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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Face And The Mask, by Robert Barr
+
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+Title: The Face And The Mask
+
+Author: Robert Barr
+
+Release Date: August, 2005  [EBook #8681]
+[This file was first posted on July 31, 2003]
+
+Edition: 10
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, THE FACE AND THE MASK ***
+
+
+
+
+E-text prepared by Lee Dawei, Michelle Shephard, David Moynihan, Charles
+Franks, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
+
+
+
+The Face and the Mask
+
+BY ROBERT BARR
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: "THE GIRL KISSED THE TIPS OF HER FINGERS."]
+
+
+
+
+THE HON. WILLIAM E. QUINBY
+
+(_United States Minister to the Netherlands_)
+
+HAS HELPED SO MANY UNKNOWN LITERARY ASPIRANTS THAT HE CAN
+HARDLY HAVE HOPED TO ESCAPE THE DEDICATION TO HIM OF A BOOK BY AT LEAST
+ONE OF THEM
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+CHAP.
+    I.  THE WOMAN OF STONE
+   II.  THE CHEMISTRY OF ANARCHY
+  III.  THE FEAR OF IT
+   IV.  THE METAMORPHOSES OF JOHNSON
+    V.  THE RECLAMATION OF JOE HOLLENDS
+   VI.  THE TYPE-WRITTEN LETTER
+  VII.  THE DOOM OF LONDON
+ VIII.  THE PREDICAMENT OF DE PLONVILLE
+   IX.  A NEW EXPLOSIVE
+    X.  THE GREAT PEGRAM MYSTERY
+   XI.  DEATH COMETH SOON OR LATE
+  XII.  HIGH STAKES
+ XIII.  "WHERE IGNORANCE IS BLISS"
+  XIV.  THE DEPARTURE OF CUB MCLEAN
+   XV.  OLD NUMBER EIGHTY-SIX
+  XVI.  PLAYING WITH MARKED CARDS
+ XVII.  THE BRUISER'S COURTSHIP
+XVIII.  THE RAID ON MELLISH
+  XIX.  STRIKING BACK
+   XX.  CRANDALL'S CHOICE
+  XXI.  THE FAILURE OF BRADLEY
+ XXII.  RINGAMY'S CONVERT
+XXIII.  A SLIPPERY CUSTOMER
+ XXIV.  THE SIXTH BENCH
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+_The Personal Conductor:_ "It is a statue of no importance
+whatever."
+
+_The Personally Conducted:_ "Yes, but what does it mean?"
+
+_The Personal Conductor:_ "I don't suppose it means anything in
+particular. It is not by any well-known artist and the guidebooks say
+nothing about it."
+
+_The Personally Conducted:_ "Perhaps the sculptor intended to
+typify life; the tragic face representing one side of existence and the
+comic mask another."
+
+_The Personal Conductor:_ "Very likely. This way to the Louvre, if
+you please."
+
+
+
+
+THE WOMAN OF STONE.
+
+
+Lurine, was pretty, _petite_, and eighteen. She had a nice
+situation at the Pharmacie de Siam, in the Rue St. Honoré. She had no
+one dependent upon her, and all the money she earned was her own. Her
+dress was of cheap material perhaps, but it was cut and fitted with
+that daintiness of perfection which seems to be the natural gift of the
+Parisienne, so that one never thought of the cheapness, but admired
+only the effect, which was charming. She was book-keeper and general
+assistant at the Pharmacie, and had a little room of her own across the
+Seine, in the Rue de Lille. She crossed the river twice every day--once
+in the morning when the sun was shining, and again at night when the
+radiant lights along the river's bank glittered like jewels in a long
+necklace. She had her little walk through the Gardens of the Tuileries
+every morning after crossing the Pont Royal, but she did not return
+through the gardens in the evening, for a park in the morning is a
+different thing to a park at night. On her return she always walked
+along the Rue de Tuileries until she came to the bridge. Her morning
+ramble through the gardens was a daily delight to her, for the Rue de
+Lille is narrow, and not particularly bright, so it was pleasant to
+walk beneath the green trees, to feel the crisp gravel under her feet,
+and to see the gleaming white statues in the sunlight, with the sparkle
+on the round fountain pond, by the side of which she sometimes sat. Her
+favorite statue was one of a woman that stood on a pedestal near the
+Rue de Rivoli. The arm was thrown over her head, and there was a smile
+on the marble face which was inscrutable. It fascinated the girl as she
+looked up to it, and seemed to be the morning greeting to her busy
+day's work in the city. If no one was in sight, which was often the
+case at eight o'clock in the morning, the girl kissed the tips of her
+fingers, and tossed the salute airily up to the statue, and the woman
+of stone always smiled back at her the strange mystical smile which
+seemed to indicate that it knew much more of this world and its ways
+than did the little Parisienne who daily gazed up at her.
+
+Lurine was happy, as a matter of course, for was not Paris always
+beautiful? Did not the sun shine brightly? And was not the air always
+clear? What more, then, could a young girl wish? There was one thing
+which was perhaps lacking, but that at last was supplied; and then
+there was not a happier girl in all Paris than Lurine. She almost cried
+it aloud to her favorite statue the next morning, for it seemed to her
+that the smile had broadened since she had passed it the morning
+before, and she felt as if the woman of stone had guessed the secret of
+the woman of flesh.
+
+Lurine had noticed him for several days hovering about the Pharmacie,
+and looking in at her now and then; she saw it all, but pretended not
+to see. He was a handsome young fellow with curly hair, and hands long,
+slender, and white as if he were not accustomed to doing hard, manual
+labor. One night he followed her as far as the bridge, but she walked
+rapidly on, and he did not overtake her. He never entered the
+Pharmacie, but lingered about as if waiting for a chance to speak with
+her. Lurine had no one to confide in but the woman of stone, and it
+seemed by her smile that she understood already, and there was no need
+to tell her, that the inevitable young man had come. The next night he
+followed her quite across the bridge, and this time Lurine did not walk
+so quickly. Girls in her position are not supposed to have normal
+introductions to their lovers, and are generally dependent upon a
+haphazard acquaintance, although that Lurine did not know. The young
+man spoke to her on the bridge, raising his hat from his black head as
+he did so.
+
+"Good evening!" was all he said to her.
+
+She glanced sideways shyly at him, but did not answer, and the young
+man walked on beside her.
+
+"You come this way every night," he said. "I have been watching you.
+Are you offended?"
+
+"No," she answered, almost in a whisper.
+
+"Then may I walk with you to your home?" he asked.
+
+"You may walk with me as far as the corner of the Rue de Lille," she
+replied.
+
+"Thank you!" said the young fellow, and together they walked the short
+distance, and there he bade her good night, after asking permission to
+meet her at the corner of the Rue St. Honoré, and walk home with her,
+the next night.
+
+"You must not come to the shop," she said.
+
+"I understand," he replied, nodding his head in assent to her wishes.
+He told her his name was Jean Duret, and by-and-by she called him Jean,
+and he called her Lurine. He never haunted the Pharmacie now, but
+waited for her at the corner, and one Sunday he took her for a little
+excursion on the river, which she enjoyed exceedingly. Thus time went
+on, and Lurine was very happy. The statue smiled its enigmatical smile,
+though, when the sky was overcast, there seemed to her a subtle warning
+in the smile. Perhaps it was because they had quarrelled the night
+before. Jean had seemed to her harsh and unforgiving. He had asked her
+if she could not bring him some things from the Pharmacie, and gave her
+a list of three chemicals, the names of which he had written on a
+paper.
+
+"You can easily get them," he had said; "they are in every Pharmacie,
+and will never be missed."
+
+"But," said the girl in horror, "that would be stealing."
+
+The young man laughed.
+
+"How much do they pay you there?" he asked. And when she told him, he
+laughed again and said,
+
+"Why, bless you, if I got so little as that I would take something from
+the shelves every day and sell it."
+
+The girl looked at him in amazement, and he, angry at her, turned upon
+his heel and left her. She leaned her arms upon the parapet of the
+bridge, and looked down into the dark water. The river always
+fascinated her at night, and she often paused to look at it when
+crossing the bridge, shuddering as she did so. She cried a little as
+she thought of his abrupt departure, and wondered if she had been too
+harsh with him. After all, it was not very much he had asked her to do,
+and they did pay her so little at the Pharmacie. And then perhaps her
+lover was poor, and needed the articles he had asked her to get.
+Perhaps he was ill, and had said nothing. There was a touch on her
+shoulder. She looked round. Jean was standing beside her, but the frown
+had not yet disappeared from his brow.
+
+"Give me that paper," he said, abruptly.
+
+She unclosed her hand, and he picked the paper from it, and was turning
+away.
+
+"Stop!" she said, "I will get you what you want, but I will myself put
+the money in the till for what they cost."
+
+He stood there, looking at her for a moment, and then said--"Lurine, I
+think you are a little fool. They owe you ever so much more than that.
+However, I must have the things," and he gave her back the paper with
+the caution--"Be sure you let no one see that, and be very certain that
+you get the right things." He walked with her as far as the corner of
+the Rue de Lille. "You are not angry with me?" he asked her before they
+parted.
+
+"I would do anything for you," she whispered, and then he kissed her
+good night.
+
+She got the chemicals when the proprietor was out, and tied them up
+neatly, as was her habit, afterwards concealing them in the little
+basket in which she carried her lunch. The proprietor was a sharp-eyed
+old lynx, who looked well after his shop and his pretty little
+assistant.
+
+"Who has been getting so much chlorate of potash?" he asked, taking
+down the jar, and looking sharply at her.
+
+The girl trembled.
+
+"It is all right," she said. "Here is the money in the till."
+
+"Of course," he said. "I did not expect you to give it away for
+nothing. Who bought it?"
+
+"An old man," replied the girl, trembling still, but the proprietor did
+not notice that--he was counting the money, and found it right.
+
+"I was wondering what he wanted with so much of it. If he comes in
+again look sharply at him, and be able to describe him to me. It seems
+suspicious." Why it seemed suspicious Lurine did not know, but she
+passed an anxious time until she took the basket in her hand and went
+to meet her lover at the corner of the Rue des Pyramides. His first
+question was--
+
+"Have you brought me the things?"
+
+"Yes," she answered. "Will you take them here, now?"
+
+"Not here, not here," he replied hurriedly, and then asked anxiously,
+"Did anyone see you take them?"
+
+"No, but the proprietor knows of the large package, for he counted the
+money."
+
+"What money?" asked Jean.
+
+"Why, the money for the things. You didn't think I was going to steal
+them, did you?"
+
+The young man laughed, and drew her into a quiet corner of the Gardens
+of the Tuileries.
+
+"I will not have time to go with you to the Rue de Lille to-night," he
+said.
+
+"But you will come as usual to-morrow night?" she asked, anxiously.
+
+"Certainly, certainly." he replied, as he rapidly concealed the
+packages in his pockets.
+
+The next night the girl waited patiently for her lover at the corner
+where they were in the habit of meeting, but he did not come. She stood
+under the glaring light of a lamp-post so that he would recognize her
+at once. Many people accosted her as she stood there, but she answered
+none, looking straight before her with clear honest eyes, and they
+passed on after a moment's hesitation. At last she saw a man running
+rapidly down the street, and as he passed a brilliantly-lighted window
+she recognized Jean. He came quickly towards her.
+
+"Here I am," she cried, running forward. She caught him by the arm,
+saying, "Oh, Jean, what is the matter?"
+
+He shook her rudely, and shouted at her--"Let me go, you fool!" But she
+clung to him, until he raised his fist and struck her squarely in the
+face. Lurine staggered against the wall, and Jean ran on. A stalwart
+man who had spoken to Lurine a few moments before, and, not
+understanding her silence, stood in a doorway near watching her, sprang
+out when he saw the assault, and thrust his stick between the feet of
+the flying man, flinging him face forward on the pavement. The next
+instant he placed his foot upon Jean's neck holding him down as if he
+were a snake.
+
+"You villain!" he cried. "Strike a woman, would you?"
+
+Jean lay there as if stunned, and two gens d'armes came pantingly upon
+the scene.
+
+"This scoundrel," said the man, "has just assaulted a woman. I saw
+him."
+
+"He has done more than that," said one of the officers, grimly, as if,
+after all, the striking of a woman was but a trivial affair.
+
+They secured the young man, and dragged him with them. The girl came up
+to them and said, falteringly--
+
+"It is all a mistake, it was an accident. He didn't mean to do it."
+
+"Oh, he didn't, and pray how do you know?" asked one of the officers.
+
+"You little devil," said Jean to the girl, through his clinched teeth,
+"it's all your fault."
+
+The officers hurried him off.
+
+"I think," said one, "that we should have arrested the girl; you heard
+what she said."
+
+"Yes," said the other, "but we have enough on our hands now, if the
+crowd find out who he is."
+
+Lurine thought of following them, but she was so stunned by the words
+that her lover had said to her, rather than by the blow he had given
+her that she turned her steps sadly towards the Pont Royal and went to
+her room.
+
+The next morning she did not go through the gardens, as usual, to her
+work, and when she entered the Pharmacie de Siam, the proprietor cried
+out, "Here she is, the vixen! Who would have thought it of her? You
+wretch, you stole my drugs to give to that villain!"
+
+"I did not," said Lurine, stoutly. "I put the money in the till for
+them."
+
+"Hear her! She confesses!" said the proprietor.
+
+The two concealed officers stepped forward and arrested her where she
+stood as the accomplice of Jean Duret, who, the night before, had flung
+a bomb in the crowded Avenue de l'Opéra.
+
+Even the prejudiced French judges soon saw that the girl was innocent
+of all evil intent, and was but the victim of the scoundrel who passed
+by the name of Jean Duret. He was sentenced for life; she was set free.
+He had tried to place the blame on her, like the craven he was, to
+shield another woman. This was what cut Lurine to the heart. She might
+have tried to find an excuse for his crime, but she realized that he
+had never cared for her, and had but used her as his tool to get
+possession of the chemicals he dared not buy.
+
+In the drizzling rain she walked away from her prison, penniless, and
+broken in body and in spirit. She passed the little Pharmacie de Siam,
+not daring to enter. She walked in the rain along the Rue des
+Pyramides, and across the Rue de Rivoli, and into the Tuileries
+Gardens. She had forgotten about her stone woman, but, unconsciously
+her steps were directed to her. She looked up at her statue with
+amazement, at first not recognizing it. It was no longer the statue of
+a smiling woman. The head was thrown back, the eyes closed. The last
+mortal agony was on the face. It was a ghastly monument to Death. The
+girl was so perplexed by the change in her statue that for the moment
+she forgot the ruin of her own life. She saw that the smiling face was
+but a mask, held in place by the curving of the left arm over it. Life,
+she realized now, was made up of tragedy and comedy, and he who sees
+but the smiling face, sees but the half of life. The girl hurried on to
+the bridge, sobbing quietly to herself, and looked down at the grey
+river water. The passers-by paid no attention to her. Why, she
+wondered, had she ever thought the river cold and cruel and merciless?
+It is the only home of the homeless, the only lover that does not
+change. She turned back to the top of the flight of steps which lead
+down, to the water's brink. She looked toward the Tuileries Gardens,
+But she could not see her statue for the trees which intervened. "I,
+too, will be a woman of stone," she said, as she swiftly descended the
+steps.
+
+
+
+
+THE CHEMISTRY OF ANARCHY.
+
+
+It has been said in the London papers that the dissolution of the Soho
+Anarchist League was caused by want of funds. This is very far from
+being the case. An Anarchist League has no need for funds and so long
+as there is money enough to buy beer the League is sure of continued
+existence. The truth about the scattering of the Soho organization was
+told me by a young newspaper-man who was chairman at the last meeting.
+
+The young man was not an anarchist, though he had to pretend to be one
+in the interests of his paper, and so joined the Soho League, where he
+made some fiery speeches that were much applauded. At last Anarchist
+news became a drug in the market, and the editor of the paper young
+Marshall Simkins belonged to, told him that he would now have to turn
+his attention to Parliamentary work, as he would print no more
+Anarchist news in the sheet.
+
+One might think that young Simkins would have been glad to get rid of
+his anarchist work, as he had no love for the cause. He was glad to get
+rid of it, but he found some difficulty in sending in his resignation.
+The moment he spoke of resigning, the members became suspicious of him.
+He had always been rather better dressed than the others, and, besides,
+he drank less beer. If a man wishes to be in good standing in the
+League he must not be fastidious as to dress, and he must be
+constructed to hold at least a gallon of beer at a sitting. Simkins was
+merely a "quart" man, and this would have told against him all along if
+it had not been for the extra gunpowder he put in his speeches. On
+several occasions seasoned Anarchists had gathered about him and begged
+him to give up his designs on the Parliament buildings.
+
+The older heads claimed that, desirable as was the obliteration of the
+Houses of Parliament, the time was not yet ripe for it. England, they
+pointed out, was the only place where Anarchists could live and talk
+unmolested, so, while they were quite anxious that Simkins should go
+and blow up Vienna, Berlin, or Paris, they were not willing for him to
+begin on London. Simkins was usually calmed down with much difficulty,
+and finally, after hissing "Cowards!" two or three times under his
+breath, he concluded with, "Oh, very well, then, you know better than I
+do--I am only a young recruit; but allow me at least to blow up
+Waterloo Bridge, or spring a bomb in Fleet Street just to show that we
+are up and doing."
+
+But this the Anarchists would not sanction. If he wanted to blow up
+bridges, he could try his hand on those across the Seine. They had
+given their word that there would be no explosions in London so long as
+England afforded them an asylum.
+
+"But look at Trafalgar Square," cried Simkins angrily; "we are not
+allowed to meet there."
+
+"Who wants to meet there?" said the chairman. "It is ever so much more
+comfortable in these rooms, and there is no beer in Trafalgar Square."
+"Yes, yes," put in several others; "the time is not yet ripe for it."
+Thus was Simkins calmed down, and beer allowed to flow again in
+tranquillity, while some foreign Anarchist, who was not allowed to set
+foot in his native country, would get up and harangue the crowd in
+broken English and tell them what great things would yet be done by
+dynamite.
+
+But when Simkins sent in his resignation a change came over their
+feelings towards him, and he saw at once that he was a marked man. The
+chairman, in a whisper, advised him to withdraw his resignation. So
+Simkins, who was a shrewd young fellow, understanding the temper of the
+assembly, arose and said:--
+
+"I have no desire to resign, but you do nothing except talk, and I want
+to belong to an Anarchist Society that acts." He stayed away from the
+next meeting, and tried to drop them in that way, but a committee from
+the League called upon him at his lodgings, and his landlady thought
+that young Simkins had got into bad ways when he had such evil-looking
+men visiting him.
+
+Simkins was in a dilemma, and could not make up his mind what to do.
+The Anarchists apparently were not to be shaken off. He applied to his
+editor for advice on the situation, but that good man could think of no
+way out of the trouble.
+
+"You ought to have known better," he said, "than to mix up with such
+people."
+
+"But how was I to get the news?" asked Simkins, with some indignation.
+The editor shrugged his shoulders. That was not his part of the
+business; and if the Anarchists chose to make things uncomfortable for
+the young man, he could not help it.
+
+Simkins' fellow-lodger, a student who was studying chemistry in London,
+noticed that the reporter was becoming gaunt with anxiety.
+
+"Simkins," said Sedlitz to him one morning, "you are haggard and
+careworn: what is the matter with you? Are you in love, or is it merely
+debt that is bothering you?"
+
+"Neither," replied Simkins.
+
+"Then cheer up," said Sedlitz. "If one or the other is not interfering
+with you, anything else is easily remedied."
+
+"I am not so sure of that," rejoined Simkins; and then he sat down and
+told his friend just what was troubling him.
+
+"Ah," said Sedlitz, "that accounts for it. There has been an unkempt
+ruffian marching up and down watching this house. They are on your
+track, Simkins, my boy, and when they discover that you are a reporter,
+and therefore necessarily a traitor, you will be nabbed some dark
+night."
+
+"Well, that's encouraging," said Simkins, with his head in his hands.
+
+"Are these Anarchists brave men, and would they risk their lives in any
+undertaking?" asked Sedlitz.
+
+"Oh, I don't know. They talk enough, but I don't know what they would
+do. They are quite capable, though, of tripping me up in a dark lane."
+
+"Look here," said Sedlitz, "suppose you let me try a plan. Let me give
+them a lecture on, the Chemistry of Anarchy. It's a fascinating
+subject."
+
+"What good would that do?"
+
+"Oh, wait till you have heard the lecture. If I don't make the hair of
+some of them stand on end, they are braver men than I take them to be.
+We have a large room in Clement's Inn, where we students meet to try
+experiments and smoke tobacco. It is half club, and half a lecture-
+room. Now, I propose to get those Anarchists in there, lock the doors,
+and tell them something about dynamite and other explosives. You give
+out that I am an Anarchist from America. Tell them that the doors will
+be locked to prevent police interference, and that there will be a
+barrel of beer. You can introduce me as a man from America, where they
+know as much about Anarchism in ten minutes as they do here in ten
+years. Tell them that I have spent my life in the study of explosives.
+I will have to make-up a little, but you know that I am a very good
+amateur actor, and I don't think there will be any trouble about that.
+At the last you must tell them that you have an appointment and will
+leave me to amuse them for a couple of hours."
+
+"But I don't see what good it is all going to do, though I am
+desperate," said Simkins, "and willing to try anything. I have thought
+some of firing a bomb off myself at an Anarchist meeting."
+
+When the Friday night of meeting arrived the large hall in Clement's
+Inn was filled to the doors. Those assembled there saw a platform at
+one end of the apartment, and a door that led from it to a room at the
+back of the hall. A table was on the platform, and boxes, chemical
+apparatus, and other scientific-looking paraphernalia were on it. At
+the hour of eight young Simkins appeared before the table alone.
+
+"Fellow Anarchists," he said, "you are well aware that I am tired of
+the great amount of talk we indulge in, and the little action which
+follows it. I have been fortunate enough to secure the co-operation of
+an Anarchist from America, who will tell you something of the cause
+there. We have had the doors locked, and those who keep the keys are
+now down at the entrance of the Inn, so that if a fire should occur,
+they can quickly come and let us out. There is no great danger of fire,
+however, but the interruption of the police must be guarded against
+very carefully. The windows, as you see, are shuttered and barred, and
+no ray of light can penetrate from this room outside. Until the lecture
+is over no one can leave the room, and by the same token no one can
+enter it, which is more to the purpose.
+
+"My friend, Professor Josiah P. Slivers, has devoted his life to the
+Chemistry of Anarchy, which is the title of this lecture. He will tell
+you of some important discoveries, which are now to be made known for
+the first time. I regret to say that the Professor is not in a very
+good state of health, because the line of life which he has adopted has
+its drawbacks. His left eye has been blown away by a premature
+explosion during his experiments. His right leg is also permanently
+disabled. His left arm, as you will notice, is in a sling, having been
+injured by a little disaster in his workshop since he came to London.
+He is a man, as you will see, devoted body and soul to the cause, so I
+hope you will listen to him attentively. I regret that I am unable to
+remain with you to-night, having other duties to perform which are
+imperative. I will therefore, if you will permit me, leave by the back
+entrance after I have introduced the Professor to you."
+
+At this moment the stumping of a wooden leg was heard, and those in the
+audience saw appear a man on crutches, with one arm in a sling and a
+bandage over an eye, although he beamed upon them benevolently with the
+other.
+
+"Fellow Anarchists," said Simkins, "allow me to introduce to you
+Professor Josiah P. Slivers, of the United States."
+
+The Professor bowed and the audience applauded. As soon as the applause
+began the Professor held up his unmaimed arm and said, "Gentlemen, I
+beg that you will not applaud."
+
+It seems the fashion in America to address a11 sorts and conditions of
+men as "Gentlemen."
+
+The Professor continued, "I have here some explosives so sensitive that
+the slightest vibration will cause them to go off, and I therefore ask
+you to listen in silence to what I have to say. I must particularly ask
+you also not to stamp on the floor."
+
+Before these remarks were concluded Simkins had slipped out by the back
+entrance, and somehow his desertion seemed to have a depressing effect
+upon the company, who looked upon the broken-up Professor with eyes of
+wonder and apprehension.
+
+The Professor drew towards him one of the boxes and opened the lid. He
+dipped his one useful hand into the box and, holding it aloft, allowed
+something which looked like wet sawdust to drip through his fingers.
+"That, gentlemen," he said, with an air of the utmost contempt, "is
+what is known to the world as dynamite. I have nothing at all to say
+against dynamite. It has, in its day, been a very powerful medium
+through which our opinions have been imparted to a listening world, but
+its day is past. It is what the lumbering stage-coach is to the
+locomotive, what the letter is to the telegram, what the sailing-vessel
+is to the steamship. It will be my pleasant duty to-night to exhibit to
+you an explosive so powerful and deadly that hereafter, having seen
+what it can accomplish, you will have nothing but derision for such
+simple and harmless compounds as dynamite and nitro-glycerine."
+
+The Professor looked with kindly sympathy over his audience as he
+allowed the yellow mixture to percolate slowly through his fingers back
+into the box again. Ever and anon he took up a fresh handful and
+repeated the action.
+
+The Anarchists in the audience exchanged uneasy glances one with the
+other.
+
+"Yet," continued the Professor, "it will be useful for us to consider
+this substance for a few moments, if but for the purpose of comparison.
+Here," he said, diving his hand into another box and bringing up before
+their gaze a yellow brick, "is dynamite in a compressed form. There is
+enough here to wreck all this part of London, were it exploded. This
+simple brick would lay St. Paul's Cathedral in ruins, so, however
+antiquated dynamite may become, we must always look upon it with
+respect, just as we look upon reformers of centuries ago who perished
+for their opinions, even though their opinions were far behind what
+ours are now. I shall take the liberty of performing some experiments
+with this block of dynamite." Saying which the Professor, with his free
+arm, flung the block of dynamite far down the aisle, where it fell on
+the floor with a sickening thud. The audience sprang from their seats
+and tumbled back one over the other. A wild shriek went up into the
+air, but the Professor gazed placidly on the troubled mob below him
+with a superior smile on his face. "I beg you to seat yourselves," he
+said, "and for reasons which I have already explained, I trust that you
+will not applaud any of my remarks. You have just now portrayed one of
+the popular superstitions about dynamite, and you show by your actions
+how necessary a lecture of this sort is in order that you may
+comprehend thoroughly the substance with which you have to deal. That
+brick is perfectly harmless, because it is frozen. Dynamite in its
+frozen state will not explode--a fact well understood by miners and all
+those who have to work with it, and who, as a rule, generally prefer to
+blow themselves to pieces trying to thaw the substance before a fire.
+Will you kindly bring that brick back to me, before it thaws out in the
+heated atmosphere of this room?"
+
+One of the men stepped gingerly forward and picked up the brick,
+holding it far from his body, as he tip-toed up to the platform, where
+he laid it down carefully on the desk before the Professor.
+
+"Thank you," said the Professor, blandly.
+
+The man drew a long breath of relief as he went back to his seat.
+
+"That is frozen dynamite," continued the Professor, "and is, as I have
+said, practically harmless. Now, it will be my pleasure to perform two
+startling experiments with the unfrozen substance," and with that he
+picked up a handful of the wet sawdust and flung it on a small iron
+anvil that stood on the table. "You will enjoy these experiments," he
+said, "because it will show you with what ease dynamite may be handled.
+It is a popular error that concussion will cause dynamite to explode.
+There is enough dynamite here to blow up this hall and to send into
+oblivion every person in it, yet you will see whether or not concussion
+will explode it." The Professor seized a hammer and struck the
+substance on the anvil two or three sharp blows, while those in front
+of him scrambled wildly back over their comrades, with hair standing on
+end. The Professor ceased his pounding and gazed reproachfully at them;
+then something on the anvil appeared to catch his eye. He bent over it
+and looked critically on the surface of the iron. Drawing himself up to
+his full height again, he said,
+
+"I was about to reproach you for what might have appeared to any other
+man as evidence of fear, but I see my mistake. I came very near making
+a disastrous error. I have myself suffered from time to time from
+similar errors. I notice upon the anvil a small spot of grease; if my
+hammer had happened to strike that spot you would all now be writhing
+in your death-agonies under the ruins of this building. Nevertheless,
+the lesson is not without its value. That spot of grease is free nitro-
+glycerine that has oozed out from the dynamite. Therein rests, perhaps,
+the only danger in handling dynamite. As I have shown you, you can
+smash up dynamite on an anvil without danger, but if a hammer happened
+to strike a spot of free nitroglycerine it would explode in a moment. I
+beg to apologize to you for my momentary neglect."
+
+A man rose up in the middle of the hall, and it was some little time
+before he could command voice enough to speak, for he was shaking as if
+from palsy. At last he said, after he had moistened his lips several
+times:--
+
+"Professor, we are quite willing to take your word about the explosive.
+I think I speak for all my comrades here. We have no doubt at all about
+your learning, and would much prefer to hear from your own lips what
+you have to say on the subject, and not have you waste any more
+valuable time with experiments. I have not consulted with my comrades
+before speaking, but I think I voice the sense of the meeting." Cries
+of "You do, you do," came from all parts of the hall. The Professor
+once more beamed upon them benevolently.
+
+"Your confidence in me is indeed touching," he said, "but a chemical
+lecture without experiments is like a body without a soul. Experiment
+is the soul of research. In chemistry we must take nothing for granted.
+I have shown you how many popular errors have arisen regarding the
+substance with which we are dealing. It would have been impossible for
+these errors to have arisen if every man had experimented for himself;
+and although I thank you for the mark of confidence you have bestowed
+upon me, I cannot bring myself to deprive you of the pleasure which my
+experiments will afford you. There is another very common error to the
+effect that fire will explode dynamite. Such, gentlemen, is not the
+case."
+
+The Professor struck a match on his trousers-leg and lighted the
+substance on the anvil. It burnt with a pale bluish flame, and the
+Professor gazed around triumphantly at his fellow Anarchists.
+
+While the shuddering audience watched with intense fascination the pale
+blue flame the Professor suddenly stooped over and blew it out.
+Straightening himself once more he said, "Again I must apologize to
+you, for again I have forgotten the small spot of grease. If the flame
+had reached the spot of nitro-glycerine it would have exploded, as you
+all know. When a man has his thoughts concentrated on one subject he is
+apt to forget something else. I shall make no more experiments with
+dynamite. Here, John," he said to the trembling attendant, "take this
+box away, and move it carefully, for I see that the nitro-glycerine is
+oozing out. Put it as tenderly down in the next room as if it were a
+box of eggs."
+
+As the box disappeared there was a simultaneous long-drawn sigh of
+relief from the audience.
+
+"Now, gentlemen," said the Professor, "we come to the subject that
+ought to occupy the minds of all thoughtful men." He smoothed his hair
+complacently with the palm of his practicable hand, and smiled genially
+around him.
+
+"The substance that I am about to tell you of is my own invention, and
+compares with dynamite as prussic acid does with new milk as a
+beverage." The Professor dipped his fingers in his vest pocket and drew
+out what looked like a box of pills. Taking one pill out he placed it
+upon the anvil and as he tip-toed back he smiled on it with a smile of
+infinite tenderness. "Before I begin on this subject I want to warn you
+once more that if any man as much as stamps upon the floor, or moves
+about except on tip-toe this substance will explode and will lay London
+from here to Charing Cross in one mass of indistinguishable ruins. I
+have spent ten years of my life in completing this invention. And these
+pills, worth a million a box, will cure all ills to which the flesh is
+heir."
+
+"John," he said, turning to his attendant, "bring me a basin of water!"
+The basin of water was placed gingerly upon the table, and the
+Professor emptied all the pills into it, picking up also the one that
+was on the anvil and putting it with the others.
+
+"Now," he said, with a deep sigh, "we can breathe easier. A man can put
+one of these pills in a little vial of water, place the vial in his
+vest-pocket, go to Trafalgar Square, take the pill from the vial, throw
+it in the middle of the Square, and it will shatter everything within
+the four-mile radius, he himself having the glorious privilege of
+suffering instant martyrdom for the cause. People have told me that
+this is a drawback to my invention, but I am inclined to differ with
+them. The one who uses this must make up his mind to share the fate of
+those around him. I claim that this is the crowning glory of my
+invention. It puts to instant test our interest in the great cause.
+John, bring in very carefully that machine with the electric-wire
+attachment from the next room."
+
+The machine was placed upon the table. "This," said the Professor,
+holding up some invisible object between his thumb and forefinger, "is
+the finest cambric needle. I will take upon the point of it an
+invisible portion of the substance I speak of." Here he carefully
+picked out a pill from the basin, and as carefully placed it upon the
+table, where he detached an infinitesimal atom of it and held it up on
+the point of the needle. "This particle," he said, "is so small that it
+cannot be seen except with the aid of a microscope. I will now place
+needle and all on the machine and touch it off with electric current;"
+and as his hand hovered over the push-button there were cries of
+"Stop! stop!" but the finger descended, and instantly there was a
+terrific explosion. The very foundation seemed shaken, and a dense
+cloud of smoke rolled over the heads of the audience. As the Professor
+became visible through the thinning smoke, he looked around for his
+audience. Every man was under the benches, and groans came from all
+parts of the hall. "I hope," said the Professor, in anxious tones,
+"that no one has been hurt. I am afraid that I took up too much of the
+substance on the point of the needle, but it will enable you to imagine
+the effect of a larger quantity. Pray seat yourselves again. This is my
+last experiment."
+
+As the audience again seated itself, another mutual sigh ascended to
+the roof. The Professor drew the chairman's chair towards him and sat
+down, wiping his grimy brow.
+
+A man instantly arose and said, "I move a vote of thanks to Professor
+Slivers for the interesting--"
+
+The Professor raised his hand. "One moment," he said, "I have not quite
+finished. I have a proposal to make to you. You see that cloud of smoke
+hovering over our heads? In twenty minutes that smoke will percolate
+down through the atmosphere. I have told you but half of the benefits
+of this terrific explosive. When that smoke mixes with the atmosphere
+of the room it becomes a deadly poison. We all can live here for the
+next nineteen minutes in perfect safety, then at the first breath we
+draw we expire instantly. It is a lovely death. There is no pain, no
+contortion of the countenance, but we will be found here in the morning
+stark and stiff in our seats. I propose, gentlemen, that we teach
+London the great lesson it so much needs. No cause is without its
+martyrs. Let us be the martyrs of the great religion of Anarchy. I have
+left in my room papers telling just how and why we died. At midnight
+these sheets will be distributed to all the newspapers of London, and
+to-morrow the world will ring with our heroic names. I will now put the
+motion. All in favor of this signify it by the usual upraising of the
+right hand."
+
+The Professor's own right hand was the only one that was raised.
+
+"Now all of a contrary opinion," said the Professor, and at once every
+hand in the audience went up.
+
+"The noes have it," said the Professor, but he did not seem to feel
+badly about it. "Gentlemen," he continued, "I see that you have guessed
+my second proposal, as I imagined you would, and though there will be
+no newspapers in London to-morrow to chronicle the fact, yet the
+newspapers of the rest of the world will tell of the destruction of
+this wicked city. I see by your looks that you are with me in this, my
+second proposal, which is the most striking thing ever planned, and is
+that we explode the whole of these pills in the basin. To make sure of
+this, I have sent to an agent in Manchester the full account of how it
+was done, and the resolutions brought forward at this meeting, and
+which doubtless you will accept.
+
+"Gentlemen, all in favor of the instant destruction of London signify
+it in the usual manner."
+
+"Mr. Professor," said the man who had spoken previously, "before you
+put that resolution I would like to move an amendment. This is a very
+serious proposal, and should not be lightly undertaken. I move as an
+amendment, therefore, that we adjourn this meeting to our rooms at
+Soho, and do the exploding there. I have some little business that must
+be settled before this grand project is put in motion."
+
+The Professor then said, "Gentlemen, the amendment takes precedence. It
+is moved that this meeting be adjourned, so that you may consider the
+project at your club-rooms in Soho."
+
+"I second that amendment," said fifteen of the audience rising together
+to their feet.
+
+"In the absence of the regular chairman," said the Professor, "it is my
+duty to put the amendment. All in favor of the amendment signify it by
+raising the right hand."
+
+Every hand was raised. "The amendment, gentlemen, is carried. I shall
+be only too pleased to meet you to-morrow night at your club, and I
+will bring with me a larger quantity of my explosive. John, kindly go
+round and tell the man to unlock the doors."
+
+When Simkins and Slivers called round the next night at the regular
+meeting-place of the Anarchists, they found no signs of a gathering,
+and never since the lecture has the Soho Anarchist League been known to
+hold a meeting. The Club has mysteriously dissolved.
+
+
+
+
+THE FEAR OF IT.
+
+
+The sea was done with him. He had struggled manfully for his life, but
+exhaustion came at last, and, realizing the futility of further
+fighting, he gave up the battle. The tallest wave, the king of that
+roaring tumultuous procession racing from the wreck to the shore, took
+him in its relentless grasp, held him towering for a moment against the
+sky, whirled his heels in the air, dashed him senseless on the sand,
+and, finally, rolled him over and over, a helpless bundle, high up upon
+the sandy beach.
+
+Human life seems of little account when we think of the trifles that
+make toward the extinction or the extension of it. If the wave that
+bore Stanford had been a little less tall, he would have been drawn
+back into the sea by one that followed. If, as a helpless bundle, he
+had been turned over one time more or one less, his mouth would have
+pressed into the sand, and he would have died. As it was, he lay on his
+back with arms outstretched on either side, and a handful of dissolving
+sand in one clinched fist. Succeeding waves sometimes touched him, but
+he lay there unmolested by the sea with his white face turned to the
+sky.
+
+Oblivion has no calendar. A moment or an eternity are the same to it.
+When consciousness slowly returned, he neither knew nor cared how time
+had fled. He was not quite sure that he was alive, but weakness rather
+than fear kept him from opening his eyes to find out whether the world
+they would look upon was the world they had last gazed at. His
+interest, however, was speedily stimulated by the sound of the English
+tongue. He was still too much dazed to wonder at it, and to remember
+that he was cast away on some unknown island in the Southern Seas. But
+the purport of the words startled him.
+
+"Let us be thankful. He is undoubtedly dead." This was said in a tone
+of infinite satisfaction.
+
+There seemed to be a murmur of pleasure at the announcement from those
+who were with the speaker. Stanford slowly opened his eyes, wondering
+what these savages were who rejoiced in the death of an inoffensive
+stranger cast upon their shores. He saw a group standing around him,
+but his attention speedily became concentrated on one face. The owner
+of it, he judged, was not more than nineteen years of age, and the
+face--at least so it seemed to Stanford at the time--was the most
+beautiful he had ever beheld. There was an expression of sweet gladness
+upon it until her eyes met his, then the joy faded from the face, and a
+look of dismay took its place. The girl seemed to catch her breath in
+fear, and tears filled her eyes.
+
+"Oh," she cried, "he is going to live."
+
+She covered her face with her hands, and sobbed.
+
+Stanford closed his eyes wearily. "I am evidently insane," he said to
+himself. Then, losing faith in the reality of things, he lost
+consciousness as well, and when his senses came to him again he found
+himself lying on a bed in a clean but scantily furnished room. Through
+an open window came the roar of the sea, and the thunderous boom of the
+falling waves brought to his mind the experiences through which he had
+passed. The wreck and the struggle with the waves he knew to be real,
+but the episode on the beach he now believed to have been but a vision
+resulting from his condition.
+
+A door opened noiselessly, and, before he knew of anyone's entrance, a
+placid-faced nurse stood by his bed and asked him how he was.
+
+"I don't know. I am at least alive."
+
+The nurse sighed, and cast down her eyes. Her lips moved, but she said
+nothing. Stanford looked at her curiously. A fear crept over him that
+he was hopelessly crippled for life, and that death was considered
+preferable to a maimed existence. He felt wearied, though not in pain,
+but he knew that sometimes the more desperate the hurt, the less the
+victim feels it at first.
+
+"Are--are any of my--my bones broken, do you know?" he asked.
+
+"No. You are bruised, but not badly hurt. You will soon recover."
+
+"Ah!" said Stanford, with a sigh of relief. "By the way," he added,
+with sudden interest, "who was that girl who stood near me as I lay on
+the beach?"
+
+"There were several."
+
+"No, there was but one. I mean the girl with the beautiful eyes and a
+halo of hair like a glorified golden crown on her head."
+
+"We speak not of our women in words like those," said the nurse,
+severely; "you mean Ruth, perhaps, whose hair is plentiful and yellow."
+
+Stanford smiled. "Words matter little," he said.
+
+"We must be temperate in speech," replied the nurse.
+
+"We may be temperate without, being teetotal. Plentiful and yellow,
+indeed! I have had a bad dream concerning those who found me. I thought
+that they--but it does not matter. She at least is not a myth. Do you
+happen to know if any others were saved?"
+
+"I am thankful to be able to say that every one was drowned."
+
+Stanford started up with horror in his eyes. The demure nurse, with
+sympathetic tones, bade him not excite himself. He sank back on his
+pillow.
+
+"Leave the room," he cried, feebly, "Leave me--leave me." He turned his
+face toward the wall, while the woman left as silently as she had
+entered.
+
+When she was gone Stanford slid from the bed, intending to make his way
+to the door and fasten it. He feared that these savages, who wished him
+dead, would take measures to kill him when they saw he was going to
+recover. As he leaned against the bed, he noticed that the door had no
+fastening. There was a rude latch, but neither lock nor bolt. The
+furniture of the room was of the most meagre description, clumsily
+made. He staggered to the open window, and looked out. The remnants of
+the disastrous gale blew in upon him and gave him new life, as it had
+formerly threatened him with death. He saw that he was in a village of
+small houses, each cottage standing in its own plot of ground. It was
+apparently a village of one street, and over the roofs of the houses
+opposite he saw in the distance the white waves of the sea. What
+astonished him most was a church with its tapering spire at the end of
+the street--a wooden church such as he had seen in remote American
+settlements. The street was deserted, and there were no signs of life
+in the houses.
+
+"I must have fallen in upon some colony of lunatics," he said to
+himself. "I wonder to what country these people belong--either to
+England or the United States, I imagine--yet in all my travels I never
+heard of such a community."
+
+There was no mirror in the room, and it was impossible for him to know
+how he looked. His clothes were dry and powdered with salt. He arranged
+them as well as he could, and slipped out of the house unnoticed. When
+he reached the outskirts of the village he saw that the inhabitants,
+both men and women, were working in the fields some distance away.
+Coming towards the village was a girl with a water-can in either hand.
+She was singing as blithely as a lark until she saw Stanford, whereupon
+she paused both in her walk and in her song. Stanford, never a backward
+man, advanced, and was about to greet her when she forestalled him by
+saying:
+
+"I am grieved, indeed, to see that you have recovered."
+
+The young man's speech was frozen on his lip, and a frown settled off
+his brow. Seeing that he was annoyed, though why she could not guess,
+Ruth hastened to amend matters by adding:
+
+"Believe me, what I say is true. I am indeed sorry."
+
+"Sorry that I live?"
+
+"Most heartily am I."
+
+"It is hard to credit such a statement from one so--from you."
+
+"Do not say so. Miriam has already charged me with being glad that you
+were not drowned. It would pain me deeply if you also believed as she
+does."
+
+The girl looked at him with swimming eyes, and the young man knew not
+what to answer. Finally he said:
+
+"There is some horrible mistake. I cannot make it out. Perhaps our
+words, though apparently the same, have a different meaning. Sit down,
+Ruth, I want to ask you some questions."
+
+Ruth cast a timorous glance towards the workers, and murmured something
+about not having much time to spare, but she placed the water-cans on
+the ground and sank down on the grass. Stanford throwing himself on the
+sward at her feet, but, seeing that she shrank back, he drew himself
+further from her, resting where he might gaze upon her face.
+
+Ruth's eyes were downcast, which was necessary, for she occupied
+herself in pulling blade after blade of grass, sometimes weaving them
+together. Stanford had said he wished to question her, but he
+apparently forgot his intention, for he seemed wholly satisfied with
+merely looking at her. After the silence had lasted for some time, she
+lifted her eyes for one brief moment, and then asked the first question
+herself.
+
+"From what land do you come?"
+
+"From England."
+
+"Ah! that also is an island, is it not?"
+
+He laughed at the "also," and remembered that he had some questions to
+ask.
+
+"Yes, it is an island--also. The sea dashes wrecks on all four sides of
+it, but there is no village on its shores so heathenish that if a man
+is cast upon the beach the inhabitants do not rejoice because he has
+escaped death."
+
+Ruth looked at him with amazement in her eyes.
+
+"Is there, then, no religion in England?"
+
+"Religion? England is the most religious country on the face of the
+earth. There are more cathedrals, more churches, more places of worship
+in England than in any other State that I know of. We send missionaries
+to all heathenish lands. The Government, itself, supports the Church."
+
+"I imagine, then, I mistook your meaning. I thought from what you said
+that the people of England feared death, and did not welcome it or
+rejoice when one of their number died."
+
+They do not fear death, and they do not rejoice when it comes. Far from
+it. From the peer to the beggar, everyone fights death as long as he
+can; the oldest cling to life as eagerly as the youngest. Not a man but
+will spend his last gold piece to ward off the inevitable even for an
+hour."
+
+"Gold piece--what is that?"
+
+Stanford plunged his hand into his pocket.
+
+"Ah!" he said, "there are some coins left. Here is a gold piece."
+
+The girl took it, and looked at it with keen interest.
+
+"Isn't it pretty?" the said, holding the yellow coin on her pink palm,
+and glancing up at him.
+
+"That is the general opinion. To accumulate coins like that, men will
+lie, and cheat, and steal--yes, and work. Although they will give their
+last sovereign to prolong their lives, yet will they risk life itself
+to accumulate gold. Every business in England is formed merely for the
+gathering together of bits of metal like that in your hand; huge
+companies of men are formed so that it may be piled, up in greater
+quantities. The man who has most gold has most power, and is generally
+the most respected; the company which makes most money is the one
+people are most anxious to belong to."
+
+Ruth listened to him with wonder and dismay in her eyes. As he talked
+she shuddered, and allowed the yellow coin to slip from her hand to the
+ground. "No wonder such a people fears death."
+
+"Do you not fear death?"
+
+"How can we, when we believe in heaven?"
+
+"But would you not be sorry if someone died whom you loved?"
+
+"How could we be so selfish? Would you be sorry if your brother, or
+someone you loved, became possessed of whatever you value in England--a
+large quantity of this gold, for instance?"
+
+"Certainly not. But then you see--well, it isn't exactly the same
+thing. If one you care for dies you are separated from him, and--"
+
+"But only for a short time, and that gives but another reason for
+welcoming death. It seems impossible that Christian people should fear
+to enter Heaven. Now I begin to understand why our forefathers left
+England, and why our teachers will never tell us anything about the
+people there. I wonder why missionaries are not sent to England to
+teach them the truth, and try to civilize the people?"
+
+"That would, indeed, be coals to Newcastle. But there comes one of the
+workers."
+
+"It is my father," cried the girl, rising. "I fear I have been
+loitering. I never did such a thing before."
+
+The man who approached was stern of countenance.
+
+"Ruth," he said, "the workers are athirst."
+
+The girl, without reply, picked up her pails and departed.
+
+"I have been receiving," said the young man, coloring slightly, "some
+instruction regarding your belief. I had been puzzled by several
+remarks I had heard, and wished to make inquiries concerning them."
+
+"It is more fitting," said the man, coldly, "that you should receive
+instruction from me or from some of the elders than from one of the
+youngest in the community. When you are so far recovered as to be able
+to listen to an exposition of our views, I hope to put forth such
+arguments as will convince you that they are the true views. If it
+should so happen that my arguments are not convincing, then I must
+request that you will hold no communication with our younger members.
+They must not be contaminated by the heresies of the outside world."
+
+Stanford looked at Ruth standing beside the village well.
+
+"Sir," he said, "you underrate the argumentative powers of the younger
+members. There is a text bearing upon the subject which I need not
+recall to you. I am already convinced."
+
+
+
+
+THE METAMORPHOSES OF JOHNSON.
+
+
+I was staying for some weeks at a lovely town in the Tyrol which I
+shall take the liberty of naming Schwindleburg. I conceal its real
+title because it charges what is termed a visitors' tax, and a heavy
+visitors' tax, exacting the same from me through the medium of my hotel
+bill. The town also made me pay for the excellent band that performs
+morning and afternoon in the Kurpark. Many continental health resorts
+support themselves by placing a tax upon visitors, a practice resorted
+to by no English town, and so I regard the imposition as a swindle, and
+I refuse to advertise any place that practises it. It is true that if
+you stay in Schwindleburg less than a week they do not tax you, but I
+didn't know that, and the hotel man, being wise in his own generation,
+did not present his bill until a day after the week was out, so I found
+myself in for the visitors' tax and the music money before I was aware
+of it. Thus does a foolish person accumulate wisdom by foreign travel.
+I stayed on at this picturesque place, listening to the band every day,
+trying to get value for my money. I intended to keep much to myself,
+having work to do, and make no acquaintances, but I fell under the
+fascination of Johnson, thus breaking my rule. What is the use of
+making a rule if you can't have the pleasure of breaking it? I think
+the thing that first attracted me to Johnson was his utter negligence
+in the matter of his personal appearance. When he stepped down from the
+hotel 'bus he looked like a semi-respectable tramp. He wore a blue
+woolen shirt, with no collar or necktie. He had a slouch hat, without
+the usual affectation of a Tyrolese feather in it. His full beard had
+evidently not been trimmed for weeks, and he had one trouser-leg turned
+up. He had no alpenstock, and that also was a merit. So I said to
+myself, "Here is a man free from the conventionalities of society. If I
+become acquainted with anybody it will be with him."
+
+I found Johnson was an American from a Western city named Chicago,
+which I had heard of, and we "palled on." He was very fond of music,
+and the band in the Kurpark was a good one, so we went there together
+twice a day, and talked as we walked up and down the gravel paths. He
+had been everywhere, and knew his way about; his conversation was
+interesting. In about a week I had come to love Johnson, and I think he
+rather liked me.
+
+One day, as we returned together to the Hotel Post, he held out his
+hand.
+
+"I'm off to-morrow," he said; "off to Innsbruck. So I shall bid you
+good-bye. I am very glad indeed to have met you."
+
+"Oh, I'm sorry to hear that." I replied. "But I won't say good-bye now,
+I'll see you to the station to-morrow."
+
+"No, don't do that. I shall be away before you are up. We'll say good-
+bye here."
+
+We did, and when I had breakfast next morning I found Johnson had left
+by the early train. I wandered around the park that forenoon mourning
+for Johnson. The place seemed lonely without him. In the afternoon I
+explored some of the by-paths of the park within hearing distance of
+the band, when suddenly, to my intense surprise, I met my departed
+friend.
+
+"Hello! Johnson," I cried, "I thought you left this morning."
+
+The man looked at me with no recognition in his face.
+
+"I beg your pardon," he said, "my name is Baumgarten."
+
+Looking more closely at him I at once saw I was mistaken. I had been
+thinking of Johnson at the time, which probably accounted for the
+error. Still, his likeness to Johnson was remarkable--to Johnson well
+groomed. He had neatly-trimmed side-whiskers and moustache, while
+Johnson had a full beard. His round hat was new, and he wore an
+irreproachable collar, and even cuffs. Besides this he sported a cane,
+and evidently possessed many weaknesses to which Johnson was superior.
+I apologized for my mistake, and was about to walk on when Baumgarten
+showed signs of wishing to become acquainted.
+
+"I have just arrived," he said, "and know nothing of the place. Have
+you been here long?"
+
+"About two weeks," I answered.
+
+"Ah! then, you are a resident as it were. Are there any good ascents to
+be made around here?"
+
+"I have not been informed that there are. I am not a climber myself,
+except by funicular railway. I am always content to take other people's
+figures for the heights. The only use I have for a mountain is to look
+at it."
+
+Then Baumgarten launched into a very interesting account of mountain
+dangers he had passed through. I found him a most entertaining talker,
+almost as fascinating as Johnson himself. He told me he was from
+Hanover, but he had been educated in Great Britain, which accounted for
+his perfect English.
+
+"What hotel are you at?" he asked, as the band ceased playing.
+
+"I am staying at the Post," I answered. "And you?"
+
+"I am at the Adler. You must come to dine with me some evening, and I
+will make it even by dining with you. We can thus compare _table
+d'hôtes."_
+
+Baumgarten improved on acquaintance in spite of his foppishness in
+dress. I almost forgot Johnson until one day I was reminded of him one
+day by Baumgarten saying, "I leave to-night for Innsbruck."
+
+"Innsbruck? Why, that's where Johnson is. You ought to meet him. He's
+an awfully good fellow. A little careless about his clothes, that's
+all."
+
+"I should like to meet him. I know no one in Innsbruck. Do you happen
+to know the name of his hotel?"
+
+"I do not. I don't even know Johnson's first name. But I'll write you a
+note of introduction on my card, and if you should come across him,
+give him my regards."
+
+Baumgarten accepted the card with thanks, and we parted.
+
+Next day, being warm, I sat on a bench in the shade listening to the
+music. Now that Baumgarten had gone, I was meditating on his strange
+resemblance to Johnson, and remembering things. Someone sat down beside
+me, but I paid no attention to him. Finally he said: "This seems to be
+a very good band."
+
+I started at the sound of his voice, and looked at him too much
+astonished to reply.
+
+He wore a moustache, but no whiskers, and a green Tyrolese felt hat
+with a feather in it. An alpenstock leaned against the bench beside
+him, its iron point in the gravel. He wore knickerbockers; in fact, his
+whole appearance was that of the conventional mountaineer-tourist. But
+the voice! And the expression of the eyes!
+
+"What did you say?"
+
+"I said the band is very good."
+
+"Oh, yes. Quite so. It's expensive, and it ought to be good. I'm
+helping to pay for it. By the way, you arrived this morning, I take
+it?"
+
+"I came last night."
+
+"Oh, indeed. And you depart in a few days for Innsbruck?"
+
+"No, I go to Salzburg when I leave here."
+
+"And your name isn't Johnson--or--or Baumgarten, by any chance?"
+
+"It is not."
+
+"You come neither from Chicago nor Hanover?"
+
+"I have never been in America, nor do I know Hanover. Anything else?"
+
+"Nothing else. It's all right. It's none of my business, of course."
+
+"What is none of your business?"
+
+"Who are you."
+
+"Oh, there's no secret about that. I am a Russian. My name is Katzoff.
+At least, these are the first and last syllables of my name. I never
+use my full name when I travel; it is too complicated."
+
+"Thanks. And how do you account for your perfect English? Educated in
+England, I presume? Baumgarten was."
+
+"No, I was not. You know we Russians are reputed to be good linguists."
+
+"Yes, I had forgotten that. We will now return to the point from which
+we started. The band is excellent, and it is about to play one of four
+favorite selections, Mr. Katzburg."
+
+"Katzoff is the name. As to the selection, I don't know much about
+music, although I am fond of popular pieces."
+
+Katzoff and I got along very nicely, although I did not seem to like
+him as well as either Johnson or Baumgarten. He left for Salzburg
+without bidding me good-bye. Missing him one day, I called at the
+Angleterre, and the porter told me he had gone.
+
+Next day I searched for him, wondering in what garb I should find him.
+I passed him twice as he sat on the bench, before I was sure enough to
+accost him. The sacrifice of his moustache had made a remarkable
+difference. His clean-shaven face caused him to look at least ten years
+younger. He wore a tall silk hat, and a long black morning coat. I
+found myself hardly able to withdraw my eyes from the white spats that
+partially covered his polished boots. He was reading an English paper,
+and did not observe my scrutiny. I approached him.
+
+"Well, Johnson," I said, "this _is_ a lay out. You're English this
+time, I suppose?"
+
+The man looked up in evident surprise. Fumbling around the front of his
+waistcoat for a moment, he found a black silk string, which he pulled,
+bringing to his hand a little round disc of glass. This he stuck in one
+eye, grimacing slightly to keep it in place, and so regarded me
+apparently with some curiosity. My certainty that it was Johnson
+wavered for a moment, but I braved it out.
+
+"That monocle is a triumph, Johnson. In combination with the spats it
+absolutely staggers me. If you had tried that on as Baumgarten I don't
+know that I should have recognized you. Johnson, what's your game?"
+
+"You seem to be laboring under some delusion," he said at last. "My
+name is not Johnson. I am Lord Somerset Campbell, if you care to know."
+
+"Really? Oh, well, that's all right. I'm the Duke of Argyll, so we must
+be relatives. Blood is thicker than water, Campbell. Confess. Whom have
+you murdered?"
+
+"I knew," said his lordship, slowly, "that the largest lunatic asylum
+in the Tyrol is near here, but I was not aware that the patients were
+allowed to stroll in the Kurpark."
+
+"That's all very well, Johnson, but--"
+
+"Campbell, if you please."
+
+"I don't please, as it happens. This masquerade has gone on long
+enough. What's your crime? Or are you on the other side of the fence?
+Are you practising the detective business?"
+
+"My dear fellow, I don't know you, and I resent your impertinent
+curiosity. Allow me to wish you good-day."
+
+"It won't do, Johnson, it has gone too far. You have played on my
+feelings, and I won't stand it. I'll go to the authorities and relate
+the circumstances. They are just suspicious enough to--"
+
+"Which? The authorities or the circumstances?" asked Johnson, sitting
+down again.
+
+"Both, my dear boy, both, and you know it. Now, Johnson, make a clean
+breast of it, I won't give you away."
+
+Johnson sighed, and his glass dropped from his eye. He looked around
+cautiously. "Sit down," he said.
+
+"Then you _are_ Johnson!" I cried, with some exultation.
+
+"I thought you weren't very sure," began Johnson. "However, it doesn't
+matter, but you should be above threatening a man. That was playing it
+low down."
+
+"I see you're from Chicago. Go on."
+
+"It's all on account of this accursed visitors' tax. That I decline to
+pay. I stay just under the week at a hotel, and then take a 'bus to the
+station, and another 'bus to another hotel. Of course my mistake was
+getting acquainted with you. I never suspected you were going to stay
+here a month."
+
+"But why didn't you let me know? Your misdemeanor is one I thoroughly
+sympathize with. I wouldn't have said anything."
+
+Johnson shook his head.
+
+"I took a fellow into my confidence once before. He told it as a dead
+secret to a friend, and the friend thought it a good joke, and related
+it, always under oath that it should go no further. The authorities had
+me arrested before the week was out, and fined me heavily besides
+exacting the tax."
+
+"But doesn't the 'bus fares, the changing, and all that amount to as
+much as the tax?"
+
+"I suppose it does. It isn't the money I object to, it's the principle
+of the thing."
+
+This interview was the last I ever had with Johnson. About a week later
+I read in the Visitors' List that Lord Somerset Campbell, who had been
+a guest of the Victoria (the swell hotel of the place), had left
+Schwindleburg for Innsbruck.
+
+
+
+
+THE RECLAMATION OF JOE HOLLENDS.
+
+
+The public-houses of Burwell Road--and there were many of them for the
+length of the street--were rather proud of Joe Hollends. He was a
+perfected specimen of the work a pub produces. He was probably the most
+persistent drunkard the Road possessed, and the periodical gathering in
+of Joe by the police was one of the stock sights of the street. Many of
+the inhabitants could be taken to the station by one policeman; some
+required two; but Joe's average was four. He had been heard to boast
+that on one occasion he had been accompanied to the station by seven
+bobbies, but that was before the force had studied Joe and got him down
+to his correct mathematical equivalent. Now they tripped him up, a
+policeman taking one kicking leg and another the other, while the
+remaining two attended to the upper part of his body. Thus they carried
+him, followed by an admiring crowd, and watched by other envious
+drunkards who had to content themselves with a single officer when they
+went on a similar spree. Sometimes Joe managed to place a kick where it
+would do the most good against the stomach of a policeman, and when the
+officer rolled over there was for a few moments a renewal of the fight,
+silent on the part of the men and vociferous on the part of the
+drunkard, who had a fine flow of abusive language. Then the procession
+went on again. It was perfectly useless to put Joe on the police
+ambulance, for it required two men to sit on him while in transit, and
+the barrow is not made to stand such a load.
+
+Of course, when Joe staggered out of the pub and fell in the gutter,
+the ambulance did its duty, and trundled Joe to his abiding place, but
+the real fun occurred when Joe was gathered in during the third stage
+of his debauch. He passed through the oratorical stage, then the
+maudlin or sentimental stage, from which he emerged into the fighting
+stage, when he was usually ejected into the street, where he forthwith
+began to make Rome howl, and paint the town red. At this point the
+policeman's whistle sounded, and the force knew Joe was on the warpath,
+and that duty called them to the fray.
+
+It was believed in the neighborhood that Joe had been a college man,
+and this gave him additional standing with his admirers. His eloquence
+was undoubted, after several glasses varying in number according to the
+strength of their contents, and a man who had heard the great political
+speakers of the day admitted that none of them could hold a candle to
+Joe when he got on the subject of the wrongs of the working man and the
+tyranny of the capitalist. It was generally understood that Joe might
+have been anything he liked, and that he was no man's enemy but his
+own. It was also hinted that he could tell the bigwigs a thing or two
+if he had been consulted in affairs of State.
+
+One evening, when Joe was slowly progressing as usual, with his feet in
+the air, towards the station, supported by the requisite number of
+policemen, and declaiming to the delight of the accompanying crowd, a
+woman stood with her back to the brick wall, horror-stricken at the
+sight. She had a pale, refined face, and was dressed in black. Her
+self-imposed mission was among these people, but she had never seen Joe
+taken to the station before, and the sight, which was so amusing to the
+neighborhood, was shocking to her. She enquired about Joe, and heard
+the usual story that he was no man's enemy but his own, although they
+might in justice have added the police. Still, a policeman was hardly
+looked upon as a human being in that neighborhood. Miss Johnson
+reported the case to the committee of the Social League, and took
+counsel. Then it was that the reclamation of Joe Hollends was
+determined on.
+
+Joe received Miss Johnson with subdued dignity, and a demeanor that
+delicately indicated a knowledge on his part of her superiority and his
+own degradation. He knew how a lady should be treated even if he was a
+drunkard, as he told his cronies afterwards. Joe was perfectly willing
+to be reclaimed. Heretofore in his life, no one had ever extended the
+hand of fellowship to him. Human sympathy was what Joe needed, and
+precious little he had had of it. There were more kicks than halfpence
+in this world for a poor man. The rich did not care what became of the
+poor; not they--a proposition which Miss Johnson earnestly denied.
+
+It was one of the tenets of the committee that where possible the poor
+should help the poor. It was resolved to get Joe a decent suit of
+clothes and endeavor to find him a place where work would enable him to
+help himself. Miss Johnson went around the neighborhood and collected
+pence for the reclamation. Most people were willing to help Joe,
+although it was generally felt that the Road would be less gay when he
+took on sober habits. In one room, however, Miss Johnson was refused
+the penny she pleaded for.
+
+"We cannot spare even a penny," said the woman, whose sickly little boy
+clung to her skirts. "My husband is just out of work again. He has had
+only four weeks' work this time."
+
+Miss Johnson looked around the room and saw why there was no money. It
+was quite evident where the earnings of the husband had gone.
+
+The room was much better furnished than the average apartment of the
+neighborhood. There were two sets of dishes where one would have been
+quite sufficient. On the mantelshelf and around the walls were various
+unnecessary articles which cost money.
+
+Miss Johnson noted all this but said nothing, although she resolved to
+report it to the committee. In union is strength and in multitude of
+counsel there is wisdom. Miss Johnson had great faith in the wisdom of
+the committee.
+
+"How long has your husband been out of work?" she asked.
+
+"Only a few days, but times are very bad and he is afraid he will not
+get another situation soon."
+
+"What is his trade?"
+
+"He is a carpenter and a good workman--sober and steady."
+
+"If you give me his name I will put it down in our books. Perhaps we
+may be able to help him."
+
+"John Morris is his name."
+
+Miss Johnson wrote it down on her tablets, and when she left, the wife
+felt vaguely grateful for benefits to come.
+
+The facts of the case were reported to the committee, and Miss Johnson
+was deputed to expostulate with Mrs. Morris upon her extravagance. John
+Morris's name was put upon the books among the names of many other
+unemployed persons. The case of Joe Hollends then came up, and elicited
+much enthusiasm. A decent suit of clothing had been purchased with part
+of the money collected for him, and it was determined to keep the rest
+in trust, to be doled out to him as occasion warranted.
+
+Two persuasive ladies undertook to find a place for him in one of the
+factories, if such a thing were possible.
+
+Joe felt rather uncomfortable in his new suit of clothes, and seemed to
+regard the expenditure as, all in all, a waste of good money. He was
+also disappointed to find that the funds collected were not to be
+handed over to him in a lump. It was not the money he cared about, he
+said, but the evident lack of trust. If people had trusted him more, he
+might have been a better man. Trust and human sympathy were what Joe
+Hollends needed.
+
+The two persuasive ladies appealed to Mr. Stillwell, the proprietor of
+a small factory for the making of boxes. They said that if Hollends got
+a chance they were sure he would reform. Stillwell replied that he had
+no place for anyone. He had enough to do to keep the men already in his
+employ. Times were dull in the box business, and he was turning away
+applicants every day who were good workmen and who didn't need to be
+reformed. However, the ladies were very persuasive, and it is not given
+to every man to be able to refuse the appeal of a pretty woman, not to
+mention two of them. Stillwell promised to give Hollends a chance, said
+he would consult with his foreman, and let the ladies know what could
+be done.
+
+Joe Hollends did not receive the news of his luck with the enthusiasm
+that might have been expected. Many a man was tramping London in search
+of employment and finding none, therefore even the ladies who were so
+solicitous about Joe's welfare thought he should be thankful that work
+came unsought. He said he would do his best, which is, when you come to
+think of it, all that we have a right to expect from any man.
+
+Some days afterwards Jack Morris applied to Mr. Stillwell for a job,
+but he had no sub-committee of persuasive ladies to plead for him. He
+would be willing to work half-time or quarter-time for that matter. He
+had a wife and boy dependent on him. He could show that he was a good
+workman and he did not drink. Thus did Morris recite his qualifications
+to the unwilling ears of Stillwell the box maker. As he left the place
+disheartened with another refusal, he was overtaken by Joe Hollends.
+Joe was a lover of his fellow-man, and disliked seeing anyone
+downhearted. He had one infallible cure for dejection. Having just been
+discharged, he was in high spirits, because his prediction of his own
+failure as a reformed character, if work were a condition of the
+reclamation, had just been fulfilled.
+
+"Cheer up, old man," he cried, slapping Morris on the shoulder, "what's
+the matter? Come and have a drink with me. I've got the money."
+
+"No," said Morris, who knew the professional drunkard but slightly, and
+did not care for further acquaintance with him, "I want work, not
+beer."
+
+"Every man to his taste. Why don't you ask at the box factory? You can
+have my job and welcome. The foreman's just discharged me. Said I
+wouldn't work myself, and kept the men off theirs. Thought I talked too
+much about capital and labor."
+
+"Do you think I could get your job?"
+
+"Very likely. No harm in trying. If they don't take you on, come into
+the Red Lion--I'll be there--and have a drop. It'll cheer you up a
+bit."
+
+Morris appealed in vain to the foreman. They had more men now in the
+factory than they needed, he said. So Morris went to the Red Lion,
+where he found Hollends ready to welcome him. They had several glasses
+together, and Hollends told him of the efforts of the Social League in
+the reclamation line, and his doubts of their ultimate success.
+Hollends seemed to think the ladies of the League were deeply indebted
+to him for furnishing them with such a good subject for reformation.
+That night Joe's career reached a triumphant climax, for the four
+policeman had to appeal to the bystanders for help in the name of the
+law.
+
+Jack Morris went home unaided. He had not taken many glasses, but he
+knew he should have avoided drink altogether, for he had some
+experience of its power in his younger days. He was, therefore, in a
+quarrelsome mood, ready to blame everyone but himself.
+
+He found his wife in tears, and saw Miss Johnson sitting there,
+evidently very miserable.
+
+"What's all this?" asked Morris.
+
+His wife dried her eyes, and said it was nothing. Miss Johnson had been
+giving her some advice, which she was thankful for. Morris glared at
+the visitor.
+
+"What have you got to do with us?" he demanded rudely. His wife caught
+him by the arm, but he angrily tossed aside her hand. Miss Johnson
+arose, fearing.
+
+"You've no business here. We want none of your advice. You get out of
+this." Then, impatiently to his wife, who strove to calm him, "Shut up,
+will you?"
+
+Miss Johnson was afraid he would strike her as she passed him going to
+the door, but he merely stood there, following her exit with lowering
+brow.
+
+The terrified lady told her experience to the sympathizing members of
+the committee. She had spoken to Mrs. Morris of her extravagance in
+buying so many things that were not necessary when her husband had
+work. She advised the saving of the money. Mrs. Morris had defended her
+apparent lavish expenditure by saying that there was no possibility of
+saving money. She bought useful things, and when her husband was out of
+work she could always get a large percentage of their cost from the
+pawnbroker. The pawnshop, she had tearfully explained to Miss Johnson,
+was the only bank of the poor. The idea of the pawnshop as a bank, and
+not as a place of disgrace, was new to Miss Johnson, but before
+anything further could be said the husband had come in. One of the
+committee, who knew more about the district than Miss Johnson, affirmed
+that there was something to say for the pawnbroker as the banker of the
+poor. The committee were unanimous in condemning the conduct of Morris,
+and it says much for the members that, in spite of the provocation one
+of them had received, they did not take the name of so undeserving a
+man from their list of the unemployed.
+
+The sad relapse of Joe Hollends next occupied the attention of the
+League. His fine had been paid, and he had expressed himself as deeply
+grieved at his own frailty. If the foreman had been less harsh with him
+and had given him a chance, things might have been different. It was
+resolved to send Joe to the seaside so that he might have an
+opportunity of toning up his system to resist temptation. Joe enjoyed
+his trip to the sea. He always liked to encounter a new body of police
+unaccustomed to his methods. He toned up his system so successfully the
+first day on the sands that he spent the night in the cells.
+
+Little by little, the portable property in the rooms of the Morrises
+disappeared into the pawnshop. Misfortune, as usual, did not come
+singly. The small boy was ill, and Morris himself seemed to be unable
+to resist the temptation of the Red Lion. The unhappy woman took her
+boy to the parish doctor, who was very busy, but he gave what attention
+he could to the case. He said all the boy needed was nourishing food
+and country air. Mrs. Morris sighed, and decided to take the little boy
+oftener to the park, but the way was long, and he grew weaker day by
+day.
+
+At last, she succeeded in interesting her husband in the little
+fellow's condition. He consented to take the boy to the doctor with
+her.
+
+"The doctor doesn't seem to mind what I say," she complained. "Perhaps
+he will pay attention to a man."
+
+Morris was not naturally a morose person, but continued disappointment
+was rapidly making him so. He said nothing, but took the boy in his
+arms, and, followed by his wife, went to the doctor.
+
+"This boy was here before," said the physician, which tended to show
+that he had paid more attention to the case than Mrs. Morris thought.
+"He is very much worse. You will have to take him to the country or he
+will die."
+
+"How can I send him to the country?" asked Morris, sullenly. "I've been
+out of work for months."
+
+"Have you friends in the country?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Hasn't your wife any friends in the country who would take her and the
+lad for a month or so?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Have you anything to pawn?"
+
+"Very little."
+
+"Then I would advise you to pawn everything you own, or sell it if you
+can, and take the boy on your back and tramp to the country. You will
+get work there probably more easily than in the city. Here are ten
+shillings to help you."
+
+"I don't want your money," Said Morris, in a surly tone. "I want work."
+
+"I have no work to give you, so I offer you what I have. I haven't as
+much of that as I could wish. You are a fool not to take what the gods
+send."
+
+Morris, without replying, gathered up his son in his arms and departed.
+
+"Here is a bottle of tonic for him." said the doctor to Mrs. Morris.
+
+He placed the half-sovereign on the bottle as he passed it to her. She
+silently thanked him with her wet eyes, hoping that a time would come
+when she could repay the money. The doctor had experience enough to
+know that they were not to be classed among his usual visitors. He was
+not in the habit of indiscriminately bestowing gold coins.
+
+It was a dreary journey, and they were a long time shaking off the
+octopus-like tentacles of the great city, that reached further and
+further into he country each year, as if it lived on consuming the
+green fields. Morris walked ahead with the boy on his back, and his
+wife followed. Neither spoke, and the sick lad did not complain. As
+they were nearing a village, the boy's head sunk on his father's
+shoulder. The mother quickened her pace, and came up to them stroking
+the head of her sleeping son. Suddenly, she uttered a smothered cry and
+took the boy in her arms.
+
+"What's the matter?" asked Morris, turning round.
+
+She did not answer, but sat by the roadside with the boy on her lap,
+swaying her body to and fro over him, moaning as she did so. Morris
+needed no answer. He stood on the road with hardening face, and looked
+down on his wife and child without speaking.
+
+The kindly villagers arranged the little funeral, and when it was over
+Jack Morris and his wife stood again on the road.
+
+"Jack, dear," she pleaded, "don't go back to that horrible place. We
+belong to the country, and the city is so hard and cruel."
+
+"I'm going back. You can do as you like." Then, relenting a little, he
+added, "I haven't brought much luck to you, my girl."
+
+She knew her husband was a stubborn man, and set in his way, so,
+unprotesting, she followed him in, as she had followed out, stumbling
+many times, for often her eyes did not see the road. And so they
+returned to their empty rooms.
+
+Jack Morris went to look for work at the Red Lion. There he met that
+genial comrade, Joe Hollends, who had been reformed, and who had
+backslid twice since Jack had foregathered with him before. It is but
+fair to Joe to admit that he had never been optimistic about his own
+reclamation, but being an obliging man, even when he was sober, he was
+willing to give the Social League every chance. Jack was deeply grieved
+at the death of his son, although he had said no word to his wife that
+would show it. It therefore took more liquor than usual to bring him up
+to the point of good comradeship that reigned at the Red Lion. When he
+and Joe left the tavern that night it would have taken an expert to
+tell which was the more inebriated. They were both in good fighting
+trim, and were both in the humor for a row. The police, who had
+reckoned on Joe alone, suddenly found a new element in the fight that
+not only upset their calculations but themselves as well. It was a
+glorious victory, and, as both fled down a side street, Morris urged
+Hollends to come along, for the representatives of law and order have
+the habit of getting reinforcements which often turn a victory into a
+most ignominious defeat.
+
+"I can't," panted Hollends. "The beggars have hurt me."
+
+"Come along. I know a place where we are safe."
+
+Drunk as he was, Jack succeeded in finding the hole in the wall that
+allowed him to enter a vacant spot behind the box factory. There
+Hollends lay down with a groan, and there Morris sank beside him in a
+drunken sleep. The police were at last revenged, and finally.
+
+When the grey daylight brought Morris to a dazed sense of where he was,
+he found his companion dead beside him. He had a vague fear that he
+would be tried for murder, but it was not so. From the moment that
+Hollends, in his fall, struck his head on the curb, the Providence
+which looks after the drunken deserted him.
+
+But the inquest accomplished one good object. It attracted the
+attention of the Social League to Jack Morris, and they are now
+endeavoring to reclaim him.
+
+Whether they succeed or not, he was a man that was certainly once worth
+saving.
+
+
+
+
+THE TYPE-WRITTEN LETTER.
+
+
+When a man has battled with poverty all his life, fearing it as he
+fought it, feeling for its skinny throat to throttle it, and yet
+dreading all the while the coming of the time when it would gain the
+mastery and throttle him--when such a man is told that he is rich, it
+might be imagined he would receive the announcement with hilarity. When
+Richard Denham realized that he was wealthy he became even more sobered
+than usual, and drew a long breath as if he had been running a race and
+had won it. The man who brought him the news had no idea he had told
+Denham anything novel.
+
+He merely happened to say, "You are a rich man, Mr. Denham, and will
+never miss it."
+
+Denham had never before been called a rich man, and up to that moment
+he had not thought of himself as wealthy. He wrote out the check asked
+of him, and his visitor departed gratefully, leaving the merchant with
+something to ponder over. He was as surprised with the suddenness of
+the thing as if someone had left him a legacy. Yet the money was all of
+his own accumulating, but his struggle had been so severe, and he had
+been so hopeless about it, that from mere habit he exerted all his
+energies long after the enemy was overcome--just as the troops at New
+Orleans fought a fierce battle not knowing that the war was over. He
+had sprung from such a hopelessly poor family. Poverty had been their
+inheritance from generation to generation. It was the invariable legacy
+that father had left to son in the Denham family. All had accepted
+their lot with uncomplaining resignation, until Richard resolved he
+would at least have a fight for it. And now the fight had been won.
+Denham sat in his office staring at the dingy wall-paper so long, that
+Rogers, the chief clerk, put his head in and said in a deferential
+voice:
+
+"Anything more to-night, Mr. Denham?"
+
+Denham started as if that question in that tone had not been asked him
+every night for years.
+
+"What's that, what's that?" he cried.
+
+Rogers was astonished, but too well trained to show it.
+
+"Anything more to-night, Mr. Denham?"
+
+"Ah, quite so. No, Rogers, thank you, nothing more."
+
+"Good-night, Mr. Denham."
+
+"Eh? Oh, yes. Good-night, Rogers, good-night."
+
+When Mr. Denham left his office and went out into the street everything
+had an unusual appearance to him. He walked along, unheeding the
+direction. He looked at the fine residences and realized that he might
+have a fine residence if he wanted it. He saw handsome carriages; he
+too might set up an equipage. The satisfaction these thoughts produced
+was brief. Of what use would a fine house or an elegant carriage be to
+him? He knew no one to invite to the house or to ride with him in the
+carriage. He began to realize how utterly alone in the world he was. He
+had no friends, no acquaintances even. The running dog, with its nose
+to the ground, sees nothing of the surrounding scenery. He knew men in
+a business way, of course, and doubtless each of them had a home in the
+suburbs somewhere, but he could not take a business man by the
+shoulders and say to him, "Invite me to your house; I am lonely; I want
+to know people."
+
+If he got such an invitation, he would not know what to do with
+himself. He was familiar with the counting-room and its language, but
+the drawing-room was an unexplored country to him, where an unknown
+tongue was spoken. On the road to wealth he had missed something, and
+it was now too late to go back for it. Only the day before, he had
+heard one of the clerks, who did not know he was within earshot, allude
+to him as "the old man." He felt as young as ever he did, but the
+phrase, so lightly spoken, made him catch his breath.
+
+As he was now walking through the park, and away from the busy streets,
+he took off his hat and ran his fingers through his grizzled hair,
+looking at his hand when he had done so, as if the grey, like wet
+paint, might have come off. He thought of a girl he knew once, who
+perhaps would have married him if he had asked her, as he was tempted
+to do. But that had always been the mistake of the Denhams. They had
+all married young except himself, and so sunk deeper into the mire of
+poverty, pressed down by a rapidly-increasing progeny. The girl had
+married a baker, he remembered. Yes, that was a long time ago. The
+clerk was not far wrong when he called him an old man. Suddenly,
+another girl arose before his mental vision--a modern girl--very
+different indeed to the one who married the baker. She was the only
+woman in the world with whom he was on speaking terms, and he knew her
+merely because her light and nimble fingers played the business sonata
+of one note on his office typewriter. Miss Gale was pretty, of course--
+all typewriter girls are--and it was generally understood in the office
+that she belonged to a good family who had come down in the world. Her
+somewhat independent air deepened this conviction and kept the clerks
+at a distance. She was a sensible girl who realized that the typewriter
+paid better than the piano, and accordingly turned the expertness of
+her white fingers to the former instrument. Richard Denham sat down
+upon a park bench. "Why not?" he asked himself. There was no reason
+against it except that he felt he had not the courage. Nevertheless, he
+formed a desperate resolution.
+
+Next day, business went on as usual. Letters were answered, and the
+time arrived when Miss Gale came in to see if he had any further
+commands that day. Denham hesitated. He felt vaguely that a business
+office was not the proper place for a proposal; yet he knew he would be
+at a disadvantage anywhere else. In the first place, he had no
+plausible excuse for calling upon the young woman at home, and, in the
+second place, he knew if he once got there he would be stricken dumb.
+It must either be at his office or nowhere.
+
+"Sit down a moment, Miss Gale," he said at last; "I wanted to consult
+you about a matter--about a business matter."
+
+Miss Gale seated herself, and automatically placed on her knee the
+shorthand writing-pad ready to take down his instructions. She looked
+up at him expectantly. Denham, in an embarrassed manner, ran his
+fingers through his hair.
+
+"I am thinking," he began, "of taking a partner. The business is very
+prosperous now. In fact, it has been so for some time."
+
+"Yes?" said Miss Gale interrogatively.
+
+"Yes. I think I should have a partner. It is about that I wanted to
+speak to you."
+
+"Don't you think it would be better to consult with Mr. Rogers? He
+knows more about business than I. But perhaps it is Mr. Rogers who is
+to be the partner?"
+
+"No, it is not Rogers. Rogers is a good man. But--it is not Rogers."
+
+"Then I think in an important matter like this Mr. Rogers, or someone
+who knows the business as thoroughly as he does, would be able to give
+you advice that would be of some value."
+
+"I don't want advice exactly. I have made up my mind to have a partner,
+if the partner is willing."
+
+Denham mopped his brow. It was going to be even more difficult than he
+had anticipated.
+
+"Is it, then, a question of the capital the partner is to bring in?"
+asked Miss Gale, anxious to help him.
+
+"No, no. I don't wish any capital. I have enough for both. And the
+business is very prosperous, Miss Gale--and--and has been."
+
+The young woman raised her eyebrows in surprise.
+
+"You surely don't intend to share the profits with a partner who brings
+no capital into the business?"
+
+"Yes--yes, I do. You see, as I said, I have no need for more capital."
+
+"Oh, if that is the case, I think you should consult Mr. Rogers before
+you commit yourself."
+
+"But Rogers wouldn't understand."
+
+"I'm afraid I don't understand either. It seems to me a foolish thing
+to do--that is, if you want my advice."
+
+"Oh, yes, I want it. But it isn't as foolish as you think. I should
+have had a partner long ago. That is where I made the mistake. I've
+made up my mind on that."
+
+"Then I don't see that I can be of any use--if your mind is already
+made up."
+
+"Oh, yes, you can. I'm a little afraid that my offer may not be
+accepted."
+
+"It is sure to be, if the man has any sense. No fear of such an offer
+being refused! Offers like that are not to be had every day. It will be
+accepted."
+
+"Do you really think so, Miss Gale? I am glad that is your opinion.
+Now, what I wanted to consult you about, is the form of the offer. I
+would like to put it--well--delicately, you know, so that it would not
+be refused, nor give offence."
+
+"I see. You want me to write a letter to him?"
+
+"Exactly, exactly," cried Denham with some relief. He had not thought
+of sending a letter before. Now, he wondered why he had not thought of
+it. It was so evidently the best way out of a situation that was
+extremely disconcerting.
+
+"Have you spoken to him about it?"
+
+"To him? What him?"
+
+"To your future partner, about the proposal?"
+
+"No, no. Oh, no. That is--I have spoken to nobody but you."
+
+"And you are determined not to speak to Mr. Rogers before you write?"
+
+"Certainly not. It's none of Roger's business."
+
+"Oh, very well," said Miss Gale shortly, bending over her writing-pad.
+
+It was evident that her opinion of Denham's wisdom was steadily
+lowering. Suddenly, she looked up.
+
+"How much shall I say the annual profits are? Or do you want that
+mentioned?"
+
+"I--I don't think I would mention that. You see, I don't wish this
+arrangement to be carried out on a monetary basis--not altogether."
+
+"On what basis then?"
+
+"Well--I can hardly say. On a personal basis, perhaps. I rather hope
+that the person--that my partner--would, you know, like to be
+associated with me."
+
+"On a friendly basis, do you mean?" asked Miss Gale, mercilessly.
+
+"Certainly. Friendly, of course--and perhaps more than that."
+
+Miss Gale looked up at him with a certain hopelessness of expression.
+
+"Why not write a note inviting your future partner to call upon you
+here, or anywhere else that would be convenient, and then discuss the
+matter?"
+
+Denham looked frightened.
+
+"I thought of that, but it wouldn't do. No; it wouldn't do. I would
+much rather settle everything by correspondence."
+
+"I am afraid I shall not be able to compose a letter that will suit
+you. There seem to be so many difficulties. It is very unusual."
+
+"That is true, and that is why I knew no one but you could help me,
+Miss Gale. If it pleases you, it will please me."
+
+Miss Gale shook her head, but, after a few moments, she said, "How will
+this do?"
+
+"Dear Sir"--
+
+"Wait a moment," cried Mr. Denham; "that seems rather a formal opening,
+doesn't it? How would it read if you put it 'Dear friend'?"
+
+"If you wish it so." She crossed out the "sir" and substituted the word
+suggested. Then, she read the letter:
+
+"Dear Friend,--I have for some time past been desirous of taking a
+partner, and would be glad if you would consider the question and
+consent to join me in this business. The business is, and has been for
+several years, very prosperous, and, as I shall require no capital from
+you, I think you will find my offer a very advantageous one. I will--"
+
+"I--I don't think I would put it quite that way." said Denham, with
+some hesitation. "It reads as if I were offering everything, and that
+my partner--well, you see what I mean."
+
+"It's the truth," said Miss Gale, defiantly.
+
+"Better put it on the friendly basis, as you suggested a moment ago."
+
+"I didn't suggest anything, Mr. Denham. Perhaps it would be better if
+you would dictate the letter exactly as you want it. I knew I could not
+write one that would please you."
+
+"It does please me, but I'm thinking of my future partner. You are
+doing first-rate--better than I could do. But just put it on the
+friendly basis."
+
+A moment later she read:
+
+"... join me in this business. I make you this offer entirely from a
+friendly, and not from a financial, standpoint, hoping that you like me
+well enough to be associated with me."
+
+"Anything else, Mr. Denham?"
+
+"No. I think that covers the whole ground. It will look rather short,
+type-written, won't it? Perhaps you might add something to show that I
+shall be exceedingly disappointed if my offer is not accepted."
+
+"No fear," said Miss Gale. "I'll add that though. 'Yours truly,' or
+'Yours very truly'?"
+
+"You might end it 'Your friend.'"
+
+The rapid click of the typewriter was heard for a few moments in the
+next room, and then Miss Gale came out with the completed letter in her
+hand.
+
+"Shall I have the boy copy it?" she asked.
+
+"Oh, bless you, no!" answered Mr. Denham, with evident trepidation.
+
+The young woman said to herself, "He doesn't want Mr. Rogers to know,
+and no wonder. It is a most unbusiness-like proposal."
+
+Then she said aloud, "Shall you want me again to-day?"
+
+"No, Miss Gale; and thank you very much."
+
+Next morning, Miss Gale came into Mr. Denham's office with a smile on
+her face.
+
+"You made a funny mistake last night, Mr. Denham," she said, as she
+took off her wraps.
+
+"Did I?" he asked, in alarm.
+
+"Yes. You sent that letter to my address. I got it this morning. I
+opened it, for I thought it was for me, and that perhaps you did not
+need me to-day. But I saw at once that you put it in the wrong
+envelope. Did you want me to-day?"
+
+It was on his tongue to say, "I want you every day," but he merely held
+out his hand for the letter, and looked at it as if he could not
+account for its having gone astray.
+
+The next day Miss Gale came late, and she looked frightened. It was
+evident that Denham was losing his mind. She put the letter down before
+him and said:
+
+"You addressed that to me the second time, Mr. Denham."
+
+There was a look of haggard anxiety about Denham that gave color to her
+suspicions. He felt that it was now or never.
+
+"Then why don't you answer it, Miss Gale?" he said gruffly.
+
+She backed away from him.
+
+"Answer it?" she repeated faintly.
+
+"Certainly. If I got a letter twice, I would answer it."
+
+"What do you mean?" she cried, with her hand on the door-knob.
+
+"Exactly what the letter says. I want you for my partner. I want to
+marry you, and d--n financial considerations--"
+
+"Oh!" cried Miss Gale, in a long-drawn, quivering sigh. She was
+doubtless shocked at the word he had used, and fled to her typewriting
+room, closing the door behind her.
+
+Richard Denham paced up and down the floor for a few moments, then
+rapped lightly at her door, but there was no response. He put on his
+hat and went out into the street. After a long and aimless walk, he
+found himself again at his place of business. When he went in, Rogers
+said to him:
+
+"Miss Gale has left, sir."
+
+"Has she?"
+
+"Yes, and she has given notice. Says she is not coming back, sir."
+
+"Very well."
+
+He went into his own room and found a letter marked "personal" on his
+desk. He tore it open, and read in neatly type-written characters:
+
+
+"I have resigned my place as typewriter girl, having been offered a
+better situation. I am offered a partnership in the house of Richard
+Denham. I have decided to accept the position, not so much on account
+of its financial attractions, as because I shall be glad, on a friendly
+basis, to be associated with the gentleman I have named. Why did you
+put me to all that worry writing that idiotic letter, when a few words
+would have saved ever so much bother? You evidently _need_ a
+partner. My mother will be pleased to meet you any time you call. You
+have the address,--Your friend,
+
+                                   "MARGARET GALE."
+
+
+"Rogers!" shouted Denham, joyfully.
+
+"Yes, sir," answered that estimable man, putting his head into the
+room.
+
+"Advertise for another typewriter girl, Rogers."
+
+"Yes, sir," said Rogers.
+
+
+
+
+THE DOOM OF LONDON.
+
+
+I.--THE SELF-CONCEIT OF THE 20TH CENTURY.
+
+I trust I am thankful my life has been spared until I have seen that
+most brilliant epoch of the world's history--the middle of the 20th
+century. It would be useless for any man to disparage the vast
+achievements of the past fifty years, and if I venture to call
+attention to the fact, now apparently forgotten, that the people of the
+19th century succeeded in accomplishing many notable things, it must
+not be imagined that I intend thereby to discount in any measure the
+marvellous inventions of the present age. Men have always been somewhat
+prone to look with a certain condescension upon those who lived fifty
+or a hundred years before them. This seems to me the especial weakness
+of the present age; a feeling of national self-conceit, which, when it
+exists, should at least be kept as much in the background as possible.
+It will astonish many to know that such also was a failing of the
+people of the 19th century. They imagined themselves living in an age
+of progress, and while I am not foolish enough to attempt to prove that
+they did anything really worth recording, yet it must be admitted by
+any unprejudiced man of research that their inventions were at least
+stepping-stones to those of to-day. Although the telephone and
+telegraph, and all other electrical appliances, are now to be found
+only in our national museums, or in the private collections of those
+few men who take any interest in the doings of the last century,
+nevertheless, the study of the now obsolete science of electricity led
+up to the recent discovery of vibratory ether which does the work of
+the world so satisfactorily. The people of the 19th century were not
+fools, and although I am well aware that this statement will be
+received with scorn where it attracts any attention whatever, yet who
+can say that the progress of the next half-century may not be as great
+as that of the one now ended, and that the people of the next century
+may not look upon us with the same contempt which we feel toward those
+who lived fifty years ago?
+
+Being an old man, I am, perhaps, a laggard who dwells in the past
+rather than the present; still, it seems to me that such an article as
+that which appeared recently in _Blackwood_ from the talented pen
+of Prof. Mowberry, of Oxford University, is utterly unjustifiable.
+Under the title of "Did the People of London Deserve their Fate?" he
+endeavors to show that the simultaneous blotting out of millions of
+human beings was a beneficial event, the good results of which we still
+enjoy. According to him, Londoners were so dull-witted and stupid, so
+incapable of improvement, so sodden in the vice of mere money-
+gathering, that nothing but their total extinction would have sufficed,
+and that, instead of being an appalling catastrophe, the doom of London
+was an unmixed blessing. In spite of the unanimous approval with which
+this article has been received by the press, I still maintain that such
+writing is uncalled for, and that there is something to be said for the
+London of the 19th century.
+
+
+
+
+II.--WHY LONDON, WARNED, WAS UNPREPARED.
+
+
+The indignation I felt in first reading the article alluded to still
+remains with me, and it has caused me to write these words, giving some
+account of what I must still regard, in spite of the sneers of the
+present age, as the most terrible disaster that ever overtook a portion
+of the human race. I shall not endeavor to place before those who read,
+any record of the achievements pertaining to the time in question. But
+I would like to say a few words about the alleged stupidity of the
+people of London in making no preparations for a disaster regarding
+which they had continual and ever-recurring warning. They have been
+compared with the inhabitants of Pompeii making merry at the foot of a
+volcano. In the first place, fogs were so common in London, especially
+in winter, that no particular attention was paid to them. They were
+merely looked upon as inconvenient annoyances, interrupting traffic and
+prejudicial to health, but I doubt if anyone thought it possible for a
+fog to become one vast smothering mattress pressed down upon a whole
+metropolis, extinguishing life as if the city suffered from hopeless
+hydrophobia. I have read that victims bitten by mad dogs were formerly
+put out of their sufferings in that way, although I doubt much if such
+things were ever actually done, notwithstanding the charges of savage
+barbarity now made against the people of the 19th century.
+
+Probably, the inhabitants of Pompeii were so accustomed to the
+eruptions of Vesuvius that they gave no thought to the possibility of
+their city being destroyed by a storm of ashes and an overflow of lava.
+Rain frequently descended upon London, and if a rainfall continued long
+enough it would certainly have flooded the metropolis, but no
+precautions were taken against a flood from the clouds. Why, then,
+should the people have been expected to prepare for a catastrophe from
+fog, such as there had never been any experience of in the world's
+history? The people of London were far from being the sluggish dolts
+present-day writers would have us believe.
+
+
+
+
+III.--THE COINCIDENCE THAT CAME AT LAST.
+
+
+As fog has now been abolished both on sea and land, and as few of the
+present generation have even seen one, it may not be out of place to
+give a few lines on the subject of fogs in general, and the London fogs
+in particular, which through local peculiarities differed from all
+others. A fog was simply watery vapor rising from the marshy surface of
+the land or from the sea, or condensed into a cloud from the saturated
+atmosphere. In my day, fogs were a great danger at sea, for people then
+travelled by means of steamships that sailed upon the surface of the
+ocean.
+
+London at the end of the 19th century consumed vast quantities of a
+soft bituminous coal for the purpose of heating rooms and of preparing
+food. In the morning and during the day, clouds of black smoke were
+poured forth from thousands of chimneys. When a mass of white vapor
+arose in the night these clouds of smoke fell upon the fog, pressing it
+down, filtering slowly through it, and adding to its density. The sun
+would have absorbed the fog but for the layer of smoke that lay thick
+above the vapor and prevented the rays reaching it. Once this condition
+of things prevailed, nothing could clear London but a breeze of wind
+from any direction. London frequently had a seven days' fog, and
+sometimes a seven days' calm, but these two conditions never coincided
+until the last year of the last century. The coincidence, as everyone
+knows, meant death--death so wholesale that no war the earth has ever
+seen left such slaughter behind it. To understand the situation, one
+has only to imagine the fog as taking the place of the ashes at
+Pompeii, and the coal-smoke as being the lava that covered it. The
+result to the inhabitants in both cases was exactly the same.
+
+
+
+
+IV.--THE AMERICAN WHO WANTED TO SELL.
+
+
+I was at the time confidential clerk to the house of Fulton, Brixton &
+Co., a firm in Cannon Street, dealing largely in chemicals and chemical
+apparatus. Fulton I never knew; he died long before my time. Sir John
+Brixton was my chief, knighted, I believe, for services to his party,
+or because he was an official in the City during some royal progress
+through it; I have forgotten which. My small room was next to his large
+one, and my chief duty was to see that no one had an interview with Sir
+John unless he was an important man or had important business. Sir John
+was a difficult man to see, and a difficult man to deal with when he
+was seen. He had little respect for most men's feelings, and none at
+all for mine. If I allowed a man to enter his room who should have been
+dealt with by one of the minor members of the company, Sir John made no
+effort to conceal his opinion of me. One day, in the autumn of the last
+year of the century, an American was shown into my room. Nothing would
+do but he must have an interview with Sir John Brixton. I told him that
+it was impossible, as Sir John was extremely busy, but that if he
+explained his business to me I would lay it before Sir John at the
+first favorable opportunity. The American demurred at this, but finally
+accepted the inevitable. He was the inventor, he said, of a machine
+that would revolutionize life in London, and he wanted Fulton, Brixton
+& Co. to become agents for it. The machine, which he had in a small
+handbag with him, was of white metal, and it was so constructed that by
+turning an index it gave out greater or less volumes of oxygen gas. The
+gas, I understood, was stored in the interior in liquid form under
+great pressure, and would last, if I remember rightly, for six months
+without recharging. There was also a rubber tube with a mouthpiece
+attached to it, and the American said that if a man took a few whiffs a
+day, he would experience beneficial results. Now, I knew there was not
+the slightest use in showing the machine to Sir John, because we dealt
+in old-established British apparatus, and never in any of the new-
+fangled Yankee contraptions. Besides, Sir John had a prejudice against
+Americans, and I felt sure this man would exasperate him, as he was a
+most cadaverous specimen of the race, with high nasal tones, and a most
+deplorable pronunciation, much given to phrases savoring of slang; and
+he exhibited also a certain nervous familiarity of demeanor towards
+people to whom he was all but a complete stranger. It was impossible
+for me to allow such a man to enter the presence of Sir John Brixton,
+and when he returned some days later I explained to him, I hope with
+courtesy, that the head of the house regretted very much his inability
+to consider his proposal regarding the machine. The ardor of the
+American seemed in no way dampened by this rebuff. He said I could not
+have explained the possibilities of the apparatus properly to Sir John;
+he characterized it as a great invention, and said it meant a fortune
+to whoever obtained the agency for it. He hinted that other noted
+London houses were anxious to secure it, but for some reason not stated
+he preferred to deal with us. He left some printed pamphlets referring
+to the invention, and said he would call again.
+
+
+
+
+V.--THE AMERICAN SEES SIR JOHN.
+
+
+Many a time I have since thought of that persistent American, and
+wondered whether he left London before the disaster, or was one of the
+unidentified thousands who were buried in unmarked graves. Little did
+Sir John think when he expelled him with some asperity from his
+presence, that he was turning away an offer of life, and that the
+heated words he used were, in reality, a sentence of death upon
+himself. For my own part, I regret that I lost my temper, and told the
+American his business methods did not commend themselves to me. Perhaps
+he did not feel the sting of this; indeed, I feel certain he did not,
+for, unknowingly, he saved my life. Be that as it may, he showed no
+resentment, but immediately asked me out to drink with him, an offer I
+was compelled to refuse. But I am getting ahead of my story. Indeed,
+being unaccustomed to writing, it is difficult for me to set down
+events in their proper sequence. The American called upon me several
+times after I told him our house could not deal with him. He got into
+the habit of dropping in upon me unannounced, which I did not at all
+like, but I gave no instructions regarding his intrusions, because I
+had no idea of the extremes to which he was evidently prepared to go.
+One day, as he sat near my desk reading a paper, I was temporarily
+called from the room. When I returned I thought he had gone, taking his
+machine with him, but a moment later I was shocked to hear his high
+nasal tones in Sir John's room alternating with the deep notes of my
+chief's voice, which apparently exercised no such dread upon the
+American as upon those who were more accustomed to them. I at once
+entered the room, and was about to explain to Sir John that the
+American was there through no connivance of mine, when my chief asked
+me to be silent, and, turning to his visitor, gruffly requested him to
+proceed with his interesting narration. The inventor needed no second
+invitation, but went on with his glib talk, while Sir John's frown grew
+deeper, and his face became redder under his fringe of white hair. When
+the American had finished, Sir John roughly bade him begone, and take
+his accursed machine with him. He said it was an insult for a person
+with one foot in the grave to bring a so-called health invention to a
+robust man who never had a day's illness, I do not know why he listened
+so long to the American, when he had made up his mind from the first
+not to deal with him, unless it was to punish me for inadvertently
+allowing the stranger to enter. The interview distressed me
+exceedingly, as I stood there helpless, knowing Sir John was becoming
+more and more angry with every word the foreigner uttered, but, at
+last, I succeeded in drawing the inventor and his work into my own room
+and closing the door. I sincerely hoped I would never see the American
+again, and my wish was gratified. He insisted on setting his machine
+going, and placing it on a shelf in my room. He asked me to slip it
+into Sir John's room come foggy day and note the effect. The man said
+he would call again, but he never did.
+
+
+
+
+VI.--HOW THE SMOKE HELD DOWN THE FOG.
+
+
+It was on a Friday that the fog came down upon us. The weather was very
+fine up to the middle of November that autumn. The fog did not seem to
+have anything unusual about it. I have seen many worse fogs than that
+appeared to be. As day followed day, however, the atmosphere became
+denser and darker, caused, I suppose, by the increasing volume of coal-
+smoke poured out upon it. The peculiarity about those seven days was
+the intense stillness of the air. We were, although we did not know it,
+under an air-proof canopy, and were slowly but surely exhausting the
+life-giving oxygen around us, and replacing it by poisonous carbonic
+acid gas. Scientific men have since showed that a simple mathematical
+calculation might have told us exactly when the last atom of oxygen
+would have been consumed; but it is easy to be wise after the event.
+The body of the greatest mathematician in England was found in the
+Strand. He came that morning from Cambridge. During the fog there was
+always a marked increase in the death rate, and on this occasion the
+increase was no greater than usual until the sixth day. The newspapers
+on the morning of the seventh were full of startling statistics, but at
+the time of going to press the full significant of the alarming figures
+was not realized. The editorials of the morning papers on the seventh
+day contained no warning of the calamity that was so speedily to follow
+their appearance. I lived then at Ealing, a Western suburb of London,
+and came every morning to Cannon Street by a certain train. I had up to
+the sixth day experienced no inconvenience from the fog, and this was
+largely due, I am convinced, to the unnoticed operations of the
+American machine.
+
+On the fifth and sixth days Sir John did not come to the City, but he
+was in his office on the seventh. The door between his room and mine
+was closed. Shortly after ten o'clock I heard a cry in his room,
+followed by a heavy fall. I opened the door, and saw Sir John lying
+face downwards on the floor. Hastening towards him, I felt for the
+first time the deadly effect of the deoxygenized atmosphere, and before
+I reached him I fell first on one knee and then headlong. I realized
+that my senses were leaving me, and instinctively crawled back to my
+own room, where the oppression was at once lifted, and I stood again
+upon my feet, gasping. I closed the door of Sir John's room, thinking
+it filled with poisonous fumes, as, indeed, it was. I called loudly for
+help, but there was no answer. On opening the door to the main office I
+met again what I thought was the noxious vapor. Speedily as I closed
+the door, I was impressed by the intense silence of the usually busy
+office, and saw that some of the clerks were motionless on the floor,
+and others sat with their heads on their desks as if asleep. Even at
+this awful moment I did not realize that what I saw was common to all
+London, and not, as I imagined, a local disaster, caused by the
+breaking of some carboys in our cellar. (It was filled with chemicals
+of every kind, of whose properties I was ignorant, dealing as I did
+with the accountant, and not the scientific side of our business.) I
+opened the only window in my room, and again shouted for help. The
+street was silent and dark in the ominously still fog, and what now
+froze me with horror was meeting the same deadly, stifling atmosphere
+that was in the rooms. In falling I brought down the window, and shut
+out the poisonous air. Again I revived, and slowly the true state of
+things began to dawn upon me.
+
+I was in an oasis of oxygen. I at once surmised that the machine on my
+shelf was responsible for the existence of this oasis in a vast desert
+of deadly gas. I took down the American's machine, fearful in moving it
+that I might stop its working. Taking the mouthpiece between my lips I
+again entered Sir John's room, this time without feeling any ill
+effects. My poor master was long beyond human help. There was evidently
+no one alive in the building except myself. Out in the street all was
+silent and dark. The gas was extinguished, but here and there in shops
+the incandescent lights were still weirdly burning, depending, as they
+did, on accumulators, and not on direct engine power. I turned
+automatically towards Cannon Street Station, knowing my way to it even
+if blindfolded, stumbling over bodies prone on the pavement, and in
+crossing the street I ran against a motionless 'bus, spectral in the
+fog, with dead horses lying in front, and their reins dangling from the
+nerveless hand of a dead driver. The ghostlike passengers, equally
+silent, sat bolt upright, or hung over the edge boards in attitudes
+horribly grotesque.
+
+
+
+
+VII.--THE TRAIN WITH ITS TRAIL OF THE DEAD.
+
+
+If a man's reasoning faculties were alert at such a time (I confess
+mine were dormant), he would have known there could be no trains at
+Cannon Street Station, for if there was not enough oxygen in the air to
+keep a man alive, or a gas-jet alight, there would certainly not be
+enough to enable an engine fire to burn, even if the engineer retained
+sufficient energy to attend to his task. At times instinct is better
+than reason, and it proved so in this case. The railway from Ealing in
+those days came under the City in a deep tunnel. It would appear that
+in this underground passage the carbonic acid gas would first find a
+resting-place on account of its weight; but such was not the fact. I
+imagine that a current through the tunnel brought from the outlying
+districts a supply of comparatively pure air that, for some minutes
+after the general disaster, maintained human life. Be this as it may,
+the long platforms of Cannon Street Underground Station presented a
+fearful spectacle. A train stood at the down platform. The electric
+lights burned fitfully. This platform was crowded with men, who fought
+each other like demons, apparently for no reason, because the train was
+already packed as full as it could hold. Hundreds were dead under foot,
+and every now and then a blast of foul air came along the tunnel,
+whereupon hundreds more would relax their grips, and succumb. Over
+their bodies the survivors fought, with continually thinning ranks. It
+seemed to me that most of those in the standing train were dead.
+Sometimes a desperate body of fighters climbed over those lying in
+heaps and, throwing open a carriage door, hauled out passengers already
+in, and took their places, gasping. Those in the train offered no
+resistance, and lay motionless where they were flung, or rolled
+helplessly under the wheels of the train. I made my way along the wall
+as well as I could to the engine, wondering why the train did not go.
+The engineer lay on the floor of his cab, and the fires were out.
+
+Custom is a curious thing. The struggling mob, fighting wildly for
+places in the carriages, were so accustomed to trains arriving and
+departing that it apparently occurred to none of them that the engineer
+was human and subject to the same atmospheric conditions as themselves.
+I placed the mouthpiece between his purple lips, and, holding my own
+breath like a submerged man, succeeded in reviving him. He said that if
+I gave him the machine he would take out the train as far as the steam
+already in the boiler would carry it. I refused to do this, but stepped
+on the engine with him, saying it would keep life in both of us until
+we got out into better air. In a surly manner he agreed to this and
+started the train, but he did not play fair. Each time he refused to
+give up the machine until I was in a fainting condition with holding in
+my breath, and, finally, he felled me to the floor of the cab. I
+imagine that the machine rolled off the train as I fell and that he
+jumped after it. The remarkable thing is that neither of us needed the
+machine, for I remember that just after we started I noticed through
+the open iron door that the engine fire suddenly became aglow again,
+although at the time I was in too great a state of bewilderment and
+horror to understand what it meant. A western gale had sprung up--an
+hour too late. Even before we left Cannon Street those who still
+survived were comparatively safe, for one hundred and sixty-seven
+persons were rescued from that fearful heap of dead on the platforms,
+although many died within a day or two after, and others never
+recovered their reason. When I regained my senses after the blow dealt
+by the engineer, I found myself alone, and the train speeding across
+the Thames near Kew. I tried to stop the engine, but did not succeed.
+However, in experimenting, I managed to turn on the air brake, which in
+some degree checked the train, and lessened the impact when the crash
+came at Richmond terminus. I sprang off on the platform before the
+engine reached the terminal buffers, and saw passing me like a
+nightmare the ghastly trainload of the dead. Most of the doors were
+swinging open, and every compartment was jammed full, although, as I
+afterwards learned, at each curve of the permanent way, or extra lurch
+of the train, bodies had fallen out all along the line. The smash at
+Richmond made no difference to the passengers. Besides myself, only two
+persons were taken alive from the train, and one of these, his clothes
+torn from his back in the struggle was sent to an asylum, where he was
+never able to tell who he was; neither, as far as I know, did anyone
+ever claim him.
+
+
+
+
+THE PREDICAMENT OF DE PLONVILLE.
+
+
+This story differs from others in having an assortment of morals. Most
+stories have one moral; here are several. The moral usually appears at
+the end--in this case a few are mentioned at the beginning, so that
+they may be looked out for as the reading progresses. First: it is well
+for a man--especially a young man--to attend to his own business.
+Second in planning a person's life for some little distance ahead, it
+will be a mistake if an allowance of ten per cent, at least, is not
+made for that unknown quantity--woman. Third: it is beneficial to
+remember that one man rarely knows everything. Other morals will
+doubtless present themselves, and at the end the cynically-inclined
+person may reflect upon the adage about the frying-pan and the fire.
+
+Young M. de Plonville of Paris enjoyed a most enviable position. He had
+all the money he needed, which is quite a different thing from saying
+he had all the money he wanted. He was well educated, and spoke three
+languages, that is, he spoke his own well and the other two badly, but
+as a man always prides himself on what he is least able to do, De
+Plonville fancied himself a linguist. His courage in speaking English
+to Englishmen and German to Germans showed that he was, at least, a
+brave man. There was a great deal of good and even of talent in De
+Plonville. This statement is made at the beginning, because everyone
+who knows De Plonville will at once unhesitatingly contradict it. His
+acquaintances thought him one of the most objectionable young men in
+Paris, and naval officers, when his name was mentioned, usually gave
+themselves over to strong and unjustifiable language. This was all on
+account of De Plonville's position, which, although enviable had its
+drawbacks.
+
+His rank in the navy was such that it entitled him to no consideration
+whatever, but, unfortunately for his own popularity, De Plonville had a
+method of giving force to his suggestions. His father was a very big
+man in the French Government. He was so big a man that he could send a
+censure to the commander of a squadron in the navy, and the commander
+dare not talk back. It takes a very big man indeed to do this, and that
+was the elder De Plonville's size. But then it was well known that the
+elder De Plonville was an easy-going man who loved comfort, and did not
+care to trouble himself too much about the navy in his charge, and so
+when there was trouble, young De Plonville. got the credit of it;
+consequently, the love of the officers did not flow out to him.
+
+Often young De Plonville's idiotic impetuosity gave color to these
+suspicions. For instance, there is the well-known Toulon incident. In a
+heated controversy young De Plonville had claimed that the firing of
+the French ironclads was something execrable, and that the whole fleet
+could not hold their own at the cannon with any ten of the British
+navy. Some time after, the naval officers learned that the Government
+at Paris was very much displeased with the inaccurate gun practice of
+the fleet, and the hope was expressed that the commander would see his
+way to improving it. Of course, the officers could do nothing but gnash
+their teeth, try to shoot better, and hope for a time to come when the
+Government then in power would be out, and they could find some
+tangible pretence for hanging young De Plonville from the yard-arm.
+
+All this has only a remote bearing upon this story, but we now come to
+a matter on which the story sinks or swims. De Plonville had a secret--
+not such a secret as is common in Parisian life, but one entirely
+creditable to him. It related to an invention intended to increase the
+efficiency of the French army. The army being a branch of the defences
+of his country with which De Plonville had nothing whatever to do, his
+attention naturally turned towards it. He spoke of this invention,
+once, to a friend, a lieutenant in the army. He expected to get some
+practical suggestions. He never mentioned it again to anyone.
+
+"It is based on the principle of the umbrella," he said to his friend;
+"in fact, it was the umbrella that suggested it to me. If it could be
+made very light so as not to add seriously to the impedimenta at
+present carried by the soldier, it seems to me it would be exceedingly
+useful. Instead of being circular as an umbrella is, it must be oblong
+with sharp ends. It would have to be arranged so as to be opened and
+closed quickly, with the cloth thin, but impervious to water. When the
+army reached a river each soldier could open this, place it in the
+water, enter it with some care, and then paddle himself across with the
+butt-end of his gun, or even with a light paddle, if the carrying of it
+added but little to the weight, thus saving the building of temporary
+bridges. It seems to me such an invention ought to be of vast use in a
+forced march. Then at night it might be used as a sort of tent, or in a
+heavy rain it would form a temporary shelter. What do you think of the
+idea?" His friend had listened with half-closed eyes. He blew a whiff
+of cigarette smoke from his nostrils and answered:
+
+"It is wonderful, De Plonville," he said drawlingly. "Its possibilities
+are vast--more so than even you appear to think. It would be very
+useful in our Alpine corps as well."
+
+"I am glad you think so. But why there?"
+
+"Well, you see, if the army reached a high peak looking into a deep
+valley, only to be reached over an inaccessible precipice, all the army
+would have to do would be to spread out your superb invention and use
+it as a parachute. The sight of the army of France gradually floating
+down into the valley would be so terrifying to the nations of Europe,
+that I imagine no enemy would wait for a gun to be fired. De Plonville,
+your invention will immortalize you, and immortalize the French army."
+
+Young De Plonville waited to hear no more, but turned on his heel and
+strode away.
+
+This conversation caused young De Plonville to make two resolutions;
+first, to mention his scheme to no one; second, to persevere and
+perfect his invention, thus causing confusion to the scoffer. There
+were several sub-resolutions dependent on these two. He would not enter
+a club, he would abjure society, he would not speak to a woman--he
+would, in short, be a hermit until his invention stood revealed before
+an astonished world.
+
+All of which goes to show that young De Plonville was not the
+conceited, meddlesome fop his acquaintances thought him. But in the
+large and small resolutions he did not deduct the ten per cent, for the
+unknown quantity.
+
+Where? That was the question. De Plonville walked up and down his room,
+and thought it out. A large map of France was spread on the table.
+Paris and the environs thereof were manifestly impossible. He needed a
+place of seclusion. He needed a stretch of water. Where then should be
+the spot to which coming generations would point and say, "Here, at
+this place, was perfected De Plonville's celebrated parachute-tent-
+bateau invention."
+
+No, not parachute. Hang the parachute! That was the scoffing
+lieutenant's word. De Plonville paused for a moment to revile his folly
+in making a confidant of any army man.
+
+There was a sufficiency of water around the French coast, but it was
+too cold at that season of the year to experiment in the north and
+east. There was left the Mediterranean. He thought rapidly of the
+different delightful spots along the Riviera--Cannes, St. Raphael,
+Nice, Monte Carlo,--but all of these were too public and too much
+thronged with visitors. The name of the place came to him suddenly,
+and, as he stopped his march to and fro, De Plonville wondered why it
+had not suggested itself to him at the very first. Hyčres! It seemed to
+have been planned in the Middle Ages for the perfecting of just such an
+invention. It was situated two or three miles back from the sea, the
+climate was perfect, there was no marine parade, the sea coast was
+lonely, and the bay sheltered by the islands. It was an ideal spot.
+
+De Plonville easily secured leave of absence. Sons of fathers high up
+in the service of a grateful country seldom have any difficulty about a
+little thing like that. He purchased a ticket for that leisurely train
+which the French with their delicious sense of humor call the "Rapide,"
+and in due time found himself with his various belongings standing on
+the station platform at Hyčres.
+
+Few of us are as brave as we think ourselves. De Plonville flinched
+when the supreme moment came, and perhaps that is why the Gods punished
+him. He had resolved to go to one of the country inns at Carqueyranne
+on the coast, but this was in a heroic mood when the lieutenant had
+laughed at his project. Now in a cooler moment he thought of the
+cuisine of Carqueyranne and shuddered. There are sacrifices which no
+man should be called upon to endure, so the naval officer hesitated,
+and at last directed the porter to put his luggage on the top of the
+Costebelle Hotel "bus." There would be society at the hotel it is true,
+but he could avoid it, while if he went to the rural tavern he could
+not avoid the cooking. Thus he smothered his conscience. Lunch at
+Costebelle seemed to justify his choice of an abiding-place. The
+surroundings of the hotel were dangerously charming to a man whose
+natural inclination was towards indolent enjoyment. It was a place to
+"Loaf and invite your soul," as Walt Whitman phrases it. Plonville, who
+was there incognito, for he had temporarily dropped the "De," strolled
+towards the sea in the afternoon, with the air of one who has nothing
+on his mind. No one to see him would have suspected he was the future
+Edison of France. When he reached the coast at the ruins of the ancient
+Roman naval station called Pomponiana, he smote his thigh with joy. He
+had forgotten that at this spot there had been erected a number of
+little wooden houses, each larger than a bathing-machine and smaller
+than a cottage, which were used in summer by the good people of Hyčres,
+and in winter were silently vacant. The largest of these would be
+exactly the place for him, and he knew he would have no difficulty in
+renting it for a month or two. Here, he could bring down his half-
+finished invention; here, work at it all day unmolested; and here test
+its sailing qualities with no onlookers.
+
+He walked up the road, and hailed the ancient bus which jogs along
+between Toulon and Hyčres by way of the coast; mounted beside the
+driver, and speedily got information about the owner of the cottages at
+Pomponiana.
+
+As he expected, he had no difficulty in arranging with the proprietor
+for the largest of the little cottages, but he thought he detected a
+slight depression on the right eyelid as that person handed him the
+key. Had the owner suspected his purpose? he asked himself anxiously,
+as he drove back from the town to Costebelle. Impossible. He felt,
+however, that he could not be too secret about his intentions. He had
+heard of inventors being forestalled just at the very moment of
+success.
+
+He bade the driver wait, and placed that part of his luggage in the cab
+which consisted of his half-finished invention and the materials for
+completing it. Then he drove to the coast, and after placing the
+packages on the ground, paid and dismissed the man. When the cab was
+out of sight, he carried the things to the cottage and locked them in.
+His walk up the hill to the hotel rendered the excellent dinner
+provided doubly attractive.
+
+Next morning he was early at work, and speedily began to realize how
+many necessary articles he had forgotten at Paris. He hoped he would be
+able to get them at Hyčres, but his remembrance of the limited
+resources of the town made him somewhat doubtful. The small windows on
+each side gave him scarcely enough light, but he did not open the door,
+fearing the curiosity of a chance passer-by. One cannot be too careful
+in maturing a great invention.
+
+Plonville had been at work for possibly an hour and a half, when he
+heard someone singing, and that very sweetly. She sang with the joyous
+freedom of one who suspected no listener. The song came nearer and
+nearer. Plonville standing amazed, dropped his implements, and stole to
+the somewhat obscure little window. He saw a vision of fresh loveliness
+dressed in a costume he never before beheld on a vision. She came down
+the bank with a light, springy step to the next cottage, took a key
+that hung at her belt, and threw open the door. The song was hushed,
+but not silenced, for a moment, and then there came from out the
+cottage door the half of a boat that made Plonville gasp. Like the
+costume, he had never before seen such a boat. It was exactly the shape
+in which he had designed his invention, and was of some extra light
+material, for the sylph-like girl in the extraordinary dress pushed it
+forth without even ceasing her song. Next moment, she came out herself
+and stood there while she adjusted her red head-gear. She drew the boat
+down to the water, picked out of it a light, silver-mounted paddle,
+stepped deftly aboard, and settled down to her place with the airy
+grace of a thistle-down. There was no seat in the boat, Plonville noted
+with astonishment. The sea was very smooth, and a few strokes of the
+paddle sent girl and craft out of sight along the coast. Plonville drew
+a deep breath of bewilderment. It was his first sight of a Thames
+boating costume and a canoe.
+
+This, then, was why the man winked when he gave him the key. Plonville
+was in a quandary. Should he reveal himself when she returned? It did
+not seem to be quite the thing to allow the girl to believe she had the
+coast to herself when in fact she hadn't. But then there was his
+invention to think of. He had sworn allegiance to that. He sat down and
+pondered. English, evidently. He had no idea English girls were so
+pretty, and then that costume! It was _very_ taking. The rich,
+creamy folds of the white flannel, so simple, yet so complete, lingered
+in his memory. Still, what was he there for? His invention certainly.
+The sneer of the lieutenant stung his memory. That Miss Whatever-her-
+name-might-be had rented the next box was nothing to him; of course
+not. He waved her aside and turned to his work. He had lost enough of
+time as it was; he would lose no more.
+
+Although armed with this heroic resolution, his task somehow did not
+seem so interesting as before, and he found himself listening now and
+then for the siren's song. He dramatized imaginary situations, which is
+always bad for practical work. He saw the frail craft shattered or
+overturned, and beheld himself bravely buffeting the waves rescuing the
+fair girl in white. Then he remembered with a sigh that he was not a
+good swimmer. Possibly she was more at home in the waves than he was.
+Those English seemed on such terms of comradeship with the sea.
+
+At last, intuition rather than hearing told him she had returned. He
+walked on tip-toe to the dingy window. She was pulling the light canoe
+up from the water. He checked his impulse to offer assistance. When the
+girl sprang lightly up the bank, Plonville sighed and concluded he had
+done enough work for the day. As he reached the road, he noticed that
+the white figure in the distance did not take the way to the hotel, but
+towards one of the neighboring Chateaux.
+
+In the afternoon, Plonville worked long at his invention, and made
+progress. He walked back to his hotel with the feeling of self-
+satisfaction which indolent men have on those rare occasions when they
+are industrious. He had been uninterrupted, and his resolutions were
+again heroic. What had been done one afternoon might be done all
+afternoons. He would think no more of the vision he had seen and he
+would work only after lunch, thus avoiding the necessity of revealing
+himself, or of being a concealed watcher of her actions. Of course she
+came always in the morning, for the English are a methodical people,
+and Plonville was so learned in their ways that he knew what they did
+one day they were sure to do the next. An extraordinary nation,
+Plonville said to himself with a shrug of his shoulders, but then of
+course, we cannot all be French.
+
+It is rather a pity that temptation should step in just when a man has
+made up his mind not to deviate from a certain straight line of
+conduct. There was to be a ball that night at the big hotel. Plonville
+had refused to have anything to do with it. He had renounced the
+frivolities of life. He was there for rest, quiet, and study. He was
+adamant. That evening the invitation was again extended to him, the
+truth being that there was a scarcity of young men, as is usually the
+case at such functions. Plonville was about to re-state his objections
+to frivolity when through the open door he caught a glimpse of two of
+the arriving guests ascending the stair. The girl had on a long opera
+cloak with some fluffy white material round the neck and down the
+front. A filmy lace arrangement rested lightly on her fair hair. It was
+the lady of the canoe--glorified. Plonville wavered and was lost. He
+rushed to his room and donned his war paint. Say what you like, evening
+dress improves the appearance of a man. Besides this, he had resumed
+the De once more, and his back was naturally straighter. De Plonville
+looked well.
+
+They were speedily introduced, of course. De Plonville took care of
+that, and the manager of the ball was very grateful to him for coming,
+and for looking so nice. There was actually an air of distinction about
+De Plonville. She was the Hon. Margaret Stansby, he learned. Besides
+being unfair, it would be impossible to give their conversation. It
+would read like a section from Ollendorf's French-English exercises. De
+Plonville, as has been said, was very proud of his English, and,
+unfortunately, the Hon. Margaret had a sense of humor. He complimented
+her by saying that she talked French even better than he talked
+English, which, while doubtless true, was not the most tactful thing De
+Plonville might have said. It was difficult to listen to such a
+statement given in his English, and refrain from laughing. Margaret,
+however, scored a great victory and did not laugh. The evening passed
+pleasantly, she thought; delightfully, De Plonville thought.
+
+It was hard after this to come down to the prosaic work of completing a
+cloth canoe-tent, but, to De Plonville's credit, he persevered. He met
+the young lady on several occasions, but never by the coast. The better
+they became acquainted the more he wished to have the privilege of
+rescuing her from some deadly danger; but the opportunity did not come.
+It seldom does, except in books, as he bitterly remarked to himself.
+The sea was exasperatingly calm, and Miss Margaret was mistress of her
+craft, as so many charming women are. He thought of buying a telescope
+and watching her, for she had told him that one of her own delights was
+looking at the evolutions of the ironclads through a telescope on the
+terrace in front of the Chateau.
+
+At last, in spite of his distractions, De Plonville added the finishing
+touches to his notable invention, and all that remained was to put it
+to a practical test. He chose a day when that portion of the French
+navy which frequents the Rade d'Hyčres was not in sight, for he did not
+wish to come within the field of the telescope at the Chateau terrace.
+He felt that he would not look his best as he paddled his new-fangled
+boat. Besides, it might sink with him.
+
+There was not a sail in sight as he put forth. Even the fishing boats
+of Carqueyranne were in shelter. The sea was very calm, and the sun
+shone brightly. He had some little difficulty in getting seated, but he
+was elated to find that his invention answered all expectations. As he
+went further out he noticed a great buoy floating a long distance away.
+His evil genius suggested that it would be a good thing to paddle out
+to the buoy and back. Many men can drink champagne and show no sign,
+but few can drink success and remain sober. The eccentric airs assumed
+by noted authors prove the truth of this. De Plonville was drunk, and
+never suspected it. The tide, what little there is of it in the
+Mediterranean, helped him, and even the gentle breeze blew from the
+shore. He had some doubts as to the wisdom of his course before he
+reached the gigantic red buoy, but when he turned around and saw the
+appalling distance to the coast, he shuddered.
+
+The great buoy was of iron, apparently boiler plate, and there were
+rings fastened to its side. It was pear-shaped with the point in the
+water, fastened to a chain that evidently led to an anchor. He wondered
+what it was for. As he looked up it was moved by some unseen current,
+and rolled over as if bent on the destruction of his craft. Forgetting
+himself, he sprang up to ward it off, and instantly one foot went
+through the thin waterproof that formed the bottom and sides of his
+boat. He found himself struggling in the water almost before he
+realized what had happened. Kicking his foot free from the entanglement
+that threatened to drag him under, he saw his invention slowly settle
+down through the clear, green water. He grasped one of the rings of the
+buoy, and hung there for a moment to catch his breath and consider his
+position. He rapidly came to the conclusion that it was not a pleasant
+one, but further than that he found it difficult to go. Attempting to
+swim ashore would be simply one form of suicide. The thing to do was
+evidently to get on top of the buoy, but he realized that if he tried
+to pull himself up by the rings it would simply roll him under. He was
+surprised to find, however, that such was not the case. He had under-
+estimated both its size and its weight.
+
+He sat down on top of it and breathed heavily after his exertions,
+gazing for a few moments at the vast expanse of shimmering blue water.
+It was pretty, but discouraging. Not even a fishing-boat was in sight,
+and he was in a position where every prospect pleases, and only man is
+in a vile situation. The big iron island had an uncomfortable habit
+every now and then of lounging partly over to one side or the other, so
+that De Plonville had to scramble this way or that to keep from falling
+off. He vaguely surmised that his motions on these occasions lacked
+dignity. The hot sun began to dry the clothes on his back, and he felt
+his hair become crisp with salt. He recollected that swimming should be
+easy here, for he was on the saltest portion of the saltest open sea in
+the world. Then his gaze wandered over the flat lands about Les Salins
+where acres of ground were covered artificially with Mediterranean
+water so that the sun may evaporate it, and leave the coarse salt used
+by the fishermen of the coast. He did not yet feel hungry, but he
+thought with regret of the good dinner which would be spread at the
+hotel that evening, when, perhaps, he would not be there.
+
+He turned himself around and scanned the distant Islands of Gold, but
+there was as little prospect of help from that quarter as from the
+mainland. Becoming more accustomed to the swayings of the big globe, he
+stood up. What a fool he had been to come so far, and he used French
+words between his teeth that sounded terse and emphatic. Still there
+was little use thinking of that. Here he was, and here he would stay,
+as a President of his country had once remarked. The irksomeness and
+restraint of his position began to wear on his nerves, and he cried
+aloud for something--anything--to happen rather than what he was
+enduring.
+
+Something happened.
+
+From between the Islands, there slowly appeared a great modern French
+ship of war, small in the distance. Hope lighted up the face of De
+Plonville. She must pass near enough to enable his signalling to be
+seen by the lookout. Heavens! how leisurely she moved! Then a second
+war vessel followed the first into view, and finally a third. The three
+came slowly along in stately procession. De Plonville removed his coat
+and waved it up and down to attract attention. So intent was he upon
+this that he nearly lost his footing, and, realizing that the men-of-
+war were still too far away, he desisted. He sat down as his excitement
+abated, and watched their quiet approach. Once it seemed to him they
+had stopped, and he leaned forward, shading his eyes with his hand, and
+watched them eagerly. They were just moving--that was all.
+
+Suddenly, from the black side of the foremost battle-ship, there rolled
+upward a cloud of white smoke, obscuring the funnels and the rigging,
+thinning out into the blue sky over the top-masts. After what seemed a
+long interval the low, dull roar of a cannon reached him, followed by
+the echo from the high hills of the island, and later by the fainter
+re-echo from the mountains on the mainland. This depressed De
+Plonville, for, if the ships were out for practice, the obscuring smoke
+around them would make the seeing of his signalling very improbable;
+and then that portion of the fleet might return the way it came,
+leaving him in his predicament. From the second ironclad arose a
+similar cloud, and this time far to his left there spurted up from the
+sea a jet of water, waving in the air like a plume for a moment, then
+dropping back in a shower on the ruffled surface.
+
+The buoy was a target!
+
+As De Plonville realized its use, he felt that uncomfortable creeping
+of the scalp which we call, the hair standing on end. The third cannon
+sent up its cloud, and De Plonville's eyes extended at what they saw.
+Coming directly towards him was a cannon ball, skipping over the water
+like a thrown pebble. His experience in the navy--at Paris--had never
+taught him that such a thing was possible. He slid down flat on the
+buoy, till his chin rested on the iron, and awaited the shock. A
+hundred yards from him the ball dipped into the water and disappeared.
+He found that he had ineffectually tried to drive his nails into the
+boiler plate, until his fingers' ends were sore. He stood up and waved
+his arms, but the first vessel fired again, and the ball came shrieking
+over him so low that he intuitively ducked his head. Like a pang of
+physical pain, the thought darted through his brain that he had
+instigated a censure on the bad firing of these very boats. Doubtless
+they saw a man on the buoy, but as no man had any business there, the
+knocking of him off by a cannon ball would be good proof of accuracy of
+aim. The investigation which followed would be a feather in the cap of
+the officer in charge, whatever the verdict. De Plonville, with
+something like a sigh, more than suspected that his untimely death
+would not cast irretrievable gloom over the fleet.
+
+Well, a man has to die but once, and there is little use in making a
+fuss over the inevitable. He would meet his fate calmly and as a
+Frenchman should, with his face to the guns. There was a tinge of
+regret that there would be no one to witness his heroism. It is always
+pleasant on such occasions to have a war correspondent, or at least a
+reporter, present. It is best to be as comfortable as possible under
+any circumstances, so De Plonville sat down on the spheroid and let his
+feet dangle toward the water. The great buoy for some reason floated
+around until it presented its side to the ships. None of the balls came
+so near as those first fired--perhaps because of the accumulated smoke.
+New features of the situation continued to present themselves to De
+Plonville as he sat there. The firing had been going on for some time
+before he reflected that if a shot punctured the buoy it would fill and
+sink. Perhaps their orders were to fire until the buoy disappeared.
+There was little comfort in this suggestion.
+
+Firing had ceased for some minutes before he noticed the fact. A bank
+of thinning smoke rested on the water between the buoy and the ships.
+He saw the ironclads move ponderously around and steam through this
+bank turning broadside on again in one, two, three, order. He watched
+the evolution with his chin resting on his hands, not realizing that
+the moment for signalling had come. When the idea penetrated his
+somewhat dazed mind, he sprang to his feet, but his opportunity had
+gone. The smoke of the first gun rose in the air, there was a clang of
+iron on iron, and De Plonville found himself whirling in space: then
+sinking in the sea. Coming breathless to the surface, he saw the buoy
+revolving slowly, and a deep dinge in its side seemed to slide over its
+top and disappear into the water, showing where the shot had struck.
+The second boat did not fire, and he knew that they were examining the
+buoy with their glasses. He swam around to the other side, intending to
+catch a ring and have it haul him up where he could be seen. Before he
+reached the place the buoy was at rest again, and as he laboriously
+climbed on top more dead than alive, the second ship opened fire. He
+lay down at full length exhausted, and hoped if they were going to hit
+they would hit quick. Life was not worth having on these conditions. He
+felt the hot sun on his back, and listened dreamily to the cannon. Hope
+was gone, and he wondered at himself for feeling a remote rather than
+an active interest in his fate. He thought of himself as somebody else,
+and felt a vague impersonal pity. He criticised the random firing, and
+suspected the hit was merely a fluke. When his back was dry he rolled
+lazily over and lay gazing up at the cloudless sky. For greater comfort
+he placed his hands beneath his head. The sky faded, and a moment's
+unconsciousness intervened.
+
+"This won't do," he cried, shaking himself. "If I fall asleep I shall
+roll off."
+
+He sat up again, his joints stiff with his immersion, and watched the
+distant ironclads. He saw with languid interest a ball strike the
+water, take a new flight, and plunge into the sea far to the right. He
+thought that the vagaries of cannon-balls at sea would make an
+interesting study.
+
+"Are you injured?" cried a clear voice behind him.
+
+"_Mon Dieu!_" shouted the young man in a genuine fright, as he
+sprang to his feet.
+
+"Oh, I beg pardon," as if a rescuer need apologize, "I thought you were
+M. De Plonville."
+
+"I _am_ De Plonville."
+
+"Your hair is grey," she said in an awed whisper; then added, "and no
+wonder."
+
+"Mademoiselle," replied the stricken young man, placing his hand on his
+heart, "it is needless to deny--I do not deny--that I was frightened--
+but--I did not think--not so much as that, I regret. It is so--so--
+theatrical--I am deeply sorrowful."
+
+"Please say no more, but come quickly. Can you come down? Step exactly
+in the middle of the canoe. Be careful--it is easily upset--and sit
+down at once. That was very nicely done."
+
+"Mademoiselle, allow me at least to row the boat."
+
+"It is paddling, and you do not understand it. I do. Please do not
+speak until we are out of range. I am horribly frightened."
+
+"You are very, very brave."
+
+"Hs--s--sh."
+
+Miss Stansby wielded the double-bladed paddle in a way a Red Indian
+might have envied. Once she uttered a little feminine shriek as a
+cannon ball plunged into the water behind them; but as they got further
+away from the buoy those on the iron-clads appeared to notice that a
+boat was within range, and the firing ceased.
+
+Miss Stansby looked fixedly at the solemn young man sitting before her;
+then placed her paddle across the canoe, bent over it, and laughed. De
+Plonville saw the reaction had come. He said sympathetically:--
+
+"Ah, Mademoiselle, do not, I beg. All danger is over, I think."
+
+"I am not frightened, don't think it," she cried, flashing a look of
+defiance at him, and forgetting her admission of fear a moment before.
+"My father was an Admiral. I am laughing at my mistake. It is salt."
+
+"What is?" asked her astonished passenger.
+
+"In your hair."
+
+He ran his fingers through his hair, and the salt rattled down to the
+bottom of the canoe. There was something of relief in _his_ laugh.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+De Plonville always believes the officers on board the gunboats
+recognized him. When it was known in Paris that he was to be married to
+the daughter of an English Admiral, whom rumor said he had bravely
+saved from imminent peril, the army lieutenant remarked that she could
+never have heard him speak her language--which, as we know, is not
+true.
+
+
+
+
+A NEW EXPLOSIVE.
+
+
+The French Minister of War sat in his very comfortable chair in his own
+private yet official room, and pondered over a letter he had received.
+Being Minister of War, he was naturally the most mild, the most humane,
+and least quarrelsome man in the Cabinet. A Minister of War receives
+many letters that, as a matter of course, he throws into his waste
+basket, but this particular communication had somehow managed to rivet
+his attention. When a man becomes Minister of War he learns for the
+first time that apparently the great majority of mankind are engaged in
+the manufacture or invention of rifles, gunpowders, and devices of all
+kinds for the destruction of the rest of the world.
+
+That morning, the Minister of War had received a letter which announced
+to him that the writer of it had invented an explosive so terrible that
+all known destructive agencies paled before it. As a Frenchman, he made
+the first offer of his discovery to the French Government. It would
+cost the Minister nothing, he said, to make a test which would
+corroborate his amazing claims for the substance, and the moment that
+test was made, any intelligent man would recognize the fact that the
+country which possessed the secret of this destructive compound would
+at once occupy an unassailable position in a contentious world.
+
+The writer offered personally to convince the Minister of the truth of
+his assertions, provided they could go to some remote spot where the
+results of the explosion would do no damage, and where they would be
+safe from espionage. The writer went on very frankly to say that if the
+Minister consulted with the agents of the police, they would at once
+see in this invitation a trap for the probable assassination of the
+Minister. But the inventor claimed that the Minister's own good sense
+should show him that his death was desired by none. He was but newly
+appointed, and had not yet had time to make enemies. France was at
+peace with all the world, and this happened before the time of the
+Anarchist demonstrations in Paris. It was but right, the letter went
+on, that the Minister should have some guarantee as to the _bona
+fides_ of the inventor. He therefore gave his name and address, and
+said if the Minister made inquiries from the police, he would find
+nothing stood in their books against him. He was a student, whose
+attention, for years, had been given to the subject of explosives. To
+further show that he was entirely unselfish in this matter, he added
+that he had no desire to enrich himself by his discovery. He had a
+private income quite sufficient for his needs, and he intended to give,
+and not to sell, his secret to France. The only proviso he made was
+that his name should be linked with this terrible compound, which he
+maintained would secure universal peace to the world, for, after its
+qualities were known, no nation would dare to fight with another. The
+sole ambition of the inventor, said the letter in conclusion, was to
+place his name high in the list of celebrated French scientists. If,
+however, the Minister refused to treat with him he would go to other
+Governments until his invention was taken up, but the Government which
+secured it would at once occupy the leading position among nations. He
+entreated the Minister, therefore, for the sake of his country, to make
+at least one test of the compound.
+
+It was, as I have said, before the time of the Paris explosions, and
+ministers were not so suspicious then as they are now. The Minister
+made inquiries regarding the scientist, who lived in a little suburb of
+Paris, and found that there was nothing against him on the books of the
+police. Inquiry showed that all he had said about his own private
+fortune was true. The Minister therefore wrote to the inventor, and
+named an hour at which he would receive him in his private office.
+
+The hour and the man arrived together. The Minister had had some slight
+doubts regarding his sanity, but the letter had been so
+straightforwardly written, and the appearance of the man himself was so
+kindly and benevolent and intelligent that the doubts of the official
+vanished.
+
+"I beg you to be seated," said the Minister. "We are entirely alone,
+and nothing you say will be heard by any one but myself."
+
+"I thank you, Monsieur le Ministre," replied the inventor, "for this
+mark of confidence; for I am afraid the claims I made in the letter
+were so extraordinary that you might well have hesitated about granting
+me an interview."
+
+The Minister smiled. "I understand," he said, "the enthusiasm of an
+inventor for his latest triumph, and I was enabled thus to take, as it
+were, some discount from your statements, although I doubt not that you
+have discovered something that may be of benefit to the War
+Department."
+
+The inventor hesitated, looking seriously at the great official before
+him.
+
+"From what you say," he began at last, "I am rather afraid that my
+letter misled you, for, fearing it would not be credited I was obliged
+to make my claims so mild that I erred in under-estimating rather than
+in over-stating them. I have the explosive here in my pocket."
+
+"Ah!" cried the Minister, a shade of pallor coming over his
+countenance, as he pushed back his chair. "I thought I stated in my
+note that you were not to bring it."
+
+"Forgive me for not obeying. It is perfectly harmless while in this
+state. This is one of the peculiarities--a beneficent peculiarity if I
+may so term it--of this terrible agent. It may be handled with perfect
+safety, and yet its effects are as inevitable as death," saying which,
+he took out of his pocket and held up to the light a bottle filled with
+a clear colorless liquid like water.
+
+"You could pour that on the fire," he said, "with no other effect than
+to put out the blaze. You might place it under a steam hammer and crush
+the bottle to powder, yet no explosion would follow. It is as harmless
+as water in its present condition."
+
+"How, then," said the Minister, "do you deal with it?"
+
+Again the man hesitated.
+
+"I am almost afraid to tell you," he said; "and if I could not
+demonstrate to your entire satisfaction that what I say is true, it
+would be folly for me to say what I am about to say. If I were to take
+this bottle and cut a notch in the cork, and walk with it neck
+downwards along the Boulevard des Italiens, allowing this fluid to fall
+drop by drop on the pavement, I could walk in that way in safety
+through every street in Paris. If it rained that day nothing would
+happen. If it rained the next or for a week nothing would happen, but
+the moment the sun came out and dried the moisture, the light step of a
+cat on any pavement over which I had passed would instantly shatter to
+ruins the whole of Paris."
+
+"Impossible!" cried the Minister, an expression of horror coming into
+his face.
+
+"I knew you would say that. Therefore I ask you to come with me to the
+country, where I can prove the truth of what I allege. While I carry
+this bottle around with me in this apparently careless fashion, it is
+corked, as you see with the utmost security. Not a drop of the fluid
+must be left on the outside of the cork or of the bottle. I have wiped
+the bottle and cork most thoroughly, and burned the cloth which I used
+in doing so. Fire will not cause this compound, even when dry, to
+explode, but the slightest touch will set it off. I have to be
+extremely careful in its manufacture, so that not a single drop is left
+unaccounted for in any place where it might evaporate."
+
+The Minister, with his finger-tips together and his eyes on the
+ceiling, mused for a few moments on the amazing statement he had heard.
+
+"If what you say is true," he began at last, "don't you think it would
+be more humane to destroy all traces of the experiments by which you
+discovered this substance, and to divulge the secret to no one? The
+devastation such a thing would cause, if it fell into unscrupulous
+hands, is too appalling even to contemplate."
+
+"I have thought of that," said the inventor; "but some one else--the
+time may be far off or it may be near--is bound to make the discovery.
+My whole ambition, as I told you in my letter, is to have my name
+coupled with this discovery. I wish it to be known as the Lambelle
+Explosive. The secret would be safe with the French Government."
+
+"I am not so sure of that," returned the Minister. "Some unscrupulous
+man may become Minister of War, and may use his knowledge to put
+himself in the position of Dictator. An unscrupulous man in the
+possession of such a secret would be invincible."
+
+"What you say," replied the inventor, "is undoubtedly true; yet I am
+determined that the name of Lambelle shall go down in history coupled
+with the most destructive agent the world has ever known, or will know.
+If the Government of France will build for me a large stone structure
+as secure as a fortress, I will keep my secret, but will fill that
+building with bottles like this, and then--"
+
+"I do not see," said the Minister, "that that would lessen the danger,
+if the unscrupulous man I speak of once became possessed of the keys;
+and, besides, the mere fact that such a secret existed would put other
+inventors upon the track, and some one else less benevolent than
+yourself would undoubtedly make the discovery. You admitted a moment
+ago that the chances were a future investigator would succeed in
+getting the right ingredients together, even without the knowledge that
+such an explosive existed. See what an incentive it would be to
+inventors all over the world, if it were known that France had in its
+possession such a fearful explosive! No Government has ever yet been
+successful in keeping the secret of either a gun or a gunpowder."
+
+"There is, of course," said Lambelle, "much in what you say; but,
+equally of course, all that you say might have been said to the
+inventor of gunpowder, for gunpowder in its day was as wonderful as
+this is now."
+
+Suddenly the Minister laughed aloud.
+
+"I am talking seriously with you on this subject," he exclaimed, "as if
+I really believed in it. Of course, I may say I do nothing of the kind.
+I think you must have hypnotized me with those calm eyes of yours into
+crediting your statements for even a few moments."
+
+"All that I say," said the inventor quietly, "can be corroborated to-
+morrow. Make an appointment with me in the country, and if it chances
+to be a calm and sunny day you will no longer doubt the evidence of
+your own eyes."
+
+"Where do you wish the experiment to be made?" asked the Minister.
+
+"It must be in some wild and desolate region, on a hill-top for
+preference. There should be either trees or old buildings there that we
+can destroy, otherwise the full effects can hardly be estimated."
+
+"I have a place in the country," said the Minister, "which is wild and
+desolate and unprofitable enough. There are some useless stone
+buildings, not on a hill-top, but by the edge of a quarry which has
+been unworked for many years. There is no habitation for several miles
+around. Would such a spot be suitable?"
+
+"Perfectly so. When would it be convenient for you to go?"
+
+"I will leave with you to-night," said the Minister, "and we can spend
+the day to-morrow experimenting."
+
+"Very well," answered Lambelle, rising when the Minister had told him
+the hour and the railway station at which they should meet.
+
+That evening, when the Minister drove to the railway station in time
+for his train, he found Lambelle waiting for him, holding, by a leash,
+two sorry-looking dogs.
+
+"Do you travel with such animals as these?" asked the Minister.
+
+"The poor brutes," said Lambelle, with regret in his voice, "are
+necessary for our experiments. They will be in atoms by this time to-
+morrow."
+
+The dogs were put into the railway-van, and the inventor brought his
+portmanteau with him into the private carriage reserved for the use of
+the Minister.
+
+The place, as the Minister of War had said, was desolate enough. The
+stone buildings near the edge of the deserted quarry were stout and
+strong, although partly in ruins.
+
+"I have here with me in my portmanteau," said Lambelle, "some hundreds
+of metres of electric wire. I will attach one of the dogs by this clip,
+which we can release from a distance by pressing an electric button.
+The moment the dog escapes he will undoubtedly explode the compound."
+
+The insulated wire was run along the ground to a distant elevation. The
+dog was attached by the electric clip, and chained to a doorpost of one
+of the buildings. Lambelle then carefully uncorked his bottle, holding
+it at arm's length from his person. The Minister looked on with strange
+interest as Lambelle allowed the fluid to drip in a semicircular line
+around the chained dog. The inventor carefully re-corked the bottle,
+wiped it thoroughly with a cloth he had with him, and threw the cloth
+into one of the deserted houses.
+
+They waited near, until the spots caused by the fluid on the stone
+pavement in front of the house had disappeared.
+
+"By the time we reach the hill," said Lambelle, "it will be quite dry
+in this hot sun."
+
+As they departed towards the elevation, the forlorn dog howled
+mournfully, as if in premonition of his fate.
+
+"I think, to make sure," said the inventor, when they reached the
+electrical apparatus, "that we might wait for half an hour."
+
+The Minister lit a cigarette, and smoked silently, a strange battle
+going on in his mind. He found himself believing in the extraordinary
+claims made by the inventor, and his thought dwelt on the awful
+possibilities of such an explosive.
+
+"Will you press the electric lever?" asked Lambelle quietly. "Remember
+that you are inaugurating a new era."
+
+The Minister pressed down the key, and then, putting his field-glass to
+his eye, he saw that the dog was released, but the animal sat there
+scratching its ear with its paw. Then, realizing that it was loose, it
+sniffed for a moment at the chain. Finally, it threw up its head and
+barked, although the distance was too great for them to hear any sound.
+The dog started in the direction the two men had gone, but, before it
+had taken three steps, the Minister was appalled to see the buildings
+suddenly crumble into dust, and a few moments later the thunder of the
+rocks falling into the deserted quarry came toward them. The whole
+ledge had been flung forwards into the chasm. There was no smoke, but a
+haze of dust hovered over the spot.
+
+"My God!" cried the Minister. "That is awful!"
+
+"Yes," said Lambelle quietly; "I put more of the substance on the
+flagging than I need to have done. A few drops would have answered
+quite as well, but I wanted to make sure. You were very sceptical, you
+know."
+
+The Minister looked at him. "I beg of you, M. Lambelle, never to
+divulge this secret to the Government of France, or to any other power.
+Take the risk of it being discovered in the future. I implore you to
+reconsider your original intention. If you desire money, I will see
+that you get what you want from the secret funds."
+
+Lambelle shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"I have no desire for money," he said; "but what you have seen will
+show you that I shall be the most famous scientist of the century. The
+name of Lambelle will be known till the end of the world."
+
+"But, my God, man!" said the Minister, "the end of the world is here
+the moment your secret is in the possession of another. With you or me
+it would be safe: but who can tell the minds of those who may follow
+us? You are putting the power of the Almighty into the hands of a man."
+
+Lambelle flushed with pride as the pale-faced Minister said this.
+
+"You speak the truth!" he cried, "it is the power of Omnipotence."
+
+"Then," implored the Minister, "reconsider your decision."
+
+"I have labored too long," said Lambelle, "to forego my triumph now.
+You are convinced at last, I see. Now then, tell me: will you, as
+Minister of France, secure for your country this greatest of all
+inventions?"
+
+"Yes," answered the Minister; "no other power must be allowed to obtain
+the secret. Have you ever written down the names of the ingredients?"
+
+"Never," answered Lambelle.
+
+"Is it not possible for any one to have suspected what your experiments
+were? If a man got into your laboratory--a scientific man--could he
+not, from what he saw there, obtain the secret?"
+
+"It would be impossible," said Lambelle. "I have been too anxious to
+keep the credit for myself, to leave any traces that might give a hint
+of what I was doing."
+
+"You were wise in that," said the Minister, drawing a deep breath. "Now
+let us go and look at the ruins."
+
+As they neared the spot the official's astonishment at the
+extraordinary destruction became greater and greater. The rock had been
+rent as if by an earthquake, to the distance of hundreds of yards.
+
+"You say," said the Minister, "that the liquid is perfectly safe until
+evaporation takes place."
+
+"Perfectly," answered Lambelle. "Of course one has to be careful, as I
+told you, in the use of it. You must not get a drop on your clothes, or
+leave it anywhere on the outside of the bottle to evaporate."
+
+"Let me see the stuff."
+
+Lambelle handed him the bottle.
+
+"Have you any more of this in your laboratory?"
+
+"Not a drop."
+
+"If you wished to destroy this, how would you do it?"
+
+"I should empty the bottle into the Seine. It would flow down to the
+sea, and no harm would be done."
+
+"See if you can find any traces of the dog," said the Minister. "I will
+clamber down into the quarry, and look there."
+
+"You will find nothing," said Lambelle confidently.
+
+There was but one path by which the bottom of the quarry could be
+reached. The Minister descended by this until he was out of sight of
+the man above; then he quickly uncorked the bottle, and allowed the
+fluid to drip along the narrowest part of the path which faced the
+burning sun. He corked the bottle, wiped it carefully with his
+handkerchief, which he rolled into a ball, and threw into the quarry.
+Coming up to the surface again, he said to the mild and benevolent
+scientist: "I cannot find a trace of the dog."
+
+"Nor can I," said Lambelle. "Of course when you can hardly find a sign
+of the building it is not to be expected that there should be any
+remnants of the dog."
+
+"Suppose we get back to the hill now and have lunch," said the
+Minister.
+
+"Do you wish to try another experiment?"
+
+"I would like to try one more after we have had something to eat. What
+would be the effect if you poured the whole bottleful into the quarry
+and set it off?"
+
+"Oh, impossible!" cried Lambelle. "It would rend this whole part of the
+country to pieces. In fact, I am not sure that the shock would not be
+felt as far as Paris. With a very few drops I can shatter the whole
+quarry."
+
+"Well, we'll try that after lunch. We have another dog left."
+
+When an hour had passed, Lambelle was anxious to try his quarry
+experiment.
+
+"By-and-by," he said, "the sun will not be shining in the quarry, and
+then it will be too late."
+
+"We can easily wait until to-morrow, unless you are in a hurry."
+
+"I am in no hurry," rejoined the inventor.
+
+"I thought perhaps you might be, with so much to do."
+
+"No," replied the official. "Nothing I shall do during my
+administration will be more important than this."
+
+"I am glad to hear you say so," answered Lambelle; "and if you will
+give me the bottle again I will now place a few drops in the sunny part
+of the quarry."
+
+The Minister handed him the bottle, apparently with some reluctance.
+
+"I still think," he said, "that it would be much better to allow this
+secret to die. No one knows it at present but yourself. With you, as I
+have said, it will be safe, or with me; but think of the awful
+possibilities of a disclosure."
+
+"Every great invention has its risks," said Lambelle firmly. "Nothing
+would induce me to forego the fruits of my life-work. It is too much to
+ask of any man."
+
+"Very well," said the Minister. "Then let us be sure of our facts. I
+want to see the effects of the explosive on the quarry."
+
+"You shall," said Lambelle, as he departed.
+
+"I will wait for you here," said the Minister, "and smoke a cigarette."
+
+When the inventor approached the quarry, leading the dog behind him,
+the Minister's hand trembled so that he was hardly able to hold the
+field-glass to his eye. Lambelle disappeared down the path. The next
+instant the ground trembled even where the Minister sat, and a haze of
+dust arose above the ruined quarry.
+
+Some moments after the pallid Minister looked over the work of
+destruction, but no trace of humanity was there except himself.
+
+"I could not do otherwise," he murmured, "It was too great a risk to
+run."
+
+
+
+
+THE GREAT PEGRAM MYSTERY.
+
+
+(_With apologies to Dr. Conan Doyle, and our mutual and lamented
+friend the late Sherlock Holmes_.)
+
+I dropped in on my friend, Sherlaw Kombs, to hear what he had to say
+about the Pegram mystery, as it had come to be called in the
+newspapers. I found him playing the violin with a look of sweet peace
+and serenity on his face, which I never noticed on the countenances of
+those within hearing distance. I knew this expression of seraphic calm
+indicated that Kombs had been deeply annoyed about something. Such,
+indeed, proved to be the case, for one of the morning papers had
+contained an article, eulogizing the alertness and general competence
+of Scotland Yard. So great was Sherlaw Kombs's contempt for Scotland
+Yard that he never would visit Scotland during his vacations, nor would
+he ever admit that a Scotchman was fit for anything but export.
+
+He generously put away his violin, for he had a sincere liking for me,
+and greeted me with his usual kindness.
+
+"I have come," I began, plunging at once into the matter on my mind,
+"to hear what you think of the great Pegram mystery."
+
+"I haven't heard of it," he said quietly, just as if all London were
+not talking of that very thing. Kombs was curiously ignorant on some
+subjects, and abnormally learned on others. I found, for instance, that
+political discussion with him was impossible, because he did not know
+who Salisbury and Gladstone were. This made his friendship a great
+boon.
+
+"The Pegram mystery has baffled even Gregory, of Scotland Yard."
+
+"I can well believe it," said my friend, calmly. "Perpetual motion, or
+squaring the circle, would baffle Gregory. He's an infant, is Gregory."
+
+This was one of the things I always liked about Kombs. There was no
+professional jealousy in him, such as characterizes so many other men.
+
+He filled his pipe, threw himself into his deep-seated arm-chair,
+placed his feet on the mantel, and clasped his hands behind his head.
+
+"Tell me about it," he said simply.
+
+"Old Barrie Kipson," I began, "was a stockbroker in the City. He lived
+in Pegram, and it was his custom to--"
+
+"COME IN!" shouted Kombs, without changing his position, but with a
+suddenness that startled me. I had heard no knock.
+
+"Excuse me," said my friend, laughing, "my invitation to enter was a
+trifle premature. I was really so interested in your recital that I
+spoke before I thought, which a detective should never do. The fact is,
+a man will be here in a moment who will tell me all about this crime,
+and so you will be spared further effort in that line."
+
+"Ah, you have an appointment. In that case I will not intrude," I said,
+rising.
+
+"Sit down; I have no appointment. I did not know until I spoke that he
+was coming."
+
+I gazed at him in amazement. Accustomed as I was to his extraordinary
+talents, the man was a perpetual surprise to me. He continued to smoke
+quietly, but evidently enjoyed my consternation.
+
+"I see you are surprised. It is really too simple to talk about, but,
+from my position opposite the mirror, I can see the reflection of
+objects in the street. A man stopped, looked at one of my cards, and
+then glanced across the street. I recognized my card, because, as you
+know, they are all in scarlet. If, as you say, London is talking of
+this mystery, it naturally follows that _he_ will talk of it, and
+the chances are he wished to consult me about it. Anyone can see that,
+besides there is always--_Come_ in!"
+
+There was a rap at the door this time.
+
+A stranger entered. Sherlaw Kombs did not change his lounging attitude.
+
+"I wish to see Mr. Sherlaw Kombs, the detective," said the stranger,
+coming within the range of the smoker's vision.
+
+"This is Mr. Kombs," I remarked at last, as my friend smoked quietly,
+and seemed half-asleep.
+
+"Allow me to introduce myself," continued the stranger, fumbling for a
+card.
+
+"There is no need. You are a journalist," said Kombs.
+
+"Ah," said the stranger, somewhat taken aback, "you know me, then."
+
+"Never saw or heard of you in my life before."
+
+"Then how in the world--"
+
+"Nothing simpler. You write for an evening paper. You have written an
+article slating the book of a friend. He will feel badly about it, and
+you will condole with him. He will never know who stabbed him unless I
+tell him."
+
+"The devil!" cried the journalist, sinking into a chair and mopping his
+brow, while his face became livid.
+
+"Yes," drawled Kombs, "it is a devil of a shame that such things are
+done. But what would you? as we say in France."
+
+When the journalist had recovered his second wind he pulled himself
+together somewhat. "Would you object to telling me how you know these
+particulars about a man you say you have never seen?"
+
+"I rarely talk about these things," said Kombs with great composure.
+"But as the cultivation of the habit of observation may help you in
+your profession, and thus in a remote degree benefit me by making your
+paper less deadly dull, I will tell you. Your first and second fingers
+are smeared with ink, which shows that you write a great deal. This
+smeared class embraces two sub-classes, clerks or accountants, and
+journalists. Clerks have to be neat in their work. The ink-smear is
+slight in their case. Your fingers are badly and carelessly smeared;
+therefore, you are a journalist. You have an evening paper in your
+pocket. Anyone might have any evening paper, but yours is a Special
+Edition, which will not be on the streets for half-an-hour yet. You
+must have obtained it before you left the office, and to do this you
+must be on the staff. A book notice is marked with a blue pencil. A
+journalist always despises every article in his own paper not written
+by himself; therefore, you wrote the article you have marked, and
+doubtless are about to send it to the author of the book referred to.
+Your paper makes a specialty of abusing all books not written by some
+member of its own staff. That the author is a friend of yours, I merely
+surmised. It is all a trivial example of ordinary observation."
+
+"Really, Mr. Kombs, you are the most wonderful man on earth. You are
+the equal of Gregory, by Jove, you are."
+
+A frown marred the brow of my friend as he placed his pipe on the
+sideboard and drew his self-cocking six-shooter.
+
+"Do you mean to insult me, sir?"
+
+"I do not--I--I assure you. You are fit to take charge of Scotland Yard
+to-morrow--. I am in earnest, indeed I am, sir."
+
+"Then Heaven help you," cried Kombs, slowly raising his right arm.
+
+I sprang between them.
+
+"Don't shoot!" I cried. "You will spoil the carpet. Besides, Sherlaw,
+don't you see the man means well. He actually thinks it is a
+compliment!"
+
+"Perhaps you are right," remarked the detective, flinging his revolver
+carelessly beside his pipe, much to the relief of the third party.
+Then, turning to the journalist, he said, with his customary bland
+courtesy--
+
+"You wanted to see me, I think you said. What can I do for you, Mr.
+Wilber Scribbings?"
+
+The journalist started.
+
+"How do you know my name?" he gasped.
+
+Kombs waved his hand impatiently.
+
+"Look inside your hat if you doubt your own name?"
+
+I then noticed for the first time that the name was plainly to be seen
+inside the top-hat Scribbings held upside down in his hands.
+
+"You have heard, of course, of the Pegram mystery--".
+
+"Tush," cried the detective; "do not, I beg of you, call it a mystery.
+There is no such thing. Life would become more tolerable if there ever
+_was_ a mystery. Nothing is original. Everything has been done
+before. What about the Pegram affair?"
+
+"The Pegram--ah--case has baffled everyone. The _Evening Blade_
+wishes you to investigate, so that it may publish the result. It will
+pay you well. Will you accept the commission?"
+
+"Possibly. Tell me about the case."
+
+"I thought everybody knew the particulars. Mr. Barrie Kipson lived at
+Pegram. He carried a first-class season ticket between the terminus and
+that station. It was his custom to leave for Pegram on the 5.30 train
+each evening. Some weeks ago, Mr. Kipson was brought down by the
+influenza. On his first visit to the City after his recovery, he drew
+something like Ł300 in notes, and left the office at his usual hour to
+catch the 5.30. He was never seen again alive, as far as the public
+have been able to learn. He was found at Brewster in a first-class
+compartment on the Scotch Express, which does not stop between London
+and Brewster. There was a bullet in his head, and his money was gone,
+pointing plainly to murder and robbery."
+
+"And where is the mystery, may I ask?"
+
+"There are several unexplainable things about the case. First, how came
+he on the Scotch Express, which leaves at six, and does not stop at
+Pegram? Second, the ticket examiners at the terminus would have turned
+him out if he showed his season ticket; and all the tickets sold for
+the Scotch Express on the 21st are accounted for. Third, how could the
+murderer have escaped? Fourth, the passengers in the two compartments
+on each side of the one where the body was found heard no scuffle and
+no shot fired."
+
+"Are you sure the Scotch Express on the 21st did not stop between
+London and Brewster?"
+
+"Now that you mention the fact, it did. It was stopped by signal just
+outside of Pegram. There was a few moments' pause, when the line was
+reported clear, and it went on again. This frequently happens, as there
+is a branch line beyond Pegram."
+
+Mr. Sherlaw Kombs pondered for a few moments, smoking his pipe
+silently.
+
+"I presume you wish the solution in time for to-morrow's paper?"
+
+"Bless my soul, no. The editor thought if you evolved a theory in a
+month you would do well."
+
+"My dear sir, I do not deal with theories, but with facts. If you can
+make it convenient to call here to-morrow at 8 a.m. I will give you the
+full particulars early enough for the first edition. There is no sense
+in taking up much time over so simple an affair as the Pegram case.
+Good afternoon, sir."
+
+Mr. Scribbings was too much astonished to return the greeting. He left
+in a speechless condition, and I saw him go up the street with his hat
+still in his hand.
+
+Sherlaw Kombs relapsed into his old lounging attitude, with his hands
+clasped behind his head. The smoke came from his lips in quick puffs at
+first, then at longer intervals. I saw he was coming to a conclusion,
+so I said nothing.
+
+Finally he spoke in his most dreamy manner. "I do not wish to seem to
+be rushing things at all, Whatson, but I am going out to-night on the
+Scotch Express. Would you care to accompany me?"
+
+"Bless me!" I cried, glancing at the clock, "you haven't time, it is
+after five now."
+
+"Ample time, Whatson--ample," he murmured, without changing his
+position. "I give myself a minute and a half to change slippers and
+dressing gown for boots and coat, three seconds for hat, twenty-five
+seconds to the street, forty-two seconds waiting for a hansom, and then
+seven at the terminus before the express starts. I shall be glad of
+your company."
+
+I was only too happy to have the privilege of going with him. It was
+most interesting to watch the workings of so inscrutable a mind. As we
+drove under the lofty iron roof of the terminus I noticed a look of
+annoyance pass over his face.
+
+"We are fifteen seconds ahead of our time," he remarked, looking at the
+big clock. "I dislike having a miscalculation of that sort occur."
+
+The great Scotch Express stood ready for its long journey. The
+detective tapped one of the guards on the shoulder.
+
+"You have heard of the so-called Pegram mystery, I presume?"
+
+"Certainly, sir. It happened on this very train, sir."
+
+"Really? Is the same carriage still on the train?"
+
+"Well, yes, sir, it is," replied the guard, lowering his voice, "but of
+course, sir, we have to keep very quiet about it. People wouldn't
+travel in it, else, sir."
+
+"Doubtless. Do you happen to know if anybody occupies the compartment
+in which the body was found?"
+
+"A lady and gentleman, sir; I put 'em in myself, sir."
+
+"Would you further oblige me," said the detective, deftly slipping
+half-a-sovereign into the hand of the guard, "by going to the window
+and informing them in an offhand casual sort of way that the tragedy
+took place in that compartment?"
+
+"Certainly, sir."
+
+We followed the guard, and the moment he had imparted his news there
+was a suppressed scream in the carriage. Instantly a lady came out,
+followed by a florid-faced gentleman, who scowled at the guard. We
+entered the now empty compartment, and Kombs said: "We would like to be
+alone here until we reach Brewster."
+
+"I'll see to that, sir," answered the guard, locking the door.
+
+When the official moved away, I asked my friend what he expected to
+find in the carriage that would cast any light on the case.
+
+"Nothing," was his brief reply.
+
+"Then why do you come?"
+
+"Merely to corroborate the conclusions I have already arrived at."
+
+"And may I ask what those conclusions are?"
+
+"Certainly," replied the detective, with a touch of lassitude in his
+voice. "I beg to call your attention, first, to the fact that this
+train stands between two platforms, and can be entered from either
+side. Any man familiar with the station for years would be aware of
+that fact. This shows how Mr. Kipson entered the train just before it
+started."
+
+"But the door on this side is locked," I objected, trying it.
+
+"Of course. But every season ticket-holder carries a key. This accounts
+for the guard not seeing him, and for the absence of a ticket. Now let
+me give you some information about the influenza. The patient's
+temperature rises several degrees above normal, and he has a fever.
+When the malady has run its course, the temperature falls to three-
+quarters of a degree below normal. These, facts are unknown to you, I
+imagine, because you are a doctor."
+
+I admitted such was the case.
+
+"Well, the consequence of this fall in temperature is that the
+convalescent's mind turns toward thoughts of suicide. Then is the time
+he should be watched by his friends. Then was the time Mr. Barrie
+Kipson's friends did _not_ watch him. You remember the 21st, of
+course. No? It was a most depressing day. Fog all around and mud under
+foot. Very good. He resolves on suicide. He wishes to be unidentified,
+if possible but forgets his season ticket. My experience is that a man
+about to commit a crime always forgets something."
+
+"But how do you account for the disappearance of the money?"
+
+"The money has nothing to do with the matter. If he was a deep man, and
+knew the stupidness of Scotland Yard, he probably sent the notes to an
+enemy. If not, they may have been given to a friend. Nothing is more
+calculated to prepare the mind for self-destruction than the prospect
+of a night ride on the Scotch Express, and the view from the windows of
+the train as it passes through the northern part of London is
+particularly conducive to thoughts of annihilation."
+
+"What became of the weapon?"
+
+"That is just the point on which I wish to satisfy myself. Excuse me
+for a moment."
+
+"Mr. Sherlaw Kombs drew down the window on the right hand side, and
+examined the top of the casing minutely with a magnifying glass.
+Presently he heaved a sigh of relief, and drew up the sash.
+
+"Just as I expected," he remarked, speaking more to himself than to me.
+"There is a slight dent on the top of the window-frame. It is of such a
+nature as to be made only by the trigger of a pistol falling from the
+nerveless hand of a suicide. He intended to throw the weapon far out of
+the window, but had not the strength. It might have fallen into the
+carriage. As a matter of fact, it bounced away from the line and lies
+among the grass about ten feet six inches from the outside rail. The
+only question that now remains is where the deed was committed, and the
+exact present position of the pistol reckoned in miles from London, but
+that, fortunately, is too simple to even need explanation."
+
+"Great heavens, Sherlaw!" I cried. "How can you call that simple? It
+seems to me impossible to compute."
+
+We were now flying over Northern London, and the great detective leaned
+back with every sign of _ennui_, closing his eyes. At last he
+spoke wearily:
+
+"It is really too elementary, Whatson, but I am always willing to
+oblige a friend. I shall be relieved, however, when you are able to
+work out the A B C of detection for yourself, although I shall never
+object to helping you with the words of more than three syllables.
+Having made up his mind to commit suicide, Kipson naturally intended to
+do it before he reached Brewster, because tickets are again examined at
+that point. When the train began to stop at the signal near Pegram, he
+came to the false conclusion that it was stopping at Brewster. The fact
+that the shot was not heard is accounted for by the screech of the air-
+brake, added to the noise of the train. Probably the whistle was also
+sounding at the same moment. The train being a fast express would stop
+as near the signal as possible. The air-brake will stop a train in
+twice its own length. Call it three times in this case. Very well. At
+three times the length of this train from the signalpost towards
+London, deducting half the length of the train, as this carriage is in
+the middle, you will find the pistol."
+
+"Wonderful!" I exclaimed.
+
+"Commonplace," he murmured.
+
+At this moment the whistle sounded shrilly, and we felt the grind of
+the air-brakes.
+
+"The Pegram signal again," cried Kombs, with something almost like
+enthusiasm. "This is indeed luck. We will get out here, Whatson, and
+test the matter."
+
+As the train stopped, we got out on the right-hand side of the line.
+The engine stood panting impatiently under the red light, which changed
+to green as I looked at it. As the train moved on with increasing
+speed, the detective counted the carriages, and noted down the number.
+It was now dark, with the thin crescent of the moon hanging in the
+western sky throwing a weird half-light on the shining metals. The rear
+lamps of the train disappeared around a curve, and the signal stood at
+baleful red again. The black magic of the lonesome night in that
+strange place impressed me, but the detective was a most practical man.
+He placed his back against the signal-post, and paced up the line with
+even strides, counting his steps. I walked along the permanent way
+beside him silently. At last he stopped, and took a tapeline from his
+pocket. He ran it out until the ten feet six inches were unrolled,
+scanning the figures in the wan light of the new moon. Giving me the
+end, he placed his knuckles on the metals, motioning me to proceed down
+the embankment. I stretched out the line, and then sank my hand in the
+damp grass to mark the spot.
+
+"Good God!" I cried, aghast, "what is this?"
+
+"It is the pistol," said Kombs quietly.
+
+It was!!
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+Journalistic London will not soon forget the sensation that was caused
+by the record of the investigations of Sherlaw Kombs, as printed at
+length in the next day's _Evening Blade._ Would that my story
+ended here. Alas! Kombs contemptuously turned over the pistol to
+Scotland Yard. The meddlesome officials, actuated, as I always hold, by
+jealousy, found the name of the seller upon it. They investigated. The
+seller testified that it had never been in the possession of Mr.
+Kipson, as far as he knew. It was sold to a man whose description
+tallied with that of a criminal long watched by the police. He was
+arrested, and turned Queen's evidence in the hope of hanging his pal.
+It seemed that Mr. Kipson, who was a gloomy, taciturn man, and usually
+came home in a compartment by himself, thus escaping observation, had
+been murdered in the lane leading to his house. After robbing him, the
+miscreants turned their thoughts towards the disposal of the body--a
+subject that always occupies a first-class criminal mind before the
+deed is done. They agreed to place it on the line, and have it mangled
+by the Scotch Express, then nearly due. Before they got the body half-
+way up the embankment the express came along and stopped. The guard got
+out and walked along the other side to speak with the engineer. The
+thought of putting the body into an empty first-class carriage
+instantly occurred to the murderers. They opened the door with the
+deceased's key. It is supposed that the pistol dropped when they were
+hoisting the body in the carriage.
+
+The Queen's evidence dodge didn't work, and Scotland Yard ignobly
+insulted my friend Sherlaw Kombs by sending him a pass to see the
+villains hanged.
+
+
+
+
+DEATH COMETH SOON OR LATE.
+
+
+It was Alick Robbins who named the invalid the Living Skeleton, and
+probably remorse for having thus given him a title so descriptively
+accurate, caused him to make friends with the Living Skeleton, a man
+who seemed to have no friends.
+
+Robbins never forgot their first conversation. It happened in this way.
+It was the habit of the Living Skeleton to leave his hotel every
+morning promptly at ten o'clock, if the sun was shining, and to shuffle
+rather than walk down the gravel street to the avenue of palms. There,
+picking out a seat on which the sun shone, the Living Skeleton would
+sit down and seem to wait patiently for someone who never came. He wore
+a shawl around his neck and a soft cloth cap on his skull. Every bone
+in his face stood out against the skin, for there seemed to be no
+flesh, and his clothes hung as loosely upon him as they would have upon
+a skeleton. It required no second glance at the Living Skeleton to know
+that the remainder of his life was numbered by days or hours, and not
+by weeks or months. He didn't seem to have energy enough even to read,
+and so it was that Robbins sat down one day on the bench beside him,
+and said sympathetically:--
+
+"I hope you are feeling better to-day."
+
+The Skeleton turned towards him, laughed a low, noiseless, mirthless
+laugh for a moment, and then said, in a hollow, far-away voice that had
+no lungs behind it: "I am done with feeling either better or worse."
+
+"Oh, I trust it is not so bad as that," said Robbins; "the climate is
+doing you good down here is it not?"
+
+Again the Skeleton laughed silently, and Robbins began to feel uneasy.
+The Skeleton's eyes were large and bright, and they fastened themselves
+upon Robbins in a way that increased that gentleman's uneasiness, and
+made him think that perhaps the Skeleton knew he had so named him.
+
+"I have no more interest in climate," said the Skeleton. "I merely seem
+to live because I have been in the habit of living for some years; I
+presume that is it, because my lungs are entirely gone. Why I can talk
+or why I can breathe is a mystery to me. You are perfectly certain you
+can hear me?"
+
+"Oh, I hear you quite distinctly," said Robbins.
+
+"Well, if it wasn't that people tell me that they can hear me, I
+wouldn't believe I was really speaking, because, you see, I have
+nothing to speak with. Isn't it Shakespeare who says something about
+when the brains are out the man is dead? Well, I have seen some men who
+make me think Shakespeare was wrong in his diagnosis, but it is
+generally supposed that when the lungs are gone a man is dead. To tell
+the truth, I _am_ dead, practically. You know the old American
+story about the man who walked around to save funeral expenses; well,
+it isn't quite that way with me, but I can appreciate how the man felt.
+Still I take a keen interest in life, although you might not think so.
+You see, I haven't much time left; I am going to die at eight o'clock
+on the 30th of April. Eight o'clock at night, not in the morning, just
+after _table d'hôte_."
+
+"You are going to _what_!" cried Robbins in astonishment.
+
+"I'm going to die that day. You see I have got things to such a fine
+point, that I can die any time I want to. I could die right here, now,
+if I wished. If you have any mortal interest in the matter I'll do it,
+and show you what I say is true. I don't mind much, you know, although
+I had fixed April the 30th as the limit. It wouldn't matter a bit for
+me to go off now, if it would be of any interest to you."
+
+"I beg you," said Robbins, very much alarmed, "not to try any
+experiments on my account. I am quite willing to believe anything you
+say about the matter--of course you ought to know."
+
+"Yes, I do know." answered the Living Skeleton sadly. "Of course I have
+had my struggle with hope and fear, but that is all past now, as you
+may well understand. The reason that I have fixed the date for April
+30th is this: you see I have only a certain amount of money--I do not
+know why I should make any secret of it. I have exactly 240 francs
+today, over and above another 100 francs which I have set aside for
+another purpose. I am paying 8 francs a day at the Golden Dragon; that
+will keep me just thirty days, and then I intend to die."
+
+The Skeleton laughed again, without sound, and Robbins moved uneasily
+on the seat.
+
+"I don't see," he said finally, "what there is to laugh about in that
+condition of affairs."
+
+"I don't suppose there is very much; but there is something else that I
+consider very laughable, and that I will tell you if you will keep it a
+secret. You see, the Golden Dragon himself--I always call our innkeeper
+the Golden Dragon, just as you call me, the Living Skeleton."
+
+"Oh, I--I--beg your pardon," stammered Robbins, "I--."
+
+"It really doesn't matter at all. You are perfectly right, and I think
+it a very apt term. Well, the old Golden Dragon makes a great deal of
+his money by robbing the dead. You didn't know that, did you? You
+thought it was the living who supported him, and goodness knows he robs
+_them_ when he has a chance. Well, you are very much mistaken.
+When a man dies in the Golden Dragon, he, or his friends rather, have
+to pay very sweetly for it. The Dragon charges them for re-furnishing
+the room. Every stick of furniture is charged for, all the wall-paper,
+and so on. I suppose it is perfectly right to charge something, but the
+Dragon is not content with what is right. He knows he has finally lost
+a customer, and so he makes all he can out of him. The furniture so
+paid for, is not re-placed, and the walls are not papered again, but
+the Dragon doesn't abate a penny of his bill on that account. Now, I
+have inquired of the furnishing man, on the street back of the hotel,
+and he has written on his card just the cost of mattress, sheets,
+pillows, and all that sort of thing, and the amount comes to about 50
+francs. I have put in an envelope a 50-franc note, and with it the card
+of the furniture man. I have written a letter to the hotel-keeper,
+telling him just what the things will cost that he needs, and have
+referred the Dragon to the card of the furniture man who has given me
+the figures. This envelope I have addressed to the Dragon, and he will
+find it when I am dead. This is the joke that old man Death and myself
+have put up on our host, and my only regret is that I shall not be able
+to enjoy a look at the Dragon's countenance as he reads my last letter
+to him. Another sum of money I have put away, in good hands where he
+won't have a chance to get it, for my funeral expenses, and then you
+see I am through with the world. I have nobody to leave that I need
+worry about, or who would either take care of me or feel sorry for me
+if I needed care or sympathy, which I do not. So that is why I laugh,
+and that is why I come down and sit upon this bench, in the sunshine,
+and enjoy the posthumous joke."
+
+Robbins did not appear to see the humor of the situation quite as
+strongly as the Living Skeleton did. At different times after, when
+they met he had offered the Skeleton more money if he wanted it, so
+that he might prolong his life a little, but the Skeleton always
+refused.
+
+A sort of friendship sprang up between Robbins and the Living Skeleton,
+at least, as much of a friendship as can exist between the living and
+the dead, for Robbins was a muscular young fellow who did not need to
+live at the Riviera on account of his health, but merely because he
+detested an English winter. Besides this, it may be added, although it
+really is nobody's business, that a Nice Girl and her parents lived in
+this particular part of the South of France.
+
+One day Robbins took a little excursion in a carriage to Toulon. He had
+invited the Nice Girl to go with him, but on that particular day she
+could not go. There was some big charity function on hand, and one
+necessary part of the affair was the wheedling of money out of people's
+pockets, so the Nice Girl had undertaken to do part of the wheedling.
+
+She was very good at it, and she rather prided herself upon it, but
+then she was a very nice girl, pretty as well, and so people found it
+difficult to refuse her. On the evening of the day there was to be a
+ball at the principal hotel of the place, also in connection with this
+very desirable charity. Robbins had reluctantly gone to Toulon alone,
+but you may depend upon it he was back in time for the ball.
+
+"Well," he said to the Nice Girl when he met her, "what luck
+collecting, to-day?"
+
+"Oh, the greatest luck," she replied enthusiastically, "and whom do you
+think I got the most money from?"
+
+"I am sure I haven't the slightest idea--that old English Duke, he
+certainly has money enough."
+
+"No, not from him at all; the very last person you would expect it
+from--your friend, the Living Skeleton."
+
+"What!" cried Robbins, in alarm.
+
+"Oh, I found him on the bench where he usually sits, in the avenue of
+the palms. I told him all about the charity and how useful it was, and
+how necessary, and how we all ought to give as much as we could towards
+it, and he smiled and smiled at me in that curious way of his. 'Yes,'
+he said in a whisper, 'I believe the charity should be supported by
+everyone; I will give you eighty francs.' Now, wasn't that very
+generous of him? Eighty francs, that was ten times what the Duke gave,
+and as he handed me the money he looked up at me and said in that awful
+whisper of his: 'Count this over carefully when you get home and see if
+you can find out what else I have given you. There is more than eighty
+francs there.' Then, after I got home, I--"
+
+But here the Nice Girl paused, when she looked at the face of Robbins,
+to whom she was talking. That face was ghastly pale and his eyes were
+staring at her but not seeing her.
+
+"Eighty francs, he was whispering to himself, and he seemed to be
+making a mental calculation. Then noticing the Nice Girl's amazed look
+at him, he said:
+
+"Did you take the money?"
+
+"Of course I took it," she said, "why shouldn't I?"
+
+"Great Heavens!" gasped Robbins, and without a word he turned and fled,
+leaving the Nice Girl transfixed with astonishment and staring after
+him with a frown on her pretty brow.
+
+"What does he mean by such conduct?" she asked herself. But Robbins
+disappeared from the gathering throng in the large room of the hotel,
+dashed down the steps, and hurried along the narrow pavements toward
+the "Golden Dragon." The proprietor was standing in the hallway with
+his hands behind him, a usual attitude with the Dragon.
+
+"Where," gasped Robbins, "is Mr.--Mr.--" and then he remembered he
+didn't know the name. "Where is the Living Skeleton?"
+
+"He has gone to his room," answered the Dragon, "he went early to-
+night, he wasn't feeling well, I think."
+
+"What is the number of his room?"
+
+"No. 40," and the proprietor rang a loud, jangling bell, whereupon one
+of the chambermaids appeared. "Show this gentleman to No. 40."
+
+The girl preceded Robbins up the stairs. Once she looked over her
+shoulder, and said in a whisper, "Is he worse?"
+
+"I don't know," answered Robbins, "that's what I have come to see."
+
+At No. 40 the girl paused, and rapped lightly on the door panel. There
+was no response. She rapped again, this time louder. There was still no
+response.
+
+"Try the door," said Robbins.
+
+"I am afraid to," said the girl.
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because he said if he were asleep the door would be locked, and if he
+were dead the door would be open."
+
+"When did he say that?"
+
+"He said it several times, sir; about a week ago the last time."
+
+Robbins turned the handle of the door; it was not locked. A dim light
+was in the room, but a screen before the door hid it from sight. When
+he passed round the screen he saw, upon the square marble-topped
+arrangement at the head of the bed, a candle burning, and its light
+shone on the dead face of the Skeleton, which had a grim smile on its
+thin lips, while in its clenched hand was a letter addressed to the
+proprietor of the hotel.
+
+The Living Skeleton had given more than the eighty francs to that
+deserving charity.
+
+
+
+
+HIGH STAKES.
+
+
+The snow was gently sifting down through the white glare of the
+electric light when Pony Rowell buttoned his overcoat around him and
+left the Metropolitan Hotel, which was his home. He was a young man,
+not more than thirty, and his face was a striking one. It was clean cut
+and clean shaven. It might have been the face of an actor or the face
+of a statesman. An actor's face has a certain mobility of expression
+resulting from the habit of assuming characters differing widely.
+Rowell's face, when you came to look at it closely, showed that it had
+been accustomed to repress expression rather than to show emotion of
+any kind. A casual look at Pony Rowell made you think his face would
+tell you something; a closer scrutiny showed you that it would tell you
+nothing. His eyes were of a piercing steely gray that seemed to read
+the thoughts of others, while they effectually concealed his own. Pony
+Rowell was known as a man who never went back on his word. He was a
+professional gambler.
+
+On this particular evening he strolled up the avenue with the easy
+carriage of a man of infinite leisure. He hesitated for a moment at an
+illy-lighted passage-way in the middle of a large building on a side
+street, then went in and mounted a stair. He rapped lightly at a door.
+A slide was shoved back and a man inside peered out at him for a
+moment. Instantly the door was opened, for Pony's face was good for
+admittance at any of the gambling rooms in the city. There was still
+another guarded door to pass, for an honest gambling-house keeper can
+never tell what streak of sudden morality may strike the police, and it
+is well to have a few moments' time in which to conceal the
+paraphernalia of the business. Of course, Mellish's gambling rooms were
+as well known to the police as to Pony Rowell, but unless some fuss was
+made by the public, Mellish knew he would be free from molestation.
+
+Mellish was a careful man, and a visitor had to be well vouched for,
+before he gained admission. There never was any trouble in Mellish's
+rooms. He was often known to advise a player to quit when he knew the
+young gambler could not afford to lose, and instances were cited where
+he had been the banker of some man in despair. Everybody liked Mellish,
+for his generosity was unbounded, and he told a good story well.
+
+Inside the room that Pony Rowell had penetrated, a roulette table was
+at its whirling work and faro was going on in another spot. At small
+tables various visitors were enjoying the game of poker.
+
+"Hello, Pony," cried Bert Ragstock, "are you going to give me my
+revenge to-night?"
+
+"I'm always willing to give anyone his revenge." answered Pony
+imperturbably, lighting a fresh cigarette.
+
+"All right then; come and sit down here."
+
+"I'm not going to play just yet. I want to look on for a while."
+
+"Nonsense. I've been waiting for you ever so long already. Sit down."
+
+"You ought to know by this time, Bert, that when I say a thing I mean
+it. I won't touch a card till the clock begins to strike 12. Then I'm
+wid ye."
+
+"Pshaw, Pony, you ought to be above that sort of thing. That's
+superstition, Rowell. You're too cool a man to mind when you touch a
+card. Come on."
+
+"That's all right. At midnight, I said to myself, and at midnight it
+shall be or not at all."
+
+The old gamblers in the place nodded approval of this resolution. It
+was all right enough for Bert Ragstock to sneer at superstition,
+because he was not a real gambler. He merely came to Mellish's rooms in
+the evening because the Stock Exchange did not keep open all night.
+Strange to say Ragstock was a good business man as well as a cool
+gambler. He bemoaned the fate that made him so rich that gambling had
+not the exhilarating effect on him which it would have had if he had
+been playing in desperation.
+
+When the clock began to chime midnight Pony Rowell took up the pack and
+began to shuffle.
+
+"Now, old man," he said, "I'm going in to win. I'm after big game to-
+night."
+
+"Right you are." cried Bert, with enthusiasm. "I'll stand by you as
+long as the spots stay on the cards."
+
+In the gray morning, when most of the others had left and even Mellish
+himself was yawning, they were still at it. The professional gambler
+had won a large sum of money; the largest sum he ever possessed. Yet
+there was no gleam of triumph in his keen eyes. Bert might have been
+winning for all the emotion his face showed. They were a well matched
+pair, and they enjoyed playing with each other.
+
+"There," cried Pony at last, "haven't you had enough? Luck's against
+you. I wouldn't run my head any longer against a brick wall, if I were
+you."
+
+"My dear Pony, how often have I told you there is no such thing as
+luck. But to tell the truth I'm tired and I'm going home. The revenge
+is postponed. When do I meet the enemy again?"
+
+Pony Rowell shuffled the cards idly for a few moments without replying
+or raising his eyes. At last he said:
+
+"The next time I play you, Bert, it will be for high stakes."
+
+"Good heavens, aren't you satisfied with the stakes we played for to-
+night?"
+
+"No. I want to play you for a stake that will make even your hair stand
+on end. Will you do it?"
+
+"Certainly. When?"
+
+"That I can't tell just yet. I have a big scheme on hand. I am to see a
+man to-day about it. All I want to know is that you promise to play."
+
+"Pony, this is mysterious. I guess you're not afraid I will flunk out.
+I'm ready to meet you on any terms and for any stake."
+
+"Enough said. I'll let you know some of the particulars as soon as I
+find out all I want myself. Good-night."
+
+"Good-night to you, rather," said Bert, as Mellish helped him on with
+his overcoat. "You've won the pile: robbing a poor man of his hard-
+earned gains!"
+
+"Oh, the poor man does not need the money as badly as I do. Besides,
+I'm going to give you a chance to win it all back again and more."
+
+When Ragstock had left, Pony still sat by the table absent-mindedly
+shuffling the cards.
+
+"If I were you," said Mellish, laying his hand on his shoulder, "I
+would put that pile in the bank and quit."
+
+"The faro bank?" asked Pony, looking up with a smile.
+
+"No, I'd quit the business altogether if I were you. I'm going to
+myself."
+
+"Oh, we all know that. You've been going to quit for the last twenty
+years. Well, I'm going to quit, too, but not just yet. That's what they
+all say, of course, but I mean it."
+
+In the early and crisp winter air Pony Rowell walked to the
+Metropolitan Hotel and to bed. At 3 that afternoon the man he had an
+appointment with, called to see him.
+
+"You wanted to see me about an Insurance policy," the visitor began. An
+agent is always ready to talk of business. "Now, were you thinking of
+an endowment scheme or have you looked into our new bond system of
+insurance? The twenty-pay-life style of thing seems to be very
+popular."
+
+"I want to ask you a few questions," said Pony. "If I were to insure my
+life in your company and were to commit suicide would that invalidate
+the policy?"
+
+"Not after two years. After two years, in our company, the policy is
+incontestable."
+
+"Two years? That won't do for me. Can't you make it one year?"
+
+"I'll tell you what I will do," said the agent, lowering his voice, "I
+can ante-date the policy, so that the two years will end just when you
+like, say a year from now."
+
+"Very well. If you can legally fix it so that the two years come to an
+end about this date next year I will insure in your company for
+$100,000."
+
+The agent opened his eyes when the amount was mentioned.
+
+"I don't want endowments or bonds, but the cheapest form of life
+insurance you have, and--"
+
+"Straight life is what you want."
+
+"Straight life it is, then, and I will pay you for the two years or
+say, to make it sure, for two years and a half down, when you bring me
+the papers."
+
+Thus it was that with part of the money he had won, Pony Rowell insured
+his life for $100,000, and with another part he paid his board and
+lodging for a year ahead at the Metropolitan Hotel.
+
+The remainder he kept to speculate on.
+
+During the year that followed he steadily refused to play with Bert
+Ragstock, and once or twice they nearly had a quarrel about it--that is
+as near as Pony could come to having a row with anybody, for
+quarrelling was not in his line. If he had lived in a less civilized
+part of the community Pony might have shot, but as it was quarrels
+never came to anything, therefore he did not indulge in any.
+
+"A year from the date of our last game? What nonsense it is waiting all
+that time. You play with others, why not with me? Think of the chances
+we are losing," complained Bert.
+
+"We will have a game then that will make up for all the waiting,"
+answered Rowell.
+
+At last the anniversary came and when the hour struck that ushered it
+in Pony Rowell and Bert Ragstock sat facing each other, prepared to
+resume business on the old stand.
+
+"Ah," said Bert, rubbing his hands, "it feels good to get opposite you
+once more. Pony, you're a crank. We might have had a hundred games like
+this during the past year, if there wasn't so much superstition about
+you."
+
+"Not quite like this. This is to be the last game I play, win or lose.
+I tell you that now, so that there won't be any talk of revenge if I
+win."
+
+"You don't mean it! I've heard talk like that before."
+
+"All right. I've warned you. Now I propose that this be a game of pure
+luck. We get a new pack of cards, shuffle them, cut, then you pull one
+card and I another. Ace high. The highest takes the pot. Best two out
+of three. Do you agree?"
+
+"Of course. How much is the pile to be?"
+
+"One hundred thousand dollars."
+
+"Oh, you're dreaming."
+
+"Isn't it enough?"
+
+"Thunder! You never _saw_ $100,000."
+
+"You will get the money if I lose."
+
+"Say, Pony, that's coming it a little strong. One hundred thousand
+dollars! Heavens and earth! How many business men in this whole city
+would expect their bare word to be taken for $100,000?"
+
+"I'm not a business man. I'm a gambler."
+
+"True, true. Is the money in sight?"
+
+"No; but you'll be paid. Your money is not in sight. I trust you. Can't
+you trust me?
+
+"It isn't quite the same thing, Pony. I'll trust you for three times
+the money you have in sight, but when you talk about $100,000 you are
+talking of a lot of cash."
+
+"If I can convince Mellish here that you will get your money, will you
+play?"
+
+"You can convince me just as easily as you can Mellish. What's the use
+of dragging him in?"
+
+"I could convince you in a minute, but you might still refuse to play.
+Now I'm bound to play this game and I can't take any risks. If my word
+and Mellish's isn't good enough for you, why, say so."
+
+"All right," cried Bert. "If you can convince Mellish that you will pay
+if you lose I'll play you."
+
+Rowell and Mellish retired into an inner room and after a few minutes
+reappeared again.
+
+Mellish's face was red when he went in. He was now a trifle pale.
+
+"I don't like this, Bert," Mellish said, "and I think this game had
+better stop right here."
+
+"Then you are not convinced that I am sure of my money?"
+
+"Yes, I am, but--"
+
+"That's enough for me. Get out your new pack."
+
+"You've given your word, Mellish," said Pony, seeing the keeper of the
+house was about to speak. "Don't say any more."
+
+"For such a sum two out of three is too sudden. Make it five out of
+nine," put in Bert.
+
+"I'm willing."
+
+The new pack of cards was brought and the wrappings torn off.
+
+"You shuffle first; I'll cut," said Rowell. His lips seemed parched and
+he moistened them now and then, which was unusual for so cool a
+gambler. Mellish fidgeted around with lowered brow. Bert shuffled the
+cards as nonchalantly as if he had merely a $5 bill on the result. When
+each had taken a card, Bert held an ace and Pony a king. Pony shuffled
+and the turn up was a spot in Pony's hand and queen in that of his
+opponent. Bert smiled and drops began to show on Pony's forehead in
+spite of his efforts at self-control. No word was spoken by either
+players or onlookers. After the next deal Pony again lost. His
+imperturbability seemed to be leaving him. He swept the cards from the
+table with an oath. "Bring another pack," he said hoarsely.
+
+Bert smiled at him across the table. He thought, of course, that they
+were playing for even stakes.
+
+Mellish couldn't stand it any longer. He retired to one of the inner
+rooms. The first deal with the new pack turned in Pony's favor and he
+seemed to feel that his luck had changed, but the next deal went
+against him and also the one following.
+
+"It's your shuffle," said Rowell, pushing the cards towards his
+opponent. Bert did not touch the cards, but smiled across at the
+gambler.
+
+"What's the matter with you? Why don't you shuffle?"
+
+"I don't have to," said Bert, quietly, "I've won five."
+
+Rowell drew his hand across his perspiring brow and stared at the man
+across the table. Then he seemed to pull himself together.
+
+"So you have," he said, "I hadn't noticed it. Excuse me. I guess I'll
+go now."
+
+"Sit where you are and let us have a game for something more modest. I
+don't care about these splurges myself and I don't suppose you do--
+now."
+
+"Thanks, no. I told you this was my last game. As to the splurge, if I
+had the money I would willingly try it again. So long."
+
+When Mellish came in and saw that the game was over he asked where Pony
+was.
+
+"He knew when he had enough, I guess," answered Bert. "He's gone home."
+
+"Come in here, Bert. I want to speak with you," said Mellish.
+
+When they were alone Mellish turned to him.
+
+"I suppose Pony didn't tell you where the money is to come from?"
+
+"No, he told you. That was enough for me."
+
+"Well, there's no reason why you should not know now. I promised
+silence till the game was finished. He's insured his life for $100,000
+and is going to commit suicide so that you may be paid."
+
+"My God!" cried Bert, aghast. "Why did you let the game go on?"
+
+"I tried to stop it, but I had given my word and you--"
+
+"Well, don't let us stand chattering here. He's at the Metropolitan,
+isn't he? Then come along. Hurry into your coat."
+
+Mellish knew the number of Rowell's room and so no time was lost in the
+hotel office with inquiries. He tried the door, but, as he expected, it
+was locked.
+
+"Who's that?" cried a voice within.
+
+"It's me? Mellish. I want to speak with you a moment."
+
+"I don't want to see you."
+
+"Bert wants to say something. It's important. Let us in."
+
+"I won't let you in. Go away and don't make a fuss. It will do no good.
+You can get in ten minutes from now."
+
+"Look here, Pony, you open that door at once, or I'll kick it in. You
+hear me? I want to see you a minute, and then you can do what you
+like," said Bert, in a voice that meant business.
+
+After a moment's hesitation Rowell opened the door and the two stepped
+in. Half of the carpet had been taken up and the bare floor was covered
+with old newspapers. A revolver lay on the table, also writing
+materials and a half-finished letter. Pony was in his shirt sleeves and
+he did not seem pleased at the interruption.
+
+"What do you want?" he asked shortly.
+
+"Look here, Pony," said Bert, "I have confessed to Mellish and I've
+come to confess to you. I want you to be easy with me and hush the
+thing up. I cheated. I stocked the cards."
+
+"You're a liar," said Rowell, looking him straight in the eye.
+
+"Don't say that again," cried Ragstock, with his fingers twitching.
+"There's mighty few men I would take that from."
+
+"You stocked the cards on me? I'd like to see the man that could do
+it!"
+
+"You were excited and didn't notice it."
+
+"You're not only a liar, but you're an awkward liar. I have lost the
+money and I'll pay it. It would have been ready for you now, only I had
+a letter to write. Mellish has told you about the insurance policy and
+my will attached to it. Here they are. They're yours. I'm no kicker. I
+know when a game's played fair."
+
+Bert took the policy and evidently intended to tear it in pieces, while
+Mellish, with a wink at him, edged around to get at the revolver.
+Ragstock's eye caught the name in big letters at the head of the
+policy, beautifully engraved. His eyes opened wide, then he sank into a
+chair and roared with laughter. Both the other men looked at him in
+astonishment.
+
+"What's the matter?" asked Mellish.
+
+"Matter? Why, this would have been a joke on Pony. It would do both of
+you some good to know a little about business as well as of gambling.
+The Hardfast Life Insurance Company went smash six months ago. It's the
+truth this time, Pony, even if I didn't stock the cards. Better make
+some inquiries in business circles before you try to collect any money
+from this institution. Now, Pony, order up the drinks, if anything can
+be had at this untimely hour. We are your guests so you are expected to
+be hospitable. I've had all the excitement I want for one night. We'll
+call it square and begin over again."
+
+
+
+
+"WHERE IGNORANCE IS BLISS."
+
+
+The splendid steamship Adamant, of the celebrated Cross Bow line, left
+New York on her February trip under favorable auspices. There had just
+been a storm on the ocean, so there was every chance that she would
+reach Liverpool before the next one was due.
+
+Capt. Rice had a little social problem to solve at the outset, but he
+smoothed that out with the tact which is characteristic of him. Two
+Washington ladies--official ladies--were on board, and the captain, old
+British sea-dog that he was, always had trouble in the matter of
+precedence with Washington ladies. Capt. Rice never had any bother with
+the British aristocracy, because precedence is all set down in the
+bulky volume of "Burke's Peerage," which the captain kept in his cabin,
+and so there was no difficulty. But a republican country is supposed
+not to meddle with precedence. It wouldn't, either, if it weren't for
+the women.
+
+So it happened that Mrs. Assistant-Attorney-to-the-Senate Brownrig came
+to the steward and said that, ranking all others on board, she must sit
+at the right hand of the captain. Afterwards Mrs. Second-Adjutant-to-
+the-War-Department Digby came to the same perplexed official and said
+she must sit at the captain's right hand because in Washington she took
+precedence over everyone else on board. The bewildered steward confided
+his woes to the captain, and the captain said he would attend to the
+matter. So he put Mrs. War-Department on his right hand and then walked
+down the deck with Mrs. Assistant-Attorney and said to her:
+
+"I want to ask a favor, Mrs. Brownrig. Unfortunately I am a little deaf
+in the right ear, caused, I presume, by listening so much with that ear
+to the fog horn year in and year out. Now, I always place the lady
+whose conversation I wish most to enjoy on my left hand at table. Would
+you oblige me by taking that seat this voyage? I have heard of you, you
+see, Mrs. Brownrig, although you have never crossed with me before."
+
+"Why, certainly, captain," replied Mrs. Brownrig; "I feel especially
+complimented."
+
+"And I assure you, madam," said the polite captain, "that I would not
+for the world miss a single word that," etc.
+
+And thus it was amicably arranged between the two ladies. All this has
+nothing whatever to do with the story. It is merely an incident given
+to show what a born diplomat Capt. Rice was and is to this day. I don't
+know any captain more popular with the ladies than he, and besides he
+is as good a sailor as crosses the ocean.
+
+Day by day the good ship ploughed her way toward the east, and the
+passengers were unanimous in saying that they never had a pleasanter
+voyage for that time of the year. It was so warm on deck that many
+steamer chairs were out, and below it was so mild that a person might
+think he was journeying in the tropics. Yet they had left New York in a
+snow storm with the thermometer away below zero.
+
+"Such," said young Spinner, who knew everything, "such is the influence
+of the Gulf Stream."
+
+Nevertheless when Capt. Rice came down to lunch the fourth day out his
+face was haggard and his look furtive and anxious.
+
+"Why, captain," cried Mrs. Assistant-Attorney, you look as if you
+hadn't slept a wink last night."
+
+"I slept very well, thank you, madam." replied the captain. "I always
+do."
+
+"Well, I hope your room was more comfortable than mine. It seemed to me
+too hot for anything. Didn't you find it so, Mrs. Digby?"
+
+"I thought it very nice," replied the lady at the captain's right, who
+generally found it necessary to take an opposite view from the lady at
+the left.
+
+"You see," said the captain, "we have many delicate women and children
+on board and it is necessary to keep up the temperature. Still, perhaps
+the man who attends to the steam rather overdoes it. I will speak him."
+
+Then the captain pushed from him his untasted food and went up on the
+bridge, casting his eye aloft at the signal waving from the masthead,
+silently calling for help to all the empty horizon.
+
+"Nothing in sight, Johnson?" said the captain.
+
+"Not a speck, sir."
+
+The captain swept the circular line of sea and sky with his glasses,
+then laid them down with a sigh.
+
+"We ought to raise something this afternoon, sir," said Johnson; "we
+are right in their track, sir. The Fulda ought to be somewhere about."
+
+"We are too far north for the Fulda, I am afraid," answered the
+captain.
+
+"Well, sir, we should see the Vulcan before night, sir. She's had good
+weather from Queenstown."
+
+"Yes. Keep a sharp lookout, Johnson."
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+The captain moodily paced the bridge with his head down.
+
+"I ought to have turned back to New York," he said to himself.
+
+Then he went down to his own room, avoiding the passengers as much as
+he could, and had the steward bring him some beef-tea. Even a captain
+cannot live on anxiety.
+
+"Steamer off the port bow, sir," rang out the voice of the lookout at
+the prow. The man had sharp eyes, for a landsman could have seen
+nothing.
+
+"Run and tell the captain," cried Johnson to the sailor at his elbow,
+but as the sailor turned the captain's head appeared up the stairway.
+He seized the glass and looked long at a single point in the horizon.
+
+"It must be the Vulcan," he said at last.
+
+"I think so, sir."
+
+"Turn your wheel a few points to port and bear down on her."
+
+Johnson gave the necessary order and the great ship veered around.
+
+"Hello!" cried Spinner, on deck. "Here's a steamer. I found her. She's
+mine."
+
+Then there was a rush to the side of the ship. "A steamer in sight!"
+was the cry, and all books and magazines at once lost interest. Even
+the placid, dignified Englishman who was so uncommunicative, rose from
+his chair and sent his servant for his binocular. Children were held up
+and told to be careful, while they tried to see the dim line of smoke
+so far ahead.
+
+"Talk about lane routes at sea," cried young Spinner, the knowing.
+"Bosh, I say. See! we're going directly for her. Think what it might be
+in a fog! Lane routes! Pure luck, I call it."
+
+"Will we signal to her, Mr. Spinner?" gently asked the young lady from
+Boston.
+
+"Oh, certainly," answered young Spinner. "See there's our signal flying
+from the masthead now. That shows them what line we belong to."
+
+"Dear me, how interesting," said the young lady. "You have crossed many
+times, I suppose, Mr. Spinner."
+
+"Oh, I know my way about," answered the modest Spinner.
+
+The captain kept the glasses glued to his eyes. Suddenly he almost let
+them drop.
+
+"My God! Johnson," he cried.
+
+"What is it, sir?"
+
+"_She's_ flying a signal of distress, _too_!"
+
+The two steamers slowly approached each other and, when nearly
+alongside and about a mile apart, the bell of the Adamant rang to stop.
+
+"There, you see," said young Spinner to the Boston girl, "she is flying
+the same flag at her masthead that we are."
+
+"Then she belongs to the same line as this boat?"
+
+"Oh, certainly," answered Mr. Cock-Sure Spinner.
+
+"Oh, look! look! look!" cried the enthusiastic Indianapolis girl who
+was going to take music in Germany.
+
+Everyone looked aloft and saw running up to the masthead a long line of
+fluttering, many-colored flags. They remained in place for a few
+moments and then fluttered down again, only to give place to a
+different string. The same thing was going on on the other steamer.
+
+"Oh, this is too interesting for anything," said Mrs. Assistant. "I am
+just dying to know what it all means. I have read of it so often but
+never saw it before. I wonder when the captain will come down. What
+does it all mean?" she asked the deck steward.
+
+"They are signalling to each other, madam."
+
+"Oh, I know _that_. But what _are_ they signalling?"
+
+"I don't know, madam."
+
+"Oh, see! see!" cried the Indianapolis girl, clapping her hands with
+delight. "The other steamer is turning round."
+
+It was indeed so. The great ship was thrashing the water with her
+screw, and gradually the masts came in line and then her prow faced the
+east again. When this had been slowly accomplished the bell on the
+Adamant rang full speed ahead, and then the captain came slowly down
+the ladder that led from the bridge.
+
+"Oh, captain, what does it all mean?"
+
+"Is she going back, captain? Nothing wrong, I hope."
+
+"What ship is it, captain?"
+
+"She belongs to our line, doesn't she?"
+
+"Why is she going back?"
+
+"The ship," said the captain slowly, is the Vulcan, of the Black
+Bowling Line, that left Queenstown shortly after we left New York. She
+has met with an accident. Ran into some wreckage, it is thought, from
+the recent storm. Anyhow there is a hole in her, and whether she sees
+Queenstown or not will depend a great deal on what weather we have and
+whether her bulkheads hold out. We will stand by her till we reach
+Queenstown."
+
+"Are there many on board, do you think, captain?"
+
+"There are thirty-seven in the cabin and over 800 steerage passengers,"
+answered the captain.
+
+"Why don't you take them on board, out of danger, captain?"
+
+"Ah, madam, there is no need to do that. It would delay us, and time is
+everything in a case like this. Besides, they will have ample warning
+if she is going down and they will have time to get everybody in the
+boats. We will stand by them, you know."
+
+"Oh, the poor creatures," cried the sympathetic Mrs. Second-Adjutant.
+"Think of their awful position. May be engulfed at any moment. I
+suppose they are all on their knees in the cabin. How thankful they
+must have been to see the Adamant."
+
+On all sides there was the profoundest sympathy for the unfortunate
+passengers of the Vulcan. Cheeks paled at the very thought of the
+catastrophe that might take place at any moment within sight of the
+sister ship. It was a realistic object lesson on the ever-present
+dangers of the sea. While those on deck looked with new interest at the
+steamship plunging along within a mile of them, the captain slipped
+away to his room. As he sat there there was a tap at his door.
+
+"Come in," shouted the captain.
+
+The silent Englishman slowly entered.
+
+"What's wrong, captain," he asked.
+
+"Oh, the Vulcan has had a hole stove in her and I signalled--"
+
+"Yes, I know all that, of course, but what's wrong _with us?_"
+
+"With us?" echoed the captain blankly.
+
+"Yes, with the Adamant? What has been amiss for the last two or three
+days? I'm not a talker, nor am I afraid any more than you are, but I
+want to know."
+
+"Certainly," said the captain. "Please shut the door, Sir John."
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+Meanwhile there was a lively row on board the Vulcan. In the saloon
+Capt. Flint was standing at bay with his knuckles on the table.
+
+"Now what the devil's the meaning of all this?" cried Adam K. Vincent,
+member of Congress.
+
+A crowd of frightened women were standing around, many on the verge of
+hysterics. Children clung, with pale faces, to their mother's skirts,
+fearing they knew not what. Men were grouped with anxious faces, and
+the bluff old captain fronted them all.
+
+"The meaning of all _what_, sir?"
+
+"You know very well. What is the meaning of our turning-round?"
+
+"It means, sir, that the Adamant has eighty-five saloon passengers and
+nearly 500 intermediate and steerage passengers who are in the most
+deadly danger. The cotton in the hold is on fire, and they have been
+fighting it night and day. A conflagation may break out at any moment.
+It means, then, sir, that the Vulcan is going to stand by the Adamant."
+
+A wail of anguish burst from the frightened women at the awful fate
+that might be in store for so many human beings so near to them, and
+they clung closer to their children and thanked God that no such danger
+threatened them and those dear to them.
+
+"And dammit, sir," cried the Congressman, "do you mean to tell us that
+we have to go against our will--without even being consulted--back to
+Queenstown?"
+
+"I mean to tell you so, sir."
+
+"Well, by the gods, that's an outrage, and I won't stand it, sir. I
+must be in New York by the 27th. I won't stand it, sir."
+
+"I am very sorry, sir, that anybody should be delayed."
+
+"Delayed? Hang it all, why don't you take the people on board and take
+'em to New York? I protest against this. I'll bring a lawsuit against
+the company, sir."
+
+"Mr. Vincent," said the captain sternly, "permit me to remind you that
+_I_ am captain of this ship. Good afternoon, sir."
+
+The Congressman departed from the saloon exceeding wroth, breathing
+dire threats of legal proceedings against the line and the captain
+personally, but most of the passengers agreed that it would be an
+inhuman thing to leave the Adamant alone in mid-ocean in such terrible
+straits.
+
+"Why didn't they turn back, Captain Flint?" asked Mrs. General Weller.
+
+"Because, madam, every moment is of value in such a case, and we are
+nearer Queenstown than New York."
+
+And so the two steamships, side by side, worried their way toward the
+east, always within sight of each other by day, and with the rows of
+lights in each visible at night to the sympathetic souls on the other.
+The sweltering men poured water into the hold of the one and the
+pounding pumps poured water out of the hold of the other, and thus they
+reached Queenstown.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+On board the tender that took the passengers ashore at Queenstown from
+both steamers two astonished women met each other.
+
+"Why! _Mrs.--General_--WELLER!!! You don't mean to say you were on
+board that unfortunate Vulcan!"
+
+"For the land's sake, Mrs. Assistant Brownrig! Is that really
+_you?_ Will wonders never cease? Unfortunate, did you say?
+Mightily fortunate for you, I think. Why! weren't you just frightened
+to death?"
+
+"I was, but I had no idea anyone I knew was on board."
+
+"Well, you were on board yourself. That would have been enough to have
+killed me."
+
+"On board myself? Why, what _do_ you mean? I wasn't on board the
+Vulcan. Did you get any sleep at all after you knew you might go down
+at any moment?"
+
+"My sakes, Jane, what _are_ you talking about? _Down_ at any
+moment? It was you that might have gone down at any moment or, worse
+still, have been burnt to death if the fire had got ahead. You don't
+mean to say you didn't know the Adamant was on fire most of the way
+across?"
+
+"_Mrs.--General--Weller!!_ There's some _horrible_ mistake.
+It was the Vulcan. Everything depended on her bulkheads, the captain
+said. There was a hole as big as a barn door in the Vulcan. The pumps
+were going night and day."
+
+Mrs. General looked at Mrs. Assistant as the light began to dawn on
+both of them.
+
+"Then it wasn't the engines, but the pumps," she said.
+
+"And it wasn't the steam, but the fire," screamed Mrs. Assistant. "Oh,
+dear, how that captain lied, and I thought him such a nice man, too.
+Oh, I shall go into hysterics, I know I shall."
+
+"I wouldn't if I were you," said the sensible Mrs. General, who was a
+strong-minded woman; "besides, it is too late. We're all safe now. I
+think both captains were pretty sensible men. Evidently married, both
+of 'em."
+
+Which was quite true.
+
+
+
+
+THE DEPARTURE OF CUB MCLEAN.
+
+
+Of course no one will believe me when I say that Mellish was in every
+respect, except one, an exemplary citizen and a good-hearted man. He
+was generous to a fault and he gave many a young fellow a start in life
+where a little money or a few encouraging words were needed. He drank,
+of course, but he was a connoisseur in liquors, and a connoisseur never
+goes in for excess. Few could tell a humorous story as well as Mellish,
+and he seldom dealt in chestnuts. No man can be wholly bad who never
+inflicts an old story on his friends, locating it on some acquaintance
+of his, and alleging that it occurred the day before.
+
+If I wished to write a heart-rending article on the evils of gambling,
+Mellish would be the man I would go to for my facts and for the moral
+of the tale. He spent his life persuading people not to gamble. He
+never gambled himself, he said. But if no attention was paid to his
+advice, why then he furnished gamblers with the most secluded and
+luxurious gambling rooms in the city. It was supposed that Mellish
+stood in with the police, which was, of course, a libel. The idea of
+the guardians of the city standing in with a gambler or a gambling
+house! The statement was absurd on the face of it. If you asked any
+policeman in the city where Mellish's gambling rooms were, you would
+speedily learn that not one of them had ever even heard of the place.
+All this goes to show how scandalously people will talk, and if
+Mellish's rooms were free from raids, it was merely Mellish's good
+luck, that was all. Anyhow, in Mellish's rooms you could have a quiet,
+gentlemanly game for stakes about as high as you cared to go, and you
+were reasonably sure there would be no fuss and that your name would
+not appear in the papers next morning.
+
+One night as Mellish cast his eye around his well-filled main room he
+noticed a stranger sitting at the roulette table. Mellish had a keen
+eye for strangers and in an unobtrusive way generally managed to find
+out something about them. A stranger in a gambling room brings in with
+him a certain sense of danger to the habitués.
+
+"Who is that boy?" whispered Mellish to his bartender, generally known
+as Sotty, an ex-prize fighter and a dangerous man to handle if it came
+to trouble. It rarely came to trouble there, but Sotty was, in a
+measure, the silent symbol of physical force, backing the well-known
+mild morality of Mellish.
+
+"I don't know him," answered Sotty.
+
+"Whom did he come in with?"
+
+"I didn't see him come in. Hadn't noticed him till now."
+
+Mellish looked at the boy for a few minutes. He had the fresh, healthy,
+smooth face of a lad from the country, and he seemed strangely out of
+place in the heated atmosphere of that room, under the glare of the
+gas. Mellish sighed as he looked at him, then he turned to Sotty and
+said:
+
+"Just get him away quietly and bring him to the small poker room. I
+want to have a few words with him."
+
+Sotty, who had the utmost contempt for the humanitarian feelings of his
+boss, said nothing, but a look of disdain swept over his florid
+features as he went on his mission. If he had his way, he would not
+throw even a sprat out of the net. Many a time he had known Mellish to
+persuade a youngster with more money than brains to go home, giving
+orders at the double doors that he was not to be admitted again.
+
+The young man rose with a look of something like consternation on his
+face and followed Sotty. The thing was done quietly, and all those
+around the tables were too much absorbed in the game to pay much
+attention.
+
+"Look here, my boy," said Mellish, when they were alone, "who brought
+you to this place?"
+
+"I guess," said the lad, with an expression of resentment, "I'm old
+enough to go where I like without being brought."
+
+"Oh, certainly, certainly," said Mellish, diplomatically, knowing how
+much very young men dislike being accused of youth, "but I like to know
+all visitors here. You couldn't get in unless you came with someone
+known at the door. Who vouched for you?"
+
+"See here, Mr. Mellish," said the youth angrily, "what are you driving
+at? If your doorkeepers don't know their own business why don't you
+speak to them about it? Are you going to have me turned out?"
+
+"Nothing of the sort," said Mellish, soothingly, putting his hand in a
+fatherly manner on the young fellow's shoulder. "Don't mistake my
+meaning. The fact that you are here shows that you have a right to be
+here. We'll say no more about that. But you take my advice and quit the
+business here and now. I was a gambler before you were born, although I
+don't gamble any more. Take the advice of a man who knows. It doesn't
+pay."
+
+"It seems to have paid you reasonably well."
+
+"Oh, I don't complain. It has its ups and downs like all businesses.
+Still, it doesn't pay me nearly as well as perhaps you think, and you
+can take my word that in the long run it won't pay you at all. How much
+money have you got?"
+
+"Enough to pay if I lose," said the boy impudently; then seeing the
+look of pain that passed over Mellish's face, he added more civilly:
+
+"I have three or four hundred dollars."
+
+"Well, take my advice and go home. You'll be just that much better off
+in the morning."
+
+"What! Don't you play a square game here?"
+
+"Of course we play a square game here," answered Mellish with
+indignation. "Do you think I am a card-sharper?"
+
+"You seem so cock-sure I'll lose my money that I was just wondering.
+Now, I can afford to lose all the money I've got and not feel it. Are
+you going to allow me to play, or are you going to chuck me out?"
+
+"Oh, you can play if you want to. But don't come whining to me when you
+lose. I've warned you."
+
+"I'm not a whiner," said the young fellow; "I take my medicine like a
+man."
+
+"Right you are," said Mellish with a sigh. He realized that this
+fellow, young as he looked, was probably deeper in vice than his
+appearance indicated and he knew the uselessness of counsel in such a
+case. They went into the main room together and the boy, abandoning
+roulette, began to play at one of the card tables forever-increasing
+stakes. Mellish kept an eye on him for a time. The boy was having the
+luck of most beginners. He played a reckless game and won hand over
+fist. As one man had enough and rose from the table another eagerly
+took his place, but there was no break in the boy's winnings.
+
+Pony Rowell was always late in arriving at the gambling rooms. On this
+occasion he entered, irreproachably dressed, and with the quiet,
+gentlemanly demeanor habitual with him. The professional gambler was
+never known to lose his temper. When displeased he became quieter, if
+possible, than before. The only sign of inward anger was a mark like an
+old scar which extended from his right temple, beginning over the eye
+and disappearing in his closely-cropped hair behind the ear. This line
+became an angry red that stood out against the general pallor of his
+face when things were going in a way that did not please him. He spoke
+in a low tone to Mellish.
+
+"What's the excitement down at the other end of the room? Every one
+seems congregated there."
+
+"Oh," answered Mellish, "it's a boy--a stranger--who is having the
+devil's own luck at the start. It will be the ruin of him."
+
+"Is he playing high?"
+
+"High? I should say so. He's perfectly reckless. He'll be brought up
+with a sharp turn and will borrow money from me to get out of town.
+I've seen a flutter like that before."
+
+"In that case," said Pony tranquilly, "I must have a go at him. I like
+to tackle a youngster in the first flush of success, especially if he
+is plunging."
+
+"You will soon have a chance," answered Mellish, "for even Ragstock
+knows when he has enough. He will get up in a moment. I know the
+signs."
+
+With the air of a gentleman of leisure, somewhat tired of the
+frivolities of this world, Rowell made his way slowly to the group. As
+he looked over their shoulders at the boy a curious glitter came into
+his piercing eyes, and his lips, usually so well under control,
+tightened. The red mark began to come out as his face paled. It was
+evident that he did not intend to speak and that he was about to move
+away again, but the magnetism of his keen glance seemed to disturb the
+player, who suddenly looked up over the head of his opponent and met
+the stern gaze of Rowell.
+
+The boy did three things. He placed his cards face downward on the
+table, put his right hand over the pile of money, and moved his chair
+back.
+
+"What do you mean by that?" cried Ragstock.
+
+The youth ignored the question, still keeping his eyes on Rowell.
+
+"Do you squeal?" he asked.
+
+"I squeal," said Pony, whatever the question and answer might mean.
+Then Rowell cried, slightly raising his voice so that all might hear:
+
+"This man is Cub McLean, the most notorious card-sharper, thief, and
+murderer in the west. He couldn't play straight if he tried."
+
+McLean laughed. "Yes," he said; "and if you want to see my trademark
+look at the side of Greggs' face."
+
+Every man looked at Pony, learning for the first time that he had gone
+under a different name at some period of his life.
+
+During the momentary distraction McLean swept the money off the table
+and put it in his pockets.
+
+"Hold on," cried Ragstock, seemingly not quite understanding the
+situation. "You haven't won that yet."
+
+Again McLean laughed.
+
+"It would have been the same in ten minutes."
+
+He jumped up, scattering the crowd behind him.
+
+"Look to the doors," cried Pony. "Don't let this man out."
+
+McLean had his back to the wall. From under his coat he whipped two
+revolvers which he held out, one in each hand.
+
+"You ought to know me better than that, Greggs," he said, "do you want
+me to have another shot at you? I won't miss this time. Drop that."
+
+The last command was given in a ringing voice that attracted every
+one's attention to Sotty. He had picked up a revolver from somewhere
+behind the bar and had come out with it in his hand. McLean's eye
+seemed to take in every motion in the room and he instantly covered the
+bartender with one of the pistols as he gave the command.
+
+"Drop it," said Mellish. "There must be no shooting. You may go
+quietly. No one will interfere with you."
+
+"You bet your sweet life they won't," said McLean with a laugh.
+
+"Gentlemen," continued Mellish, "the house will stand the loss. If I
+allow a swindler in my rooms it is but right that I alone should
+suffer. Now you put up your guns and walk out."
+
+"Good old Mellish," sneered McLean, "you ought to be running a Sunday-
+school."
+
+Notwithstanding the permission to depart McLean did not relax his
+precautions for a moment. His shoulders scraped their way along the
+wall as he gradually worked towards the door. He kept Pony covered with
+his left hand while the polished barrel of the revolver in his right
+seemed to have a roving commission all over the room, to the nervous
+dread of many respectable persons who cowered within range. When he
+reached the door he said to Pony:
+
+"I hope you'll excuse me, Greggs, but this is too good an opportunity
+to miss. I'm going to kill you in your tracks."
+
+"That's about your size," said Pony putting his hands behind him and
+standing in his place, while those near him edged away. "I'm unarmed,
+so it is perfectly safe. You will insure your arrest so blaze away."
+
+"Dodge under the table, then, and I will spare you."
+
+Pony invited him to take up his abode in tropical futurity.
+
+Cub laughed once more good naturedly, and lowered the muzzle of his
+revolver. As he shoved back his soft felt hat, Mellish, who stood
+nearest him, saw that the hair on his temples was grey. Lines of
+anxiety had come into his apparently youthful face as he had scraped
+his way along the wall.
+
+"Good-night, all," he shouted back from the stairway.
+
+
+
+
+OLD NUMBER EIGHTY-SIX.
+
+
+John Saggart stood in a dark corner of the terminus, out of the rays of
+the glittering arc lamps, and watched engine Number Eighty-six. The
+engineer was oiling her, and the fireman, as he opened the furnace-door
+and shovelled in the coal, stood out like a red Rembrandt picture in
+the cab against the darkness beyond. As the engineer with his oil can
+went carefully around Number Eighty-six, John Saggart drew his sleeve
+across his eyes, and a gulp came up his throat. He knew every joint and
+bolt in that contrary old engine--the most cantankerous iron brute on
+the road--and yet, if rightly managed, one of the swiftest and most
+powerful machines the company had, notwithstanding the many
+improvements that had been put upon locomotives since old Eighty-six
+had left the foundry.
+
+Saggart, as he stood there, thought of the seven years he had spent on
+the foot-board of old Eighty-six, and of the many tricks she had played
+him during that period. If, as the poet says, the very chains and the
+prisoner become friends through long association, it may be imagined
+how much of a man's affection goes out to a machine that he thoroughly
+understands and likes--a machine that is his daily companion for years,
+in danger and out of it. Number Eighty-six and John had been in many a
+close pinch together, and at this moment the man seemed to have
+forgotten that often the pinch was caused by the pure cussedness of
+Eighty-six herself, and he remembered only that she had bravely done
+her part several times when the situation was exceedingly serious.
+
+The cry "All aboard" rang out and was echoed down, from the high-arched
+roof of the great terminus, and John with a sigh turned from his
+contemplation of the engine, and went to take his seat in the car. It
+was a long train with many sleeping-cars at the end of it. The engineer
+had put away his oil-can, and had taken his place on the engine,
+standing ready to begin the long journey at the moment the signal was
+given.
+
+John Saggart climbed into the smoking-carriage at the front part of the
+train. He found a place in one of the forward seats, and sank down into
+it with a vague feeling of uneasiness at being inside the coach instead
+of on the engine. He gazed out of the window and saw the glittering
+electric lights slide slowly behind, then, more quickly, the red,
+green, and white lights of the signal lamps, and finally there
+flickered swiftly past the brilliant constellation of city windows,
+showing that the town had not yet gone to bed. At last the flying train
+plunged into the country, and Saggart pressed his face against the cold
+glass of the window, unable to shake off his feeling of responsibility,
+although he knew there was another man at the throttle.
+
+He was aroused from his reverie by a touch on the shoulder, and a curt
+request, "Tickets, please."
+
+He pulled out of his pocket a pass, and turned to hand it to the
+conductor who stood there with a glittering, plated, and crystal
+lantern on his arm.
+
+"Hello, John, is this you?" cried the conductor, as soon as he saw the
+face. "Hang it, man, you didn't need a pass in travelling with me."
+
+"They gave it to me to take me home," said Saggart, a touch of sadness
+in his voice, "and I may as well use it as not. I don't want to get you
+into trouble."
+
+"Oh, I'd risk the trouble," said the conductor, placing the lantern on
+the floor and taking his seat beside the engineer. "I heard about your
+worry to-day. It's too bad. If a man had got drunk at his post, as you
+and I have known 'em to do, it wouldn't have seemed so hard; but at its
+worst your case was only an error of judgment, and then nothing really
+happened. Old Eighty-six seems to have the habit of pulling herself
+through. I suppose you, and she have been in worse fixes than that,
+with not a word said about it."
+
+"Oh, yes," said John, "we've been in many a tight place together, but
+we won't be any more. It's rough, as you say. I've been fifteen years
+with the company, and seven on old Eighty-six, and at first it comes
+mighty hard. But I suppose I'll get used to it."
+
+"Look here, John," said the conductor, lowering his voice to a
+confidential tone, "the president of the road is with us to-night; his
+private car is the last but one on the train. How would it do to speak
+to him? If you are afraid to tackle him, I'll put in a word for you in
+a minute, and tell him your side of the story."
+
+John Saggart shook his head.
+
+"It wouldn't do," he said; "he wouldn't overrule what one of his
+subordinates had done, unless there was serious injustice in the case.
+It's the new manager, you know. There's always trouble with a new
+manager. He sweeps clean. And I suppose that he thinks by 'bouncing'
+one of the oldest engineers on the road, he will scare the rest."
+
+"Well, I don't think much of him between ourselves," said the
+conductor. "What do you think he has done to-night? He's put a new man
+on Eighty-six. A man from one of the branch lines who doesn't know the
+road. I doubt if he's ever been over the main line before. Now, it's an
+anxious enough time for me anyhow with a heavy train to take through,
+with the thermometer at zero, and the rails like glass, and I like to
+have a man in front that I can depend on."
+
+"It's bad enough not to know the road," said John gloomily, "but it's
+worse not to know old Eighty-six. She's a brute if she takes a notion."
+
+"I don't suppose there is another engine that could draw this train and
+keep her time," said the conductor.
+
+"No! She'll do her work all right if you'll only humor her," admitted
+Saggart, who could not conceal his love for the engine even while he
+blamed her.
+
+"Well," said the conductor, rising and picking up his lantern, "the man
+in front may be all right, but I would feel safer if you were further
+ahead than the smoker. I'm sorry I can't offer you a berth to-night,
+John, but we're full clear through to the rear lights. There isn't even
+a vacant upper on the train."
+
+"Oh, it doesn't matter," said Saggart. "I couldn't sleep, anyhow. I'd
+rather sit here and look out of the window."
+
+"Well, so long," said the conductor. "I'll drop in and see you as the
+night passes on."
+
+Saggart lit his pipe and gazed out into darkness. He knew every inch of
+the road--all the up grades and the down grades and the levels. He knew
+it even better in the murkiest night than in the clearest day. Now and
+then the black bulk of a barn or a clump of trees showed for one moment
+against the sky, and Saggart would say to himself, "Now he should shut
+off an inch of steam," or, "Now he should throw her wide open." The
+train made few stops, but he saw that they were losing time. Eighty-six
+was sulking, very likely. Thinking of the engine turned his mind to his
+own fate. No man was of very much use in the world, after all, for the
+moment he steps down another is ready to stand in his place. The wise
+men in the city who had listened to his defence knew so well that an
+engine was merely a combination of iron and steel and brass, and that a
+given number of pounds of steam would get it over a given number of
+miles in a given number of hours, and they had smiled incredulously
+when he told them that an engine had her tantrums, and informed them
+that sometimes she had to be coddled up like any other female. Even
+when a man did his best there were occasions when nothing he could do
+would mollify her, and then there was sure to be trouble, although, he
+added, in his desire to be fair, she was always sorry for it afterward.
+Which remark, to his confusion, had turned the smile into a laugh.
+
+He wondered what Eighty-six thought of the new man. Not much,
+evidently, for she was losing time, which she had no business to do on
+that section of the road. Still it might be the fault of the new man
+not knowing when to push her for all she was worth and when to ease up.
+All these things go to the making of time. But it was more than
+probable that old Eighty-six, like Gilpin's horse, was wondering more
+and more what thing upon her back had got. "He'll have trouble,"
+muttered John to himself, "when she finds out."
+
+The conductor came in again and sat down beside the engineer. He said
+nothing, but sat there sorting his tickets, while Saggart gazed out of
+the window. Suddenly the engineer sprang to his feet with his eyes wide
+open. The train was swaying from side to side and going at great speed.
+
+The conductor looked up with a smile.
+
+"Old Eighty-six," he said, "is evidently going to make up for lost
+time."
+
+"She should be slowing down for crossing the G. & M. line," replied the
+engineer. "Good heavens!" he cried a moment after, "we've gone across
+the G. & M. track on the keen jump."
+
+The conductor sprang to his feet. He knew the seriousness of such a
+thing. Even the fastest expresses must stop dead before crossing on the
+level the line of another railway. It is the law.
+
+"Doesn't that fool in front know enough to stop at a crossing?"
+
+"It isn't that." said Saggart. "He knows all right. Even the train boys
+know that. Old Eighty-six has taken the bit between her teeth. He can't
+stop her. Where do you pass No. 6 to-night?"
+
+"At Pointsville."
+
+"That's only six miles ahead," said the engineer; "and in five minutes
+at this rate we will be running on her time and on her rails. She's
+always late, and won't be on the side track. I must get to Eighty-six."
+
+Saggart quickly made his way through the baggage-coach, climbed on the
+express car, and jumped on the coal of the tender. He cast his eye up
+the track and saw glimmering in the distance, like a faint wavering
+star, the headlight of No. 6. Looking down into the cab he realized the
+situation in a glance. The engineer, with fear in his face and beads of
+perspiration on his brow, was throwing his whole weight on the lever,
+the fireman helping him. Saggart leaped down to the floor of the cab.
+
+"Stand aside," he shouted; and there was such a ring of confident
+command in his voice that both men instantly obeyed.
+
+Saggart grasped the lever, and instead of trying to shut off steam
+flung it wide open. Number Eighty-six gave a quiver and a jump forward.
+"You old fiend!" muttered John between his teeth. Then he pushed the
+lever home, and it slid into place as if there had never been any
+impediment. The steam was shut off, but the lights of Pointsville
+flashed past them with the empty side-track on the left, and they were
+now flying along the single line of rails with the headlight of No. 6
+growing brighter and brighter in front of them.
+
+"Reverse her, reverse her!" cried the other engineer, with fear in his
+voice.
+
+"Reverse nothing," said Saggart. "She'll slide ten miles if you do.
+Jump, if you're afraid."
+
+The man from the branch line promptly jumped.
+
+"Save yourself," said Saggart to the stoker; "there's bound to be a
+smash."
+
+"I'll stick by you, Mr. Saggart," said the firemen, who knew him. But
+his hand trembled.
+
+The air-brake was grinding the long train and sending a shiver of fear
+through every timber, but the rails were slippery with frost, and the
+speed of the train seemed as great as ever. At the right moment Saggart
+reversed the engine, and the sparks flew up from her great drivers like
+Catharine wheels.
+
+"Brace yourself," cried Saggart. "No. 6 is backing up, thank God!"
+
+Next instant the crash came. Two headlights and two cow-catchers went
+to flinders, and the two trains stood there with horns locked, but no
+great damage done, except a shaking up for a lot of panic-stricken
+passengers.
+
+The burly engineer of No. 6 jumped down and came forward, his mouth
+full of oaths.
+
+"What the h--l do you mean by running in on our time like this? Hello,
+is that you, Saggart? I thought there was a new man on to-night. I
+didn't expect this from _you_."
+
+"It's all right, Billy. It wasn't the new man's fault. He's back in the
+ditch with a broken leg, I should say, from the way he jumped. Old
+Eighty-six is to blame. She got on the rampage. Took advantage of the
+greenhorn."
+
+The conductor came running up.
+
+"How is it?" he cried.
+
+"It's all right. Number Eighty-six got her nose broke, and served her
+right, that's all. Tell the passengers there's no danger, and get 'em
+on board. We're going to back up to Pointsville. Better send the
+brakesmen to pick up the other engineer. The ground's hard tonight, and
+he may be hurt."
+
+"I'm going back to talk to the president," said the conductor
+emphatically. "He's in a condition of mind to listen to reason, judging
+from the glimpse I got of his face at the door of his car a moment ago.
+Either he re-instates you or I go gathering tickets on a street-car.
+This kind of thing is too exciting for my nerves."
+
+The conductor's interview with the president of the road was apparently
+satisfactory, for old Number Eighty-six is trying to lead a better life
+under the guidance of John Saggart.
+
+
+
+
+PLAYING WITH MARKED CARDS.
+
+
+"I'm bothered about that young fellow," said Mellish early one morning,
+to the professional gambler, Pony Rowell.
+
+"Why?"
+
+"He comes here night after night, and he loses more than he can afford,
+I imagine. He has no income, so far as I can find out, except what he
+gets as salary, and it takes a mighty sight bigger salary than his to
+stand the strain he's putting on it."
+
+"What is his business?"
+
+"He is cashier in the Ninth National Bank. I don't know how much he
+gets, but it can't be enough to permit this sort of thing to go on."
+
+Pony Rowell shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"I don't think I would let it trouble me, if I were you, Mellish."
+
+"Nevertheless it does. I have advised him to quit, but it is no use. If
+I tell the doorkeeper not to let him in here, he will merely go
+somewhere else where they are not so particular."
+
+"I must confess I don't quite understand you, Mellish, long as I have
+known you. In your place, now, I would either give up keeping a
+gambling saloon or I would give up the moral reformation line of
+business. I wouldn't try to ride two horses of such different tempers
+at the same time."
+
+"I've never tried to reform you, Pony," said Hellish, with reproach in
+his voice.
+
+"No; I will give you credit for that much sense."
+
+"It's all right with old stagers like you and me, Pony, but with a boy
+just beginning life, it is different. Now it struck me that you might
+be able to help me in this."
+
+"Yes, I thought that was what you were leading up to," said Rowell,
+thrusting his hands deep in his trousers' pockets. "I'm no missionary,
+remember. What did you want me to do?"
+
+"I wanted you to give him a sharp lesson. Couldn't you mark a pack of
+cards and get him to play high? Then, when you have taken all his ready
+money and landed him in debt to you so that he can't move, give him
+back his cash if he promises not to gamble again."
+
+Rowell looked across at the subject of their conversation. "I don't
+think I would flatter him so much as to even stock the cards on him.
+I'll clean him out if you like. But it won't do any good, Mellish. Look
+at his eyes. The insanity of gambling is in them. I used to think if I
+had $100,000, I would quit. I'm old enough now to know that I wouldn't.
+I'd gamble if I had a million."
+
+"I stopped after I was your age."
+
+"Oh, yes, Mellish, you are the virtuous exception that proves the rule.
+You quit gambling the way the old woman kept tavern," and Rowell cast a
+glance over the busy room.
+
+Mellish smiled somewhat grimly, then he sighed. "I wish I was out of
+it," he said. "But, anyhow, you think over what I've been talking
+about, and if you can see your way to giving him a sharp lesson I wish
+you would."
+
+"All right I will, but merely to ease your tender conscience, Mellish.
+It's no use, I tell you. When the snake has bitten, the victim is
+doomed. Gambling isn't a simple thing like the opium habit."
+
+Reggie Forme, the bank cashier, rose at last from the roulette table.
+He was flushed with success, for there was a considerable addition to
+the sum he had in his pockets when he sat down. He flattered himself
+that the result was due to the system he had elaborately studied out.
+
+Nothing lures a man to destruction quicker than a system that can be
+mathematically demonstrated. It gives an air of business to gambling
+which is soothing to the conscience of a person brought up on
+statistics. The system generally works beautifully at first; then a cog
+slips and you are mangled in the machinery before you know where you
+are. As young Forme left the table he felt a hand on his shoulder, and
+looking around, met the impassive gaze of Pony Rowell.
+
+"You're young at the business, I see," remarked the professional
+quietly.
+
+"Why do you think that?" asked the youngster, coloring, for one likes
+to be taken for a veteran, especially when one is an amateur.
+
+"Because you fool away your time at roulette. That is a game for boys
+and women. Have you nerve enough to play a real game?"
+
+"What do you call a real game?"
+
+"A game with cards in a private room for something bigger than half-
+dollar points."
+
+"How big?"
+
+"Depends on what capital you have. How much capital can you command?"
+
+The cashier hesitated for a moment and his eyes fell from the steady
+light of Rowell's, which seemed to have an uncomfortable habit of
+looking into one's inmost soul. "I can bring $1,000 here on Saturday
+night."
+
+"All right. That will do as a starter. Is it an appointment then?"
+
+"Yes, if you like. What time?"
+
+"I generally get here pretty late, but I can make an exception in your
+case. What do you say to 10 o'clock?"
+
+"That will suit me."
+
+"Very well, then. Don't fool away any of your money or nerve until I
+come. You will need all you have of both."
+
+The professional gambler and the amateur began their series of games a
+few minutes after ten in a little private room. The young man became
+more and more excited as the play went on. As for Pony, he was cool
+under any circumstances. Before an hour had passed the $1,000 was
+transferred from the possession of Forme into the pockets of the
+professional, and by midnight the younger man was another $1,000 in
+Rowell's debt.
+
+"It isn't my practice," said Rowell slowly, "to play with a man unless
+he has the money in sight. I've made an exception in your case, as luck
+was against you, but I think this has gone far enough. You may bring me
+the $1,000 you owe any day next week. No particular hurry, you know."
+
+The young fellow appeared to be dazed. He drew his hand across his brow
+and then said mechanically, as if he had just heard his opponent's
+remark:
+
+"No hurry? All right. Next week. Certainly. I guess I'll go home now."
+
+Forme went out, leaving Rowell idly shuffling the cards at the small
+table. The moment the young man had disappeared all Rowell's indolence
+vanished. He sprang up and put on his overcoat, then slipped out by the
+rear exit into the alley. He had made up his mind what Forme would do.
+Mentally he tracked him from the gambling rooms to the river and he
+even went so far as to believe he would take certain streets on his way
+thither. A gambler is nothing if not superstitious and so Rowell was
+not in the least surprised when he saw the young man emerge from the
+dark stairway, hesitate for a moment between the two directions open to
+him, and finally choose the one that the gambler expected him to take.
+The cold streets were deserted and so Rowell had more difficulty in
+following his late victim unperceived than he would have had earlier in
+the evening. Several times the older man thought the pursued had become
+aware of the pursuit, for Forme stopped and looked around him; once
+coming back and taking another street as if trying to double on the man
+who was following him.
+
+Rowell began to realize the difficulty of the task he had set for
+himself, and as he had never had any faith in it anyhow, he began to
+feel uncomfortable and to curse the tender heart of Mellish. If the
+youngster got the idea into his head that he was followed he might
+succeed in giving his pursuer the slip, and then Rowell would find
+himself with the fool's death on his conscience, and what was to him
+infinitely worse, with a thousand dollars in his pocket that had been
+unfairly won. This thought made him curse Mellish afresh. It had been
+entirely against his own will that he had played with marked cards, but
+Mellish had insisted that they should take no chances, and the veteran
+knew too well the uncertainties of playing a fair game where a great
+object lesson was to be taught. It would make them look like two fools,
+Mellish had said, if Forme won the money. In answer to this Rowell had
+remarked that they were two fools anyhow, but he had finally succumbed
+to Mellish as the whole scheme was Mellish's. As Rowell thought
+bitterly of these things his attention was diverted from the very
+matter he had in hand. Few men can pursue a course of thought and a
+fellow-creature at the same time. He suddenly realized that young Forme
+had escaped him. Rowell stood alone in the dimly-lighted silent street
+and poured unuttered maledictions on his own stupidity. Suddenly a
+voice rang out from a dark doorway.
+
+"What the devil are you following me for?"
+
+"Oh, you're there, are you?" said Pony calmly.
+
+"I'm here. Now what do you want of me? Aren't you satisfied with what
+you have done to-night?"
+
+"Naturally not, or I wouldn't be fool-chasing at such an hour as this."
+
+"Then you admit you have been following me?"
+
+"I never denied it."
+
+"What do you want of me? Do I belong to myself or do you think I belong
+to you, because I owe you some money?"
+
+"I do not know, I am sure, to whom you belong," said Rowell with his
+slow drawl. "I suspect, however, that the city police, who seem to be
+scarce at this hour, have the first claim upon you. What do I want of
+you? I want to ask you a question. Where did you get the money you
+played with to-night?"
+
+"It's none of your business."
+
+"I presume not. But as there are no witnesses to this interesting
+conversation I will venture an opinion that you robbed the bank."
+
+The young man took a step forward, but Pony stood his ground, using the
+interval to light another cigarette.
+
+"I will also venture an opinion, Mr. Rowell, and say that the money
+came as honestly into my pocket as it did into yours."
+
+"That wouldn't be saying much for it. I have the advantage of you,
+however, because the nine points are in my favor. I have possession."
+
+"What are you following me for? To give me up?"
+
+"You admit the robbery, then."
+
+"I admit nothing."
+
+"It won't be used against you. As I told you, there are no witnesses.
+It will pay you to be frank. Where did you get the money?"
+
+"Where many another man gets it. Out of the bank."
+
+"I thought so. Now, Forme, you are not such a fool as you look--or act.
+You know where all that sort of thing leads to. You haven't any chance.
+All the rules of the game are against you. You have no more show than
+you had against me to-night. Why not chuck it, before it is too late?"
+
+"It is easy for you to talk like that when you have my money in your
+pocket."
+
+"But that simply is another rule of the game. The money of a thief is
+bound to go into someone else's pocket. Whoever enjoys the cash
+ultimately, he never does. Now if you had the money in your pocket what
+would you do?"
+
+"I would go back to Mellish's and have another try."
+
+"I believe you," said Rowell with, for the first time, some cordiality
+in his voice. He recognized a kindred spirit in this young man.
+"Nevertheless it would be a foolish thing to do. You have two chances
+before you. You can become a sport as I am and spend your life in
+gambling rooms. Or you can become what is called a respectable business
+man. But you can't be both. In a very short time you will not have the
+choice. You will be found out and then you can only e what I am-
+probably not as successful as I have been. If you add bank robbery to
+your other accomplishments then you will go to prison or, what is
+perhaps worse, to Canada. Which career are you going to choose?"
+
+"Come down to plain facts. What do you mean by all this talk? If I say
+I'll quit gambling do you mean that you will return to me the thousand
+dollars and call the other thousand square?"
+
+"If you give me your word of honor that you will quit."
+
+"And if I don't, what then?"
+
+"Then on Monday I will hand over this money to the bank and advise them
+to look into your accounts."
+
+"And suppose my accounts prove to be all right, what then?"
+
+Rowell shrugged his shoulders. "In that remote possibility I will give
+the thousand dollars to you and play you another game for it."
+
+"I see. Which means that you cheated to-night."
+
+"If you like to put it that way."
+
+"And what if I denounced you as a self-confessed cheat?"
+
+"It wouldn't matter to me. I wouldn't take the trouble to deny it.
+Nobody would believe you."
+
+"You're a cool hand, Pony, I admire your cheek. Still, you've got some
+silly elements in you."
+
+"Oh, you mean my trying to reform you? Don't make any mistake about
+that. It is Mellish's idea, not mine. I don't believe in you for a
+moment."
+
+The young man laughed. He reflected for a few seconds, then said: "I'll
+take your offer. You give me back the money and I will promise never to
+gamble again in any shape or form."
+
+"You will return the cash to the bank, if you took it from there?"
+
+"Certainly. I will put it back the first thing on Monday morning."
+
+"Then here is your pile," said Rowell, handing him the roll of bills.
+
+Forme took it eagerly and, standing where the light struck down upon
+him, counted the bills, while Rowell looked on silently with a cynical
+smile on his lips.
+
+"Thank you," said the young man, "you're a good fellow, Rowell."
+
+"I'm obliged for your good opinion. I hope you found the money
+correct?"
+
+"Quite right," said Forme, flushing a little. "I hope you did not mind
+my counting it. Merely a business habit, you know."
+
+"Well, stick to business habits, Mr. Forme. Good night."
+
+Rowell walked briskly back to Mellish's. Forme walked toward the
+railway station and found that there was a train for Chicago at 4 in
+the morning. He had one clear day and part of another before he was
+missed, and as it turned out all trace of him was lost in the big city.
+The bank found about $6,000 missing. Two years after, news came that
+Forme had been shot dead in a gambling hall in Southern Texas.
+
+"We are two first-class fools," said Rowell to Mellish, "and I for one
+don't feel proud of the episode, so we'll say nothing more about it.
+The gambling mania was in his blood. Gambling is not a vice; it is a
+disease, latent in all of us."
+
+
+
+
+THE BRUISER'S COURTSHIP.
+
+
+While the Northern Bruiser sat in the chair in his corner and was being
+fanned he resolved to finish the fight at the next round. The superior
+skill of his opponent was telling upon him, and although the Bruiser
+was a young man of immense strength, yet, up to that time, the
+alertness and dexterity of the Yorkshire Chicken had baffled him, and
+prevented him from landing one of his tremendous shoulder thrusts. But
+even though skill had checkmated strength up to this point, the Chicken
+had not entirely succeeded in defending himself, and was in a condition
+described by the yelling crowd as "groggy."
+
+When time was called the Bruiser was speedily on his feet. His face did
+not present the repulsive appearance so visible on the countenance of
+his opponent, but the Bruiser had experience enough to know that the
+body blows received in this fight had had their effect on his wind and
+staying powers; and that although the Chicken presented an appalling
+appearance with his swollen lips and cheeks, and his eyes nearly
+closed, yet he was in better trim for continuing the battle than the
+Bruiser.
+
+The Chicken came up to the mark less promptly than his big antagonist,
+but whether it was from weakness or lack of sight, he seemed uncertain
+in his movements, and the hearts of his backers sank as they saw him
+stagger rather than walk to his place.
+
+Before the Chicken, as it were, fully waked up to the situation, the
+Bruiser lunged forward and planted a blow on his temple that would have
+broken the guard of a man who was in better condition than the Chicken.
+The Yorkshireman fell like a log, and lay where he fell. Then the
+Bruiser got a lesson which terrified him. A sickly ashen hue came over
+the purple face of the man on the ground. The Bruiser had expected some
+defence, and the terrible blow had been even more powerful than he
+intended. A shivering whisper went round the crowd, "He is killed," and
+instantly the silenced mob quietly scattered. It was every man for
+himself before the authorities took a hand in the game.
+
+The Bruiser stood there swaying from side to side, his gaze fixed upon
+the prostrate man. He saw himself indicted and hanged for murder, and
+he swore that if the Chicken recovered he would never again enter the
+ring. This was a phase of prize-fighting that he had never before had
+experience of. On different occasions he had, it is true, knocked out
+his various opponents, and once or twice he had been knocked out
+himself; but the Chicken had fought so pluckily up to the last round
+that the Bruiser had put forth more of his tremendous strength than he
+had bargained for, and now the man's life hung on a thread.
+
+The unconscious pugilist was carried to an adjoining room. Two
+physicians were in attendance upon him, and at first the reports were
+most gloomy, but towards daylight the Bruiser learned with relief that
+the chances were in favor of his opponent.
+
+The Bruiser had been urged to fly, but he was a man of strong common
+sense, and he thoroughly understood the futility of flight. His face
+and his form were too well known all around the country. It would have
+been impossible for him to escape, even if he had tried to do so.
+
+When the Yorkshire Chicken recovered, the Bruiser's friends laughed at
+his resolve to quit the ring, but they could not shake it. The money he
+had won in his last fight, together with what he had accumulated
+before--for he was a frugal man--was enough to keep him for the rest of
+his days, and he resolved to return to the Border town where he was
+born, and where doubtless his fame had preceded him.
+
+He buckled his guineas in a belt around him, and with a stout stick in
+his hand he left London for the North. He was a strong and healthy
+young man, and had not given way to dissipation, as so many
+prizefighters had done before, and will again. He had a horror of a
+cramped and confined, seat in a stage coach. He loved the free air of
+the heights and the quiet stillness of the valleys.
+
+It was in the days of highwaymen, and travelling by coach was not
+considered any too safe. The Bruiser was afraid of no man that lived,
+if he met him in the open with a stick in his hand, or with nature's
+weapons, but he feared the muzzle of a pistol held at his head in the
+dark by a man with a mask over his face. So he buckled his belt around
+him with all his worldly gear in gold, took his own almost forgotten
+name, Abel Trenchon, set his back to the sun and his face to the north
+wind, and journeyed on foot along the king's highway. He stopped at
+night in the wayside inns, taking up his quarters before the sun had
+set, and leaving them when it was broad daylight in the morning. He
+disputed his reckonings like a man who must needs count the pennies,
+and no one suspected the sturdy wayfarer of carrying a fortune around
+his body.
+
+As his face turned toward the North his thought went to the Border town
+where he had spent his childhood. His father and mother were dead, and
+he doubted now if anyone there remembered him, or would have a welcome
+for him. Nevertheless no other spot on earth was so dear to him, and it
+had always been his intention, when he settled down and took a wife, to
+retire to the quiet little town.
+
+The weather, at least, gave him a surly welcome. On the last day's
+tramp the wind howled and the rain beat in gusts against him, but he
+was a man who cared little for the tempest, and he bent his body to the
+blast, trudging sturdily on. It was evening when he began to recognize
+familiar objects by the wayside, and he was surprised to see how little
+change there had been in all the years he was away. He stopped at an
+inn for supper, and, having refreshed himself, resolved to break the
+rule he had made for himself throughout the journey. He would push on
+through the night, and sleep in his native village.
+
+The storm became more pitiless as he proceeded, and he found himself
+sympathizing with those poor creatures who were compelled to be out in
+it, but he never gave a thought to himself.
+
+It was nearly midnight when he saw the square church tower standing
+blackly out against the dark sky; and when he began to descend the
+valley, on the other side of which the town stood, a thrill of fear
+came over him, as he remembered what he had so long forgotten--that the
+valley was haunted, and was a particularly dangerous place about the
+hour of midnight. To divert his thoughts he then began to wonder who
+the woman was he would marry. She was doubtless now sleeping calmly in
+the village on the hill, quite unconscious of the approach of her lover
+and her husband. He could not conceal from himself the fact that he
+would be reckoned a good match when his wealth was known, for,
+excepting the Squire, he would probably be the richest man in the
+place. However, he resolved to be silent about his riches, so that the
+girl he married would little dream of the good fortune that awaited
+her. He laughed aloud as he thought of the pleasure he would have in
+telling his wife of her luck, but the laugh died on his lips as he saw,
+or thought he saw, something moving stealthily along the hedge.
+
+He was now in the depth of the valley in a most lonesome and eerie
+spot. The huge trees on each side formed an arch over the roadway and
+partially sheltered it from the rain.
+
+He stood in his tracks, grasped his stick with firmer hold, and shouted
+valiantly, "Who goes there?"
+
+There was no answer, but in the silence which followed he thought he
+heard a woman's sob.
+
+"Come out into the road," he cried, "or I shall fire."
+
+His own fear of pistols was so great that he expected everyone else to
+be terrorized by the threat of using them; and yet he had never
+possessed nor carried a pistol in his life.
+
+"Please--please don't fire," cried a trembling voice, from out the
+darkness. "I will do as you tell me." And so saying the figure moved
+out upon the road.
+
+Trenchon peered at her through the darkness, but whether she was old or
+young he could not tell. Her voice seemed to indicate that she was
+young.
+
+"Why, lass," said Trenchon, kindly, "what dost thou here at such an
+hour and in such a night?"
+
+"Alas!" she cried, weeping; "my father turned me out, as he has often
+done before, but to-night is a bitter night, and I had nowhere to go,
+so I came here to be sheltered from the rain. He will be asleep ere
+long, and he sleeps soundly. I may perhaps steal in by a window,
+although sometimes he fastens them down."
+
+"God's truth!" cried Trenchon, angrily. "Who is thy brute of a father?"
+
+The girl hesitated, and then spoke as if to excuse him, but again
+Trenchon demanded his name.
+
+"He is the blacksmith of the village, and Cameron is his name."
+
+"I remember him," said Trenchon. "Is thy mother, then, dead?"
+
+"Yes," answered the girl, weeping afresh. "She has been dead these five
+years."
+
+"I knew her when I was a boy," said Trenchon. "Thy father also, and
+many a grudge I owe him, although I had forgotten about them. Still, I
+doubt not but as a boy I was as much in fault as he, although he was
+harsh to all of us, and now it seems he is harsh to thee. My name is
+Trenchon. I doubt if any in the village now remember me, although,
+perhaps, they may have heard of me from London," he said, with some
+pride, and a hope that the girl would confirm his thoughts. But she
+shook her head.
+
+"I have never heard thy name," she said.
+
+Trenchon sighed. This, then, was fame!
+
+"Ah, well!" he cried, "that matters not; they shall hear more of me
+later. I will go with thee to thy father's house and demand for thee
+admittance and decent usage."
+
+But the girl shrank back. "Oh, no, no!" she cried; "that will never do.
+My father is a hard man to cross. There are none in the village who
+dare contend with him."
+
+"That is as it may be," said Trenchon, with easy confidence. "I, for
+one, fear him not. Come, lass, with me, and see if I cannot, after all
+these years, pick out thy father's dwelling. Come, I say, thou must not
+longer tarry here; the rain is coming on afresh, and these trees, thick
+as they are, form scant protection. It is outrageous that thou should
+wander in this storm, while thy brutal father lies in shelter. Nay, do
+not fear harm for either thee or me; and as for him, he shall not
+suffer if thou but wish it so." And, drawing the girl's hand through
+his arm, he took her reluctantly with him, and without direction from
+her soon stood before the blacksmith's house.
+
+"You see," he said, triumphantly, "I knew the place, and yet I have not
+seen the town for years."
+
+Trenchon rapped soundly on the oaken door with his heavy stick, and the
+blows re-echoed through the silent house. The girl shrank timidly
+behind him, and would have fled, but that he held her firmly by the
+wrist.
+
+"Nay, nay," he said: "believe me there is naught to fear. I will see
+that thou art not ill-used."
+
+As he spoke the window above was thrown up, and a string of fearful
+oaths greeted the two, whereat the girl once more tried to release her
+imprisoned wrist, but Trenchon held it lightly, though with a grip like
+steel.
+
+The stout old man thrust his head through the open window.
+
+"God's blight on thee!" he cried, "thou pair of fools who wish to wed
+so much that ye venture out in such a night as this. Well, have your
+way, and let me have my rest. In the name of the law of Scotland I
+pronounce ye man and wife. There, that will bind two fools together as
+strongly as if the Archbishop spoke the words. Place thou the money on
+the steps. I warrant none will venture to touch it when it belongs to
+me." And with that he closed the window.
+
+"Is he raving mad or drunk?" cried Trenchon.
+
+The girl gave a wailing cry. "Alas! alas!" she said; "he is neither. He
+is so used to marrying folk who come from England across the Border
+that he thinks not it his daughter who came with thee, but two who
+wished to wed. They come at all hours of the night and day, and he has
+married us. I am thy wife."
+
+The astonished man dropped her wrist, and she put her hands before her
+eyes and wept.
+
+"Married!" cried Trenchon. "We two married!"
+
+He looked with interest at the girl, but in the darkness could see
+nothing of her. The unheeded rain pelted on them both.
+
+"Hast thou "--he hesitated--"hast thou some other lover, since you
+weep?"
+
+The girl shook her head. "No one," she said, "comes near us. They fear
+my father."
+
+"Then, if this be true, why dost thou weep? I am not considered so bad
+a fellow."
+
+"I weep not for myself, but for thee, who through the kindness of thy
+heart hast been led into this trap. Believe me, it was not my
+intention."
+
+"Judging from thy voice, my girl, and if thou favorest thy mother, as I
+think, whom I remember well, this is a trap that I shall make little
+effort to get my foot out of. But thou art dripping, and I stand
+chattering here. Once more I will arouse my father-in-law."
+
+So saying, he stoutly rapped again with his stick upon the door.
+
+Once more the window was pushed up, and again the angry head appeared.
+
+"Get you gone!" cried the maddened blacksmith, but before he could say
+anything further Trenchon cried out:
+
+"It is thy daughter here who waits. Open the door, thou limb of hell,
+or I will burst it in and cast thee out as thou hast done thy
+daughter."
+
+The blacksmith, who had never in his life been spoken to in tones or
+words like these, was so amazed that he could neither speak nor act,
+but one stout kick against the door so shook the fabric that he
+speedily saw another such would break into his domicile; so, leaving
+the window open that his curses might the better reach them, the
+blacksmith came down and threw the barrier from the door, flinging it
+open and standing on the threshold so as to bar all ingress.
+
+"Out of the way," cried Trenchon, roughly placing his hand on the
+other's breast with apparent lightness, but with a push that sent him
+staggering into the room.
+
+The young man pulled the girl in after him and closed the door.
+
+"Thou knowest the way," he whispered. "Strike thou a light."
+
+The trembling girl lit a candle, and as it shone upon her face Trenchon
+gave a deep sigh of happiness and relief. No girl in the village could
+be more fair.
+
+The blacksmith stood, his fingers clenched with rage; but he looked
+with hesitation and respect upon the burly form of the prizefighter.
+Yet the old man did not flinch. "Throw aside thy stick," he cried, "or
+wait until I can get me another."
+
+Trenchon flung his stick into the corner.
+
+"Oh! oh!" cried the girl, clasping her hands. "You must not fight." But
+she appealed to her husband and not to her father, which caused a glow
+of satisfaction to rise from the heart of the young man.
+
+"Get thee out of this house," cried her father, fiercely, turning upon
+her.
+
+"Talk not thus to my wife," said Trenchon, advancing upon him.
+
+"Thy wife?" cried the blacksmith, in amaze.
+
+"My wife," repeated the young man with emphasis. "They tell me,
+blacksmith, that thou art strong. That thou art brutal I know, but thy
+strength I doubt. Come to me and test it."
+
+The old man sprang upon him, and the Bruiser caught him by the elbows
+and held him helpless as a child. He pressed him up against the wall,
+pushed his wrists together, and clasped them both in his one gigantic
+hand. Then, placing the other on the blacksmith's shoulder, he put his
+weight upon him, and the black-smith, cursing but helpless, sank upon
+his knees.
+
+"Now, thou hardened sinner," cried the Bruiser, bending over him. "Beg
+from thy daughter on thy knees for a night's shelter in this house.
+Beg, or I will thrust thy craven face against the floor."
+
+The girl clung to her newly-found husband, and entreated him not to
+hurt her father.
+
+"I shall not hurt him if he do but speak. If he has naught but curses
+on his lips, why then those lips must kiss the flags that are beneath
+him. Speak out, blacksmith: what hast thou to say?"
+
+"I beg for shelter," said the conquered man.
+
+Instantly the Bruiser released him. "Get thee to bed," he said, and the
+old man slunk away.
+
+"Wife," said Abel Trenchon, opening his arms, "I have come all the way
+from London for thee. I knew not then what drew me north, but now I
+know that One wiser than me led my steps hither. As far as erring man
+may promise I do promise thee that thou shalt ne'er regret being cast
+out this night into the storm."
+
+
+
+
+THE RAID ON MELLISH.
+
+
+Some newspapers differ from others. One peculiarity about the Argus was
+the frequency with which it changed its men. Managing editors came who
+were going to revolutionize the world and incidentally the Argus, but
+they were in the habit of disappearing to give place to others who also
+disappeared. Newspaper men in that part of the country never considered
+themselves full-fledged unless they had had a turn at managing the
+Argus. If you asked who was at the head of the Argus the answer would
+very likely be: "Well, So-and-so was managing it this morning. I don't
+know who is running it this afternoon."
+
+Perhaps the most weird period in the history of the Argus was when the
+owners imported a crank from Pittsburg and put him in as local editor,
+over the heads of the city staff. His name was McCrasky, christened
+Angus or Archie, I forget which, at this period of time. In fact, his
+Christian name was always a moot point; some of the reporters saying it
+was Angus and others Archie, no one having the courage to ask him.
+Anyhow, he signed himself A. McCrasky. He was a good man, which was
+rather an oddity on the staff, and puzzled the reporters not a little.
+Most of his predecessors had differed much from each other, but they
+were all alike in one thing, and that was profanity. They expressed
+disapproval in language that made the hardened printers' towel in the
+composing room shrink.
+
+McCrasky's great point was that the local pages of the paper should
+have a strong moral influence on the community. He knocked the sporting
+editor speechless by telling him that they would have no more reports
+of prize-fights. Poor Murren went back to the local room, sat down at
+his table and buried his head in his hands. Every man on a local staff
+naturally thinks the paper is published mainly to give his department a
+show, and Murren considered a fight to a finish as being of more real
+importance to the world than a presidential election. The rest of the
+boys tried to cheer him up. "A fine state of things," said Murren
+bitterly. "Think of the scrap next week between the California Duffer
+and Pigeon Billy and no report of it in the Argus! Imagine the walk-
+over for the other papers. What in thunder does he think people want to
+read?"
+
+But there was another surprise in store for the boys. McCrasky
+assembled them all in his room and held forth to them. He suddenly
+sprung a question on the criminal reporter--so suddenly that Thompson,
+taken unawares, almost spoke the truth.
+
+"Do you know of any gambling houses in this city?"
+
+Thompson caught his breath and glanced quickly at Murren.
+
+"No," he said at last. "I don't, but perhaps the religious editor does.
+Better ask him."
+
+The religious editor smiled and removed his corn-cob pipe.
+
+"There aren't any," he said. "Didn't you know it was against the law to
+keep a gambling house in this state? Yes, sir!" Then he put his corn-
+cob pipe back in its place.
+
+McCrasky was pleased to see that his young men knew so little of the
+wickedness of a great city; nevertheless he was there to give them some
+information, so he said quietly:
+
+"Certainly it is against the law; but many things that are against the
+law flourish in a city like this. Now I want you to find out before the
+week is past how many gambling houses there are and where they are
+located. When you are sure of your facts we will organize a raid and
+the news will very likely be exclusive, for it will be late at night
+and the other papers may not hear of it."
+
+"Suppose," said the religious editor, with a twinkle in his eye, as he
+again removed his corn-cob, "that--assuming such places to exist--you
+found some representatives of the other papers there? They are a bad
+lot, the fellows on the other papers."
+
+"If they are there," said the local editor, "they will go to prison."
+
+"They won't mind that, if they can write something about it," said
+Murren gloomily. In his opinion the Argus was going to the dogs.
+
+"Now, Thompson," said McCrasky, "you as criminal reporter must know a
+lot of men who can give you particulars for a first-rate article on the
+evils of gambling. Get it ready for Saturday's paper--a column and a
+half, with scare heads. We must work up public opinion."
+
+When the boys got back into the local room again, Murren sat with his
+head in his hands, while Thompson leaned back in his chair and laughed.
+
+"Work up public opinion," he said. "Mac had better work up his own
+knowledge of the city streets, and not put Bolder avenue in the East
+End, as he did this morning."
+
+The religious editor was helping himself to tobacco from Murren's
+drawer. "Are you going to put Mellish on his guard?" he asked Thompson.
+
+"I don't just know what I'm going to do," said Thompson; "are you?"
+
+"I'll think about it," replied the R. E. "Beastly poor tobacco, this of
+yours, Murren. Why don't you buy cut plug?"
+
+"You're not compelled to smoke it," said the sporting editor, without
+raising his head.
+
+"I am when mine is out, and the other fellows keep their drawers
+locked."
+
+Thompson dropped in on Mellish, the keeper of the swell gambling rooms,
+to consult with him on the article for Saturday's paper. Mellish took a
+great interest in it, and thought it would do good. He willingly gave
+Thompson several instances where the vice had led to ruin of promising
+young men.
+
+"All men gamble in some way or another," said Mellish meditatively.
+"Some take it one way and some another. It is inherent in human nature,
+like original sin. The beginning of every business is a gamble. If I
+had $30,000 I would rather run my chance of doubling it at these tables
+here than I would, for instance, by starting a new newspaper or putting
+it on wheat or in railway stocks. Take a land boom, for instance, such
+as there was in California or at Winnipeg--the difference between
+putting your money in a thing like that or going in for legitimate
+gambling is that, in the one case, you are sure to lose your cash,
+while in the other you have a chance of winning some. I hold that all
+kinds of gambling are bad, unless a man can easily afford to lose what
+he stakes. The trouble is that gambling affects some people like
+liquor. I knew a man once who--" but you can read the whole article if
+you turn up the back numbers of the Argus.
+
+Thompson told Mellish about McCrasky. Mellish was much interested, and
+said he would like to meet the local editor. He thought the papers
+should take more interest in the suppression of gambling dens than they
+did, and for his part he said he would like to see them all stopped,
+his own included. "Of course," he added, "I could shut up my shop, but
+it would simply mean that someone else would open another, and I don't
+think any man ever ran such a place fairer than I do."
+
+McCrasky called on the chief of police, and introduced himself as the
+local editor of the Argus.
+
+"Oh," said the chief, "has Gorman gone, then?"
+
+"I don't know about Gorman," said McCrasky; "the man I succeeded was
+Finnigan. I believe he is in Cincinnati now."
+
+When the chief learned the purport of the local editor's visit he
+became very official and somewhat taciturn. He presumed that there were
+gambling houses in the city. If there were, they were very quiet and no
+complaints ever reached his ears. There were many things, he said, that
+it was impossible to suppress, and the result of attempted suppression
+was to drive the evil deeper down. He seemed to be in favor rather of
+regulating, than of attempting the impossible; still, if McCrasky
+brought him undoubted evidence that a gambling house was in operation,
+he would consider it his duty to make a raid on it. He advised McCrasky
+to go very cautiously about it, as the gamblers had doubtless many
+friends who would give a tip and so frustrate a raid, perhaps letting
+somebody in for damages. McCrasky said he would be careful.
+
+Chance played into the hands of McCrasky and "blew in" on him a man who
+little recked what he was doing when he entered the local editor's
+room. Gus Hammerly, sport and man-about-town, dropped into the Argus
+office late one night to bring news of an "event" to the sporting
+editor. He knew his way about in the office, and, finding Murren was
+not in, he left the item on his table. Then he wandered into the local
+editor's room. The newspaper boys all liked Hammerly, and many a good
+item they got from him. They never gave him away, and he saw that they
+never got left, as the vernacular is.
+
+"Good-evening. You're the new local editor, I take it. I've just left a
+little item for Murren, I suppose he's not in from the wrestle yet. My
+name's Hammerly. All the boys know me and I've known in my time
+fourteen of your predecessors, so I may as well know you. You're from
+Pittsburg, I hear."
+
+"Yes. Sit down, Mr. Hammerly. Do you know Pittsburg at all?"
+
+"Oh, yes. Borden, who keeps the gambling den on X street, is an old
+friend of mine. Do you happen to know how old Borden's getting along?"
+
+"Yes, his place was raided and closed up by the police."
+
+"That's just the old man's luck. Same thing in Kansas City."
+
+"By the way, Mr. Hammerly, do you know of any gambling houses in this
+city?"
+
+"Why, bless you, haven't the boys taken you round yet? Well, now,
+that's inhospitable. Mellish's is the best place in town. I'm going up
+there now. If you come along with me I'll give you the knock-down at
+the door and you'll have no trouble after that."
+
+"I'll go with you," said McCrasky, reaching for his hat, and so the
+innocent Hammerly led the lamb into the lion's den.
+
+McCrasky, unaccustomed to the sight, was somewhat bewildered with the
+rapidity of the play. There was a sort of semicircular table, around
+the outside rim of which were sitting as many men as could be
+comfortably placed there. A man at the inside of the table handled the
+cards. He flicked out one to each player, face downward, with an
+expertness and speed that dazzled McCrasky. Next he dealt out one to
+each player face upward and people put sums of money on the table
+beside their cards, after looking at them. There was another deal and
+so on, but the stranger found it impossible to understand or follow the
+game. He saw money being raked in and paid out rapidly and over the
+whole affair was a solemn decorum that he had not been prepared for. He
+had expected fierce oaths and the drawing of revolvers.
+
+"Here, Mellish," said the innocent Hammerly, "let me introduce you to
+the new local editor of the Argus. I didn't catch your name," he said
+in a whisper. "My name's McCrasky."
+
+"Mr. McCrasky; Mr. Mellish. Mellish is proprietor here and you'll find
+him a first-rate fellow."
+
+"I am pleased to meet you," said Mellish quietly; "any friend of
+Hammerly's is welcome. Make yourself at home."
+
+Edging away from the two, Mellish said in a quick whisper to Sotty, the
+bartender: "Go and tell the doorkeeper to warn Thompson, or any of the
+rest of the Argus boys, that their boss is in here."
+
+At 12 o'clock that night the local editor sat in his room. "Is that
+you, Thompson?" he shouted, as he heard a step.
+
+"Yes, sir;" answered Thompson, coming into the presence.
+
+"Shut the door, Thompson. Now I have a big thing on for to-night, but
+it must be done quietly. I've unearthed a gambling den in full blast.
+It will be raided to-night at 2 o'clock. I want you to be on the ground
+with Murren; will you need anybody else?"
+
+"Depends on how much you wish to make of it."
+
+"I want to make it the feature of to-morrow's paper. I think we three
+can manage, but bring some of the rest if you like. The place is run by
+a man named Mellish. Now, if you boys kept your eyes open you would
+know more of what is going on in your own city than you do."
+
+"We haven't all had the advantage of metropolitan training," said
+Thompson humbly.
+
+"I will go there with the police. You and Murren had better be on the
+ground, but don't go too soon, and don't make yourselves conspicuous or
+they might take alarm. Here is the address. You had better take it
+down."
+
+"Oh, I'll find the place all--" Then Thompson thought a moment and
+pulled himself together. "Thanks," he said, carefully noting down the
+street and number.
+
+The detachment of police drew up in front of the place a few minutes
+before 2 o'clock. The streets were deserted, and so silent were the
+blue coats that the footsteps of a belated wayfarer sounded sharply in
+the night air from the stone pavement of a distant avenue.
+
+"Are you sure," said McCrasky to the man in charge of the police, "that
+there is not a private entrance somewhere?"
+
+"Certainly there is," was the impatient reply: "Sergeant McCollum and
+four men are stationed in the alley behind. We know our business, sir."
+
+McCrasky thought this was a snub, and he was right. He looked around in
+the darkness for his reporters. He found them standing together in a
+doorway on the opposite side of the street.
+
+"Been here long?" he whispered.
+
+Murren was gloomy and did not answer. The religious editor removed his
+corn-cob and said briefly; "About ten minutes, sir." Thompson was
+gazing with interest at the dark building across the way.
+
+"You've seen nobody come out?"
+
+"Nobody. On the contrary, about half a dozen have gone up that
+stairway."
+
+"Is that the place, sir?" asked Thompson with the lamb-like innocence
+of the criminal reporter.
+
+"Yes, upstairs there."
+
+"What did I tell you?" said the religious editor. "Thompson insisted it
+was next door."
+
+"Come along," said McCrasky, "the police are moving at last."
+
+A big bell in the neighborhood solemnly struck two slow strokes, and
+all over the city the hour sounded in various degrees of tone and
+speed. A whistle rang out and was distantly answered. The police moved
+quickly and quietly up the stairway.
+
+"Have you tickets, gentlemen," asked the man at the door politely;
+"this is a private assembly."
+
+"The police," said the sergeant shortly, "stand aside."
+
+If the police were astonished at the sight which met their gaze, their
+faces did not show it. But McCrasky had not such control over his
+features and he looked dumbfounded. The room was the same, undoubtedly,
+but there was not the vestige of a card to be seen. There were no
+tables, and even the bar had disappeared. The chairs were nicely
+arranged and most of them were occupied. At the further end of the room
+Pony Rowell stood on a platform or on a box or some elevation, and his
+pale, earnest face was lighted up with the enthusiasm of the public
+speaker. He was saying: "On the purity of the ballot, gentlemen,
+depends the very life of the republic. That every man should be
+permitted, without interference or intimidation, to cast his vote, and
+that every vote so cast should be honestly counted is, I take it, the
+desire of all who now listen to my words." (Great applause, during
+which Pony took a sip from a glass that may have contained water.)
+
+The police had come in so quietly that no one, apparently, had noticed
+their entrance, except that good man Mellish, who hurried forward to
+welcome the intruders.
+
+"Will you take a seat?" he asked. "We are having a little political
+talk from Mr. Rowell, sergeant."
+
+"Rather an unusual hour, Mr. Mellish," said the sergeant grimly.
+
+"It is a little late," admitted Mellish, as if the idea had not
+occurred to him before.
+
+The police who had come in by the back entrance appeared at the other
+end of the room and it was evident that Rowell's oration had come to an
+untimely end. Pony looked grieved and hurt, but said nothing.
+
+"We will have to search the premises, Mr. Mellish," said the sergeant.
+
+Mellish gave them every assistance, but nothing was found.
+
+As the four men walked back together to the Argus office, McCrasky was
+very indignant.
+
+"We will expose the police to-morrow," he said. "They evidently gave
+Mellish the tip."
+
+"I don't think so," said Thompson. "We will say nothing about it."
+
+
+
+
+STRIKING BACK.
+
+
+George Streeter was in Paris, because he hoped and expected to meet
+Alfred Davison there. He knew that Davison was going to be in Paris for
+at least a fortnight, and he had a particular reason for wishing to
+come across him in the streets of that city rather than in the streets
+of London.
+
+Streeter was a young author who had published several books, and who
+was getting along as well as could be expected, until suddenly he met a
+check. The check was only a check as far as his own self-esteem was
+concerned; for it did not in the least retard the sale of his latest
+book, but rather appeared to increase it. The check was unexpected, for
+where he had looked for a caress, he received a blow. The blow was so
+well placed, and so vigorous, that at first it stunned him. Then he
+became unreasonably angry. He resolved to strike back.
+
+The review of his book in the Argus was vigorously severe, and perhaps
+what maddened him more than anything else was the fact that, in spite
+of his self-esteem he realized the truth of the criticism. If his books
+had been less successful, or if he had been newer as an author, he
+might possibly have set himself out to profit by the keen thrusts given
+him by the Argus. He might have remembered that although Tennyson
+struck back at Christopher North, calling him rusty, crusty, and musty,
+yet the poet eliminated from later editions all blemishes which musty
+Christopher had pointed out.
+
+Streeter resolved to strike back with something more tangible than a
+sarcastic verse. He quite admitted, even to himself, that a critic had
+every right to criticise--that was what he was for--but he claimed that
+a man who pretended to be an author's friend and who praised his books
+to his face, had no right to go behind his back and pen a criticism so
+scathing as that which appeared in the Argus: for Streeter knew that
+Alfred Davison had written the criticism in the Argus, and Davison had
+posed as his friend; and had pretended as well, that he had a great
+admiration for Streeter's books.
+
+As Streeter walked down the Boulevard des Italians, he saw, seated in
+front of a cafe, the man whom he hoped to meet: and furthermore, he was
+pleased to see that the man had a friend with him. The recognition of
+author and critic was mutual.
+
+"Hallo, Streeter," cried Davison; "when did you come over?"
+
+"I left London yesterday," answered Streeter.
+
+"Then sit down and have something with us," said Davison, cordially.
+"Streeter, this is my friend Harmon. He is an exile and a resident in
+Paris, and, consequently, likes to meet his countrymen."
+
+"In that case," said Streeter, "he is probably well acquainted with the
+customs of the place?"
+
+"Rather!" returned Davison; "he has become so much of a Frenchman--he
+has been so contaminated, if I may put it that way--that I believe
+quite recently he was either principal or second in a duel. By the way,
+which was it, Harmon?"
+
+"Merely a second," answered the other.
+
+"I don't believe in duelling myself," continued Davison: "it seems to
+me an idiotic custom, and so futile."
+
+"I don't agree with you," replied Streeter, curtly; "there is no reason
+why a duel should be futile, and there seem to be many reasons why a
+duel might be fought. There are many things, worse than crimes, which
+exist in all countries, and for which there is no remedy except calling
+a man out; misdemeanors, if I may so term them, that the law takes no
+cognisance of; treachery, for instance;--a person pretending to be a
+man's friend, and then the first chance he gets, stabbing him in the
+back."
+
+Harmon nodded his approval of these sentiments, while Davison said
+jauntily:
+
+"Oh, I don't know about that! It seems to me these things, which I
+suppose undoubtedly exist, should not be made important by taking much
+notice of them. What will you have to drink, Streeter?"
+
+"Bring me a liqueur of brandy," said Streeter to the garçon who stood
+ready to take the order.
+
+When the waiter returned with a small glass, into which he poured the
+brandy with the deftness of a Frenchman; filling it so that not a drop
+more could be added, and yet without allowing the glass to overflow,
+Streeter pulled out his purse.
+
+"No, no!" cried Davison; "you are not going to pay for this--you are
+drinking with me."
+
+"I pay for my own drinks," said Streeter, surlily.
+
+"Not when I invite you to drink with me," protested the critic. "I pay
+for this brandy."
+
+"Very well, take it, then!" said Streeter. picking up the little glass
+and dashing the contents in the face of Davison.
+
+Davison took out his handkerchief. "What the devil do you mean by that,
+Streeter?" he asked, as the color mounted to his brow.
+
+Streeter took out his card and pencilled a word or two on the
+pasteboard.
+
+"There," he said, "is my Paris address. If you do not know what I mean
+by that, ask your friend here; he will inform you."
+
+And with that the novelist arose, bowed to the two, and departed.
+
+When he returned to his hotel, after a stroll along the brilliantly-
+lighted Boulevards, he found waiting for him Mr. Harmon and a
+Frenchman.
+
+"I had no idea you would come so soon," said Streeter, "otherwise I
+would not have kept you waiting."
+
+"It does not matter," replied Harmon; "we have not waited long. Affairs
+of this kind require prompt action. An insult lasts but twenty-four
+hours, and my friend and principal has no desire to put you to the
+inconvenience of repeating your action of this evening. We are taking
+it for granted that you have a friend prepared to act for you; for your
+conduct appeared to be premeditated."
+
+"You are quite right," answered Streeter; "I have two friends to whom I
+shall be pleased to introduce you. Come this way, if you will be so
+kind."
+
+The preliminaries were speedily arranged, and the meeting was to take
+place next morning at daylight, with pistols.
+
+Now that everything was settled, the prospect did not look quite so
+pleasant to Streeter as it had done when he left London. Davison had
+asked for no explanation; but that, of course, could be accounted for,
+because this critical sneak must be well aware of the reason for the
+insult. Still, Streeter had rather expected that he would perhaps have
+simulated ignorance, and on receiving enlightenment might have avoided
+a meeting to apologizing.
+
+Anyhow, Streeter resolved to make a night of it. He left his friends to
+arrange for a carriage, and see to all that was necessary, while he
+donned his war-paint and departed for a gathering to which he had been
+invited, and where he was to meet many of his countrymen and
+countrywomen, in a fashionable part of Paris.
+
+His hostess appeared to be overjoyed at seeing him.
+
+"You are so late," she said, "that I was afraid something had occurred
+to keep you from coming altogether."
+
+"Nothing could have prevented me from coming," said Streeter,
+gallantly, "where Mrs. Woodford is hostess!"
+
+"Oh, that is very nice of you, Mr. Streeter!" answered the lady; "but I
+must not stand, here talking with you, for I have promised to introduce
+you to Miss Neville, who wishes very much to meet you. She is a great
+admirer of yours, and has read all your books."
+
+"There are not very many of them," said Streeter, with a laugh; "and
+such as they are, I hope Miss Neville thinks more of them than I do
+myself."
+
+"Oh, we all know how modest authors are!" replied his hostess, leading
+him away to be introduced.
+
+Miss Neville was young and pretty, and she was evidently pleased to
+meet the rising young author.
+
+"I have long wanted to see you," she said, "to have a talk with you
+about your books."
+
+"You are very kind," said Streeter, "but perhaps we might choose
+something more profitable to talk about?"
+
+"I am not so sure of that. Doubtless you have been accustomed to hear
+only the nice things people say about you. That is the misfortune of
+many authors."
+
+"It is a misfortune," answered Streeter.
+
+"What a writer needs is somebody to tell him the truth."
+
+"Ah!" said Miss Neville, "that is another thing I am not so sure about.
+Mrs. Woodford has told you, I suppose, that I have read all your books?
+Did she add that I detested them?"
+
+Even Streeter was not able to conceal the fact that this remark caused
+him some surprise. He laughed uneasily, and said:
+
+"On the contrary, Mrs. Woodford led me to believe that you had liked
+them."
+
+The girl leaned back in her chair, and looked at him with half-closed
+eyes.
+
+"Of course," she said, "Mrs. Woodford does not know. It is not likely
+that I would tell her I detested your books while I asked for an
+introduction to you. She took it for granted that I meant to say
+pleasant things to you, whereas I had made up my mind to do the exact
+reverse. No one would be more shocked than Mrs. Woodford--unless,
+perhaps, it is yourself--if she knew I was going to speak frankly with
+you."
+
+"I am not shocked," said the young man, seriously; "I recognize that
+there are many things in my books that are blemishes."
+
+"Of course you don't mean that," said the frank young woman; "because
+if you did you would not repeat the faults in book after book."
+
+"A man can but do his best," said Streeter, getting annoyed in spite of
+himself, for no man takes kindly to the candid friend. "A man can but
+do his best, as Hubert said, whose grandsire drew a longbow at
+Hastings."
+
+"Yes," returned Miss Neville, "a man can but do his best, although we
+should remember that the man who said that, said it just before he was
+defeated. What I feel is that you are not doing your best, and that you
+will not do your best until some objectionable person like myself has a
+good serious talk with you."
+
+"Begin the serious talk," said Streeter; "I am ready and eager to
+listen."
+
+"Did you read the review of your latest book which appeared in the
+Argus?"
+
+"Did I?" said Streeter, somewhat startled--the thought of the meeting
+that was so close, which he had forgotten for the moment, flashing over
+him. "Yes, I did; and I had the pleasure of meeting the person who
+wrote it this evening."
+
+Miss Neville almost jumped in her chair.
+
+"Oh, I did not intend you to know that!" she said. "Who told you? How
+did you find out that I wrote reviews for the Argus?"
+
+"You!" cried Streeter, astonished in his turn.
+
+"Do you mean to say that you wrote that review?"
+
+Miss Neville sank back in her chair with a sigh.
+
+"There!" she said, "my impetuosity has, as the Americans say, given me
+away. After all, you did not know I was the writer!"
+
+"I thought Davison was the writer. I had it on the very best
+authority."
+
+"Poor Davison!" said Miss Neville, laughing, "why, he is one of the
+best and staunchest friends you have: and so am I, for that matter--
+indeed, I am even more your friend than Mr. Davison; for I think you
+can do good work, while Mr. Davison is foolish enough to believe you
+are doing; it."
+
+At this point in the conversation Streeter looked hurriedly at his
+watch.
+
+"Ah! I see," said Miss Neville; "this conversation is not to your
+taste. You are going to plead an appointment--as if anyone could have
+an appointment at this hour in the morning!"
+
+"Nevertheless," said Streeter, "I have; and I must bid you good-bye.
+But I assure you that my eyes have been opened, and that I have learned
+a lesson to-night which I will not soon forget. I hope I may have the
+pleasure of meeting you again, and continuing this conversation.
+Perhaps some time I may tell you why I have to leave."
+
+Streeter found his friends waiting for him. He knew it was no use
+trying to see Davison before the meeting. There was a long drive ahead
+of them, and it was grey daylight when they reached the ground, where
+they found the other party waiting.
+
+Each man took his place and the pistol that was handed to him. When the
+word "Fire!" was given, Streeter dropped his hand to his side. Davison
+stood with his pistol still pointed, but he did not fire.
+
+"Why don't you shoot, George?" said Davison.
+
+Harmon, at this point, rebuked his principal, and said he must have no
+communication with the other except through a second.
+
+"Oh!" said Davison, impatiently, "I don't pretend to know the rules of
+this idiotic game!"
+
+Streeter stepped forward.
+
+"I merely wished to give you the opportunity of firing at me if you
+cared to do so," he said; "and now I desire to apologize for my action
+at the cafe. I may say that what I did was done under a
+misapprehension. Anything that I can do to make reparation I am willing
+to do."
+
+"Oh, that's all right!" said Davison; "nothing more need be said. I am
+perfectly satisfied. Let us get back to the city; I find it some-what
+chilly out here."
+
+"And yet," said Harmon, with a sigh, "Englishmen have the cheek to talk
+of the futility of French duels!"
+
+
+
+
+CRANDALL'S CHOICE.
+
+
+John Crandall sat at his office desk and thought the situation over.
+Everybody had gone and he was in the office alone. Crandall was rather
+tired and a little sleepy, so he was inclined to take a gloomy view of
+things. Not that there was anything wrong with his business; in fact,
+it was in a first-rate condition so far as it went, but it did not go
+far enough; that was what John thought as he brooded over his affairs.
+He was making money, of course, but the trouble was that he was not
+making it fast enough.
+
+As he thought of these things John gradually and imperceptibly went to
+sleep, and while he slept he dreamt a dream. It would be quite easy to
+pretend that the two persons who came to him in the vision, actually
+entered the office and that he thought them regular customers or
+something of that sort, while at the end of the story, when everybody
+was bewildered, the whole matter might be explained by announcing the
+fact that it was all a dream, but this account being a true and honest
+one, no such artifice will be used and at the very beginning the
+admission is made that John was the victim of a vision.
+
+In this dream two very beautiful ladies approached him. One was richly
+dressed and wore the most dazzling jewelry. The other was clad in plain
+attire. At first, the dreaming Mr. Crandall thought, or dreamt he
+thought, that the richly dressed one was the prettier. She was
+certainly very attractive, but, as she came closer, John imagined that
+much of her beauty was artificial. He said to himself that she painted
+artistically perhaps, but at any rate she laid it on rather thick.
+
+About the other there was no question. She was a beauty, and what
+loveliness she possessed was due to the bounties of Providence and not
+to the assistance of the chemist. She was the first to speak.
+
+"Mr. Crandall," she said, in the sweetest of voices, "we have come here
+together so that you may choose between us. Which one will you have?"
+
+"Bless me," said Crandall, so much surprised at the unblushing proposal
+that he nearly awoke himself, "bless me, don't you know that I am
+married?"
+
+"Oh, _that_ doesn't matter," answered the fair young lady, with
+the divinest of smiles.
+
+"Doesn't it?" said Mr. Crandall. "If you had the pleasure of meeting
+Mrs. Crandall I think you would find that it did--very much indeed."
+
+"But we are not mortals; we are spirits."
+
+"Oh, are you? Well, of course that makes a difference," replied Mr.
+Crandall much relieved, for he began to fear from the turn the
+conversation had taken that he was in the presence of two writers of
+modern novels.
+
+"This lady," continued the first speaker, "is the spirit of wealth. If
+you choose her you will be a very rich man before you die."
+
+"Oh, ho!" cried Crandall. "Are you sure of that?"
+
+"Quite certain."
+
+"Well, then I won't be long making my choice. I choose her, of course."
+
+"But you don't know who I am. Perhaps when you know, you may wish to
+reverse your decision."
+
+"I suppose you are the spirit of power or of fame or something of that
+sort. I am not an ambitious person; money is good enough for me."
+
+"No, I am the spirit of health. Think well before you make your choice.
+Many have rejected me, and afterwards, have offered all their
+possessions fruitlessly, hoping to lure me to them."
+
+"Ah," said Mr. Crandall, with some hesitation. "You are a very pleasant
+young person to have around the house. But why cannot I have both of
+you? How does _that_ strike you?"
+
+"I am very sorry, but I am not permitted to give you the choice of
+both."
+
+"Why is that? Many people are allowed to choose both."
+
+"I know that; still we must follow our instructions."
+
+"Well, if that is the case, without wishing to offend you in the least,
+I think I will stand by my first choice. I choose wealth."
+
+As he said this the other lady advanced toward him and smiled somewhat
+triumphantly as she held out her hand. Crandall grasped it and the
+first spirit sighed. Just as the spirit of wealth seemed about to
+speak, there was a shake at the office door, and Mr. John Crandall saw
+the spirits fade away. He rubbed his eyes and said to himself: "By
+George! I have been asleep. What a remarkably vivid dream that was."
+
+As he yawned and stretched his arms above his head, the impatient
+rattle at the door told him that at least was not a part of the dream.
+
+He arose and unlocked the door. "Hello, Mr. Bullion," he said, as that
+solid man came in. "You're late, aren't you."
+
+"Why, for that matter, so are you. You must have been absorbed in your
+accounts or you would have heard me sooner. I thought I would have to
+shake the place down."
+
+"Well, you know, the policeman sometimes tries the door and I thought
+at first it was he. Won't you sit down?"
+
+"Thanks! Don't care if I do. Busy tonight?"
+
+"Just got through."
+
+"Well, how are things going?"
+
+"Oh, slowly as usual. Slowly because we have not facilities enough, but
+we've got all the work we can do."
+
+"Does it pay you for what work you do?"
+
+"Certainly. I'm not in this business as a philanthropist, you know."
+
+"No. I didn't suppose you were. Now, see here, Crandall, I think you
+have a good thing of it here and one of the enterprises that if
+extended would develop into a big business."
+
+"I know it. But what am I to do? I've practically no capital to enlarge
+the business, and I don't care to mortgage what I have and pay a high
+rate of interest when, just at the critical moment, we might have a
+commercial crisis and I would then lose everything."
+
+"Quite right; quite right, and a safe principle. Well, that's what I
+came to see you about. I have had my eye on you and this factory for
+some time. Now, if you want capital I will furnish it on the condition
+that an accountant of mine examines the books and finds everything
+promising a fair return for enlarging the business. Of course I take
+your word for the state of affairs all right enough, but business is
+business, you know, and besides I want to get an expert opinion on how
+much enlargement it will stand. I suppose you could manage a
+manufactory ten or twenty times larger as easily as you do this one."
+
+"Quite," said Mr. Crandall.
+
+"Then what do you say to my coming round to-morrow at 9 with my man?"
+
+"That would suit me all right."
+
+Mr. John Crandall walked home a very much elated man that night.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+"Well, doctor." said the patient in a very weak voice, "what is the
+verdict!"
+
+"It is just as I said before. You will have to take a rest. You know I
+predicted this breakdown."
+
+"Can't you give me something that will fix me up temporarily? It is
+almost imperative that I should stay on just now."
+
+"Of course it is. It has been so for the last five years. You forget
+that in that time you have been fixed up temporarily on several
+occasions. Now, I will get you 'round so that you can travel in a few
+days and then I insist on a sea voyage or a quiet time somewhere on the
+continent. You will have to throw off business cares entirely. There
+are no ifs or buts about it."
+
+"Look here, doctor. I don't see how I am to leave at this time. I have
+been as bad as this a dozen times before. _You_ know that. I'm
+just a little fagged out and when I go back to the office I can take
+things easier. You see, we have a big South American contract on hand
+that I am very anxious about. New business, you know."
+
+"I suppose you could draw your cheque for a pretty large amount, Mr.
+Crandall."
+
+"Yes, I can. If money can bridge the thing over, I will arrange it."
+
+"Well, money can't. What I wanted to say was that if, instead of having
+a large sum in the bank, you had overdrawn your account about as much
+as the bank would stand, would you be surprised if your cheque were not
+honored?"
+
+"No, I wouldn't."
+
+"Well, that is your state physically. You've overdrawn your vitality
+account. You've got to make a deposit. You must take a vacation."
+
+"Any other time, doctor. I'll go sure, as soon as this contract is off.
+Upon my word I will. You needn't shake your head. A vacation just now
+would only aggravate the difficulty. I wouldn't have a moment's peace
+knowing this South American business might be bungled. I'd worry myself
+to death."
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+The funeral of Mr. Crandall was certainly one of the most splendid
+spectacles the city had seen for many a day. The papers all spoke
+highly of the qualities of the dead manufacturer, whose growth had been
+typical of the growth of the city. The eloquent minister spoke of the
+inscrutable ways of Providence in cutting off a man in his prime, and
+in the very height of his usefulness.
+
+
+
+
+THE FAILURE OF BRADLEY.
+
+
+                 The skater lightly laughs and glides,
+                   Unknowing that beneath the ice
+                   On which he carves his fair device
+                 A stiffened corpse in silence glides.
+
+                 It glareth upward at his play;
+                   Its cold, blue, rigid fingers steal
+                   Beneath the tracings of his heel.
+                 It floats along and floats away.
+
+                                       --Unknown Poem.
+
+
+"If I only had the courage," said Bradley, as he looked over the stone
+parapet of the embankment at the dark waters of the Thames as they
+flashed for a moment under the glitter of the gaslight and then
+disappeared in the black night to flash again farther down.
+
+"Very likely I would struggle to get out again the moment I went over,"
+he muttered to himself. "But if no help came it would all be done with,
+in a minute. Two minutes perhaps. I'll warrant those two minutes would
+seem an eternity. I would see a hundred ways of making a living, if I
+could only get out again. Why can't I see one now while I am out. My
+father committed suicide, why shouldn't I? I suppose it runs in the
+family. There seems to come a time when it is the only way out, I
+wonder if he hesitated? I'm a coward, that's the trouble."
+
+After a moment's hesitation the man slowly climbed on the top of the
+stone wall and then paused again. He looked with a shudder at the
+gloomy river.
+
+"I'll do it," he cried aloud, and was about to slide down, when a hand
+grasped his arm and a voice said:
+
+"What will you do?"
+
+In the light of the gas-lamp Bradley saw a man whose face seemed
+familiar and although he thought rapidly, "Where have I seen that man
+before?" he could not place him.
+
+"Nothing," answered Bradley sullenly.
+
+"That's right," was the answer. "I'd do nothing of that kind, if I were
+you."
+
+"Of course you wouldn't. You have everything that I haven't--food,
+clothes, shelter. Certainly you wouldn't. Why should you?"
+
+"Why should you, if it comes to that?"
+
+"Because ten shillings stands between me and a job. That's why, if you
+want to know. There's eight shillings railway fare, a shilling for
+something to eat to-night and a shilling for something in the morning.
+But I haven't the ten shillings. So that's why."
+
+"If I give you the ten shillings what assurance have I that you will
+not go and get drunk on it?"
+
+"None at all. I have not asked you for ten shillings, nor for one. I
+have simply answered your question."
+
+"That is true. I will give you a pound if you will take it, and so if
+unfortunately you spent half of it in cheering yourself, you will still
+have enough left to get that job. What is the job?"
+
+"I am a carpenter."
+
+"You are welcome to the pound."
+
+"I will take it gladly. But, mind you, I am not a beggar. I will take
+it if you give me your address, so that I may send it back to you when.
+I earn it."
+
+By this time Bradley had come down on the pavement. The other man
+laughed quietly.
+
+"I cannot agree to that. You are welcome to the money. More if you
+like. I merely doubled the sum you mentioned to provide for anything
+unseen."
+
+"Unless you let me return it, I will not take the money."
+
+"I have perfect confidence in your honesty. If I had not, I would not
+offer the money. I cannot give you my address, or, rather, I will not.
+If you will pay the pound to some charity or will give it to someone
+who is in need, I am more than satisfied. If you give it to the right
+man and tell him to do the same, the pound will do more good than ever
+it will in my pocket or in my usual way of spending it."
+
+"But how are you to know I will do that?"
+
+"I am considered rather a good judge of men. I am certain you will do
+what you say."
+
+"I'll take the money. I doubt if there is anyone in London to-night who
+needs it much worse than I do."
+
+Bradley looked after the disappearing figure of the man who had
+befriended him.
+
+"I have seen that man somewhere before," he said to himself. But in
+that he was wrong. He hadn't.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+Wealth is most unevenly and most unfairly divided. All of us admit
+that, but few of us agree about the remedy. Some of the best minds of
+the century have wrestled with this question in vain. "The poor ye have
+always with you" is as true to-day as it was 1800 years ago. Where so
+many are in doubt, it is perhaps a comfort to meet men who have no
+uncertainty as to the cause and the remedy. Such a body of men met in a
+back room off Soho Square.
+
+"We are waiting for you, Bradley," said the chairman, as the carpenter
+took his place and the doors were locked. He looked better than he had
+done a year before on the Thames embankment.
+
+"I know I'm late, but I couldn't help it. They are rushing things at
+the exhibition grounds. The time is short now, and they are beginning
+to be anxious for fear everything will not be ready in time."
+
+"That's it," said one of the small group, "we are slaves and must be
+late or early as our so-called masters choose."
+
+"Oh, there is extra pay," said Bradley with a smile, as he took a seat.
+
+"Comrades," said the chairman, rapping on the desk, "we will now
+proceed to business. The secret committee has met and made a
+resolution. After the lots are drawn it will be my task to inform the
+man chosen what the job is. It is desirable that as few as possible,
+even among ourselves, should know who the man is, who has drawn the
+marked paper. Perhaps it may be my own good fortune to be the chosen
+man. One of the papers is marked with a cross. Whoever draws that paper
+is to communicate with me at my room within two days. He is to come
+alone. It is commanded by the committee that no man is to look at his
+paper until he leaves this room and then to examine it in secret. He is
+bound by his oath to tell no one at any time whether or not he is the
+chosen man."
+
+The papers were put into a hat and each man in the room drew one. The
+chairman put his in his pocket, as did the others. The doors were
+unlocked and each man went to his home, if he had one.
+
+Next evening Bradley called at the room of the chairman and said:
+"There is the marked paper I drew last night."
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+The exhibition building was gay with bunting and was sonorous with the
+sounds of a band of music. The machinery that would not stop for six
+months was still motionless, for it was to be started in an hour's time
+by His Highness. His Highness and suite had not yet arrived but the
+building was crowded by a well-dressed throng of invited guests--the
+best in the land as far as fame, title or money was concerned.
+Underneath the grand stand where His Highness and the distinguished
+guests were to make speeches and where the finger of nobility was to
+press the electric button, Bradley walked anxiously about, with the
+same haggard look on his face that was there the night he thought of
+slipping into the Thames. The place underneath was a wilderness of
+beams and braces. Bradley's wooden tool chest stood on the ground
+against one of the timbers. The foremen came through and struck a beam
+or a brace here and there.
+
+"Everything is all right," he said to Bradley. "There will be no
+trouble, even if it was put up in a hurry, and in spite of the strain
+that will be on it to-day."
+
+Bradley was not so sure of that, but he said nothing. When the foreman
+left him alone, he cautiously opened the lid of his tool chest and
+removed the carpenter's apron which covered something in the bottom.
+This something was a small box with a clockwork arrangement and a
+miniature uplifted hammer that hung like the sword of Damocles over a
+little copper cap. He threw the apron over it again, closed the lid of
+the chest, leaned against one of the timbers, folded his arms and
+waited.
+
+Presently there was a tremendous cheer and the band struck up, "He is
+coming," said Bradley to himself, closing his lips tighter.
+"Carpenter," cried the policeman putting in his head through the little
+wooden door at the foot of the stage, "come here, quick. You can get a
+splendid sight of His Highness as he comes up the passage." Bradley
+walked to the opening and gazed at the distinguished procession coming
+toward him. Suddenly he grasped the arm of the policeman like a vice.
+
+"Who is that man in the robes--at the head of the procession?"
+
+"Don't you know? That is His Highness."
+
+Bradley gasped for breath. He recognized His Highness as the man he had
+met on the embankment.
+
+"Thank you," he said to the policeman, who looked at him curiously.
+Then he went under the grand stand among the beams and braces and
+leaned against one of the timbers with knitted brows.
+
+After a few moments he stepped to his chest, pulled off the apron and
+carefully lifted out the machine. With a quick jerk he wrenched off the
+little hammer and flung it from him. The machinery inside whirred for a
+moment with a soft purr like a clock running down. He opened the box
+and shook out into his apron a substance like damp sawdust. He seemed
+puzzled for a moment what to do with it. Finally he took it out and
+scattered it along the grass-grown slope of a railway cutting. Then he
+returned to his tool chest, took out a chisel and grimly felt its edge
+with his thumb.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+It was admitted on all hands that His Highness never made a better
+speech in his life than on the occasion of the opening of that
+exhibition. He touched lightly on the country's unexampled prosperity,
+of which the marvelous collection within those walls was an indication.
+He alluded to the general contentment that reigned among the classes to
+whose handiwork was due the splendid examples of human skill there
+exhibited. His Highness was thankful that peace and contentment reigned
+over the happy land and he hoped they would long continue so to reign.
+Then there were a good many light touches of humor in the discourse--
+touches that are so pleasing when they come from people in high places.
+In fact, the chairman said at the club afterwards (confidentially, of
+course) that the man who wrote His Highness's speeches had in that case
+quite outdone himself.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+The papers had very full accounts of the opening of the exhibition next
+morning, and perhaps because these graphic articles occupied so much
+space, there was so little room for the announcement about the man who
+committed suicide. The papers did not say where the body was found,
+except that it was near the exhibition buildings, and His Highness
+never knew that he made that excellent speech directly over the body of
+a dead man.
+
+
+
+
+RINGAMY'S CONVERT.
+
+
+Mr. Johnson Ringamy, the author, sat in his library gazing idly out of
+the window. The view was very pleasant, and the early morning sun
+brought out in strong relief the fresh greenness of the trees that now
+had on their early spring suits of foliage. Mr. Ringamy had been a busy
+man, but now, if he cared to take life easy, he might do so, for few
+books had had the tremendous success of his latest work. Mr. Ringamy
+was thinking about this, when the door opened, and a tall,
+intellectual-looking young man entered from the study that communicated
+with the library. He placed on the table the bunch of letters he had in
+his hand, and, drawing up a chair, opened a blank notebook that had,
+between the leaves, a lead pencil sharpened at both ends.
+
+"Good morning, Mr. Scriver," said the author, also hitching up his
+chair towards the table. He sighed as he did so, for the fair spring
+prospect from the library window was much more attractive than the task
+of answering an extensive correspondence.
+
+"Is there a large mail this morning, Scriver?"
+
+"A good-sized one, sir. Many of them, however, are notes asking for
+your autograph."
+
+"Enclose stamps, do they?"
+
+"Most of them, sir; those that did not, I threw in the waste basket."
+
+"Quite right. And as to the autographs you might write them this
+afternoon, if you have time."
+
+"I have already done so, sir. I flatter myself that even your most
+intimate friend could not tell my version of your autograph from your
+own."
+
+As he said this, the young man shoved towards the author a letter which
+he had written, and Mr. Ringamy looked at it critically.
+
+"Very good, Scriver, very good indeed. In fact, if I were put in the
+witness-box I am not sure that I would be able to swear that this was
+not my signature. What's this you have said in the body of the letter
+about sentiment? Not making me write anything sentimental, I hope. Be
+careful, my boy, I don't want the newspapers to get hold of anything
+that they could turn into ridicule. They are too apt to do that sort of
+thing if they get half a chance."
+
+"Oh, I think you will find that all right," said the young man; "still
+I thought it best to submit it to you before sending it off. You see
+the lady who writes has been getting up a 'Ringamy Club' in Kalamazoo,
+and she asks you to give her an autographic sentiment which they will
+cherish as the motto of the club. So I wrote the sentence, 'All classes
+of labor should have equal compensation.' If that won't do, I can
+easily change it.'
+
+"Oh, that will do first rate--first rate."
+
+"Of course it is awful rot, but I thought it would please the feminine
+mind."
+
+"Awful _what_ did you say, Mr. Scriver?"
+
+"Well, slush--if that expresses it better. Of course, you don't believe
+any such nonsense."
+
+Mr. Johnson Ringamy frowned as he looked at his secretary.
+
+"I don't think I understand you," he said, at last.
+
+"Well, look here, Mr. Ringamy, speaking now, not as a paid servant to
+his master, but--"
+
+"Now, Scriver, I won't have any talk like that. There is no master or
+servant idea between us. There oughtn't to be between anybody. All men
+are free and equal."
+
+"They are in theory, and in my eye, as I might say if I wanted to make
+it more expressive."
+
+"Scriver, I cannot congratulate you on your expressive language, if I
+may call it so. But we are wandering from the argument. You were going
+to say that speaking as--Well, go on."
+
+"I was going to say that, speaking as one reasonably sensible man to
+another, without any gammon about it; don't you think it is rank
+nonsense to hold that one class of labor should be as well compensated
+as another. Honestly now?"
+
+The author sat back in his chair and gazed across the table at his
+secretary. Finally, he said:
+
+"My dear Scriver, you can't really mean what you say. You know that I
+hold that all classes of labor should have exactly the same
+compensation. The miner, the blacksmith, the preacher, the postal
+clerk, the author, the publisher, the printer--yes, the man who sweeps
+out the office, or who polishes boots, should each share alike, if this
+world were what it should be--yes, and what it _will_ be. Why,
+Scriver, you surely couldn't have read my book--"
+
+"Read it? why, hang it, I _wrote_ it."
+
+"You wrote it? The deuce you did! I always thought I was the author of
+--"
+
+"So you are. But didn't I take it all down in shorthand, and didn't I
+whack it out on the type-writer, and didn't I go over the proof sheets
+with you. And yet you ask me if I have read it!"
+
+"Oh, yes, quite right, I see what you mean. Well, if you paid as much
+attention to the arguments as you did to the mechanical production of
+the book, I should think you would not ask if I really meant what I
+said."
+
+"Oh, I suppose you meant it all right enough--in a way--in theory,
+perhaps, but--"
+
+"My dear sir, allow me to say that a theory which is not practical, is
+simply no theory at all. The great success of 'Gazing Upward,' has been
+due to the fact that it is an eminently practical work. The
+nationalization of everything is not a matter of theory. The ideas
+advocated in that book, can be seen at work at any time. Look at the
+Army, look at the Post Office."
+
+"Oh, that's all right, looking at things in bulk. Let us come down to
+practical details. Detail is the real test of any scheme. Take this
+volume, 'Gazing Upward.' Now, may I ask how much this book has netted
+you up to date?"
+
+"Oh, I don't know exactly. Somewhere in the neighborhood of Ł20,000."
+
+"Very well then. Now let us look for a moment at the method by which
+that book was produced. You walked up and down this room with your
+hands behind your back, and dictated chapter after chapter, and I sat
+at this table taking it all down in shorthand. Then you went out and
+took the air while I industriously whacked it out on the type-writer."
+
+"I wish you wouldn't say 'whacked,' Scriver. That's twice you've used
+it."
+
+"All right:--typographical error--For 'whacked' read 'manipulated.'
+Then you looked over the type-written pages, and I erased and wrote in
+and finally got out a perfect copy. Now I worked as hard--probably
+harder--than you did, yet the success of that book was entirely due to
+you, and not to me. Therefore it is quite right that you should get
+Ł20,000 and that I should get two pounds a week. Come now, isn't it?
+Speaking as a man of common sense."
+
+"Speaking exactly in that way I say no it is not right. If the world
+were properly ruled the compensation of author and secretary would have
+been exactly the same."
+
+"Oh, well, if you go so far as that," replied the Secretary, "I have
+nothing more to say."
+
+The author laughed, and the two men bent their energies to the
+correspondence. When the task was finished, Scriver said:
+
+"I would like to get a couple of days off, Mr. Ringamy. I have some
+private business to attend to."
+
+"When could you get back?"
+
+"I'll report to you on Thursday morning."
+
+"Very well, then. Not later than Thursday. I think I'll take a couple
+of days off myself."
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+On Thursday morning Mr. Johnson Ringamy sat in his library looking out
+of the window, but the day was not as pleasant as when he last gazed at
+the hills, and the woods, and green fields. A wild spring storm lashed
+the landscape, and rattled the raindrops against the pane. Mr. Ringamy
+waited for some time and then opened the study door and looked in. The
+little room was empty. He rang the bell, and the trim servant-girl
+appeared.
+
+"Has Mr. Scriver come in yet?"
+
+"No, sir, he haven't"
+
+"Perhaps the rain has kept him."
+
+"Mr. Scriver said that when you come back, sir, there was a letter on
+the table as was for you."
+
+"Ah, so there is. Thank you, that will do." The author opened the
+letter and read as follows:
+
+"MY DEAR MR. RINGAMY,--Your arguments the other day fully convinced me
+that you were right, and I was wrong ("Ah! I thought they would,"
+murmured the author). I have therefore taken a step toward putting your
+theories into practice. The scheme is an old one in commercial life,
+but new in its present application, so much so that I fear it will find
+no defenders except yourself, and I trust that now when I am far away
+("Dear me, what does this mean!" cried the author) you will show any
+doubters that I acted on the principles which will govern the world
+when the theories of 'Gazing Upward' are put into practice. For fear
+that all might not agree with you at present, I have taken the
+precaution of going to that undiscovered country, from whose bourne no
+extradition treaty forces the traveler to return--sunny Spain. You said
+you could not tell my rendition of your signature from your own.
+Neither could the bank cashier. My exact mutation of your signature has
+enabled me to withdraw Ł10,000 from your bank account. Half the
+profits, you know. You can send future accumulations, for the book will
+continue to sell, to the address of
+                                     "ADAM SCRIVER.
+_"Poste Restant, Madrid, Spain"_
+
+
+Mr. Ringamy at once put the case in the hands of the detectives, where
+it still remains.
+
+
+
+
+A SLIPPERY CUSTOMER.
+
+
+When John Armstrong stepped off the train at the Union Station, in
+Toronto, Canada, and walked outside, a small boy accosted him.
+
+"Carry your valise up for you, sir?"
+
+"No, thank you," said Mr. Armstrong.
+
+"Carry it up for ten cents, sir?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Take it up for five cents, sir?"
+
+"Get out of my way, will you?"
+
+The boy got out of the way, and John Armstrong carried the valise
+himself.
+
+There was nearly half a million dollars in it, so Mr. Armstrong thought
+it best to be his own porter.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+In the bay window of one of the handsomest residences in Rochester, New
+York, sat Miss Alma Temple, waiting for her father to come home from
+the bank. Mr. Horace Temple was one of the solid men of Rochester, and
+was president of the Temple National Bank. Although still early in
+December, the winter promised to be one of the most severe for many
+years, and the snow lay crisp and hard on the streets, but not enough
+for sleighing. It was too cold for snow, the weatherwise said. Suddenly
+Miss Alma drew back from the window with a quick flush on her face that
+certainly was not caused by the coming of her father. A dapper young
+man sprang lightly up the steps, and pressed the electric button at the
+door. When the young man entered the room a moment later Miss Alma was
+sitting demurely by the open fire. He advanced quickly toward her, and
+took both her outstretched hands in his. Then, furtively looking around
+the room, he greeted her still more affectionately, in a manner that
+the chronicler of these incidents, is not bound to particularize.
+However, the fact may be mentioned that whatever resistance the young
+woman thought fit to offer was of the faintest and most futile kind,
+and so it will be understood, at the beginning, that these two young
+persons had a very good understanding with each other.
+
+"You seem surprised to see me," he began.
+
+"Well, Walter, I understood that you left last time with some
+energetically expressed resolutions never to darken our doors again."
+
+"Well, you see, my dear, I am sometimes a little hasty; and, in fact,
+the weather is so dark nowadays, anyhow, that a little extra darkness
+does not amount to much, and so I thought I would take the risk of
+darkening them once more."
+
+"But I also understood that my father made you promise, or that you
+promised voluntarily, not to see me again without his permission?"
+
+"Not voluntarily. Far from it. Under compulsion, I assure you. But I
+didn't come to see you at all. That's where you are mistaken. The
+seeing you is merely an accident, which I have done my best to avoid.
+Fact! The girl said, 'Won't you walk into the drawing-room,' and
+naturally I did so. Never expected to find you here. I thought I saw a
+young lady at the window as I came up, but I got such a momentary
+glimpse that I might have been mistaken."
+
+"Then I will leave you and not interrupt--"
+
+"Not at all. Now I beg of you not to leave on my account, Alma. You
+know I would not put you to any trouble for the world."
+
+"You are very kind, I am sure, Mr. Brown."
+
+"I am indeed, Miss Temple. All my friends admit that. But now that you
+are here--by the way, I came to see Mr. Temple. Is he at home?"
+
+"I am expecting him every moment."
+
+"Oh, well, I'm disappointed; but I guess I will bear up for awhile--
+until he comes, you know."
+
+"I thought your last interview with him was not so pleasant that you
+would so soon seek another."
+
+"The fact is, Alma, we both lost our tempers a bit, and no good ever
+comes of that. You can't conduct business in a heat, you know."
+
+"Oh, then the asking of his daughter's hand was business--a mere
+business proposition, was it?"
+
+"Well, I confess he put it that way--very strongly, too. Of course,
+with me there would have been pleasure mixed with it if he had--but he
+didn't. See here, Alma--tell me frankly (of course he talked with you
+about it) what objection he has to me anyhow."
+
+"I suppose you consider yourself such a desirable young man that it
+astonishes you greatly that any person should have any possible
+objection to you?"
+
+"Oh, come now, Alma; don't hit a fellow when he's down, you know. I
+don't suppose I have more conceit than the average young man; but then,
+on the other hand, I am not such a fool, despite appearances, as not to
+know that I am considered by some people as quite an eligible
+individual. I am not a pauper exactly, and your father knows that. I
+don't think I have many very bad qualities. I don't get drunk; I don't
+--oh, I could give quite a list of the things I don't do."
+
+"You are certainly frank enough, my eligible young man. Still you must
+not forget that my papa is considered quite an eligible father-in-law,
+if it comes to that."
+
+"Why, of course, I admit it. How could it be otherwise when he has such
+a charming daughter?"
+
+"You know I don't mean that, Walter. You were speaking of wealth and so
+was I. Perhaps we had better change the subject."
+
+"By the way, that reminds me of what I came to see you about. What do--"
+
+"To see me? I thought you came to see my father."
+
+"Oh, yes--certainly--I did come to see him, of course, but in case I
+saw you, I thought I would ask you for further particulars in the case.
+I have asked you the question but you have evaded the answer. You did
+not tell me why he is so prejudiced against me. Why did he receive me
+in such a gruff manner when I spoke to him about it? It is not a
+criminal act to ask a man for his daughter. It is not, I assure you. I
+looked up the law on the subject, and a young friend of mine, who is a
+barrister, says there is no statute in the case made and provided. The
+law of the State of New York does not recognize my action as against
+the peace and prosperity of the commonwealth. Well, he received me as
+if I had been caught robbing the bank. Now I propose to know what the
+objection is. I am going to hear--"
+
+"Hush! Here is papa now."
+
+Miss Alma quickly left the room, and met her father in the hall. Mr.
+Brown stood with his hands in his pockets and his back to the fire. He
+heard the gruff voice of Mr. Temple say, apparently in answer to some
+information given him by his daughter: "Is he? What does he want?"
+
+There was a moment's pause, and then the same voice said:
+
+"Very well, I will see him in the library in a few minutes."
+
+Somehow the courage of young Mr. Brown sank as he heard the banker's
+voice, and the information he had made up his mind to demand with some
+hauteur, he thought he would ask, perhaps, in a milder manner.
+
+Mr. Brown brightened up as the door opened, but it was not Miss Alma
+who came in. The servant said to him:
+
+"Mr. Temple is in the library, sir. Will you come this way!"
+
+He followed and found the banker seated at his library table, on which
+he had just placed some legal-looking papers, bound together with a
+thick rubber band. It was evident that his work did not stop when he
+left the bank. Young Brown noticed that Mr. Temple looked careworn and
+haggard, and that his manner was very different from what it had been
+on the occasion of the last interview.
+
+"Good evening, Mr. Brown. I am glad you called. I was on the point of
+writing to you, but the subject of our talk the other night was crowded
+from my mind by more important matters."
+
+Young Mr. Brown thought bitterly that there ought not to be matters
+more important to a father than his daughter's happiness, but he had
+the good sense not to say so.
+
+"I spoke to you on that occasion with a--in a manner that was--well,
+hardly excusable, and I wish to say that I am sorry I did so. What I
+had to state might have been stated with more regard for your
+feelings."
+
+"Then may I hope, Mr. Temple, that you have changed your mind with--"
+
+"No, sir. What I said then--that is, the substance of what I said, not
+the manner of saying it--I still adhere to."
+
+"May I ask what objection you have to me?"
+
+"Certainly. I have the same objection that I have to the majority of
+the society young men of the present day. If I make inquiries about
+you, what do I find? That you are a noted oarsman--that you have no
+profession--that your honors at college consisted in being captain of
+the football team, and--"
+
+"No, no, the baseball club."
+
+"Same thing, I suppose."
+
+"Quite different, I assure you, Mr. Temple."
+
+"Well, it is the same to me at any rate. Now, in my time young men had
+a harder row to hoe, and they hoed it. I am what they call a self-made
+man and probably I have a harsher opinion of the young men of the
+present day than I should have. But if I had a son I would endeavor to
+have him know how to do something, and then I would see that he did
+it."
+
+"I am obliged to you for stating your objection, Mr. Temple. I have
+taken my degree in Harvard law school, but I have never practiced,
+because, as the little boy said, I didn't have to. Perhaps if some one
+had spoken to me as you have done I would have pitched in and gone to
+work. It is not too late yet. Will you give me a chance? The position
+of cashier in your bank, for instance?"
+
+The effect of these apparently innocent words on Mr. Temple was
+startling. He sprang to his feet and brought down his clenched fist on
+the table with a vehemence that made young Mr. Brown jump. "What do you
+mean, sir?" he cried, sternly. "What do you mean by saying such a
+thing?"
+
+"Why, I--I--I--mean--" stammered Brown, but he could get no further. He
+thought the old man had suddenly gone crazy. He glared across the
+library table at Brown as if the next instant he would spring at his
+throat. Then the haggard look came into his face again, he passed his
+hand across his brow, and sank into his chair with a groan.
+
+"My dear sir," said Brown, approaching him, "what is the matter? Is
+there anything I can--"
+
+"Sit down, please," answered the banker, melancholy. "You will excuse
+me I hope, I am very much troubled. I did not intend to speak of it,
+but some explanation is due to you. A month from now, if you are the
+kind of man that most of your fellows are, you will not wish to marry
+my daughter. There is every chance that at that time the doors of my
+bank will be closed."
+
+"You astonish me, sir. I thought--"
+
+"Yes, and so every one thinks. I have seldom in my life trusted the
+wrong man, but this time I have done so, and the one mistake seems
+likely to obliterate all that I have succeeded in doing in a life of
+hard work."
+
+"If I can be of any financial assistance I will be glad to help you."
+
+"How much?"
+
+"Well, I don't know--50,000 dollars perhaps or--"
+
+"I must have 250,000 dollars before the end of this month."
+
+"Two hundred and fifty thousand!"
+
+"Yes, sir. William L. Staples, the cashier of our bank, is now in
+Canada with half a million of the bank funds. No one knows it but
+myself and one or two of the directors. It is generally supposed that
+he has gone to Washington on a vacation."
+
+"But can't you put detectives on his track?"
+
+"Certainly. Then the theft would be made public at once. The papers
+would be full of it. There might be a run on the bank, and we would
+have to close the doors the next day. To put the detectives on his
+track would merely mean bringing disaster on our own heads. Staples is
+quite safe, and he knows it. Thanks to an idiotic international
+arrangement he is as free from danger of arrest in Canada as you are
+here. It is impossible to extradite him for stealing."
+
+"But I think there is a law against bringing stolen money into Canada."
+
+"Perhaps there is. It would not help us at the present moment. We must
+compromise with him, if we can find him in time. Of course, even if the
+bank closed, we would pay everything when there was time to realize.
+But that is not the point. It would mean trouble and disaster, and
+would probably result in other failures all through one man's
+rascality."
+
+"Then it all resolves itself to this. Staples must be found quietly and
+negotiated with. Mr. Temple, let me undertake the finding of him, and
+the negotiating, also, if you will trust me."
+
+"Do you know him?"
+
+"Never saw him in my life."
+
+"Here is his portrait. He is easily recognized from that. You couldn't
+mistake him. He is probably living at Montreal under an assumed name.
+He may have sailed for Europe. You will say nothing of this to
+anybody?"
+
+"Certainly not. I will leave on to-night's train for Montreal, or on
+the first train that goes."
+
+Young Mr. Brown slipped the photograph into his pocket and shook hands
+with the banker. Somehow his confident, alert bearing inspired the old
+man with more hope than he would have cared to admit, for, as a general
+thing, he despised the average young man.
+
+"How long can you hold out if this does not become public?"
+
+"For a month at least; probably for two or three."
+
+"Well, don't expect to hear from me too soon. I shall not risk writing.
+If there is anything to communicate, I will come myself."
+
+"It is very good of you to take my trouble on your shoulders like this.
+I am very much obliged to you."
+
+"I am not a philanthropist, Mr. Temple," replied young Brown.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+When young Mr. Brown stepped off the train at the Central Station in
+Toronto, a small boy accosted him.
+
+"Carry your valise up for you, sir?"
+
+"Certainly," said Brown, handing it to him.
+
+"How much do I owe you?" he asked at the lobby of the hotel.
+
+"Twenty-five cents," said the boy promptly, and he got it.
+
+Brown registered on the books of the hotel as John A. Walker, of
+Montreal.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+Mr. Walter Brown, of Rochester, was never more discouraged in his life
+than at the moment he wrote on the register the words, "John A. Walker,
+Montreal." He had searched Montreal from one end to the other, but had
+found no trace of the man for whom he was looking. Yet, strange to say,
+when he raised his eyes from the register they met the face of William
+L. Staples, ex-cashier. It was lucky for Brown that Staples was looking
+at the words he had written, and not at himself, or he would have
+noticed Brown's involuntary start of surprise, and flush of pleasure.
+It was also rather curious that Mr. Brown had a dozen schemes in his
+mind for getting acquainted with Staples when he met him, and yet that
+the first advance should be made by Staples himself.
+
+"You are from Montreal," said Mr. Staples, alias John Armstrong.
+
+"That's my town," said Mr. Brown.
+
+"What sort of a place is it in winter? Pretty lively?"
+
+"Oh, yes. Good deal of a winter city, Montreal is. How do you mean,
+business or sport?"
+
+"Well, both. Generally where there's lots of business there's lots of
+fun."
+
+"Yes, that's so," assented Brown. He did not wish to prolong the
+conversation. He had some plans to make, so he followed his luggage up
+to his room. It was evident that he would have to act quickly. Staples
+was getting tired of Toronto.
+
+Two days after Brown had his plans completed. He met Staples one
+evening in the smoking-room of the hotel.
+
+"Think of going to Montreal?" asked Brown.
+
+"I did think of it. I don't know, though. Are you in business there?"
+
+"Yes. If you go, I could give you some letters of introduction to a lot
+of fellows who would show you some sport, that is, if you care for
+snow-shoeing, toboganning, and the like of that."
+
+"I never went in much for athletics," said Staples.
+
+"I don't care much for exertion myself," answered Brown. "I come up
+here every winter for some ice-yachting. That's my idea of sport. I own
+one of the fastest ice-boats on the bay. Ever been out?"
+
+"No, I haven't. I've seen them at it a good deal. Pretty cold work such
+weather as we've been having, isn't it?"
+
+"I don't think so. Better come out with me tomorrow?"
+
+"Well, I don't care if I do."
+
+The next day and the next they spun around the bay on the ice-boat.
+Even Staples, who seemed to be tired of almost everything, liked the
+swiftness and exhilaration of the iceboat.
+
+One afternoon, Brown walked into the bar of the hotel, where he found
+Staples standing.
+
+"See here, Armstrong." he cried, slapping that gentleman on the
+shoulder. "Are you in for a bit of sport? It's a nice moonlight night,
+and I'm going to take a spin down to Hamilton to meet some chaps, and
+we can come back on the iceboat, or if you think it too late, you can
+stay over, and come back on the train."
+
+"Hamilton? That's up the lake, isn't it?"
+
+"Yes, just a nice run from here. Come along--I counted on you."
+
+An hour later they were skimming along the frozen surface of the lake.
+
+"Make yourself warm and snug," said Brown. "That's what the buffalo
+robes are for. I must steer, so I have to keep in the open. If I were
+you I'd wrap up in those robes and go to sleep. I'll wake you when
+we're there."
+
+"All right," answered Staples. "That's not a bad idea."
+
+"General George Washington!" said young Brown to himself. "This is too
+soft a snap altogether. I'm going to run him across the lake like a
+lamb. Before he opens his eyes we'll have skimmed across the frozen
+lake, and he'll find himself in the States again when he wakes up. The
+only thing now to avoid are the air-holes and ice-hills, and I'm all
+right."
+
+He had been over the course before and knew pretty well what was ahead
+of him. The wind was blowing stiffly straight up the lake and the boat
+silently, and swifter than the fastest express, was flying from Canada
+and lessening the distance to the American shore.
+
+"How are you getting along, Walker," cried Staples, rousing himself up.
+"First rate," answered Brown. "We'll soon be there, Staples."
+
+That unfortunate slip of the tongue almost cost young Mr. Brown his
+life. He had been, thinking of the man under his own name, and the name
+had come out unconsciously. He did not even notice it himself in time
+to prepare, and the next instant the thief flung himself upon him and
+jammed his head against the iron rod that guided the rudder, with such
+a force that the rudder stayed in its place and the boat flew along the
+ice without a swerve.
+
+"You scoundrel!" roared the bank-robber. "That's your game, is it? By
+the gods, I'll teach you a lesson in the detective business!"
+
+Athlete as young Brown was, the suddenness of the attack, and the fact
+that Staples clutched both hands round his neck and had his knee on his
+breast, left him as powerless as an infant. Even then he did not
+realize what had caused the robber to guess his position.
+
+"For God's sake, let me up!" gasped Brown.
+
+"We'll be into an air-hole and drowned in a moment."
+
+"I'll risk it, you dog! till I've choked the breath out of your body."
+Brown wriggled his head away from the rudder iron, hoping that the boat
+would slew around, but it kept its course. He realized that if he was
+to save his life he would have to act promptly. He seemed to feel his
+tongue swell in his parched mouth. His strength was gone and his throat
+was in an iron vice. He struck out wildly with his feet and one
+fortunate kick sent the rudder almost at right angles.
+
+Instantly the boat flashed around into the wind. Even if a man is
+prepared for such a thing, it takes all his nerve and strength to keep
+him on an iceboat. Staples was not prepared. He launched head first
+into space and slid for a long distance on the rough ice. Brown was
+also flung on the ice and lay for a moment gasping for breath. Then he
+gathered himself together, and slipping his hand under his coat, pulled
+out his revolver. He thought at first that Staples was shamming, but a
+closer examination of him showed that the fall on the ice had knocked
+him senseless.
+
+There was only one thing that young Mr. Brown was very anxious to know.
+He wanted to know where the money was. He had played the part of
+private detective well in Toronto, after the very best French style,
+and had searched the room of Staples in his absence, but he knew the
+money was not there nor in his valise. He knew equally well that the
+funds were in some safe deposit establishment in the city, but where he
+could not find out. He had intended to work on Staples' fears of
+imprisonment when once he had him safe on the other side of the line.
+But now that the man was insensible, he argued that it was a good time
+to find whether or not he had a record of the place of deposit in his
+pocket-book. He found no such book in his pockets. In searching,
+however, he heard the rustling of paper apparently in the lining of his
+coat. Then he noticed how thickly it was padded. The next moment he had
+it ripped open, and a glance showed him that it was lined with bonds.
+Both coat and vest were padded in this way--the vest being filled with
+Bank of England notes, so the chances were that Staples had meditated a
+tour in Europe. The robber evidently put no trust in Safe Deposits nor
+banks. Brown flung the thief over on, his face, after having unbuttoned
+coat and vest, doubled back his arms and pulled off these garments. His
+own, Brown next discarded, and with some difficulty got them on the
+fallen man and then put on the clothes of mammon.
+
+"This is what I call rolling in wealth." said Brown to himself. He
+admitted that he felt decidedly better after the change of clothing,
+cold as it was.
+
+Buttoning his own garments on the prostrate man, Brown put a flask of
+liquor to his lips and speedily revived him. Staples sat on the ice in
+a dazed manner, and passed his hand across his brow. In the cold gleam
+of the moonlight he saw the shining barrel of Brown's revolver
+"covering" him.
+
+"It's all up, Mr. Staples. Get on board the iceboat."
+
+"Where are you going to take me to?"
+
+"I'll let you go when we come to the coast if you tell me where the
+money is."
+
+"You know you are guilty of the crime of kidnapping," said Mr. Staples,
+apparently with the object of gaining time. "So you are in some danger
+of the law yourself."
+
+"That is a question that can be discussed later on. You came
+voluntarily, don't forget that fact. Where's the money?"
+
+"It is on deposit in the Bank of Commerce."
+
+"Well, here's paper and a stylographic pen, if the ink isn't frozen--
+no, it's all right--write a cheque quickly for the amount payable to
+bearer. Hurry up, or the ink will freeze."
+
+There was a smile of satisfaction on the face of Staples as he wrote
+the check.
+
+"There," he said, with a counterfeited sigh. "That is the amount."
+
+The check was for 480,000 dollars.
+
+When they came under the shadow of the American coast, Brown ordered
+his passenger off.
+
+"You can easily reach land from here, and the walk will do you good.
+I'm going further up the lake."
+
+When Staples was almost at the land he shouted through the clear night
+air: "Don't spend the money recklessly when you get it, Walker."
+
+"I'll take care of it, Staples," shouted back young Brown.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+Young Mr. Brown sprang lightly up the steps of the Temple mansion,
+Rochester, and pressed the electric button.
+
+"Has Mr. Temple gone to the bank yet?" he asked the servant.
+
+"No, sir; he is in the library."
+
+"Thank you. Don't trouble. I know the way."
+
+Mr. Temple looked around as the young man entered, and, seeing who it
+was, sprang to his feet with a look of painful expectancy on his face.
+"There's a little present for you," said Mr. Brown, placing a package
+on the table. "Four hundred and seventy-eight thousand: Bank of England
+notes and United States bonds." The old man grasped his hand, strove to
+speak, but said nothing.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+People wondered why young Mr. and Mrs. Brown went to Toronto on their
+wedding tour in the depth of winter. It was so very unusual, don't you
+know.
+
+
+
+
+THE SIXTH BENCH.
+
+
+She was in earnest; he was not. When that state of things exists
+anything may happen. The occurrence may be commonplace, comic, or
+tragic, depending on the temperament and experience of the woman. In
+this instance the result was merely an appointment--which both of them
+kept.
+
+Hector McLane came to Paris with noble resolutions, a theory of color,
+and a small allowance. Paris played havoc with all of these. He was
+engaged to a nice girl at home, who believed him destined to become a
+great painter; a delusion which McLane shared.
+
+He entered with great zest into the life of a Parisian art student, but
+somehow the experience did not equal his anticipations. What he had
+read in books--poetry and prose--had thrown a halo around the Latin
+Quarter, and he was therefore disappointed in finding the halo missing.
+The romance was sordid and mercenary, and after a few months of it he
+yearned for something better.
+
+In Paris you may have nearly everything--except the something better.
+It exists, of course, but it rarely falls in the way of the usually
+impecunious art student. Yet it happened that, as luck was not against
+the young man, he found it when he had abandoned the search for it.
+
+McLane's theory was that art had become too sombre. The world was
+running overmuch after the subdued in color. He wanted to be able to
+paint things as they are, and was not to be deterred if his pictures
+were called gaudy. He obtained permission to set up his easel in the
+Church of Notre Dame, and in the dim light there, he endeavored to
+place on canvas some semblance of the splendor of color that came
+through the huge rose window high above him. He was discouraged to see
+how opaque the colors in the canvas were as compared with the
+translucent hues of the great window. As he leaned back with a sigh of
+defeat, his wandering eyes met, for one brief instant, something more
+beautiful than the stained glass, as the handiwork of God must always
+be more beautiful than the handiwork of man. The fleeting glimpse was
+of a melting pair of dark limpid eyes, which, meeting his, were
+instantly veiled, and then he had a longer view of the sweet face they
+belonged to. It was evident that the young girl had been admiring his
+work, which was more than he could hope to have the professor at
+Julien's do.
+
+Lack of assurance was never considered, even by his dearest friend, to
+be among McLane's failings. He rose from his painting stool, bowed and
+asked her if she would not sit down for a moment; she could see the--
+the--painting so much better. The girl did not answer, but turned a
+frightened look upon him, and fled under the wing of her kneeling
+duenna, who had not yet finished her devotions. It was evident that the
+prayers of the girl had been briefer than those of the old woman in
+whose charge she was. Where the need is greatest the prayer is often
+the shortest. McLane had one more transitory glimpse of those dark eyes
+as he held open the swinging door. The unconscious woman and the
+conscious girl passed out of the church.
+
+This was how it began.
+
+The painting of the colored window of Notre Dame now occupied almost
+all the time at the disposal of Hector McLane. No great work is ever
+accomplished without unwearied perseverance. It was remarkable that the
+realization of this truth came upon him just after he had definitely
+made up his mind to abandon the task. Before he allowed the swinging
+door to close he had resolved to pursue his study in color. It thus
+happened, incidentally, that he saw the young girl again, always at the
+same hour, and always with the same companion. Once he succeeded,
+unnoticed by the elder, in slipping a note into her hand, which he was
+pleased and flattered to see she retained and concealed. Another day he
+had the joy of having a few whispered words with her in the dim shadow
+of one of the gigantic pillars. After that, progress was comparatively
+easy.
+
+Her name was Yvette, he learned, and he was amused to find with what
+expert dexterity a perfectly guileless and innocent little creature
+such as she was, managed to elude the vigilance of the aged and
+experienced woman who had her in charge. The stolen interviews usually
+took place in the little park behind Notre Dame. There they sat on the
+bench facing the fountain, or walked up and down on the crunching
+gravel under the trees. In the afternoons they walked in the secluded
+part of the park, in the shadow of the great church. It was her custom
+to send him dainty little notes telling him when she expected to be in
+the park, giving the number of the bench, for sometimes the duenna
+could not be eluded, and was seated there with Yvette. On these
+occasions McLane had to content himself with gazing from afar.
+
+She was so much in earnest that the particular emotion which occupied
+the place of conscience in McLane's being, was troubled. He thought of
+the nice girl at home, and fervently hoped nothing of this would ever
+reach her ears. No matter how careful a man is, chance sometimes plays
+him a scurvy trick. McLane remembered instances, and regretted the
+world was so small. Sometimes a cry of recognition from one on the
+pavement to a comrade in the park, shouted through the iron railings,
+sent a shiver through McLane. Art students had an uncomfortable habit
+of roaming everywhere, and they were boisterous in hailing an
+acquaintance. Besides, they talked, and McLane dreaded having his
+little intrigue the joke of the school. At any moment an objectionable
+art student might drop into the park to sketch the fountain, or the
+nurses and children, or the back of the cathedral at one end of the
+park, or even the low, gloomy, unimposing front of the Morgue at the
+other.
+
+He was an easy-going young fellow, who hated trouble, and perhaps,
+knowing that the inevitable day of reckoning was approaching, this
+accounted for the somewhat tardy awakening of his conscience.
+
+He sometimes thought it would be best simply to leave Paris without any
+explanation, but he remembered that she knew his address, having
+written to him often, and that by going to the school she could easily
+find out where his home was. So if there was to be a scene it was much
+better that it should take place in Paris, rather than where the nice
+girl lived.
+
+He nerved himself up many times to make the explanation and bring down
+the avalanche, but when the time came he postponed it. But the
+inevitable ultimately arrives. He had some difficulty at first in
+getting her to understand the situation clearly, but when he at last
+succeeded there was no demonstration. She merely kept her eyes fixed on
+the gravel and gently withdrew her hand from his. To his surprise she
+did not cry, nor even answer him, but walked silently to and fro with
+downcast eyes in the shadow of the church. No one, he said, would ever
+occupy the place in his heart that she held. He was engaged to the
+other girl, but he had not known what love was until he met Yvette. He
+was bound to the other girl by ties he could not break, which was quite
+true, because the nice girl had a rich father. He drew such a pathetic
+picture of the loveless life he must in the future lead, that a great
+wave of self-pity surged up within him and his voice quavered. He felt
+almost resentful that she should take the separation in such an
+unemotional manner. When a man gets what he most desires he is still
+unsatisfied. This was exactly the way he had hoped she would take it.
+
+All things come to an end, even explanations.
+
+"Well, good-bye, Yvette," he said, reaching out his hand. She hesitated
+an instant, then without looking up, placed her small palm in his.
+
+They stood thus for a moment under the trees, while the fountain beside
+them plashed and trickled musically. The shadow of the church was
+slowly creeping towards them over the gravel. The park was deserted,
+except by themselves. She tried gently to withdraw her hand, which he
+retained.
+
+"Have you nothing to say to me, Yvette?" he asked, with a touch of
+reproach in his voice.
+
+She did not answer. He held her fingers, which were slipping from his
+grasp, and the shadow touched her feet.
+
+"Yvette, you will at least kiss me goodbye?"
+
+She quickly withdrew her hand from his, shook her head and turned away.
+He watched her until she was out of sight, and then walked slowly
+towards his rooms on the Boulevard St. Germain. His thoughts were not
+comfortable. He was disappointed in Yvette. She was so clever, so
+witty, that he had at least expected she would have said something
+cutting, which he felt he thoroughly deserved. He had no idea she could
+be so heartless. Then his thoughts turned to the nice girl at home.
+She, too, had elements in her character that were somewhat bewildering
+to an honest young man. Her letters for a long time had been infrequent
+and unsatisfactory. It couldn't be possible that she had heard
+anything. Still, there is nothing so easy as point-blank denial, and he
+would see to that when he reached home.
+
+An explanation awaited him at his rooms on the Boulevard. There was a
+foreign stamp on the envelope, and it was from the nice girl. There had
+been a mistake, she wrote, but happily she had discovered it before it
+was too late. She bitterly reproached herself, taking three pages to do
+it in, and on the fourth page he gathered that she would be married by
+the time he had the letter. There appeared to be no doubt that the nice
+girl fully realized how basely she had treated a talented, hard-
+working, aspiring, sterling young man, but the realization had not
+seemingly postponed the ringing of the wedding-bells to any appreciable
+extent.
+
+Young McLane crushed the letter in his hand and used strong language,
+as, indeed, he was perfectly justified in doing. He laughed a hard dry
+laugh at the perfidy of woman. Then his thoughts turned towards Yvette.
+What a pity it was she was not rich! Like so many other noble, talented
+men, he realized he could not marry a poor woman. Suddenly it occurred
+to him that Yvette might not be poor. The more he pondered over the
+matter the more astonished he was that he had ever taken her poverty
+for granted. She dressed richly, and that cost money in Paris. He
+remembered that she wore a watch which flashed with jewels on the one
+occasion when he had seen it for a moment. He wished he had postponed
+his explanation for one more day; still, that was something easily
+remedied. He would tell her he had thrown over the other girl for her
+sake. Like a pang there came to him the remembrance that he did not
+know her address, nor even her family name. Still, she would be sure to
+visit the little park, and he would haunt it until she came. The
+haunting would give additional point to his story of consuming love.
+Anyhow, nothing could be done that night.
+
+In the morning he was overjoyed to receive a letter from Yvette, and he
+was more than pleased when he read its contents. It asked for one more
+meeting behind the church.
+
+
+"I could not tell you to-day," she wrote, "all I felt. To-morrow you
+shall know, if you meet me. Do not fear that I will reproach you. You
+will receive this letter in the morning. At twelve o'clock I shall be
+waiting for you on the sixth bench on the row south of the fountain--
+the sixth bench--the farthest from the church."
+                                                 "YVETTE."
+
+McLane was overjoyed at his good luck. He felt that he hardly merited
+it. He was early at the spot, and sat down on the last bench of the row
+facing the fountain. Yvette had not yet arrived, but it was still half
+an hour before the time. McLane read the morning paper and waited.-At
+last the bells all around him chimed the hour of twelve. She had not
+come. This was unusual, but always possible. She might not have
+succeeded in getting away. The quarter and then the half hour passed
+before McLane began to suspect that he had been made the victim of a
+practical joke. He dismissed the thought; such a thing was so unlike
+her. He walked around the little park, hoping he had mistaken the row
+of benches. She was not there. He read the letter again. It was plain
+enough--the sixth bench. He counted the benches beginning at the
+church. One--two--three--four--five. There were only five benches in
+the row.
+
+As he gazed stupidly at the fifth bench a man beside him said--"That is
+the bench, sir."
+
+"What do you mean?" cried McLane, turning toward him, astonished at the
+remark.
+
+"It was there that the young girl was found dead this morning--
+poisoned, they say."
+
+McLane stared at him--and then he said huskily--
+
+"Who--was she?"
+
+"Nobody knows that--yet. We will soon know, for everybody, as you see,
+is going into the Morgue. She's the only one on the bench to-day.
+Better go before the crowd gets greater. I have been twice."
+
+McLane sank on the seat and drew his hand cross his forehead.
+
+He knew she was waiting for him on the sixth bench--the furthest from
+the church!
+
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, THE FACE AND THE MASK ***
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