatic wives fear to tread. Jack Leroy cleared his
+throat.
+
+"Now, Hughie, my son," he observed, "when you've _quite_ done
+interviewin' all your pals on the door-mat, perhaps you'll give your
+guests a chance. With so many old friends collected round your table
+like this, we want to drink your health, young-fellow-my-lad! Fill up
+your glass, Miss Harbord! No heel-taps, Milly!"
+
+There was an irrelevant _bonhomie_ about this whole speech which struck
+exactly the right note. Mrs. Leroy glanced gratefully at her husband,
+and lifted her glass. The others did the same. But it was Joan who spoke
+first.
+
+"Hughie!" she cried, with glowing eyes.
+
+"Hughie!" cried every one. "Good health!"
+
+In the times of our prosperity our friends are always critical,
+frequently unjust, generally a nuisance, and sometimes utterly
+detestable. But there is no blinking the fact that they are a very
+present help in trouble.
+
+Hughie suddenly felt himself unable to speak. He bowed his head dumbly,
+and made a furious onslaught upon a plover's egg.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XVI
+
+                    IN WHICH CHARITY SUFFERETH LONG, AND
+                           JOAN MISSES HER CUE
+
+
+Hughie spent the next few months chiefly in wondering.
+
+He wondered what Mr. Haliburton's game might be. What was he doing
+behind Lance Gaymer? That the latter might consider himself justified in
+poking his nose into his only sister's affairs was understandable
+enough--but why drag in Haliburton? Was that picturesque ruffian a
+genuine friend of Lance's, enlisted in a brotherly endeavour to readjust
+Jimmy Marrable's exceedingly unsymmetrical disposition of his property,
+or was he merely a member of that far-reaching and conspicuously able
+fraternity (known in sporting circles as "The Nuts"), to whom all
+mankind is fair game, and whose one article of faith is a trite proverb
+on the subject of a fool and his money, pursuing his ordinary avocation
+of "making a bit"? In other words, was Lance Gaymer pulling Haliburton,
+or was Haliburton pushing Lance Gaymer?
+
+Hughie also wondered about a good many other things, notably--
+
+(_a_) Joan.
+
+(_b_) More Joan; coupled with dim speculations as to how it was all
+going to end.
+
+(_c_) More Joan still; together with a growing desire to go off again to
+the ends of the earth and lose himself.
+
+But for the present life followed an uneventful course. Since Lance's
+display of fireworks at Hughie's luncheon-party, Hughie's friends had
+studiously avoided the mention of the word money in their late host's
+presence; and Master Lance himself, evidently realizing that, however
+excellent his intentions or pure his motives, he had made an unmitigated
+ass of himself, avoided Hughie's society entirely.
+
+Of Joan Hughie saw little until the beginning of October, when he
+arrived at Manors to shoot pheasants.
+
+He was greeted, almost with tears of affection, by John Alexander Goble,
+who had been retained by Jack Leroy as butler when Hughie relinquished
+his services; and found the house packed with young men and maidens, the
+billiard-room strewn with many-hued garments, and the atmosphere charged
+with the electricity of some great enterprise in the making.
+
+"Theatricals!" explained Mrs. Leroy resignedly, as she handed him
+his tea. "Tableaux, rather. At least, it is a sort of variety
+entertainment," she concluded desperately, "in the Parish Hall. In aid
+of some charity or other, but that doesn't matter."
+
+"Joey's latest, I suppose?"
+
+"Yes; the child is wild about it. What, sweet one?" (This to the infant
+Hildegard, in an attitude of supplication at her side.) "Cake? certainly
+not! You are going out to tea at the Rectory in half an hour. Do you
+remember what happened the last time you had two teas?"
+
+Stodger reflected, and remembered; but pleaded, in extenuation,--
+
+"But I did it _all_ at the Rectory, mummy."
+
+"She was sick," explained her sister, turning politely to Hughie.
+
+"Twice!" corroborated Stodger, not without pride.
+
+"Yes; in a decent basin provided by the parish," continued Duckles
+hazily. She had recently begun to attend church, and her reading during
+the sermon had opened to her a new and fertile field for quotation.
+
+"Tell me more about the tableaux, Jack," said Hughie hastily, as Mrs.
+Leroy accelerated her ritualistic progeny's departure upstairs.
+
+"They're spendin' lashings of money on them. Won't make a farthing
+profit, I don't suppose; but the show should be all right. They're
+getting a 'pro.' down to stage-manage 'em."
+
+"My word, they are going it! Hallo, Joey!"
+
+Miss Gaymer's entrance brought theatrical conversation up to fever heat;
+and for the rest of the meal, and indeed for the next few days, Hughie
+lived and breathed in a world composed of rickety scenery, refractory
+pulleys, and hot size, inhabited by people who were always talking,
+usually cross, and most intermittent in their feeding-times.
+
+One afternoon Joan took him down to the Hall, ostensibly as a companion,
+in reality to shift some large flats of scenery, too wide for feminine
+arms to span.
+
+Captain Leroy had already offered himself in that capacity, but his
+services had been brutally declined, on the ground that the scenery was
+not concave.
+
+"The programmes are being printed to-day. We are going to have the
+tableaux in the first half," Joan rattled on, as they walked through the
+plantations. "Well-known pictures, you know. Some of them are perfectly
+lovely. I am in three," she added, rather naïvely.
+
+Hughie asked for details.
+
+"Well, the first one is to be The Mirror of Venus--a lot of girls
+looking into a pool."
+
+"Are you in that?"
+
+"Not much! _That_ is for all the riff-raff who have crowded in without
+being invited--the Mellishes, and the Crumfords, and the Joblings. (You
+know the lot!) There's another tableau for their men: _such_ horrors, my
+dear! But that disposes of them for Part One: they don't have to appear
+again until the waxworks. Then there's a perfectly sweet one--The
+Gambler's Wife."
+
+"Who is she to be?"
+
+"Sylvia Tarrant. She sits under a tree in an old garden, looking sad,"
+gabbled Joan without pausing, "while her husband gambles with some other
+men on the lawn behind. You'll cry! I come after that--Two Strings to
+her Bow. A girl walking arm-in-arm with two men. She looks quite pleased
+with herself: the men have both got camelious hump."
+
+"Who are they?"
+
+"It's not quite settled yet. I told them they could fight it out among
+themselves. I expect it will be Binks and Cherub, though. But they must
+decide soon, because time is getting on, and Mr. Haliburton says--"
+
+"Who?"
+
+"Mr. Haliburton."
+
+"Haliburton?" said Hughie, stopping short.
+
+"Yes. Didn't you know? He is stage-managing us. He came down this
+morning."
+
+"Is he staying in the house?" was Hughie's next question.
+
+"No: we couldn't get him in. He's putting up at The Bull, in the
+village," said Joan. "I wish we could have found room for him," she
+added, with intention. She knew that most men neither loved Mr.
+Haliburton nor approved of their girl friends becoming intimate with
+him; and this alone was quite sufficient to predispose her in that
+misjudged hero's favour.
+
+In her heart of hearts Miss Gaymer was just a little _éprise_ with Mr.
+Haliburton, and, as becomes one who is above such things, just a little
+ashamed of the fact. She had found something rather compelling in his
+dark eyes and silky ways, but, being anything but a susceptible young
+person, rather resented her own weakness. Still, the fact remained. She
+had seen a good deal of Mr. Haliburton in London--how, she could hardly
+explain, though possibly Mr. Haliburton could have done so--and had
+listened, not altogether unmoved, to tales of a patrimony renounced for
+Art's sake, of an ancestral home barred by a hot-headed but lovable "old
+pater"; and to various reflections, half-humorous, half-pathetic, on the
+subject of what might have been if this world were only a juster place.
+
+Joan, who did not know that Mr. Haliburton's ancestral home had been
+situated over a tobacconist's shop somewhere between the back of Oxford
+Street and Soho Square, and that his "old pater" had but lately retired
+from the post of head waiter at a theatrical restaurant in Maiden Lane,
+in order to devote his undivided attention to the more perfect colouring
+of an already carnelian proboscis, felt distinctly sorry for her
+romantic friend. When a young girl begins to feel sorry for a man, the
+position is full of possibilities; and when heavy-handed and purblind
+authority steps in and forbids the banns, so to speak, the possibilities
+become probabilities, and, in extreme cases, certainties.
+
+Joan glanced obliquely at Hughie. That impassive young man was advancing
+with measured strides, frowning ferociously. She continued, not
+altogether displeased:--
+
+"The next tableau is Flora Macdonald's Farewell--very Scotch. A man in a
+kilt stands in the centre--"
+
+She babbled on, but Hughie's attention wandered.
+
+Haliburton again! He did not like the idea. Consequently it was not
+altogether surprising if, when Joan paused to enquire whether he
+regarded Queen Elizabeth or a suffragette as the most suitable vehicle
+for one of Mrs. Jarley's most cherished "wheezes," Hughie should have
+replied:--
+
+"Joan, how did that chap come here? Was he engaged by you, or did he
+offer himself?"
+
+"He offered himself--very kindly!" said Joan stiffly.
+
+"I suppose he is being paid?"
+
+"Yes, of course--a guinea or two. It's his profession," said Joan
+impatiently. "Do you object?"
+
+The occasion called for considerable tact, and poor heavy-handed Hughie
+sighed in anticipation. Joan heard him.
+
+"What _is_ the trouble?" she asked, more amused than angry. "Out with
+it, old Conscientiousness?"
+
+"Joey," said Hughie, "I don't like the idea of your taking up with that
+chap."
+
+On the whole, it could not have been put worse.
+
+"It seems to me," said Miss Gaymer scornfully, "that it's not women who
+are spiteful, but men. I wonder why every male I know is so down on poor
+Mr. Haliburton. Silly children like Binks and Cherub I can understand,
+but _you_, Hughie--you ought to be above that sort of thing. What's the
+matter with the man, that you all abuse him so? Tell me!"
+
+Hughie's reply to this tirade was lame and unconvincing. The modern
+maiden is so amazingly worldly-wise on various matters on the subject of
+which she can have had no other informant than her own intuitions, that
+she is apt to scout the suggestion that there are certain phases of life
+of which happily she as yet knows nothing; and any attempt to hint the
+same to her is scornfully greeted as a piece of masculine superiority.
+Consequently Joey thought she knew all about Mr. Haliburton; wherein she
+was manifestly wrong, but not altogether to be blamed; for when your
+knowledge of human nature, so far as it goes, is well-nigh perfect, it
+is difficult for you to believe that it does not go all the way.
+
+It was a most unsatisfactory conversation. All Hughie did was to
+reiterate his opinion of Mr. Haliburton without being able (or willing)
+to furnish any fresh facts in support of it; and the only apparent
+result was to prejudice Joan rather more violently in Haliburton's
+favour than before, and to make Hughie feel like a backbiter and a
+busybody. It was a relief when Joan abruptly changed the conversation,
+and said:--
+
+"Hughie, have you seen anything of Lance lately?"
+
+No, Hughie had not. "Why?"
+
+"I'm bothered about him," said Joan, descending from her high horse and
+slipping into what may be called her confidential mood. "He used to
+write to me pretty regularly, even after he married that freak, and we
+were always fond of one another, even though we quarrelled sometimes.
+But he seems to have dropped out of things altogether lately. Do you
+know what he is doing?"
+
+"Can't say, I'm sure," said Hughie.
+
+"Could you find out for me?"
+
+"Of course I will," said Hughie, quite forgetting the present
+awkwardness of his relations with Lance in the light of the joyous fact
+that Lance's sister had just asked him to do her a service. "I'll go and
+look him up. He may be ill, or short of cash. But can't you get news of
+him from--from--"
+
+He stopped suddenly. He had been about to ask a question which had just
+struck him as rather ungenerous.
+
+"You mean from Mr. Haliburton?" said Joan, with her usual directness. "I
+did ask him, but he says he has seen nothing of Lance for quite a long
+time; so I'm afraid I must bother you, Hughie. I don't like to, because
+I know you won't want to go out of your way on his account, after--"
+
+"Never mind that!" said Hughie hastily. "I'll go and look him up."
+
+Joan turned to him gratefully.
+
+"You're a good sort, Hughie," she said. "I don't know what I should do
+without you."
+
+Hughie glowed foolishly. Her words did not mean anything, of course;
+still, they warmed him for the time being. He never thought of making
+capital out of Joan's impulsive outbursts of affection. He regarded them
+as a sort of consolation prize--nothing more. He had never attempted to
+make love to her since his first rebuff. The memory of that undignified
+squabble still made him tingle, and in any case it would never have
+occurred to him to renew the attack. Man-like, he had taken for granted
+the rather large proposition that a woman invariably means what she
+says. To pester Joan with further attentions, especially in his
+exceptional position, savoured to him of meanness.
+
+For all that, the girl and he seemed of late to have adjusted their
+relations with one another. Joan never played with him now, encouraging
+him one moment and flouting him the next, as in the case of most of her
+faithful band. Her attitude was that of a good comrade. She was content
+to sit silent in his company, which is a sound test of friendship; she
+brought to him her little troubles, and occasionally ministered to his;
+and in every way she showed him that she liked and trusted him. A vainer
+or cleverer man would have taken heart of grace at these signs. Hughie
+did not. He was Joan's guardian, and as such entitled to her confidence;
+also her very good friend, and as such entitled to her affection. That
+was all. It was rotten luck, of course, that she was not sufficiently
+fond of him to marry him, but then rotten luck is a thing one must be
+prepared for in this world. He would get accustomed to the situation in
+time: meanwhile there must be no more castles in the air.
+
+"I'll tell you what," he continued presently. "I shall be in town on
+Wednesday. I'll go and look Lance up then."
+
+"But, Hughie," cried Joan in dismay, "Wednesday is the day of the
+entertainment. You _must_ come to that. What is your engagement, if it's
+not indiscreet to inquire?"
+
+"Dentist," said Hughie lugubriously.
+
+"Dentist?" Joan laughed, or rather crowed, in her characteristically
+childlike way. "Hughie at the dentist's! It seems so funny," she
+explained apologetically.
+
+"It will be the reverse of funny," said Hughie severely, "when he gets
+hold of me. Do you know how long it is since I sat in a dentist's chair?
+Eight years, no less!"
+
+"You'll catch it!" said Miss Gaymer confidently. "But you simply must
+not go on that day. I want you at the show. Can't you change the date?"
+
+"The assassin gave me to understand," said Hughie, "that it was a most
+extraordinary piece of luck for me that he should be able to take me at
+all; and he rather suggested that if I broke the appointment I need not
+expect another on this side of the grave. Besides, next Wednesday is
+about our one off-day from shooting. I also--"
+
+Miss Gaymer fixed a cold and accusing eye on him.
+
+"Confess, miserable shuffler!" she said. "You arranged that date with
+the dentist on purpose, so as to escape the theatricals."
+
+"Guilty, my lord!" replied the criminal resignedly.
+
+"Well, you are let off with a caution," said Joan graciously, "but
+you'll have to come, all the same. You _will_, won't you, Hughie?"
+
+"Will my presence make so much difference?" said Hughie, rather boldly
+for him. He was inviting a heavy snub, and he knew it.
+
+Joan raised her eyes to his for a moment.
+
+"Yes," she said, rather unexpectedly, "it will."
+
+"Then I'll come," said Hughie, with vigour. "I go to the dentist at ten.
+I'll get that over, ask Lance to lunch, and come down by the afternoon
+train. What time does the show begin?"
+
+"Eight."
+
+"The train gets in at seven-fifty. I'll come straight to the Parish
+Hall--"
+
+"You'll get no dinner," said Joan in warning tones.
+
+"Never mind!" said Hughie heroically. "There's to be a supper
+afterwards, isn't there?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I'll last out, then. By the way, does it matter if I'm not in evening
+kit?"
+
+"Not a bit, if you don't mind yourself. Of course the front rows will be
+full of people with their glad rags on," said Joan. "But if you feel
+shy, come round behind the scenes. Then you'll be able to keep an eye on
+me--and Mr. Haliburton!" she added, with a provocative little glance.
+
+                               * * * * *
+
+Hughie duly departed to town, promising faithfully to come back for the
+theatricals, and wondering vaguely why Joan had insisted so strongly on
+his doing so. Joan felt rather inclined to wonder herself. She was a
+little perplexed by her own impulses at present. But her mind was
+occupied by some dim instinct of self-preservation, and she felt somehow
+distinctly happier when Hughie promised to come.
+
+However, there was little time for introspection. Rehearsals--"with the
+accent on the hearse," as Mr. Binks remarked during one protracted
+specimen--were dragging their slow length along to a conclusion; tickets
+were selling like hot cakes; and presently the great day came.
+
+Amateur theatricals are a weariness to the flesh, but viewed in the
+right spirit they are by no means destitute of entertainment. The
+drama's laws, as interpreted by the amateur, differ materially from
+those observed by the professional branch--the members of which, it must
+be remembered, have to please to live--in several important particulars;
+and with these the intending playgoer should at once make himself
+conversant.
+
+Here is a _précis_:--
+
+(1) Remember that the performance has been got up entirely for the
+benefit of the performers, and that you and the rest of the audience
+have merely been brought in to make the thing worth while.
+
+(2) Abandon all hope of punctuality at the start or reasonability in the
+length of the intervals. Amateur scene-shifters and musicians do not
+relish having their "turns" curtailed any more than the more conspicuous
+members of the cast.
+
+(3) Bear in mind the fact that the play is _not_ the thing, but the
+players. The most thrilling Third Act is as dross compared with the
+excitement and suspense of watching to see whether Johnny Blank will
+_really_ kiss Connie Dash in the proposal scene, or whether the fact
+(known to at least two-thirds of the audience) that they have not been
+on speaking terms for the past six months will result in the usual
+amateur _ne plus ultra_--a sort of frustrated peck, falling short by
+about six inches. Again, the joy of hearing the hero falter in a
+stirring apostrophe to the gallery is enhanced by the knowledge that he
+is reading it from inside the crown of his hat, and has lost the place:
+while the realistic and convincing air of deference with which the
+butler addresses the duchess is the more readily recognized and
+appreciated by an audience who are well aware that he happens in private
+life to be that lady's husband.
+
+The entertainment to which we must now draw the reader's unwilling
+attention was to consist of three parts. First, the Tableaux
+Vivants--thirty seconds of tableaux to about ten minutes of outer
+darkness and orchestral selection; then a comedietta; and finally, Mrs.
+Jarley's Waxworks.
+
+The largest room behind the scenes had been reserved for the lady
+_artistes_; a draughty passage, furnished chiefly with flaring candles
+and soda-water syphons, being apportioned to the gentlemen. The _loge
+des dames_ was a bare and cheerless apartment, but tables and mirrors
+had been placed round the walls; and here some fifteen or twenty maidens
+manoeuvred with freezing politeness or unrestrained elbowings (according
+to their shade of social standing) for positions favourable to
+self-contemplation.
+
+Joan and Sylvia Tarrant foregathered in the middle of the floor.
+
+"I think we'd better dress here, dear," said Joan cheerfully, "and leave
+the nobility and gentry to fight for the dressing-tables. After all,"
+she added complacently, "you and I need the least doing up of any of
+them."
+
+The tableaux on the whole were a success, though it was some time before
+the audience were permitted to inspect them. The musical director, a
+nervous individual with a _penchant_ for applied science, had spent the
+greatest part of two days in fixing up an electric bell of heroic
+proportions controlled from the conductor's desk, and ringing into the
+ear of the gentleman in charge of the lighting arrangements. A carefully
+type-written document (another by-product of the musician's versatility)
+apprised this overwrought official that one ring signified "stage-lights
+up," and two rings "stage-lights down."
+
+Just before the curtain rose for the first tableau the conductor pressed
+his button once. After an interval of about two seconds, since the
+stage-lights showed no inclination to go up,--as a matter of fact the
+controller of illuminants was tenderly nursing a hopelessly perforated
+eardrum,--the agitated musician, convinced that the bell had not rung,
+rang it again. Consequently, just as the curtain rose, every single lamp
+on the stage, from the footlights to the overhead battens, was hastily
+extinguished. Confusion reigned supreme. The conductor pressed his
+button frantically and continuously; the electrician lost his head
+completely, and began to turn off switches which controlled the lights
+in the dressing-rooms and the hall itself; while the faithful orchestra,
+suddenly bereft of both light and leadership, endeavoured with heroic
+but misguided enthusiasm to keep the flag flying by strident
+improvisations of the most varied and individual character.
+
+The audience, who had come prepared for anything, sat unmoved; but
+dolorous cries were heard from the dressing-rooms and vestibule. Above
+all rose the voice of the conductor, calling aloud for the blood of the
+electrician and refusing to be comforted. The first _tableau vivant_
+partook of the nature of an "extra turn," and was not foreshadowed in
+the programme. It took place in the middle of the stage, and depicted
+two overheated gentlemen (one carrying a _bâton_ and the other _en
+déshabille_) explaining (_fortissimo_) the purport of a type-written
+document to a third (who caressed his right ear all the time) by the
+light of a single wax vesta.
+
+After this gratuitous contribution to the gaiety of the proceedings the
+official programme came into force, and various attractive and romantic
+visions were unfolded to the audience. Certainly the tableaux were well
+mounted. The success of A Gambler's Wife and Two Strings to her Bow was
+beyond question. Haliburton, too, made a striking appearance in
+Orchardson's Hard Hit--the famous gambling picture with the countless
+packs of cards strewn upon the floor--wherein the broken gamester turns
+with his hand on the door-handle to take a last look at the three men
+who have mastered him.
+
+There were minor blemishes, of course. The composure of the beauteous
+band who were discovered--when the conductor had been hounded back to
+his stool and the bemused electrician replaced by a man of more enduring
+fibre--contemplating their own charms in The Mirror of Venus was utterly
+wrecked--yea, transformed into helpless giggles--by a totally unexpected
+ejaculation of "Good old Gertie!" proceeding from a young man in the
+front row--evidently a brother--chiefly remarkable for a made-up tie and
+a red silk handkerchief, and directed apparently (if one may judge by
+consequences) at a massively-built young woman kneeling third from the
+end on the prompt side. During another tableau, as Prince Charles stood
+rigid in the embrace of Flora Macdonald, the audience sat spellbound for
+thirty breathless seconds, what time the unhappy prince's tartan
+stockings slipped inch by inch from the neighbourhood of his knees, past
+the boundary line where artificial brown left off and natural white
+began, right down to his ankles--a _contretemps_ which, as Mr. D'Arcy
+remarked to Mrs. Leroy, added a touch of animation to what would
+otherwise have been a somewhat lifeless representation.
+
+The comedietta was not an unqualified success. It was one of those
+characteristic products of what may be called the Back-Drawing-Room
+School, in which complications begin shortly after the rise of the
+curtain with the delivery and perusal of a certain letter, and are
+automatically adjusted at the end of about thirty-five minutes by the
+introduction of another, which explains everything, settles differences,
+precipitates engagements, and brings the curtain down upon all the
+characters standing in a row in carefully assorted couples.
+
+This somewhat trite and conventional plot was agreeably varied by the
+vagaries of the talented gentleman who played the footman responsible
+for the delivery of the letters. He brought on the second letter first,
+with the result that the heroine found herself exclaiming: "How foolish
+I have been! Gerald had been true to me through all! I must go to him at
+once! We can be married to-morrow!" after the drama had been in progress
+some three minutes,--a catastrophe only tided over by some perfectly
+Napoleonic "gagging" by the comic man and an entirely unrehearsed
+entrance (with obvious assistance from the rear) of the footman, with
+the right letter.
+
+Fortunately these divergences from the drama's normal course were lost
+upon the majority of the audience; for the actors, whether from
+nervousness or frank boredom, were inaudible beyond the first three rows
+of seats. Even here the feat of following the drift of the dialogue was
+rendered almost impossible by the persistent and frantic applause of two
+obvious "deadheads" in the front row,--poor relations of the gentleman
+who played the footman,--who, since they occupied free seats, evidently
+considered it their bounden duty to applaud every entrance and exit of
+their munificent relative, even when he came on with the wrong letter or
+was elbowed off to fetch the right one. The only member of the company
+who performed his duties with anything like thoroughness was the
+prompter, a retired major with lungs of brass. He had evidently decided,
+with the true instinct of a strong man, that if you want a thing well
+done you must do it yourself. Consequently his voice re-echoed through
+the hall in an unceasing monologue which, while it lacked the variety
+inseparable from the deliverances of a whole company, did much to keep
+the occupants of the back benches _au fait_ with the intricacies of the
+plot. The best laugh of the evening, however, was aroused by the
+temerity of one of the actors, who suddenly interrupted the prompter to
+remark mildly but distinctly: "All right, old man, I know this bit!"
+
+Then came Mrs. Jarley's Waxworks. The curtain rose upon the usual group
+of historical and topical characters, seated round the stage in a
+semicircle, most of them twitching with incipient hysteria, and all
+resolutely avoiding the eye of the audience. Presently Mrs. Jarley
+(Binks), accompanied by Master Jarley (Cherub, in a sailor suit and
+white socks), made her appearance, and plunged into a slightly laboured
+monologue, what time her offspring walked round the stage, and, by dint
+of dusting, oiling, and other operations, stimulated any of the figures
+which could possibly have been mistaken for waxworks into a fitting
+display of life and activity.
+
+One "Mrs. Jarley" is very like another, and the audience, who were
+beginning to suffer from a slight attack of theatrical indigestion, were
+a little slow in responding to Binks's hoary "wheezes" and unfathomable
+topical allusions. It was not until a bench at the back of the stage,
+occupied by Oliver Cromwell, General Booth, Dorando, and a Suffragette,
+suddenly toppled over backwards, and discharged its tenants, with four
+alarming thuds, into the chasm which yawned between the back of the
+staging and the wall, that the entertainment could be said to have
+received a proper fillip. After the first sensation of surprise and
+resentment at finding themselves reposing upon the backs of their necks
+in the dust, the four gentlemen affected (who, it is to be feared, had
+been priming themselves for this, their first appearance on any stage,
+in the customary manner) accepted the situation with heroic resignation.
+Remembering that they were waxworks, and for that if for no other reason
+incapable of getting up, they continued in their present posture,
+invisible to the naked eye except for their legs, which stuck straight
+up into the air. The flagging audience, imagining that the entire
+disaster was part of the performance, applauded uproariously, and Mrs.
+Jarley seized the opportunity to deliver a pithy _extempore_ lecture
+upon character as read from the soles of the feet.
+
+The performance concluded with a song and chorus, specially composed for
+the occasion, and sung by Mrs. Jarley and her exhibits in spasmodic
+antistrophe. Mrs. Jarley began,--
+
+    "Some ladies have one figure--one, home grown!
+      But I have quite a lot, like Madam Tussaud.
+    And whatever sort of one you'd like to own,
+      Just order me to make it, and I'll do so.
+    I can make you waxen figures that can walk,
+      Or wave their arms, or turn and look behind 'em--"
+
+Here, in attempting to suit the action to the word, the singer tripped
+heavily over her own train, and was only saved from complete
+_bouleversement_ by the miraculously animated and suddenly outstretched
+arm of Henry the Eighth, who was sitting close behind. Binks continued,
+quite undisturbed,--
+
+    "And some of them (the female ones!) can talk,
+      And it's wonderful how useful people find them.
+
+    "So send for Mrs. Jarley on the spot!
+    And she'll reproduce each feature that you've got.
+        It will save a deal of trouble
+        If you have a waxen double,
+    Which will do your work when you would rather not!"
+
+"Now then, waxworks! All together! Give them a lead, Sousa!"
+
+Mr. Sousa (second from the end, o. p. side) obediently began to agitate
+his _bâton_, partially scalping Sunny Jim in the process, and the
+waxworks sang out, _fortissimo_, with a distinct but unevenly
+distributed _accelerando_ toward the end,--
+
+    "Then send for Mrs. Jarley on the spot!
+    And she'll reproduce each feature that you've got.
+        All your business she will see to,
+        Black your boots, and make your tea, too,
+    If you'll only put a penny in the slot!"
+
+The tune was good, and the chorus went with a swing. But now a
+difficulty arose. The second verse should have been sung by one of the
+late occupants of the back bench--Dorando, to be precise; and Mrs.
+Jarley, realizing the circumstance, was on the point of beginning it
+herself, when a muffled voice, proceeding apparently from the infernal
+regions, struck into the opening lines. Dorando, faint yet pursuing, was
+evidently determined to fulfil his contract, even if he had to do it on
+his head. For various reasons (chiefly dust and incipient apoplexy), his
+articulation was not all that could be desired, and the verse, which
+told of the ingenious device of one Tommy Sparkes, who, faced by the
+prospect of corporal punishment,
+
+        "Sent for Mrs. Jarley on the spot,
+    And explained that he was going to get it hot"--
+
+whereupon that resourceful lady
+
+        "Made a figure, small and ruddy,
+        To be Tommy's understudy;
+    And the figure got--what Tommy should have got!"
+
+was lost upon the audience. But every one took up the chorus with a
+will, and the third verse entered upon its career under the happiest
+auspices.
+
+On this occasion the lines were distributed among the figures
+themselves.
+
+    "Now Mrs. Bumble-Doodle gave a ball"--
+
+began Queen Elizabeth;
+
+    "But twenty-seven men all wired to say"--
+
+continued Peter Pan;
+
+    "That they very much regretted, after all"--
+
+carolled Sunny Jim;
+
+    "To find they simply _couldn't_ get away!"--
+
+bellowed a voice (Oliver Cromwell's) from under the platform.
+
+    "Said Mrs. Bumble-Doodle, in despair"--
+
+resumed Master Jarley, after a yell of laughter had subsided;
+
+    "The ball will be a failure--not a doubt of it!"
+
+announced a Pierrette, with finality.
+
+    "The girls won't find a single partner there"--
+
+wailed a waxwork in a kilt (possibly Rob Roy or Harry Lauder)--
+
+There was a break. The piano paused expectantly, and all the waxworks
+turned their heads (most unprofessionally) to see what had happened to
+Cherry Ripe, whose turn it was to sing the next verse. Apparently that
+lady had permitted her attention to wander, for she was scrutinising the
+audience, to the neglect of her cue. The sudden silence--or possibly the
+attentions of Master Jarley, who bustled up and assiduously oiled her
+mouth and ears--seemed to recall her errant wits.
+
+"Sorry!" she remarked calmly, and sang in a clear voice,--
+
+    "Oh, what a mess! How are we to get out of it?"
+
+    "She sent for Mrs. Jarley on the spot!"
+
+declaimed that lady triumphantly,
+
+    --"And the girls were quite content with what they got.
+        True, a dummy cannot flirt;
+        But he does not tear your skirt,
+      Or say that he can dance when he can not!"
+
+"Now, then, _all_ together!"
+
+Mrs. Jarley, waxworks, and audience swung into the final chorus. Even
+the four inverted Casabiancas at the back assisted by swinging their
+legs.
+
+    "She sent for Mrs. Jarley on the spot!
+    And the girls were quite content with what they got.
+      They were spared that youth entrancing,
+      Who says: 'I don't much care for dancing,
+    But I don't mind sitting out with you--eh, what?'"
+
+But Cherry Ripe was not singing. She was saying to herself,--
+
+"Not in the hall, and not behind the scenes! I wonder where he can have
+got to! He _may_ have missed his train, of course; but then he could
+have wired, hours ago. Well, Hughie, _mon ami_, if that's the way you
+treat invitations--"
+
+But the curtain had fallen, and all the waxworks were scuffling off
+their high chairs and trooping to the dressing-rooms. Cherry Ripe,
+following their example, put an arm round Pierrette, and said:--
+
+"Come along, Sylvia! Home, supper, and a dance! That's the programme
+now."
+
+On reaching Manors, Joan enquired of Mr. Goble,--
+
+"Is Mr. Hughie back, John?"
+
+"'Deed, no, mem."
+
+"Any telegram, or anything?" asked Joan carelessly.
+
+"Naething whatever! He'll no be back till the morn, I doot," said Mr.
+Goble.
+
+Two hours later, when supper was over and the dancing at its height, Mr.
+Haliburton approached Joan.
+
+"Our dance, I think, Cherry Ripe?" he said.
+
+Cherry Ripe concurred.
+
+"Will you come and sit in the conservatory?" continued Haliburton. "I
+want to say something particular to you."
+
+Joan regarded him covertly for a moment.
+
+"All right!" she said.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XVII
+
+                  IN WHICH CHARITY BEGINS AT HOME, AND
+                        HUGHIE MISSES HIS TRAIN
+
+
+The dentist laid aside his excavating pick with a regretful sigh, and
+began to fit what looked like a miniature circular saw into the end of
+the electric drill.
+
+Hughie, recumbent in the chair, telling himself resolutely that,
+appearances to the contrary, the man was doing this because it was
+really necessary, and not from mere voluptuousness, cautiously inserted
+his tongue into the hole, and calculated that the final clearance would
+be a three minutes' job at the shortest.
+
+"It seems hard to believe," said the dentist morosely, setting the
+machinery of the drill in motion with his foot, "that your teeth have
+not been attended to for eight years. A little wider, please!"
+
+Hughie realised that he was being called a liar as unmistakably as a man
+can be; but at this moment the drill came into full operation, and he
+merely gripped the arms of the chair.
+
+"A man," continued the dentist, removing the drill and suddenly
+syringing the cavity with ice-cold water,--"empty, please!--should make
+a point of having his teeth inspected once every six months; a woman,
+once every three."
+
+"A man," replied Hughie (who believed that the operations with the drill
+were completed), "must have his teeth inspected when he can. That is,"
+he added rapidly,--the dentist was deliberately fitting a fresh tool
+into the drill,--"I have been abroad for the last eight or nine years."
+
+"Away from civilisation, perhaps," said the dentist compassionately,
+getting good leverage for his operating hand by using Hughie's lower jaw
+as a fulcrum.
+
+"Quite!" gurgled Hughie, whose head at the moment was clasped tight to
+his inquisitor's waistcoat buttons.
+
+"In that case," said the dentist in distinctly mollified tones, "we must
+not be too hard on you. Tongue down, please!"
+
+He completed his excavating and inundating operations, and, regretfully
+pushing away the arm of the drilling-machine, began to line his victim's
+mouth with some material which tasted like decomposing sponge-bags.
+
+"Your teeth have preserved their soundness in quite an unaccountable
+way," he continued, with the air of a just man conscientiously
+endeavouring to minimise a grievance. "There is one other small hole
+here,"--he ran a pointed instrument well into it to prove his
+statement,--"but beyond that there is nothing further to find fault
+with."
+
+He began to pound up a mysterious mixture in a small mortar, and ran
+on:--
+
+"You must have been very careful in your diet."
+
+"No sweets," said Hughie laconically. "And I used very often to eat my
+meat right off the bone. That keeps teeth white, doesn't it?"
+
+The dentist put down the mortar with some deliberation, and glared.
+Anything in the shape of levity emanating from occupants of the rack
+jars upon a Chief Tormentor's sense of what is professionally proper.
+But Hughie was lying back in the chair with his mouth open and eyes
+shut, exhibiting no sign of humorous intention. Still, this must not
+occur again. The dentist looked round for a gag. He produced from
+somewhere a long snaky india-rubber arrangement, terminating in a hooked
+nozzle. This he hung over Hughie's lower [Greek: erkos odontôn],
+effectually stifling his utterance and reducing his share in the
+conversation to a sort of Morse Code of single gurgles and long-drawn
+sizzles suggestive of the emptying of a bath.
+
+Then, taking up his mortar, he proceeded, with the air of one who is
+using a giant's strength magnanimously,--
+
+"You have visited the Antipodes, perhaps?"
+
+"Gug-gug-guggle!" proceeded from the india-rubber-lined orifice before
+him.
+
+"Ah! that must have been very interesting," continued the dentist. "Had
+you many opportunities of discussing the question of Colonial Preference
+with the leading men out there?"
+
+"Glug!" came the reply.
+
+"That was unfortunate. But perhaps you were able to form some idea of
+the general Australian attitude towards the question?"
+
+"G-r-r-r-r-r! Guggle, guggle! Ch'k, ch'k!" observed Hughie.
+
+"Personally," continued the dentist, rolling the pulverised substance in
+the mortar between his finger and thumb, and lighting a spirit-lamp, "I
+am an ardent upholder of the principles of that truly great man, the
+immortal Richard Cobden. Are you?"
+
+Hughie, thoughtlessly lifting the gag for a moment, replied--with fatal
+distinctness.
+
+It was a mad act. The dentist simply took up a humorous-looking
+bulb-shaped appliance, and having filled it with red-hot air at the
+spirit-lamp, discharged its contents, in one torrid blast, into the
+excavated tooth.
+
+                               * * * * *
+
+Twenty minutes later Hughie was ushered into the street, and stood
+poising himself doubtfully on the doorstep. He did not know what to do.
+
+Strictly speaking, his next engagement should have been to entertain Mr.
+Lance Gaymer at luncheon. But that exposer of fraudulent trustees had
+not replied to Hughie's written invitation. Hence Hughie's stork-like
+attitude outside the dentist's premises. Personally he had not the
+slightest desire to entertain Lance Gaymer at luncheon or any other
+meal. On the other hand, he had promised Joan to seek out her brother
+and ascertain if all was well with him. Ergo, since the Mountain
+declined to come to Mohammed, or even answer his letters, Mohammed must
+put his pride in his pocket and go to the Mountain.
+
+The prophet accordingly hailed a hansom, and was directing the cabman to
+drive to the Mountain's residence in Maida Vale,--a paradoxical address
+for a Mountain, by the way,--when a strange thing happened. Nay, it was
+a providential thing; for if Hughie had not resolutely summoned up his
+courage and told the dentist to go in and finish off the small hole in
+the last tooth,--a treat which that sated epicure was inclined to
+postpone until another occasion,--he would have hailed this hansom
+twenty minutes sooner and so missed his just reward.
+
+Mrs. Lance Gaymer suddenly came round a corner of the quiet square, and
+crossed the road directly in front of Hughie's hansom. Hughie
+dismounted, and greeted her.
+
+"Why," cried Mrs. Lance, "I do declare, it's Mr. Marrable!"
+
+She smiled upon Hughie in a manner so intoxicating that the cabman
+coughed discreetly to the horse. That intelligent animal made no
+comment, but turned round and looked at the cabman.
+
+"Fancy meeting you!" she continued archly.
+
+"Did your husband get a letter from me yesterday, Mrs. Gaymer, do you
+know?" asked Hughie.
+
+No, Mrs. Gaymer was sure he had not. The poor boy had took to his bed a
+week ago, with the "flu"; so Mrs. Lance had been conducting his
+correspondence for him, and could therefore vouch for the non-arrival of
+Hughie's letter. She hazarded the suggestion that possibly Hughie had
+written to Maida Vale.
+
+Yes. Hughie had.
+
+"That's it, then!" said Mrs. Lance. "We moved from there six weeks ago.
+We live in Balham now."
+
+Hughie was not sufficiently conversant with suburban caste distinctions
+to feel sure whether this was a step up or down in the social scale, so
+he merely expressed a hope that Lance was getting well again.
+
+"I want to come and see him, if I may," he said. "I asked him to come
+and lunch with me, but I suppose that is out of the question at
+present."
+
+"You're right there," said Mrs. Lance in distinctly guarded tones. "He
+ain't what you'd call spry. He's not seeing anybody."
+
+"I shouldn't stay long," urged Hughie.
+
+"Is it business?" enquired Mrs. Gaymer with a touch of hostility.
+
+"Yes," said Hughie.
+
+Mrs. Gaymer surveyed him curiously. To most people she would have said
+flatly and untruthfully that her husband was unfit to see any one, for
+she had her own reasons for discouraging visitors to Balham just now.
+But she had always cherished a weakness for Hugh Marrable. He treated
+her exactly as he treated all women--with a scrupulous courtesy which,
+while it slightly bored frivolous damsels of his acquaintance, was
+appreciated at its true value by a lady whose social status was more
+than a little equivocal. It is only when one has secret doubts about
+being a real lady that one appreciates being treated as such.
+
+"Could you come to-morrow?" she said at last.
+
+"I have to get back to Manors to-night," said Hughie. "Might I come out
+to Balham this afternoon? Or, better still, will you come and lunch with
+me somewhere now, and we can drive out there afterwards? Or must you get
+back to the invalid?" he added, with just a suspicion of hopefulness.
+
+Mrs. Lance, however, expressed her willingness to come and lunch, but
+insisted on being allowed to precede Hughie to Balham by at least one
+hour. The house was _that_ untidy! she explained.
+
+Accordingly Hughie, having decided in his mind upon an establishment
+where he would not be likely to encounter any of his own friends, and
+which would yet conform with Mrs. Gaymer's notions of what was
+sufficiently "classy," conveyed his fair charge thither in a hansom; and
+presently found himself engaged in that traditional _ne plus ultra_ of
+dissipation--the entertainment of another man's wife to a meal in a
+public restaurant.
+
+Mrs. Lance, after she desisted from her efforts to impress upon her host
+the fact that she was quite accustomed to this sort of thing, was
+amusing enough. She addressed the waiter--an inarticulate Teuton--as
+"Johnny," and made a point of saying a few words to the manager when he
+passed their table. She smoked a cigarette after lunch, and was good
+enough to commend Hughie's taste in champagne--a brand which he had
+hazily recognised in the wine-list as being the sweetest and stickiest
+beverage ever distilled from gooseberries. (It was the sort of champagne
+which goes well with chocolate creams: "Chorus Girls' Entire," he
+remembered they used to call it.) At any rate it met with Mrs. Lance's
+undivided approval, and Hughie realised for the first time that a
+University education can after all be useful to one in after-life.
+
+Suddenly Mrs. Lance enquired:--
+
+"Do you know any theatrical managers, my dear boy?"
+
+Yes, Hughie had come across one or two. "Why?"
+
+"Well," said Mrs. Lance expansively, "you've always treated me like
+flesh and blood, which is more than what some of your relations have
+done; so I'll tell you. After all, I've got me feelings, same as--"
+
+"What about the theatrical managers?" inquired Hughie tactfully.
+
+"Oh, yes. Do you think you could ask one of 'em to give me a shop? The
+chorus would do. I was in it before," said Mrs. Gaymer candidly.
+
+"Why do you want to go back there?"
+
+"I--I've got a fancy for it--that's all," replied Mrs. Gaymer in a
+thoroughly unconvincing tone.
+
+Hughie wondered if Lance and his wife were beginning to tire of one
+another.
+
+"I do know one or two men," he said, "who are interested in some of the
+musical-comedy syndicates. Shall I try them?"
+
+"Will you reelly? You'll be a duck if you do," said Mrs. Gaymer.
+
+After the deliverance of this unsolicited testimonial Hughie's guest
+observed that she must be getting home, and Hughie, having put her into
+a cab and paid the driver, retired to his club, clogged with viscous
+champagne and feeling excessively unwell, to wait until it should be
+time for him to follow her.
+
+To look at the double row of eligible residences which composed Talbot
+Street, Balham, you would hardly have suspected that any of them would
+support what the Inland Revenue Schedule calls a "male servant." And
+yet, when Hughie rang the bell of Number Nineteen, the door was opened
+by such an appanage of prosperity. He was an elderly gentleman with a
+rheumy but humorous eye, and a nose which suggested the earlier stages
+of elephantiasis. He wore a dress-coat of distinctly fashionable cut
+(which, needless to say, did not fit him) and the regulation white shirt
+and collar, the latter quite two sizes too small; but his boots and
+trousers apparently belonged to a totally different class of society.
+
+"Name of Marrable?" he enquired, smiling benevolently upon Hughie.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Step in. We've been expectin' of you for 'alf-an-hour. Don't wipe your
+boots on that mat. It's worth one-and-eight."
+
+After this somewhat remarkable confidence, the Gaymers' major-domo
+conducted the visitor upstairs. Here he threw open a door with truly
+theatrical grandeur, and announced,--
+
+"'Ere's the young toff for you, my de--"
+
+"Thank you, James: that will do," interposed Mrs. Lance Gaymer, with a
+very fair imitation of the manner of a musical-comedy duchess. "How do
+you do, Mr. Marrable?"
+
+She was attired in the faded glories of a tea-gown, of a material more
+pretentious than durable; and in the half-light of the drawing-room--the
+blinds were partially lowered--looked extremely handsome in a tawdry
+way.
+
+She apologised for her retainer's familiarity. Mr. Marrable would
+doubtless know what old servants was. Still, James must certainly be
+spoke to about it.
+
+"You'll drink a cup of tea with me," she continued, "and then we'll pop
+up and see Lance, pore boy! Ring the bell, please."
+
+Hughie did so, and a rather laborious quarter-of-an-hour followed. He
+ploughed his way through a morass of unlikely topics, while Mrs. Lance,
+who was obviously perturbed at the non-appearance of tea, replied in
+_distrait_ monosyllables. Hughie was conscious about half-way through
+the conversation of a faint crash in the lower regions, and wondered
+dimly whether calamity had overtaken the afternoon meal. If so, he had
+no doubt as to which of the domestic staff of Number Nineteen was
+responsible.
+
+At last the door opened, and the inestimable James appeared.
+
+"You done it this time!" he remarked severely. "The 'andle of that
+tea-pot 'as came right away in me 'and. It must have been that way this
+long while. You won't get no tea now. Wot's more, that tea-pot will 'ave
+to come off the invent--"
+
+By this time Mrs. Lance Gaymer, with dumb but frenzied signallings, was
+herding her censorious hireling through the door, and his concluding
+remarks were lost in the passage outside.
+
+Presently she returned, smiling bravely. Hughie experienced a sudden
+pang of pity and admiration. Lance's wife was the right sort of girl
+after all.
+
+"I _reelly_ must apologise--" she began.
+
+But Hughie interrupted her. He rose, and looked her frankly in the face.
+
+"Mrs. Gaymer," he said, "please don't bother about keeping up
+appearances with me. I never cared a hang about them, and never shall.
+Tell me, what are you doing with a bailiff in the house?"
+
+Mrs. Lance broke down and cried,--more from relief than anything
+else,--and presently Hughie, much to his surprise, found himself sitting
+beside her, patting her large but shapely hand, and uttering words of
+comfort and encouragement into her ear.
+
+                               * * * * *
+
+Half an hour later he concluded an interview with Mr. Albert Mould,
+broker's man,--late James, the butler,--in the dingy dining-room
+downstairs. The latter gentleman, the more gorgeous items of his apparel
+now replaced by garments of equal social standing with his boots and
+trousers, was laboriously writing a receipt with Hughie's fountain-pen,
+following the movements of the nib with the end of a protruding tongue.
+Presently he finished.
+
+"There you are, sir," he said, breathing heavily upon the paper to dry
+the ink. "Twenty-seven, fifteen, eight--and thank you! What beats me,"
+he added reflectively, "is 'ow you spotted me. What was it give me away?
+Seems to me I _looked_ all right. I was wearin' the young feller's
+evenin' coat and one of 'is shirts, and I thought I was lookin' a treat
+all the time. Was it me trousis?"
+
+To avoid wounding his guest's feelings, Hughie agreed that it _was_ his
+trousis.
+
+"It's a queer trade, this of yours," he said.
+
+"You got to earn a livin' some'ow," said Mr. Mould apologetically, "same
+as any other yewman bean. It's not a bad job, as jobs go. They carry on
+a lot, o' course, when you're first put in, and usually the wife cries;
+but they soon finds out as you won't do 'em no 'arm. You makes your
+inventory and settles down in the kitching, with a pint o' somethink in
+your 'and an' a pipe in your face, and in less than 'alf a tick you're
+one o' the family, a'most. Why, I've 'elped wash the baby afore now."
+
+"Don't you ever get thrown out?" asked Hughie.
+
+"I _'ave_ bin," replied Mr. Mould, in a tone which gently reproved the
+tactlessness of the question, "but not often. After all, I only come
+_in_ agin; and it's a matter of seven days for assault, p'raps, on top
+o' the distraint. Most of 'em 'as the sense to remember that, so they
+humours me, as it were. They speak me fair, and give me jobs to do
+about the house. Still, it were a bit of a surprise when 'er ladyship
+comes 'ome to-day about two o'clock and asks me would 'arf-a-crown be
+any good to me, and, if so, would I mind playin' at bein' a butler for
+a hour or two. I felt a fool, like, dressed up that way, but I always
+was one to oblige a bit o' skirt. Been weak with women," he added
+autobiographically, "from a boy. This fer me?" as Hughie opened the
+street-door and sped the parting guest in a particularly acceptable
+manner. "Thank you, Captain! _Good_ day!"
+
+He shuffled down the steps and along the street, obviously on his way to
+liquidate Hughie's half-crown, and the donor of that gratuity returned
+to the dining-room, where he took Mr. Mould's laboriously indited
+receipt from the table. Then he went upstairs, feeling desperately sorry
+for Mr. and Mrs. Lance. He had done what he could for them, in his
+eminently practical fashion, and set them on their feet again; but--for
+how long? Debts! Millstones! Poor things!
+
+On the landing above he encountered Mrs. Gaymer, wide-eyed and
+incredulous.
+
+"Lance would like to see you now," she said. "In here!" She opened a
+door. "And--and--I say," she added, half in a whisper, "surely you don't
+mean to say he's been and _gawn_!"
+
+For answer Hughie awkwardly handed her the stamped receipt, and passed
+into the bedroom.
+
+His interview with Lance lasted an hour and a half. Much passed between
+them during that period, and by the time Hughie rose and said he must be
+going, each man had entirely revised his opinion of the other. Most of
+us have the right stuff concealed in us somewhere, however heavily it
+may be overlaid by folly or vanity or desire to make a show. There are
+few men who do not improve on acquaintance, once you get right through
+the veneer.
+
+Poor Lance, struggling in deep waters, suddenly discovered in the dour
+and undemonstrative Hughie a cheerful helper and--most precious of all
+to a proud nature--an entirely uncritical confidant. Hughie on his part
+discovered what he had rather doubted before, namely, that Lance was a
+man. Moreover, he presently laid bare a truly human and rather sad tale
+of genuine ability and secret ambition, heavily handicapped by youthful
+cocksureness and want of ballast.
+
+They discussed many things in that dingy bedroom: Lance's past; Uncle
+Jimmy's little allowance, mortgaged many years in advance; the creditors
+to whom, together with the law of the land, he was indebted for the
+presence beneath his roof of the versatile Mr. Mould; his future; the
+journalistic work which was promised him as soon as he should be fit
+again; Mrs. Lance; and also Mr. Haliburton.
+
+Joan's name was barely mentioned. Lance exhibited a newborn delicacy in
+the matter. His officious solicitude on his sister's behalf was dead; he
+knew now that no woman need ever regret having trusted Hugh Marrable;
+and he was content to leave it at that.
+
+"Well, I must be moving," said Hughie at last. "Buck up, and get fit!
+It's good to hear that there's work waiting for you when you get about
+again. Grand tonic, that! So long!"
+
+He shook Lance's hand, and the two parted undemonstratively. Lance made
+no set speech: he appreciated Hughie's desire that there should be no
+returning of thanks or contrite expressions of gratitude. All he said
+was:--
+
+"Hughie, you are a sportsman!"
+
+Then he settled down on his pillow with a happy sigh. He had paid Hughie
+the highest compliment it was in his power to bestow--and that costs an
+Englishman an effort.
+
+So they parted. But Mrs. Lance did not let Hughie off so easily. As she
+accompanied him downstairs to open the door for him, she suddenly seized
+his hand and kissed it. Tears were running down her cheeks.
+
+Hughie grew red.
+
+"I say, Mrs. Lance," he said in clumsy expostulation, "it's all right,
+you know! He'll soon be quite well again."
+
+"Let me cry," said Mrs. Lance comfortably. "It does me good."
+
+They stood together in the obscurity of the shabby little hall, and
+Hughie, surveying the flamboyant but homely figure before him, wondered
+what the future might hold in store for this little household. It all
+depended, of course, on--
+
+"Mrs. Lance," he said suddenly, "tell me--do you--love him?"
+
+"I do!" replied Mrs. Lance, in a voice which for the moment relegated
+her patchouli and dyed eyebrows to nothingness.
+
+"And does he--love you?"
+
+"He _does_--thank God!"
+
+"You are both all right, then," said Hughie, nodding a wise head.
+"Nothing matters much--except that!"
+
+"That's true," said Mrs. Gaymer. "But--I wonder how _you_ knew!" she
+added curiously.
+
+"Good-bye!" said Hughie.
+
+                               * * * * *
+
+As Hughie stood in the darkening street a church clock began to chime.
+He looked at his watch.
+
+It was six o'clock, and he had promised faithfully to be at Joey's
+entertainment at eight! He had good reason for his absence, it is true,
+but a reason is not always accepted as an excuse.
+
+"I've fairly torn it, this time!" he reflected morosely.
+
+He was right.
+
+Early next morning he arrived at the village station by the newspaper
+train, and made his way on foot to Manors. A sleepy housemaid was
+sweeping out the hall, which was strewn with _confetti_,--some cotillion
+figures had been included in last night's festivities,--and as Hughie
+made his way to his dressing-room, intent upon a bath and shave before
+breakfast, he reflected not without satisfaction that, despite Joey's
+prospective fulminations, he had escaped something by missing his train.
+
+On his dressing-table he found a note, addressed to him in Joan's
+handwriting. It said:--
+
+    DEAR HUGHIE,--To-night at the dance Mr. Haliburton asked me to
+    marry him. Being a dutiful ward above all things, I have
+    referred him to you. He is coming to see you to-morrow
+    afternoon--that is, if you are back. I hope you had a good time
+    in town.
+
+                                                              J.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XVIII
+
+                              _EX MACHINA_
+
+
+Miss Joan Gaymer, pleasantly fatigued after last night's dissipation,
+reclined in a canvas chair on the lawn at Manors. She had just finished
+reading a letter which had arrived by the afternoon post. It was from
+her brother Lance, and conveyed, probably a good deal more fully than
+Hughie himself would have done, the reasons for Hughie's absence on the
+previous evening. Joan's brow was puckered thoughtfully, and she
+surveyed the tips of her small shoes, which were cocked at an unladylike
+altitude upon a stool in front of her, with a profundity of maiden
+meditation which was perhaps explained by the fact that she had received
+a proposal of marriage the evening before, and was expecting the
+proposer to come and second his own motion at any moment.
+
+To her entered suddenly Jno. Alex. Goble.
+
+"Yon felly!" he intimated austerely.
+
+"Mr. Haliburton, do you mean, John?" inquired Miss Gaymer, hastily
+letting down her feet.
+
+"Aye. Wull I loose him in here?"
+
+"Yes, please. No--I mean--"
+
+But Cupid's messenger was gone. Presently he returned, and, with the air
+of one introducing the Coroner to the foreman of the jury, announced Mr.
+Haliburton.
+
+That ardent suitor advanced gallantly across the lawn, and taking Joan's
+hand with an air of respectful rapture, endeavoured to draw its owner
+into the shade of the copper beech. Joan forestalled his intentions by
+saying at once,--
+
+"Come along into the library, Mr. Haliburton, and we'll see what my
+guardian has to say to you."
+
+Mr. Haliburton hinted that there was no hurry, and made a pointed
+reference to Amaryllis and the shade; but his unsentimental nymph
+marched him briskly across the lawn, round the corner of the house, and
+in at the front door.
+
+They crossed the cool, dark hall, and Joan tapped at the oaken door of
+the library.
+
+"Come in," said a voice.
+
+The lovers entered.
+
+"I have brought Mr. Haliburton to see you, Hughie," remarked Miss
+Gaymer, much as one might announce the arrival of a person to inspect
+the gas meter.
+
+Mr. Haliburton, who was not the man to show embarrassment, whether he
+felt it or not, advanced easily into the room. Joan surveyed his
+straight back and square shoulders as he passed her, and the corners of
+her mouth twitched, ever so little.
+
+Then she looked at Hughie. It was her first meeting with him since his
+return home that morning. He had answered her note by another, saying
+that he would be in the library at five o'clock. There was no twitching
+about his mouth. It was closed like a steel trap; and he stood with his
+back to the wood-fire which glowed in the grate--it was getting on in
+September, and cold out of the sun--with absolute stolidity. Joan saw at
+a glance that, whatever the difficulties of the position, her guardian's
+line of action was now staked out and his mind made up--one way or the
+other.
+
+She dropped into an arm-chair.
+
+"Now, you two," she remarked encouragingly, "get to work! I want to hear
+what each of you has got to say about my future. It will be quite
+exciting--like going to a palmist!"
+
+The two men turned and regarded her in unfeigned surprise. They had not
+expected this. Haliburton began swiftly to calculate whether Joan's
+presence would be a help to him or not. But Hughie said at once:--
+
+"You must leave us alone, Joan, please! I can't possibly allow you to
+remain."
+
+Joan lay back in her chair and smiled up at him, frankly mutinous. She
+had never yet failed, when she so desired, to "manage" a man. Hughie was
+regarding her stonily; but two minutes, she calculated, would make him
+sufficiently pliable.
+
+She was wrong. At the end of this period Hughie was still rigidly
+waiting for her to leave the room. Joan, a little surprised at his
+obstinacy, remarked:--
+
+"If you are going to object to--to Mr. Haliburton's suggestions, Hughie,
+I think I ought to hear what the objections are."
+
+"Before you go," said Hughie in even tones, "I will tell you one
+thing--and that should be sufficient. It is this. There is not the
+slightest prospect of this--this engagement coming off. My reasons for
+saying so I am prepared to give to Mr. Haliburton, and if he thinks
+proper he can communicate them to you afterwards. But I don't think he
+will. Now will you leave us, please?"
+
+Joan was genuinely astonished. But she controlled herself. She was
+determined to see the matter out now. All the woman in her--and she was
+all woman--answered to the challenge contained in Hughie's dictatorial
+attitude. Besides, she was horribly curious.
+
+She heaved a sad little sigh, and made certain shameless play with her
+eyes which she knew stirred poor Hughie to the point of desperation, and
+surveyed the result through drooping lashes with some satisfaction.
+Hughie's mouth was fast shut, and he was breathing through his nose; and
+Joan could see a little pulse beating in his right temple. (Both of
+them, for the moment, had forgotten the ardent suitor by the window.)
+She would win through in a moment now.
+
+But alas! she had forgotten a masculine weapon against which all the
+Votes for Women in the world will avail nothing, when it comes to a
+pinch.
+
+Hughie suddenly relaxed his attitude, and strode across to the door,
+which he held open for her.
+
+"At _once_, please!" he said in a voice which Joan had never heard
+before, though many men had.
+
+Without quite knowing why, Miss Gaymer rose meekly from her chair and
+walked out of the room. The door closed behind her.
+
+                               * * * * *
+
+When Joan found herself on the lawn again she gasped a little.
+
+"Ooh!" she said breathlessly. "I--I feel just as if I'd been hit in the
+face by a big wave! This game is not turning out quite as you expected,
+Joey, my child: the man Hughie is one up! Still, I'll take it out of him
+another time. But--heavens!"--She was staring, like Red Riding-Hood on a
+historic occasion, at a recumbent figure in her canvas chair beneath the
+copper beech--"Who on _earth_ is that in my chair? It's--it's--oh! Joey
+Gaymer, you've got hysterics! It's--it's--Uncle Jimmy! _Uncle Jimmy!...
+My Uncle--Jimmy!_"
+
+Next moment she was reposing comfortably, a distracted bundle of tears
+and laughter, in the arms of Jimmy Marrable.
+
+"A bit sudden--eh, young lady?" enquired that gentleman at last. "I
+ought to have written, I suppose. But I quite forgot you would all think
+I was dead. Never mind--I'm not!"
+
+He blew his nose resonantly to substantiate his statement.
+
+Joan, satisfied at last that he was real, and greatly relieved to find
+that she was not suffering from hysterical delusions arising from
+Hughie's brutal treatment of her, enquired severely of the truant where
+he had been for the last five years.
+
+Jimmy Marrable told her. It was a long story, and the shadow of the
+copper beech had perceptibly lengthened by the time the narrator had
+embarked at Zanzibar for the port of Leith. They had the garden to
+themselves, for the Leroys were out.
+
+"I don't want to hear any more adventures, because I'm simply bursting
+with questions," said Miss Gaymer frankly. "First of all, why did you go
+away? You rushed off in such a hurry that you had no time to explain. I
+was barely eighteen then."
+
+"It was the old failing--the Marrable wandering tendency," replied her
+uncle. "I had kept it at bay quite easily for close on fifteen years,
+but it came back very hard and suddenly about that time."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Partly, I think, because the only thing that had kept me at home all
+those years seemed to be slipping away from me."
+
+"I _wasn't_!" declared Miss Gaymer stoutly. Then she reflected. "Do you
+mean--all those silly boys? Was it them?"
+
+"It was," said Jimmy Marrable. "They not only put my nose out of joint
+but they bored me to tears."
+
+"You were always worth the whole lot of them put together, dear," said
+Miss Gaymer affectionately.
+
+"I knew that," replied Jimmy Marrable modestly, "but I wasn't quite sure
+if you did. I saw that for the next two or three years you would be
+healthily and innocently employed in making fools of young men, and so
+could well afford to do without your old wreck of an uncle. The serious
+part would not come until you grew up to be of a marriageable age. So I
+decided in the meanwhile to treat myself to just one last potter round
+the globe, and then, in a couple of years or so, come home and assume
+the onerous duties of chucker-out."
+
+"Then why did you stay away so long?" demanded Miss Gaymer.
+
+"Because I heard Hughie had come home," said Jimmy Marrable simply.
+
+Joan started guiltily, and her hand, which was resting in one of the old
+gentleman's, relaxed its hold for a moment. Jimmy Marrable noticed
+nothing, and proceeded:--
+
+"I got news of him from a man in Cape Town. His name was Allerton. He
+seemed a bit of a rolling stone, but had lately married the proprietress
+of a little public-house, Wynberg way, and was living in great
+contentment and affluence. His wife regarded his capture as the crowning
+achievement of her life, and altogether they were a most devoted couple.
+On hearing that my name was Marrable, he said he was sure I must be
+Hughie's uncle, as Hughie had told him I was the only relation he had.
+He was a gentleman, of sorts, and seemed to regard friend Hughie as a
+kind of cross between Providence and the Rock of Gibraltar. They had
+been through some rather tough times together--on board the Orinoco. I
+expect Hughie has often told you all about that?"
+
+Joan shook her head.
+
+"No? Well, it was like him not to. However, Allerton told me for a fact
+that Hughie was now home for good; so I knew then that my plans had
+worked out right after all, and that I need not hurry back. My little
+girl was safe."
+
+He sighed contentedly, and patted Joan's hand.
+
+"I'm a happy old fossil, Joey," he said. "I've always schemed in a
+clumsy way to bring this about, and now it has happened. 'There's a
+divinity that shapes our ends,' you know. And now, I suppose, you are
+mistress of this old house. How long have you been married?"
+
+"We're not," said Joan in a very small voice.
+
+"Not what?"
+
+"Married."
+
+She held up a ringless hand in corroboration. Jimmy Marrable inspected
+it.
+
+"Where's your engagement ring?" he demanded.
+
+Joan felt that there was a bad time coming--especially for Uncle Jimmy.
+
+"We--we're not engaged," she faltered. Then she continued swiftly, for
+there was a look on Jimmy Marrable's brown and wrinkled face that
+frightened her, and she wanted to get explanations over: "Hughie and I
+didn't quite care for one another--in that way. No, I'm a liar. _I_
+didn't care for Hughie in that way."
+
+"He asked you, then?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And you--wouldn't--?"
+
+Joan nodded. She suddenly felt unreasonably mean and despicable. She had
+declined to marry Hughie in all good faith, as she had a perfect right
+to do, for the very sufficient reason that she did not like him--or his
+way of putting things--well enough; and she had felt no particular
+compunction at the time in dealing the blow. But none of these reasons
+seemed any excuse for hurting Uncle Jimmy.
+
+Since then, too, her feelings towards Hughie himself had altered to an
+extent which she was just beginning to realise. Of late she had found
+herself taking a quite peculiar interest in Hughie's movements. Why,
+she hardly knew. He paid her few attentions; he was habitually
+uncompromising in what he considered the execution of his duty; and he
+had made a shocking mess of her affairs. But--he was in trouble; people
+were down on him; and he had been her friend ever since she could
+remember.
+
+Now Joan Gaymer, if she was nothing else, was loyal; and loyalty in a
+woman rather thrives on adversity than otherwise. And a woman's loyalty
+to a man who is her friend, if you endeavour to overstrain it or drive
+it into a corner, in nine cases out of ten will protect itself,
+Proteus-like, by turning into something entirely different, a something
+which is quite impervious to outward attack and can only be strained to
+breaking-point by one person--the man himself; and not always then, as
+countless undeserving husbands know. Joan's loyalty to Hughie was in
+some such process of transition. She thought about him a good deal, but
+she had never once faced the question of her ultimate relations with
+him. The modern maiden is not given to candid analysis of her own
+feelings towards members of the opposite sex,--she considers these
+exercises "Early Victorian," or "sentimental," or "effeminate"; and
+consequently Joan had never frankly asked herself what she really
+thought about Hughie Marrable. At times, say when she heard people speak
+ill of her deputy-guardian behind his back, she had been conscious that
+she was hot and angry; at others, when something occurred to bring home
+to her with special force the tribulations that Hughie was enduring, she
+had been conscious of a large and dim determination to "make it up to
+him," in some manner as yet undefined and at some time as yet
+unspecified. In short, like many a daughter of Eve before her, she had
+not known her own mind. She knew it now. Her heart smote her.
+
+Suddenly Jimmy Marrable's voice broke in with the rather unexpected but
+not altogether unreasonable question:--
+
+"Then if you aren't either engaged or married to Hughie, may I ask what
+the deuce you are doing in his house?"
+
+"It isn't his house," replied Joan, recalling her wandering attention to
+the rather irascible figure by her side. "He has let it to the Leroys,
+and he and I are both staying here as guests just now."
+
+"What on earth did the boy want to let the place for? Why couldn't you
+and the Leroys come and stay here as _his_ guests?"
+
+"I think," said Miss Gaymer delicately, "that Hughie is--rather hard
+up."
+
+"Hard up? Stuff! He has eight hundred a year, and enough coming in from
+the estate to make it pay its own way without any expense to him. How
+much more does he want?"
+
+"I don't think Hughie is a very good business man," said Joan.
+
+She made the remark in sincere defence of Hughie, just as a mother might
+say, "Ah, but he always _had_ a weak chest!" when her offspring comes in
+last in the half-mile handicap. But Jimmy Marrable, being a man, took
+the suggestion as a reproach.
+
+"Nonsense!" he said testily. "Hughie has as hard a head as any man I
+know. What do you mean by running him down? Have you any complaint to
+make of the way he has managed _your_ affairs--eh?"
+
+"None whatever," said Joan promptly.
+
+"But--bless my soul!" cried Jimmy Marrable; "I forgot! You haven't
+_got_--" He paused, and appeared to be working out some abstruse problem
+in his head. "Look here, Joey," he continued presently, "if you aren't
+married to Hughie, what are you living on?"
+
+Joan stared at him in astonishment.
+
+"On the money you left behind for me," she said. "What else?"
+
+The old gentleman regarded her intently for a moment, and then said:--
+
+"Of course: I forgot. I suppose Hughie pays it to you quarterly."
+
+"Yes--into my bank account," replied Miss Gaymer with a touch of pride.
+
+"How much?"
+
+"Is it _quite_ fair to tell?" inquired Joan, instinctively protecting
+her fraudulent trustee.
+
+"Of course. It was my money in the first instance. Go on--how much?"
+
+"Four hundred a year," said Joan. "It was three hundred at first. Hughie
+told me you hadn't left as much as he expected, and that I should have
+to be careful. But Ursula Harbord--she is the girl I share a flat with:
+she is frightfully clever about money and business--told me to ask
+Hughie what interest I was getting on my capital, or something. I found
+out for her--four per cent, I think it was--and she said it wasn't
+_nearly_ enough. There were things called preference shares, or
+something, that pay ten or twelve per cent; and Hughie must sell out at
+once, and buy these instead. What's the matter?"
+
+Jimmy Marrable had suddenly choked.
+
+"Nothing! Nothing!" he said, in some confusion. "A smart girl, this
+friend of yours! Takes a large size in boots and gloves, I should say,
+and acts as honorary treasurer to various charitable organisations!
+Twelve per cent! Aha!" He slapped himself feebly. "And what did Master
+Hughie say to _that_?"
+
+"I could see he didn't half like it," continued Joan; "but Ursula had
+declared that if I wouldn't allow her to speak to him, she would consult
+some responsible person; as she was _sure_ Hughie was mismanaging things
+disgracefully. So to keep her quiet I let her. I think Hughie saw there
+was something in what she said, though; because he immediately agreed to
+give me four hundred a year in future instead of three. _Is_ it enough,
+Uncle Jimmy, or has poor Hughie really made a mess of things, as people
+say? _Say_ it's enough, Uncle Jimmy! I _know_ he did his best, and I'd
+rather go without--"
+
+"Enough?"
+
+Jimmy Marrable turned and scrutinised his ward closely, as if appraising
+her exact value. Certainly she was very lovely. He whistled softly, and
+nodded his head in an enigmatical manner.
+
+"I'd have done it myself," he murmured darkly. "Enough?" he repeated
+aloud. "My little girl, do you know how much capital an income of four
+hundred a year represents?"
+
+Joan shook her head. Her experience of finance was limited to signing a
+cheque in the proper corner.
+
+"Well, about ten thousand pounds."
+
+"Hoo!" said Miss Gaymer, pleasantly fluttered. "Have I got all that?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Oh! How much, then?"
+
+Jimmy Marrable told her.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XIX
+
+                 IN WHICH LOVE FLIES OUT OF THE WINDOW
+
+
+Hughie closed the door on Joan, and breathed a gentle sigh of relief. He
+was spoiling for a fight, and he had just got his hands free, so to
+speak. Brief but perfect satisfaction lay before him.
+
+He resumed his position in front of the fire. Mr. Haliburton sat on an
+oak table and swung his legs.
+
+"Now, Marrable--" began the latter briskly.
+
+Hughie interrupted him.
+
+"Mr. Haliburton," he said, "you heard my intimation to Miss Gaymer just
+now?"
+
+"I did," said Mr. Haliburton.
+
+"Well, I should like to repeat it to you. The marriage which has been
+arranged--by you--will not take place. That's all."
+
+"That," replied Mr. Haliburton easily, "is a matter for Joan and
+myself--"
+
+"We will refer to my ward as Miss Gaymer for the rest of this
+interview," said Hughie stiffly.
+
+"Certainly. To resume. You see, Marrable, although you were appointed
+Miss Gaymer's guardian by the eccentric old gentleman who bears the same
+name as yourself, your authority does not last for ever. I understand
+that the lady will shortly become her own mistress."
+
+"She will."
+
+"In which case she will have the control of her own property."
+
+"That is so."
+
+"Well,"--Mr. Haliburton paused, and flicked the ash off his
+cigarette,--"don't you think that this display of authority on your
+part, considering that it is subject to a time-limit, is rather
+ridiculous?"
+
+"I have only one observation to make on that point," said Hughie coolly,
+"and that is, that I have made no display of authority of any kind."
+
+"My dear sir," said Mr. Haliburton, raising his histrionic eyebrows,
+"aren't you forbidding the banns?"
+
+"I have never forbidden anything. I have merely stated that the match
+will not come off."
+
+"Don't let us quibble, man!" said Haliburton impatiently. He got off the
+table. "Look here, Marrable, there is no need for you and me to be
+mealy-mouthed in this matter. Let's be frank. You want this girl: so do
+I. She can't marry both of us, so she must pick one. She has picked me:
+I have her word for it. She says she cares for me more than any man in
+the world, and would tramp the roads with me. And I with her! Why,
+man--"
+
+As he uttered these noble words Mr. Haliburton struck an attitude
+which many young women in the front row of the pit would have
+considered highly dramatic, but which merely struck the prejudiced and
+unsympathetic male before him as theatrical in the extreme.
+
+"Drop it!" said Hughie. "You make me quite sick."
+
+He spoke the truth. He did not know whether Haliburton's rhapsody rested
+on any assured foundation or not. But in any case Joan's fresh and
+innocent youth was a very sacred thing, and even the suggestion that she
+could have anything in common with this glorified super made him feel
+physically unwell.
+
+Mr. Haliburton broke off, and smiled.
+
+"Marrable," he said, almost genially, "we understand each other! I see
+you want plain English. I said just now that we were both fond of the
+girl. So we are. But I fancy we are both a bit fonder of her little bit
+of stuff--eh? Now, you have been handling the dibs for a matter of
+eighteen months, I understand. You have feathered your nest pretty
+comfortably, from all I hear. Don't be a dog in the manger! Let your
+friends into a good thing too!"
+
+The mask was off with a vengeance. Hughie swallowed something and
+thanked God that, if his wanderings among mankind had taught him nothing
+else, they had taught him to hold himself in till the time came. He
+said:--
+
+"Haliburton, I have told you several times that I do not forbid this
+engagement; because, as you have very acutely pointed out, my _veto_
+does not last for ever; but the match is not coming off, for all that.
+Before you go I will explain what I mean. I don't want to, because the
+consequences may be serious, both for Miss Gaymer and myself; but it
+will show you how absolutely determined I am to make a clean sweep of
+you.
+
+"I should like to say in the first place that I should never have stood
+between Miss Gaymer and _any_ man, so long as I honestly thought he
+could make her happy--not even a man whom I personally would regard as
+an ass or an outsider. But there are limits to everything, and you
+strike me as being the limit in this case. I have been making inquiries
+about you, and I now know your antecedents fairly well. You apparently
+are an actor of sorts, though all the actors of my acquaintance look
+distinctly unwell when your name is mentioned. However, whatever you
+are, I should be sorry to see any woman in whom I take an interest
+compelled to spend even half an hour in your company. In fact, if you
+had not originally come down here as a friend of Lance Gaymer's,--over
+whom, by the way, I find you once had some hold,--I should have asked
+Captain Leroy's permission to kick you out of the place some time ago!"
+
+Mr. Haliburton looked a little uncomfortable. He held a good hand, but
+Hughie was obviously not bluffing. He had an uneasy feeling that there
+must be an unsuspected card out somewhere.
+
+"To come to the main point," continued Hughie, "I want this engagement
+to be declared off by _you_, not by me. What is your price?"
+
+Mr. Haliburton breathed again. Bribery? Was that all? He replied
+briskly:--
+
+"How much have you got?"
+
+"Is a thousand pounds any use?" asked Hughie.
+
+"Twenty might be," replied the lover.
+
+"My limit," said Hughie, who was not a man to haggle about what Mr.
+Mantalini once described as "demnition coppers," "is five thousand
+pounds."
+
+"Talk sense!" said Mr. Haliburton briefly.
+
+"The offer," continued Hughie steadily, "is open for five minutes. If
+you accept it I will write you a cheque now, and you will sit down and
+write a letter formally breaking off, on your own initiative, any
+engagement or understanding you may have entered into with Miss Gaymer,
+and undertaking never to come near her again; and I will see she gets
+it. If not--well, you'll be sorry, for you'll never make such a good
+bargain by any other means."
+
+Haliburton eyed him curiously.
+
+"Is this your own money you are offering me?" he said.
+
+"It is," said Hughie, looking at his watch. "Three minutes left."
+
+"Won't it make rather a hole in your capital account?"
+
+"It will. In fact, hole won't be the word for it! But it will be worth
+it."
+
+Intelligence dawned upon Mr. Haliburton.
+
+"I see," he said slowly. "You expect to recoup yourself later,
+when--when the marriage settlements are drawn up, eh? Or perhaps," he
+added sarcastically, "eighteen months of careful trusteeship have put
+you in a position to afford this extravagance!"
+
+Hughie was surprised at his own self-control. Only the little pulse
+which Joan had noticed beat assiduously in his right temple.
+
+"Fifteen seconds!" he said. "Do you take this offer, Mr. Haliburton?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Right!" Hughie put his watch back into his pocket and regarded the
+misguided blackmailer before him rather in the manner of a benevolent
+policeman standing over a small boy with a cigarette.
+
+"Your last few remarks," he said, "have been so offensive that I know
+you would not have had the pluck to make them unless you thought you had
+me absolutely under your thumb. But I may as well proceed to my final
+move, and terminate this interview. I am very averse to taking this
+particular step, because its results may be awkward, as I said, for Miss
+Gaymer. That is why I offered you practically all the available money I
+have to call the deal off. But I see I can't help myself. Now,
+Haliburton,--by the way, I forgot to mention that your real name is
+Spratt: you seem to have become a big fish since you took to
+fortune-hunting,--I am going to make you break off your engagement. I am
+going to pay you a high compliment. I am going to give you a piece of
+information, known only to myself and Miss Gaymer's banker, for which
+you will ultimately be very grateful, and the knowledge of which will
+cause you, when you get outside (which will be very soon now), to kick
+yourself for a blamed fool because you did not accept my first offer."
+
+Mr. Haliburton-Spratt shuffled his feet a trifle uneasily, and Hughie
+continued:--
+
+"You seem to be suffering from an aggravated attack of the prevailing
+impression that Miss Gaymer is an heiress. Her fortune has been
+variously estimated by tea-table experts at anything from forty to a
+hundred thousand pounds. I will now tell you what it really is. Get off
+the table: I want to open that dispatch-box."
+
+Mr. Haliburton, conscious of a slight sinking sensation just below the
+second button of his waistcoat, moved as requested, and Hughie took out
+of the box a bank-book and a bulky letter.
+
+"When I came home from abroad," he said, "I found this letter awaiting
+me. It is from my uncle. The following passage will interest you: '... I
+have realised practically all my personal estate, and have placed the
+cash to your credit on Joey's behalf'--Joey is the name," he explained
+punctiliously, "by which Miss Gaymer is known to her intimate
+friends--'at the Law Courts Branch of the Home Counties Bank.... The
+rest of my property is set down and duly disposed of in my will, and
+cannot be touched until my death is authenticated.'"
+
+"I hope there was a respectable sum in the bank," said Mr. Haliburton,
+his spirits rising again.
+
+Hughie opened the pass-book.
+
+"When I went to the bank in question," he said, "and asked to be allowed
+to see the amount of my balance, I was handed this pass-book. From it
+you will gather the exact value of Miss Gaymer's fortune at the moment
+when I took over the management of her affairs."
+
+He handed the book to Mr. Haliburton. That devout lover glanced eagerly
+at the sum indicated on the balance-line--and turned a delicate green.
+
+"You see?" said Hughie calmly, taking the book back. "One hundred pounds
+sterling! A poor exchange for five thousand, Mr. Haliburton!"
+
+"Where is the money?" said Haliburton thickly.
+
+"That I can't tell you. But you will see by the book and this duly
+endorsed cheque,"--he picked a pink slip out of the dispatch-box,--"that
+the sum of thirty-nine thousand, nine hundred pounds--the amount he had
+put in a few days before, less one hundred--was drawn out of the bank,
+in a lump, by my uncle himself the day before he sailed. Why he did it,
+I can't imagine. He must have changed his plans suddenly. All I know is
+that he has put me in a very tight place as a trustee, and you in a much
+tighter one as a suitor, Mr. Haliburton!"
+
+He took the cheque from the hands of the demoralized Haliburton, and
+closed the dispatch-box.
+
+There was a long silence. At length Hughie said:--
+
+"I presume I may take it that you now desire to withdraw from this
+engagement?"
+
+"You may!" said Mr. Haliburton emphatically. He was too deeply chagrined
+to play his part any longer.
+
+Hughie surveyed him critically.
+
+"You're a direct rascal, Spratt," he said; "you are no more hypocritical
+than you need be. But you're a rascal for all that. Well, I won't keep
+you. Good afternoon!"
+
+But Mr. Haliburton's quick-moving brain had been taking in the altered
+situation, with its strong and weak points so far as he himself was
+concerned. He had not lived by his wits twenty years for nothing.
+
+"I suppose," he observed, reseating himself on the corner of the
+writing-table, "it would be indiscreet to inquire from what source the
+young lady, with a capital of one hundred pounds sterling, is at present
+deriving an income of apparently three or four hundred a year?"
+
+"Not only indiscreet, but positively unhealthy," said Hughie, turning a
+dusky red. His fingers were curling and uncurling.
+
+Mr. Haliburton directed upon him what can only be described as a
+depredatory eye.
+
+"Don't you think, Mr. Marrable," he said, "that it would be a good thing
+to--_square_ me? I could do with that five thousand. This is a
+censorious world, you know; and scandalous little yarns are apt to get
+about when a young lady accepts--_Hrrrumph!_"
+
+It was the last straw. Hughie's iron restraint snapped at last. Both his
+and Mr. Haliburton's impressions of the next few moments were distinctly
+blurred, but at the end of that period Hughie, breathing heavily and
+feeling as if he had just won a valuable prize in a consolation race,
+found himself facing Jimmy Marrable, who had entered the door just as
+Love (as represented by Mr. Haliburton) flew out of the window.
+
+"Hallo, Hughie!"
+
+"Hallo, Uncle Jimmy! Half a mo'!"
+
+Mr. Haliburton, seated dizzily in a rose-bed in the garden, heard
+Hughie's step returning to the French window above his head. A
+walking-stick suddenly speared itself in the soil beside him, and a pair
+of gloves and a Homburg hat pattered delicately down upon his upturned
+countenance; while Hughie's voice intimated that there was a swift and
+well-cushioned train back to town at six-twenty.
+
+Then, closing the window and leaving Mr. Haliburton to extract himself
+tenderly from his bed of roses, cursing feebly the while and ruminating
+bitterly upon the unreliability of proverbial expressions, Hughie turned
+to the room again. It had just occurred to him that in the heat of the
+moment he had been a trifle cavalier in his reception of a relative whom
+he had not seen for ten years, and who he imagined had been dead for
+four.
+
+Half an hour later Jimmy Marrable enquired:--
+
+"Would it be too much to ask whom you were throwing out of the window
+when I came in?"
+
+"Friend of Joey's," said Hughie briefly. "And now, Uncle Jimmy," he
+added, with clouding brow,--the joy of battle was overpast, and the
+horizon was dark with the wings of all kinds of chickens coming home to
+roost,--"I should like to inform you that you and your financial methods
+have put me in a devil of a hole. I want an explanation."
+
+"Right. Fire away!"
+
+"Well, when I took on the job bequeathed to me by you of administering
+Joan's affairs, I discovered that instead of being an heiress, the
+child was practically penniless. For some idiotic reason best known to
+yourself, you no sooner put money into the bank for her than you
+dragged it all out again. Consequently I discovered that I was booked
+to manage the affairs of a girl whom everybody thought to be the
+possessor of pots of money, but whose entire capital"--he picked up the
+pass-book--"amounted in reality to one hundred pounds sterling."
+
+"Correct!" said Jimmy Marrable. "Proceed!"
+
+"If," continued Hughie in an even and businesslike tone, "Joan had been
+prepared to marry me, the money wouldn't have mattered, as she could
+have had mine. Unfortunately that event did not occur."
+
+"Did she know she hadn't any money when you asked her to marry you?"
+enquired Jimmy Marrable.
+
+"No."
+
+"And did she go on refusing you after you had informed her she was a
+pauper?"
+
+Hughie had seen this question coming from afar. He turned a delicate
+carmine. His uncle surveyed him, and nodded comprehendingly.
+
+"Quite so!" he said. "Quite so! You never told her."
+
+"No," said Hughie, "I hadn't the heart. It seemed like--like trying to
+coerce her into marrying me. No, I just let her imagine that she had a
+tidy little fortune invested, and that she could live on the
+interest--three hundred a year. I--I found that sum for her, and she
+took it all right. After all, she was a woman, and women will swallow
+almost anything you tell them about money matters. If they jib at
+all, all you have to do is to surround yourself with a cloud of
+technicalities, and they cave in at once. I think Joey was a _little_
+surprised at not getting more, for she had thought herself a bit of an
+heiress; but she never said a word. In fact, she was so kind about it
+that I saw she was convinced I had made a mess of things somewhere, and
+must be protected accordingly. She put it all down to my usual
+incompetence, I suppose,--as far as I can see, she considers me a born
+fool,--and accepted the situation loyally."
+
+"She would do that," said Jimmy Marrable.
+
+"Well," continued Hughie, "Joan was all right, but everybody else was
+the devil. An awful girl friend of hers, called Harbord--"
+
+"I know--twelve per cent!" gurgled Jimmy Marrable.
+
+"Yes. Well, she came and gave me beans to begin with. Then young Lance
+began to suspect me,--he never could stand me at any price,--and he came
+and raised Cain one day at a luncheon party I was giving--but, by the
+way, that's all right now; Lance has come round completely. Even the
+Leroys couldn't conceal their conviction that I had made a bungle
+somewhere--an honest bungle, of course, but a bungle. And finally an
+unutterable sweep called Haliburton came along. I knew something of
+him--so much, in fact, that it never occurred to me that there was
+anything to fear from him. But he got the master-grip on me when every
+one else had failed. Joey--our Joey--fell in love with him and promised
+to marry him!"
+
+"I have heard nothing of this. What sort of fellow is he?" enquired
+Jimmy Marrable.
+
+"Much the same type, I should say, as the late lamented Gaymer, senior."
+
+"Are you sure--about her falling in love?" continued Jimmy Marrable, in
+a puzzled voice.
+
+"Looks like it," said Hughie. "I was away yesterday, and got back early
+this morning. I found a note from Joey on my dressing-table, saying that
+Haliburton had proposed to her, and that she was sending him along to me
+to ask for my consent. She wouldn't have gone as far as that if she
+didn't--if she didn't"--His voice shook. "It was a pill for me, Uncle
+Jimmy!"
+
+"What did you do?" said Jimmy Marrable.
+
+"I did this. I knew quite well that if Joey--loved him"--the words came
+from between his clenched teeth--"she would stick to him, blackguard or
+not. She's that sort."
+
+"She is. Well?"
+
+"I came to the conclusion that if there was to be a rupture of the
+engagement it must come from him."
+
+"You made him break it off?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"How? By throwing him out of the window?"
+
+"No. That would have been no good if he was really after her money. I
+simply told him the truth--the whole truth--about her bank balance, and
+so on. That did it. He backed out all right."
+
+Jimmy Marrable rubbed his hands.
+
+"And then?"
+
+"And then ideas began to occur to him--"
+
+"Exactly. He began to ask questions--to make innuendoes--"
+
+"Yes. I then threw him out of the window. It was some consolation. That
+is the story."
+
+Hughie turned away, and gazed dejectedly into the fender. Presently
+Jimmy Marrable remarked:--
+
+"And meanwhile the fat is in the fire?"
+
+"It is," said Hughie bitterly. "Uncle Jimmy, what _will_ she think?
+Everything is bound to come out now,--that fellow will run about telling
+everybody,--and when she hears of the cruel position I've placed her in
+she'll never speak to me again. We shan't even be ordinary good friends
+now. Poor little girl! I've done her the worst turn a man can do a
+woman; and I would have _died_ for her--cheerfully!"
+
+Hughie leaned against the tall mantelpiece and dropped his head upon his
+arms. "Joey! Joey!" he murmured to himself, very softly.
+
+Jimmy Marrable retired to a remote corner of the room, where he spent
+some time selecting a cigar from Jack Leroy's private locker. Presently
+he returned. Observing that his nephew was apparently not quite ready to
+resume the conversation, he spent some time in lighting the cigar,
+bridging over the silence with a rumbling soliloquy.
+
+"It is a blessing to be back on dry land again," he observed, "where
+cigars will keep in decent condition. No more green weeds for me! What I
+like is a good crisp Havana that splits open if you squeeze the end,
+instead of--"
+
+Hughie once more stood erect on the hearthrug. The fit had passed.
+
+Jimmy Marrable eyed him curiously.
+
+"Hughie, boy," he said, "it was a mad, mad scheme. Why did you do it?"
+
+Hughie turned upon him, and blazed out suddenly.
+
+"Why?" he cried. "Because there was nothing else to do! Do you think I
+would let our Joey--no, damn it! _my_ Joey--go out as a governess or a
+chorus-girl--yes, she actually suggested _that_!--when I could keep her
+happy and comfortable by telling one little white lie? It may have been
+a mad thing to do; but it was a choice of evils, and I'd do it again! So
+stuff that up your cigar and smoke it!"
+
+"Silly young owl!" remarked Jimmy Marrable. He lit his cigar with
+fastidious care, and continued:--
+
+"I suppose you want an explanation from _me_ now?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Well, the withdrawal of that money was an eleventh-hour notion. It
+suddenly occurred to me that you, with your imbecile ideas about honour
+and filthy lucre, and so forth, might feel squeamish about making love
+to a girl with a fat bank balance. So just before I sailed I drew the
+money out, imagining that by so doing I should be removing the only
+obstacle to a happy union between you and Joey. The entire affair was
+intended to be a walk-over for you. Between us, we seem to have made a
+bonny mess of things. Hughie, we Marrables are not cut out for feminine
+fancywork."
+
+"What is to be done now?" said Hughie gloomily.
+
+"I have thought of that," said Jimmy Marrable. "When a man gets in a
+hopeless tangle of any kind, his best plan is to ask a woman to help him
+out. That is what we shall have to do. Wait here a few minutes."
+
+He turned towards the door.
+
+"Mildred Leroy won't be in for half an hour yet," called Hughie after
+him, "so it's no good looking for her."
+
+"All right!" replied Jimmy Marrable's voice far up the stairs.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER XX
+
+                     SINFUL WASTE OF A PENNY STAMP
+
+
+Ten minutes passed. Hughie, leaning heavily against the frame of the
+French window, gazed listlessly out at a squirrel which was inviting him
+to a game of hide-and-seek from the far side of a tree-trunk.
+
+"One thing," he mused,--"I shall be able to go abroad again now. No more
+of this--"
+
+There was the faintest perceptible rustle behind him. Joan must have
+come in very quietly, for the door was shut and she was sitting on the
+corner of the writing-table,--exactly where the recently-departed
+Haliburton had been posing,--swinging her feet and surveying her late
+guardian's back. In her hand she held a pink slip of paper.
+
+Hughie never forgot the picture that she presented at that moment. She
+was dressed in white--something workmanlike and unencumbering--with a
+silver filigree belt around her waist. She wore a battered Panama
+hat--the sort of headgear affected by "coons" of the music-hall
+persuasion--with a wisp of pale blue silk twisted round it. The evening
+sun, streaming through the most westerly of the windows, glinted on her
+hair, her belt, and the silver buckles on her shoes. Hughie caught his
+breath.
+
+Joan spoke first.
+
+"Here's something for you, Hughie," she said.
+
+Hughie took the proffered slip of paper. It was a cheque, made out to
+himself and signed by Jimmy Marrable.
+
+"I think that covers all the expense to which you have been put on my
+account while Uncle Jimmy has been away," said Joan. Her voice sounded
+gruff and businesslike.
+
+Hughie examined the cheque. "Yes," he said, "it does."
+
+"It was very good of you," said Joan formally, "to advance me so much
+money. I had no idea you were doing it. Apparently you might never have
+got it back again."
+
+Hughie gazed at her curiously. He began to grasp the situation. He was
+to be whitewashed: the compromising past was to be decently buried, and
+"Temporary Loan" was to be its epitaph.
+
+"Never mind that," he said awkwardly. "All in the day's work, you know!
+Afraid I was a rotten trustee."
+
+Suddenly Joan's demeanour changed.
+
+"And now, my man," she said briskly, "will you be good enough to explain
+what you mean by compromising a lady in this way?"
+
+Hughie looked at her for a moment in dismay. Then he saw that her eyes
+were twinkling, and he heaved a sudden sigh of incredulous relief. He
+was forgiven!
+
+"Joey!" he said,--"Joey, you mean to say you're not angry?"
+
+"Furious!" replied Miss Gaymer, smiling in her old friendly fashion.
+
+"Thank God!" said Hughie.
+
+Miss Gaymer changed the subject, rather hurriedly.
+
+"There's something else I want to ask you," she said. "Will you kindly
+inform me what has become of my--ahem!--young man?"
+
+"Who?" said Hughie. "Oh, _that_ chap? He is gone."
+
+"Gone? Where?"
+
+"London, I should think."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"In the first place, because I told him about your--I mean--I wouldn't
+advise you to ask me, Joey. You see--I should hate--"
+
+"You would hate," said Miss Gaymer, coming to his rescue, "to say 'I
+told you so!' I know, Hughie. It's like you, and I love you for it."
+
+Hughie winced. These colloquial terms of endearment are sometimes rather
+tantalising. Still, he must not mind that. The girl, too, had had her
+disappointment, and was bearing herself bravely. At least--
+
+"Joey," he said suddenly, "did you _really_ care for that bloke?"
+
+The lady on the table stiffened suddenly.
+
+"What--that poisonous bounder?" She rolled up her eyes. "My che-ild!"
+
+"But you let him make love to you."
+
+"_Did_ I? I suppose you were there," observed Miss Gaymer witheringly,
+"disguised as a Chinese lantern!"
+
+"Well, what _did_ you do, then?"
+
+"He asked me to be his blushing bride," said the unfeeling Miss Gaymer,
+"and tried to grab my hand. I squinted down my nose, and looked very
+prim and sweet, and thought we had better be getting back to the
+ballroom, and he could talk to Mr. Marrable in the morning. If that's
+your idea of allowing people to make _love_, dear friend--"
+
+"But you--you--promised to marry him!" said poor Hughie.
+
+Joan stared at him.
+
+"Do you mean to tell me, Hughie," she said slowly, "that he told you
+_that_?"
+
+"Yes--with one or two corroborative details. That was why I had to tell
+him--everything, you know. It was the only way, I thought, to choke him
+off."
+
+"O--o--oh!" Miss Gaymer wriggled indignantly. "The creature! And when he
+heard I had no money, he cried off?"
+
+Hughie bowed his head. Joan gave a low gurgling laugh.
+
+"There's no getting over it, Hughie!" she said. "He scored. A nasty slap
+for little me! But I deserved it, for trying to trifle with his young
+affections. Well, you have given me one reason for his departure. What
+was the other?"
+
+Hughie eyed her in some embarrassment. Then he said,--
+
+"He began to talk about you, Joey, in a way I didn't like, so I--"
+
+His eye slid round towards the window, and then downward in the
+direction of his right foot. A smile crept over his troubled face, and
+he glanced at Joan.
+
+"Oh, Hughie, _did_ you?" she exclaimed rapturously.
+
+"Yes. He landed in that rose-bed. Look!"
+
+Joey shuffled off the table and joined him by the window. A few feet
+below them, on the rose-bed, lay the unmistakable traces of the impact
+of a body falling from rest with an acceleration due to something more
+than the force of gravity.
+
+Joan cooed softly, evidently well pleased. Hughie turned and regarded
+her with a puzzled expression. No man ever yet fathomed the workings of
+the feminine mind, but he never quite gives up trying to do so.
+
+"Are you glad that he got thrown out?" he asked.
+
+Joan pondered.
+
+"It's not exactly that," she said. "I'm not glad he was thrown out: it
+must have hurt him, poor dear! But I'm glad you threw him out, if you
+understand the difference."
+
+Hughie was not at all sure that he did, but he nodded his head in a
+comprehending manner. Then he continued:--
+
+"Tell me, Joey, if you didn't care for him, why did you send him to me,
+instead of giving him the knock direct?"
+
+Joey surveyed her retired "warder" with eyes half-closed.
+
+"Well," she said reflectively, "there were heaps of reasons, but you are
+a man and wouldn't understand any of them. But, roughly speaking, it was
+because I wanted to see how you would handle him. I knew you wouldn't
+let him marry me, of course, but I wanted to see how you would play your
+cards. (You simply don't _know_ how fascinating these things are to
+watch.) Besides, I thought it would be good for him to come face to face
+with--a _man_," she added, almost below her breath.
+
+"I only got the best of him," said Hughie humbly, "by laying all my
+cards on the table. There's not much _finesse_ required for a game like
+that."
+
+"Still, you won," said Joan.
+
+Hughie sighed.
+
+"Haliburton lost, if you like," he said; "I don't quite see what _I_--"
+
+"No--you _won_!" said a very small but very insistent voice by his side.
+
+Hughie turned sharply. Miss Gaymer was breathing expansively upon the
+glass of the window, and assiduously scribbling a pattern thereon with
+her finger--an infantile and unladylike habit of which her nurse thought
+she had cured her at the age of eight. Also, her cheeks were aglow, and
+that with a richness of colouring which sufficed to convey some
+glimmerings of intelligence even into the brain of the obtuse young man
+beside her. Hughie suddenly felt something inside his head begin
+to buzz. His gigantic right hand (which still contained Jimmy
+Marrable's cheque tucked in between two fingers) closed cautiously but
+comprehensively upon Joan's left, which was resting on the window-frame,
+much as a youthful entomologist's net descends upon an unwary butterfly.
+
+"Joey," he said unsteadily,--"Joey, what do you mean?"
+
+Miss Gaymer sighed, in the resigned but persevering fashion of a patient
+Sunday-school teacher. Then she slipped her hand from under Hughie's,
+extracting as she did so the folded cheque from between his fingers.
+Hughie watched her dumbly.
+
+Joan unfolded the cheque, and perused it in a valedictory sort of
+manner. Then she kissed it softly. Then she tore it up very slowly into
+small pieces.
+
+She sighed again pensively, and said:--
+
+"There goes my ransom! It's a wicked waste--of a cheque-stamp! Now," she
+added cheerfully, "I am compromised worse than ever. Hughie, dear, I
+_really_ think, after this, that you'll have to--Ough! Hughie!
+_Hughie!_"
+
+For blind, groping Hughie's eyes were open at last. With an exultant
+whole-hearted roar he initiated a sudden enveloping movement; and then,
+turning away from the fierce light that beats upon actions performed at
+a window, strode majestically (if rather top-heavily) towards a great
+leather sofa in a secluded corner beyond the fireplace. The scandalised
+Miss Gaymer, owing to circumstances over which she had no control,
+accompanied him.
+
+
+
+
+                               * * * * *
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's note:
+
+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.
+
+On page 27, a quotation mark was added after "And are you going down for
+good next week?".
+
+On page 121, the period after "after gulping the water" was replaced
+with a comma.
+
+On page 151, "it may he" was replaced with "it may be".
+
+On page 172, the "care of" symbol was replaced with "c/o".
+
+On page 252, the closing parenthesis was moved from the end of "smiling
+disarmingly." to the end of "you see".
+
+On page 256, the "He" in "He appeared to be choosing" was changed to
+"He".
+
+On page 270, "Mr Gaymer" was replaced with "Mr. Gaymer".
+
+On page 315, "sitsing" was replaced with "sitting".
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 41574 ***