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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 41793 ***
+
+[Illustration: "'JOHN,' SHE CRIED, PASSIONATELY, 'I WILL NEVER ABANDON
+YOU!'" (_See page 133._)]
+
+
+
+
+  THE STRAND MAGAZINE.
+
+  Vol. xvii.      FEBRUARY, 1899.      No. 98.
+
+
+
+
+_Round the Fire._
+
+IX.--THE STORY OF THE JEW'S BREAST-PLATE.
+
+By A. Conan Doyle.
+
+
+My particular friend Ward Mortimer was one of the best men of his day at
+everything connected with Oriental archæology. He had written largely
+upon the subject, he had lived two years in a tomb at Thebes, while he
+had excavated in the Valley of the Kings, and finally he had created a
+considerable sensation by his exhumation of the alleged mummy of
+Cleopatra in the inner room of the Temple of Horus, at Philæ. With such
+a record at the age of thirty-one, it was felt that a considerable
+career lay before him, and no one was surprised when he was elected to
+the curatorship of the Belmore Street Museum, which carries with it the
+lectureship at the Oriental College, and an income which has sunk with
+the fall in land, but which still remains at that ideal sum which is
+large enough to encourage an investigator, and not so large as to
+enervate him.
+
+There was only one reason which made Ward Mortimer's position a little
+difficult at the Belmore Street Museum, and that was the extreme
+eminence of the man whom he had to succeed. Professor Andreas was a
+profound scholar and a man of European reputation. His lectures were
+frequented by students from every part of the world, and his admirable
+management of the collection intrusted to his care was a common-place in
+all learned societies. There was, therefore, considerable surprise when,
+at the age of fifty-five, he suddenly resigned his position and retired
+from those duties which had been both his livelihood and his pleasure.
+He and his daughter left the comfortable suite of rooms which had formed
+his official residence in connection with the museum, and my friend,
+Mortimer, who was a bachelor, took up his quarters there.
+
+On hearing of Mortimer's appointment Professor Andreas had written him a
+very kindly and flattering congratulatory letter, but I was actually
+present at their first meeting, and I went with Mortimer round the
+museum when the Professor showed us the admirable collection which he
+had cherished so long. The Professor's beautiful daughter and a young
+man, Captain Wilson, who was, as I understood, soon to be her husband,
+accompanied us in our inspection. There were fifteen rooms in all, but
+the Babylonian, the Syrian, and the central hall, which contained the
+Jewish and Egyptian collection, were the finest of all. Professor
+Andreas was a quiet, dry, elderly man, with a clean-shaven face and an
+impassive manner, but his dark eyes sparkled and his features quickened
+into enthusiastic life as he pointed out to us the rarity and the beauty
+of some of his specimens. His hand lingered so fondly over them, that
+one could read his pride in them and the grief in his heart now that
+they were passing from his care into that of another.
+
+He had shown us in turn his mummies, his papyri, his rare scarabs, his
+inscriptions, his Jewish relics, and his duplication of the famous
+seven-branched candlestick of the Temple, which was brought to Rome by
+Titus, and which is supposed by some to be lying at this instant in the
+bed of the Tiber. Then he approached a case which stood in the very
+centre of the hall, and he looked down through the glass with reverence
+in his attitude and manner.
+
+"This is no novelty to an expert like yourself, Mr. Mortimer," said he;
+"but I daresay that your friend, Mr. Jackson, will be interested to see
+it."
+
+Leaning over the case I saw an object, some five inches square, which
+consisted of twelve precious stones in a framework of gold, with golden
+hooks at two of the corners. The stones were all varying in sort and
+colour, but they were of the same size. Their shapes, arrangement, and
+gradation of tint made me think of a box of water-colour paints. Each
+stone had some hieroglyphic scratched upon its surface.
+
+"You have heard, Mr. Jackson, of the urim and thummim?"
+
+I had heard the term, but my idea of its meaning was exceedingly vague.
+
+"The urim and thummim was a name given to the jewelled plate which lay
+upon the breast of the high priest of the Jews. They had a very special
+feeling of reverence for it--something of the feeling which an ancient
+Roman might have for the Sibylline books in the Capitol. There are, as
+you see, twelve magnificent stones, inscribed with mystical characters.
+Counting from the left-hand top corner, the stones are carnelian,
+peridot, emerald, ruby, lapis lazuli, onyx, sapphire, agate, amethyst,
+topaz, beryl, and jasper."
+
+I was amazed at the variety and beauty of the stones.
+
+"Has the breast-plate any particular history?" I asked.
+
+[Illustration: "'IT IS OF GREAT AGE AND OF IMMENSE VALUE,' SAID
+PROFESSOR ANDREAS."]
+
+"It is of great age and of immense value," said Professor Andreas.
+"Without being able to make an absolute assertion, we have many reasons
+to think that it is possible that it may be the original urim and
+thummim of Solomon's Temple. There is certainly nothing so fine in any
+collection in Europe. My friend, Captain Wilson here, is a practical
+authority upon precious stones, and he would tell you how pure these
+are."
+
+Captain Wilson, a man with a dark, hard, incisive face, was standing
+beside his _fiancée_ at the other side of the case.
+
+"Yes," said he, curtly, "I have never seen finer stones."
+
+"And the gold-work is also worthy of attention. The ancients excelled
+in----"--he was apparently about to indicate the setting of the stones,
+when Captain Wilson interrupted him.
+
+"You will see a finer example of their gold-work in this candlestick,"
+said he, turning to another table, and we all joined him in his
+admiration of its embossed stem and delicately ornamented branches.
+Altogether it was an interesting and a novel experience to have objects
+of such rarity explained by so great an expert; and when, finally,
+Professor Andreas finished our inspection by formally handing over the
+precious collection to the care of my friend, I could not help pitying
+him and envying his successor whose life was to pass in so pleasant a
+duty. Within a week, Ward Mortimer was duly installed in his new set of
+rooms, and had become the autocrat of the Belmore Street Museum.
+
+About a fortnight afterwards my friend gave a small dinner to
+half-a-dozen bachelor friends to celebrate his promotion. When his
+guests were departing he pulled my sleeve and signalled to me that he
+wished me to remain.
+
+"You have only a few hundred yards to go," said he--I was living in
+chambers in the Albany. "You may as well stay and have a quiet cigar
+with me. I very much want your advice."
+
+I relapsed into an arm-chair and lit one of his excellent Matronas. When
+he had returned from seeing the last of his guests out, he drew a letter
+from his dress-jacket and sat down opposite to me.
+
+"This is an anonymous letter which I received this morning," said he. "I
+want to read it to you and to have your advice."
+
+"You are very welcome to it for what it is worth."
+
+"This is how the note runs: 'Sir,--I should strongly advise you to keep
+a very careful watch over the many valuable things which are committed
+to your charge. I do not think that the present system of a single
+watchman is sufficient. Be upon your guard, or an irreparable misfortune
+may occur.'"
+
+"Is that all?"
+
+"Yes, that is all."
+
+"Well," said I, "it is at least obvious that it was written by one of
+the limited number of people who are aware that you have only one
+watchman at night."
+
+Ward Mortimer handed me the note, with a curious smile. "Have you an eye
+for handwriting?" said he. "Now, look at this!" He put another letter in
+front of me. "Look at the _c_ in 'congratulate' and the _c_ in
+'committed.' Look at the capital _I_. Look at the trick of putting in a
+dash instead of a stop!"
+
+"They are undoubtedly from the same hand--with some attempt at disguise
+in the case of this first one."
+
+"The second," said Ward Mortimer, "is the letter of congratulation which
+was written to me by Professor Andreas upon my obtaining my
+appointment."
+
+I stared at him in amazement. Then I turned over the letter in my hand,
+and there, sure enough, was "Martin Andreas" signed upon the other side.
+There could be no doubt, in the mind of anyone who had the slightest
+knowledge of the science of graphology, that the Professor had written
+an anonymous letter, warning his successor against thieves. It was
+inexplicable, but it was certain.
+
+"Why should he do it?" I asked.
+
+"Precisely what I should wish to ask you. If he had any such misgivings,
+why could he not come and tell me direct?"
+
+"Will you speak to him about it?"
+
+"There again I am in doubt. He might choose to deny that he wrote it."
+
+"At any rate," said I, "this warning is meant in a friendly spirit, and
+I should certainly act upon it. Are the present precautions enough to
+insure you against robbery?"
+
+"I should have thought so. The public are only admitted from ten till
+five, and there is a guardian to every two rooms. He stands at the door
+between them, and so commands them both."
+
+"But at night?"
+
+[Illustration: "THIS WARNING IS MEANT IN A FRIENDLY SPIRIT."]
+
+"When the public are gone, we at once put up the great iron shutters,
+which are absolutely burglar-proof. The watchman is a capable fellow. He
+sits in the lodge, but he walks round every three hours. We keep one
+electric light burning in each room all night."
+
+"It is difficult to suggest anything more--short of keeping your day
+watchers all night."
+
+"We could not afford that."
+
+"At least, I should communicate with the police, and have a special
+constable put on outside in Belmore Street," said I. "As to the letter,
+if the writer wishes to be anonymous, I think he has a right to remain
+so. We must trust to the future to show some reason for the curious
+course which he has adopted."
+
+So we dismissed the subject, but all that night after my return to my
+chambers I was puzzling my brain as to what possible motive Professor
+Andreas could have for writing an anonymous warning letter to his
+successor--for that the writing was his was as certain to me as if I had
+seen him actually doing it. He foresaw some danger to the collection.
+Was it because he foresaw it that he abandoned his charge of it? But if
+so, why should he hesitate to warn Mortimer in his own name? I puzzled
+and puzzled until at last I fell into a troubled sleep, which carried me
+beyond my usual hour of rising.
+
+I was aroused in a singular and effective method, for about nine o'clock
+my friend Mortimer rushed into my room with an expression of
+consternation upon his face. He was usually one of the most tidy men of
+my acquaintance, but now his collar was undone at one end, his tie was
+flying, and his hat at the back of his head. I read his whole story in
+his frantic eyes.
+
+"The museum has been robbed!" I cried, springing up in bed.
+
+"I fear so! Those jewels! The jewels of the urim and thummim!" he
+gasped, for he was out of breath with running. "I'm going on to the
+police-station. Come to the museum as soon as you can, Jackson!
+Good-bye!" He rushed distractedly out of the room, and I heard him
+clatter down the stairs.
+
+I was not long in following his directions, but I found when I arrived
+that he had already returned with a police inspector, and another
+elderly gentleman, who proved to be Mr. Purvis, one of the partners of
+Morson and Company, the well-known diamond merchants. As an expert in
+stones he was always prepared to advise the police. They were grouped
+round the case in which the breast-plate of the Jewish priest had been
+exposed. The plate had been taken out and laid upon the glass top of the
+case, and the three heads were bent over it.
+
+"It is obvious that it has been tampered with," said Mortimer. "It
+caught my eye the moment that I passed through the room this morning. I
+examined it yesterday evening, so that it is certain that this has
+happened during the night."
+
+It was, as he had said, obvious that someone had been at work upon it.
+The settings of the uppermost row of four stones--the carnelian,
+peridot, emerald, and ruby--were rough and jagged as if someone had
+scraped all round them. The stones were in their places, but the
+beautiful gold work which we had admired only a few days before had been
+very clumsily pulled about.
+
+"It looks to me," said the police inspector, "as if someone had been
+trying to take out the stones."
+
+"My fear is," said Mortimer, "that he not only tried, but succeeded. I
+believe these four stones to be skilful imitations which have been put
+in the place of the originals."
+
+The same suspicion had evidently been in the mind of the expert, for he
+had been carefully examining the four stones with the aid of a lens. He
+now submitted them to several tests, and finally turned cheerfully to
+Mortimer.
+
+"I congratulate you, sir," said he, heartily. "I will pledge my
+reputation that all four of these stones are genuine, and of a most
+unusual degree of purity."
+
+The colour began to come back to my poor friend's frightened face, and
+he drew a long breath of relief.
+
+"Thank God!" he cried, "Then what in the world did the thief want?"
+
+"Probably he meant to take the stones, but was interrupted."
+
+"In that case one would expect him to take them out one at a time, but
+the setting of each of these has been loosened, and yet the stones are
+all here."
+
+"It is certainly most extraordinary," said the inspector. "I never
+remember a case like it. Let us see the watchman."
+
+The commissionaire was called--a soldierly, honest-faced man, who seemed
+as concerned as Ward Mortimer at the incident.
+
+"No, sir, I never heard a sound," he answered, in reply to the questions
+of the inspector. "I made my rounds four times, as usual, but I saw
+nothing suspicious. I've been in my position ten years, but nothing of
+the kind has ever occurred before."
+
+"No thief could have come through the windows?"
+
+"Impossible, sir."
+
+"Or passed you at the door?"
+
+"No, sir; I never left my post except when I walked my rounds."
+
+"What other openings are there into the museum?"
+
+"There is the door into Mr. Ward Mortimer's private rooms."
+
+"That is locked at night," my friend explained, "and in order to reach
+it anyone from the street would have to open the outside door as well."
+
+"Your servants?"
+
+"Their quarters are entirely separate."
+
+"Well, well," said the inspector, "this is certainly very obscure.
+However, there has been no harm done, according to Mr. Purvis."
+
+"I will swear that those stones are genuine."
+
+[Illustration: "I WILL SWEAR THAT THOSE STONES ARE GENUINE."]
+
+"So that the case appears to be merely one of malicious damage. But none
+the less, I should be very glad to go carefully round the premises, and
+to see if we can find any trace to show us who your visitor may have
+been."
+
+His investigation, which lasted all the morning, was careful and
+intelligent, but it led in the end to nothing. He pointed out to us that
+there were two possible entrances to the museum which we had not
+considered. The one was from the cellars by a trap-door opening in the
+passage. The other through a skylight from the lumber-room, overlooking
+that very chamber to which the intruder had penetrated. As neither the
+cellar nor the lumber-room could be entered unless the thief was already
+within the locked doors, the matter was not of any practical importance,
+and the dust of cellar and attic assured us that no one had used either
+one or the other. Finally, we ended as we began, without the slightest
+clue as to how, why, or by whom the setting of these four jewels had
+been tampered with.
+
+There remained one course for Mortimer to take, and he took it. Leaving
+the police to continue their fruitless researches, he asked me to
+accompany him that afternoon in a visit to Professor Andreas. He took
+with him the two letters, and it was his intention to openly tax his
+predecessor with having written the anonymous warning, and to ask him to
+explain the fact that he should have anticipated so exactly that which
+had actually occurred. The Professor was living in a small villa in
+Upper Norwood, but we were informed by the servant that he was away from
+home. Seeing our disappointment, she asked us if we should like to see
+Miss Andreas, and showed us into the modest drawing-room.
+
+I have mentioned incidentally that the Professor's daughter was a very
+beautiful girl. She was a blonde, tall and graceful, with a skin of that
+delicate tint which the French call "mat," the colour of old ivory or of
+the lighter petals of the sulphur rose. I was shocked, however, as she
+entered the room to see how much she had changed in the last fortnight.
+Her young face was haggard and her bright eyes heavy with trouble.
+
+"Father has gone to Scotland," she said. "He seems to be tired, and has
+had a good deal to worry him. He only left us yesterday."
+
+"You look a little tired yourself, Miss Andreas," said my friend.
+
+"I have been so anxious about father."
+
+"Can you give me his Scotch address?"
+
+"Yes, he is with his brother, the Rev. David Andreas, 1, Arran Villas,
+Ardrossan."
+
+Ward Mortimer made a note of the address, and we left without saying
+anything as to the object of our visit. We found ourselves in Belmore
+Street in the evening in exactly the same position in which we had been
+in the morning. Our only clue was the Professor's letter, and my friend
+had made up his mind to start for Ardrossan next day, and to get to the
+bottom of the anonymous letter, when a new development came to alter our
+plans.
+
+Very early upon the following morning I was aroused from my sleep by a
+tap upon my bedroom door. It was a messenger with a note from Mortimer.
+
+"Do come round," it said; "the matter is becoming more and more
+extraordinary."
+
+When I obeyed his summons I found him pacing excitedly up and down the
+central room, while the old soldier who guarded the premises stood with
+military stiffness in a corner.
+
+"My dear Jackson," he cried, "I am so delighted that you have come, for
+this is a most inexplicable business."
+
+"What has happened, then?"
+
+He waved his hand towards the case which contained the breast-plate.
+
+"Look at it," said he.
+
+I did so, and could not restrain a cry of surprise. The setting of the
+middle row of precious stones had been profaned in the same manner as
+the upper ones. Of the twelve jewels, eight had been now tampered with
+in this singular fashion. The setting of the lower four was still neat
+and smooth. The others jagged and irregular.
+
+"Have the stones been altered?" I asked.
+
+"No, I am certain that these upper four are the same which the expert
+pronounced to be genuine, for I observed yesterday that little
+discoloration on the edge of the emerald. Since they have not extracted
+the upper stones, there is no reason to think that the lower have been
+transposed. You say that you heard nothing, Simpson?"
+
+"No, sir," the commissionaire answered. "But when I made my round after
+daylight I had a special look at these stones, and I saw at once that
+someone had been meddling with them. Then I called you, sir, and told
+you. I was backwards and forwards all the night, and I never saw a soul
+or heard a sound."
+
+"Come up and have some breakfast with me," said Mortimer, and he took me
+into his own chambers.
+
+"Now, what _do_ you think of this, Jackson?" he asked.
+
+"It is the most objectless, futile, idiotic business that ever I heard
+of. It can only be the work of a monomaniac."
+
+"Can you put forward any theory?"
+
+[Illustration: "I NEVER SAW A SOUL OR HEARD A SOUND."]
+
+A curious idea came into my head. "This object is a Jewish relic of
+great antiquity and sanctity," said I. "How about the anti-Semitic
+movement? Could one conceive that a fanatic of that way of thinking
+might desecrate----"
+
+"No, no, no!" cried Mortimer. "That will never do! Such a man might push
+his lunacy to the length of destroying a Jewish relic, but why on earth
+should he nibble round every stone so carefully that he can only do four
+stones in a night? We must have a better solution than that, and we must
+find it for ourselves, for I do not think that our inspector is likely
+to help us. First of all, what do you think of Simpson, the porter?"
+
+"Have you any reason to suspect him?"
+
+"Only that he is the one person on the premises."
+
+"But why should he indulge in such wanton destruction? Nothing has been
+taken away. He has no motive."
+
+"Mania?"
+
+"No, I will swear to his sanity."
+
+"Have you any other theory?"
+
+"Well, yourself, for example. You are not a somnambulist, by any
+chance?"
+
+"Nothing of the sort, I assure you."
+
+"Then I give it up."
+
+"But I don't--and I have a plan by which we will make it all clear."
+
+"To visit Professor Andreas?"
+
+"No, we shall find our solution nearer than Scotland. I will tell you
+what we shall do. You know that skylight which overlooks the central
+hall? We will leave the electric lights in the hall, and we will keep
+watch in the lumber-room, you and I, and solve the mystery for
+ourselves. If our mysterious visitor is doing four stones at a time, he
+has four still to do, and there is every reason to think that he will
+return to-night and complete the job."
+
+"Excellent!" I cried.
+
+"We shall keep our own secret, and say nothing either to the police or
+to Simpson. Will you join me?"
+
+"With the utmost pleasure," said I, and so it was agreed.
+
+It was ten o'clock that night when I returned to the Belmore Street
+Museum. Mortimer was, as I could see, in a state of suppressed nervous
+excitement, but it was still too early to begin our vigil, so we
+remained for an hour or so in his chambers, discussing all the
+possibilities of the singular business which we had met to solve. At
+last the roaring stream of hansom cabs and the rush of hurrying feet
+became lower and more intermittent as the pleasure-seekers passed on
+their way to their stations or their homes. It was nearly twelve when
+Mortimer led the way to the lumber-room which overlooked the central
+hall of the museum.
+
+He had visited it during the day, and had spread some sacking so that we
+could lie at our ease, and look straight down into the museum. The
+skylight was of unfrosted glass, but was so covered with dust that it
+would be impossible for anyone looking up from below to detect that he
+was overlooked. We cleared a small piece at each corner, which gave us a
+complete view of the room beneath us. In the cold, white light of the
+electric lamps everything stood out hard and clear, and I could see the
+smallest detail of the contents of the various cases.
+
+Such a vigil is an excellent lesson, since one has no choice but to look
+hard at those objects which we usually pass with such half-hearted
+interest. Through my little peep-hole I employed the hours in studying
+every specimen, from the huge mummy-case which leaned against the wall
+to those very jewels which had brought us there, which gleamed and
+sparkled in their glass case immediately beneath us. There was much
+precious gold-work and many valuable stones scattered through the
+numerous cases, but those wonderful twelve which made up the urim and
+thummim glowed and burned with a radiance which far eclipsed the others.
+I studied in turn the tomb-pictures of Sicara, the friezes from Karnak,
+the statues of Memphis, and the inscriptions of Thebes, but my eyes
+would always come back to that wonderful Jewish relic, and my mind to
+the singular mystery which surrounded it. I was lost in the thought of
+it when my companion suddenly drew his breath sharply in, and seized my
+arm in a convulsive grip. At the same instant I saw what it was which
+had excited him.
+
+I have said that against the wall--on the right-hand side of the doorway
+(the right-hand side as we looked at it, but the left as one
+entered)--there stood a large mummy-case. To our unutterable amazement
+it was slowly opening. Gradually, gradually, the lid was swinging back,
+and the black slit which marked the opening was becoming wider and
+wider. So gently and carefully was it done that the movement was quite
+imperceptible. Then, as we breathlessly watched it, a white, thin hand
+appeared at the opening, pushing back the painted lid, then another
+hand, and finally a face--a face which was familiar to us both, that of
+Professor Andreas. Stealthily he slunk out of the mummy-case, like a fox
+stealing from its burrow, his head turning incessantly to left and to
+right, stepping, then pausing, then stepping again, the very image of
+craft and of caution. Once some sound in the street struck him
+motionless, and he stood listening, with his ear turned, ready to dart
+back to the shelter behind him. Then he crept onwards again upon tiptoe,
+very, very softly and slowly, until he had reached the case in the
+centre of the room. Then he took a bunch of keys from his pocket,
+unlocked the case, took out the Jewish breast-plate, and, laying it upon
+the glass in front of him, began to work upon it with some sort of
+small, glistening tool. He was so directly underneath us that his bent
+head covered his work, but we could guess from the movement of his hand
+that he was engaged in finishing the strange disfigurement which he had
+begun.
+
+[Illustration: "THIS HE OPENED SOFTLY WITH HIS KEY."]
+
+I could realize from the heavy breathing of my companion, and the
+twitchings of the hand which still clutched my wrist, the furious
+indignation which filled his heart as he saw this vandalism in the very
+quarter of all others where he could least have expected it. He, the
+very man who a fortnight before had reverently bent over this unique
+relic, and who had impressed its antiquity and its sanctity upon us, was
+now engaged in this outrageous profanation. It was impossible,
+unthinkable--and yet there, in the white glare of the electric light
+beneath us, was that dark figure with the bent, grey head, and the
+twitching elbow. What inhuman hypocrisy, what hateful depth of malice
+against his successor must underlie these sinister nocturnal labours. It
+was painful to think of and dreadful to watch. Even I, who had none of
+the acute feelings of a virtuoso, could not bear to look on and see this
+deliberate mutilation of so ancient a relic. It was a relief to me when
+my companion tugged at my sleeve as a signal that I was to follow him as
+he softly crept out of the room. It was not until we were within his own
+quarters that he opened his lips, and then I saw by his agitated face
+how deep was his consternation.
+
+"The abominable Goth!" he cried. "Could you have believed it?"
+
+"It is amazing."
+
+"He is a villain or a lunatic--one or the other. We shall very soon see
+which. Come with me, Jackson, and we shall get to the bottom of this
+black business."
+
+A door opened out of the passage which was the private entrance from his
+rooms into the museum. This he opened softly with his key, having first
+kicked off his shoes, an example which I followed. We crept together
+through room after room, until the large hall lay before us, with that
+dark figure still stooping and working at the central case. With an
+advance as cautious as his own we closed in upon him, but softly as we
+went we could not take him entirely unawares. We were still a dozen
+yards from him when he looked round with a start, and uttering a husky
+cry of terror, ran frantically down the museum.
+
+"Simpson! Simpson!" roared Mortimer, and far away down the vista of
+electric-lighted doors we saw the stiff figure of the old soldier
+suddenly appear. Professor Andreas saw him also, and stopped running,
+with a gesture of despair. At the same instant we each laid a hand upon
+his shoulder.
+
+"Yes, yes, gentlemen," he panted, "I will come with you. To your room,
+Mr. Ward Mortimer, if you please! I feel that I owe you an explanation."
+
+My companion's indignation was so great that I could see that he dared
+not trust himself to reply. We walked on each side of the old Professor,
+the astonished commissionaire bringing up the rear. When we reached the
+violated case, Mortimer stopped and examined the breast-plate. Already
+one of the stones of the lower row had had its setting turned back in
+the same manner as the others. My friend held it up and glanced
+furiously at his prisoner.
+
+"How could you!" he cried. "How could you!"
+
+"It is horrible--horrible!" said the Professor. "I don't wonder at your
+feelings. Take me to your room."
+
+"But this shall not be left exposed!" cried Mortimer. He picked the
+breast-plate up and carried it tenderly in his hand, while I walked
+beside the Professor, like a policeman with a malefactor. We passed into
+Mortimer's chambers, leaving the amazed old soldier to understand
+matters as best he could. The Professor sat down in Mortimer's
+arm-chair, and turned so ghastly a colour that, for the instant, all our
+resentment was changed to concern. A stiff glass of brandy brought the
+life back to him once more.
+
+"There, I am better now!" said he. "These last few days have been too
+much for me. I am convinced that I could not stand it any longer. It is
+a nightmare--a horrible nightmare--that I should be arrested as a
+burglar in what has been for so long my own museum. And yet I cannot
+blame you. You could not have done otherwise. My hope always was that I
+should get it all over before I was detected. This would have been my
+last night's work."
+
+"How did you get in?" asked Mortimer.
+
+"By taking a very great liberty with your private door. But the object
+justified it. The object justified everything. You will not be angry
+when you know everything--at least, you will not be angry with me. I had
+a key to your side door and also to the museum door. I did not give them
+up when I left. And so you see it was not difficult for me to let myself
+into the museum. I used to come in early before the crowd had cleared
+from the street. Then I hid myself in the mummy-case, and took refuge
+there whenever Simpson came round. I could always hear him coming. I
+used to leave in the same way as I came."
+
+"You ran a risk."
+
+"I had to."
+
+"But why? What on earth was your object--_you_ to do a thing like that!"
+Mortimer pointed reproachfully at the plate which lay before him on the
+table.
+
+[Illustration: "MORTIMER POINTED REPROACHFULLY AT THE PLATE."]
+
+"I could devise no other means. I thought and thought, but there was no
+alternative except a hideous public scandal, and a private sorrow which
+would have clouded our lives. I acted for the best, incredible as it may
+seem to you, and I only ask your attention to enable me to prove it."
+
+"I will hear what you have to say before I take any further steps," said
+Mortimer, grimly.
+
+"I am determined to hold back nothing, and to take you both completely
+into my confidence. I will leave it to your own generosity how far you
+will use the facts with which I supply you."
+
+"We have the essential facts already."
+
+"And yet you understand nothing. Let me go back to what passed a few
+weeks ago, and I will make it all clear to you. Believe me that what I
+say is the absolute and exact truth.
+
+"You have met the person who calls himself Captain Wilson. I say 'calls
+himself' because I have reason now to believe that it is not his correct
+name. It would take me too long if I were to describe all the means by
+which he obtained an introduction to me and ingratiated himself into my
+friendship and the affection of my daughter. He brought letters from
+foreign colleagues which compelled me to show him some attention. And
+then, by his own attainments, which are considerable, he succeeded in
+making himself a very welcome visitor at my rooms. When I learned that
+my daughter's affections had been gained by him, I may have thought it
+premature, but I certainly was not surprised, for he had a charm of
+manner and of conversation which would have made him conspicuous in any
+society.
+
+"He was much interested in Oriental antiquities, and his knowledge of
+the subject justified his interest. Often when he spent the evening with
+us he would ask permission to go down into the museum and have an
+opportunity of privately inspecting the various specimens. You can
+imagine that I, as an enthusiast, was in sympathy with such a request,
+and that I felt no surprise at the constancy of his visits. After his
+actual engagement to Elise, there was hardly an evening which he did not
+pass with us, an hour or two were generally devoted to the museum. He
+had the free run of the place, and when I have been away for the evening
+I had no objection to his doing whatever he wished here. This state of
+things was only terminated by the fact of my resignation of my official
+duties and my retirement to Norwood where I hoped to have the leisure to
+write a considerable work which I had planned.
+
+"It was immediately after this--within a week or so--that I first
+realized the true nature and character of the man whom I had so
+imprudently introduced into my family. The discovery came to me through
+letters from my friends abroad, which showed me that his introductions
+to me had been forgeries. Aghast at the revelation, I asked myself what
+motive this man could originally have had in practising this elaborate
+deception upon me. I was too poor a man for any fortune-hunter to have
+marked me down. Why, then, had he come? I remembered that some of the
+most precious gems in Europe had been under my charge, and I remembered
+also the ingenious excuses by which this man had made himself familiar
+with the cases in which they were kept. He was a rascal who was planning
+some gigantic robbery. How could I, without striking my own daughter,
+who was infatuated about him, prevent him from carrying out any plan
+which he might have formed? My device was a clumsy one, and yet I could
+think of nothing more effective. If I had written a letter under my own
+name, you would naturally have turned to me for details which I did not
+wish to give. I resorted to an anonymous letter begging you to be upon
+your guard.
+
+"I may tell you that my change from Belmore Street to Norwood had not
+affected the visits of this man, who had, I believe, a real and
+overpowering affection for my daughter. As to her, I could not have
+believed that any woman could be so completely under the influence of a
+man as she was. His stronger nature seemed to entirely dominate her. I
+had not realized how far this was the case, or the extent of the
+confidence which existed between them, until that very evening when his
+true character for the first time was made clear to me. I had given
+orders that when he called he should be shown into my study instead of
+to the drawing-room. There I told him bluntly that I knew all about him,
+that I had taken steps to defeat his designs, and that neither I nor my
+daughter desired ever and to see him again. I added that I thanked God
+that I had found him out before he had time to harm those precious
+objects which had been the work of my life-time to protect.
+
+"He was certainly a man of iron nerve. He took my remarks without a sign
+either of surprise or of defiance, but listened gravely and attentively
+until I had finished. Then he walked across the room without a word and
+struck the bell.
+
+"'Ask Miss Andreas to be so kind as to step this way,' said he to the
+servant.
+
+"My daughter entered, and the man closed the door behind her. Then he
+took her hand in his.
+
+"'Elise,' said he, 'your father has just discovered that I am a villain.
+He knows now what you knew before.'
+
+"She stood in silence, listening.
+
+"'He says that we are to part for ever,' said he.
+
+"She did not withdraw her hand.
+
+"'Will you be true to me, or will you remove the last good influence
+which is ever likely to come into my life?'
+
+"'John,' she cried, passionately, 'I will never abandon you! Never,
+never, not if the whole world were against you.'
+
+"In vain I argued and pleaded with her. It was absolutely useless. Her
+whole life was bound up in this man before me. My daughter, gentlemen,
+is all that I have left to love, and it filled me with agony when I saw
+how powerless I was to save her from her ruin. My helplessness seemed to
+touch this man who was the cause of my trouble.
+
+"'It may not be as bad as you think, sir,' said he, in his quiet,
+inflexible way. 'I love Elise with a love which is strong enough to
+rescue even one who has such a record as I have. It was but yesterday
+that I promised her that never again in my whole life would I do a thing
+of which she should be ashamed. I have made up my mind to it, and never
+yet did I make up my mind to a thing which I did not do.'
+
+"He spoke with an air which carried conviction with it. As he concluded
+he put his hand into his pocket and he drew out a small cardboard box.
+
+"'I am about to give you a proof of my determination,' said he. 'This,
+Elise, shall be the first-fruits of your redeeming influence over me.
+You are right, sir, in thinking that I had designs upon the jewels in
+your possession. Such ventures have had a charm for me, which depended
+as much upon the risk run as upon the value of the prize. Those famous
+and antique stones of the Jewish priest were a challenge to my daring
+and my ingenuity. I determined to get them.'
+
+"'I guessed as much.'
+
+"'There was only one thing that you did not guess.'
+
+"'And what is that?'
+
+[Illustration: "HE TILTED OUT THE CONTENTS."]
+
+"'That I got them. They are in this box.'
+
+"He opened the box, and tilted out the contents upon the corner of my
+desk. My hair rose and my flesh grew cold as I looked. There were twelve
+magnificent square stones engraved with mystical characters. There could
+be no doubt that they were the jewels of the urim and thummim.
+
+"'Good God!' I cried. 'How have you escaped discovery?'
+
+"'By the substitution of twelve others, made especially to my order, in
+which the originals are so carefully imitated that I defy the eye to
+detect the difference.'
+
+"'Then the present stones are false?' I cried.
+
+"'They have been for some weeks.'
+
+"We all stood in silence, my daughter white with emotion, but still
+holding this man by the hand.
+
+"'You see what I am capable of, Elise,' said he.
+
+"'I see that you are capable of repentance and restitution,' she
+answered.
+
+"'Yes, thanks to your influence! I leave the stones in your hands, sir.
+Do what you like about it. But remember that whatever you do against me,
+is done against the future husband of your only daughter. You will hear
+from me soon again, Elise. It is the last time that I will ever cause
+pain to your tender heart,' and with these words he left both the room
+and the house.
+
+"My position was a dreadful one. Here I was with these precious relics
+in my possession, and how could I return them without a scandal and an
+exposure? I knew the depth of my daughter's nature too well to suppose
+that I would ever be able to detach her from this man now that she had
+entirely given him her heart. I was not even sure how far it was right
+to detach her if she had such an ameliorating influence over him. How
+could I expose him without injuring her--and how far was I justified in
+exposing him when he had voluntarily put himself into my power? I
+thought and thought, until at last I formed a resolution which may seem
+to you to be a foolish one, and yet, if I had to do it again, I believe
+it would be the best course open to me.
+
+"My idea was to return the stones without anyone being the wiser. With
+my keys I could get into the museum at any time, and I was confident
+that I could avoid Simpson, whose hours and methods were familiar to me.
+I determined to take no one into my confidence--not even my
+daughter--whom I told that I was about to visit my brother in Scotland.
+I wanted a free hand for a few nights, without inquiry as to my comings
+and goings. To this end I took a room in Harding Street that very night,
+with an intimation that I was a Pressman, and that I should keep very
+late hours.
+
+"That night I made my way into the museum, and I replaced four of the
+stones. It was hard work, and took me all night. When Simpson came round
+I always heard his footsteps, and concealed myself in the mummy-case. I
+had some knowledge of gold-work, but was far less skilful than the thief
+had been. He had replaced the setting so exactly that I defy anyone to
+see the difference. My work was rude and clumsy. However, I hoped that
+the plate might not be carefully examined, or the roughness of the
+setting observed, until my task was done. Next night I replaced four
+more stones. And to-night I should have finished my task had it not been
+for the unfortunate circumstance which has caused me to reveal so much
+which I should have wished to keep concealed. I appeal to you,
+gentlemen, to your sense of honour and of compassion, whether what I
+have told you should go any farther or not. My own happiness, my
+daughter's future, the hopes of this man's regeneration, all depend upon
+your decision."
+
+"Which is," said my friend, "that all is well that ends well, and that
+the whole matter ends here and at once. To-morrow the loose settings
+shall be tightened by an expert goldsmith, and so passes the greatest
+danger to which, since the destruction of the Temple, the urim and
+thummim have been exposed. Here is my hand, Professor Andreas, and I can
+only hope that under such difficult circumstances I should have carried
+myself as unselfishly and as well."
+
+Just one footnote to this narrative. Within a month Elise Andreas was
+married to a man whose name, had I the indiscretion to mention it, would
+appeal to my readers as one who is now widely and deservedly honoured.
+But if the truth were known, that honour is due not to him but to the
+gentle girl who plucked him back when he had gone so far down that dark
+road along which few return.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: _From a_] THE NEEDLE LYING AS IT FELL AT ALEXANDRIA.
+[_Photo._]
+
+_The Story of Cleopatra's Needle._
+
+FROM SYRENE TO LONDON.
+
+By Susie Esplen.
+
+
+In London, on the embankment of the Thames, standing majestic in its
+great height and solidity, is that wonderful column of red granite known
+to all as Cleopatra's Needle. What a history is attached to the obelisk,
+a history which is as wonderful and strange as the Needle itself is
+antique, for its age dates back as far as 1,500 years before the
+Christian Era. We are told that "the child Moses may have played around
+the foot of this pillar; the Israelites looking citywards from the
+brickfields saw the sunlight glittering on its tapering point; the
+plague of darkness clothed it as with a garment; the plague of frogs
+croaked and squatted on its pediment; the plague of locusts dashed
+themselves in flights against it, and unto its likeness the heart of
+Pharaoh was hardened. The sight of it takes us back to a time when the
+Pisgah--sight of Canaan--was but a promise with a desert and forty years
+between." Connecting the history of the pillar with such ancient
+Biblical facts as these, we realize how really aged the Needle is; but
+we have still to remember that it had been witness to events which took
+place many hundreds of years even before the days of Moses.
+
+When Thothmes III., called Egypt's greatest King, was in power he gave
+command for another pair of obelisks to be cut out of the quarries at
+Syrene and erected by the side of those already standing, which Rameses
+had set up before one of the many temples of the Sun which were in
+Heliopolis.
+
+Gazing thoughtlessly at the column one is prone to overlook the fact
+that this tremendous pillar is unlike other equally high columns in our
+land, as this one was not built up to its present height by stone being
+laid upon stone or block being placed upon block, until the desired
+height and form were attained, but from the first this was hewn out of
+its place in the quarry in one enormous mass. We can, therefore,
+understand the difficult undertaking it would be to remove such a weight
+of granite from one place to the other in the days when steam was not in
+use. The quarries of Syrene were seven hundred miles from Heliopolis. In
+an interesting book on this subject written by the Rev. James King (and
+to him I am indebted for much of this information), we have an account
+of how in those early times the task of cutting out and removing this
+column was effected.
+
+He tells us that in an old quarry at Syrene there is to be seen an
+obelisk upon which the workmen were busy, when for some reason they were
+obliged to leave it only partially cut out. From this it appears that
+when the quarrymen wished to abstract a huge mass, such as the Needle
+would be, they marked out the form by cutting a deep groove, in which,
+at intervals, they made oblong holes. Into these holes they firmly
+wedged blocks of timber, and then, filling the grooves with water, the
+wood in time swelled and thus the granite cracked along the outline from
+wedge to wedge. Next came the difficulty of taking the Needle on its
+first journey, seven hundred miles up the river to the City of
+Heliopolis. When it lay ready for removal in the quarry, rollers made of
+palm trees were laid so that the column could be placed on them, and by
+this means it could be pushed down to the edge of the river, and there a
+raft was built round it. When the Nile overflowed its banks, this raft
+and its burden floated, and the stone was conveyed to the nearest and
+most suitable point from which it could again be conveyed on rollers as
+before to the pedestal which was prepared for it to stand upon, and by
+the help of ropes and levers made from the date palm it was placed in
+position. So faultless was the work done by those men of old that, when
+the column was erected on the pedestal, both had been so accurately
+levelled, where the one fitted on the other, that the Needle when
+standing was perfectly true in the perpendicular.
+
+Mr. King continues to inform us that in a grotto at El-Bershch is a
+representation showing the removal of a gigantic figure. The statue is
+placed on a sledge, and men are represented going before it pouring oil
+in grooves, along which the sledge slides, and by means of ropes four
+rows of men drag the figure along. And from this we learn the method of
+the column's first removal. Once erected in Heliopolis before one of the
+many temples of the Sun, the Needle was allowed to remain there with its
+companion one for fourteen centuries.
+
+Twenty-three years before Christ, Augustus Cæsar ordered the removal of
+them from Heliopolis to Alexandria, and so the Needle came to be taken
+on its second journey. In Alexandria was a gorgeous palace of the
+Cæsars, and before the palace the columns were set up. They are called
+Cleopatra's Needles, but in reality Cleopatra had no connection with
+their history. She may have helped to design the magnificent building
+the front of which these obelisks adorned, and her devoted subjects
+wishing to give honour to the memory of their much-loved Queen gave the
+pillars her name.
+
+For fifteen centuries they were left to stand in this last-named
+position, which was close to the Port of Alexandria; and many years
+after the grand building of the Cæsars had fallen in ruins, these two
+columns still stood. With years the sea had advanced to the base of the
+one in which we are more especially interested, and with the
+ever-advancing and receding waters the foundation of the Needle became
+so worn that three hundred years ago it fell to the ground unbroken and
+unharmed.
+
+[Illustration: _From a_] PRISING UP THE NEEDLE, IN ORDER TO BUILD THE
+FRAMEWORK UNDER IT. [_Photo._]
+
+In 1801 the French and English fought, and the latter, under Sir Ralph
+Abercrombie, were victorious. The battle having taken place within
+sight of the Needle, the English soldiers conceived the desire to
+possess and take to England the fallen obelisk as a trophy of their
+success. So anxious were they to have this idea carried out, that they
+willingly gave up some of their payment, and collected £7,000 towards
+the expense of its removal.
+
+[Illustration: _From a_] BEGINNING THE FRAMEWORK. [_Photo._]
+
+The plan they adopted for its conveyance to England on this occasion was
+to build a pier seaward, and then, taking the Needle to the end of it,
+proposed putting it through the stern of an old French frigate which had
+been raised for the purpose. When the pier was partially built a great
+storm washed it away, and very soon after that the soldiers were ordered
+to leave Egypt, and the idea could not be carried out. However, the
+Needle was removed a few feet, and a brass tablet was inserted bearing a
+record of the British victory. From this time the mind of the people
+appeared to be in a state of unrest concerning the Needle--an unrest
+which was not quieted until the column was brought to England and
+erected where it now stands.
+
+When George IV. was reigning in England, Mehemet Ali was ruling in
+Egypt, and he offered as a gift to the King this obelisk. George IV. for
+some reason did not accept the gift. When William IV. came to the throne
+it was again offered, with an additional favour, for he also promised to
+pay the cost for its transportation. King William, like his predecessor,
+King George, thought it best to excuse himself from accepting the
+obelisk, so he also refused it.
+
+[Illustration: _From a_] PUTTING ON THE CASING. [_Photo._]
+
+In 1849 the question was brought before the House of Commons, that the
+offer made by Mehemet Ali should be re-considered and the obelisk
+brought to England, but an opposition party opposed the suggestion,
+considering that the Needle would have become so defaced as to be not
+worth the risk and expense of removing it.
+
+[Illustration: _From a_] COMPLETING THE CASING. [_Photo._]
+
+Many years after, when the great Hyde Park Demonstration was being held,
+it was again suggested that the obelisk should be transported, in honour
+of the Prince Consort, for his anxiety in trying to make the exhibition
+a success, but the idea again fell through. When the Sydenham Palace
+Company were planning their great pavilion they wished to have the
+Needle to place in the Egyptian department of the building, of course
+intending to pay for its transit. But it was against order to give a
+private company any gift which really belonged to the nation.
+
+[Illustration: _From a_] THE CASING FINISHED. [_Photo._]
+
+The Needle all these years was still lying where the British Army left
+it, on the shore of the Bay of Alexandria. The ground on which it lay
+was sold, and a Greek merchant who had bought the land was anxious to
+have the column taken away. The Khedive advised the English to remove it
+if they really valued its possession, otherwise they ran the risk of
+losing it altogether. In 1867 Sir James E. Alexander was attracted by
+the beauty of the column which was also presented by Mehemet Ali to the
+French, and stands now in La Place de la Concorde. Remembering that the
+one belonging to the English was lying unheeded on the shores of
+Alexandria, he desired to have it brought over to England, and
+accordingly went to Egypt, gained an interview with the Khedive, and
+with him discussed its possession and removal. For ten years he was
+unwearying in his watch over the monument, arranging from time to time
+with the owner of the land to allow it to remain where it was, hoping
+meanwhile to be able to make some arrangements concerning it so that it
+might be preserved for the English.
+
+[Illustration: _From a_] PREPARING TO LAUNCH. [_Photo._]
+
+He came to the opinion that if ever the obelisk was to be brought to
+England it would not be at the expense of the nation's purse, but would
+need to be paid for by private donations. With one or two friends,
+anxious like himself for the protection of the Needle, he intended to
+try and raise funds in the City. However, first meeting his friend,
+Professor Erasmus Wilson, and explaining all to him, the Professor
+generously offered to pay the sum of £10,000, which was deemed
+sufficient for the purpose.
+
+In July of 1877 workmen were once more busy in connection with this
+column which already had experienced such a history. The sand was
+removed from about it, and to the delight of those most interested it
+was found to be in an excellent state of preservation. Next came the
+anxious task of removing it, something more being necessary than the
+raft, as of old, for the long sea voyage which lay before it.
+
+[Illustration: _From a_] THE FIRST ATTEMPT AT LAUNCHING. [_Photo._]
+
+A paper might be written on the different methods and numerous plans
+invented and suggested for the transportation of the Needle. Sir James
+Alexander had made the acquaintance of Mr. John Dixon, a civil engineer,
+and he, too, was interested in the monolith. Professor Erasmus Wilson
+and Mr. Dixon were introduced and discussed the subject together, with
+the result that Mr. Dixon undertook the responsibility of the conveyance
+of the column to England, Professor Wilson arranging to pay the £10,000
+on its erection in London. A construction was therefore carefully
+designed in England for encasing the Needle, so that it would be a sea
+craft of itself, and this was sent out to Egypt in pieces.
+
+[Illustration: _From a_] THE TUGS IN ACTION. [_Photo._]
+
+One of the principal considerations when making their designs was that
+the Needle when encased required to be launched by being rolled into the
+water, instead of being sent off in the usual way. Another of the chief
+difficulties to contend with in the removal of the obelisk was that the
+bay near which it was lying was unsafe for ships to anchor in, as it was
+exposed to severe gales and the ground was covered with shoals. The
+Needle was raised some feet above the ground, the smaller end swung
+round to be parallel with the sea, and when in this position the work of
+encasing it was done.
+
+When in this act of turning it, the ground appeared to be giving way
+under it, and, on examination being made, it was found to be resting on
+a small vault, which was 6ft. long by 3ft. wide and 4ft. high. It was
+evidently an ancient tomb, for two human skeletons and some small jars
+were found in the cavity. The skulls were preserved and put on board the
+pontoon, when ready for sea, but after the storm in the bay they were
+never seen again, and the sailors, being foreign, are supposed to have
+thrown them overboard, through superstition.
+
+The Needle whilst raised and ready for encasing had the plates riveted
+in place round it, the inside was packed with elastic timber cushions to
+preserve the stone when being rolled into the water, or in case of any
+deflection in the vessel's length, which might occur through the waves.
+The casing was made water-tight, and the greatest care had to be taken
+to have the column quite in the centre of the cylinder, where it was
+fastened in position.
+
+[Illustration: _From a_] AT THE BRINK. [_Photo._]
+
+For the purpose of getting it into the water, large wooden wheels,
+16-1/2ft. in diameter, were put on either end, and planks were laid for
+it to roll down. From heavy lighters lying in the bay, wire ropes were
+taken and wrapped many times round the cylinder. Also from the land side
+ropes were secured to it, in case, when set in motion, it went off at
+too great a speed, and thus the ropes could check that fault. On August
+28th, 1877, all was ready for the launch. Unfortunately, the morning
+commenced with a thick fog, which only cleared away as the day wore on.
+
+[Illustration: _From a_] REPAIRING THE HOLE MADE BY THE ROCK. [_Photo._]
+
+A great crowd of people gathered to witness the interesting event. All
+being in readiness, the winches on board the lighters worked the ropes
+connected with the encased Needle, and it commenced to gradually move
+towards the water, but the movement was so slow that it could scarcely
+be detected. After some hours it had only made one complete turn on its
+wheels. It was then proved that the vessels from which the wire ropes
+were worked were not able to hold their ground against the strain, but
+were dragging their anchors. Two tugs which had been standing by in
+readiness to give help if required were called into service, and being
+connected with the cylinder towed it until she moved a little farther
+into the water, but although the tugs steamed at full power they could
+not move the heavy weight at any great speed. The planking ended by an
+incline into the water, and divers had been previously employed in
+removing shoals from the intended course to prevent any mishap. When the
+cylinder was brought to the edge of the railway, so to call it, the idea
+was that it would roll down the incline and slip off easily into the
+water.
+
+[Illustration: _From a_] LAUNCHED. [_Photo._]
+
+[Illustration: _From a_] PUTTING ON THE TOP-FITTINGS IN DOCK. [_Photo._]
+
+All the first day was employed in bringing it to the foot of the
+incline, and at night it was left in no greater depth of water than 3ft.
+Next morning the tugs again were at work trying to move it into deep
+water, but after making one full revolution it stuck, and although the
+tugs continued to tow all day it remained immovable.
+
+[Illustration: _From a_] FAREWELL TO ALEXANDRIA. [_Photo._]
+
+On the third day divers discovered that a hidden stone weighing half a
+ton had pierced the plates, and making a hole had allowed the water to
+rush in and fill the cylinder. It took some days to repair the damage
+made by the rock, but after that was done it was successfully floated
+and towed round to the harbour, where final arrangements were made for
+the sea voyage. A cabin house and rail were fixed on top, two bilge
+keels 40ft. long were riveted one on either side, a mast and rudder
+placed, and twenty tons of iron ballast were put in her. It was manned
+by a crew of five Maltese and an English captain. The time occupied
+from beginning to encase it until the completion was about three and a
+half months.
+
+A suitable steamer of sufficient size and power was found in the ss.
+_Olga_, belonging to Messrs. Wm. Johnson and Co., of Liverpool. The
+craft, which was named the _Cleopatra_, was now ready for sea. It was
+designed not to travel faster than five or six knots an hour, as greater
+speed might be disastrous. The _Olga_, towing the _Cleopatra_, set sail
+from Alexandria on the 21st September, 1877.
+
+For the first twenty days all was prosperous and uneventful, but on the
+morning of Sunday, the 14th October, when in the Bay of Biscay, a squall
+arose, which towards noon developed into a gale. The _Cleopatra_,
+however, stood the gale well, not shipping enough water to do any
+serious harm until about six o'clock on the evening of the same day,
+when a big sea caught her, turning her completely on her beam ends and
+carrying away her mast.
+
+[Illustration: ON THE THAMES EMBANKMENT.
+
+_From a Photo. kindly lent by C. H. Mabey, Esq., Sculptor of Sphinxes
+and Pedestal._]
+
+A desperate effort was made to right her, but without success; a small
+boat was lowered, but to no purpose, and the captain of the _Olga_ at
+this point, seeing the danger all were in, thought it wisest to
+disconnect the two vessels, and so the cylinder was cut adrift. A little
+later, the wind having fallen, the _Cleopatra_ signalled for assistance,
+and the crew of the _Olga_, pitying the distress of their
+fellow-sailors, volunteered to put off in a boat and go to their rescue.
+The captain, thinking it would be a fruitless effort, advised them
+against it, saying: "A boat could not live in such a sea." The second
+officer, who had all along taken a keen interest in the welfare of the
+_Cleopatra_, replied: "We can't leave the poor fellows to drown; and
+now, lads, who will go with me?" He found five fine able-bodied men, in
+the prime of life, were willing to share the risk, and a boat was
+launched and put off; but before they could render any assistance a
+great wave washed them away, and they were thus drowned in endeavouring
+to save others.
+
+After a time a line was thrown from the _Olga_ over the _Cleopatra_, and
+by means of it a boat was hauled from the one vessel to the other, and
+the sailors on the Needle were saved. After spending some hours in
+searching for signs of the lost boat and the _Cleopatra_, the captain of
+the _Olga_ set sail for Falmouth, with the sad news of the enforced
+abandonment in the Bay and the supposed loss of the Needle and men.
+
+When the news was heard in England, Mr. Dixon was of opinion that the
+Needle would not sink when cast off, but would float, the only danger
+being that she might be destroyed on rocks. His surmising was correct in
+reference to it floating, for a telegram was received sixty days after
+the news of its loss saying that the ss. _Fitzmaurice_, bound for
+Valencia from Middlesbrough, had found and captured it ninety miles
+north of Ferrol, and had towed it into Vigo in Spain, and it remained in
+that harbour about three months.
+
+Sir James Ashbury, M.P., kindly offered the loan of his yacht, the
+_Eothen_, to tow it home, but arrangements were finally made for the
+_Anglia_ to do the work, and she arrived in England with the obelisk in
+tow on the 20th January, 1878.
+
+
+
+
+_Ivanka the Wolf-Slayer._
+
+By Mark Eastwood.
+
+
+The Prince threw the reins to his servant and sprang from the sledge.
+
+"Where is he?" demanded he.
+
+The Muzhik in the doorway of the hut stood bowing to the ground. He did
+not presume to lift his eyes to the High Noble, but they had flashed up
+like signal-fires at the words. Yet he affected not to understand.
+
+[Illustration: "IVANKA, MY LITTLE ONE, SLEW THE WOLF."]
+
+"Is it the old man, Ivan Ivanovitch, the High Noble would honour with
+his commands?" he began. "His servant is full of regret----"
+
+"Bother Ivan Ivanovitch!" interrupted the Prince, impatiently. "What do
+I want with your father? It is Ivanka, your son, I come to see--the
+little one who slew the wolf. At least," he added quickly, with a shrug,
+"so they say, but I do not believe it. Why, it is impossible! A child--a
+mere puppy!"
+
+The Muzhik had thrown out his hands. He could contain himself no longer.
+"The High Noble does not believe?" he cried, wildly. Then he rushed into
+the house to return in a moment brandishing in one hand a knife, and in
+the other holding aloft a shaggy hide.
+
+"The Noble Prince does not believe?" he repeated, and his eyes seemed to
+emit sparks. "Let him behold the proofs. Ivanka, my little one, slew the
+wolf, in very truth! Alone--alone he slew it!"
+
+As though a flash of electric fire had flown from the man's lips direct
+to the hearts of his listeners, the faces of both flamed up. The man in
+the sledge lifted his cap and crossed himself with fervent mutterings.
+He passed the cuff of his coat across his wet, shining eyes.
+
+The Prince took the knife in his hand. Such a thing it was! You can buy
+the like for twenty copeks (about sixpence) at any Russian fair. One of
+the sort used by the Russian peasant to cut forage, having a crooked
+blade and horn handle. It was stained, both blade and hilt, with blood.
+
+"I have bought another for use," observed the peasant.
+
+"It is wonderful," murmured the Prince, as he turned the knife about in
+his hands.
+
+At this juncture a pair of excited black eyes, surmounted by a huge
+_baranka_, peered round the corner of the hut, and as quickly vanished.
+
+Presently the Prince looked up. "But the boy!" he cried. "Let us see
+this wonderful child and hear the story from his own lips."
+
+The peasant looked sharply round.
+
+"He was here even when the High Noble drew up. There is the hatchet and
+the wood he was chopping. Ivanka! Ivanka! He has hidden himself, the
+rascal."
+
+The Prince laughed.
+
+"Ivanka Ivanka!" almost shrieked the peasant. "I will teach you to run
+and hide when the High Nobility come from far and near to see you! By
+all the saints, if you do not instantly come forth from your hiding-hole
+and relate the whole occurrence to the Noble Prince, I will break every
+bone in your body!"
+
+Then it was that a coat of sheep's skin that just cleared the ground
+emerged from behind the hut and moved slowly over the trodden snow to
+within a few paces of the Prince. You could only tell by the shining
+eyes and the tip of a small red nose that peeped between the high
+stand-up collar that inside of it was a small boy.
+
+Where he stood the blood-red sun bathed him in heroic glory. Yet, in
+spite of all, Ivanka the Wolf-Slayer had the mien of a fruit-stealing
+culprit before the _Chinovnik_. The Prince regarded him with mock
+severity.
+
+"What is this I hear of you, Ivanka?" he began. "They say that you have
+slain a wolf!"
+
+Ivanka would have hung his head but that his collar prevented it. So he
+dropped his eyes in guilty silence. The peasant, behind the Prince's
+back, rubbed his hands and chuckled.
+
+"Come here," commanded the Prince, his moustached lip twitching with a
+whimsical smile.
+
+The coat moved to the Prince's feet. Then the small boy inside it felt
+himself caught up in strong arms and borne into the hut.
+
+Now, though it was a ruddy winter sunset outside, in the hut it was
+quite gloomy. The window was very small. A dull yellow glow, like a big
+bull's-eye, came from the open door of the stove, and a glimmer like a
+glow-worm from the tiny lamp that burned before the Holy Image. The dim
+outline of a woman with a child in her arms could be discerned by the
+stove. She came forward as the Prince entered, and bending low raised
+the hem of his fur mantle to her lips and silently returned to her seat.
+
+The Prince sat by the window, and Ivanka stood between his knees where
+he had been placed. He trembled inside his sheep's skin. Yet it was a
+gentle hand that lifted the _baranka_ from his curly head and raised his
+chin.
+
+"How old are you, Ivanka?" inquired the Prince.
+
+"Ten years, Noble Prince," faltered the boy. But his eyes meeting those
+of the Prince at that moment he ceased to tremble. And the longer he
+looked the more comfortable he felt.
+
+"And you have slain a wolf?" continued the Prince.
+
+"Yes, Noble Prince."
+
+"And what had the wolf done to you, Ivanka, that you should have taken
+his life?"
+
+"He had seized our little Minka and would have eaten her up." Ivanka
+drew a sharp breath.
+
+"How terrible!" exclaimed the Prince. "But you--midge! How did you dare
+to tackle such a foe? It is incredible! Come, tell me all about it.
+Begin at the beginning, Ivanka."
+
+Ivanka gazed at the ground in silence. He twisted one leg round the
+other, cracked all his knuckles in succession, but the words would not
+come.
+
+"Speak, Ivanka, do," came a woman's coaxing voice from the gloom. "Tell
+his High Nobility how it happened."
+
+Another pause, and at length in a shy, hesitating voice, Ivanka began:--
+
+"Mother had gone to the town in the sledge, and father lay asleep on the
+top of the stove. It was afternoon. I was minding Minka, and we played
+at having a shop with the bits of pot from the mug Minka broke. Then I
+remembered it was time to cut the fodder and feed the beasts, which I
+can do as well as father now. So I took the fodder knife and stole out.
+I left the door open a bit--not enough to let the cold in on father, but
+enough to hear Minka if she cried. I had fed the cows in the byre and
+had got to the corner of the house coming back, when I heard Minka
+scream."
+
+As Ivanka uttered the last word his breath came fast. He tossed back his
+locks with a sudden jerk of the head. Like a gladiator preparing for
+combat, he threw out his chest, setting his teeth, whilst his small,
+muscular fingers contracted, doubling in like the claws of a falcon.
+Forgotten was the princely presence with that piteous appeal smiting his
+ears.
+
+[Illustration: "I SPRANG FORWARD."]
+
+"I sprang forward," he continued, "and saw Minka. She was on the ground
+just outside the door. And over her hung a monster, grim and terrible.
+His wicked eyes gleamed red, and his cruel teeth were long and sharp. I
+saw them as he lifted his bristling lip to seize her in his jowl."
+
+A dry sob rose in Ivanka's throat and made him pause. He coughed it
+impatiently away.
+
+"It seemed to me then--just for a moment of horror--as though my limbs
+were bound and I could not move, until the beast began to drag Minka
+away. At the sight strength came to me, and with a yell I threw myself
+upon him."
+
+"You were not afraid?" put in the Prince, who had never taken his eyes
+off the boy since he began to speak.
+
+"I did not think of fear," replied Ivanka, "I thought of my poor little
+Minka, and oh, how fiercely I hated the monster. Hate kills fear," he
+added, reflectively.
+
+"And then?" inquired the Prince.
+
+"Oh, then he dropped Minka, and over and over we rolled in the snow, he
+snarling and worrying my sheep's skin. He would soon have made an end of
+me but for my sheep's skin." And the boy patted his breast and looked
+himself over complacently.
+
+"And after?" the Prince again recalled him.
+
+"After that he shook me until my bones rattled in my skin. Then I was
+under him and my mouth was full of his hair, and I was so spent that I
+would have let him finish me. But Minka cried, 'Ivanka! Ivanka!' and it
+seemed too hard to leave her. It was that moment I remembered that I
+still grasped the knife.
+
+"How I struggled round between his mighty paws until my arm was free to
+plunge the weapon in his throat I know not, but I felt the blood gush
+out over my face. And then--and then, Minka's voice went farther and
+farther away and I seemed to be falling as a star falls through the
+air."
+
+As Ivanka ceased speaking, a half-stifled sob was heard from the
+interior of the room. The Prince had covered his eyes with his hand as
+though dazzled. Yet the sun had gone down and the place was more gloomy
+than ever. The peasant stepped forward out of the shadows and stood
+before the Prince in the dim light of the window. He took up the tale.
+
+[Illustration: "I STRUGGLED ROUND UNTIL MY ARM WAS FREE."]
+
+"It was the screams of the little one that awoke me, your High Nobility,
+and I ran out. Ah, never shall I forget the sight that met my eyes!
+There lay my little son, dabbled in blood, and beside him the wolf on
+its back, kicking in death convulsions. When I picked up my Ivanka I
+thought him dead, and my heart would have broken had he not at once
+opened his eyes.
+
+"'Minka,' he whispered, 'is she hurt?'
+
+"'My darling, no,' I answered. 'She screams too lustily to be hurt.'
+
+"'And the wolf?' He raised his head from my shoulder and looked wildly
+around.
+
+"'He is dead. You have slain him, my hero,' I assured him.
+
+"Then he shut his eyes with a great sigh.
+
+"'Let me sleep, father,' he murmured. 'I am so tired.'"
+
+The peasant chuckled. "He was played out, my little wolf-slayer. The
+Noble Prince should have seen how he lay like a sack, and slept and
+slept!"
+
+Meanwhile Ivanka had grown shy again and gazed wistfully towards the
+door. But the Prince still held him between his knees. Even when he rose
+to go, the High Noble detained the boy with a hand on his head.
+
+"Give him to me," he said to the peasant. "Let me take him with me when
+I go to Petersburg. I will make a great man of him. He shall be a
+soldier and fight for the Czar."
+
+There was dead silence. The peasant's face had gone crimson. His eyes
+flew to his son and held him in jealous regard.
+
+"Will you go with me, Ivanka, you wolf-slayer, to help keep the human
+wolves from invading the dominions of the Czar? You shall be taught with
+the sons of the highest in the land, and shall wear the uniform of an
+Imperial cadet."
+
+Ivanka raised solemn eyes to the face that was bent towards him. It was
+a noble face, handsome and benign, and imposing against the swelling
+sable of the high collar.
+
+"He is great and good and beautiful, like my patron saint, Ivan," he
+thought. Something stirred in the gloom of the hut, and quickly Ivanka
+turned to where his mother sat with the sleeping Minka in her lap. His
+lip began to quiver.
+
+The peasant found his tongue. "Give him time, Noble Prince," he
+faltered, huskily, and he too looked towards the crouching figure by the
+stove. "It is a great thing the High Noble offers, but the boy is very
+young."
+
+"Take your time," replied the Prince. "In the spring I shall return.
+Then, since you are sensible people, he will be ready to go."
+
+[Illustration: "THE GREAT MAN PRESSED A ROLL OF NOTES INTO HIS HAND."]
+
+With these words the great man stooped and kissed Ivanka, pressing a
+roll of notes into his hand. From the door Ivanka watched the Prince
+depart. He gazed after the fine sledge with its prancing horses as they
+sped, swift as the wind, towards the wonderful, mysterious city of the
+Great Czar. When it had disappeared and the merry jingle of the silver
+bells no longer reached his ear it was to him as though a bright
+noontide sun had suddenly dropped from the heavens. And there and then a
+feeling of longing after greater things crept into his valiant little
+heart.
+
+"You shall decide for yourself, my son," said the peasant. And the
+mother hid her grief because she wished Ivanka to be a great man.
+
+Thus it was that when the spring came to stir the sap in the trees and
+release the ice-bound brooks, at the return of the Prince, Ivanka was
+ready to go.
+
+
+
+
+_In Nature's Workshop._
+
+II.--FALSE PRETENCES.
+
+By Grant Allen.
+
+
+Human life and especially human warfare are rich in deceptions, wiles,
+and stratagems. We dig pitfalls for wild beasts, carefully concealed by
+grass and branches; we take in the unsuspecting fish with artificial
+flies, or catch them with worms which conceal a hook treacherously
+barbed for their surer destruction. The savage paints his face and
+sticks feathers in his hair so that he may look more terrifying to his
+expected enemy; civilized men mask their batteries, and sometimes even
+paint muzzles of imaginary guns in the spaces between the gaping mouths
+of the real ones. _Chevaux de frise_ block the way to points liable to
+attack; real troops lie in ambush and dart out unexpectedly in the rear
+of the assailants. Trade in like manner is full of shams--a fact which I
+need hardly impress by means of special examples. But Nature we are
+usually accustomed to consider as innocent and truthful. Alas, too
+trustfully: for Nature too is a gay deceiver. There is hardly a device
+invented by man which she has not anticipated: hardly a trick or ruse in
+his stock of wiles which she did not find out for herself long before he
+showed her.
+
+I propose in this paper to examine a few cases of such natural
+deceptions--not indeed the most striking or typical, but such as occur
+among fairly well-known English plants and animals. And I shall begin
+with our familiar and unsavoury old friend, the Devil's Coach-horse.
+
+[Illustration: 1.--A BATTLE ROYAL: SCORPION V. SPIDER: THE SCORPION
+STRIKING.]
+
+In order fully to understand his mode of procedure, however, I must
+first call your attention to another animal which really _is_ what the
+Devil's Coach-horse mendaciously pretends to be: and that is the common
+scorpion. His mode of fighting is well known to most of us. In
+illustration No. 1 Mr. Enock has given us a delineation of a frantic
+death-struggle between such a scorpion and a large and powerful southern
+spider. The venomous creature with the stinging tail is on the left; the
+spider is on the right. As far as mere size goes, the antagonists are
+fairly well matched: but the scorpion is the best armed, both with
+offensive and defensive armour. His lobster-like or crab-like claws
+enable him to hold his enemy's limbs in his grip as in a vice: then, at
+the critical moment, he bends over his tail, in the extremity of which
+his sting is situated, and plunges it with force through the
+comparatively slight skin of the spider's body or thorax, injecting at
+the same moment a pungent drop of his deadly poison. This characteristic
+action of the scorpion in curving its tail over its body and raising its
+sting in a menacing attitude is well known to birds and other enemies
+of the species: often the mere threat of a thrust is a sufficient
+deterrent: the dangerous beast just elevates its poisonous appendage or
+assumes an angry mien, and the inquisitive intruder is frightened away
+immediately. It is the same with ourselves. The bare sight of that
+uplifted sting suffices to repel us. Even a child who saw a scorpion
+once arch its back and prepare to strike with its reversed tail would
+instinctively understand that there was danger ahead, and would withdraw
+its hand before the venomous creature had time to pounce upon it.
+
+Owing to these unamiable personal traits of the scorpion race, it is not
+popular among other animals. But to be feared is to be respected; and
+scorpions for the most part are left severely alone, under the stones
+where they love to lurk, by the various denizens of the districts they
+inhabit. Now, it is a fact in nature as in human life that to be
+successful is to have many imitators. Thus a number of harmless flies
+dress up like wasps in black and yellow bands, and so escape the too
+pressing attentions of insect-eating birds and other enemies. They have
+no stings, to be sure, but they look so like the wasps, and flaunt about
+so fearlessly in their borrowed uniform, that they are universally taken
+for the insects they mimic; even the cautious entomologist himself
+stares at them twice and makes quite sure of his specimen before he
+ventures to lay hands on any such doubtful masquerader. I hope in a
+future article to give some further account (with illustrations) of
+these facts of _mimicry_, as it is called: for the present we will stick
+close to our text, the Devil's Coach-horse. For this familiar English
+beetle is an imitator of the scorpion, and obtains immunity from the
+attack of enemies to a great extent by pretending to powers which are
+not his in reality.
+
+[Illustration: 2.--THE DEVIL'S COACH-HORSE IN HIS HOURS OF EASE.]
+
+In No. 2 we have a portrait of the Coach-horse in his hours of ease,
+seen from above, engaged in doing nothing in particular. He does not
+_look_ like a flying insect, but he is. He has a long pair of wings
+tucked away in folds under his horny wing-cases, and he can use them
+with great effect, for he is one of our swiftest and strongest
+fliers--the long-distance champion, I almost fancy, among the beetles of
+England, unless indeed the tiger-beetle be pitted against him. But when
+crawling on the ground, and attacked or menaced, he does not take to
+flight or show the white feather: being a pugnacious and spirited little
+beast, he bridles up at once, and endeavours incontinently to terrify
+his assailant. In No. 2 you see him from above when he is merely engaged
+in crawling along the ground, looking as mild as milk, and as gentle as
+any sucking dove: you would hardly suppose he could show fight or raise
+his hand--I mean his antennæ--to injure anyone. But in No. 3 he is
+represented in his favourite act of attacking a caterpillar: for he is
+really a very voracious and courageous carnivore. In the autumn, when
+Devil's Coach-horses are usually most abundant, you can easily catch
+them by putting a piece of meat or a dead frog under an empty
+flower-pot, and then tilting the edge up with a stone, so that the
+beetles can crawl in and get at the food thus temptingly laid out for
+them.
+
+[Illustration: 3.--THE DEVIL'S COACH-HORSE SAMPLING A CATERPILLAR.]
+
+If you disturb the Coach-horse, however, while he is engaged in eating
+his quiet meal, or even when he is walking at leisure along a country
+road, he puts himself at once into his "terrifying" attitude, and
+imitates the scorpion. No. 4 exhibits him in this military character,
+cocking up his tail and pretending he can sting--which is only his brag:
+he just does it to frighten you. But the attitude is so exactly like
+that of the scorpion, that it almost always produces an immediate
+effect: hardly anybody likes to molest a Devil's Coach-horse. If you put
+down your hand to touch him, and he rears in response, ten to one you
+will withdraw it in alarm at sight of him. In England these beetles
+often enough find their way into larders or cellars, seeking whom or
+what they may devour; and when the servants light upon them, they almost
+invariably decline to touch them: there is a general opinion about that
+the ugly and threatening black beasts are uncanny and poisonous, or else
+why should they turn up their tails at you in such an insulting fashion?
+
+[Illustration: 4.--THE DEVIL'S COACH-HORSE PRETENDS TO BE A SCORPION.]
+
+"But," you may object, "there are no scorpions in England: how then can
+the Devil's Coach-horse be benefited by imitating an animal which he has
+never seen, and of whose very existence he has not been able to read in
+pretty picture books?" Your objection has some force--though not so much
+as you imagine. It is quite true that there are no scorpions in England;
+but then, there are Devil's Coach-horses in many other countries, and
+the habit of tail-cocking need not necessarily have been acquired in
+these islands of Britain. That is not all, however: it suffices the
+beetle if the tactics it adopts happen to frighten and repel its
+enemies, no matter why. Now, in the first place, many of our migratory
+birds go in winter to Southern Europe and Africa--especially the
+insect-eaters, which can find no food in frozen weather. The hard-billed
+seed-eaters and fruit-eaters remain with us, but the soft-billed kinds
+retire to warmer climates, where food is plentiful. Of course, however,
+it is just these insect-eating birds that the Devil's Coach-horse has
+most to fear from. The birds must be quite familiar with the habits and
+manners of scorpions in their southern homes; and they are not likely to
+inquire closely whether the dangerous beast they know on the
+Mediterranean has, or has not been scheduled in Britain. We all of us
+dislike and distrust any insect that resembles a bee or wasp, and that
+buzzes or hums in a hostile manner: we give all such creatures a wide
+berth, wherever found, on the bare off-chance that they may turn out to
+be venomous--be hornets or so forth. Just in the same way, a bird, when
+it sees an unknown black beastie cock up its tail and assume a
+threatening attitude, is not likely to inquire too curiously whether or
+not it is really a scorpion: the bare suspicion of a sting is quite
+enough to warn it off from interfering with any doubtful customer.
+Moreover, in the second place, even those birds or men who have never
+seen a scorpion at all are yet sure to be alarmed when an insect sticks
+up its forked tail menacingly, and shows fight, instead of skulking or
+flying away. As a general rule, if any animal makes signs of resistance,
+we take it for granted he has adequate arms or weapons to resist with:
+and so this mere dumb-show of being a sort of scorpion proves quite
+sufficient to protect the Devil's Coach-horse from the majority of his
+enemies.
+
+I ought to add that while our beetle thus frightens larger enemies, he
+is actively and offensively objectionable to small ones. The main use of
+his tail, indeed, is for folding away his wings, much as the earwig
+folds hers by aid of her pincers. But the Devil's Coach-horse makes it
+serve a double purpose. For he has a couple of yellow scent-glands in
+his tail, which secrete an unpleasant and acrid aromatic substance.
+These scent-glands are protruded in No. 4: you can just see them at the
+tip of the tail; and if the annoyance to which the beetle is subjected
+seems to call for their intervention, a drop of the volatile body they
+distil is set free, and is at once discharged in the face of the enemy.
+Such a manoeuvre is in essence like that of the skunk: it is defence by
+means of a nasty odour, and it occurs not only in the Coach-horse's
+case, but also among a number of beetles and other insects.
+
+The odd little creatures known as Bombardier Beetles are still quainter
+in their habits: they carry the last-mentioned mode of defence to an
+even greater pitch of perfection. For, like miniature artillery-men,
+they actually fire off a regular volley of explosive gas in the faces of
+their pursuers. The gas is secreted as a liquid; but it is very
+volatile, and it vaporizes at once on contact with the air, so as to
+form a small, white cloud of pungent smoke, resembling in its effects
+nitric acid. Our native English species of Bombardier roams about in
+large flocks or regiments: and when one member of a clan is disturbed,
+all the other beetles of the company let off their artillery at once, so
+that the scattered volley has something the appearance of platoon
+firing. The chief enemy of the Bombardiers is a much larger and very
+handsome carnivorous beetle known as Calosoma. When this insect tiger
+hunts down a single Bombardier, and has almost caught him, the fugitive
+waits till his pursuer is quite close, and then salutes him with a
+discharge of fire-arms: the pungent gas gets into the Calosoma's eyes
+and mouth and distracts him for a moment; and the Bombardier escapes in
+the midst of the confusion thus caused, under cover of the cloud he
+himself has exploded. That is the most highly evolved mode of defence of
+which I know among the British insects.
+
+There are few creatures, again, which one would so little suspect of any
+attempt to bully and bluff others as the soft-bodied caterpillars. They
+are as a rule so plump and squashy and defenceless: a mere peck from a
+bird's beak is enough to kill them, for when once their tight, thin skin
+is broken, were it but with a pin-prick, all the flabby contents burst
+out at once in the messiest fashion. Yet even caterpillars, strange to
+say, have their tricks of terrifying. They pretend to be dangerous
+characters. I will set out with some of the simplest and least developed
+cases, and then pass on to a more complex and wily class of deceivers.
+
+To begin with, I must premise that two sets of caterpillars have two
+different ways of evading the unpleasant notice of birds and other
+insect-eaters. One way is that adopted by the common "woolly-bear," a
+great hairy caterpillar, frequent in gardens, and covered from head to
+tail with long needles or bristles. These prickly points make the
+creature into a sort of insect hedgehog; birds refuse to touch him,
+because the serried spikes, which to us are mere hairs, seem to them
+perfect spines or thorns, sticking into their tongues and throats, or
+clogging their gizzards. Protected caterpillars like the woolly-bears
+live quite openly, exposed on the leaves and branches of their
+food-plant; they are not afraid of being seen: nay, they rather court
+observation than shun it, because they know nobody will attack them. The
+porcupine has no need to run away like the rabbit. Similar tactics are
+also adopted by many nasty-tasting caterpillars, in whose bodies natural
+selection has developed bitter or unpleasant juices. These caterpillars
+are rejected by birds and lizards--the great enemies of the race--and
+therefore they find it worth while to clothe themselves in gaudy and
+conspicuous red or yellow bands, so as to advertise all comers of their
+inedible qualities. Whenever you see such brilliantly-attired grubs
+(like those of the Magpie Moth, so common on gooseberry-bushes--a
+striking creature tricked out in belts of black and orange), you may be
+sure of two things: first, they live openly and undisguisedly on the
+leaves of their food-plant, without any attempt at mean concealment; and
+second, they are nasty to the taste, and therefore rejected as food by
+insect-eating animals. Now and then a young and inexperienced bird may
+eat one, to be sure; but it never tries twice, and the solitary martyr
+is sacrificed for the good of the race. Their bright colours and gaudy
+bands are just advertisements, as it were, of their inedible qualities.
+For, of course, nasty taste would do a caterpillar no good if the bird
+had always to sample it before rejecting it; the broken skin alone would
+be enough to kill it. Hence almost all uneatable caterpillars have
+acquired bright colours by natural selection--that is to say, by the
+less bright being continuously devoured or killed; and birds on their
+side have learned to know (after one trial, or, perhaps, even before it
+by inherited instinct) that red or yellow bands and belts in
+caterpillars are the outward and visible sign of uneatableness.
+
+The second group or set of caterpillars is edible and tasty: it,
+therefore, governs itself accordingly, and has recourse to the exactly
+opposite tactics. Caterpillars of this class are smooth and naked: they
+never have the brilliant "warning colours" of the nasty-tasted kinds:
+and they show a marked absence of the beautiful metallic sheen, the
+strange melting iridescent hues and spots which add beauty to the charms
+of so many among the uneatable species. Such fat and smooth-skinned
+edible caterpillars are, of course, very tempting juicy morsels to birds
+and other insect-eating animals. Their motions, like those of all grubs,
+are slow; and if they lived exposed on their food-plants, after the
+fashion of the protected hairy and bitter kinds, they would all he eaten
+up before they had time to turn into moths or butterflies. Here,
+therefore, natural selection has produced the contrary result from that
+which it produces among protected kinds. Caterpillars of this edible
+type which showed themselves too openly and imprudently have got picked
+off by birds, like sentries and pickets who make themselves too
+conspicuous to the enemy's sharpshooters. Only the most prudent, modest,
+and retiring grubs have survived to become moths or butterflies, and so
+be the parents of future generations, to whom they hand on their own
+peculiarities. In this way the edible caterpillars have acquired at last
+a fixed hereditary instinct of lurking under leaves, or in dark spots,
+and never showing themselves openly. The larvæ of the butterfly group as
+a whole thus fall into two great classes (as far as regards habits
+alone, I mean): the _protected_, which are either hairy or nasty, and
+which flaunt themselves openly; and the _unprotected_, which lurk and
+skulk, endeavouring to escape notice as sedulously as their rivals the
+protected endeavour to attract it.
+
+Nor is that all. It would clearly be useless for a bright red or yellow
+caterpillar to hide under a green leaf, and then suppose by that simple
+device he was going to escape observation. Birds are always looking out
+for insects under leaves. The consequence is that skulking or lurking
+caterpillars are soon found out by sharp-eyed and hungry enemies, unless
+they closely resemble the foliage or stems upon which they lie. From
+generation to generation, accordingly, the less imitative insects get
+eaten, and the more imitative spared: so that nowadays, most unarmed
+caterpillars are green like the leaves or grey like the stems, and are
+even provided with markings of light and shade upon their skins which
+mimic the distribution of light and shade among the ribs and veins of
+the surrounding foliage. Such deceptive leaf-like caterpillars are
+always very difficult to find: so that careless observers as a rule know
+only those of the other type, the great hairy "woolly-bears" and the
+brilliant red and yellow-banded bitter kinds; they never observe the
+unobtrusive green and brown sorts, which harmonize so admirably with
+their native tree in colour and markings.
+
+[Illustration: 5.--CATERPILLAR OF THE BROAD-BORDERED BEE-HAWK TRYING TO
+LOOK ALARMING.]
+
+Many greenish caterpillars, however, when discovered and disturbed, fall
+back on their second line of defence: they endeavour to frighten their
+enemies by devices closely similar to those of the Devil's Coach-horse.
+The caterpillar of the Broad-bordered Bee-hawk, for example, forms a
+good instance of a very simple stage in the development of such
+brazen-faced "terrifying" tactics. This warlike grub is shown in No. 5,
+trying on its simple little attempt to make itself alarming. Though by
+no means an uncanny-looking or appalling insect, it will rear itself up
+on its haunches (so to speak) when attacked, raising the fore part of
+its body erect with a sudden jerk, and holding its head high, as if it
+meant to bite or sting, so as to give itself as formidable an aspect as
+possible. The mild ruse succeeds, too; for birds will eye the harmless
+creature askance when it attempts this evolution, putting their heads on
+one side, and ruffling their crests in evident terror. The attitude is
+all a simple piece of bluff, to be sure, but _it pays_; indeed, bluff
+in warfare is often more than half the battle. If you put on a bold face
+in a row, and seem able to take care of yourself, people are apt to
+think you have a knife up your sleeve, and therefore to refrain from
+unnecessarily annoying you.
+
+The cunning caterpillar which finally develops into the Privet Hawk-moth
+has a slightly more evolved mode of purely theatrical frightening. You
+see him in No. 6, a full-fed specimen, just ready to turn at once into a
+chrysalis. This grub feeds usually on the vivid leaves of the privet; he
+is therefore protectively coloured a bright green, like that of the
+foliage about him. "But why those great purple stripes on his sides?"
+you will ask. "Surely they must make him an easy mark for birds?" Not at
+all: please notice that they run obliquely. There is method in that
+obliquity. When the caterpillar is smaller, he lurks unseen on the
+under-side of the leaves, and this pattern of oblique purplish lines
+exactly imitates the general effect of the shadows cast by the ribs--so
+much so, that if you look for him on a privet-tree in spring, I doubt
+whether you will find him till I point him out to you. Even when he
+waxes fat and full fed, the purple stripes still aid him more or less by
+breaking up the large green surface into smaller areas, as Professor
+Poulton has well noticed. He harmonizes better so with the broken masses
+of the leaves about him. Then again, when the time arrives for him to
+turn into a chrysalis, he descends to the ground, which, under a
+thickly-leaved privet bush, is most often brown. So, just as he is
+coming of age and reaching the proper moment for migration, his back all
+at once begins to turn brown, in order that he may be less observed as
+he walks about on the stem; while by the time he is quite ready to take
+to the earth he has grown brown all over, thus matching the soil in
+which he has next to bury himself. You could hardly have a better
+example of the sort of colour-change which often accompanies altered
+habits of living.
+
+[Illustration: 6.--FULL-GROWN CATERPILLAR OF THE PRIVET HAWK-MOTH,
+SIMILARLY OCCUPIED.]
+
+In the illustration, however, you see this really harmless and
+undefended grub in the act of trying to pretend he is poisonous. He is
+now mature, and the stripes on his sides stand out conspicuously as he
+walks on the stem. A sparrow threatens him. He retorts by showing
+fight--fallaciously and deceptively, for he has nothing to fight with.
+He lifts his head with an aggressive air, and throws himself about from
+side to side, as if he knew he could bite, and meant to do it. He also
+lashes his tail in pretended anger--"I would have you to know, Sir Bird,
+I am not to be trifled with!" The empty demonstration usually succeeds:
+the sparrow gets alarmed and believes he means it. This policy is, in
+essence, that commonly known as "spirited": it consists in trying to
+frighten your enemy instead of fighting him.
+
+The oddly-marked caterpillar of the Puss Moth carries the same plan of
+campaign to a much more artistic pitch. This very quaint insect is
+common on willows and poplars in England, and is on the whole
+protectively coloured. Black at first, it looks like a mere speck or
+spot on the leaf; as it grows, it becomes gradually greener, relieved
+with broad purple patches on the back, which produce the effect of lines
+and shadows. When quite full-grown, as seen in No. 7, the adult
+caterpillar generally rests at ease on the twigs of the willow-tree. Our
+illustration shows it in this final stage of its larval life, just
+taking alarm and humping its back at the approach of some bird or other
+enemy. If the alarm continues, it goes through a most curious series of
+evolutions, admirably shown by Mr. Enock in No. 8. Here, the little
+beast is altogether on the defensive: it withdraws its head into the
+first ring of the body, and inflates the margin, which is bright red in
+colour. Two black spots, which are not really eyes, but which look
+absurdly eye-like, now give it a grotesque and terrifying appearance. In
+fact, the inflated ring resembles a hideous grinning mask, and gives the
+impression of a face with eyes, nose, and mouth, like that of some
+uncanny creeping creature. But the apparent face is not a face at all:
+it is artfully made up of lines and spots on the skin of the body. At
+the same time that the caterpillar thus assumes its mask, it stands on
+its eight hind legs as erect as it can, and whips out two pink bristles
+or tentacles from the forked prongs at the end of its tail--you can see
+them in the picture. It then bends forward the tail, and brandishes or
+waves about these pink bristles over its false head, so as to present
+altogether a most gruesome aspect. Indeed, even Mr. Enock's vigorous
+sketch of the little brute in its tragic moments does not quite convey
+the full effect of its acting in the absence of colour: for the bright
+red margin and the swishing pink switches add not a little to the
+telling smirk and black goggle-eyes of the mask-like face thus produced
+_in terrorem_.
+
+[Illustration: 7.--CATERPILLAR OF THE PUSS MOTH PREPARING FOR ACTION.]
+
+That is not all, either. The Puss Moth caterpillar has a rapid trick of
+facing about abruptly in the direction of the enemy as if it meant to
+bite: and this trick is always most disconcerting. If ever so lightly
+touched, it instantly assumes the terrifying attitude, and presents its
+pretended face to the astonished aggressor. From a harmless caterpillar
+it becomes all at once a raging bulldog. Touch it on the other side, and
+it faces round like lightning in the opposite direction. Professor
+Poulton tried the effect of its grimace on a marmoset, and found the
+marmoset was afraid to touch the mysterious creature. We are not
+marmosets, but I notice that most human beings recoil instinctively from
+a Puss Moth caterpillar when it assumes its mask. Even if you _know_ it
+is harmless, there is something very alarming in its rapid twists and
+turns, and in the persistent way in which it grins and spits at you.
+
+[Illustration: 8.--THE SAME CATERPILLAR TERRIFYING AN ENEMY.]
+
+Really spits, too; for the insect has a gland in its head which ejects,
+at need, an irritating fluid. If this fluid gets into your eyes, they
+smart most unpleasantly. It contains formic acid, and is strong enough
+to be exceedingly stinging and painful. The discharge repels lizards,
+and probably also birds, who are among the chief enemies of this as of
+other caterpillars.
+
+The deadliest foe of the Puss Moth larva, however, is the ichneumon-fly,
+a parasitic creature, which lays its eggs in living caterpillars, and
+lets its grubs hatch out inside them, so as to devour the host from
+within in the most ruthless fashion. There are many kinds of
+ichneumon-fly, some of them very minute: the one which attacks the Puss
+Moth in its larval stage is a comparatively big one. The fly lays its
+eggs behind the caterpillar's head, where the victim is powerless to
+dislodge them. In all probability the defensive attitude and the shower
+of formic acid are chiefly of use against these parasitic foes: for when
+an ichneumon-fly appears, the caterpillar assumes his "terrifying"
+attitude the moment it touches him, and faces full round to the foe with
+his false mask inflated. A very small quantity of the formic acid
+Professor Poulton found sufficient to kill an ichneumon: and there can
+be little doubt that this is its main object.
+
+[Illustration: 9.--CATERPILLARS OF THE LOBSTER MOTH DEMONSTRATING IN
+FORCE BEFORE THE HOSTILE BATTALIONS.]
+
+The last of these "bluffing" caterpillars with which I shall deal here
+is that of the Lobster Moth. In No. 9 you see a couple of these quaint
+and unwieldy creatures "demonstrating" before an enemy, as if he were
+the Sultan. The Lobster Moth in its larval stage frequents beech-trees,
+and you will see in the illustration that the two represented are on a
+twig of beech. When at rest, the caterpillar resembles a curled and
+withered beech-leaf, and by this unconscious mimicry escapes detection.
+But when discovered and roused to battle, oh, then he imitates the
+action of the spider. He holds up his short front legs in a menacing
+attitude, so as to suggest a pair of frightful gaping jaws: the four
+long legs behind these he keeps wide apart and makes them quiver with
+rage in the most alarming pantomimic indignation. His tail he turns
+topsy-turvy over his head like a scorpion; while the forked appendages
+at its end seem like frightful stings, with which he is just about to
+inflict condign punishment on whoever has dared to disturb his quiet.
+But it is all mere brag, though the whole effect is extremely
+terrifying. The performance does not, indeed, mimic any particular
+venomous beast, but it suggests most appalling and paralyzing
+possibilities. Many of these queer attitudes, indeed, owe their
+impressiveness just to their grotesque simulation of one knows not quite
+what: they are not definite and special, they are worse than that; they
+appeal to the imagination. And if only you reflect how afraid we often
+feel of the most harmless insects, merely because they _look_ frightful,
+you will readily understand that such vague appeals to the imagination
+may be far more effectual than any real sting could ever be. We dread
+the unknown even more than the painful.
+
+The funniest of all these false pretences, however, is one which Hermann
+Müller, I believe, was the first to point out in this same Lobster Moth
+caterpillar. When very much bothered by ichneumon-flies (to whose
+attacks it is particularly exposed), this bristling beast displays, for
+the first time, two black patches on its side, till then concealed by a
+triangular flap. Now, these patches closely resemble the sort of wound
+made by the ichneumon when it deposits its eggs, so it is probable that
+they serve to take in the assailant, who is thus led to think that
+another fly of her own kind has been before her, and, therefore, that it
+is no use laying her eggs where a previous parasite is already in
+possession. There would not be enough Lobster Moth to feed _two_ hungry
+ichneumon families. In fact, the caterpillar first begins by bluffing,
+and says, "If you touch me, I bite!" then, finding the bluff
+unsuccessful, it further pretends to throw up the sponge, and cries out
+with a bounce: "Oh, if egg-laying is your game, _that's_ no good: I'm
+already occupied!" For a combination of wiles, this crafty double game
+probably "licks creation."
+
+If the defenders are so cunning, however, the attackers can sometimes
+turn the tables upon them. Animals that hunt often disguise themselves,
+in order to avoid the notice of the prey, and so steal unobserved upon
+their victims. Such tactics are like those of the Kaffirs, who cut bits
+of bush, and then creep up slowly, slowly behind them, under cover of
+the branches, upon the gnus or antelopes which they wish to slaughter.
+In No. 10 we have one example of this method of hunting or stalking, as
+pursued by the intelligent English grass-spider. All spiders, of course,
+have eight legs, four on each side; but in most of the class, the
+various pairs of legs are evenly distributed, so as to lie about the
+body in a rough circle or something like it. The grass-spider, however,
+has his own views on this important matter. His form and attitude are
+quite peculiar. He lies in wait for his prey on the open, crouched
+against a stem of grass, with his two front pairs of legs extended
+before him, and his back pair behind, in an arrangement which is rather
+linear than circular. This position makes him almost invisible--much
+more invisible in real life, indeed, than you see him in the drawing;
+for if he were represented as inconspicuous as he looks you would say
+there was no spider there at all, only a naked grass-stem. The delusion
+is heightened by his lines and colours: he is mostly green or greenish,
+with narrow black or brown stripes which run more or less up and down
+his body, instead of cross-wise as usual, so that they harmonize
+beautifully with the up-and-down lines of the blades and stem in the
+tuft which he inhabits. When he is pressed close against a bent of
+grass, on the look-out for flies, it is almost impossible for the
+quickest eye to distinguish him. Flies come near, never suspecting the
+presence of their hereditary foe; as soon as they are close to him, the
+grass-spider rushes out with a dash and secures them. His jaws are among
+the most terrible in all his terrible race: they are large and
+wide-spreading, with two rows of teeth on either side, and a pair of
+long fangs of truly formidable proportions.
+
+[Illustration: 10.--GRASS-SPIDER, IN AMBUSH FOR FLIES.]
+
+In other ways, also, this particular spider is a clever fellow, for he
+lives near water; but when the rains are heavy and there is likely to be
+a flood, he shifts his quarters higher up the ground, and so escapes
+impending inundation.
+
+Deceptions and false pretences of this sort are somewhat less common
+among plants than among animals; but still, they occur, and that not
+infrequently. "What? Plants deceive?" you cry. "The innocent little
+flowers? How can they do it? Surely that is impossible!" By no means. I
+have watched plant life pretty closely for a good many years now, and
+every year the conviction is forced upon me more and more profoundly
+that whatever animals do, plants do almost equally. There is no vile
+trick or ruse or stratagem that they cannot imitate: no base deception
+that they will not practise. They lie and steal with the worst; they
+hold out false baits for deluded insects, and hide real fly-traps with
+honeyed words and sweet secretions.
+
+As a good illustration among English plants, look at the Grass of
+Parnassus, that beautiful, dishonest bog-herb, with glossy-green leaves
+and pure white blossoms, which is considered the especial guerdon of
+poets. I found a whole nest of it once in a swamp near Cromer, and
+carried off a bunch of the lovely flowers as an appropriate offering to
+Mr. Swinburne who was stopping at Sidestrand. Yet this poet's flower,
+dainty and delicate as it is--you see in No. 11 its counterfeit
+presentment--is not ashamed to deceive the poor bees and flies in a way
+which the Heathen Chinee would have considered unsportsmanlike. It is a
+sham, a commercial sham of the worst type. It lives for the most part on
+wet moors among mountains, or else in the boggy hollows between blown
+sand-hills by the sea: and when its milk-white flowers star the ground
+in such spots, it forms one of the loveliest ornaments of our English
+flora. But trust it not, oh butterfly: it is fooling thee! From a
+distance, it looks as if it were full of honey; it advertises well: but
+at close quarters 'tis a wooden nutmeg; it turns out to be nothing
+better than an arrant humbug.
+
+[Illustration: 11.--GRASS OF PARNASSUS, DISPLAYING AND ADVERTISING ITS
+IMITATION HONEY.]
+
+The deception is managed in this disgraceful fashion. Inside each petal
+lies a curious ten or twelve-fingered organ, which is in reality an
+abortive stamen. No. 12 shows you one such petal removed, with the false
+honey-glands drawn on a larger scale than in the other illustration. The
+ten-fingered stamen bears at its tip a number of translucent yellow
+drops, which look like pure nectar. But they are nothing of the kind; I
+regret to say, they are solid--solid--a commercial falsehood. They
+glisten like drops: but they are mere glassy imitations; and they are
+put there with intent to deceive, in order to attract flies and other
+insects, which come to quaff the supposed nectar, and so unwittingly
+fertilize the seeds, while they are muddling about perplexed among the
+pretended honey-glands, without getting paid one sip for their toil and
+trouble. This is, of course, a flagrant case of obtaining services under
+false pretences; it deserves fourteen days' without the option of a
+fine. As a rule, in similar cases, the flies are rewarded for their kind
+offices as carriers by the merited wage of a drop of honey. But the
+Grass of Parnassus, mendacious herb, pretends to be purveying a
+specially fine quantity and quality of nectar, while in reality it
+offers only a hard, glassy knob with nothing in it. This pays the plant,
+of course, because the blossoms do not have to go on producing honey
+fresh and fresh; a mere inexpensive show does just as well as the real
+article: "Our customers like it!" but the language of the flies when
+they discover the fraud is something just awful.
+
+[Illustration 12.--A SINGLE PETAL, TO SHOW THE CHARACTER OF THE SHAM
+HONEY.]
+
+Nor is this by any means a solitary example of plant depravity. The
+whole group of pitcher-plants, for instance, cruelly manure themselves
+by means of living insects in the most treacherous fashion. These lovely
+and wicked plants live, without exception, in wet and boggy soil, where
+they cannot get enough animal matter for manure in the ordinary way by
+the roots: so they lay themselves out instead to capture and absorb the
+tissues of insects. For this horrid purpose, they twist their leaves
+into deep pitchers which catch and hold the rain water, and so form
+reservoirs to drown their prey. Then they entice insects by bright
+colours to their traps, and allure them to enter by secreting honey at
+the top of the pitcher. Hairs point downward inside; these allow the
+flies to walk on to their fate, bribed as they go by lines of nectar:
+but if they try to return, ah, then they find their mistake: the hairs
+prevent them, after the fashion of a lobster-pot. Thus they walk on and
+on till they reach the water, when they are swamped and clotted in a
+decaying mass, from which the treacherous plant draws manure at last for
+its own purposes. The pitchers are thus at once traps to catch animals,
+and stomachs to digest them.
+
+Another and still odder case of deceptiveness in plants is shown by a
+curious group of South African flowers, the Hydaoras and Stapelias.
+These queer and malodorous herbs have very large and rather handsome but
+fleshy blossoms, an inch or two across, dappled and spotted just like
+decaying meat. They live in the dry and almost desert region, where
+carrion-flies abound. Such flies lay their eggs and hatch out their
+grubs for the most part in half-eaten carcasses of antelopes or smaller
+animals killed and in part devoured by lions and other beasts of prey.
+So the flowers have taken to imitating dead meat. They are a lurid red
+in colour, with livid livery patches, and they have a strong and
+unpleasant smell of decaying animal matter. The flies, deceived by the
+scent, flock to them to lay their eggs, and in so doing carry out the
+real object of the plant by fertilizing the blossoms. But, of course,
+the whole thing is a vile sham; for when the maggots hatch out, the
+flower has died, and there is no food for them, so they perish of
+starvation. Dr. Blackmore, of Salisbury, once gave me some of these
+curious plants and flowers: I noticed that in the sunlight, where they
+smelt just like decomposing meat, they attracted dozens of bluebottle
+flies and other carrion insects.
+
+Protective resemblance also occurs among plants: for in the same dry
+South African region, where every green thing gets nibbled down in the
+rainless season, certain ice-plants and milk-weeds have acquired the
+trick of forming tubers or stems exactly like the pebbles among which
+they grow: so that when the leaves die down in the dry weather, the
+tuber is not distinguishable from the stones all round it. Such tubers
+are really reservoirs of living material destined to carry the life of
+the plant over the dead season: as soon as rain comes again, they put
+forth fresh green leaves at once, and grow on after their sleep as if
+nothing had happened. Even terrifying attitudes are not unknown in the
+vegetable world: for one of the uses of the movements in the Sensitive
+Plant is almost certainly to frighten animals. Browsing creatures that
+come near the bushes in their native woods see the leaves shrink back
+and curl up when touched, and are afraid to eat a tree that has so
+evidently a spirit in it. The Squirting Cucumber of the Mediterranean,
+again, alarms goats and cattle by discharging its ripe fruits
+explosively in their faces the moment the stem is touched. In this case
+the primary object is no doubt the dispersal of the seeds, which squirt
+out elastically as the fruit jumps off; but to frighten browsing enemies
+is a secondary advantage. There can be no question as to the reality of
+the plant's hostile intention, because the fruits also contain a pungent
+juice, which discharges itself at the same instant into the eyes of the
+assailant. As I have received a volley of this irritating liquid more
+than once in my own face (in the pursuit of science) I can testify
+personally on the best of evidence that it is distinctly painful. The
+tactics of the Squirting Cucumber in first frightening you, and then
+injecting acrid juice into your eyes, are thus exactly similar to the
+plan of action pursued by the angry larva of the Puss Moth.
+
+
+
+
+_From Behind the Speaker's Chair._
+
+XLVIII.
+
+(VIEWED BY HENRY W. LUCY.)
+
+
+THE SEARCH FOR GUY FAWKES.
+
+[Illustration: A BEEF-EATER TEMP. HENRY VIII.]
+
+The proceedings at the opening of the forthcoming Session, the fifth in
+the fourteenth Parliament of Queen Victoria, will be fully reported in
+the morning papers. There is a proceeding preliminary to the Speaker's
+taking the Chair which, from its history and character, is of necessity
+conducted in secret. It is the search through the underground chambers
+and passages of the House with design to frustrate any schemes in the
+direction of a dissolution of Parliament that descendants or disciples
+of Guy Fawkes may have in hand. The present generation has seen, more
+especially when a Conservative Government have been in power, some
+revolutionary changes in Parliamentary procedure. The solemn search
+underneath the Houses of Parliament, preceding the opening of the
+revolving Sessions ever since Gunpowder Plot, is still observed with all
+the pomp and circumstance attached to it three hundred years ago.
+
+The investigation is conducted under the personal direction of the Lord
+Great Chamberlain, who is answerable with his head for any miscarriage.
+When a peer comes newly to the office he makes a point of personally
+accompanying the expedition. But, though picturesque, and essential to
+the working of the British Constitution, it palls in time, and the Lord
+Great Chamberlain, relying upon the discretion, presence of mind, and
+resource of his Secretary, usually leaves it to him. Oddly enough, the
+House of Commons is not officially represented at the performance, the
+avowed object of which is not, primarily, to secure the safety of the
+Lords and Commons, but to avert the conclusion aimed at by Guy
+Fawkes--namely, to blow up the Sovereign. It is as the personal
+representative of the Queen that the Lord Great Chamberlain takes the
+business in hand.
+
+To this day the result of the inquiry is directly communicated to Her
+Majesty. Up to a period dating back less than fifty years, as soon as
+the search was over, the Lord Great Chamberlain dispatched a messenger
+on horseback to the Sovereign, informing him (or her) that all was well,
+and that Majesty might safely repair to Westminster to open the new
+Session. To-day the telegraph wires carry the assurance to the Queen
+wherever she may chance to be in residence on the day before the opening
+of Parliament.
+
+
+THE SEARCH PARTY.
+
+Whilst the Commons take no official part in the performance, the peers
+are represented either by Black Rod or by his deputy, the Yeoman Usher,
+who is accompanied by half-a-dozen stalwart doorkeepers and messengers,
+handy in case of a fray. The Board of Works are represented by the Chief
+Surveyor of the London District, accompanied by the Clerk of Works to
+the Houses of Parliament. The Chief Engineer of the House of Commons,
+who is responsible for all the underground workings of the building,
+leads the party, the Chief Inspector of Police boldly marching on his
+left hand.
+
+These are details prosaic enough. The nineteenth century has engrafted
+them on the sixteenth. The picturesqueness of the scene comes in with
+the appearance of the armed contingent. This is made up of some fourteen
+or sixteen of the Yeomen of the Guard, who arrive at the place of
+rendezvous armed with halberds and swords. The halberds look well, but
+this search is, above all, a business undertaking. It is recognised that
+for close combat in the vaults and narrow passages of the building
+halberds would be a little unwieldy. They are accordingly stacked in the
+Prince's Chamber, the Yeomen fearlessly marching on armed with nothing
+but their swords. Clad in their fifteenth century costume, they are
+commanded by an officer who wears a scarlet swallow-tailed coat, cocked
+hat, and feathers, gilt spurs shining at his martial heel. The spurs are
+not likely to be needed. But the British officer knows how to prepare
+for any emergency.
+
+Following the Yeomen of the Guard stride half-a-dozen martial men in
+costumes dating from the early part of the present century. They wear
+swallow-tail coats, truncated cone caps, with the base of the cone
+uppermost. They are armed with short, serviceable cutlasses and bâtons,
+such as undertakers' men carry, suggesting that they have come to bury
+Guy Fawkes, not to catch him.
+
+[Illustration: INSPECTOR HORSLEY.]
+
+Most of the underground chambers and passages of the Houses of
+Parliament are lit by electricity. Failing that, they are flooded with
+gas. When search for Guy Fawkes was first ordered, the uses of gas had
+not been discovered, much less the possibilities of electricity.
+Lanterns were the only thing, so lanterns are still used. As the
+dauntless company of men-at-arms tramp along the subterranean passages,
+it is pretty to see the tallow dips in the swinging lanterns shamed by
+the wanton light that beats from the electric lamps.
+
+
+PARLIAMENTARY CAVES.
+
+Her Majesty's Ministers meeting Parliament at the opening of their fifth
+Session remain happy in the reflection that their position is not
+endangered by any mines dug within the limits of their own escarpment.
+It is different in the opposite camp. The first thing good Liberals do
+as soon as their own party comes into power is to commence a series of
+manoeuvres designed to thrust it forth. Sometimes they are called
+"caves," occasionally "tearoom cabals." But, as Mr. Gladstone learned in
+the 1868-74 Parliament, in that of 1880-85, and, with tragic force, in
+the Parliament which made an end of what Mr. Chamberlain called "The
+Stop-Gap Government," they all mean the same thing. Lord Rosebery when
+he came to the Premiership found the habit was not eradicated.
+
+[Illustration: A CAVE-MAN.]
+
+The condition of men and things in the House of Commons when Parliament
+met after the General Election in July, 1895, was rarely favourable to
+the formation of "caves" on the Ministerial side. To begin with, the
+Government had such an overwhelming majority that the game of playing at
+being independent was so safe that its enjoyment was not forbidden to
+the most loyal Unionist. Given that condition, there were existent
+personal circumstances that supplied abundant material for cave-making.
+The necessity imposed on Lord Salisbury of finding place in his
+Ministry for gentlemen outside the Conservative camp made it impossible
+not only to satisfy reasonable aspirations on the part of new men of his
+own party, but even to reinstate some ex-Ministers. Some, like Baron de
+Worms, were shelved with a peerage. Others, overlooked, were left to
+find places on back benches above or below the gangway. Of men who held
+office in Lord Salisbury's former Administration, Mr. Jackson, Sir James
+Fergusson, Sir W. Hart-Dyke, and Sir E. Ashmead-Bartlett were left out
+in the cold. Whilst most of the leading members of the Liberal Unionist
+wing, including Mr. Jesse Collings and Mr. Powell Williams, were
+provided with office, Mr. Courtney's claims were ignored, and Sir John
+Lubbock's were probably never considered.
+
+[Illustration: SHELVED WITH A PEERAGE. (BARON DE WORMS.)]
+
+[Illustration: "WHO KNEW NOT JEMMY."]
+
+
+AN OLD PARLIAMENTARY HAND.
+
+Amongst Conservative members who had not been in office but were not
+alone in their belief that they were well fitted for it were Mr. Gibson
+Bowles and Mr. George Wyndham--the latter since deservedly provided for.
+Moreover, to a corner seat below the gangway returned Mr. James Lowther,
+thought good enough in Disraeli's time to be Under-Secretary for the
+Colonies and Chief Secretary for Ireland. Since the death of Lord
+Beaconsfield kings had arisen in Egypt who knew not "Jemmy," or, at
+least, forgot his existence at a time when Ministerial offices were
+dispensed. The member for East Thanet, first returned for York in the
+summer of 1865, is not only personally popular in the House, but has
+high standing as an old Parliamentary hand. If he had liked to turn
+rusty, he might have done the Conservative Party at least as much harm
+as Mr. Horsman when in the same mood wrought to the party with which, to
+the last, he ranked himself. From time to time Mr. Lowther has
+vindicated his independence of Ministerial discipline by dividing the
+House on the question of the futility of reading, at the commencement of
+recurring Sessions, the standing order forbidding peers to interfere
+with elections. He has not gone beyond that, and whenever attempt has
+been made from the Opposition side to inflict damage on the best of all
+Governments, he has ranged himself on the side of Ministers.
+
+
+OVERLOOKED.
+
+Sir W. Hart-Dyke, Sir James Fergusson, and the late Sir W. Forwood,
+instead of openly resenting neglect, on more than one occasion went out
+of their way to defend the colleagues of the Prime Minister who slighted
+them. Mr. Wyndham was last Session not less generously loyal. Mr. Tommy
+Bowles, it is true, has been on occasion fractious. As for Sir E.
+Ashmead-Bartlett, when he recovered from the shock of realization that
+Lord Salisbury had not only formed a Ministry without including him in
+its membership, but looked as if he would be able to carry it on, he
+showed signs of resentment. Through successive Sessions he has
+sedulously endeavoured to embarrass an unappreciative Premier by
+cunningly devised questions addressed to the Colonial Secretary or to
+the Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs. Mr. Chamberlain and Mr. Curzon
+alike proved able to hold their own, and the Sheffield Knight coming out
+to kick has found himself fulfilling the humble function of the
+football.
+
+[Illustration: THE HUMBLE FUNCTION OF THE FOOTBALL.]
+
+
+MR. YERBURGH.
+
+A more serious defection was threatened last Session as the result of
+the distrust and discontent in Ministerial circles of Lord Salisbury's
+foreign policy. Mr. Yerburgh, moved by apprehension that the interests
+of the British Empire in the Far East were at stake, instituted a series
+of weekly dinners at the Junior Carlton, where matters were talked over.
+The dinners were excellent, the wines choice, and Mr. Yerburgh has a
+delicate taste in cigars. This meeting at dinner instead of at tea, as
+was the fashion in the Liberal camp at the time of Mr. Gladstone's
+trouble over the Irish University Bill in 1873, seemed to indicate
+manlier purpose. But nothing came of it, except a distinct advancement
+of Mr. Yerburgh's position in the House of Commons. He, as spokesman of
+the malcontents, found opportunity to display a complete mastery of an
+intricate geographical and political position, combined with capacity
+for forcibly and clearly stating his case.
+
+Thus Lord Salisbury remained master of himself though China fell. Had
+Mr. Gladstone been in his position, under precisely similar
+circumstances, it would have been Her Majesty's Ministry that would have
+fallen to pieces.
+
+
+JOINED THE MAJORITY.
+
+As usual the recess has seen the final going over to the majority of old
+members of the House of Commons. Two who have died since the prorogation
+were distinct types of utterly divergent classes. There was nothing in
+common between the Earl of Winchilsea and Mr. T. B. Potter, except that
+they both sat in the 1880 Parliament, saw the rise of the Fourth Party,
+and the crumbling away of Mr. Gladstone's magnificent majority. Mr.
+Potter was by far the older member, having taken his seat for Rochdale
+on the death of Mr. Cobden in 1865. Except physically, he did not fill a
+large place in the House, but was much esteemed on both sides for his
+honest purpose and his genial good temper.
+
+This last was imperturbable. It was not to be disturbed even by a double
+misfortune that accompanied one of the Cobden Club's annual dining
+expeditions to Greenwich. On the voyage out, passing Temple Pier, one of
+the guests fell overboard. At the start on the return journey, another
+guest, a distinguished Frenchman, stepping aboard as he thought, fell
+into the gurgling river, and was fished out with a boat-hook. Yet Mr.
+Potter, President of the Club, largely responsible for the success of
+the outing, did not on either occasion intermit his beaming smile.
+
+
+A BUFFER STATE.
+
+He was always ready to be of service in whatsoever unobtrusive manner.
+The House cherishes tender memories of a scene in 1890. The fight in
+Committee Room No. 15 had recently closed. Its memories still seared
+the breasts of the Irish members. Members were never certain that at any
+moment active hostilities might not commence even under the eye of the
+Speaker. One night a motion by Mr. John Morley raising the Irish
+question brought a large muster of the contending forces. Mr. Parnell,
+who had temporarily withdrawn from the scene, put in an appearance with
+the rest. He happened to seat himself on the same bench as Mr. Justin
+McCarthy, whom the majority of the Irish members had elected to succeed
+him in the leadership. Only a narrow space divided the twain. The most
+apprehensive did not anticipate militant action on the part of Mr.
+McCarthy. But, looking at Mr. Parnell's pale, stern face, knowing from
+report of proceedings in Committee Room No. 15 what passion smouldered
+beneath that mild exterior, timid members thought of what might happen,
+supposing the two rose together diversely claiming the ear of the House
+as Leader of the Irish Party.
+
+[Illustration: THE BUFFER STATE.]
+
+At this moment Mr. T. B. Potter entered and moved slowly up the House
+like a Thames barge slipping down the river with the tide. He made his
+way to the bench where the severed Irish Leaders sat, and planted
+himself out between them, they perforce moving to right and left to make
+room. Seeing him there, his white waistcoat shimmering in the evening
+light like the mainsail of an East Indiaman, the House felt that all was
+well. Mr. Parnell was a long-armed man; but, under whatsoever stress of
+passion, he could not get at Mr. McCarthy across the broad space of the
+member for Rochdale.
+
+[Illustration: THE LATE LORD WINCHILSEA.]
+
+
+A PROMISING START.
+
+Lord Winchilsea sat in this same Parliament as Mr. Finch-Hatton. He
+early made his mark by a maiden speech delivered on one of the
+interminable debates on Egypt. He was content to leave it there, never,
+as far as I remember, again taking part in set debate. His appearance
+was striking. Many years after, when he had succeeded to the earldom, I
+happened to be present when he rose from the luncheon-table at
+Haverholme Priory to acknowledge the toast of his health. By accident or
+design he stood under a contemporary portrait of his great ancestor,
+Christopher Hatton, Queen Elizabeth's Lord Chancellor. The likeness
+between the founder of the family and a scion separated by the space of
+more than three hundred years was almost startling.
+
+Lord Winchilsea aged rapidly. When he made his maiden speech in the
+House of Commons he had not advanced beyond the stage of the young
+dandy. His face was a shade of ivory, the pallor made more striking by
+the coal-black hair. His attitude, like his dress and everything about
+him, was carefully studied. His left hand, rigidly extended, lightly
+rested behind his back. His right hand, when not in action, hid his
+finger-tips in the breast of a closely-buttoned frock-coat.
+Occasionally, he withdrew his hand and made stiff gestures in the air as
+if he were writing hieroglyphs. Occasionally, he emphasized a point by
+slightly bowing to the amused audience.
+
+The matter of his speech was excellent, its form, occasionally, as
+extravagant as his getup. The House roared with laughter when Mr.
+Finch-Hatton, pointing stiff finger-tips at Mr. Gladstone smiling on the
+Treasury Bench, invited members to visit the Premier on his uneasy couch
+and watch him moaning and tossing as the long procession of his pallid
+victims passed before him. This reminiscence of a scene from "Richard
+III." was a great success, though not quite in the manner Mr. Hatton,
+working it out in his study, had forecast.
+
+A man of great natural capacity, wide culture, and, as was shown in his
+later connection with agriculture, of indomitable industry, he would,
+having lived down his extravagancies, have made a career in the Commons.
+Called thence by early doom he went to the Lords, and was promptly and
+finally extinguished.
+
+
+MUSTERED AT J. J. COLMAN'S.
+
+Another old member of the House who died in the recess is Mr. Colman.
+The great mustard manufacturer, whose name was carried on tin boxes to
+the uttermost ends of the earth, never made his mark in the House of
+Commons. I doubt whether he ever got so far as to work off his maiden
+speech. A quiet, kindly, shrewd man of business, he was content to look
+on whilst others fought and talked. He came too late to the House to be
+ever thoroughly at one with it, and took an early opportunity of
+retiring.
+
+Mr. Gladstone had a high respect for him, and occasionally visited his
+beautiful home in Norfolk. One of these occasions became historic by
+reason of Mr. Gladstone unwittingly making a little joke. Coming down to
+breakfast one morning, and finding the house-party already gathered in
+the room, Mr. Gladstone cheerily remarked, "What, are we all mustered?"
+
+He never knew why this innocent observation had such remarkable success
+with Mr. J. J. Colman's guests.
+
+
+MR. GLADSTONE'S TABLE-TALK.
+
+A few more recollections of Mr. Gladstone whilst still in harness. I
+remember meeting him at a well-known house during the Midlothian
+campaign of 1885. He came in to luncheon half an hour late, and was
+rallied by the host upon his unpunctuality. "You know," he said, "only
+the other day you lectured us upon the grace of punctuality at
+luncheon-time."
+
+Mr. Gladstone took up this charge with energy familiar at the time in
+the House of Commons when repelling one of Lord Randolph Churchill's
+random attacks. Finally, he drew from the host humble confession that he
+had been in error, that so far from recommending punctuality at
+luncheon-time he had urged the desirability of absence of formality at
+the meal. "Anyone," he said, "should drop in at luncheon when they
+please and sit where they please."
+
+Through the meal he was in the liveliest humour, talking in his rich,
+musical voice. After luncheon we adjourned to the library, a room full
+of old furniture and precious memorials, chiefly belonging to the Stuart
+times. On the shelves were a multitude of rare books. Mr. Gladstone
+picked up one, and sitting on a broad window seat, began reading and
+discoursing about it. Setting out for a walk, he was got up in a most
+extraordinary style. He wore a narrow-skirted square-cut tail-coat,
+made, I should say, in the same year as the Reform Bill. Over his
+shoulders hung an inadequate cape, of rough hairy cloth, once in vogue
+but now little seen. On his head was a white soft felt hat. The back
+view as he trudged off at four-mile-an-hour pace was irresistible.
+
+Mrs. Gladstone watched over him like a hen with its first chicken. She
+was always pulling up his collar, fastening a button, or putting him to
+sit in some particular chair out of a draught. These little attentions
+Mr. Gladstone accepted without remark, with much the placid air a small
+and good-tempered babe wears when it is being tucked in its cot.
+
+
+AN OLD LONDON HOUSE.
+
+In the Session of 1890, Mr. Gladstone rented a house in St. James's
+Square, a big, roomy, gloomy mansion, built when George I. was King. On
+the pillars of the porch stand in admirable preservation two of the
+wrought iron extinguishers, in which in those days the link-boys used to
+thrust their torches when they had brought master or mistress home, or
+convoyed a dinner guest. Inside hideous light-absorbing flock
+wall-papers prevailed. One gained an idea, opportunity rare in these
+days, of the murkiness amid which our grandfathers dwelt.
+
+Dining there one night, I found the host made up for all household
+shortcomings. He talked with unbroken flow of spirits, always having
+more to say on any subject that turned up, and saying it better, than
+any expert present. His memory was as amazing as his opportunities of
+acquiring knowledge had been unique.
+
+[Illustration: AT A FOUR-MILE-AN-HOUR PACE.]
+
+
+MEMORIES OF CHILDHOOD.
+
+As we sat at table he, in his eighty-first year, recalled, as if it had
+happened the day before, an incident that befell when he was eighteen
+months old. Prowling about the nursery on all-fours, there suddenly
+flashed upon him consciousness of the existence of his nurse, as she
+towered above him. He remembered her voice and the very pattern of the
+frock she wore. This was his earliest recollection, his first clear
+consciousness of existence. His memory of Canning when he stood for
+Liverpool in 1812 was perfectly clear; indeed, he was then nearly three
+years old, and took an intelligent interest in public affairs.
+
+Of later date was his recollection of Parliamentary Elections, and the
+strange processes by which in the good old days they were accomplished.
+The poll at Liverpool was kept open sometimes for weeks, and the custom
+was for voters to be shut up in pens ten at a time. At the proper moment
+they were led out of these inclosures and conducted to the
+polling-booths, where they recorded their votes. These musters were
+called "tallies," and the reckoning up of them was a matter watched with
+breathless interest in the constituency.
+
+
+DOCTORING A TALLY.
+
+It was a point of keen competition which side should first land a
+"tally" at the polling-booth. Mr. Gladstone told with great gusto of an
+accident that befell one in the first quarter of the century. The poll
+opened at eight o'clock in the morning. The Liberals, determined to make
+a favourable start, marshalled ten voters, and as early as four in the
+morning filled the pen by the polling-booth. To all appearances the
+Conservatives were beaten in this first move. But their defeat was only
+apparent. Shortly after seven o'clock a barrel of beer, conveniently
+tapped, with mugs handy, was rolled up within hand-reach of the pen,
+where time hung heavy on the hands of the expectant voters. They
+naturally regarded this as a delicate attention on the part of their
+friends, and did full justice to their hospitable forethought. After a
+while, consternation fell upon them. Man after man hastily withdrew till
+the pen was empty, and ten Conservatives, waiting in reserve, rushed in
+and took possession of the place.
+
+"The beer," said Mr. Gladstone, laughing till the tears came into his
+eyes, "had been heavily jalaped."
+
+
+
+
+DRAWING A BADGER
+
+By EDMUND MITCHELL
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+It was a sleepy little town, far from the busy world, almost hidden away
+in the backwoods. During the long summer days, small boys--and sometimes
+grown-up folks as well--hardly knew what to do to pass the time. It was
+an event of some importance, therefore, when one afternoon Grizzly Jim,
+the trapper, brought to the only hostelry the settlement could boast a
+live badger. He carried it in a big bag, and shook it out over the
+half-door into the empty stable, that the hotel-keeper and his friends
+might have a look at the shy and rarely-seen animal. At that hour there
+were not many people about, so when the other half of the stable door
+was drawn to, and the captive left alone, the news of its arrival was as
+yet known only to a few.
+
+[Illustration: "HE SHOOK IT OUT OVER THE HALF-DOOR."]
+
+Among these few, however, was the hotel-keeper's son Dick, a youngster
+about twelve years old, who had inspected the badger with keenest
+interest and a critical eye. He had also listened to every word of the
+conversation between Grizzly Jim and his father, and had gathered that
+they were going to pack up the beast in a box and send it off next day
+by the railroad to a city, some hundreds of miles distant, where all
+manner of strange creatures were kept in cages in a Zoo. So the badger
+would be lodged in the hotel for one night only, and Dick reflected that
+if any fun was to be got out of "the comical cuss," as he called it,
+there was no time to be lost.
+
+After a quarter of an hour's solid thinking, Dick went out into the
+stable yard and dragged forth an old dog-kennel, which for a long time
+had lain disused in the wood-shed. He rubbed it up a bit, plentifully
+littered it with fresh straw, and then set it down right in the middle
+of the yard. To the big chain he attached an old rusted iron kettle,
+which he pushed back into the kennel among the straw as far as his arms
+could reach. These preparations completed, Dick thrust his hands into
+his trouser pockets, and set off down the main street, whistling a
+tune.
+
+At a little distance he met his most intimate chum, Billy Green, the
+wheelwright's son.
+
+"Say, Billy," said Dick, "heard the noos?"
+
+"What noos?"
+
+"Grizzly Jim's bin an' trapped a badger."
+
+"Wal, that don't count for much. Ain't anythink very 'xtrord'n'ry in his
+trappin' a badger, is there? Comes reg'lar in his day's work, I reckon.
+Now, if it'd bin an elephant or a gi-raffe"--the speaker paused to give
+full effect to his grin of sarcasm.
+
+"Oh! bother yer elephants and yer gi-raffes," interrupted Dick, with
+impatience; "I tell ye it's a real live badger."
+
+"A live one?" asked Billy, his interest slightly stimulated.
+
+"Yes, a live one. I see'd it shaken out of a bag. And it's up now this
+very minute at father's."
+
+"Jee-whizz!" cried Billy, all on the hop now with excitement. "Then I
+s'pose they're goin' to have a badger fight?"
+
+"A badger fight! Who're ye gettin' at?" retorted Dick, ironically.
+
+"Why, ther'll be a badger fight with dogs, of course. Don't ye know,
+Dick, that a badger, when his dander's fairly riz, can fight like a
+whole sackful of wild cats? It's rare sport, badger-baitin', I can tell
+ye, an' jest the real thing to try the stuff young dogs is made of."
+
+"Better'n rats?" asked Dick, in turn growing excited at the vista of
+unexpected possibilities opening out before him.
+
+"Rats ain't in it with badgers," replied Billy, disdainfully.
+
+"Then I 'spect Grizzly Jim's gone down town to hunt up some dogs,"
+suggested Dick.
+
+"Certain sure."
+
+"Wal, hadn't you best come to our place right now, an' have a good look
+at the critter 'fore the crowd begins to roll up?"
+
+"I guess there's some sense in that. Let's skoot along, Dick."
+
+So the two boys set off at a quick pace towards the hotel. And as they
+walked Dick described the badger's points.
+
+"He's got short stumpy legs, Billy, but terrible claws. Rip a dog open
+like winkin'."
+
+"And pooty sharp teeth too, I reckon?"
+
+"I should jest say. Wouldn't like 'm try 'em in my leg."
+
+"See you've got 'm in the old dog-kennel," remarked Billy, as they came
+in sight of the stable yard.
+
+"It's a strong chain that, you know," replied Dick, evasively. "Bruno,
+the old boarhound that died, couldn't break it."
+
+"Guess the chain'll hold the badger all right. But I can't see nothink
+of 'm in that there dog-hutch. I'll want ter have 'm out, Dick, in the
+open."
+
+"You'd best take care, Billy," cried Dick, as his companion laid hold of
+the chain. "Remember his claws."
+
+"Oh! I'm not 'feard, you bet," replied Billy, loftily. "It needs
+somethin' more'n a badger to skeer me. Besides, he can't scratch or bite
+much through my leggin's."
+
+"Mind, Billy," continued Dick, with an intensely anxious look on his
+face. "I've warned ye. Don't ye come a hollerin' an' a blamin' me, if he
+takes a bit out of yer leg."
+
+"Poof! You keep back if ye'r fright'ned. Let me alone. I'll soon yank 'm
+inter daylight." And Billy made ready to haul at the chain. "Come out o'
+that, ye brute," he cried. "Yo! ho! out ye come!" And he pulled with all
+his might.
+
+There was a fine old clatter as the iron kettle came
+clinkety-clink-clank on to the cobble stones; and Dick just lay down on
+the ground, fairly doubled up with laughing.
+
+"Look out, Billy," he yelled amidst his convulsions of glee, "look out.
+That badger'll bite ye through yer leggin's."
+
+For a minute Billy was speechless. He felt so sick and faint-hearted
+that ordinary common-place language would have been an insult to his
+feelings. "You tarnation fraud!" he at last managed to gasp, as he
+glanced from the battered kettle at his feet towards his spluttering
+friend.
+
+But merriment is infectious, and the supreme ridiculousness of his
+position appealed to Billy's sense of humour. So the flushed, angry look
+passed by imperceptible degrees into a sickly smile, and the smile at
+last became transformed into a broad grin. Then Billy sat down on the
+kettle, and laughed till the tears ran down his cheeks.
+
+All of a sudden Dick recovered his gravity. "Quick, Billy," he cried,
+"shove the kettle back. Here's the schoolmaster comin' 'long the
+street."
+
+With a more rapid flash of understanding than he had ever shown for a
+new rule in arithmetic, Billy grasped the situation, and pushed the
+kettle into the kennel out of sight. The boys stood together, just as
+smug and quiet as if they were setting out for Sunday-school.
+
+"Billy," said Dick, wishful to put matters right now that the victim of
+his joke had become his confederate for future operations, "I didn't
+tell a lie. There's a live badger in the stable as true as I'm standin'
+here. But I never said 'twas in the kennel."
+
+Billy, however, was intent only on the business in hand. The prospect of
+sport caused the personal humiliation of a minute ago to be forgotten.
+There was no need, nor time, for explanations.
+
+"Whish! Stow all that," he whispered, eagerly. "Let's meet 'm at the
+gate."
+
+The two conspirators sauntered towards the entrance to the yard, as the
+schoolmaster, an elderly, grave-faced man, drew near to the stable
+buildings.
+
+"Good day, sir," said Billy, as both youngsters jerked their hands
+towards their caps awkwardly, but none the less deferentially.
+
+"Ah! how do you do, boys?" responded the teacher, coming to a halt and
+bestowing a pleasant nod of recognition on his pupils. "I hope you are
+enjoying your holidays?"
+
+[Illustration: "I HOPE YOU ARE ENJOYING YOUR HOLIDAYS?"]
+
+"Yes, sir, first class," replied Dick. Then Billy boldly opened the
+campaign. "Please, Mr. Brown, do you know the difference between a
+mountain badger and a prairie badger?"
+
+"I fancy I do, my lad. The one's darker than the other."
+
+"Well, sir, Dick's father's had a live badger brought to him by Grizzly
+Jim, and we don't know which kind it is." Billy skated very cleverly on
+the thin ice of truth.
+
+"Just let me have a sight of the animal," said the schoolmaster. At the
+same moment he followed the direction of Dick's look, and there and then
+fell unsuspectingly into the trap prepared for him. "Ah! I see you've
+got him chained up in the kennel," he remarked, as he stepped into the
+stable yard.
+
+"Do badgers bite?" asked Dick, evading the issue with splendidly assumed
+innocence.
+
+"Oh! they don't show their teeth much, unless they're badgered," replied
+Mr. Brown, with a laugh, thoroughly pleased with himself at having been
+able to perpetrate a little joke. "Let's have him out, boys. I'll soon
+tell whether he's a mountain badger or a prairie badger."
+
+Dick and Billy hung back, apparently fearful of approaching too near to
+the kennel.
+
+"Don't be afraid, my lads," continued the master, in an encouraging way.
+"He's all safe at the end of a chain. See: I'll pull him out for you.
+Ya! hoop! Out you come, my fine fellow."
+
+And the schoolmaster lugged at the chain; and clinkety-clink-clank came
+the iron kettle on to the cobble stones.
+
+No respect for either age or authority could restrain the boys from
+going off into a fit of laughter. Their teacher's face was a study; its
+look of blank amazement would have made a wooden totem-pole hilarious.
+But they were relieved in mind, all the same, when a smile, even though
+a grim one, stole over the stern, pallid features of the man who had it
+in his power to make the lives of wayward boys utterly miserable.
+
+"It's lucky for you young rascals that this is holiday time," remarked
+the schoolmaster, drily. "I've got a tawse in my desk that can bite a
+good deal sharper than this badger." Then, in spite of a momentary
+feeling of resentment, he joined in the laugh against himself.
+
+"Please, sir," explained Dick, partly in a spirit of penitence, but
+mainly with a view to mitigate the offence, "the live badger that
+Grizzly Jim brought father is in the stable right enough. It was you
+yourself that went straight for the kennel."
+
+"That's so," replied the schoolmaster, stroking his beard meditatively.
+"I should have remembered the maxim of the copybooks, 'Think before you
+leap.' Well, we're all liable to make mistakes, I suppose--even
+parsons," he added, after a pause, and sinking his voice almost to a
+whisper. He was gazing now down the street, with a far-away look in his
+countenance.
+
+The boys shot a quick glance in the same direction. A stout,
+pompous-looking little man, with black coat and white collar, was in
+sight.
+
+"The parson's an erudite Doctor of Divinity," continued the
+schoolmaster, speaking low, and in an absent-minded fashion. "He's had
+all the advantages of a college education--a fact which he knows, and
+takes care to let other people know. A man of learning is the parson,
+and a great authority on natural history."
+
+The boys did not hear, nor exactly understand, every word spoken; but
+the last sentence fell clearly on their ears, and the looks they
+exchanged indicated the dawning of intelligence.
+
+"Yes; I wonder," murmured the pedagogue, reflectively, "I really wonder,
+now, whether the parson could tell the difference between a mountain
+badger and a prairie badger."
+
+"By golly!" screamed Billy, in frantic excitement at the full flash of
+comprehension. "Jam the kettle back into the kennel, Dick. Don't say a
+word, Mr. Brown; please don't. Leave him to us."
+
+The schoolmaster, chuckling to himself, began to examine a rose-bush
+growing against the wall. Soon the parson was at the gate.
+
+"Good evening, Mr. Brown," he called out.
+
+"Good evening," mumbled the teacher, hardly daring to look up from the
+roses.
+
+"What have we here?" continued the clergyman, observing the unwonted
+position of the kennel, and also noticing the flurried look on the boys'
+faces. "What have we here?" he repeated, coming forward into the yard.
+
+"Please, sir," began Dick, a dig in the ribs from Billy having warned
+him that it was his turn to open fire. "Grizzly Jim's brought father a
+real live badger."
+
+"A badger, and a live one! Well?"
+
+"And schoolmaster don't seem to be able to tell whether it's a mountain
+badger or a prairie badger," added Dick, with a grin, adroitly bringing
+the third confederate into the field of action.
+
+"Didn't you examine the teeth, Mr. Brown?" asked the parson. "The colour
+of the fur is no real test, you know."
+
+"I can't say I've looked at its teeth," replied the teacher, with a
+somewhat ghastly smile. He had not bargained for being anything more
+than a passive witness of the parson's discomfiture, but here he was
+now, by Dick's act of unblushing treachery, thrust into the position of
+an active accomplice.
+
+"Well, we must ascertain the animal's dentition. You see, in a mountain
+badger, which is more carnivorous than the prairie variety, the canine
+teeth are more fully developed." As the schoolmaster had said, the
+parson was assuredly a learned man, and an authority on natural history,
+to have all this information so readily at his command.
+
+"But how are you going to look at his teeth?" asked Billy, practically.
+"I reckon badgers bite."
+
+"I'll soon show you, my boy," replied the parson, with a patronizing
+smile. "He's in this kennel, is he?"
+
+Billy's only response was a smile of satisfaction like that worn by the
+cat when he spied that the door of the canary's cage had been left open.
+But the clergyman did not wait for an answer, for, turning directly to
+Dick, he asked the boy whether he could find him some such thing as a
+piece of sacking.
+
+"I guess I can," responded Dick, darting off like a shot towards the
+stables. Within the minute he was back with an old corn-bag. The parson
+was in the act of turning up his coat-sleeves, and was still discoursing
+learnedly upon the carnivorous and frugivorous tastes of the different
+species of the plantigrade family. The schoolmaster was listening
+attentively, speaking not one word: his attitude was a deferential one,
+or a guilty one, according to the observer's point of view.
+
+"That will do first class, my boy," said the minister, taking the sack
+from Dick's hands. "Now, you two lads, pull the chain gently, and I'll
+get this round the badger as he emerges from the kennel. We must look
+out for his claws, you know, as well as for his teeth; because the
+badger, being a burrowing animal, is armed with long sharp claws, which
+he also adapts to purposes of self-defence, using them with great
+courage and effect when attacked. Slowly now, boys; cautious does it.
+Here he comes! There you are! I have him all safe!"
+
+And the parson, as a heap of accumulating straw began to appear at the
+mouth of the kennel, pushed in the sack, and wrapped it tightly round
+the black object beyond.
+
+"Pull now again, boys; gently. That's right. Now he's out."
+
+Then the parson paused, and looked a bit puzzled. "This badger must have
+been injured, surely. He doesn't show much fight." Saying these words,
+he proceeded to cautiously raise one corner of the sacking. "Whoa! now;
+steady. No snapping, you brute," continued the parson, in a purring,
+conciliatory voice, as he slowly lifted the bag.
+
+The spout of the iron kettle met his dumfoundered foundered gaze!
+
+Dick and Billy were by this time hiding behind the water-barrel,
+stuffing handkerchiefs into their mouths. The schoolmaster looked down
+with a gleeful grin it was impossible to repress.
+
+"What is the meaning of this, Mr. Brown?" sputtered the parson, rising
+to his feet. The flush on his face was due less to resentment than to
+wounded pride.
+
+"It just means, Mr. Blinkers, that these young scamps first fooled me,
+and for the life of me I can't deny but I've enjoyed their passing the
+joke on to you."
+
+The schoolmaster laughed outright, but the parson still looked painfully
+self-conscious.
+
+"The miserable little prevaricators!" he muttered.
+
+"No," said the teacher, "you can't call them that. The boys haven't
+spoken a word that's untrue, because the badger, I believe, is actually
+in the stable over there. In taking it for granted that the beast was in
+this kennel, we rushed to conclusions, and have had to pay the penalty."
+
+The mortified expression on the parson's face became somewhat softened.
+He gazed in a half-rueful, half-amused way at the old iron kettle, still
+partially covered by the sacking.
+
+"To think that I was led into talking about the dentition of
+that--that--infernal thing," he sighed. "Oh! it would need a layman to
+express my feelings," he added, clenching his fists as if in impotent
+despair, while with a feeble smile he glanced at the schoolmaster.
+
+"Well," laughed the latter, "strong language isn't in my line any more
+than yours, Mr. Blinkers, so I'm afraid I can't oblige. I fancy,
+however, that if ever again anyone asks you or me the difference between
+a mountain badger and a prairie badger we'll be just a trifle shy at
+answering--eh, my friend?"
+
+[Illustration: "'NO SNAPPING, YOU BRUTE,' CONTINUED THE PARSON."]
+
+The parson laughed outright: the fit of dudgeon was finally past. And
+when the two men left the stable yard arm-in-arm, the mischief-makers,
+who still remained discreetly invisible, could see the backs and
+shoulders of both of them fairly shaking with laughter.
+
+Round the corner, the schoolmaster and the minister met the hotel-keeper
+standing at the front door of his hostelry; and with the greatest good
+humour in the world they told him the story. The joke was really too
+excellent to keep; moreover, it was sure to go the round of the whole
+town before the world was many hours older, so that the victims
+consulted their own personal comfort best by leading off the inevitable
+laugh, and so, in a measure at least, disarming ridicule.
+
+"The whipper-snappers!" said the burly host, hardly knowing at first
+whether to condole with the dignitaries of church and school or to
+indulge the merriment that was bubbling up within him.
+
+"Boys will be boys," remarked the parson, condescendingly.
+
+"And the trick was cleverly done," added the schoolmaster,
+appreciatively. He was in reality too overjoyed at his own success in
+having hauled the parson into the pillory alongside of him to feel any
+resentment.
+
+"Oh! well, we do need a laugh sometimes in this dull place," replied the
+hotel-keeper, allowing the broad smile hitherto repressed to suffuse his
+rubicund countenance. But he kept his mirth within moderate bounds so
+long as the others were in hearing. When they were gone, however, loud
+and long was his laughter.
+
+"Dick, the little cuss!" he cried, slapping his thigh. "And Billy, that
+young varmint! It'll tickle his dad to death when he hears it. To fool
+the schoolmaster showed a bit of pluck. But to take down the
+passon--oh, lor!" And the jolly innkeeper laughed till his sides ached.
+
+After a little time Grizzly Jim slouched into the bar, and the story was
+retailed for his benefit. The old trapper laughed heartily, although in
+the silent way his profession had taught him.
+
+"Blame my skin!" he exclaimed, "if it ain't the foxiest thing in the
+snarin' line I've struck for a long time. But I reckon, boss, I'll take
+a hand now in this 'ere game. You fix up an excuse to git the youngsters
+out of the yard for ten minutes, and I reckon I'll make 'em skin their
+eyes with 'mazement next time they yank out that badger."
+
+Jim sauntered round the front of the house, while the host went direct
+to the stable yard. He found the two boys in close confabulation near
+the dog-kennel; and he also quietly observed that the kettle was again
+inside, so that the trap was clearly baited for the next victim that
+might chance to come around.
+
+"Halloa, Billy!" cried the hotel-keeper, apparently unobservant of the
+fact that the kennel was not in its usual place, and quite ignorant of
+the game that was being played; "can you help Dick eat some apples?"
+
+"Can a duck swim?" asked the youngster, perkily, by way of reply. Every
+urchin in the place was on terms of easy familiarity with mine host of
+the inn.
+
+"Then round you come, the pair of you, to the orchard." And for the next
+quarter of an hour the boys' game was changed--badgers were out and
+apples were in.
+
+Meanwhile Grizzly Jim was losing no time. When he saw the coast clear,
+he walked up the yard and entered the stable. There he dexterously
+caught the badger by the nape of the neck; it was not a full-grown
+animal, and the experienced trapper had no difficulty in handling it. He
+carried it out at arm's length, the beast clawing the air vigorously but
+vainly. Reaching the kennel, Jim quickly substituted the badger for the
+kettle at the end of the chain. Then, when the captive had retreated to
+the furthest recess of its new quarters, he carefully re-arranged the
+straw litter; and, tossing the discarded kettle into the wood-shed,
+sauntered away with a sardonic grin on his sun-dried countenance. He
+crossed the street to the grocery store opposite, whence he could
+command a view of the yard.
+
+A few minutes later the boys, their pockets stuffed full of apples,
+returned to the scene of their exploits, followed at a little distance
+by the hotel-keeper. The latter wore a look of good-humoured expectancy;
+for, although he did not know precisely what the trapper's plans were,
+he felt sure that there was fun in near prospect. Dick was busy munching
+an apple and cogitating how it would be possible to victimize his
+father, when his eye caught sight of Grizzly Jim crossing the street
+from the grocery store with a big box on his shoulders.
+
+"I guess, dad, here's Jim a-comin' to take that badger away," remarked
+the boy, indicating by means of the half-eaten apple in his hand the
+lanky figure of the trapper.
+
+"Most likely," answered his father, with a merry twinkle in his eye.
+
+Billy, however, had at once seen the possibilities of this new
+development, and his face lit up instantly with all the keen excitement
+of a fox-terrier in the act of pouncing on a rat. "We must take a rise
+out o' Grizzly Jim," he whispered eagerly to his comrade in mischief.
+
+As for Jim, he seemed to play right into the young rascals' hands, for
+the first remark he made was this: "The schoolmaster has jest bin
+sayin', boys, that you've got my badger in that 'ere dog-kennel."
+
+"Wal, and what if we have?" asked Billy, boldly.
+
+"Oh! I'm makin' no complaint. But here's his box for the railroad, and I
+think we'd best put him in it right now. P'raps you'll lend me a hand,
+youngsters?"
+
+"Right you are, Jim," cried both boys with alacrity, advancing towards
+the kennel.
+
+"Did jevver know sich luck?" asked Billy, in a whisper, nudging his
+companion with his elbow.
+
+"It's 'nough to make a feller die with laughin'," chuckled Dick, under
+his breath.
+
+"Guess, then, yer not afeared o' badgers, you boys?" drawled Jim,
+setting down the box.
+
+"Not badgers of this sort," replied Billy, with a grimace.
+
+"So you've found out this 'un's only a babby?" continued the trapper;
+"hasn't got all his teeth yet, eh, an' couldn't scratch very hard if he
+tried?" As Jim spoke he picked up the slack of the chain, to the boys'
+intense delight.
+
+"I reckon the badger at the end o' that chain won't hurt us much,"
+responded Billy, airily. But Dick had to turn his face away to hide the
+laughter with which he was now almost bursting.
+
+"Wal, boys, if I pull 'm out, you'll ketch 'm, will ye, an' shove 'm in
+the box?"
+
+"Right you are, Jim. You jest pull, and we'll grab."
+
+"But p'r'aps you'd be safer to let me come an' help ye hold the
+critter," added the trapper, shaking his head doubtfully.
+
+"Help be blowed," cried Billy. "I reckon we don't need no help to manage
+this 'ere outfit, eh, Dick?" And the boys laughed in each other's faces,
+as they carried the box close up to the kennel, and opened the lid in
+readiness.
+
+"Right ye are, sonnies," replied Jim. "Have yer own way. But don't ye
+forget I gave ye fair warnin'."
+
+[Illustration: "BOYS AND BADGER WERE MIXED UP IN A SQUIRMING HEAP."]
+
+"We can look after ourselves, you bet," answered Billy, impatiently.
+"Jest you haul away."
+
+"Wal, here we go," said Jim, a faint smile showing on his thin lips.
+"Grip him the moment he shows his nose. Don't be frightened at the sight
+of his claws."
+
+The lads were stooping ready to grab at the old iron kettle the moment
+it should make its appearance. Both were chuckling with glee. And the
+best of the joke was that Grizzly Jim had brought the whole thing right
+upon himself!
+
+"Hoop, la!" cried Jim, and with a pull that would have dragged a camel
+off its legs, he jerked the occupant of the kennel into the open.
+
+In their eagerness as to who should hold aloft the spurious badger
+before the astonished eyes of Grizzly Jim, the boys fairly flung
+themselves upon the black object at the end of the chain.
+
+Then there followed, oh! such a yelling and a screeching, such a
+snapping and a snarling! Dick rolled over Billy, and boys and badger
+were mixed up in a squirming heap.
+
+"Shall I come and help ye hold the critter?" called out the trapper,
+cheerfully.
+
+"No, but come and help us let him go," screamed Dick.
+
+"My sakes!" roared Billy; "he's got me by the leg."
+
+But at this stage Grizzly Jim came to the rescue. The young badger was
+quickly caught, and popped into the box, while the disconcerted and
+crestfallen urchins struggled to their feet.
+
+"Guess badgers are kind o' more savage beasties than ye reckoned on,"
+remarked the trapper, with dry sarcasm.
+
+"No wonder the schoolmaster and the passon were skeered," laughed the
+hotel-keeper, who had enjoyed the whole scene from a little distance.
+
+Then it dawned upon the youngsters how neatly the tables had been turned
+on them; so, in spite of torn clothes and scratched skins, they did
+their best like true sportsmen to grin and look pleasant. But it will be
+some time before they try to take another rise out of Grizzly Jim.
+
+
+
+
+_A Common Crystal._
+
+By John R. Watkins.
+
+
+Hard to believe, but true. The locomotive shown in the illustration
+below rests and runs upon a lake of salt--a surface almost as solid as
+the road-bed of a great passenger system. The engine puffs to and fro
+all day long on the snow-like crust, while a score of steam-ploughs make
+progress with a rattling, rasping noise, dividing the lake into long and
+glittering mounds of salt, which are shovelled by busy Indians on to the
+waiting cars. The sun shines with almost overwhelming power, and the
+dazzling carpet of salt stretches away to the horizon, where it
+disappears.
+
+[Illustration: _From a_] LOADING A TRAIN ON A LAKE OF SALT, IN SOUTHERN
+CALIFORNIA. [_Photograph._]
+
+The scene is in Salton, in far-off Southern California. Two months ago
+we described a wonderful city of salt which for centuries has existed
+below the surface of the earth. Here in Salton, striking sights may be
+seen in the full light of day. One gets some little idea of them from
+the photographs, but the general effect of this huge natural store-house
+of commercial salt, its enormous crystal lake, and its massive pyramids
+of white awaiting shipment, can be but partially conceived from our
+pictures.
+
+To enter into a complete description of the remarkable industry which
+transfers a common crystal from a lake of brine to the working-man's
+table would be beyond the limits of our magazine. It would involve a
+discussion of chemical symbols and formulæ which would make the printed
+page a cryptograph. Better is it, briefly, to say that much of the salt
+found in the domestic salt-cellar comes from the water of the sea,
+which, by evaporation, is turned from liquid into snowy powder. In
+Salton Lake, which lies 280ft. below the sea level; the brine rises in
+the bottom of the marsh from numerous springs in the neighbouring
+foot-hills, and, quickly evaporating, leaves deposits of almost pure
+salt, varying from 10in. to 20in. in thickness, and thus forming a
+substantial crust. The temperature ranges from 120 to 150 degrees, and
+all the labour is performed by Coahuilla Indians, who work ten hours a
+day, and seem not in the least to mind the enervating heat. In fact,
+these Indians are so inured to the fatiguing work that they are not
+affected by the dazzling sunlight, which distresses the eyes of those
+unaccustomed to it, and compels the use of coloured glasses. One of
+these Indians may be seen sitting on the steam-plough shown on this
+page. He is one of a tribe of large and well-developed men--peaceable,
+civilized, sober, and industrious, living in comfortable houses built by
+the New Liverpool Salt Works, with tables, chairs, forks, spoons, and
+many of the necessary articles of domestic civilization. He guides his
+plough over the long stretches of salt, running lightly at first over
+the surface to remove any vestiges of desert sand blown from far away,
+and then setting the blade to run 6in. deep in furrows 8ft. wide. Each
+plough harvests daily over 700 tons of pure salt, which is then taken to
+the mill to be ground and placed in sacks. Scores of men assist in the
+harvest by loading small "dump-cars," or trollies, on portable rails,
+the cargo being finally dumped on the large train or else carried direct
+to the manufactory.
+
+[Illustration: _From a_] A SALT-PLOUGH AT WORK. [_Photograph._]
+
+The interesting history of the salt industry in California is largely
+associated with the name of Plummer Brothers, who in 1864, in the person
+of the late Mr. J. A. Plummer, made the first genuine attempt to produce
+a first-class domestic salt. The extensive and striking premises of this
+noted firm in Centreville, California, are shown in the two
+illustrations on the next page. Situated as the district is close to the
+bay, the industry is dependent to a certain extent upon the tides. The
+early spring tides have little effect in drawing away the impurities
+which the river-floods bring into the bay; but the tides of June and
+July, rising as they do to a height of 6ft. or 7ft., fill the marshes
+with a water fairly pure. The salt-makers have prepared for this influx
+of water by making reservoirs in large clay-bottomed tracts of marsh
+land, and have cleared them of weeds and grass. The water flows in and
+fills the reservoirs to a depth of from 15in. to 18in., and the gates
+are then closed.
+
+[Illustration: _From a Photo. by_] TRANSPORTING SALT IN WHEEL-BARROWS.
+[_Mr. C. A. Plummer._]
+
+[Illustration: _From a Photo. by_] SALT CRYSTALLIZING PONDS. [_Mr. C. A.
+Plummer._]
+
+[Illustration: _Photo. from_] SALT-MAKING IN RAJPUTANA. [_Rev. Henry
+Lansdell, D.D., Blackheath._]
+
+Like a large family, descending in size from father to youngest son, the
+six or seven evaporating ponds of a salt works appear. The large
+reservoir, being the father of this series of ponds, contains the gross
+amount of brine, the last two or three being called lime-ponds, owing to
+the amount of gypsum, lime, etc., precipitated at this stage of
+evaporation. Not to go too deeply into chemistry, it may be said that
+the brine lingers in the last of these ponds until a density of 106
+degrees is obtained. The surface of the liquid is now dotted by small
+patches of white which accumulate into streaks of drift-salt. This
+interesting development is shown in the illustration above, the streaks
+of salt looking like patches of surf on the sands of the sea-shore. The
+liquid is now run into crystallizing vats, where it remains until the
+salt crystals have formed at the bottom. It sometimes takes two months
+for a crop of salt to develop. In harvesting, the workman, donning
+large, flat sandals of wood, enters the vat with a galvanized shovel,
+and marks off on the surface of the salt a series of parallel lines.
+This process enables the labourers to toss the lumps into uniform piles.
+A strict examination is made of every shovelful, in order that
+impurities may be eliminated. Our illustrations show these conical
+mounds of salt, and the transfer of the salt by means of barrels to
+large platforms, where the crystal product is thrown into huge pyramids,
+sometimes 25ft. high. Here it remains, bleaching and solidifying for a
+year. It is, indeed, a picturesque sight to see these ghost-like
+pyramids grow in their might from day to day.
+
+[Illustration: _Photo. from_]
+
+MEASURING SALT-HEAPS IN RAJPUTANA.
+
+[_Rev. Henry Lansdell, D.D., Blackheath._]
+
+Into the processes by which these massive mounds of hardened salt are
+crushed and distributed to the markets, we need not enter; nor need we
+name the varieties of salt which are so distributed. We find something
+more interesting in turning from California to Central India, where in
+Rajputana a tremendous industry in salt is carried on, and where we may
+see the same little piles of salt that we have noted in the previous
+illustrations.
+
+In the background of the large full-page picture, which we have just
+passed, may be seen colossal heaps of salt, and in the foreground scores
+of men, women, and children wading in the vat of sluggish brine, from
+which, by dint of constant effort, emerge the little cones of white. The
+overseers stand by to direct, and the scene is one of tremendous
+interest and activity, punctuated by babble of voices. We get a closer
+view of these cones in our last illustration, in which we find the
+coolies measuring the height of the cones. One thing we miss in these
+vistas of barren whiteness--the sight of the labour-saving machinery so
+noticeable in our early illustrations. Is it an object-lesson in the
+differences between East and West?
+
+
+
+
+_A Peep into "Punch."_
+
+By J. Holt Schooling.
+
+[_The Proprietors of "Punch" have given special permission to reproduce
+the accompanying illustrations. This is the first occasion when a
+periodical has been enabled to present a selection from Mr. Punch's
+famous pages._]
+
+Part II.--1850 to 1854.
+
+
+Some while ago, in the pantomime "Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves," Ali
+Baba's brother, who had found his way into the secret cave, ran about in
+a most ludicrous manner eagerly picking from the floor diamonds, rubies,
+and emeralds as big as ostrich-eggs: as fast as he picked up another gem
+he let one fall from his already loaded arms. I laughed at Ali Baba's
+brother, but did not feel sympathetic.
+
+[Illustration: 1.--THIS INITIAL LETTER "L" IS SIR JOHN TENNIEL'S FIRST
+"PUNCH" DRAWING; NOVEMBER 30, 1850.]
+
+_Now_, I do not laugh, and I do feel sympathetic with A. B.'s
+brother--for in choosing these pictures from _Punch_, one no sooner
+picks out a gem, with an "I'll have _you_," than on the turn of a page a
+better picture comes, and the other has to be dropped. It goes as much
+against my grain to leave such a host of good things hidden in _Punch_
+as it went against the covetous desires of Ali Baba's wicked brother to
+leave so many fine big gems behind him in the richly-stored cave.
+However, Mr. Punch's whole store of riches is, after all, accessible to
+anyone whose Open Sesame! is a little cheque, and so one has some
+consolation for being able to show here only a very small selection from
+Mr. Punch's famous gallery of wit and art which that discerning
+connoisseur has been collecting during the last sixty years.
+
+The year 1850 was a notable one for _Punch_, for then John Tenniel
+joined the famous band of Punchites. His first contribution is shown in
+No. 1, the beautiful initial letter _L_ with the accompanying sketch,
+which, although it is nearly fifty years old, and is here in a reduced
+size, yet distinctly shows even to the non-expert eye the touch of that
+same wonderful hand which in this week's _Punch_ (November 26th, 1898)
+drew the cartoon showing Britannia and the United States as two
+blue-jackets in jovial comradeship under the sign of the "Two Cross
+Flags," with jolly old landlord _Punch_ saying to them, "Fill up, my
+hearties! It looks like 'dirty weather' ahead, but you two--John and
+Johnathan--will see it through--_together_!"
+
+[Illustration: 2.--JUSTIFIABLE HESITATION. 1850.]
+
+Glancing at Nos. 2 and 3--Leech's sketch in No. 3 is, by the way, a
+truthfully graphic reminder to the writer of the first time _he_
+[unexpecting] heard and saw a strong Cornish cock-pheasant get up close
+at his feet--we come to No. 4, which represents the British Lion (as
+taxpayer) looking askance at the Prince of Wales, aged nine, on whose
+behalf application had just been made for the purchase of Marlborough
+House as a residence for the Prince. The portly man in the picture on
+the wall is a former Prince of Wales, the Regent who became George IV.
+in 1820, and who is here seen walking by the Pavilion at Brighton, built
+in 1784-87 as a residence for this Prince of Wales.
+
+[Illustration: 3.--BY LEECH. 1850.]
+
+No. 5 is very funny, and it is one of the many _Punch_ jokes which are
+periodically served up afresh in other periodicals. I have read this
+joke somewhere quite lately, although it came out in _Punch_ nearly
+fifty years ago.
+
+On this score, does anyone know if the following is a _Punch_ joke? It
+was lately told to me as a new joke, but I was afraid to send it to Mr.
+Punch:--
+
+Two London street-Arabs. One is eating an apple, the other gazes
+enviously, and says, "Gi'e us a bite, Bill." "Sha'n't," says the
+apple-eater. "Gi'e us the core, then," entreats the non-apple-eater.
+"_There ain't goin' to be no core!_" stolidly replies the other, out of
+his stolidly munching jaws.
+
+[Illustration: 4.--THE PRINCE OF WALES AT AGE NINE. BY LEECH, 1850.]
+
+The very clever drawing No. 6 is by Richard Doyle; it was published in
+1850, and at the close of that year Doyle left _Punch_ owing to
+_Punch's_ vigorous attack on "Popery"--the Popery scare got hold of the
+public mind in 1849, and for some while _Punch_ published scathing
+cartoons against Roman Catholicism. Doyle being of that faith resigned
+his position and a good income through purely conscientious motives.
+Although Doyle left in 1850 his work was seen in _Punch_ as lately as
+1864, for when he resigned some of his work was then unpublished. This
+funny illustration of "A meeting to discuss the principles of Protection
+and Free Trade" was an outcome of the intensely bitter feeling between
+the partisans of both sides which marked the carrying-on by Lord John
+Russell of the system established by Sir Robert Peel in 1846 for
+throwing open our market-doors to free trade with foreign nations.
+
+[Illustration: 5.--A CLEAR CASE OF LIBEL. 1851.]
+
+[Illustration: 6.--BY RICHARD DOYLE. 1850.]
+
+No. 7 is one of the minor hits at "Papal Aggression" made by _Punch_
+fifty years ago, and it is irresistibly funny.
+
+[Illustration: 7.--THE APPARITION. 1850.]
+
+[Illustration: 8.--THIS IS SIR JOHN TENNIEL'S FIRST CARTOON; FEBRUARY 8,
+1851.]
+
+Sir John Tenniel's first cartoon is shown in No. 8. It represents Lord
+John Russell as David, backed by Mr. Punch and by John Bull, attacking
+Cardinal Wiseman as Goliath, who is at the head of a host of Roman
+Catholic archbishops and bishops. A very interesting mention is made by
+Mr. Spielmann, in his "History of Punch," of the circumstances which
+caused Tenniel to join _Punch_, and to become the greatest cartoonist
+the world has produced:--
+
+     Had the Pope not "aggressed" by appointing archbishops and bishops
+     to English sees [This caused all the exaggerated pother and flutter
+     of 1849.--J. H. S.], and so raised the scare of which Lord John
+     Russell and Mr. Punch really seem to have been the leaders, Doyle
+     would not have resigned, and no opening would have been made for
+     Tenniel.
+
+      Sir John, indeed, was by no means enamoured of the prospect of
+      being a _Punch_ artist, when Mark Lemon [the editor in 1850.--J.
+      H. S.] made his overtures to him. He was rather indignant than
+      otherwise, as his line was high art, and his severe drawing above
+      "fooling." "Do they suppose," he asked a friend, "that there is
+      anything funny about _me_?" He meant, of course, in his art, for
+      privately he was well recognised as a humorist; and little did he
+      know, in the moment of hesitation before he accepted the offer,
+      that he was struggling against a kindly destiny.
+
+Thus we may say that the "Popish Scare" of fifty years ago was a main
+cause of the Tenniel cartoons in the _Punch_ of to-day.
+
+[Illustration: 9.--ILLUSTRATING THE CONNECTION BY ELECTRIC CABLE BETWEEN
+ENGLAND AND FRANCE. BY LEECH, 1851.]
+
+The picture in No. 9, "The New Siamese Twins," celebrates the
+successful laying of the submarine cable between Dover and Calais,
+November 13, 1851: the closing prices of the Paris Bourse were known
+within business hours of the same day on the London Stock Exchange. The
+use by Leech of the words in the title, "Siamese Twins," refers to the
+visit to this country of a Barnum-like natural monstrosity--a pair of
+twins whose bodies were joined--a freak that was also the origin of a
+toy sold in later years with the same title. In the year 1851 _Punch_
+secured another of its most famous artists--Charles Keene--whose first
+contribution is shown in No. 10.
+
+[Illustration: 10.--THIS IS CHARLES KEENE'S FIRST "PUNCH" DRAWING;
+DECEMBER 20, 1851.]
+
+[Illustration: 11.--BY LEECH. 1851.]
+
+[Illustration: 12.--BY LEECH. 1851.]
+
+[Illustration: 13.--AN INCIDENT OF THE 1851 CENSUS.]
+
+This sketch has little of a joke in it--the shakiness of drawing is
+intentional [see the description given in No. 10], and the following
+account of this poor little picture, so interesting as the first by
+Keene, is given by Mr. G. S. Layard in his "Life and Letters of Charles
+Samuel Keene":--
+
+     In 1848, Louis Napoleon had been elected to the French Presidency
+     ...; 1849 witnessed the commencement of those violent political
+     struggles which were the forerunners of internal conspiracies; and
+     1851 saw this practical anarchy suddenly put a stop to by the
+     famous, or infamous, _coup d'état_ of December 2nd.
+
+     Towards the end of that month a very modest wood-cut, bearing the
+     legend "Sketch of the Patent Street-sweeping Machines lately
+     introduced at Paris" appeared on p. 264 of "Mr. Punch's" journal.
+     It represented a couple of cannon drawn with the waviest of
+     outlines, and the letter "A" marked upon the ground directly in
+     their line of fire [see No. 10.--J. H. S.]....
+
+     This was the first appearance of Keene's pencil in the pages which
+     he was destined to adorn with increasing frequency as time went on
+     for nearly forty years. The sketch is unsigned. Indeed, it was
+     only at the urgent request of his friend, Mr. Silver, in whose
+     brain the notion had originated, that the drawing was made, the
+     artist bluntly expressing his opinion that the joke was a mighty
+     poor one.
+
+[Illustration: FIRST DESIGN.]
+
+[Illustration: SECOND DESIGN.]
+
+[Illustration: THIRD DESIGN.]
+
+[Illustration: FOURTH DESIGN.]
+
+[Illustration: FIFTH DESIGN.]
+
+[Illustration: SIXTH DESIGN.]
+
+[Illustration: 14.--MR. PUNCH'S "WARDROBE OF OLD COATS." BEING THE SIX
+DESIGNS FOR THE FRONT PAGE OF THE WRAPPER OF "PUNCH" WHICH PRECEDED THE
+DESIGN NOW IN USE.]
+
+Pictures 11 to 13 bring us to No. 14, which contains small facsimile
+reproductions of the six designs on the front of the _Punch_-wrapper,
+which preceded the well-known design by Richard Doyle, now used every
+week. These little pictures have been made direct from the original
+_Punch_-wrappers in my possession, as it was found impossible to get
+satisfactory prints in so small a size as these from the much larger
+blocks that Messrs. Cassell and Company very kindly lent to me,
+impressions from which can be seen by readers who may like to study the
+detail of these designs in Mr. Spielmann's "History of Punch," which
+contains a full account of them. Incidentally, it is interesting to note
+that when these designs were made it would have been impossible to
+obtain from them the excellent reduced facsimiles now shown, which, by
+the way, have only now been obtained after several attempts--as each of
+these pretty little pictures has been reduced from the full size of the
+ordinary _Punch_-page.
+
+[Illustration: 15.--BY LEECH. 1852.]
+
+The first design was made in 1841 by A. S. Henning, Mr. Punch's first
+cartoonist. In the early years of _Punch_ the design for the wrapper was
+changed for each half-yearly volume, and early in 1842 the second design
+was adopted: this was drawn by Hablot K. Browne ("Phiz"), who worked for
+_Punch_ during 1842-1844, leaving _Punch_ in 1844, because the paper
+could not at that time stand the financial strain of the two big guns,
+Leech and "Phiz". H. K. Browne went back to Mr. Punch in later years,
+and Mr. Spielmann has recorded that this "brave worker, who would not
+admit his stroke of paralysis, but called it rheumatism, could still
+draw when the pencil was tied to his fingers and answered the swaying of
+his body."
+
+The third wrapper is by William Harvey, and was used for Vol. III. of
+_Punch_ in the latter part of 1842. The artist "spread consternation in
+the office by sending in a charge of twelve guineas" for this third
+wrapper--twelve guineas being, by the way, nearly one-half of the total
+capital with which _Punch_ was started in 1841.
+
+The fourth wrapper was designed by Sir John Gilbert, whose work for
+_Punch_, although greatly intermittent, and small in quantity, was
+spread over a longer period than that of any other _Punch_ artist--save
+Sir John Tenniel. This wrapper covered the first part of 1843, and it
+was used until recent years as the pink cover of _Punch's_ monthly
+parts.
+
+The fifth wrapper is by Kenny Meadows--you can just see his signature on
+the lower rim of the drum--and it was used in the latter part of 1843.
+Then, in January, 1844, Richard Doyle, Mr. Punch's latest recruit, was
+employed to design the new wrapper--the sixth of our illustration No.
+14. This design was used until January, 1849, and then Doyle made the
+alterations which distinguish this sixth wrapper from the one now in use
+and which has been used ever since.
+
+[Illustration: 16.--TO TERRIFY THE ENEMY. 1852.]
+
+A little boy's advice to his grandfather is illustrated by Leech in No.
+15, and No. 16 suggests an added horror of war. The humorous prospectus
+in No. 17 concludes with the words:--
+
+     Something turns up every day to justify the most sanguine
+     expectation that an El Dorado has really been discovered. In the
+     meantime, the motto of the Company is "Otium Sine Dig." [_Ease
+     without dignity_]. Applications for Shares to be made immediately
+     to the above addresses, as a preference will be shown to
+     respectable people.
+
+By the way, when Mr. Punch wrote this skit about "Gold in England," he
+and his public were alike unaware that gold is really in this
+country--gold ore worth £15,000 was dug up in 1894 out of this country:
+1894 being the most recent year for which I have the official return of
+mining.
+
+[Illustration: 17.--MR. PUNCH'S ACCOUNT OF A COMPANY-PROMOTING SWINDLE.
+1852.]
+
+No. 18 depicts a moment of half-delightful, half-awe-stricken,
+anticipation by the amateur clown, pantaloon, and columbine of the exact
+result that will follow the application of the (real) red-hot poker to
+the old gentleman's legs.
+
+[Illustration: 18.--BY LEECH. 1853.]
+
+No. 19 is Mr. Punch's tribute to the Duke of Wellington which, a week
+later (October 2nd, 1852), was followed by a cartoon by Tenniel
+containing in a mournful pose one of Tenniel's splendid British lions
+that have intermittently during so many years been a prominent feature
+of his cartoons.
+
+[Illustration: 19.--THE OBITUARY NOTICE IN "PUNCH" ON THE DUKE OF
+WELLINGTON. SEPTEMBER 25, 1852.]
+
+[Illustration: 20.--THE COMING OF PHOTOGRAPHY [AND OF THE BULL] BY
+"CUTHBERT BEDE," 1853.]
+
+No. 20 is by "Cuthbert Bede" [the Reverend Edward Bradley], the author
+of "Verdant Green," and this is one of four caricature illustrations of
+the then novel art of photography, which Mr. Bradley did for _Punch_ in
+the year 1853. We read just now how we are indirectly indebted to a Pope
+[Pius IX.] for Sir John Tenniel's cartoons, and in connection with the
+Rev. Edward Bradley's picture in No. 20, it may be noted that six
+clergymen, at the least, have contributed to Mr. Punch's pages.
+
+[Illustration: 21.--SUGGESTED BY THE MILITARY AND NAVAL REVIEWS HELD BY
+THE QUEEN IN 1853.]
+
+[Illustration: 22.--MR. PUNCH'S HIT AT JOHN BRIGHT AND THE PEACE
+SOCIETY. 1853.]
+
+No. 21 shows _Punch's_ "Medal for a Peace Assurance Society," a
+pictorialization in 1853 of the still true old saying: "To secure peace
+be prepared for war." An unhappy necessity, as some people think, but
+without doubt the only practical way to assure peace, and, as usual, Mr.
+Punch puts the thing in a nutshell with his two mottoes on the medal:
+"Attention" and "Ready, aye Ready." Our "attention" and "readiness" of
+1853 did not, however, keep us out of the Crimean War, which began in
+the spring of 1854, despite the efforts of the Peace Society and of John
+Bright, who are caricatured in No. 22. But modern authorities generally
+believe that the Crimean War might have been prevented by a more
+vigorous policy than that of Lord Aberdeen, whose Administration is
+chiefly remembered by what is now thought to have been a gross blunder.
+This No. 22 is also interesting as a forerunner of Mr. E. T. Reed's
+remarkably witty modern designs, "Ready-made coats (-of-arms); or,
+giving 'em fits."
+
+[Illustration: 23.--A SINISTER INVITATION. 1854.]
+
+"I wish the British Lion were dead outright," said John Bright, at
+Edinburgh, in 1853, and Mr. Punch's comment on these words was the funny
+"Improvement" of the Royal Arms depicted in No. 22.
+
+[Illustration: 24.--A REFERENCE TO THE CRIMEAN WAR. BY LEECH, 1854.]
+
+With a glance of sympathy at the belated traveller in No. 23, we pass to
+No. 24, which shows the "Bursting of the Russian Bubble." This was
+published in _Punch_, October 14th, 1854, after the Battle of the Alma
+had been fought and badly lost by Russia and part of the Russian fleet
+sunk at Sebastopol. Leech here shows very graphically the shattering of
+the "irresistible power" and of the "unlimited means" which were to have
+led the Emperor Nicholas I. of Russia to an easy victory over the
+British and French allied forces.
+
+[Illustration: 25.--IN THE EARLY DAYS OF PHOTOGRAPHY; BY "CUTHBERT
+BEDE," 1853.]
+
+No. 25 is another of the caricatures of photography in its early days by
+"Cuthbert Bede," and very funny it is.
+
+The next picture, No. 26, is one of _Punch's_ classics. It is that
+well-known joke illustrating manners in the mining districts in the
+early fifties:--
+
+     _First Polite Native_: "Who's 'im, Bill?"
+
+      _Second ditto_: "A stranger!"
+
+      _First ditto_: "'Eave 'arf a brick at 'im."
+
+By the way, speaking of Mr. Punch's jokes which have become classic, the
+one which is the best known is the following:--
+
+     Worthy of Attention.
+
+      Advice to persons about to marry--
+
+      Don't!
+
+[Illustration: 26.--MINERS' MANNERS, 1854.]
+
+This famous _mot_ appeared in _Punch's_ Almanac for 1845, and Mr.
+Spielmann states that it was "based upon the ingenious wording of an
+advertisement widely put forth by Eamonson & Co., well-known house
+furnishers of the day."
+
+[Illustration: 27.--PLEASANT FOR THE YOUTH. BY LEECH, 1853.]
+
+[Illustration: 28.--A SUPPOSITITIOUS RUSSIAN ACCOUNT OF OUR DISTRESS
+DURING THE CRIMEAN WAR, 1854.]
+
+As regards the source of this famous joke, Mr. Spielmann, with
+characteristic thoroughness, gives a long account of the many claims to
+its paternity, and finally makes this statement:--
+
+     ... chance has placed in my possession the authoritative
+     information; and so far from any outsider, anonymous or declared,
+     paid or unpaid, being concerned in it at all, the line simply came
+     in the ordinary way from one of the Staff--from the man who, with
+     Landells, had conceived _Punch_ and shaped it from the beginning,
+     and had invented that first Almanac which had saved the paper's
+     life--Henry Mayhew.
+
+[Illustration: 29.--A STREET-ARAB OF 1854.]
+
+No. 27 is a very clever drawing by Leech--they are all clever of course,
+but this seems specially good. The youth [on Westminster Bridge--time,
+two on a foggy morning] white with fear walks on perfectly straight
+without taking any notice of the rough who asks: "Did you want to buy a
+good razor?"--but he _is_ taking a lot of notice though. The youth walks
+exactly like one does walk when a beggar pesters as he slouches
+alongside just behind one, but here the frightened youth has good cause
+indeed for the shaking fear that Leech has by some magic put into these
+strokes of his pencil. The "Reduced Tradesman" too is exactly good--but
+let the picture speak for itself, it wants no words of mine.
+
+[Illustration: 30.--OUT OF THE RAIN. 1854.]
+
+There is an amusing "Russian" account, in No. 28, of our troubles at
+home during the Crimean War; and No. 29 shows a street-Arab asking the
+Queen's coachman, "I say, Coachy, are you engaged?"
+
+[Illustration: 31.--BY LEECH, 1854.]
+
+Glancing at Nos. 30 and 31, we see in No. 32 Leech's picture of the
+heroic charge at the Battle of Balaclava, on October 25, 1854, with Lord
+Cardigan leading his famous Light Brigade of Cavalry. Here are Mr.
+Punch's lines on this gallant charge, which was subsequently
+immortalized by Tennyson in his "Charge of the Light Brigade":--
+
+
+THE BATTLE OF BALAKLAVA.
+
+[_Nine verses, on the battle generally, precede the lines below, which
+refer to the charge of the Light Brigade, illustrated by Leech, in No.
+32.--J. H. S._]
+
+    But who is there, with patient tongue the sorry tale to tell,
+    How our Light Brigade, true martyrs to the point of honour, fell!
+    "'Twas sublime, but 'twas not warfare," that charge of woe and wrack,
+    That led six hundred to the guns, and brought two hundred back!
+
+    Enough! the order came to charge, and charge they did--like men:
+    While shot and shell and rifle-ball played on them down the glen.
+    Though thirty guns were ranged in front, not one drew bated breath,
+    Unfaltering, unquestioning, they rode upon their death!
+
+    Nor by five times their number of all arms could they be stayed;
+    And with two lives for one of ours, e'en then, the Russians paid;
+    Till torn with shot and rent with shell, a spent and bleeding few,--
+    Life was against those fearful odds,--from the grapple they withdrew.
+
+    But still like wounded lions, their faces to the foe,
+    More conquerors than conquered, they fell back stern and slow;
+    With dinted arms and weary steeds--all bruised and soiled and worn--
+    Is this the wreck of all that rode so bravely out this morn?
+    Where thirty answered muster at dawn now answer ten,
+    Oh, woe's me for such officers!--Oh, woe's me for such men!
+
+    Whose was the blame? Name not his name, but rather seek to hide.
+    If he live, leave him to conscience--to God, if he have died:
+    But you, true band of heroes, you have done your duty well:
+    Your country asks not, to what end; it knows but how you fell!
+
+[Illustration: 32.--THE CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE. BY LEECH, NOVEMBER
+25, 1854.]
+
+     NOTE.--In Part 1. of this article, the "Portrait of the Railway
+     Panic," illustration No. 17, was erroneously ascribed to Doyle; the
+     artist was William Newman, one of Mr. Punch's first recruits.
+
+(_To be continued._)
+
+
+
+
+_Miss Cayley's Adventures._
+
+XII.--THE ADVENTURE OF THE UNPROFESSIONAL DETECTIVE.
+
+By Grant Allen.
+
+
+"Is Lady Georgina at home?"
+
+The discreet man-servant in sober black clothes eyed me suspiciously.
+"No, miss," he answered. "That is to say--no, ma'am. Her ladyship is
+still at Mr. Marmaduke Ashurst's--the late Mr. Marmaduke Ashurst's, I
+mean--in Park Lane North. You know the number, ma'am?"
+
+"Yes, I know it," I replied, with a gasp; for this was indeed a triumph.
+My one fear had been lest Lord Southminster should already have taken
+possession--why, you will see hereafter; and it relieved me to learn
+that Lady Georgina was still at hand to guard my husband's interests.
+She had been living at the house, practically, since her brother's
+death. I drove round with all speed, and flung myself into my dear old
+lady's arms.
+
+[Illustration: "I'VE HELD THE FORT BY MAIN FORCE."]
+
+"Kiss me," I cried, flushed. "I am your niece!" But she knew it already,
+for our movements had been fully reported by this time (with picturesque
+additions) in the morning papers. Imagination, ill-developed in the
+English race, seems to concentrate itself in the lower order of
+journalists.
+
+She kissed me on both cheeks with unwonted tenderness. "Lois," she
+cried, with tears in her eyes, "you're a brick!" It was not exactly
+poetical at such a moment, but from her it meant more than much gushing
+phraseology.
+
+"And you're here in possession!" I murmured.
+
+The Cantankerous Old Lady nodded. She was in her element, I must admit.
+She dearly loved a row--above all, a family row; but to be in the thick
+of a family row, and to feel herself in the right, with the law against
+her--that was joy such as Lady Georgina had seldom before experienced.
+"Yes, dear," she burst out volubly, "I'm in possession, thank Heaven.
+And what's more, they won't oust me without a legal process. I've been
+here, off and on, you know, ever since poor dear Marmy died, looking
+after things for Harold; and I shall look after them still, till Bertie
+Southminster succeeds in ejecting me, which won't be easy. Oh, I've held
+the fort by main force, I can tell you; held it like a Trojan. Bertie's
+in a precious great hurry to move in, I can see; but I won't allow him.
+He's been down here this morning, fatuously blustering, and trying to
+carry the post by storm, with a couple of policemen."
+
+"Policemen!" I cried. "To turn you out?"
+
+"Yes, my dear, policemen: but (the Lord be praised) I was too much for
+him. There are legal formalities to fulfil yet; and I won't budge an
+inch, Lois, not one inch, my dear, till he's fulfilled every one of
+them. Mark my words, child, that boy's up to some devilry."
+
+"He is," I answered.
+
+"Yes, he wouldn't be in such a rampaging hurry to get in--being as lazy
+as he's empty-headed--takes after Gwendoline in that--if he hadn't some
+excellent reason for wishing to take possession: and depend upon it, the
+reason is that he wants to get hold of something or other that's
+Harold's. But he sha'n't if I can help it; and thank my stars, I'm a
+dour woman to reckon with. If he comes, he comes over my old bones,
+child. I've been overhauling everything of Marmy's, I can tell you, to
+checkmate the boy if I can; but I've found nothing yet, and till I've
+satisfied myself on that point, I'll hold the fort still, if I have to
+barricade that pasty-faced scoundrel of a nephew of mine out by piling
+the furniture against the front door--I will as sure as my name's
+Georgina Fawley!"
+
+"I know you will, dear," I assented, kissing her, "and so I shall
+venture to leave you, while I go out to institute another little
+inquiry."
+
+"What inquiry?"
+
+I shook my head. "It's only a surmise," I said, hesitating, "I'll tell
+you about it later. I've had time to think while I've been coming back
+in the train, and I've thought of many things. Mount guard till I
+return, and mind you don't let Lord Southminster have access to
+anything."
+
+"I'll shoot him first, dear." And I believe she meant it.
+
+I drove on in the same cab to Harold's solicitor. There I laid my fresh
+doubts at once before him. He rubbed his bony hands. "You've hit it!" he
+cried, charmed. "My dear madam, you've hit it! I never did like that
+will. I never did like the signatures, the witnesses, the look of it.
+But what could I do? Mr. Tillington propounded it. Of course it wasn't
+my business to go dead against my own client."
+
+"Then you doubted Harold's honour, Mr. Hayes?" I cried, flushing.
+
+[Illustration: "'NEVER!' HE ANSWERED. 'NEVER!'"]
+
+"Never!" he answered. "Never! I felt sure there must be some mistake
+somewhere, but not any trickery on--your husband's part. Now, _you_
+supply the right clue. We must look into this, immediately."
+
+He hurried round with me at once in the same cab to the court. The
+incriminated will had been "impounded," as they call it; but, under
+certain restrictions, and subject to the closest surveillance, I was
+allowed to examine it with my husband's solicitor, before the eyes of
+the authorities. I looked at it long with the naked eye and also with a
+small pocket lens. The paper, as I had noted before, was the same kind
+of foolscap as that which I had been in the habit of using at my office
+in Florence; and the typewriting--was it mine? The longer I looked at
+it, the more I doubted it.
+
+After a careful examination I turned round to our solicitor. "Mr.
+Hayes," I said, firmly, having arrived at my conclusion, "this is _not_
+the document I type-wrote at Florence."
+
+"How do you know?" he asked. "A different machine? Some small
+peculiarity in the shape of the letters?"
+
+"No, the rogue who typed this will was too cunning for that. He didn't
+allow himself to be foiled by such a scholar's mate. It is written with
+a Spread Eagle, the same sort of machine precisely as my own. I know the
+type perfectly. But----" I hesitated.
+
+"But what?"
+
+"Well, it is difficult to explain. There is character in typewriting,
+just as there is in handwriting, only, of course, not quite so much of
+it. Every operator is liable to his own peculiar tricks and blunders. If
+I had some of my own typewritten manuscript here to show you, I could
+soon make that evident."
+
+"I can easily believe it. Individuality runs through all we do, however
+seemingly mechanical. But are the points of a sort that you could make
+clear in court to the satisfaction of a jury?"
+
+"I think so. Look here, for example. Certain letters get habitually
+mixed up in typewriting; _c_ and _v_ stand next one another on the
+keyboard of the machine, and the person who typed this draft sometimes
+strikes a _c_ instead of a _v_, or _vice versâ_. I never do that. The
+letters I tend to confuse are _s_ and _w_, or else _e_ and _r_, which
+also come very near one another in the arbitrary arrangement. Besides,
+when I type-wrote the original of this will, I made no errors at all; I
+took such very great pains about it."
+
+"And this person did make errors?"
+
+"Yes; struck the wrong letter first, and then corrected it often by
+striking another rather hard on top of it. See, this was a _v_ to begin
+with, and he turned it into a _c_. Besides, the hand that wrote this
+will is heavier than mine: it comes down _thump, thump, thump_, while
+mine glides lightly. And the hyphens are used with a space between them,
+and the character of the punctuation is not exactly as I make it."
+
+"Still," Mr. Hayes objected, "we have nothing but your word. I'm afraid,
+in such a case, we could never induce a jury to accept your unsupported
+evidence."
+
+"I don't want them to accept it," I answered. "I am looking this up for
+my own satisfaction. I want to know, first, who wrote this will. And of
+one thing I am quite clear: it is _not_ the document I drew up for Mr.
+Ashurst. Just look at that _x_. The _x_ alone is conclusive. My
+typewriter had the upper right-hand stroke of the small _x_ badly
+formed, or broken, while this one is perfect. I remember it well,
+because I used always to improve all my lower-case _x_'s with a pen when
+I re-read and corrected. I see their dodge clearly now. It is a most
+diabolical conspiracy. Instead of forging a will in Lord Southminster's
+favour, they have substituted a forgery for the real will, and then
+managed to make my poor Harold prove it."
+
+"In that case, no doubt, they have destroyed the real one, the
+original," Mr. Hayes put in.
+
+"I don't think so," I answered, after a moment's deliberation. "From
+what I know of Mr. Ashurst, I don't believe it is likely he would have
+left his will about carelessly anywhere. He was a secretive man, fond of
+mysteries and mystifications. He would be sure to conceal it. Besides,
+Lady Georgina and Harold have been taking care of everything in the
+house ever since he died."
+
+"But," Mr. Hayes objected, "the forger of this document, supposing it to
+be forged, must have had access to the original, since you say the terms
+of the two are identical; only the signatures are forgeries. And if he
+saw and copied it, why might he not also have destroyed it?"
+
+A light flashed across me all at once. "The forger _did_ see the
+original," I cried, "but not the fair copy. I have it all now! I detect
+their trick! It comes back to me vividly! When I had finished typing the
+copy at Florence from my first rough draft, which I had taken down on
+the machine before Mr. Ashurst's eyes, I remember now that I threw the
+original into the waste-paper basket. It must have been there that
+evening when Higginson called and asked for the will to take it back to
+Mr. Ashurst. He called for it, no doubt, hoping to open the packet
+before he delivered it and make a copy of the document for this very
+purpose. But I refused to let him have it. Before he saw me, however, he
+had been left by himself for ten minutes in the office; for I remember
+coming out to him and finding him there alone: and during that ten
+minutes, being what he is, you may be sure he fished out the rough draft
+and appropriated it!"
+
+"That is more than likely," my solicitor nodded. "You are tracking him
+to his lair. We shall have him in our power."
+
+[Illustration: "WE SHALL HAVE HIM IN OUR POWER."]
+
+I grew more and more excited as the whole cunning plot unravelled itself
+mentally step by step before me. "He must then have gone to Lord
+Southminster," I went on, "and told him of the legacy he expected from
+Mr. Ashurst. It was five hundred pounds--a mere trifle to Higginson, who
+plays for thousands. So he must have offered to arrange matters for Lord
+Southminster if Southminster would consent to make good that sum and a
+great deal more to him. That odious little cad told me himself on the
+_Jumna_ they were engaged in pulling off 'a big _coup_' between them. He
+thought then I would marry him, and that he would so secure my
+connivance in his plans; but who would marry such a piece of moist clay?
+Besides, I could never have taken anyone but Harold." Then another clue
+came home to me. "Mr. Hayes," I cried, jumping at it, "Higginson, who
+forged this will, never saw the real document itself at all; he saw only
+the draft: for Mr. Ashurst altered one word _viva voce_ in the original
+at the last moment, and I made a pencil note of it on my cuff at the
+time: and see, it isn't here, though I inserted it in the final clean
+copy of the will--the word 'especially.' It grows upon me more and more
+each minute that the real instrument is hidden somewhere in Mr.
+Ashurst's house--Harold's house--our house; and that _because_ it is
+there, Lord Southminster is so indecently anxious to oust his aunt and
+take instant possession."
+
+"In that case," Mr. Hayes remarked, "we had better go back to Lady
+Georgina without one minute's delay, and, while she still holds the
+house, institute a thorough search for it."
+
+No sooner said than done. We jumped again into our cab and started. As
+we drove back, Mr. Hayes asked me where I thought we were most likely to
+find it.
+
+"In a secret drawer in Mr. Ashurst's desk," I answered, by a flash of
+instinct, without a second's hesitation.
+
+"How do you know there's a secret drawer?"
+
+"I don't know it. I infer it from my general knowledge of Mr. Ashurst's
+character. He loved secret drawers, ciphers, cryptograms,
+mystery-mongering."
+
+"But it was in that desk that your husband found the forged document,"
+the lawyer objected.
+
+Once more I had a flash of inspiration or intuition. "Because White, Mr.
+Ashurst's valet, had it in readiness in his possession," I answered,
+"and hid it there, in the most obvious and unconcealed place he could
+find, as soon as the breath was out of his master's body. I remember now
+Lord Southminster gave himself away to some extent in that matter. The
+hateful little creature isn't really clever enough, for all his
+cunning--and with Higginson to back him--to mix himself up in such
+tricks as forgery. He told me at Aden he had had a telegram from
+'Marmy's valet,' to report progress; and he received another, the night
+Mr. Ashurst died, at Moozuffernuggar. Depend upon it, White was more or
+less in this plot; Higginson left him the forged will when they started
+for India; and as soon as Mr. Ashurst died White hid it where Harold was
+bound to find it."
+
+"If so," Mr. Hayes answered, "that's well; we have something to go upon.
+The more of them, the better. There is safety in numbers--for the honest
+folk. I never knew three rogues hold long together, especially when
+threatened with a criminal prosecution. Their confederacy breaks down
+before the chance of punishment. Each tries to screen himself by
+betraying the others."
+
+"Higginson was the soul of this plot," I went on. "Of that you may be
+sure. He's a wily old fox, but we'll run him to earth yet. The more I
+think of it, the more I feel sure, from what I know of Mr. Ashurst's
+character, he would never have put that will in so exposed a place as
+the one where Harold says he found it."
+
+We drew up at the door of the disputed house just in time for the siege.
+Mr. Hayes and I walked in. We found Lady Georgina face to face with Lord
+Southminster. The opposing forces were still at the stage of
+preliminaries of warfare.
+
+"Look heah," the pea-green young man was observing, in his drawling
+voice, as we entered; "it's no use your talking, deah Georgey. This
+house is mine, and I won't have you meddling with it."
+
+"This house is not yours, you odious little scamp," his aunt retorted,
+raising her shrill voice some notes higher than usual; "and while I can
+hold a stick you shall not come inside it."
+
+"Very well, then; you drive me to hostilities, don't yah know. I'm sorry
+to show disrespect to your grey hairs--if any--but I shall be obliged to
+call in the police to eject yah."
+
+"Call them in if you like," I answered, interposing between them. "Go
+out and get them! Mr. Hayes, while he's gone, send for a carpenter to
+break open the back of Mr. Ashurst's escritoire."
+
+"A carpentah?" he cried, turning several degrees whiter than his pasty
+wont. "What for? A carpentah?"
+
+I spoke distinctly. "Because we have reason to believe Mr. Ashurst's
+real will is concealed in this house in a secret drawer, and because the
+keys were in the possession of White, whom we believe to be your
+accomplice in this shallow conspiracy."
+
+He gasped and looked alarmed. "No, you don't," he cried, stepping
+briskly forward. "You don't, I tell yah! Break open Marmy's desk! Why,
+hang it all, it's my property."
+
+"We shall see about that after we've broken it open," I answered,
+grimly. "Here, this screw-driver will do. The back's not strong. Now,
+your help, Mr. Hayes--one, two, three; we can prise it apart between
+us."
+
+Lord Southminster rushed up and tried to prevent us. But Lady Georgina,
+seizing both wrists, held him tight as in a vice with her dear skinny
+old hands. He writhed and struggled, all in vain: he could not escape
+her. "I've often spanked you, Bertie," she cried, "and if you attempt to
+interfere, I'll spank you again; that's the long and the short of it!"
+
+He broke from her and rushed out, to call the police, I believe, and
+prevent our desecration of poor Marmy's property.
+
+Inside the first shell were several locked drawers, and two or three
+open ones, out of one of which Harold had fished the false will.
+Instinct taught me somehow that the central drawer on the left-hand side
+was the compartment behind which lay the secret receptacle. I prised it
+apart and peered about inside it. Presently, I saw a slip-panel, which I
+touched with one finger. The pigeon-hole flew open and disclosed a
+narrow slit. I clutched at something--the will! Ho, victory! the will! I
+raised it aloft with a wild shout. Not a doubt of it! The real, the
+genuine document!
+
+We turned it over and read it. It was my own fair copy, written at
+Florence, and bearing all the small marks of authenticity about it which
+I had pointed out to Mr. Hayes as wanting to the forged and impounded
+document. Fortunately, Lady Georgina and four of the servants had stood
+by throughout this scene, and had watched our demeanour, as well as Lord
+Southminster's.
+
+We turned next to the signatures. The principal one was clearly Mr.
+Ashurst's--I knew it at once--his legible fat hand, "Marmaduke Courtney
+Ashurst." And then the witnesses? They fairly took our breath away.
+
+"Why, Higginson's sister isn't one of them at all," Mr. Hayes cried,
+astonished.
+
+A flush of remorse came over me. I saw it all now. I had misjudged that
+poor woman! She had the misfortune to be a rogue's sister, but, as
+Harold had said, was herself a most respectable and blameless person.
+Higginson must have forged her name to the document; that was all; and
+she had naturally sworn that she never signed it. He knew her honesty.
+It was a master-stroke of rascality.
+
+[Illustration: "VICTORY."]
+
+"The other one isn't here, either," I exclaimed, growing more puzzled.
+"The waiter at the hotel! Why, that's another forgery! Higginson must
+have waited till the man was safely dead, and then used him similarly.
+It was all very clever. Now, who are these people who really witnessed
+it?"
+
+"The first one," Mr. Hayes said, examining the handwriting, "is Sir
+Roger Bland, the Dorsetshire baronet: he's dead, poor fellow; but he was
+at Florence at the time, and I can answer for his signature. He was a
+client of mine, and died at Mentone. The second is Captain Richards, of
+the Mounted Police: he's living still, but he's away in South Africa."
+
+"Then they risked his turning up?"
+
+"If they knew who the real witnesses were at all--which is doubtful. You
+see, as you say, they may have seen the rough draft only."
+
+"Higginson would know," I answered. "He was with Mr. Ashurst at Florence
+at the time, and he would take good care to keep a watch upon his
+movements. In my belief, it was he who suggested this whole plot to Lord
+Southminster."
+
+"Of course it was," Lady Georgina put in. "That's absolutely certain.
+Bertie's a rogue as well as a fool: but he's too great a fool to invent
+a clever roguery, and too great a knave not to join in it foolishly when
+anybody else takes the pains to invent it."
+
+"And it _was_ a clever roguery," Mr. Hayes interposed. "An ordinary
+rascal would have forged a later will in Lord Southminster's favour, and
+run the risk of detection: Higginson had the acuteness to forge a will
+exactly like the real one, and to let your husband bear the burden of
+the forgery. It was as sagacious as it was ruthless."
+
+"The next point," I said, "will be for us to prove it."
+
+At that moment the bell rang, and one of the house-servants--all puzzled
+by this conflict of interests--came in with a telegram, which he handed
+me on a salver. I broke it open, without glancing at the envelope. Its
+contents baffled me: "My address is Hotel Bristol, Paris; name as usual.
+Send me a thousand pounds on account at once. I can't afford to wait. No
+shillyshallying."
+
+The message was unsigned. For a moment, I couldn't imagine who sent it,
+or what it was driving at.
+
+Then I took up the envelope. "Viscount Southminster, 24, Park Lane
+North, London."
+
+My heart gave a jump. I saw in a second that chance or Providence had
+delivered the conspirators into my hands that day. The telegram was from
+Higginson! I had opened it by accident.
+
+It was obvious what had happened. Lord Southminster must have written to
+him on the result of the trial, and told him he meant to take possession
+of his uncle's house immediately. Higginson had acted on that hint, and
+addressed his telegram where he thought it likely Lord Southminster
+would receive it earliest. I had opened it in error, and that, too, was
+fortunate, for even in dealing with such a pack of scoundrels, it would
+never have occurred to me to violate somebody else's correspondence had
+I not thought it was addressed to me. But having arrived at the truth
+thus unintentionally, I had, of course, no scruples about making full
+use of my information.
+
+I showed the despatch at once to Lady Georgina and Mr. Hayes. They
+recognised its importance. "What next?" I inquired. "Time presses. At
+half-past three Harold comes up for examination at Bow Street."
+
+Mr. Hayes was ready with an apt expedient. "Ring the bell for Mr.
+Ashurst's valet," he said, quietly. "The moment has now arrived when we
+can begin to set these conspirators by the ears. As soon as they learn
+that we know all, they will be eager to inform upon one another."
+
+I rang the bell. "Send up White," I said. "We wish to speak to him."
+
+The valet stole up, self-accused, a timid, servile creature, rubbing his
+hands nervously, and suspecting mischief. He was a rat in trouble. He
+had thin brown hair, neatly brushed and plastered down, so as to make it
+look still thinner, and his face was the average narrow cunning face of
+the dishonest man-servant. It had an ounce of wile in it to a pound or
+two of servility. He seemed just the sort of rogue meanly to join in an
+underhand conspiracy, and then meanly to back out of it. You could read
+at a glance that his principle in life was to save his own bacon.
+
+He advanced, fumbling his hands all the time, and smiling and fawning.
+"You wished to see me, sir?" he murmured, in a deprecatory voice,
+looking sideways at Lady Georgina and me, but addressing the lawyer.
+
+[Illustration: "YOU WISHED TO SEE ME, SIR?"]
+
+"Yes, White, I wished to see you. I have a question to ask you. _Who_
+put the forged will in Mr. Ashurst's desk? Was it you, or some other
+person?"
+
+The question terrified him. He changed colour and gasped. But he rubbed
+his hands harder than ever and affected a sickly smile. "Oh, sir, how
+should _I_ know, sir? _I_ had nothing to do with it. I suppose--it was
+Mr. Tillington."
+
+Our lawyer pounced upon him like a hawk on a titmouse. "Don't
+prevaricate with me, sir," he said, sternly. "If you do, it may be worse
+for you. This case has assumed quite another aspect. It is you and your
+associates who will be placed in the dock, not Mr. Tillington. You had
+better speak the truth; it is your one chance, I warn you. Lie to me,
+and instead of calling you as a witness for our case, I shall include
+you in the indictment."
+
+White looked down uneasily at his shoes, and cowered. "Oh, sir, I don't
+understand you."
+
+"Yes, you do. You understand me, and you know I mean it. Wriggling is
+useless; we intend to prosecute. We have unravelled this vile plot. We
+know the whole truth. Higginson and Lord Southminster forged a will
+between them----"
+
+"Oh, sir, _not_ Lord Southminster! His lordship, I'm sure----"
+
+Mr. Hayes's keen eye had noted the subtle shade of distinction and
+admission. But he said nothing openly. "Well, then, Higginson forged,
+and Lord Southminster accepted, a false will, which purported to be Mr.
+Marmaduke Ashurst's. Now, follow me clearly. That will could not have
+been put into the escritoire during Mr. Ashurst's life, for there would
+have been risk of his discovering it. It must, therefore, have been put
+there afterward. The moment he was dead, you, or somebody else with your
+consent and connivance, slipped it into the escritoire; and you
+afterwards showed Mr. Tillington the place where you had set it or seen
+it set, leading him to believe it was Mr. Ashurst's will, and so
+involved him in all this trouble. Note that that was a felonious act. We
+accuse you of felony. Do you mean to confess, and give evidence on our
+behalf, or will you force me to send for a policeman to arrest you?"
+
+The cur hesitated still. "Oh, sir," drawing back, and fumbling his hands
+on his breast, "you don't mean it."
+
+Mr. Hayes was prompt. "Hesslegrave, go for a policeman."
+
+That curt sentence brought the rogue on his marrow-bones at once. He
+clasped his hands and debated inwardly. "If I tell you all I know," he
+said, at last, looking about him with an air of abject terror, as if he
+thought Lord Southminster or Higginson would hear him, "will you promise
+not to prosecute me?" His tone became insinuating. "For a hundred
+pounds, I could find the real will for you. You'd better close with me.
+To-day is the last chance. As soon as his lordship comes in, he'll hunt
+it up and destroy it."
+
+I flourished it before him, and pointed with one hand to the broken
+desk, which he had not yet observed in his craven agitation.
+
+"We do not need your aid," I answered. "We have found the will,
+ourselves. Thanks to Lady Georgina, it is safe till this minute."
+
+"And to me," he put in, cringing, and trying, after his kind, to curry
+favour with the winners at the last moment. "It's all _my_ doing, my
+lady! I wouldn't destroy it. His lordship offered me a hundred pounds
+more to break open the back of the desk at night, while your ladyship
+was asleep, and burn the thing quietly. But I told him he might do his
+own dirty work if he wanted it done. It wasn't good enough while your
+ladyship was here in possession. Besides, I wanted the right will
+preserved, for I thought things might turn up so; and I wouldn't stand
+by and see a gentleman like Mr. Tillington, as has always behaved well
+to me, deprived of his inheritance."
+
+"Which is why you conspired with Lord Southminster to rob him of it, and
+to send him to prison for Higginson's crime," I interposed, calmly.
+
+"Then you confess you put the forged will there?" Mr. Hayes said,
+getting to business.
+
+White looked about him helplessly. He missed his headpiece, the
+instigator of the plot. "Well, it was like this, my lady," he began,
+turning to Lady Georgina, and wriggling to gain time. "You see, his
+lordship and Mr. Higginson----" he twirled his thumbs and tried to
+invent something plausible.
+
+Lady Georgina swooped. "No rigmarole!" she said, sharply. "Do you
+confess you put it there or do you not--reptile?" Her vehemence startled
+him.
+
+"Yes, I confess I put it there," he said at last, blinking. "As soon as
+the breath was out of Mr. Ashurst's body I put it there." He began to
+whimper. "I'm a poor man with a wife and family, sir," he went on,
+"though in Mr. Ashurst's time I always kep' that quiet; and his lordship
+offered to pay me well for the job; and when you're paid well for a job
+yourself, sir----."
+
+Mr. Hayes waved him off with one imperious hand. "Sit down in the corner
+there, man, and don't move or utter another word," he said, sternly,
+"until I order you. You will be in time still for me to produce at Bow
+Street."
+
+Just at that moment, Lord Southminster swaggered back, accompanied by a
+couple of unwilling policemen. "Oh, I say," he cried, bursting in and
+staring around him, jubilant. "Look heah, Georgey, _are_ you going
+quietly, or must I ask these coppahs to evict you?" He was wreathed in
+smiles now, and had evidently been fortifying himself with brandies and
+soda.
+
+Lady Georgina rose in her wrath. "Yes, I'll go if you wish it, Bertie,"
+she answered, with calm irony. "I'll leave the house as soon as you
+like--for the present--till we come back again with Harold and _his_
+policemen to evict you. This house is Harold's. Your game is played,
+boy." She spoke slowly. "We have found the other will--we have
+discovered Higginson's present address in Paris--and we know from White
+how he and you arranged this little conspiracy."
+
+She rapped out each clause in this last accusing sentence with
+deliberate effect, like so many pistol-shots. Each bullet hit home. The
+pea-green young man, drawing back and staring, stroked his shadowy
+moustache with feeble fingers in undisguised astonishment. Then he
+dropped into a chair and fixed his gaze blankly on Lady Georgina. "Well,
+this is a fair knock-out," he ejaculated, fatuously disconcerted. "I
+wish Higginson was heah. I really don't quite know what to do without
+him. That fellah had squared it all up so neatly, don't yah know, that I
+thought there couldn't be any sort of hitch in the proceedings."
+
+[Illustration: "'WELL, THIS IS A FAIR KNOCK-OUT,' HE EJACULATED."]
+
+"You reckoned without Lois," Lady Georgina said, calmly.
+
+"Ah, Miss Cayley--that's true. I mean, Mrs. Tillington. Yaas, yaas, I
+know, she's a doosid clevah person for a woman, now isn't she?"
+
+It was impossible to take this flabby creature seriously, even as a
+criminal. Lady Georgina's lips relaxed. "Doosid clever" she admitted,
+looking at me almost tenderly.
+
+"But not quite so clevah, don't yah know, as Higginson!"
+
+"There you make your blooming little erraw," Mr. Hayes burst in,
+adopting one of Lord Southminster's favourite witticisms--the sort of
+witticism that improves, like poetry, by frequent repetition.
+"Policemen, you may go into the next room and wait: this is a family
+affair; we have no immediate need of you."
+
+"Oh, certainly," Lord Southminster echoed, much relieved. "Very propah
+sentiment! Most undesirable that the constables should mix themselves up
+in a family mattah like this. Not the place for inferiahs!"
+
+"Then why introduce them?" Lady Georgina burst out, turning on him.
+
+He smiled his fatuous smile. "That's just what I say," he answered. "Why
+the jooce introduce them? But don't snap my head off!"
+
+The policemen withdrew respectfully, glad to be relieved of this
+unpleasant business, where they could gain no credit, and might possibly
+involve themselves in a charge of assault. Lord Southminster rose with a
+benevolent grin, and looked about him pleasantly. The brandies and soda
+had endowed him with irrepressible cheerfulness.
+
+"Well?" Lady Georgina murmured.
+
+"Well, I think I'll leave now, Georgey. You've trumped my ace, yah know.
+Nasty trick of White to go and round on a fellah. I don't like the turn
+this business is taking. Seems to me, the only way I have left to get
+out of it is--to turn Queen's evidence."
+
+Lady Georgina planted herself firmly against the door. "Bertie," she
+cried, "no, you don't--not till we've got what we want out of you!"
+
+He gazed at her blandly. His face broke once more into an imbecile
+smile. "You were always a rough 'un, Georgey. Your hand did sting! Well,
+what do you want now? We've each played our cards, and you needn't cut
+up rusty over it--especially when you're winning! Hang it all, I wish I
+had Higginson heah to tackle you!"
+
+"If you go to see the Treasury people, or the Solicitor-General, or the
+Public Prosecutor, or whoever else it may be," Lady Georgina said,
+stoutly, "Mr. Hayes must go with you. We've trumped your ace, as you
+say, and we mean to take advantage of it. And then you must trundle
+yourself down to Bow Street afterwards, confess the whole truth, and set
+Harold at liberty."
+
+"Oh, I say now, Georgey! The whole truth! the whole blooming truth!
+That's really what I call humiliating a fellah!"
+
+"If you don't, we arrest you this minute--fourteen years' imprisonment!"
+
+"Fourteen yeahs?" He wiped his forehead. "Oh, I say. How doosid
+uncomfortable. I was nevah much good at doing anything by the sweat of
+my brow. I ought to have lived in the Garden of Eden. Georgey, you're
+hard on a chap when he's down on his luck. It would be confounded cruel
+to send me to fourteen yeahs at Portland."
+
+"You would have sent my husband to it," I broke in, angrily, confronting
+him.
+
+"What? You too, Miss Cayley?--I mean Mrs. Tillington. Don't look at me
+like that. Tigahs aren't in it."
+
+His jauntiness disarmed us. However wicked he might be, one felt it
+would be ridiculous to imprison this schoolboy. A sound flogging and a
+month's deprivation of wine and cigarettes was the obvious punishment
+designed for him by nature.
+
+"You must go down to the police-court and confess this whole
+conspiracy," Lady Georgina went on after a pause, as sternly as she was
+able. "I prefer, if we can, to save the family--even you, Bertie. But I
+can't any longer save the family honour--I can only save Harold's. You
+must help me to do that; and then, you must give me your solemn
+promise--in writing--to leave England for ever, and go to live in South
+Africa."
+
+He stroked the invisible moustache more nervously than before. That
+penalty came home to him. "What, leave England for evah?
+Newmarket--Ascot--the club--the music-halls!"
+
+"Or fourteen years' imprisonment!"
+
+"Georgey, you spank as hard as evah!"
+
+"Decide at once, or we arrest you!"
+
+He glanced about him feebly. I could see he was longing for his lost
+confederate. "Well, I'll go," he said at last, sobering down; "and your
+solicitaw can trot round with me. I'll do all that you wish, though I
+call it most unfriendly. Hang it all, fourteen yeahs would be so beastly
+unpleasant!"
+
+We drove forthwith to the proper authorities, who, on hearing the facts,
+at once arranged to accept Lord Southminster and White as Queen's
+evidence, neither being the actual forger. We also telegraphed to Paris
+to have Higginson arrested, Lord Southminster giving us up his assumed
+name with the utmost cheerfulness, and without one moment's compunction.
+Mr. Hayes was quite right: each conspirator was only too ready to save
+himself by betraying his fellows. Then we drove on to Bow Street (Lord
+Southminster consoling himself with a cigarette on the way), just in
+time for Harold's case, which was to be taken, by special arrangement,
+at 3.30.
+
+A very few minutes sufficed to turn the tables completely on the
+conspirators. Harold was discharged, and a warrant was issued for the
+arrest of Higginson, the actual forger. He had drawn up the false will
+and signed it with Mr. Ashurst's name, after which he had presented it
+for Lord Southminster's approval. The pea-green young man told his tale
+with engaging frankness. "Bertie's a simple Simon," Lady Georgina
+commented to me; "but he's also a rogue; and Higginson saw his way to
+make excellent capital of him in both capacities--first use him as a
+catspaw, and then blackmail him."
+
+On the steps of the police-court, as we emerged triumphant, Lord
+Southminster met us--still radiant as ever. He seemed wholly unaware of
+the depths of his iniquity: a fresh dose of brandy had restored his
+composure. "Look heah," he said, "Harold, your wife has bested me! Jolly
+good thing for you that you managed to get hold of such a clevah woman!
+If you hadn't, deah boy, you'd have found yourself in Queeah Street!
+But, I say, Lois--I call yah Lois because you're my cousin now, yah
+know--you were backing the wrong man aftah all, as I told yah. For if
+you'd backed _me_, all this wouldn't have come out; you'd have got the
+tin and been a countess as well, aftah the governah's dead and gone,
+don't yah see. You'd have landed the double event. So you'd have pulled
+off a bettah thing for yourself in the end, as I said, if you'd laid
+your bottom dollah on me for winnah!"
+
+[Illustration: "HAROLD, YOUR WIFE HAS BESTED ME."]
+
+Higginson is now doing fourteen years at Portland; Harold and I are
+happy in the sweetest place in Gloucestershire; and Lord Southminster,
+blissfully unaware of the contempt with which the rest of the world
+regards him, is shooting big game among his "boys" in South Africa.
+Indeed, he bears so little malice that he sent us a present of a trophy
+of horns for our hall last winter.
+
+
+
+
+_A Town in the Tree-Tops._
+
+By Ellsworth Douglass.
+
+
+Everybody at the _pension_ had heard it, but Bayly has a circumstantial
+and picturesque manner of narration, which gives old stories a new
+interest.
+
+"Wasn't it your American millionaire, Mr. Waldorf Astor," he said,
+addressing me, "who made a wager that he would comfortably seat
+thirty-two guests around the stump of a California big tree? And didn't
+he do it? Brought a slice off the tree-stump more than 6,000 miles, and
+had a grand dinner on it in London?"
+
+"I must say I like your big tree stories better than your big tree
+wines," put in Gaillet, a dashing young Frenchman, who spoke English
+fluently; "but I don't think all that is so wonderful. I can show you a
+place, within less than an hour of Paris, where more than thirty-two
+persons can dine around comfortable tables high up in the branches of a
+single tree!"
+
+"That sounds interesting, Gaillet; to me it smells like 'good copy.'
+Eating up in trees might make some novel photographs; what do you say,
+Bayly?"
+
+I purposely touched the young Englishman on his hobby. He was an amateur
+photographer of the virulent and persistent type, and had recently
+infected me with the contagion.
+
+"If the sun looks promising we will ride down there on our wheels
+to-morrow and have a look at them," he replied. "Can you go with us and
+show us the way, Gaillet?"
+
+And so, early the next morning, we went. It was a delightful two hours
+on the wheel in early October. Just as the country began to grow more
+broken and interesting, and chestnut trees began to strew the paths with
+prickly burrs, we wheeled up a slight hill into a quaint village, and
+dismounting, Gaillet exclaimed:--
+
+"Here we are at home with Robinson Crusoe!"
+
+[Illustration: _From a Photo. by_] THE VILLAGE OF ROBINSON. [_L.
+Bayly._]
+
+Had he told me that Robinson Crusoe really lived in the flesh and, after
+returning from his lonely adventures, founded this little village, and
+here attempted to bring into fashion his old habit of eating in the
+trees, I would have believed it. For here is the village bearing his
+name to this day; here also, as seen in our first photograph, is his
+effigy in the principal street, under his rough, thatched umbrella, and
+with his parrot seated upon his shoulder, as every schoolboy knows him.
+Here, likewise, are a number of great trees, with two or three rustic
+dining-huts built far up on the limbs of each; and, as Gaillet assured
+us, here, for the last fifty years, men and their families have eaten in
+the trees like squirrels.
+
+As Bayly prepared to take the first photograph, he noticed that the
+highest dining-stage in the tip-top of the biggest tree had curtains
+drawn around it, which he asked to have pulled back. A waiter informed
+him that this rustic hut was engaged by a party.
+
+"Yes, I telephoned down yesterday afternoon, and reserved it for us,"
+put in Gaillet. "I also ordered the _déjeuner_. I hope you will like it:
+sole _au gratin_ and _chateaubriand aux champignons_."
+
+At that moment the wind left the leaves and boughs at rest, and Bayly
+snapped the shutter, regardless of the curtains. I made reply to
+Gaillet:--
+
+"I never heard of Crusoe's fare being quite so pretentious as all that.
+He must have learned cookery since he came to France."
+
+"It is M. Gueusquin _aîné_ who claims the credit for applying the tree
+idea to modern dining. Doubtless he does it better than Crusoe could
+have done. At any rate, he has made a large fortune out of the idea--far
+more than Defoe made out of his story. It was just fifty years ago,"
+continued Gaillet, "that the father of the present proprietor here was
+struck with the clever idea, bought this picturesque plot of ground with
+large trees on it, and built rustic dining-rooms on the strongest
+branches. He called his lonely little country place Robinson, after the
+Swiss family which figures in the French version of the romance, and
+invited the patronage of the fun-loving Parisians who delight in
+fanciful ideas of ibis sort. At that time it was a long coach ride from
+the city, but it soon became the popular _rendezvous_ for a day's
+outing. Since then Kings have dined here; thousands of wedding parties
+have seen life rosy from the tree-tops, and nearly every Parisian boy
+who reads the story of Robinson's adventures is taken to this quaint
+little village as a realistic sequel. M. Gueusquin's success tempted
+others into similar ventures here, so that now nearly every large tree
+is utilized, and Robinson has grown into quite a respectable village,
+whose name will always be associated in the French mind with breezy
+dinners, family picnics, donkey-riding, bracing country air, and
+charming scenery. The Ligne de Sceaux long ago built a branch line
+terminating here, and a journey of forty minutes by train brings one
+down from the Luxembourg Station in Paris."
+
+[Illustration: _From a Photo. by_] THE LARGEST ROBINSON TREE. [_L.
+Bayly._]
+
+Bayly evidently cared little for these facts, for he had busied himself
+getting a focus on the largest tree, which M. Gueusquin proudly
+advertises as "_Le Vrai Arbre de Robinson_." You may see the result in
+the accompanying photograph. Its massive trunk has not much increased in
+size since the stairway was built around it half a century ago. There is
+one thatched hut built at the first branch of the tree; another well out
+on a higher limb on the other side of the trunk; and the third and most
+desirable in the very tip-top, from which one sees an enchanting view of
+all the pretty country lying towards Paris. A stairway connects all
+these rustic huts with each other, and in the busy season a waiter is
+stationed at each dining stage, and the wines and cooked foods are
+hauled up to him from the ground by means of a rope and basket running
+to each stage, as will be seen in most of the photographs. At wedding
+parties these same baskets have more than once served to lower away some
+bibulous guest whose frequent toasts to the bride have ended in a
+decided disinclination to attempt the giddy and precipitous stairway.
+
+[Illustration: _From a Photo. by_] LARGE DINING-ROOM BETWEEN TWO TREES.
+[_Ellsworth Douglass._]
+
+Bayly went next to inspect a larger and more modern dining-room built
+between two young trees, and I have caught him on the stairway in the
+photograph above. But I was anxious to climb to some height and get a
+good view of the nest in the tree-top where we were to breakfast. I
+heard someone laughing at my first futile attempts at climbing, but at
+last I gained a point of vantage which gave a view over the tops of the
+trees to the indefinite stretch of pretty valley beyond.
+
+While breakfast was preparing we visited the neighbouring inns to
+photograph the trees. Just across the road we found one which claims the
+distinction of being the tallest in Robinson. As will be seen in the
+photograph, it has three dining stages one directly above another, so
+that the same basket may serve them all. A waiter can be seen in the top
+stage of this thrifty, sturdy chestnut, in which many generations may
+yet dine.
+
+[Illustration: _From a Photo. by_] A THREE-STORY TREE. [_L. Bayly._]
+
+Farther down the road is a place called the Maison Robin, possibly in
+the hope that the kind public will believe that the "true Robinson" was
+this Robin's son. Here is the "Great Chestnut," which truly looks as if
+it might antedate Robinson Crusoe by centuries. Yet it still showers its
+plenteous fruit upon the ground, and as we kicked about its bushels of
+bursting burrs we wondered how "marron glacé" could be so expensive in
+Paris. The next photograph shows how the walks were sprinkled with ripe
+nuts; and also some pretty samples of the vine or ivy-covered _bosquets_
+for those who prefer to dine on _terra firma_. These are numerous, and
+charmingly pretty in the gardens of most of the inns here.
+
+[Illustration: _From a Photo. by_] THE GREAT CHESTNUT. [_Ellsworth
+Douglass._]
+
+Another great feature of Robinson is the family picnic, but the French
+love ease and comfort too much to dine on the grass under the trees.
+They prefer to sit properly at a table, and many of the inns recognise
+the right of visitors to bring their own provisions, and are content
+with serving them wines, coffee, and the like. When you go to Robinson,
+you are sure to recognise this place at the turning of the road before
+reaching the great trees.
+
+[Illustration: _From a Photo. by_] NEAR VIEW OF A HUT ON A BRANCH. [_L.
+Bayly._]
+
+I returned to our second stage with Gaillet, and found the table laid,
+but not a scrap of food to be seen. The waiter was trotting up the
+stairs with a heavily-loaded tray, on which was an enormous plate of
+sole _au gratin_. Gaillet remarked that it looked as if the people in
+the top hut had not only captured our place, but our breakfast as well.
+He begged the waiter to hurry our order, and then asked me what I
+thought might be going on up there behind the curtains. It was very near
+us, and perhaps for this reason the young ladies refrained from audible
+conversation. They only whispered among themselves and laughed at
+intervals, but Gaillet thought he surprised one or two attempts to peep
+around the curtain at us. I was ravenously hungry, and when the waiter
+next went past up to the top story I seized a yard of bread from his
+tray. Looking down at Bayly, who was focusing below, I cried out:
+"Lancelot, if you are hungry, get a photograph of the only morsel of
+food I have been able to secure before I devour it!" And our last
+illustration bears witness that he did so. This detailed view of a
+thatched, rustic hut perched upon a big limb finished his work.
+
+
+
+
+Aunt Sarah's Brooch.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+BY ARTHUR MORRISON
+
+
+I am afraid to face my Aunt Sarah. Though how I am to get out of it I
+don't quite see.
+
+At any rate, I will never again undertake the work of a private
+detective; though that would have been a more useful resolve a fortnight
+ago. The mischief is done now.
+
+The main bitterness lies in the reflection that it is all Aunt Sarah's
+fault. Such a muddlesome old----but, there, losing my temper won't
+mend it. A few weeks ago I was Clement Simpson, with very considerable
+expectations from my Aunt Sarah and no particular troubles on my mind,
+and I was engaged to my cousin, Honoria Prescott. Now I am still Clement
+Simpson (although sometimes I almost doubt even that), but my
+expectations from my Aunt Sarah are of the most uncomfortable, and my
+troubles overwhelm me. As for Honoria Prescott----but read and learn
+it all.
+
+My aunt is a maiden lady of sixty-five, though there is something about
+her appearance at variance with the popular notion of a spinster,
+insomuch that it is the way of tradesmen to speak of her as "Mrs."
+Simpson, and to send their little bills thus addressed. She is a very
+positive old lady, and she measures, I should judge, about five feet
+round the waist. She is constantly attended by a doctor, and from time
+to time, in her sadder moments, it has been her habit to assure me that
+she shall not live long, and that very soon I shall find myself well
+provided for; though for an invalid she always ate rather well: about as
+much, I should judge, as a fairly healthy navvy. She had a great idea of
+her importance in the family--in fact, she _was_ important--and she
+had--has now, indeed--a way of directing the movements of all its
+members, who submit with a becoming humility. It is well to submit
+humbly to the caprice of a rich elderly aunt, and it has always been my
+own practice. It was because of Aunt Sarah's autocratic reign in the
+family that Honoria Prescott and I refrained from telling her of our
+engagement; for Aunt Sarah had conceived vast matrimonial ambitions on
+behalf of each of us. We were each to make an exceedingly good marriage;
+there was even a suggestion of a title for Honoria, though what title,
+and how it was to be captured, I never heard. And for me, I understood
+there would be nothing less than a brewer's daughter, or even a
+company-promoter's. And so we feared that Aunt Sarah might look upon a
+union between us not only as a flat defiance of her wishes, but as a
+deplorable _mésalliance_ on both sides. So, for the time the engagement
+lasted (not very long, alas!), we feared to reveal it. Now there is no
+engagement to reveal. But this is anticipating.
+
+Aunt Sarah was very fussy about her jewels. In perpetual apprehension
+lest they might be stolen, she carried them with her whenever she took a
+change of air (and she had a good many such changes), while in her own
+house she kept them in some profoundly secret hiding-place. I have an
+idea that it was under a removable board in the floor of her bedroom. Of
+course, we all professed to share Aunt Sarah's solicitude, and it had
+been customary in the family, from times beyond my knowledge, to greet
+her first with inquiries as to her own health, and next with hopes for
+the safety of the jewels. But, as a matter of fact, they were not vastly
+valuable things; probably they were worth more than the case they were
+kept in, but not very much. Aunt Sarah never wore them--even she would
+not go as far as that. They were nothing but a small heap of clumsy old
+brooches, ear-rings, and buckles, with one or two very long, thin
+watch-chains, and certain mourning and signet rings belonging to
+departed members of the family who had flourished (or not) in the early
+part of the century. There were no big diamonds among them--scarcely any
+diamonds at all, in fact; but the garnets and cats' eyes strove to make
+good in size and ugliness of setting what they lacked in mere market
+worth. Chief of all the "jewels," and most precious of Aunt Sarah's
+possessions, was a big amethyst brooch, with a pane of glass let in
+behind, inclosing a lock of the reddest hair I have ever seen. It was
+the hair of Aunt Sarah's own uncle Joseph, the most distinguished member
+of the family, who had written three five-act tragedies, and dedicated
+them all, one after another, to George the Fourth. Joseph's initials
+appeared on the frame of the brooch behind--"J." on one side and "S." on
+the other. It was, on the whole, perhaps, the ugliest and clumsiest of
+all Aunt Sarah's jewels, and I never saw anything else like it anywhere,
+except one; and that, singularly enough, was an exact
+duplicate--barring, of course, the hair and the inscription--in a very
+mouldy shop in Soho, where all sorts of hopelessly out-of-date rings and
+brooches and chains hung for sale. It was the way of the shopkeeper to
+ticket these gloomy odds and ends with cheerful inscriptions, such as
+"Antique, 17s. 6d.," "Real Gold, £1 5s.," "Quaint, £2 2s. 6d." But even
+he could find no more promising adjective for the hideous brooch than
+"massive"--which was quite true. He wanted £3 for the thing when I first
+saw it, and it slowly declined, by half-a-crown at a time, to £1 15s.,
+and then it vanished altogether. I wondered at the time what misguided
+person could have bought it; but I learnt afterward that the shopkeeper
+had lost heart, and used the window space for something else.
+
+[Illustration: "A SECRET HIDING-PLACE."]
+
+Aunt Sarah had been for six weeks at a "Hydropathic Establishment" at
+Malvern. On the day fixed for her return, I left a very agreeable tennis
+party for the purpose of meeting her at the station, as was dutiful and
+proper. First I called at her house, to learn the exact time at which
+the train was expected at Paddington. It was rather sooner than I had
+supposed, so I hurried to find a cab, and urged the driver to drive his
+best. I am never lucky with cabs, however--nor, I begin to think, with
+anything else--and the horse, with all the cabman's efforts, never got
+beyond a sort of tumultuous shamble; and so I missed Aunt Sarah at
+Paddington. It was very annoying, and I feared she might take it ill,
+because she never made allowances for anybody's misfortunes but her own.
+However, I turned about and cabbed it back as fast as I could. She had
+been home nearly half an hour when I arrived, and was drinking her third
+or fourth cup of tea. She was not ill-tempered, on the whole, and she
+received my explanations with a fairly good grace. She had been a little
+better, she thought, during her stay at Malvern, but feared that her
+health could make no permanent improvement. And indeed there seemed very
+little room for improvement in Aunt Sarah's bodily condition, and no
+more room at all in her clothes. Then, in the regular manner, I inquired
+as to the well-being of the jewels.
+
+[Illustration: "SHE RECEIVED MY EXPLANATIONS WITH A FAIRLY GOOD GRACE."]
+
+The jewels, it seemed, were all right. Aunt Sarah had seen to that. She
+had herself stowed the case at the bottom of her biggest and strongest
+trunk, which was now upstairs, partly unpacked. My question reminded
+her, and she rose at once, to transfer her valuables to their permanent
+hiding-place.
+
+I heard Aunt Sarah going upstairs with a groan at every step, each groan
+answered by a loud creak from the woodwork. Then for awhile there was
+silence, and I walked to the French window to look out on the lawn and
+the carriage-drive. But as I looked, suddenly there came a dismal yell
+from above, followed by many shrieks.
+
+We--myself and the servants--found Aunt Sarah seated on a miscellaneous
+heap of clothes by the side of her big trunk, a picture of calamity.
+"Gone!" she ejaculated. "Stolen! All my jewels! Stop thief! Catch 'em!
+My jewel-case!"
+
+There was no doubt about it, it seemed. The case had been at the bottom
+of the big trunk--Aunt Sarah had put it there herself--and now it was
+gone. The trunk had been locked and tightly corded at Malvern, and it
+had been opened by Aunt Sarah's maid as soon as it had been set down
+where it now stood. But now the jewel-case was gone, and Aunt Sarah
+made such a disturbance as might be expected from the Constable of the
+Tower if he suddenly learned that the Crown of England was gone missing.
+
+"Clement!" said my aunt, when she rose to her feet, after sending for
+the police; "go, Clement, and find my jewels. I rely on your sagacity.
+The police are always such fools. But you--you I can depend upon. Bring
+the jewels back, my dear, and you will never regret it, I promise you.
+At least bring back the brooch--the brooch with Uncle Joseph's hair and
+initials. That I _must_ have, Clement!" And here Aunt Sarah grew quite
+impressive--almost noble. "Clement, I rely entirely on you. I forbid you
+to come into my presence again without that brooch! Find it, and you
+will be rewarded to the utmost of my power!"
+
+Nevertheless, as I have said, Aunt Sarah took care to call in the
+police.
+
+Now what was I to do? Of course, I must make an effort to satisfy Aunt
+Sarah; but how? The thing was absurd enough, and personally, I was in
+little grief at the loss, but Aunt Sarah must be propitiated at any
+cost. I was to go and find the jewels, or at least the brooch, and the
+whole world was before me wherein to search. I was confused, not to say
+dazed. I stood on the pavement outside Aunt Sarah's gate, and I tried to
+remember what the detectives I had read of did in such circumstances as
+these.
+
+What they did, of course, was to find a clue--instantly and upon the
+spot. I stared blankly up and down the street--it was a quiet road in
+Belsize Park--but I could see nothing that looked like a clue. Perhaps
+the commonest sort of clue was footprints. But the weather was fine and
+dry, and the clean, hard pavement was without a mark of any kind.
+Besides, I had a feeling that footprints as a clue were a little
+threadbare and out of date; they were so obvious--so "otiose" as I have
+heard it called. No respectable novelist would depend on footprints
+alone, nowadays. Then there was a piece of the thief's coat, torn off by
+a sharp railing, or by a broken bottle on top of a wall; and there was
+also a lost button. I remembered that many excellent detective stories
+had been brought to breathless and triumphant terminations by the aid of
+one or other of these clues. I looked carefully along the line of broken
+glass that defended the top of Aunt Sarah's outer wall, but not a rag,
+not a shred, fluttered there. I tried to remember something else, and as
+I gazed thoughtfully downward, my eye was attracted by some small black
+object lying on the pavement by the gate. I stooped--and behold, it
+_was_ a button! A trouser button, by all that's lucky!
+
+[Illustration: "BEHOLD, IT WAS A BUTTON."]
+
+I snatched it eagerly, and read the name stamped thereon, "J. Pullinger,
+London." I knew the name--indeed it was the name of my own tailor. The
+scent would seem to be growing stronger. But at that moment I grew
+conscious of an uneasy subsidence of my right trouser-leg. Hastily
+clapping my hand under my waistcoat, I found a loose brace-strap, and
+then realized that I had merely picked up my own button. I went home.
+
+I spent the evening in fruitless brain-cudgelling. My brightest idea
+(which came about midnight) was to go back to Aunt Sarah's the first
+thing in the morning. True, she had forbidden me to come into her
+presence without that brooch, but that, I felt, must be regarded rather
+as a burst of rhetoric than as a serious prohibition. Besides, the case
+might have been stolen by one of her own servants; and, moreover, if I
+wanted a clue, clearly I must begin my search at the very spot where the
+theft had been committed. She couldn't object to _that_, anyhow.
+
+So in the morning I went. Aunt Sarah seemed to have forgotten her order
+that I must not approach her without the brooch, but she seemed hurt to
+find I had not brought it. She had had no sleep all night, she said. She
+thought I ought to have discovered the thieves before she went to bed;
+but at any rate, she expected I would do it to-day. I said I would
+certainly do my best, and I fear I found it necessary to invent a
+somewhat exciting story of my adventures of the previous evening in
+search of the brooch.
+
+There was a plain-clothes constable, it seemed, still about the place,
+and the police had searched all the servants' boxes, without discovering
+anything. Their theory, it seemed, was that some thief must have
+secreted himself about the garden, entered by a French window soon after
+Aunt Sarah's arrival, made his way to the bedroom--which would be easy,
+for there were two staircases--and then made off with the case; and,
+indeed, Aunt Sarah declared that the clothes in the box were much
+disturbed when she discovered her loss. The police spoke mysteriously
+about "a clue," but would not say what it was--which, no doubt, would be
+unprofessional.
+
+All the servants had been closely questioned, and the detective now in
+the place wished to ask me if I had observed anything unusual. I hadn't,
+and I told him so. Had I noticed whether any of the French windows were
+open when I called the first time? No, I hadn't noticed. I didn't happen
+to have called more than once before my aunt had come in? No, I didn't.
+Which way had I entered the house when I came back after my aunt's
+arrival? By the front door, in the usual way. Was the front door open?
+Yes, I remembered that it was--probably left open by forgetfulness of
+the servants after the luggage had been brought in; so that I had come
+in without knocking or ringing. And he asked other questions which I
+have forgotten. I did not feel hopeful of his success, although he
+seemed so very sagacious; he spoke with an air of already knowing all
+about it, but I doubted. All my experience of newspaper reports told me
+that when the police spoke mysteriously of "a clue," that case might as
+well be given up at once, to save trouble. That seemed also to be Aunt
+Sarah's opinion. Before I left she confided to me that she didn't
+believe in the police a bit; she was sure that they were only staring
+about and asking questions to make a show of doing something, and that
+it would end in no result after all. All the more, she said, must she
+rely on me. The punishment of the thief was altogether a secondary
+matter; what she wanted were the jewels--or, as a minimum, the brooch
+with Uncle Joseph's hair in it. She would be glad if I would report
+progress to her during my search, but whether I did or not, she must
+insist on my recovering the property. I was a grown man now, she pointed
+out, and, with my intelligence, ought to be easily equal to such a small
+thing; certainly more so than mere ordinary ignorant policemen. Of those
+she gave up all hope. She would not mind if I took a day or two over it,
+but she would prefer me to find the brooch at once.
+
+I felt a little desperate when I left Aunt Sarah. I _must_ do something.
+She had made up her mind that I was to recover the trinkets, or at least
+the brooch, and if I failed her she would cut me off, I knew. There was
+a fellow called Finch, secretary to the Society for the Dissemination of
+Moral Literature among the Esquimaux, who had been very friendly with
+her of late, and although I had no especial grudge against the Esquimaux
+as a nation, I had a strong objection to seeing Aunt Sarah's fortune go
+to provide them with moral literature, or Mr. Finch with his salary--the
+latter being, I had heard, the main object of the society. I spent the
+day in fruitless cogitation and blank staring into pawnshop windows, in
+the remote hope of seeing Aunt Sarah's brooch exposed for sale. And on
+the following morning I went back to Aunt Sarah.
+
+I confess I had a tale prepared to account for my time--a tale, perhaps,
+not strictly true in all its details. But what was I to do to satisfy
+such a terrible old lady? I must say I think it was a very interesting
+sort of tale, with plenty of thieves' kitchens and receivers' dens in
+it, and, on the whole, it went down very well, although I could see that
+Aunt Sarah's good opinion of me was in danger for lack of tangible
+result to my adventures. The police, she said, had given the case up
+altogether and gone away. They reported, finally, that there was no
+clue, and that they could do nothing. I came away, feeling a good deal
+of sympathy with the police.
+
+And then the wicked thought came--the wicked thought that has caused all
+the trouble. Plainly, the jewels were gone irrecoverably--did not the
+police admit it? Aunt Sarah would never see them again, and I should be
+cut out of her will--unless I brought her, at least, that hideous old
+brooch. The brooch by this time was probably in the melting-pot;
+_but_--there was, or had been, an exact duplicate in the grimy shop in
+Soho. There was the wicked idea. _Perhaps_ this duplicate brooch hadn't
+been sold. If not, it would be easy to buy it, stuff it with red hair,
+and take it back in triumph to Aunt Sarah. And, as I thought, I
+remembered that I had frequently seen a girl with just such red hair,
+waiting at a cheap eating-house, where I sometimes passed on my way
+home. I had noticed her particularly, not only because of the uproarious
+colour of her hair, which was striking enough, but because of its exact
+similarity in shade to that in Aunt Sarah's brooch. No doubt the girl
+would gladly sell a small piece of it for a few shillings. Then the
+initials for the brooch-back would be easy enough. They were just the
+plain italic capitals _J_ and _S_, one at each side, and I was confident
+that, with the brooch before me, I could trace their precise shape and
+size for the guidance of an engraver. And Aunt Sarah would never for a
+moment suppose that there could be another brooch in the world at all
+like her most precious "jewel." The longer I thought over the scheme the
+easier it seemed, and the greater the temptation grew. Till at last I
+went and looked in at the window of the shop in Soho.
+
+[Illustration: "THE FIRST STEP IN THE PATH OF DECEPTION."]
+
+Was the brooch sold or not? It was not in the window, and I tried to
+persuade myself that it must be gone. I hung about for some little
+while, but at last I took the first step in the path of deception. I
+went into the shop.
+
+Once there, I was in for it, and nothing but the absence of the brooch
+could have saved me. But the brooch was there, in all its dusty
+hideousness, in a box, among scores of others. I turned it over and
+over; there was no doubt about it--barring the hair and the initials, it
+was as exact a duplicate as was ever made. The man asked two pounds ten
+for it, and I was in such a state of agitation that I paid the money at
+once, feeling unequal to the further agony of beating him down to the
+price he had last offered it at in his window.
+
+I slipped it into my trouser pocket and sneaked guiltily down the
+street. There was no going back for me now--fate was too strong. I went
+home and locked myself in my room. There I spent an hour and a half in
+marking the exact position and size of the necessary initials. When all
+was set out satisfactorily, I went back to Soho again to find an
+engraver.
+
+I might have gone to the shop where I had bought the brooch, but I
+fancied that might let the shopkeeper some little way into my secret. I
+walked till I came to just such another shop, and then, feeling, as I
+imagined, like an inexperienced shoplifter on a difficult job, I went in
+and gave my instructions. I offered to pay extra if the work could be
+done at once, and under my inspection. The engraver eyed me rather
+curiously, I fancied, but he was quite ready to earn his money, and in a
+quarter of an hour I was sneaking along the street again with the
+fraudulent brooch, one step nearer completion. The letters, to my eye
+at least, were as exactly cut as if copied from the original. They were
+a bit too bright and new, of course, but that I would remedy at home,
+and I did. A little fine emery on the point of my thumb, properly
+persevered with, took off all the raw edges and the newness of
+appearance, and a trifle of greasy black from a candle-wick, well wiped
+into the incisions and almost all wiped out again, left the initials
+apparently fifty years old at least.
+
+Next morning's interview with Aunt Sarah was one of veiled triumph. I
+was on the track of the jewels at last, I said--or at any rate, of the
+brooch. I might have to sacrifice the rest, I explained, for the sake of
+getting that. Indeed, I was pretty sure that I could only get at the
+brooch. I could say no more, just then, but I hinted that nothing must
+be said to a soul, as my proceedings might possibly be considered, in
+the eye of the law, something too near compounding a felony. But I would
+risk that, I assured Aunt Sarah, and more, in her behalf. She was
+mightily pleased, and said I was the only member of the family worth his
+salt. I began to think the Esquimaux stood a chance of going short of
+moral literature, if Mr. Finch were depending much on Aunt Sarah's will.
+
+The rest seemed very easy, but in reality it wasn't. I set out briskly
+enough for the eating-house, but as I neared it my steps grew slower and
+slower. It seemed an easy thing, at a distance, to ask for a lock of the
+red-headed girl's hair, but as I came nearer the shop, and began to
+consider what I should say, the job seemed a bit awkward. She was a
+thick-set sort of girl, with very red arms and a snub nose, and I felt
+doubtful how she would take the request. Perhaps she would laugh, and
+dab me in the face with a wet lettuce, as I had once seen her do with a
+jocular customer. Now, I am a little particular about my appearance and
+bearing, and I was not anxious to be dabbed in the face with a wet
+lettuce by a red-haired waitress at a cheap eating-house. If I had known
+anybody else with hair of that extraordinary colour I would not have
+taken the risk; but I didn't. Nevertheless I hesitated, and walked up
+and down a little before entering.
+
+There was no customer in the place, for it was at least an hour before
+mid-day. The girl issued from a recess at the back, and came toward me.
+She seemed a terrible--a most formidable girl, seen so closely. She had
+small, sharp eyes, a snub nose, and a very large mouth--the sort of
+mouth that is ever ready to pour forth shrill abuse or vulgar derision.
+My heart sank into my boots, I couldn't--no, I _couldn't_ ask her
+straightaway for a lock of her hair.
+
+I temporized. I said I would have something to eat. She asked what. I
+said I would take anything there was. After a while she brought a plate
+of hideous coarse cold beef--like cat's meat. This is a sort of food I
+_cannot_ eat, but I had to try. And she brought pickles on a
+plate--horrid, messy yellow pickles. I had often wondered as I passed
+what gave that eating-house its unpleasant smell, and now I knew it was
+the pickles.
+
+I cut the offensive stuff into small pieces, made as much show of eating
+it as I could, and shoved it into a heap at one side of the plate. The
+girl had retired to a partly inclosed den at the back of the shop, where
+she seemed to be washing plates. After all, I reflected, there was
+nothing to be afraid of. It was a purely commercial transaction, and no
+doubt the girl would be very glad to sell a little of her hair.
+Moreover, the longer I waited the greater risk I ran of having other
+customers come in and spoil the thing altogether. There was the
+hair--the one thing to straighten all my difficulties, and a few
+shillings would certainly buy all I wanted. I rapped on the table with
+my fork.
+
+The red-haired girl came down the shop wiping her hands on her
+apron--big hands, and very red; terrible hands to box an ear or claw a
+face. This thought disturbed me, but I said, manfully, "I should like,
+if you've no objection, to have--I should like--I should like a----"
+
+It was useless. I _couldn't_ say "a lock of your hair." I stammered, and
+the girl stared doubtfully. "Cawfy?" she suggested.
+
+"Yes, yes," I answered, eagerly, with a breath of relief. "Coffee, of
+course."
+
+The coffee was as bad as the beef. It came in a vast, thick mug, like a
+gallipot with a handle. It ought to have been very strong coffee,
+considering its thickness, but it had a flat, rather metallic taste, and
+a general flavour of boiled crusts.
+
+I became convinced that the real reason of my hesitation was the fact
+that I had not settled how much to offer for the hair. It might look
+suspicious, I reflected, to offer too much, but, on the other hand, it
+would never do to offer too little. What was the golden mean? As I
+considered, a grubby, shameless boy put his head in at the door, and
+shouted, "Wayo, carrots? What price yer wig?"
+
+The red-haired girl made a savage rush, and the boy danced off across
+the street with gestures of derision. Plainly, I couldn't make an offer
+at all after that. She would take it as a deliberate insult--suggested
+by the shout of the dirty boy. Perhaps she would make just such a savage
+rush at _me_--and what should I do then? Here the matter was settled for
+the present by the entrance of two coal-heavers.
+
+[Illustration: "SHE LOOKED A TRIFLE SUSPICIOUS."]
+
+For three days in succession I went to that awful eating-house, and each
+day I ate, or pretended to eat, just such an awful meal. I shirked the
+beef, but I was confronted with equally fearful bloaters--bloaters that
+smelt right across the street. It occurred to me, so criminal and so
+desperate had I grown, that I might _steal_ enough of the girl's hair
+for my purpose, by the aid of a pair of pocket scissors, and so escape
+all difficulty. With that design I followed her quietly down the shop
+once or twice, making a pretence of reaching for a paper, or a
+mustard-pot, or the like. But that was useless. I never knew which way
+she would move next, and I saw no opportunity of effecting my purpose
+without the risk of driving the points of my scissors into her head.
+Indeed, if I had seen the chance, I should scarce have had the courage
+to snip. And once, when she turned suddenly, she looked a trifle
+suspicious.
+
+I attempted to engage her in conversation, in order that I might, by
+easy and natural stages, approach the subject of her hair. It was not
+easy. She disliked hair as a subject of conversation. I began to
+suspect, and more than suspect, that her hair was the stock joke of the
+regular customers. Not a boy could pass the door singing "Her golden
+hair was hanging down her back" (as most of them did), but she bridled
+and glared. Truly, it was very awkward. But then, there was no other
+such hair, so far as my observation had gone, in all London, or anywhere
+else.
+
+Some men have the easiest way imaginable of dropping into familiar
+speech with bar-maids and waitresses at a moment's notice, or less. I
+had never cultivated the art, and now I was sorry for my neglect. Still,
+I might try, and I did. But somehow it was difficult to hit the right
+note. My key varied. A patronizingly uttered "My dear," seemed a good
+general standby to begin or finish a sentence; so I said:
+"Ah--Hannah--Hannah, my dear!"
+
+The words startled me when I heard them--I feared my tone had scarcely
+the correct dignity. Hannah's red head turned, and she came across,
+grinning slily. "Yus?" she said, interrogatively, and still grinning.
+
+I feared I had begun wrong. It was all very well to be condescendingly
+familiar with a waitress, but it would never do to allow the waitress to
+be familiar with me. So I said, rather severely, "Just give me a
+newspaper. Ah--Hannah!"
+
+I think I hit the medium very well with the last two words. "Yus?" she
+said again, and now she positively leered.
+
+"I--I meant to have given you sixpence yesterday; you're very attentive,
+Hannah--Hannah, my dear." (That didn't sound quite right, somehow--never
+mind.) "Very attentive. Here's the sixpence. Er--er"--(what in the world
+should I say next?) "What-er-what" (I was desperate) "what is the latest
+fashion in hair?"
+
+"Not _your_ colour ain't," she said; "so now!" And she swung off with a
+toss of her red head.
+
+I had offended her! I ought to have guessed she would take that question
+amiss--I was a fool. And before I could apologize a customer came in--a
+waggoner. I had lost another day! And Aunt Sarah was growing more and
+more impatient.
+
+At last I resolved to go at the business point-blank, as I should have
+done at first. Plainly it was my only chance. The longer I made my
+approach, the more awkward I got. I had the happy thought to take a
+flower in my button-hole, and give it to Hannah as a peace-offering,
+after my unintentional rudeness of yesterday. It acted admirably, and I
+was glad to see a girl in her humble position so much gratified by a
+little attention like that. She grinned--she even blushed a little--all
+the while I ate that repulsive early lunch. So I seized the opportunity
+of her good humour, paid for the food as soon as I could, and said, with
+as much business-like ease as I could assume:--
+
+"I--ah--I should like, Hannah, ah--if you don't mind--just as a--a
+matter of--of scientific interest, you know--scientific interest, my
+dear--to buy a small piece of your hair."
+
+"'Oo ye gettin' at?" she replied, with a blush and a giggle.
+
+"I--I'm perfectly serious," I said--and I believe I looked desperately
+so. "I'll give you half a sovereign for a small piece--just a lock--for
+purely scientific purposes, I assure you."
+
+She giggled again, more than ever, and ogled in a way that sent cold
+shivers all over me. It struck me now, with a twinge of horror, that
+perhaps she supposed I had conceived an attachment for her, and wanted
+the hair as a keepsake. That would be terrible to think of. I swore
+inwardly that I would never come near that street again, if only I got
+out safely with the hair this time.
+
+She went over into her lair, where the dirty plates were put, and
+presently returned with the object of my desires--a thick lump of hair
+rolled up in a piece of newspaper. I thrust the half-sovereign towards
+her, grabbed the parcel, and ran. I feared she might expect me to kiss
+her.
+
+Now I had to employ another Soho jeweller, but by this time, after the
+red-headed waitress, no jeweller could daunt me. The pane of glass had
+to be lifted from the back of the brooch, the brown hair that was in it
+removed, and a proper quantity of the red hair substituted; and the work
+would be completed by the refixing of the glass and the careful
+smoothing down of the gold rim about it. I found a third dirty
+jeweller's shop, and waited while the jeweller did it all.
+
+And now that the thing was completed, I lost no time on the way to Aunt
+Sarah's. I went by omnibus, and alighted a couple of streets from her
+house. It astonishes me, now, to think that I could have been so calm. I
+had never had a habit of deception, but now I had slid into it by such
+an easy process, and it had worked so admirably for a week or more, that
+it seemed quite natural and regular.
+
+I turned the last corner, and was scarce a dozen yards from Aunt Sarah's
+gate, when I was tapped on the shoulder. I turned, and saw the detective
+who had questioned me, and everybody else, just after the robbery.
+
+"Good morning, Mr. Simpson," he said. "Mr. _Clement_ Simpson, I
+believe?"
+
+"Yes," I said.
+
+"Just so. Sorry to trouble you, Mr. Simpson, but I must get you to come
+along o' me on a small matter o' business. You needn't say anything, of
+course; but if you do I shall have to make a note of it, and it may be
+used as evidence."
+
+What was this? I gasped, and the whole street seemed to turn round and
+round and over and over. Arrested! What for?
+
+Whether I asked the question or only moved my lips silently, I don't
+know, but the man answered--and his voice seemed to come from a distance
+out of the chaos about me.
+
+"Well, it's about that jewel-case of your aunt's, of course. Sorry to
+upset you, and no doubt it'll be all right, but just for the present you
+must come to the station with me. I won't hold you if you promise not to
+try any games. Or you can have a cab, if you like."
+
+[Illustration: "SORRY TO TROUBLE YOU, MR. SIMPSON."]
+
+"But," I said, "but it's all a mistake--an awful mistake! It's--it's out
+of the question! Come and see my aunt, and she'll tell you! Pray let me
+see my aunt!"
+
+"Don't mind obliging a gentleman if I can, and if you want to speak to
+your aunt you may, seein' it's close by, and it ain't a warrant case.
+But I shall have to be with you, and you'll have to come with me after,
+whatever she says."
+
+I was in an awful position, and I realized it fully. Here I was with
+that facsimile brooch in my possession, and if it were found on me at
+the police-station, of course, it would be taken for the genuine
+article, and regarded as a positive proof that I was the thief. In the
+few steps to Aunt Sarah's house I saw and understood now what the police
+had been at. I was the person they had suspected from the beginning.
+Their pretence of dropping the inquiry was a mere device to throw me off
+my ground and lead me to betray myself by my movements. And I had been
+watched frequenting shady second-hand jewellery shops in Soho! And, no
+doubt I had been seen in the low eating-house where I might be supposed
+to be leaving messages for criminal associates! It was hideous. On the
+one side there was the chance of ruin and imprisonment for theft, and on
+the other the scarcely less terrible one of estranging Aunt Sarah for
+ever by confessing my miserable deception. Plainly I had only one way of
+safety--to brazen out my story of the recovery of the brooch. I was
+bitterly sorry, now, that I had coloured the story, so far as it had
+gone, quite so boldly. It had gone a good way, too, for I had been
+obliged to add something to it each time I saw Aunt Sarah during my
+operations. But I must lie through stone walls now.
+
+I scarcely remember what Aunt Sarah said when she was told I was under
+arrest for the robbery. I know she broke a drawing-room chair, and had
+to be dragged off the floor on to the sofa by the detective and myself.
+But she got her speech pretty soon, and protested valiantly. It was a
+shameful outrage, she proclaimed, and the police were incapable fools.
+"While you've been doing nothing," she said, "my dear nephew has traced
+out the jewels and--and----"
+
+"I've got the brooch, aunt!" I cried, for this seemed the dramatic
+moment. And I put it in her hand.
+
+"I must have that, please," the detective interposed. "Do you identify
+it?"
+
+"Identify it?" exclaimed Aunt Sarah, rapturously. "Of course I identify
+it! I'd know my Uncle Joseph's brooch among ten thousand! And his
+initials and his hair and all! Identify it, indeed! I should think so!
+And did you get it from Bludgeoning Bill himself, Clement, my dear?"
+
+Now, "Bludgeoning Bill" was the name I had given the chief ruffian of my
+story; rather a striking sort of name, I fancied. So I said, "Yes--yes.
+That's the name he's known by--among his intimates, of course. The
+police" (I had a vague idea of hedging, as far as possible, with the
+detective)--"the police only know his--his other names, I believe. A--a
+very dangerous sort of person!"
+
+"And did you have much of a struggle with him?" pursued Aunt Sarah,
+hanging on my words.
+
+"Oh, yes--terrible, of course. That is, pretty fair, you
+know--er--nothing so very extraordinary." I was getting flurried. That
+detective _would_ look at me so intently.
+
+"And was he very much hurt, Clement? Any bones broken, I mean, or
+anything of that sort?"
+
+"Bones? O, yes, of course--at least, not many, considering. But it
+serves him right, you know--serves him right, of course."
+
+"Oh, I'm sure he richly deserved it, Clement. I suppose that was in the
+thieves' kitchen?"
+
+"Yes--no, at least; no, not there. Not exactly in the kitchen, you
+know."
+
+"I see; in the scullery, I suppose," said Aunt Sarah, innocently. "And
+to think that you traced it all from a few footsteps and a bit of cloth
+rag on the wall and--and what else was it, Clement?"
+
+"A trouser button," I answered. I felt a trifle more confident here, for
+I _had_ found a trouser button. "But it was nothing much--not actual
+evidence, of course. Just a trifle, that's all."
+
+But here I caught the policeman's eye, and I went hot and cold. I could
+not remember what I had done with that trouser button of mine. Had the
+police themselves found it later? Was this their clue? But I nerved
+myself to meet Aunt Sarah's fresh questions.
+
+"I suppose there's no chance of getting the other things?" she asked.
+
+"No," I answered, decisively, "not the least." I resolved not to search
+for any more facsimiles.
+
+"Lummy Joe told you that, I suppose?" pursued my aunt, whose memory for
+names was surprising. "Either Lummy Joe or the Chickaleary Boy?"
+
+"Both," I replied, readily. "Most valuable information from
+both--especially Chickaleary Joe. Very honourable chap, Joe. Excellent
+burglar, too."
+
+Again I caught the detective's eye, and suddenly remembered that
+everything I had been saying might be brought up as evidence in a court
+of law. He was carefully noting all those rickety lies, and presently
+would write them down in his pocket-book, as he had threatened! Another
+question or two, and I think I should have thrown up the game
+voluntarily, but at that moment a telegram was brought in for Aunt
+Sarah. She put up her glasses, read it, and let the glasses fall.
+"_What!_" she squeaked.
+
+She looked helplessly about her, and held the telegram toward me. "I
+must see that, please," the detective said.
+
+It was from the manager of the hydropathic establishment at Malvern
+where Aunt Sarah had been staying, and it read thus:--
+
+"_Found leather jewel-case with your initials on ledge up chimney of
+room lately occupied here. Presume valuable, so am sending on by special
+messenger._"
+
+"Why, bless me!" said Aunt Sarah, as soon as she could find speech;
+"bless me! I--I felt _sure_ I'd taken it down from the chimney and put
+it in the trunk!" And, with her eyes nearly as wide open as her mouth,
+she stared blankly in my face.
+
+Personally I saw stars everywhere, as though I had been hit between the
+eyes with a club. I don't remember anything distinctly after this till I
+found myself in the street with the detective. I think I said I
+preferred waiting at the police-station.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It is unnecessary to say much more, and it would be very painful to me.
+I know, indirectly, through the police, that the jewel-case _did_ turn
+up a few hours later, with the horrible brooch, and all the other things
+in it, perfectly safe. Aunt Sarah had put it up the chimney for safety
+at Malvern--just the sort of thing she would do--and made a mistake
+about bringing it away, that was all. There it had stayed for more than
+a week before it had been discovered, while Aunt Sarah was urging me to
+deception and fraud. That was some days ago, and I have not seen her
+since; I admit I am afraid to go. I see no very plausible way of
+accounting for those two brooches with the initials and the red
+hair--and no possible way of making them both fit with the thrilling
+story of Bludgeoning Bill and the thieves' kitchen. What am I to do?
+
+[Illustration: "SHE LOOKED HELPLESSLY ABOUT HER."]
+
+But I have not told all yet. This is the letter I have received from
+Honoria Prescott, in the midst of my perplexities:--
+
+"SIR,--I inclose your ring, and am sending your other presents by parcel
+delivery. I desire to see no more of you. And though I have been so
+grossly deceived, I confess that even now I find it difficult to
+understand your extraordinary taste for waitresses at low eating-houses.
+Fortunately my mother's kitchen-maid happens to be a relative of Hannah
+Dobbs, and it was because she very properly brought to my notice a
+letter which she had received from that young person that I learnt of
+your scandalous behaviour. I inclose the letter itself, that you may
+understand the disgust and contempt with which your conduct inspires
+me.--Your obedient servant,
+
+    "Honoria Prescott."
+
+The lamentable scrawl which accompanied this letter I have copied below
+at least the latter part of it, which is all that relates to myself:--
+
+"Lore Jane i have got no end of a yung swel after me now and no mistake.
+quite the gent he is with a torl hatt and frock coat and spats and he
+comes here every day and eats what i know he dont want all for love of
+me and he give me 1/2 a soffrin for a lock of my hare to day and rushed
+off blushin awful he has bin follerin me up and down the shop that
+loving for days, and presents of flowers that beautiful, and his name is
+Clement Simpson i got it off a letter he pulled out of his pocket one
+day he is that adgertated i think he is a friend of your missise havent
+i hurd you say his name but I do love him that deer so now no more from
+yours afexntely,
+
+    "Hannah Dobbs."
+
+Again I ask any charitable person with brains less distracted than my
+own--What _am_ I to do? I wonder if Mr. Finch will give me an
+appointment as tract-distributor to the Esquimaux?
+
+
+
+
+_A Record of 1811._
+
+OR, A SHEEP'S COAT AT SUNRISE, A MAN'S COAT AT SUNSET.
+
+By J. R. Wade.
+
+
+It is no new thing for us to see records established one day and beaten
+the next, the top place nowadays being no sooner reached by one
+individual than challenged by another. The record in the manufacture of
+cloth, however, with which this article deals, though of eighty-eight
+years' standing, has never yet been eclipsed.
+
+The scene of this remarkable achievement in the sartorial art is the
+village of Newbury, Berkshire, and it came about in this way. Mr. John
+Coxeter, a then well-known cloth manufacturer, the owner of Greenham
+Mills, at the above-named village, remarked in the course of
+conversation one day in the year 1811, to Sir John Throckmorton, Bart.,
+of Newbury, "So great are the improvements in machinery which I have
+lately introduced into my mill, that I believe that in twenty-four hours
+I could take the coat off your back, reduce it to wool, and turn it back
+into a coat again."
+
+The proverb says, "There's many a true word spoken in jest." So great an
+impression did Mr. Coxeter's boast make upon the Baronet, that shortly
+afterwards he inquired of Mr. Coxeter if it would really be possible to
+make a coat from sheep's wool between the sunrise and sunset of a
+summer's day. That gentleman, after carefully calculating the time
+required for the various processes, replied that in his opinion it could
+be done.
+
+Not long after the above conversation, which took place at a dinner
+party, Sir John Throckmorton laid a wager of a thousand guineas that at
+eight o'clock in the evening of June the 25th, 1811, he would sit down
+to dinner in a well-woven, properly-made coat, the wool of which formed
+the fleeces of sheep's backs at five o'clock that same morning. Such an
+achievement appearing practically impossible to his listeners, his bet
+was eagerly accepted.
+
+[Illustration: _From an_] SHEARING THE SHEEP. [_Old Print._]
+
+Sir John intrusted the accomplishment of the feat to Mr. Coxeter, and
+shortly before five o'clock on the morning stated, the early-rising
+villagers of Newbury were astonished to see their worthy squire,
+accompanied by his shepherd and two sheep, journeying towards Greenham
+Mills. Promptly at five o'clock operations commenced, and no time was
+lost in getting the sheep shorn. Our first illustration, which is from
+an old print executed at the time, shows the sheep being shorn by the
+shepherd, and is worthy of a little attention. Sir John stands in the
+middle of the picture, having his measurements taken by the tailor, and
+it is an interesting fact that, except that all implements to be used
+were placed in readiness on the field of action, the smallest actual
+operations in the making of the coat were performed between the hours
+mentioned.
+
+[Illustration: _From an_] MAKING THE CLOTH. [_Old Print._]
+
+Mr. Coxeter stands just behind the sheep-shearer, watching with an
+anxious eye, whilst to the right may be seen a tent, which was erected
+presumably for refreshments, and schoolboys climbing a greasy-pole and
+generally making the best of the holiday which had been accorded them in
+order that they might witness this singular spectacle.
+
+The sheep being shorn, the wool was washed, stubbed, roved, spun, and
+woven, and our next illustration, also from an old print, shows the
+weaving, which was performed by Mr. Coxeter, junior, who had been found
+by previous competition to be the most expert workman. In the background
+of this picture may be seen the carcass of one of the sheep; of which
+more later. The curious-looking objects in the basket, held, by the way,
+by another of Mr. Coxeter's sons, are wool spools, while in the extreme
+background, looking out of the window of a quaint old cottage, may be
+seen "the gods in the gallery."
+
+When we compare the primitive-looking loom seen in this picture with the
+powerful machinery of to-day, the record then established certainly
+becomes all the more wonderful.
+
+The cloth thus manufactured was next scoured, fulled, tented, raised,
+sheared, dyed, and dressed, being completed by four o'clock in the
+afternoon, just eleven hours after the arrival of the two sheep in the
+mill-yard.
+
+In the meantime, the news of the wager had spread abroad among the
+neighbouring villages, bringing crowds of people eager to witness the
+conclusion of this extraordinary undertaking.
+
+[Illustration: THE FINISHED COAT.
+
+_From a Photo. by C. J. Coxeter, Abingdon._]
+
+The cloth was now put into the hands of the tailor, Mr. James White, who
+had already got all measurements ready during the operations, so that
+not a moment should be lost; and he, together with nine of his men, with
+needles all threaded, at once started on it. For the next two hours and
+a quarter the tailors were busy cutting out, stitching, pressing, and
+sewing on buttons, in fact, generally converting the cloth into a "well
+woven, properly made coat," and at twenty minutes past six Mr. Coxeter
+presented the coat to Sir John Throckmorton, who put the garment on
+before an assemblage of over five thousand people, and sat down to
+dinner with it on, together with forty gentlemen, at eight o'clock in
+the evening.
+
+[Illustration: MR. CHARLES COXETER, THE ONLY LIVING EYE-WITNESS.
+
+_From a Photo. by C. J. Coxeter, Abingdon._]
+
+Through the kindness of Sir William Throckmorton, its present owner, we
+are able to give our readers, in the illustration shown at the bottom of
+the previous page, a photograph of this wonderful coat. The garment was
+a large hunting-coat of the then admired dark Wellington colour, a sort
+of a damson tint. It had been completed in the space of thirteen hours
+and ten minutes, the wager thus being won with an hour and
+three-quarters to spare.
+
+To commemorate the event, the two sheep who were the victims of Mr.
+Coxeter's energy were killed and roasted whole in a meadow near by, and
+distributed to the public, together with 120 gallons of strong beer,
+this latter being the gift of Mr. Coxeter.
+
+Our next illustration is a photograph of Mr. Charles Coxeter, of
+Abingdon, Berks, the only living eye-witness to this feat. He is the
+younger brother to the weaver of the cloth, long since dead, who is
+shown in our second illustration. His present age is ninety-three. When
+approached on the subject he said he well remembered the event, and
+recalls with pleasure seeing the workmen dine off portions of the sheep,
+in a barge on the river near the mill. The original mill unfortunately
+no longer stands, having long since been destroyed, a more modern mill
+now occupying the site.
+
+We now give an illustration of the silver medal which was struck in
+honour of the occasion. It is worded as follows:--
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"Presented to Mr. John Coxeter, of Greenham Mills, by the Agricultural
+Society, for manufacturing wool into cloth and into a coat in thirteen
+hours and ten minutes."
+
+Mr. Coxeter was a very enterprising individual, for seemingly not
+content with this wonderful achievement, not many years after, in
+connection with the public rejoicings for peace after the Battle of
+Waterloo, he had a gigantic plum-pudding made, which was cooked under
+the supervision of twelve ladies. This monster pudding measured over
+20ft. in length, and was conveyed to his house on a large timber waggon,
+drawn by two oxen, which were highly decorated with blue ribbons. The
+driver was similarly ornamented, and bore aloft an old family sword of
+state, presumably to give _éclat_ to the occasion. Arrived at its
+destination, the pudding was cut up in the celebrated old mill-yard at
+Greenham, and distributed to all and sundry, those who had the good
+fortune to partake of it pronouncing the pudding to be "as nice as
+mother makes 'em."
+
+[Illustration: BILL PRINTED FOR THE GREAT EXHIBITION OF 1851.]
+
+The famous coat, which has found a resting-place in a glass case in Sir
+William Throckmorton's hall, was exhibited at the great International
+Exhibition of 1851, where it attracted a great deal of attention, a few
+copies of the old engravings from which our first two illustrations are
+reproduced being eagerly bought up. Our last photograph shows the bill
+which was printed for that exhibition.
+
+Over thirty years afterwards the coat was again brought before public
+notice, this time at the Newbury Art and Industrial Exhibition of 1884.
+It was photographed for the first time, by Sir William's permission, for
+this article. Though to us it may seem rather a curious cut for a
+hunting-coat, it was the approved style for those times, the long
+coat-tails flying to the wind during a chase. Needless to say, however,
+this coat has never been used for that purpose.
+
+These are certainly days of speed, and though probably with the vastly
+superior machinery of to-day this wonderful performance could be
+eclipsed, it is interesting to notice that up to the present it has
+never been equalled.
+
+
+
+
+_Animal Actualities._
+
+     NOTE.--_These articles consist of a series of perfectly authentic
+     anecdotes of animal life, illustrated by Mr. J. A. Shepherd, an
+     artist long a favourite with readers of_ THE STRAND MAGAZINE. _We
+     shall be glad to receive similar anecdotes, fully authenticated by
+     names of witnesses, for use in future numbers. While the stories
+     themselves will be matters of fact, it must be understood that the
+     artist will treat the subject with freedom and fancy, more with a
+     view to an amusing commentary than to a mere representation of the
+     occurrence._
+
+
+IX.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+This is a tale of true love that no social distinctions could hinder; of
+a love that persisted in spite of misfortune, disfigurement, and
+poverty; of a love that ruled not merely the camp, the court, and the
+grove, but the back garden also: of a love that (as Mr. Seaman sings)
+"was strong love, strong as a big barn-door"; of a love that, no doubt,
+would have laughed at locksmiths had the cachinnation been necessary;
+that, in short, was the only genuine article, with the proper trade-mark
+on the label.
+
+[Illustration: MANY SUITORS.]
+
+"Pussy" was the name of a magnificent Persian cat--a princess among
+cats, greatly sought by the feline nobility of the neighbourhood. She
+was the sort of cat that no merely individual name would be good enough
+for; her magnificence soared above all such smallnesses, and, as she was
+_the_ ideal cat, combining all the glories and all the beauties of
+cat-hood in herself, she was called, simply and comprehensively,
+"Pussy." She condescended to reside at the house, and at the expense, of
+Mr. Thomas C. Johnson, of The Firs, Alford, Lincolnshire, and all the
+most aristocratic Toms of the vicinity were suitors for the paw of this
+princess. Blue Persians, buff Persians, Manx cats, Angora cats--all were
+her devoted slaves, and it was generally expected that she would make a
+brilliant match. She had a house (or palace) of her own at the back of
+Mr. Johnson's. Here were her bed, her larder--an elegant shelf
+supporting her wire meat safe, and her special knife and fork for her
+meat must be cut up for her--and her plate and saucer. And here, by the
+door, many suitors waited to bow their respects as she came forth to
+take the air. But Pussy, who trod the earth as though the planet were
+far too common for her use, turned up her nose at the noble throng, and
+dismissed them with effective and sudden language, conjectured to be a
+very vigorous dialect of Persian.
+
+[Illustration: BOWING THEIR RESPECTS.]
+
+[Illustration: VERY VIGOROUS PERSIAN.]
+
+Then came, meekly crawling and limping to her door, one Lamech, a cat of
+low degree and no particular breed. His only claim to distinction of any
+sort was that he had lost a leg--perhaps in a weasel-trap. He was
+ill-fed, bony, and altogether disreputable; his ears were sore, and his
+coat unkempt. He came not as a suitor, but as a beggar, craving any odd
+scraps that the princess might have no use for. So low was he esteemed,
+indeed, that nobody called him Lamech, his proper name, and he was
+familiarly and contemptuously known as "Three-legged Tommy." When the
+princess's human friends saw Three-legged Tommy hanging about, they
+regarded him as a nuisance and a probable offence in the sight of the
+princess. Wherefore they chased him mercilessly, tempering their
+severities, however, by flinging him scraps of food, as far out into the
+road as possible.
+
+[Illustration: COMMOTION AMONG THE NOBILITY.]
+
+But presently a surprising thing was observed. Pussy actually
+_encouraged_ Three-legged Tommy! More, she fed him, and her last drop of
+new milk and her last and tenderest morsel of meat were reserved for his
+regalement. There was intense commotion among the scorned feline
+nobility. Three-legged Tommy was actually admitted into that sacred
+palace, from the portals of which the most distinguished cats in Alford
+had been driven away!
+
+[Illustration: PASSING THE SACRED PORTAL.]
+
+As for Three-legged Tommy himself, he grew not only more confident, but
+more knowing. He came regularly at meal times. More, he grew fatter, and
+less ragged. The princess enjoyed her self-sacrifice for a time, but
+presently she set herself to get a double ration. Sharing her provisions
+was all very loving and all very well, but she began to feel that there
+were advantages in a full meal; and Three-legged Tommy, now grown much
+more respectable, though a hopeless plebeian still, distinctly gave her
+to understand that he could do with a bit more.
+
+[Illustration: "THE FEAST IS SPREAD FOR THEE."]
+
+Three-legged Tommy was the princess's first and only love, but next in
+her affections ranked Mr. Johnson. It was her habit to follow him about
+the house and garden, and to confide her troubles to him, sitting on his
+knee. But now she tried stratagem. Five or six times a day she would
+assail him with piteous mews, entreating caresses, beseeching eyes, and
+the most irresistibly captivating manners she could assume. "What can
+she want?" he would say. "She has not long been fed. _Is_ it meat, old
+girl?" And, powerless to resist her, he would rise and follow.
+
+Meat it was, of course. And when it was cut she would attack it with
+every appearance of ravenous hunger--till the master's back was turned.
+Then--"Come, my love, the feast is spread for thee!"
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Out would limp Lamech from behind some near shrub, and Pussy would sit
+with supreme satisfaction and watch her spouse's enjoyment of the meal
+she had cajoled for him. And so Three-legged Tommy waxed fat and
+prospered, and the Beautiful Princess was faithful to him always. Miss
+Mary Johnson, who was so kind as to send us the story, calls Pussy "a
+devoted helpmeet." We trust she meant no pun.
+
+
+X.
+
+[Illustration: THE PUPPY'S AMAZEMENT.]
+
+A tortoise has many virtues, as for instance, quietness, dignity, and
+lack of ambition. But, as a rule, activity and courage are not credited
+to the tortoise. This is a little anecdote of a tortoise who displayed
+both, in so far as to encounter, single-handed, a terrible puppy more
+than a fortnight old, and several inches high at the shoulder.
+
+[Illustration: A MATCH.]
+
+[Illustration: A DRAG.]
+
+Though the tortoise's lack of ambition may be accepted as a general
+principle, nevertheless it is relaxed in the ducal matter of strawberry
+leaves. Every tortoise of the sort we keep about our houses and gardens
+has an ambition for strawberry leaves--to eat. It may also be said as a
+warning (having nothing to do with this anecdote) that the tortoise has
+no ambition, or taste, for slugs or other garden pests. The man who
+sells them most solemnly avers they have, but that is only his fancy;
+the tortoise--at any rate, the tortoise he sells--is a vegetarian, as
+well as a teetotaler and a non-smoker. But as to the strawberry leaves,
+these are longed for by the tortoise even more than lettuce leaves.
+Enthusiasm is not a distinguishing characteristic of the tortoise, but
+when he _is_ enthusiastic it is over strawberry leaves. The tortoise of
+our anecdote (he had no domestic name, such was his humility) had the
+even tenor of his life disturbed by a sudden inroad of puppies, who made
+things very busy about him. The puppies did not altogether understand
+the tortoise, and the tortoise never wanted to understand the puppies.
+But the puppies were playful and inquisitive. One morning, just as the
+tortoise had laid hold of a very acceptable "runner" of strawberry
+leaves, a puppy, looking for fun, seized the other end in his teeth and
+pulled. Something had to go, and it was the strawberry leaf the tortoise
+happened to be biting, close by his mouth. Off went the puppy, trailing
+the "runner" after him, the tortoise toiling laboriously in the rear.
+Presently the puppy, finding that speed was no accomplishment of the
+tortoise, stopped at a corner and waited. Up came the tortoise, drums
+beating and colours flying, metaphorically speaking, and actually
+looking as threatening as a harmless tortoise can manage to look.
+"Snap!" went the tortoise. The puppy was nonplussed. What was this
+thing? Was it really angry? What would it do to him? His experience of
+tortoises was small, and this one looked very threatening. Perhaps the
+safest game was to drop the strawberry leaves, at any rate. So dropped
+they were, and the puppy sat back in the corner, a trifle apprehensive
+of what might happen next. But the strawberry leaves were all the
+tortoise wanted, and those he snatched, and straightway squatted down
+upon them. Then he ate them, little by little and bite by bite, at his
+leisure, regarding the puppy defiantly the while. And the puppy carried
+to all his brothers and sisters a terrible tale of the prowess of that
+crawling monstrosity that ate leaves, and got formidably angry if you
+snatched them away for fun.
+
+[Illustration: A BOLT.]
+
+[Illustration: A SNAP.]
+
+[Illustration: A VICTORY.]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: The Memory-Saver
+
+A STORY FOR CHILDREN.]
+
+By F. C. Younger.
+
+
+It was midnight: the Witch was sitting on an upturned basket in the
+hen-house, staring at the Memory-Saver. No one but a witch could have
+seen at all inside the hen-house, but this particular Witch had gathered
+pieces of decayed wood on the way there, lit them at glow-worms, and
+stuck them on the walls. They burnt with a weird, blue light, and showed
+the old Witch on the basket scratching her bristly chin; the Black Cock
+in a kind of faint up one corner, with his eyes turned up till they
+showed the whites; the empty nest; the halves of a broken egg-shell on
+the floor; and beside them a tiny round black lump with all sorts of
+queer little tags hanging on to it, which was staring back at the Witch
+with two frightened little pink eyes.
+
+"It's quite a new idea," said the Witch to herself. "A Memory-Saver! How
+thankful many people would be to get hold of one! But they don't know
+the way, and they won't ask me. They don't know how to hatch an imp to
+save your memory from a cock's egg. They even say that a cock never lays
+eggs. Such ignorance! Cocks always lay them at midnight and eat them
+before morning; and that's why no one has ever seen one. But if you are
+careful to sprinkle the cock with Witch-water three nights running, he
+will lay an egg he cannot eat; and if you bless the egg with the Witch's
+curse, and roast it three nights in the Witch's fire, when the moon is
+on the wane, it will hatch a Memory-Saver. But poor mortals don't know
+this, and that's why they're always worrying and 'taxing their
+memories,' as they call it, instead of hiring a nice little imp to save
+them the trouble. Come here, my dear!" she added, addressing the
+Memory-Saver.
+
+The little black lump rolled over and over until he reached her feet,
+then gave a jump and landed on two of the thickest of his tags, which
+supported him like two little legs. With two others he began to rub his
+little black self all over, while he shed little green tears from his
+little pink eyes.
+
+He was a queer little person, very like an egg in shape, with no
+features but a pair of little pink eyes near the top, and a wide slit
+which went about half-way round him and served him for a mouth. The
+Witch regarded him in silence; she knew that inside him was nothing but
+a number of little rooms, carefully partitioned off from one another,
+which could be emptied by pulling the tag attached to each outside.
+
+There was no sound in the hen-house but the frightened clucking of the
+hens, the gasping of the Black Cock in the corner, and the sobbing of
+the imp, which sounded like the squeaking of a slate-pencil on a slate.
+Presently the Witch patted the Memory-Saver on the head.
+
+"Don't cry, my dear," she said; "there's nothing to cry about! And don't
+look at that silly Black Cock in the corner. He isn't your Mother any
+longer. I'm your Mother now--at least, all the Mother you'll get, and I
+shall pinch you if you don't work. I'll just see if you are in good
+working order now."
+
+She lifted the imp in her hand as she spoke, and pulled one of the
+little tags hanging behind him. The Memory-Saver gave a gasp, and,
+opening his mouth to its widest extent, he began to repeat, rapidly:
+"J'ai--tu as--il a--nous avons--vous avez--ils ont."
+
+"Very good!" said the Witch, "the French string is in order. I'll try
+the poetry."
+
+She pulled another tag as she spoke.
+
+    Th'Assyrian camedownlike a wolfonthefold,
+    And--his cohorts were--gleaminglike purpleandgold;
+    And the--sheenoftheir--spears was like starsonthesea,
+    When the blue--wavesroll--nightly on deepGalilee
+
+panted the Memory-Saver.
+
+"A little jerky," said the Witch, doubling the strings round the imp and
+putting him in her pocket; "but it will work smoother in time. It's a
+splendid idea," she went on, as she buttoned her cloak and opened the
+door. "A Memory-Saver! Pull the string of the subject you want (the name
+is written on each tag), and the imp will tell you all about it. Read a
+set of lessons to him, and then pull the strings belonging to them, and
+he'll reel them all off word for word. How many children I know would
+like to get him to take to school in their pockets! There's little Miss
+Myra, who is always in trouble about her lessons; she would give all
+she's got for him. But I'll only part with him at my own price."
+
+The Witch had left the hen-house, and was trotting as fast as she could
+down a little woodland path. The poor little Memory-Saver was jogged
+this way and that among the rubbish in the Witch's pocket--queer stones,
+herbs, little dead toads, pounded spiders, and bats' wings. He would
+soon have been black with bruises if he had not been black by nature.
+But the worst pain he suffered was anxiety as to what would become of
+him. What was the Witch going to do with him? Why had she taken him away
+from the Black Cock, who at least was friendly if he did gasp and show
+the whites of his eyes? The imp cried again, and wondered how long he
+would have to stay in that choky pocket.
+
+He had not long to wait. That very afternoon the Witch saw Myra crying
+over her lessons at the window. She was kept in to learn them, and was
+feeling miserable and cross. No one was about, so the Witch crept up to
+the window, and told her all about the Memory-Saver, ending by producing
+him from her pocket. Oh! how glad he was to get out! He sat gasping with
+delight on the Witch's hand, while she explained his talents to someone.
+Who was it? The imp looked up and saw a little girl about ten years old,
+with an inky pinafore, and long, tumbled brown curls. She looked so much
+nicer than the Witch, that the Memory-Saver gazed up in her face with a
+forlorn little smile--or at least a smile that would have been "little"
+if his mouth had not been so wide.
+
+"What a queer little thing!" cried Myra. "I should like to have him,
+only--how _could_ he do all you say?"
+
+"Just listen," said the Witch, pulling a string.
+
+"William I., 1066--William II., 1087--Henry I., 1100--Stephen, 1135...."
+said the Memory-Saver, solemnly.
+
+Myra danced with delight.
+
+"Oh, he's splendid!" she cried. "He's just what I want. I never can
+remember dates. Oh, how much does he cost? I'm afraid I haven't enough
+money."
+
+"I'm sure you haven't," said the Witch. "I wouldn't part with him for
+untold gold."
+
+"Then it's no use," said Myra, sadly. "I haven't even got _told_ gold,
+only three shillings and twopence-ha'penny."
+
+"You've got something else that will do better," said the Witch,
+coaxingly. "Hasn't your brother a large collection of moths and
+butterflies?"
+
+"Yes," said Myra, looking rather puzzled; "but what has that to do with
+it?"
+
+"Show me the top drawer of his cabinet, dear," said the Witch.
+
+Myra walked to the cabinet, still wondering, drew out the top drawer,
+and took it to the window.
+
+[Illustration: "'WHAT A QUEER LITTLE THING!' CRIED MYRA."]
+
+The Witch looked up and down the long rows of moths, each with its wings
+outspread on a separate pin. At last she picked out a great
+death's-head, and looked at it lovingly. It was a beautiful specimen,
+just what she wanted for her latest potion, a wonderful mixture that
+would enable you to turn fifteen cart-wheels on a cobweb without
+breaking it. "I'll give you the Memory-Saver for this," she cried,
+eagerly.
+
+"Oh, but it isn't mine!" said Myra, hastily pulling back the drawer.
+
+"It's your brother's, dear," coaxed the Witch. "You know he would not
+mind."
+
+"He would," said Myra; "it's his best specimen; he told me so
+yesterday."
+
+"Well, it does him no good in the drawer," pleaded the Witch; "and the
+Memory-Saver would prevent your being scolded and punished for not
+knowing your lessons, as you are almost every day. Besides, you could
+easily save your pocket-money and buy him another moth."
+
+"They're so dear!" sighed Myra. "But grandma always gives me half a
+sovereign at Christmas. Well, if you like----"
+
+Myra always maintains that she never gave the Witch permission to take
+the moth; but, as she spoke, they both vanished, and Myra only saw the
+drawer with the big gap in its row of moths where the death's-head had
+been, and the Memory-Saver grinning ecstatically at her from the
+window-sill. Poor little fellow; he was _so_ glad to get away from the
+Witch's pocket.
+
+Myra's first thought was to move the pins of the other moths, so as to
+fill up the big gap.
+
+"Then perhaps he won't notice it's gone," she said to herself; "and, as
+the Witch said, it didn't do him any good in the drawer."
+
+Then she took up the little Memory-Saver and examined him curiously. He
+was a funny little creature--funnier than ever just now, for he was
+trying to express his joy at his change of mistresses, which produced a
+violent commotion in all his tags, and considerably enlarged his mouth.
+Myra couldn't help laughing, but as she was rather afraid of offending
+the Memory-Saver, she begged his pardon immediately, and made him a
+comfortable seat on some books on the table.
+
+"Now, Memory-Saver," she said, "I'm going to read my lessons aloud to
+you, as the Witch told me. Then you'll know them all, won't you?"
+
+The Memory-Saver nodded so emphatically, that he fell off the books.
+Myra picked him up, examined him anxiously to see if he were hurt, and,
+finding he was not, sat him down again.
+
+"I've got two lots of lessons to do," she said, mournfully, "yesterday's
+and to-day's. Could you do both at once, or would it strain you too
+much?"
+
+The Memory-Saver shook himself off his seat this time, in his eagerness
+to assure her he could do twenty lots if necessary. When he was once
+more settled comfortably, Myra began to read. The Memory-Saver sat
+contentedly absorbing French, and geography, and tables.
+
+"I wonder if you really know it all," said Myra, gravely, when she had
+finished. "No, don't nod any more, or you will fall off again. I'll just
+try one string." She took him up, found the one marked "Tables," and
+gave it a gentle tug.
+
+"Once nine is nine, twice nine are eighteen, three times nine are
+twenty-seven," said the Memory-Saver, glibly.
+
+"Stop! Stop! that will do!" cried Myra, delighted. "Don't use it all up
+before to-morrow."
+
+The next thing was to find somewhere to keep her new treasure--some
+place where no one could find him; for Myra felt certain that the stupid
+grown-up people would not approve of her imp, or see his usefulness as
+clearly as she did.
+
+"They always say, 'If at first you don't succeed, try, try again,' and
+'You must cultivate your memory,' when I tell them I can't remember my
+lessons," she said to herself. "They would take the Memory-Saver away
+from me if they found him. I must put it somewhere so that they _can't_
+find him."
+
+Such a place was not easy to find, but at last Myra fixed on the top of
+the wardrobe in her bedroom.
+
+"They only dust there at spring cleaning time," she said to herself,
+"and I can move him then."
+
+So she filled a box with cotton-wool, put the Memory-Saver in it, and
+placed it on top of the wardrobe.
+
+"Are you quite comfortable?" she asked; and the Memory-Saver almost
+nodded himself out of his box in his joy. It was Paradise after the
+Witch's pocket.
+
+"What a good thing he doesn't want anything to eat," thought Myra,
+noticing with satisfaction that the woodwork of the wardrobe quite hid
+him from anyone below. "The Witch said he feeds on the lessons. How
+horrible! _I_ shouldn't like French verbs for breakfast, and grammar for
+dinner. They can't be satisfying, but anyhow, they're easy to get. I
+always have more than I want."
+
+For some days the Memory-Saver was a great success. Myra put him
+carefully in her pocket before she went to school, and pulled the right
+string when she was called up to say her lessons. His voice was rather a
+sing-song, but that couldn't be helped. Miss Prisms, the schoolmistress,
+sent home to Myra's delighted mother a report that her little girl was
+making wonderful progress in everything but arithmetic and writing. In
+these, alas, the Memory-Saver could not help her. He could say tables,
+and weights and measures, but could not do sums in his head, for the
+simple reason that he had no head.
+
+At first he was very happy, for Myra took great care of him; but by
+degrees she grew careless. She found out he was quite as useful when
+treated roughly as when treated kindly, and as it was less trouble to
+treat him roughly, she did so.
+
+"Why can't you do mental arithmetic?" she asked him, severely, one day
+when she had got into trouble over her sums. "Aren't you ashamed to be
+so ignorant, you little imp?"
+
+The Memory-Saver waved his little tags in a wild attempt to explain that
+it was because he hadn't got a mind, only two little pink eyes, a big
+mouth, and a lot of little partitions inside him to keep the different
+kinds of knowledge apart. Unhappily the many bumps he had had lately had
+been very bad for his internal constitution, even if the bruises had not
+shown outside; the partitions were beginning to leak. All this he tried
+to explain by waving his little arms and legs. But Myra was
+unsympathetic and did not understand him. She scolded him heartily, and
+was not even melted by the little green tears that trickled from his
+little pink eyes into his big mouth. But she was to be punished for it.
+The poor little Memory-Saver had to remember all that was said to him
+whether he liked it or not, and so, when Myra pulled the geography
+string next morning in school, he began: "England is bounded on the
+north by Scotland.... why can't you do mental arithmetic?... on the
+south by the English Channel ... aren't you ashamed ... on the east by
+the German Ocean ... to be so ignorant ... and on the west by the Irish
+Sea ... you little imp ... and St. George's Channel."
+
+"Myra!" gasped Miss Prisms, and for at least two minutes could say no
+more.
+
+"I--I--didn't mean anything," stammered Myra, blushing crimson and ready
+to cry.
+
+"I should hope not," said Miss Prisms, severely. "You will learn double
+lessons for to-morrow, Myra."
+
+"It's all your fault!" said Myra, angrily, to the Memory-Saver, when she
+got home. "You must learn all the lessons for me, and then I'm going to
+slap you, do you hear? You horrid little thing!"
+
+[Illustration: "HER BROTHER WAS MAKING A 'RIDICULOUS FUSS.'"]
+
+The Memory-Saver heard well enough, and understood too. Myra was in a
+very bad temper. Her brother had discovered that his death's-head moth
+was missing, and was making what Myra called a "ridiculous fuss" about
+it. He had not asked her if she knew where it was, but she felt very
+uncomfortable all the same. She did not think he would have minded so
+much. Being uncomfortable, she was cross; and as she dared not be cross
+with Miss Prisms, she was cross with the Memory-Saver, and fulfilled her
+promise of slapping him when he had done the double lessons for her. She
+was too absorbed in her own trouble to notice that his box was half off
+the wardrobe top when she put him--not over-gently--into it; and the
+bump with which she landed on the floor as she got down from the chair
+on which she had been standing quite drowned the bump the box made, as
+it fell behind the wardrobe. The poor little Memory-Saver fell out with
+a crash, and lay half stunned, feebly waving his little tags. No one
+came to pick him up, so he lay there all through the long, dark night.
+He was cracked all over, and something very peculiar had happened to his
+interior. In fact, though he did not know it, all the partitions had at
+last given way, and the French, history, spelling, geography, and tables
+had run into one another, and were now all mixed in one great pulpy mass
+inside him. No wonder he felt uncomfortable!
+
+When Myra came for him in the morning she found out what had happened.
+She fished him out from behind the wardrobe with a good deal of
+difficulty, and looked at him in consternation. He was sticky all over
+with the tears he had shed, was very soft and limp, and, worst of all,
+was leaking the Wars of the Roses and the chief towns of France from
+more than one crack. However, Myra was late as it was; she had no time
+to examine him carefully. She put him in her pocket, and ran off to
+school. She put her hand in her pocket to feel if he were safe as soon
+as she got to her seat. He felt softer and stickier than ever. Would he
+be able to say the lessons? Myra felt doubtful, but as she did not
+remember a word of them herself, she was obliged to trust to him.
+Trembling she pulled the "Poetry" string, when Miss Prisms called on her
+for her lesson. The Memory-Saver gasped and began; each word hurt him
+very much to bring out, but as they came he began to feel strange and
+light, happier than he had ever felt before. This is what he said: "A
+chieftain to the Highlands bound--cries--the feminine of adjectives is
+formed by adding eleven times nine are Rouen, former capital of
+Normandy, and heir presumptive to the throne by his descent from the son
+of Edward III., eleven times twelve are le père, the father, la mère,
+the mother--Oh, I'm the chief of Ulva's isle, and this, Paris on the
+Seine...."
+
+"Myra, stop at once!" cried Miss Prisms, angrily; but Myra, or, rather,
+the Memory-Saver, could not stop. His internal partitions were gone, and
+whichever string was pulled, he was obliged to let out all that was
+inside him. So for ten dreadful minutes he went on, pouring out French,
+geography, history, and tables in one terrible mixture, while Myra
+wished she could sink through the floor, the girls tittered, and Miss
+Prisms' anger changed to anxiety. She began to fan Myra with an
+exercise-book, begged her to be quiet, and assured her she would be
+"better directly." At last, however, the Memory-Saver came to an end; he
+would have been much longer, but a great deal had leaked out of him in
+the night.
+
+[Illustration: "THE GIRLS TITTERED."]
+
+"Twelve twelves are a hundred and forty-four--Bayonne, at the mouth of
+the Adour, mounted the throne as Henry VII.," he concluded.
+
+Myra burst out crying. Miss Prisms made her take sal-volatile and lie on
+the sofa in her sitting-room. As soon as school was over, she took Myra
+home herself, and told her mother the little girl must be going to have
+brain-fever. The doctor was called in and shook his head, looking very
+wise, although he could find nothing at all the matter with Myra. "It is
+a curious case," he said; "let her stay away from school for a week, and
+send for me if another attack comes on."
+
+Myra was not sorry for the holiday; it gave her time to examine the
+Memory-Saver carefully. She ran through the garden to a little nook by
+the duck-pond, where no one could see her, before she dared take him out
+of her pocket and look at him! Poor little Memory-Saver! She could
+hardly recognise him as the round, plump, cheery little fellow who had
+first beamed at her from the window-sill. He was quite flat, for Myra
+had sat on him in her excitement; he was soft and pulpy; his little pink
+eyes had retreated and lost colour, and his great mouth opened and shut
+in gasps, like that of a fish out of water.
+
+Myra gazed at him horrified. What could she do to revive him? She turned
+him over and fanned him with a dock-leaf, but he only gasped. Then she
+tried the effect of a little geography, but the result was disastrous;
+as fast as it entered the poor little imp, it oozed out again all over
+him, and he turned almost green with pain.
+
+"Why are you tormenting my offspring?" said a sharp, angry voice at
+Myra's elbow. "Leave him alone, or give him to me; I'm hungry!"
+
+It was Myra's turn to gasp now; the Black Cock had never spoken to her
+before, and she did not even know he could talk. She looked at him more
+than half-frightened.
+
+"He--he isn't yours, he's mine," she stammered.
+
+"Yours, indeed!" crowed the Black Cock, indignantly, "when _I_ had all
+the trouble of laying him! Wasn't he hatched from one of my eggs at
+midnight, and stolen by the Witch?"
+
+"I didn't know he was," said Myra.
+
+"Well, now you do!" retorted the Cock, "Give him up! Didn't I tell you I
+was hungry?"
+
+"But you wouldn't eat your own child?" cried Myra, aghast.
+
+"Child or not," said the Black Cock, "no kind of beetles come amiss to
+me."
+
+"He isn't a beetle, he's a Memory-Saver," said Myra. The Black Cock
+laughed, and Myra shrank back; she had never heard a Black Cock laugh
+before, and felt she would not be sorry to never hear it again; it was
+not a pleasant sound.
+
+"I don't know anything about Memories," said the Black Cock; "but look
+at him, and then tell me he's not a beetle!"
+
+Myra looked anxiously. Certainly something very curious was happening to
+the Memory-Saver: his little tags had arranged themselves in rows
+underneath him; he was growing longer, he was very like a beetle. _He
+was a beetle!_
+
+Myra, who could not bear beetles, rose with a scream and threw him out
+of her lap on to the mud. The Black Cock rushed at him as he scuttled
+towards the water, but Myra drove him back, and allowed the Memory-Saver
+time to reach the pond. She gave a little sigh of relief as he
+disappeared, while the Black Cock gave an angry crow, turned his back on
+Myra, and stalked back to the poultry yard. He never spoke to her again,
+but whether it was because he was too offended, or for other reasons,
+Myra never knew.
+
+"After all," she thought, as she went home, "I'm glad he turned into a
+water-beetle. It must be much more comfortable than always being full of
+lessons. I suppose he'll live on mud now. I hope he'll be happy. He was
+a good little fellow, and I wish I'd been kinder to him. How interested
+they will all be at home when I tell them about him!"
+
+[Illustration: "SHE THREW HIM OUT OF THE HER LAP."]
+
+But they were not. They said she must be going to have brain-fever, and
+sent for the doctor again. The only part of her story they believed was
+that she had taken her brother's moth from the cabinet, and this they
+said was naughty, and she must save up her pocket-money and buy another.
+
+"I'll never, _never_ tell a grown-up person anything again!" thought
+Myra.
+
+As for the Memory-Saver, at the bottom of the pond he met a pretty young
+lady water-beetle, and asked her to marry him at once, which she did. He
+raised a large family, and lived very happily ever after. None of the
+ducks dare touch him for fear of the Witch, so that he found life much
+more pleasant than when he was a Memory-Saver. Myra often walked round
+the pond, looking for him, but she never saw either him or the old Witch
+again.
+
+
+
+
+_Curiosities._[A]
+
+[_We shall be glad to receive Contributions to this section, and to pay
+for such as are accepted._]
+
+  [A] Copyright, 1899, by George Newnes, Limited.
+
+
+A MAMMOTH SHIRT.
+
+The immense shirt seen in the illustration below was constructed for a
+shirtmaker at Sioux City, Iowa. It was mounted on a bicycle and figured
+in the parades of the Carnival Festival in October of last year. The
+yoke measured 5ft. 2in. from shoulder to shoulder, waist 21ft. 3in.,
+height 8ft., and collar size 57in. and 12in. high. Twenty-five yards of
+muslin were used in making it, and the ironing of the bosom was no small
+job, taking an expert 2-1/4 hours. Our photograph was taken on "Bicycle
+Day." Previously, on "Industrial Day," it had taken first prize as the
+most novel exhibit. On that day the bicycle riders were not in evidence,
+nor was the man in the collar, the shirt gliding gracefully along the
+street without apparent motive power. The photograph was sent in by Mr.
+E. Davis, Sioux City, Iowa, U.S.A.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+ENTERPRISE EXTRAORDINARY--AND ITS RESULT.
+
+In the spring of each year the enterprising firm of Cartwright and
+Headington, of Portland, Ind., U.S.A., present their customers with
+pumpkin seed, offering substantial prizes for the heaviest pumpkin grown
+from their seed. The specimen seen in our photo., which was sent in by
+Mr. Clyde S. Whipple, of the Auditorium, Portland, is the prize-winner
+out of 140 competitors. It weighs 153lb., and is 7ft. in circumference.
+The little boy inside is four years old.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+ANOTHER TRADE TROPHY.
+
+This charming model of Conway Castle and Bridge is made entirely from
+tobacco and cigarettes, and is the work of Mr. John H. Harrison, of 247,
+West Derby Road, Liverpool. Mr. Harrison writes as follows: "The length
+of the model, which I am exhibiting in my window, is 8-1/2ft.; depth,
+2-1/2ft.; height, from surface of water to top of towers, 3ft. The real
+genuine article is used for the water, in which gold-fish disport
+themselves, although for the purposes of the photo, we substituted
+mirrors. This model has been a great source of attraction."
+
+[Illustration: _From a Photo. by Hickin & Slater, Liverpool._]
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+FOR THE USE OF CHORISTERS.
+
+Here we see a gigantic "singing trumpet," which is preserved in East
+Leake Parish Church, Northamptonshire. Only four or five specimens of
+these trumpets are now in existence. They appear to have been used in
+some of the Midland Counties until a generation or so ago, and were
+patronized by bass singers only. The effect of singing through the
+trumpet was to give great depth and power to the voice. The large end
+rested on the front of the gallery, while the other was held in the
+hand. When drawn out to its full extent (it has one slide, like a
+telescope), the trumpet measures 7ft. 6in., and its mouth is 1ft. 9in.
+in diameter. Truly, a fearsome instrument! Photo. sent in by Mr. Philip
+E. Mellard, M.B., Costock Rectory, Loughborough.
+
+
+NOAH'S ARK.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+This quaint sculptured stone is now included with many other fragments,
+evidently of some church, in a wall in Appleby, Westmorland. At first
+one wonders how the dove--who has unfortunately lost her head--ever
+managed to leave the ark either by the window or by the magnificent
+iron-plated door, but this wonder gives place to amazement when one
+notices the size of the patriarch's hand (seen through the window), and
+commences to speculate on how he, his children, and the animals find
+accommodation for their grand proportions in this small boat; the
+problem of packing them would tax the ingenuity of a sardine-merchant.
+Photo. sent in by Mr. A. S. Reid, Trinity College, Glenalmond.
+
+
+FACES IN A MAPLE KNOT.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+At first sight this photo. looks like an ancient gargoyle off some
+church tower, but it is in reality nothing more or less than a knot of
+maple, found near Mausaukee, Wis., U.S.A., by a man of that town. The
+finder positively asserts that no knife has been used to produce the
+faces. You will notice that the mouth of the upper face is even equipped
+with teeth. We are indebted for the photo. to Mr. T. R. Bowring,
+photographer, of De Pere, Wisconsin.
+
+
+AN EARLY PHOTO. OF GENERAL GORDON.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The accompanying photo has a melancholy interest. It represents General
+Gordon as a Captain in the Royal Engineers, and was taken in 1858 or
+'59. Our photo. was taken from a scrap-book, which formerly belonged to
+the late Mr. James Payn. We are indebted to Mr. H. Powell, 1, Swinton
+Street, King's Cross, W.C., for forwarding the photo.
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+THE DEVIL'S SPOUT.
+
+Some months ago we reproduced a photo. of the "Puffing Hole" of Kilkee,
+Ireland. Here we have a view of a similar phenomenon situated on the
+coast of Durham, between South Shields and Marsden. At certain times of
+the tide, and during stormy weather, the water rushes into a cave by an
+opening at the sea level. This water, together with an enormous quantity
+of imprisoned air, spouts out of a small hole at the apex of the cavern
+to an immense height, and, if the sun happens to be shining, a beautiful
+rainbow is formed. Local tradition, of course, assigns the authorship of
+this phenomenon to his Satanic Majesty, the hole being known as the
+"Devil's Spout." Photo. sent in by Mr. H. Eltringham, Eastgarth, Westoe,
+S. Shields.
+
+
+A PHONOGRAPHIC POST-CARD.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Addressing communications to the post just for the pleasure of seeing
+whether the hard-worked authorities will be equal to deciphering them is
+perhaps not very considerate, but the officials are so very rarely found
+at fault that the laugh is almost always on their side. This
+phonographic post-card was delivered at the house of Mr. E. H. King, of
+Belle View House, Richmond, Surrey, who sent us the card within an hour
+and a half after he had posted it to himself locally.
+
+
+A PERAMBULATING TOWER.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The gentleman seen in this excellent little snap-shot is a Covent Garden
+porter, and he is carrying the fourteen bushel baskets seen in our
+photo. in the execution of his ordinary duties. The baskets make a
+column of some 196in., or 16ft. 4in. Add 5ft. 10in. as the height of the
+carrier, and you get a walking column 22ft. 2in. high. The carrying of
+these baskets was not done for a wager. There is room for speculation as
+to what would have been the result of the sudden advent of a runaway
+horse. Photo. by Mr. W. B. Northrop, 36, Essex Street, Strand, W.C.
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+A PAPER TELESCOPE.
+
+This is probably the largest paper telescope in Great Britain. The body
+of the instrument is entirely covered with thick brown paper, its length
+being 25ft., and the object glass 12in. in diameter. With this
+apparatus, the mountains on the surface of the moon appear with great
+clearness. The group represents a family studying astronomy. The girl
+standing by the side of the gentleman looking through the telescope
+holds a Nautical Almanac in her hand, and is aiding the observers with
+details from its valuable records.
+
+
+LITERARY WASPS.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Says the Rev. W. R. Thomas, of The Beeches, Ozmaston, Haverfordwest, who
+forwarded the annexed photo.: "A number of books were put away in a box
+in an attic, and forgotten. When the dog-days came, with their sultry
+heat, the windows of the attic were kept wide open, with the result that
+a swarm of wasps took possession of the box and built their combs out of
+the books, boring right through many of the stout covers. The difficulty
+of rescuing the remains of the books, and dislodging the wasps, was
+considerable, and involved many painful stings." Our photo. shows the
+combs after prolonged immersion in water, together with some pieces of
+the books.
+
+
+THE CATS' COTTAGE.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The luxurious little mansion seen in the accompanying reproduction is
+built of bricks cut to about one-fourth of their usual size, and the
+windows are of glasses fitted into wooden frames in the usual manner.
+There are four rooms--each with plastered walls and carpeted floor--and
+a "practicable" stair-case leads to the first and second floors. The
+house was built by Stanley Barlow, a son of the Moravian minister of
+Leominster, as a residence for his two cats, who have lived in it for
+more than a year, making good use of all the arrangements for their
+comfort, and apparently quite proud of their unique little domicile. The
+building is 4ft. 5in. high, and 4ft. broad, and boasts the name of
+"Tunnicliffe Villa," the owner being an enthusiastic admirer of the
+Yorkshire batsman. Photo. sent in by Mr. Alf. Death, of Fern Cottage,
+Leominster.
+
+
+[Illustration: _From a Photo. by W. Girling, Stradbroke._]
+
+REMARKABLE WHEAT STACK.
+
+The stack shown in the accompanying illustration has been standing upon
+a farm at Stradbroke, in Suffolk, for over twenty-one years, and is
+probably the oldest in England. It is the produce of a field of wheat
+grown in 1877, when prices ruled somewhat high, and the owner declared
+that he would not sell it for less than 30s. per coomb. As the market
+value has never risen to this figure he has rigorously kept to his word,
+and the stack remains unthrashed to this day. Externally, it presents
+quite an antique appearance, and a glance at our illustration will show
+what havoc the rats have made; and every few years, when the stack is
+re-thatched, the blackened straw contrasts strangely with its new roof.
+Photo. sent in by Mr. E. Bond, The Rookery, Eye, Suffolk.
+
+
+A RUNAWAY COAL-TRUCK.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The car seen peering out of a breach in the wall of the building in our
+photo. was loaded with twenty tons of coal, and belonged to the Orange
+Electric Light and Power Co., of New Jersey. It was given a push by its
+engine about a quarter of a mile from the incline, which rises steeply
+from the ground to the first floor of the building seen in our
+illustration. Apparently the push was too hard, for the truck went away
+at a tremendous pace, which the brakesman was powerless to moderate,
+sailed up the incline like a bird, and was brought to a standstill by
+the brick wall, out of which it "butted" a huge fragment. Photo. sent in
+by Mr. W. H. Wagner, 105, Watchung Avenue, West Orange, N.J.
+
+
+MARKINGS ON THE MUZZLE OF A GUN.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+This photo. shows the muzzle of a 12-inch gun. The curious markings are
+always to be observed, to a greater or less extent, upon firing any gun;
+they are probably caused by the escape of the gases past the
+"driving-band" at the moment it leaves the muzzle. The "driving-band" is
+the brass ring on the base of the projectile, which cuts its way through
+the rifling of the gun, giving the shot the necessary rotary movement.
+The regularity of each spurt of gas is very singular. We are indebted
+for the snap-shot to an officer in H. M. Navy.
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"THE SPITE HOUSE."
+
+This odd building stands on the corner of 161st Street and Melrose
+Avenue, New York City. It is a bit over 4ft. in depth, 17ft. frontage,
+and one and a-half storeys high, with a basement and sub-basement built
+under the broad sidewalk, extending to the curb. The house itself is of
+wood, on a steel frame, and has a slate roof. Its owner is an eccentric
+tailor, who lives and carries on his trade below the street. The
+interior consists of a small show-room, a store-room, and spiral iron
+stairway going down to the "lower regions." The upper storey seems to
+have been constructed merely as a finishing touch. It is reached by an
+iron ladder from the store-room. The entire construction, appointments,
+and fittings are very ingenious, and are all the ideas of the owner. The
+story of the house is that the original lot was cut away in opening the
+avenue, save only the few feet now occupied by the building. A
+controversy arose between the tailor and the owner of the adjoining
+property regarding the disposal of the small strip, and the tailor
+becoming enraged because his neighbour would neither sell his property
+nor pay the price the knight of the shears demanded, built this odd
+structure out of spite. The photo. was taken just at the completion of
+the building, and before the street had been fully paved. It shows,
+however, the dimensions of the building, and also the construction under
+the street, etc. Photo. sent in by Mr. W. R. Yard, 156, Fifth Avenue,
+New York City.
+
+
+AN EGG WITH A BOOT-LACE YOLK.
+
+[Illustration: _From a Photo. by Richards & Co., Ballarat._]
+
+We have heard much of the vagaries of the breakfast egg of commerce, but
+the egg which contained the extraordinary yolk seen in the annexed
+photo, must assuredly have been quite out of the common run. We will let
+Dr. James T. Mitchell, of 15, Raglan Street, South Ballarat, Victoria,
+who sent us the photo., tell the story. "The photo.," he says, "shows
+the yolk of a pullet's egg, which was boiled for breakfast in the usual
+way. When opened, however, the yolk was found to be in the form of a
+cord 45in. long and 1/8in. wide. It was irregularly coiled up, twisted
+many times, and had a knot firmly tied in the middle. Altogether, it was
+very much like a long bootlace of a deep yellow colour." The original is
+now in the Museum of the University of Melbourne.
+
+
+A CANDIDATE FOR APOPLEXY.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Here is an amusing snap-shot of a boy hanging head downwards from the
+roof of a summer-house. From the expression of delirious joy on his
+face, it is evident that the young gentleman finds it difficult to
+maintain his position. We are indebted for the snap-shot to Mrs. R. A.
+Hayes, 82, Merrion Square South, Dublin.
+
+
+  Transcriber's note:
+
+  _Underscores_ have been used to indicate _italic_ fonts.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Strand Magazine, Volume XVII,
+February 1899, No. 98., by Various
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 41793 ***