PAST MASTERS 104

Produced and Edited by Terry Walker ("Pulpmeister") from short stories in magazines, newspapers and other sources, and all in the Life + 70 years public domain.

5 November 2022

Contents

1: A Haunt of the Jinkarras / Ernest Favenc

2: Just a Friendly Game / Irvin S. Cobb

3: The Man Who Lost Himself / Richard Dehan

4: Hard Harman / Dan L. Silverling

5: Woman Proposes / F. E. Clayton

6: The Prince Has The Mumps / Richard Connell

7: The Adventure of the Murdered Art Editor / Frederick Dorr Steele

8: The Woman He Had to Kill / Francis Beeding

9: Financing Finnegan / F. Scott Fitzgerald

10: The Garden Lodge / Willa Cather

11: The Magic Cigar / E. W. Hornung

12: The Gallowsmith / Irvin S. Cobb

13: Out of the Sea / A. C. Benson

14: The Small World / Max Brand

15: The Cask of Amontillado / Edgar A. Poe

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1: A Haunt of the Jinkarras

Ernest Favenc

1846-1908

From Last of Six: Tales of the Austral Tropics, 1893

(First published in The Bulletin magazine in Sydney, but I can't pin down the date. The 1893 book cited above was published by The Bulletin.)  Another edition of the book was published in the UK in 1894, entitled Tales of the Austral Tropics, with slightly different contents, but including this story.)

IN MAY, 1889, the dead body of a man was found on one of the tributaries of the Finke River, in the extreme North of South Australia. The body, by all appearances, had been lying there some months and was accidentally discovered by explorers making a flying survey with camels. Amongst the few effects was a Lett's Diary containing the following narration, which although in many places almost illegible and much weather-stained, has been since, with some trouble, deciphered and transcribed by the surveyor in charge of the party, and forwarded to The Bulletin for publication.

Transcribed From the Dead Man's Diary

MARCH 10, 1888.— Started out this morning with Jackson, the only survivor of a party of three who lost their horses on a dry stage when looking for country— he was found and cared for by the blacks, and finally made his way into the line where I picked him up when out with a repairing-party. Since then I got him a job on the station, and in return he has told me about the ruby-field of which we are now in search; and thanks to the late thunder-storms we have as yet met with no obstacles to our progress. I have great faith in him, but he being a man without any education and naturally taciturn, is not very lively company, and I find myself thrown on to the resource of a diary for amusement.

MARCH 17— Seven days since we left Charlotte Waters, and we are now approaching the country familiar to Jackson during his sojourn with the natives two years ago. He is confident that we shall gain the gorge in the Macdonnell Ranges to-morrow, early.

MARCH 18.— Amongst the ranges, plenty of water, and Jackson has recognised several peaks in the near neighbourhood of the gorge, where he saw the rubies.

MARCH 19.— Camped in Ruby Gorge, as I have named this pass, for we have come straight to the place and found the rubies without any hindrance at all. I have about twenty magnificent stones and hundreds of small ones; one of the stones in particular is almost living fire, and must be of great value. Jackson has no idea of the value of the find, except that it may be worth a few pounds, with which he will be quite satisfied. As there is good feed and water, and we have plenty of rations, will camp here for a day or two and spell the horses before returning.

MARCH 20— Been examining some caves in the ranges. One of them seems to penetrate a great distance— will go to-morrow with Jackson and take candles and examine it.

MARCH 25— Had a terrible experience the last four days. Why on earth did I not go back at once with the rubies? Now I may never get back. Jackson and I started to explore this cave early in the morning. We found nothing extraordinary about it for some time. As usual, there were numbers of bats, and here and there were marks of fire on the rocks, as though the natives had camped there at times. After some searching about, Jackson discovered a passage which we followed down a steep incline for a long distance. As we got on we encountered a strong draught of air and had to be very careful of our candles. Suddenly the passage opened out and we found ourselves in a low chamber in which we could not stand upright. I looked hastily around, and saw a dark figure like a large monkey suddenly spring from a rock and disappear with what sounded like a splash.

"What on earth was that?" I said to Jackson.

"A jinkarra," he replied, in his slow, stolid way. "I heard about them from the blacks; they live under-ground."

"What are they?" I asked.

"I couldn't make out," he replied; "the blacks talked about jinkarras, and made signs that they were underground, so I suppose that was one."

We went over to the place where I had seen the figure and, as the air was now comparatively still and fresh, our candles burnt well and we could see plainly. The splash was no illusion, for an underground stream of some size ran through the chamber, and on looking closer, in the sand on the floor of the cavern, were tracks like a human foot.

We sat down and had something to eat. The water was beautifully fresh and icily cold, and I tried to obtain from Jackson all he knew about the jinkarras. It was very little beyond what he had already told me. The natives spoke of them as something, animals or men, he could not make out which, living in the ranges underground. They used to frighten the children by crying out "jinkarra!" to them at night.

The stream that flowed through the cavern was very sluggish and apparently not deep, as I could see the white sand at a distance under the rays of the candle; it disappeared under a rocky arch about two feet above its surface. Strange to say when near this arch I could smell a peculiar pungent smell like something burning, and this odour appeared to come through the arch. I drew Jackson's attention to it and proposed wading down the channel of the stream if not too deep, but he suggested going back to camp first and getting more rations, which, being very reasonable, I agreed to.

It took us too long to get back to camp to think of starting that day, but next morning we got away early and were soon beside the subterranean stream. The water was bitterly cold but not very deep, and we had provided ourselves with stout saplings as poles and had our revolvers and some rations strapped on our shoulders. It was an awful wade through the chill water, our heads nearly touching the slimy top of the arch, our candles throwing a faint, flickering gleam on the surface of the stream; fortunately the bottom was splendid— hard, smooth sand— and after wading for about twenty minutes we suddenly emerged into another cavern, but its extent we could not discern at first for our attention was taken up with other matters.

The air was laden with pungent smoke, the place illuminated with a score of smouldering fires, and tenanted by a crowd of the most hideous beings I ever saw. They espied us in an instant, and flew wildly about, jabbering frantically, until we were nearly deafened. Recovering ourselves we waded out of the water, and tried to approach some of these creatures, but they hid away in the darker corners, and we couldn't lay hands on any of them. As well as we could make out in the murky light they were human beings, but savages of the most degraded type, far below the ordinary Australian blackfellow. They had long arms, shaggy heads of hair, small twinkling eyes, and were very low of stature. They kept up a confused jabber, half whistling, half chattering, and were utterly without clothes, paint, or any ornaments. I approached one of their fires, and found it to consist of a kind of peat or turf; some small bones of vermin were lying around, and a rude club or two. While gazing at these things I suddenly heard a piercing shriek, and, looking up, found that Jackson, by a sudden spring, had succeeded in capturing one of these creatures, who was struggling and uttering terrible yells. I went to his assistance, and together we succeeded in holding him still while we examined him by the light of our candles. The others, meanwhile dropped their clamour and watched us curiously.

Never did I see such a repulsive wretch as our prisoner. Apparently he was a young man about two or three and twenty, only five feet high at the outside, lean, with thin legs and long arms. He was trembling all over, and the perspiration dripped from him. He had scarcely any forehead, and a shaggy mass of hair crowned his head, and grew a long way down his spine. His eyes were small, red and bloodshot; I have often experienced the strong odour emitted by the ordinary blackfellow when heated or excited, but never did I smell anything so offensive as the rank smell emanating from this creature.

Suddenly Jackson exclaimed: "Look! look! he's got a tail!"

I looked and nearly relaxed my grasp of the brute in surprise. There was no doubt about it, this strange being had about three inches of a monkey-like tail.

"Let's catch another," I said to Jackson after the first emotion of surprise had passed. We looked around after putting our candles upright in the sand. "There's one in that corner," muttered Jackson to me, and as soon as I spotted the one he meant we released our prisoner and made a simultaneous rush at the cowering form. We were successful, and when we dragged our captive to the light we found it to be a woman. Our curiosity was soon satisfied— the tail was the badge of the whole tribe, and we let our second captive go.

My first impulse was to go and rinse my hands in the stream, for the contact had been repulsive to me. Jackson did the same, saying as he did so— "Those fellows I lived with were bad enough, but I never smelt anything like these brutes."

I pondered what I should do. I had a great desire to take one of these singular beings back with me, and I thought with pride of the reputation I should gain as their discoverer. Then I reflected that I could always find them again, and it would be better to come back with a larger party after safely disposing of the rubies and securing the ground.

"There's no way out of this place," I said to Jackson.

"Think not?" he replied.

"No," I said, "or these things would have cleared out; they must know every nook and cranny."

"Umph!" he said, as though satisfied; "shall we go back now?"

I was on the point of saying yes, and had I done so all would have been well; but, unfortunately, some motive of infernal curiosity prompted me to say— "No! let us have a look round first."

Lighting another candle each, so that we had plenty of light, we wandered round the cave, which was of considerable extent, the unclean inhabitants flitting before us with beast-like cries. Presently we had made a half-circuit of the cave and were approaching the stream, for we could hear a rushing sound as though it plunged over a fall. This noise grew louder, and now I noticed that all the natives had disappeared, and it struck me that they had retreated through the passage we had penetrated, which was now unguarded. Suddenly Jackson, who was ahead, exclaimed that there was a large opening. As he spoke he turned to enter it; I called out to him to be careful but my voice was lost in a cry of alarm as he slipped, stumbled, and with a shriek of horror disappeared from my view. So sudden was the shock, and so awful my surroundings, that I sank down utterly unnerved comprehending but one thing: that I was alone in this gruesome cavern inhabited by strange, unnatural creations.

After a while I pulled myself together and began to look around. Holding my candle aloft I crawled on my stomach to where my companion had disappeared. My hand touched a slippery decline; peering cautiously down I saw that the rocks sloped abruptly downwards and were covered with slime as though under water at times. One step on the treacherous surface and a man's doom was sealed— headlong into the unknown abyss below he was bound to go, and this had been the fate of the unhappy Jackson. As I lay trembling on the edge of this fatal chasm listening for the faintest sound from below, it struck me that the noise of the rushing water was both louder and nearer. I lay and listened. There was no doubt about it— the waters were rising. With a thrill of deadly horror it flashed across me that if the stream rose it would prevent my return as I could not thread the subterranean passage under water. Rising hastily I hurried back to the upper end of the cavern following the edge of the water. A glance assured me I was a prisoner, the water was up to the top of the arch, and the stream much broader than when we entered. The rations and candles we had left carelessly on the sand had disappeared, covered by the rising water. I was alone, with nothing but about a candle and a-half between me and darkness and death.

I blew out the candle, threw myself on the sand and thought. I brought all my courage to bear not to let the prospect daunt me. First, the natives had evidently retreated before the water rose too high, their fires were all out and a dead silence reigned. I had the cavern to myself, this was better than their horrid company. Next, the rising was periodical, and evidently was the cause of the slimy, slippery rock which had robbed me of my only companion. I remembered instances in the interior where lagoons rose and fell at certain times without any visible cause. Then came the thought, for how long would the overflow continue. I had fresh air and plenty of water, I could live days; probably the flood only lasted twelve or twenty-four hours. But an awful fear seized on me. Could I maintain my reason in this worse than Egyptian darkness— a darkness so thick, definite and overpowering that I cannot describe it, truly a darkness that could be felt? I had heard of men who could not stand twenty-four hours in a dark cell, but had clamoured to be taken out. Supposing my reason deserted me, and during some delirious interlude the stream fell and rose again.

These thoughts were too agonising. I rose and paced a step or two on the sand. I made a resolution during that short walk. I had matches— fortunately, with a bushman's instinct, I had put a box in my pouch when we started to investigate the cavern. I had a candle and a-half, and I had, thank Heaven! my watch. I would calculate four hours as nearly as possible, and every four hours I would light my candle and enjoy the luxury of a little light. I stuck to this, and by doing so left that devilish pit with reason. It was sixty hours before the stream fell, and what I suffered during that time no tongue could tell, no brain imagine.

That awful darkness was at times peopled by forms that, for hideous horror, no nightmare could surpass. Invisible, but still palpably present, they surrounded and sought to drive me down the chasm wherein my companion had fallen. The loathsome inhabitants of that cavern came back in fancy and gibbered and whistled around me. I could smell them, feel their sickening touch. If I slept I awoke from, perhaps, a pleasant dream to the stern fact that I was alone in darkness in the depth of the earth. When first I found that the water was receding was perhaps the hardest time of all, for my anxiety to leave the chamber tenanted by such phantoms, was overpowering. But I resisted. I held to my will until I knew I could safely venture, and then waded slowly and determinedly up the stream; up the sloping passage, through the outer-cave, and emerged into the light of day— the blessed glorious light, with a wild shout of joy.

I must have fainted; when I came to myself I was still at the mouth of the cave, but now it was night, the bright, starlit, lonely, silent night of the Australian desert. I felt no hunger nor fear of the future; one delicious sense of rest and relief thrilled my whole being. I lay there watching the dearly-loved Austral constellations in simple, peaceful ecstasy. And then I slept, slept till the sun aroused me, and I arose and took my way to our deserted camp. A few crows arose and cawed defiantly at me, and the leather straps bore the marks of a dingo's teeth, otherwise the camp was untouched. I lit a fire, cooked a meal, ate and rested once more. The reaction had set in after the intense strain I had endured, and I felt myself incapable of thinking or purposing anything.

This state lasted for four and twenty hours— then I awoke to the fact that I had to find the horses, and make my way home alone— for, alas, as I bitterly thought, I was now, through my curiosity, alone, and, worst of all, the cause of my companion's death. Had I come away when he proposed, he would be alive, and I should have escaped the awful experience I have endured.

I have written this down while it is fresh in my memory; to-morrow I start to look for the horses. If I reach the telegraph-line safely I will come back and follow up the discovery of this unknown race, the connecting and long-sought-for link; if not, somebody else may find this and follow up the clue. I have plotted out the course from Charlotte Waters here by dead-reckoning.

MARCH 26th:— No sign of the horses. They have evidently made back. I will make up a light pack and follow them. If I do not overtake them I may be able to get on to the line on foot.

End of the Diary

NOTE—

The surveyor, who is well-known in South Australia, adds the following postscript:—

The unfortunate man was identified as an operator on the overland line. He had been in the service a long time, and was very much liked. The facts about picking up Jackson when out with a repairing party have also been verified. The dead man had obtained six months' leave of absence, and it was supposed he had gone down to Adelaide. The tradition of the jinkarras is common among the natives of the Macdonnell Range. I have often heard it. No rubies or anything of value were found on the body. I, of course, made an attempt to get out, but was turned back by the terrible drought then raging. As it is now broken, I am off, and by the time this reaches you shall perhaps be on the spot.

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2: Just a Friendly Game

Irvin S. Cobb

1876-1944

Cosmopolitan March 1931

THREE MEN were riding in the drawing-room of the tail-end sleeper. Two of these men, both youngish men and very well-dressed, sat side by side in the seat which faced forward. The third man was older and more careless in his dress. He was taking his ease on the narrow sofa-thing running parallel with the train, his head being propped against the bulkhead near the door.

The door was open, the morning being hot. The windows were down, though, presumably to keep out the dust and the cinders. The electric fan overhead buzzed at its best speed.

Where the younger passengers sat, the lower parts of their bodies were hidden under one of those removable, slick-topped tables peculiar to Pullmans. The three had breakfasted not long before and their waiter had come from the diner and removed the breakfast dishes and the cloth, but the table remained in place ready for use in case of a card game or a spell of letter-writing activity or something. The pair sitting together had their coats off. Their shirts were rather gay, with collars to match, and their ties were expensive-looking.

Their sprawled companion was in his shirt sleeves, also. His clothes looked as though they might have been slept in; his trousers were wrinkled and bunchy, and his linen was rumpled. His collar was off, showing an Adam's apple well buried in the muscular tissues of a rather thick throat. His waistcoat was unbuttoned and hung agape.

You would have said that here was a person who, regardless of appearances or what the traveling world might think, liked his comfort when aboard the steam cars.

The man nearest the windows glanced through the glass at the parched summer landscape sliding past them with a seeming circular motion.

"Dull-looking country, Eddie," he remarked to his seat mate.

"I'll say so. Gets on your nerves after a while. All that flat stuff mile after mile."

"Traveling's no great sport when you know exactly where you're going and exactly what you'll be doing after you get there. Now, when you're on the loose, looking for new pastures and new sheep, it's different." The speaker made a little grimace of distaste. "Is that the way you feel about it, old-timer, or don't you?"

The semi-recumbent one turned his head. "Speakin' to me?" he asked, with a slow, dragging voice.

"Sure. What I was saying was that it's monotonous to have a trip all mapped out for you beforehand somebody else. What would you say about it?" His tone was slightly on the bantering side.

The other man seemed to be giving the question the benefit of thought. After a small pause he said: "Well, that all depends."

"What all depends?"

"Well, everything, so to speak. If it's pleasure-ridin', that's one thing. If it's business, as you might say, that's another thing. If you want to go where you've headed for or not, as the case might well be, why, that's something else again." He made a little space between that word and his final sentence. "As it were," he added, then.

"Say, tell me something," said the one called Eddie. "Don't you ever come right out and say yes or no to any proposition?"

"Well, yes and no," said the big man, falling into the trap.

At that the two chuckled as they nudged each other. "Old Mister Conservative," said Eddie. "Great piece of work, ain't he, Chick?"

"Sure is," said Chick jovially. "I'll bet you he wouldn't bet you the sun'll go down in the west tonight just because it always has, up to now."

Their victim grinned a reluctant smile for admission that the laugh was on him. "Pays to know what you're sayin' before you say it," he stated defensively. "I'd say, it generally does— or anyhow, sometimes."

"Listen to him," said Eddie— "the champion safety-player of the world."

After that the conversation lulled. The heat and the rattle of the train made them silent. The younger men grew drowsy. Their senior puffed resolutely at rather disheveled cigar as though to keep himself awake, and rested, with his eyes half closed.

A hail through their doorway raised up all three of them.

"Good morning, gentlemen." This one was an exceedingly plumpish, nicely groomed person of about forty, with close-set eyes and a ruddy complexion. He wore a brown mustache and "goatee," and these gave to his face an old-fashioned look which was belied by the cut and fit of his lightweight suit. He had a good tailor; that was sure. He was mopping with a colored handkerchief at a forehead which beaded freely.

"EXCUSE ME for butting in," he went on with an apologetic wheeze, "but I see you've got a table already rigged, and I was just wondering whether you wouldn't like a fourth hand to fill in at a little game of cards, maybe? You know, to sort of pass the time until lunch-time?"

The dapper two in the cross-seat glanced interrogatively at the slovenly man. It was evident that they felt bound to abide by his wishes.

"Well, anyhow, you might as well step in, mister," said the latter. Hospitably he cramped up his knees to make more room at the front end of the sofa. The stranger entered and perched himself on the space thus provided. His manner was genial without being pushy.

"Better have off your coat," suggested Eddie. "This is pretty sultry weather."

"Oh, with that fan of yours going, I'm all right. It's about ten degrees cooler in here than it is up front in that stuffy diner. You're in pretty soft, gentlemen, having this space all to yourselves. Traveling together, I take it?"

"You might put it that way," said the older man, after waiting a moment as though for one of the others to answer. "Yes, sir, you might say we are, and not be so far off one way or the other."

"Say, brother," put in Chick, "ain't you taking a chance, bracing fellows you never saw before for a card game? Don't you ever pay any attention to those signs the Pullman people stick up in all their coaches, now, warning you against playing cards with chance acquaintances?"

"You're whistling, I do," said the fat traveler. "Now, let me tell you gentlemen something that's right in line with that: Not ten minutes ago a fellow that's got a compartment in the compartment car two car-lengths ahead of the next car, where I am, he tackled me for a game of contract. Said he'd picked up a couple more men that would sit in if they could get a fourth.

"They were in there with him, all ready to go. They were letting on to be strangers to one another, but gentlemen, if I ever saw a nice little deadfall rigged and waiting for a sucker to drop into it, that was one. They all three had 'professional' written all over 'em.

"I wonder, now, if I look like as big a sucker as those crooks took me for. I said: 'No, thank you,' and tipped em a mean wink just to let 'em know they couldn't put anything like that over on me, and then I beat it out of there, pronto.

"As a matter of fact, I was organized to play a few hands of something for misses'-and-children's-size stakes if only I could find decent company to do it in. So just a minute ago when I passed your space and hap- pened to look in and saw there were just the three of you camped here, doing nothing, I sized you up at one quick look and knew I'd not be taking chances rifling a deck with you. I figure I know an honest man when I see him. You see, gentlemen, it's like this: I pride myself on being a pretty fair amateur psychologist."

"You pride yourself on which?" asked the collarless man.

"On my psychology— on the way I can size people up for what they are, just by how they look and by what they say and how they act. I've made quite a study of it. It's fun to practice it when I'm away from home. Helps a fellow in business, too. Of course, anybody is liable to be wrong once in a while but I figure I don't make many very bad mistakes in the course of a year."

"It's maybe a regular trade with you, then?"

"Not a trade exactly. You might call it a specialty. Some people do make a regular trade of it. I'm just a nonprofessional."

"All right, brother; we'll put you to the test," said Chick. "You've looked the three of us over. Now, how would you size us up?"

Ginine the problem brief study, the newcomer shifted his squinted eyes search- - ingly from one to another.

"Well, I tell you," he said. "I'd size up this party this way: You two, now'—he indicated Chick and Eddie— "you two, I'd guess, offhand, are from the East somewhere. Probably you're partners in business. Or, anyhow, I'd say you've been associated together a good deal. Both American-born. Pretty well educated. Each one of you has seen his share of the world.

"I wouldn't put you down for salesmen, exactly. Maybe you're bankers, maybe stockbrokers, maybe promoters, maybe in real estate; that's possibly it, real estate. Whatever you are, you stand well. People who take your word for a thing don't make any mistake.

"Now, then, I come to you." He was addressing the blocky man alongside him. "You're American stock, too, but you belong out here in this middle-western country. I'd say you were raised on a farm but that you live now in a good-sized town. You're slow to make up your mind, but when you do make it up you stick to it.

"It's my guess that you've hit on a good investment proposition out here somewhere— land, probably, or possibly oil leases— and that you've been in correspondence with these two gentlemen and they've come on out here on your say-so and you're taking them to look the thing over with a view to developing it or something. And all three of you are good straight-shooters— parties that can be trusted.

"Well, gentlemen, am I right or am I wrong, or am I part right and part wrong?"

"Brother, you're one swell little guesser. I've got to hand it to you there!" exclaimed Chick. His tone might have been one of sincere admiration, or again it might have been on the gently mocking order. There was no way of telling.

"But how near right was my guess?— that's what I'd like to know."

"Let it go as it is," put in Eddie. "Chick, here, he says it all when he says we've got to hand it to you. That's right, eh, old-timer?"

The conservative member of the trio seemed to be undecided whether he should nod his head or shake it. So he did neither.

"It's a good idea— generally, or I should say, frequently— to let the majority rule," he admitted after a little delay. "At least, a good many think so."

"My name's Bradley, gentlemen— H. P. Bradley, of Detroit," stated the stranger.

"Meet Mr. Hayner, there on your left, Brother Bradley," said Eddie. '"He's an important guy and entitled to a handle on his name. I answer to plain 'Eddie,' when you call me for meals, and this smart boy next the window here admits that he's known as 'Chick.'"

"Pleased to meet you, gentlemen," said Mr. Bradley, and rising, he shook hands with each in turn. "Now, then, if you're agreeable, how about that little card game for chicken-feed stakes?"

They were agreeable. There was a short discussion over a choice of games. It was agreed that four-handed poker even with deuces wild was too tame. Bradley liked bridge; so did Chick and Eddie. Mr. Hayner, though, had never played bridge. "I can make a sorter stagger at playin' seven-up," he suggested. But Bradley didn't know seven-up.

By elimination it came out that all four could play "rummy" or "mush," as Mr. Hayner rather timidly called it. So they settled on one of the several sets of rules governing that very flexible pastime and fixed the prices of the chips at exceedingly moderate figures, and Chick rang the bell and the porter came and from him they got two decks of cards and borrowed some chips. Eddie acted as banker and counted out the chips: So many blues apiece; so many reds; so many whiites.

"Bradley scrooged into the vacant cross-seat facing Eddie and Chick across the table. "T'll sit here," he said. "Sorry I fill up so much room. I'm about thirty pounds overweight, and that's a fact, friends. Still, I could possibly make space for you, if you don't mind being crowded." He was speaking to Hayner. It was plain, though, that if Hayner did accept the invitation he would be very much crowded indeed.

"No, don't bother," said Mr. Hayner. He sat up and hunched down a foot or so, so that by bending slightly forward he could play across the projecting end of the table. "This'll do fine for me," he said.

With the luck shifting first one way and then another, the game went on for about two hours, or until almost noon. Eddie was the most consistent winner. He was eight dollars and a half ahead when the game broke up.

Mr. Bradley looked at his watch and appeared aston- ished to find it lacked but a very few minutes of being twelve o'clock. He begged to be excused in order that he might go to the wash room to tidy up before luncheon was called. Mr. Bradley had lost one dollar and ninety. The cautious Mr. Hayner lacked just ten cents of being even. So Chick was the chief loser.

SETTLEMENTS having been made, Mr. Bradley shook hands again all round and expressed the hope of seeing all three of them sometime and thanked them for the pleasure they had given him and departed. He previously had stated that he expected to get off at the next stop, around two-thirty in the afternoon. This train was a flyer and stopped only at important places.

As soon as he was out of sight, Chick and Eddie chortled gleefully, Mr. Hayner contributing appre- ciative wheezes and rumbling sounds.

"Wouldn't that give you a big laugh?" exclaimed Eddie. "I had a hard job all the time the fat stiff was in here, keeping my face straight. Him and his psychology!"

"My hardest job was keeping my feet still," said Chick. "I didn't dast move 'em an inch the whole time."

"Me either," said Eddie, "and now both my legs have gone to sleep. Old-timer, would you mind unhooking this table and putting it to one side for a few minutes? We can put it back when we get ready to eat. But shut that door first— somebody passing might look in and get a thrill."

"I reckin maybe it's likely that might be a good thing for you boys," conceded Mr. Hayner. So, having closed and bolted the door leading into the car, he unsocketed the table from its slot under the window sill and folded its single leg under, and upended it in the narrow aisle.

With a brisk metallic clattering for each movement, the seat mates stamped their feet, then flexed their numbed knee joints, then heaved their legs up on the Seat opposite them. They clattered so because they both were ironed. A steel cuff was snugly fitted about each ankle and a short chain of bright steel links dangled between both pairs of ankles.

When they boarded the Limited in the middle of the hight, the two had worn these shackles, and in addition had been handcuffed together. When they were making ready for bed, Hayner had relieved them of the leg chains while they were slipping on the trousers of their pajamas, then had rehobbled them and removed the cuffs so they might put on their pajama jackets. Chick had occupied the lower berth. Eddie, with help from Hayner, had managed to climb into the upper i Hayner, staying awake, had bunked upon the sora.

At the getting-up hour in the morning, he had repeated the alternating process of unchaining their limbs for long enough to let them get their trousers on. Once taken off, the handcuffs had been stowed away, the understanding being that these bonds were not to be fastened on them again until just before they reached their destination.

The Pullman conductor and the train conductor and, of course, the porter on their car, knew these two were prisoners in transit, but those persons had been asked to curb any temptation they might feel for spreading the news through the train; and the porter's silence had further been guaranteed by a promise from Chick of a nobly augmented tip later. Not even the waiter who had served them with breakfast was aware that a brace of his patrons were under arrest. When he came to take their orders, the little table was in place and they were sitting behind it.

Chick and Eddie, to keep on giving them their familiar titles, were on their way, under extradition, from Iowa to Wyoming, there to stand trial in Federal Court on indictments alleging frauds against the United States mails. Both had long police records.

Hayner was the deputy marshal to whom had been assigned the responsibility of delivering them at Cheyenne. Their reputations as shrewd and daring offenders being what they were, he was taking no chances on losing his men en route; hence their constantly fettered state. But he had been accommodatingly willing to save them, in so far as was possible, from the embarrassment of being morbidly stared at. So there was no ill-feeling on either side.

On the contrary, there was now a joke mutually to be enjoyed at the expense of that deluded Detroiter. Chick kept mimicking the fellow's cocksure style, and Eddie kept murmuring, "Poor fish, poor fish!" and laughing until his sides ached, he said. Hayner didn't laugh out, but in his quiet way showed he enjoyed the fun as much as they did.

Presently, without being asked to do so, he readjusted the table back in place over their laps and opened the car door, and this let the air circulate better.

After that he fumbled about  a bit as though uncertain as to his next move, and then said:

"I really had ought to be fixin' up that there telegram I've got to send-on ahead from the next stop. If you boys'll excuse me a couple of minutes or so, I'll ramble up ahead and try to rustle up a telegram blank in one of the other cars. That porter of ours couldn't find one, but I sorter think that maybe it's likely I can. Anyhow, I'll sort of scout around, as it were."

"Go right ahead, as it were," said Chick

"It's a cinch we'll still be here when you get back."

And Eddie added: "Even if I was foot-loose, I wouldn't care to try stepping off a train going fifty miles an hour."

"Oh, I wasn't pesterin' none about that part of it," said Hayner apologetically. He got up and wriggled into his wrinkly coat and started forward.

SUDDENLY grown tense, the two younger men waited until his squared shape was out of sight. Then:

"Everything Jake?" asked Chick, in a guarded, eager undertone.

"Surest thing you know." There was a restrained but singing jubilance for an undertone to Eddie's half-whispered response. "I've got the stuff right here"— he patted a bulging trouser pocket— "I stowed it away here the minute Britt passed it across under that table."

"Good old Britt!"

"Good old Britt is right! When he told us in that message he got across to us back in that hoosgow that he'd. come through for us before we landed in Cheyenne, I knew he would, somehow, no matter how big a risk he had to take himself. As it's turned out, there hasn't been any real risk— not with that boob riding herd on us."

"Sure he slipped you everything we need?"

"As sure as I can be from the heft of the stuff and from fingering it. I know the master keys are here— one set for me and one for you— because I can feel 'em. And a couple of sharp files, in case the keys don't work. And a flexible black-jack all rolled up nice and tight. Look, you can see the shape of it through the cloth. And two little bottles— one chloroform and the other crude ammonia. That's what Britt wised us it would be— ammonia and dope, too."

"Great! He didn't overlook anything."

"He wouldn't."

"With the boob gone, we might make our break now— while he's still gone. We could bolt that door and—"

"Don't be foolish. He'll be back any minute. We stick to the original layout."

"But that means waiting until to-night?"

"Sure it does. D'ye want to spoil our chance by being too hasty? I don't, and I'm not going to. Not a minute before tonight do we make a move, and the later it is the better I'll be suited, This train stops twice between midnight and daylight. Get that— two stops! Well, One of those stops will be ours."

"O.K. with me, the way you put it. I just got anxious, that's all."

"Well, don't get anxious and don't get nervous, either."

"But— but we got to keep the materials hid between now and then?"

"Trust me for that. They'll be safe enough staying where they are right here in my kicks. When we're getting undressed tonight, you be sure to go first. While he's fussing with you, I'll be sitting in the lower berth. It's the one I had last night. I'll have it again tonight. Sitting there, I'll shift the bundle and slip it under the pillows or behind the mattress. Then we're all set.

"He'll sleep some tonight. He'll have to. That Johnny Raw can't stay awake two nights in a row—that's a cinch. I'll be watching, pretending to be asleep; you'll do the same. The minute he dozes off, I'll straighten up and then, bango on his bean with the blackjack! I'll sink it into his thick skull.

"That'll be your office to swarm down on him from above— in case I don't lay him out cold the first lick. There'll be the ammonia to choke him and blind him with, if my lick fails to land center or you don't drop on him hard enough to put him out. After that, for good measure, we use the chloroform.

"With any kind of luck, he'll never know what struck him and nobody out in this sleeper will hear a sound through that door there, either— not if we work fast and work right. Then we're sitting pretty, with all the time we need for getting rid of these dam' shackles and dressing ourselves, and then, when she slows up for the next stop after that, we slide off while she's still moving slow.

"After that, it's up to us. Anyhow, we'll have a good start on the bulls. There're apt to be stray cars parked round the stations in all these towns. And we both can drive. Oh, it's a fair-enough prospect for a clean get-away."

"Better than a prospect, I claim," exulted Eddie. "I claim with any kind of a break in our favor we can't lose. We're started off swell, that's something. Everything's clicked like a watch up to now. So all we—"

The speaker's fallen jaw left the sentence unfinished. Then his companion looked where he was looking and, from shock and a terrific chagrin, his under jaw likewise sagged.

A short procession, which had passed along the aisle, was at their door. In front moved Britt, alias Bradley. Their confederate was in a sore state. His egg-shaped face wore an almost comic look of helpless distress. He came with dragging steps, like a deep-sea diver in lead-soled boots. All his confidence, all his jauntiness, was gone from him, and confusion enveloped him like a garment.

Behind him, gently urging him along as a mahout might urge along a balky but harmless baby elephant, was Hayner. And behind Hayner, in turn, was a pop-eyed porter carrying a suitcase.

"That'll do, and much obliged to you," said Hayner, and reaching rearward, he relieved the fascinated porter of the bag. "Go right on in," he said to Britt, "and set down, please. Your old place where you was before will do first-rate."

HE FOLLOWED the stumbling Britt in, closing the door in the black man's disappointed face. He waited until his new prisoner had wedged himself in behind the table. There was a stricken silence on Britt and on the others as well.

"Now then, we're all comfortable and cozy again same as 'twas during our little mush game," said the deputy, seating himself on the edge of the sofa. He addressed Eddie.

"S'pose, son," he said, "s'pose you reach down in your right-hand front pocket and pass me over that there heavy little parcel that's pullin' your pants all out of shape? That's the next step, so to speak. Thanky, son," he acknowledged as the stunned and beaten plotter hauled forth a bundle that was wrapped and tied in a handkerchief, and laid it on the table-top. Tentatively, Hayner poked it with a knobby forefinger.

"We won't open her up just yet to see what's inside," he commented. "You boys already know, I expect, and I could make a sort of a rough guess myself.

"I got to confess that I ain't been absolutely fair and above-board with you two boys." He made a short gesture toward the seat-mates. "When I left you just now, I told you I was goin' to write out a telegram. Well, to tell you the whole truth, that was in my mind but it wasn't all that was in my mind. I'll write her out later, tellin' the Cheyenne folks that instead of two I'll have three boys along with me when we get off this train in the mornin'.

"I wouldn't say but what seein' three of your crowd, where they was only lookin' for two, might be a sort of a pleasant little surprise party for em. But my main reason when I left you was to have a little talk with him, here." He indicated the unhappy Britt.

"I just wanted to make reasonably sure in my own mind about one or two little points. So, figgerin' it wouldn't do any harm to leave you for a minuie or so, I went on up to his car and ast him a few questions— maybe six questions, maybe seven or eight; I wouldn't want you to tie me down to the exact number— and then I felt better satisfied and I sort of induced him, so to speak, to come on back here with me and join up with our outfit, so we could have all our eggs in the one basket— as it were."

Now at last the trapped one found his tongue and uplifted it in protest. But his belated bluff was futile and feeble and had no heart in it.

"You'll pay for this— this outrage," he sputtered weakly. "Coming in there on me without any warrant and drawing a gun on me. You— you'll see."

"Now don't get yourself het-up," counseled Mr. Hayner. "Gettin' all het-up and excited in weather like this is bad for you, some people say. Besides, there's a chance that them Cheyenne folks might argue the point with you. As you doubtless may know, they've been lookin' for other fellows that're still missin' which they claim was mixed up in the same post-office mess that they claim Eddie and Chick, here, was mixed up in, and seems like to me— I won't be positive, but it seems like I did hear that one of these missin' boys was about your general build and general complexion, although smooth-shaved.

"We'll let them Cheyenne folks decide about that, though; that'll be their responsibility." He paused briefly, then resumed: "Maybe all three of you boys might like to hear how I came to work out this present new proposition in my mind? I'm reasonably sure I'd like to hear about it, if so be I was you and you was me— that is, I'm pretty sure I would. Well, then, if you really would care to hear, 'twas sort of this way:

"Let's take this friend here." He nodded toward Britt. "In the first place, when he comes in here proposin' a game of cards, he won't take his coat off. That don't seem exactly natural, him bein' sort of fleshy-built and perspirin' considerable at the time. So I takes me a sort of sideways squint in his general direction and I see that one of his coat pockets is sagged away down from something heavy that he's carryin' in it.

"On top of that I also takes notice that he's wearin' that there mustache and goatee, which they don't seem to match exactly with the rest of him; and besides all of which else it's plain to be seen he probably ain't been wearin' 'em very long, either, they bein' sort of shortish and new-lookin'. So then it sort of occurs to me that maybe if he was smooth-faced, it's just barely humanly possible his face might seem more familiar to me than what it does. Not that I probably ever saw him before, but maybe I'd seen his photo somewheres in a gallery or somewheres like that. That's what I says to myself.

"Still, you ain't justified to go suspicionin' a stranger just because he will wear his coat whether or no, and just because he's sproutin' new hair on the lower end of his face—now, are you, boys? But when he gets up to go, I can't help seein' that his pocket, which was so heavy-laden before, is now empty; yet he don't speak of havin' dropped anything or lost anything. And after he leaves us, I can't help from seein' that Eddie, here, has got a biggish kind of a lump in his pants pocket, and I can't seem to recall ever seein' that lump there before, and that seems sort of funny, too.

"It was when I was takin' down this table and again when I was puttin' it back for you that I saw that lump, and naturally, so to speak, a thing like that's calculated to make a fellow still more and more curious. So, takin' one thing with another, as it were, I feel sort of a promptin' to stir around and here's the result— four of us, all headin' for Cheyenne, instead of three.

"If you must know, there was one other thing besides the little things I just mentioned which likewise set me thinkin' along this particular line. F'rinstance, now, this stout friend here, he drops in and, right off, he does more or less talkin' about bein' able to size up a stranger by his looks and ways and all, and then when my turn comes to be sized up, he says to me, he says, that he figgers me to be an oil prospector a land cruiser or something like that,

"And yet, right while he's sayin' that, I can't help from noticin' that he must  see this old pistol of mine hangin' in this here shoulder-holster, my vest bein' buttoned and swingin' the way it still is, and furthermore and likewise, he's bound to see this set of government bracelets layin' in plain view on top of the stuff I've got in this here valise of mine, and it with the catch unlatched and stretched wide open— oh, that reminds me!" He reached into the gaping hand bag and brought forth the cuffs and said apologetically to Eddie and Chick:

"You two boys will have to make out the best way you can durin' the rest of trip with what you've got locked on your legs, because it looks like we'll be needin' these fur this friend." So saying, he adjusted the cuffs upon the unresisting Britt's pudgy wrists.

Having done this, Mr. Hayner settled back. Then, as an afterthought, he rounded out his monologue with a concluding reflection:

"I judge you wouldn't be so far wrong if you was to say that there's something in this here science of sizin' up people and then puttin' two and two together and gettin' an answer. Now, you take me. As I look back on it, seems like to me I've been doin' that very same thing all my life, or anyhow ever since I went into this here present business, but I never knew before that there was any special fancy name for it or that I might have any real right to call myself one of these psychologists— as it were!"

______________

3: The Man Who Lost Himself

Richard Dehan

(Clotilde Graves, 1863-1932)

A Sailor's Home, and other stories, 1919

"THE Great Day," said Johnson-Williams, one day in the Middle Victorian Era, "will dawn at last."

"The great day?" I interrogated.

"The glorious Day," replied Johnson-Williams, looking through the rails of the mahogany partition which divided his desk from mine, like a caged enthusiast, "when every person of intellect and understanding residing in these realms will be found to own himself or herself a member of the Theosophical Society; when Motive Power will be replacd by Psychic Force, and the principles of Mahatmaism will be instilled into the unfolding mind of the smiling infant as it lies across the— in short— the maternal knee; when the Visible world will give place to the Unseen, and the Practicability of a project be determined by its Impossibility."

"This," I hazarded, trying to look wise, "would alter the universe materially."

Johnson-Williams nodded.

"Alter it for the better?" I went on, "or for the worse?"

"For the worse?" echoed Johnson-Williams. "Oh, of course! Yes, for the worse!" He uttered these words with such sneering intensity that I gathered at once that I had made a mistake. I would have spoken, but he plucked his pen from behind his ear and hurled himself upon the big ledger as though it had been his bitterest foe. I fell to work upon a pile of insurance policies. The clock struck three. The door of the inner office was torn violently open, and the junior clerks shuddered in their boots as the portly form of the Head of the Finn rolled down the central aisle of desks and vanished. An interval elapsed. Young Simpson came out of his little business hutch carrying a gorgeous crocodile-leather travelling-bag. "Saturday to Monday— Brighton," seemed written upon it and on him in large capitals. He paused at the door, listening until his parent's footsteps ceased to echo on the stairs. Then, bestowing upon us collectively what, had he not recently attained to the dignity of junior partner, would have been a wink, he went away whistling. Our working partner followed; one by one the junior clerks dropped away. Comhill was quieter than usual, it being Saturday afternoon.

"For the worse?" quoted Johnson-Williams derisively, looking at me through the railings again. "Ha, ha! Look here. You're fond of change, ain't you?"

"Change!"

"Excitement? Novelty? Foreign travel?"

I had spent a week at Dieppe two years previously. I spoke of this experience, and admitted that it had been an enjoyable one.

"Dieppe," repeated Johnson-Williams scornfully.

"It is rather far off," I agreed.

"Far off!" repeated Johnson-Williams— I wished he would not repeat! "Suppose that it were possible for you to go anywhere you liked in an instant, without asking for a holiday or buying a ticket? Suppose that it were possible for you to traverse continents and cross seas— to annihilate Time and swallow up Space— merely by the exercise of your own volition? Suppose you not only found it feasible, but easy, to visit a friend in China at eleven a.m. and to be sitting down to lunch in New York at one-thirty, calling in at Vladivostok, or taking Alexandria on the way home to dinner, would that be the worse for you or the better?"

"It would be most enjoyable," I admitted, "but at the same time a little exhausting. No human constitution could possibly stand the wear and tear."

"If you happened to be a Theosophical Adept, you would leave your constitution behind you," said Johnson-Williams. "Your body would remain at home, or perhaps seated at the office desk, in a posture of reflection, while your soul was really taking a holiday. Take the case of an experienced Mahatma incarcerated in a prison for debt! His corporeal frame would remain in the custody of the law, it is true, but all the time his airy double might be roaming about in perfect liberty and running up fresh bills elsewhere. The subject is an immense one, my dear Pegley. There is absolutely no limit to its possibilities!"

Beads of perspiration stood on Johnson-Williams's brow, and he wiped them away with a shaking hand. It was plain that he was intensely interested in his subject.

"And can you— have you really accomplished all this?" I asked eagerly.

His countenance gloomed over as he replied, "Not exactly; not yet— that is— you see, I have not long been a member of the Society, and it requires a considerable amount of knowledge and plenty of practice to attain to the— the Pitch I have mentioned. One must have time, and my time is limited. Last Saturday afternoon I had really succeeded in concentrating my faculties to an astonishing extent. I felt that in another moment something extraordinary might be expected to happen; but my landlady looked in to ascertain whether I would take a rasher with my tea or a lightly-boiled egg, and the opportunity was lost. I do not know when it may occur again. But I shall have two and a half days' holiday at Easter." His countenance brightened. He nodded at me again, saying, "Then we shall see!"

"Have any of the members of your particular branch of the Society succeeded in attaining to the necessary Pitch?" I inquired.

"N-no," hesitated Johnson-Williams. "The fact really is, the young people are for the most part actively engaged in business, like myself. But we receive most encouraging communications from older branches from time to time, and we have great hopes of one of our number. If any one of us attains to the Pitch, that one will be Chorley. Chorley is becoming quite an Adept. He is employed as foreman by a well-known distillery company; and the extensive liquor vaults belonging to the establishment afford him opportunities for seclusion and contemplation and self-concentration of a very superior kind. I really wish you would attend one of the meeting of our society and hear Chorley relate his experiences."

"They are—"

"Wonderful!" said Johnson-Williams, getting off his stool. "I am going home now to my lodgings, and if the theatrical young lady upstairs does not particularly want to practise her step-dancing, and my landlady should happen to have taken the childen out for the day, I should regard it as quite providential, I assure you."

I asked him to come and lunch with me first.

"Exceedingly hospitable of you, my dear fellow," said Johnson-Williams gratefully; "but I am at present subsisting on a regimen which is more in accordance with the peculiar Aims I entertain than chops. Frugal but nourishing. Wholemeal porridge, enlivened with raw apples, and an occasional charcoal biscuit, with cold water to wash it down. The gurgling tap of the modem Theosophist is identical with the purling rill of the ancient Pythagorean, if not so nice. And I am careful about having the liquid boiled and filtered, so that no peril of any kind may be associated with the experiment, as the chemical demonstrators say, when they are not under immediate apprehension of a blow-up!"

I admired his self-denial and perseverance, and said so.

"Oh! as to that," replied Johnson-Williams, "when a man has a particular end in view, he doesn't mind a little hardship, more or less."

"And your end is the advancement of Science?" I hazarded.

"Perhaps, yes," said Johnson-Williams, taking off his hat, which he had just put on, and passing his long fingers through his hair, which was of a sandy colour and an upright growth. "But were I to deny that my chief motive is a personal one, I should be wilfully deceiving you."

I looked at him interrogatively. His pale features worked with emotion; he laid his hand— a long thin hand— upon my arm.

"I am about to repose a great confidence in you, my dear Pegley," he said, blushing.

I wondered what the confidence was going to be.

ii

JOHNSON-WILLIAMS came round to my side of the desk and sat upon the stool, immediately facing me.

"The desire to travel," I hinted, "was your leading motive?"

"Hardly that," said Johnson-Williams. "I am a matter-of-fact fellow, and this quarter of the globe is good enough for me. If I want to know anything about foreign countries I can get 'em up in Maunder's, and add the details of costume and local colouring out of the Illustrated Geographical Encyclopaedia. But the enormous facilities for inexpensive and instant communication with relatives or— or— friends residing at a distance, which the attainment of Adeptship would place at my disposal, constitute, I must confess, the special attractions of the Theosophic Cult, from my limited point of view. You may not be aware of it, but I am engaged."

I had not been aware of it, and I hastened to congratulate him.

"She is a young lady of great personal attractions," said Johnson-Williams, blinking at me from behind his glasses, "and, like myself, poor— poor. She occupies, in fact, the position of daily governess in the family of a well-to-do coal proprietor, residing at Merthyr Tydvil. We are both Welsh by birth, and in marrying me she will not be compelled to make any radical alterations in her surname, as far as marking is concerned; for her name is Williams-Johnson— Miss Williams-Johnson. 'Johnson' will have to be picked out, or cut out, of course, and put before the 'Williams'; but the saving in time, trouble and marking-cotton will, as she herself says, be considerable. She is a delightful girl. I have not seen her," said Johnson-Williams thoughtfully, "since I came up to London six years ago. Our incomes being so limited, the railway fare between London and Merthyr Tydvil— even third class— constitutes an effectual barrier between— in short, Gwendollen and myself. But I make no doubt she is as delightful as ever. I do not possess a portrait of her, as photography is a comparatively expensive process. And we cannot correspond as frequently as we would wish, for the same economical reason. Thus, as you will see, the attainment of my object would be, to both of us, a positive Boon."

He got off the stool and went away, but turned back at the door to remind me that the Easter holidays were not very far off. He was cold and reserved in his manner next Monday, and I guessed that he partly repented having taken me into his confidence regarding the young lady at Merthyr Tydvil. For another thing, he was excessively busy, and so walled in, encompassed by, and built up with the ledgers of the firm, that he was less assailable, from a conversational point of view, than a Recluse of the Middle Ages.

And so the days passed over. But on the Saturday afternoon immediately preceding Easter Monday he sought me out in quite a special sort of way, and bade me good-bye almost effusively, for him. His hat slid to the back of his head as he shook my hand, and several volumes which he was carrying under his arm tumbled noisily to the floor. I helped him pick them up, and glanced at the titles. "Ashtaroth Made Easy" was one; "Proofs Positive of the Solidarity of Spooks" another; "The Young Theosophist: an Easy First Primer To The Attainment Of The Occult," a third; "How To Make a Mahatma," a fourth. They were lent, he explained, by his Society. And he shook my hand again before we parted, and thanked me for the sympathy I had exhibited, and added that he felt somehow as if he were upon the verge of a great discovery. I gave him the address of the lodgings where I intended to spend the vacation, and invited him to run down and see me sometimes. He thanked me, shaking his head with a mild kind of despondency. And so we parted.

I spent my Easter holiday, I hope, harmlessly and healthfully enough, and in a style that was in accordance with my comparatively limited income. Upon a salary of seventy pounds, even when buttressed and supported by an annual present of ten, it is possible for a City Clerk to exist, if not to live, and even to set apart a margin for mild relaxation and sober recreation— of a kind. But enjoyment, fun, frolic, sport, jollification, are quantities to him unknown. In his inmost soul he secretly cherishes the intention of having what is technically known as a High Old Time at some future day, but the date of that day is ever indeterminate. Sometimes it is virtually fixed, and looms before him as a glorious practicability, but before it comes off he may die of old age or excessive joy. For your true City clerk is a sensitive creature. Much chafing of the os pectoris against the edge of the office desk has tended to the thinning of the wall which was originally designed to protect the human heart from the slings and arrows which are continually aimed by the world against that citadal of the emotions. But I digress.

In the village of Hampton Wick, therefore— in the house of an excellent widow who had had long experience in the taking in of the City gentlemen, and could underboil a potato or calcine a chop with any member of her sisterhood who ever stood in list slippers— I passed three days of my vacation. My canoe— a present from an old fellow-clerk, now a well-to-do Manitoban fanner— I had had sent up, and when the dear old river was not too lumpy to be agreeable, I paddled about the quiet reaches between Kingston and Twickenham, or dug my way upstream as far as Shepperton or Molesey. Or I smoked my pipe under the gnarled thorns and budding chestnuts of Richmond Park, and read "Lavengro" over again, or dipped into the jolly pages of Rabelais or Chaucer, and was never dull or dismal until the evening of the very last day. Easter Monday was drawing to a close— I must return to business on the following morning. It had been a wet Bank Holiday, and as the rainy night closed in, and the evil-smelling paraffin lamp was lighted, and the mousy odours of ancient cupboards began to draw comparisons with dry-rot and old mouldiness, and the three stunted pollard-beeches that kept 'watch and ward over the little weedy front garden threw their distorted goblin shadows on the drawn-down calico blind, I could have wished for some companionship livelier than that of the stuffed grouse under the glass case on the sideboard, or the blunt-nosed red-and-white china spaniels on the mantel-shelf, or the portrait of a lady unknown— in Berlin wools— hung above. As to cultivating the society of my landlady, that was out of the question. I stared hard at the glowing coke embers and glided almost imperceptibly into a smooth sea of reflection. Suddenly its waters became troubled. Before the eye of my imagination up bobbed a sandy head, and I smiled, identifying it as the property of Johnson-Williams. Poor fellow! I smiled again as I pictured him, patiently supporting his holiday upon that ascetic regimen of wholemeal porridge, raw apples, and charcoal biscuits. I wondered whether he had made any progress in the cult of Theosophy? whether he was any nearer to the fulfilment of his aim than he had been when I saw him last? Did the theatrical young lady continue to harass him by saltatory gambols performed overhead? Was his landlady still persecuting him with assiduous solicitudes upon the subject of rashers and lightly-boiled London eggs?

Mph!!

I drew out my handkerchief and flapped it, and glanced towards the window with a developing intention of opening it, for the atmosphere of the room was decidedly hazy. Perhaps the chimney smoked! But the fire burned perfectly clear. It must be that villainous paraffin lamp. My mind, which had been full of Johnson-Williams, discharged itself of its personality.

And in the same instant—

iii

AND IN the same instant the haziness vanished. I leant my head back upon the bumpy chintz cushion of the straddle-legged easy chair. I resumed my train of thought It brought Johnson-Williams in with the very first batch of passengers. He buttonholed me, mentally, and wouldn't be shaken off. And the room was getting smoky again. It must be something wrong with the register of the grate. Quite a cloud, or, to be correct, a column of nebulous bluish vapour hung in the space between the fender and my arm-chair. I wondered idly at its peculiar shape, which was that of a trunk, bifurcated at the upper and lower extremities. It had, so to speak, arms and legs, and— yes, a head! The legs were getting more distinct every minute. And— it was an absurd idea enough— but they certainly bore a resemblance to the legs of Johnson-Williams, on which he invariably wore trousers of a material which he asserted to be real Welsh tweed, of extraordinary durability and cheapness. And all at once the conviction came upon me, not with a staggering shock, or a chill shudder, but with a sensation of calm unemotional surprise, that in very reality, those familiar garments were standing upon the hearthrug in front of me, with Johnson-Williams inside them.

Perhaps his boots came home to me most keenly. They were of the obsolete spring-sided make, very ponderous of sole, and garnished upon the insteps with little round flat buttons that did not button up anything. I had often wondered whether, like the rest of Johnson-Williams, they had been made in Wales. With a dreamy, pleasurable sense of recognition, I let my glance travel upwards to the black waistcoat, garnished with a nickel watch-chain— from thence to the Navy blue cravat with a little bird's-eye specks of orange on it— from that to a linen collar with brown horseshoes (Johnson-Williams had always been partial to linen of a pictorial description). This stage led me easily to his chin, and in the same way I scaled his upper lip— a long and steep one— and mounted to his eyes. Then I nodded.

"Good-evening," said Johnson-Williams, distantly, in both senses of the word, because his manner was constrained and nervous, and his voice sounded faint and hollow as if it came from a long way off.

"Good-evening, old fellow," I returned. "D'you know, I must have been asleep and dreaming of you when you came in, for I opened my eyes, and there you were, like a vision!" I jumped up and shook myself as I spoke, and glanced towards the cupboard where the whisky-bottle and the soda-syphon stood. It seems so natural to offer a man a drink when he has come a long way to see you. And it was late already. I should probably have to harbour my guest for the night. There was a mechanical trick-bed in the sitting-room. It had annoyed me by the flagrant transparency of its attempt to look like a bookcase, but now it would meet an emergency. There would be bread-and-cheese, potted bloaters, and Scotch ale for supper, and for breakfast— I must talk to my landlady about breakfast.

"I am afraid you are tired, old fellow!" I cried, with sudden concern, for Johnson-Williams had grown strangely pale and shadowy. But as I fixed my wavering attention on him he seemed to revive, and refused my proffer of refreshment with a faint smile.

"No stimulant, thank you, my dear Pegley." He waved away the whisky-bottle as he spoke.

"After your railway journey?" I urged.

"I did not travel down," returned Johnson-Williams, "by rail."

"You walked?" I uttered, aghast; I had forgotten the low state of the poor fellow's finances. "Walked all the way from London and on such a beastly evening?"

"One could hardly call it walking," said Johnson-Williams.

How had he been conveyed to Hampton Wick, then? I plunged into the mazes of a labyrinth of probabilities. Had the driver of a Pickford's van given him a life, or a mail-cart man? A basket-seller's caravan was out of the question, because vehicles of that description travel so slowly. How, then? I looked up and uttered a shout of surprise, for Johnson-Williams was gone!

Clean gone! There was no need to look under the table, it was not big enough to hide a full-grown man, and Johnson-Williams was incapable of playing a trick. No; my fellow-clerk had vanished from sight, without employing such means of egress as might have been afforded by the window, the door, or the chimney, which was up to its old games again. There hung the cloud of smoke I remembered noticing before Johnson-Williams had come in. Stay! Had he come in? I breathed heavily through my nostrils, and dug my nails into the palm of my hands, as I tried to recall the features of my friend. Then something like a thin stream of ice-water coursed down my spinal column. My heart sat down with a bump, and my hair got up and began to wall upon my scalp, for the face of Johnson-Williams was looking at me from the summit of a hazy transparency whose shifting outlines bore the dimmest possible relation to the human form. The eyes blinked, the lip moved. He spoke hollowly, as the Man in the Celia responds to the interrogation of the ventriloquist.

"Do not be alarmed. Compose yourself. Try and think of something soothing. If you were to repeat the Multiplication table, or the rules of Book-keeping, or the principal Articles of the Collision Cause, or the Statute Limitations of Insurance, it might have a steadying effect upon your nerves."

The hollow voice became hollower, his outlines began to grow dim, as with protruding eyes I stared upon him. A thousand wild ideas spun in my brain. Was he? Was I? Were we? Horror! He was beginning to fade before my eyes! He would be gone in another minute!

"Unless you can concentrate your attention on me, my dear Pegley, it is very likely."

He spoke with some asperity, replying to my thoughts as though they had been uttered aloud.

"The fact is— and I only withheld it up to this moment out of a natural reluctance to startle you— the fact is, that I am not myself."

I had been sure of that.

"Your misapprehend me, my dear Pegley," went on Johnson-Williams, putting me more at my ease by the familiarity of his address, and the slight smile which covered over his long pale countenance, as his familiar figure, spotted cravat, Welsh tweeds, and all began to loom into view again. "I am quite myself in the more spiritual sense of the word if, materially, I fail to come up to the mark. But with a little practice"— he waved its hand encouragingly— "you will be able to develop me to— in short, to any extent you may consider desirable."

Now I found speech. The truth flashed upon me.

"Then— then you have done it at last?"

"I have done it at last," echoed Johnson-Williams, nodding at me cheerfully. "I told you when we parted that I felt something was really going to happen this time. In a word, my friend, I have attained the Pitch, to the level of which my faculties have been earnestly strained ever since I became a convert to Theosophy. Chorley is nowhere. I have outdistanced every member of our Society." He rubbed his unsubstantial hands and chuckled ghostily. "I seem solid enough at this moment. But— think of it, my dear Pegley— I am in reality a floating bubble on the currents of Astral Force. A whiff of cigarette smoke— a mist wreath has more actual density. Dismiss me from your mind— I am gone, like a breath from a mirror. Recall me, and I revive. Walk through me— I shall not offer any resistance. Shake me by the hand— you will feel nothing in you own. Ha, for I am not a City clerk, but the essence of an office drudge — the wraith of a book-keeper on a salary of sixty pounds a year. Will-power brought me down to Hampton Wick— instead of steam— and without costing me a halfpenny; Will-power will take me back again and set me down upon the sofa in my lodgings at Great Joram Street, whenever I say the word!" He rubbed his hands again and beamed delightedly.

"Won't you sit down?" I broke in, trying to seem commonplace and natural.

"Thank you, dear boy," Johnson-Williams returned "but if you would allow me to— in fact, to Hover, I should take it as a kindness. You have always been so agreeable in your manner, and so frank in your sympathy with my Aims, that I feel perfectly at home already."

I held out my hand, and he grasped it heartily— a least, he seemed to, and with a full return of confidence in him and in myself, I put his sincerity to a final test by walking through him, taking my pipe and tobaco pouch from the mantelself and returning, via the same route, to my chair. My mind was so firmly fixed on him, that he never faltered.

And in the silence of the night, while the red fire's core burned hollow, and the paraffin in the lamp wax low, Johnson-Williams told me the rest of his story.

iv

"I SHALL BEGIN," said Johnson-Williams, "at the beginning. It will not surprise you to learn, in the face of the present glorious Result, that in the matter of my attaining the absolute quiet and seclusion essential to the furtherance of my Aim, Fortune favoured me most unexpectedly. This identical morning, the young lady (theatrical, if you remember) who rents the fifth floor (immediately above me) at No. 26, Great Joram Street, was called away to... in fact, to stay from Saturday till Monday with an elderly aunt, from whom she has expectations. That in itself was a great piece of good luck. My landlady then, knowing that my claims upon her attention in the way of cooking and so forth, are not urgent, and the rest of the house being To Let—  very reasonable terms and clean beyond any previous experience—"

He was standing in a familiar attitude, talking quite naturally. I was sitting on a chair, with my arms folded on the back of it, and my chin resting on them, looking at him intently. For I knew that he would go out like a candle-snuff, if I relaxed the mental strain, only for an instant "My landlady took the children," Johnson-Williams continued, "to a relative at Whitechapel, being anxious, as she expressed it, for a whiff of country air. She left the servant girl in charge of the house, with express orders not to stir out of it until her return at six o'clock. Nor would Jemima have disobeyed her mistress, I am sure, had not an unforeseen casualty— the illness, in fact, of a sister living at Woolwich, obliged her to—"

"I see," I said.

"She was very much Upset at leaving," Johnson-Williams continued, "though she expressed unbounded confidence in my capability of looking after affairs as general. Her sister's brother-in-law (a Gunner in the Royal Horse Artillery) fetched her away. I bolted and barred the front door and that of the area, when she had gone, and stuffed up the bells. The field at last was mine.

He struck the table strenuously, but soundlessly, with his clenched hand, and his eyes glowed with triumph.

"I locked the door, made up the fire with damp slack; so as to reconcile the greatest amount of warmth with the smallest amount of blaze and crackle— partook of a light meal— an Australian apple with one slice of brown bread, and washed the whole down with a glass of water. Then I pulled down the blinds and extended myself upon the sofa— head low, arms rigidly pressed to my sides, heels close together— the posture pronounced, on the authority of distinguished Adepts, to be most favourable to the attainment of the Pitch. I set my teeth, closed my eyes, and summoned up all the forces of my will to assist in the divorcement of my Astral Body from my earthly one. Cold chills ran down my back, a clammy liquid seemed to trickle through the roots of my hair. From the tips of my fingers and the ends of my toes, from every pore of my body, I felt the continuous discharge of currents of Magnetic Force. My respiration grew less perceptible, my heart beat more and more faintly every moment, as my will-power gained in force. Effort seemed carried to the highest pitch attainable, when suddenly volition ceased. I lost consciousness— only for a moment. When I came to myself, I was standing in the middle of the room."

I drew a long breath and said, "Go on."

"My first sensation was one of disappointment," said Johnson-Williams, "the next was one of surprise, that the intense mental exertion through which I had just passed had left me so fresh and unexhausted. My feet hardly seemed to touch the ground when I moved towards the chimney-glass, impelled by the desire of testing, by means of that medium, whether I looked pale. I rested my elbows on the mantelshelf, I leaned forwards and saw—

"You saw?"

"Nothing at all!" returned Johnson-Williams, with quiet enjoyment "No image was reflected in the glass. Only a patch of film, a haze dimmed its surface. My first impression was, that the chimney must be smoking furiously. I glanced at the hearth and found that the fire was burning with a steady red glow. I glanced back it the glass then. It gave back no reflection. And then — then my eyes wandered to the sofa— and in an instant I understood, for the sofa had an occupant! On it was stretched a human figure, the figure of a Man, and the Man was— Myself!"

I was getting deeply interested. I tried to say "Go on!" and the words wouldn't come. My mouth was dry.

"I lay rigidly, motionless and without breath, in the posture I had assumed when I commenced my efforts. A casual onlooker would have said that I was dead, a scientific observer would have pronounced me to be in a cataleptic trance. I approached and examined myself curiously. Few persons on this globe, my dear Pegley, have enjoyed so favourable an opportunity for self-examination. If I ever had cherished any vanity, I candidly confide to you— it received its death-blow in that hour."

"Oh, come!" I muttered. Johnson-Williams waved the expostulation away with a gesture of his hand.

"Then," he resumed, "a Thought occurred to me. which drove all minor considerations to the wall. Here was I, newly arrived at Adeptship, freed from my gross earthly envelope, standing in the complete 'double' or Mayavi-rupa, by the side of the body I had temporarily rejected, as though no glorious Experiences waited for me elsewhere. The Barriers that had severed me from the dearest object of my soul were now cast down. The image of— can you not imagine whose image, my dear Pegley?"

"Of the young lady in Wales!" I burst out.

"Quite right!" nodded Johnson-Williams— "uprose before me. Hurrah! I would start for Merthyr Tydvil without delay."'

"Go on!" I cried, breathlessly.

"The intention was no sooner formed than I passed without conscious effort, through the panels of the door, which, you will remember, I had previously locked, and floated down the staircase. My hat and overcoat hung upon the rack in the hall; my umbrella leaned beside them. My first impulse was to put on the first-named articles; my second to rejoice that I no longer needed such material protection from the inclemencies of the English climate. In another instant I was in the street."

v

"I COULD see," continued Johnson-Williams, "that it was a damp, unpleasant night, but I was not sensible of any discomfort. On the contrary, an airy sensation of lightness pervaded my being, lightness which was so far from being imaginary that with the first puff of raw wind that came round the comer, I rose from the ground, and soared to the altitude of the gas-lamps, where I remained stationary, mingling my astral essence with the trailing wreaths of fog and the yellow beams of vulgar radiance that permeated through them! It was certainly disappointing to find that, try as I would, I could neither ascend or descend, move forwards or backwards, though I cheered myself by the reflection that the astral method of traveling must, like the human method of progression, take a certain amount of time in learning. The question was: How much? Only fifty-one hours remained to me of my holiday. It had taken my ordinary, everyday self a fortnight to acquire, in the elementary sense of the word, the art of roller-skating. How long would it take me to master the elementary steps necessary for the successful transport of my astral body to Merthyr Tydvil?

"As I revolved the problem in my mind, the map of North Central England pictured itself before my mental vision (I have a considerable practical knowledge of geography, as you perhaps have observed), with my native county of Wales snugly tucked away in a southerly corner. Spider-like I projected an invisible filament of Will-power towards Wales, felt it catch, and immediately hauled upon it. The thing was done almost involuntary, but in the same instant I began to move. Eureka! The question had answered itself! Henceforth, when in Mayavi-rupa, I wanted to go anywhere, I had only to project my mind before me, and my astral body would follow it as the train follows the engine, or the vessel the towing tug."

The shade of Johnson-Williams paused, drew from its breast-pocket the ghost of a coloured handkerchief, and wiped its brow— from force of habit, perhaps, because there was no moisture there.

I had grown bold enough by this time to mix myself a whisky and soda. I lighted my pipe, too, and as its grateful vapours mounted upon the air, it was a strange thing to know that Johnson-Williams sitting (he was now sitting) in the chair over against me was in reality less substantial in consistency.

"I was now high above the earth," said Johnson-Williams, "and travelling at an immense rate of speed. The night was clear and the stars were shining. Nothing crossed my plane, which seemed to be a single line. Only once I encountered a fellow-traveller."

"A fellow-traveller!"

"A shadowy form which swooped across my path obliquely at an angle of, I should say, thirty degrees," replied Johnson-Williams, "travelling at a rate which indicated an enormous amount of Will-pressure. I have no doubt he was a Persian Mahatma or an Adept from Thibet. He wore a spangled kind of head-dress, and his long gray hair and beard floated behind him. His legs were crossed, and his arms folded upon his breast in an attitude of meditation. I bowed respectfully, but felt too shy to speak."

"I wish you could have interview him!" I said eagerly.

"My next experience was quite amusing," said Johnson-Williams. "Imagine a china plate, with a jam tart— one of the puff description, with a spot of jam in the middle— travelling by itself at the rate of sixty miles a second. Yet that is what I saw. Several cocked-hat notes passed me, shooting in opposite directions, projected by opposing currents of Astral Force."

"I should like to know where they were bound for!" I said curiously. "But you got to Merthyr Tydvil in the end?"

"You do right to rebuke me for the digression, my dear Pegley," returned Johnson-Williams good-naturedly. "I am trying your patience, I fear. Yes, I arrived at Merthyr Tydvil. I knew that I was there, when my onward course was suddenly brought to an abrupt close, and I began to fall— quite like a parachute.

"The house of Gwendollen's employer is situated on the northern outskirts of the town, commanding an unobstructed view of what is, generally speaking, a cinderous and smutty prospect. Descending vertically, I alighted on the roof. Tiles proved no obstacle to my airy particles. I sank through them and found myself in a room which, from the character of its furniture and ornaments, was plainly the children's nursery. There were only two occupants— a baby asleep in a cradle, and my—  Miss Williams-Johnson."

His eyes sparkled at the delightful recollection.

"Time has not impaired those personal attractions, which, in conjunction with the properties of her mind, first enchained my steadfast affections," he said. "She was perfectly delightful to look at, without and within. I say within, because in this astral condition I was enabled to penetrate into the recesses of her mind and read her thoughts before they dawned in her (most expressive) countenance. She was thinking about Me"— he hesitated, and looked a little sheepish— "and in such a strain of warm and constant regard and tenderness, that I was quite affected."

" 'How good he is, poor fellow, and how he loves me,' she said, without speaking, 'and how long it is since we have met How long must it be before we meet again— how long before we are rich enough to marry? Ah, think if I were only Llewellyn's wife."'

"I didn't know your Christian name was Llewellyn," I put in.

" 'And we were rich enough to have a little house of our own to live in, and a little servant to wait on us, in some neat suburb of London, not too near the City because of the fogs— they are so bad for Llewellyn's chest — I should be the happiest girl in all the world l' "

"Miss Williams-Johnson must be a very nice girl," I thought.

"I knew you'd say so," responded Johnson-Williams, just as if I had spoken. "Then her face clouded over, and I found she was thinking of the miserly old aunt who had brought her up from childhood, and who had died a little while previously, leaving all her property for the benefit of a charitable institution. Gwendollen could not help wishing that the old lady had left just a little to her, more for my sake than her own; and then she began to conjure up a picture of me in her mind—  to recall my features, one by one, and each separate article of dress which I am accustomed to wear, with the most surprising result! Happening to stretch my hand out, what was my surprise to find that it was coming slowly into view— transparent as yet, but gradually gaining in density and opacity. I was, in fact, undergoing the process of materialisation, just as happened when—"

"Yes, yes!" I assented hastily.

"With a pardonable feeling of alarm," resumed my visitor, "I glanced downwards."

vi

"DOWNWARDS." Johnson-Williams seemed to blush. "It had occurred to me that the earthly and perishable garments in which my worldly frame is customarily attired might not be reproduced upon the— in short— Astral Body. But there they were! It was reassuring to recognise the pattern. In another moment Gwendolen's eyes turned full upon me. She stared and uttered a slight scream. Now, one of my pet theories, often unfolded to you, my dear Pegley, is based on the composing influence— in moments of intense excitement or mental confusion— of the repetition, on the part of the patient, of a familiar formula of words. From this arose my suggestion that you should repeat the multiplication table in the first moments of your surprise at my unexpected appearance. I see that you recall the instance! Therefore, when I put to Gwendollen the opening interrogation of the Catechism, according to the Book of Common Prayer, generally used by members of the Protestant Church, it was done deliberately and the result more than justified my previous convictions. To the first question, 'What is your name?' the dear girl replied hesitatingly enough; but 'Who gave you that name?' met with a fluent response, and 'What did your Godfathers and Godmothers then do for you?" brought her round completely. With the secret of my Theosophical studies Gwendollen has long been familiar. Therefore it was possible to answer her interrogations as to how I had come to Merthyr, and in what manner obtained access to the nursery of her infant charges, and so forth, in a very few sentences:

" 'I can hardly believe it," said Gwendollen, when I had done.

" 'If you doubt me, my dearest girl," I replied, 'put the truth of my assertions to the test. Give me a kiss!'

"She pursed up her lips in the old delightful way, and came towards me, blushing like— like a June rose! I kissed her with all my heart. Judge of my concern when her face puckered and her eyes filled with tears!

" 'What is the matter?' I exclaimed.

" 'You are so— so unsubstantial!' she sobbed. 'You look just as usual, yet, when I came to kiss you, it was worse than kissing a soap-bubble. There wasn't even the taste of soap!'

"I wanted very much to comfort Gwendollen, and the best way of doing it, it appeared to me, would have been to take her on my knee. But, under the circumstances, was that to be managed? We did at last surmount the difficulty— in a kind of way. I sat on a chair, as I sit now, and she placed herself on the same piece of furniture sidewise; but it was not half so comforting as the real thing. However, we could talk, and talk we did, without any apprehension on my part of losing the train and forfeiting my return ticket, and not having enough money to pay for a lodging, or to take me back to London next morning. The baby slept soundly all this time, and the mutual confidences of Gwendollen and myself were only disturbed by a knock at the door. Gwendollen, tearing her attention from me, instantly sprang to it and opened it a very little way. The knocker proved to be one of the female servants with a letter.

" 'For you, please, miss," she said, seeming quite delighted (Gwendollen is a universal favourite. I do hope it is the right one!' (I need hardly explain, my dear Pegley, that the right one would have been a letter from me.) Then she went on to say that she hoped the baby would soon go off to sleep and give Miss Williams-Johnson a chance to read it (The good creature could hardly have been more eager over an amatory epistle from a sweetheart of her own.)

" 'Why, Winny,' said Gwendollen, in surprise, 'the baby has been asleep this hour and more!'

"Winny could hardly believe it; for happening to pass the nursery door several times within the last hour, when engaged in the exercise of her household duties, she had distinctly, she averred, heard the sound of voices 'murmuring-like.' This had conveyed to her the impression that the baby was obstinately wakeful, and that his governess was endeavouring to lull him into forgetfulness by telling him a story.

" 'I— I was reading aloud to myself, Winny,' Gwendollen returned, and though her back was turned to me, I could see the tips of her ears redden at the fib she was telling. Then she would have shut the door, but, before she could do so, Winny uttered an exclamation.

" 'Lawk!" she said, 'how the parlour flue do leak, to be sure!' (There was no fire in the nursery grate.) 'The room is full of smoke, miss, so it is!" And before my alarmed Gwendollen could prevent her, she pushed past her and came in, walking heavily on tiptoe. She sniffed as she approached me. 'My heart! what a smell o' soot! Sure to goodness, miss, you must be smothered alive!' She walked backwards and forwards through me, without (to my intense relief) appearing to notice anything in the least out of the common. She flapped vigorously with her apron, creating a draught which nearly carried me up the chimney. 'Tis a shame!' she said, 'and the window not to be opened acause of the baby.' She shook her head, she sighed loudly and ostentatiously. 'I've often murmured, miss," she said, 'acause the Lord had been pleased to make me nothing better than a housemaid. But He might have done worse... He might have made me a nursery governess!' She shook her head again, heaved another gusty sigh, and creaked out of the room. Gwendollen turned to me with the letter in her hand.

"'How annoying!' she exclaimed, 'that girl should have come in like that! It seems so— so degrading, that you should have been mistaken for a smoky chimney, though you have grown so faint I can hardly believe that you are really there.'

"I was beginning to revive now that Gwendollen's undivided attention was mine again. A burning eagerness possessed me. As soon as I became developed enough to speak, I begged her to read the letter in her hand. Its contents had greatly astonished me."

"How could you know what the letter said," I asked, "when you had not opened the envelope?"

"Easily enough," returned Johnson-Williams. "Matter is no obstruction to the thought-body, and therefore to the thought-intelligence the contents of an unopened letter one has any desire to read are as plain as print When a common earthly medium," he spoke with great scorn, "can perform the feat in question, is it likely that it would present any unsurmountable difficulties to Me—  in my present etherealised condition?"

I begged his pardon quite humbly, and he went on: "The letter contained astonishing news— glorious news, for Gwendollen and myself."

vii

"THE LETTER contained glorious news, as I have said. The writer was head clerk in the employ of a firm of solicitors established in Llanberis, the town where Gwendollen, until a few years previously, had resided with the elderly aunt who, in fact, reared her from infancy, though not with affection, still with a kind of sour kindness, and whose recent decease and eccentric testamentary—"

"I know," I interrupted, "few thousands in Consols— little furniture— left to an hospital. You said that before."

"I may have done so, my dear Pegley," remonstrated the shade of Johnson-Williams, "but I wish you had let me say it again, because, in point of fact, the contents of the solicitor's letter did much to remove any imputation of injustice from the old lady's conduct. It appeared that a codicil had been discovered in a Delft teapot, bearing a later date than the Will itself, and providing humbly enough— but still providing— for Gwendollen's future wants. A hundred a year, together with a small houseful of furniture, is not a windfall to be sneezed at."

I agreed to that.

"I leave you to imagine Gwendollen's joy," went on my friend, smiling.  "Her first impulse was to throw herself into my arms; in fact, she only just remembered herself in time to prevent an unpleasant contingency. But I took her round the waist, and we did do a few steps of a polka together, so inexpressible was our joy. We had a short consultation before I took my leave, and the upshot of it all was that Gwendollen should communicate her good fortune to her employers, take all necessary steps to secure her legacy, follow up with a month's warning, at the expiration of the month proceed to London (where, in the meantime, I am to engage suitable lodgings for her), marry me as cheaply, strongly and quickly as the knot can be tied, and instantly set about the installation of a calm connubial Paradise upon the fourth floor of 26, Great Joram Street."

He beamed with delightful anticipation as he uttered those concluding words. I sprang from my chair. I seized his hand and squeezed it warmly. I slapped him on the back— at least, I went through a pantomime of doing these things. He was very much gratified, and tears rose to his eyes; whether from genuine emotion or the thump I had given him I had no opportunity of ascertaining.

"You— you are most kind, my dear Pegley!" he said, winking rapidly and swallowing a lump that seemed to rise in his throat, "and embolden me to make a request in which— in which Gwendollen joins. Will you favour me, when the nuptial ceremony really comes off, by being, in fact, my Best Man?"

I said I would, with hearty pleasure.

"And if at the same time— Gwendollen and myself having so few friends— you would go through the form of giving away the— the Bride," said my friend, "we should take it very kindly of you. A quiet little breakfast afterwards at Joram Street— I see what is passing through your mind, but make yourself quite easy"—  Johnson-Williams rubbed his hands delightedly and chuckled— "the Spartan regimen to which I have of late accustomed myself will from henceforth be abandoned in favour of a more generous diet. And now, as it is getting late—"

"You are going?"

"I am about to return to Great Joram Street, and resume my ordinary everyday material self," returned Johnson-Williams. "I must confess that I am curious to learn how things have gone on in my absence; for I came straight here from Wales. Somebody may be knocking at the door, or," he grew pale, "something may have caught fire! It would not be a nice thing for me to return and find my ordinary corporeal frame calcined to a cinder, particularly when I shall be in it in a month's time to be married in. Even if it were possible to obtain another," ended Johnson-Williams bashfully, "I— I really think the substitution would not be agreeable to Gwendollen, for, strange as it may seem, the dear girl really loves me, Pegley."

We shook hands. He waved me farewell, and prepared to depart. "You may like to note the process," he said, a little patronisingly. "Oblige me by putting me completely out of your thoughts; it makes it easier! Now I fix my own mind firmly on Joram Street." He began to grow transparent and thin; he spoke in muffled accents. "Good-bye! we shall meet at the office to-morrow morning."

Gradually he faded from my sight. The last thing I distinguished was the pattern of his necktie. That vanished, and from Nowhere in particular a voice— a mere thread of a voice— uttered faintly:

"Old fellow, office to-morrow! Ta-ta!"

viii

WE DID NOT meet at the office on Wednesday morning. Johnson-Williams never turned up. He was ordinarily the very soul of punctuality, and the general impression was that he must either have had a severe accident, or have been taken seriously ill, with something catching, because an ordinary ailment never kept Johnson-Williams from his big ledger. He had worked so many bilious attacks, sun-headaches, neuralgias, sore throats, rheumatisms and catarrhs into its columns since he and it first became mutually acquainted, that it had become, in my perverted imagination, a kind of Calendar of Ailments appropriate to the varying seasons of the year.

"Unless he has been left a fortune unexpectedly," said young Simpson, our Junior Partner, in his grimly humorous way, "Johnson-Williams is certainly confined to his bed. You don't live very far from him, Mr. Pegley." (I lived at the other end of the same parish, but that was nothing to the Junior Partner.) "You might call in on him on your way home and see for yourself how the poor fellow is getting on, if we don't hear from him in the course of the day."

I made no demur. I would have gone, under any circumstances. I really felt anxious.

To Great Joram Street, therefore, I directed my steps at the conclusion of the business day. I found it, after some inquiry, to be a murky, ill-lighted thoroughfare, in but not of the neighbourhood of Russell Square. The houses that loomed on either side were old-fashioned, gaunt and sooty of face, and so much in need of rebuilding that every vehicle that rattled over the ill-set cobblestones set them quaking to their very, foundations. Joram Street I found to be prolific in cats, vociferous with children; unmelodious by reason of many organs, and redolent of red herrings. But its respectability was evident. I walked along, looking for number twenty-six. That was the house on the other side of the street, with a little crowd assembled about the railings. Most of these were staring up at the unlighted fourth-floor windows; the rest were gazing into the area. A sweep and a baked-potato-seller were in the midst of a heated argument concerning some individual unknown. As I ascended the steps and knocked, the general attention, in an instant, became diverted to me. Excited whispers guessed at my identity. "It's the Doctor!" said one. "It's the Coroner!" growled another. A shock of alarm passed through my being at the mention of the Doctor and the Coroner. I raised my hand and plied the knocker. The door was opened. The landlady appeared against a halo of yellow gaslight, as a stout, respectable, elderly person. She blinked as she looked at me, and smoothed down the greasy crape-front of her shabby black gown.

"Did you want lodgings, sir?" she asked blandly.

"No," I returned; "I called— I am an acquaintance of Mr. Johnson-Williams— to enquire—"

I became conscious of a warm blast powerfully flavoured with onions blowing down the back of my neck. I glanced round. The crowd had surged to the level of the top door-step, and a burly butcher was drinking in, with hard-breathing, round-eyed curiosity, the words that fell from my lips. I glanced back at the landlady. Her hands were uplifted, palms outward, her face was pursed up and working in a most curious fashion. Her dress-bodice was agitated with subterranean sighs, a tear slid down from the corner of each eye in another minute, fell upon a projecting cornice of her figure, and splashed upon the oilcloth of the dingy hall.

"Oh, sir!" sobbed the landlady. "Oh, sir! oh! That ever I should've seen the day!"

"For Heaven's sake let me come in!" I cried, in great agitation, "away from these people!" The butcher snorted indignantly. "And tell me, as quickly and as plainly as you can, what has happened!"

By this time I stood on the hall-mat, and the landlady had shut the door, in spite of a vain effort on the part of the butcher to follow me inside. Her tears still trickled. She seemed too conscious of their value as testimonials to the softness of her nature, and the worth of my unhappy friend, to wipe them away.

"Speak!" I cried. "Tell me— Mr. Johnson-Williams—"

The landlady swallowed hard. She cast up her eyes and hands again, and produced from the innermost recesses of her being a sepulchral utterance:

"Gone!"

"Gone!" I repeated.

"Gone!" cried the landlady hysterically; "and him with half a peck of wholemeal in the cupboard, and three pounds of American russets, and seven best quartern browns, slack-baked a-purpose, laid in for the week, likin' 'em better stale, and cheaper too. Cut down like the greens in the field, as are on the coster's barrer to-day and gone to-morrow. And me to find him, poor young lamb, after breaking into my own house like a burglar! and how that hussy of a girl managed to bolt both the doors after, her when she took and offed it with that young man of hers, I cannot imagine!"

She stopped for breath, and I stood trying to realise the full horror of the catastrophe. My unhappy friend's last act before leaving his body had been to secure the house. In absolute loneliness the closing scenes of his life had faltered to an end. The poor girl in Wales! Who was to tell her? I shuddered at the thought of the blow that was about to fall on that young hopeful heart. I tried to speak, and failed at first. Then I pointed upwards, and managed to get out:

"Can I— see—?"

The landlady looked terribly confused. She groaned to hide the confusion, and let fall another tear or two. I repeated my question more loudly.

"Of course, of course, sir!" she said soothingly, "and none more welcome than yourself" (she did not even know my name) "as the poor dear thought a deal of. But, not to go on deceiving of you, he ain't here."

These words Hashed on my mental retina the picture of a hospital ward, followed by a view of the interior of a mortuary, and I interrupted her suddenly.

"Tell me where he has been taken."

The landlady's face puckered up, but the tears did not come this time.

She formed with her lips the words "Not beknown."

ix

SHE GROANED again, and waggled her head from side to side.

"Do you mean," I raised my voice, "that you do not even know the name of the hospital to which my poor friend has been conveyed?"

The landlady blinked at me. The landlady returned, "He was never conveyed to no horspitle as I am aweer on."

"Mortuary, then," I substituted.

"Nor no mortuary neither."

"In the name of Heaven," I burst out, "where is he?"

"If anyone knows," said the landlady, "that person is Doctor George!" She breathed hard as she made this admission. Her evasive manner, her evident confusion, filled me with suspicion and distrust.

"And who is Doctor George?" I demanded.

"A medical gentleman," returned the landlady, hesitatingly, "as passed when I was a-rattlin' at my own front door, an' obligingly offered to 'elp me get inside without callin' a policeman. Whips over the railin's, he does, an' climbs on the sill of the parlour winder an' pushes back the sash-bolt with a penknife. Then he crawls in an' comes round an' opens the door. 'You'd a'most think I was a perfesshnal burglar," says 'e, with a pleasant smile. 'Ho! never, sir," says I, an' my little Eliza laughs at the gentleman's funny way. 'I won't leave you ye." says 'e, 'as somethink might 'ave 'appened wrong, the 'ouse bein' left so queerly, an' the 'all door bell stuffed up.' An' we goes downstairs, 'im 'an me an' little Eliza, an' there ain't no sign of a girl, an' we goes upstairs in the same way. 'E peeps in at the empty drawin'-room an' then above, an' then we comes to the fourth floor. 'Locked!' sez 'e, rattlin' Mr. Johnson-Williams's door-handle. Then 'e stoops an' peeps through a crack.

" 'E's lyin' on the sofy in ther." sez 'e, 'an' appearances are suspishus. I'm a-goin' to break open this door!' An' 'e takes somethin' from a pocket at the back of 'is waist an' breaks it in— oh! deary dear! as if 'e was quite accustomed. But you're standin', sir." This was another device to gain a little time. "Please to walk upstairs." She began to exude tears again, like a slow still-worm, as she lighted a candle that stood in a battered tin candlestick on the crazy hall-table. She groaned again as she beckoned me to follow her, and, panting, laboured up the steep old-fashioned stairs as high as the fourth floor. "You'll find all his little things about," she said, as she enfolded the door-knob in her apron. "Dear— deary me!" She opened the door. I went in.

My poor friend's lodging was a good-sized combined bed-and-sitting-room situated at the back of the house, and commanding from its two windows an extensive prospect of chimney-pots, and an angular slice of a mews where hissing men rubbed down horses and clanked buckets at all hours of the day and night. There were his few books on a shelf; there was his old blackened pipe; there was his poor, worn overcoat hanging now behind the door; there was his umbrella standing in a comer; and there his Sunday hat in a blue band-box on the top of the chest of drawers. My chest pained me as I looked about; my eyes filled and smarted.

"Which a nicer and quieter young gentleman I never lodged," said the landlady, setting down the candle on the chest of drawers. "And when me and Doctor George busted into the room"— she pointed to the damaged door-lock— "and found him a-layin' on the sofy"— she waved her hand towards an ancient article of furniture, covered with slippery horsehair, which stood near the fireplace—  "you might 'a' felled me to the floor with a feather-duster, such was the turn I experienced. And then the doctor, a-puttin' his 'and as solemn as solemn on my shoulder and sayin'—"

"What did the doctor say?" I faltered.

The landlady responded with a Delphic utterance: "Faileroftheartaxiom."

I grasped her meaning after a few ineffectual efforts.

"Failure of the heart's action," I repeated. "And what— what induced you to let him take him— take it— away, without leaving any address, or— Good heavens! It is monstrous, monstrous! You must have been out of your senses! What will my poor friend's family say to it!"

The landlady saw her chance and grasped it.

"Bless you, sir! many and many a time has the poor dear told me he hadn't got a living soul in the world, of his own blood! Many a—"

I spoke to the woman sternly.

"Mr. Johnson-Williams had employers. Mr. Johnson-Williams had friends. I, as one of them, shall report your disgraceful conduct to the firm he has served for so many years. They will take action in the matter." My voice rose. The woman cowered under my anger. "How do I know that my friend is dead at all?" I went on. "How do I know that he is not the victim of foul play? How do I know that—"

I stopped. The landlady had sunk upon the floor, a jellified heap of conscience-stricken misery. She rocked to and fro, and wept in real earnest.

"Oh! my dear 'eart alive! Kind gentleman, don't be hard on a widow woman as always kep' her house respectable, and sent her children neat to school. Which wrong it was to leave the 'ouse, but the worrit— and Doctor George— as I wish I'd never set eyes on— sendin' me with a shillin' to the 'Man and Magpie' in Kemmis Street close by, for a quartern of gin hot, with lemon to be drunk on the premises. 'Which your nerves, Missis Tichett,' he say, I 'ave 'ad a shock, and unless you take somethink to compose 'em, I will not answer for the consequences.' And me a-takin' it, consequently, and coming back to find 'em both gone, and little Eliza, says she, 'I fetched a cab for the doctor, mother, and he's took the poor young gentleman awa." 'Where?' I says, and nothink can that child tell me, except that I'm to hear from Doctor George in the morning. And never a line! And me that worrited, with my 'ead a-spinning like little Johnny's top. And the story leaking out, and the dear child jeered at passin' the public-'ouse on 'is way to school with 'Who stole the corpse?' and 'Who cheated the Coroner?' and me obliged to keep the blinds down because of people staring in at the front windows all day, and throwin' things down the airy. Oh, deary dear! And friends and employers comin' to ask for the young gentleman, only to find him kidnapped by a body-snatcher or worse. And me a lost woman, if ever there was one."

"Go downstairs, woman," I commanded, in tones strangely stern. And Mrs. Tichett surged away.

x

I SAT on the hard bed; my elbows rested on my knees, my fingers were twisted in my hair. Vainly I strove to probe the maddening mystery. Was my poor friend really dead? Supposing the landlady's tale true— and I was strongly inclined to believe it— who was the mysterious stranger who had helped Mrs. Tichett to break into her own house, discovered (perhaps with pre-knowledge) the condition of her unfortunate lodger, taken his own measure for getting rid of her, and then eloped with the body. I had heard dark things hinted about the Vivisectionists ere then. A man had told me, who had had it from another man, who was said to have had it whispered in his ear by a member of the Detective Force, that in Berlin, Paris, Vienna and London, human subjects are regularly kidnapped, experimented on, and then either released under terrible oaths of non-betrayal, bribed into holding their tongues, or summarily put out of the way; that four-wheeled cabs patrol lonely streets for other purposes than those of obtaining casual fares, and that an elderly gentleman, a personal acquaintance of the original teller of the story, had, while walking up the Regent's Park Road in broad daylight, been hustled by three men into one of these vehicles, gagged and conveyed to a certain house in the neighborhood of Maida Vale, where, after being strapped down upon a table covered with sheet-lead and furnished with a sink and gutter, he had subsequently undergone the mortification of being ripped up, of having the whole of his digestive apparatus extracted "under his very eyes" (cocaine or some other pain-deadening drug having been previously administered), of having the essential organs put back again after leisurely examination, and after three weeks of well-tended imprisonment this victim found himself, after a short period of unconsciousness, lying on his back in the middle of Paddington Green, with a banknote for a thousand pounds in his vest pocket, and no other trace of a recent operation remaining, than a neat longitudinal seam, which he carried about with him until his dying day.

My mind revolting from these horrible suspicions, I began to recall the good, simple ways of my poor vanished friend— to conjure up his image as it had appeared before me that night at Hampton Wick.

Great Heavens! was it possible? There he stood before me, neatly defined, if somewhat cloudy, in the uncertain light of the guttering, flaring candle.

I sprang to my feet with a shout of joy.

"Less emotion, I beg, my dear Pegley," said the faint, hollow voice I knew so well. "The disturbance and agitation of your mind have prevented my getting here sooner, and delay, under the present circumstances, is an aggravation of the anxiety from which I am just now suffering."

"I cannot express what relief it is to see you," I said, "under any circumstances," grasping his filmy hand. "But if you will not think me rude, I had rather you had brought your body with you— I had indeed!"

The features of Johnson-Williams twitched. He seemed to swallow once or twice convulsively before utterance became possible. Then he said:

"That is just what I wanted to speak to you about. I— in fact, I don't know where it is."

"YOU DON'T KNOW WHERE IT IS!"

"Be calm, my dear Pegley!" entreated Johnson-Williams. "I am perfectly earnest in saying I don't know where my— my bodily substance— is located at this moment," he gulped. "It appears to have been mislaid or— or stolen." He winked convulsively and loosened his wraith of a shirt collar. "The landlady's story I should adjudge to be true. Last night— when I came home and found myself gone! the woman was in strong hysterics, genuinely induced by fear and alarm. This Doctor George! What motive could that person possibly have had, my dear Pegley, in taking me away? You had Vivisection in your mind just now. I hardly agree with that supposition."

He took a seat on the edge of one of the rickety chairs, and crossing his phantom legs, bent on me the look he always put on when he felt he was going to get the better of me in an argument. "I was supposed to be dead, you know; and you can't possibly vivisect a dead person."

"I suppose not," I agreed thoughtfully.

"Therefore," said Johnson-Williams more cheerfully, "let us put unpleasant contingencies out of mind for the present. I have been all my life a toiling, moiling, industrious kind of body, but now that I have no body to toil and moil with, I feel myself justified in taking a short holiday. Meanwhile, my dear Pegley, if you would oblige me by keeping your eyes open and looking about a little, I make no doubt that you will obtain some clue to the whereabouts of my corporeal entity in a very short time; in fact, I feel sure it will ultimately turn up," said Johnson-Williams, quite light-heartedly. "A cautiously-worded advertisement, now, short and cheap, in the 'Wanted' column of The Echo might bring about a desirable result. Put it something in this way: 'Will the gentleman who accidentally'— mustn't offend him, you know— 'accidentally abstracted a Body from 26, Great J. Street, on evening of Monday last, kindly communicate with owner of same? Small reward will be given'—  it will have to be a small one, you know— 'on return undamaged, to original address.' Perhaps you will not mind drawing the formula up, and getting it inserted. You will find six-and-sixpence inside the lining of my Sunday hat, in the blue bandbox you see upon the chest of drawers."

''Of course," I cried, starting to my feet, "anything I can do shall be done!"

''I knew I might rely on you, Pegley," said the phantom of my friend, brightening dimly, ''in this perplexing dilemma— for it is a perplexing dilemma, isn't it? When I drifted in at the office ventilator this morning, and saw you all at work and my place empty, it struck me more forcibly than ever what a perplexing dilemma it was." He sighed. ''But as I cannot be of much use in my present condition, I must leave the matter entirely in your hands. I have so much belief in your intelligence and energy"— this sounded a little patronizing, I thought—  ''that I feel almost easy in doing so." To my consternation, he began to fade away.

''Where are you going?" I demanded.

''Back to Wales," said the receding voice.

In another minute he would be out of hearing.

"Stop!" I shouted.

"Hullo!" returned Johnson-Williams, from quite a long way off.

"What am I to say to the landlady? How am I to account for your absence to Mr. Simpson?" I dragged him back with all the will-power I could compress into a single effort.

"Hah!" he said, reappearing suddenly. "That is a difficulty. I'm afraid you will have to be rather subtle my dear Pegley, to avoid telling an actual falsehood." It struck me forcibly that in shifting the burden of his responsibilities to my shoulders, he had somehow confused our relative positions. "You should begin, I think," he said, "by advising Mrs. Tichett to keep her own counsel for a day or two. And you might account to the people at the office for my non-attendance, by saying that I am not at all myself just now— which is absolutely true; and that I am lying by— I wish I knew where I was lying by— until I am recovered; and that I hope soon to be out of the doctor's hands— which I do most fervently. Good-bye, again, my dear fellow." He waved his hand, and started for Merthyr Tydvil.

xi

I AM ashamed to say that the Heads of our Office were taken in by that Delphic message of Johnson-Williams. His long years of assiduous attendance to duty, his unwavering adherence to the big ledgers up to the present moment, stood him in good stead.

"How is poor old J.W. today?" the clerks would enquire sympathisingly. "Pretty bad, eh? Thought so; you look so fagged and green about the gills. No idea you were such friends."

I had no idea of it myself before that period. But I led a life of wasting anxiety upon the account of Johnson-Williams. To begin with, the advertisement in The Echo had never been answered; and a carking sense of responsibility under which I laboured, robbed me of all relish of life. I continually found myself making out policies of insurance in which the A1 copper-bottomed teak-built schooner Merthyr Tydvil, owned by the firm of Blank and Blank, Great Joram Street Docks, under command of Doctor George, and laden with crates, chests and bales of Johnson-Williamses to the amount of so many thousands, was underwritten for so much in case of loss, under the protection of the Collision Clause.

When the working day was done I would snatch a hurried meal and start upon the track of Doctor George. I had looked him up in the Medical Directory and found two of him; one resident at Highgate and the other at Kew. Subsequent investigations proved the first to be a weak-eyed young man who lived with and under the continual supervision of a mother and aunt of undoubted respectability and severe appearance; while the second was a white-haired old gentleman who had long abandoned practice and used to be taken out in a Bath chair drawn by a rosy-cheeked gardener, for a daily airing round the Gardens. It was plainly apparent that neither of these could have kidnapped the body of my friend, and yet I felt it my duty to keep them under perpetual observation.

"Doctor George! A feigned name, of course!" I would mutter as I tossed on my sleepless bed. "Doctor George!" The name seemed written on my brain in letters of phosphorus. My flesh fell away, though barely a fortnight had passed since the abduction from Great Joram Street; my features, like my boot-heels, began to show traces of my restless existence. I unspeakably longed for an interview with the astral being of my unhappy friend, yet I forebore to summon him; such was my dread of the look of reproach with which he would receive the confession of my failure.

It struck me sometimes that he was near; that he wanted to see me. But, like a coward, I resolutely put him out of mind. It was upon the second Sunday following my first memorable visit to Great Joram Street whose inhabitants had left off staring down the area of 26 and greeting Mrs. Tichett with opprobrious epithets, that this consciousness of proximity came upon me with irresistible force. I had intended a journey Highgate that day— which happened to be a very wet one; and in no very happy frame of mind, I sat at breakfast dipping into the columns of The Sunday Intelligence, and a loud-flavoured egg, alternately.

"THE CATALEPTIC CASE IN CHELSEA

No Signs of Returning Animation

OPINIONS OF THE MEDICAL MEN."

I read aloud and yawned. The papers had been full of at cataleptic case for two weeks— more than two weeks. I turned to the leader....

"Cases of a similar description to that which has recently occurred in Briggs Street, Chelsea," ...wrote the Editor, strong in the consciousness that the nice Encyclopedia, open at the double heading (Catalco— Catalepsy) lay at his elbow... "are far from infrequent or uncommon. Katalepsis, in the original Greek, signifies a taking possession of— a state of more or less complete insensibility, with absence of the power of voluntary motion and statue-like rigidity of the body and limbs.... Patients in the death-like trance inseparable from the attack may remain (as in the present case) for weeks in that condition, with circulation and respiration little affected. Though in the instance so prominently brought before our notice, these functions are said to be entirely suspended, there is little reason to apprehend any fatal termination. A few hours— a few days or months from the date of our present issue, Professor Phineas J. Pargeter's phenomenon will awake as bright as the proverbial button, thirsting for the sustaining half-pint of British bitter and urgent for the administration of the solid and sustaining steak."

I turned to the third page in weary disgust. Catalepsy cropped out there in the form of a detailed account of a reporter's pilgrimage to Chelsea, and consequent interview with the unconscious subject, who belonged (it appeared) to the sterner sex. The reporter dished up his facts attractively, seasoning them with bits of smart detail and racy description.

"A seething crowd," he wrote, "not entirely composed of the residents of Briggs Street, surged round the door of the shabby little public-house where the Cataleptic Wonder has remained in unbroken slumber for a fortnight or more. I pushed my way through the barrier of humanity and entered the bar. It was crowded with thirsty customers— the landlord and three shirt-sleeved assistants perspired freely in their efforts to cope with the demands made on them. After having swallowed the half-pint of malt liquor which it behooved me to order, I, in the interests of The Sunday Intelligence, proceeded to business. Mentioning the magic name before which all doors must open, I at the courteous invitation of mine host of the 'Pink Lion,' entered the bar parlour and sat down. Professor Phineas J. Pargeter joined me in a few minutes."

I finished my coffee at a gulp, and resting my elbows on the tablecloth, read on with a kind of dreary desperation.

xii

"A TALL, athletic form, clad in professional black, a handsome face, an affable expansive manner, neatly kept white hands, which gracefully threaded the masses of dark clustering locks, or waved in the air, gracefully accompanied the harmonious tones of a deep baritone voice... somewhat tinged with an American accent... all these characteristics distinguish the individuality of Professor Pargeter, late occupant of a distinguished post in one of the most famous Transatlantic Medical Colleges. After a brief yet profoundly interesting account of the peculiar features presented in the case (all of which will be found in detail in our sixth column) the Professor courteously introduced me to his charge. (I may add that pure Christian charity alone has induced Professor Pargeter to consent to superintend the slumbers of the cataleptic, and that the philanthropic idea of raising by the small charge levied per head on visitors, a sum of money to be ultimately employed for the benefit of the sleeper, emanated from his large and teeming brain.)"

"Ha-aah!" I yawned, and read on:

"I found the Cataleptic Wonder in a small room on the second floor of the 'Pink Lion.' He reclined upon a small bedstead, about six feet in length, and three and a half in width, fully dressed, with the exception of his coat and boots, which had been removed, revealing a pair of much-darned brown worsted socks. He presented, at the first glance, the appearance of a sleeping man; but a closer inspection revealed the unnatural rigidity of the limbs and the bluish shades that veiled the mouth and closed eyelids. ..."

I refolded the paper to get at the top of a fresh column, and, propping it against the milk-jug, read on:

"In his waking moments, the Cataleptic Man of Chelsea cannot, even by his most partial acquaintances, be considered a specimen of beauty. His developments are meagre, his skin sallow, his ha possesses the reddish hue which is unflattering stigmatised by many persons as 'carrot,' and his chin is decorated with a stubby growth of corresponding colour, which has made its appearance during his protracted slumber. His linen (of course his collar has been removed) boasts a pattern, brown horse-shoes, his cravat is a cheerful mixture of navy blue and orange, and the articles vulgar known as 'reach-me-downs' are of loud-pattern tweed...

(The day was growing foggy. I could hardly distinguish the column of type before me)...

"stripes and bars of greenish black and chocolate being thrown into relief against a background mustard colour."

(How dark it was growing!)

"His black waistcoat was garnished by a nickle watch-chain..."

The letters faded completely out of view. I looked up. The shade of Johnson-Williams was standing betwe the table and the window. Had I summoned him wit out knowing it?— conjured up his image in my mind without an absolute effort of volition?

"If you only knew how impatiently I have waited for this moment," he began.

I looked at him narrowly. Surely— surely, he was strangely altered for the worse. His shape was no longer clearly defined, but nebulous and indistinct; his hues and xits seemed, as it were, to have run into one another; is outlines were ragged and incomplete. He saw that I oticed this, and shook his head sorrowfully.

"Is— anything wrong?— I should say, more wrong than usual?" I faltered.

"An unforeseen contingency, my dear Pegley," returned Johnson-Williams, "threatens to render my present crucial position more desperate still. If you had brought me out a little sooner, something might have been done, but," he shook his head again, "I fear it is now too late."

"In Heaven's name, speak plainly!"

"I will endeavour to do so," said my poor friend. "The act is, Pegley, I am beginning to go."

"To go?"

"To wear out," explained Johnson-Williams, with dreadful calmness. "In point of fact, the— the friction of this mundane atmosphere is beginning to be too much for me. The airy, nebulous individuality which ambitious effort rashly expelled from that envelope or case of flesh and blood (which, in my absence, was fraudulently purloined by the reptile whom we both abhor) is beginning to crumble away. The tender tail of a hermit-crab deprived of the protecting shell in which its owner inviaribly encases it, suffers injuries and abrasions, may be broken or torn off. The chrysalis, stripped of its protecting husk, shrivels and dies. My case parallels with either of these. Look!"

He held out his right hand— three of its unsubstantial fingers were missing! He pointed to the left side of his lead— an ear was wanted there!

"As the process of Decay advances," he said gloomily, "and my airy particles disintegrate with greater rapidity, my dear Pegley, I shall lose not only fingers and ears, but entire limbs— whole sections of my anatomy will disappear, in fact, then..." His voice died away.

I glared at him. My mind seemed paralysed by this new disaster.

"It was piling Pelion upon Ossa," said Johnson-Williams, promptly filling up the gap in my memory.

"Has Miss...?" I choked.

"I take you. Has the attention of Miss Williams-Johnson been drawn to the fact that I am— considered as a specimen— incomplete!" He touched the place where his ear should have been, and glanced at the remaining digits of his right hand, sadly. "It has, more than once. But on these occasions I have diverted her from the topic with airy badinage, and upon her reverting to it later, persuaded her that she had materialised me imperfectly. If anything could add to my agony of spirit, it would be the knowledge that she is, at this moment (in complete ignorance of the dreadful secret which you and I, my dear Pegley, enjoy the dismal privilege of sharing), employed in making her wedding-gown."

Johnson-Williams wiped away the semblance of a tear. I had no words wherewith to comfort him.

xiii

"SHE SUSPECTS nothing, then?" I gasped.

"Nothing," returned Johnson-Williams. "It puzzles the dear girl a little to find me so constantly about her; she thinks, I know, that in my joy at having attained the Pitch, I am neglecting my business duties, in running backwards and forwards between Merthyr Tydvil and London by any astral current that happens to be convenient."

"Could you not . . .?"

"I have not the moral courage," my friend replied, "to administer such a terrible shock. And my cowardice, and her own desire to act for my welfare in all things, have resulted in her dealing me, unconsciously, a frightful Blow." He winced as if he had really had it "A blow?" I interrogated.

"The firm of solicitors in Llanberis which you may remember was entrusted with the settlement of her aunt's affairs, and whose Senior Partner first communicated to Gwendollen the fact of a legacy having been left her"— really, Johnson-Williams was very prolix— "have got through the legal formalities inseparable from testamentary dispositions, with extraordinary celerity. Gwendollen is mistress of a little income in her own right, and a  moderately-sized household of furniture. And I joyfully regret to say, my dear Pegley," said Johnson-Williams, "that she gave warning to the coal-merchant a week ago, and will arrive in London within the next forty-sight hours or so with the avowed intention of getting married directly. Meanwhile," continued the miserable fellow, "I am to look out quiet respectable lodgings for a single young lady, and give notice of our intending nuptials to the Registrar of the parish in which they happen to be situated."

He tore his shadowy hair and seemed to gnash his teeth.

"Where am I? Who has got me? Days— weeks you have been searching high and low, I know; I have been dear you often when you seemed"— there was a tinge of bitterness in his tone— "to be quite unconscious of my proximity. I have accompanied you in your excursions North and West. I have seen the Doctor George who lives at Highgate and the Doctor George who resides at Kew. Neither of these is identical with the miscreant who has my property in his possession. That villain, when about to carry out his nefarious designs, began by giving the landlady a name as much unlike his own as could be invented on the spur of the moment. Therefore, by a very natural deduction, the man you should have been looking for all this time, ought to have been an individual whose name was Anything but Doctor George!"

Such was his frenzied vehemence that he quivered like a cobweb in a strong draught. I began to feel that I had| not been born for a detective.

''Never say die!" It was an idiotic remark to make, but I could not think of any other.

"I should much prefer not to do so, my dear Pegley," said Johnson-Williams, with the ghost of his amenable manner. "But you must admit that I am in a horrible situation. If within the next few days my corporeal tenement cannot be recovered, I shall be forced to communicate the cruelest of shocks to a dear, beautiful girl" His shadowy features quivered, like the reflection of a face seen in water over which a breeze is passing, and he wrung his filmy hands. "And even should her true affection triumph over circumstances," he continued, "and she was to announce her willingness to marry the mere unsubstantial shadow of a husband— what ordinary Registrar would consent to perform the ceremony? Of if a Clergyman gifted with the necessary amount of imagination could be found, with what truth could I approach the hymeneal altar with the solemn declaration that there is no existing barrier to my union with Gwendollen?"

He clasped his hands under his ghostly coat-tails, and began to fluctuate— I cannot say walk— rapidly up and down the room.

"If nothing comes to light, if no trace of me is discovered before the period of my poor dear girl's arrival, perhaps you would not mind, my dear Pegley, meeting the Welsh Express at Euston Road Station, No. 3 platform, Tuesday morning, 8.30 a.m., and assisting Gwendollen to procure a comfortable, quiet apartment in some respectable lodging-house. There is a notice of Rooms To Let in one of the fanlights over the front door of this very house; I saw it in ascending from the level of the first floor to your window" (I lived on the third floor).

"The Poet has observed that when we stoop to deceive—  for our own good or that of others— we weave a Tangled Web!" He shook his faint head sorrowfully. "If I should still persist, up to and after Gwendollen's arrival upon the— in short— the scene, in not turning up, I must trouble you, my dear Pegley, to add a few strands to the Fabric already elaborated. It is desirable that I should, in my present deplorable condition of mind— I cannot say body— avoid an interview with Gwendollen at present— shun her very vicinity, in the fear of being forced in a moment of weakness to reveal my pitiable condition. Pressure of business at the office would, I think, be a feasible excuse! Or a natural delicacy in obtruding my presence upon her, previously to our union— I leave it to you to decide upon the line it would be best to take. Divert her mind, my dear Pegley, as much as you can. Prevent her, if possible, from thinking about me. Keep her, if you can again, from wishing to see me— from forming that mental image of me which will infallibly result in my Development."

He had come to me without being summoned in this way.

"You must have done it unconsciously," said Johnson-Williams, answering my thought, "it could not have happened otherwise." Then the agitation returned and seized him, and shook him in a manner painful to witness. "My body, my body!" he groaned. "Who knows what treatment that— that villain may not have subjected it to? Who knows where it may be lying at this moment? A fortnight ago I rejected your theory of Vivisection as too impossible to entertain. To-day I find myself struggling against the growing conviction that I have been Dissected for medical purposes"— I felt my hair creep sympathetically and a cold chill run down my back— "and that the most important features of my organisation are at present on— on exhibit, in glass demi johns of proof spirit, tied over the top with oiled parchment and string, on the dusty shelf of an obscure surgery! The rest of me"— he turned a lack-lustre eye on mine— "has most probably been buried in a dust-heap! It— it's a dreadfully choky idea, isn't it? Hope I haven't spoiled your breakfast. Good morning."

xiv

THE 8.30 Welsh Express came into Ruston Station punctually— that is, at little more than half-past nine. In the cold white light of a damp and cheerless May morning, the tousled heads of passengers who had been travelling all night were thrust out of the windows, and shouts of "Porter!" made the glass roof echo again.

There were two Pullman cars on the train. . I did not trouble about examining their inmates very minutely, but walked on towards the end of the platform, where the third-class compartments were. I had formed a picture of Miss Williams-Johnson in my mind, as a red-cheeked, healthy young woman of the nursery-governess type; and under the influence of this pre-conviction, looked into a good many faces without finding any to correspond with my ideal. Minutes passed. The carriages emptied, the platform cleared, and still I rambled vaguely up and down. Perhaps Miss Williams-Johnson had been detained— perhaps she would come by the next train. But at that moment, a porter passed me shouldering a small black trunk. The initials G. W. J. were painted on it in white. He dangled a bonnet-box and a small bag in his unoccupied hand, and was followed by a young lady.

"I don't see the gentleman, miss!"

"He is sure to be here," said the young lady; "please look about you again, and remember the description I gave you."

The porter's countenance expanded into a grin.

"There's a many gents in London as answers to that description."' he said. "But I'll ask the constable at the turnstile.. . Box and all, he broke into a run.

The young lady put back a brown gauze veil from a charming face and looked about her a little bewilderedly with a pair of brilliant blue eyes. She had evidently been travelling all night, for she looked fatigued and slightly crumpled, but there was not a speck of dust or grime on her neat little person. Those lovely eyes lighted with hope as the returning bulk of the porter in company with a large smiling policeman bore down upon her.

The policeman was something of a joker in his way.

"Jim— this man here, miss," he said with assumed stolidity, "tells me that you were expecting a gent to meet you as 'asn't, so to speak, come up to the mark. Might I ask what kind of looking individual he might be?"

The young lady blushed a little.

"He is tall and thin," she said, "with auburn hair and no mustache to speak of, and he wears a brown bowler hat, and a suit of checked tweed— a yellow and chocolate pattern, and a blue tie with orange spots, and a black waistcoat, and a watch-chain which looks like silver, but is not," she concluded.

The policeman and the porter suppressed a mutual guffaw.

"As Jim here said just now," the policeman remarked, "we have a good many young gentlemen in London as dress like that. You're from the country, no doubt?"

"I am a native of Wales," said the young lady quietly. "And as this is the first time I ever was in London, I cannot believe that the gentleman I speak of would have been so— so forgetful, or so unkind, as to break his promise of meeting me!" Her blue eyes filled with tears.

"They're all like that, miss, bless you!" said the policeman. "He's just dropped it clean out of his mind and gone with a 'andsomer gal, as the song says. Not that I believe she would be, neither." He turned an admiring leer upon the pretty face of Gwendollen, for, by this time, I was sure of her identity. I stepped forward and raised my hat.

"Miss Williams-Johnson, I believe?"

"Yes. You come from— from Llewellyn?" she said anxiously. I bowed assent.

"Oh! where is he? Can he be ill," she cried, "that he does not come himself? Perhaps you are the doctor?"

"I am only a fellow clerk in the same office," I replied.

"Mr. Pegley!" she cried. "Oh, he has so often talked of you! Pray tell me—"

"He is not ill."

"Thank Heaven!" Gwendollen cried.

The policeman had retired, but the porter still loomed in the neighborhood upbearing his burden of luggage. I procured a cab and put Miss Williams-Johnson into it.

"My friend is unavoidably prevented from appearing," I explained, as the porter hoisted Miss Williams-John-son's box upon the top of the vehicle and crowded her bandbox and bundle under the little front seat. "Therefore, he has deputed me to meet and accompany you to your lodgings."

I had engaged the vacant bed and sitting room immediately beneath my own, as Johnson-Williams had suggested.

"And I was to give you his love— his devoted love"—  her bright eyes grew brighter— "and to beg you not to be anxious or worried on his account, until he is able to appear in person and set all your doubts at rest. Meanwhile"— I spoke with meaning— "he hopes that nothing will happen to divert him from his employment, which is of a most important nature. He has neglected his business sadly of late, owing to other preoccupations, the nature of which, he said, you would be able to guess." She nodded. "So," I went on, "if you would think of him as little as you conveniently can during the interval he would be deeply indebted to you."

"It will be difficult to help thinking about him!" she said tenderly, "but I will try. Perhaps you could tell me something of the nature of the business he is engaged in?" "It involves a great deal of research," I said truthfully; "and his whole future depends upon its successful carrying out. If I were you, I would not even write until you receive a letter from my friend."

"Is that part of the message?" asked Gwendollen quickly, and I answered:

"That is part of the message."

xv

THEN as the cab wobbled along, I began to point out to her the different objects of interest to be seen in the streets of the Metropolis. It was necessary she should not be allowed to brood on Johnson-Williams too much. Her artless enthusiasm was delicious; her wonder and delight at the gaudy omnibuses, the smart carriages, the bright shops and staring advertisements, lent these things a charm they had never held before in my eyes.

My landlady received her with empressement. I saw the dingy door of my lodgings close upon that charming vision of youth and beauty with a sigh. She had thanked me warmly at parting. I paid and dismissed the four-wheeler and walked to the City, revolving in my mind plans for the sparkling creature's entertainment and amusement. Her thoughts must be diverted from her absent lover; she must not be allowed to brood in loneliness.... Ah, I had got it! I would write to a theatrical friend— obtain through his mediation three upper circle tickets for the Adelphi…. Three, because my landlady must accompany us as chaperon. That our party would include an invisible fourth member in the spirit of Johnson-Williams I suspected. But yet....

The tickets arrived next morning.

"Never been to a theayter in all her sweet young life," said my landlady, "and jumped for joy at the bare thought of it. 'Will it be quite proper, though, Mrs. Toms?" she says, 'to go with a gentleman— and one I know so little of?' the artful dear!" Mrs. Toms evidently thought— but what did it matter what Mrs. Toms thought? She went on:

" 'Which a more delicate-minded gentleman than Mr. Pegley never yet breathed,' I says to 'er; 'and the presence of a respectable married person as has seen better days in a black silk gown, as turned like new,' I say, 'puts questions of proper or not proper entirely by!' And she jumped and clapped her hands like the bright bird she is, with 'Oh! Mrs. Toms, how delightful.' 'Which others think so, too, my lamb,' I says, and she blushed like a damson rose."

"You are not to think, Mrs. Toms—" I began.

"Bless your dear heart, I never thinks!" said Mrs. Toms, with dreadful slyness. "If," she went on, "a bit of supper arter the play would be agreeable, I'm sure my parlour is at your service. With a quart of stout and bitter, and a half-crown lobster, and a dish of salad, and a shape of jelly, and me being present, the tongue of scandal has no handle, as the saying is."

The evening that ensued was a delightful one. I look back to it now as an oasis in the desert of my commonplace life. The play we witnessed, was a celebrated melodrama with comic situations, and I am not dear to this day what it was all about. But the tragic bits (where the villain and the heroine are locked into a lonely windmill together, and the bold girl, preferring death to his loathsome declarations of love, hurls herself upon the sails and is carried, amidst deafening applause, slowly to the ground) made Gwendollen tremble and clutch me, unconsciously, with one little white hand— such a dainty little hand that I longed to comfort it by holding it in my own!— and the funny scenes (where the sailor having primed himself with Jamaica rum to the pitch of making a proposal of marriage, is confounded by seeing two sweethearts in the place of one, for instance) made her laugh heartily, and in laughing, appeal to me with such brimming bright eyes and such pearly little teeth, to know whether she was right in doing so, that I spent the evening in a foolish condition of ecstacy. Mrs. Toms was very sympathetic and cried at all the love-making bits, finding out resemblances in the hero and heroine to Gwendollen (I kept calling her Gwendollen in my heart) and myself that were agreeably confusing. The lobster supper went off splendidly, and when I mixed a glass of gin and water for Mrs. Toms after a prescription compiled for her in those better days by a doctor who kept his carriage, and she slumbered after its absorption, stertorously in her chair, we conversed for quite half an hour, in whispers, about nothing in particular. And when I gave her her bedroom candle she frankly gave me that dear little hand I had been yearning to touch all the evening, and the tattoo my heart beat against my shirt-front was so loud that I fled for fear she should hear it!

"I have done as he asked me," I said, defiantly addressing my bedroom candle, as I set it down upon my chest of drawers. "I have succeeded in diverting her mind."

I took off my boots tenderly— she slept in the room underneath— and went to bed. I dropped into slumber almost instantly, and not having thought about Johnson-Williams much during the day, naturally dreamed of him. Dreamed of him vividly, and awoke to find his lambent astra hovering by my bedside. He looked terribly ragged, and his outlines were more indistinct than ever.

"I say, how long is this going to go on?" he said, the moment our eyes met. "Two days of the time gone and no news of my whereabouts. It is perfectly sickening I"

"If you are dissatisfied with my efforts," I said, sitting up, "why not enlist those of somebody else? I have acted as your unpaid detective for weeks past; I have laboured in your interests like a galley-slave"— I felt my voice tremble— "and you knock me up— in the middle of the night— to find fault."

"You dreamed of me, my dear Pegley," said Johnson-Williams pleadingly.

"If I did I didn't mean to," I said brusquely.

"My good friend— my only adviser," said the poor fellow, "I am afraid you will find me trying to your patience. But consider my cruel situation."

"You call me your adviser," I said. "I am afraid I am but a poor one. Is there nobody in your own sphere — nobody of your own consistency— whom you might consult?"

"Not a body— I should say, not a single soul. Yoti don't know how stiff and standoffish they are— I mean the people whom I come across from time to time. The Fifth Rounders won't speak to the Third Rounders and the Third Rounders think it beneath them to respond to any advances from a mere beginner." He sighed. "No; I haven't a ghost of a chance of getting any help that way, my dear Pegley."

"No chance whatever!" I echoed brutally.

"They are dreadfully classy— you can have no idea how classy they are," rejoined my poor friend despondently. "The brokers at Lloyd's are contemptuous and overbearing in their way of treating underwriter's clerks and agents' assistants. But the Mahatmas and Adepts and so forth whom I occasionally encounter are worse-far worse! They consider me an interloper. If ever I get back into myself again, Pegley, nothing shall induce me to venture out of me, even for a short excursion. I am going now! Pray, pray don't relax your efforts in my behalf! Keep Gwendolen's mind occupied— be on tiie lookout for any clue that may be picked up, and..." He was nearly gone, but came back to say, "You know—  I have explained to you that I have not dared to venture into Gwendolen's vicinity since her arrival for fear, in a weak moment, of betraying myself and shocking her. How— how does she look?"

"Very beautiful!" I answered shortly.

"How kind of you, my dear Pegley, to speak so appreciatively," said Johnson-Williams, offering me a phantom hand, which I shook without heartiness. "It does me good to hear it— it does indeed. I had had my doubts whether she might be fretting— just a little— on account of my absence."

"Not a bit," I said heartlessly. "At least, if she does fret she hides it very well. You ought to have heard her laugh to-night. It sounded like a mountain rivulet, a Welsh mountain rivulet, gurgling over pebbles."

"You have such a happy knack of simile and allusion, my dear fellow! Like a Welsh mountain rivulet!" commented the shade of Johnson-Williams. "I have often wondered what it was Gwendolen's laugh reminded me of, and now I know, a Welsh mountain—" He broke off apologetically. "I beg your pardon, I'm afraid you are sleepy. But indeed, indeed, you have done me good. 'A Welsh...' so very appropriate! My dear old Pegley, good-night."

He was gone.

xvi

"WHICH to the theayter I should have pinned my faith as full of opportunities for a young gentleman to refer to the condition of his feelinks between the ax," said Mrs. Toms, "to say nothing of being let 'old her 'and when guns are going off and a dark drive 'ome in a four-wheel cab, behind a nuffy 'orse, if ever I see one. And yet if you was to ast me on my oath, 'Do you see signs of anything like cornin' to the p'int?'— if my lips were to breathe their last this minute! 'Yes' I could not bring myself to say. We have been to the Harcade in Covent Garden, and likewise the Tower, which with them narrow twisty stone stairs full of corners, and the thumb-blocks and screw-jaxes, and iron gentlemen grinnin' 'orrid at you with 'alberds in their 'ands, fairly swarms with opportunities, if you'll excuse me, sir, for saying so. Also we have been to the British Museum, where many a young couple with mutual hobelisk"— I believe Mrs. Toms meant "object," but became confused by associations— "in view, has come to an understandin'. An' to the New Law Courts an' Westminster Abbey, to say nothing of the Zoologicum Gardens— an' both of you like pictur's ridin' on a nelefunk as kep' twistin' 'is little tail round like a negg-whisk, as the keeper said were not temper, but pleasure in the exercise alone. Moreover, we have been to the 'Ippodrom," said Mrs. Toms, who was beginning to get her second wind by this time; "to say nothing of Venison Revived at Hearl's Court, when in a small boat shootin' under one of them dark archways, you might 'a' popped the question in her year, when duck year heads you must, or 'ave your brains dashed out before your own eyes. But never once," concluded Mrs. Toms pathetically, "have you snatched the lucky moment an' made mention of the condition of your 'eart. It isn't nat'ral, Mr. Pegley, and what's more, she feels it, poor dear! Else why was she crying this morning!''

"Crying?"

"Dropping tears like a cut cowcumber," said Mrs. Toms emphatically, "and therefore, my advice is, without delay, up and speak to her, Mr. Pegley, like a man. You're a retiring gentleman, Mr. Pegley, you don't know your own wally, sir. If you knowed as much as I know, and had heered as much as I have heerd," said Mrs. Toms with something very nearly approaching to a wink, "you'd be bolder, you would indeed. Take and ask 'er this afternoon— take and marry her as quick as can be— turn the two combination bed an' siftin' rooms into one sweet— you shall have 'em at thirty shillin's weekly— an' be 'appy," ended Mrs. Toms, adding the fininshing touch to the alluring picture with one masterly sentence. Then, with a great assumption of delicacy, she retired down the wooden hatchway that led to the kitchen, as Gwendollen came downstairs. She was so simply and prettily dressed, looking such a very incarnation of early Summer on that beamy day, that my treacherous heart jumped madly, and I turned quite giddy at the first glance.

She had a little navy serge gown on, from the collar of which her white throat rose like a flower, and under a little black straw hat with a bunch of coquettish pink moss-rosebuds in it, her blue eyes looked out, all the brighter perhaps for the tears she had been shedding, and her golden brown locks wooed the sunshine to tangle in their meshes.

Tip-tap, came the little patent-leather shoes downstairs. Gwendollen had certainly spent several sovereigns of her aunt's legacy on prettiments of various kinds, since she had come to London. She smiled and gave me her delicious hand. But she looked thoughtful. As we descended the hall doorsteps and turned into the street, the area gate clashed, and a worn-out list slipper of heroic dimensions whizzed past my ear, and fell with a dull splash into a mud-cart which happened to be lumbering by.

xvii

"WHY does Mrs. Toms throw her old shoe after us?" enquired Gwendollen innocently.

"It— it's a London custom," I replied mendaciously.

"Oh," commented Gwendollen. Then we walked on together in silence. If there can be a state of mind which is at once a state of misery and a state of rapture, my mental condition may be said to have balanced equally between those extremes that afternoon. My heart was heavy, and yet my spirits were elated; I hardly felt the pavement underneath my boots. My companion, too was fitfully talkative and monosyllabic by turns as we walked down Southampton Row, turned into Holborn, and keeping our faces westwards soon arrived at that ganglion of thoroughfares, from which springs one of the leading business arteries of London— the Tottenham Court Road. Here Gwendollen paused, and looked up at me with enquiring eyes. She wanted to know where we were going. The conviction that I had exhausted the resources of most of the inexpensive daylight sights of the Metropolis, in the effort to keep the mind of my companion from dwelling on her absent lover, came upon me in a cold dash of realism. Only the Botanical Gardens, the Chelsea Hospital, and South Kensington Museum remained. What should I do, I wondered, when no single spot of any celebrity remained untrodden? But I ran over the list of places to my companion, and begged her to decide upon our destination. It was all the same to me where I went, I asseverated, and I spoke the truth. Whitechapel itself would have seemed as another Arcadia, had I been privileged to wander through its unsavoury labyrinths with Miss Williams-Johnson by my side. From which it will plainly be inferred that I was very far gone indeed.

"I should like to go," answered Gwendollen, a little wistfully, with an involuntary shrinking from the coarse noise and bustle of the Tottenham Court Road— "I should like to go somewhere where there is plenty of space, and a little grass, and something to sit down upon; and nothing in particular," she went on, "that one is obliged to look at— because I have seen so many things since I came to London, that I feel quite giddy; and because"— she hesitated— "I have something important to say to you."

Something to say to me! What could it be? And where— how to pitch upon a spot presenting all the distinctive or indistinctive peculiarities preferred by my companion! Kensington Gardens was disqualified by the existence of the Albert Memorial. Regent's Park would be, I knew, at this time of year, suffering from a vivid eruption of potted-out plants. Primrose Hill— the name came to me like a revelation. I hailed the Camden Town *bus as it lumbered past— I assisted Gwendollen to the top and reverently took my place on the garden seat beside her. It was a delightful, agonizing, torturing, intoxicating experience.... And then we got down and walked, and I was more miserably blissful than ever. And when we passed in at the turnstile in the palings, and felt the soft turf under our feet, and began climbing the artistically ornamented walks paved by an enlightened County Council, with broken cockleshells and cinders—  together— smiling, talking, and panting— up the grassy ascent, my sensations became altogether indescribable. If I could have seen a white stone anywhere, I would have picked it up and made a mark on the day.

THE SUMMIT of Primrose Hill— a circular space of grass— is a little dented, like the top of a boiled apple-pudding; a homely comestible which the Hill itself resembles in no slight degree. Not a living creature occupied the seats which have been placed there for the convenience of Cockney mountaineers. We were alone— quite alone. Eastwards, the dome of St. Paul's reared against a soft purplish-dun background of smoke, beyond which the glittering towers of the Crystal Palace lifted themselves out of the green foliage of the Sydenham trees.

Highgate towered to the north, and die Hampstead Heights lifted themselves into a purer atmosphere. A lion's roar boomed out from the Zoological Gardens. If the beast had been free, and had sprung upon Gwendollen at that moment, I should have engaged him single-handed with my umbrella, and performed prodigies of valour before he ate me up.

"Will this do?" I asked, as we sat down upon the central bench, and looked about us— at least, Gwendollen looked about her— I looked at Gwendollen.

Gwendollen's answer was irrelevant. "It does seem strange," she said slowly, drawing patterns on the soft ground with the ferrule of her sunshade, as she spoke, "Llewellyn's never having come near me all this while, I should have thought...!"

"Remember," I said, infusing a certain degree of gentle remonstrance into my tone, "that you promised not to think at all."

"I know, and I have tried to keep my promise. It has been very hard to do so— you can hardly realise how hard." She breathed quickly and drew more patterns. "You meet him every day at the office. You enjoy the pleasure of his society and conversation each day— at the office." Her tone sounded a little hard and strange to me. "Of course," she continued, "I have heard from you regularly" (Heaven forgive me, she had!) "just how he seemed, and what he said. This morning, for instance, you told me that he looked-"

"Not quite as complete as— as I could have wished," I stammered. "He is grinding away gradually at those researches I told you of, and has lost some of his substantiality, it is true, but he seems to grow more lighthearted"— I might have said light-bodied— "every day." She turned and looked me straight in the face. My mendacious tongue clave to the roof of my mouth, the blood rushed into my very eyeballs, and my heart dropped into my boots, as she said slowly:

"I wonder you can dare to look me in the face and tell me such a wicked story!"

"Story!" I stuttered guiltily.

"Story!" cried Gwendollen, flushing royal red and starting to her feet, "when you know he has not been to the office for weeks!— that he has even left his lodgings, secretly, and his landlady does not even know where he has gone! I do not blame you"— her tone softened as she contemplated the scarlet misery of my countenance, and the crushed humiliation of my attitude— "I do not blame you. You have some kindly motive in screening Llewellyn— you have deceived me, out of sheer pity—  wasted your time in endeavoring to stave off the discovery which you knew to be inevitable. Dear Mr. Pegley, kind Mr. Pegley, pray do not look so wretched, pray do not glare at me in such a dreadful manner! If Llewellyn," her voice faltered, "does not love me any more, it is not your fault, it is"— she broke down and began to cry— "it is Fate. He— though you may not know it," she sobbed hysterically, "has great gifts—  capacities of a wonderful and extraordinary kind. By dint of study and research he has gone beyond himself" — it was easy to see that her mind was reverting to his performances upon the astral plane— "and beyond me. I have always known I was not worthy of him, but I never dreamed that he would prove unworthy of himself!"

xviii

HER EYES flashed through the tears that hung on her dark curling lashes. She had never looked prettier.

"For days— weeks— I tried, as he desired, to dismiss him from my mind. I scrupulously kept from forming even the wish to see him lest-" She stopped, but I, with my unguessed knowledge, filled in the blank. "Only as he had not exacted any promise from me that I would not attempt, indirectly, to gain any news of him"— (fool! fool! I had never thought of blocking up that avenue of discovery)— "other than the intelligence I received from you"— her lip curled— "I employed Mrs. Toms" (Oh, Toms! Toms!) "to make, very quietly and carefully, enquiries at his lodgings and at the office, with the result that I discovered the trick that had been played me— the cruel trick— three days ago!" She stamped her little foot upon the ground, and went on: "Where he is— what he is doing— I cannot tell. You, who are in his confidence" (she drew herself up proudly), "know, of course, and I do not ask you to betray him. I only command you— rely on you, to give him a message from me. Find him out—  tell him that this miserable state of things must end—  that my love for him, deeply wounded by 'deception and coldness, is fast bleeding to death. Say. that I have decided to put his love for me to a final test— that I have taken the one irrevocable step, which can never be retraced— and bought the licence!"

"Bought the license?" I echoed blankly.

"I see by your face," cried Gwendollen, "that you think I have been a rash, rash girl" (why rash? I wondered); "but the torturing suspense— the doubts— were too much to bear, and I resolved to stake all— all upon one cast!"

She was quite pale, and looked even wild. I could not see for the life of me why the mere purchase of the licence should be regarded by her from such an inveterately tragic point of view. But I tried to look as if I understood everything, and partially succeeded. She continued:

"You remember, a few days ago, that I sent you to borrow a book— something suitable for Sunday reading.

You sent me-"

"Pittaker's Almanac. I know."

"It was not quite the kind of thing I expected," went on Gwendollen, "but I looked in the index, to see if there was anything interesting, and under the letter 'M' I found-"

"Marriage," I put in gloomily.

"Marriage," repeated Gwendollen, suppressing her tendency to cry, as laboriously as I was suppressing the almost irresistible inclination to take her in my arms and kiss the tears away— "and all the different ways of getting married are set down so clearly that the most ignorant person could hardly fail to understand." She dried her brimming eyes with three inches of pocket-handkerchief and went on, with the calmness of despair: "So I found out that the easiest and quickest way of doing it was to buy a license, and that to be qualified to get one from Doctor's Commons you had only to have lived in a parish for fifteen days— and my fifteen days were up on Monday... and I made up my mind."

"Did you take Mrs. Toms with you?"

"Yes," said Gwendollen, "but I left her in a cab outside while I went in to— to buy it. There were some young clerks and two nice old gentlemen with gray heads— and I told them about Llewellyn being unable to come himself, and I paid thirty shillings, besides thirteen and sixpence for the stamp. Doesn't it seem a dreadful lot of money? And I went into several little dark offices one after another and swore all sorts of things that they told me I had got to swear; and kissed a Testament— such a dusty one— and never knew what an awful, awful thing I was doing, till-" She broke down.

"Till? Pray go on!" I begged. No baleful light had as yet dissipated the mental darkness in which I wandered.

"Till just as I was coming away!" almost shrieked Gwendollen.

"I met the fattest and most fatherly of the two old gentlemen... Of course I shook hands with him, in saying good-bye, and he kept my hand in his and patted it as if he was sorry for me, and said: I hope you may never, never regret the step, young lady, that you have taken to-day." I said, 'Oh, why?' And he said...

She stopped to have her sob out, and a great coil of her chestnut hair freed itself from the mass crowned by her little hat, and fell in silken heaviness upon her slight heaving shoulders.

"He said he hoped I realised the gravity of my position. Of course I knew that if the young gentleman to whose willingness to marry me I had just solemnly testified did not 'come up to time' (those were the very words) within twenty-one days from date, I should be obliged, under penalty of fine and imprisonment, to marry Somebody Else. Her Majesty the Queen and the Archbishop of Canterbury did not c-care who it was, but it must be Somebody; they were not going to give their permission for nothing— nothing! When I had paid t-two pounds three and s-six!... I don't know how I got away, I was frightened and dazed— it was only when I reached home that the full meaning of what I had done came upon me like a thunderbolt. It has been growing clearer and more plain every hour.... See! there is the awful, awful thing!" She pulled the stamped and folded official paper out of her little pocket and threw it on the ground. "I cannot bear to look at it; it reminds me of the dreadful risk I run. The risk of being married to some strange, dreadful Somebody, if Llewellyn— after all the years we have been engaged— doesn't love me w-well enough to come and do it himself!"

She buried her face in her hands. I rose and picked up the marriage licence, and stood looking down at her and thinking. There are people who consider me an honest, kindly sort of fellow, to-day. These laugh if I tell them that I once came very near being a villain and a scoundrel. Yet it is true. I felt not a spark of pity as I watched the girlish creature sorrowing there. I triumphed in my friend's misfortune— the misfortune which was now my opportunity. Love comes upon us all in different guises; sometimes as a jester, sometimes as a beggar, sometimes as an angel of light, sometimes as a Devil. Love had come to me with the crape and jemmy of a burglar— had cracked the crib of my integrity and stolen away the jewels of honesty, true faith and friendship. Because, adoring Gwendollen as I did, it had occurred to me that the harmless little joke of the lively old gentleman at Doctors' Commons, which the innocent girl had taken seriously— might be turned to account— to my account! We don't generally believe stories about Possession.... But upon my honor, so nearly forfeited!— upon my soul, so nearly stained with a wicked deed!— some strange Power forced me to act, to speak, to look, as I would not of my own conscious volition have acted or spoken or looked. I touched Gwendollen on the shoulder, and she lifted her head— that dear head! I met her eyes with mine, and a feeling I had never before experienced awoke in me as I plunged my glance into those clear blue depths.

"You will take him my message?" Gwendollen begged. "You will tell him that if I acted foolishly it was out of my— my love for him. And that he must— but he will, he will!— come and save me!"

"I will tell him!" That cold metallic voice! How unlike mine!

"Thank you!— oh, thank you! And he will come. You believe so?"

"I do not believe it, Miss Williams-Johnson!"

xix

SHE GASPED and swayed backwards. She was not going to faint, she said, as I threw my arm about her in support. What treacherous joy it gave me! Only rich girls in novels fainted, and she was not one of them. But she was quite well now, and I must explain to her candidly and plainly the meaning of my cruel words.

The exigencies of the past ten weeks had developed in me a talent for fiction which, until recently, had lain dormant in my system. The consciousness of unveracity no longer was painful to me: I had begun almost to take a pride in lying, and lying well. But my newly-gained experience did not account for the fiendish facility with which I unrolled my web of falsehood under the eyes of die poor girl— turned it this way and that like a skilled shopman, and persuaded her, with glib readiness, that the article was genuine. No! my theory, that I was temporarily possessed then and afterwards has never been shaken— never will be, while life remains!

"You ask for an explanation," said the voice which was, and which was not mine. "You wish for candour. Let the candour be on both sides. You spoke just now of Llewellyn's peculiar pursuits— of a wonderful and extraordinary faculty which, by laborious efforts, he has attained. What those pursuits are, the nature of that faculty, are known to me as well as to yourself. On the same evening on which he visited you at Merthyr Tydvil, to report his wonderful discovery'' (she started) "he paid me a visit— literally a flying visit— on the way home. That I have been in his confidence to a certain extent during these past weeks, you are aware. You know now how entirely he has placed his trust in me. I could wish," I faltered dramatically, "that he had not made me the recipient of his secrets. Now—"

"Go on!" said Gwendollen breathlessly.

And I, or rather It, went on:

"It is true that my friend has not been near the office for a considerable time. It is true that he has secretly abandoned his lodgings. I will tell you why when you have answered me a question or two. To begin with, when did your last interview take place— at Merthyr Tydvil?"

Gwendollen considered a moment. "Some twenty-four hours before I left. I had been seeing a great deal of him up till then— so much that I feared, in his enjoyment of the exercise of his new power of conveying himself wherever he liked, he was neglecting his work at the office."

"Did you," I continued gravely, "make any announcement to him of any decision you had formed— any step you were determined to take— at that last interview?"

"I told him about my having quite made up my mind to come to London" (she blushed) "and get married immediately."

"Did he— forgive me!— did he seem delighted or disturbed by the news? Did he endeavor to persuade you to remain in Wales, for instance, and hint that the wedding might be put off a little longer?"

"He certainly did! Oh, Mr. Pegley!"

"Keep calm, I beg you. Another question. Did anything strike you as strange in his appearance? "Yes; he seemed— I cannot explain!" She shook her head and knitted her lovely brows. "He seemed— not altogether there; for instance, I questioned him about—  about the strangeness, but he explained everything quite easily." She started to her feet. "Was he deceiving me?" she cried. "Was he-"

"Sit down again." I fixed my eyes on hers, and she obeyed. "He was deceiving you— in a measure."

"Yes; and where— where is he now? After all this deception, all this falsity, tell me plainly, Mr. Pegley!"

"He is in India." (What was I going to say next!)

"In India!"

"I should have said Thibet." What in the name of all that is diabolical put Thibet into my mouth?

"Thibet!"

"That is his spiritual body. His earthly body is at present traversing the Suez Canal in the hold of a Calcutta-bound merchant-steamer."

The unhappy girl stared at me blankly. But I, or It, was not in the least abashed. I could have gone on slowly, clearly, smoothly, distilling mendacity after mendacity, without the slightest sense of fatigue for hours and hours.

"But how? I do not understand. He could not possibly afford to pay the passage, even if-"

I smiled coldly.

"He has no passage to pay. He has projected his animating essence on before, by means of his geographical knowledge— which, as you know, is very considerable. From England to Calcutta, from Calcutta to Benares, from Benares to the Sikkim Himalaya" (what had I ever heard about the Sikkim Himalaya?), "from thence to Central Thibet. While his inferior earthly envelope" (I was quoting his own words) "travels, packed in a crate or box (I believe a box), simply and cheaply, as cargo." I anticipated a question here, so went on to explain, with a glib smoothness that astonished me. "You know he has been connected with a firm of underwriters for years; you are aware that he must have acquaintances in the shipping line; that one of these, in return for some slight service, could have obliged him by forwarding, free of expense, a crate or packing-case— containing supposedly, gardening tools and flower bulbs (at once accounting for the length of it, and the inscription 'With Care. Perishable!' nailed on the lid)— to a firm of luggage agents in Calcutta— to be left till called for— is hardly inconceivable."

It was inconceivable, but did she not guess that. My astonishing fecundity of invention, my cool self-possession were irresistible. I had the marriage licence in one hand, having enforced points in my explanation, by tapping it on the palm of the other. She put out her poor little trembling fingers, and drew it from mine as she said, with forced calmness:

"And when Llewellyn arrives at the Calcutta agents', how is he going to claim himself?"

I lied again, before I could stop myself. I made a new link in the chain of forged evidence which I was winding round my victim at a blow.

"She will arrange all that!"

"She! Ah!" cried Gwendollen, springing to her feet with blazing cheeks, and eyes that darted blue lightning. "At last I begin to understand!"

That was a good thing, because I did not! I was a passive instrument in the hands of the cunning inventive demon that had got hold of me.

"Who is she?" She stamped her pretty little foot upon the ground.

"She is the daughter of a Rajah— a Thibetan Rajah. A Buddhist priestess, if I understood my friend aright."

"And how— where did they meet? You shall tell me!" Miss Williams-Johnson commanded imperiously.

"You see," I said, "it has always been the dream of Llewellyn's life to travel. In the first blush of his great discovery— when he found that he had really attained the Pitch— he spent all the time that he did not devote to you in visiting foreign countries."

"He never told me so!"

"He would not. He might have feared your being jealous."

"Jealous!"

xx

"JEALOUS!" Gwendollen repeated scornfully.

"Or over-anxious for his safety. Well, of all the countries he visited, Thibet, as the home of Theosophic Buddhism, attracted him the most. Then, as he became drawn into the vortex of attraction created by Sankara-charita— Princess Sankaracharita is her name—"

"How hideous!"

"I fear his fidelity to you wavered, if it did not altogether go by the board. Even when impelled by self-reproach, remorseful regard, he sought your society, you must remember that you could never develop him completely."

"It is true."

"Because his spirit— a good deal of it at least— still remained with Sankaracharita. They are in absolute sympathy, I believe, and she is an extremely gifted woman though she has only been a votary of Buddha for two hundred years. During a hundred and fifty of them, he tells me, she has sat upon a palm-leaf mat, revolving her thumbs slowly one over the other, and reflecting on the Imponderability of Negative Reality."

"He has fallen in love?" Gwendollen uttered slowly, "Llewellyn has fallen in love with a woman who has lived for two hundred years! Why, she must be a mummy!"

"Buddhists lead a very calm existence," I responded, "and consequently live to incredible ages. When you have sat upon a palm-leaf mat for ninety years, you may just as well go on doing it for two hundred. And it is not the beauty of her body, but of her soul, her fifth principle, which fascinates Llewellyn. He tells me that she possesses a finer fifth principle than any woman he has ever met."

"He has not met very many " said Gwendollen, with bitter contempt. "Let him stop with Sankaracharita if he chooses— let him sit on a palm-leaf mat and turn into a mummy, too, if he likes— I shall not trouble my head, or my heart, about him any more! I will never think of him or wish to see him any more! I will forget him as completely as he has asked me to forget him! I know why he did that now! It was to prevent himself from being drawn out of the 'vortex' of Princess Whatever- you-may- like-to-call- her's attractions— ha, ha, ha!" She laughed hysterically. "When I go home, Mr. Pegley, I will burn all his letters, every one, with all the presents I ever received from him." (I guessed that there were not many, as the poor fellow whom I had so cruelly misrepresented had never had any money to spend.) "And as for this—"

I snatched the marriage licence from the hands that were about to rend it into fragments.

"Stop!" I said sepulchrally. "Recall yourself! Remember the danger to which you are exposed— remember the warning given you by the old gentleman at Doctors' Commons! Do you wish to be fined?— imprisoned for life in Holloway Gaol? I wish to be a friend to you, Miss Williams-Johnson— again I threw a hypocritical quiver of emotion into my accents— "and a friend must speak plainly If I had done so before— consented to betray the confidence of the unhappy man who once"—  I drove in the nail with a repetition— "once loved you, I might have saved you from what is now inevitable. You have bought a marriage licence, and you must marry — marry within twenty-one— no nineteen days, for three are gone, never to return. The question is, Who?"

She regarded me with eyes full of inexpressible dread. Her pale lips moved, repeating:

"Who?"

I, or the diabolical creature that had got hold of me, pretended to consider.

"Who! Is there any person in Wales who has at any time professed regard— more than regard— you understand?"

She shook her head.

"Nobody whom I could think of for a moment. Not one" (there had been more than one, then) "whom I could ever look upon as— as a husband!"

"Unfortunately," I sighed, "you cannot, in your present position, afford to pick and choose. There is so little time" (she shuddered), "that the most indispensable qualification, in the person you ultimately decide upon, is that he should be a bachelor. Are they all bachelors?" "All except one," replied Gwendollen unwillingly, "an elderly widower, with a family. He is an oil-merchant in a very extensive way of business."

"An oil-merchant!" I shook my head. "It is an inflammable calling. I have known a good many oil-merchants who systematically ill-treated their wives. As to the others?"

"There are only two others," answered Gwendollen. "One of them is the chief engineer of a Mining Company. He is paid quite a large salary, and is a very clever young man, having invented a pneumatic shaft-borer out of his own head, but—"

"Oh, come!" I said, in a tone of fastidious disgust, "it will never do for you to throw yourself away on a Borer."

"I felt that myself," replied Miss Williams-Johnson modestly. "The last—"

"Number Three?"

"Number Three is a young Dissenting minister; a Baptist— I believe he is very eloquent as a preacher, and very good; but, oh!" she winced, "he has such damp, red hands, and he combs his hair into his neck, and uses a great deal of pomatum or something to make it shiny." "And were you to marry him, he would probably dip you into his chapel tank," I suggested.

"I would never submit to that," cried Gwendollen emphatically. Then her tone changed: "Dear Mr. Pegley," she said sadly, "why do you take so much trouble about a poor deserted girl? Let the Archbishop of Canterbury take away all my money— let him shut me up in the Tower of London, if he likes, for all the remaining years I have got to live— what does it matter after all ?"

I moved closer to her. She did not draw away— she was too near the end of the seat for that; I took her hand gently; she let the pretty little fingers remain in mine.

"It matters a great deal to me," I said, and here I spoke nothing but the truth. "Dear Miss Williams-John-son— dearest Gwendollen, if you would give me the precious right to protect and care for you always— if you would bestow on me the invaluable treasure of your love, priceless boons both, which Another has rejected, you would make me the happiest man in London— in the whole world!"

She turned red and pale, and at last, softly drew away her dear hand and raised her candid eyes to mine.

"You are very noble, very generous," she said, and I winced, knowing what a mean young hound I was; even as I wince to-day, after the lapse of more than twenty years: "Dear, kind Mr. Pegley, I trust you with all my heart; I believe you to be a sincere, disinterested, honourable man." (Stab after stab, making the moribund carcass of my conscience quiver!) "And so it is my duty to be perfectly sincere, perfectly candid with you. I have—  considerable regard for you, but I— I can never love you— at least I think not— as I loved him!" She choked a little over the allusion. "Would it— oh, pray, pray reflect!— would it not be a dreadful thing to marry a girl—  to have a wife who— "

"Who is the sweetest, the dearest, the prettiest girl under the sun? No! A thousand times, no!"

I kissed her, Usurper that I was! I put my arm around her slight, submissive waist, and after the first recoil, she let it rest there peacefully. We sat a little while longer on the top of Primrose Hill, and then went home— on the top of the omnibus— an engaged couple. We had tea together that evening in Mrs. Toms' sitting-room, and under the auspices of that maternal person. And I felt no remorse; I gloried in my treachery. And that night, when I retired to bed, I summoned the shade of Johnson-Williams, and broke the news to him.

xxi

"YOU WILL excuse me, my dear Pegley, but I cannot— I can not believe it!"

Sitting on my bolster, with my elbows on my knees, and my chin propped between my fists, I looked in his face— as much as was left of it— and laughed defiantly.

"Wait!"

His ragged outlines wavered; he turned on me the faint lamps of his astral eyes and shook his shadowy head.

"I have studied your character closely during the years that we have been associated," he said, "and I have no hesitation in saying that you are incapable of meanness or treachery. You have told Gwendollen— for what reason I cannot imagine— a most extraordinary story! You have asked her to consider yourself in the light of her future husband, and obtained her partial consent. Now you deliberately summon me and assure me that you are going to make her your wife, and defy me, as a mere wandering, bodiless Third Principle, to interfere. Had I less faith in you, Pegley, such an announcement would drive me to die last pitch of desperation. But I see through your pretence. I know you better than you know yourself. Look the thing in the face. Suppose you were travelling, in the desert and met a wandering Arab whose only sustenance was a single date and a drop of water, you wouldn't— you couldn't deprive the man of what meant a few more hours of life to him? I am like that Arab, my dear fellow, and Gwendollen is my late— my drop of water! If you will look at the situation from my point of view you will agree with me that to take advantage of my helpless condition to rob me of her would be a mean thing, a base thing, a despicable thing, and that nothing could possibly induce you to do it!"

"Yet I am going to do it!"

"Take time, my dear fellow," pleaded my unhappy friend. "You know my favourite recipe for composing the mind. Run over the Merchant Shipping List, or the clauses of the Tonnage Act, before you make a positive reply, for my sake!"

I emphasized my words, spoken very calmly and distinctly, with beats of my right forefinger upon my left palm.

"I tell you again, my mind is made up. I have behaved like a villain— I mean to behave like a blackguard before I have done. I have slandered you— purposely. I have deceived Miss Williams-Johnson— deliberately. To-morrow I mean to have your name erased from the marriage licence and my own put in its place. And before another fortnight is over, Gwendollen will be my wife."

He flickered with passionate agitation.

"She shall not! I will go to her— this instant. I will warn her— tell her all!"

I sneered superior.

"Go if you like, but your efforts to interview her will be in vain. She has dismissed you from her mind; burned your letters. She will decline to enter into any conversation with or receive any visits from the astral personality of a sweetheart"— I laughed triumphantly—  "who had jilted her, heartlessly for a Thibetan lady of two hundred years of age."

Johnson-Williams paled and faded, but he recovered himself sufficiently to speak.

"It— it is incredible! that you— that you should have turned Gwendollen against me. That she should have stooped to believe such a cock-and-bull story— for it is a cock-and-bull story, Pegley!— is bewilderingly incomprehensible. But I— I will be patient. I will try to believe that you have some excellent motive"— I laughed again, malignantly— "at the bottom of all this. You have purposely misrepresented yourself, but it is no use— no use at all. You couldn't be a villain, Pegley, my dear fellow, you couldn't indeed l"

"Scat!"

The fellow's persistent belief in me had irritated me past bearing. With a violent effort of will-power, I extinguished him, and sinking back upon my pillow, slept the sleep of the just. Next morning I awoke bright as the proverbial button— a breathing, sentient proof to the contrary of the assertion that the wicked man cannot possibly be a happy one. Bent as I was upon making Gwendollen my own at the earliest possible date, it may be easily believed that I set at once about the necessary preparations. I began by applying for three weeks' leave of absence from the office. And, as a new book-keeper had been temporarily obtained in the place of Johnson-Williams, poor wretch! and in consideration of my having, previously to his advent, performed much of the extra duty that the absence of my betrayed friend entailed upon the rest of the working staff— my request was granted. Then I bought a new licence, carefully putting the old one away in a pigeon-hole of my bureau, with a kind of feeling that it would be unlucky to use it— and gave the necessary notice to the incumbent of the parish.

In a few days more Gwendollen— oh! dizzying thought!— would be my own. My own; whom neither man nor ghost should ever take from me. And as soon as the hymeneal knot was fairly tied, we were to start for Margate— Margate at the end of June is both healthful and delightful— while Mrs. Toms— who had been in a permanent condition of pleasing agitation designated by herself as "the twitters" ever since the announcement of our engagement— performed the sleight-of-hand feat designated by herself as "throwing two combination-bed-and-sittings into one sweet!"

And I got myself measured for the first superfine frock-coat I had ever contemplated wearing, with other essentials on a corresponding scale of magnificence. It may be imagined that I was kept pretty well employed by the cares inseparable to my approaching change of condition— and the necessity of keeping Gwendollen's mind employed.

To keep Gwendollen's mind employed, her thoughts diverted! It was a poignant necessity. The regular sights of the metropolis being by this time completely exhausted, I had invested in an Historical Guide to London— a publication which no one needs more than the born cockney, who has never spent three weeks out of sound of Bow Bells in his life; and I was in hopes, as I whirled Gwendollen from one memorable spot to another, that the resources of the volume to which I so desperately clung might not be exhausted before our wedding-day.

But Fate was against me. The long-dreaded moment came! Upon the very morning of the eve of the day that was to make Gwendollen my own forever, I realised that there was nothing more left to see. It was ten o'clock on a Friday morning; twenty-four hours yet remained to be filled up. And what— what was I to fill them up with?

We sat at breakfast together in Mrs. Toms' sitting room. That estimable female had poured out our coffee, and quitted the apartment with an elaborate delicacy of manner. Gwendollen made no effort to detain her. It was I— I who could have found it in my heart to ask her to stop, for the silence maintained with regard to Johnson-Williams by his pseudo-science from the moment of the revelation upon Primrose Hill until now, was, I felt, about to be broken, and my invention, I felt, would not be up to supplying any demands that might be made upon it in the way of biographical details regarding Her Highness the Princess Sankaracharya or the geographical formation of Thibet. My inventive genius had deserted me— I knew, I felt. Indeed, the frenzy of mendacity which overpowered me on the occasion previously recorded, was my single experience of the kind. I have been truthful, to the verge of dullness, ever since.

The words came at last.

xxii

YES, the words came! I had seen them glowing in her eyes— poor blue eyes! they seemed to have cried a good deal in the last few weeks— and on her lips.

"How long does it take a vessel— a steamship— to reach Calcutta?"

"About a month."

She leaned her round chin upon her white palm and pondered.

"You are neglecting your breakfast," I suggested.

"I don't want any!" she answered, rather curtly, and again pursued her train of thought in silence. Which she broke a few moments later, by saying:

"I hope Llewellyn's body will get there safely."

"No doubt," I responded, with inward quakings. "The freight-agents will take care of that."

"I suppose so," she assented. "And yet there are dangers which carefulness does not always avert. White ants, for instance." She shuddered inexpressibly. "One never takes up a book about travels in India, without reading something about the ravages of white ants. But she will take all needful precautions, I suppose, knowing the country— at least, she ought to know it, as she is a native!"

"Who?" I asked blandly.

"Sankaracharya, of course," responded Gwendollen.

"Oh! Sankaracharya!" I echoed stupidly. My mind was anxiously employed in sorting out a scheme— in compiling a pretext by which my bride-elect's attention might be diverted from the undesirable subject. But I couldn't hit on one. The well of invention seemed to have run dry.

"I suppose she is very brown," Gwendollen continued "Quite coffee-coloured, perhaps."

"Quite coffee-coloured!"

"I thought so!" she exclaimed triumphantly. "I bought a book all about Thibet yesterday, and nearly all last night— I have not slept a wink lately"— she sighed—  "I lay awake pondering over what I had read in it. I looked up the subject of Buddhist priestesses, the very first thing, and"— she produced the back of an envelope scribbled over with pencil notes— "this is the kind of costume they wear. A scarlet mitre-shaped head-dress, gilt on the top, a yellow sheepskin mantle, short petticoats, only reaching as far as the knees— striped with different colours, and to finish up with— a nose-ring and a pair of green top-boots." She waited a moment to let the description soak in. "Well?" she ejaculated impatiently.

I smiled what I felt to be a feeble smile.

"I— I should think it must be—"

"Awful!" interrupted Gwendollen. (I had been on the point of insanely saying "very becoming.")

"You are quite right, Edward." (She had never called me Edward of her own free will before.) "Awful! I should think so. And the man who could allow himself to be captured by such a creature must be mad! M-mad!"

In another moment she would have begun to cry. I seized the newspaper in despair— it was the first thing I could think of— and handed it hurriedly across the table.

"Have you seen the news about-" I slurred and mumbled, "if you haven't, you ought to. Wonderfully interesting and vivid. Gives quite a new view of the case."

"I don't know what case you mean," replied my fiancée — (how could she when I didn't?)— "unless you are talking about that tiresome cataleptic creature at—"

She broke off in surprise. "You haven't half finished breakfast," she cried, "so what are you saying grace for?" I had bowed my head in thankfulness for an idea which might prove my salvation, in the matter of distracting Gwendollen's mind.

"Yes, we will go. A nice long journey there; a nice long journey back. Saved!"

"I beg your pardon?" Gwendollen interrogated.

I said, recovering myself: "Of course, reading about the cataleptic case in Chelsea is dull work. To appreciate the thing properly it has to be seen."

"O-oh!" ejaculated Gwendollen, with a little pout of disgust. "I wouldn't look at such a thing for the world!"

"My dear girl," I responded, assuming a tone of almost husband-like authority, "you don't mean that you wouldn't really? You only think you wouldn't. It is an experience which for my sake, for your own, for that of others, perhaps, you ought to undergo."

"Why? You're dreadfully puzzling sometimes," said Gwendollen, "and this is one of the times. You aren't a catalepser"

"Cataleptic!" I corrected.

"And Fm sure I'm not. And I don't know anybody else who is. And if you knew how dreadfully I feel at the bare idea of seeing the horrid creature, you wouldn't talk about it any more."

"This is folly," I said gravely, "which your cooler judgment will condemn as mine does now. I will not argue any more— in such a clear case of absolute— ahem! — I will plead. To oblige me, my dear girl!"— I gnashed my teeth at my own stupidity in using a term of endearment so commonly employed by him!— "To oblige me, come and see the Cataleptic Man. I cannot— I really cannot take a refusal. You are aware," I went on, recalling to mind a disintegrated fragment of the original editorial notice of the case, "you are aware that the word Katalepsis in the original Greek, means taking possession of—"

"I did not know it," Gwendollen retorted, "but asking me to oblige you in the original English, seems to mean that I must go whether I like or not." She tossed her pretty head rather rebelliously, and went upstairs to put her hat on. In ten minutes more we started. It was, as I had anticipated, rather a long jolting journey. There were a number of dingy little back streets to wind in and out of, before we reached Biggs Street, which proved by far the dingiest of all. I did not feel cheerful as I glanced down the vista it presented— it certainly was not the kind of thoroughfare a young lady would care to perambulate, even with a male escort. The public-house— I must have been mad to think of taking Gwendollen to a public-house— was a low-browed, scowling, wooden-fronted tavern, opposing a baker's shop of clean and cheerful aspect. The baker's shop, together with a glimpse I had of a clean and cheerful woman behind the counter, and a police-constable patrolling the pavement outside, suggested the idea that Gwendollen should wait there in safety, while I tested the respectability of the "Pink Lion" before allowing her to place her foot upon its threshold. So having seen her deposited in a clean Windsor chair by the clean counter of the bakery, being smiled upon by the clean bakeress, and stared at by the bakeress's clean children, I crossed the street, pushed open the swing-doors of the public-house and entered.

Public interest in the Cataleptic Wonder appeared to have diminished. Instead of the seething crowd of would-be sightseers described by the rapturous reporter of the Sunday Intelligencer the bar only contained a drunken navigator and a miserable-looking woman, holding a baby in her arms, who was trying to persuade him to go home. To her entreaties were added the counsels of the landlord, a bibulous-nosed, large-bodied man, in a white apron and shirt-sleeves.

xxiii

"THAT'S RIGHT, M'ria," the landlord observed paternally, as the miserable woman, using the baby apparently as a battering-ram, half dragged, half hustled her sodden spouse into the open air; "tyke 'im aw'y. 'E's spent orl 'is money, an' we don't want 'im 'ere. Wot's for you, sir?"

He leaned across the counter and adjusted a large greasy smile to the size of his face, which was also large and greasy.

"You have," I said, throwing down twopence to pay for the beer I was firmly determined not to drink, "you have a cataleptic gentleman here whose case has created a great deal of interest?"

The landlord's large face lost its smile. He knocked on the counter with the bottom of a pint pot and roared for "Chally," who appeared, in the person of a smutty-faced boy.

" 'Ere you! Go and wake up Professor Pargeter—  Vs asleep in the club-room— an' tell 'im 'ere's a gent come to look at the catalepser." Chally vanished. Turning to me, the landlord resumed: "The Professor's the medical gent wot watches the case. 'E keeps the key of the room where Old Snoozelum— we calls the catalepser Old Snoozelum by way of a joke— 'angs out. You'll 'ave to pay a bob to see 'im— it's wrote up there."

He indicated a fly-blown notice-card stuck up on the shelf behind him among the bottles, and yawned comprehensively, as if to indicate satiation with the novelty my soul thirsted to see.

"We've 'ad 'im a long time," he said, checking the yawn— which threatened to partly decapitate him— with one huge, dingy paw, "an' the public intress is failin' orf more than a bit. At first it was nothink but 'urry-scurry, with newspaper gents— as are gen'rally a thusty lot— an' bettin' gents, as is thustier— an' the common yerd, pushin' an' scramblin' to get at 'im, and nab locks of 'is 'air for keepsakes, or chip bits orf 'is features—  as they would 'a' done if we 'adn't kep' a sharp lookout—" I pointed to my untasted beer, as he paused, expressively, and emptying the pewter at a single gulp, he went on: "But that was weeks an' weeks ago, an' 'e ain't no nearer wakin' up than 'e was at the beginnin', to jedge by his looks. An' me and my missus are getting sick of the 'ole lay. Out o' pocket for the rent o' 'is room, for one think— as 'e can't up an' pay us afore 'e wakes; an' the Professor— 'is actin' manager, as e' calls 'isself— keeps a tight 'old on the box."

"The box?" I repeated.

"Ah!" the landlord nodded solemnly. "When fust 'e come yeer, we nailed a money-box— 'Orspital Sund'y size— to the wooden mantel-piece at the 'ead of 'is bed, because I don't take no 'count of professors or actin' managers— I've rubbed up agin' that kind o' cattle afore." He buttonholed me across the counter with a dirty finger, and went on, breathing samples of his own stock upon me, and blinking in the light of the single flaming gas-jet, like a kind of featherless owl. "Nails it on the chimbley-piece, we does. And every individual as comes to see the catalepser, 'e drops 'is bob into that box— to which there ain't no key, but to open you must take an' bust it with a poker or sich. And me and the Professor each has a key, to the room, but neither of us ain't to enter it without the other— unless 'e can. But the Professor, 'e's too fly for me; and I'm too 'anky for 'im, if it comes to that." He laid his bulbous forefinger against his bulbous nose; he winked a wink of alcoholic significance, as the door of the little bar-parlour opened and the Professor appeared upon its threshold.

My first impression was, that the reporter of the Sunday Telegraph had not been accurate in his description of the Professor. My second, that the Professor had, in a manner of speaking, gone to seed since the decline of those flowery days of popular patronage which had greeted the first appearance of the Cataleptic Wonder.

He wore no shining suit of professional black, but a tweed shooting jacket, villainously greasy and out at elbows, and a pair of short brown trousers from which protruded a pair of large feet in dirty striped socks, garnished with soiled red morocco slippers. He was innocent of linen; wore a pink handkerchief knotted tightly about his coarse neck, and an oleaginous black velvet smoking cap on the back of his large shaggy head. When I add that his cheeks and chin bristled with a beard of several weeks' growth; that his nose was inflamed from the same causes that induced redness in the landlord's; and that he appeared to have slept in his clothes for a protracted period, I have, to all intents and purposes, completed the description of Professor Pargeter.

"This yeer," said the landlord, indicating me with a wave of a dirty hand, "is the gent as 'as called to see our Cataleptic Wonder. Sir— name unknowed" (with a gleam of humour)— "Professor Pargeter."

The Professor bowed and genteelly repressing an imminent hiccough, said: "Stremely gladsher meeshim—  shooah! Sharge" (with a tremendous effort), "wun shillun!"

I produced a shilling from my waistcoat pocket. The landlord lifted up the zinc-covered counter flap and invited me to pass into the bar. I did so, without one intuition— oh, fool!— of what was about to befall. The Professor, with some difficulty, executed a right-about face; I fell into rank behind him: the landlord, after hailing "Chally" and bidding him mind the bar, fell in behind me, and away I was marched like a theatrical captive between two guards, on the way to execution. We crossed the dirty little parlour back of the bar, fell out of a narrow doorway down three steps, climbed six, and paused upon a dark, little strip of landing about the size of a tea-tray. A key rattled in the lock— a door swung back. I had penetrated to the interior of the casket which contained the Cataleptic Wonder.

The room was small and close, containing nothing but a small bedstead, a chair, and a chest of drawers. Upon the bedstead was stretched a recumbent figure, the deathlike rigidity of which caused me a momentary shudder. Such light as made its way into the chamber was filtered through a dirty white window blind, so that, while broad generalities were to be distinguished, details remained unseen.

"You shee before you," began Professor Pargeter balancing himself in an upright position and carefully extending an indicatory right arm towards the inanimate subject of his lecture, "wunsha mosh— moshramarshable cash— casesh on recordish of condish', cashalepsh, protrash' — protrash for period nearl' two munsh— hic!"

"Doorin' which time," said the landlord's voice from behind me, repeating what was evidently a familiar formula, "the subjec' 'as not partook of no nourishment wotever. If you was to fire cannons in 'is yeer, or insert 'airpins in his body, sich heffiks would be inadekit to arouse'm from 'is happythetic conditions."

"You will perapshask," resumed the Professor, who seemed to resent the landlord's interference, "whesh no injoosh resush mi'— mi' beantishipash from sho protracted periosh abshinensh? Medical shiensh ansh No! No!" He nearly tilted himself over with the violent stress he laid on the negative. "I repeash, No!"

"Beyond a wisible wastin' of the hadipost 'issues," continued the landlord from behind, "wich materially increases the attentooation of the subjec', an' the pallig yew of 'is features, there is nothin' to shrink from in the haspik of the Cataleptic Wonder. There is even majisty in 'is calm attitude, remindin' to the observer of Napolyum at Saint 'Eleener. 'E wears a smile upon 'is lips, as though revertin' in his dreams to the 'appy days of child'ood."

"Can't you draw up the blind?" I said. "I can see nothing plainly."

xxiv

COMPLIANTLY the landlord creaked across the floor. The blind flapped and rotated on its roller. Daylight poured into the stuffy room, now just revealed to the observer in all its dinginess and showed me... lying there...

"Johnson-Williams!"

"Did you speak, sir?" queried the landlord, while the Professor, blinking in the light, like some unsavoury kind of night-bird, demanded:

"Whasheshay?"

I was fortunate enough to be able to hide my agitation— I was inventive enough to produce a lie.

"I merely said 'Jerusalem!' The gentleman looked so very— very dead!"

"I 'arf b'lieve 'e his, sometimes!" the landlord muttered, while the Professor admonished him in an equally audible aside.

"Shushup!!!"

I grasped the foot-rail of the bedstead in both hands, and with a mighty effort, steadied my whirling brain, and forced my thumping heart to beat less furiously. I turned to the two men. I addressed the inebriate Professor— the long-sought, but now discovered, Doctor George.

"I am (I omitted to mention the fact before) a medical student." This falsehood, framed on the spur of the moment, was fated to be the last of the series. "The case is extremely interesting, and I should like to examine the subject more closely. If you will consent to leave me alone with him for the space of a quarter of an hour, I will put into this box upon the mantelpiece"—  towards which the landlord directed an expressive eye—  "ten shillings instead of the single one which you are accustomed to charge to visitors."

Professor Pargeter and the landlord looked at one another.

"Qui' shafe," the Professor commented. "Bosh nailsh shimpiece!"

"And the winder screwed up," rejoined the landlord, "as was done to purvent any outside party as took a interest in the inside of the Cataleptic Wonder's collectin' box, gettin' in that way one fine night. So we're safe in strikin' a bargain. Done with you! For ten bob!"

"Allri'!" agreed the Professor. He reeled, the landlord rolled, out of the room and shut the door.

Left alone, I walked to the bedside. I gazed upon the corporeal tenement of the friend I had betrayed. He was unchanged, though preceptibly thinner; and though it was evident he had not been dusted for some time, there were no marks of rough usage on his face or person. His boots stood upon the chest-of-drawers, as if they had been a curious pair of fossils; his shabby coat hung over a chair; his linen had yellowed with the passage of time; his nickel watch-chain had tarnished for want of rubbing; but it was the same old Johnson-Williams. Should I leave him to his fate, I argued with my evil demon, as I stood by his bedside? Should I go upon my heartless way?— crown my treachery by marrying Gwendollen and being happy ever afterwards?— for in the poetical justice of remorse I had ceased to believe! Or should I call him back to himself; restore all that Fate and I had taken from him; be best man at his wedding, and die eventually of a broken heart within a decent interval? I don't know how long I should have gone on revolving the pros and cons of the question. I don't know which side of the balance would have kicked the beam had not Johnson-Williams saved me the trouble by sneezing violently and opening his eyes. In another instant he sat up, regarded me intently, and exclaimed, as he held out his hand:

"You see I was right. I knew you could not be a villain, my dear Pegley, in spite of all your assertions to the contrary. And now tell me where I am, and how you managed to trace me to my— in point of fact, my Lair?"

The next ten minutes were occupied with explanations, interrogations, and replies. We must have raised our voices incautiously, because, many minutes before the expiration of the purchased quarter-hour, heavy foot steps creaked cautiously upon the staircase and stopped upon the landing, whilst heavy breathing sounded outside the door, which— the key having been left inside— I had locked.

"The landlord," I whispered to Johnson-Williams, "and Doctor George."

He bit his lips and his thin face flushed.

"We must face them and have it out, my dear Pegley," he whispered. "Give me a minute to put my boots on, help me into my coat, for I feel a little weak and giddy" (it would have been queer, I thought, if he did not), "and then unlock the door."

I did as he asked and flipped off some of the dust that had accumulated upon the cornices, ledges and projections of his anatomy, with my pocket-handkerchief. I had hardly finished doing so, when a tremendous blow caused the door to quiver on its hinges.

"Now then!" roared the landlord in stentorian accents, "wot's goin' on in 'eer? Wot do you mean by lockin' the bloomin' door, an' talkin' to yourself like a Punch and Judy? If any 'arm's done to the Catalepser, you'll 'ave to pay for it. D'yeer? Come out o' that afore I busts in the door!" Another thump. "Come out, you meddlin' young sawbones!"

I glanced at Johnson-Williams. He was standing lank, tall and upright, at the foot of the bed. His fists were clenched; his lips set with unusual sternness. Perhaps the thought of Gwendollen inspired him— Gwendollen, in the baker's shop over the way, waiting for me; wondering at my delay— guessing what caused it. I swallowed down the lump that rose in my throat at the recollection. In obedience to a nod from my friend— who seemed to assume the lead, quite naturally— I unlocked the door and threw it open. I anticipated an inrush and prepared to receive it, without pausing to calculate the effect the appearance of the Cataleptic Wonder, revivified and on his legs, might have upon the landlord of the "Pink Lion" and Professor Pargeter.

The effect was a magnificent one. With a wild yell of horror, the Professor, who pot-valiantly led the charge, bounded backwards, upsetting the landlord, who followed close upon his heels. They must have rolled together down the six steps that led to the room, for going out upon the landing and looking down, I saw them lying in a very tangled condition at the bottom.

"Come," I said hurriedly to Johnson-Williams. "We must run for it." I prepared to lead the way, but he stopped me.

"I do not leave this place, my dear Pegley, after all I have undergone in it— without my property."

xxv

"YOUR PROPERTY?" I repeated blankly. "What property?"

As Johnson-Williams pointed to the money-box upon the mantelpiece, and seized the poker, a light burst upon me. The box bore an inscription, in staggering letters of white paint:

"For the Benefit of the Cataleptic Wonder"

"If that money is not mine, my dear Pegley," said Johnson-Williams, "I never earned a penny in my life." He swung the poker aloft, and with a greater display of power than I should have expected him to manifest, smashed in the lid.

The sound of breaking wood and jingling coins seemed to animate the craven spirits on the staircase with a desperate accession of boldness. The landlord began to shout "Thieves!"— the Professor to swear horribly, whilst the hoarse voice of the bar-boy, Chally, and the shriller accents of a female— presumably the landlady— were heard enquiring into the cause of the disturbance, and suggesting that a policeman should be fetched. The crisis demanded action. Stepping out upon the landing, I looked down upon the aggressive group below, and said loudly:

"Send for a policeman if you like. The sooner the better for us; the sooner the worse for you. Rascal!"—  I turned my indignant gaze downwards upon the inflamed countenance of the Professor— "who under the name of Doctor George kidnapped the body— the living body of this gentleman— my friend"— I waved my hand in the direction of Johnson-Williams— "from his address at 26, Great Joram Street, two months ago! Rogue!"— I turned my attention to the landlord, whose flabby countenance was streaked with alarm and perspiration—  "Rogue, who received and harboured that body, knowing it to have been nefariously obtained—"

"Which he never!" shrilled the landlady.

"The Law will deal with you according to your deserts. Penal servitude— probably for life— is the mildest sentence you may expect! Dare to attempt violence"— the landlord had begun to turn up his sleeves— "and I break the bedroom window and blow this police whistle"— I produced one from my pocket, which I had carried about with me for years without ever being called upon to use it— "till every constable in Chelsea comes about your ears."

"And while they are coming," put in Johnson-Williams, "we will barricade this room door with the bedstead, and defy you through the keyhole to do your worst."

The latter threat did not appear to me a very terrible one; but a silence ensued upon it, and a muttered colloquy of short duration took place between the Professor and the landlord. Then the latter called upstairs in a would-be conciliatory tone:

"Gents!"

"Well," we answered.

"Look 'ere. Me and the Professor 'as got a word to say. Can't this 'ere difference be squared?"

"Squared?" echoed Johnson-Williams.

"Settled. I don't want no constables 'eer— I don't," continued the landlord. "I've got a character to lose and a license to keep. Let's come up an' palaver."

I held a short consultation with Johnson-Williams. "You may come up," I said, "but alone and unarmed. Hold your hands above your head"— I shook the poker, which I had borrowed from Johnson-Williams, warningly— "so that we may be quite sure you intend no foul play. Now then!"

And the landlord came up.

He looked funny enough, holding his arms in the prescribed position, while endeavouring to staunch the effusion from a bleeding nose— dealt him by the elbow of the Professor— with a dirty shirt-sleeve.

"Gents," he said, as soon as he recovered breath enough to speak— for his fall had shaken him considerably, and he was by nature an asthmatic, pursy kind of man—  "gents, I don't deny you 'ave us on the 'ip, as the sayin' is. But, though things looks bad agin me, I ain't such a reglar bad 'un as the Professor." He wiped his tearful eyes and his bleeding nose with the other shirt-sleeve, and went on: "I don't deny I've kep' 'is company an' give in to 'is persuasions, but it's laid 'eavy on my conscience the 'ole time. When he drove up to my privit door, quite sober, in a cab one night, an' sent for me round from the bar and told me as 'e'd collared a catalepsy an' meant to 'ave a show, and share the dibs the public 'ud pay to see the corpuss"— Johnson-Williams turned his head indignantly— "I did my best to argey 'im out of it. 'It ain't a 'onest act, George-' "

"Then his name is George?"

"One of 'is names," sniffed the landlord; "but between me an' you, 'e's got a plenty of aliases to pick and choose from. A bad lot, a regular bad lot, an' my shame it is I ever took up with 'im. 'Georg." I says, that night, 'do reflectuate, George! This is a wrong thing, George, and will bring no luc." Then 'e says: 'W'en we comes for to divide the swag'— an Apollyum 'e is in the temptin' line— 'w'en we comes to divide the swag, you'll sing a different toon, old cockyolly-bird.' 'But, George,' I says, 'Wot are we to do with the gen'lemen w'en 'e wakes up?' 'Ho!' 'e says, 'there'll be time to think of that when he does wake up.' But all along it's laid 'eavy on my mind— an' even keepin' a key to the door, an' settin' Chally to watch on the landin' o' nights, ain't been no relief to my feelin's: for George 'e kep' puttin' off dividin' the money from day to day, an' I've knowed as 'e were only watchin' 'is opportunity to bolt with the 'ole lump."

"Sixty-five pounds in silver," said Johnson-Williams, producing a heavy bundle tied up in a coarse towel. Methodical fellow! He had counted the contents of the box and packed it conveniently for porterage, even while I had been parleying on the stairs.

"Sixty-five! I made sure there was more," groaned the landlord. "George must a' found some way o' gettin' at it, in spite of me tryin' to keep 'im content with drink, and watchin' 'im like the apple o' my hi! Sixty-five! Now if you two gents was to take thirty-two ten, betwigst you, an' 'and me over the rest, I should be quite satisfied— I should indeed."

"And of course you will divide with us the handsome profits realised over the sale of drinks to the thousands of individuals who have, within the last two months, crowded to your house, to inspect the gentleman whom you illegally assisted to kidnap and make an exhibition of?" I suggested.

The landlord's jaw dropped.

"You had better make no more demands," I said, "lest we lose patience. If you escape— through our leniency— prosecution and imprisonment for the outrage you have perpetrated upon the most susceptible feelings of a harmless gentleman, you may consider yourself lucky. The money is his, and he intends to keep it."

"Intends to keep it," echoed Johnson-Williams, lovingly cuddling the heavy bundle.

"And ain't I to be paid my rent for the room as you've occkypied for nigh on ten weeks past?" demanded the crestfallen landlord.

"Not one stiver," I said decidedly.

"Not the half of one," echoed Johnson-Williams.

"Then I'm beat," said the landlord, "and throws up my 'ands." He let them drop heavily at his sides as be spoke.

xxvi

"THAT IS enough," I said. "Now go downstairs before us."

"Wot! Ain't you goin' to 'ave it out with the Professor?" queried the landlord.

"With the Professor," I answered sternly, "we have nothing to do, except to hand him over to the authorities if he endeavours to molest us."

And still grasping the poker, and followed by my recovered friend, bearing the weighty mass of shillings, I descended the short staircase. We turned into die little bar-parlour, where we found the landlord's wife in hysterics, undergoing vigorous ministrations on the part of the boy Chally and a grimy little servant maid, and entered the bar. As we did so, a tall figure staggered forward and endeavoured to prevent our egress.

It was the Professor, who had been steadying his nerves, inwardly, by the absorption of more alcohol, and outwardly by a liberal application of cold water. He held a battered stethoscope in one hand, as a direct illustration of his medical attainments, I suppose, and a long slip of dirty paper in the other.

"One momensh!" He stretched out the stethoscope impressively. "Before you leave shish philanshropic— opic roofsh"— he addressed himself particularly to Johnson-Williams— "I— hic!— demandsh tobeyerd! Tobeyerd! The ingrashisood— humanashurish proverbial"— he shook his drunken head with solemnity— "bushimashy in whole coursh my life sho flagram— flagram cashi nev' met. Nev'!" Here he began to shed tears. "I foun' a total-teetotal shrangeish in shate cashalepshish, an' took shat shrangerish in. I roush public in'ris in behalf shat mansh! I raish shubscripshush for fan's benefish. How doesh 'at mansh rirrurn kinnish? Waksh up, an' endeavoursh take Frensh leave. Copsh sh'swagsh, without one shought for man— man who befrenned him." He dried his tears with the end of his draggled neckerchief, and went on: "When man dosh at, though my art may bleedsh, I ussher no reproach. I shtand upon fair hashish— phil— philanshopy." He staggered wildly. "I shay Human Nashur hash in person shish man desheived me. I am berrayed, calumniarided, bush I bear no malsh' at mansh. I mere— merely offer 'at mansh My Bill."

He waved the dirty slip of paper frantically in the face of Johnson-Williams. My pacific friend was roused at last. To be presented by the drunken medical villain who had kidnapped him, with an account for attendance! It was too much. He dealt the Professor an energetic shove with the bundle of money in the sensitive regions situated behind the middle buttons of the waistcoat, and had the satisfaction of seeing him collapse, gaspingly, upon a pile of spittoons.

As we shook the sawdust of the "Pink Lion" from the soles of our boots for ever, he scrambled up again. His lofty mood had changed. He implored us, with tears, to return and hear the sad story of his life. He had been a wrongdoer, he said, but the demon who had tempted him to his fall was the landlord, and he was ready to expose and denounce him for the small sum of five pounds cash. We did not accept his offer. Fate has never thrown either of those two scoundrels in our way since then. The only light that ever shone upon their subsequent career was turned on a few days later by a reporter belonging to the staff of the Sunday Intelligencer:

"POLICE INTELLIGENCE

"Chelsea— before Mr. Pinching Hatsher.

"Amusing Affray in a Public-House.

— William Bulger, landlord of the 'Pink Lion' public-house, Biggs Street, and George Henry Hamilton Washington Pargeter (an alleged Professor of an American medical university, and the person who obtained a considerable amount of credit for philanthropic efforts in raising a public subscription for the Cataleptic Wonder, who, it will be remembered, was on exhibition at the 'Pink Lion'), were charged by Constables Rickards and Tinley with drunkenness, violent conduct and the use of abusive language or the above-named premises, on the afternoon of the —th. The constables being questioned, said that they found a crowd assembled round the door of the 'Pink Lion.' The landlord and the 'Professor," both in an evident state of intoxication, were rolling on the floor, pummelling one another. They separated them with difficulty.

— Mr. Pinching Hatsher: What was the cause of the quarrel?

— Constable Rickards: It seems the Cataleptic Wonder, after lying insensible for over a month at the 'Pink Lion" come to his self and hooked it with the money-box that very morning.

— Mr. Pinching Hatsher: Whose money-box?

— Constable Tinley: His own! It was put by his bedside for people to drop contributions in.

— Mr. Pinching Hatsher: Then these men, apparently, intended to divert the result of the public collection to their own uses, and fought when they found that the man had made sure of his own? (Here one of the prisoners was understood to say something about philanthropy.)

— Mr. Pinching Hatsher: Yes, there is a great deal of your kind of philanthropy going about (laughter). I shall fine you each ten shillings. In default of payment, you can go to prison and take your philanthropy with you (more laughter).

The money was paid and the men left the court, but before they were out of the precincts the Professor, who it appears, has long been 'wanted' by the American police for complicity in a series of impudent swindles, was arrested on an extradition warrant.

Need I describe the scene that took place in the little baker's shop, when Johnson-Williams and I tumbled in together? How I, after handing the astonished bakeress five shillings, induced her to retire into her private parlour, locked the shop-door to keep out possible intruders, and went into the business of explanation, with the desperate resolve to make a clean breast of it. How Gwendolen, after emptying the vials of her wrath upon the innocent head of her lover— of her rightful lover— was taken faint, and had to be revived with milk out of the pail on the counter, while Johnson-Williams— who had certainly a good right to the possession of an appetite after a two months' fast— perpetrated fearful ravages upon the relays of rolls that had just come up smoking hot from the oven, and felt very ill afterwards, in consequence! Useless! Impossible! No pen, wielded by a human being in possession of ordinary powers, could do justice to the scene, which attained its wildest pitch of indescribability, when both Johnson-Williams and Gwendollen absolutely refused to credit my assurance that I had thoroughly intended to play the villainous role I had set down for myself, to the bitter end. Nothing I could say could convince them. Nothing! To this day, my friend and his wife believe me— in spite of my reiterated assurances to the contrary— to be the most noble, modest, unselfish, generous of men. They hold me up as a model before their children. As long as I live, I, unworthy, shall continue to be lauded, blessed and praised by those two people. And when I die, they will mourn me deeply— sincerely— though I don't deserve it.

xxvii

WE RELEASED the bakeress from her back-parlour by-and-by, paid for the rolls and milk, hailed a passing four-wheeler, and were driven home.

We dined together. Johnson-Williams— to whom I gave up my room— retired early, feeling weak and overdone: while I went round and paid his rent and took away his few goods, and fewer garments, from 26, Great Joram Street. I was not communicative, but reserved, and to this day, the landlady does not know what was the ultimate fate of the lodger who was kidnapped by the ingenious— and as ingenuous "Doctor George."

We had the wedding the next day. It was lucky I had kept Gwendollen's purchased licence by me! I gave away the bride, who was married with the ring I had bought, and stood best man to the bridegroom, who wore the superfine coat I had ordered for my own wedding! I kept the trousers, as they were so much too short.

Subsequently, we breakfasted at a restaurant, because Mrs. Toms could not be brought to understand the situation, or regard Johnson-Williams in any other light than that of an interloper, who had stepped in at the last moment and robbed me of my bride. And herself of a let, because the "two combined bed and sittings" were never "throwed into one sweet" after all.

But it was a pleasant wedding breakfast. I believe pleasanter than if it had been my own, and when Johnson-Williams looked at me over his second glass of champagne— I had dedicated the first to the health of the new-made bride— and said— leaning across the table— and speaking in a low tone— because of the other people in the room— that he had a Toast to propose— I smothered the shrieks of my conscience as well as I could and let him go on.

"Our Benefactor." They both looked at me, with grateful glittering eyes. "To the friend who has proved himself so staunch—"

"No!" I interposed.

"So loyal!"

"Pray—"

"So unselfish!"

"Oh!" I groaned.

"So disinterestedly generous!"

"So sincere, true, untiring and noble in his efforts on my— on our behalf. I drink to him, and you, my dear girl—"

"I drink to him with all my heart," said Gwendollen.

I writhed in my chair. I was going to utter something aloud, but Johnson-Williams politely prevented me.

"One moment, my dear Pegley. Even your modesty" — my modesty?— "must yield to my desire to render praise and thanks where both are due. From the first moment of our acquaintance, you accorded me your sympathy and attention. My confidence in you increased. I made your bosom— if I may say so— the Repository of my Aims. When I triumphed over circumstances, and freed myself from trammels— which nothing on earth would ever again induce me to unloose— my first thought after communicating my discovery to Gwendollen was to communicate it to you. You heartily congratulated me; and when dreadful Complications ensued— when, lost and wandering, I appealed to you for help and guidance, you nobly responded to the appeal.

"While I live, my dear Pegley, I shall never forget how many miles you walked in search of Doctor George— whom you afterwards discovered in the person of the bibulous blackguard, Professor Pargeter, or how many falsehoods you burdened your upright conscience with, in the endeavours to conceal my unfortunate position from the Heads of the Office, to which I return, with renewed energy, upon next Monday week."

He sipped a little of the glassful of gas and grape-juice he held, and continued: "In the supreme agony of the conviction that I was wasting away, undiscovered"— he glanced at his left hand and felt his right ear— "you were my consoler. It was you who engaged to meet Gwendollen at the Railway Station; it was you who hit upon a perfectly original and successful plan of diverting her mind from my unhappy self, by inventively persuading her that I was unworthy of her regard— in the matter of Sankaracharya— ha, ha, ha! and proceeding to make love, feigned love, to her yourself. Then, having picked a quarrel with me— and your acting on the occasion does you credit, my dear fellow! though I never did believe that you could contemplate the perpetration of anything villainous!— you pursued your researches undisturbed; discovered me, and took immediate steps to restore me to myself and Gwendollen. It is owing to your forethought, boldness and sagacity, that I escaped from that abominable captivity, sound in mind and limb, and moreover, with a handsome sum of ready money— in small silver—  honestly earned, too! Words fail, my dear Pegley"— he grasped me warmly by one hand, while Gwendollen slid her little fingers into the other— "to express our united gratitude to you. We can only say with one voice— being one flesh at last— good friend, God bless you!"

Then we broke up the little party, and Johnson-Williams proudly paid the bill and tipped the waiter, and I saw the happy couple off from St. Paul's Station en route for Margate, where, you will perhaps remember, I had already engaged rooms.

Well, well! Their married life has been a very happy one. Johnson-Williams has abandoned Theosophic Buddhism, and attained the eminent position of working partner in the old office where once he kept the books. I have long started on my own account in the ship-broking business line, and command the services of three clerks and a boy. Clients flock to me. I have a reputation for honesty in all my dealings. So much so, that I find it difficult to believe that once in my life, for several days together, I was an absolute scoundrel.

__________________

4: Hard Harman: A South Seas Rover of the 40's

Dan L. Silverling

(fl 1913)

Adventure, August, 1913

Nothing is known of this author other than this story. The "40s" are of course the 1840s.

THE Anna Lee lay in Gibraltar Bay, swinging at her moorings off the ragged staff-landing. We— the skipper and his crew— sat on the quarter-deck under the awning, sheltered from the scorching heat of the sun. Everything was snug below and taut above and we but awaited our clearancepapers to drop down the bay and head out for Funchal.

There was not a man of us but had bunked in almost every port of the world, and our conversation had been mainly about the strange experiences we had encountered between voyages, but finally it veered around to a discussion of whether one could always judge a man's fighting-abilities correctly by his physical characteristics. Bedell, the first luff, held that he could tell a fighter the moment he clapped eyes on him.

"Show me a man," he went on, warming to his opinion, "with a square-cut jaw, high cheek-bones, eyes deep-set under heavy brows, atop a body that's stocky with broad, high shoulders and feet that stay where they're put, and ninety-nine times out of a hundred he's a fighter. He just can't help fight. Even if he has only the face, he has the fighting-spirit, and will wade in against any kind of odds. But if he has a weak face, no matter if he's as strong as a bull, he won't fight any more than a worm."

We of the crew listened with approval while he expounded his theory, but when he had finished the skipper voiced a dissent in his characteristic non-argumentative tones.

Captain Harter was an old man, close on to seventy. He had been educated at Annapolis and, despite the hard, rough life he had led on the sea and in out-of-the-way, halfcivilized countries, his language and manner gave evidence that there had once been a polish so well put on, that, though worn off in spots, much of it still clung.

He liked to mingle with his crew and would go to a good deal of trouble to get men above the average in seamanship and general education. Once a man sailed with him he never left of his own accord and any change in the crew was an event on board.

He was known personally or by hearsay to every man who "went deep-sea" from Suez to Singapore and back again around the world. "Hongkong Harter" some called him, and spoke with awe of the wild doings with which he was credited, when in his younger days he sailed out of far eastern ports.

I had been his second mate for two years, and during the long dull watches of the night many were the marvelous tales of depredation and daring he had told me, mixed with interesting observations of the philosophy of life as he had found it. So now, when he spoke, I lent an attentive ear.

"RECOLLECT two years ago," he began, "when we lay in Suez, of a youngish-looking old man coming aboard and throwing his arms around me for sheer joy at finding me alive? He was rigged in white flannels, carried a cane, had a face like an old-time spinster and was as soft-spoken as he was soft-looking. Recollect him?"

We nodded our affirmations.

"Well, was he a fighter?"

"No," declared Bedell. "He just couldn't fight with that face and build. Why he'd run if a swarm of ants were headed his way. I could shoo him away like I would a chicken that got too pert."

"There's where you're wrong," said the old man, reminiscently. Then, after a moment, "that was Dan Harman— 'Hard Harman' they used to call him— and he was sure the hardest fighter among hard-fighting men when we sailed the South Seas some forty years ago. I've owed my life a score of times to his fearlessness and ability. If there was anything to be gained by it, he'd rush in where angels 'd fear to tread, and I never knew the time when he didn't bring home the bacon. No, not once. He was a wonder— a born fighter, you can bet your life, but not a scrapper. He was never looking for trouble, but when it came his way he could take care of it and everything, and everybody that went with it to the queen's taste. His body wasn't puny, even if his face was thin. He was the most deceiving man with his clothes on you ever saw."

"Let's hear a yarn about him, Captain," I ventured.

"Well, I guess there'll be no harm in that. He's dead now and left no folks; cashed in shortly after you saw him. But anyhow there's nothing to tell that isn't to his everlasting credit."

Musingly, he began the yarn:

CRIME is largely geographical. Many a man's serving time in different parts, of the world to-day for things that in other times and other places would only have earned him the title of hero.

It seems as if people have just got to have heroes. If they can't get the real thing, they're going to manufacture 'em out o' what materials they've got. With nearly every spot on earth civilized and all this talk o' universal peace, they're turning to the second-story workers and confidence-men. After a while I suppose they'll take in the grafters and pickpockets. Goodness! But that's a far cry from the spoils of war and adventure taken in the open.

But Dan Harman was different from any of these. He led a wild life in wild tunes, but he hated bloodshed and even more he hated trickery. He never defied the law for his own ends, nor robbed any one, but the way things were those days, before England asserted her rule in the East, it was sometimes necessary to take the law into one's own hands to kind o' even things up.

If Dan were living in New York to-day and needed the money, you'd never find him in any high-finance hold-ups or confidencegames. No siree. It'd be hard to tell what he'd do, but it wouldn't be anything like that. Like as not he'd be burning midnight oil in a hallbedroom, pushing a pen and leaving behind a trail of our adventures in the South Seas that'd hold the hero-worshippers for a while.

But seeing as he's not here to write 'em and it'll probably be quite a spell before the papers come aboard, I'll tell you about the first time he saved my life, and when I'm through I'll ask Bedell whether Dan could fight or not.

It was in Hongkong I first met him. The brig Seton brought me in, and he dropped off the old windjammer Cuttledory, that went on the rocks off Liverpool a few years ago. We met ashore, saw the town together, missed ship and from then on kept in pretty close touch until he left the sea ten years ago.

We were about the same age— along pretty well in the twenties— and were both from the United States, he from Down East and I from the Middle West. He'd been through college and afterward started to rough it on a trip around the world, and became so attached to the wild life that he couldn't be induced to give it up.

He looked much the same as when you saw him, except that his gray hair was a new-rope yellow and the muscles that bound his frame together were as vibrant and strong as piano-wires imbued with life, and you can bet all you've got, he could play 'em high or low, soft or loud, as he pleased, just whichever way suited the subject best.

Those were wild days. Hongkong wasn't the sedate English-ruled port it is now. It was the toughest place in the Far East, well off the edge of civilization. The scum of the earth was gathered there. Soldiers of fortune, Russian renegades, Malay cutthroats, opium-smugglers, escaped convicts from Australia, Dutch traders— a jumble of all kinds of men from different parts of the world, most of whom were seeking cover for one reason or another, walked about its dirty streets.

They were sure a reckless, devil-may-care crowd of adventurers and fortune-seekers, none of whom cared much for human life and least for his own. It was a regular Sargasso Sea of human derelicts, drifted there from the four corners of the earth.

Everybody was stealing from somebody else. A highway-robbery sort of trade was going on all the time. Things changed hands without any pretense of a money-transaction. If you could get away with a thing, it was yours, just like a bluff in a poker-game, and if the man you stole it from wanted it back he had to work a slicker game than you had.

It was a case of who was the smartest crook, and the one who was cleverest at stacking the cards took the pot. Not so different from the way they do some things nowadays and in places nearer home than Hongkong, only, this was open and above board, and every one knew the game he was up against. Eternal vigilance was the price of keeping what belonged to you. It mattered not if it were a keg of whisky or a full-rigged ship. "Take a chance and everything that goes with it" was the watchword and the basis on which all business was done.

The Malay pearl-fishers were considered lawful prey, but if you went south among the islands with the intention of getting a hatful of pearls, you might have to cleanup a few of the squint-eyed cannibals, and in return take a chance of having your head hacked off with a rusty cutlass or blown away by a blast from an old-fashioned musket, jammed to the nozzle with nails, pebbles and broken shells.

Every once in a while a pearl-hunting expedition went out. Some came back and some didn't, but when one did, and successful— well Hongkong made a Wild West rumpus, even of those days, sound like a Methodist prayer-meeting in comparison. It was hell— just plain hell with the lid off, with the devil serving the drinks, and you can bet the timid ones took to cover like a fishing-fleet before a nor'easter.

IT DIDN'T take Dan and me long to catch the spirit of the time, for we hadn't been ashore twenty-four hours until we had been relieved of everything of value about us, and it wasn't much longer before we were needing something badly to keep from dropping our mud-hooks in the port o' dead men, for want of the necessities of life.

We weren't the only ones traveling light amidships. We ran across a trio that were running without cargo or ballast, looking for something that somebody wasn't watching all the time. They were ordinary British seamen, but they'd been there for some time and could give us pointers that otherwise we could only have learned from experience. They were known respectively from the leader down as Red Rooney, Happy and Scuttle, but, as they were inseparable, Dan and I always referred to them as the "trio."

We joined forces with the idea of mutual protection and, under Dan's leadership, got odd jobs on the docks, so that we were able to fire up and get our boilers going steady again. All the while we were on the lookout for a decent opportunity to get away.

One day when we called at the consulate for mail, Dan was handed a long legal-looking envelope and a smaller one with a black border. He opened the latter with trembling fingers and, while reading it, dropped the other unheeded to the floor, then without noticing it or me, crushed the one he had read in his hand and walked rapidly away. I picked up the long envelope and followed him, but at a distance, as his actions showed that he wanted to be alone.

He walked for miles, and I tagged on as far behind as would permit me to keep him in view. He finally reached an open space on the outskirts and disappeared behind some bushes. I followed, cautiously, and saw that he had thrown himself face-downward on the ground. His shoulders were heaving like a man shaken by some strong emotion, but there was no sound.

I walked a short distance away and waited. It was an hour before he came out, showing not a sign of the stormy weather he had run into. I gave him the long envelope and, after he had read the contents, he handed both letters to me and told me to read them. It took but a few minutes to understand the whole situation. His father and mother had died within a few days of each other, was the gist of the black-bordered sheet, and the legal communication set forth that, in compliance with his father's will, all cash on hand was to be divided immediately between his three daughters and Dan.

A man from the law-firm was at once sent on the trail of Dan with his share, amounting to thirty thousand dollars. As the lawyer would probably not be far behind the letter, when we returned to the consulate we were not surprised to find him awaiting the heir in the consul's private office. Before the day was over, Dan was in full possession of his inheritance.

He at once announced his intention of buying a trading-schooner and asked me to go into partnership with him, offering to let me pay for my interest out of the profits. I accepted his proposition, until I could turn some property I had in America into cash. After we had discussed our plans and shaken hands on the agreement, we hunted up the trio and enlisted them as members of the crew. All that we needed further was two more men and the schooner.

The trio almost immediately called our attention to a three-masted schooner which had cast anchor that day. They had seen the Dutchman who owned her come on shore with his crew. It was a nice schooner, a clipperbuilt ninety-footer, and as trim a craft as ever came off the ways. The only sign of life aboard was a Chinaman puttering about the deck, and the clean, compact lines of the vessel stood out in bold relief against the western sky, out of which the sun had just gone down.

"Perhaps you can buy her," suggested Happy.

"There comes the Dutchman now," said Red Rooney, excitedly, pointing to a rolling figure of enormous girth coming toward us. "Maybe he'll sell."

"No harm in asking," said Dan and, going up to the Dutchman, he engaged him in conversation.

He returned in a few minutes saying, "That's funny; he does want to sell. Says the schooner is too small for his trade and he's been negotiating, to-day, for that big packet out there. I told him we'd take the schooner if everything was satisfactory and my partner agreed."

"How much does he want?" I inquired. "Five thousand pounds. Three thousand down and the balance in a year from date of sale."

"Dirt-cheap if everything's all right,' I replied. "Don't see how he can afford to do it. Looks suspicious."

"He says he can make a better bargain for the packet with that much more ready cash, and he has a big contract pending which, if he can handle it at once, will net him half the value of the Schooner. However, my lawyer will be here for several days, and he can look into it."

Well, to make a long story short, the Dutchman qualified as sole owner, and we bought the schooner the next day, with a stipulation for the Chinese cook and the privilege of signing up two of his men. The former owner and the balance of the old crew were to pack up and get off the following morning, as we were anxious to try our new possession on the high seas, and intended to weigh anchor at the earliest possible moment.

THAT night, Dan and I lay in our bunks till long after mid-watch discussing our plans. After we finally went to sleep, it couldn't have been more than a few minutes when I suddenly awoke to find one of the crew standing over me with a pistol while another was tying my ankles with a rope. The same operation was being performed on Dan, and after we'd been bound and gagged we were carried on deck and laid in one of the boats, where we found the trio awaiting us, but in no condition to extend a welcome.

We could hear the Dutchman giving, orders, and presently the schooner was under way. Just at dawn we were lowered over the side and, as a nasty blow was stewing, we were anything but happy. Red Rooney hadn't been bound any too tight. He managed to work loose after a while, and soon had the rest of us free.

Needless to say, Dan had been relieved of the belt containing the balance of his money, so that now he was stripped of his inheritance as clean as a newly swabbed deck.

The Dutchman had considerately given us a chance for our lives by putting in the oars, food, water, our clothes and some blankets, so we managed pretty well, and it wasn't many hours until we were picked up and taken back to Hongkong.

It didn't take us long to discover that we couldn't do a thing to the Dutchman, either civilly or criminally, even if we caught him. Not a paper that had been filed could be found. We went up against a blank wall at every turn. Evidently everybody concerned had stood in with the Dutchman, and no doubt they all had a bunch of Dan's money in their pockets.

The consul couldn't account for the disappearance of the papers. He threw up his hands in despair and said he might as well resign after he had made this report to Washington. His reports every month had consisted mainly of outrages on American citizens and, as he was powerless to stop them, he hoped some one would be sent to take his place.

Dan and I and the trio talked things over and vowed to spend the rest of our lives, if necessary, in finding the Dutchman and recovering the schooner and the money. We promised the trio a third interest in the schooner if we were successful.

We discovered that we weren't the only suckers the Dutchman had sold that schooner to, though he had probably never before had one swim unbaited into his net. But easiest caught is sometimes hardest held, and we determined that before he got through with us he would conclude that he had caught a school of bull-whales instead of a bunch of suckers this time. Our plan was to slip on some vessel trading between Hongkong and other ports and to keep a sharp lookout. We figured we were bound to come up with the Dutchman sooner or later. We had no trouble in securing berths, and for the next three months we had pretty hard lines and never a sign of the Dutchman or the schooner.

It was quite discouraging, but not one of us ever suggested giving up the chase. I reckon Dan's thoughts were taken up pretty much all the time with how his father and mother had slaved to get that thirty thousand dollars for him, and I'd got to know him well enough by this time to feel sure that the stern lines that had settled about his mouth would never relax and the hard gleam that had come into his blue eyes never soften, until he had them back.

AT THE end of the third month we put into Macao, badly crippled after a rough voyage. It didn't look as if the old tub would ever go to sea again, and we were paid off for full time and released.

After all we'd been through it seemed as if we just had to do something to relieve the tension or bust. I was never a hard drinker and Dan didn't touch a drop, but the trio started to hit the high places. They struck the water-front like a blazing meteor. There was no holding 'em, and Dan and I let 'em go their way.

Every one has a weakness, and both Dan's and mine was gambling, so we hunted up the speculation-parlors (Macao was then, as now, an Oriental Monte Carlo) with the idea of increasing the size of our rolls. But it was all the other way, and by Saturday— we had started Friday— we were high and dry without a dollar; stripped to the yards. We thought it was high time we looked up the trio. They had their wealth in belts around their waists, except what it was their intention to blow in, and it looked as if we would have to borrow enough from them to last until we made another strike.

The liquor they handed out in Macao was two-thirds shellac and the rest fight, and when we located the trio, which we very soon did, it was in the gutter in front of a Japanese shack, dead to the world and badly battered up. They were joyful looking propositions and not much to choose among them. Eyes swollen, lips puffed and split, and noses battered chunks pasted against black and blue and red landscapes. Worst of all, their belts were gone and pockets absolutely empty. It took some time and much water to get any signs of life from them, but finally all three sat up and looked at us, stupidly at first, then broke into maudlin ejaculations of joyful recognition, mixed with demands for a drink. They were all hatless and bootless, and the ragged remnants of their clothes clung to them like fringe-grass to a cow-whale's back.

We got them on their feet and made them wade knee-deep into the sea and bathe their battered faces. The sting of the salt water sobered them somewhat, and we all sat down on the beach and looked each other over in silent disgust, after we had broken to the trio that we also lacked the price of the drink for which they had kept up a constant, clamor.

After we had taken our fill of silent expressions of our opinions of each other, we turned and gazed sadly off to sea.

Three hundred feet off shore lay the schooner! Her stacks had been lengthened a bit and she'd been rigged with a spinnaker-boom. The nozzle of a six-inch brass swivelgun protruded over her bows, and the deck was littered with boxes, casks and barrels which were being stowed by four men under direction of a fifth. It was a pretty safe bet that the boxes contained guns and cutlasses; the casks, powder and shot and the barrels, grub. I don't know which of us noticed her first, probably all at the same instant, for suddenly the five of us turned as one man looked at each other, grinned— then, without speaking, again turned our eyes in the same direction.

"Nice schooner," said Dan finally, not withdrawing his gaze. "Correct," said I, similarly fascinated.

"Looks as though she were going somewhere," he offered presently.

"She does that," I agreed. "What do you think about it?" to the trio.

"Right you are," they responded in unison.

There was another long silence as we watched the activities aboard. Presently I heard Dan mutter, more as though he were thinking aloud than speaking to any one:

"Cannon, cutlasses, guns and grub." Then, after a pause, turning to me, "Looks as if she were being fitted out for a cruise among the islands."

"Pearls?" I suggested, inquiringly.

"Pearls," he acquiesced, softly.

"That's what," said Red Rooney and the other two sent back the echo.

Then we all regarded each other intently, as though each were trying to read the other's thoughts, the trio's eyes making mute appeal for some one to start something.

"Why not us?" Dan finally broke the silence.

"Just what I was thinking," chorused the rest of us eagerly.

"We'll need a couple o' more men to sail her," said Dan.

"We kin stop somewhere and git 'em," suggested Red Rooney.

That night, about four bells of the mid-watch, five dripping figures, stripped to the waists and gripping clasp-knives in their teeth, rose from the waters 'neath the schooner's bow and silently followed one another up the anchor-chain, a tow-headed fellow in the lead. Before the last man had reached the deck, the night-watch had been gagged and bound, and ten minutes later he, with four other would-be pirates, awakened from pearl-studded dreams, were lying helpless and silent in one of the boats, which we lowered over the side. We treated them better than they had us for, besides putting in the necessaries, we left them where they could easily reach the shore.

They told us that the Dutchman had gone ashore for the night, so we were compelled to let him go for the present. Anyhow, it was now up to him to find us.

The Chinese cook was right glad to see us and laid out a nice spread from the stores which had just come aboard, but, before eating, we got the schooner under jib and spanker and headed out to sea, while we sheeted home the topsails main and fore.

AFTER clearing the bay we ran sou'east through the Ladrones, then headed her due south through the China Sea. For four days we held her nose straight into the south and on the morning of the fifth, just as the sun was breaking the mist, we raised land off the port bow. We figured it to be Sampanmangio Point on the north of Borneo and accordingly we threw her head into the sou'east and ran for Sambas, where we calculated we could pick up a man or two.

Ever been in Sambas? No? Well, it's no place for a white man: a jumble of straw-thatched mud huts huddled around the Dutch Government-House, in the midst of a malaria jungle between the sea and the great swamp that covers the sou'east of Borneo. Great gray skinks wallow in the stagnant pools or drag their slimy lengths through the ankle-deep mud of the streets, and repulsive tiger-snakes and black teguses bask in the scorching sun in armed truce harmony with gray death-adders.

From break of day till sundown, when they seek their holes, the town is given over to these reptiles of the near-by swamp. But when the sun sinks over far-off Sumatra, bathing the islands in one last burst of softened sunlight, the town turned into a bedlam of half-naked, jabbering natives, drunken beach-combers, parboiled Dutch traders and millions of huge sand-fleas and mosquitoes which I'll bet take away a barrel or two of mixed blood every night.

As I said, we headed in for this Godforsaken hole, and at noon next day made anchorage off the native village. We were flying the British ensign and as we swung to our moorings dipped to the Dutch frigate lying off the Government House.

A deathlike silence hung forbiddingly over the town. The only signs of life anywhere were aboard the frigate and a schooner anchored off to our left. Dan and I rowed over to the frigate to find out what was the matter.

They explained conditions as I've told 'em to you, and we returned to the ship agreeing with the natives that night made hideous with mosquitoes and sand-fleas, however big and thirsty, was to be preferred to a sun that burned into your very soul, with snakes usurping the right o' way, although we came pretty close to changing our minds before we got away.

After listening to our description, the trio readily agreed to forego their anticipated shore-leave and remain in charge of the schooner, keeping things in readiness for a quick getaway.

As soon as the lights began to show and we could see figures dribbling here and there from the doorways, we went ashore in the dingy and picked our way gingerly through the muddy streets, fearful that some adventuresome reptile had decided to stay in town and see the sights.

We had found a bag of milreis on board, and our pockets were weighted down with the big silver disks, which we hoped would aid us to find our men quickly, so that we could get away before the authorities got suspicious and asked questions. But it took us several hours to make the rounds, and we hadn't found a single sailor nor any promising material for the making of one. There wasn't anything there to tempt a man to miss ship. No one who wasn't compelled to would stay there a minute after he could get away.

We were standing outside a rum-shack talking it over, and had about decided to return to the schooner and move on to some other place, when we heard a commotion down the street. The moon was up and in her third quarter, and we could see a crowd coming toward us, headed by four men in the uniforms of the island-constabulary and a great burly tub of a Dutchman. As they got up to us we could see in their midst three figures, bound and hobbled, doing their best to keep up with the pace in response to proddings with their clubs from the constables and curses from the Dutchman.

"The trio!" we exclaimed together.

DAN didn't hesitate a minute.

"Sail in," he gritted, "and as soon as they're down help loose the trio and run for the dingy. I'll be right after you."

As the last word left his lips he swung his right with a terrific crash on the jaw of the nearest constable, and almost at the same instant I performed a similar operation on the one nearest me. They both dropped like logs and we had only two more and the Dutchman to negotiate, for the crowd stood back and watched the battle, the same as citizens of any place look on at a clash with the authorities.

The Dutchman was no coward and, before I could recover my equilibrium after giving the blow to the constable, he was on me and bore me to the ground by the mere force of his great weight.

"You murdering pirates!" he howled, and called for some one to get a rope.

In desperation, I gathered all my muscles for a mighty effort, and succeeded in rolling partly over with him and freeing my arms, while his right became imprisoned by his own body.

Another heave and a push with both hands against his chest and I sprang erect. He was too clumsy to rise quickly, and I quieted him with a terrific kick on the back of his head as he was struggling to get on his feet. I hated to do it, but things looked pretty serious for us.

Dan had grabbed a club from each of the fallen constables and, with blood streaming down his face, and lips drawn back in a set grin, he was working them like the blades of a two-way propeller, warding off the attacks of the two constables, and with eyes alert for an opening. Even as I rushed to his assistance, one of them sank to his knees, then suddenly sprawled on the ground.

"The trio!" gasped Dan.

They were crouched in the doorway of the rum-shack, watching the battle with agonized faces, and struggling frantically to loose their bonds. I sprang toward them, opening my clasp-knife as I ran, and as quick as you could let fly a halyard, I had them loose, at the same time telling them to run for the dingy and have it ready for Dan and me to jump in.

But it was too late.

For at that moment the balance of the constabulary-force, ten or fifteen strong, came rushing up and we were quickly overpowered, securely bound and thrown in the mud in the middle of the street. They carried away the wounded and left us lying there in charge of one of the constables, to whom the chief gave some instructions which I could not hear.

Two more constables were set to patrol in a circle around us, going in opposite directions, to see that no one came near us. Now that the wounded were gone, I saw that there were only four of us, and I looked to see which one was missing. It was Dan! I could only conjecture what had become of him, but it seemed possible that he had got away and that the reenforcement of the constabulary, not knowing how many of us there were, had not missed him, or he might have been killed or badly wounded and been taken away. As I said, I could only conjecture and a whispered consultation with the trio showed that they knew no more than I did what had happened to him.

Things looked pretty black for us. In fact our situation was about as desperate as it could be. I could not understand then why they did not put us in the jail, but Dan told me afterward that it was because it was overcrowded, as it usually was, and this gave the brutal officials excuse to torture prisoners by letting them lie in the open, bound, at the mercy of the mosquitoes and sand-fleas by night and the poisonous reptiles from the swamp by day. Almost incredible but true, and as you see me here alive to tell the tale, you know I escaped, but it was a pretty close shave and no thanks to them. As it was, we experienced all the horrors except the mere fact of dying, which would have been welcomed as a relief if help hadn't come when it did.

Now that the excitement had died down, the mosquitoes and sand-fleas began to get busy, and in our helpless state they found an opportunity they seldom had to indulge in fiendish orgies of blood. Our clothes were little protection and they settled all over our bodies by the thousands, crowding each other for room on the exposed places. The agony was terrible, and the only fight we could make was to roll around in the mud, I dug my head into it and, repulsive as it was, sunk my face in and turned my head this way and that in an effort to cover every part of it. The trio, needless to say, were doing likewise.

The guard seemed to be of the opinion that this was a circus arranged for his amusement and laughed heartily, calling to the men on patrol to come nearer so that they could get a view of our antics. They certainly must have appeared droll to any one hardened and cruel enough.

WELL, as I said, our situation was bad and getting worse every minute. We had to keep rolling and digging all the time, for as soon as we'd smother those on one side of us, a new swarm was on the rest of us, and they'd manage to get in some pretty devilish work before we could roll over again, bound as we were. To keep this up for a couple of hours was about the most exhausting thing I've ever done, and it seemed sometimes as if I'd just have to give up and let them finish me.

It was pretty bad poison they injected while they were taking out the blood, and I could feel myself swelling up all over my body. The trio, at first kept up a constant and loud cursing, but I whispered to them to keep their strength, as they might-need it in case Dan was at large and should find some way to help, us.

That he was free was my only hope, and a pretty slim one, guarded as we were, but still a hope, and I clung to it as those mosquitoes did to our blood-vessels. It was all that kept me from giving up for, aside from that, I knew that death was only a matter of a few hours, and I urged the trio to depend on it and be ready for it.

The thought hadn't occurred to me as yet that if we survived till morning we would be left in the street at the mercy of the reptiles. It was too horrible to think of even those inhuman Dutchmen doing such a thing. But about mid-watch two constables came up to relieve the others, leaving only one on patrol. They stood talking for a few minutes and I gathered that their instructions were to retire at sunup. They said the injured constables were in a bad way, and that being left in the street to be finished by the reptiles was only a small part of what we deserved. Then they all came over and each of 'em gave us a kick apiece to emphasize the expression of his opinion. None of the trio understood their mutterings, and I didn't tell them of the fate in store for us.

I didn't have much time to indulge in the pleasures of imagining those horrible creatures of the swamp disputing ownership of my body with the vampires then in possession, and I tried to put away the thought when it did come, but every once in a while it gripped me with a sickening sensation so paralyzing that I lost what little strength I had left, only to be whipped up to it again by the agony I was enduring. If it had not been for the repulsive horror snakes always give me, and especially that kind, a couple of good hard jabs from their poisonous fangs would have been far easier to endure than the torture of being drained of my blood drop by drop. But there was still the hope of Dan, and life looks promising at twenty-eight, so I fought on and gasped encouragement to the trio whenever I could spare a breath.

I could tell that it was near morning when the moon sank behind the cloud-bank on the horizon, leaving the islands in inky blackness until the sun should break. It was in this interval that help must come, if it came at all, and I told the trio to be prepared to obey orders strictly if anything happened. And happen it did. We hadn't much longer to wait, either, for Dan had been holding off for this very interval of darkness— not that he had been idle the rest of the time either, as you will soon see.

So confident had my hope of him been that I was hardly surprised when a voice whispered in my ear, "Keep quiet and drink this."

At the same time I felt the mouth of a bottle pressed to my lips and, while I drank, I was conscious that his other hand was cutting my bonds.

"The guard is over talking to the patrol," he whispered. "Don't get up but keep moving same as you were. I've got to silence the guards, so that we can get away. No, leave it all to me. You're too weak, and there must be no mistake and no noise. Only be ready to go when I say the word, and without any questions. I'm going to stay here until the guard comes back, and then I'm going to give him a punch that'll keep him quiet for a while. Then I'm going to creep over and fix the patrol the same way. Don't worry; I won't fail. I'm all keyed up to it, and they're not expecting it."

At this moment the guard returned and kicked among us to see if we were there all right. It was so dark he couldn't distinguish details, not even that there were five figures instead of four, which fact Dan had counted on. He waited only until the guard's back was turned, when he was on him, swift and sure as the pounce of a panther, and in another moment there were again five figures in the mud, but the fifth wasn't Dan.

The whisky had sent fight coursing through my veins and it was all I could do to restrain myself, so I was glad when Dan gave me the bottle and a knife and told me to loose the trio and give them a drink and instructions while he crept over and attended to the patrol. We were to wait there until he returned, as he wanted to take no chances of our getting separated in the dark. By the time I had finished my work he was back, and a moment later five figures crept, four of them painfully, but all with the greatest caution, between the huts and down to the beach.

SILENTLY as shadows they waded into the sea and swam for a familiar schooner, lying five fathoms off the shore. An unseen hand slipped her cable and she floated gently toward the open sea with the outgoing tide, five dark figures clinging to her channels. As she reached the southern point her jib and spanker were sheeted home and a boat was carefully lowered over the side. Across the thwarts lay three figures, securely bound. Two wore the gray blouses of the constabulary. The other was a Dutchman with his head done up in bandages and minus a chamois belt he had worn next his skin! For the third time the schooner was ours.

Dan had run behind the huts just as the reenforcement came up, crept down to the beach and, not finding the dingy, swum out to the schooner, which had been left in charge of a single constable when the trip were taken off. Dan was quickly in possession, in his own inimitable way, and then lay in wait for whoever might come aboard, which same proved to be the Dutchman and another constable.

While the slow-moving Hollander was coming up the ladder, Dan engaged in a little set-to with the constable, who came first, and was through in time to assist the Dutchman, whose bandaged head deafened him to the noise, to the deck. The latter, thinking it was the constable, was still in the midst of his thanks when Dan laid him beside his silent companion, trussed them as comfortably as security would allow, then hunted up the Chinese cook, who expressed his delight, but showed no surprise at seeing him, nor made any complaint at being awakened and requested to prepare a meal.

I wonder what would have been the Dutchman's feelings if he could have seen us after we had recovered a little, gathered round Dan in the wheel-house, while he opened the chamois belt. It contained two thousand pounds in Bank of England notes and forty perfect pearls. And to think that that Dutchman had called us pirates!

AT THIS point in the skipper's narrative a hail came from a small boat putting out from the landing.

"Our clearance," said the skipper, rising. Then, looking at Bedell, he asked, "Was Harman a fighter?"

"I reckon he was," admitted Bedell.

The papers were tossed aboard and the skipper bawled, "On deck all hands! Stand by to up anchor!"

______________

5: Woman Proposes

F. E. Clayton

Weekly Times (Melbourne) 29 Jan 1898

Nothing can be found about this author

UNLIKE a certain character in one of Marryat's novels who had been a prince in his own country, the sergeant had been a scoundrel. The day had  been very hot, and through the middle of it the men, half-stripped, had lain around the quarters cursing the room orderly because the supply of iced water had run out, and it was sultry oven at dusk.

The sergeant had changed his uniform for a suit of stable clothes, in the name of coolness, and was lying out on the grass in front of the quarters, smoking, and listening to the regimental band playing in the centre of the parade ground.

In the beginning the band had struck up a "clog," and been noisily applauded by howls and whistles and stamping of feet from the enlisted men, and by clapping of hands from the officers' line. Then the German in the band leader peeped out and made him give a selection from Wagner, and growls and uncomplimentary remarks ran along the enlisted men's porches. However, at the end of it a select, party of the rank in front of the major's house, who knew good music when they heard it, clapped in applause, and the file, coining to the conclusion that, after all, there must have been something good in what they had misnamed a series of badly executed cat-calls, joined in the applause enthusiastically, whereupon the fat, square, old band leader had delightfully made the band play the piece over again, and there had been no applause after tin; second rendering of Wagner— only undertone observations.

The hack drove past, but the sergeant was dreamily watching the lights on the band stand twinkling through the trees, and did not turn his head. Hacks often drove up to the barracks, especially after "taps", though generally then they stopped behind the quarters, and bands of more or less riotous soldiery got out of them. But, this hack drove up opposite the orderly room door, and drew up there, ami a lady got out of it. The sergeant heard her voice as she inquired:

"Is Sergeant Robert Brown in this troop?" and he jumped to his feet with an oath, and stood leaning against a tree, biting at the stem of his pipe savagely. Then the voice again: "Thanks. I will not trouble you. Over there?" and she came towards him.

So far as the woman was concerned, there was only one enlisted man in the United States army; so far as the sergeant was concerned, there was only one woman in the world. This is the only explanation that I can give why the matter was threshed before the troop.

The sergeant threw his pipe down and straightened himself up when lie saw the woman coming. Her hands were outstretched, but he put his behind his back.

"Madge Vanness," he said, bitterly, "cannot a man rest quietly in his grave?"

"Jack Trevor," she began. And old Stokes, the trumpeter, from a point of vantage on the upper porch, growled: "There! Ain't I bin tellin' ye all 'long? I knowed his name wasn't Brown any more'n mine is. He's one o' them bloated English a-ristocrats."

"Jack Trevor," went on the woman, "I want proof that you are a dead man."

The sergeant laughed. "Proof? You can find my epitaph written in unpaid bills over the face of half a dozen counties. Isn't that enough?"

"Don't be a fool," said the woman, curtly. "Granted you are dead, and you are not. Why don't you resurrect yourself ? Why don't you work?"

"Work? I am working. I'm drilling recruits, and that's hard enough. It's no- good, Madge"— obstinately— "you had better have stayed away. I'm happy enough."

The woman flushed dangerously. "John Trevor, I have come five thousand miles, all alone, to find you, and you tell me you are happy, and that I had better not bave come!"

"Well," bitterly, "what would you have me say? Ask you to marry me?"

"Yes," frankly.

The sergeant laughed again. "Lord, I can imagine it. The dishonorable sergeant, and the Honorable Mrs Brown—"

"Bother the Honorable!" broke in the woman.

"Carried on the troop returns and drawing their monthly rations, one pound of bread per day, one pound of fresh meat, including bone, don't forget the bone: an ounce and a fraction of coffee, etc., etc., and living in a tumbledown wooden hovel, and you taking in the troop washing at a dollar and a half a month per man, and baking pies, which I should peddle to the men in quarters on credit until pay day. Oh, the prospect is tine."

Then, with another laugh: "And twice a week you would go for an airing around the post sidewalks, pushing the perambulator, maybe a double one. One of the fellows in the troop has a double one. And once a week you will wear your Sunday clothes, a nightmare of a bonnet and a tight, shiny black dress with tremendous sleeves, and go to church. Don't you like the picture?" sueeriugly.

"Of course, you'd be very happy, and I should be very contented. It goes without saying. No. I don't think you've thought much about the bargain, or you wouldn't make this offer."

"John Trevor," she said, "since I left New York I have not allowed myself to sleep because of thinking of this thing. Now, you tell me I haven't thought of it!"

The sergeant smiled grimly. He had been in the habit of taking to his hunk and resolutely closing his eyes to keep from thinking. Then the woman, pleadingly, "Jack, you know this thing would not he as you say. We should not have to stay here. I have something, if you have not."

"Yes, that would be better still. I'm the class of man that should marry an heiress; without a penny, without even a character."

"When God placed you in the world, dear," said the woman, gently, "He gave you a strong man's heritage— health and strength, and the whole world to live in. Won't you come? Let us go away together somewhere, and make a home." The sergeant shook his head, sorrowfully. "No, Madge," he said, "I won't do it, for your sake, not for mine. If I worked my lfingers to the bone, could I ever pay those men I ran away from when the grey broke his neck and my fortune at that water jump?"

The woman smiled to herself in the darkness.

"Jack, didn't you ever hear how much your horses brought when they were sold ?"

"No, I've heard nothing, seen no man, seen nothing, not even a line, as to tlie old life. Let's see. there were ten of them, without the Grey. Probably they made live thousand dollars."

The smile was still on the woman's lips. "Yes," she said, quietly, "five thousand dollars each. And they paid all your debts. You owe no man anything."

"Five thousand dollars each!" the sergeant gasped. " What fool bought them?"

"I bought them. I sent Walters, the horse dealer, up to the sale with orders to start the bidding for each at five thousand dollars. It nearly spoiled Walters' reputation, but it saved yours. So now, you see," unsteadily, "I'm not such an heiress, after all." She had stopped back into the light of the only lamp on the company parade, and taken her hat off. "Come, Jack," softly; "yes, dear, come."

She was holding out her hands again, and the light showed tlie tears in her eyes. The baud was playing "In Old Madrid."

Longingly through the dusk came the music to the lines:

Come my love, the stars are shining,

Time is flying, love is sighing,

Come, for thee a heart is pining,

Here alone I wait for thee.

The sergeant turned and shouted over to the first sergeant, and his voice was joyous: "Say, Sanders, can you put me on check pass?"

Overhead old Stokes was saying: "I tell ye, that woman's ez full uv tricks ez a dog's full of fleas. Did ye see her step back in the light an' take her hat off an' show she wuz crying? That wuz uothin' but a gran' stan' play. Nothin'. She knowed it 'ud fetch him, an' it did."

___________________

6: The Prince Has The Mumps

Richard Connell

1893-1949

The Saturday Evening Post, 8 Sept 1923

YOUNG Prince Ernest was ill. He had, in fact, the mumps. "Beastly nuisance," he remarked to his valet. He wanted very much indeed to say "damned inconvenience"; and, considering the circumstances, even this would not have been putting the case too strongly; but he did not say "damned inconvenience," because a prince must not set a bad example; and, mumps or no mumps, Ernest Cosmo Adelbert Oscar James never forgot that he was a prince.

"Every inch a prince," said the newspapers of his native land in referring to him, which they did in every edition from the first, or bulldog, to the last, or five-star extra-special sporting final.

That made sixty-six inches of prince, for Ernest was a rather pretty boy of medium stature, with a pink, almost waxen complexion, blond hair impeccably parted, and a brow as unruffled as a pan of skimmed milk. At the moment the symmetry of his features was somewhat marred by the presence of two mature mumps; and, noting this in the gold-rimmed mirror near his bed, Prince Ernest gently groaned.

Physiognomists might have argued from the serenity of his brow that the prince was not a thinker; but they would have been in error, for in his twenty-three years he had, not infrequently, thought. Happily his thoughts had not been disturbing ones. It had taken no soul-struggle to make him entirely content with his princely lot. Having been born a prince, nursed as a prince, breeched as a prince, taught as a prince, at twenty-three and a few days it seemed completely natural to Ernest to be a prince. It was quite impossible for him to imagine himself anything else.

Sometimes he thought: "Of course, I don't say I have a divine right to be a prince; nowadays that isn't considered in good taste. But, since I'm being perfectly frank with myself, I must admit that there is something— well, if not exactly sacred, at least sacerdotal about royalty. Being a prince isn't at all like filling a place in the cabinet or the civil service or the army, where almost any sort of fellow can get ahead if he has enough push. A prince has no use for push; he's a prince, and that's all there is to it."

And at other times he thought: "It's the fashion in these times to pretend that a prince is just like any other man in the country, and not a bit better. That's rot, of course, and no one knows it better than the people. If I am like all the rest of them, why do they stand in the rain for hours to see me whisk by in a limousine? Why do they crowd into some stuffy hall to hear me tell them I am glad to be there, gazing into their open, manly countenances?"

Or, on other occasions, he thought: "To hear some of these radical chaps talk one would think any fellow could be a prince. Really, you know, that's nothing more than twaddle. If they tried it they'd soon find that it takes generations of royal blood behind one to give one that— well, that authority, that— so to speak— presence. I'd just like to see one of those long-haired johnnies try to lay a corner stone— with the proper dignity, I mean. Why, the people would laugh at him! They never laugh at me."

By nature a modest and candid young man, Prince Ernest had but one vanity. He was proud of the appearance he made at public functions. He loved to lay corner stones, to unveil monuments, to visit hospitals, to address meetings. On these occasions he invariably made a neat speech, and he had never, he was glad to say, in any of his speeches given offense to anybody. He accepted, with becoming graciousness, the tributes paid him by the crowds. It pleased him exceedingly to hear his subjects punctuate his speeches with their uncouth but sincere evidences of approbation. Often he read about it afterward in the press, and secretly glowed.

"Prince Ernest"— the front page of the Morning Stiletto is speaking— "was greeted with vociferous enthusiasm when he laid the corner stone of the new polo field being built by the Coal Mine Workers' Union for the use of its members. The prince shook hands with a number of the men and made one of his felicitous and witty speeches. In part His Highness said:

" 'I am always glad to speak to miners. [Cheers.] I was once a minor myself. [Laughter.] Now, all joking aside, and speaking seriously, I am glad to be here and to look into so many open, manly countenances. [Violent cheering and cries of 'Every inch a prince!' and 'Long live Bonny Prince Ernie!'] Yours is a very important industry. [Cries of 'Hear, hear!'] I can't think what I should do in winter if it weren't for coal. [Cheers, and cries of 'God bless Your Highness,' and 'Spoken like a prince!'] I repeat, therefore, I am glad to be with you—' "

Yes, there was no question about it, his subjects loved him.

But now he had the mumps. He was as puffy as if he had attempted to swallow a pair of inflated water wings, and when he drank a glass of water it was like swallowing a string of biggish beads. Moreover, he had a fever, and his royal knees felt decidedly gelatinous, and the doctor had said he must stay in bed. To get mumps at a time like this, he mused, was almost unprincely. His country needed him, and there he lay, ineffectual and mumpish. Indeed, mumps at a time like this was nothing short of a calamity, for on the morrow His Very Serene Highness the Emperor of Zabonia was to pay an official visit to the prince's country. Fifty million people held their breath and tremulously awaited the result. Would there be war? Everybody knew that the answer depended on the emperor's visit.

Relations between the prince's country and Zabonia were strained— dangerously strained. Why had that bellicose old fire eater, the Duke of Blennergasset, made that intemperate speech in which he referred to the Emperor of Zabonia as a "pompous elderly porpoise with the morals of a tumblebug?" Why had Count Malpizzi, the Zabonian Secretary for War, in heated rejoinder seen fit to declare that as for Prince Ernest's father, the king, he was no lily of the valley himself, and furthermore, Prince Ernest's countrymen were three degrees lower in the scale of existence than the guinea pig? A painful and acute situation had been created between the two countries; one puff of the air of animosity on those smoldering embers and the blood-red flame of war would break forth. This eventuality would be highly inopportune for Prince Ernest's country, for Zabonia had just perfected a cannon whose shell carried a hundred miles and then bounced back to be recharged. War must be averted. The Emperor of Zabonia must be received with every show of cordiality, must be accorded every honor, must be given not the slightest shadow of a pretext for taking umbrage. The emperor must carry away the impression that Prince Ernest's country loved Zabonia with a surpassing love; the emperor must be made to believe that the Duke of Blennergasset's reference to him as a pompous elderly porpoise was one of pure affection and esteem, and that a comparison of the morals of His Very Serene Highness to those of a tumblebug was an idiomatic expression, and highly complimentary, inasmuch as tumblebugs are popularly believed to lead lives of singular probity and chastity.

Prince Ernest's father, the king, had given orders that his entire royal family, down to the most remote ducal cousin, must be on hand to greet the Emperor of Zabonia; and, of course, so the king stated, it was of the highest importance that the heir apparent, Prince Ernest, should be there. But how could he be, for he had the mumps? It was an exceedingly regrettable situation. These Zabonians were a truculent and suspicious lot, and if the crown prince were not present to greet their emperor they'd read some subtle insult into it, you could depend upon it. It was the custom for visiting monarchs to appear on the balcony overlooking the plaza in front of the royal palace to be cheered by the crowd which always collected there on such occasions, and it was also the custom, as the whole world knows, for the king to stand on the right side of the royal visitor and the crown prince to stand on the left. This was the etiquette. From it there could be no deviation. If the crown prince did not stand at the emperor's left hand tomorrow it would be instantly apparent to the crowd that a slight was intended, and then no power could hold back the hungry hounds of war; and war, just now, with Zabonia would be extremely inconvenient.

The prince frowned at the obese pink cupids that adorned the ceiling of the royal bedchamber. He was too weak to do much else.

The doctor had just issued an ultimatum. The prince must not be moved; to do so, the doctor assured him, would be suicide. The king protested, even pleaded. But the doctor, who, like most savants, was stubborn, shook his white beard.

"But he must appear before the crowd," said the king, wringing his own whiskers, which were plentiful and auburn.

"It would kill him," said the doctor with finality.

"If I weren't an only son I'd risk it," said the prince weakly, from his bed.

"You can bet you would," said the king.

His Majesty paced the chamber.

"Mumps!" he ejaculated. "And at such a time! The crowd will never understand it!" He was patently worried.

Then it was that the Count of Duffus, who was Gentleman in Waiting in the Royal Bedchamber, had a tremendous idea. He reduced his brain wave to an excited whisper and poured it into the king's ear. The king beamed and nodded, at intervals saying, "Good!" "Yes, yes, yes!" "Excellent!" "Splendid!" "Ripping!" "By all means!" "Stout fellow!" "Good old Duffus!" "The very thing." "Quite so, quite so!" "Admirable!" "Of course!" "Perfect!" and other expressions of approbation. The Count of Duffus, damp with the gentle dew of success, made off; and the king turned to the prince, a twinkle in his eye.

"Invaluable chap, Duffus," said His Majesty. "Good idea of his. Should have thought of it myself, though. The old dummy dodge!"

"The dummy dodge, father?" The young prince raised un-understanding eyebrows.

"You'll see," promised the king, "when Duffus gets back."

It wasn't often that the king talked with the prince so familiarly. Usually there was an atmosphere of formality about their relations; it was more as if they were a friendly but not intimate king and prince than a father and son. Sometimes, the prince had noticed, the king was unusually aloof; there had been days when the king had not spoken to the prince at all; on other days His Majesty was more expansive; today the king was positively clubby.

Presently the Count of Duffus did come back, and with him a package so large that it took two able-bodied footmen to carry it. With an air of having accomplished something noteworthy, the Count of Duffus stood the package upright by the prince's bed and began most carefully to peel off the wrapping paper. He tore off the last piece of paper with a flourish, and the prince's eyes opened so wide that his mumps hurt.

It was the waxen figure of a fair-haired, smiling young man in polo costume.

"Why, it's I!" exclaimed the prince, who, mumps or no mumps, surprised or not, always expressed himself correctly.

"They do make those dummies more perfectly all the time," remarked the king, who was admiringly examining the figure. "That nose is exactly like Ernie's, now isn't it?"

The prince lay staring at his effigy.

"I don't see—" he began as distinctly as the mumps would let him.

"Oh, you will," said the king. "Duffus, did Madame Hassler make much of a fuss?"

"Oh, naturally," replied the count. "She thought I was balmy in the crumpet, probably. She said it was the prize figure in the waxworks. Big drawing card and all that. I had to pay her a hundred and seventy goobecs before she'd part with it."

"That's a lot of money," said the king, a careful soul; "but it will be worth it tomorrow. I'll make you a duke for this, Duffus."

"Thanks awfully. Oh, look here, Your Majesty! You can move its arms!"

"Better and better!" exclaimed the king. "We can make it salute." The king turned to his son, who was still more than a little bewildered. "Ernie," said the king, "where do you keep your uniform as honorary colonel of the Royal Purple Bombardiers?"

"Whatever for, father?"

"For your understudy here, of course."

The king's expression just then indicated that he did not consider that his son was a lightning calculator.

"Don't you get the idea, Ernie?"

"I think I begin to," said the prince; "and, father, I don't like it."

The king shrugged well-nourished shoulders.

"It's the only way," he said. "We can't risk even the appearance of slighting that touchy old hippopotamus."

"Hippopotamus, father? I was not aware—"

"Oh, I mean that venerable muffin, the Emperor of Zabonia," cut in the king with a trace of impatience.

"But, father," said the prince, and his eyes showed that he was shocked, "he is a king!"

The king was contrite.

"Sorry, son," he said. "I shouldn't speak like that of royalty, I know. But I have so much on my mind these days, with this tiresome visit and your mumps and the shadow of war and heaven knows what."

"But, father," said the prince, following up his advantage, "please don't ask me to permit this monstrous thing. It's not honorable. It's not princely."

The king patted his son's silk pajamaed shoulder.

"Pish-tush, Ernie!" he said playfully. "I wish you wouldn't always be so devilishly idealistic. You're so high-minded one needs to get on a stepladder to talk to you. Wake up, Ernie. You're old enough now not to believe in Santa Claus any longer."

The king's tone grew more serious.

"I've dreaded this day, Ernie," he said, "on your account. You're such a naïve chap, you know. Still, the day was bound to come. It's like a fellow's first cigar— sickens him at first, but it's the only way to learn to smoke."

"Father," said the prince, "I don't know what you're talking about. All I know is that it's not right to try to impersonate a prince in this way. That grinning dummy there isn't I. It can't be I. Nobody will be fooled. And furthermore, I don't want to fool my people."

"Roll over and go to sleep, Ernie," said the king. "There are times when you give me a sharp pain in the region of the waistcoat."

FROM his bed the prince could see it all, the whole damnable imposition. First he could see emerge the full outlines of His Serene Highness of Zabonia. The prince could see plainly the celebrated red nose of that monarch; rather like an electric-light bulb in the center of a round cheese, thought the prince, who had a gift for simile. He wondered why the Zabonian emperor insisted on wearing that ridiculous skin-tight pink hussar uniform. Then the prince saw his father step on the balcony, to cheers. His Majesty was in the cream-and-gold uniform of a field marshal of the King's Very Own Royal Indefatigables, and he took his place at the emperor's side, bowing. Then came the stunning blow to the mumps-stricken prince. Another figure had appeared on the balcony, a very erect, dignified figure in the dashing uniform of the Royal Purple Bombardiers. The prince in the bed perceived that the thing on the balcony was himself!

As, horrified, he watched, Prince Ernest saw the thing's hand go up in a precise military salute. The great throng of people went wild. Their cheers made the palace tremble.

"Viva our prince!" he heard distinctly. "Long live Prince Ernest!"

A lean man with a hungry face had eluded the police and eeled his way to the top of a lamp-post in the plaza.

"There he is!" called the man shrilly. "Every inch a prince! Who's every inch a prince?"

Their answer filled the air with sound— "Prince Ernest! Prince Ernest! Prince Ernest!"

Lying there, Prince Ernest saw the dummy back majestically from the balcony.

"Long life to the prince!" screamed the man on the lamp-post. "He never turns his back on his people!"

The crowds took up the cry.

"Long life to Prince Ernest! He never turns his back on his people!"

"And jolly good reason," said the prince, "for they'd see the strings Duffus is pulling to make the thing salute."

The brow of the prince was no longer bland, no longer was it free from lines of disillusionment. He was thinking of what he had seen.

His voice was tragic, as he said, "So this is what it means to be a prince! A dummy serves just as well! A dummy; the sort of thing they have in cheap ready-made clothing stores— Very Nobby! Newest and Niftiest Cut! Take Me Home for Fourteen Goobecs. What a blind ass I've been! But it's not too late. I'm not going to go on with this miserable sham. I'm not going to be a stuffed uniform any longer. If a dummy can be a prince I don't want to be. Let them have a dummy in my place. I'm going to be a man."

He addressed these words to the emptiness of the royal chamber, and his tone was steeped in the vinegar of bitter realization. Prince Ernest was working himself up to quite a pinch of resolution, when the chamber door opened and in came the king. Behind him wabbled the vast bulk and incandescent nose of the Emperor of Zabonia.

"His Zabonian Serenity," explained the king, "insisted on coming to see you. His Serenity understands, of course, why political expediency made it necessary for you to be represented before the people by a— er— substitute. Don't you, Your Zabonian Serenity?"

"Zshur," rumbled the royal visitor; his voice was thick as if his words came through a blanket. "I didn't know," he added, "it wasn't the prince until the king told me."

Emotions were bubbling and sputtering inside the bosom of Prince Ernest.

"I'm ashamed," said the prince, "to deceive my people like that."

His Zabonian Serenity, who had taken a chair, arranged two or three of his chins and part of his expanse of jowl into a grin.

"Ernie," cautioned the king, "no nonsense now!"

The bottled-up feeling rushed from the prince in a torrent of passionate words.

"Father, I'm going to speak out! I'm through with this whole business."

"What business?" The king looked puzzled.

"This prince business," said Prince Ernest. "I saw it all while I was lying here. What am I? Nothing! Nothing, that is, but a— pardon the colloquialism— stuffed uniform. A prince? Bah, a dummy! That's all I am! I step out and bow and smirk and salute while some other chap pulls the strings. The people don't care a gingersnap about me. It's my uniform they cheer. Stuff it with wax or sawdust or me, it's all the same to them. Why, they'd cheer it if it were stuffed with mush! So I'm through, father! I can't go on with this hypocrisy. Give the dummy my place. I'm sorry to shock you, father. You and the emperor probably have never thought about things in this way. But don't you see, a prince is really only a dummy? Forgive me— but it's true."

The young prince was almost hysterical. The king did not appear to be in the least perturbed; he gave the prince a fatherly pat on his shoulder and winked at the Emperor of Zabonia.

"He's only twenty-three and a few days," explained the king, "so naturally he takes it a bit hard. I did myself— thought of entering a monastery— yes, really."

His Zabonian Serenity chuckled deep in his cavern of chest.

"Ernie," said the king, turning to his son, and speaking in his most kindly manner, "you've discovered what all kings discover sooner or later. You've found yourself out. Now your job will be to keep the people from finding you out. Isn't that so, Your Serenity?"

"Zshur," rumbled the visitor, sucking at a long amber-scented cigaret.

"But I don't want to keep them from finding me out!" cried the prince. "I don't want to go on living this ghastly farce. I am going to work."

The king laughed jovially.

"Work?" he inquired. "At what, in heaven's name?"

"Something honest," replied Prince Ernest.

The king laughed and nudged the emperor in his imperial ribs.

"Ah, youth!" said the king. "Ah, youth! By the way, Ernie, how much did you spend last year?"

"Oh, I don't know exactly," replied the prince, mystified. "The Royal Bursar of the Most Privy Purse could no doubt tell you. Probably between three hundred and four hundred thousand goobecs, I fancy."

"And how many motor cars did you have?" questioned the king.

"Eleven, if you don't count roadsters."

"Fair enough," said the king. "We won't count roadsters. Now, Ernie, suppose you were a young lawyer—"

"I wish I were," said the prince.

"At this precise moment," pursued the king, "you'd be in your office hoping some friend would fall down a manhole so you could sue the city for damages. You could consider yourself jolly lucky if you made eight hundred goobecs a year. If you were a young doctor you'd be sitting around with your hands in your empty pockets praying for an epidemic. If you were a young business man you'd be in a terrible stew about your overhead or underfoot or whatever it is business men get into a stew about. Instead of having eleven motor cars, not counting roadsters, you'd be fortunate to have your bus fare. Now I'm a doting father, Ernie, but even I can see that you are no intellectual colossus. And yet you acceptably fill a job that brings you in three or four hundred thousand goobecs a year, and eleven motor cars, not counting roadsters. Despite all that, you talk of going on strike. Really, Ernie, that's preposterous. Isn't it, Your Zabonian Serenity?"

The emperor nodded and puffed at his scented cigaret.

"Pre," he rumbled, "posterous!"

"You've a downy nest, my boy," went on the king benignly. "You'd be a chump to quit it. Come now. Look at this thing through a microscope instead of a pair of smoked glasses. Be a prince of the world, not one of the Red Fairy Book. If the people are dolts enough to let you keep the job, why put unpleasant ideas into their heads?"

"Oh, father"— the young prince was very pale— "forgive me for saying it, but I do believe you are a cynic!"

"Of course I am," answered the king cheerfully. "That's better than being the only other thing a king can be."

"What's that?"

"A blithering fool," answered the king. "How can a king with any sense respect his people? He sees them bawling their beery cheers first about some rather ordinary human being like yourself, for example, Ernie, and then he sees them cheering one of your silly uniforms stuffed with wax. The only way a king who pretends to be civilized can regard his subjects is as dupes."

The young prince lay scowling at the cupids. He was thinking deeply. He said at last:

"I know. You are saying this to try me. You are testing my faith in the inherent strength of royalty. It was weak of me to doubt. That dummy business today did hit me hard; but, after all, it was only a desperate ruse that by chance succeeded. You pretended it is quite the usual thing; but, of course, it isn't. I implore you to tell me that it isn't, father."

The king lit a cheroot and replied in an anecdotal tone:

"When I was your age, Ernie, I had a beautiful set of whiskers and a still more beautiful set of ideals about the sanctity of my position and all that. I still have the whiskers. My dear old father suggested that I grow the whiskers. 'You haven't much of a chin,' he said to me. 'I think you'd better keep your loyal subjects in the dark about that. A king can be human, but not too damn human. Also, there's another reason— whiskery men all look pretty much alike.' I did not understand then what he was talking about; but many years later, after his death, I did. I was scheduled to go to some dismal provincial town and knight some pestilential bounder of a mayor. I'd been performing a lot of royal chores, including the coronation mumbo-jumbo, and I was a bit fed up. The more I thought of going to that town the more bored I grew. But of course I had to go. Was I not a king? I took myself and my duties terribly seriously, even as you do, Ernie."

The king unashed his cheroot in a gold tray and went on:

"Yes, I felt that only a king full of blue blood could possibly knight a fellow properly. However, on the night before the ceremony I drank a magnum of champagne, and then made the strategic error of adding a few glasses of 1812 brandy. Alcohol is no respecter of royalty. In the morning I perceived that if I tried to knight the fellow I'd probably decapitate him. Here was a pretty kettle of whitebait. I was at my wit's end when Lord Crockinghorse, my secretary, bobbed up with an idea. He'd had it on ice for some time, it appeared. He produced a whiskery blighter who opened oysters in a fried-fish shop; the fellow smelled most evilly of shellfish, but he looked exactly like me. In my condition at that time I could hardly tell him from myself. Crockinghorse coolly proposed that the whiskery oysterman should take my place. I was shocked inexpressibly. An oysterman substituting for a king! What a devastating and yet absurd thought! I felt just as you do now, Ernie."

The king blew a smoke ring and continued:

"Well, Crockinghorse won his point, and we dressed up the whiskery blighter in my most garish uniform, told him if he said a syllable more than 'yes' or 'no' we'd murder him, and taught him a speech which went:

" 'My loyal subjects [pause for cheers] I am overcome by this reception. [Pause.] I can only say thank you, thank you, thank you.' We packed him off in my pea-green uniform and next day the papers all said, 'His Majesty performed his part in the ceremony with exceptional grace and dignity.' "

The prince in his bed moaned; the king, with a shrug, continued:

"Oh, I was all cut up for days! Felt deucedly unnecessary. But at last light dawned and the more I thought of the whole affair the more it entertained me. I ended by hiring the whiskery blighter at twenty-five goobecs a week, gave him a room in the palace near the kitchen and a lot of oysters to amuse himself with and whenever I got tired of kinging I trotted to Paris or somewhere incog and left the corner stone laying to my oyster friend. He became rather better at it than I. Oh, I had to do it, Ernie! If I hadn't had a genuine vacation now and then I should have got squirrels in the cupola, absolutely."

The prince had aged perceptibly during this recital. His voice quavered as he asked, "And where is the fellow now?"

"Oh, I still use him," answered the king. "Only last week I sent him down to Wizzelborough to lay the corner stone of the new cathedral. You were there, Ernie. Didn't you notice anything peculiar?"

The prince's reply was faint-voiced.

"I did notice that the cathedral smelled uncommonly oystery," he said. He drew in his breath; his manner was that of a drowning man making a last desperate effort to save himself.

"Father," he said, "I am crushed by what you tell me. I can't believe that what you say is true of all royal persons. Something in here"— the prince laid a manicured hand on the spot on the bosom of his lavender pajamas where he believed his heart to be— "tells me that there are still kings who respect the traditions of royalty, who are themselves and nothing else. I appeal to Your Zabonian Serenity to reassure me about this, to give me back my faith in myself and my position. They wouldn't do a thing like this in Zabonia! Oh, tell me they wouldn't!"

The Emperor of Zabonia tossed away his scented cigaret.

"You gentlemen," he said in his slow, thick voice, "have confided in me. I'm going to return the compliment. I am not the Emperor of Zabonia. I'm just an old actor from the Imperial Stock Company who happens to look like the emperor. He is usually too tight to go to public functions or pay royal visits, so he sends me."

IN THE MORNING the young prince pulled a velvet bell cord and his valet entered.

"Thursday," said the prince, "I'm supposed to ride through the city and be pelted with flowers. It's an old tradition or some such rot. Will you please take that dummy there in the corner, dress him in my uniform as Honorary Rear Admiral of the Royal Submarine Fleet, seat him in the royal carriage and drive him around in my place?"

The valet bowed. The prince picked up the morning newspaper and turned to the sporting page.

___________________

7: The Adventure of the Murdered Art Editor

Frederick Dorr Steele

1873-1944

Spoofs, 1933

American artist Frederick Dorr Steele was the illustrator of the American editions of the Sherlock Holmes stories. He wrote two other Holmes parodies, which appeared in "The Players' Bulletin" magazine.

IT WAS on a dark, misting day in March 1933, that Sherlock Holmes stamped into our lodgings in Baker Street, threw off his dripping raincoat and sank into an armchair by the fire, his head bowed forward in deepest dejection.

At length he spoke. "Of all the cases we have had to deal with, Watson, none touches us more nearly than this." He tossed over a damp copy of the Mail, with an American despatch reading as follows:

ARTIST SUSPECTED OF MURDER

New York, March 27. (AP) The partially dismembered body of Elijah J. Grootenheimer was found today in a canvas-covered box which had been left on the curb in 10th Street near the East River. The face had been horribly mutilated by beating with some blunt instrument. Identification was made by means of a letter in the pocket of the dead man's coat, addressed to him and signed Frederic Dorr Steele. The police decline to give out the contents of this letter, but intimate that it was threatening in tone. Steele is an artist well known for his pictures illustrating Sherlock Holmes and other mystery tales, and it is thought that brooding over these stories may have affected his mind. The motive of the crime clearly was not robbery, since $4.80 in cash and a valuable ticket for the Dutch Treat Show were found undisturbed in his pockets. Steele's last known address was a garret in East 10th Street. Search has been made for him in his usual haunts, but thus far without success.

"Ah, but this is incredible— impossible!" I exclaimed. "Poor Steele wouldn't hurt a fly."

We sat in silence for a time, drawn together by our common anxiety. From time to time during some thirty years, beginning with "The Return of Sherlock Holmes," this Steele had been making illustrations for my little narratives. Though an American, he seemed a decent unobjectionable fellow who did his work conscientiously, and we had grown rather fond of him. His naive simplicity and quaint American speech amused Holmes, who relished oddities among human beings in all walks of life.

"I can't make it out," I said. "What does it all mean?"

"It means, my dear Watson," said Holmes briskly, dragging out his old kit bag, "that you and I must catch the Berengaria at Southampton tomorrow morning."

WE HAD fine weather as we sped westward. Holmes spent most of his waking hours pacing the deck, looking in now and again at the radio room for news— of which there was none. His nerves were as usual under iron control, but little indications of strain were plain to me who knew him so well; as for example when he abstractedly poured his glass of wine into the captain's soup plate, or when, on the boat deck, he suddenly picked up Lady Buxham's Pekinese and hurled it over the rail into the sea.

"Steady, Holmes," I said stanchly. "You must give yourself more rest."

"I cannot rest, Watson," he said, "until we have probed this hideous mystery to the bottom."

"Have you a theory?" I asked. "Surely you don't believe that that poor fellow has murdered an editor in cold blood!"

"Hot or cold, the thing is possible," said Holmes crisply. "It is well known that editors, especially art editors, are usually scoundrels, and sometimes able scoundrels, which makes them more dangerous to society. It is conceivable that our poor artist, after a lifetime of dealing with them, may have come to the end of his patience. Even a worm—" He broke oft moodily and resumed his pacing of the deck.

When we reached New York, and Holmes had suffered with ill-disguised impatience the formal civilities of the Mayor's Committee for Distinguished Guests, we established ourselves in a hotel where English travelers had told us we might be assured of finding food properly prepared. But without waiting for even a kipper and a pot of tea, Holmes disappeared, and I did not see him again for three days.

When he reappeared he looked haggard and worn. "I have seen the garret studio," he said.

"Have you a clue to Steele's whereabouts?" I asked.

"A small one," he returned. "In fact, just sixteen millimeters long." He produced from his wallet a bit of cinema film. "I found it on the floor, Watson. What do you make of it?"

I held it to the light. "Well, I see a picture of a little girl and some queer-looking structures like giant mouse-traps behind her."

"Those mouse-traps, Watson, are lobster pots, and of a type peculiar to the coast of Maine. We are on the track of our man."

On a foggy day in May our motor boat crunched against the barnacle-covered timbers of the wharf at a small wooded island, on which stood perhaps two-score bare gray buildings. Holmes wasted no time. To the leather-visaged lobsterman who had caught our bow line he said, "Sir, we are in quest of a certain artist, said to reside somewhere on your most picturesque coast. Do you know of any artist on this island?"

"Well, we used to know one, but he ain't any artist any longer. He itches all the time."

"Itches!" I said. "Perhaps, Holmes, that may be our man. He has a nervous temperament. He may have developed hives or some such ailment."

"Splendid, Watson. Your deduction is sound, but it is based on an incorrect pronunciation."

"But I don't see—" I began.

"You never see, my good Watson," said Holmes with a touch of asperity.

"He lives down in that shack by the Cove," said the lobsterman. "But if you cal'late to go down there you want to be careful. He bites."

"Bites!" I said in amazement.

"Yeah. Sid, here, was down there yesterday, with a mess o' tinkers, and got chased out. He said he was biting. I guess he's gone kind o' nutty-like, seems though."

"Is his name by any chance Steele?" asked Holmes.

"Seems like it was. But he calls himself Seymour Haden now."

"Seymour Haden!" I exclaimed. "That is the name of a great etcher."

"Precisely," said Holmes dryly. "He used to itch too."

Dreading a possible shock to our friend's mind, we approached him cautiously. He sat at a table in his little house, bent over a metal plate immersed in some villainous blue acid.

"Do you know us, Steele?" I asked timidly.

After a moment he turned his head toward us and we saw a wild gleam in his bloodshot eyes. His disheveled hair and beard and his grimy clothes made him uncouth, even repulsive in appearance. "I can't get up now. I'm biting a plate," he said.

"Another mystery solved," observed Holmes quietly.

"Don't you know us?" I repeated. "We have come all the way from London to find you."

"Sure I know you. You probably want me to illustrate another crime. I killed a man for less than that," said the artist vehemently.

"I daresay. I daresay," Holmes said soothingly. "But we're not hunting crimes now. We just want to help you."

"But you can't help me!" he shouted. "I have been a doomed man for thirty years. Ever since I began making pictures for your damned stories, those editors have called me a crime artist. No matter what else I do, they still try to feed me raw blood. But I got square with 'em. They made a criminal of me, and now, by Heaven, I've committed a perfect crime on one of them. And there are more to come, Mr. Holmes, more to come!"

After this outburst he turned his back on us again.

"Come, come," said Holmes gently, "we mustn't get excited. Think a minute. Is that why you have come off here and left all your friends— hidden from the world?"

"Yes, Mr. Holmes. And that is why I have had this old well cleaned out: I am going to fill it with editors' blood. It will take quite a lot of editors to fill it, but I have hopes."

We saw that it was useless to pursue the conversation further and rose to depart.

"Well, then, go take a walk," he said, "take the path straight over Light House Hill to White Head. After that you'd better come back here. I can give you a crust and perhaps a bit of short lobster if you're not too legally minded."

We crossed the island to the cliffs and stood for a time looking into the blue haze.

"Strange, isn't it, Watson," Holmes reflected, "that crime and madness can lurk in so peaceful a spot. ... I hate to do it, but I must question him further."

"But I say, Holmes, would it be quite sporting," I protested, "now that we are his guests?" But Holmes was resolute. When we returned to the little house at sunset, we found its owner composed. We talked quietly together of his life on the island, where, he said, he meant to end his days. Only one subject seemed to bring on a return of abnormality, — the subject of editors.

"There is a big cavern up the shore," he said, "that I've got rilled solid full of dynamite. There's a big boulder over it, and if an editor ever comes to this island, I'm going to pry it loose...."

"But these editors," said Holmes gently. "Aren't they human beings?"

"Not after they become editors," was the reply. "They are machines. Machines that buy merchandise by the yard, put it in pigeon holes, label it...."

"Look here, my dear fellow," said Holmes, "you are happy here, aren't you? You are not bloodthirsty about other people— fishermen for example?"

"Oh, no."

"Well, then, I think Watson and I will go back to England and leave you in peace. You will be safe here. No one need ever know."

TWO WEEKS later we were back in the old rooms in Baker Street. There had been no further developments in the Grootenheimer case. The police had given up the search for the missing artist, and now thought that the editor might have been killed by some Modernist or other deranged person.

But Holmes's watchful eye had caught this curious PERSONAL advertisement in the New York Times:

WANTED: an Art Editor, as companion for a summer vacation in Maine. All expenses paid. Must be full-blooded American.

"Poor soul," I said musingly, "no doubt his sorrows have driven him mad. But somehow I am not convinced that his crime is real. It may be entirely imaginary."

"Quite," said Holmes.

"No one could blame him, of course."

"Hardly."

________________

8: The Woman He Had to Kill

Francis Beeding

(Hilary St. George Saunders & John Palmer)

1898-1951 & 1885-1944

Mystery, June 1934

ALFRED INGLEBY poked the dying wood fire into a blaze and threw on another log. A few sparks shot up the chimney. Ingleby gazed at them resentfully. A fire was about the only thing he could still afford. Wood was to be had for the chopping, plenty of it outside in the forest— that great belt of trees stretching right across the green and pleasant land of Sussex.

He had a letter in the hand that lay listless upon his knee. He had read it many times since eating the slice of bread and the very small chip of cheese which had done duty for lunch. He hardly ever opened letters now. He wished he had not opened this one. It was terse and to the point. He had it almost by heart. It was from Messrs. Blatchett and Blatchett, solicitors at Haywards Heath, and it informed him that they had been instructed to act for his creditors. His creditors were to meet, it seemed, at The Long Man in three days' time, and his presence was urgently requested. He detected in this last catastrophe the hand of old Burstard. Old Burstard was rich and the rich were always keener after their money than the poor. That was why they were rich. Old Burstard had lent him only twenty-five pounds, though he had asked for fifty. And now, of course, he had stirred the others up, paid a round of visits in that ram-shackled old car of his— though they said he was rich enough to run a Rolls if he liked— and had got hold of the other victims. Victims… that was the word. He could hear old Burstard using it. There was Popplethwaite, the butcher in Adenham, and Townshend of Wynstead, who supplied agricultural machinery. He owed Townshend a hundred and thirty of the best, the balance of an expenditure of £200 on ploughs and threshers... Crows round the carcass, that's what they were, and a dashed lean carcass it was! Ingleby raised his gaunt face, lit by a sullen smile. They have got me beat, he muttered to himself; and an odd feeling of satisfaction pervaded him. At any rate, this was the end. He would never have to struggle any more. He had touched rock bottom.

HE rose from the rickety basket-chair with its faded cushions, and crossed the room to the dresser, a stout oak piece... Jacobean, he had heard it said, worth a bit of money; good cottage stuff. Old Burstard would get it now, he supposed… But not what was inside it. No, by God, he would see to that! One hand closed on the neck of a bottle and drew it out of the dresser, while the other sought a corkscrew in the pocket of his old coat.

The cork came out with a slight protesting squeak. Pre-war whiskey and seven bottles still left… The only sound thing his father had left him. He poured a generous measure into a tumbler and, adding a little water, drank it off at a gulp. Then he returned to the fire and sat down with the bottle between his feet.

He ran a thick hand, on which the nails were broken and dirty with hard toil, through his thinning hair, and gazed into the logs, looking over the years of his failure. He had not expected this. Nor had he deserved it… Three years in the army, an acting sergeant… gassed in that foul show in Sanctuary Wood… Gassed… gassed… invalided out on a pound a week pension. Told he was lucky to get that much. The pension had long since been commuted and sunk in the clay and mud of the farm

Ingleby drank again, long and deep. That was good stuff, the best thing the old man had left behind him.

Why had it come to this? Could anyone have made a better fight for it? He had taken over the farm, commuted his pension, raised money how, when and where he could, worked like a slave, though sometimes that cough tore his chest inside out and he would start spitting that horrid yellow stuff that he thought he had got rid of in the hospital. And now he was to be put on the mat by old Burstard, and see his home, and what was left inside it, sold over his head. Not that it was much to boast about— little more than a clearing in the woods, five miles away from a decent market, at the end of a mud track half a mile long. But it was all the home he had known. He would have to start again… start again… He was thirty-eight looked forty-eight, and felt even older than he looked.

Ingleby drank again.

That was better … He would attend that meeting at The Long Man… tell old Burstard what he thought of him… give him something to remember, teach the old Shylock to put the screw on an ex-service man. Yes, by God, he would!

He looked round the room, now very dark. Fantastic shadows played across the uneven walls from which. the rough-cast plaster was peeling, and the dresser crouching against the wall seemed suddenly menacing. A tall high-backed chair standing in a dark corner raised its protesting arms in the shadows.

A loud knock fell upon the door.

Alfred Ingleby, more than a little drunk, staggered across the room to answer it.

"ADVERTISEMENT?" said Ingleby. "What do you mean by that?"

He was seated at the table. There was a lamp upon it, smoking a bit, for the wick wanted trimming. Opposite him was old Baines, the postman, in his uniform, his beard all wet and straggling, his old eyes misty behind a pair of steel-rimmed spectacles, drinking a glass of the pre-war whiskey.

Not a bad chap, old Baines. Always friendly when he met you down at The Long Man.

Old Baines was fumbling in the pocket of his blue jacket. After a bit of a struggle he produced the crumpled remains of a copy of the Times.

"Here you are, lad," he said. "The paper was left behind at The Long Man by a salesman. He was reading it only last night and we came across your name. There you are. Read it yourself."

Ingleby stretched a hand that shook, across the table and picked up the paper. It was a little time before his eyes could focus the small print of the personal column, but there at last it was— his name, in capital letters.

"INGLEBY. If Alfred Ingleby, son of the late John Ingleby of Cripps Corner, Adenham, Sussex, will communicate with Messrs Dutton and Thoroughgood, 418 Lincoln's Inn Fields, W. C. 2., he will hear of something to his advantage."

Ingleby stared at the notice.

"It's all right, lad, isn't it?" came the voice of old Baines, seemingly from a distance.

"Seems to be all right," assented Ingleby.

"What we could not understand," continued Baines, "was why they did not write to you direct instead of putting that thing in the paper."

"Perhaps they did," returned Ingleby. "I haven't been opening any letters lately. Too depressing… I just toss them into the fire."

"Well," said Baines, "you never know your luck. If we had not seen that advertisement, you might never have had the legacy."

"Legacy," said Ingleby, "I don't see any mention of that."

"It's sure to be a legacy," Baines cheerfully assured him, getting to his feet and draining his glass. "You must'a lost a rich relative. But I must be getting along. Thanks for the drink, lad. As nice a drop of Scotch as ever I tasted."

It was Irish whiskey, but Ingleby did not put the old man right and scarcely saw him go out. He sat there gazing at that astonishing notice in the Times, and weaving pleasant dreams. And the dreams became continually more pleasant as the bottle became continually lighter, till at last he saw himself in a black coat and striped trousers driving a handsome cab to the gates of old Burstard's farm to mock him in his lair.

"Something to his advantage"… Ingleby, after several unsuccessful attempts, struck a match and peered into the face of the grandfather clock. That was another relic of the old days. His watch had long since gone to the pawn-broker… Half-past nine. It was no good trying to get to London that night. Besides he had not even the fare. He counted the coins in his pocket … Four shillings and seven pence … that was not enough, and he must somehow raise the balance. After some thought he lit the end of a candle which he thrust into a tin lantern and, opening the door, passed out into the night.

There came a furious flutter of wings and a shrill squawking from the hen house. Presently he returned with something warm and wet flapping in his hands.

Ingleby inspected his prize hen and prodded her in the breast beneath the wings, while she struggled to escape his detaining hand.

"Not much on you, but you're the best of the bunch," he murmured as he wrung her neck.

IT was past eleven when he entered Victoria Station the next morning. He had put on his one moderately decent suit, light brown, bought second-hand at Brighton five years before, pretty shiny in places, but good enough if you kept out of the strong light. Jane, the prize hen, had fetched six-and-eightpence from Swan at Adenham. Six-and-eightpence with the four-and-sevenpence he had found in his pocket had bought him a third-class return ticket to London and left him with one-and-fourpence to spare. The price of the hen had amused Ingleby all the way up. Six-and-eightpence! It was a lawyer's fee, and he was going to see a lawyer!

Lord, it was good to be in London again. Even though you did feel a hopeless stranger and not a little inclined to scuttle across the traffic-ridden streets with one eye on the policeman. Ingleby sniffed the sooty air with satisfaction as he walked toward the Underground which would bear him to the Temple.

His head was rather thick, and there was an unpleasant taste in his mouth; but that pre-war stuff was good and the morning after not, therefore, so bad. The only thing that troubled him was his boots, for he had been obliged to walk three and a half muddy miles to Adenham. Outside the Temple Station he paused and, with reckless extravagance, expended fourpence in having them cleaned. Then, passing through the garden, he found himself in the square, looking for the front door of Messrs. Dutton and Thoroughgood.

He paused a moment in front of that shiny piece of mahogany. The whole thing seemed suddenly fantastic. What was he doing here in the middle of the City of London (he had not been to London for six years) with the traffic roaring in Fleet Street, a few hundred yards away? He fumbled in the pocket of his shabby overcoat and pulled out the advertisement, reading it again for confirmation. Yes … there it was in black and white.

"Here goes," he said to himself and, pushing open the door, he strode in and dealt briskly with the supercilious clerk who greeted him.

Twenty minutes later he found himself facing Mr. Thoroughgood in person.

Mr. Thoroughgood was neat, small and compact, with carefully arranged hair, and a red clean-shaven face.

He wasted no time.

"First," he said, "we must establish your identity."

Ingleby was prepared for that. The night before, he had searched amongst his father's papers and among them he had found the certificate of his own birth and of his mother's marriage.

These he produced, to the professional satisfaction of Mr. Thoroughgood.

"Well, Mr. Ingleby," said the lawyer, tapping the certificates with a manicured forefinger, "the facts are simple. The advertisement to which you have replied was inserted at the request of Miss Agatha Ingleby of" (here he glanced at a memorandum) "425 Parliament Hill, Hampstead. She was your father's elder sister, I believe."

Ingleby nodded.

"We have dealt with her affairs," continued Mr. Thoroughgood, "for over thirty years, but I regret to inform you that we shall not be dealing with them for very much longer. Miss Ingleby has been in poor health for some time and has recently informed me. that she is suffering from a fatal disease. It is cancer, Mr. Ingleby, and, I fear, quite incurable."

He paused.

"Your aunt," he continued, "has made several attempts, both direct and through ourselves, to get in touch with you. We received, however, no reply to our letters."

Ingleby smiled awkwardly.

"I am pretty bad at answering letters," he said, "and recently I have neglected even to open them."

Mr. Thoroughgood looked at Ingleby. Ingleby did not stir. He did not realise it yet. It seemed, however, that the lawyer expected him to say something.

"Er, yes" he said awkwardly, "I quite understand — her heir."

Then it came upon him suddenly. Old Baines had been right. This was the legacy … No, it was more than that, it was an inheritance! The blood surged to his brain.

"Is she… is she well off?"

The question burst from him. He made no attempt to conceal the eagerness of his tone.

"I am not authorised to discuss with you the private affairs of Miss Ingleby," replied Mr. Thoroughgood dryly. "But I must tell you at once that she is prepared to make you her heir, subject to certain conditions. Miss Ingleby will herself inform you of them. I shall at once communicate to her the news that we have found you, and she will doubtless get in touch with you in due course."

Ingleby gazed blankly at the lawyer. The interview, it seemed, was finished. An inheritance had been dangled in front of him, but there were conditions and he would hear from his aunt in due course. The lawyer had meanwhile risen and was holding out his hand. But Ingleby could not leave it at that. Decency be blowed... He must know more or less where he stood.

It was then that the telephone bell rang— a lucky reprieve, for Ingleby could collect his wits.

Mr. Thoroughgood had put the receiver to his ear and was speaking.

"Yes…yes… Mr. Thoroughgood speaking. …

"Indeed … as serious as that… yes … quite unexpectedly, most fortunate . .. he arrived here not ten minutes ago. … Yes, we will come at once… yes."

Mr. Thoroughgood replaced the receiver and put a hand to his tie. Ingleby was still wondering which of the many questions he must ask should come first, but Mr. Thoroughgood was coming round the desk toward him and it was the lawyer who spoke.

"Mr. Ingleby,' he said, "your arrival here this morning seems almost providential. That was Miss Ingleby's doctor who telephoned. Your aunt has taken a turn for the worse; you must prepare yourself for bad news. Miss Ingleby, I fear, is dying. I am taking you to see her at once."

FIVE minutes later Alfred Ingleby, with Mr. Thoroughgood, was speeding in a taxi toward Parliament Hill as swiftly as the flow of traffic would allow. Ingleby, recovering his presence of mind, was trying to remember as much as he could of Aunt Agatha. He had not seen her for nearly twenty years. She had, while he was still at school, quarrelled royally with his father, and her name had not afterward been mentioned. His father had nevertheless been her favorite brother. Now, it seemed, on her deathbed, she desired to make amends. Anyhow, she was seeking him out as his father's son. He ought, he supposed, to feel grateful to Aunt Agatha. All he did feel, however, was a devouring curiosity as to how much money she was leaving and how soon he might hope to receive it. She must, he surmised, be pretty well off. Parliament Hill was a good neighborhood. Ingleby saw himself suddenly able to walk into old Burstard's office, rap down his twenty-five pounds on the table and tell him to go to the devil. Then he would settle with his other creditors. Prosperity might bloom at last for Cripps Corner.

The taxi stopped with a jerk outside a tall semi-detached house, one of half a hundred that lined the steep road which ended in the Heath. It was a day of wind and rain in early December. Great clouds scudded across the uncertain sky. There was a smell of soot and damp leaves in the air. He followed Mr. Thoroughgood up the whitened steps.

The door was opened by an elderly maid, her face marred with weeping.

"Come in, sir,"' she said.

Mr. Thoroughgood passed with Ingleby into the dark hall. They were met at the foot of the stairs by a tall thin man in a short black coat and striped trousers.

He introduced himself shortly.

"I am Dr. Thwaites," he announced. "You, I imagine, are Thoroughgood?"

Mr. Thoroughgood nodded.

"I am afraid you have come too late," said the doctor. "Miss Ingleby died twenty minutes ago. She has signed the will, however, and she asked me to give it to you."

He produced from his pocket a folded document and handed it to the lawyer.

"Thank you, doctor," he said, "This, by the way is Mr. Ingleby, her nephew."

The doctor bowed.

"There is nothing more I can do here, I am afraid," he said. "Your aunt, Mr. Ingleby, has suffered from cancer for some years and I am afraid she had rather a bad time during the last fortnight. We did our best, however. Perhaps you would like to go up. Miss Wildshawe is with her. I will leave the death certificate on the hall table, and you can… er… make the necessary arrangements tomorrow."

"I hope you will act for me, Mr. Thoroughgood," said Ingleby, as they mounted the stairs, "until the contents of the will are known."

"Thank you, thank you," said Mr. Thoroughgood absently.

The doctor quietly took his leave and Mr. Thoroughgood took Ingleby to the first floor. They entered together a large bedroom, filled mostly with a huge mid-Victorian mahogany bed and an enormous wardrobe. The air was close and there was a faint smell of drugs. It was very dark, for the blinds were already pulled down. On the bed, covered to the chin with a sheet, lay a silent figure. Ingleby stepped forward and looked down at the quiet face.

"So that's Aunt Agatha," he said.

There was a moment's silence. The lawyer coughed. There came a short sob from the other side of the bed. Ingleby looked across. A woman had risen and was standing opposite him. He peered at her a little through the gloom. It seemed at first that the woman had no face. Then he saw that it was almost covered in bandages which allowed only the nose, eyes and mouth to appear. The mouth twisted itself into a kind of smile.

"I am Miss Wildshawe," it said.

Ingleby bowed.

"Miss Wildshawe," came the voice of Mr. Thoroughgood from the foot of the bed, "has been with Miss Ingleby for the last ten years."

"I was sorry to hear about your accident, Miss Wildshawe," he continued.

"Thank you," replied the mouth, "the sears are healing well. Dr. Thwaites says that the bandages can come off in a few days and that there will be no permanent disfigurement."

"Miss Wildshawe," explained Mr. Thoroughgood, "had an accident with a kettle some days ago. She scalded herself somewhat severely."

"I am sorry," said Ingleby.

There was an awkward silence. All three stood gazing at the bed.

Mr. Thoroughgood coughed slightly.

"As you are both here," he began, "and as the contents of the will are known to me, I see no reason why we should not settle the formality of reading it immediately. Perhaps when you are ready to do so, you would kindly follow me to the— er— downstairs."

He turned toward the door. Ingleby lingered a moment. So did Miss Wildshawe who had moved now to the bottom of the bed. Two enquiring eyes looked at him from the white mask. She was obviously waiting for Ingleby to speak.

"I— I wish I had come in time," he said at last.

Miss Wildshawe, with a sob, moved toward the door.

It was more cheerful in the dining room downstairs. For one thing the blinds were still up and though Miss Wildshawe made an effort to pull them down, she was prevented by the lawyer who said he must have enough light by which to read the will.

They all sat down. Then the lawyer, producing from his pocket the document which the doctor had given him, began to read.

Ingleby, oddly enough, found his attention wandering. Everything was so unexpected. He had suddenly discovered a relative he had not seen for twenty odd years. And she had left him money. Then there was this young woman. She did not look old from her figure. Nothing to write home about, of course… But, really, he must attend.

Mr. Thoroughgood had finished reading the will, but Ingleby hadn't a notion of what it was all about.

"I'm sorry," said Ingleby, as the lawyer looked up from the paper, "but I'm afraid all this legal wording is rather beyond me."

"It's really quite simple," said Mr. Thoroughgood. "Miss Ingleby leaves her entire property, which I may say in passing is in the neighborhood of some £500 a year, mostly in war loan, to her nephew Alfred Ingleby should he be discovered, on condition," here he paused and looked across the table at Miss Wildshawe whose expression, hidden as it was by the bandages, could not be ascertained, 'on condition that he enters into a contract of marriage with Miss Wildshawe. I will read again the relevant passage of the will."

Mr. Thoroughgood cleared his throat and began to read:

"It is my firm desire that Olive Wildshawe, my devoted companion for the past twelve years, should not go unrewarded for all the care and trouble that she has taken with one who has become increasingly a burden with the passage of time. It is equally my firm desire to repair the wrong which I did my brother, William Ingleby, more than twenty years ago. I therefore desire that my property should pass to his son, Alfred Ingleby, if he be still alive at my death. Should he be unmarried, I make it a condition of the bequest that he should offer marriage to Miss Olive Wildshawe. Should she accept the offer and should the marriage take place, then my entire property will pass at once to Alfred Ingleby. Should either party feel unable to follow my wishes in this respect, then I direct that the property be held in trust for Alfred Ingleby, during the lifetime of Olive Wildshawe, who shall receive the full income from it, but that on her death it should pass absolutely to my nephew, Alfred Ingleby, or to his lawful heirs."

"I think," said the lawyer, laying the paper down, "that this is very clear. I should perhaps add, Mr. Ingleby, that if the proposed alliance is not contracted, that is to say, if your aunt's property is to be held in trust for yourself and the income paid to Miss Wildshawe during her life, you are to receive £100 free of legacy duty."

There was a long pause. Ingleby looked across the table. He had been getting used to the idea that he was the heir of Aunt Agatha. But now it seemed that he was to be annoyed with preposterous conditions— perhaps defrauded of his rights.

"You are sure this is legal?" he inquired.

"Perfectly legal," replied Mr. Thoroughgood. "The terms are usual. In fact, I may say that my client, the late Miss Ingleby, did not take my advice in the phraseology of the matter, but there can be no question of the validity of the will, and I can tell you at once that any suit brought in the courts on the ground of undue influence would undoubtedly fail."

Mr. Thoroughgood rose.

"I think you both understand the position," he said, "and I shall be grateful to receive your decision as soon as possible. I will see about probate and the death duties. You can rely on me for that."

Already he was moving toward the door and, an instant later, it closed with a click behind him.

Ingleby cleared his throat nervously as a faint slam denoted that the front door had shut upon the departing lawyer. He was not, however, the first to speak. Miss Wildshawe was leaning across the table.

"This is rather a ridiculous situation, is it not, Mr. Ingleby," she was saying. "But I assure you that it is none of my seeking. I had no idea of the terms of your aunt's will. I only knew that your aunt had in some way or other provided for me."

"Well," said Ingleby, "it can't be helped. But it's rather sudden, isn't it?

"And now you are wondering what to do about it, I suppose," said Miss Wildshawe. "But I am going to tell you straight out that it is no good thinking of marriage."

"You are married, perhaps, already ?"

Miss Wildshawe shook her head.

"No, but I am engaged. I have been engaged for five years."

There was a short pause.

"Do you mind if I smoke?" asked Ingleby.

"Not at all," she said mechanically.

"Jacob Broadbent is his name," she continued. "He is an electrician and now with Alister and Hancocks, the big firm in Holborn, and doing quite well. You would not want me to give him up, would you?"

"Er— no, Miss Wildshawe— of course not. I would not dream of it."

"I am so glad you see it like that, Mr. Ingleby," replied Miss Wildshawe. "But I quite realize that for you it is a little— hard."

Ingleby looked at her and suddenly he realized the position.

"Excuse me," he murmured, "but how old are you?"

"Thirty-one," came the answer.

Ingleby gave a short laugh.

"And I," he said, "am thirty-eight. It doesn't look as if there was much chance of the Ingleby war loan coming my way, does it, Miss Wildshawe?"

"But what can I do, Mr. Ingleby? The revenue is left to me, and Jacob is not what you might call exactly rolling."

She was speaking fast now, holding to the table with both hands.

"He's doing well, of course,' she continued, "but he has not had a raise yet this year and £500 a year— we could marry at once… I shall have to think it out."

"Not much thinking required," said Ingleby shortly. "You get £500 a year … and I get £100 free of legacy duty."

He paused. "I am glad it's free of duty," he added bitterly.

"Please, Mr. Ingleby. Nothing is yet decided."

"Humbug," he said. "You will take that legacy. You would be a fool, if you did not. You never set eyes on me before. I'm nothing to you. And there's Jacob to be considered. You will be bringing him a nice big fat dowry all of a sudden. Funny, isn't it? Damned funny."

He strode round the table. She shrank from his approach.

"A hundred pounds," he said. "And my aunt was worth how much… Put it at a cool ten thousand. And you… you."

He stepped back from her and looked round the room, his anger wilting as suddenly as it had grown. There was a large sideboard standing by the wall. He moved quickly toward it and pulled at the door of the cupboard in the lower half of it.

"What do you want?" demanded Miss Wildshawe.

"Damn it," he said shakily. "Isn't there even a drop of whiskey in the house?"

MR. BURSTARD looked round the table. "I think you understand the position, Mr. Ingleby," he said, thrusting forward his big beard, stained with tobacco juice. "The sheriff's officers will wait upon you tomorrow morning, and if we have not had a satisfactory settlement by this day week we shall distrain. We've waited long enough and there is no more to be said."

Ingleby stared at the advertisements for chemical manures and tractors upon the walls of the dining room of The Long Man at Adenham. He said nothing. He wanted to leap over the table, smash his fist into the red face of Mr. Burstard just above the beard, then take little Blatchett, the lawyer, by the scruff of his neck, shake him till his false teeth fell out and fling him through the window. But he only stood breathing heavily. Turning at last, he made for the door. On reaching it he faced about.

"You can go to hell," he said to the assembled company. "I have done my best for you. I've offered you a hundred pounds, which is all I am ever likely to get. Put your damned officers in when you like. It won't take them long to take an inventory of Cripps Corner."

He pushed through the door and slammed it behind him.

Now he was on the road, trudging wearily back to his farm. His brain was swimming a little, for the pre-war whiskey was strong, and he had taken little else for the last two days. He had needed it, too. It kept him from brooding over that business of the legacy.

He pulled a letter from his pocket. It was in a large round feminine hand, and he read it again as he walked.

Miss Olive Wildshawe was full of the noblest sentiments. But she was sticking fast to the money. She had gone over the whole business with the lawyers who had assured her that there was nothing to be done. She had only a life interest in the money, and even if she had wished to do so, she could not pay a cent of the capital to him.

"So you see, Mr. Ingleby, there is nothing I can do. I feel I must take the income. You do not realize, perhaps, what marriage means to me. I have waited five years, and when a woman is past thirty—  well I am sure you will understand. I feel this is my only chance, and, after all, you are still young. You have your farm and your work to do."

Ingleby crushed the letter into a ball and made to fling it away. But he thought better of it and stuffed it with shaking fingers into the side pocket of his coat.

To be sure he had his farm and his work to do. … And there in fancy he saw old Burstard with his little eyes, his great beard and his thick gaitered legs.

Ingleby stood suddenly still and shook his fist at the sombre trees that almost met above his head.

He was now in the thick part of the forest, moving along the track which led to his farm. It was very dark here, for it was afternoon and the tired December day was drawing to a close. His mind, too, was dark. There seemed to be no ray of hope. Four hundred and fifty pounds he owed and he must find it in a week.

HE sat in the room for two days, rising only to replenish the fire from a great stack of logs that he had cut some weeks before, piled in the scullery outside. During that time he ate three pieces of bread and two pieces of cheese, but he drank two bottles of his father's pre-war whiskey. From time to time he was vaguely aware of two little men with pencils behind their ears, who bothered him by taking stock of the contents of the house— a Landseer engraving of the Monarch of the Glen; eight copper sauce-pans in bad repair; one bedspread, torn; and so forth.

It was on the second night that the great idea came to him as he sat before the fire gazing into the glowing depths. Every man for himself now and the devil take the hindmost. It came to him suddenly, a gorgeous plan, a superb plan… copper-bottomed. Olive Wildshawe was thirty-one and he was thirty-eight. No use waiting for Olive Wildshawe to die. She might easily live another fifty years.

The idea, of course, must have been growing in some dark corner of his brain for days like a seed in the ground, out of sight and knowledge. Or had it been put there complete and ready? Almost it was as though someone had been whispering in his ear, and now at last he heard and understood. His mind had seemed to be blank and then … he was aware of the whole thing... every difficulty solved. He knew now what he must do and how he must do it.

He rose from the fire and took from the dresser a penny bottle of ink, an old pen and a sheet of paper. Then he sat crouching over the table for two hours composing the letter. That was the first part of the plan. There was only one piece of paper in the house, so he made a rough draft on the kitchen slate, for the letter must be carefully worded. He sighed with satisfaction when at last it was finished, and he read it in the light of the candles.

My dear Miss Wildshawe:

I feel that your letter of the 15th calls for some reply, but I have not answered it before because I have been taking steps. I quite realize all you say and your difficulties, especially re Mr. Broadbent. I can scarcely blame you for taking your chance. On the other hand, it would be useless for me to pretend that a small capital sum of money would not be very useful to me now. So I have taken the liberty of consulting a young lawyer friend of mine, who was in the army with me, and we have carefully considered the whole position. He has hit upon a plan whereby we can both, I think, mutually benefit from my aunt's will with no unfairness or unpleasantness on either side. I am not too anxious, however, to put the proposal on paper at this stage. I would rather discuss the whole position with you fully and frankly before making any definite proposal. I feel sure you will understand my position in the matter, especially as you tell me that your fiance has some scruples about this legacy. I accordingly suggest that you come down here and see me at your earliest convenience, perhaps Wednesday would suit if you have nothing better to do?

So I shall expect you, my dear Miss Wildshawe, on Wednesday, at Adenham Station. There's a train leaving London (Victoria) at 3:15 p.m. which is due here shortly after 4:30. I shall be at the station to meet you and we can come back to the farm here, meet my friend and discuss his suggestion.

I shall, of course, meet the train, but if by any chance we miss each other you have only got to follow the place I have drawn on the back of this letter and you will find Cripps Corner easily enough. I am,

Yours faithfully,

ALFRED INGLEBY.

P. S.— There is a fast train back from Haywards Heath at 8 p.m. I should wear some galoshes if I were you as the road to the farm is very muddy.

Ingleby sat back with a smile on his lips. It was a clever bit of work—  especially that bit about the plan on the back of the letter. For she would naturally bring it with her in case she needed it to find her way. And the postscripts were killing… galoshes and a fast train back from Haywards Heath… killing!

Ingleby posted the letter that same night, staggering down the main road half a mile to a pillar box to do so. And now he must wait. It rained all next day, and only half a bottle of whiskey remained. He held it up to the light.

"I must keep that," he muttered. "I shall probably need it… afterward."

At 8 o'clock next morning Ingleby stood at the end of the track leading to his farm where it joined the main road. He waited a quarter of an hour before old Baines showed up. There he was at last, and he waved cheerfully to Ingleby as he got off his bicycle.

"Here's a letter for you, my lad," he said, and stood in the road holding it out.

Ingleby took it eagerly.

The plan was going well. Miss Wildshawe intimated that she would be at Adenham station at 4:30 on the following afternoon. It was some time since she had been in the country and she would much enjoy walking to his farm.

Ingleby smiled.

The next day at 8 o'clock in the morning, Ingleby was once more at the junction of the main road and the track leading to Cripps Corner. He had in the meantime been busy. For this was the second part of the plan. This, in fact, was the masterpiece— as time would show, but it was a pity he was obliged to wait… and wait again. Waiting took it out of a man. His hands, pressed against the handle of a stout ash plant, were not as steady as they might be.

He looked, however, with complacency at his right foot. In place of the ordinary heavy boot he was accustomed to wear, it was covered with the remains of a felt slipper and a soiled bandage of large proportions, showing in parts a dull red.

Thus he stood leaning on the stick and gazing eagerly down the road. It was raining, a thin drizzle. The morning was raw. He shivered and pulled his overcoat closer about him. Where was old Baines? Wasn't he going to pass that morning of all mornings? It was essential that old Baines should pass.

There was not a sound except the quiet drip of water from the bare trees. Five or ten minutes passed and Ingleby felt his feet growing numb. He shifted his position slightly. Then, at last, he heard a sound on the wet road, and there was old Baines pedalling along in a clinging black government waterproof with a hood to it, the cape spread well over the handlebars.

"Nothing for you today, lad," he said.

Then his glance traveled to Ingleby's right foot.

"Eh, lad," he added, "what's come to you?"

He bent and inspected the blood-soaked bandage with concern.

"I've had an accident," said Ingleby. "I want you to take a message from me to the station."

"That looks bad to me," said the postman. "You ought to have a doctor."

Ingleby shook his head.

"I've no money for doctors," he said, "and I'm quite able to look after myself. I've found a use at last for the old field dressing. It's a clean cut with the chopper. I hit my foot instead of the billet. But it will be some time before I can walk as far as the station. It's a bit of a job getting to the corner here."

Baines nodded solemnly, and the rain drops fell from the peak of his cap.

"Were you then wanting to go to the station?" he asked.

Ingleby nodded.

"I was to meet a young lady coming to see me on business this afternoon," he replied. "She will arrive by the 4:32. She has never been here before and I intended to meet her. Would you take a message from me to Tibetts, the station master?"

"What will I tell him?' demanded Baines.

"Tell him to look out for a young lady and tell her of my accident."

"What is she like?" asked Baines.

Ingleby hesitated a moment. He had never seen the face of Miss Wildshawe.

"A very ordinary young woman," he said, "name of Wildshawe. I will write it down for you."

He produced from his pocket an envelope and a stump of pencil, wrote down the name in block capitals and handed it to the postman.

"Ask Tibetts to tell her to come straight up. I will be waiting for her at the farm with tea."

"Wouldn't it be best for her to take a cab, or something?" suggested Baines.

Ingleby appeared to consider the suggestion a moment.

"Of course," he said, "if she wants to do so. But I don't suppose she will find one, and she will have to walk the last half mile. You could not get a cab down this filthy ditch of a road."

"Very well, lad," said Baines, preparing to mount his bicycle. "I will see that she gets your message. And you had better look after yourself, lad. Don't get that foot of yours poisoned."

"I shall be all right," said Ingleby.

"And see here, lad"— Baines hesitated a moment— "best go a bit steady on the whiskey, if you don't mind my saying so."

"Don't you worry about that," replied Ingleby. "There isn't much more of it left."

INGLEBY, left to himself, turned his back on the main road and began walking down the track leading to Cripps Corner. He leaned heavily on his stick. The mud was deep and the rain persistent, which was bad for the chest. He coughed nearly all the way to the farm and soon grew tired of his hobbling gait. It was then that anyone watching him would have noted that for the last 200 yards he walked without any limp, his right foot seemingly as strong as his left.

On arriving at the farm, he sat down by the kitchen fire. Then he bent forward and removed the bandage, stretching his foot to the blaze, for it was cold with constriction. He turned it this way and that and smiled upon it indulgently. There was no cut or mark to be observed.

His last bottle of whiskey stood on the table beside him. He drank a little and put the bottle down.

Suddenly he started in his chair.

"Gloves," he said aloud, for he had contracted the habit of talking to himself in his loneliness. "I must get a pair of gloves."

He got shakily to his feet. Was all his scheme to go awry? He pulled himself together and, standing by the table, did some hard thinking. He could not go into Adenham to buy gloves— not with a wounded foot. Besides, to buy gloves would be dangerous and in any case he hadn't any cash. Nevertheless, gloves were important. Everyone wore gloves.

Suddenly he remembered. A smile stole over his face as he lumbered across the room and up the stairs to the attic. There he opened a ramshackle trunk and began to turn over the pile of musty clothes which it contained. Petticoats, bodices, old serge skirts— these he flung aside. But here it was at last— a small packet done up in faded paper. He tore it open. A pair of white cotton gloves, rather yellow, lay in his hand.

"I thought Ma had kept her wedding gloves," he muttered. "It's lucky she had large hands."

IT was almost dark. The rain had ceased about an hour before, but the clouds were low and it might start again at any moment. The woods dripped monotonously.

Ingleby stood in the shelter of a big bush some 200 yards from the turn leading to Cripps Corner. He had thought very carefully about his ambush, and had finally decided to wait near the main road. The risk was slightly greater, though at this time of day, five in the afternoon, there was very little traffic. It was, however, better to wait there. Miss Wildshawe might miss the turning. You never could tell with women; they had no sense of locality. And that would not do at all.

Besides it would be better for her to be found not too near the house.

He waited for her perhaps half an hour. The train, he imagined, must be late, but that was nothing new. From time to time he peered out down the road, but soon he could see nothing. The gloom of the December day had fallen upon the land.

Had the woman missed her train? Or was she hiring a cab after all? Ingleby strained his ears. These dripping boughs got upon the nerves … drip… drip. No, by God, that was a footstep— a light step on the hard road.

Ingleby felt his mouth go dry. He fumbled in his pocket and produced the white cotton gloves. He slipped them on. His hands were trembling.

"Keep cool, you damn fool," he muttered. "Cool… cool… five hundred a year for life."

The footsteps were coming nearer. Ingleby drew back into the shadow of the holly bush. There at last she was ... walking upon his side of the road. She was wearing a silk mackintosh and there was the outline of an umbrella over her head. But it was getting very dark. He could scarcely see her. She was almost abreast of him now.

Summoning up all his courage he called by her name.

"Olive," he called.

He had decided that the Christian name would better serve his turn. It sounded more intimate, reassuring. But his voice was strangely thin and weak.

"Olive," he called again.

The figure in the road paused. Then Ingleby heard a little gasp of fear and the quick pattering of footsteps.

"Damn the women…" She was running away down the road. Ingleby sprang after her. It was darker every minute. He could scarcely see where he was going. But there— at long last—  she was, almost in the ditch. In a flash Ingleby was upon her. Was it anger or the fumes of whiskey? It was impossible to tell. An overwhelming passion of rage was shaking him. He had her now. She gave a cry, instantly stifled by his right hand. He felt her teeth close upon his forefinger. Then she kicked out, catching him a sharp blow on the shin as he swung her off her feet. He lurched sideways. There was a crash and crackle of boughs as he stumbled into the thicket. A holly branch scored his face. It was even darker here… dark… and what he had to do was: dark. He shifted his hands to her throat. Her neck was warm under the thin stuff of the cotton gloves. His grip tightened. She had ceased to struggle now. She was lying still enough, limp in his arms. Dare he relax? Carefully he let go. The light body swayed against him and she fell in a heap at his feet. He bent down, feeling desperately till at last he had his hand on her heart. But his own was beating so fiercely that for a moment he could not tell whether she lived or not. With a violent effort he forced himself to be calm. Yes… that was better… not a movement… dead all right… dead as a doornail. He had felt men's hearts during the war. He knew what death was like.

"The letter," he muttered to himself, "where is the letter?" He felt about in the darkness. Was there nothing but this damned umbrella? Ingleby put a foot upon the umbrella and heard the ribs crack. He was cold and wet, and drops of moisture fell upon the back of his neck where he stooped. And yet, though shivering, he was on fire. Beads of sweat ran along his forehead and trickled into his eyes.

HAD she not even a handbag? Had she hidden the letter in her clothes? He began to feel again for it when his foot struck something. He fell on one knee and a faint crackle showed that he had broken something. Here was the bag at last. He retrieved it from under him. Then he pulled out the contents but could not see them in the darkness. There was a mirror broken by his knee. He could feel that. There were also a couple of envelopes, a powder puff, some loose money and a note case. He thrust the lot into a side pocket, then took the bag, stuck it into the woman's clothing, picked up the smashed umbrella and the still body, and carried them, grunting with the effort, as far as his strength would take him, into the wood. It was worse than he had anticipated but it would never do for her to be found too close to the road. Fortunately he knew every inch of the way. He could not get lost. So he staggered on until, quite spent, he let the body fall into a thicket beneath a clump of fir trees. There could be no better place. It might lie there for weeks. Then he threw the umbrella into a bush nearby and turning, made his way back to the farm.

INGLEBY looked round the kitchen. It was just as he had left it hardly two hours ago. But why should it be otherwise? Nothing much had happened. He had merely done what he had set out to do. He did not feel essentially different himself. He had committed a murder, but murderers were probably, a good many of them, much as other men. There were more of them than was ever. suspected. Himself, for example. No one would ever know that he had murdered Olive Wildshawe. At least he felt that they wouldn't.

But there was still a good deal to be done— the most important thing of all, in fact, remained— the great idea which had sprung from the shadows and made all the rest of the plan feasible. He had asked himself before ever he had started whether he would have the nerve to do it. But that, of course, was evident. He had done worse things than that in the wood an hour ago.

He rose and walked to the corner of the room. There stood the chopper, a fair-sized chopper. The blade was clean and sharp. It gleamed at him reassuringly.

He picked it up and balanced it a moment in his hand.

Then, with sudden resolution, he put his foot upon the chopping block and struck himself a hard blow. The chopper cut through the flesh to the bone. The blood spurted and the pain for a moment was sickening. He found himself propped against the wall.

"Mustn't faint," he muttered.

The pain passed after a little, to be succeeded by dull throbbing. He felt very sick, but he staggered and hopped to the table where the bandages lay all ready. In great pain and difficulty he cut away the boot and the sock and wrapped the bandages round his foot. He would have preferred to have cut his foot with the boot off, but that might have given him away.

Then he wiped the chopper clean and threw it back into the corner. He drew off the cotton gloves and flung them into the blaze.

HE was safe now, safe as a house.

They could suspect what they liked but they could never prove it. Old Baines would testify. Old Baines had seen him with his foot in that identical bandage at 8 o'clock in the morning. Old Baines was to be trusted. This was the perfect murder. Five hundred a year for life. No more farming for him after this. He would go traveling somewhere in the warm South where there were sun and palm trees and no licensing hours. He would rest and enjoy some much-needed comfort.

But still there were things to do, things which might connect him with the murder, things sufficiently damning to throw doubt upon his alibi. There was that letter for example, with the bit about his lawyer friend and all those clever instructions which had lured the woman to her death. The police, with that letter in their hands, would soon put two and two together and have the rope round his throat in a brace of shakes.

He fumbled in his pocket. Something soft met his fingers— a powder puff. Then came a mirror. He threw the puff into the fire. It blazed up and was reduced to ashes in a second. He would get rid of the mirror later. And now here, at last, was the letter. There were, in fact, two letters. Ingleby in his eagerness almost flung them into the fire. But his hand stopped short on the way to the flames and he found himself staring at the envelopes. He sat very still gaping at them for some time. Then he pressed a hand to his forehead. It was damp and his hand was shaking. He steadied himself as best he could.

Neither of the envelopes was the one he had addressed to Olive Wildshawe. Had she, after all, left the letter at home? And what was she doing with letters addressed to another woman? Who, in any case, was Mrs. Beacher, 110 Elm Grove, Haywards Heath?

WITH fingers that shook and trembled he opened the envelopes. They both contained bills… bills…. He knew a bill when he saw it— one from Messrs. Thursby, grocers, and the other from… yes, it was from old Burstard.

Ingleby sat by the fire. He could not think very clearly. Something had gone wrong. There was a letter somewhere and it was a letter that might hang him yet if he were not very careful… Miss Wildshawe was dead, as he had every reason to know… and there was not even a drop of whiskey in the house. Nothing stirred in the room except the logs on the hearth which were blazing fitfully. The little cracked mirror on the table beside Ingleby twinkled back at the flames, but Ingleby had completely forgotten the little mirror.

A knock sounded abruptly on the door. The shock pulled Ingleby together. He flung the two letters into the fire and watched them burn. Again there was a knock, and then another louder knock. A hand was fumbling at the latch.

Old Baines stood in the doorway.

"There you are," said the old man smiling. "I have brought you a telegram. It will likely be from your young lady. She was not at the station."

Ingleby took the telegram and stared so straight and so long in front of him that old Baines was quite obviously alarmed.

"Aren't you going to read it, lad?" he asked.

"Of course," said Ingleby.

But his hands were trembling so much that he could not manage the orange-colored envelope.

"Here," offered Baines, "let me open it for you."

"There you are," said Baines handing him the flimsy paper.

"Read it, read it," said Ingleby nervously.

Old Baines bent down so that the light of the fire shone on the telegram. His beard as he leaned forward brushed the little mirror from the edge of the table. It fell with a light crash to the floor. Baines stooped to retrieve it.

"Leave that," said Ingleby harshly, and in a sudden passion he snatched the telegram from the hands of the old man.

"Sorry," he read, "caught touch of 'flu'. Will come some day next week if convenient. Wildshawe."

___________________

9: Financing Finnegan

F. Scott Fitzgerald

1896-1940

Esquire, Jan 1938

FINNEGAN and I have the same literary agent to sell our writings for us— but though I'd often been in Mr. Cannon's office just before and just after Finnegan's visits, I had never met him. Likewise we had the same publisher and often when I arrived there Finnegan had just departed. I gathered from a thoughtful sighing way in which they spoke of him—

"Ah— Finnegan—"

"Oh yes, Finnegan was here."

—that the distinguished author's visit had been not uneventful. Certain remarks implied that he had taken something with him when he went— manuscripts, I supposed, one of those great successful novels of his. He had taken "it" off for a final revision, a last draft, of which he was rumored to make ten in order to achieve that facile flow, that ready wit, which distinguished his work. I discovered only gradually that most of Finnegan's visits had to do with money.

"I'm sorry you're leaving," Mr. Cannon would tell me, "Finnegan will be here tomorrow." Then after a thoughtful pause, "I'll probably have to spend some time with him."

I don't know what note in his voice reminded me of a talk with a nervous bank president when Dillinger was reported in the vicinity. His eyes looked out into the distance and he spoke as to himself:

"Of course he may be bringing a manuscript. He has a novel he's working on, you know. And a play too."

He spoke as though he were talking about some interesting but remote events of the cinquecento; but his eyes became more hopeful as he added: "Or maybe a short story."

"He's very versatile, isn't he?" I said.

"Oh yes," Mr. Cannon perked up. "He can do anything— anything when he puts his mind to it. There's never been such a talent."

"I haven't seen much of his work lately."

"Oh, but he's working hard. Some of the magazines have stories of his that they're holding."

"Holding for what?"

"Oh, for a more appropriate time— an upswing. They like to think they have something of Finnegan's."

His was indeed a name with ingots in it. His career had started brilliantly and if it had not kept up to its first exalted level, at least it started brilliantly all over again every few years. He was the perennial man of promise in American letters— what he could actually do with words was astounding, they glowed and coruscated— he wrote sentences, paragraphs, chapters that were masterpieces of fine weaving and spinning. It was only when I met some poor devil of a screen writer who had been trying to make a logical story out of one of his books that I realized he had his enemies.

"It's all beautiful when you read it," this man said disgustedly, "but when you write it down plain it's like a week in the nut-house."

From Mr. Cannon's office I went over to my publishers on Fifth Avenue and there too I learned in no time that Finnegan was expected tomorrow.

Indeed he had thrown such a long shadow before him that the luncheon where I expected to discuss my own work was largely devoted to Finnegan. Again I had the feeling that my host, Mr. George Jaggers, was talking not to me but to himself.

"Finnegan's a great writer," he said.

"Undoubtedly."

"And he's really quite all right, you know."

As I hadn't questioned the fact I inquired whether there was any doubt about it.

"Oh no," he said hurriedly. "It's just that he's had such a run of hard luck lately—"

I shook my head sympathetically. "I know. That diving into a half-empty pool was a tough break."

"Oh, it wasn't half-empty. It was full of water. Full to the brim. You ought to hear Finnegan on the subject— he makes a side-splitting story of it. It seems he was in a run-down condition and just diving from the side of the pool, you know— " Mr. Jaggers pointed his knife and fork at the table, "and he saw some young girls diving from the fifteen-foot board. He says he thought of his lost youth and went up to do the same and made a beautiful swan dive— but his shoulder broke while he was still in the air." He looked at me rather anxiously. "Haven't you heard of cases like that— a ball player throwing his arm out of joint?"

I couldn't think of any orthopedic parallels at the moment.

"And then," he continued dreamily, "Finnegan had to write on the ceiling."

"On the ceiling?"

"Practically. He didn't give up writing— he has plenty of guts, that fellow, though you may not believe it. He had some sort of arrangement built that was suspended from the ceiling and he lay on his back and wrote in the air."

I had to grant that it was a courageous arrangement.

"Did it affect his work?" I inquired. "Did you have to read his stories backward— like Chinese?"

"They were rather confused for a while," he admitted, "but he's all right now. I got several letters from him that sounded more like the old Finnegan— full of life and hope and plans for the future —"

The faraway look came into his face and I turned the discussion to affairs closer to my heart. Only when we were back in his office did the subject recur— and I blush as I write this because it includes confessing something I seldom do— reading another man's telegram. It happened because Mr. Jaggers was intercepted in the hall and when I went into his office and sat down it was stretched out open before me:

WITH FIFTY I COULD AT LEAST PAY TYPIST AND GET HAIRCUT AND PENCILS LIFE HAS BECOME IMPOSSIBLE AND I EXIST ON DREAM OF GOOD NEWS DESPERATELY FINNEGAN

I couldn't believe my eyes— fifty dollars, and I happened to know that Finnegan's price for short stories was somewhere around three thousand. George Jaggers found me still staring dazedly at the telegram. After he read it he stared at me with stricken eyes.

"I don't see how I can conscientiously do it," he said.

I started and glanced around to make sure I was in the prosperous publishing office in New York. Then I understood— I had misread the telegram. Finnegan was asking for fifty thousand as an advance— a demand that would have staggered any publisher no matter who the writer was.

"Only last week," said Mr. Jaggers disconsolately, "I sent him a hundred dollars. It puts my department in the red every season, so I don't dare tell my partners any more. I take it out of my own pocket— give up a suit and a pair of shoes."

"You mean Finnegan's broke?"

"Broke!" He looked at me and laughed soundlessly— in fact I didn't exactly like the way that he laughed. My brother had a nervous— but that is afield from this story. After a minute he pulled himself together. "You won't say anything about this, will you? The truth is Finnegan's been in a slump, he's had blow after blow in the past few years, but now he's snapping out of it and I know we'll get back every cent we've—" He tried to think of a word but "given him" slipped out. This time it was he who was eager to change the subject.

Don't let me give the impression that Finnegan's affairs absorbed me during a whole week in New York— it was inevitable, though, that being much in the offices of my agent and my publisher, I happened in on a lot. For instance, two days later, using the telephone in Mr. Cannon's office, I was accidentally switched in on a conversation he was having with George Jaggers. It was only partly eavesdropping, you see, because I could only hear one end of the conversation and that isn't as bad as hearing it all.

"But I got the impression he was in good health... he did say something about his heart a few months ago but I understood it got well... yes, and he talked about some operation he wanted to have— I think he said it was cancer... . Well, I felt like telling him I had a little operation up my sleeve too, that I'd have had by now if I could afford it.... No, I didn't say it. He seemed in such good spirits that it would have been a shame to bring him down. He's starting a story today, he read me some of it on the phone....

"...I did give him twenty-five because he didn't have a cent in his pocket... oh, yes— I'm sure he'll be all right now. He sounds as if he means business."

I understood it all now. The two men had entered into a silent conspiracy to cheer each other up about Finnegan. Their investment in him, in his future, had reached a sum so considerable that Finnegan belonged to them. They could not bear to hear a word against him— even from themselves.

ii

I SPOKE my mind to Mr. Cannon. "If this Finnegan is a four-flusher you can't go on indefinitely giving him money. If he's through he's through and there's nothing to be done about it. It's absurd that you should put off an operation when Finnegan's out somewhere diving into half-empty swimming pools."

"It was full," said Mr. Cannon patiently— "full to the brim."

"Well, full or empty the man sounds like a nuisance to me."

"Look here," said Cannon, "I've got a talk to Hollywood due on the wire. Meanwhile you might glance over that." He threw a manuscript into my lap. "Maybe it'll help you understand. He brought it in yesterday."

It was a short story. I began it in a mood of disgust but before I'd read five minutes I was completely immersed in it, utterly charmed, utterly convinced and wishing to God I could write like that. When Cannon finished his phone call I kept him waiting while I finished it and when I did there were tears in these hard old professional eyes. Any magazine in the country would have run it first in any issue.

But then nobody had ever denied that Finnegan could write.

iii

MONTHS passed before I went again to New York, and then, so far as the offices of my agent and my publisher were concerned, I descended upon a quieter, more stable world. There was at last time to talk about my own conscientious if uninspired literary pursuits, to visit Mr. Cannon in the country and to kill summer evenings with George Jaggers where the vertical New York starlight falls like lingering lightning into restaurant gardens. Finnegan might have been at the North Pole— and as a matter of fact he was. He had quite a group with him, including three Bryn Mawr anthropologists, and it sounded as if he might collect a lot of material there. They were going to stay several months, and if the thing had somehow the ring of a promising little house party about it, that was probably due to my jealous, cynical disposition.

"We're all just delighted," said Cannon. "It's a God-send for him. He was fed up and he needed just this— this—"

"Ice and snow," I supplied.

"Yes, ice and snow. The last thing he said was characteristic of him. Whatever he writes is going to be pure white— it's going to have a blinding glare about it."

"I can imagine it will. But tell me— who's financing it? Last time I was here I gathered the man was insolvent."

"Oh, he was really very decent about that. He owed me some money and I believe he owed George Jaggers a little too— " He "believed," the old hypocrite. He knew damn well— "so before he left he made most of his life insurance over to us. That's in case he doesn't come back— those trips are dangerous of course."

"I should think so," I said— "especially with three anthropologists."

"So Jaggers and I are absolutely covered in case anything happens— it's as simple as that."

"Did the life-insurance company finance the trip?"

He fidgeted perceptibly.

"Oh, no. In fact when they learned the reason for the assignments they were a little upset. George Jaggers and I felt that when he had a specific plan like this with a specific book at the end of it, we were justified in backing him a little further."

"I don't see it," I said flatly.

"You don't?" The old harassed look came back into his eyes. "Well, I'll admit we hesitated. In principle I know it's wrong. I used to advance authors small sums from time to time, but lately I've made a rule against it— and kept it. It's only been waived once in the last two years and that was for a woman who was having a bad struggle— Margaret Trahill, do you know her? She was an old girl of Finnegan's, by the way."

"Remember I don't even know Finnegan."

"That's right. You must meet him when he comes back— if he does come back. You'd like him— he's utterly charming."

Again I departed from New York, to imaginative North Poles of my own, while the year rolled through summer and fall. When the first snap of November was in the air, I thought of the Finnegan expedition with a sort of shiver and any envy of the man departed. He was probably earning any loot, literary or anthropological, he might bring back. Then, when I hadn't been back in New York three days, I read in the paper that he and some other members of his party had walked off into a snowstorm when the food supply gave out, and the Arctic had claimed another sacrifice.

I was sorry for him, but practical enough to be glad that Cannon and Jaggers were well protected. Of course, with Finnegan scarcely cold— if such a simile is not too harrowing— they did not talk about it but I gathered that the insurance companies had waived habeas corpus or whatever it is in their lingo, and it seemed quite sure that they would collect.

His son, a fine looking young fellow, came into George Jaggers' office while I was there and from him I could guess at Finnegan's charm— a shy frankness together with an impression of a very quiet brave battle going on inside of him that he couldn't quite bring himself to talk about— but that showed as heat lightning in his work.

"The boy writes well too," said George after he had gone. "He's brought in some remarkable poems. He's not ready to step into his father's shoes, but there's a definite promise."

"Can I see one of his things?"

"Certainly— here's one he left just as he went out."

George took a paper from his desk, opened it and cleared his throat. Then he squinted and bent over a little in his chair.

"Dear Mr. Jaggers," he began, "I didn't like to ask you this in person— " Jaggers stopped, his eyes reading ahead rapidly.

"How much does he want?" I inquired.

He sighed.

"He gave me the impression that this was some of his work," he said in a pained voice.

"But it is," I consoled him. "Of course he isn't quite ready to step into his father's shoes."

I was sorry afterwards to have said this, for after all Finnegan had paid his debts, and it was nice to be alive now that better times were back and books were no longer rated as unnecessary luxuries. Many authors I knew who had skimped along during the depression were now making long-deferred trips or paying off mortgages or turning out the more finished kind of work that can only be done with a certain leisure and security. I had just got a thousand dollars advance for a venture in Hollywood and was going to fly out with all the verve of the old days when there was chicken feed in every pot. Going in to say good-by to Cannon and collect the money, it was nice to find he too was profiting— wanted me to go along and see a motor boat he was buying.

But some last-minute stuff came up to delay him and I grew impatient and decided to skip it. Getting no response to a knock on the door of his sanctum, I opened it anyhow.

The inner office seemed in some confusion. Mr. Cannon was on several telephones at once and dictating something about an insurance company to a stenographer. One secretary was getting hurriedly into her hat and coat as upon an errand and another was counting bills from her purse.

"It'll be only a minute," said Cannon, "it's just a little office riot— you never saw us like this."

"Is it Finnegan's insurance?" I couldn't help asking. "Isn't it any good?"

"His insurance— oh, perfectly all right, perfectly. This is just a matter of trying to raise a few hundred in a hurry. The banks are closed and we're all contributing."

"I've got that money you just gave me," I said. "I don't need all of it to get to the coast." I peeled off a couple of hundred. "Will this be enough?"

"That'll be fine— it just saves us. Never mind, Miss Carlsen. Mrs. Mapes, you needn't go now."

"I think I'll be running along," I said.

"Just wait two minutes," he urged. "I've only got to take care of this wire. It's really splendid news. Bucks you up."

It was a cablegram from Oslo, Norway— before I began to read I was full of a premonition.

AM MIRACULOUSLY SAFE HERE BUT DETAINED BY AUTHORITIES PLEASE WIRE PASSAGE MONEY FOR FOUR PEOPLE AND TWO HUNDRED EXTRA I AM BRINGING BACK PLENTY GREETINGS FROM THE DEAD.

FINNEGAN

"Yes, that's splendid," I agreed. "He'll have a story to tell now."

"Won't he though," said Cannon. "Miss Carlsen, will you wire the parents of those girls— and you'd better inform Mr. Jaggers."

As we walked along the street a few minutes later, I saw that Mr. Cannon, as if stunned by the wonder of this news, had fallen into a brown study, and I did not disturb him, for after all I did not know Finnegan and could not whole-heartedly share his joy. His mood of silence continued until we arrived at the door of the motor boat show. Just under the sign he stopped and stared upward, as if aware for the first time where we were going.

"Oh, my," he said, stepping back. "There's no use going in here now. I thought we were going to get a drink."

We did. Mr. Cannon was still a little vague, a little under the spell of the vast surprise— he fumbled so long for the money to pay his round that I insisted it was on me.

I think he was in a daze during that whole time because, though he is a man of the most punctilious accuracy, the two hundred I handed him in his office has never shown to my credit in the statements he has sent me. I imagine, though, that some day I will surely get it because some day Finnegan will click again and I know that people will clamor to read what he writes. Recently I've taken it upon myself to investigate some of the stories about him and I've found that they're mostly as false as the half-empty pool. That pool was full to the brim.

So far there's only been a short story about the polar expedition, a love story. Perhaps it wasn't as big a subject as he expected. But the movies are interested in him— if they can get a good long look at him first and I have every reason to think that he will come through. He'd better.

________________

10: The Garden Lodge

Willa Cather

1873-1947

From The Troll Garden, 1905

WHEN Caroline Noble's friends learned that Raymond d'Esquerre was to spend a month at her place on the Sound before he sailed to fill his engagement for the London opera season, they considered it another striking instance of the perversity of things.  That the month was May, and the most mild and florescent of all the blue-and-white Mays the middle coast had known in years, but added to their sense of wrong.  D'Esquerre, they learned, was ensconced in the lodge in the apple orchard, just beyond Caroline's glorious garden, and report went that at almost any hour the sound of the tenor's voice and of Caroline's crashing accompaniment could be heard floating through the open windows, out among the snowy apple boughs.  The Sound, steel-blue and dotted with white sails, was splendidly seen from the windows of the lodge.  The garden to the left and the orchard to the right had never been so riotous with spring, and had burst into impassioned bloom, as if to accommodate Caroline, though she was certainly the last woman to whom the witchery of Freya could be attributed; the last woman, as her friends affirmed, to at all adequately appreciate and make the most of such a setting for the great tenor.

Of course, they admitted, Caroline was musical— well, she ought to be!— but in that, as in everything, she was paramountly cool-headed, slow of impulse, and disgustingly practical; in that, as in everything else, she had herself so provokingly well in hand.  Of course, it would be she, always mistress of herself in any situation, she, who would never be lifted one inch from the ground by it, and who would go on superintending her gardeners and workmen as usual— it would be she who got him.  Perhaps some of them suspected that this was exactly why she did get him, and it but nettled them the more.

Caroline's coolness, her capableness, her general success, especially exasperated people because they felt that, for the most part, she had made herself what she was; that she had cold-bloodedly set about complying with the demands of life and making her position comfortable and masterful.  That was why, everyone said, she had married Howard Noble.  Women who did not get through life so well as Caroline, who could not make such good terms either with fortune or their husbands, who did not find their health so unfailingly good, or hold their looks so well, or manage their children so easily, or give such distinction to all they did, were fond of stamping Caroline as a materialist, and called her hard.

The impression of cold calculation, of having a definite policy, which Caroline gave, was far from a false one; but there was this to be said for her— that there were extenuating circumstances which her friends could not know.

If Caroline held determinedly to the middle course, if she was apt to regard with distrust everything which inclined toward extravagance, it was not because she was unacquainted with other standards than her own, or had never seen another side of life.  She had grown up in Brooklyn, in a shabby little house under the vacillating administration of her father, a music teacher who usually neglected his duties to write orchestral compositions for which the world seemed to have no especial need.  His spirit was warped by bitter vindictiveness and puerile self-commiseration, and he spent his days in scorn of the labor that brought him bread and in pitiful devotion to the labor that brought him only disappointment, writing interminable scores which demanded of the orchestra everything under heaven except melody.

It was not a cheerful home for a girl to grow up in.  The mother, who idolized her husband as the music lord of the future, was left to a lifelong battle with broom and dustpan, to neverending conciliatory overtures to the butcher and grocer, to the making of her own gowns and of Caroline's, and to the delicate task of mollifying Auguste's neglected pupils.

The son, Heinrich, a painter, Caroline's only brother, had inherited all his father's vindictive sensitiveness without his capacity for slavish application.  His little studio on the third floor had been much frequented by young men as unsuccessful as himself, who met there to give themselves over to contemptuous derision of this or that artist whose industry and stupidity had won him recognition.  Heinrich, when he worked at all, did newspaper sketches at twenty-five dollars a week.  He was too indolent and vacillating to set himself seriously to his art, too irascible and poignantly self-conscious to make a living, too much addicted to lying late in bed, to the incontinent reading of poetry, and to the use of chloral to be anything very positive except painful.  At twenty-six he shot himself in a frenzy, and the whole wretched affair had effectually shattered his mother's health and brought on the decline of which she died.  Caroline had been fond of him, but she felt a certain relief when he no longer wandered about the little house, commenting ironically upon its shabbiness, a Turkish cap on his head and a cigarette hanging from between his long, tremulous fingers.

After her mother's death Caroline assumed the management of that bankrupt establishment.  The funeral expenses were unpaid, and Auguste's pupils had been frightened away by the shock of successive disasters and the general atmosphere of wretchedness that pervaded the house.  Auguste himself was writing a symphonic poem, Icarus, dedicated to the memory of his son.  Caroline was barely twenty when she was called upon to face this tangle of difficulties, but she reviewed the situation candidly.  The house had served its time at the shrine of idealism; vague, distressing, unsatisfied yearnings had brought it low enough.  Her mother, thirty years before, had eloped and left Germany with her music teacher, to give herself over to lifelong, drudging bondage at the kitchen range.  Ever since Caroline could remember, the law in the house had been a sort of mystic worship of things distant, intangible and unattainable.  The family had lived in successive ebullitions of generous enthusiasm, in talk of masters and masterpieces, only to come down to the cold facts in the case; to boiled mutton and to the necessity of turning the dining-room carpet.  All these emotional pyrotechnics had ended in petty jealousies, in neglected duties, and in cowardly fear of the little grocer on the corner.

From her childhood she had hated it, that humiliating and uncertain existence, with its glib tongue and empty pockets, its poetic ideals and sordid realities, its indolence and poverty tricked out in paper roses.  Even as a little girl, when vague dreams beset her, when she wanted to lie late in bed and commune with visions, or to leap and sing because the sooty little trees along the street were putting out their first pale leaves in the sunshine, she would clench her hands and go to help her mother sponge the spots from her father's waistcoat or press Heinrich's trousers.  Her mother never permitted the slightest question concerning anything Auguste or Heinrich saw fit to do, but from the time Caroline could reason at all she could not help thinking that many things went wrong at home.  She knew, for example, that her father's pupils ought not to be kept waiting half an hour while he discussed Schopenhauer with some bearded socialist over a dish of herrings and a spotted tablecloth.  She knew that Heinrich ought not to give a dinner on Heine's birthday, when the laundress had not been paid for a month and when he frequently had to ask his mother for carfare.  Certainly Caroline had served her apprenticeship to idealism and to all the embarrassing inconsistencies which it sometimes entails, and she decided to deny herself this diffuse, ineffectual answer to the sharp questions of life.

When she came into the control of herself and the house she refused to proceed any further with her musical education.  Her father, who had intended to make a concert pianist of her, set this down as another item in his long list of disappointments and his grievances against the world.  She was young and pretty, and she had worn turned gowns and soiled gloves and improvised hats all her life.  She wanted the luxury of being like other people, of being honest from her hat to her boots, of having nothing to hide, not even in the matter of stockings, and she was willing to work for it.  She rented a little studio away from that house of misfortune and began to give lessons.  She managed well and was the sort of girl people liked to help.  The bills were paid and Auguste went on composing, growing indignant only when she refused to insist that her pupils should study his compositions for the piano.  She began to get engagements in New York to play accompaniments at song recitals.  She dressed well, made herself agreeable, and gave herself a chance.  She never permitted herself to look further than a step ahead, and set herself with all the strength of her will to see things as they are and meet them squarely in the broad day.  There were two things she feared even more than poverty: the part of one that sets up an idol and the part of one that bows down and worships it.

When Caroline was twenty-four she married Howard Noble, then a widower of forty, who had been for ten years a power in Wall Street.  Then, for the first time, she had paused to take breath.  It took a substantialness as unquestionable as his; his money, his position, his energy, the big vigor of his robust person, to satisfy her that she was entirely safe.  Then she relaxed a little, feeling that there was a barrier to be counted upon between her and that world of visions and quagmires and failure.

Caroline had been married for six years when Raymond d'Esquerre came to stay with them.  He came chiefly because Caroline was what she was; because he, too, felt occasionally the need of getting out of Klingsor's garden, of dropping down somewhere for a time near a quiet nature, a cool head, a strong hand.  The hours he had spent in the garden lodge were hours of such concentrated study as, in his fevered life, he seldom got in anywhere.  She had, as he told Noble, a fine appreciation of the seriousness of work.

One evening two weeks after d'Esquerre had sailed, Caroline was in the library giving her husband an account of the work she had laid out for the gardeners.  She superintended the care of the grounds herself.  Her garden, indeed, had become quite a part of her; a sort of beautiful adjunct, like gowns or jewels.  It was a famous spot, and Noble was very proud of it.

"What do you think, Caroline, of having the garden lodge torn down and putting a new summer house there at the end of the arbor; a big rustic affair where you could have tea served in midsummer?" he asked.

"The lodge?" repeated Caroline looking at him quickly.  "Why, that seems almost a shame, doesn't it, after d'Esquerre has used it?"

Noble put down his book with a smile of amusement.

"Are you going to be sentimental about it?  Why, I'd sacrifice the whole place to see that come to pass.  But I don't believe you could do it for an hour together."

"I don't believe so, either," said his wife, smiling.

Noble took up his book again and Caroline went into the music room to practice.  She was not ready to have the lodge torn down.  She had gone there for a quiet hour every day during the two weeks since d'Esquerre had left them.  It was the sheerest sentiment she had ever permitted herself.  She was ashamed of it, but she was childishly unwilling to let it go.

Caroline went to bed soon after her husband, but she was not able to sleep.  The night was close and warm, presaging storm.  The wind had fallen, and the water slept, fixed and motionless as the sand.  She rose and thrust her feet into slippers and, putting a dressing gown over her shoulders, opened the door of her husband's room; he was sleeping soundly.  She went into the hall and down the stairs; then, leaving the house through a side door, stepped into the vine-covered arbor that led to the garden lodge.  The scent of the June roses was heavy in the still air, and the stones that paved the path felt pleasantly cool through the thin soles of her slippers.  Heat-lightning flashed continuously from the bank of clouds that had gathered over the sea, but the shore was flooded with moonlight and, beyond, the rim of the Sound lay smooth and shining.  Caroline had the key of the lodge, and the door creaked as she opened it.  She stepped into the long, low room radiant with the moonlight which streamed through the bow window and lay in a silvery pool along the waxed floor.  Even that part of the room which lay in the shadow was vaguely illuminated; the piano, the tall candlesticks, the picture frames and white casts standing out as clearly in the half-light as did the sycamores and black poplars of the garden against the still, expectant night sky.  Caroline sat down to think it all over.  She had come here to do just that every day of the two weeks since d'Esquerre's departure, but, far from ever having reached a conclusion, she had succeeded only in losing her way in a maze of memories— sometimes bewilderingly confused, sometimes too acutely distinct— where there was neither path, nor clue, nor any hope of finality.  She had, she realized, defeated a lifelong regimen; completely confounded herself by falling unaware and incontinently into that luxury of reverie which, even as a little girl, she had so determinedly denied herself, she had been developing with alarming celerity that part of one which sets up an idol and that part of one which bows down and worships it.

It was a mistake, she felt, ever to have asked d'Esquerre to come at all.  She had an angry feeling that she had done it rather in self-defiance, to rid herself finally of that instinctive fear of him which had always troubled and perplexed her.  She knew that she had reckoned with herself before he came; but she had been equal to so much that she had never really doubted she would be equal to this.  She had come to believe, indeed, almost arrogantly in her own malleability and endurance; she had done so much with herself that she had come to think that there was nothing which she could not do; like swimmers, overbold, who reckon upon their strength and their power to hoard it, forgetting the ever-changing moods of their adversary, the sea.

And d'Esquerre was a man to reckon with.  Caroline did not deceive herself now upon that score.  She admitted it humbly enough, and since she had said good-by to him she had not been free for a moment from the sense of his formidable power.  It formed the undercurrent of her consciousness; whatever she might be doing or thinking, it went on, involuntarily, like her breathing, sometimes welling up until suddenly she found herself suffocating.  There was a moment of this tonight, and Caroline rose and stood shuddering, looking about her in the blue duskiness of the silent room.  She had not been here at night before, and the spirit of the place seemed more troubled and insistent than ever it had in the quiet of the afternoons.  Caroline brushed her hair back from her damp forehead and went over to the bow window.  After raising it she sat down upon the low seat.  Leaning her head against the sill, and loosening her nightgown at the throat, she half-closed her eyes and looked off into the troubled night, watching the play of the heat-lightning upon the massing clouds between the pointed tops of the poplars.

Yes, she knew, she knew well enough, of what absurdities this spell was woven; she mocked, even while she winced.  His power, she knew, lay not so much in anything that he actually had— though he had so much— or in anything that he actually was, but in what he suggested, in what he seemed picturesque enough to have or be and that was just anything that one chose to believe or to desire.  His appeal was all the more persuasive and alluring in that it was to the imagination alone, in that it was as indefinite and impersonal as those cults of idealism which so have their way with women.  What he had was that, in his mere personality, he quickened and in a measure gratified that something without which— to women— life is no better than sawdust, and to the desire for which most of their mistakes and tragedies and astonishingly poor bargains are due.

D'Esquerre had become the center of a movement, and the Metropolitan had become the temple of a cult.  When he could be induced to cross the Atlantic, the opera season in New York was successful; when he could not, the management lost money; so much everyone knew.  It was understood, too, that his superb art had disproportionately little to do with his peculiar position.  Women swayed the balance this way or that; the opera, the orchestra, even his own glorious art, achieved at such a cost, were but the accessories of himself; like the scenery and costumes and even the soprano, they all went to produce atmosphere, were the mere mechanics of the beautiful illusion.

Caroline understood all this; tonight was not the first time that she had put it to herself so.  She had seen the same feeling in other people, watched for it in her friends, studied it in the house night after night when he sang, candidly putting herself among a thousand others.

D'Esquerre's arrival in the early winter was the signal for a feminine hegira toward New York.  On the nights when he sang women flocked to the Metropolitan from mansions and hotels, from typewriter desks, schoolrooms, shops, and fitting rooms.  They were of all conditions and complexions.  Women of the world who accepted him knowingly as they sometimes took champagne for its agreeable effect; sisters of charity and overworked shopgirls, who received him devoutly; withered women who had taken doctorate degrees and who worshipped furtively through prism spectacles; business women and women of affairs, the Amazons who dwelt afar from men in the stony fastnesses of apartment houses.  They all entered into the same romance; dreamed, in terms as various as the hues of fantasy, the same dream; drew the same quick breath when he stepped upon the stage, and, at his exit, felt the same dull pain of shouldering the pack again.

There were the maimed, even; those who came on crutches, who were pitted by smallpox or grotesquely painted by cruel birth stains.  These, too, entered with him into enchantment.  Stout matrons became slender girls again; worn spinsters felt their cheeks flush with the tenderness of their lost youth.  Young and old, however hideous, however fair, they yielded up their heat— whether quick or latent— sat hungering for the mystic bread wherewith he fed them at this eucharist of sentiment.

Sometimes, when the house was crowded from the orchestra to the last row of the gallery, when the air was charged with this ecstasy of fancy, he himself was the victim of the burning reflection of his power.  They acted upon him in turn; he felt their fervent and despairing appeal to him; it stirred him as the spring drives the sap up into an old tree; he, too, burst into bloom.  For the moment he, too, believed again, desired again, he knew not what, but something.

But it was not in these exalted moments that Caroline had learned to fear him most.  It was in the quiet, tired reserve, the dullness, even, that kept him company between these outbursts that she found that exhausting drain upon her sympathies which was the very pith and substance of their alliance.  It was the tacit admission of disappointment under all this glamour of success— the helplessness of the enchanter to at all enchant himself— that awoke in her an illogical, womanish desire to in some way compensate, to make it up to him.

She had observed drastically to herself that it was her eighteenth year he awoke in her— those hard years she had spent in turning gowns and placating tradesmen, and which she had never had time to live.  After all, she reflected, it was better to allow one's self a little youth— to dance a little at the carnival and to live these things when they are natural and lovely, not to have them coming back on one and demanding arrears when they are humiliating and impossible.  She went over tonight all the catalogue of her self-deprivations; recalled how, in the light of her father's example, she had even refused to humor her innocent taste for improvising at the piano; how, when she began to teach, after her mother's death, she had struck out one little indulgence after another, reducing her life to a relentless routine, unvarying as clockwork.  It seemed to her that ever since d'Esquerre first came into the house she had been haunted by an imploring little girlish ghost that followed her about, wringing its hands and entreating for an hour of life.

The storm had held off unconscionably long; the air within the lodge was stifling, and without the garden waited, breathless.  Everything seemed pervaded by a poignant distress; the hush of feverish, intolerable expectation.  The still earth, the heavy flowers, even the growing darkness, breathed the exhaustion of protracted waiting.  Caroline felt that she ought to go; that it was wrong to stay; that the hour and the place were as treacherous as her own reflections.  She rose and began to pace the floor, stepping softly, as though in fear of awakening someone, her figure, in its thin drapery, diaphanously vague and white.  Still unable to shake off the obsession of the intense stillness, she sat down at the piano and began to run over the first act of the Walkure, the last of his roles they had practiced together; playing listlessly and absently at first, but with gradually increasing seriousness.  Perhaps it was the still heat of the summer night, perhaps it was the heavy odors from the garden that came in through the open windows; but as she played there grew and grew the feeling that he was there, beside her, standing in his accustomed place.  In the duet at the end of the first act she heard him clearly: "Thou art the Spring for which I sighed in Winter's cold embraces."  Once as he sang it, he had put his arm about her, his one hand under her heart, while with the other he took her right from the keyboard, holding her as he always held Sieglinde when he drew her toward the window.  She had been wonderfully the mistress of herself at the time; neither repellent nor acquiescent.  She remembered that she had rather exulted, then, in her self-control— which he had seemed to take for granted, though there was perhaps the whisper of a question from the hand under her heart.  "Thou art the Spring for which I sighed in Winter's cold embraces."  Caroline lifted her hands quickly from the keyboard, and she bowed her head in them, sobbing.

The storm broke and the rain beat in, spattering her nightdress until she rose and lowered the windows.  She dropped upon the couch and began fighting over again the battles of other days, while the ghosts of the slain rose as from a sowing of dragon's teeth, The shadows of things, always so scorned and flouted, bore down upon her merciless and triumphant.  It was not enough; this happy, useful, well-ordered life was not enough.  It did not satisfy, it was not even real.  No, the other things, the shadows-they were the realities.  Her father, poor Heinrich, even her mother, who had been able to sustain her poor romance and keep her little illusions amid the tasks of a scullion, were nearer happiness than she.  Her sure foundation was but made ground, after all, and the people in Klingsor's garden were more fortunate, however barren the sands from which they conjured their paradise.

The lodge was still and silent; her fit of weeping over, Caroline made no sound, and within the room, as without in the garden, was the blackness of storm.  Only now and then a flash of lightning showed a woman's slender figure rigid on the couch, her face buried in her hands.

Toward morning, when the occasional rumbling of thunder was heard no more and the beat of the raindrops upon the orchard leaves was steadier, she fell asleep and did not waken until the first red streaks of dawn shone through the twisted boughs of the apple trees.  There was a moment between world and world, when, neither asleep nor awake, she felt her dream grow thin, melting away from her, felt the warmth under her heart growing cold.  Something seemed to slip from the clinging hold of her arms, and she groaned protestingly through her parted lips, following it a little way with fluttering hands.  Then her eyes opened wide and she sprang up and sat holding dizzily to the cushions of the couch, staring down at her bare, cold feet, at her laboring breast, rising and falling under her open nightdress.

The dream was gone, but the feverish reality of it still pervaded her and she held it as the vibrating string holds a tone.  In the last hour the shadows had had their way with Caroline.  They had shown her the nothingness of time and space, of system and discipline, of closed doors and broad waters.  Shuddering, she thought of the Arabian fairy tale in which the genie brought the princess of China to the sleeping prince of Damascus and carried her through the air back to her palace at dawn.  Caroline closed her eyes and dropped her elbows weakly upon her knees, her shoulders sinking together.  The horror was that it had not come from without, but from within.  The dream was no blind chance; it was the expression of something she had kept so close a prisoner that she had never seen it herself, it was the wail from the donjon deeps when the watch slept.  Only as the outcome of such a night of sorcery could the thing have been loosed to straighten its limbs and measure itself with her; so heavy were the chains upon it, so many a fathom deep, it was crushed down into darkness.  The fact that d'Esquerre happened to be on the other side of the world meant nothing; had he been here, beside her, it could scarcely have hurt her  self-respect so much.  As it was, she was without even the  extenuation of an outer impulse, and she could scarcely have despised herself more had she come to him here in the night three weeks ago and thrown herself down upon the stone slab at the door there.

Caroline rose unsteadily and crept guiltily from the lodge and along the path under the arbor, terrified lest the servants should be stirring, trembling with the chill air, while the wet shrubbery, brushing against her, drenched her nightdress until it clung about her limbs.

At breakfast her husband looked across the table at her with concern.  "It seems to me that you are looking rather fagged, Caroline.  It was a beastly night to sleep.  Why don't you go up to the mountains until this hot weather is over?  By the way, were you in earnest about letting the lodge stand?"

Caroline laughed quietly.  "No, I find I was not very serious.  I haven't sentiment enough to forego a summer house.  Will you tell Baker to come tomorrow to talk it over with me?  If we are to have a house party, I should like to put him to work on it at once."

Noble gave her a glance, half-humorous, half-vexed.  "Do you know I am rather disappointed?" he said.  "I had almost hoped that, just for once, you know, you would be a little bit foolish."

"Not now that I've slept over it," replied Caroline, and they both rose from the table, laughing.

_________________

11: The Magic Cigar

E. W. Hornung

1866-1921

Chapman's Magazine July 1895

IT WAS one of such a hundred as seldom find their way to the back-blocks of New South Wales. And the box was heralded by the following letter, written at a London club in the depth of winter, and read by me in my shirt-sleeves some few weeks later, as I rode home to the station with our weekly mail:—

Dear Old Boy,

A Merry Christmas to you, and may the Lord give you wisdom with the New Year, that you don't spend much of it in such an infernal hole as your station seems to be. I'm particularly exercised about the baccy like shoe-leather, which you cut up for yourself before every pipe. I fear it may have a demoralising effect, so am sending you a Christmas box of decent cigars. Don't treasure them, old chap, but smoke the whole lot between Christmas and New Year, and if you like 'em send for more from your affectionate brother

Charles.

Charles was a trump; but he had reckoned without the colonial tariff. I had to get a friend in Sydney to go to the custom-house for me, and I paid pretty heavily for my cigars before they ultimately reached me about the middle of January. However, they were well worth the money and the delay; for the dear good fellow had sent me a box of Villar-y-Villar (Excepcionales Rothschild) to waste their costly fragrance upon the drought-stricken wilds of Riverina.

You should have seen us when we opened the box, the manager and I. It was the cool of the evening in the homestead verandah, yet there was not wind enough to shake the flame of a vesta. We brought out the kerosine lamp, set it down on the edge of the verandah, and seated ourselves one on each side, with our feet in the sand of the station yard, and the cigar-box also between us. Reverently we raised the lid with a paper-knife, and were impressed, you may be sure, to find the cigars wrapped up in silver paper, every one, and looking like so many little silver torpedoes under the lamp. Then we lit up, and leaned against the verandah posts, and blew beautiful clouds into the cloudless purple sky, and listened to the locusts, and made a bet as to whose ash would fall first, which the manager won. Altogether it was a luxurious hour, and I for one had never tasted such a cigar before. The manager, however, a native of the colony, asserted that he had often bought as good, or better, of a bush hawker, at twenty-five shillings the hundred. But I had noticed how very gingerly he removed the silver paper from what was now a few heaps of very white ash and a stump, which he was smoking, with the aid of his pen-knife, down to the last quarter-inch.

Though the gift came so late, the donor's sporting injunctions I considered as sacred, and we gave ourselves a week to finish the box in. It was heavy smoking for hard-working young men accustomed only to the pipe. I afterwards found that the manager had banked some of his share in his desk, and I did not smoke all mine myself. I kept a case in my pocket, however, and so it happened that I had cigars about me on the broiling day when I camped in the shade with the man who had the reputation of being the champion swearer of the back-blocks. He was also a capital hand with sheep, but it was his notoriously foul mouth that had made him a public character, and throughout the district he was known as Hell-fire Jim.

We had met neither by accident nor design, but all by reason of the incredibly long range of Jim's language at its worst: on this occasion he must have brought me down at several hundred yards. Not that it was more than a voice that reached me first, for I was cantering to his assistance when the words caused me to draw rein and to marvel. It is one thing to use strong language in wild places where it is impossible to enforce your meaning without recourse to the local convention; to curse dumb animals in the silent bush, as Jim was doing when I came up with him, is surely different and peculiar. Yet I found him in provoking plight: wrestling in the thick of the scrub with some twenty weak sheep. The sheep were camping under the trees in twos and threes. Jim was galloping from one group to another with the perspiration dripping from his nose and beard and imprecations hurtling from his mouth; but it was impossible for a mere man on horseback to round up that mob among those trees, or to manage them at all; and Jim's dog was skulking and lolling its tongue, good for nothing for want of water.

That was where I had come in. My water-bag was nearly full; his had sprung a leak and was empty. To give the dog a drink out of his wide-awake was the boundary-rider's first act when I handed him my bag; then he took a pull himself. The suggestion that we should off-saddle and do a spell together came from me. The dog had found its voice and rounded up the mob before Jim finished drinking; we set him to watch the sheep in the shade, tethered our horses, and carried our saddles to a tree apart, leaving marks like inkstains on the animals' backs. The place was a sandy gully thickly timbered with pines. We chose the tree with the closest warp and woof of shadow underneath, and there made short work of such provisions as we carried, with further reductions in the bulk of my water-bag.

It was the very hottest day I can remember in the bush; in the shade of the homestead verandah the thermometer touched 116°; and I recollect my companion showing me a tear in his moleskins, done that morning by a pine-branch, and the little triangle of exposed skin on which an hour's sun had left the mark of a mustard leaf. The fellow was near to physical perfection, a sterling specimen of the Saxon type, with the fair skin which naturally burns red; but his blue eyes were sunken, and had the strange rickety look of one who has drunk both deep and long at some period of his life. Jim still knocked down his cheque, but not oftener or with worse effects than another. We regarded him, however, as our biggest blackguard, and as such he interested me, so that my eye was on him as we ate: I afterwards remembered his way of eating.

Our snack over, Jim had his cutty in his mouth and was paring a plug of black tobacco before I thought of my cigars. He laughed and swore as I produced the case, but when I opened it, and the silver cones stuck out under his nose, he helped himself without a word. His easy method of slipping off the silver paper (which had visibly embarrassed the manager of our station), and the way the boundary-rider held out his hand for my knife, are two more things which struck one later. The shape of that sun-chapped hand is a third. Heaven knows I was not consciously observant at the time. I rolled over on my back, my saddle for a pillow, and took to sending up soft, chastening clouds into the garish blue overhead. The subtle fragrance of the smoke mingled with the pungent smell of the pines, the hot still air grew rich with both; a vertical sun stabbed the fronds above us with pins and needles of dazzling light that struck to the ground like golden rain; and, but for my cigar, I had yielded to these sensuous influences and thrown it aside to close my eyes. Thus was I the slave of my luxury, but consoled myself with the thought that Jim's enjoyment would at least be heart-whole. Yet he never said so, and as we lay I could see no more of him than a single sidespring boot, a long spur, and three inches of shiny brown legging.

"You don't say how it strikes you, Jim."

"The cigar?"

"To be sure."

"Oh, it's not a bad smoke."

"No?" I raised myself on one elbow to look at the fellow. He had the cigar between his forefinger and thumb, and was blowing the most perfect rings of tobacco-smoke I ever saw.

"Yes, it's a good cigar," our boundary-rider went so far as to concede; then he replaced it between his teeth, after a moment's scrutiny with his unkempt head on one side.

"Quite sure?" I smiled.

"Quite. For my part, mind you, I prefer a good Muria— they're not so rich. It's purely a matter of taste, however, and certainly these are much more expensive."

"Indeed! Perhaps you can price them, Jim?"

"The cigar that I am smoking," said Hell-fire Jim, "would cost you a shilling at the club. If a shilling or two were an object, I suppose you could get them by the box at about ninety-two the hundred."

It was no longer what he said that astonished me, but the soft tone of his voice and the sudden absence from his conversation of the ingenious oath-combinations for which it was notorious. I sat bolt upright now, and must have shown my feelings pretty plainly, for he hastened to explain.

"I was once a waiter in a London club," he said. "That's how I know."

"Not a waiter, Jim," said I, looking him steadily in his sunken eyes. Then I begged his pardon. But Jim seemed pleased.

"Mean to say you think I was a member?"

"If you ask me, that was my idea."

"Then you were right. I was a member of several. Does it surprise you?" he added, with, I think, a rather wistful smile. I cannot be sure of that smile. His whole manner was agreeably free from sentiment.

"It doesn't surprise me a bit," I said.

"Not to find me the stump-end of a gentleman, eh?"

"No; I see that you are one."

"Was, my boy— was," corrected Jim. "I say," he went on, "this is a great cigar! You have to puff a bit to appreciate it properly."

He threw back his head and left a number of his little grey rings curling into thin air against the blue. I was not going to ask him any questions. We smoked for some time in silence. Then he exclaimed, with his eyebrows right up on his forehead, as though he himself could hardly credit it:

"Yes, by Jove! I was at Eton and the House."

"Nothing surprises me in this country," I remarked.

"Yet you're about the first that ever spotted me. By the way, I'm not the wicked baronet or the disguised duke, don't you know? My father's only a country squire of sorts— if he's alive. But he sent me to Eton and from there to Oxford; and from Oxford I went to the Temple, and from the Temple to the devil and all his angels. There I've stuck. And that's the genesis of Hell-fire Jimmie, if you care to know it."

I cared to know infinitely more. These crude headings were small satisfaction to me looking at the handsome sunburnt stockman and realising that I was alone in the wilderness with the romantic ruin of a noble manhood. I turned away from the quiet devil-may-care smile in the sunken blue eyes, in order to conceal the curiosity which was consuming me. I dropped back on my elbow to the ground, and stared into the unbroken unsuggestive blue of the southern summer sky. When I sucked at my cigar I discovered that I had let it out. Turning once more to my companion, I found him puffing his with the loving deliberation of a connoisseur.

"Like velvet, isn't it?" he murmured, stroking the brown leaf gently with his finger. "That's one of the points of a good cigar, and another's the ash. You never saw a firmer nor a whiter ash than this. My good fellow, it's a cigar for the gods!"

He held it admiringly at arm's length, as I relit mine. Then he smoked on in silence, but very slowly and caressingly, for some minutes longer. At length he said musingly:

"I wonder how long it is since I smoked my last cigar? How long is it since I came out here? I'm losing count of the years, and I've just about forgotten Oxford and London, and the wine and the women, and the old country altogether. All but one woman and one village.... I suppose you couldn't put a fellow in the way of forgetting them?"

I was still wondering what on earth to say to him— for once more I seemed to detect a wistful ring in his voice— when he settled the question himself by laughing in my face.

"How could you help me when you don't know the yarn?" he asked, with his blue eyes full of amusement. "Look here, I've a good mind to inflict it on you!"

"Wouldn't that hurt?" I could not help asking him.

"Nothing hurts now," he answered, with a queer, quiet sort of swagger in his tone and manner. "If anything ever did hurt, it's what I'm thinking of now; it might hurt less if I told you something about it."

"Then go on by all means. You may trust me to hold my tongue."

"My good fellow, why should you? Tell whom you like. It makes no difference. Nothing has made any difference for years. Besides, it's well enough known in the old country, though I've never spoken of it, drunk or sober, out here. I can't think why I should want to speak of it now— but I do."

He leant towards me and paused, admiring the white unbroken ash of his cigar, and half smiling. That half-smile was to me the saddest feature of a narrative of which it was the constant accompaniment. The tragic story which affected me so deeply seemed simply to interest the man who had brought the tragedy about. He told it in the fewest and the coolest words.

"One village and one woman— that's all. Deuce knows how many other women there were who could claim to come into the yarn, but I've forgotten them all but that one. There were plenty of villages, too, round about, including our own, but I'm only going to tell you of hers. Ours was not so much a village as a kingdom under the absolute rule of the most tyrannical old despot in this world— if he is in it still— I mean my father. He bullied and bossed the whole parish, including the parson, insulting the poor devil and threatening to have him suspended every other Sunday. He himself snarled out the lessons in church, and he made me learn texts by rote before I could read; for my father was one of those hard-bitten old saints who breed sinners like me the whole world over.

"But three miles from our village, which was in a constant simmer of discontent and suppressed rebellion, lay just the sweetest and most peaceful spot on earth, where it seems to me now that the sun was always shining. It was one long, old street of yellow walls and red tiles, and when you got to the end of it, there was the thatched church and the rectory, and the good old rector with his two hands stretched out to greet you, and hovering about him, to a certainty, the purest angel that ever wasted her love on a devil incarnate. I won't tell you the name of the village nor yet of the county. You'll be going back to the old dust one of these days, and you might run across my people. I don't want you to know it if you do. You may take your oath you won't hear of me from them; they've done their best to forget my existence. Oh, dear, yes, my name on the station books is as false as hell, like the rest of me. But I don't mind telling you her name. It was Edith, and I used to call her Edie. Jolly name, Edie, sweet and simple like the poor little thing herself. Rum thing, isn't it, how easily it still slips off my tongue?"

He stopped to smile me his strange impersonal smile, and to attend to his cigar. So far he had been holding it between finger and thumb, and admiring it as he talked.

"You will see how rum this is presently," he continued, with his eye on three fresh rings that were circling upward from his mouth. "We had been boy and girl together, but when we wanted to be man and wife, Edie's old father would not let us be engaged, because he knew of my blackguard ways. He did not give that as his reason. Edie was very young, a delicate slip of a girl, too, and it must have been a long engagement in any case. We were to remain friends, however. I think the dear old boy trusted to his girl to straighten me out first; if she couldn't, then nobody else could.

"But I was a hopeless case. The country-side rang with my sins long before I was sent down from Oxford; and went on ringing afterwards, louder and louder, when I settled in London and was nominally reading for the bar; but so long as I came down in time for prayers when I was at home, and went to hear our poor brow-beaten devil on Sundays, my father stopped his ears and shook his stick at those who tried to tell him of my misdeeds. I don't think he much cared what I did so long as he saw the soles of my boots at morning prayers. But my good old friend in the next parish was different. I can see him now, and the sorrow in his kind old face, when he forbade me the rectory once and for all. I felt that, too, and on my way home whom should I meet in the fields but Edith herself? So I made as clean a breast of everything as one could to a young girl. Young as she was though, you wouldn't believe how that girl sympathised and understood; and you won't believe this either, but her kindness fetched the tears to my eyes. She was a God's angel to me that summer day. I took her in my arms, little white feather that she was, and I vowed and vowed that I would keep straight for her sake even if I never saw her any more. And when I wouldn't touch her with my foul mouth she raised her pure lips— I can feel them now— and kissed my cheek of her own accord. She did indeed!"

His voice had become very sad and soft— so soft that I had to bend forward to catch some of the words— but there was a quiet bitter note in it that cut to the heart. And as he paused, and went on smoking, the queer sardonic smile came back to him. His cigar was now one half snowy ash, the other glossy brown leaf, and as he smoked a little red ring divided the two. He remarked afresh on the excellence of the ash before resuming his story in a lighter, louder tone that lasted him almost to the end.

"Now I'm going to tell you a very singular thing. I made my peace with the old rector, partly by letter, partly by Edie's intervention, and at Christmas-time I was to have her if she was still of her old mind; so at Christmas-time down I came from town with the engagement ring in my pocket. I knew that the girl would keep true to me through thick and thin, though I did hope that she had not heard of a certain matter which had got my name into the papers that autumn. Never mind what it was. My father had written very violently on the subject, but I had not heard a word from hers. So I hoped for the best. I was not as yet a fully reformed character, but I was about to become one. The night before I left town I never went to bed at all. It was my last orgy; but I was sober enough in the early morning to go to Covent Garden in my dress clothes, and to buy flowers to take down to Edie with the ring. I chose roses, because they were the most expensive at that time of year; and red ones, because the girl was naturally so pale. Then I had a sleep in my chambers all the morning, and went down by an afternoon train.

"It was dark when I landed at the market-town where the dog-cart used to meet one. I hadn't ordered it this time, because I wasn't going straight home. I found it freezing down there, and I thought I would walk out to the rectory through the crisp night air, so as to arrive there fresh, for by now I felt the effects of the previous night. It was so very dark, however, that I bought a lantern and made them light it before I would set out on my three miles' walk. I remember going out of my way to a shop where I was not known. That market-town was our nearest one of any size, I had made it too hot to hold me before I was one-and-twenty, and it hadn't cooled down yet.

"The frost had followed a long spell of dirty weather, and the roads were fluted ribbons of frozen mud. My footsteps resounded merrily as I pushed into the darkness, the centre of a moving circle of light thrown upon the ground by my lantern. I shall never forget that walk. The box of flowers I carried in one hand, my lantern in the other, and for all my full hands I must needs keep feeling for the ring in my pocket, to make sure that I had it safe. And I felt as though my back was turned forever upon the town, and all that. We would be married without unnecessary delay, and we would live well outside London— either in the Thames Valley or among the Surrey Hills, I thought. At any price we would keep clear of the town; I would go in as late as possible in the mornings and return quite early in the afternoon. My old haunts should know me no more. With such a prospect and so many good resolutions to occupy my mind, the way seemed short enough, and I was glowing as much from my own thoughts as from the keen clean air when I swung open the rectory gate and walked briskly up the well-known drive; my heart was beating mountains high, for the dear old place had always been infinitely more homelike to me than my own home.

"The house struck me as being poorly lighted, but then I was purposely taking them by surprise. As I came up to it, my eyes mounted to Edie's bedroom window, and I was astonished to see it standing wide open to the bitter air. There was no light in the room either. The front door was opened by the rector himself. He seemed agitated at the sight of me; nor would he shake my hand, and I knew, then, that he had seen in the papers that which I hoped had escaped his notice. With a sinking heart I asked for Edie. The old man peered at me for a moment; then he answered that she was gone.

" 'Gone away?'

"He nodded.

" 'And when?'

" 'This morning.'

" 'And where to?' I asked, for you must see how disappointed I was.

" 'Do not ask me,' he says. 'May God forgive you, for I, His minister, never can!' he sings out. And with that the door was shut in my face, and the key turned on the inside.

"God knows how long I remained standing like a fool on the gravel drive. The gravel must have been very soft before the hard frost which had set in that afternoon, for the light of my lantern struck down upon recent wheel-marks frozen stiff and clean. Instinctively I began to follow them. Edie had gone away, I was on her track. My thoughts were confused, but that was the drift of them. I followed the frozen wheel-marks out into the road, and on, on, on; it was not until I was following them in at the churchyard gate that my confusion fell from me, and left what soul there was in me naked to the freezing night air. Still my lantern fell upon the wheel-marks, and my feet followed them, until the light shone cold upon a narrow mound half hidden with white flowers. The fresh brown clay was already frozen as hard as the roads. I spent the night upon it, and should have frozen too, but I had started to run a hell of my own in my own heart. I'm running it still. When I crawled away before dawn there were some warm red roses among the cold white things. I was glad I had them. They're the one part of it I don't want ever to forget!"

His voice had sunk almost to a whisper, and for all the heat he gave such a shudder that the long ash was shaken at last from his cigar. I saw him gazing at the glowing end. All at once a fiery arc ran from his fingers through the air, and nearly the half of a prime Villar lay smouldering in the Riverina sun. I watched it meditatively, and the reed of heavy smoke ascending from it into the breathless air. I thought of the prostrate penitent upon the frozen grave. I marvelled at the refining spell which had bound the entire man for the last twenty minutes, utterly changing him. And I wondered how long that spell would survive its obvious source.

I wondered for one moment— with the soft, sad, gentlemanly voice still ringing in my ears— and for one moment only. The next, a bellow at my side drowned that voice forever; and Hell-fire Jim was himself again, screaming curses at his dog and his sheep, as one who realised that his reputation was at stake.

The dog was stretching itself awake in the slumbrous sunshine. The sheep were scattered down the gully as far as my eyes could see.

_____________________

12: The Gallowsmith

Irvin S. Cobb

1876-1944

All-Story Weekly, 9 Feb 1918

THIS MAN that I have it in mind to write about was, at the time of which I write, an elderly man, getting well along toward sixty-five. He was tall and slightly stooped, with long arms, and big, gnarled, competent-looking hands, which smelled of yellow laundry soap, and had huge, tarnished nails on the fingers. He had mild, pale eyes, a light blue as to color, with heavy sacs under them, and whitish whiskers, spindly and thin, like some sort of second-growth, which were so cut as to enclose his lower face in a nappy fringe, extending from ear to ear under his chin. He suffered from a chronic heart affection, and this gave to his skin a pronounced and unhealthy pallor. He was neat and prim in his personal habits, kind to dumb animals, and tolerant of small children. He was inclined to be miserly; certainly in money matters he was most prudent and saving. He had the air about him of being lonely. His name was Tobias Dramm. In the town where he lived he was commonly known as Uncle Tobe Dramm. By profession he was a public hangman. You might call him a gallowsmith. He hanged men for hire.

So far as the available records show, this Tobias Dramm was the only man of his calling on this continent. In himself he constituted a specialty and a monopoly. The fact that he had no competition did not make him careless in the pursuit of his calling. On the contrary, it made him precise and painstaking. As one occupying a unique position, he realized that he had a reputation to sustain, and capably he sustained it. In the Western Hemisphere he was, in the trade he followed, the nearest modern approach to the paid executioners of olden times in France who went, each of them, by the name of the city or province wherein he was stationed, to do torturing and maiming and killing in the gracious name of the king.

A generous government, committed to a belief in the efficacy of capital punishment, paid Tobias Dramm at the rate of seventy-five dollars a head for hanging offenders convicted of the hanging crime, which was murder. He averaged about four hangings every three months or, say, about nine hundred dollars a year— all clear money.

The manner of Mr. Dramm's having entered upon the practise of this somewhat grisly trade makes in itself a little tale. He was a lifelong citizen of the town of Chickaloosa, down in the Southwest, where there stood a State penitentiary, and where, during the period of which I am speaking, the Federal authorities sent for confinement and punishment the criminal sweepings of half a score of States and Territories. This was before the government put up prisons of its own, and while still it parceled out its human liabilities among State-owned institutions, paying so much apiece for their keep. When the government first began shipping a share of its felons to Chickaloosa, there came along, in one clanking caravan of shackled malefactors, a half-breed, part Mexican and the rest of him Indian, who had robbed a territorial post-office and incidentally murdered the postmaster thereof. Wherefore this half-breed was under sentence to expiate his greater misdeed on a given date, between the hours of sunrise and sunset, and after a duly prescribed manner, namely: by being hanged by the neck until he was dead.

At once a difficulty and a complication arose. The warden of the penitentiary at Chickaloosa was perfectly agreeable to the idea of keeping and caring for those felonious wards of the government who were put in his custody to serve terms of imprisonment, holding that such disciplinary measures fell within the scope of his sworn duty. But when it came to the issue of hanging any one of them, he drew the line most firmly. As he pointed out, he was not a government agent. He derived his authority and drew his salary not from Washington, D. C., but from a State capital several hundreds of miles removed from Washington. Moreover, he was a zealous believer in the principle of State sovereignty. As a soldier of the late Southern Confederacy, he had fought four years to establish that doctrine. Conceded, that the cause for which he fought had been defeated; nevertheless his views upon the subject remained fixed and permanent. He had plenty of disagreeable jobs to do without stringing up bad men for Uncle Sam; such was the attitude the warden took. The sheriff of the county of which Chickaloosa was the county-seat, likewise refused to have a hand in the impending affair, holding it— and perhaps very properly— to be no direct concern of his, either officially or personally.

Now the government very much wanted the hybrid hanged. The government had been put to considerable trouble and no small expense to catch him and try him and convict him and transport him to the place where he was at present confined. Day and date for the execution of the law's judgment having been fixed, a scandal and possibly a legal tangle would ensue were there delay in the premises. It was reported that a full pardon had been offered to a long-term convict on condition that he carry out the court's mandate upon the body of the condemned mongrel, and that he had refused, even though the price were freedom for himself.

In this serious emergency, a volunteer in the person of Tobias Dramm came forward. Until then he had been an inconspicuous unit in the life of the community. He was a live-stock dealer on a small scale, making his headquarters at one of the town livery stables. He was a person of steady habits, with a reputation for sobriety and frugality among his neighbors. The government, so to speak, jumped at the chance. Without delay, his offer was accepted. There was no prolonged haggling over terms, either. He himself fixed the cost of the job at seventy-five dollars; this figure to include supervision of the erection of the gallows, testing of the apparatus, and the actual operation itself.

So, on the appointed day, at a certain hour, to wit, a quarter past six o'clock in the morning, just outside the prison walls, and in the presence of the proper and ordained number of witnesses, Uncle Tobe, with a grave, untroubled face, and hands which neither fumbled nor trembled, tied up the doomed felon and hooded his head in a black-cloth bag, and fitted a noose about his neck. The drop fell at eighteen minutes past the hour. Fourteen minutes later, following brief tests of heart and pulse, the two attending physicians agreed that the half-breed was quite satisfactorily defunct. They likewise coincided in the opinion that the hanging had been conducted with neatness, and with swiftness, and with the least possible amount of physical suffering for the deceased. One of the doctors went so far as to congratulate Mr. Dramm upon the tidiness of his handicraft. He told him that in all his experience he had never seen a hanging pass off more smoothly, and that for an amateur, Dramm had done splendidly. To this compliment Uncle Tobe replied, in his quiet and drawling mode of speech, that he had studied the whole thing out in advance.

"Ef I should keep on with this way of makin' a livin' I don't 'low ever to let no slip-ups occur," he added with simple directness. There was no suggestion of the morbid in his voice or manner as he said this, but instead merely a deep personal satisfaction.

Others present, having been made sick and faint by the shock of seeing a human being summarily jerked into the hereafter, went away hurriedly without saying anything at all. But afterward thinking it over when they were more composed, they decided among themselves that Uncle Tobe had carried it off with an assurance and a skill which qualified him most aptly for future undertakings along the same line; that he was a born hangman, if ever there was one.

This was the common verdict. So, thereafter, by a tacit understanding, the ex-cattle-buyer became the regular government hangman. He had no official title nor any warrant in writing for the place he filled. He worked by the piece, as one might say, and not by the week or month. Some years he hanged more men than in other years, but the average per annum was about twelve. He had been hanging them now for going on ten years.

It was as though he had been designed and created for the work. He hanged villainous men singly, sometimes by pairs, and rarely in groups of threes, always without a fumble or a hitch. Once, on a single morning, he hanged an even half-dozen, these being the chief fruitage of a busy term of the Federal court down in the Indian country where the combination of a crowded docket, an energetic young district attorney with political ambitions, and a businesslike presiding judge had produced what all unprejudiced and fair-minded persons agreed were marvelous results, highly beneficial to the moral atmosphere of the territory and calculated to make potential evil-doers stop and think. Four of the six had been members of an especially desperate gang of train and bank robbers. The remaining two had forfeited their right to keep on living by slaying deputy marshals. Each, with malice aforethought and with his own hands, had actually killed some one or had aided and abetted in killing some one.

This sextuple hanging made a lot of talk, naturally. The size of it alone commanded the popular interest. Besides, the personnel of the group of villains was such as to lend an aspect of picturesqueness to the final proceedings. The sextet included a full-blooded Cherokee; a consumptive ex-dentist out of Kansas, who from killing nerves in teeth had progressed to killing men in cold premeditation; a lank West Virginia mountaineer whose family name was the name of a clan prominent in one of the long-drawn-out hill-feuds of his native State; a plain bad man, whose chief claim to distinction was that he hailed originally from the Bowery in New York City; and one, the worst of them all, who was said to be the son of a pastor in a New England town. One by one, unerringly and swiftly, Uncle Tobe launched them through his scaffold floor to get whatever desserts await those who violate the laws of God and man by the violent shedding of innocent blood. When the sixth and last gunman came out of the prison proper into the prison enclosure— it was the former dentist, and being set, as the phrase runs, upon dying game, he wore a twisted grin upon his bleached face— there were six black boxes under the platform, five of them occupied, with their lids all in place, and one of them yet empty and open. In the act of mounting the steps the condemned craned his head sidewise, and at the sight of those coffins stretching along six in a row on the graveled courtyard, he made a cheap and sorry gibe. But when he stood beneath the cross-arm to be pinioned, his legs played him traitor. Those craven knees of his gave way under him, so that trusties had to hold the weakening ruffian upright while the executioner snugged the halter about his throat.

On this occasion Uncle Tobe elucidated the creed and the code of his profession for a reporter who had come all the way down from St. Louis to report the big hanging for his paper. Having covered the hanging at length, the reporter stayed over one more day at the Palace Hotel in Chickaloosa to do a special article, which would be in part a character sketch and in part a straight interview, on the subject of the hangman. The article made a full page spread in the Sunday edition of the young man's paper, and thereby a reputation, which until this time had been more or less local, was given what approximated a national notoriety. Through a somewhat general reprinting of what the young man had written, and what his paper had published, the country at large eventually became acquainted with an ethical view-point which was already fairly familiar to nearly every resident in and about Chickaloosa. Reading the narrative, one living at a distance got an accurate picture of a personality elevated above the commonplace solely by the role which its owner filled; a picture of an old man thoroughly sincere and thoroughly conscientious; a man dull, earnest, and capable to his limits; a man who was neither morbid nor imaginative, but filled with rather a stupid gravity; a man canny about the pennies and affectionately inclined toward the dollars; a man honestly imbued with the idea that he was a public servant performing a necessary public service; a man without nerves, but in all other essentials a small-town man with a small-town mind; in short, saw Uncle Tobe as he really was. The reporter did something else which marked him as a craftsman. Without stating the fact in words, he nevertheless contrived to create in the lines which he wrote an atmosphere of self-defense enveloping the old man— or perhaps the better phrase would be self-extenuation. The reader was made to perceive that Dramm, being cognizant and mildly resentful of the attitude in which his own little world held him, by reason of the fatal work of his hands, sought after a semi apologetic fashion to offer a plea in abatement of public judgment, to set up a weight of moral evidence in his own behalf, and behind this in turn, and showing through it, might be sensed the shy pride of a shy man for labor undertaken with good motives and creditably performed. With no more than a pardonable broadening and exaggeration of the other's mode of speech, the reporter succeeded likewise in reproducing not only the language, but the wistful intent of what Uncle Tobe said to him. From this interview I propose now to quote to the extent of a few paragraphs. This is Uncle Tobe addressing the visiting correspondent:

"It stands to reason— don't it?— that these here sinful men have got to be hung, an' that somebody has got to hang 'em. The Good Book says an eye fur an eye an' a tooth fur a tooth an' a life fur a life. That's perzactly whut it says, an' I'm one whut believes the Bible frum kiver to kiver. These here boys that they bring in here have broke the law of Gawd an' the law of the land, an' they jest natchelly got to pay fur their devilment. That's so, ain't it? Well, then, that bein' so, I step forward an' do the job. Ef they was free men, walkin' around like you an' me, I wouldn't lay the weight of my little finger on 'em to harm a single hair in their haids. Ef they hadn't done nothin' ag'in' the law, I'd be the last one to do 'em a hurt. I wisht you could make that p'int plain in the piece you aim to write, so's folks would understand jest how I feel— so's they'd understand that I don't bear no gredge ag'inst any livin' creature.

"Ef the job was left to some greenhawn he'd mebbe botch it up an' make them boys suffer more'n there's any call fur. Sech things have happened, a plenty times before now ez you yourself doubtless know full well. But I don't botch it up. I ain't braggin' none whilst I'm sayin' this to you; I'm jest tellin' you. I kin take an oath that I ain't never botched up one of these jobs yit, not frum the very fust. The warden or Dr. Slattery, the prison physician, or anybody round this town that knows the full circumstances kin tell you the same, ef you ast 'em. You see, son, I ain't never nervoused up like some men would be in my place. I'm always jest ez ca'm like ez whut you are this minute. The way I look at it, I'm jest a chosen instrument of the law. I regard it ez a trust that I'm called on to perform, on account of me havin' a natchel knack in that 'special direction. Some men have gifts fur one thing an' some men have gifts fur another thing. It would seem this is the perticular thing— hangin' men— that I've got a gift fur. So, sech bein' the case, I don't worry none about it beforehand, nor I don't worry none after it's all over with, neither. With me handlin' the details the whole thing is over an' done with accordin' to the law an' the statutes an' the jedgment of the high court in less time than some people would take fussin' round, gittin' ready. The way I look at it, it's a mercy an' a blessin' to all concerned to have somebody in charge that knows how to hang a man.

"Why, it's come to sech a pass that when there's a hangin' comin' off anywhere in this part of the country they send fur me to be present ez a kind of an expert. I've been to hangin's all over this State, an' down into Louisiana, an' wunst over into Texas in order to give the sheriffs the benefit of my experience an' my advice. I make it a rule not never to take no money fur doin' sech ez that— only my travelin' expenses an' my tavern bills; that's all I ever charge 'em. But here in Chickaloosa the conditions is different, an' the gover'mint pays me seventy-five dollars a hangin'. I figger that it's wuth it, too. The Bible says the laborer is worthy of his hire. I try to be worthy of the hire I git. I certainly aim to earn it— an' I reckin I do earn it, takin' everything into consideration— the responsibility an' all. Ef there's any folks that think I earn my money easy— seventy-five dollars fur whut looks like jest a few minutes' work— I'd like fur 'em to stop an' think ef they'd consider themselves qualified to hang ez many men ez I have without never botchin' up a single job."

That was his chief boast, if boasting it might be called— that he never botched the job. It is the common history of common hangmen, so I've been told, that they come after a while to be possessed of the devils of cruelty, and to take pleasure in the exercise of their most grim calling. If this be true, then surely Uncle Tobe was to all outward appearances an exception to the rule. Never by word or look or act was he caught gloating over his victims; always he exhibited a merciful swiftness in the dread preliminaries and in the act of execution itself. At the outset he had shown deftness. With frequent practice he grew defter still. He contrived various devices for expediting the proceeding. For instance, after prolonged experiments, conducted in privacy, he evolved a harness-like arrangement of leather belts and straps, made all in one piece, and fitted with buckles and snaffles. With this, in a marvelously brief space, he could bind his man at elbows and wrists, at knees and ankles, so that in less time almost than it would take to describe the process, the latter stood upon the trap, as a shape deprived of motion, fully caparisoned for the end. He fitted the inner side of the crosspiece of the gallows with pegs upon which the rope rested, entirely out of sight of him upon whom it was presently to be used, until the moment when Uncle Tobe, stretching a long arm upward, brought it down, all reeved and ready. He hit upon the expedient of slickening the noose parts with yellow bar soap so that it would run smoothly in the loop and tighten smartly, without undue tugging. He might have used grease or lard, but soap was tidier, and Uncle Tobe, as has been set forth, was a tidy man.

After the first few hangings his system began to follow a regular routine. From somewhere to the west or southwest of Chickaloosa the deputy marshals would bring in a man consigned to die. The prison people, taking their charge over from them, would house him in a cell of a row of cells made doubly tight and doubly strong for such as he; in due season the warden would notify Uncle Tobe of the date fixed for the inflicting of the penalty. Four or five days preceding the day, Uncle Tobe would pay a visit to the prison, timing his arrival so that he reached there just before the exercise hour for the inmates of a certain cell-tier. Being admitted, he would climb sundry flights of narrow iron stairs and pause just outside a crisscrossed door of iron slats while a turnkey, entering that door and locking it behind him, would open a smaller door set flat in the wall of damp-looking grey stones and invite the man caged up inside to come forth for his daily walk. Then, while the captive paced the length and breadth of the narrow corridor back and across, to and fro, up and down, with the futile restlessness of a cat animal in a zoo, his feet clumping on the flagged flooring, and the watchful turnkey standing by, Uncle Tobe, having flattened his lean form in a niche behind the outer lattice, with an appraising eye would consider the shifting figure through a convenient cranny of the wattled metal strips. He took care to keep himself well back out of view, but since he stood in shadow while the one he marked so keenly moved in a flood of daylight filtering down through a skylight in the ceiling of the cell block, the chances were the prisoner could not have made out the indistinct form of the stranger anyhow. Five or ten minutes of such scrutiny of his man was all Uncle Tobe ever desired. In his earlier days before he took up this present employment, he had been an adept at guessing the hoof-weight of the beeves and swine in which he dealt. That early experience stood him in good stead now; he took no credit to himself for his accuracy in estimating the bulk of a living human being.

Downstairs, on the way out of the place, if by chance he encountered the warden in his office, the warden, in all likelihood, would say: "Well, how about it this time, Uncle Tobe?"

And Uncle Tobe would make some such answer as this:

"Well, suh, accordin' to my reckonin' this here one will heft about a hund'ed an' sixty-five pound, ez he stands now. How's he takin' it, warden?"

"Oh, so-so."

"He looks to me like he was broodin' a right smart," the expert might say. "I jedge he ain't relishin' his vittles much, neither. Likely he'll worry three or four pound more off'n his bones 'twixt now an' Friday mornin'. He oughter run about one hund'ed an' sixty or mebbe one-sixty-one by then."

"How much drop do you allow to give him?"

"Don't worry about that, suh," would be the answer given with a contemplative squint of the placid, pale eye. "I reckin my calculations won't be very fur out of the way, ef any."

They never were, either.

On the day before the day, he would be a busy man, what with superintending the fitting together and setting up of the painted lumber pieces upon which tomorrow's capital tragedy would be played; and, when this was done to his liking, trying the drop to see that the boards had not warped, and trying the rope for possible flaws in its fabric or weave, and proving to his own satisfaction that the mechanism of the wooden lever which operated to spring the trap worked with an instantaneous smoothness. To every detail he gave a painstaking supervision, guarding against all possible contingencies. Regarding the trustworthiness of the rope he was especially careful. When this particular hanging was concluded, the scaffold would be taken apart and stored away for subsequent use, but for each hanging the government furnished a brand new rope, especially made at a factory in New Orleans at a cost of eight dollars. The spectators generally cut the rope up into short lengths after it had fulfilled its ordained purpose, and carried the pieces away for souvenirs. So always there was a new rope provided, and its dependability must be ascertained by prolonged and exhaustive tests before Uncle Tobe would approve of it. Seeing him at his task, with his coat and waistcoat off, his sleeves rolled back, and his intent mien, one realized why, as a hangman, he had been a success. He left absolutely nothing to chance. When he was through with his experimenting, the possibility of an exhibition of the proneness of inanimate objects to misbehave in emergencies had been reduced to a minimum.

Before daylight next morning Uncle Tobe, dressed in sober black, like a country undertaker, and with his mid-Victorian whiskers all cleansed and combed, would present himself at his post of duty. He would linger in the background, an unobtrusive bystander, until the condemned sinner had gone through the mockery of eating his last breakfast; and, still making himself inconspicuous during the march to the gallows, would trail at the very tail of the line, while the short, straggling procession was winding out through gas-lit murky hallways into the pale dawn-light slanting over the walls of the gravel-paved, high-fenced compound built against the outer side of the prison close. He would wait on, always holding himself discreetly aloof from the middle breadth of the picture, until the officiating clergyman had done with his sacred offices; would wait until the white-faced wretch on whose account the government was making all this pother and taking all this trouble, had mumbled his farewell words this side of eternity; would continue to wait, very patiently, indeed, until the warden nodded to him. Then, with his trussing harness tucked under his arm, and the black cap neatly folded and bestowed in a handy side-pocket of his coat, Uncle Tobe would advance forward, and laying a kindly, almost a paternal hand upon the shoulder of the man who must die, would steer him to a certain spot in the centre of the platform, just beneath a heavy cross-beam. There would follow a quick shifting of the big, gnarled hands over the unresisting body of the doomed man, and almost instantly, so it seemed to those who watched, all was in order: the arms of the murderer drawn rearward and pressed in close against his ribs by a broad girth encircling his trunk at the elbows, his wrists caught together in buckled leather cuffs behind his back; his knees and his ankles fast in leathern loops which joined to the rest of the apparatus by means of a transverse strap drawn tautly down the length of his legs, at the back; the black-cloth head-bag with its peaked crown in place; the noose fitted; the hobbled and hooded shape perhaps swaying a trifle this way and that; and Uncle Tobe on his tiptoes stepping swiftly over to a tilted wooden lever which projected out and upward through the planked floor, like the handle of a steering oar.

It was at this point that the timorous-hearted among the witnesses turned their heads away. Those who were more resolute— or as the case might be, more morbid— and who continued to look, were made aware of a freak of physics which in accord, I suppose, with the laws of horizontals and parallels decrees that a man cut off short from life by quick and violent means and fallen prone upon the earth, seems to shrink up within himself and to grow shorter in body and in sprawling limb, whereas one hanged with a rope by the neck has the semblance of stretching out to unseemly and unhuman lengths all the while that he dangles.

Having repossessed himself of his leather cinches, Uncle Tobe would presently depart for his home, stopping en route at the Chickaloosa National Bank to deposit the greater part of the seventy-five dollars which the warden, as representative of a satisfied Federal government, had paid him, cash down on the spot. To his credit in the bank the old man had a considerable sum, all earned after this mode, and all drawing interest at the legal rate. On his arrival at his home, Mr. Dramm would first of all have his breakfast. This over, he would open the second drawer of an old black-walnut bureau, and from under a carefully folded pile of spare undergarments would withdraw a small, cheap book, bound in imitation red leather, and bearing the word "Accounts" in faded script upon the cover. On a clean, blue-lined page of the book, in a cramped handwriting, he would write in ink, the name, age, height, and weight of the man he had just despatched out of life; also the hour and minute when the drop fell, the time elapsing before the surgeons pronounced the man dead; the disposition which had been made of the body, and any other data which seemed to him pertinent to the record. Invariably he concluded the entry thus: "Neck was broke by the fall. Everything passed off smooth." From his first time of service he had never failed to make such notations following a hanging, he being in this, as in all things, methodical and exact.

The rest of the day, in all probabilities, would be given to small devices of his own. If the season suited he might work in his little truck garden at the back of the house, or if it were the fall of the year he might go rabbit hunting; then again he might go for a walk. When the evening paper came— Chickaloosa had two papers, a morning paper and an evening paper— he would read through the account given of the event at the prison, and would pencil any material errors which had crept into the reporter's story, and then he would clip out the article and file it away with a sheaf of similar clippings in the same bureau drawer where he kept his account-book and his underclothing. This done he would eat his supper, afterward washing and wiping the supper dishes and, presently bedtime for him having arrived, he would go to bed and sleep very soundly and very peacefully all night. Sometimes his heart trouble brought on smothering spells which woke him up. He rarely had dreams, and never any dreams unpleasantly associated with his avocation. Probably never was there a man blessed with less of an imagination than this same Tobias Dramm. It seemed almost providential, considering the calling he followed, that he altogether lacked the faculty of introspection, so that neither his memory nor his conscience ever troubled him.

Thus far I have made no mention of his household, and for the very good reason that he had none. In his youth he had not married. The forked tongue of town slander had it that he was too stingy to support a wife, and on top of that expense, to run the risk of having children to rear. He had no close kindred excepting a distant cousin or two in Chickaloosa. He kept no servant, and for this there was a double cause. First, his parsimonious instincts; second, the fact that for love or money no negro would minister to him, and in this community negroes were the only household servants to be had. Among the darkies there was current a belief that at dead of night he dug up the bodies of those he had hanged and peddled the cadavers to the "student doctors." They said he was in active partnership with the devil; they said the devil took over the souls of his victims, paying therefor in red-hot dollars, after the hangman was done with their bodies. The belief of the negroes that this unholy traffic existed amounted with them to a profound conviction. They held Mr. Dramm in an awesome and horrified veneration, bowing to him most respectfully when they met him, and then sidling off hurriedly. It would have taken strong horses to drag any black-skinned resident of Chickaloosa to the portals of the little three-roomed frame cottage in the outskirts of the town which Uncle Tobe tenanted. Therefore he lived by himself, doing his own skimpy marketing and his own simple housekeeping. Loneliness was a part of the penalty he paid for following the calling of a gallowsmith.

Among members of his own race he had no close friends. For the most part the white people did not exactly shun him, but, as the saying goes in the Southwest, they let him be. They were well content to enshrine him as a local celebrity, and ready enough to point him out to visitors, but by an unwritten communal law the line was drawn there. He was as one set apart for certain necessary undertakings, and yet denied the intimacy of his kind because he performed them acceptably. If his aloof and solitary state ever distressed him, at least he gave no outward sign of it, but went his uncomplaining way, bearing himself with a homely, silent dignity, and enveloped in those invisible garments of superstition which local prejudice and local ignorance had conjured up.

Ready as he was when occasion suited, to justify his avocation in the terms of that same explanation which he had given to the young reporter from St. Louis that time, and greatly though he may have craved to gain the good-will of his fellow citizens, he was never known openly to rebel against his lot. The nearest he ever came to doing this was once when he met upon the street a woman of his acquaintance who had suffered a recent bereavement in the death of her only daughter. He approached her, offering awkward condolences, and at once was moved to a further expression of his sympathy for her in her great loss by trying to shake her hand. At the touch of his fingers to hers the woman, already in a mood of grief bordering on hysteria, shrank back screaming out that his hand smelled of the soap with which he coated his gallows-nooses. She ran away from him, crying out as she ran that he was accursed; that he was marked with that awful smell and could not rid himself of it. To those who had witnessed this scene the hangman, with rather an injured and bewildered air, made explanation. The poor woman, he said, was wrong; although in a way of speaking she was right, too. He did, indeed, use the same yellow bar soap for washing his hands that he used for anointing his ropes. It was a good soap, and cheap; he had used the same brand regularly for years in cleansing his hands. Since it answered the first purpose so well, what possible harm could there be in slicking the noose of the rope with it when he was called upon to conduct one of his jobs over up at the prison? Apparently he was at a loss to fathom the looks they cast at him when he had finished with this statement and had asked this question. He began a protest, but broke off quickly and went away shaking his head as though puzzled that ordinarily sane folks should be so squeamish and so unreasonable. But he kept on using the soap as before.

Until now this narrative has been largely preamble. The real story follows. It concerns itself with the birth of an imagination.

In his day Uncle Tobe hanged all sorts and conditions of men— men who kept on vainly hoping against hope for an eleventh-hour reprieve long after the last chance of reprieve had vanished, and who on the gallows begged piteously for five minutes, for two minutes, for one minute more of precious grace; negroes gone drunk on religious exhortation who died in a frenzy, sure of salvation, and shouting out halleluiahs; Indians upborne and stayed by a racial stoicism; Chinamen casting stolid, slant-eyed glances over the rim of the void before them and filled with the calmness of the fatalist who believes that whatever is to be, is to be; white men upon whom at the last, when all prospect of intervention was gone, a mental numbness mercifully descended with the result that they came to the rope's embrace like men in a walking coma, with glazed, unseeing eyes, and dragging feet; other white men who summoned up a mockery of bravado and uttered poor jests from between lips drawn back in defiant sneering as they gave themselves over to the hangman, so that only Uncle Tobe, feeling their flesh crawling under their grave-clothes as he tied them up, knew a hideous terror berode their bodies. At length, in the tenth year of his career as a paid executioner he was called upon to visit his professional attentions upon a man different from any of those who had gone down the same dread chute.

The man in question was a train-bandit popularly known as the Lone-Hand Kid, because always he conducted his nefarious operations without confederates. He was a squat, dark ruffian, as malignant as a moccasin snake, and as dangerous as one. He was filthy in speech and vile in habit, being in his person most unpicturesque and most unwholesome, and altogether seemed a creature more viper than he was man. The sheriffs of two border States and the officials of a contiguous reservation sought for him many times, long and diligently, before a posse overcame him in the hills by over-powering odds and took him alive at the cost of two of its members killed outright and a third badly crippled. So soon as surgeons plugged up the holes in his hide which members of the vengeful posse shot into him after they had him surrounded and before his ammunition gave out, he was brought to bar to answer for the unprovoked murder of a postal clerk on a transcontinental limited. No time was wasted in hurrying his trial through to its conclusion; it was felt that there was crying need to make an example of this red-handed desperado. Having been convicted with commendable celerity, the Lone-Hand Kid was transferred to Chickaloosa and strongly confined there against the day of Uncle Tobe's ministrations upon him.

From the very hour that the prosecution was started, the Lone-Hand Kid, whose real name was the prosaic name of Smith, objected strongly to this procedure which in certain circles is known as "railroading." He insisted that he was being legally expedited out of life on his record and not on the evidence. There were plenty of killings for any one of which he might have been tried and very probably found guilty, but he reckoned it a profound injustice that he should be indicted, tried, and condemned for a killing he had not committed. By his code he would not have rebelled strongly against being punished for the evil things he himself had done; he did dislike, though, being hanged for something some rival hold-up man had done. Such was his contention, and he reiterated it with a persistence which went far toward convincing some people that after all there might be something in what he said, although among honest men there was no doubt whatsoever that the world would be a sweeter and a healthier place to live in with the Lone-Hand Kid entirely translated out of it.

Having been dealt with, as he viewed the matter, most unfairly, the condemned killer sullenly refused to make submission to his appointed destiny. On the car journey up to Chickaloosa, although still weak from his wounds and securely ironed besides, he made two separate efforts to assault his guards. In his cell, a few days later, he attacked a turnkey in pure wantonness seemingly, since even with the turnkey eliminated, there still was no earthly prospect for him to escape from the steel strong-box which enclosed him. That was what it truly was, too, a strong-box, for the storing of many living pledges held as surety for the peace and good order of the land. Of all these human collaterals who were penned up there with him, he, for the time being, was most precious in the eyes of the law. Therefore the law took no chance of losing him, and this he must have known when he maimed his keeper.

After this outbreak he was treated as a vicious wild beast, which, undoubtedly, was exactly what he was. He was chained by his ankles to his bed, and his food was shoved in to him through the bars by a man who kept himself at all times well out of reach of the tethered prisoner. Having been rendered helpless, he swore then that when finally they unbarred his cell door and sought to fetch him forth to garb him for his journey to the gallows, he would fight them with his teeth and his bare hands for so long as he had left an ounce of strength with which to fight. Bodily force would then be the only argument remaining to him by means of which he might express his protest, and he told all who cared to listen that most certainly he meant to invoke it.

There was a code of decorum which governed the hangings at Chickaloosa, and the resident authorities dreaded mightily the prospect of having it profaned by spiteful and unmannerly behavior on the part of the Lone-Hand Kid. There was said to be in all the world just one living creature for whom the rebellious captive entertained love and respect, and this person was his half-sister. With the good name of his prison at heart, the warden put up the money that paid her fare from her home down in the Indian Territory. Two days before the execution she arrived, a slab-sided, shabby drudge of a woman. Having first been primed and prompted for her part, she was sent to him, and in his cell she wept over the fettered prisoner, and with him she pleaded until he promised her, reluctantly, he would make no physical struggle on being led out to die.

He kept his word, too; but it was to develop that the pledge of non-resistance, making his body passive to the will of his jailers, did not, according to the Lone-Hand Kid's sense of honor, include the muscles of his tongue. His hour came at sunup of a clear, crisp, October morning, when a rime of frost made a silver carpet upon the boarded floor of the scaffold, and in the east the heavens glowed an irate red, like the reflections of a distant bale-fire. From his cell door before the head warder summoned him forth, he drove away with terrible oaths the clergyman who had come to offer him religious consolation. At daylight, when the first beams of young sunlight were stealing in at the slitted windows to streak the whitewashed wall behind him with a barred pattern of red, like brush strokes of fresh paint, he ate his last breakfast with foul words between bites, and outside, a little later, in the shadow of the crosstree from which shortly he would dangle in the article of death, a stark offence before the sight of mortal eyes, he halted and stood reviling all who had a hand in furthering and compassing his condemnation. Profaning the name of his Maker with every breath, he cursed the President of the United States who had declined to reprieve him, the justices of the high court who had denied his appeal from the verdict of the lower, the judge who had tried him, the district attorney who had prosecuted him, the grand jurors who had indicted him, the petit jurors who had voted to convict him, the witnesses who had testified against him, the posse men who had trapped him, consigning them all and singly to everlasting damnation. Before this pouring flood of blasphemy the minister, who had followed him up the gallows steps in the vain hope that when the end came some faint sign of contrition might be vouchsafed by this poor lost soul, hid his face in his hands as though fearing an offended Deity would send a bolt from on high to blast all who had been witnesses to such impiety and such impenitence.

The indignant warden moved to cut short this lamentable spectacle. He signed with his hand for Uncle Tobe to make haste, and Uncle Tobe, obeying, stepped forward from where he had been waiting in the rear rank of the shocked spectators. Upon him the defiant ruffian turned the forces of his sulphurous hate, full-gush. First over one shoulder and then over the other as the executioner worked with swift fingers to bind him into a rigid parcel of a man, he uttered what was both a dreadful threat and a yet more dreadful promise.

"I ain't blamin' these other folks here," he proclaimed. "Some of 'em are here because it's their duty to be here, an' ef these others kin git pleasure out of seein' a man croaked that ain't afeared of bein' croaked, they're welcome to enjoy the free show, so fur ez I'm concerned. But you— you stingy, white-whiskered old snake!— you're doin' this fur the little piece of dirty money that's in it fur you.

"Listen to me, you dog: I know I'm headin' straight fur hell, an' I ain't skeered to go, neither. But I ain't goin' to stay there. I'm comin' back fur you! I'm comin' back this very night to git you an' take your old, withered, black soul back down to hell with me. No need fur you to try to hide. Wharever you hide I'll seek you out. You can't git away frum me. You kin lock your door an' you kin lock your winder, an' you kin hide your head under the bedclothes, but I'll find you wharever you are, remember that! An' you're goin' back down there with me!

"Now go ahead an' hang me— I'm all set fur it ef you are!"

Through this harangue Uncle Tobe worked on, outwardly composed. Whatever his innermost emotions may have been, his expression gave no hint that the mouthings of the Lone-Hand Kid had sunk in. He drew the peaked black sack down across the swollen face, hiding the glaring eyes and the lips that snarled. He brought the rope forward over the cloaked head and drew the noose in tautly, with the knot adjusted to fit snugly just under the left ear, so that the hood took on the semblance of a well-filled, inverted bag with its puckered end fluting out in the effect of a dark ruff upon the hunched shoulders of its wearer. Stepping back, he gripped the handle of the lever-bar, and with all his strength jerked it toward him. A square in the floor opened as the trap was flapped back upon its hinges, and through the opening the haltered form shot straight downward to bring up with a great jerk, and after that to dangle like a plumb-bob on a string. Under the quick strain the gallows-arm creaked and whined; in the silence which followed the hangman was heard to exhale his breath in a vast puff of relief. His hand went up to his forehead to wipe beads of sweat which, for all that the morning was cool almost to coldness, had suddenly popped out through his skin. He for one was mighty glad the thing was done, and, as he in this moment figured, well done.

But for once and once only as those saw who had the hardihood to look, Uncle Tobe had botched up a job. Perhaps it was because of his great haste to make an end of a scandalous scene; perhaps because the tirade of the bound malefactor had discomfited him and made his fingers fumble this one time at their familiar task. Whatever the cause, it was plainly enough to be seen that the heavy knot had not cracked the Lone-Hand Kid's spine. The noose, as was ascertained later, had caught on the edge of the broad jawbone, and the man, instead of dying instantly, was strangling to death by degrees and with much struggling.

In the next half minute a thing even more grievous befell. The broad strap which girthed the murderer's trunk just above the bend of the elbows, held fast, but the rest of the harness, having been improperly snaffled on, loosened and fell away from the twitching limbs so that as the elongated body twisted to and fro in half circles, the lower arms winnowed the air in foreshortened and contorted flappings, and the freed legs drew up and down convulsively.

Very naturally, Uncle Tobe was chagrined; perhaps he had hidden within him emotions deeper than those bred of a personal mortification. At any rate, after a quick, distressed glance through the trap at the writhing shape of agony below, he turned his eyes from it and looked steadfastly at the high wall facing him. It chanced to be the western wall, which was bathed in a ruddy glare where the shafts of the upcoming sun, lifting over the panels at the opposite side of the fenced enclosure, began to fall diagonally upon the whitewashed surface just across. And now, against that glowing plane of background opposite him, there appeared as he looked the slanted shadow of a swaying rope framed in at right and at left by two broader, deeper lines which were the shadows marking the timber uprights that supported the scaffold at its nearer corners; and also there appeared, midway between the framing shadows, down at the lower end of the slender line of the cord, an exaggerated, wriggling manifestation like the reflection of a huge and misshapen jumping-jack, which first would lengthen itself grotesquely, and then abruptly would shorten up, as the tremors running through the dying man's frame altered the silhouette cast by the oblique sunbeams; and along with this stenciled vision, as a part of it, occurred shifting shadow movements of two legs dancing busily on nothing, and of two foreshortened arms, flapping up and down. It was no pretty picture to look upon, yet Uncle Tobe, plucking with a tremulous hand at the ends of his beard, continued to stare at the apparition, daunted and fascinated. To him it must have seemed as though the Lone-Hand Kid, with a malignant pertinacity which lingered on in him after by rights the last breath should have been squeezed out of his wretched carcass, was painting upon those tall planks the picture and the presentiment of his farewell threat.

Nearly half an hour passed before the surgeons consented that the body should be taken down and boxed. His harness which had failed him having been returned to its owner, he made it up into a compact bundle and collected his regular fee and went away very quietly. Ordinarily, following his habitual routine, he would have gone across town to his little house; would have washed his hands with a bar of the yellow laundry soap; would have cooked and eaten his breakfast, and then, after tidying up the kitchen, would have made the customary entry in his red-backed account-book. But this morning he seemed to have no appetite, and besides, he felt an unaccountable distaste for his home, with its silence and its emptiness. Somehow he much preferred the open air, with the skies over him and wide reaches of space about him; which was doubly strange, seeing that he was no lover of nature, but always theretofore had accepted sky and grass and trees as matters of course— things as inevitable and commonplace as the weathers and the winds.

Throughout the day and until well on toward night he was beset by a curious, uncommon restlessness which made it hard for him to linger long in any one spot. He idled about the streets of the town; twice he wandered aimlessly miles out along roads beyond the town. All the while, without cessation, there was a tugging and nagging at his nerve-ends, a constant inward irritation which laid a hold on his thoughts, twitching them off into unpleasant channels. It kept him from centering his interest upon the casual things about him; inevitably it turned his mind back to inner contemplations. The sensation was mental largely, but it seemed so nearly akin to the physical that to himself Uncle Tobe diagnosed it as the after-result of a wrench for his weak heart. You see, never before having experienced the reactions of a suddenly quickened imagination, he, naturally, was at a loss to account for it on any other ground.

Also he was weighted down by an intense depression that his clean record of ten years should have been marred by a mishap; this regret, constantly recurring in his thoughts, served to make him unduly sensitive. He had a feeling that people stared hard at him as they passed and, after he had gone by, that they turned to stare at him some more. Under this scrutiny he gave no sign of displeasure, but inwardly he resented it. Of course these folks had heard of what had happened up at the prison, and no doubt among themselves would be commenting upon the tragedy and gossiping about it. Well, any man was liable to make a slip once; nobody was perfect. It would never happen again; he was sure of that much.

All day he mooned about, a brooding, uneasy figure, speaking to scarcely any one at all, but followed wherever he went by curious eyes. It was late in the afternoon before it occurred to him that he had eaten nothing all day, and that he had failed to deposit the money he had earned that morning. It would be too late now to get into the bank; the bank, which opened early, closed at three o'clock. To-morrow would do as well. Although he had no zest for food despite his fast, he figured maybe it was the long abstinence which was filling his head with such flighty notions, so he entered a small, smelly lunch-room near the railroad station, and made a pretence of eating an order of ham and eggs. He tried not to notice that the black waiter who served him shrank away from his proximity, shying off like a breechy colt, from the table where Uncle Tobe sat, whenever his business brought him into that part of the place. What difference did a fool darky's fears make, anyway?

Dusk impended when he found himself approaching his three-room house, looming up as a black oblong, where it stood aloof from its neighbors, with vacant lands about it. The house faced north and south. On the nearer edge of the unfenced common, which extended up to it on the eastern side, he noted as he drew close that somebody— perhaps a boy, or more probably a group of boys— had made a bonfire of fallen autumn leaves and brushwood. Going away as evening came, they had left their bonfire to burn itself out. The smoldering pile was almost under his bedroom window. He regretted rather that the boys had gone; an urgent longing for human companionship of some sort, however remote— a yearning he had never before felt with such acuteness— was upon him. Tormented, as he still was, by strange vagaries, he had almost to force himself to unlock the front door and cross the threshold into the gloomy interior of his cottage. But before entering, and while he yet wrestled with a vague desire to retrace his steps and go back down the street, he stooped and picked up his copy of the afternoon paper which the carrier, with true carrier-like accuracy, had flung upon the narrow front porch.

Inside the house, the floor gave off sharp little sounds, the warped floor squeaking and wheezing under the weight of his tread. Subconsciously, this irritated him; a lot of causes were combining to harass him, it seemed; there was a general conspiracy on the part of objects animate and inanimate to make him— well, suspicious. And Uncle Tobe was not given to nervousness, which made it worse. He was ashamed of himself that he should be in such state. Glancing about him in a furtive, almost in an apprehensive way, he crossed the front room to the middle room, which was his bed chamber, the kitchen being the room at the rear. In the middle room he lit a coal-oil lamp which stood upon a small centre table. Alongside the table he opened out the paper and glanced at a caption running half-way across the top of the front page; then, fretfully he crumpled up the printed sheet in his hand and let it fall upon the floor. He had no desire to read the account of his one failure. Why should the editor dwell at such length and with so prodigal a display of black head-line type upon this one bungled job when every other job of all the jobs that had gone before, had been successful in every detail? Let's see, now, how many men had he hanged with precision and with speed and with never an accident to mar the proceedings? A long, martialed array of names came trooping into his brain, and along with the names the memories of the faces of all those dead men to whom the names had belonged. The faces began to pass before him in a mental procession. This wouldn't do. Since there were no such things as ghosts or haunts; since, as all sensible men agreed, the dead never came back from the grave, it was a foolish thing for him to be creating those unpleasant images in his mind. He shook his head to clear it of recollections which were the better forgotten. He shook it again and again.

He would get to bed; a good night's rest would make him feel better and more natural. It was an excellent idea— this idea of sleep. So he raised the bottommost half of the curtain-less side window for air, drew down the shade by the string suspended from its lower cross breadth, until the lower edge of the shade came even with the window sash, and undressed himself to his undergarments. He was about to blow out the light when he remembered he had left the money that was the price of his morning's work in his trousers which hung, neatly folded, across the back of a chair by the centre table. He was in the act of withdrawing the bills from the bottom of one of the trouser-pockets when right at his feet there was a quick, queer sound of rustling. As he glared down, startled, out from under the crumpled newspaper came timorously creeping a half-grown, sickly looking rat, minus its tail, having lost its tail in a trap, perhaps, or possibly in a battle with other rats.

At best a rat is no pleasant bedroom companion, and besides, Uncle Tobe had been seriously annoyed. He kicked out with one of his bare feet, taking the rat squarely in its side as it scurried for its hole in the wainscoting. He hurt it badly. It landed with a thump ten feet away and sprawled out on the floor kicking and squealing feebly. Holding the wad of bills in his left hand, with his right Uncle Tobe deftly plucked up the crushed vermin by the loose fold of skin at the nape of its neck, and with a quick flirt of his arm tossed it sidewise from him to cast it out of the half-opened window. He returned to the table and bent over and blew down the lamp chimney, and in the darkness felt his way across the room to his bed. He stretched himself full length upon it, drew the cotton comforter up to cover him, and shoved the money under the pillow.

His fingers were relaxing their grip on the bills when he saw something— something which instantly turned him stiff and rigid and deathly cold all over, leaving him without will-power or strength to move his head or shift his gaze. Over the white, plastered wall alongside his bed an unearthly red glow sprang up, turning a deeper, angrier red as it spread and widened. Against this background next stood out two perpendicular masses like the broad shadows of uprights— like the supporting uprights of a gallows, say— and in the squared space of brightness thus marked off, depending midway from the shadow crossing it at right angles at the top, appeared a filmy, fine line, which undoubtedly was the shadow of a cord, and at the end of the cord dangled a veritable jumping-jack of a silhouette, turning and writhing and jerking, with a shape which in one breath grotesquely lengthened and in the next shrank up to half its former dimensions, which kicked out with indistinct movements of its lower extremities, which flapped with foreshortened strokes of the shadowy upper limbs, which altogether so contorted itself as to form the likeness of a thing all out of perspective, all out of proportion, and all most horribly reminiscent.

A heart with valves already weakened by a chronic affection can stand just so many shocks in a given time and no more.

A short time later in this same night, at about eight-forty-five o'clock, to be exact, a man who lived on the opposite side of the unfenced common gave the alarm of fire over the telephone. The Chickaloosa fire engine and hose reels came at once, and with the machines numerous citizens.

In a way of speaking, it turned out to be a false alarm. A bonfire of leaves and brush, abandoned at dusk by the boys who kindled it, had, after smoldering a while, sprung up briskly and, flaming high, was now scorching the clap-boarded side of the Dramm house.

There was no need for the firemen to uncouple a line of hose from the reel. While two of them made shift to get retorts of a patent extinguisher from the truck, two more, wondering why Uncle Tobe, even if in bed and asleep at so early an hour, had not been aroused by the noise of the crowd's coming, knocked at his front door. There being no response from within at once, they suspected something must be amiss. With heaves of their shoulders they forced the door off its hinges, and entering in company, they groped their passage through the empty front room into the bedroom behind it, which was lighted after a fashion by the reflection from the mounting flames without.

The tenant was in bed; he lay on his side with his face turned to the wall; he made no answer to their hails. When they bent over him they knew why. No need to touch him, then, with that look on his face and that stare out of his popped eyes. He was dead, all right enough; but plainly had not been dead long; not more than a few minutes, apparently. One of his hands was shoved up under his pillow with the fingers touching a small roll containing seven ten-dollar bills and one five-dollar bill; the other hand still gripped a fold of the coverlet as though the fatal stroke had come upon the old man as he lifted the bedclothing to draw it up over his face. These incidental facts were noted down later after the coroner had been called to take charge; they were the subject of considerable comment next day when the inquest took place. The coroner was of the opinion that the old man had been killed by a heart seizure, and that he had died on the instant the attack came.

However, this speculation had no part in the thoughts of the two startled firemen at the moment of the finding of the body. What most interested them, next only to the discovery of the presence of the dead man there in the same room with them, was a queer combination of shadows which played up and down against the wall beyond the bed, it being plainly visible in the glare of the small conflagration just outside.

With one accord they turned about, and then they saw the cause of the phenomenon, and realized that it was not very much of a phenomenon after all, although unusual enough to constitute a rather curious circumstance. A crippled, tailless rat had somehow entangled its neck in a loop at the end of the dangling cord of the half-drawn shade at the side window on the opposite side of the room and, being too weak to wriggle free, was still hanging there, jerking and kicking, midway of the window opening. The glow of the pile of burning leaves and brush behind and beyond it, brought out its black outlines with remarkable clearness.

The patterned shadow upon the wall, though, disappeared in the same instant that the men outside began spraying their chemical compound from the two extinguishers upon the ambitious bonfire to douse it out, and one of the firemen slapped the rat down to the floor and killed it with a stamp of his foot.

____________________

13: Out of the Sea

A. C. Benson

1862-1925

From The Isles of Sunset, 1904

IT WAS ABOUT ten o'clock on a November morning in the little village of Blea-on-the-Sands. The hamlet was made up of some thirty houses, which clustered together on a low rising ground. The place was very poor, but some old merchant of bygone days had built in a pious mood a large church, which was now too great for the needs of the place; the nave had been unroofed in a heavy gale, and there was no money to repair it, so that it had fallen to decay, and the tower was joined to the choir by roofless walls. This was a sore trial to the old priest, Father Thomas, who had grown grey there; but he had no art in gathering money, which he asked for in a shamefaced way; and the vicarage was a poor one, hardly enough for the old man's needs. So the church lay desolate.

The village stood on what must once have been an island; the little river Reddy, which runs down to the sea, there forking into two channels on the landward side; towards the sea the ground was bare, full of sand-hills covered with a short grass. Towards the land was a small wood of gnarled trees, the boughs of which were all brushed smooth by the gales; looking landward there was the green flat, in which the river ran, rising into low hills; hardly a house was visible save one or two lonely farms; two or three church towers rose above the hills at a long distance away. Indeed Blea was much cut off from the world; there was a bridge over the stream on the west side, but over the other channel was no bridge, so that to fare eastward it was requisite to go in a boat. To seaward there were wide sands, when the tide was out; when it was in, it came up nearly to the end of the village street. The people were mostly fishermen, but there were a few farmers and labourers; the boats of the fishermen lay to the east side of the village, near the river channel which gave some draught of water; and the channel was marked out by big black stakes and posts that straggled out over the sands, like awkward leaning figures, to the sea's brim.

Father Thomas lived in a small and ancient brick house near the church, with a little garden attached. He was a kindly man, much worn by age and weather, with a wise heart, and he loved the quiet life with his small flock. This morning he had come out of his house to look abroad, before he settled down to writing his sermon. He looked out to sea, and saw with a shadow of sadness the black outline of a wreck that had come ashore a week before, and over which the white waves were now breaking. The wind blew steadily from the north-east, and had a bitter poisonous chill in it, which it doubtless drew from the fields of the upper ice. The day was dark and overhung, not with cloud, but with a kind of dreary vapour that shut out the sun. Father Thomas shuddered at the wind, and drew his patched cloak round him. As he did so, he saw three figures come up to the vicarage gate. It was not a common thing for him to have visitors in the morning, and he saw with surprise that they were old Master John Grimston, the richest man in the place, half farmer and half fisherman, a dark surly old man; his wife, Bridget, a timid and frightened woman, who found life with her harsh husband a difficult business, in spite of their wealth, which, for a place like Blea, was great; and their son Henry, a silly shambling man of forty, who was his father's butt. The three walked silently and heavily, as though they came on a sad errand.

Father Thomas went briskly down to meet them, and greeted them with his accustomed cheerfulness. 'And what may I do for you?' he said. Old Master Grimston made a sort of gesture with his head as though his wife should speak; and she said in a low and somewhat husky voice, with a rapid utterance, 'There is a matter, Father, we would ask you about— are you at leisure?'

Father Thomas said, 'Ay, I am ashamed to be not more busy! Let us go in the house.' They did so; and even in the little distance to the door, the Father thought that his visitors behaved very strangely. They peered round from left to right, and once or twice Master Grimston looked sharply behind them, as though they were followed. They said nothing but 'Ay' and 'No' to the Father's talk, and bore themselves like people with a terrible fear. Father Thomas made up his mind that it was some question of money, for nothing else was wont to move Master Grimston's mind. So he led them into his parlour and gave them seats, and then there was a silence, while the two men continued to look furtively about them, and the wife sat with her eyes upon the priest's face. Father Thomas knew not what to make of this, till Master Grimston said harshly, 'Come wife, tell the tale and make an end; we must not take up the Father's time.'

'I hardly know how to say it, Father,' said Bridget, 'but a strange and evil thing has befallen us; there is something come to our house, and we know not what it is— but it brings fear with it.'

A sudden paleness came over her face, and she stopped, and the three exchanged a glance in which terror was visibly written. Master Grimston looked over his shoulder swiftly, and made as though to speak, yet only swallowed in his throat; but Henry said suddenly, in a loud and woeful voice: 'It is an evil beast out of the sea.' And then there followed a dreadful silence, while Father Thomas felt a sudden dread leap up in his heart, at the contagion of fear that he saw written on the faces round him. But he said with all the cheerfulness he could muster, 'Come, friends, let us not begin to talk of sea-beasts; we must have the whole tale. Mistress Grimston, I must hear the story— be content— nothing can touch us here.' The three seemed to draw a faint comfort from his words, and Bridget began:

'It was the day of the wreck, Father. John was up early before the dawn; he walked out to the sands, and Henry with him— and they were the first to see the wreck— was not that it?' At these words the father and son seemed to exchange a very swift and secret look, and both grew pale.

'John told me there was a wreck ashore, and they went presently and roused the rest of the village; and all that day they were out, saving what could be saved. Two sailors were found, both dead and pitifully battered by the sea, and they were buried, as you know, Father, in the churchyard next day; John came back about dusk and Henry with him, and we sat down to our supper. John was telling me about the wreck, as we sat beside the fire, when Henry, who was sitting apart, rose up and cried out suddenly, "What is that?"'

She paused for a moment, and Henry, who sat with face blanched, staring at his mother, said, 'Ay, I did— it ran past me suddenly.'

'Yes, but what was it?' said Father Thomas trying to smile; 'a dog or cat, perhaps?'

'It was a beast,' said Henry slowly, in a trembling voice— 'a beast about the size of a goat. I never saw the like— yet I did not see it clear; I but felt the air blow, and caught a whiff of it— it was salt like the sea, but with a kind of dead smell behind.'

'Was that all you saw?' said Father Thomas; 'Perhaps you were tired and faint, and the air swam round you suddenly— I have known the like myself when weary.'

'Nay, nay,' said Henry, 'this was not like that— it was a beast, sure enough.'

'Ay, and we have seen it since,' said Bridget. 'At least I have not seen it clearly yet, but I have smelt its odour, and it turns me sick— but John and Henry have seen it often— sometimes it lies and seems to sleep, but it watches us; and then again it is merry, and will leap in a corner— and John saw it skip upon the sands near the wreck— did you not, John?'

At these words the two men again exchanged a glance, and then old Master Grimston, with a dreadful look in his face, in which great anger seemed to strive with fear, said 'Nay, silly woman, it was not near the wreck, it was out to the east.'

'It matters little,' said Father Thomas, who saw well enough this was no light matter. 'I never heard the like of it. I will myself come down to your house with a holy book, and see if the thing will meet me. I know not what this is,' he went on, whether it is a vain terror that hath hold of you; but there are spirits of evil in the world, and the sea, too, doubtless hath its monsters; and it may be that one has wandered out of the waves, like a dog strayed from his home. I dare not say, till I have met it face to face. But God gives no power to such things to hurt those who have a fair conscience.'— And here he stopped and looked at the three; Bridget sat regarding him with hope in her face; but the other two sat looking at the ground; and the priest divined in some secret way that all was not well with them.

'But I will come at once,' he said, rising, 'and I will see if I can cast out or bind the thing, whatever it be— for I am in this place as a soldier of the Lord, to fight with the works of darkness.' He took a clasped book from a table, and lifted up his hat, saying, 'Let us set forth.'

Then he said as they left the room, 'Hath it appeared today?'

'Yes, indeed,' said Henry, 'and it was ill content. It followed us as though it were angered.'

'Come,' said Father Thomas turning upon him, 'you speak thus of a thing, as you might speak of a dog— what is it like?'

'Nay,' said Henry, 'I know not; I can never see it clearly; it is like a speck in the eye— it is never there when you look upon it— it glides away very secretly; it is most like a goat, I think. It seems to be horned, and hairy; but I have seen its eyes, and they were yellow, like a flame.'

As he said these words Master Grimston went in haste to the door, and pulled it open as though to breathe the air. The others followed him and went out; but Master Grimston drew the priest aside, and said like a man in a mortal fear,

'Look you, Father, all this is true— the thing is a devil— and why it abides with us I know not; but I cannot live so; and unless it be cast out it will slay me— but if money be of avail, I have it in abundance.'

'Nay,' said Father Thomas, 'let there be no talk of money— perchance if I can aid you, you may give of your gratitude to God.'

'Ay, ay,' said the old man hurriedly, 'that was what I meant— there is money in abundance for God, if he will but set me free.'

So they walked very sadly together through the street. There were few folk about; the men and the children were all abroad— a woman or two came to the house door, and wondered a little to see them pass so solemnly, as though they followed a body to the grave.

Master Grimston's house was the largest in the place. It had a walled garden before it, with a strong door set in the wall. The house stood back from the road, a dark front of brick with gables; behind it the garden sloped nearly to the sands, with wooden barns and warehouses. Master Grimston unlocked the door, and then it seemed that his terror overcame him, for he would have the priest enter first. Father Thomas, with a certain apprehension of which he was ashamed, walked quickly in, and looked about him. The herbage of the garden had mostly died down in the winter, and a tangle of sodden stalks lay over the beds. A flagged path edged with box led up to the house, which seemed to stare at them from its dark windows with a sort of steady gaze.

Master Grimston fastened the door behind them, and they went all together, keeping close to each other, up to the house, the door of which opened upon a big parlour or kitchen, sparely furnished, but very clean and comfortable. Some vessels of metal glittered on a rack. There were chairs, ranged round the open fireplace. There was no sound except the wind which buffeted in the chimney. It looked a quiet and homely place, and Father Thomas grew ashamed of his fears.

'Now,' said he in his firm voice, 'though I am your guest here, I will appoint what shall be done. We will sit here together, and talk as cheerfully as we may, till we have dined. Then, if nothing appears to us,'— and he crossed himself— 'I will go round the house, into every room, and see if we can track the thing to its lair; I will abide with you till evensong; and then I will soon return, and sleep here to-night. Even if the thing be wary, and dares not to meet the power of the Church in the daytime, perhaps it will venture out at night; and I am prepared to face it. So come, good people, and be comforted.'

So they sat together; and Father Thomas talked of many things, and told some old legends of saints; and they dined, though without much cheer; and still nothing appeared. Then, after dinner, Father Thomas decided to view the house. So he took his Bible, and they went from room to room. On the ground floor there were several chambers not used, which they entered in turn, but saw nothing; on the upper floor was a large room where Master Grimston and his wife slept; and a further room for Henry, and a guest-chamber in which the priest was to sleep; and a room where a servant-maid slept. And now the day began to darken and to turn to evening, and Father Thomas felt a shadow grow in his mind. There came into his head a verse of Scripture about a spirit who found a house 'empty, swept and garnished,' and called his fellows to enter in.

At the end of the passage was a locked door; and Father Thomas said: 'This is the last room— let us enter.'

'Nay, there is no need to do that,' said Master Grimston in a kind of haste; 'it leads nowhere— it is but a store room.'

'It would be a pity to leave it unvisited,' said the Father— and as he said the word, there came a kind of stirring from within.

'A rat doubtless,' said the Father, striving with a sudden sense of fear; but the pale faces round him told another tale.

'Come, Master Grimston, let us be done with this,' said Father Thomas decisively; 'the hour of vespers draws nigh.'

So Master Grimston slowly drew out a key and unlocked the door, and Father Thomas marched in. It was a simple place enough. There were shelves on which various household matters lay, boxes and jars, with twine and cordage. On the ground stood chests.

There were some clothes hanging on pegs, and in a corner was a heap of garments, piled up. On one of the chests stood a box of rough deal, and from the corner of it dripped water, which lay in a little pool on the floor. Master Grimston went hurriedly to the box and pushed it further to the wall. As he did so, a kind of sound came from Henry's lips. Father Thomas turned and looked at him; he stood pale and strengthless, his eyes fixed on the corner— at the same moment something dark and shapeless seemed to slip past the group, and there came to the nostrils of Father Thomas a strange sharp smell, as of the sea, only there was a taint within it, like the smell of corruption.

They all turned and looked at Father Thomas together, as though seeking comfort from his presence. He, hardly knowing what he did, and in the grasp of a terrible fear, fumbled with his book; and opening it, read the first words that his eye fell upon, which was the place where the Blessed Lord, beset with enemies, said that if He did but pray to His Father, He should send Him forthwith legions of angels to encompass Him. And the verse seemed to the priest so like a message sent instantly from heaven that he was not a little comforted.

But the thing, whatever the reason was, appeared to them no more at that time. Yet the thought of it lay very heavy on Father Thomas's heart. In truth he had not in the bottom of his mind believed that he would see it, but bad trusted in his honest life and his sacred calling to protect him. He could hardly speak for some minutes,— moreover the horror of the thing was very great— and seeing him so grave, their terrors were increased, though there was a kind of miserable joy in their minds that some one, and he a man of high repute, should suffer with them.

Then Father Thomas, after a pause— they were now in the parlour— said, speaking very slowly, that they were under a sore affliction of Satan, and that they must withstand it with a good courage— 'And look you,' he added, turning with a great sternness to the thee, 'if there be any mortal sin upon your hearts, see that you confess it and be shriven speedily— for while such a thing lies upon the heart, so long hath Satan power to hurt— otherwise have no fear at all.'

Then Father Thomas slipped out to the garden, and hearing the bell pulled for vespers, he went to the church, and the three would go with him, because they would not be left alone. So they went together; by this time the street was fuller, and the servant-maid had told tales, so that there was much talk in the place about what was going on. None spoke with them as they went, but at every corner people could be seen talking, and, as the Father approached a silence would fall upon a group, so that they knew that their terrors were on every tongue. There was but a handful of worshippers in the church, which was dark, save for the light on Father Thomas' book. He read the holy service swiftly and courageously, but his face was very pale and grave in the light of the candle. When the vespers were over, and he had put off his robe, he said that he would go back to his house, and gather what he needed for the night, and that they should wait for him at the churchyard gate. So he strode off to his vicarage. But as he shut to the door, he saw a dark figure come running up the garden; he waited with a fear in his mind, but in a moment he saw that it was Henry, who came up breathless, and said that he must speak with the Father alone.

Father Thomas knew that some dark secret was to be told him. So he led Henry into the parlour and seated himself, and said,

'Now, my son, speak boldly.' So there was an instant's silence, and Henry slipped on to his knees.

Then in a moment Henry with a sob began to tell his tale. He said that on the day of the wreck his father had roused him very early in the dawn, and had told him to put on his clothes and come silently, for he thought there was a wreck ashore. His father carried a spade in his hand, he knew not then why. They went down to the tide, which was moving out very fast, and had left but an inch or two of water on the sands. There was little light, but, when they had walked a little, they saw the black hull of a ship before them, on the edge of the deeper water, the waves driving over it; and then all at once they came upon the body of a man lying on his face on the sand. There was no sign of life in him, but he clasped a bag in his hand that was heavy, and the pocket of his coat was bulging; and there lay, moreover, some glittering things about him that seemed to be coins. They lifted the body up, and his father stripped the coat from the man, and then bade Henry dig a hole in the sand, which he presently did, though the sand and water oozed fast into it. Then his father, who had been stooping down, gathering something up from the sand, raised the body up, and laid it in the hole, and bade Henry cover it. And so he did till it was nearly hidden. Then came a horrible thing; the sand in the hole began to move and stir, and presently a hand was put out with clutching fingers; and Henry dropped the spade, and said, 'There is life in him,' but his father seized the spade, and shovelled the sand into the hole with a kind of silent fury, and trampled it over and smoothed it down— and then he gathered up the coat and the bag, and handed Henry the spade. By this time the town was astir, and they saw, very faintly, a man run along the shore eastward; so, making a long circuit to the west, they returned; his father had put the spade away and taken the coat upstairs; and then he went out with Henry, and told all he could find that there was a wreck ashore.

The priest heard the story with a fierce shame and anger, and turning to Henry he said, 'But why did you not resist your father, and save the poor sailor?'

'I dared not,' said Henry shuddering, 'though I would have done so if I could; but my father has a power over me, and I am used to obeying him.'

Then said the priest, 'This is a dark matter. But you have told the story bravely, and now will I shrive you, my son.'

So he gave him shrift. Then he said to Henry, 'And have you seen aught that would connect the beast that visits you with this thing?'

'Ay, that I have,' said Henry, 'for I watched it with my father skip and leap in the water over the place where the man lies buried.'

Then the priest said, 'Your father must tell me the tale too, and he must make submission to the law.'

'He will not,' said Henry.

'Then will I compel him,' said the priest.

'Not out of my mouth,' said Henry, 'or he will slay me too.' And then the priest saw that he was in an awkward position for he could not use the words of confession of one man to convict another of his sin. So he gathered his things in haste, and walked back to the church; but Henry went another way, saying, 'I made excuse to come away, and said I went elsewhere; but I fear my father much— he sees very deep; and I would not have him suspect me of having made confession.'

Then the Father met the other two at the church gate; and they went down to the house in silence, the Father pondering heavily; and at the door Henry joined them, and it seemed to the Father that old Master Grimston regarded him not. So they entered the house in silence, and ate in silence, listening earnestly for any sound. And the Father looked oft on Master Grimston, who ate and drank and said nothing, never raising his eyes. But once the Father saw him laugh secretly to himself, so that the blood ran cold in the Father's veins, and he could hardly contain himself from accusing him. Then the Father read prayers, and prayed earnestly against the evil, and that they should open their hearts to God, if he would show them why this misery came upon them.

Then they went to bed; and Henry asked that he might sleep in the priest's room, which he willingly granted. And so the house was dark, and they made as though they would sleep; but the Father could not sleep, and he heard Henry weeping silently to himself like a little child.

But at last the Father slept— how long he knew not— and suddenly woke from his sleep with a horror of darkness all about him, and he knew that there was some evil thing abroad. He looked upon the room. He heard Henry mutter heavily in his sleep as though there was a dark terror upon him; and then, in the light of the dying embers, the Father saw a thing rise upon the hearth, as though it had slept there, and woken to stretch itself. And then in the half-light it seemed softly to gambol and play; but whereas when an innocent beast does this it seems a fond and pretty sight, the Father thought he had never seen so ugly a sight as the beast gambolling all by itself, as if it could not contain its own dreadful joy; it looked viler and more wicked every moment; then, too, there spread in the room the sharp scent of the sea, with the foul smell underneath it, that gave the Father a deadly sickness; he tried to pray, but no words would come, and he felt indeed that the evil was too strong for him. Presently the beast desisted from its play, and looking wickedly about it, came near to the Father's bed, and seemed to put up its hairy forelegs upon it; he could see its narrow and obscene eyes, which burned with a dull yellow light, and were fixed upon him. And now the Father thought that his end was near, for he could stir neither hand nor foot, and the sweat ran down his brow; but he made a mighty effort, and in a voice which shocked himself, so dry and husky and withal of so loud and screaming a tone it was, he said three holy words. The beast gave a great quiver of rage, but it dropped down on the floor, and in a moment was gone. Then Henry woke, and raising himself on his arm, said something; but there broke out in the house a great outcry and the stamping of feet, which seemed very fearful in the silence of the night. The priest leapt out of his bed all dizzy, and made a light, and ran to the door, and went out, crying whatever words came to his head. The door of Master Grimston's room was open, and a strange and strangling sound came forth; the Father made his way in, and found Master Grimston lying upon the floor, his wife bending over him; he lay still, breathing pitifully, and every now and then a shudder ran through him. In the room there seemed a strange and shadowy tumult going on; but the Father saw that no time could be lost, and kneeling down beside Master Grimston, he prayed with all his might.

Presently Master Grimston ceased to struggle and lay still, like a man who had come out of a sore conflict.

Then he opened his eyes, and the Father stopped his prayers, and looking very hard at him he said, 'My son, the time is very short— confess your sins.'

Then Master Grimston, rolling his haggard eyes upon the group, twice strove to speak and could not; but the third time the Father, bending down his head, heard him say in a thin voice, that seemed to float from a long way off, 'I slew him...my sin.'

Then the Father swiftly gave him shrift, and as he said the last word, Master Grimston's head fell over on the side, and the Father said, 'He is gone.'

And Bridget broke out into a terrible cry, and fell upon Henry's neck, who had entered unseen.

Then the Father bade Henry lead her away, and put the poor body on the bed; as he did so he noticed that the face of the dead man was strangely bruised and battered, as though it had been stamped upon by the cloven hoofs of some beast. Then Father Thomas knelt, and prayed until the light came filtering in through the shutters and the cocks crowed in the village, and presently it was day. But that night the Father learnt strange secrets, and something of the dark purpose of God was revealed to him.

In the morning there came one to find the priest, and told him that another body had been thrown up on the shore, which was strangely smeared with sand, as though it had been rolled over and over in it; and the Father took order for its burial.

Then the priest had a long talk with Bridget and Henry. He found them sitting together, and she held her son's hand and smoothed his hair, as though he had been a little child; and Henry sobbed and wept, but Bridget was very calm.

'He hath told me all,' she said, 'and we have decided that he shall do whatever you bid him; must he be given to justice?' and she looked at the priest very pitifully.

'Nay, nay,' said the priest. 'I hold not Henry to account for the death of the man; it was his father's sin, who hath made heavy atonement— the secret shall be buried in our hearts.'

Then Bridget told him how she had waked suddenly out of her sleep, and heard her husband cry out; and that then followed a dreadful kind of struggling, with the scent of the sea over all; and then he had all at once fallen to the ground and she had gone to him— and that then the priest had come.

Then Father Thomas said with tears that God had shown them deep things and visited them very strangely.

Then lastly he went with Henry to the store-room; and there, in the box that had dripped with water, lay the coat of the dead man, full of money, and the bag of money too; and Henry would have cast it back into the sea, but the priest said that this might not be, but that it should be bestowed plentifully upon shipwrecked mariners unless the heirs should be found. But the ship appeared to be a foreign ship, and no search ever revealed whence the money had come.

Master Grimston was found to have left much wealth. But Bridget sold the house and the land, and it mostly went to rebuild the church. Then Bridget and Henry moved to the vicarage and served Father Thomas faithfully, and they guarded their secret.

Now the beast troubled those of whom I write no more; but it is easier to raise up evil than to lay it; and it is said to this day that a man or a woman with an evil thought in their hearts may see on a certain evening in November, at the ebb of the tide, a goatlike thing wade in the water, snuffing at the sand, as though it sought but found not.

_________________

14: The Small World

Max Brand

Frederick Schiller Faust, 1892-1944

Collier's Weekly, 8 Feb 1936

SMYTHE is a tall man, with an erect bearing, and plenty of sternness in the forehead to make up for the rather soggy good nature of his jowls; but he is not an instant favourite with the ladies.

So Smythe, when he goes out at night, takes with him an unusual and living introduction to the girls; he rents a dog from a kennel and brings it along on a leash to the bars and the night clubs. Usually he tries for a pedigreed dog which might be boarding at a kennel while the owner is out of town.

A bit of hand-feeding will make most dogs affectionate. If it's an ugly brute that shows its teeth, Smythe says: "Poor devil belongs to a cousin of mine. Left locked up in a room all the time. I had to take him out; and he'll probably wind up by biting off a leg for me, because I'm a stranger. That's the devil of it. We all hate the unknown. But really we're all strange. None of us knows the other fellow. Not really."

A speech like this makes the people in a bar look at Smythe. At times, a girl will sit down suddenly and say: "That sounds like something; I think that's awfully good."

Smythe says that when a dog is around it leads a girl right into the profundities. She looks down at the dog and she looks up to the man that owns it. Also Smythe says that girls are incurably bent on finding a hero, and a man with a dog fills the role.

I am very much impressed by Smythe's dog technique, but I couldn't help asking him, the other day, how he wangled it so that the right girl would sit down with him and the pup. His answer was surprising. He said: "Any girl is all right, if you know how to take her. Besides, you don't have to throw the bait until you see the prize fish."

But— well, I'll tell you the story, pretty much as Smythe told it to me.

IT SEEMS that Smythe— one evening three or four weeks ago— rented a fine white English bull terrier for the night. He led the dog into one of those big hotel bars where the idea is to give as much privacy as possible to the tables around the wall, took a stool at the bar and cooled himself off with a tall, thin Scotch-and-soda. A big party cruised in, spilled itself along the bar and, as usual, one of the girls in the crowd attached herself to the bull terrier. Smythe paid heed to her because, when she spoke to it, the dog stood up on its hind legs and licked her hand.

Now that Smythe was looking at her, he made an amazing discovery. The discovery was that she was indescribable!

The facts, as well as he could make them out, were about as follows: she was around five feet five or six, weight about a hundred and twenty, eyes green-gray or something, hair darkish-brownish, clothes just what you might expect. Even as I assemble these facts I fail to see what is unusual about them but Smythe, who has a penetrating brain, knew instantly that he was in the presence of that nonexistent thing: the Average American Girl!

It took his breath. For once money became to him a thing of no object. He offered her a drink and in a few moments, with his flawless technique, had her at a very private corner table.

As usual, he began by talking about the dog. The girl pointed at the bull terrier, which promptly caught the finger, gradually shifted it back to his molars and crunched. However, she removed it just as Smythe's blood was turning cold and the red enamel of the fingernail was not even scratched. Smythe decided that she was average only in appearance.

He continued his ordinary tactics, saying as though inspired by sudden insight: "You're not..." Then he paused and seemed embarrassed.

"I'm not what?" said the girl, falling into the old pattern.

"You're not happy," said Smythe. "I'm sorry... But I can see it!"

"Well, are you happy?" asked the girl.

This was just a little unusual. Ordinarily they asked this question a lot later, after they had unburdened themselves of a good deal of phoney biography.

"We won't go into that," Smythe said. Then he brightened himself with a visible effort and said: "I want you to be as happy as you can. Let's not talk about trouble."

She had a strange lack of emotion in her voice when she answered: "The only good men are the dead ones. What killed you?"

"Not bullets," said Smythe, and laughed his sad laugh again.

"A woman?" asked the girl.

Smythe felt that he was being hurried a little. He looked fixedly and yet gently upon the girl for two or three seconds. "No," he said. "Let's talk about you. Are you a bad girl?... Do you mind me saying it like this... brutally?"

"What do you call bad?" said this strange average girl.

He had the answer with the speed of an automatic: "I never have dared to define it."

"I'll tell you how bad I am," she said. "I take twenty-five dollars a week from home."

Smythe was a trifle dazed.

"I take twenty-five a week from home, and all the time I'm doing this," she explained, and made a gesture which included in "this" the drinks, the table, Smythe, and the whole place except the dog. When her hand dropped to her side, the dog began to chew it.

"The poor old fellow likes you," said Smythe. "Leads a rotten life. Cousin of mine has him and never takes him out. I couldn't stand it. Had to give him some air."

"Oh," said the girl, and blew out a long, blue-brown breath of smoke.

"I see what you mean," went on Smythe. "You take the money from the old folks, and still you keep on stepping out, now and then?... I'll tell you what."

"Yes, do tell me," said the girl.

"I could find a job for you," said Smythe. "You tell me what sort of thing you can do."

"This," said the girl, and made another of those gestures which included everything except the dog.

"You've never tried real work?" asked Smythe.

"What do you mean... real?" she asked.

HE LOOKED at her eyes through the smoke. They seemed more green than gray and a strange chill of apprehension went through Smythe; but at this moment a very odd thing happened. A police dog went by on a leash and the bull terrier got stealthily to his feet and smiled a pink, hungry smile.

"Zipper! Lie down!" said the average girl.

The dog crouched to the floor again.

"Do you know..." began Smythe, a little puzzled.

"I know Zipper pretty well," she said. "But I didn't know that my cousin Truman Wilson was your cousin. Did you?"

Somehow Smythe got the bill paid and carted that fifty pounds of white weight out into the fresh air.

At this point I said: "After all, why be so serious? The dog gag is as good as ever."

He shook his head. There was poetic sorrow in his face.

He said: "No, whenever I take a dog into a crowd, I feel that half the women whose backs are turned to me may be that girl... Half the people in the street look like her... I would hardly know her if I saw her again, but she would know me... When I go out at night, I sort of sneak around, think twice before I speak, and look before I leap. My morale is all gone."

I saw that old Smythe really was a sensitive soul.

I could only say: "I'm sorry!"

He took another drink, and then breathed out the words: "I come from the West, you know... And I always had a feeling that the world was a pretty big place..."

___________________

15: The Cask of Amontillado

Edgar Allan Poe

1809-1849

Godey's Lady's Book, Nov 1846

I read this story many years ago, and although I had not read it again until now, I still remembered the despairing cry, "For the love of God, Montresor!"  The story has been reprinted countless times, but this text is from the very first publication, cited above.

THE thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as I best could, but when he ventured upon insult I vowed revenge. You, who so well know the nature of my soul, will not suppose, however, that I gave utterance to a threat. At length I would be avenged; this was a point definitively settled— but the very definitiveness with which it was resolved precluded the idea of risk. I must not only punish but punish with impunity. A wrong is unredressed when retribution overtakes its redresser. It is equally unredressed when the avenger fails to make himself felt as such to him who has done the wrong.

It must be understood that neither by word nor deed had I given Fortunato cause to doubt my good will. I continued, as was my wont, to smile in his face, and he did not perceive that my smile now was at the thought of his immolation.

He had a weak point— this Fortunato— although in other regards he was a man to be respected and even feared. He prided himself upon his connoisseurship in wine. Few Italians have the true virtuoso spirit. For the most part their enthusiasm is adopted to suit the time and opportunity, to practice imposture upon the British and Austrian millionaires. In painting and gemmary, Fortunato, like his countrymen, was a quack, but in the matter of old wines he was sincere. In this respect I did not differ from him materially;— I was skilful in the Italian vintages myself, and bought largely whenever I could.

It was about dusk, one evening during the supreme madness of the carnival season, that I encountered my friend. He accosted me with excessive warmth, for he had been drinking much. The man wore motley. He had on a tight-fitting parti-striped dress, and his head was surmounted by the conical cap and bells. I was so pleased to see him that I thought I should never have done wringing his hand.

I said to him— "My dear Fortunato, you are luckily met. How remarkably well you are looking to-day. But I have received a pipe of what passes for Amontillado, and I have my doubts."

"How?" said he. "Amontillado? A pipe? Impossible! And in the middle of the carnival!"

"I have my doubts," I replied; "and I was silly enough to pay the full Amontillado price without consulting you in the matter. You were not to be found, and I was fearful of losing a bargain."

"Amontillado!"

"I have my doubts."

"Amontillado!"

"And I must satisfy them."

"Amontillado!"

"As you are engaged, I am on my way to Luchresi. If any one has a critical turn it is he. He will tell me—"

"Luchresi cannot tell Amontillado from Sherry."

"And yet some fools will have it that his taste is a match for your own."

"Come, let us go."

"Whither?"

"To your vaults."

"My friend, no; I will not impose upon your good nature. I perceive you have an engagement. Luchresi—"

"I have no engagement;— come."

"My friend, no. It is not the engagement, but the severe cold with which I perceive you are afflicted. The vaults are insufferably damp. They are encrusted with nitre."

"Let us go, nevertheless. The cold is merely nothing. Amontillado! You have been imposed upon. And as for Luchresi, he cannot distinguish Sherry from Amontillado."

Thus speaking, Fortunato possessed himself of my arm; and putting on a mask of black silk and drawing a roquelaire closely about my person, I suffered him to hurry me to my palazzo.

There were no attendants at home; they had absconded to make merry in honour of the time. I had told them that I should not return until the morning, and had given them explicit orders not to stir from the house. These orders were sufficient, I well knew, to insure their immediate disappearance, one and all, as soon as my back was turned.

I took from their sconces two flambeaux, and giving one to Fortunato, bowed him through several suites of rooms to the archway that led into the vaults. I passed down a long and winding staircase, requesting him to be cautious as he followed. We came at length to the foot of the descent, and stood together upon the damp ground of the catacombs of the Montresors.

The gait of my friend was unsteady, and the bells upon his cap jingled as he strode.

"The pipe," said he.

"It is farther on," said I; "but observe the white web-work which gleams from these cavern walls."

He turned towards me, and looked into my eyes with two filmy orbs that distilled the rheum of intoxication.

"Nitre?" he asked, at length.

"Nitre," I replied. "How long have you had that cough?"

"Ugh! ugh! ugh!— ugh! ugh! ugh!— ugh! ugh! ugh!— ugh! ugh! ugh!— ugh! ugh! ugh!"

My poor friend found it impossible to reply for many minutes.

"It is nothing," he said, at last.

"Come," I said, with decision, "we will go back; your health is precious. You are rich, respected, admired, beloved; you are happy, as once I was. You are a man to be missed. For me it is no matter. We will go back; you will be ill, and I cannot be responsible. Besides, there is Luchresi—"

"Enough," he said; "the cough is a mere nothing; it will not kill me. I shall not die of a cough."

"True— true," I replied; "and, indeed, I had no intention of alarming you unnecessarily— but you should use all proper caution. A draught of this Medoc will defend us from the damps."

Here I knocked off the neck of a bottle which I drew from a long row of its fellows that lay upon the mould.

"Drink," I said, presenting him the wine.

He raised it to his lips with a leer. He paused and nodded to me familiarly, while his bells jingled.

"I drink," he said, "to the buried that repose around us."

"And I to your long life."

He again took my arm, and we proceeded.

"These vaults," he said, "are extensive."

"The Montresors," I replied, "were a great and numerous family."

"I forget your arms."

"A huge human foot d'or, in a field azure; the foot crushes a serpent rampant whose fangs are imbedded in the heel."

"And the motto?"

"Nemo me impune lacessit."

"Good!" he said.

The wine sparkled in his eyes and the bells jingled. My own fancy grew warm with the Medoc. We had passed through long walls of piled skeletons, with casks and puncheons intermingling, into the inmost recesses of the catacombs. I paused again, and this time I made bold to seize Fortunato by an arm above the elbow.

"The nitre!" I said: "see, it increases. It hangs like moss upon the vaults. We are below the river's bed. The drops of moisture trickle among the bones. Come, we will go back ere it is too late. Your cough—"

"It is nothing," he said; "let us go on. But first, another draught of the Medoc."

I broke and reached him a flaçon of De Grâve. He emptied it at a breath. His eyes flashed with a fierce light. He laughed and threw the bottle upwards with a gesticulation I did not understand.

I looked at him in surprise. He repeated the movement— a grotesque one.

"You do not comprehend?" he said.

"Not I," I replied.

"Then you are not of the brotherhood."

"How?"

"You are not of the masons."

"Yes, yes," I said; "yes, yes."

"You? Impossible! A mason?"

"A mason," I replied.

"A sign," he said, "a sign."

"It is this," I answered, producing from beneath the folds of my roquelaire a trowel.

"You jest," he exclaimed, recoiling a few paces. "But let us proceed to the Amontillado."

"Be it so," I said, replacing the tool beneath the cloak and again offering him my arm. He leaned upon it heavily. We continued our rout [[route]] in search of the Amontillado. We passed through a range of low arches, descended, passed on, and descending again, arrived at a deep crypt, in which the foulness of the air caused our flambeaux rather to glow than flame.

At the most remote end of the crypt there appeared another less spacious. Its walls had been lined with human remains, piled to the vault overhead, in the fashion of the great catacombs of Paris. Three sides of this interior crypt were still ornamented in this manner. From the fourth side the bones had been thrown down, and lay promiscuously upon the earth, forming at one point a mound of some size. Within the wall thus exposed by the displacing of the bones, we perceived a still interior crypt or recess, in depth about four feet, in width three, in height six or seven. It seemed to have been constructed for no especial use within itself, but formed merely the interval between two of the colossal supports of the roof of the catacombs, and was backed by one of their circumscribing walls of solid granite.

It was in vain that Fortunato, uplifting his dull torch, endeavoured to pry into the depths of the recess. Its termination the feeble light did not enable us to see.

"Proceed," I said; "herein is the Amontillado. As for Luchresi—"

"He is an ignoramus," interrupted my friend, as he stepped unsteadily forward, while I followed immediately at his heels. In an instant he had reached the extremity of the niche, and finding his progress arrested by the rock, stood stupidly bewildered. A moment more and I had fettered him to the granite. In its surface were two iron staples, distant from each other about two feet, horizontally. From one of these depended a short chain, from the other a padlock. Throwing the links about his waist, it was but the work of a few seconds to secure it. He was too much astounded to resist. Withdrawing the key I stepped back from the recess.

"Pass your hand," I said, "over the wall; you cannot help feeling the nitre. Indeed, it is very damp. Once more let me implore you to return. No? Then I will positively leave you. But I must first render you all the little attentions in my power."

"The Amontillado!" ejaculated my friend, not yet recovered from his astonishment.

"True," I replied; "the Amontillado."

As I said these words I busied myself among the pile of bones of which I have before spoken. Throwing them aside, I soon uncovered a quantity of building stone and mortar. With these materials and with the aid of my trowel, I began vigorously to wall up the entrance of the niche.

I had scarcely laid the first tier of my masonry when I discovered that the intoxication of Fortunato had in great measure worn off. The earliest indication I had of this was a low moaning cry from the depth of the recess. It was not the cry of a drunken man. There was then a long and obstinate silence. I laid the second tier, and the third, and the fourth; and then I heard the furious vibration of the chain. The noise lasted for several minutes, during which, that I might hearken to it with the more satisfaction, I ceased my labours and sat down upon the bones. When at last the clanking subsided, I resumed the trowel, and finished without interruption the fifth, the sixth, and the seventh tier. The wall was now nearly upon a level with my breast. I again paused, and holding the flambeaux over the mason-work, threw a few feeble rays upon the figure within.

A succession of loud and shrill screams, bursting suddenly from the throat of the chained form, seemed to thrust me violently back. For a brief moment I hesitated, I trembled. Unsheathing my rapier, I began to grope with it about the recess; but the thought of an instant reassured me. I placed my hand upon the solid fabric of the catacombs, and felt satisfied. I reapproached the wall. I replied to the yells of him who clamoured. I re-echoed— I aided— I surpassed them in volume and in strength. I did this, and the clamourer grew still.

It was now midnight, and my task was drawing to a close. I had completed the eighth, the ninth, and the tenth tier. I had finished a portion of the last and the eleventh; there remained but a single stone to be fitted and plastered in. I struggled with its weight; I placed it partially in its destined position. But now there came from out the niche a low laugh that erected the hairs upon my head. It was succeeded by a sad voice, which I had difficulty in recognising as that of the noble Fortunato. The voice said—

"Ha! ha! ha!— he! he! he!— a very good joke, indeed— an excellent jest. We will have many a rich laugh about it at the palazzo— he! he! he!— over our wine— he! he! he!"

"The Amontillado!" I said.

"He! he! he!— he! he! he!— yes, the Amontillado. But is it not getting late? Will not they be awaiting us at the palazzo— the Lady Fortunato and the rest? Let us be gone."

"Yes," I said, "let us be gone."

"For the love of God, Montresor!"

"Yes," I said, "for the love of God!"

But to these words I hearkened in vain for a reply. I grew impatient. I called aloud —

"Fortunato!"

No answer. I called again—

"Fortunato!" No answer still. I thrust a torch through the remaining aperture and let it fall within. There came forth in return only a jingling of the bells. My heart grew sick; it was the dampness of the catacombs that made it so. I hastened to make an end of my labour. I forced the last stone into its position; I plastered it up. Against the new masonry I re-erected the old rampart of bones. For the half of a century no mortal has disturbed them. In pace requiescat!

________________

Table of Contents

1: A Haunt of the Jinkarras / Ernest Favenc

2: Just a Friendly Game / Irvin S. Cobb

Unnamed

4: Hard Harman / Dan L. Silverling

5: Woman Proposes / F. E. Clayton

6: The Prince Has The Mumps / Richard Connell

7: The Adventure of the Murdered Art Editor / Frederick Dorr Steele

8: The Woman He Had to Kill / Francis Beeding

9: Financing Finnegan / F. Scott Fitzgerald

10: The Garden Lodge / Willa Cather

11: The Magic Cigar / E. W. Hornung

12: The Gallowsmith / Irvin S. Cobb

13: Out of the Sea / A. C. Benson

14: The Small World / Max Brand

15: The Cask of Amontillado / Edgar A. Poe